The grant was of the territory, its soil, and the entire sovereignty, in both cases, on the condition that it was to be made into States in due time, and that the people then there should be protected in their property and liberties. There is no difference between them. I have made these remarks on this matter because I consider that whatever I shall show has been done in relation to the one applies with equal force to the other; and I will now briefly call attention to what was done, and why it was done. In 1789 the ordi

southern people; which have occasioned the ne-nance of 1787, enacted for all the country beyond

the Ohio, and which forbade slavery from ever entering into it at all, was confirmed by an act of Congress, which was approved by General Washington, then President. It was done mainly by the exertions of the people of the southern States. But no matter for that; it was at a period when a large portion of the people were slaveholders. What was asserted by that enactment? That we owned that territory in sovereignty, and we forbade the extension of slavery into it. We have the power and the right to do so-nay, we judge it our duty to do it. In the regular chro

the President has quoted from the treaty of ces-nological order of time, we next find the act for foreign supply. That was their idea; and therefore in Mississippi they prohibited the importation of slaves from abroad; and in Louisiana they not only prohibited the importation of slaves from abroad, but actually said: "You shall not carry your slaves from other States there at all for sale." If the people have a right to carry their property into Territories, they have a right to carry it both to use and to sell-as much the one as the other. But there Congress declared that slaves should not be carried into Louisiana, except as members of families for settlement; and if carried in any other way, the act of so taking them should work emancipation, and the parties offending should be subject to penalties.

Further, they declared this to the world: We told you, said the Government of the United States, as early as 1798, in relation to the Territory of Mississippi, and we told you as early as 1788, in relation to all territory beyond the Ohio, everything then within our jurisdiction, that no slaves should be imported at all: now, if you have imported any into your States from 1798 up to 1803, they shall not be carried there, either for sale or as members of families. Those which had been imported into Georgia, the Carolinas, or elsewhere, were as much the property of their owners as any they owned; and yet, they were absolutely prohibited from carrying them at all into the Territory of Louisiana. Who did this? It was done by the united exertion and undivided action of the whole Congress; and the act was approved and signed by Mr. Jefferson.

The next in date is the case of Michigan. That was formed into a Territory in 1805, and there the same ordinance was reenacted. That is, all the laws appertaining to the Territory of Indiana, from which it was taken, were declared operatives in the Territory of Michigan. That was a reaffirmance of the same principle, and a reëxercise of the same authority. That act was approved by Mr. Jefferson.

Illinois, in 1809, was formed in the same way, and there was another re-declaration of the same principle which was approved by Mr. Jefferson.

In 1846 the Territory of Oregon was estab lished, and for that country the ordinance was reënacted in terms, because it had not been extended there before, and slavery forever prohibited. That act was approved and signed by Mr. Polk.

In 1847 and 1848, and in 1850, repeated attempts were made in Congress to extend the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific ocean, so as to cover the territories which we had them recently acquired from Mexico.

Mr. BUTLER. Who objected to running that line?

Mr. COLLAMER. Undoubtedly we did; but not for the want of power. The question of power is the point which I am now discussing.

Mr. CASS. I objected to it for the want of power.

Mr. COLLAMER. I will not say that there was not an individual exception to be found; but this I say, that the great body of the southern representatives, those who now complain of the exercise of this power, were the very people who advanced and voted for that proposition, and who complained because it was not adopted.

Mr. BUTLER. I cannot be mistaken on that subject, for I was here and took an active part in that controversy. We were willing, for the sake of peace, if the gentlemen from the North would consent, to run that line. We thought that perhaps we might make peace by such a line; but you refused it.

Mr. BRODHEAD. It was only offered as a

peace measure.

Mr. BUTLER. It was presented simply as a peace measure. We were willing to agree to it for the sake of peace; but on the other side the proposition was openly maintained-" We will extend the Wilmot proviso North and South, East and West." The only power which northern gentlemen would then consent to exercise, was that of prohibition everywhere, and they would not apply the Missouri rule anywhere.

Mr. COLLAMER. If the gentleman had listened to me with the powers of apprehension which I know he possesses, and the candor which

In the act for the admission of Missouri-he ought to exercise, he would have seen that it

which I do not choose to go into particularly-one of its essential features was the one of which we are mainly talking; Congress there provided by a majority, and especially by the action of the southern people themselves, that no slaves should • be allowed north of the latitude of 36° 30'. If Congress had the power to prohibit it at all in one section, they had the power to prohibit it in any section. It was an exercise of the act of sovereignty which had been exercised from time to time up to that period. The Missouri line was affirmed by Mr. Monroe and his Cabinet.

The next is the case of Wisconsin, which in 1836 was organized as a Territory, lying upon both sides of the Mississippi, covering part of the same territory which we had acquired from France, and some which we had obtained from Virginia. Yet the same ordinance of 1787 was extended all over it by an act of Congress, I believe without division and without objection. That was approved by General Jackson.

In 1838 the Territory of lowa was established beyond the Mississippi, and there again it was provided that the same laws should be enforced, and the same rights exercised as in the Territory of Wisconsin, of which Iowa had once been a part. This act was approved by Mr. Van Buren.

was unnecessary for him to make the remarks he has made. I have cited the instances which I have narrated for the purpose of showing that, until within a very recent period, Congress has uniformly exercised the power now questionedthe power to prohibit the introduction of slavery into the Territories and that, with perhaps a single exception, there was never a question but that Congress had a right to exercise that power. I am not now speaking as to the policy, the expediency, or the occasion of exercising the power, or the purpose for which the proposition was made. I am speaking of the exercise of the power itself. If gentlemen offered a proposition for the extension of that line, as they say, for the sake of peace, did they offer it when they knew that they had no constitutional authority to sustain it? Did they vote for it when they knew that Congress had no such power of prohibition? Did they try to induce the northern people to enter into that agreement with them for the sake of peace, when they were exercising an utterly unconstitutional power? Certainly not. The gentleman's objection was not to that; it is not now. I have cited these instances for the purpose of showing that Congress exercised this power, and that southern gentlemen claimed to exercise it further and tried to exercise it further. It is singular that because northern people saw good reason why it should not be extended over other Territories then free, in which there was no claim for slavery, now an argument should be drawn for abolishing the agreement as to those Territories to which it applied. In this message of the President, the very fact that the North would not adopt the Missouri compromise for another Territory than that to which it was applied, is claimed to have rendered it inoperative for the country in regard to which it was passed. Impotent conclusion!

This brings me to a recent period; and now I wish to show some reasons why the prohibition was enacted by the representatives of all the people of the United States of the whole country, North and South. These measures for the exclusion of slavery were adopted without a division of opinion. I acknowledge that there was a controversy as to the admission of Missouri; but that controversy did not relate to this question of power, for the very act which admitted Missouri exercised this power of inhibition as to the Territories.

Mr. BRODHEAD. Before the learned Senator leaves this branch of his argument-the question of power, which he has discussed with so much ability-I should like to ask him whether Congress has the power to establish slavery?

Is

Mr. COLLAMER. When I come to that topic I will discuss it; whenever any question arises in the Senate that requires it, and I think I can add any new light to it, I will try to do so. supposed, however, that it was now in the South very generally conceded that this Government, in the exercise of sovereignty over the Territories, has almost any power except that of making liberty.

I wish now to show some reasons why this people, who began this experiment, all of them then holding slaves, in the very adoption of the Constitution, in the first exercise of power under it, prohibited slavery. My position is that they did it because, in the first place place, they believed that the institution was one which ought to end; and, in the next place, because they believed that in those places where it did not end, the effect of it was such as to weaken the country at large, and was inconsistent with the great principles of civil liberty for which our fathers contended, and which constituted the great idea of our Government. That idea was this: that inasmuch as in a popular Government the people must have the right of suffrage, it follows as a matter of course, in order to be safe in that right, that the people must be made intelligent. To the exercise of the elective franchise, education, intelligence, and personal independence are inseparable correlatives; and if any system of government, or any character of social institutions be adopted which will not produce this result, or which will be in its tendencies unfriendly to it, that system is incompatible with the great experiment.

I ought here to remark that I have nothing to say, and on an occasion like this, in relation to the morality of slavery, its ethics, its matter of justice between the master and slave, its sacredness, its divine authority, its sanctions in Christianity. These are all topics suitable to other occasions. I have nothing to say about them here. I have no reproaches to cast on the master. I have no desire to do any such thing. I am treating the subject entirely as a political

subject. It was perfectly understood by our fathers, who had tried it, that where the institution was not abolished by the States themselves, it would, in its tendencies, produce a condition of society which did not comport with the great purposes, objects, and views, and what was ne cessarily implied in popular government. Its necessary effect, it was seen, would be to elevate a limited number, and depress the mass of the white population. The experiment in the cause of humanity which had been entered upon in this Government was for the white race-not merely the Anglo-Saxon, but the Caucasian race -the whole white race. It was that they should conduct their labor with high intelligence, that they should be improved and elevated, and become a people better fed, better clothed, better housed, better governed, of higher intelligence, than any other people under heaven-"a peculiar people zealous of good works." A great manifestation of " the dignity of labor."

Their idea was, further, that this institution of slavery would not comport with that purpose, but would produce a different condition of society. Now, in speaking of their views, and of whether those views have been realized, in fact and in practice, since their days, I shall use the authority of no one who is not from the slave States. I shall use no terms but those which are derived from the people living in the midst of the institution. After this experiment was begun, seven out of the thirteen States abolished slavery; the others retained it, and we must, of course, go to them to see what has been the political and social effect of cherishing and retaining it. I am saying nothing of its virtue and morality; lity; or whether it tends to improve and elevate the moral condition of society, or whether it makes the slave better or poorer than he was at home in Africa. That is not the topic. I wish to call attention to its effect on the free white population of the coun

try.

I am willing to concede that where an institution in the character of an aristocracy exists, and where labor and all menial services are performed by others for a particular set of men, it leaves to those men wealth and opportunity, if you please, for a high cultivation for a high order of intellectual existence. Nor should we at all wonder that men who have thus felt its beneficial influences to themselves personally should have a desire to cherish and sustain it. But, sir, our principle is, "the greatest good to the greatest number." What on the whole is its effect on the mass the majority of the free white population? And further, what effect does it produce as to making the country which entertains it prosperous, successful, strong, able to contribute its full proportion, with the rest of the community, in sustaining the national independence and national prosperity?

Sir, I will read some views upon that subject. I prefer to read from the expressions of those familiar with the question; and first I will quote the views which General Washington entertained. He says in a letter to Robert Morris, which is quoted by Sparks:

"I can only say, there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it, (slavery;) but there is only one proper and effectual mode in which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and this, so far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting."

Again, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, of Scotland, who was proposing to make investments in

:

"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other." * "With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbright and the beautiful that still show forth as intrinsic Mr. William Geary, of South Carolina, candidly treating upon the subject, says:

"Any man who is an observer of things, could hardly pass through our country without being struck with the fact, that all the capital, enterprise, and intelligence, is employed in directing slave labor; and the consequence is,

that a large portion of our poor white people are wholly neglected, and are suffered to while away an existence in a state but one step in advance of the Indian of the forest. It is an evil of vast magnitude, and nothing but a change in public sentiment will effect its cure."

Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, said of these non-slaveholding whites:

"They obtain a precarious subsistence by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plundering fields or folds, and too often by what is in its effects far worse-trading with slaves, and inducing them to plunder for their benefit."

Mr. Farren, another southern writer, says:

"In the more southern portion of this region, the nonslaveholders possess generally but very small means; and the land which they possess is almost universally poor, and 10 sterile that a scanty subsistence is all that can be derived from its cultivation; and the more fertile soil being in the possession of the slaveholder, must forever remain out of the possession of those who have none."

Thus, sir, from the people of Virginia and South Carolina, who have chosen to retain and cherish this institution, we have a picture the leading features of which it is impossible to disguise. It is evident that the slaveholders, whom we know by the official returns are only about three hundred and fifty thousand out of a population of six millions of free people at the last census, are elevated, waited upon, and all their wants supplied by the slaves. But, as respects the rest of the community, five sixths of them, the free white laboring population, they are depressed, poor, impoverished, degraded in caste, because labor is disgraceful; for where it is performed by slaves, labor and servitude become identical. It was for this cause (and it was done by the people who knew those things) that the exclusion of slavery from the Territories has taken place as I have described. It has been done by themselves, and for very good reasons, as they could show.

This brings me to a comparatively recent period, to which I have several times alluded, and some recent action-action taken, as I say, by the South for local and sectional objects, and for political purposes, to make use of the institution of slavery as a source of political power within the Territories and beyond the States. I would not here intimate that I think any man who was personally engaged in the making of the Missouri compromise, and getting enough votes from the North by virtue of it to admit the State of Missouri, so as to enable the South to succeed at the time, ever attempted to break it up. That is not the case; but it is to be recollected that a great leading feature in the message we have before us is, that there has been, on the part of the people of the North, a systematic course of aggression upon southern rights. We view the facts as entirely otherwise; and we view this attempt to present a picture of that kind as nothing more than an attempt to escape from and disguise what has been the true character of the aggression. We consider that a course of aggressions has been put on foot, and prosecuted, to some considerable extent, successfully by the South. When I use the word "aggression," I wish to be understood. It is not merely doing that which people have a legal and constitutional right to do; but what I understand by it is, doing that

which is contrary to an agreement upon their part, either contained in the Constitution or in any other way which renders the entering upon such a course, and a breaking up of such agreement, to say the least, a breach of common propriety. Now, what are those aggressions which we think the South have put upon foot? The first is in relation to the admission of Texas.

Mr. Calhoun was a man who had but little disguises. He participated in the formation of the Missouri compromise line, and he, with the South, took the advantage it secured. He never attempted to make any breach of it; but when the progress of population, and the increase of the numbers, wealth, and influence of the free part of the United States came to be, as was thought by him and some others, somewhat comparatively large, it was desirous to the South, as he viewed it, to secure, in some way or other, at least a balance of power in the Senate of the United States. What was attempted? Did he attempt to break up this compromise line? Not at all. He looked abroad and saw the inviting regions of Texas, and a treaty was formed for the annexation of Texas. There was no disguise about its objects and purposes. Look at the letter of Mr. Calhoun, as Secretary of State, to Mr. King, then our Minister in France. See the whole purpose it declares. It was to sustain, perpetuate, and secure the institution of slavery; in short, to obtain more territory out of which to make new slave States for the purpose of balancing, at least in the Senate of the United States, new States settled by people from the North. That was the object, not disguised, but publicly declared and officially announced. What means were taken to effect that object? The treaty was rejected by the Senate. Two thirds could not be obtained for it, and the treaty failed.

What was the next step taken? The people of the South went into the Democratic Convention at Baltimore immediately after the rejection of this treaty, and there they insisted upon the admission of Texas. Many declared they preferred that to the Union. They said at once to the Democracy, "You cannot obtain power, you cannot elect a President without us, and you shall not elect one with us, but upon the condition of that annexation. The only man who had ever been talked of up to that period as their candidate was Mr. Van Buren, and he had published a letter in the spring opposing the annexation of Texas. There was no other way left for the Democratic party but to agree to make the annexation of Texas a part of the platform. Then, when they came to nominate a man to carry that platform into effect, it was insisted that a man must be nominated who was not already committed against it, and thereupon Mr. Polk was nominated and elected.

A word now as to the manner of that annexation. A question had arisen in the country at times whether there was any power in this Government to annex foreign territory at all. We all know that Mr. Jefferson expressed great doubt on that subject in relation to Louisiana at an early period. This question ultimately came before the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the American Insurance Company us. Canter, the Florida case which has been often alluded to here. It was a revenue case. It was there insisted that Congress had no power to legislate in Florida at all, because it did not be"long to her jurisdiction, but had been annexed by