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equal and our brother? The history of the times clearly | from office, and to fill their places with bold, able, and show that our fathers did not regard the African race as any kin to them, and determined so to lay the foundation of society and government that they should never be of kin to their posterity. (Immense applause.)

But, when you confer upon the African race the privileges of citizenship, and put them on an equality with white men at the polls, in the jury-box, on the bench, in the Executive chair, and in the councils of the nation, upon what principle will you deny their equality at the festive board and in the domes ic circle?

The Supreme Court of the United States have decided that, under the Constitution, a negro is not and cannot be a citizen.

The Republican Abolition party pronounce that decision cruel, inhuman and infamous, and appeal to the American people to disregard and refuse to obey it. Let us join issue with them, and put ourselves upon the country for trial. (Cheers and applause.)

CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN UTAH, AND THE
REMEDY.

Mr. President, I will now respond to the call which has been made upon me for my opinions of the condition of things in Utah, and the appropriate remedies for existing evils.

true men, and to cause a thorough and searching inves tigation into all the c.imes and enormities which are alleged to be perpetrated daily in that Territory, under the direction of Brigham Young and his confederates and to use all the military force necessary to protect the officers in the discharge of their duties, and to en force the laws of the land. (Applause.)

When the authentic evidence shall arrive, if it shall establish the facts which are believed to exist, it will be come the duty of Congress to apply the knife and ut out this loathsome, disgusting ulcer. (Applause.) No temporizing policy-no halfway measures will then answer. It has been supposed by those who have not thought deeply upon the subject, that an act of Congress prohibiting inurder, robbery, polygamy, and other crimes, with appropriate penalties for those offences, would afford adequate remedies for all the enormities complained of. Suppose such a law to be on the statute book, and I believe they have a criminal code, providing the usual punishment for the entire catalogue of crimes, according to the usages of all civilized and Christian countries, with the exception of polygamy, which is practised under the sanction of the Mormon Church, but is neither prohibited nor authorized by the laws of the Territory.

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Suppose, I repeat, that Congress should pass a law The Territory of Utah was organized under one of the prescribing a criminal code, and punishing polygamy acts known as the Compromise Measures of 1850, on the among other offences, what other effect would it havesupposition that the inhabitants were American citizens, what good would it do? Would you call on twenty-three owing and acknowledging allegiance to the United States, grand jurymen, with twenty-three wives each, to find a and consequently entitled to the benefits of self-govern- bill of indictment against a poor miserable wretch for ment while a Territory, and to a mission in the Union having two wives? (Cheers and laughter.) Would you on an equal footing with the original States, as soon as call upon twelve petit jurors, with twelve wives they should number the requisit population. It was each, to convict the same loathsome wretch for having conceded on all hands, and by all parties, that the pecu- two wives? (Continued applause.) Would you expect liarities of their religious faith and ceremonies interposed a grand jury composed of twenty-three "Danites " no valid and constitutional object on to their reception find a bill of indictment against a brother "Danite " for into the Union, in conformity with the Federal Constitu- having murdered a Gentile, as they call all American tion, so long as they were in ali o her respects entitled to citizens, under their direction? Much less would you admission. Hence, the great political parties of the expect a jury of twelve "destroying angels" to find country indorsed and approved the Compromise Mea-another "destroying angel" guilty of the crime of mursures of 1850, including the act for the organization of the der, and cause him to be hanged for no other offence Territory of Utah, with the hope and in the confidence than taking the life of a Gentile? No! If there is any that the inhabitants would conform to the Constitution truth in the reports we receive from Utah, Congress may and laws, and prove themselves worthy, respectable and pass whatever laws it chooses; but you can never rely law-abiding citizens. If we are permitted to place cre- upon the local tribunals and juries to punish crimes comdence in the rumors and reports from that country (and mitted by Mormons in that Territory. Some other and it must be admitted that they have increased and more effectual remedy must be devised and applied. In strengthened and assumed consistency and plausibility by my opinion, the first step should be the absolute and each successive mail), seven years' experience has dis- unconditional repeal of the organic act-blotting the closed a state of facts entirely different from that which Territorial Government out of existenceupon the was supposed to exist when Utah was organized. These ground that they are outlaws, denying their allegiance rumors and reports would seem to justify the belief that and defying the authorities of the United States. (Imthe following facts are susceptible of proof. mense applause.)

1. That nine-tenths of the inhabitants are aliens by birth, who have refused to become naturalized, or to take the oath of allegiance, or to do any other act recognizing the Government of the United States as the paramount authority in that Terito y.

2. That all the inhabitants, whether native or alien born, known as Mormons, (and they constitute the whole people of the Territory), are bound by horrid oaths and terrible penalties, to recognize and maintain the authority of Brigham Young, and the government of which he is the head, as paramount to that of the United States, in civil as well as in religious affairs; and that they will, in due time, and under the direction of their leaders, use all means in their power to subvert the government of the United States, and resist its authority.

The Territorial Government once abolished, the country would revert to its primitive condition pricr to the act of 1850, "under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States," and should be placed under the operation of the act of Congress of the 30th of April, 1790, and the various acts supplemental thereto and amendatory thereof, "providing for the punishment of crimes against the United States within any fort, arsenal dockyard, magazine, OR ANY OTHER PLACE OR DISTRICT OF COUNTRY, UNDER THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE jurisdiction of the United States." All offenses against the provisions of these acts are required by law to be tried and punished by the United States Courts in the States or Territories where the offenders shall be "FIRST APPREHENDED OR BROUGHT FOR TRIAL." Thus it will be seen that under the plan proposed, BRIGHAM YOUNG and his confederates could be "apprehended and brought for trial," to Iowa or Missouri, California or Oregon, or to any other adjacent State or Territory, where a fair tria! could be had, and justice administered impartiallywhere the witnesses could be protected and the judg ment of the court could be carried into execution, withduce any new principles into our jurisprudence, nor to change the modes of proceeding or the rules of practice If, upon a full investigation, these representations in our Courts. I only propose to place the district of shall prove true, they will establish the fact that the country embraced within the Territory of Utah under Mormon inhabitants of Utah, as a community, are out- the operation of the same laws and rules of proceeding, laws and alien enemies, unfit to exercise the right of that Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and our other Terriself-government under the organic act, and unworthy to tories were placed before they became organized Terribe admitted into the Union as a State, when their only tories. The whole country embraced within these Terriobject in seeking admission is to interpose the sov-tories was under the operation of that same system of ereignty of the State, as an inv ncible shield to protect them in their treason and cime, debauchery and infamy. (Applause.)

3. That the Mormon government, with Brigham Young at its head, is now forming alliance with Indian tribes in Utah and adjoining territor.es-stimulating the Indians to acts of hostility-and organizing bands of his own followers under the name of "Danites, or Destroying Angels," to prosecute a system of robbery and murders upon American citizens, who support the authority of the United States, and denounce the in-out violence or intimidation. I do not propose to introfamous and disgusting practices and institutions of the Mormon Government.

Under this view of the subject, I think it is the duty of the President, as I have no doubt it is his fixed purpose to remove Brigham Young and all his followers

laws, and all the offenses committed within the same were punished in the manner now proposed, so long as the country remained "under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States;" but the moment the country was organized into Territorial Governments, with legislative, executive and judicial departments,

It ceased to be under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction | money; or, if purchased for a post-office, it must be of the United States, within the meaning of the act of Congress, for the reason that it had passed under another and a different jurisdiction. Hence, if we abolish the Territorial Government of Utah, preserving all existing rights, and place the country under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, offenders can be apprehended and brought into the adjacent States or Territories for punishment, in the same manner and under the same rules and regulations which obtained and have been uniformly practiced under like circumstances since 1790.

If the plan proposed shall be found an effective and adequate remedy for the evils complained of in Utah, no one, no matter what his political creed or partisan associations, need be apprehensive that it will violate any cherished theory or constitutional right in regard to the government of the Territor.es. It is a great mistake to suppose that all the territory or land belonging to the United States must necessarily be governed by the same laws and under the same clause of the Constitution, without reference to the purpose to which it is dedicated or the use which it is proposed to make of it; while all that portion of the county which is or shall be set apart to become new States, must necessarily be governed under and consistent with that clause of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to admit new States, it does not follow that other territory, not intended to be organized and admitted into the Union as States, must be governed under the same clause of the Constitution, with all the rights of self-government and State equality. For instance, if we should purchase Vancouver's Island from Great Britain for the purpose of removing all the Indians from our Pacific territories and locating them on that island as their permanent home, with guaranties that it should never be occupied or settled with white men, will it be contended that the purchase should be made and the island governed under the power to admit new States when it was not acquired for that purpose, nor intended to be applied to that object? Being acquired for Indian purposes and applied to Indian purposes, it is not more reasonable to assume that the power to acquire was derived from the Indian clause, and the island must necessarily be governed under and consistent with that clause of the Constitution which relates to Indian affairs. Again, suppose we should deem it expedient to buy a small island in the Mediterranean or the Carribean Sea for a naval station, can it be said with any force or plausibility that the purchase should be made or the island governed under the power to admit new States? On the contrary, is it not obvious that the right to acquire and govern in that case is derived from the power "to provide and maintain a navy,' and must be exercised consistently with that power. So, if we purchase land for forts, arsenals, or other military purposes, or set apart and dedicate any territory which we now own for a military reservation, it immediately passes under the military power and must be governed in harmony with it. So if the land be purchased for a mint, it must be governed under the power to coin

governed under the power to establish post-offices and post-roads; or, for a custom-house, under the power to regulate commerce; or for a court-house, under the judiciary power. In short, the clause in the Constitution under which any land or territory belonging to the United States must be governed, is indicated by the object for which it was acquired and the purpose for which it is dedicated. So long, therefore, as the organic act of Utah shall remain in force, secting apart that country for a new State, and pledging the faith of the United States to receive it into the Union as soon as it should have the requisite population, we are bound to extend to it all the rights of self-government, agreeably to the clause in the Constitution providing for the admission of new States. Hence the necessity of repealing the organic act-withdrawing the pledge of admission, and placing it under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, in order that persons and property may be protected, and justice administered, and crimes punished under the laws prescribed by Congress in such cases. While the power of Congress to repeal this organic act and abolish the Territorial Government cannot be denied, the question may arise whether we possess the moral right of exercising the power, after the charter has been once granted and the local government organized under its provisions. This is a grave question-one which should not be decided hastily, nor under the influence of passion or prejudice. I am free to say that in my opinion there is no moral right to repeal the organic act of a Territory, and abolish the government organized under it, unless the inhabitants of that Territory, as a community, have done such acts as amount to a forfeiture of all rights under it-such as becoming alien enemies, outlaws, disavowing their allegiance, or resisting the authority of the United States. These, and kindred acts, which we have every reason to believe are daily perpetrated in that Territory, would not only give us the moral right, but make it our imperative duty to abolish the Territorial Government, and place the inhabitants under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, to the end that justice may be done and the dignity and authority of the Government vindicated.

I have thus presented plainly and frankly my views of the Utah question-the evils and the remedy-upon the facts as they have reached us, and are supposed to be substantially correct. If official reports and authentic information shall change or modify these facts, I shall be ready to conform my notion to the real facts as they shall be found to exist. I have no such pride of opinion as will induce me to persevere in an error one moment after my judgment is convinced. If, therefore, a better plan can be devised-one more consistent with justice and sound policy, or more effective as a remedy for acknow. ledged evils, I shall take great pleasure in adopting it, in lieu of the one I have presented to you to-night.

In conclusion, permit me to express my grateful acknowledgments for your patient attention and the kind and respectful manner in which you have received my remarks.

INVASION OF STATES--SEDITION LAW PROPOSED.

SPEECH OF MR. DOUGLAS.

On the 16th of January, 1860, Mr. Douglas submitted to the United States Senate the following Resolution :

Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to report a bill for the protection of each State and Territory of the Union, against invasion by the authorities or inhabitants of any other State or Territory; and for the suppression and punishment of conspiracies or combinations in any State or Territory with intent to invade, assail, or molest the government, inhabitants, property, or institutions of any other State or Territory

of the Union.

This Resolution, coming up as a special order In the 23d of January,

Mr. Douglas said: Mr. President, on the 25th of Novemer last, the Governor of Virginia addressed on official ommunication to the President of the United States, in hich he said:

rely, that a conspiracy of formidable extent, in means and "I have information from various quarters, upon which I numbers, is formed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New-York, and other States, to rescue John Brown and his associates, prisoners at Charleston, Virginia. The information is specific enough to be reliable"

Places in Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have been occupied as depots and rendezvous by these desperadoes, unwe are kept in continual apprehension of outrage fran fire obstructed by guards or otherwise, to invade this State, and and rapine. I apprise you of these facts in order that you may take steps to preserve peace between the States."

States, on the 28th of November, returned a reply, from To this communication, the President of the United which I read the following sentence:

"I am at a loss to discover any provision in the Constitution or laws of the United States which would authorize me to 'take steps for this purpose."" [That is, to preserve the peace between the States.]

Mr. Douglas argued at considerable length, to prove that the Constitution does provide for the

protection, by the Federal Government, of each | England against the lives of the princes of France. I

State against invasion from any and all sources, and continued:

The question then remaining is, what legislation is, necessary and proper to render this guaranty of the Constitution effectual? I presume there will be very little difference of opinion that it will be necessary to place the whole military power of the Government at the disposal of the President, under proper guards and restrictions against abuse, to repel and suppress invasion when the hostle force shall be actually in the field. But, sir, that is not sufficient. Such legislation would not be a full compliance with this guaranty of the Constitution. The framers of that instrument meant more when they gave the guaranty. Mark the difference in language between the provision for protecting the United States against invasion and that for protecting the States. When it provided for protecting the United States, it said Congress shall have power to repel invasion." When it came to make this guaranty to the States, it changed the language, and said the United States shall "protect" each of the States against invasion. In the one instance, the duty of the Government is to repel; in the other, the guaranty is that they will protect. In other words, the United States are not permitted to wait until the enemy shall be upon your borders; until the invading army shall have been organized and drilled and placed in march with a view to the invasion; but they must pass all laws necessary and proper to insure protection and domestic tranquillity to each State and Territory of this Union against invasion or hostilities from other States and Territories.

States. I predicate my argument upon the Constitution

shall not argue the question of comity between foreign

by which we are governed, and which we have sworn to obey, and demand that the Constitution be executed in good faith so as to punish and suppress every combina tion, every conspiracy, either to invade a State or to molest its inhabitants, or to disturb its property, or to subvert its institutions and its government. I believe this can be effectually done by authorizing the United States courts in the several States to take jurisdiction of the offense, and punish the violation of the law with appropriate punishments.

It cannot be said that the time has not yet arrived for such legislation. It cannot be said with truth that the Harper's Ferry case will not be repeated, or is not in danger of repetition. It is only necessary to inquire into the causes which produced the Harper's Ferry outrage, and ascertain whether those causes are yet in active operation, and then you can determine whether there is any ground for apprehension that that invasion will be repeated. Sir, what were the causes which produced the Harper's Ferry outrage? Without stopping to adduce evidence in detail, I have no hesitation in expressing my firm and deliberate conviction that the Harper's Ferry crime was the natural, logical, inevitable result of the doctrines and teachings of the Republican party, as explained and enforced in their platform, their par tisan presses, their pamphlets and books, and espe cially in the speeches of their leaders in and out of Congress. (Applause in the galleries.)

And, sir, inasmuch as the Constitution of the United States confers upon Congress the power coupled with the duty of protecting each State against external aggression, and inasmuch as that includes the power of suppressing and punishing conspiracies in one State against the institutions, property, people, or government of every other State, I desire to carry out that power vigorously. Sir, give us such a law as the Constitution contemplates and authorizes, and I will show the Senator from New York that there is a constitutional mode of repressing the "irrepressible conflict." I will open the prison doors to allow conspirators against the peace of the Republic and the domestic tranquillity of our States to select their cells wherein to drag out a miserable life as a punishment for their crimes against the peace of society.

Then, sir, I hold that it is not only necessary to use the military power when the actual case of invasion shall occur, but to authorize the judicial department of the Government to suppress all conspiracies and combinations in the several States with intent to invade a State, or molest or disturb its government, its peace, its citizens, its property or its institutions. You must punish the conspiracy, the combination with intent to do the act, and then you will suppress it in advance. There is no principle more familiar to the legal profession than that wherever it is proper to declare an act to be a crime, it is proper to punish a conspiracy or combination with intent to perpetrate the act. Look upon your statute-books, and I presume you will find an enactment to punish the counterfeiting of the coin of the United States; and then Mr. President, the mode of preserving peace is plain. another section to punish a man for having counterfeit This system of sectional warfare must cease. coin in his possession with intent to pass it; and another stitution has given the power, and all we ask of Congress section to punish him for having the molds or dies or in- is to give the means, and we, by indictments and construments for counterfeiting, with intent to use them.victions in the Federal courts of our several States, will This is a familiar principle in legislative and judicial pro- make such examples of the leaders of these conspiracies ceedings. If the act of invasion is criminal, the conas will strike terror into the hearts of the others, and spiracy to invade should also be made criminal. If it be there will be an end of this crusade. Sir, you must unlawful and illegal to invade a State, and run off fugi- check it by crushing out the conspiracy, the combinative slaves, why not make it unlawful to form conspiracies tion, and then there can be safety.

and combinations in the several States with intent to do the act? We have been told that a notorious man who has recently suffered death for his crimes upon the gallows, boasted in Cleveland, Ohio, in a public lecture, a year ago, that he had then a body of men employed in running away horses from the slaveholders of Missouri, and pointed to a livery stable in Cleveland which was full of the stolen horses at that time.

The Con

[A special committee of the Senate, of which Mr. Mason, of Va., was chairman, appointed to investigate the Harper's Ferry affair, ascertain the cause of the raid, and report what laws, if any, were necessary to prevent a repetition, reported near the close of the session, that the committee were unable to discover that

WHAT POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY HAS DONE.

From Mr. Douglas' Speech in the Senate, May 16, 1860.

I think it is within our competency, and consequently our duty, to pass a law making every conspiracy or combination in any State or Territory of this Union to invade another with intent to steal or run away property of any any persons were either directly or indirectly kind, whether it be negroes, or horses, or property of any engaged in the invasion, other than John other description, into another State, a crime, and punish Brown and those who accompanied him to the conspirators by indictment in the United States courts and confinement in the prisons and penitentiaries Harper's Ferry.] of the State or Territory where the conspiracy may be formed and quelled. Sir, I would carry these provisions of law as far as our constitutional powers will reach. I would make it a crime to form conspiracies with a view of invading States or Territories to control elections, whether they be under the garb of Emigrant But, we are told that the necessary result of this docAid Societies of New England or Blue Lodges of Mis-trine of non-intervention, which, gentlemen, by way of souri. (Applause in the galleries.) In other words, throwing ridicule upon it, call squatter sovereignty, is this provision of the Constitutions means more than the mere repelling of an invasion when the invading army shall reach the border of a State. The language is, it shall protect the State against invasion; the meaning of which is, to use the language of the preamble to the Constitution, to insure to each State domestic tranquillity against external violence. There can be no peace, there can be no prosperity, there can be no safety in any community, unless it is secured against violence from abroad. Why, sir, it has been a question seriously mooted in Europe, whether it was not the duty of England, a power foreign to France, to pass laws to punish conspiracies in

to deprive the South of all participation in what they call the common Territories of the United States. That was the ground on which the Senator from Misissippi (Mr. Davis), predicated his opposition to the Compromise Measures of 1850. He regarded a refusal to repeal the Mexican law as equivalent to the Wilmot Proviso; a refusal to recognize by an act of Congress the right to carry a slave there as equivalent to the Wilmot Proviso; a refusal to deny to a Territorial Legislature the right to exclude Slavery as equivalent to an exclusion. He believed at that time that this doctrine did amount to a denial of southern rights; and he told the people of

Mississippi so; but they doubted it. Now let us see how far his theory and suppositions have been verified. I infer that he told the people of Mississippi so, for he makes it a charge in his bill of indictment against me, that I am hostile to southern rights because I gave those votes.

Now, what has been the result? My views were incorporated into the Compromise Measures of 1850, and his were rejected. Has the South been excluded from all the territory acquired from Mexico? What says the bill from the House of Representatives now on your table, repealing the slave code in New Mexico, established by the people themselves? It is part of the history of the country that under this doctrine of non-intervention, this doctrine that you delight to call squatter sovereignty, the people of New Mexico have introduced and protected Slavery in the whole of that Territory. Under this doctrine, they have converted a tract of Free Territory into Slave Territory, more than five times the size of the State of New-York. Under this doctrine, Slavery has been extended from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, and from the line of the Republic of Mexico, not only up to 36 deg. 30 min., but up to 33 deg.-GIVING YOU A DEGREE AND A HALF MORE SLAVE TERRITORY THAN YOU EVER CLAIMED. In 1848 and 1849 and 1850, you only asked to have the line of 36 deg. 80 min. The Nashville convention fixed that as its ultimatum. I offered it in the Senate in August, 1848 and it was adopted here but rejected in the House of Representatives. You asked only up to 36 deg. 30 min., and nonintervention has given you Slave Territory up to 38 deg., A DEGREE AND A HALF MORE THAN YOU ASKED; and yet you say that this is a sacrifice of Southern rights!

These are the fruits of this principle which the Sena

tor from Mississippi regards as hostile to the rights of the South. Where did you ever get any other fruits that were more palatable to your taste or more refreshing to your strength? What other inch of Free Territory has been converted into Slave Territory on the American continent, since the Revolution, except in New Mexico and Arizona, under the principle of non-intervention affirmed at Charleston? If it be true that this principie of non-intervention has given to Slavery all New Mexico, which was surrounded on nearly every side by Free Territory, will not the same principle protect you in the northern states of Mexico when they are acquired, since they are now sur rounded by Slave Territory; are several hundred miles further South; have many degrees of greater heat; and have a climate and soil adapted to Southern products? Are you not satisfied with these practical results? Do you desire to appeal from the people of the Territories to the Congress of the United States to settle this question in the Territories? When you distrust the people and appeal to Congress, with both houses largely against you on this question, what sort of protection will you get? Whenever you ask a Slave code from Congress to protect your institutions in a Territory where the people do not want it, you will get that sort of protection which the wolf gives to the lamb; you will get that sort of friendly hug that the grizzly bear gives to the infant. Appealing to an Anti-Slavery Congress to pass laws of protection, with a view of forcing Slavery upon an unwilling and hostile people! Sir, of all the mad schemes that ever could be devised by the South, or by the enemies of the South, that which recognizes the right of Congress to touch the institution of Slavery either in States or Territories. beyond the single case provided in the Constitution for the rendition of fugitive Slaves, is the mos fatal.-Appendix to Congressional Globe, page 314.

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.

A SPEECH BY WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Delivered at Rochester, Monday, Oct. 25, 1858.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: The unmistakable outbreaks of zeal which occur all around me, show that you are earnest men --and such a man am I. Let us, therefore, at least for a time, pass by all secondary and collateral questions, whether of a personal or of a general nature, and consider the main subject of the present canvass. The Democratic party, or, to speak more accurately, the party which wears that attractive name, is in possession of the Federal Government. The Republicans propose to dislodge that party, and dismiss it from its high trust.

The main subject, then, is, whether the Democractic party deserves to retain the confidence of the American people. In attempting to prove it unworthy, I think that I am not actuated by prejudices against that party, or by prepossessions in favor of its adversary; for I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.

Our country is a theatre, which exhibits in full operation, two radically different political systems; the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor, the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen.

The laborers who are enslaved are all negroes, or persons more or less purely of African derivation. But this is only accidental. The principle of the system is, that labor in every society, by whomsoever performed, is necessarily unintellectual, groveling, and base; and that the laborer, equally for his own good and for the welfare of the State, ought to be enslaved. The white laboring man, whether native or foreigner, is not enslaved, only because he cannot, as yet, be reduced to bondage..

You need not be told now that the slave system is the older of the two, and that once it was universal.

The emancipation of our own ancestors, Caucasians and Europeans as they were, hardly dates beyond a period of five hundred years. The great melioration of human society which modern times exhibit, is mainly due to the incomplete substitution of the system of voluntary labor for the old one of servile labor, which has already taken place. This African, slave system is one which, in its origin and in its growth, has been altogether foreign from the habits of the races which colonized these States, established civilization here. It was introduced on

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this new continent as an engine of conquest, and for the establishment of monarchical power, by the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and was rapidly extended by them all over South America, Central America, Louisiana, and Mexico. Its legitimate fruits are seen in the poverty, imbecility, and anarchy, which now pervade all Portuguese and Spanish America. The free-labor system is of German extraction, and it was established in our country by emigrants from Sweden, Holland, Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. We justly ascribe to its influences the strength, wealth, greatness, intelligence, and freedom which the whole American people now enjoy. One of the chief elements of the value of human life is freedom in the pursuit of happi. ness. The slave system is not only intolerant, unjust, and inhuman toward the laborer, whom, only because he is a laborer, it loads down with chains and converts into mer chandise, but is scarcely less severe upon the freeman, to whom, only because he is a laborer from necessity, it de nies facilities for employment, and whom it expels from the community because it cannot enslave and convert him into merchandise also. It is necessarily improvident and ruinous, because, as a general truth, communities prosper and flourish or droop and decline in just the degree that they practice or neglect to practice the primary duties of justice and humanity. The free-labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, which is written in the hearts and consciences of men, and therefore is always and everywhere beneficent.

The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources for defense, to the lowest degree of which human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection, and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in national development and aggrandizement.

The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the fields of industrial employment, and all the departments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible activity all the physical, moral, and social energies of the whole State. In States where the slave system prevails, the masters, directly or indirectly, secure all

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power, and constitute a ruling aristocracy. In States where the free-labor system prevails, universal suffrage necessarily obtains, and the State inevitably becomes, sooner or later, a republic or democracy.

whole structure of Government broadly on the principle
that all men are created equal, and therefore free-little
dreaming that, within the short period of one hundred
years, their descendants would bear to be told by any
orator, however popular, that the utterance of that prin-
ciple was merely a rhetorical rhapsody; or by any judge
however venerated, that it was attended by mental re-
servations, which rendered it hypocritical and false. By
| the Ordinance of 1787, they dedicated all of the national
domain not yet polluted by Slavery to free labor im-
mediately, thenceforth and forever; while by the new
Constitution and laws they invited foreign free labor
from all lands under the sun, and interdicted the im-
portation of African Slave Labor, at all times, in all
places, and under all circumstances whatsoever. It is
true that they necessarily and wisely modified this
policy of Freedom, by leaving it to the several States,
affected as they were by differing circumstances, to
abolish Slavery in their own way and at their own plea-
sure, instead of confiding that duty to Congress, and
that they secured to the Slave States, while yet retain-
ing the system of Slavery, a three-fifths representation
of slaves in the Federal Government, until they should
find themselves able to relinquish it with safety. But
the very nature of these modifications fortifies my posi-
tion that the fathers knew that the two systems could
not endure within the Union, and expected that within
a short period Slavery would disappear forever. More-
gether defeat their grand design of a Republic maintain-
ing universal equality, they provided that two-thirds of
the States might amend the Constitution.

Russia yet maintains Slavery, and is a despotism. Most of the other European States have abolished Slavery, and adopted the system of free labor. It was the antagonistic political tendencies of the two systems which the first Napoleon was contemplating when he predicted that Europe would ultimately be either all Cossack or all Republican. Never did human sagacity utter a more pregnant truth. The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. But they are more than incongruous-they are incompatible. They never have permanently existed together in one country, and they never can. It would be easy to demonstrate this impossibility, from the irreconcilable contrast between their great principles and characteristics. But the experience of mankind has conclusively established it. Slavery, as I have already intimated, existed in every state in Europe. Free labor has supplanted it everywhere except in Russia and Turkey. State necessities developed in modern times, are now obliging even those two nations to encourage and employ free labor; and already, despotic as they are, we find them engaged in abolishing Slavery. In the United States, Slavery came Into collision with free labor at the close of the last century, and fell before it in New-England, New-York, NewJersey, and Pennsylvania, but triumphed over it effec-over, in order that these modifications might not altotually, aud excluded it for a period yet undetermined, from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Indeed, so incompatible are the two systems, that every new State which is organized within our ever-extending domain makes its first political act a choice of the one and an exclusion of the other, even at the cost of civil war, if necessary. The Slave States, without law, at the last national election, successfully forbade, within their own limits, even the casting of votes for a candidate for President of the United States supposed to be favorable to the establishment of the free-labor system in new States.

Hitherto, the two systems have existed in different States, but side by side within the American Union. This has happened because the Union is a confederation of States. But in another aspect the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended net-work of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming in o closer contact, and collision results.

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It remains to say on this point only one word, to guard against misapprehension. If these States are to again become universally slaveholding, I do not pretend to say with what violations of the Constitution that end shall be accomplished. On the other hand, while I do confidently believe and hope that my country will yet become a land of universal Freedom, I do not expect that it will be made so otherwise than through the action of the several States coöperating with the Federal Government, and all acting in strict conformity with their respective Constitutions.

The strife and contentions concerning Slavery, which gently-disposed persons so habitually deprecate, are nothing more than the ripening of the conflict which the fathers themselves, not only thus regarded with favor, but which they may be said to have instituted.

It is not to be denied, however, that thus far the course of that contest has not been according to their humane anticipations and wishes. In the field of federal politics, Slavery, deriving unlooked-for advantages from commercial changes, and energies unforeseen from the facilities of combination between members of the slaveholding clase and between that class and other property classes, early Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who rallied, and has at length made a stand, not merely to rethink that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of in-tain its original defensive position, but to extend its sway terested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, throughout the whole Union. It is certain that the slavemistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible con- holding class of American citizens indulge this high ambiflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it tion, and that they derive encouragement for it from the means that the United States must and will, sooner or rapid and effective political successes which they have later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or already obtained. The plan of operation is this: By conentirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice tinued appliances of patronage and threats of disunion, fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of they will keep a majority favorable to these designs in the Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Senate, where each State has an equal representation. Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legiti-Through that majority they will defeat, as they best can, mate merchandise alone, or else the rye-fields and the admission of Free States, and secure the admission of wheat-fields of Massachusetts and New-York must again Slave States. Under the protection of the Judiciary, they be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to will, on the principle of the Dred Scott case, carry Slavery the production of slaves, and Boston and New-York be- into all the Territories of the United States now existing, come once more markets for trade in the bodies and and hereafter to be organized. By the action of the Presouls of men. It is the failure to apprehend this great sident and the Senate, using the treaty-making power, they truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at will annex foreign slaveholding States. In a favorable final compromise between the Slave and Free States, conjuncture they will induce Congress to repeal the act of and it is the existence of this great fact that renders all 1808, which prohibits the foreign slave-trade, and so they such pretended compromises, when made, vain and will import from Africa, at the cost of only $20 a head, ephemeral. Startling as this saying may appear to you, slaves enough to fill up the interior of the continent. fellow-citizens, it is by no means an original or even a Thus relatively increasing the number of Slave States, they modern one. Our forefathers knew it to be true, and will allow no amendment to the Constitution prejudicial to unanimously acted upon it when they framed the Consti- their interest; and so, having permanently established cution of the United States. They regarded the exist- their power, they expect the Federal Judiciary to nullify ence of the servile system in so many of the States with all State laws which shall interfere with internal or foreign sorrow and shame, which they openly confessed, and commerce in slaves. When the Free States shall be suffithey looked upon the collision between them, which was ciently demoralized to tolerate these designs, they reasonthen just revealing itself, and which we are now accus- ably conclude that Slavery will be accepted by those States tomed to deplore, with favor and hope. They knew that themselves. I shall not stop to show how speedy or how either the one or the other system must exclusively pre- complete would be the ruin which the accomplishment of vail. these slaveholding schemes would bring upon the country. For one, I should not remain in the country to test the sad experiment. Having spent my manhood, though not my whole life, in a Free State, no aristocracy of any kind, much less an aristocracy of slaveholders, shall ever make the laws of the land in which I shall be content to live. Having seen the society around me universally engaged

Unlike too many of those who in modern times invoke their authority, they had a choice between the two. They preferred the system of free labor, and they determined to organize the Government, and so to direct its activity, that that system should surely and certainly prevail. For this purpose, and no other, they based the

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