the avowed opinions of Senators, as well as a proper sense of patriotic duty, enjoins upon your committee the propriety and necessity of a strict adherence to the principles, and even a literal adoption of the enactments of that adjustment in all their territorial bills, so far as the same are not locally inapplicable. Those enactments embrace, among other things, less material to the matters under consideration, the following provisions:

"When admitted as a State, the said Territory or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission."

"That the legislative power and authority of said Territory shall be vested in the governor and a legislative assembly."

"That the legislative power of said Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States; nor shall the lands or other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other property of residents."

"Writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said supreme court shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the circuit courts of the United States, where the value of the property or the amount in controversy, to be ascertained by the oath or affirmation of either party, or other competent witness, shall exceed one thousand dollars, except only that, in all cases involving title to slaves, the said writs of error or appeals shall be allowed and decided by the said supreme court, without regard to the value of the matter, property, or title in controversy; and except, also, that a writ of error or appeal shall also be allowed to the supreme court of the United States, from the decisions of the said supreme court created by this act, or of any judge thereof, or of the district courts created by this act, or of any judge thereof, upon any writ of habeas corpus involving the question of personal

freedom; and each of the said district courts shall have and exercise the same jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States as is vested in the circuit and district courts of the United States; and the said supreme and district courts of the said Territory, and the respective judges thereof, shall and may grant writs of habeas corpus in all cases in which the same are granted by the judges of the United States in the District of Columbia."

To which may be added the following proposition affirmed by the act of 1850, known as the fugitive slave law :

That the provisions of the "act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters," approved February 12, 1793, and the provisions of the "act to amend and supplementary to the aforesaid act, approved September 18, 1850, shall extend to, and be in force, in all the organized territories,' as well as in the various States of the Union.

From these provisions it is apparent that the compromise measures of 1850 affirm and rest upon the following propositions First: That all questions pertaining to slavery in the territories, and in the new States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the people residing therein, by their appropriate representatives, to be chosen by them for that purpose.

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Second: That "all cases involving title to slaves," and questions of personal freedom" are referred to the adjudication of the local tribunals, with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Third: That the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, in respect to fugitives from service, is to be carried into faithful execution in all "the organized territories" the same as in the States. The substitute for the bill which your committee have prepared, and which is commended to the favorable action of the Senate, proposes to carry these propositions and principles into practical operation, in the precise language of the compromise measures of 1850.-Senate Reports, 33 Cong., 1 Sess., Vol. I,, No. 15.

1854, JAN. 16. DIXON'S AMENDMENT.

SEC. 22. And be it further enacted, That so much of the 8th Section of an act approved March 6, 1820, entitled "An act to authorize the people of the Missouri Territory to form a Constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and to prohibit slavery in certain Territories," as declares, “That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be forever prohibited," shall not be so construed as to apply to the Territory contemplated by this act, or to any other Territory of the United States; but that the citizens of the several States and Territories shall be at liberty to take and hold their slaves within any of the Territories of the United States, or of the States to be formed therefrom, as if the said act, entitled as aforesaid, and approved as aforesaid, had never been passed.—Congressional Globe, Vol. XXVIII., 33 Cong., I Sess., Part I., p. 175 (Jan. 16, 1854).

1854, MAR. 2. CHASE'S AMENDMENT.

Mr. Chase moved to add to the 22d Section the words: "Under which, the people of the Territory, through their appropriate representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of Slavery therein."-Horace Greeley, American Conflict, I. 232.

1854, JAN. 19. APPEAL OF THE INDEPENDENT DEMOCRATS.

Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States.

SHALL SLAVERY BE PERMITTED IN NEBRASKA ?

WASHINGTON, January 19, 1854.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: As Senators and Representatives in the Congress of the United States, it is our duty to warn our constituents whenever imminent danger menaces the freedom of our institutions or the permanency of our Union.

Such danger, as we firmly believe, now impends, and we earnestly solicit your prompt attention to it.

At the last session of Congress, a bill for the organization of the Territory of Nebraska passed the House of Representatives with an overwhelming majority. That bill was based on the principle of excluding slavery from the new Territory. It was not taken up for consideration in the Senate, and consequently failed to become a law.

At the present session, a new Nebraska bill has been reported by the Senate Committee on Territories, which, should it unhappily receive the sanction of Congress, will open all the unorganized territory of the Union to the ingress of slavery.

We arraign this bill as a gross violation of a sacred pledge; s a criminal betrayal of precious rights; as part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region immigrants from the Old World, and free laborers from our own States, and convert it into a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves.

Take your maps, fellow-citizens, we entreat you, and see what country it is which this bill, gratuitously and recklessly, proposes to open to slavery.

From the southwestern corner of Missouri pursue the parallel of 36° 30' north latitude, westerly across the Ar kansas, across the north fork of Canadian to the northeastern

angle of Texas; then following the northern boundary of Texas, to the western limit of New Mexico; then proceed along that western line to its northern termination; then again turn westwardly, and follow the northern line of New Mexico to the crest of the Rocky Mountains; then ascend northwardly along the crest of that mountain range to the line which separates the United States from the British possessions in North America, on the 49th parallel of north latitude; then pursue your course eastwardly along that line to the White Earth river, which falls into the Missouri from the north. Descend that river to its confluence with the Missouri; descend the Missouri, along the western border of Minnesota, of Iowa, of Missouri, to the point where it ceases to be a boundary line, and enters the State to which it gives its name; then continue your southward course along the western limit of that State to the point from which you set out. You have now made the circuit of the proposed Territory of Nebraska. You have traversed the vast distance of more than three thousand miles. You have traced the outline of an area of four hundred and eighty-five thousand square miles; more than twelve times as great as that of Ohio.

This immense region, occupying the very heart of the North American Continent, and larger, by thirty-three thousand square miles, than all the existing free States, excluding California-this immense region, well watered and fertile, through which the middle and northern routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific must pass-this immense region, embracing all the unorganized territory of the nation, except the comparatively insignificent district of Indian territory north of Red river and between Arkansas and Texas, and now far more than thirty years regarded by the common consent of the American people as consecrated to freedom by statute and by compact-this immense region, the bill now before the Senate, without reason and without excuse, but in flagrant disregard of sound policy and sacred faith, purposes to open to slavery.

We beg your attention, fellow-citizens, to a few historical facts.

The original settled policy of the United States, clearly