the leniency of its provisions. It is a law that deprives the alleged refugee from a legal obligation not assumed by him, but imposed upon him by laws enacted before he was born, of the writ of habeas corpus, and of any certain judicial process of examination of the claim set up by his pursuer, and finally degrades him into a chattel which may be seized and carried away peaceably wherever found, even although exercising the rights and responsibilities of a free citizen of the commonwealth in which he resides, and of the United States-a law which denies to the citizen all the safeguards of personal liberty, to render less frequent the escape of the bondman. And since complaints are so freely made against the one side, I shall not hesitate to declare that there have been even greater faults on the other side. Relying on the perversion of the Constitution, which makes slaves mere chattels, the slave states have applied to them the principles of the criminal law, and have held that he who aided the escape of his fellow-man from bondage was guilty of a larceny in stealing him. I speak of what I know. Two instances came within my own knowledge, in which governors of slave states, under the provision of the Constitution relating to fugitives from justice, demanded from the governor of a free state the surrender of persons as thieves whose alleged offences consisted in constructive larceny of the rags that covered the persons of female slaves, whose attempt at escape they had permitted or assisted.

We deem the principle of the law for the recapture of fugitives, as thus expounded, therefore, unjust, unconstitutional, and immoral; and thus, while patriotism withholds its approbation, the consciences of our people condemn it.

You will say that these convictions of ours are disloyal. Grant it for the sake of argument. They are, nevertheless, honest; and the law is to be executed among us, not among you; not by us, but by the federal authority. Has any government ever succeeded in changing the moral convictions of its subjects by force? But these convictions imply no disloyalty. We reverence the Constitution, although we perceive this defect, just as we acknowledge the splendor and the power of the sun, although its surface is tarnished with here and there an opaque spot.

Your constitution and laws convert hospitality to the refugee from the most degrading oppression on earth into a crime, but all mankind except you esteem that hospitality a virtue. The

It

right of extradition of a fugitive from justice is not admitted by the law of nature and of nations, but rests in voluntary compacts. I know of only two compacts found in diplomatic history that admitted EXTRADITION OF SLAVES. Here is one of them. is found in a treaty of peace made between Alexander, Comnenus, and Leontine, Greek Emperors at Constantinople, and Oleg, King of Russia, in the year 902, and is in these words:

"If a Russian slave take flight, or even if he is carried away by any one, under pretence of having been bought, his master shall have the right and power to pursue him, and hunt for and capture him wherever he shall be found; and any person who shall oppose the master in the execution of this right, shall be deemed guilty of violating this treaty, and be punished accordingly."

This was in the year of Grace, 902, in the period called the "Dark Ages," and the contracting powers were despotisms. And here is the other:

"No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor is due."

This is from the Constitution of the United States in 1787, and the parties were the republican states of this Union. The law of nations disavows such compacts; the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, repudiates them. Armed power could not enforce them, because there is no public conscience to sustain them. I know that there are laws of various sorts which regulate the conduct of men. There are constitutions and statutes, codes mercantile and codes civil; but when we are legislating for states, especially when we are founding states, all these laws must be brought to the standard of the laws of God, and must be tried by that standard, and must stand or fall by it. This principle was happily explained by one of the most distinguished political philosophers of England in these emphatic words:

"There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law; the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, the law of nature and of nations. So far as any laws fortify this primeval law, and give it more precision, more energy, more effect by their declarations, such laws enter into the sanctuary and participate in the sacredness of its character; but the man who quotes as precedents the abuses of tyrants and robbers, pollutes the very fountains of justice, destroys the foundations of all law, and therefore removes the only safeguard against evil men, whether governors or governed; the guard which prevents governors from becoming tyrants, and the governed from becoming rebels."

There was deep philosophy in the confession of an eminent English judge. When he had condemned a young woman to

death, under the late sanguinary code of his country, for her first petty theft, she fell down dead at his feet. "I seem to myself," said he, "to have been pronouncing sentence, not against the prisoner, but against the law itself."

To conclude on this point. We are not slaveholders. We cannot, in our judgment, be either true Christians or real freemen, if we impose on another a chain that we defy all human power to fasten on ourselves. You believe and think otherwise, and doubtless with equal sincerity. We judge you not, and He alone who ordained the conscience of man and its laws of action can judge us. Do we, then, in this conflict of opinion, demand of you an unreasonable thing in asking that, since you will have property that can and will exercise human powers to effect its escape, you shall be your own police, and in acting among us as such you shall conform to principles indispensable to the security of admitted rights of freemen? If you will have this law executed, you must alleviate, not increase, its rigors.

Another feature in most of these plans of compromise is a bill of peace for slavery in the District of Columbia; and this bill of peace we cannot grant. We of the free states are, equally with you of the slaves states, responsible for the existence of slavery in this district, the field exclusively of our common legislation. I regret that, as yet, I see little reason to hope that a majority in favor of emancipation exists here. The legislature of New York, from whom, with great deference, I dissent, seems willing to accept now the extinction of the slave trade, and waive emancipation. But we shall assume the whole responsibility if we stipulate not to exercise the power hereafter when a majority shall be obtained. Nor will the plea with which you would furnish us be of any avail. If I could understand so mysterious a paradox myself, I never should be able to explain to the apprehension of the people whom I represent, how it was that an absolute and express power to legislate in all cases over the District of Columbia was embarrassed and defeated by an implied condition not to legislate for the abolition of slavery in this district. Sir, I shall vote for that measure, and am willing to appropriate any means necessary to carry it into execution. And, if I shall be asked what I did to embellish the capital of my country, I will point to her freedmen, and say, These are the monuments of my munificence!

If I was willing to advance a cause that I deem sacred by disin

genuous means, I would advise you to adopt those means of compromise which I have thus examined. The echo is not quicker in its response than would be that loud and universal cry of repeal, that would not die away until the habeas corpus was secured to the alleged fugitive from bondage, and the symmetry of the free institutions of the capital was perfected.

I apply the same observations to the proposition for a waiver of the proviso of freedom in territorial charters. Thus far you have only direct popular action in favor of that ordinance, and there seems even to be a partial disposition to await the action of the people of the new territories, as we have compulsorily waited for it in California. But I must tell you, nevertheless, in candor and in plainness, that the spirit of the people of the free states is set upon a spring that rises with the pressure put upon it. That spring, if pressed too hard, will give a recoil that will not leave here one servant who knew his master's will, and did it not.

You will say that this implies violence. Not at all. It implies only peaceful, lawful, constitutional, customary action. I cannot too strongly express my surprise that those who insist that the people of the slave states cannot be held back from remedies outside of the Constitution, should so far misunderstand us of the free states as to suppose we would not exercise our constitutional rights to sustain the policy which we deem just and beneficent.

I come now to notice the suggested compromise of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico. This is a judicial question in its nature, or at least a question of legal right and title. If it is to be compromised at all, it is due to the two parties, and to national dignity as well as to justice, that it be kept separate from compromises proceeding on the ground of expediency, and be settled by itself alone.

I take this occasion to say, that while I do not intend to discuss the questions alluded to in this connection by the honorable and distinguished senator from Massachusetts, I am not able to agree with him in regard to the alleged obligation of Congress to admit four new slave states, to be formed in the state of Texas. There are several questions arising out of that subject, upon which I am not prepared to decide now, and which I desire to reserve for future consideration. One of these is, whether the article of annexation does really deprive Congress of the right to exercise its choice in regard to the sub-division of Texas into four additional

states. It seems to me by no means so plain a question as the senator from Massachusetts assumed, and that it must be left to remain an open question, as it is a great question, whether Congress is not a party whose future consent is necessary to the formation of new states out of Texas.

Mr. WEBSTER. Supposing Congress to have the authority to fix the number, and time of election, and apportionment of representatives, &c., the question is, whether, if new states are formed out of Texas, to come into this Union, there is not a solemn pledge by law that they have a right to come in as slave states?

Mr. SEWARD. When the states are once formed, they have the right to come in as free or slave states, according to their own choice; but what I insist is, that they cannot be formed at all without the consent of Congress, to be hereafter given, which consent Congress is not obliged to give. But I pass that question for the present, and proceed to say that I am not prepared to admit that the article of the annexation of Texas is itself constitutional. I find no authority in the Constitution of the United States for the annexation of foreign countries by a resolution of Congress, and no power adequate to that purpose but the treaty-making power of the President and the Senate. Entertaining this view, I must insist that the constitutionality of the annexation of Texas itself shall be cleared up before I can agree to the admission of any new states to be formed within Texas.

Mr. FOOTE. Did not I hear the senator observe that he would admit California, whether slavery was or was not precluded from these territories?

Mr. SEWARD. I said I would have voted for the admission of California even as a slave state, under the extraordinary circumstances which I have before distinctly described. I say that now; but I say also, that before I would agree to admit any more states from Texas, the circumstances which render such an act necessary must be shown, and must be such as to determine my obligation to do so; and that is precisely what I insist cannot be settled now. It must be left for those to whom the responsibility will belong.

Mr. President, I understand, and I am happy in understanding, that I agree with the honorable senator from Massachusetts, that there is no obligation upon Congress to admit four new slave states out of Texas, but that Congress has reserved her right to say whether those states shall be formed and admitted or not. I