though Mr. Clingman had just admitted that "if we just turn them adrift on the coast of Africa they will starve to death," and Mr. Crittenden immediately added, "to land them on the naked shores of Africa would be literally to kill them." Mr. Toombs expressed his purpose to vote against the bill, because he was opposed to the policy of interfering with the slave-trade. "I never liked the Ashburton treaty," he said; and added: "All this thing of putting our fingers in to prevent the slave-trade between Africa and Cuba or Africa and Brazil is a policy to be discouraged. It is none of our business."

Is it strange that such men, with such sentiments, should, in less than one short year, have been found arrayed in active rebellion against the government, and in deadly hostility against the nation's life? The bill, however, passed both houses and became a law.

Having failed to secure action upon his bill for the more ef fective suppression of the slave-trade, Mr. Wilson, on the 16th of June, moved an amendment to the naval appropriation bill of three hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of three steamships to be employed for the purposes specified. The steamers, he argued, were needed at once. "The crime and guilt," he said, "of the trade is upon our country and countrymen, and we owe it to the world that no American ship, no American capital, no American seamen, shall engage in the slave-trade..... For the cause of our common humanity, for the good name and fame of our country, for the love of man and the blessing of God, I would do what we can to extinguish a traffic so inhuman and accursed."

Mr. Mason opposed the amendment. He said that he trusted that it would be the policy of the nation to abrogate the treaty with England, which, he said, had been "a failure." The professions of humanity, on the part of the British government, were, he affirmed, "hollow and insincere," and he was opposed to the longer continuance of an arrangement which did no good, and which had been prompted by such motives. Mr. Green denied the right of the government to put a police force on the coast of Africa, and he moved an amendment proposing the

abrogation of the British treaty, a policy also avowed and defended by Jefferson Davis.

Mr. Wilson, alluding to Mr. Mason's charge, that England had been "false and hypocritical," said, "it might be so, but it was not for them to arraign her before the bar of nations." "The blood," he said, "of the perishing children of Africa is upon our hands. American capital and ships and men, on land and sea, are engaged in that horrid traffic. Our laws are violated; our flag is prostituted; our name is dishonored, and our fame tarnished; and we, the government and people of the United States, stand before the civilized world, and before God, self-accused, self-convicted, and self-condemned. Railing accusations against England will not silence the agonizing moans of dying men, floating upon the seas in stifling American slavers; nor will it silence the reproaches of mankind or our own accusing consciences. Let us of America strive rather to put ourselves right than to put England in the wrong. Let us enforce our own laws; drive from the seas every American slaver; vindicate the honor of our flag now tarnished, and our fame now stained; and then, when we have vindicated our own country, and not till then, let us summon England before the tribunal of mankind to plead against the accusations now made against her policy and her acts."

But all efforts were unavailing, and Mr. Wilson's amendment was defeated by a party vote. The failure of Congress, after this special effort to induce it to take action, to adopt any measures to prevent or even restrict the terrible traffic, produced the natural result of giving it new vigor, and it went on increasing, until the government passed under Republican control. Under its inspiration, with the new ideas engendered by the war and by the dethronement of the Slave Power, a new policy was adopted; the laws, instead of remaining a dead letter, were enforced; slave-traders were arrested and imprisoned; and one, at least, was executed.

CHAPTER XLIX.

ADMISSION OF OREGON AND KANSAS.

Oregon frames a constitution. - Excludes free people of color. - Bill for admis sion reported in the House. -Adverse report. — Debate. Bingham. - Bill passed. Adopted by the Senate. — Kansas. Convention in Wyandotte. Free constitution. - Presented in House. Parrott. Constitution adopted. - Seward's bill in the Senate. Speeches of Seward, Douglas, and Davis. House bill in the Senate. Sumner's speech. Barbarism of slavery. Chesnut's reply. - Bill rejected. Secession of Southern Senators. - Kansas becomes a State.

THE fact that the barbarism of slavery was not confined to the slave States had many illustrations. Among them, that afforded by Oregon was a signal example. In 1857 she formed a constitution, and applied for admission into the Union. Though the constitution was in form free, it was very 'thoroughly imbued with the spirit of slavery; and though four fifths of the votes cast were for the rejection of slavery, there were seven eighths for an article excluding entirely free people of color. As their leaders were mainly proslavery, it is probable that the reason why they excluded slavery from the constitution was their fear of defeat in their application for admission. Their organs contended that, if they must have colored people among them at all, they should be as slaves; as they feared that they could not effect their enslavement, they advocated their exclusion. Oregon was indeed destined to be a free State, but, in the words of Edmund Quincy, "in its moral attitude, in its external policy, in its relations to the great general issues pending in the whole country between mastership and manhood, it is virtually a slave State."

On the 11th of February, 1859, Mr. Stephens reported from the Committee on Territories a bill for the admission of Oregon as a State. A minority report, signed by Grow, Granger, and Knapp, was also presented, protesting against its admis

sion with a constitution so discriminating against color. The proposition led to an earnest debate. Several amendments were offered, but they were ruled out of order, and the debate proceeded upon the merits of the two reports. Mr. Grow opposed the admission with such a constitution, on account of its injustice to a whole class born on American soil," because they are poor, despised, and friendless." This declaration drew from Eli Thayer of Massachusetts the response that he should vote for the admission, because Oregon came, "not asking, but bringing gifts"; and because of the state of the parties, which necessitated some compromise. There were, he said, three parties in the Territory,—the free State party, the slave State party, and the anti-negro party, the latter preferring to have slaves rather than free negroes. To secure the support of these, the Republicans and free State Democrats inserted the provision complained of. Mr. Comins of the same State expressed his regret that Oregon, among whose early settlers were many New England men, should have inserted such a provision; but being now at the door, he should vote for its admission. James Hughes, a Democratic member from Indiana, spoke of the party that had just sprung into being, and had almost seized the reins of government; but he denounced it severely for its opposition to the bill, and he accused its members of being in favor of negro equality." Charles Case of Indiana, though admitting that no State had gone so far as Oregon in its discrimination against free negroes, for there was not a slave State, he said, in which a free negro could not go into court and sue for redress of grievances,-expressed his purpose to vote for its admission, as he did not wish it to be exposed to the corrupting influences of the administration; besides, he indulged the hope that in time it would become as just as it was free.

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But though, as ever in those days, power was on the side of the oppressor, the strength of argument and the earnestness and eloquence of appeal were on the side of the oppressed. Clarke B. Cochrane of New York said it was not a question of negro equality, but one of ordinary humanity; and he

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expressed the hope that those Republicans whose votes should give vitality to that constitution would say nothing more of the wrongs of the slave. It was better to be a slave, he said, "than to be an outlaw and an outcast, pursued, hunted, and homeless, without country, security, or friends, excluded from the courts, driven from the soil, and cast, a mere worthless waif, upon society." "Were I by my vote," said Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts, "to breathe the breath of life into that constitution, I should expect to be burned in effigy at every crossroad in my district." Mr. Hoard of New York said there could not be found, in all the constitutions of the slave States combined, so much inhumanity and injustice as in the constitution before them.

Mr. Bingham of Ohio made a very thorough and eloquent argument against the bill. With great force and felicity of language, and with befitting vehemence of expression, he entered his protest against "the horrid injustice" of this war on "the rights of human nature." He said that, before the Constitution, "all men are sacred, white or black, rich or poor, strong or weak, wise or simple; that before its divine rule of justice and equality of natural rights, Lazarus in his rags is on a level with the rich man clothed in purple and fine linen; the peasant in his hovel as sacred as the prince in his palace or the king on his throne." Stating the fact that there were about eight hundred thousand native-born colored men in the country, and affirming the principle that if Oregon might exclude them all other States might, he asked: "What in the name of God will you do with these men, these eight hundred thousand free native-born of our common country? In the name of eternal justice I deny this pretended State right to exile any of its native-born freemen, or deny them a fair hearing in maintenance of their rights in the courts of justice." Anticipating the contingency that the bill might pass, he exclaimed: "O, sir, how will this burning disgrace about to be enacted into law hiss among the nations that your boasted trial by jury is to be withheld from eight hundred thousands of our citizens and their posterity forever, because they were so weak or unfortunate as to be born with tawny