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therefore, is sovereign; in all other respects, each of the States is so, by force of its own constitution, and of its legal independence. Within its own sphere, therefore, each State is independent of every other, and of the United States. Within this sphere, neither can, by its regular action, come into collision with either of the others, or with the union of States. This is the appropriate sphere of State rights.

But there is a sovereignty of the Union also, within its own sphere; coextensive with that of the whole body of States, and for the exercise of its own powers superior to it; which, in the exercise of those powers, can no more interfere with those of the States, than the sun in its orbit can clash with the planets in their courses. The right of revolution is of a different character, and a purely popular right, belonging to the people, not as citizens of States, but as men and members of the whole body politic, whenever they have spirit enough, and are in numbers sufficient to warrant revolution, as the remedy for intolerable oppression. In such a case, resistance is both a right and a duty; but the remedy for grievous and long-continued infringement of State rights, by the General Government, would be, not the secession of States, to the derangement of the whole system, but the uprising of the people, to restore the whole to its legitimate functions, for the general benefit.'

Upon the whole, the adjustment of the conflicting topics which had so long occupied the attention of Congress, and

1 Mr. Jefferson took a different view of the subject, and it is proper to give his opinion, as stated by Mr. John Quincy Adams, who appears to have agreed with him, in his eulogy on Mr. Madison. Mr. Adams said:

"Concurring in the doctrines that the separate States have a right to interpose in cases of palpable infractions of the Constitution by the Government of the United States, and that the alien and sedition acts presented a case of such infraction, Mr. Jefferson considered them as absolutely null and void, and thought the State legislatures competent, not only to declare, but to make them so, to resist their execution within their respective borders by physical force, and to secede from the Union, rather than to submit to them, if attempted to be carried into execution by force."

of the country, must be considered as judicious and salutary.' California was admitted to the Union, of necessity, with a constitution prohibiting slavery, which was not adapted to its condition, and in pursuance of the determination of its people. The slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, in which it was a stigma upon the seat of government, and where it had been equally offensive to citizens from all parts of the country. Some provision for the recapture of fugitive slaves, by legal process, to be exercised by magistrates and officers of the United States, to use the language of Mr. Justice Story, "was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding States." The act of 1793, in consequence of defects in some of its details, discovered after Northern sentiment had become averse to the delivery of these fugitives, was found insufficient for the purpose. The Supreme Court had decided, that State judges and magistrates were under no legal obligation to perform the duties, in this behalf, enjoined by that act. State legislatures had taken opportunity of this decision to forbid, under severe penalties, any such interposition on the part of the local authorities.

It is difficult, at this day, to discern any difference, in essential principle, between the fugitive slave act of 1850, approved by Millard Fillmore, in accordance with the legal advice of Attorney-General John J. Crittenden, and that of 1793, approved by George Washington, probably without other counsel than the obvious reasons in which all men at

1 The following passage occurs in a speech of Mr. Choate, delivered at a "constitutional meeting" of a vast assembly of citizens, held at Faneuil Hall, Boston, November 26th, 1850:

"Honor and praise to the eminent men of all parties who rose that day to the measure of a true greatness; who remembered that they had a country to preserve as well as a local constituency to gratify; who laid all the wealth and all the hopes of illustrious lives on the altar of a hazardous patriotism; who reckoned all the sweets of a present popularity for nothing in comparison with that more exceeding weight of glory which follows him who seeks to compose an agitated and to save a sinking land.”—Choate's Life and Writings, vol. ii., 313.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT.

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that period concurred, and the motives of justice and honor, by which all were alike influenced. By the provisions of both acts, the proceedings for the seizure, identification and removal of the fugitive were made summary. Under the act of 1793, appeal could be had from an inferior local magistrate to a judge of the highest State tribunal; who had legal authority, however, only to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to warrant the removal of the fugitive to the jurisdiction from which he had fled.

Under the statute of 1850, the whole authority in relation to the matter was confided to the judges of the highest courts of the United States, and, in concurrence with them, to magistrates known as commissioners, appointed by those courts, for the discharge of regular duties. The determination of a commissioner, as well as that of a circuit or district judge, was made conclusive, in each particular case heard by him; except that the judgment of a commissioner could be brought to the cognizance of a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting in his circuit, to the judges of the District Courts of the United States, and to the judges of the State tribunals, under the ordinary provisions for the writ of habeas corpus, in order that it might be seen, by the return upon this writ, whether the proceedings, on the face of them, were regular and lawful, or otherwise. By the act of 1793, justices of the peace exercised the same authority, in these cases, as the commissioners were empowered to use, by the act of 1850. In the latter instance, however, the superior tribunals were not authorized to reëxamine the proceedings upon their merits.

In regard to the State courts, it may, perhaps, be properly suggested, that, since they were strictly forbidden, and under high penalties, by local legislation, to render official aid in the restoration of a fugitive slave, it could scarcely be considered reasonable that they should be permitted to prevent his restoration, as provided for by a statute of the United States. Similar provision was made by the one act, as by the other, for the punishment of persons who might

obstruct or prevent the due execution of the process, except that by the later act the penalty was doubled. It is proper that the two statutes should be thus compared; because, although the first was quietly carried into effect, in all the free States, without objection from any quarter, for a period of about fifty years, the other was made the subject of the most violent denunciation throughout the North, and was the pretence for a great deal of State legislation, which encouraged and promoted evasion of the legislative action of Congress, and forcible resistance to it.

The series of acts passed at this time, which came under the denomination of Compromise Measures, was completed by those for the establishment of territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah; both of which were to be admitted as States, "either with or without slavery," as the Constitution of each should prescribe, upon its future application to be received into the Union. In the course of the debate in regard to the former Territory, Mr. Webster remarked, in substance, that he would not legislate for the prohibition of slavery in a part of the country from which it was already excluded by the ordinance of Nature; that he should no more think of prohibiting it in New Mexico than in Massachusetts. As a practical question, such legislation would certainly be both trifling and superfluous; and the same objection is applicable to the case of Utah. Indeed, however rich the former Territory may prove in respect to more precious products, it would seem absurd to think of devoting to slave labor a tract of country, through a large extent of which even so common a vegetable as a potato can scarcely be made to grow. In principle, however, another question of importance was involved in this issue; for while by far the greater part of New Mexico lay below the line of 36° 30′ north latitude, all of Utah was situated above that line. In point of fact, therefore, the principle of the Missouri Com

More recently the development of the mineral treasures of New Mexico has modified the relations which it then bore to the question in hand.

SUMMARY OF THE COMPROMISE.

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promise was entirely disregarded, in the several acts establishing provisional governments for those two Territories, and prescribing the terms for their eventual admission as States, into the Union.'

The "slave power," in fact, gained nothing whatever by this arrangement. California, containing nearly six times as many square miles of territory as the six New England States, affording unexampled temptations to emigrants, and sure, at no distant date, to become one of the most populous and powerful States of the Union, was admitted with a constitution prohibiting slavery. As a set-off, New Mexico and Utah, each comprising a still larger extent of territory than California, but both unsuited to slave labor, furnishing comparatively slight inducements to emigration, and, hence, the question of the admission of either into the Union lying far in the indefinite future, were to be received, with or without slavery, as their inhabitants, at the period of application for that purpose might prefer. The traffic in slaves at the seat of the Federal Government was abolished; but was a matter of no practical consequence, since the trade was open in the States, beyond the jurisdiction of Congress. The complement to this measure was the act for the rendition of fugitive slaves, to which the South was legally entitled, if any regard were to be paid to the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

On the other hand, by the acts providing territorial governments for Utah, and for New Mexico, so far as the latter was situated above the line of 36° 30′ north latitude, the Missouri Compromise was, of course, superseded. This fact became the source of warm party debate at a future day;

The provisions for the territorial government in New Mexico and Utah and for the admission of California as a State, were all in precise conformity with the principles of the act of 1854, establishing a territorial government for Kansas and Nebraska. In each case, the question of "free State or "slave State" was left to the people to determine for themselves when they should frame their Constitution; except that, as the people of California had already acted upon the subject, the same principle was recognized in the adoption of their action by Congress.