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free; and there are sixteen free states to fifteen slave states. If the three candidates now here, Kansas, Minnesota and Oregon, shall be admitted as free states, then there will be nineteen free states to fifteen slave states. Originally, there were twenty-four senators of slave states, and only two of a free state; now there are thirty-two senators of free states, and thirty of slave states. In the first constitutional congress, the slave states had fifty-seven representatives, and the one free state had only eight; now, the free states have one hundred and forty-four representatives, while the slave states have only ninety. These changes have happened in a period during which the slave states have almost uninterruptedly exercised paramount influence in the government, and notwithstanding the constitution itself has opposed well-known checks to the relative increase of representation of free states. I assume, therefore, the truth of my first proposition.

I suggested a second circumstance, namely: That whereas, in the earlier age of the republic, the national government favored this change, yet it has since altogether reversed that policy, and it now opposes the change. I do not claim that heretofore the national government always, or even habitually, intervened in the territories in favor of the free states, but only that such intervention preponderated. While slavery existed in all of the states but one, at the beginning, yet it was far less intense in the northern than in some of the southern states. All of the former contemplated an early emancipation. The fathers seem not to have anticipated an enlargement of the national territory. Consequently, they expected that all the new states to be thereafter admitted would be organized upon subdivisions of the then existing states, or upon divisions of the then existing national domain. That domain lay behind the thirteen states, and stretched from the lakes to the gulf, and was bounded westward by the Mississippi. It was naturally divided by the Ohio river, and the northwest territory and the southwest territory were organized on that division. It was foreseen, even then, that the new states to be admitted would ultimately overbalance the thirteen original ones. They were, however, mainly to be yet planted and matured in the desert, with the agency of human labor.

The fathers knew only of two kinds of labor, the same which now exist among ourselves—namely, the labor of African slaves and the labor of freemen. The former then predominated in this

A confessed deficiency

country, as it did throughout the continent. of slave labor could be supplied only by domestic increase, and by continuance of the then existing importation from Africa. The supply of free labor depended on domestic increase, and a voluntary immigration from Europe. Settlements, which had thus early taken on a free-labor character or a slave-labor character, were already maturing in those parts of old states which were to be ultimately detached and formed into new states. When new states of this class were organized, they were admitted promptly, either as free states or as slave states, without objection. Thus Vermont, a free state, was admitted in 1791; Kentucky, a slave state, in 1792; and Tennessee, also a slave state, in 1796. Five new states were contemplated to be erected in the northwest territory. Practically it was unoccupied, and therefore open to labor of either kind. The one kind or the other, in the absence of any anticipated emulation, would predominate, just as congress should intervene to favor it. Congress intervened in favor of free labor. This indeed was an act of the continental congress, but it was confirmed by the first constitutional congress. The fathers simultaneously adopted three other measures of less direct intervention. First, they initiated in 1789, and completed in 1808, the absolute suppression of the African slave trade. Secondly, they organized systems of foreign commerce and navigation, which stimulated voluntary immigration from Europe. Thirdly, they established an easy, simple and uniform process of naturalization. The change of the balance of power from the slave states to the free states, which we are now witnessing, is due chiefly to those four early measures of national intervention in favor of free labor. It would have taken place much sooner, if the borders of the republic had remained unchanged. The purchase of Louisiana and the acquisition of Florida, however, were transactions resulting from high political necessities, in disregard of the question between free labor and slave labor. In admitting the new state of Louisiana, which was organized on the slave-labor settlement of New Orleans, congress practised the same neutrality which it had before exercised in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. No serious dispute arose until 1819, when Missouri, organized within the former province of Louisiana, upon a slave-labor settlement in St. Louis, applied for admission as a slave state, and Arkansas was manifestly preparing to appear soon in the same character. The balance of power between

the slave states and the free states was already reduced to an equilibrium, and the eleven free states had an equal representation with the eleven slave states in the senate of the United States. The slave states unanimously insisted on an unqualified admission of Missouri. The free states, with less unanimity, demanded that the new state should renounce slavery. The controversy seemed to shake the Union to its foundations, and it was terminated by a compromise. Missouri was admitted as a slave state. Arkansas, rather by implication than by express agreement, was to be admitted, and it was afterwards admitted as a slave state. On the other hand, slavery was forever prohibited in all that part of the old province of Louisiana yet remaining unoccupied, which lay north of the parallel of 36° 30′ north latitude. The reservation for free labor included the immense region now known as the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and seemed ample for eight, ten, or more free states. The severity of the struggle and the conditions of the compromise, indicated very plainly, however, that the vigor of national intervention in favor of free labor and free states was exhausted. Still, the exist ing statutes were adequate to secure an ultimate ascendency of the free states.

The policy of intervention in favor of slave labor and slave states began with the further removal of the borders of the republic. I cheerfully admit that this policy has not been persistent or exclusive, and claim only that it has been and yet is predominant. I am not now to deplore the annexation of Texas. I remark simply that it was a bold measure, of doubtful constitutionality, distinctly adopted as an act of intervention in favor of slave labor, and made or intended to be made most effective by the stipulation that the new state of Texas may hereafter be divided and so reörganized as to constitute five slave states. This great act cast a long shadow before it—a shadow which perplexed the people of the free states. It was then that a feeble social movement, which aimed by moral persuasion at the manumission of slaves, gave place to political organizations, which have ever since gone on increasing in magnitude and energy, directed against a further extension of slavery in the United States. The war between the United States and Mexico, and the acquisition of the Mexican provinces of New Mexico and Upper California, the fruits of that war, were so immediately and directly consequences of the annexation of Texas, that all of those transactions in fact may

be regarded as constituting one act of intervention in favor of slave labor and slave states. The field of the strife between the two systems had become widely enlarged. Indeed, it was now continental. The amazing mineral wealth of California stimulated settlement there into a rapidity like that of vegetation. The Mexican laws which prevailed in the newly acquired territories, dedicated them to free labor, and thus the astounding question arose for the first time, whether the United States of America, whose constitution is based on the principle of the political equality of all men, would blight and curse with slavery a conquered land which enjoyed universal freedom. The slave states denied the obligation of these laws, and insisted on their abrogation. The free states maintained them, and demanded their confirmation through the enactment of the Wilmot proviso. The slave states and the free states were yet in equilibrium. The controversy continued here two years. The settlers of the new territories became impatient, and precipitated a solution of the question. They organized new free states in California and New Mexico. The Mormons also framed a government in Utah. Congress, after a bewildering excitement, determined the matter by another compromise. It admitted California a free state, dismembered New Mexico, transferring a large district free from slavery to Texas, whose laws. carried slavery over it, and subjected the residue to a territorial gov ernment, as it also subjected Utah, and stipulated that the future states to be organized in those territories should be admitted either as free states or as slave states, as they should elect. I pass over the portions of this arrrangement which did not bear directly on the point in conflict. The federal government presented this compromise to the people as a comprehensive, final and perpetual adjustment of all then existing and all future questions having any relation to the subject of slavery within the territories or elsewhere. The country accepted it with that proverbial facility which free states practice, when time brings on a stern conflict which popular passions provoke, and at a distance defy. This halcyon peace, however, had not ceased to be celebrated, when new-born necessities of trade, travel and labor required an opening of the region in the old province of Louisiana north of 36° 30', which had been reserved in 1820, and dedicated to free labor and free states. The old question was revived in regard to that territory, and took the narrow name of the Kansas question, just as the stream which lake Superior dis

charges, now contracting itself into rivers and precipitating itself down rapids and cataracts, and now spreading out its waters into broad seas, assumes a new name with every change of form, but continues, nevertheless, the same majestic and irresistible flood under every change, increasing in depth and in volume until it loses itself in the all-absorbing ocean.

No one had ever said or even thought that the law of freedom in this region could be repealed, impaired or evaded. Its constitutionality had indeed been questioned at the time of its enactment; but this, with all other objections, had been surrendered as part of the compromise. It was regarded as bearing the sanction of the public faith, as it certainly had those of time and acquiescence. But the slaveholding people of Missouri looked across the border into Kansas, and coveted the land. The slave states could not fail to sympathise with them. It seemed as if no organization of government could be effected in the territory. The senator from Illinois projected a scheme. Under his vigorous leading, congress created two territories, Nebraska and Kansas. The former (the more northern one) might, it was supposed, be settled without slavery, and become a free state, or several free states. The latter (the southern one) was accessible to the slave states, bordered on one of them, and was regarded as containing a region inviting to slaveholders. So it might be settled by them, and become one or more slave states. Thus indirectly a further compromise might be effected, if the Missouri prohibition of 1820 should be abrogated. Congress abrogated it, with the special and effective coöperation of the president, and thus the national government directly intervened in favor of slave labor. Loud remonstrances against the measure, on the ground of its violation of the national faith, were silenced by clamorous avowals of a discovery that congress had never had any right to intervene in the territories. for or against slavery, but that the citizens of the United States residing within a territory, had, like the people of every state, exclusive authority and jurisdiction over slavery, as one of the domestic relations. The Kansas-Nebraska act only recognized and affirmed this right, as it was said. The theory was not indeed new, but a vagrant one, which had for some time gone about seeking among political parties the charity of adoption, under the name of squatter sovereignty. It was now brought to the font and baptized with the more attractive appellation of popular sovereignty. It was idle for