that early period. These facts entered into, and formed a part of, the understanding and agreement between the Northern and Southern States, as embodied in the Federal Constitution. I do not mean to enlarge upon them now, vindicated as they are by the truth of history; but I reiterate them here, as worthy of the consideration of those who seem bent on a total disregard of the principles and policy of the government at its beginning. Sir, the doctrine of "No more slave States, and no slave territory," was the doctrine of the founders of the Republic. The clause on the subject of slave representation, was only applicable to slavery in the then slaveholding States; and even there it was not understood as a perpetual, but a temporary covenant. Yet now, after the government for the last fifty years has been drifting from its early landmarks, and violating the faith upon which the federal compact was formed, we not only repudiate the Jeffersonian policy of excluding slavery from our Territories, but, in framing governments for them, we expressly stipulate that slaveholding States may be formed out of them and admitted into the Union if they shall demand it. We not only abandon the faith of our fathers, but we seem anxious to make our apostasy manifest, that all the world may behold it. So long has the slave power guided the ship of State, that we are determined that freedom shall either silently submit to its pilotage or be cast into the sea. What was politically orthodox in 1787, according to the authority of "the Fathers," is the rankest heresy in 1850.

My honorable colleague [Mr. GORMAN] argued the other day that to insist on the prohibition of slavery in New Mexico and Utah by act of Congress, is to deny the capacity of the people for self-government. He says his motto is, to "trust the people with political power;" that he wants the "free-soil abolition agitators either to "affirm or deny the capacity of the people for self-government ;" and he declares that "there is no other issue in the whole principle of the Wilmot Proviso but this one." Sir, I am willing to go before the country on the issue which he tenders. I am for "trusting the people" of those territories with the general right to establish their own municipal regulations; but I am not willing that one portion of them shall strip another portion of their humanity by converting them into beasts of burden and articles of merchandise. That is not the sort of Democracy I believe in. I have no faith in any such "self-government." I am not willing to "trust the people" of our Territories "with political power" for any such purpose, and neither do they demand it at the hands of

Congress. It was not the right of a people to make slaves of each other, but the denial of this right, in defense of which the War of our Revolution was waged. If, besides the Declaration of Independence, there is one thing in the public career of Mr. Jefferson which above all others adds lustre to his character and gives immortality to his fame, it is his paternity of the celebrated ordinance by which that institution branded by Wesley as "the sum of all villainies," was forever excluded from the territory northwest of the Ohio. He was unwilling to "trust the people" of that region with the power to fasten upon it so unmitigated a curse, and posterity has already vindicated his wisdom. Millions will hereafter rise up and call him blessed for the very deed which, according to my colleague, was equivalent to a denial of the capacity of the people to govern themselves. Sir, gentlemen may denounce the Wilmot Proviso, and stigmatize its advocates as the enemies of popular sovereignty; but with the democracy of Jefferson and the patriots of 1787 to sustain me, I am willing to "trust the people " to decide between us.

My honorable colleague has discovered that the Wilmot Proviso was "conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity." Does he understand the import of the term? Does he not know that it means simply the right of a whole people, whether of a State or Territory, to the common blessing of freedom? In its application to our Territories, the Wilmot Proviso is the Declaration of Independence embodied in a fundamental law for their government. Our fathers declared that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," are among the inalienable rights of men, and that "governments are instituted to secure these rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Make these truths operative in the Territories of the government, by the competent lawmaking power, and you have the Wilmot Proviso, call it by whatever name you choose. Instead of being "conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity," it was conceived in the brains of such patriots as Sir Harry Vane and Algernon Sydney, in the time of the English Commonwealth, and finally "brought forth" in the glorious fruits of our own Revolution in 1776. It is the very life-blood of our freedom; and although for the present its friends are overpowered, they should stand by it, and maintain it, so long as they retain their faith in the rights of man and the duty of government to provide guards for their security. And I desire to say, too, that did I feel as confident as some gentlemen profess to feel, that slavery, in any event, will not obtain a foothold in our Territories, I would

still insist on the Proviso, as a wholesome and needful reassertion, in the present crisis, of the principles on which the government was founded and was designed to be administered, as a means of restoring it to its early policy, and animating it anew with the breath of freedom which bore our fathers through their conflict, and made us an independent nation. It is peculiarly an American principle, and devotion to it should be as honorable to an American citizen as his abandonment of it should be disgraceful. And if there is one circumstance connected with my humble service in the present Congress to which, in after years, I shall look back with pleasure and with pride, it is, that in the midst of the false lights and false alarms and seductive influences by which the ranks of freedom have been thinned and the policy of Jefferson trampled under foot, I insisted to the last on the duty of Congress to protect our infant Territories from the inroads of slavery by positive law.

Passing from this topic, I proceed to notice briefly the Fugitive Slave Bill which recently passed this body and is now the law of the land. By the Act of 1793, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, the slaveholder may pursue his fugitive into the free States, and take him, either with or without legal process. If he sees fit to sue out a warrant, he must make his complaint before a federal officer, and he may have the aid of the federal power in accomplishing his purpose. The States are not bound to assist him. They may not pass laws to discharge the fugitive from his service, or to prevent his recapture; and this prohibition defines their whole duty under the Constitution. If any citizen of a free State is found guilty of aiding or abetting in the escape of a fugitive, or of obstructing his recapture, or of harboring or concealing him, he is liable to pay five hundred dollars, besides damages in a civil action equal to the value of the fugitive. This, in brief, is the substance, and these are the provisions of the act. Now, sir, I am willing to abide by this law thus expounded, and so, I believe, are my constituents. They mean to remain passive as between the slaveholder and his victim; and this, in all conscience, is enough to ask at the hands of Christian men. It is all they mean to perform. I do not believe they will go one tithe of a hair beyond it, in obedience to any law of Congress, or to avoid any penalties which it may prescribe.

The law recently enacted empowers the circuit courts of the United States to appoint an indefinite number of commissioners within their respective circuits, whose duty it shall be, on application, to issue their warrants for the arrest of the fugitive, and to

hear and determine in a summary way the complaint of the claimant. It is made the duty of the marshal within his district to receive and execute any warrant that may be delivered to him for that purpose; and if he fails to do so he is liable to a fine of $1,000. If, after the arrest of the supposed fugitive, he shall escape, either with or without the assent of the marshal, the latter shall be liable on his official bond to pay the claimant the value of the fugitive thus escaping. In order to facilitate the execution of these provisions, it is further provided, that said commissioners may appoint an indefinite number of auxiliaries within their respective counties, whose duty it shall be to execute such process as shall be delivered to them, and who shall have the power to summon the posse comitatus to their assistance. It is likewise enjoined upon all good citizens" to aid in the capture of the fugitive when thus called upon. For obstructing his arrest, or rescuing or attempting to rescue him from his claimant, or aiding or abetting in his escape, or for harboring or concealing him, any person is liable to pay a fine not exceeding $1,000, and to be imprisoned not exceeding six months; and shall, moreover, forfeit and pay to the claimant $1,000 for each slave so lost. The case between the claimant and the fugitive is to be heard and determined in a summary manner, on the ex-parte affidavit of the former, and, of course, without a trial by jury; thus taking it for granted that the party claimed is necessarily a fugitive slave, and jeoparding the liberty of our own citizens. After the certificate of the commissioner is granted, which is made final and conclusive upon all magistrates and courts, if the claimant will make oath that he has reason to fear the fugitive will be rescued from him before he can be taken from the State, the officer who made the arrest shall take him again into his custody, and employ such force as may be thought necessary to remove him to the State from whence he fled; and all the expenses of this proceeding are to be paid out of the treasury of the United States. These are the material provisions of the bill; and I must say

that a tissue of more heartless and cold-blooded enactments never disgraced the legislation of a civilized people. On the one hand, every possible guard is thrown around the rights of the slaveholder, as if his institution had the stamp of divinity upon it, and must be cherished and fostered as the nation's life; whilst on the other hand, the way of the poor fugitive, whose only crime is a desire to be free, is not only so hedged about with nets and snares as to leave him utterly without hope, but at the same time to expose the free colored man of the North to any Southern land-pirate who may

seize him as his prey. Not satisfied with the Act of 1793, it duplicates its penalties ; not content with the aid of the federal judiciary, it calls into the service of slavery legions of officers exercising concurrent judicial functions, whose sole business is the hired service of slaveholders; not content with compelling the North to surrender. the fugitive, it taxes our people with the expense of conveying him to the State from whence he fled; not content with all this unrighteous help, it commands the citizens of the free States to join in the hellish employment of capturing runaway slaves and sending them back to hopeless bondage and despair. Mr. Chairman, I tell these Southern gentlemen and their Northern brethren who have passed this bill, that for one, I would resist the execution of this latter provision, if need be, at the peril of my life. I am sure that my constituents will resist it. I repeat what I said on a former occasion, that there is no earthly power that can induce us thus to take sides with the oppressor. If I believed the people I represent were base enough to become the miserable flunkies of a God-forsaken Southern slave-hunter by joining him or his constables in the blood-hound chase of a panting slave, I would scorn to hold a seat on this floor by their suffrages, and would denounce them as fit subjects themselves for the lash of the slave-driver. Sir, they will do no such thing, and I give notice now to our Southern brethren that their newly-vamped fugitive bill cannot be executed in that portion of Indiana which I have the honor to represent. The moral sense of our people will revolt at its provisions and set them at defiance, while the man who shall attempt to enforce them will cover himself with the infamy which belongs to the trade of a pirate. This is my judgment; and if Southern gentlemen think I am mistaken, the question between us may easily be tested. Slaves sometimes come among us from the South, and they will continue to do so; and I should like to ascertain the strength of this law when opposed by a public sentiment inveterately hostile to its provisions. I would like to know who will make himself the detestable scullion of slaveholders by accepting the office of fugitive slave commissioner in the county in which I reside. I should like to know who in that county will consent to act as his constable and bailiff; and when they summon the "posse" to aid them in running down and reclaiming a slave I should like to know who will obey the summons. There may be portions of Indiana where this law would be executed" with alacrity." Indeed, if I were to judge from what I have seen and heard on this floor, I could not doubt that such is the fact. For the honor of my native State I hope the evidence