not willing to leave the decision of the question to a court, so large a portion of which were opposed to slavery.

MR. DIX defended the State of New York against the charge of refusing to surrender fugitives from justice, claimed under requisition from the State of Virginia. He alleged that this was not the act of the State, but of the governor. He read the resolutions adopted by the legislature, of which he was a member, which condemned the course of the governor.

The bill was adopted in the Senate on July 26 by a vote of 33 to 22. It then went to the House, where, on motion of Alexander H. Stephens [Ga.] it was laid on the table by a vote of 112 to 97, 8 Southern Whigs and 31 Northern Democrats voting with all the Northern Whigs in the affirmative. The charge was made by some of the Democrats that these Southern Whigs were acting in the interest rather of their party than of their section, but this Mr. Stephens repelled, saying that the Supreme Court, to whom the bill left the decision, was certain to pronounce against the claim that slavery was allowable in the Territories solely by virtue of the Constitution; he cited many opinions of the Court,1 showing that it had repeatedly upheld this view, namely, that "the Constitution recognizes and guarantees slavery wherever it exists by local law, but establishes it nowhere where it is prohibited by law."

In lieu of the bill Stephens urged that the Southern Representatives refuse to make any appropriations for carrying out the treaty with Mexico until the rights of the South in regard to taking their slaves into the Territories had been secured.

The House having tabled the Senate bill proceeded to organize a territorial government for Oregon alone. A bill to this effect incorporating the prohibition of slavery as set forth in the Ordinance of 1787 was passed on August 2, 1848, by a vote of 129 to 71.

On August 3 the House bill came before the Senate. It was debated until August 10, when it was passed with an amendment offered by Stephen A. Douglas [Ill.],

1 Wheaton's Rep., VIII, p. 589; XII, pp. 528-535; Peters' Rep., I, pp. 517, 542, 544, VI, p. 712; VII, pp. 86, 87; VIII, pp. 444, 465; IX, pp. 133, 736, 747-749; X, pp. 305, 330, 721, 732; XII, p. 412.

by a vote of 33 to 21. On the following day the House refused to concur in the amendment, and the Senate, on August 12, accepted the House bill intact by a vote of 29 to 25. The reason for this acceptance was the nomination at Buffalo, N. Y., on August 9 of Free Soil candidates for President and Vice-President, Martin Van Buren [N. Y.] and Charles Francis Adams [Mass.] pledged against the extension of slavery into any of the Territories, California and New Mexico, as well as into Oregon. The Liberty party was now

merged with the Free Soil party.

On the debates in the Senate the following were the chief speakers: pro-slavery, James M. Mason [Va.], Andrew P. Butler [S. C.], John C. Calhoun [S. C.], John Bell [Tenn.], General Samuel Houston [Tex.] and W. Johnson [Ga.]; anti-slavery, William L. Dayton [N. J.], Daniel Webster [Mass.] and John M. Niles [Conn.].

THE OREGON BILL

SENATE, AUGUST 3-12, 1848

SENATOR MASON attributed to the committee the design to evade the slavery question. He referred to the convention about to be assembled at Buffalo, for the choice of a standardbearer. But one god was to be worshiped there, and that god was power-the power to trample down the Constitution of the country. He referred to the recent decision of Virginia not to regard any law of the United States which should prevent her citizens from carrying their slaves into any of the Territories. He and his constituents were willing to be bound by the principle of the compromise, but it was not to be expected that they would go one single step beyond it. It would be to expect them to submit to insult.

SENATOR DAYTON replied, to the threats held out by the Senator from Virginia, that if she was to be forced another step, she would proclaim nullification. He repudiated for the Whig party this question as the great issue to be tried at the coming election. The questions of free soil and slavery were not the great questions of the Whig party. They constituted too narrow a ledge for that party to stand on. Nor would it be generally understood that this was the great issue with the Democratic party.

SENATOR WEBSTER said that his objection to slavery was irrespective of lines and points of latitude; it took in the whole country, and the whole question. He was opposed to it in every shape, and in every qualification, and was against any compromise of the question.

As to California and New Mexico, he said it was easy to foresee to what the acquisition of this territory would lead. He congratulated himself that he had taken no part in the late war, except to oppose its commencement with all his might, and at the close to oppose the treaty with all his might. He believed the war itself to be a calamity, and he greatly feared that the treaty would turn out to be the most permanent calamity.

SENATOR BUTLER disapproved of this policy of giving especial protection to the Territories north of the Missouri line of compromise, and giving to the North all that valuable portion of the Union. The resolutions of the State of Virginia, which were referred to the other day by a Senator from that State [Mr. Mason], had been responded to by all the Southern States of the Union. He would tell the Senate that his advice to his constituents would be to go to these new Territories with arms in their hands; to go as armed communities and take possession of the lands which they had helped to acquire and see who would attempt to dispossess them. Would the military force of the United States shoot down the plowman at his plow? So help him God, he would so advise his constituents, to take with them their property there, and settle at all hazards. The subtleties and sophisms of the laws of nations would be feeble barriers to the spirit which would show itself in the South. Times and circumstances had changed the character of this bill for the establishment of a Territory in Oregon from what it was two years ago. Then it was comparatively innocent; now he regarded it as a masked battery, from behind which the institutions of the South were to be assailed with a firm determination to subdue them. The South would not fear a contest. She was ready to meet her opponents in a fair and open manner, but she would rise indignant against these covert attacks. He was ready to embark in the boat with his State, and to trust it to the care of Heaven.

SENATOR CALHOUN referred to the insurrection of the slaves in the West India Islands; and the same spirit, though suppressed, exists here. He dreaded the result which would follow if the same spirit which now animated the North should continue to grow and spread. He referred to the positions taken by the South and the North on the slave question. The latter

had been unable to meet the arguments of the Southern Senators, and turned out of the direct course to discuss the question of the extension of territory, which was not connected with the subject, and was not advocated by a single Representative from his State. He would now tell the people of the South that they

[1848]

From the collection of the New York Historical Society

can never settle this question until they take it into their own hands. He admitted that the South was poor in comparison with the North. Slavery had benefited all mankind-all countries but the South. Slavery, like the waters of the Nile, had spread its fertilizing influence over all the world. It had benefited all but the Southern planter, who had been the tutor, the friend, as well as the master, of the slave, and had raised him up to civilization.

SENATOR NILES said that the movement of the North was forced upon them by the Southern attempt to mix up this slavery question with the politics of the country. It had been given out by the South that no candidate for the Presidency should be supported there who did not pledge himself against the Wilmot proviso. Now, when this course was taken it was incumbent on the North to make a counteracting movement.

SENATOR BUTLER said the South did not take this course until ten of the Northern States had pledged themselves in an opposite manner.

SENATOR NILES admitted that this was true. But here was the distinction: the Northern States merely asserted their opinions as a principle, while the South follow up their pledge by an awful threat of nullification if their wishes are not complied with.

SENATOR WEBSTER said that he had been among the earliest to oppose acquisition of foreign territory. He referred to the maxim of Lord Bacon-that the best way to avoid any domestic disputes or difficulties was to avoid the occasion for them; and said that, in accordance with this maxim, he [Mr. W.] had always opposed the acquisition of foreign territory. There were wiser heads than Lord Bacon's now. There are persons who will provoke occasions, or certainly will meet them, and adopt circumstances as they may arise. He enumerated the difficulties in which this acquisition of territory had plunged us. He was not apprehensive of any disunion. He never contemplated its possibility. He was not one of those who accustom themselves to speak of such a contingency. An earthquake may come, a volcano may burst forth; but human foresight can do nothing to prevent such calamities. So the dissolution of the Union is among those possible calamities. He believed there was a disposition everywhere to support the Union, and that five out of six of our citizens would be glad to give back the new Territories we have acquired.

SENATOR JOHNSON said that the South honestly held the opinion that Congress has no power to prohibit slavery. He