CHAPTER XXIII.

TERRITORIAL Expansion of Slavery-Missouri Compromise-Her Admission-Agitation-Sentiments of Daniel Webster on the Admission of Missouri-Admission of Arkansas-Remarks of Mr. Morris, in the Senate, on the Admission of Arkansas-Republic of Texas-Remarks and Resolution of Mr. Morris on Texas-Acquisition of Territory from Mexico-California-Repeal of the Missouri Compromise-Agitation through the country-Manifesto of Chase and others - Ministers Remonstrate - The act done - New Territory opened to Slavery Kansas-Its Slave Laws-Struggle between Freedom and SlaveryResults of the Expansion of Slave Territory-Shall Kansas be Free or not? Its effects on Labor-Opinions of Slaveholders on Labor-Its effects on Society and on White Laborers-Slavery Demonstrated to be a Curse.

THE expansion of the area of slavery has ever been a leading purpose with Southern Statesmen. The great motive was the increase of their political power, and its permanent supremacy in the Government of the Nation. Every new State added to the Union, not only aided in the preservation of a political equilibrium between the free and slave States, but continued to the slave power, its political ascendency. The Constitution provides that the members of the House of Representatives, shall be proportioned to the free inhabitants of the States they represent, except that in each State, three-fifths of the slave population, shall be for this purpose considered as free inhabitants. According to this proviso, every five slaves are to be counted as three white persons. If by law, every sixty thousand free inhabitants may elect a Representative, a district containing forty-five thousand whites and twentyfive thousand slaves, is by the Federal ratio entitled to a member. This Constitutional stipulation, has through all the political history of the American Government, given the slaveholders a prepondering weight in the National Councils. Hence the fact, and it is a political anomaly, that at the present time, the slaveholding interest, has a representation of thirty members in addition to the equal representation of the free inhabitants. This is a property Representation for slaves in the South are but property in the eye of the law-which is denied to every species of property in the free States; and this fundamental law of the Government operates unequally.

In the Senate of the United States, there is an equality of political power in the States, each State, however small or great, being entitled to two Senators in Congress, so that, a small slave State, like Delaware, has, in the Senate, a political power equal to the great State of New York, with her immense population and wealth. The preservation and the increase of this power in the Government, has been, and is now, the great motive that prompts the South to seek the extension of slavery. A brief historical expose of this extension is here presented.

The first efforts, subsequent to the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, from France, under the Administration of President Jefferson, made by the slave power, to extend slavery, was in the case of Missouri. In 1820, Missouri sought admission into the Union, as an independent State. Her Constitution admitted the existence and perpetuity of slavery; and when she came to ask for admission as a new State, into the Union, it was earnestly resisted by the free States, both by the people and their Representatives in Congress. It was a most memorable struggle between freedom and slavery, and agitated the whole country profoundly. After a postponement of a year, Missouri was admitted into the Union, on condition that, "In all that Territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies North of thirty-six degrees, and thirty minutes of North Latitude, not included within the limits of the State of Missouri, slavery and involuntary servitude shall be and is hereby forever prohibited." The admission of Missouri as a slave State, under this compromise, was the first great expansion of the slave power. President Monroe, before he signed the Missouri Act, of 1820, required a written opinion of each member of his Cabinet, as to the proposition whether "Congress has a right, under the powers vested in it by the Constitution, to make a regulation prohibiting slavery in a Territory." All the members of the Cabinet, including John C. Calhoun, and John Quincy Adams, answered in the affirmative.

Daniel Webster, in 1819, drew up an able memorial against the admission of Missouri as a slave State, which he, and others of Boston, signed and sent to Congress, and from which the following extracts are taken :

"Your memorialists would most respectfully submit that the terms of the Constitution, as well as the practice of the Government under it, must, as they humbly conceive, entirely justify the conclusion, that Congress may prohibit the further introduction of slavery, into its own Territories, and also make such provision a condition of the admission of any new State into the Union. We have a strong feeling of the injustice of any toleration of slavery. But to permit it in a new country, where yet no habits are formed to render it indispensable, what is it, but to encourage that rapacity and fraud, and violence, against which we have so long pointed the denunciations of our penal code? What is it but to tarnish the proud fame of the country? What is it but to throw suspicion on its good faith, and to render questionable all its professions of regard for the rights of humanity and the liberties of mankind. If the extensive and fertile fieldsof the Missouri Territory shall be opened as a market for slaves, the Government will seem to become a party to a traffic, which, in so many acts, through so many years, it has denounced as impolitic, unchristian, and inhuman." Arkansas, in 1836, was admitted into the Union, with a Constitution making slavery perpetual. Mr. Morris, was then called upon as a Senator of the United States to vote on the question of the admission of another slave State. His views are presented in extracts from his speech found in Benton's "Thirty Years in the United States Senate," "Mr. Morris," said Mr. Benton, "spoke more freely on the objectional points than other Senators. He said:

"Before I record my vote in favor of the passage of the Bill under consideration, I must ask the indulgence of the Senate for a moment, while I offer a few of the reasons which govern me in the vote I shall give. Being one of the Representatives of a free State, and believing slavery to be wrong in principle, and mischievous in practice, I wish to be clearly understood on the subject, both here, and by those I have the honor to represent. I have objections to the Constitution of Arkansas, on the ground that slavery is recognized in that Constitution, and settled and established as a fundamental principle in her government. I object to the existence of this principle forming a part of the organic law of any State; and I would vote against the admission of Arkansas, if I believed I had power to do so. The wrong, in a moral sense, with which I view slavery, would be sufficient for me to do this, did I not consider my political obligations, and the duty, as a member of this body, under which I now act, clearly require of me this vote.

"I hold that any portion of American citizens, who may reside on any part of the Territory of the United States, whenever their number shall amount to that which would entitle them to a representation in the House of Representatives in Congress, have a right to provide for themselves a Constitution and State Government, and to be admitted into the Union whenever they shall so apply; and they are not bound to wait the action of Congress in the first instance, except there is some compact or agreement requiring them to do so. I place this right upon the broad, and as I think, indisputable ground, that all persons living within the jurisdiction of the United States, are entitled to equal privileges; and it ought to be a matter of high gratification to us here, that in every position, even the most remote of our country, our people are anxious to obtain this high privilege at as early a day as possible. It furnishes clear proof that the Union is highly esteemed, and has its foundation deep in the hearts of our fellow citizens.

"By the Constitution of the United States, power is given to Congress to admit new States into the Union. It is in the character of a State that any portion of our citizens must apply to be admitted into the Union; a State Constitution and Government must be first formed. It is not necessary for the power of Congress, and I doubt whether Congress has such power, to prescribe the mode by which the people shall form a State Constitution; and for this plain reason, that Congress would be entirely incompetent to the exercise of any coersive power to carry into effect the mode they might prescribe. I can not therefore, vote against the admission of Arkansas into the Union, on the ground that there was no previous act of Congress to authorize the holding of her Convention. As a member of Congress I will not look beyond the Constitution that has been presented. I have no right to presume it was formed by incompetent persons, or that it does not fully express the opinions and wishes of the people of that country. It is true that the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican form of Government: meaning, in my judgment, that Congress shall not permit any power to establish in any State, a Government without the assent of the people of