from the date of this Constitution, and in the counsels that formed and established this Constitution, and I suppose in all men's judgments since, it is received as a settled truth, that slave labor and free labor do not exist well together. I have before me a declaration of Mr. Mason, in the Convention that formed the Constitution, to that effect. Mr. Mason, as is well known, was a distinguished member from Virginia. He says that the objection to slave labor is, that it puts free white labor in disrepute; that it causes labor to be regarded as derogatory to the character of the free white man, and that the free white man despises to work, to use his expression, where slaves are employed. This is a matter of great interest to the Free States, if it be true, as to a great extent it certainly is, that wherever slave labor prevails, free white labor is excluded or discouraged. I agree that slave labor does not necessarily exclude free labor totally. There is free white labor in Virginia, Tennessee, and other States, where most of the labor is done by slaves. But it necessarily loses something of its respectability, by the side of and when associated with, slave labor. Wherever labor is mainly performed by slaves, it is regarded as degrading to freemen. The freemen of the North, therefore, have a deep interest in keeping labor free, exclusively free, in the new Territories. The question now is, whether it is not competent to Congress, in the exercise of a fair and just discretion, considering that there have been five Slaveholding States added to this Union out of foreign acquisitions, and as yet only one Free State, to prevent their further increase. That is the question. I see no injustice in it. As to the power of Congress, I have nothing to add to what I said the other day. Congress has full power over the subject. It may establish any such government, and any such laws, in the Territories, as in its discretion it may see fit. It is subject, of course, to the rules of justice and propriety, but it is under no Constitutional restraints. I have said that I shall consent to no extension of the area of slavery upon this continent, nor to any increase of slave representation in the other House of Cɔngress. I have now stated my reasons for my conduct and my vote. We of the North have already gone, in this respect, far beyond all that any Southern man could have expected, or did expect at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. I repeat the statement of the fact of the creation of five new Slaveholding States out of newly acquired territory. We have done that which if those who framed the Constitution had foreseen, they never would have agreed to slave representation. We have yielded thus far; and we have now in the House of Representatives twenty persons voting upon this very question, and upon all other questions, who are there only in virtue of the representation of slaves. But, sir, let us look farther into this alleged inequality. There is no pretence that Southern people may not go into territory which shall be subject to the ordinance of 1787. Let me conclude, therefore, by remarking The only restraint is that they shall not carry that, while I am willing to present this as slaves thither, and continue that relation. showing my own judgment and position in They say this shuts them altogether out. Why, regard to this case, and I beg it to be undersir, there can be nothing more inaccurate in stood that I am speaking for no other than point of fact than this statement. I understand myself, and while I am willing to offer it to that one-half the people who settled Illinois the whole world as my own justification, I rest are people, or descendants of people, who on these propositions: First, That when this came from the Southern States, and I suppose Constitution was adopted, nobody looked for that one-third of the people of Ohio are those, any new acquisition of territory to be formed or descendants of those who emigrated from into Slaveholding States. Secondly, That the South; and I venture to say, that in res- the principles of the Constitution prohibited, pect to those two States, they are at this day and were intended to prohibit, and should be settled by people of Southern origin in as construed to prohibit all interference of the great a proportion as they are by people of general government with slavery, as it exNorthern origin, according to the general isted, and as it still exists in the States. And numbers and proportion of people South and then looking to the operation of these new acNorth. There are as many people from the quisitions, which have in this great degree had South in proportion to the whole people of the effect of strengthening that interest in the the South, in those States, as there are from South, by the addition of these five States, I the North, in proportion to the whole people feel that there is nothing unjust, nothing of of the North. There is then no exclusion of which any honest man can complain, if he is Southern people; there is only the exclusion of intelligent, and I feel that there is nothing a peculiar local law. Neither in principle nor with which the civilized world, if they take in fact is there any inequality. 5 notice of so humble a person as myself, will Extracts from the Speech of Mr. Webster at "I speak without disrespect of the Free Soil party. I have read their platform, and though I think there are some rotten places in it, I can stand on it pretty well. But I see nothing in it which is new and valuable; what is valuable is old, and what is new is not valuable. "Gentlemen, if the term of Free Soil party or Free Soil men, designate one who is fixed and unalterable, is so to-day, and was so yesterday, and has been so for some time, then I hold myself to be as good a Free Soil man as any of the Buffalo Convention. I pray to know who is to put beneath my feet a freer soil than that which I have stood upon ever since I have been in public life. I pray to know who is to make my lips freer than they have ever been, for the utterance of truth and sound principle, as I understood it. I beg to know who is to inspire into my breast a more resolute and fixed "determination, to resist unyieldingly the encroachments and advances of the slave power in this country, than has inhabited it ever since the day that I first opened my mouth in the councils of the country. * * * I am bound to say on my conscience, that I think that of all the evils inflicted upon us by these acquisitions and accessions of slave territory, the North has borne its full part. * * * We talk of the North; there has been no North! I think the North star is at last discovered; I think there will be a North, but up to the recent session, and to the end of the ses sion, there has been no North in regard to political questions, in regard to firm adhesion to what might be considered the interests of the North and the interests of patriots. Pope say: 'Ask_where's the North; at York, 'tis on the Tweed, In Scotland at the Arcades, and there, At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.' And if we mean, when we speak of the North, a portion of the country united in just sentiments, firm, strong in opinion and action against the further extension of slavery, if there has ever been such a North, if it has ever existed any where, it has existed the Lord knows where. I do not." "If I believed him (Gen. Taylor) to be a man that would plunge the country into further wars, for any purpose of ambition or conquest, I would oppose him, let him be nominated by whom he might. If I believed that he was a man who would exercise his official influence for the further extension of the slave power, I would oppose him, let him be nominated by whom he might." Mr. Webster, on the 7th of March, 1850. *** “I will now ask my friend from Rhode Island to read another extract from a speech of mine made at a Whig Convention in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the month of September, 1847. Mr. Greene here read the following extract :— f "We hear much just now of a panacea for the dangers and evils of slavery and slave annexation, which they call the Wilmot Proviso.' That certainly is a just sentiment, but it is not a sentiment to found any new party upon. It is not a sentiment on which Massachusetts Whigs differ. There is not a man in this hall who holds to it firmer than I do, nor one who adheres to it more than another. "I feel some little interest in this matter, sir. Did not I commit myself in 1837 to the whole doctrine, fully, entirely? And I must be permitted to say, that I cannot quite consent that more recent discoverers should claim the merit and take out a patent. “I deny the priority of their invention. Allow me to say, sir, it is not their thunder. "We are to use the first and the last, and every occasion which offers, to oppose the extension of slave power. "But I speak of it here, as in Congress, as a political question, a question for statesmen to act upon. We must so regard it. I certainly do not mean to say that it is less important in a moral point of view, that it is not more important in many other points of view; but as a legislator, or in any official capacity, I must look at it, consider it, and decide it as a matter of political action." "On other occasions, in debates here, I have expressed my determination to vote for no acquisition, or cession, or annexation, North or South, East or West. My opinion has been that we have territory enough, and that we should follow the Spartan maxim, 'Improve, adorn what you have,' seek no further. I think that it was in some observations that I made on the three-million loan bill, that I avowed this sentiment. In short, sir, it has been avowed, quite as often, in as many places, and * before as many assemblies, as any humble opin- to the Constitution which follow it, was subions of mine ought to be avowed. * * * mitted by Congress to the various States in "Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to 1789, immediately after the adoption of the be done, wherever there is a foot of land to be Constitution itself, with the following preamprevented from_becoming slave territory, I am ble: ready to assert the principle of the exclusion of • The Conventions of a number of States, having slavery. I am pledged to it from the year at the time of their adopting the Constitution, ex1837; I have been pledged to it again and pressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction again; and I will perform those pledges; but I or abuse of its power, that further declaratory and will not do a thing unnecessarily that wounds restrictive clauses should be added," the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own understanding. Now, Mr. President, I have established, so far as I proposed to do, the proposition with which I set out, and upon which I intend to stand or fall; and that is, that the whole territory within the former United States, or in the newly acquired Mexican provinces, has a fixed and settled character, now fixed and settled by law which cannot be repealed, in the case of Texas, without a violation of public faith, and by no human power in regard to California or New Mexico; that, therefore, under one or other of these laws, every foot of land in the States or in the Territories has already received a fixed and decided character." * * Extract from Mr. Webster's Speech at Buf falo, May 22, 1851. * * Now, gentlemen, that is the plain story of the Constitution of the United States, on the question of slavery. I contend, and have always contended, that after the adoption of the Constitution, any measure of the government calculated to bring more Slave Territory into the United States was beyond the power of the Constitution, and against its provisions. That is my opinion, and it always has been my opinion. The "Laws" of Kansas. EXTRACT FROM COLFAX'S SPEECH, ANALYZING Besides these seven palpable, flagrant and unconcealed violations of the organic law organizing the Territory, I point you now to five equally direct and open violations of the Constitution of the United States; for that instrument has been trampled upon as reck. lessly as the laws of Congress. First. The very first amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibits the passage of any law "abridging the freedom of speech;" and it is a significant fact, as can be learned from Hickey's Constitution, page 33, that this, with a number of other amendments Therefore the amendments that followed were proposed. Thus it is conclusively proven that the amendment, prohibiting any abridgment of the freedom of speech, was adopted to prevent "an abuse of power," which our forefathers feared might be attempted by some degenerate descendants at some later period of our history. But, though they thus sought to preserve and protect free speech, by constitutional provision, their prophetic fears have been realized by the enactors of the Kansas code. Its one hundred and fifty-first chapter, on pages 604 and 605, is entitled "An act to punish offences against slave property;" and there is no decree of Austrian despot or Russian Czar which is not merciful in comparison with its provisions. Here, sir, in the very teeth of the Constitution, is section twelve of that chapter: "If any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory, or shall introduce into this Territory, print, publish, write, circulate, or printed, published or circulated in this Territory, cause to be introduced into this Territory, written, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet or circular, containing any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this Territory, such persons shall be deemed guilty of felony, and punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not less than two years." How many more than two years he shall be punished is left to the tender mercy of Judge Lecompte and the jury which " Sheriff Jones" will select for their trial. The President of the United States has sworn to support the Constitution; but this, with the other "laws of Kansas," are to be enforced by him, despite that Constitution, with the army of the United States; and Mr. Buchanan is pledged by Judge Douglas to “the firm and undivided execution of those laws." But, sir, in a few short months the people-the free people of the United States-will inaugurate an Administration that will do justice to the oppressed settlers of Kansas-that will restore to them their betrayed rights, will vindicate the Constitution, and will place in the offices of trust of that ill-fated Territory, men who will over- except in cases of impeachment, shall be by throw the "usurpation," give their official in- jury." But to prevent "abuse of power," fluence to Freedom and the right rather than to Slavery and the wrong, and protect rather than oppress the citizens whom they are called upon to govern and to judge. Second, The same constitutional amendment prohibits the passage of any law "abridging the freedom of the press;" and here, sir, in flagrant violation of it, is the 11th section of the same law in the Kansas code, page 605 : this, with other amendments, was adopted, declaring that the trial shall be by an impartial jury. I have already shown you how impartially they are to be selected by sheriffs who go about and imitate, in their conduct to ward Free State men, the example of Saul of Tarsus in his persecution of the early Christians, (Acts, chapter 8, verse 3, "entering into every house, and seizing men and women, committed them to prison ;") and I have quoted you a section, showing you how impartially they are to be constituted with men on one side only; but in this very chapter the concluding provision, section 13 (page 606), repeats this gross violation of the National Constitution, as follows: "If any person print, write, introduce into, publish, or circulate, or cause to be brought into, printed, written, published or circulated, or shall knowingly aid or assist in bringing into, printing, publishing, or circulating, within this Territory, any book, paper, pamphlet, magazine, handbill or circular, containing any statements, arguments, opinions, sentiment, doctrine, "No person who is conscientiously opposed advice or inuendo, calculated to produce a dis- to holding slaves, or who does not admit the right orderlý, dangerous, or rebellious disaffection to hold slaves in this Territory, shall sit as a among the slaves in the Territory, or to induce juror on the trial of any prosecution for any such slaves to escape from the service of their violation of any of the sections of this act." masters or to resist their authority, he shall be guilty of felony, and be punished by imprisonment and hard labor for a term not less than five years." And, under this atrociously unconstitutional provision, a man who "brought into " the Territory of Kansas a copy of Jefferson's Notes on Virginia," which contains an eloquent and free-spoken condemnation of Slavery, could be convicted by one of "Sheriff Jones's" juries as having introduced a "book" containing a "sentiment" "calculated" to make the claves "disorderly" and sentenced to five years' "hard labor." Probably under this provision, as well as the charge of high treason, Geo. W. Brown, editor of The Herald of Freedom at Lawrence, has, after his printing press has been destroyed by the order of Judge Lecompte's Court, been himself indicted, and is now imprisoned, awaiting trial-kept, too, under such strict surveillance, far worse than murderers are treated in a civilized country, that even his mother and wife were not allowed to visit him until he had humbly petitioned the Governor for permission. And this upon the soil of a Territory which our forefathers, in 1820, in this very Hall, dedicated, by solemn compact, to "Freedom forever." Third, The sixth amendment to the Constitution of the United States declares that, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy" and public trial, by an impartial jury." It is significant that, in the Constitution itself, it had been provided (article 3, section 2), " the trial of all crimes, Here, sir, in these instances which I have quoted, stand the Constitution of the United States on the one side, and the Kansas code on the other, in direct and open conflict-the one declaring that the freedom of speech shall not be abridged, that the freedom of the press shall be protected, that jurors, above all things else, shall be entirely impartial; the other trampling all these safeguards under foot. And because a majority of the settlers there, driven from the polls by armed mobs; legislated over by a mob in whose election they had no agency, choose to stand by and maintain their rights under the Constitution, you have seen how anarchy and violence, how outrage and persecution have been running riot in that Territory, far exceeding in their tyranny and oppression the wrongs for which our revolutionary forefathers rose against the masters who oppressed them; and yet, though the protection they have had from the General Government, has been only the same kind of protection which the wolf gives to the lamb, they have, while repudiating the territory of the Sheriffs, bowed in submission to writs in the hands of the U.S.Marshal, or when the soldiers of the United States, yielding to orders which they do not deem it dishonorable for them to despise, assist in their execution. Such forbearancesuch manifestations of their allegiance to the national authority-become the more wonderful when it is apparent as the noonday sun that every attempt has been made to harass them into resistance to the authority of the United States, so as to furnish a pretext, doubtless, for their indiscriminate imprisonment, expulsion or massacre. Fourth, The Constitution also prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. I shall show, before I close, that this so-called Kansas Legislature has prescribed most cruel and unusual punishments, unwarranted by the character of the offences punished, and totally disproportioned to their criminality. Fifth, The Constitution declares (article 1, section 9) that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall "not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it." But the Kansas code, in its chapter of habeas corpus (article 3, section 8, page 345,) enacts as fol lows: "No negro or mulatto held as a slave within this Territory, or lawfully arrested as a fugitive from service from another State or Territory, shall be discharged, nor shall his right of freedom be had under the provisions of this act. This provision suspending the writ of habeas corpus in the above cases, is not only a violation of the Constitution, but also of the organic law; for that provided,in section 28, for appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States on writs of habeas corpus, in cases involving the right of freedom, the issuing of which this Territorial law expressly prohibits. The language of the Nebraska Kansas act is as follows: “Except also that a writ of error or appeal shall also be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States from the decision of the said Supreme Court, created by this act, or of any judge thereof, or of the District Courts created by this act, or of any judge thereof, upon any writ of habeas corpus, involving the question of personal freedom." The has been that, as there was no State Prison yet erected in Kansas, this imprisonment would be in some Missouri prisons near the frontier. But, sir, such is not the case. authors of these disgraceful and outrageous enactments, with a refinement of cruelty, provided that the "hard labor" should be in another way; and that will be found in chapter 22, entitled: "an act providing a system of confinement and hard labor," section 2 of which (page 147) reads as follows: "Every person who may be sentenced by any Court of competent jurisdiction, under any law in force within this Territory, to punishment by confinement to hard labor, shall be deemed a convict, and shall immediately, under the charge of the keeper of such jail or public prison, or under the charge of such person as the keeper of such jail or public prison may select, be put to hard labor, as in the first section of this act specified, to wit; On the streets, roads, public buildings, or other public works of the Territory.' [Sec. I, page 146. And such keeper or other person, having charge of such convict, shall cause such convict while engaged at such labor to be securely confined by s CHAIN SIX FEET IN LENGTH, of not less than fourlinks, with a ROUND BALL OF IRON, of not less sixteenths nor more than three-eighths of an inch than four nor more than six inches in diameter, attached, which chain shall be securely fastened to THE ANKLE of such convict with a strong lock and key; and such keeper or other person having charge of such convict may, if necessary, confine such convict while so engaged at hard labor, by other chains, or other means in his discretion, so as to keep such convict secure and prevent his escape; and when there shall be Two or more convicts under the charge of such keeper, or other person, such convicts shall be FASTENED TOGETHER by strong chains with strong locks and keys, during the time such convicts shall be engaged in hard labor without the walls of any jail or prison." But the Kansas Legislature coolly set aside And this penalty, revolting, humiliating, the law of the United States, by which alone debasing at it is, subjecting a free American their Territorial organization was brought citizen to the public sneers and contumely of into existence, and effectually prohibited any his oppressors, far worse than within the prison appeal to the Supreme Court "upon any writ walls where the degradation of the punishof habeas corpus, involving the question ment is relieved by its privacy, is to be borne of personal freedom," by declaring that the from two to five long years by the men of Inwrit shall not be used in the Territory for any York, of Pennsylvania and the Far West, who diana and Ohio, of New England and New such purpose! Having now referred to a few of the many dare in Kansas to declare by speech or in acts embraced in this code, which conflict with print, or to introduce therein a handbill or pathe constitution of the organic law, I proceed per, which declares that “ persons have not to the examination of other provisions, some of the right to hold slaves in this Territory." which stamp it as a code of barbarity, as well The chain and ball are to be attached to the as of tyranny of inhumanity as well as of op- ankle of each, and they are to drag out their pression. And first to "the imprisonment at long penalty for exercising their God-given freedom of hard labor," which is made the punishment for and constitutionally-protected "offences against the slave property," in the speech,manacled together in couples,and worksections which I have already quoted. The ing, in the public gaze, under task-masters, to general understanding of the people at large whom Algerine slaveholders would be prefer able. |