New aspect of the slavery issue presented by the Mexican war. -Speeches by Southern members, Clingman, Stephens. Proslavery views of Northern members, Thompson, Brown. Effective speech of McDowell. Caucus of Southern members. - Address. Position of Northern members. — Eloquent speeches by Palfrey, Abraham Lincoln, Horace Mann, and James Wilson.

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THE Mexican war and its proposed result-the acquisition of territory to strengthen and extend the system of slavery— was a marked era in the history of the Slave Power. It inaugurated and gave the national indorsement to the new purpose of slavery extension. No longer content with the theory of simple conservation, for which they had hitherto so successfully and too logically pleaded the compromises of the Constitution, the slave-masters had succeeded in dragooning the government into the practical adoption of an entirely different, more dangerous, and more disgraceful policy. If it had not formally adopted Mr. Calhoun's newly discovered or newly invented theory, that the Constitution carried slavery wherever it went, it revealed the alarming fact that the nation was. on the high-road to such a conclusion. This war was not only an outrage upon Mexico, upon every principle of humanity and moral rectitude, but it was a public proclamation by the slaveholding oligarchy that it was its determination to commit the nation, unequivocally and irreparably, to its purposes and plans. There were not a few who comprehended the drift of things, and who took alarm, not so much at the extravagance of these claims as at the growing disposition of the nation to yield to them. Consequently the subject of slavery in the abstract was a topic of frequent discussion in the XXXth Congress. Its sinfulness, its wrongs, its deleterious influences, its power over the government and the people, were

perhaps more fully discussed in that than in any previous Congress.

Early in the first session, Mr. Clingman of North Carolina led off in a speech on both the moral and the political aspects of slavery. He had been somewhat distinguished for his moderation and candor. He had resisted the action of the South on the right of petition, as also the extreme views of nullification propounded by Mr. Calhoun and his followers. But his speech, which was very long, eloquent, and evidently well considered, showed him to be not only an advocate of slavery, and deeply imbittered against the Abolitionists, but fully impressed with the conviction of the inferiority of the negro race. He went largely into the history of slavery; contended that it was a normal, providential, and wisely arranged condition of the inferior races; and he revealed the fact, too, that even his moderation and defence of the right of petition had been mainly strategical, because he admitted that, by denying the right, they were preserving a rule which was of "no practical use in itself, so that we were losing ground," he said, " and the Abolitionists gaining thereby."

The Southern Whigs found, too, a voice for the expression. of their views in that of Alexander H. Stephens, who spoke near the close of the first session. Though his speech was brief, it presented, in vigorous language and compact form, the sentiments of those who, equally committed to slavery, were not quite prepared to adopt the extreme and violent course marked out by the administration. Its particular theme was the "Compromise bill," though he proposed to confine himself to the simple organization of Territorial governments in New Mexico and California. The speech embraced and elaborated the following propositions: the reference of the whole subject of slavery in those Territories to the judiciary; the fact that the Constitution protected slavery wherever it existed, but could not establish it where it did not exist; these territories being acquired from Mexico by conquest, all Mexiean laws existing at the time of the conquest not incompatible with the Constitution of the United States, and not abrogated by the treaty, were still in force; as slavery did not exist there

by Mexican law at the time of the conquest, the Supreme Court could not be expected to decide otherwise than that slavery did not so exist; therefore it was no compromise, but a surrender of Southern interests and rights, to leave the matter as thus proposed. It was a remarkable and providential fact, that so earnest an advocate of slavery as Mr. Stephens was then, and has ever proved himself to be, should have taken that view of the probable action of the Supreme Court. As that court was constituted, it was too evident that the interests of the slaveholders would have been safe in its hands.

During the next session he made another speech, insisting with new arguments against the injustice involved in the threatened acquisition of territory. Alluding to the violent discussions which had taken place upon the pending issues, he said they were all dwarfed by "the greater and graver question of sanctioning the outrages and aggressions upon the Constitution by which the acquisition of these Territories is to be consummated. . . The safeguards thrown around our institutions by the Constitution will be swept away. The instrument will be defunct. It will be a dead letter. It may preserve its form for a time, and the government, as a huge, inanimate monster, may also preserve its form for a time; but, he predicted, "its life, its spirit, its soul," that principle that looks toward and longs for immortality,- will be gone." There was no language too strong to express his disapprobation of the proposed policy, which he described as the lowest, the meanest, the most corrupting, the most despicable," and based on "the plea of the cheat, the knave, the thief, the highwayman, the brigand, and the lawless of every grade and character." Strengthening the affirmation by putting it in the form of a question, he challenged its defenders to show how they differed from the "detested pirate" who scours the seas. "If I believed," he said, "that all the extravagant stories we hear of the mines of California were true, which I do not, it would make no difference with me. If her soil were lined with gold, if it stood out in solid mountain piles, as high as her own Sierra Nevada, I should spurn the degrading temptation." He warned his Southern brethren

of the danger of partaking of what Mr. Calhoun himself had characterized as "forbidden fruit." He also referred to the imperfect treaty, concerning which, he said, there was "a clear misunderstanding between the parties" to it, as another reason for hesitation. He spoke of "the dying agonies of the administration" of Mr. Polk, and of his unwillingness to add a single "unnecessary pang."

On the 25th of January, Richard W. Thompson of Indiana addressed the House in a speech in which he represented "the conservatism and conciliatory " spirit of the Northern Whigs, though he expected, he said, the opposition of "the ultra men, both North and South." He defined his position by commenting upon the preamble and resolution of Mr. Gott to prohibit the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. The three points he specially condemned were the assertions in the preamble that the traffic was "contrary to natural justice and the fundamental principles of our political system"; that it was "notoriously a reproach to our country throughout Christendom" and that it was "a serious hindrance to the progress of republican liberty throughout the world." These seemingly obvious positions he questioned, elaborating his denials at great length. He attempted to prove that John Quincy Adams was opposed to the policy of the resolution. "As the acknowledged leader," he said, "of the party advocating the right of petition, he was enabled to exercise a most potent influence in staying the progress of fanaticism on the subject of slavery in the District and in the States. He did stay its progress, although it required the strength of a giant to arrest it. He put forth his arm and said to it, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther. He rebuked the incendiary spirit which would have sundered every link in the beautiful cycle of our Union; and its possessors, both in the North and in the South, shrank back before his lofty patriotism and scathing eloquence."

On the 3d of February, Charles Brown of Pennsylvania made an extreme and bitter proslavery speech, entitled "A Reply to Mr. Thompson." He began by saying that for the twenty years of his active political life he had always voted "against this whole Abolition agitation,- against every prop

osition calculated to interfere with the subject of slavery here or elsewhere." One of the points he sought to make against Mr. Thompson was his estimate of Mr. Adams's influence upon the slavery agitation. He contended, on the contrary, that" the old man eloquent" had given "his powerful aid to roll on, no matter who might be crushed by it, the ball of Abolition agitation." Asserting that the agitation was leading them "onward and downward," and that no one could predict where it would "end," he criticised very sharply a recent speech of Horace Mann, in which the latter had spoken of the "bowie-knife style of civilization" as obtaining at the South. But he sought to parry the charge by referring to the crimes which had been perpetrated in Massachusetts; and he asked what would be thought of the candor of a man who should hold them up as fair examples of the state of society in that small commonwealth. He opposed all such crimination and recrimination, and avowed that "the surest way of removing this unhappy state of feeling" was to vote down every proposition for agitation. He characterized "all attempts to raise the negro, politically or socially, to an equality with the white man" as "incendiary in their character and insulting to the South." Affirming that he knew of no "Southern encroachments," and alluding to the possible contingency of a civil war between the North and South, growing out of the continued aggressions of the former, he said: "I fear I would be on the side I do not fear, but I know I would be on the side of justice and right; and I mean by that that I would be with the South."

The remainder of the speech, which ran through the most of two days, was made up of equal parts of disparaging remarks against the slave and of laudation of his master, of severe objurgations against the "fanatical crusaders, who go forth, as of old, under the peaceful banner of the Cross, and with the specious object of doing God's service, to desolate and destroy a nation," and of gloomy presages of what must be the result if their purposes should be carried out.

In a very different strain was the speech made by Mr. McDowell of Virginia, near the close of the session. Leaving the