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annual message. In it he took occasion to recommend to the favorable consideration of Congress the application of California for admission as a State whenever she should present it. He expressed, too, the opinion that the people of New Mexico would also at no distant day present themselves for admission as a State. He thought all causes of uneasiness might be avoided, and confidence and kind feeling produced, by thus awaiting the action of the people of California and New Mexico, who would institute for themselves such forms of government as would be most likely to effect their safety and happiness. When, however, the expected application came, and the President sent to Congress the constitution which had been adopted by the convention of California, though it was accompanied by a Democratic delegation to urge its claims, it met with not merely a cool reception, but with earnest and determined opposition from the very men who had been most anxious for the admission of the Golden State. Indeed, it became the signal and cause of a long, heated, and miscellaneous debate, especially in the Senate, to which body, after the long contest for Speaker in the House, the great conflict seemed to have been in a measure transferred.

In addition to the case of California, there sprung up minor questions, which were deemed or made to involve the same principle at issue. Among these was a motion to invite Father Mathew, the Irish apostle of temperance, then in Washington, to a seat within the bar of the Senate. To this seemingly harmless and unimportant proposition, Mr. Clemens of Alabama and others interposed a furious opposition, because his name had been appended, with that of O'Connel, to an antislavery appeal to the Irishmen of America. In that signature they detected a crime against the South which merited rebuke, though Mr. Clay expressed the opinion that this pushing the subject of slavery on all possible occasions was impolitic and unwise. Mr. Seward hoped that the Senate, by the adoption of this resolution, would express the sentiment that, "if slavery be an error, if it be a crime, if it be a sin, we deplore its existence, and we shall not withhold from virtue the meed which is its due, because it happens to be combined in the

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person of one who exhibits not more a devotion to virtue than to the rights of man." Jefferson Davis, of course, opposed the motion. "Of the horde of Abolitionists, foreign and do mestic, if I had the power to exclude them all from that Chamber," he avowed, "I would do it." Mr. Hale was not satisfied with the action of Father Mathew, because, when invited by the Boston Abolitionists to unite with them in the celebration of West India emancipation, he had consented to maintain the position of silence, and had disappointed the friends of liberty. But he should vote for the resolution for other reasons. After long debate, the resolution was adopted, though eighteen Southern Senators voted against it.

In the same month, Mr. Upham of Vermont presented the resolutions of that State, which declared slavery to be a crime against humanity, only excused by the framers of the Constitution as a crime entailed upon the country, and tolerated as a thing of inexorable necessity; and instructed its delega tion to oppose the annexation of Texas, and to vote for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The motion to print was strenuously resisted by several Southern Senators, though Mr. Hale expressed the opinion that there was no occasion for this excitement of Southern members. "There have been resolutions enough passed," he said, "against slavery, to make a winding-sheet for every slave and every slaveholder in the Union. Yet, after all, if you sift it to the bottom, you will find very little resolution in the resolutions." Mr. Borland, a Democratic Senator from Arkansas, remarked that he should despise himself if he were unexcited under such cir cumstances. "I cannot," he said, "argue with the robber who meets me on the highway and demands my purse. cannot consent to argue with the assassin who seeks to stab me in the dark. I cannot argue with the midnight incendiary who stands ready to apply the torch to my dwelling."

Salmon P. Chase, who had just entered the Senate, spoke briefly in favor of printing the resolution. Replying to the angry threats which had been made, and speaking for Ohio, he said: "No menace of disunion, no resolves tending toward disunion, no intimations of the probability of disunion, in any

form, will move us from the path which, in our judgment, it is due to ourselves and the people we represent to pursue."

Mr. Clemens followed Mr. Chase in a violent speech, in which he asserted that the Union was already dissolved. To this singular assertion Mr. Hale good-humoredly replied, that it would be very comforting to many timid people, with excited nerves and trembling fears, to find that the dissolution of the Union had taken place and they did not know it. Illustrating this point by a turn of pleasantry, he said: "Once in my life, in the capacity of a justice of the peace, I was called on to officiate in uniting a couple in the bonds of matrimony. I asked the man if he would take the woman to be his wedded wife. He replied: "I will. I came here to do that very thing. I then put the question to the woman whether she would have the man for her husband. And when she answered in the affirmative I told them they were husband and wife. She looked up with apparent astonishment, and inquired: Is that all?' 'Yes,' said I, that is all.'Well,' said she, it is not such a mighty affair as I expected it to be, after all.' If this Union is already dissolved, it has produced less commotion in the act than I expected."

The debate was one of great earnestness and vigor, and continued several days. On the 23d, Mr. Phelps of Vermont addressed the Senate in a speech of great force and eloquence. He reminded Senators that the agitation they so much deprecated was only the logical sequence of the Mexican war, which originated in the disposition to extend the boundaries and power of the country, and which carried in its train elements that might end in despoiling the Republic.

Resolutions of the legislature of Missouri were presented by Mr. Benton. They declared that any attempt to legislate against slavery in the District of Columbia or in the Territories would be a violation of the Constitution, and tend to disunion; and they pledged Missouri to co-operate with other Southern slaveholding States in favor of any measures deemed necessary to preserve the system. The resolutions, however, Mr. Benton asserted, misrepresented the sentiments of her people, as they never would be found acting in favor of dis

union. These preliminary skirmishes in both Houses revealed the temper and tendencies of their members, and indicated the character of the great contest upon which they had entered, a contest that was for months to divide and distract Congress, and for years to disturb and disgrace the nation.

CHAPTER XIX.

NORTHERN DEFECTION.

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Root's resolutions laid on the table. — Giddings's resolutions defeated. — Northern defection. Causes. Debate on President's message. -Southern speeches of Clingman, Inge, McLane, Cabell, Brown. Southern alarm. Action of Southern legislatures. — Bold utterances of Northern members, Sackett, Horace Mann, Thaddeus Stevens, Bissell, and Fowler. - Speeches of Ashmun and Winthrop.

THE struggle over the election of Speaker had been marked by extreme violence. The slave-masters had never exhibited greater intolerance, audacity, or a more determined purpose. On the other hand, many Northern men, especially among the Whigs, betrayed marked timidity and vacillation in both their speeches and their votes. Two or three votes especially indicated with painful distinctness the rapidity with which even Northern members were unlearning the lessons of the past, and accepting those of the new school which was then in the ascendant. Thus on the 4th of February, 1850, a motion to lay on the table Mr. Root's resolution inhibiting slavery in the newly acquired territory, was carried by a vote of one hundred and five to seventy-nine, though five weeks before the same motion was rejected; more than thirty Northern members voting for the motion, and several others, though present, declining to vote.

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On the same day likewise, Mr. Giddings offered two resolutions, the first declaring that all men were created equal; and the second, that it was the duty of Congress to secure to the people of all the Territories, of whatever complexion, the enjoyment of the inalienable rights of life and liberty. The House, on motion of Mr. Haralson of Georgia, laid the resolutions on the table by a majority of thirteen. These decisive votes settled, at least for that Congress, the policy of slavery prohibi

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