territory acquired from Mexico. The people of the South made no resistance to its exclusion from Oregon. It was already excluded by "the ordinance of Nature or the will of God." But that the vast territory torn from Mexico, acquired by the common blood and treasure, should now be closed to their institution, was intolerable. To secure it they had sinned deep. After the conquest their position was peculiarly awkward. The laws of Mexico excluding slavery continued in force. Hence in all this territory slavery was as effectually prohibited as in Massachusetts until Congress could accomplish the odious work of introducing it by express enactment. Calhoun strenuously argued the novel proposition that, on the overthrow of the authority of the Mexican government by American arms, the laws and constitution of Mexico were extinguished and those of the United States, so far as applicable, occupied the vacant field; that the Federal Constitution carried slavery with it wherever it went, except where by the laws of a sovereign State it was excluded.

He announced the proposition afterwards established by the Supreme Court, that, as the Constitution proprio vigore carried slavery into all the Territories, neither the territorial legislatures nor Congress itself had power to interfere with the right of holding slaves within them.

Webster conclusively answered this refined sophistry, pointing out that slavery was merely a municipal institution, in derogation of the common right of mankind, against the native instincts of humanity, dependent wholly for its right of exist

ence upon local legislation, and that the real demand of the people of the South was not to carry their slaves into the new Territories, but to carry with them the slave codes of their several States. While the venerable leaders who had ruled Congress and swayed public opinion for thirty years were uttering philosophic disquisitions on constitutional law or the ethics of slavery, Douglas had with practical sagacity offered an amendment to the Oregon bill, extending the line of the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific. This would not decide the great moral question between those who believed slavery an unmixed good and those who believed it the sum of all villainies. But he thought that moral ideas had no place in politics. It would not decide the great question of constitutional law between those who, like Calhoun, believed slavery the creature of the Federal Constitution, and those who, like Webster, believed it the creature of local municipal law. But it promised a temporary respite to the vexed question. He had already, in the House, advocated the extension of this line through the Western Territories. He believed that adhesion to this venerable Compromise, now as sacred as the Constitution itself, was the hope of the future and succeeded in persuading the Senate to adopt his amendment as the final solution of the vexed problem. It was rejected in the House and the question indefinitely postponed.

In the Territories, meanwhile, events moved fast. While Congress had been wrangling over the new possessions, gold was discovered in California. A tumultuous rush of people, unparalleled

since the Crusades, at once began by all routes from every region to the new El Dorado. More than 80,000 settlers arrived in 1849. A spontaneous movement of the people resulted in a Constitutional Convention, which met at Monterey on September 3d of that year, and adopted a Constitution which forever prohibited slavery. It was submitted to a vote and adopted in November.

Congress met on December 3d and resumed the Sisyphean labors of the last session. Douglas was chairman of the Committee on Territories, to which were referred all measures affecting the recent acquisitions altogether the most momentous of the session-which stirred the deepest passions of Congress and held the keenest attention of the people. In the early days of December he submitted to his Committee two bills. One provided for the immediate admission of California; the other for the establishment of governments for Utah and New Mexico and the adjustment of the Texas boundary. On March 25th they were reported to the Senate. Meanwhile Taylor, in a special message, had recommended the immediate admission of California. Senator Mason had introduced a bill providing more effective means for the summary return of fugitive slaves, in effect converting the population of the free States into a posse comitatus charged with the duty of hunting down the fugitive and returning him to bondage. The clash of arms had begun. Both sides were passionately in earnest and resolved to encounter the utmost extremity rather than yield. The Democrats had a small