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GEN. CASS ON POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.

LETTER TO A. O, P. NICHOLSON.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 24, 1847. DEAR SIR: I have received your letter, and shall answer it as frankly as it is written.

You ask me whether I am in favor of the acquisition of Mexican territory, and what are my sentiments with regard to the Wilmot Proviso..

I have so often and so explicitly stated my views of the first question, in the Senate, that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat them here. As you request it, however, I shall briefly give them.

I think, then, that no peace should be granted to Mexico, till a reasonable indemnity is obtained for the injuries which she has done us. The territorial extent of this indemnity is, in the first instance, a subject of Executive consideration. There the Constitution has placed t, and there I am willing to leave it; not only because I lave full confidence in its judicious exercise, but because, n the ever-varying circumstances of a war, it would be ndiscreet, by a public declaration, to commit the country to any line of indemnity, which might otherwise be enlarged, as the obstinate injustice of the enemy prolongs the contest with its loss of blood and treasure.

It appears to me, that the kind of metaphysical magnanimity which would reject all indemnity at the close of a bloody and expensive war, brought on by a direct attack upon our troops by the enemy, and preceded by a succession of unjust acts for a series of years, is as unworthy of the age in which we live, as it is revolting to the common sense and practice of mankind. It would conduce but little to our future security, or, indeed to our present reputation, to declare that we repudiate all expectation of compensation from the Mexican Government, and are fighting, not for any practical result, but for some vague, perhaps philanthropic object, which escapes my penetration, and must be defined by those who assume this new principle of national intercommunication. All wars are to be deprecated, as well by the statesman as by the philanthropist. They are great evils; but there are greater evils than these, and submission to injustice is among them. The nation which should refuse to defend its rights and its honor when assailed, would soon have neither to defend; and, when driven to war, it is not by professions of disinterestedness and declarations of magnanimity that its rational objects can be best obtained, or other nations taught a lesson of forbearance-the strongest security for permanent peace We are at war with Mexico, and its vigorous prosecution is the surest means of its speedy termination, and ample indemnity the surest guaranty against the recurrence of such injustice as provoked it.

cal institutions, if I may so speak, whether they have reference to Slavery or to any other relations, domestic or public, are left to local authority, either original or derivative. Congress has no right to say there shall be Slavery in New-York, or that there shall be no Slavery in Georgia; nor is there any other human power, but the people of those States, respectively, which can change the relations existing therein; and they can say, if they will, we will have Slavery in the former, and we will abolish it in the latter.

In various respects, the Territories differ from the States. Some of their rights are inchoate, and they do not possess the peculiar attributes of sovereignty. Their relation to the General Government is very imperfectly defined by the Constitution; and it will be found, upon examination, that in that instrument the only grant of power concerning them is conveyed in the phrase, "Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property belonging to the United States." Certainly this phraseology is very loose, if it were designed to include in the grant the whole power of legislation over persons, as well as things. The expression, the "territory and other property," fairly construed, relates to the public lands, as such; to arsenals, dockyards, forts, ships, and all the various kinds of property which the United States may and must possess.

But surely the simple authority to dispose of and regu late these does not extend to the unlimited power of legislation; to the passage of all laws, in the most general acceptation of the word, which, by the by, is carefully excluded from the sentence. And, indeed, if this were so, it would render unnecessary another provision of the Constitution, which grants to Congress the power to legislate, with the consent of the States, respectively, over all places purchased for the "erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards," etc. These being the "property" of the United States, if the power to make "needful rules and regulations concerning" them includes the general power of legislation, then the grant of authority to regulate" the territory and other property of the United States " is unlimited, wherever subjects are found for its operation, and its exercise needed no auxiliary provision. If, on the other hand, it does not include such power of legislation over the "other property" of the United States, then it does not include it over their "territory;" for the same terms which grant the one grant the other. "Territory" is here classed with property, and treated as such; and the object was evidently to enable the General Government, as a property-holder-which, from necessity, it must be-to manage, preserve and "dispose of" such property as it might possess, and which authority is essential almost The Wilmot Proviso has been before the country some to its being. But the lives and persons of our citizens, time. It has been repeatedly discussed in Congress and with the vast variety of objects connected with them, canby the public press. I am strongly impressed with the not be controlled by an authority which is merely called opinion, that a great change has been going on in the into existence for the purpose of making rules and regu public mind upon this subject, in my own as well as oth-lations for the disposition and management of proers; and that doubts are resolving themselves into convictions, that the principle it involves should be kept out of the National Legislature, and left to the people of the confederacy in their respective local governments.

The whole subject is a comprehensive one, and fruitful of important consequences. It would be ill-timed to discuss it here. I shall not assume that responsible task, but shall confine myself to such general views as are necessary to the fair exhibition of my opinion.

We may well regret the existence of Slavery in the Southern States, and wish they had been saved from its introduction. But there it is, not by the act of the present generation; and we must deal with it as a great practical question, involving the most momentous consequences. We have neither the right nor the power to touch it where it exists; and if we had both, their exercise, by any means heretofore suggested, might lead to results which no wise man would willingly encounter, and which no good man could contemplate without anxiety.

The theory of our Government presupposes that its various members have reserved to themselves the regulation of all subjects relating to what may be termed their inter nal police. They are sovereign within their boundaries, except in those cases where they have surrendered to the General Government a portion of their rights, in order to give effect to the objects of the Union, whether these conceru foreign nations or the several States themselves. Lo

perty.

Such, it appears to me, would be the construction put upon this provision of the Constitution, were this question now first presented for consideration, and not controlled by imperious circumstances. The original ordinance of the Congress of the Confederation, passed in 1787, and which was the only act upon this subject in force at the adoption of the Constitution, provided a complete frame of government for the country north of the Ohio, while in a territorial condition, and for its eventual admission in separate States into the Union. And the persuasion that this ordinance contained within itself all the necessary means of execution, probably prevented any direct reference to the subject in the Constitution, further than vesting in Congress the right to admit the States formed under it into the Union. However, circumstances arose, which required legislation, as well over the territory north of the Ohio, as over other territory, both within and without the original Union, ceded to the General Government, and, at various times, a more enlarged power has been exercised over the Territories-meaning thereby the different Territorial Governments than is conveyed by the limited grant referred to. How far an existing necessity may have operated in producing this legislation, and thus extending, by rather a violent implication, powers not directly given, I know not. tain it is that the principle of interference should not be

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carried beyond the necessary implication, which produces 5 But after all, it seems to be generally conceded that it. It should be limited to the creation of proper this restriction, if carried into effect could, not operate governments for new countries, acquired or settled, and upon any State to be formed from newly-acquired territo the necessary provisions for their eventual admission tory. The well-known attributes of Sovereignty, recoginto the Union; leaving, in the meantime, to the people, nized by us as belonging to the State Governments, inhabiting them, to regulate their internal concerns in would sweep before them any such barrier, and would their own way. They are just as capable of doing so as leave the people to express and exert their will at pleathe people of the States; and they can do so, at any rate sure. Is the object, then, of temporary exclusion as soon as their political independence is recognized by for so short a period as the duration of the Territorial admission into the Union. During this temporary condi- Governments, worth the price at which it would be tion, it is hardly expedient to call into exercise a doubt-purchased?-worth the discord it would engender, the ful and invidious authority which questions the intelli- trial to which it would expose our Union, and the evils gence of a respectable portion of our citizens, and whose that would be the certain consequence, let the trial relimitation, whatever it may be, will be rapidly approach sult as it might? As to the course, which has been intiing its termination-an authority which would give to mated, rather than proposed, of ingrafting such a restricCongress despotic power, uncontrolled by the Constitution upon any treaty of acquisition, I persuade myself it tion, over most important sections of our common would find but little favor in any portion of this country. country. For, if the relation of master and servant may Such an arrangement would render Mexico a party, be regulated or annihilated by its legislation, so may the having a right to interfere in our internal institutions in regulation of husband and wife, of parent and child, and questions left by the Constitution to the State Governof any other condition which our institutions and the ments, and would inflict a serious blow upon our fundahabits of our society recognize. What would be thought mental principles. Few, indeed, I trust, there are among if Congress should undertake to prescribe the terms of us who would thus grant to a foreign power the right to marriage in New York, or to regulate the authority of inquire into the constitution and conduct of the soverparents over their children in Pennsylvania? And yet eign States of this Union; and if there are any, I am not, it would be as vain to seek one justifying the inter- among them, nor never shall be. To the people of this ference of the national legislature in the cases referred to country, under God, now and hereafter, are its destinies in the original States of the Union. I speak here of the committed; and we want no foreign power to interro inherent power of Congress, and do not touch the ques-gate us, treaty in hand, and to say, Why have you done tion of such contracts as may be formed with new States this, or why have you left that undone? Our own dig when admitted into the confederacy. nity and the principles of national independence unite to repel such a proposition."

Of all the questions which can agitate us, those which are merely sectional in their character are the most But there is another important consideration, which dangerous, and the most to be deprecated. The warning ought not to be lost sight of, in the investigation of this voice of him who from his character and services and subject. The question that presents itself is not a quesvirtue had the best right to warn us, proclaimed to his tion of the increase, but of the diffusion of Slavery. countrymen, in his Farewell Address-that monument of Whether its sphere be stationary or progressive, its wisdom for him, as I hope it will be of safety for them- amount will be the same. The rejection of this restrichow much we had to apprehend from measures peculiarly tion will not add one to the class of servitude, nor will affecting geographical sections of our country. The its adoption give freedom to a single being who is now grave circumstances in which we are now placed make placed therein. The same numbers will be spread over these words words of safety; for I am satisfied, from all greater territory; and, so far as compression, with less I have seen and heard here, that a successful attempt to abundance of the necessaries of life, is an evil, so far ingraft the principles of the Wilmot Proviso upon the le- will that evil be mitigated by transporting slaves to a islation of this Government, and to apply them to new new country, and giving them a larger space to occupy. territory, should new territory be acquired, would seri- I say this in the event of the extension of Slavery over ously affect our tranquillity. I do not suffer myself to any new acquisition. But can it go there? This may well foresee or foretell the consequences that would ensue; be doubted. All the descriptions which reach us of the confor I trust and believe there is good sense and good feel-dition of the Californias and of New-Mexico, to the acquiing enough in the country to avoid them, by avoiding all sition of which our efforts seem to be at present directed, occasions which might lead to them. unite in representing those countries as agricultural regions, similar in their products to our Middle States, and generally unfit for the production of the great staples which can alone render slave labor valuable. If we are not grossly deceived-and it is difficult to conceive how we can bethe inhabitants of those regions, whether they depend up on their plows or their herds, cannot be slaveholders. In voluntary labor, requiring the investment of large capital, can only be profitable when employed in the production of a few favored articles confined by nature to special districts, and paying larger returns than the usual agricultural products spread over more considerable portions of the earth.

Briefly, then, I am opposed to the exercise of any jurisdiction by Congress over this matter; and I am in favor of leaving to the people of any Territory, which may be hereafter acquired, the right to regulate it for themselves, under the general principles of the Constitution. Because

1. I do not see in the Constitution any grant of the requisite power to Congress; and I am not disposed to extend a doubtful precedent beyond its necessity-the establishment of Territorial Governments when needed -leaving to the inhabitants all the rights compatible with the relations they bear to the confederation.

2. Because I believe this measure, if adopted, would weaken, if not impair, the. Union of the States; and would sow the seeds of future discord, which would grow up and ripen into an abundant harvest of calamity.

3. Because I believe a general conviction that such a proposition would succeed, would lead to an immediate withholding of the supplies, and thus to a dishonorable termination of the war. I think no dispassionate observer at the seat of Government can doubt this result.

4. If, however, in this I am under a misapprehension, I am under none in the practical opera ion of this restriction, if adopted by Congress, upon a treaty of peace, making any acquisition of Mexican Territory. Such a treaty would be rejected as certainly as presented to the Senate. More than one-third of that body would vote against it, viewing such a principle as an exclusion of the citizens of the slaveholding States from a participation in the benefits acquired by the treasure and exertions of all, and which should be common to all. I am repeating-neither advancing nor defending these views. That branch of the subject does not lie in my way, and I shall not turn aside to seek it.

In this aspect of the matter, the people of the United States must choose between this restriction and the extension of their territorial limits. They cannot have both; and which they will surrender must depend upon their representatives first, and then, if these fail them, upon themselves.

In the able letter of Mr. Buchanan upon this subject, not long since given to the public, he presents similar considerations with great force. "Neither," says the distinguished writer, "the soil, the climate, nor the productions of California, south of 36° 30', nor indeed of any portion of it, North or South, is adapted to slave labor; and beside every facility would be there afforded for the slave to escape from his master. Such property would be entirely insecure in any part of California. It is morally impossible, therefore, that a majority of the emigrants to that portion of the Territory south of 36° 30', which will be chiefly composed of our citizens, will ever reëstablish Slavery within its limits.

"In regard to New-Mexico, east of the Rio Grande, the question has already been settled by the admission of Texas into the Union.

"Should we acquire territory beyond the Rio Grande and east of the Rocky Mountains, it is still more impossible that a majority of the people would consent to reëstablish Slavery. They are themselves a colored population, and among them the negro does not belong socially to a degraded race."

With this last remark, Mr. Walker fully coincides in his letter written in 1844, upon the annexation of Texas, and which everywhere produced so favorable an impression upon the public mind, as to have conduced very materially to the accomplishment of that great measure. “Beyond the Del Norte," says Mr. Walker, "Slavery will not pass; not only because it is forbidden by law, but be cause the colored race there preponderates in the ratic

MR. VAN BUREN ON SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES.

of ten to one over the whites; and holding, as they do, the government and most of the offices in their possession, they will not permit the enslavement of any portion of the colored race, which makes and executes the laws of the country.'

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The question, it will be therefore seen on examination, does not regard the exclusion of Slavery from a region where it now exists, but a prohibition against its introduction where it does not exist, and where, from the feelings of the inhabitants and the laws of nature, "it is morally impossible," as Mr. Buchanan says, that it can ever reëstablish itself.

It augurs well for the permanence of our confederation that during more than half a century, which has elapsed since the establishment of this government, many serious questions, and some of the highest importance, have agitated the public mind, and more than once threatened the gravest consequences; but that they have all in succession passed away, leaving our institutions unscathed, and our country advancing in numbers, power, and wealth, and in all the other elements of ational prosperity, with a rapidity unknown in ancient

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or modern days In times of political excitement, when difficult and delicate questions present themselves for solution, there is one ark of safety for us; and that is an honest appeal to the fundamental princ ples of our Union, and a stern determination to abide their dictates. This course f proceeding has carried us in safety through many a trouble; and I trust will carry us safely through many more, should many more be destined to assail us. The Wilmot Proviso seeks to take from its leg timate tribunal a question of domestic policy, having no relation to the Union, as such, and to transfer it to another, created by the people for a special purpose, and foreign to the subject matter involved in this issue. By going back to our true principles, we go back to the road of peace and safety. Leave to the people, who will be af fected by this question, to adjust it upon their own responsibility, and in their own manner, and we shall render another t ibute to the original principles of our Government, and furnish another guaranty of its permanence and prosperity. I am, dear sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, LEWIS CASS. A. O. P. NICHOLSON, Esq., Nashville, Tenn.

MR. VAN BUREN ON SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES.

THE following letter was addressd to the New York City Delegates to the Utica Free Soil Convention, of 1848, in response to a letter to Martin Van Buren, asking his opinion on the subject herein discussed:

GENTLEMEN :

LINDENWOLD, June 20, 1848. You desire also my views in regard to the prohibition by Congress of Slavery in territories where it does not now exist, and they shall be given in a few words, and in a manner which will not, I hope, increase, if it does not diminish the existing excitement in the public mind.

The illustrious founders of our Government were not insensible to the apparent inconsistency between the perpetuation of Slavery in the United States, and the principles of the Revolution, as delineated in the Declaration of Independence; and they were too ingenuous in their dispositions to attempt to conceal the impressions by which they were embarrassed. But they knew, also, that its speedy abolition in several of the States, was impossible, and its existence in all, without fault on the part of the present-generation. They were also too upright and the fraternal feelings which had carried them through the struggle for independence were too strong to permit them to deal with such a matter upon any other principles than those of liberality and justice. The policy they adopted was to guarantee to the States in which Slavery existed, an exclusive control over the subject within their respective jurisdictions, but to prevent by united efforts, its extension to territories of the United States in which it did not in fact exist.

On all sides te most expedient means to carry out this policy were adopted with alacrity and good feeling. Their first step was to interdict the introduction of Slavery into the Northwestern Territory, now covered by the States of Ohio, Indiana, Ilinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. This may justly be regarded, as being in the main, a Southern measure. The subject was first brought forward in Congress by Mr. Jeffers n. Virginia made the cession of territory upon which the ordinance was intended to operate, and the Representatives from all the slaveholding States gave it a unanimous support. Doubts have arisen in the minds of some whether the ordinance of 1787 was authorized by the articles of Confederation. A bill was introduced in the new Constitution, recognizing and adapting it to the new organization and it has ever since been treated and regarded as a valid act. This bill received the Constitutional approbation of President Washington, whose highest and sworn duty it was to support the Constitution under which it was enacted. Nor was the North backward in doing its part to sustain the policy which had been wisely adopted. They assented to the insertion of provisions in the Constitution necessary and sufficient to protect that interest in the States, and they did more.

The trouble apprehended at the commencement of the Government from this source, began to show itself as early as the year 1790, in the form of Petitions presented to Congress upon the subject of Slavery and the slave

trade by the Quakers of Philadelphia and New-York, and by Dr. Franklin as President of a society for the promotion of Abolition. These petitions were in the House of Representatives, referred to a Committee of seven, all but one of whom were Northern members, whose report as amended in Committee of the Whole, affirmed that Congress have no power to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them within any of the States, it remaining with the several States alone to provide any regulation therein which humanity and true policy might require."

The perseverance and good faith with which both branches of policy thus adopted have, until very recently, been recognized and carried out, are highly honorable to the whole country. The peculiarity of the subject to be converted into an element of political agitation, as well in the slaveholding as in the non-slaveholding States, may have led to occasional attempts so to employ it, but these efforts have been very successfully frustrated by the good sense and good feeling of the people in every quarter of the Union. A detailed account of the numerous acts of the Federal Government, sustaining and carrying into full effect the policy of its founders upon the subject of Slavery in the States, and its extension to the Territories, and the steps ken, in the non-slaveholding States, to suppress or neutralize undue agitation in regard to it, would be alike instructive and honorable to the actors in them. But it will be readily perceived that this could not be given within the necessary limits of a communication like the present. It must therefore suffice to say that from 1737, the date of the ordinance for the prevention of Slavery in the Northwestern Territory, down to and including 1838, at least eleven acts of Congress have been passed, organizing Territories which have since become States, in all of which the Constitutional power of Congess to interdict the introduction of Slavery into the Territories of the United States, is either directly exercised, or clearly asserted by enactments which, as matters of authority, are tantamount to its exercise; and that at the only period when the peace of the slaveholding States was supposed to be seriously endangered by Aboli ion agitation, there was a spontaneous uprising of the people of the North of both parties, by which agitation was paralyzed, and the South reassured of our fidelity to the compromises of the Constitution.

In the laws for the organization of the Territories, which now constitute the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illincis, Wisconsin and Iowa, Slavery was expressly prohibited. The laws for the organization of the Territories of Mississippi, New Orleans, Arkansas, Alabama and Florida, containing enactments fully equivalent in regard to the extent of power in Congress over the subject of Slavery in the Territories to the express exercise of it in other cases. These acts were approved by Presidents Washington, the elder Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson and myself, all bound by our oaths of office to withhold our respective approvals from laws which we believed unconstitutional. If in the passage of these laws during a period of half a century, and under the administration of 30 many Presidents, there was anything like sectional divisions, or a greater or less participation in their enactment on the part of the Representatives of the

slaveholding or non-slaveholding States, I am not apprised of it. I believe the plan devised by the founders of the Government, including the Fathers of our Political Church, for the treatment of this great subject, and which has hitherto been so faithfully sustained, and which has proven so successful in preserving the Union of these States, to be not only the wisest which the wit of man could have devised; but the only one consistent with the safety and prosperity of the whole country. I do, therefore, desire to see it continued so long as Slavery exists in the United States. The extent to which I have sustained it in the various public stations I have occupied is known to the country. I was at the time well aware that I went further in this respect than many of my best friends could approve. But deeply penetrated by the conviction that Slavery was the only subject that could endanger our blessed Union, I was determined that no effort on my part, within the pale of the Constitution, should be wanting to sustain its compromises, as they were then understood, and it is now a source of consolation to me that I pursued the course I then adopted.

The doctrine which the late Baltimore Convention has presented for the sanction of the nation, is, in substance, that the laws I referred to were but so many violations of the Constitution-that this instrument confers no power on Congress to exclude Slavery from the Territories, as has so often been done with the assent of all. This doctrine is set forth in the published opinion of the highly respectable nominee of that Convention, who, it is well known, received that distinction, because he avowed that opinion, and who, it is equally certain, would not have received it if he had not done so. It is proposed to give this doctrine the most solemn sanction known to our political system, by the election of its declared advocate and supporter to the Presidency. If it receives the proposed sanction of the People of the United States, the result cannot be doubtful. The policy in regard to the extension of Slavery to the Territories of the United States into which it has not yet been introduced, which has existed since the commencement of the Government, and the consequences of which have been so salutary, must cease, and every act of Congress designed to carry it into effect be defeated by the Veto of the Executive.

The Territories now owned by the United States, and every acquisition of territory that may hereafter be made to the United States, whether obtained by annexation, by cession for a valuable consideration, or by conquest, must, as long as this opinion is held, and as far as the action of the National Legislature is concerned, be subject to the inroads of Slavery. And this consequence is to be submitted to on the assumption that the framers of the Constitution, with their attention directed to the subject, and with a well understood desire to do so, have failed to clothe Congress with the necessary powers to prevent it. I cannot, with my vote, contribute to this sanction. I cannot do so, because I cannot concur in the opinion which we are called upon to sustain.

distinctly announced my opinion in favor of the power of Congress to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia, although I was, for reasons which were then, and are still satisfactory to my mind, very decidedly opposed to its exercise there. The question of power is certainly as clear in respect to the Territories as it is in regard to that District; and as to the Territories, my opinion was also made known in a still more solemn form, by giving the Executive approval required by the Constitution to the bill for the organization of the Territorial Government of Iowa, which prohibited the introduction of Slavery into that Territory.

The opinion from which we dissent was given in the face of, and directly contrary to, the views expressed, in forms the most solemn and explicit, by all or nearly all the non-slaveholding States, and we are not at liberty to suspect the sincerity of these expressions. Honest and well-meaning men, as we know the masses of our political friends in those States to be, are incapable of trifling with so grave a subject.

Our ancestors signalized the commencement of this glorious Government of ours, by rescuing from subjection to Slavery a Territory which is now covered by five great States, and peopled by more than four millions of freemen, in the full enjoyment of every blessing which industry and good institutions can confer. They did this when the opinions and conduct of the world in regard to the institution of Slavery were very different from what they are now.

They did so before Great Britain had even commenced those gigantic efforts for the suppression of Slavery by which she has so greatly distinguished herself. After seventy-four years' enjoyment of the sacred and invaluable right of self-government, obtained for us by the valor and discretion of our ancestors, we, their descendants, are called upon to doom, or if that is too strong a word, to expose to the inroad of Slavery, a territory capable of sustaining an equal number of new States to be added to our Confederacy-a territory in a great part of which Slavery has never existed in fact, and from the residue of which it has been expressly abolished by the existing Government. We are called upon to do this at a period when the minds of nearly all mankind have been penetrated by a conviction of the evils of Slavery, and are united in efforts for its suppression-at a moment, too, when the spirit of Freedom and Reform is everywhere far more prevalent than it has ever been, and when our Republic stands proudly forth as the great exemplar of the world in the science of Free Government.

Who can believe that a population like that which inhabits the non-slaveholding States, probably amounting to twelve millions, who by their own acts, or by the foresight of others, have been exempted from the evils of Slavery, can at such a moment be induced, by considerations of any description, to make a retrograde movement of a character so extraordinary and so painful? Such a movement would, in my view of the matter-and I say it The power, the existence of which is at this late day de- with unfeigned deference to the conflicting opinions of nied, is, in my opinion, fully granted to Congress by the Con-others-bring reproach upon the influence of free institustitution. Its language, the circumstances under which it tious, which would delight the hearts and excite the hopes was adopted, the recorded explanations which accompanied of the advocates of arbitrary power throughout the its formation-the construction it has received from our world. highest judicial tribunals, and the very solemn and repeated confirmations it has derived from the measures of the Government-leave not the shadow of a doubt in my mind, in regard to the authority of Congress to exercise the power in question. This is not a new opinion on my part, nor the first occasion on which it has been avowed. While the candidate of my friends for the Presidency, I

Accept, gentlemen, my warmest acknowledgments for the obliging expressions contained in your letter, and believe me to be Your friend, MARTIN VAN BUREN.

To Messrs. Nelson J. Waterbury, David Dudley Field, and others, New York..

LAND FOR THE

LANDLESS.

Action of Congress on the Public Lands.

THE Public Domain of the United States is still immense, notwithstanding the millions upon millions of acres which have been squandered or passed over to the hands of speculators and monopolists, by the action of the National Government during the past few years. It is estimated by intelligent persons, who have given their attention to the subject, that lying within the States and Territories of this Govern

ment there are now about one thousand millions of acres of public lands still unentered. "What shall be done with this immense domain ?" is a question which has for years occupied the minds of thoughtful men, who have the best interests of society at heart. At length, the great question of the proper disposition of these lands has become one of party, and may be stated as follows: "Shall the Public Domain be open

The vote upon the motion to refer the bill to the Committee of the Whole, was as followsthe Democrats in Roman, the Republicans in Italics, and the Southern Americans in SMALL CAPITALS:

MAINE.-Wood-1.

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CONNECTICUT.-Arnold, Bishop-2.

NEW-YORK.-Burroughs, Maclay, Russell, Taylor-4.
NEW-JERSEY.-Wortendyke-1.

PENNSYLVANIA.-Ahl, Chapman, Dewart, Montgomery,
Morris, Ritchie, White-7.

to monopoly by speculators, leading inevitably | ried, the bill never would have been reached, to a landed aristocracy? or shall it be reserved and would never have been heard of afterward. for actual occupants in small quantities, at a nominal price, or without price?" There would be no difficulty whatever in adjusting this question at any time and in the right way, if the Negro question, which, in the National Administration, absorbs or overrides all others, were not behind it. Although this is an old question, it had never commanded in Congress, the attention to which it is entitled, previous to the organization of the Republican party; because until that time both the great parties into which the country was divided were either controlled, or their action was modified, by the Slaveholding interest of the country. That interest, which is ever vigilant, understands that Slavery cannot well exist were small freeholds prevail, and hence it opposes, with all its great power, all Preemption and Homestead laws, knowing well that if our new States and Territories are to be occupied in quarter-sections, they will be occupied by working farmers, and not by speculators and great planters.

Since this question has assumed a national importance, a concise record of the proceedings and votes in Congress during the session of 1858-9, and 1859-60, upon the disposition of the Public Domain, will be of interest as a matter of record.

MARYLAND.-HARRIS, RICAUD-2.

VIRGINIA.-BOcock, Caskie, Edmundson, Faulkner, Garnett, Millson, Powell-7.

NORTH CAROLINA.-Craige, Ruffin, Scales, Winslow-4.
Miles-5.
SOUTH CAROLINA.-Boyce, Branch, Keitt, McQueen,
GEORGIA.-Crawford, Gartrell, Jackson, Seward, Ste-
phens, TRIPPE, Wright-7.

FLORIDA.-Hawkins-1.

ALABAMA.-Curry, Houston, Moore, Shorter-4.
MISSISSIPPI.-Barksdale, Davis, McRae-3.
LOUISIANA. EUSTIS, Sandidge, Taylor-3.
TEXAS.-Bryan, Reagan-2.

TENNESSEE.-Atkins, Jones, MAYNARD, READY, Savage,
Watkins, ZOLLICOFFER-7.

KENTUCKY.-Burnett, Jewett, MARSHALL, Peyton, Stevenson, Talbott, UNDERWOOD-7.

Craig, Phelps, WOODSON-6.
MISSOURI ANDERSON, Caruthers, John B. Clark, James

OHIO.-Burns, Cockerill, Groesbeck, Harlan, Law-
rence, Nichols, Pendleton, Vallandigham-8.
INDIANA.-Davis, English, Gregg, Hughes, Niblack-5.
ILLINOIS.-Marshall, Morris, Shaw, Smith-4.
Total, 90.

NAYS.

MAINE-Foster, Gilman, Morse, I. Washburn 4.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE.-Cragin, Tappan-2.
VERMONT-Morrill, Royce, Walton-3.
MASSACHUSETTS.-Buffinton, Burlingame, Chaffee, Co-
Dawes, Hall, Knapp, Thayer-8.
RHODE ISLAND.-Brayton, Durfee-2.
CONNECTICUT.-Clark, Dean-2.

On the 20th of January, 1859, (See Congressional Globe, p. 492,) a bill relating to preëmptions, reported from the Committee on Public Lands, was pending before the House. The bill proposed to make some changes in the details of existing preemption laws, but without affect-mins, ing the substance of the present system of disposing of the public lands. It was, however, in parliamentary order to propose to amend the bill so as to change the present system, and to bring the House to a direct vote upon such propositions. The friends of such change were prompt to avail themselves of this advantage.

Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend the bill by adding the following as an additional section:

Be it further enacted, That from and after the passage of this act, no public land shall be exposed to sale by proclamation of the President, unless the same shall have been surveyed, and the return of such survey duly filed in the Land Office, for ten years or more before such sale.

The force and effect of this amendment would be to give the preemptors ten years the start of the speculators and land monopolists. That is to say with the addition of Mr. Grow's amendment to the existing laws and regulations touching the Public Lands, they would be open to preemption ten years before they could come within the grasp of the speculator, thus giving the poor, industrious settler ample time to "clear up" his farm and pay for it from the proceeds of the soil. This was just what the South and the Democracy did not want, as the sequel will show.

The opponents of the bill forthwith resorted to parliamentary tactics to avoid a direct issue apon Mr. Grow's proposition.

Their first movement was a motion to refer

the bill and amendment to the Committee of the Whole, familiarly and aptly styled "the tomb of

NEW-YORK-Andrews, Clark, John Cochrane, Dodd,
Fenton, Granger, Hatch, Hoard, Kelsey, Matteson,
Morgan, Morse, Murray, Olin, Palmer, Parker, Spin-
ner, Thompson-18.

NEW-JERSEY.-Clawson, Huyler-2.
PENNSYLVANIA.-Covode, Edie, Florence, Grow, Jones,
Keim, Leidy, Purviance, Stewart-9.
MARYLAND. Bowie, Stewart-2.
VIRGINIA.-Goode, Hopkins-2.

NORTH CAROLINA.-GILMER, VANCE-2.
ALABAMA.-Cobb, Dowdell, Stallworth-3.
MISSISSIPPI.-Singleton-1.

OHIO.-Bingham, Bliss, Giddings, Hall, Leiter,
Mott, Sherman, Stanton, Tompkins, Wade-11.
INDIANA.-Colfax, Foley, Kilgore, Pettit, Wilson
ILLINOIS.-Farnsworth, Kellogg, Lovejoy, Washburne,

-5.

-4.

MISSOURI.-Blair-1.

MICHIGAN.-Howard, Leach, Walbridge, Waldron

-4.

WISCONSIN-Potter, Washburn-2.

Iowa.-Curtis, Davis-2.

CALIFORNIA.-Scott-1.

MINNESOTA.-Cavanaugh, Phelps-2. Total, 92.

The motion to refer the bill to the Committee of the Whole having thus failed, the House was brought to a direct vote upon Mr. Grow's amendment, which was adopted by the following votes:

-5.

YEAS.

MAINE.-Foster, Gilman, Morse, Washburn, Wood NEW-HAMPSHIRE.-Cragin, Pike, Tappan-3. VERMONT.-Morrill, Royce, Walton-3. MASSACHUSETTS.-Buffinton, Burlingame, Chaffes, Comins, Davis, Dawes, Gooch, Hall, Knapp, Thayer

-10.

RHODE ISAND.-Brayton, Durfee-2.
CONNECTICUT.-Dean-1.

NEW-YORK.-Andrews, Bennett, Burroughs, Clark,

the Capulets." If that reference had been car-John Cochrane, Dodd, Fenton, Granger, Hoard, Kel

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