on the 19th June, by the House accepting the Senate bill with slight amendments. On that day Mr. Schuyler Colfax reported to the House as follows:

pose all public lands to sale within two years after they shall have been surveyed, which we held would be peculiarly oppressive upon the pioneers who had gone to the frontier to settle upon the public lands, and to which we could never have consented. Now, Mr. Speaker, I desire to state, in conclusion, that the compromise we have made upon the subject is not in accordthe power to frame the bill myself; but it is the very utmost we could obtain from the Senate, as now constituted. The Senators who served with us on the Conference have been notified by me, and also by my colleague (Mr. Windom, of Minnesota,) that we regard this as but a single step in advance toward a law which we shall demand from the American Congress, enacting a comprehensive and liberal Homestead policy. This we have agreed to as merely an avant courrier. We shall demand it at the next session of Congress, and until it is granted; until all the public lands shall be open to all the people of the United States; and I state this publicly, that no one shall regard us as estopped hereafter, because we accepted this half-way measure rather than to allow the whole to fail. I should have added that all persons, whether citizens or those who have only declared their intentions, are allowed to go on the lands under this bill; but are required to perfect their naturalization before the five years expire, and the patent issues. I now demand the previous question on concurring on the report of the Committee, and passing the bill as thus amended.

Mr. Farnsworth.-I desire to ask the gentleman from Indiana whether this bill confines its benefits to those who are heads of families.

Mr. Colfax. It does, because we failed, despite our utmost efforts, in procuring its extension to all; but we shall appeal to the young men to demand of those who make and who execute the laws, that the system inaugurated by this bill, shall be widened so as to admit them to its benefits, and I will join them in this demand.

Mr. Colfax.-I rise to a question of privilege. I am instructed by the Committee of Conference on the disagree-ance with what I should desire to have passed, if I had ing votes of the two Houses on the Homestead bill, to report that, after twelve meetings of the three different Conferences that have been appointed, they this morning finally agreed. I hold in my hand the report of the Committee, which can be read if any gentleman desires it. But perhaps it would render the report clearer and more intelligible if I should briefly state its leading features. The Senate bill all the members of the House are familiar with. The Conferees upon the part of the House finding, after the most earnest efforts, that it would be utterly impossible for them to induce the Senate to agree to the House bill, have been discussing what changes could be made in the Senate bill, so as to render it acceptable enough for the House to accept, rather than the whole should fail. They have finally agreed upon a report as follows: In the first place, I will say that the bill, as it passed the Senate, provided that the preemptors now upon the public lands might remain there two years before they should be required to purchase their lands, but should then pay for them at the rate of $1 25 per acre, thus removing them entirely from within the purview of the benefits which would apply to the settlers hereafter upon the public lands. This point the House Conferees refused to accede to, and if persisted in, we should have again reported a disagreement. Finally, however, a compromise was arranged on this point, and to protect the preemptors now on the Government land, which was to be advertised this fall for sale, we changed the Senate bill so as to protect them for at least two years from land sales, and to allow them then to secure their homes at one half the Government price, namely sixty-two and a-half cents per acre. I need scarcely add, that, if the Senate could have been induced to give them the benefit of their twenty-five-cent-per-acre provision, we should have insisted on it inflexibly; but what I have stated is the very lowest point that could be obtained. The second change we have made in the Senate bill is in relation to the scope of land coming under the operations of the law. The House bill embraced all the Government land, offered or unoffered, except such as was specially reserved. The Senate bill confined its provisions to land subject to private entry, exclusively. As I have explained on a former occasion, the expression "subject to private entry" means such as are left after the lands have been once regularly brought into market, exposed to public sale, and the speculators have taken such as they see fit to purchase. The difference between these two bills seemed so radical as to be incapable of adjustment; and the scope of farming land covered by the Senate bill was so limited, there being but little, if any, in Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, California, Oregon, and Washington, that the House conferees declined to accept it. But on this, too, we finally effected a compromise. By our report, all the land subject to private entry is included, and, in addition, all the odd-numbered sections of the surveyed public lands, which have not been opened to public sale-a most material and beneficent enlargement of the Senate bill. We were offered, after this agreement, whichever half of the unoffered lands we chose, and we took the odd-numbered sections. The reason for this was, that the 16th section of a township, being reserved for school purposes by our land laws, the four adjoining sections to it, on the north, west, east, and south, are sections 9, 15, 17, and 21, all odd-numbered sections, which are thus saved for homestead settlers, who have reserved for them 18 out of the 35 disposable sections in each township of six miles square.

Mr. Grow. I just desire to say that we have taken this bill, not because it is what we want, but on the principle that "half a loaf is better than no bread."

The House agreed to the Report of the Committee, 116 to 51, as follows:

YEAS.-Messrs. C. F. Adams, Allen, Alley, Aldrich, Ashley, Babbitt, Barr, Beale, Bingham, Francis P. Blair, Samuel S. Blair, Blake, Brayton, Briggs, Buffinton, Burch, Burlingame, Burnham, Butterfield, Campbell, Carey, Carter, Case, H. F. Clark, Cobb, Colfax, Corwin, Covode, Cox, Curtis, John G. Davis, Dawes, Delano, Duell, Dunn, Edgerton, Edwards, Elliot, Ely, Ferry, Florence, Foster, Frank, French, Gooch, Graham, Grow, Gurley, Hale, Hall, Haskin, Helmick, Hoard, Wm. Howard, Humphrey, Hutchins, Junkin. F. W. Kellogg, Wm. Kellogg, Kenyon, Killinger, De Witt C. Leach, Lee, Longnecker, Loomis, Maclay, Marston, McKean, McKnight, McPherson, Millward, Moorhead, Morrill, E. Joy Morris, I. N. Morris, Morse, Niblack, Nixon, Olin, Palmer, Pendleton, Perry, Pettit, Phelps, Porter, Potter, Rice, Riggs, Christopher Robinson, Royce, Sedgwick, Sherman, Somes, Spaulding, Spinner, Stanton, William Stewart, Stout, Tappan, Taylor, Thayer, Theaker, Tompkins, Train, Trimble, Vandever, Van Wyck, Verree, Wade, Walton, C. C. Washburn, E. B. Washburne, Israel Washburn, Wells, Windom, and Woodruff-116.

NAYS-Messrs. Green Adams, William C. Anderson, Ashmore, Avery, Barksdale, Bocock, Bonham, Boyce, Brabson, Branch, Burnett, Clopton, Burton Craige, Crawford, Curry, De Jarnette, Gilmer, Hardeman, J. Morri son Harris, John T. Harris, Hatton, Houston, Jenkins, Jones, Keitt, Landrum, James M. Leach, Leake, Love, Mallory, Maynard, McQueen, Miles, Millson, Sydenham Moore, Nelson, Peyton, Quarles, Reagan, Ruffin, William Smith, William N. H. Smith, Stevenson, Stokes, Thomas, Underwood, Vance, Webster, Winslow, Woodson, and Wright-51.

The nays are all from the Slave States.
The Senate agreed to the report of the Con
ference Committee, 36 to 2-Messrs. Bragg and
Pearce.

On all these lands, actual settlers, who are heads of families, are allowed, after having occupied the land for ive years, to purchase at 25 cents per acre, which is about the average cost price of the public lands to the Government. We struggled, of course, to include all young men over 21 who are not heads of families, and to adopt the Free Homestead principle of the House bill; but on these points the Senate was inflexible, and we took what we did because it was the very best we could get. The Senate bill originally provided that the Homestead settler might acquire title to his land at any time by paying full Government prices; but desiring to promote actual settlement, we now provide that he cannot do this till after he has been on the land six months. AN ACT to secure Homesteads to actual settlers on When he stays, or his family if he deceases, the full five the Public Domain, and for other purpos68. years he obtains it at 25 cents per acre. The Senate Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represen have also agreed to strike out the eighth section of their tives of the United States of America in Congress bill, which made it imperative upon the President to ex-assembled, That any person who is the head of a family,

The following is the bill as it was finally reported by the Conference Committee and passed both Houses:

and a citizen of the United States, shall, from and after shall be permitted to enter more than one quarter-secthe passage of this act, be entitled to enter one quarter- tion or fractional quarter-section, and that in a compact section of vacant and unappropriated public lands, or body; but entries may be made at different times, under any less quantity, to be located in a body, in conformity the provisions of this act; and that the Secretary of the with the legal subdivisions of the public lands, after the Interior is hereby required to prepare and issue, from same shall have been surveyed, upon the following con- time to time, such rules and regulations, consistent with ditions that the person applying for the benefit of this this act, as shall be necessary and proper to carry its act shall, upon application to the register of the land-office provisions into effect; and that the registers and reIn which he or she is about to make such entry, make ceivers of the several land offices shall be entitled to affidavit before the said register or receiver of said land- receive, upon the filing of the first affidavit, the sum of office that he or she is the head of a family, and is actually 50 cents each and a like sum upon the issuing of the settled on the quarter-section, or other subdivision not final certificate. But this shall not be construed to enexceeding a quarter-section, proposed to be entered, and large the maximum of compensation now prescribed by that such application is made for his or her use and law for any register or receiver: Provided, That nobenefit, or for the use and benefit of those specially thing in this act shall be so construed as to impair the mentioned in this section, and not either directly or existing preemption, donation, or graduation laws, or to indirectly for the use or beneft of any other person or embrace lands which have been reserved to be sold or persons whomsoever, and that he or she has never at any entered at the price of $2 50 per acre; but no entry, previous time, had the benefit of this act; and upon under said graduation act, shall be allowed until making the affidavit as above required, and filing the after proof of actual settlement and cultivation or oc same with the register, he or she shall thereupon be per-cupancy for at least three months, as provided for in mitted to enter the quantity of land already specified: Sec. 8 of the said act. Provided, however, That no final certificate shall be §7. And be it further enacted, That each actual setgiven, or patent issued therefor, until the expiration of tler upon lands of the United States, which have not been ive years from the date of such entry; and if, at the ex- offered at public sale, upon filing his declaration or claim, piration of such time, the person making such entry, or, as now required by law, shall be entitled to two years if he be dead, his widow, or, in case of her death, his from the commencement of his occupation or settlement; child or children, or in case of a widow making such or, if the lands have not been surveyed, two years from entry, her child or children, in case of her death, shall the receipt of the approved plat of such lands at the Disprove, by two credible witnesses, that he, she, or they-trict Land Office, within which to complete the proofs of that is to say, some member or members of the same his said claim, and to enter and pay for the land so family-has or have erected a dwelling-house upon said claimed, at minimum price of such lands; and where such land, and continued to reside upon and cultivate the settlements have already been made in good faith, the same for the term of five years, and still reside upon the claimant shall be entitled to the said period of two years same (and that neither the said land or any part thereof from and after the date of this act; Provided, That no has been alienated); then, in such case, he, she, or they, claim of preëmption shall be allowed for more than 160 apon the payment of 25 cents per acre for the quantity acres, or one-quarter section of land, nor shall any such entered, shall be entitled to a patent, as in other cases claim be admitted under the provisions of this act, unless provided by law: And provided further, In case of the there shall have been at least three months of actual and death of both father and mother, leaving a minor child or continuous residence upon and cultivation of the land so children, the right and the fee shall inure to the benefit claimed from the date of settlement, and proof thereof of said minor child or children, and the guardian shall be made according to law; Provided further, That any authorized to perfect the entry for the beneficiaries, as if claimant under the preemption laws may take less than there had been a continued residence of the settler for 160 acres by legal subdivisions; Provided further, That five years. Provided, That nothing in this section shall all persons who are preëmptors, on the date of this act, be so construed as to embrace or in any way include any shall, upon the payment to the proper authority of 62 quarter-section or fractional quarter-section of land upon cents per acre, if paid within two years from the paswhich any preemption right has been acquired prior to the sage of this act, be entitled to a patent from the Governpassage of this act. And provided further, That all en- ment, as now provided by the existing preemption laws. tries made under the provisions of this section, upon lands § 8. And be it further enacted, That the 5th section which have not been offered for public sale, shall be con- of the act entitled "An act in addition to an act more Aned to and upon sections designated by odd numbers. effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes §2. And be it further enacted, That the register of the against the United States, and for other purposes," apLand Office shall note all such applications on the tract proved the 3d of March, in the year 1857, shall extend to books and plats of his office, and keep a register of all all oaths, affirmations, and affidavits required or authorsuch entries, and make return thereof to the General ized by this act. Land Office, together with the proof upon which they have been founded.

§3. And be it further enacted, That no land acquired under the provisions of this act shall in any event, become liable to the satisfaction of any debt or debts until after the issuing of the patent therefor.

§4. And be it further enacted, That if, at any time after filing the affidavit, as required in the first section of this act, and before the expiration of the five years aforesaid, it shall be proved, after due notice to the settler, to the satisfaction of the register of the Land Office, that the person having filed such affidavit shall have sworn falsely in any particular, or shall have voluntarily abandoned the possession and cultivation of the said land for more than six months at any time, or sold his right under the entry, then, and in either of those events, the register shall cancel the entry, and the land so entered shall revert to the Government, and be disposed of as other public lands are now by law, subject to an appeal to the Secretary of the Interior. And in no case shall any land, the entry whereof shall have been cancelled, again be subject to occupation, or entry, or purchase, until the same shall have been reported to the General Land Office, and, by the direction of the President of the United States, again advertised and offered at public sale.

5. And be it further enacted, That if any person, now or hereafter, a resident of any one of the States or Territories, and not a citizen of the United States, but who at the time of making such application for the benefit of this act, shall have filed a declaration of intention, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and shall have become a citizen of the same before the issuing of the patent as provided for in this act, such person shall be entitled to all the rights conferred by this act.

§ 6. And be it further enacted, That no individual

89. And be it further enacted, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to prevent any person who has availed him or herself of the benefit of the first section of this act from paying the minimum price, or the price to which the same may have graduated, for the quantity of land so entered at any time after an actual settlement of six months, and before the expiration of the five years, and obtaining a patent therefor from the Government, as in other cases provided by law.

10. And be it further enacted, That all lands lying within the limits of a State which have been subject to sale at private entry, and which remain unsold after the lapse of thirty years, shall be, and the same are hereby, ceded to the State in which the same may be situated; Provided, These cessions shall in no way invalidate any inceptive preëmption right or location, or any entry under this act, nor any sale or sales which may be made by the United States before the lands hereby ceded shall be cer tified to the State, as they are hereby required to be, under such regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior. And provided further, That no cessions shall take effect until after the States, by legislative act, shall have assented to the same. •

On the 23d, the President returned the bill to the Senate with his veto, as follows:

THE HOMESTEAD BILL.
VETO MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT.
To the Senate of the United States.

I return, with my objections, to the Senate, in which it originated, the bill entitled An act to secure Home steads to actual settlers on the public domain and for other purposes," presented to me on the 20th instant.

carefully limited, but without any limitation in respect to the public lands.

This bill gives to every citizen of the United States, "who is the head of a family," and to every person of foreign birth residing in the country, who has declared his intention to become a citizen, though he may not be the head of a family, the privilege of appropriating to himself one hundred and sixty acres of Government land, of settling and residing upon it for five years; and should his residence continue until the end of this period, he shall then receive a patent on the payment of twenty-pose of " their public lands, and I think I may venture to five cents per acre, or one-fifth of the present Government price. During this period, the land is protected from all the debts of the settler.

This bill also contains a cession to the States of all the public lands within their respective limits "which have been subject to sale at private entry, and which remain unsold after the lapse of thirty years." This provision embraces a present donation to the States of twelve mil-nal, would venture to present such a plea in his defense. lions two hundred and twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and thirty-one acres, and will, from time to time, transfer to them large bodies of such lands which, from peculiar circumstances, may not be absorbed by private purchase and settlement.

To the actual settler, this bill does not make an absolute donation; but the price is so small that it can scarcely be called a sale. It is nominally twenty-five cents per acre; but considering this is not to be paid until the end of five years, it is, in fact, reduced to about eighteen cents per acre, or one-seventh of the present minimum price of the public lands. In regard to the States, it is an absolute and unqualified gift.

I. This state of the facts raises the question whether Congress, under the Constitution, has the power to give away the public lands, either to States or individuals. On this question, I expressed a decided opinion in my message to the House of Representatives, of the 24th February, 1859, returning the agricultural college bill. This opinion remains unchanged. The argument then used applies, as a constitutional objection, with the greater force to the present bill. There it had the plea of consideration, growing out of a specific beneficial purpose; here, it is an absolute gratuity to the State without the pretext of consideration. I am compelled, for want of time, in these last hours of the session, to quote largely from this message

I presume the general proposition will be admitted, that Congress does not possess the power to make donations of money, already in the Treasury, raised by taxes on the people, either to States or individuals.

But it is contended that the public lands are placed upon a different footing from money raised by taxation, and that the proceeds arising from their sale are not subject to the limitations of the Constitution, but may be appropriated or given away by Congress, at its own discretion, to States, corporations, or individuals, for any purpose they may deem expedient.

The advocates of this bill attempt to sustain their position upon the language of the second clause of the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, which declares that "the Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." They contend that, by a fair interpretation of the words " dispose of" in this clause, Congress possesses the power to make this g ft of public lands to the States for purposes of education.

66

But I cannot so read the words "disposed of" as to make them embrace the idea of "giving away." The true meaning of words is always to be ascertained by the subject to which they are applied, and the known general intent of the lawgiver. Congress is trustee under the Constitution for the people of the United States to "disassert with confidence that no case can be found in which a trustee in the position of Congress has been authorized to "dispose of" property by its owner, where it has ever been held that these words authorized such trustee to give away the fund intrusted to his care. No trustee, when called upon to account for the disposition of the property placed under his management before any judicial tribuThe true meaning of these words is clearly stated by Chief Justice Taney in delivering the opinion of the Court (19 Howard, p. 436). He says, in reference to this clause of the Constitution, "It begins its enumeration of powers by that of disposing; in other words, making sale of the lands, or raising money from them, which, as we have already said, was the main object of the cession (from the States), and which is the first thing provided for in the article." It is unnecessary to refer to the history of the times to establish the known fact that this statement of the Chief Justice is perfectly well founded. That it never was intended by the framers of the Constitution that these lands should be given away by Congress is manifest from the concluding portion of the same clause. By it, Congress has power not only "to dispose of" the territory, but of the "other property of the United States." In the language of the Chief Justice (p. 437), "And the same power of making needful rules respecting the territory is in precisely the same language applied to the other property of the United States, associating the power over the territory, in this respect, with the power over movable or personal property-that is, the ships, arms, or munitions of war, which then belonged in common to the State sovereignties."

The question is still clearer in regard to the public lands in the States and Territories within the Louisiana and Florida purchases. These lands were paid for out of the public Treasury from money raised by taxation. Now, if Congress had no power to appropriate the money with which these lands were purchased, is it not clear that the power over the lands is equally limited? The mere conversion of this money into land could not confer upon Congress new power over the disposition of land which they had not possessed over money. If it could, then a trustee, by changing the character of the fund intrusted to his care for special objects from money into land, might give the land away, or devote it to any purpose he thought proper, however foreign from the trust. The inference is irresistible that this land partakes of the very same character with the money paid for it, and can be devoted to no objects different from those to which the money could have been devoted. If this were not the case, then, by the purchase of a new Territory from a foreign government out of the public Treasury, Congress could enlarge their own powers, and appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the land thus purchased, at their own discretion, to other and far different objects from what they could have applied the purchase money which had been raised by taxation.

II. It will prove unequal and unjust in its operation among the actual settlers themselves.

It would require clear and strong evidence to induce the belief that the framers of the Constitution, after having limited the powers of Congress to certain, precise, and specific objects, intended, by employing the The first settlers of a new country are a most merito words "dispose of," to give that body unlimited power rious class. They brave the dangers of savage warfare, over the vast public domain. It would be a strange suffer the privations of a frontier life, and, with the hand anomaly indeed, to have created two funds, the one by of toil, bring the wilderness into cultivation. The "old taxation, confined to the execution of the enumerated settlers," as they are everywhere called, are public benepowers delegated to Congress, and the other from factors. This class have all paid for their lands, the the public lands, applicable to all subjects, foreign and government price, or $1 25 per acre. They have condomestic, which Congress might designate. That this structed roads, established schools, and laid the foundafund should be "disposed of," not to pay the debts of tion of prosperous Commonwealths. Is it just, is it the United States, nor "to raise and support armies," equal, that, after they have accomplished all this by their nor to provide and maintain a navy," nor to accom- labor, new settlers should come in among them and replish any one of the other great objects enumerated in ceive their farms at the price of twenty-five or eighteen the Constitution, but be diverted from them to pay the cents per acre? Surely the old settlers, as a class, are debts of the States, to educate their people, and to entitled to at least equal benefits with the new. carry into effect any other measure of their domestic give the new settlers their lands for a comparatively policy-this would be to confer upon Congress a vast nominal price, upon every principle of equality and and irresponsible authority, utterly at war with the justice, you will be obliged to refund out of the common well-known jealousy of the Federal power which pre-Treasury the difference which the old have paid above vailed at the formation of the Constitution. The na- the new settlers for their land. tural intendment would be that, as the Constitution confined Congress to well-defined specific powers, the funds placed at their command, whether in land or money, should be appropriated to the performance of the duties corresponding with these powers. If not, a Government has been created, with all its other powers

If you

III. This bill will do great injustice to the old soldiers who have received land warrants for their services in fighting the battles of their country. It will greatly reduce the market value of these warrants. Already their value has sunk, for one hundred and sixty acre warrants, to sixty-seven cents per acre, under an appre

hension that such a measure as this might become a law. | tinction was an inadvertence; but, it is, nevertheless, a What price would they command, when any head of a part of the bill. family may take possession of a quarter section of land, and not pay for it until the end of five years, and then at the rate of only twenty-five cents per acre? The magnitude of the interest to be affected will appear in the fact that there are outstanding unsatisfied land warrants reaching back to the last war with great Britain, and even Revolutionary times, amounting in round numbers, to seven and a half millions acres.

VI. This bill will open one vast field for speculation. Men will not pay $1 25 for lands, when they can purchase them for one-fifth of that price. Large numbers of actual settlers will be carried out by capitalists upon agreements to give them half of the land for the improve-tries. ment of the other half. This cannot be avoided. Secret agreements of this kind will be numerous. In the entry of graduated lands, the experience of the Land Office justifies this objection.

VII. We ought ever to maintain the most perfect equality between native and naturalized citizens. They are equal, and ought always to remain equal, before the laws. Our laws welcome foreigners to our shores, and their rights will ever be respected. While these are the sentiments on which I have acted through life, it is not, in my opinion, expedient to proclaim to all the nations of the earth that whoever shall arrive in this country from a foreign shore, and declare his intention to become a citizen, shall receive a farm of 160 acres, at a cost of 25 or 20 cents per acre, if he will only reside on it and cultivate it. The invitation extends to all; and if this bill becomes a law, we may have numerous actual settlers from China, and other Eastern nations, enjoying its benefits on the great Pacific slope. The bill makes a distincAll from the South, and all Democrats, extion in favor of such persons over native and naturalized citizens. When applied to such citizens, it is confined to cept Mr. Crittenden (Am.), of Kentucky. such as are the heads of families; but when applicable to Several Senators were paired, which accounts persons of foreign birth recently arrived ou our shores, for the light vote. So the bill failed, not hav

the heads of families, provided they have filed a declara-ing received the requisite two-thirds vote neces tion of intention to become citizens. Perhaps this dis-sry to pass it over the Executive Veto.

DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM,

ADOPTED BY THE UNITED STATES SENATE.

ON the first of March, 1860, Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, submitted to the Senate the following Resolutions:

1. Resolved, that in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the States adopting the same acted severally as free and independent sovereignties, delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised by the Federal Government for the increased security of each against dangers, domestic as well as foreign; and that any intermeddling by any one or more States, or by a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions of the others, on any pretext whatever, political, moral, or religious, with a view to their disturbance or subver sion, is in violation of the Constitution, insulting to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic peace and tranquillity-objects for which the Constitution was formed--and by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and destroy the Union itself. 2. Resolved, That negro Slavery, as it exists in fifteen States of this Union, composes an important portion of their domestic institutions, inherited from their ancestors, and existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which it is recognized as constituting an important element in the apportionment of powers among the States; and that no change of opinion or feeling on the part of the non-slaveholding States of the Union, in relation to this institution, can justify them, or their citizens, in open or covert attacks thereon, with a view to its overthrow; and that all such attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect and defend each other, given by the States respectively on entering into the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and are a manifest breach of faith, and a violation of the most solemn obligations.

3. Resolved, That the Union of these States rests on the equality of rights and privileges among its members; and that it is especially the duty of the Senate, which represents the States in their sovereign capacity, to resist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to persons or property in the Territories, which are the common possessions of the United States, so as to give advantages to the citizens of one State which are not equally assured to those of every other State.

4. Resolved, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly character, possess power to annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while the Territorial condition remains.

5. Resolved, That if experience should at any time prove that the judicial and executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory, and if the Territorial Government should fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency.

6. Resolved, That the inhabitants of a Territory of the United States, when they rightfully form a constitution to be admitted as a State into the Union, may then, for the first time, like the people of a State when forming a new Constitution, decide for themselves whether Slavery, as a domestic institution, shall be maintained or prohibited within their jurisdiction; and "they shall be received into the Union with or without Blavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission."

7. Resolved, That the provision of the Constitution for the rendition of fugitives from service or labor, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed, and that the laws of 1798 and 1850, which were enacted to secure its execution, and the main features of which, being similar, bear the impress of nearly seventy years of sanction by the highest judicial authority, should be honestly and faithfully observed and maintained by all who enjoy the benefits of our compact of Union; and that all acts of individuals or of State Legislatures to defeat the purpose or nullify the requirements of that provision, and the laws made in

| pursuance of it, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.

On the 8th May following, Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, addressed the Senate at length on these resolutions, maintaining the position that the Constitution does guarantee the right of holding slaves in the Territories of the United States, but that the enforcing of that right, by Congressional action, was inexpedient, and Would be of no practical value to the Slave States; also, that the South waived that right in agreeing to the Compromises of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act (repeal of the Missouri Compromise) of 1854. Mr. C. also reviewed the proceedings of the National Convention at Charleston, and concluded as follows:

Entertaining these views, I have been disposed to abstain as much as possible from the discussion of these questions, and I really hope that we shall not press them. I think no advantage can grow out of it. I greatly fear that I have occupied more of the valuable time of the Senate than I intended. I felt, however, that from me, in my position, some explanation was necessary. I think that the gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber have given us a platform already. We shall have to fight them; we had better make up our minds to go into the contest, and meet them on the reat issue they tender vs. In ten days, we shall probably have their declaration €“ war from Chicago, and the clash of arms will commence very soon. It is time for us to close our ranks. I am ready to fight under any flag and any standard-bearer that may be given us. I can adopt any of those platforms that were presented at Charleston. I leave all that to our political friends assembled in convention. I know that they will present a platform, and present a man less objectionable to me than the candidate on the other side. I regard them as the deadly political enemies of my section; as the enemies of the Constitution of the United States. I want to embark in the contest and fight them with closed and serried ranks on our side. I have spoken only in behalf of the Democratic party, of the Constitution, and the country.

MR. BENJAMIN ON POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.

Senator Benjamin, of Louisiana, followed: Mr. Benjamin.-Mr. President, I had no intention of joining in this debate, or of uttering one word on the resolutions now before the Senate; but, sir, I have listened with intense surprise to what has fallen from the Senator from North Carolina this morning, and I cannot remain quiescent and by silence appear to give consent to what he has said in relation to the action of certain Southern delegates in the recent Convention at Charleston.

The Senator from North Carolina thinks that political races can best be run without the load of principles. The Senator from North Carolina thinks that the best way to get success in a political contest is not to bother yourself with the baggage of principle, but let your candidate run with nothing on his back, anu probably in that way he may run the faster and reach the goal the sooner. And again, the honorable Senator thinks that, because the Cincinnati platform was acceptable to the whole Democracy in 1856, there is and can be no reason why Democrats who stood on that platform at that time should be dissatisfied with it now.

Mr. President, let us look a little back, behind 1856, in relation to that platform, and to the living issue on which we are separated as regards that platform. We all re member, sir-no man can forget that, in the exciting contest which took place on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, those who were the firmest supporters of the bill differed in principle on that one point which now threatens to divide the Democratic party. They differed openly; they avowed their differences; they provided for the final settlement of those differences. Sir, when we met in