them which we cannot control. It may be a text of Scripture, it may be the contents of a wine-vault; but the result will be the same, -havoc wherever there is wealth, murder wherever there is life, violation wherever there is chastity. Alluding to the heroic sacrifices and feats of bravery and endurance on the part of slaves seeking escape from bondage, he propounded the very natural inquiry, indicating a danger from which the wonderful forbearance of the slaves, and the good providence of God in great measure saved the sinning States: "Will men who devise such things and endure such things be balked in their purposes of hope and revenge when the angel of destruction in the form of an angel of liberty descends into their breasts?" Alluding to the event of civil war, he spoke prophetically: "If the two sections of the country ever marshal themselves against each other, and their squadrons rush to the conflict, it will be a war carried on by such powers of intellect, animated by such vehemence of passion, and sustained by such an abundance of resources, as the world has never before known." He closed his speech on slavery in the Territories with these words, which excited much remark, and were often made the occasion of bitter reproach and charges of disloyalty: "Such is my solemn and abiding conviction of the character of slavery, that, under a full sense of my responsibility to my country and my God, I deliberately say, Better disunion, better a civil and servile war, better anything that God in his providence shall send, than an extension of the boundaries of slavery."

Thaddeus Stevens also made similar reply in a speech of merciless severity and biting sarcasm. To Meade's humiliating confession that the value of Virginia's slaves was chiefly dependent upon a Southern market, he said it meant that Virginia was now only fit to be the breeder, and not the employer, of slaves; that "she is reduced to the condition that her proud chivalry are compelled to turn slave-traders for a livelihood; that, instead of attempting to renovate the soil, and by their own honest labor compel the earth to yield her abundance, instead of seeking for the best breed of cattle and horses to feed on her hills and valleys and fertilize the land,

the sons of that great State must devote their time to selecting and growing the most lusty sires and the most fruitful wenches to supply the slave-barracoons of the South." Cling man had boastfully threatened that the South would hold and defend Washington; that it was slaveholding territory, and they did not intend to lose it. Referring to this braggart boast, Stevens said: "We have had a most alarming description of the prowess of the South. We have heard their cannon roar, seen their bayonets bristle, heard the war-cry of the charging chivalry, and seen their bowie-knives gleam within this hall, in the vivid picture of the terrible gentleman from North Carolina." He denounced slaveholding in the United States as the most grinding and absolute despotism the world had ever seen, and held the people of the North who fastened iron chains and riveted manacles upon their fellowmen as despots, such as history will brand and God abhor"; and he declared that any "Northern man, enlightened by a Northern education, who would, directly or indirectly, by omission or commission, by basely voting or cowardly skulking, permit it to spread over one rood of God's free earth, is a traitor to liberty and recreant to his God."

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William H. Bissell, then a Democratic Representative from Illinois, afterward the first Republican governor of that State, spoke also earnestly and vigorously in reply to these Southern menaces of disunion. He said that their complaints were "wholly groundless, or exceedingly trivial," and that, if they had not the slavery question as a plausible pretext for their disunion designs, they would "hunt for such a pretext elsewhere, or invent one." Mr. Seddon of Virginia, afterward Secretary of War in the Southern Confederacy, had asserted that, when the "troops of the North" gave way at a critical moment at Buena Vista, the Mississippi regiment "snatched victory from the jaws of defeat." This unfounded claim, so vauntingly put forth, Colonel Bissell, who commanded an Illinois regiment in that battle, unequivocably denied. He affirmed that "the Mississippi regiment, for whom this claim is thus gratuitously set up, was not within a mile and a half of the scene of action, nor had it as yet fired a gun or drawn

a trigger"; and that the troops which there met and resisted the enemy were the "2d Kentucky, 2d Illinois, and a portion of the 1st Illinois regiments." This blank and positive denial brought a challenge from Jefferson Davis; but it did not evoke either a retraction or an apology from the Illinois colonel.

He condemned the sinfulness, because

Four days after Mr. Webster's speech against reaffirming an ordinance of nature or re-enacting the will of God, Orrin Fowler, a Whig Representative from Massachusetts, made a speech, boldly enunciating and defending the fundamental principles and paramount claims of right and justice, conscience and Christianity. A Congregational clergyman, he carried to the halls of Congress the same deference to truth he had inculcated from the sacred desk. extension of slavery, on the ground of its it would be "a wrong done to humanity, humanity and to the friends of humanity." wrong and suffering wrong," he avowed that true patriots would not hesitate to choose the latter alternative; and that "the sting of self-reproach and the consciousness of wrongdoing would imbitter what remains of mortal life" to him who should aid or consent to this extension of slavery.

-

to the rights of "Between doing

While Southern men were violent and vituperative, and a few Northern men were true to their convictions and firm in their defence of the truth and of their section, there were those from the free States who spoke timidly and with too many reservations in behalf of opinions they had heretofore maintained. Among them was Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts, a man of talent, forensic brilliancy, and practical sagacity. He spoke in terms of unmeasured condemnation of the dead issues, berated the government for the folly, wickedness, and inevitable consequences of the Mexican war, made upon "a weak sister republic," in which "we expended one hundred millions of dollars, throwing in, by way of small change, ten thousand American lives," depicted, as few could, the sad results already upon them, and set home the responsibility where it belonged. "But the soil acquired," he said, "was not merely moistened with American blood; it

was sown thick with quickly springing dragons' teeth. For hardly have the shouts of victory from Buena Vista and the palaces of the Montezumas died away, and the bugle of truce sounded the notes of recall to our squadrons, hardly have our eagles folded their returning wings, when our ears are pierced by shrieks, within our own borders, of discord, dissension, and disunion, and threatened civil war." When, however, he came to speak of Mr. Webster's speech, his admiration of its author was far more manifest than his censure of its treachery. With much adulation, the severest condemnation he could pronounce was that, while there may have been in it some conclusions to which his own way was not exactly clear, yet in the spirit in which he spoke he most cordially and heartily concurred. "Whether my difference with him," he said, "upon any of the points involved is not more seeming than substantial, I leave for others to decide; but of one thing I that my tongue shall sooner cling to the roof of my mouth than it shall join in the temporary clamor which malignity has raised against him."

am sure,

On the 23d of April, Mr. Winthrop of Massachusetts made a very able and adroit speech, in which he attempted to reconcile his former votes in favor of the Wilmot proviso with the new policy and new departure he was about to adopt. Ostensibly, and, no doubt, sincerely, he spoke in behalf of patriotism and union. "One tie, however," he said, "I am persuaded, still remains to us all, a common devotion to the union of these States, and a common determination to sacrifice everything but principle to its preservation. Our responsibilities are, indeed, great. This vast republic, stretching from sea to sea, and rapidly outgrowing everything but our affections, looks anxiously to us to take care that it receives no detriment. Nor is it too much to say that the eyes and hearts of the friends of constitutional freedom throughout the world are at this moment turned eagerly here- more eagerly than ever before to behold an example of successful republican institutions, and to see them come out safely and triumphantly from the fiery trial to which they are now subjected."

CHAPTER XX.

COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850.

United States Senate.

Fugitive

Slave Act. President's message. - Speech of Mr. Cass. - Clay's eight resolutions. Foote's protest. Jefferson Davis. Mr. Cass's speech. - Speeches of Clay, Houston, Berrien, and Benton. Bell's resolutions. Calhoun's speech read. Considered. - Webster's 7th of March speech. His defection. - Occasions great disappointment. — His course.

THOUGH the sharp and protracted struggle in the House on the question of the Speakership, the extreme opinions advanced in the speeches of Southern men, and the sudden and alarming changes in the votes of Northern members, had attracted the deep attention of the country, the great interest of the nation. was concentrated on the Senate. The presence in that body of so many men of age, eminent ability, and long experience in public affairs, naturally excited in the minds of the people a desire to learn the views they entertained and the policy they proposed to pursue.

On the 27th of December, Mr. Foote introduced a resolution declaring it to be the duty of Congress to provide Territorial governments for California, Deseret, and New Mexico. A few days later, Mr. Hale offered an amendment securing to the inhabitants of these Territories those privileges and liberties guaranteed to the citizens of the Northwest by the ordinance of 1787. To Mr. Foote's remark that he was opposed to putting "the yoke of the Wilmot proviso on the necks of freemen," Mr. Hale replied that he too "would keep the yoke off the necks of the people."

On the 4th of January, 1850, Mr. Mason of Virginia introduced into the Senate a bill to carry out more effectually the provision of the Constitution in relation to fugitives from service or labor, and asked thereon a speedy report from the