enacted the substance of this act, as to the duty of State magistrates, and its provisions and penalties respecting the harboring or concealing of fugitives, thus legislating in favor of slavery, and of course out of a tolerant spirit toward the South. There is no constitutional or moral obligation which required it. It was a bounty, a gratuity, bestowed by the North in token of sympathy for slaveholders; for the recovery of fugitives, and the penalty for obstructing their recapture, are matters of federal cognizance entirely, as I have already shown. Yet these enactments now stand unrepealed on the statute books of several of the Northern States.

In my own State we have a law punishing, by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, the harboring of a fugitive slave, as 'an offense against the peace and dignity of the State of Indiana." And this law is not a dead letter. Men are indicted and punished under it. Our courts and juries do not hesitate to regard it. Our Legislature, I know, is exceedingly well disposed toward it; for all attempts to repeal our "black laws" (and some of them are much blacker than this) have thus far signally failed. Is all this legislation of the North in behalf of the slaveholders an aggression upon their rights?

I have already stated that Florida was purchased because it was demanded by the slaveholding interest. I omitted the fact, that under the treaty by which it was acquired, and the laws of Congress enacted to carry it into effect, this government felt itself called upon to pay to the Florida slaveholders forty thousand dollars for slaves lost by the invasion of our troops in 1812. I have also passed over the inhuman slave code by which Florida was governed while a Territory, and which, of course, derived its validity from the sanction of Congress. I next observe that our first Seminole or Florida War received its birth in the jealous vigilance of the Federal Government in behalf of the interests of slavery. It was occasioned by the destruction of a negro fort on the Appalachicola River in 1816, by officers and troops in the service of the United States. About three hundred men, women, and children, were killed. It is true they were mostly fugitives; but they were living peaceably in Spanish territory. Certainly, the government was under no obligation to commit this wholesale murder, merely because the slaveholders of Florida desired it. Yet Congress, in 1839, passed a law by which the sum of five thousand dollars was paid out of the common treasury of the government, to its officers and crew, for blowing up this fort. Was this, too, a Northern aggression?

The second Florida War was likewise waged and carried on for the benefit of slaveholders. Of the necessity for this war at the time the nation saw fit to engage in it, I shall not speak. With its immediate cause or occasion I have nothing to do. I only assert (and this is sufficient for my purpose) that the war had its origin in the long-continued previous interference of the Federal Government in favor of the slaveholders of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. Slaves fled from their masters in Georgia and took refuge among the Creek Indians, as far back as our Revolutionary War. They continued to escape till the formation of the government; and as early as 1790 the United States entered into a treaty with the Creeks, in which they agreed, in consideration of an annuity of fifteen hundred dollars, and certain goods mentioned, to deliver up the negroes then residing in their territory to the officers of the United States. And "during a period of more than thirty years was the influence of the Federal Government exerted for the purpose of obtaining these fugitive slaves, or in extorting from the Indians a compensation for their owners. The Senate was called upon to approve those treaties; Congress was called on to pass laws, and to appropriate money to carry those treaties into effect, and the people of the free States to pay the money and bear the disgrace, in order that slavery may be sustained. But the consequences of these efforts still continue, and the government has, to this day, been unable to extricate itself from the difficulties into which these exertions in behalf of slavery precipitated it." A large portion of the fugitives from Georgia who fled prior to 1802, intermarried with the Seminoles or southern Creek Indians. The government, by treaty in 1821, compelled the Creeks to pay for these fugitives five or six times their value. The Creeks, supposing they had thus acquired a good title to them from the United States, claimed the wives and children of the Seminoles as their property. The latter, not being willing to part with their families, and being harassed by the demands of the Creeks, agreed, by treaty, in 1832, to remove West, and reunite with the latter tribe; the United States agreeing to have the claim of the Creeks investigated, and to liquidate it in behalf of the Seminoles if the amount did not exceed seven thousand dollars. The Seminoles, however, finally refused to remove West, preferring to remain and fight the whites, rather than hazard the loss of their wives and children by becoming again incorporated with the Creeks. The interests of the Florida slaveholders required that the Seminoles should be compelled to emigrate, and the government embarked in the undertaking.

Such is a brief summary of facts connected with the celebrated Florida War, and showing the action of this nation in favor of Southern slaveholders. The war was begun by the United States to drive the Seminoles from their country. They refused to go because the Creeks would rob them of their wives and children in their new home. And the government had by treaty forced these Creeks to pay the slaveholders an exorbitant price for these wives and children of the Seminoles, and thus laid the foundation of the claim which prevented them from removing West, and brought on the war. It was, I repeat, a war for the exclusive benefit of slavery. It was conceived and brought forth in the unjustifiable interference of the Federal Government in favor of an institution local to the States in which it exists, and to which the federal power does not extend. These facts are placed beyond all controversy by the documentary history of the country. And this war for the capture of fugitive slaves, and the massacre of Seminole Indians, with bloodhounds from Cuba as our auxiliaries, cost the nation the estimated sum of forty millions of dollars, drawn chiefly from the pockets of the people of the free States. We united with the South in its prosecution, and, without any common interest in its objects, furnished our full share of the men and money required in the inglorious struggle. Was all this a Northern aggression?

I come next to our war with Mexico. This, so far as the slaveholding States were concerned, was carried on for the acquisition of territory, into which they designed to carry the institution of slavery. History has placed this remarkable fact beyond all cavil. It is proved by the avowals of Southern members of Congress, in their speeches in both houses, in 1847. It is proved by the messages of Southern governors, the action of Southern Legislatures, and the language of the Southern people generally, assembled in their popular meetings, during the prosecution of the war. The motive of the South was not denied; it was palpable and undisguised. Other objects of the war were mentioned, but Southern politicians did not pretend that they were controlling, or that the extension of slavery was not the principle which governed them in its prosecution. But what was the conduct of the free Statesthe aggressive and overbearing North-in respect to this war? Sir, we gave you our full share of the men and money required for its prosecution. Our Northern members of Congress, generally, united with the South in the acquisition of territory. I do not say they did this for the purpose of extending slavery; but they did it; and when, a few years before, our claim to the whole of Oregon

dwindled down as low as forty-nine degrees

mainly under the influence of Southern counsels, the North acquiesced. We were willing, both in regard to our difficulty with Great Britain and with Mexico, to be governed somewhat by national considerations, whilst the policy of the South in both these cases was determined by her own sectional interests, that is, by the supposed effects which, in the one case or the other, would be produced upon the institution of slavery. In a war with Mexico our armies could not fail to be triumphant, and our booty must necessarily be territory. This would be adapted to slave labor, and would widen the platform of Southern power. On the other hand, the issue of a war with Great Britain would be different. The South would doubtless be the main point of attack; and thus the very existence of slavery in its strongholds would be jeoparded. And should even the whole of Oregon be secured, it would only bring into the Union additional free States; thus adding to the power of the North, instead of the South, as a section. Such, unquestionably, were the considerations which shaped the policy of Southern statesmen, and through them, the policy of the government itself, in our relations with Mexico and Great Britain. The North, as I have already said, acquiesced in both instances. Did this acquiescence manifest an aggressive spirit toward the South?

In the month of May, 1836, this House adopted a resolution, which excluded from being read or considered "all petitions, memorials, resolutions, and propositions, relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to the subject of slavery." The substance of this resolution continued in force till 1845. Thus, while the government was spreading its flag over the peculiar institution in our intercourse with foreign powers, and whilst slavery in this District and in the Territory of Florida was upheld by the laws of Congress, we were denied the right to mention these grievances on this floor, or to petition for redress. So indulgent and conciliatory were the free States toward the slave power, that a large number of their representatives in Congress united with the slaveholding members in virtually suspending the right of petition and the freedom of speech in this House, for the period of nine years together. Was this a Northern aggression?

In some of the Northern States, colored people enjoy equal political rights with the whites. In nearly all of them they are regarded as citizens. But they cannot visit South Carolina, Louisiana, and I believe some three or four other Southern States, without being thrown into prison; and if they are not removed from the

State by the persons in whose care or employ they came, they are sold into slavery. This is a most palpable violation of the Constitution of the United States, which provides that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States." And when we send men among you to appeal peaceably to your own tribunals in behalf of such citizens, men honored by their public standing, and clothed with official authority for their mission, they are driven out of your cities by mob menaces at the risk of their lives. Is this, too, a Northern aggression?

I pass, in conclusion, to some kindred considerations.

The slave population of the Union in 1790, when the first census was taken, was about seven hundred thousand; it has now grown. to three millions, covering fifteen States, and more than equals the whole voting population of the Union. This, by the way, surely cannot be Northern encroachment. The population of the United States in 1840 was seventeen millions. The white population of the South was four millions seven hundred and eighty-two thousand five hundred and twenty. The number of slaveholders does not appear to be capable of any exact ascertainment, and has been variously estimated at from one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand. If we take into the account the actual number of slave owners, exclusive of their families, a fair estimate at present would probably be two hundred thousand; and many of these, doubtless, are minors and women. The white population of the free States in 1840 was nine millions six hundred and fifty-four thousand eight hundred and sixty-five. By comparing the slaveholders with the non-slaveholders of the South, according to their number as here estimated, it will appear that the former constitute only about one twentieth of the white population of the slaveholding States. This is what we call the slave power. This is the force which is to dissolve the Union, and before which Northern men bow down. to offer up their homage. These two hundred thousand slaveholders, composed in part of women and minors, lord it over three millions of slaves; keep in subjection four or five millions of nonslaveholding whites of the South, besides the free blacks; and at the same time control, at their will, from nine to ten millions of people in the free States, whose representatives tremble and turn pale at the impotent threats of their Southern overseers. Now, bearing in mind that the population of the free States is, and generally has been, about double that of the slave States, let us glance at the monopoly which this slave power has secured to itself of the offices