shall rely on that reservation. I shall vote to admit no more slave states, unless under circumstances absolutely compulsory-and no such case is now foreseen.

Mr. WEBSTER. What I said was, that if the states hereafter to be made out of Texas choose to come in as slave states, they have a right so to do.

Mr. SEWARD. My position is, that they have not a right to come in at all, if Congress rejects their institutions. The subdivision of Texas is a matter optional with both parties, Texas and the United States.

Mr. WEBSTER. Does the honorable senator mean to say that Congress can hereafter decide whether they shall be slave or free states?

Mr. SEWARD. I mean to say that Congress can hereafter decide whether any states, slave or free, can be framed out of Texas. If they should never be framed out of Texas, they never could be admitted.

Another objection arises out of the principle on which the demand for compromise rests. That principle assumes a classification of the states as northern and southern states, as it is expressed by the honorable senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN] but into slave states and free states, as more directly expressed by the honorable senator from Georgia, [Mr. BERRIEN.] The argument is, that the states are severally equal, and that these two classes were equal at the first, and that the Constitution was founded on that equilibrium; that the states being equal, and the classes of the states being equal in rights, they are to be regarded as constituting an association in which each state, and each of these classes of states, respectively, contribute in due proportions; that the new territories are a common acquisition, and the people of these several states and classes of states, have an equal right to participate in them, respectively; that the right of the people of the slave states to emigrate to the territories with their slaves as property is necessary to afford such a participation on their part, inasmuch as the people of the free states emigrate into the same territories with their property. And the argument deduces from this right the principle that, if Congress exclude slavery from any part of this new domain, it would be only just to set off a portion of the domain-some say south 36° 30', others south of 34°

which should be regarded at least as free to slavery, and to be organized into slave states.

Argument ingenious and subtle, declamation earnest and bold, and persuasion gentle and winning as the voice of the turtle dove when it is heard in the land, all alike and all together have failed to convince me of the soundness of this principle of the proposed compromise, or of any one of the propositions on which it is attempted to be established.

How is the original equality of the states proved? It rests on a syllogism of Vattel, as follows: All men are equal by the law of nature and of nations. But states are only lawful aggregations of individual men, who severally are equal. Therefore, states are equal in natural rights. All this is just and sound. But assuming the same premises, to wit, that all men are equal by the law of nature and of nations, the right of property in slaves falls to the ground; for one who is equal to another cannot be the owner or property of that other. But you answer, that the Constitution recognizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations. But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man. I submit, on the other hand, most respectfully, that the Constitution not merely does not affirm that principle, but, on the contrary, altogether excludes it.

The Constitution does not expressly affirm anything on the subject; all that it contains is two incidental allusions to slaves. These are, first, in the provision establishing a ratio of representation and taxation; and, secondly, in the provision relating to fugitives from labor. In both cases, the Constitution designedly mentions slaves, not as slaves, much less as chattels, but as persons. That this recognition of them as persons was designed is historically known, and I think was never denied. I give only two of the manifold proofs. First, JOHN JAY, in the Federalist,

says:

Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in truth, a peculiar one. Let the compromising expedient of the Constitution be mutually adopted which regards them as inhabitants, but as debased below the equal level of free inhabitants, which regards the slave as divested of two-fifths of the man."

Yes, sir, of two-fifths, but of only two-fifths; leaving still threefifths; leaving the slave still an inhabitant, a person, a living, breathing, moving, reasoning, immortal man.

The other proof is from the debates in the convention. It a brief, and I think instructive:

"AUGUST 28, 1787.

"Mr. BUTLER and Mr. PINCKNEY moved to require fugitive slaves and servants to be delivered up like convicts.

"Mr. WILSON. This would oblige the executive of the state to do it at public expense. "Mr. SHERMAN saw no more propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or a servant than a horse.

Mr. BUTLER withdrew his proposition, in order that some particular provision might be made, apart from this article."

AUGUST 29, 1787.

“Mr. BUTLER moved to insert after article 15: If any person bound to service or labor in any of the United States shall escape into another state, he or she shall not be discharged from such service or labor in consequence of any regulation subsisting in the state to which they escape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their service or labor.'

"After the engrossment, September 15, page 550, article 4, section 2, the third paragraph, the term 'legally' was struck out, and the words under the laws thereof' inserted after the word 'state,' in compliance with the wishes of some who thought the term 'legal' equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a moral view.”— Madison Debates, pp. 487, 492.

I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property in man, but leaves that question, as between the states, to the law of nature and of nations. That law, as expounded by Vattel, is founded on the reason of things. When God had created the earth, with its wonderful adaptations, He gave dominion over it to man, absolute human dominion. The title of that dominion, thus bestowed, would have been incomplete, if the lord of all terrestrial things could himself have been the property of his fellow-man.

The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war. But if we grant the original equality of the states, and grant also the constitutional recognition of slaves as property, still the argument we are considering fails. Because the states are not parties to the Constitution as states; it is the Constitution of the people of the United States.

But even if the states continue under the Constitution as states, they nevertheless surrendered their equality as states, and submitted themselves to the sway of the numerical majority, with qualifications or checks; first, of the representation of three-fifths of slaves in the ratio of representation and taxation; and, secondly, of the equal representation of states in the Senate.

The proposition of an established classification of states as slave

states and free states, as insisted on by some, and into northern and southern, as maintained by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and of course the supposed equilibrium of those classes a mere conceit. This must be so, because, when the Constitution was adopted, twelve of the thirteen states were slave states, and so there was no equilibrium. And so as to the classification of states as northern states and southern states. It is the maintenance of slavery by law in a state, not parallels of latitude, that makes it a southern state; and the absence of this, that makes it a northern state. And so all the states, save one, were southern states, and there was no equilibrium. But the Constitution was made not only for southern and northern states, but for states neither northern nor southern, namely, the western states, their coming in being foreseen and provided for.

It needs little argument to show that the idea of a joint stock association, or a copartnership, as applicable even by its analogies to the United States, is erroneous, with all the consequences fancifully deduced from it. The United States are a political state, or organized society, whose end is government, for the security, welfare, and happiness of all who live under its protection. The theory I am combating reduces the objects of government to the mere spoils of conquest. Contrary to a theory so debasing, the preamble of the Constitution not only asserts the sovereignty to be, not in the states, but in the people, but also promulgates the objects of the Constitution:

"

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty, do ordain and establish this Constitution."

Objects sublime and benevolent! They exclude the very idea of conquests, to be either divided among states or even enjoyed by them, for the purpose of securing, not the blessings of liberty, but the evils of slavery. There is a novelty in the principle of the proposed compromise which condemns it. Simultaneously with the establishment of the Constitution, Virginia ceded to the United States her domain, which then extended to the Mississippi, and was even claimed to extend to the Pacific ocean. Congress accepted it, and unanimously devoted the domain to freedom, in the language from which the ordinance now so severely condemned was borrowed. Five states have already been organized on this

domain, from all of which, in pursuance of that ordinance, slavery is excluded. How did it happen that this theory of the equality of states, of the classification of states, of the equilibrium of states, of the title of the states to common enjoyment of the domain, or to an equitable and just partition between them, was never promulgated, nor even dreamed of, by the slave states, when they unanimously consented to that ordinance?

There is another aspect of the principle of compromise which deserves consideration. It assumes that slavery, if not the only institution in a slave state, is at least a ruling institution, and that this characteristic is recognized by the Constitution. But slavery is only one of many institutions there. Freedom is equally an institution there. Slavery is only a temporary, accidental, partial,... and incongruous one. Freedom, on the contrary, is a perpetual,. organic, universal one, in harmony with the Constitution of the. United States. The slaveholder himself stands under the protection of the latter, in common with all the free citizens of the state. But it is, moreover, an indispensable institution. You may separate slavery from South Carolina, and the state will still remain; but if you subvert freedom there, the state will cease to exist. But the principle of this compromise gives complete ascendency in the slave states, and in the Constitution of the United States, to the subordinate, accidental, and incongruous institution, over its paramount antagonist. To reduce this claim of slavery to an absurdity, it is only necessary to add that there are only two states in which slaves are a majority, and not one in which the slaveholders are not a very disproportionate minority.

But there is yet another aspect in which this principle must be examined. It regards the domain only as a possession, to be enjoyed either in common or by partition by the citizens of the old states. It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours. It is true it was acquired by the valor and with the wealth of the whole nation. But we hold, nevertheless, no arbitrary power over it. We hold no arbitrary authority over anything, whether acquired lawfully or seized by usurpation. The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty.

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the