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States and the Territories to the Union had been subjected to the most careful and deliberate scrutiny, by the most powerful minds in Congress, impressed with unaffected solicitude for the common weal, and by the anxious conviction, that the passing period was one of critical moment, altogether unexampled, to the future fortunes of the country. Th general plan of the Compromise, or some of its features, had been warmly and strongly resisted by Mr. Davis of Mississippi, Mr. Benton of Missouri, Mr. Seward of New York, Mr. Smith of Connecticut, Mr. Dayton of New Jersey, Mr. Hale of New Hampshire, and others; while Mr. Clay of Kentucky, Mr. Webster of Massachusetts, Mr. Cass of Michigan, Mr. Dickinson of New York, Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, Mr. Douglas of Illinois, and those acting with them, brought to the several topics a force of eloquence and a cogency of reasoning seldom exhibited in any deliberative assembly. While the Northern Senators who opposed those measures resisted the grant of any further shadow of protection to the "slave power," and some of them, indeed, would have been glad to deprive it of all it possessed, under the Constitution; the Southern opponents of the scheme of compromise were agitated at the prospect of the decline of political influence and strength at the South. There were those, also, like Mr. Benton, who held stoutly to the guarantees of the Constitution; but, whether from political, or other reasons, objected to compromises upon incidental questions arising under it. There seem to have been inherent and insuperable obstacles to the claims asserted, in part, by some of the Southern gentlemen. The question of preserving an equilibrium of political power between the North and the South, was one altogether beyond the control of Congress. Had it been possible to fix upon such a balance, for the moment, it could have lasted but a short time. Great States would be formed, in due season, out of a vast territory within the jurisdiction of the United States, which was incapable of being dedicated to slave labor, by any force of legislation; while the limits of territory suitable to that purpose, recently

acquired, were already fixed by national boundaries, and were of far inferior extent.

It must be admitted, in the light of calm reason, that Congress was precluded, by the action of the people of California, from extending the line of demarcation between the free and the slave States through that Territory to the Pacific Ocean. If the people of that Territory, or of any other, were not the ultimate judges of those qualifications which might entitle it to admission, they presented a case, appealing, at least, as strongly for the concurrence of Congress in their action, by the prohibition of slavery in their Constitution, as if they had allowed its introduction. To have remitted their claim to them, with the requirement that they should change this feature of their Constitution, would have been a highhanded act of legislation, from which no good could have been reasonably expected, in the end. Instead of producing the effect proposed, it might have lost California to the United States, and its Pacific boundary to the republic; and, in any event, could hardly have been regarded by the country, or the world, in any other light than as a strangely unwarrantable and arbitrarily unjust proceeding.

State sovereignty formed one of the grand topics of discussion at this interesting crisis. The manifest distinction does not seem to have been always recognized between that kind of sovereignty and State rights. When the States declared their independence of Great Britain, in 1776, each became, in fact, sovereign. The Articles of Confederation, agreed to in 1778, set forth, that "Each State retains its sovereignty." The Constitution of Massachusetts, adopted in 1780-and the fact applies equally to all the other States -expressly asserts this sovereignty. The Constitution of the United States, submitted to the people in 1783, in no wise impairs this sovereignty, except in regard to powers specially delegated to the United States by it, and not prohibited by it to the States. With respect to the powers granted to the United States in that instrument, and not prohibited by it to the individual States, the United States,

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therefore, is sovereign; in all other respects, each of the States is so, by force of its own constitution, and of its legal independence. Within its own sphere, therefore, each State is independent of every other, and of the United States. Within this sphere, neither can, by its regular action, come into collision with either of the others, or with the union of States. This is the appropriate sphere of State rights.

But there is a sovereignty of the Union also, within its own sphere; coextensive with that of the whole body of States, and for the exercise of its own powers superior to it; which, in the exercise of those powers, can no more interfere with those of the States, than the sun in its orbit can clash with the planets in their courses. The right of revolution is of a different character, and a purely popular right, belonging to the people, not as citizens of States, but as men and members of the whole body politic, whenever they have spirit enough, and are in numbers sufficient to warrant revolution, as the remedy for intolerable oppression. In such a case, resistance is both a right and a duty; but the remedy for grievous and long-continued infringement of State rights, by the General Government, would be, not the secession of States, to the derangement of the whole system, but the uprising of the people, to restore the whole to its legitimate functions, for the general benefit.'

Upon the whole, the adjustment of the conflicting topics which had so long occupied the attention of Congress, and

1 Mr. Jefferson took a different view of the subject, and it is proper to give his opinion, as stated by Mr. John Quincy Adams, who appears to have agreed with him, in his eulogy on Mr. Madison. Mr. Adams said:

"Concurring in the doctrines that the separate States have a right to interpose in cases of palpable infractions of the Constitution by the Government of the United States, and that the alien and sedition acts presented a case of such infraction, Mr. Jefferson considered them as absolutely null and void, and thought the State legislatures competent, not only to declare, but to make them so, to resist their execution within their respective borders by physical force, and to secede from the Union, rather than to submit to them, if attempted to be carried into execution by force."

of the country, must be considered as judicious and salutary.' California was admitted to the Union, of necessity, with a constitution prohibiting slavery, which was not adapted to its condition, and in pursuance of the determination of its people. The slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, in which it was a stigma upon the seat of government, and where it had been equally offensive to citizens from all parts of the country. Some provision for the recapture of fugitive slaves, by legal process, to be exercised by magistrates and officers of the United States, to use the language of Mr. Justice Story, "was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding States." The act of 1793, in consequence of defects in some of its details, discovered after Northern sentiment had become averse to the delivery of these fugitives, was found insufficient for the purpose. The Supreme Court had decided, that State judges and magistrates were under no legal obligation to perform the duties, in this behalf, enjoined by that act. State legislatures had taken opportunity of this decision to forbid, under severe penalties, any such interposition on the part of the local authorities.

It is difficult, at this day, to discern any difference, in essential principle, between the fugitive slave act of 1850, approved by Millard Fillmore, in accordance with the legal advice of Attorney-General John J. Crittenden, and that of 1793, approved by George Washington, probably without other counsel than the obvious reasons in which all men at

1 The following passage occurs in a speech of Mr. Choate, delivered at a "constitutional meeting" of a vast assembly of citizens, held at Faneuil Hall, Boston, November 26th, 1850:

"Honor and praise to the eminent men of all parties who rose that day to the measure of a true greatness; who remembered that they had a country to preserve as well as a local constituency to gratify; who laid all the wealth and all the hopes of illustrious lives on the altar of a hazardous patriotism; who reckoned all the sweets of a present popularity for nothing in comparison with that more exceeding weight of glory which follows him who seeks to compose an agitated and to save a sinking land."-Choate's Life and Writings, vol. ii., 313.

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that period concurred, and the motives of justice and honor, by which all were alike influenced. By the provisions of both acts, the proceedings for the seizure, identification and removal of the fugitive were made summary. Under the act of 1793, appeal could be had from an inferior local magistrate to a judge of the highest State tribunal, who had legal authority, however, only to determine whether the evidence. was sufficient to warrant the removal of the fugitive to the jurisdiction from which he had fled.

Under the statute of 1850, the whole authority in relation to the matter was confided to the judges of the highest courts of the United States, and, in concurrence with them, to magistrates known as commissioners, appointed by those courts, for the discharge of regular duties. The determination of a commissioner, as well as that of a circuit or district judge, was made conclusive, in each particular case heard by him; except that the judgment of a commissioner could be brought to the cognizance of a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting in his circuit, to the judges of the Dis'trict Courts of the United States, and to the judges of the State tribunals, under the ordinary provisions for the writ of habeas corpus, in order that it might be seen, by the return upon this writ, whether the proceedings, on the face of them, were regular and lawful, or otherwise. By the act of 1793, justices of the peace exercised the same authority, in these cases, as the commissioners were empowered to use, by the act of 1850. In the latter instance, however, the supe rior tribunals were not authorized to reëxamine the proceed ings upon their merits.

In regard to the State courts, it may, perhaps, be properly suggested, that, since they were strictly forbidden, and under high penalties, by local legislation, to render official aid in the restoration of a fugitive slave, it could scarcely be considered reasonable that they should be permitted to prevent his restoration, as provided for by a statute of the United States. Similar provision was made by the one act, as by the other, for the punishment of persons who might