WASHINGTON, _August 14, 1848_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
When the President has given his official sanction to a bill which has
passed Congress, usage requires that he shall notify the House in which
it originated of that fact. The mode of giving this notification has
been by an oral message delivered by his private secretary.
Having this day approved and signed an act entitled "An act to establish
the Territorial government of Oregon," I deem it proper, under the
existing circumstances, to communicate the fact in a more solemn form.
The deeply interesting and protracted discussions which have taken place
in both Houses of Congress and the absorbing interest which the subject
has excited throughout the country justify, in my judgment, this
departure from the form of notice observed in other cases. In this
communication with a coordinate branch of the Government, made proper by
the considerations referred to, I shall frankly and without reserve
express the reasons which have constrained me not to withhold my
signature from the bill to establish a government over Oregon, even
though the two territories of New Mexico and California are to be left
for the present without governments. None doubt that it is proper to
establish a government in Oregon. Indeed, it has been too long delayed.
I have made repeated recommendations to Congress to this effect. The
petitions of the people of that distant region have been presented to
the Government, and ought not to be disregarded. To give to them a
regularly organized government and the protection of our laws, which, as
citizens of the United States, they claim, is a high duty on our part,
and one which we are bound to perform, unless there be controlling
reasons to prevent it.
In the progress of all governments questions of such transcendent
importance occasionally arise as to cast in the shade all those of a
mere party character. But one such question can now be agitated in this
country, and this may endanger our glorious Union, the source of our
greatness and all our political blessings. This question is slavery.
With the slaveholding States this does not embrace merely the rights of
property, however valuable, but it ascends far higher, and involves the
domestic peace and security of every family.
The fathers of the Constitution, the wise and patriotic men who laid the
foundation of our institutions, foreseeing the danger from this quarter,
acted in a spirit of compromise and mutual concession on this dangerous
and delicate subject, and their wisdom ought to be the guide of their
successors. Whilst they left to the States exclusively the question of
domestic slavery within their respective limits, they provided that
slaves who might escape into other States not recognizing the
institution of slavery shall be "delivered up on the claim of the party
to whom such service or labor may be due."
Upon this foundation the matter rested until the Missouri question
arose.
In December, 1819, application was made to Congress by the people of the
Missouri Territory for admission into the Union as a State. The
discussion upon the subject in Congress involved the question of
slavery, and was prosecuted with such violence as to produce excitements
alarming to every patriot in the Union. But the good genius of
conciliation, which presided at the birth of our institutions, finally
prevailed, and the Missouri compromise was adopted. The eighth section
of the act of Congress of the 6th of March, 1820, "to authorize the
people of the Missouri Territory to form a constitution and State
government," etc., provides:
That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States under
the name of Louisiana which lies north of 36 degrees 30 minutes north
latitude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by
this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the
punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly
convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited: _Provided
always_, That any person escaping into the same from whom labor or
service is lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of the United
States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the
person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.
This compromise had the effect of calming the troubled waves and
restoring peace and good will throughout the States of the Union.
The Missouri question had excited intense agitation of the public mind,
and threatened to divide the country into geographical parties,
alienating the feelings of attachment which each portion of our Union
should bear to every other. The compromise allayed the excitement,
tranquilized the popular mind, and restored confidence and fraternal
feelings. Its authors were hailed as public benefactors.
I do not doubt that a similar adjustment of the questions which now
agitate the public mind would produce the same happy results. If the
legislation of Congress on the subject of the other Territories shall
not be adopted in a spirit of conciliation and compromise, it is
impossible that the country can be satisfied or that the most disastrous
consequences shall fail to ensue.
When Texas was admitted into the Union, the same spirit of compromise
which guided our predecessors in the admission of Missouri a quarter of
a century before prevailed without any serious opposition. The joint
resolution for annexing Texas to the United States, approved March 1,
1845, provides that--
Such States as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying
south of 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, commonly known as the
Missouri compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union with or
without slavery, as the people of each State asking admission may
desire; and in such State or States as shall be formed out of said
territory north of the Missouri compromise line slavery or involuntary
servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited.
The Territory of Oregon lies far north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, the
Missouri and Texas compromise line. Its southern boundary is the
parallel of 42 degrees, leaving the intermediate distance to be 330
geographical miles. And it is because the provisions of this bill are
not inconsistent with the laws of the Missouri compromise, if extended
from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean, that I have not felt at
liberty to withhold my sanction. Had it embraced territories south of
that compromise, the question presented for my consideration would have
been of a far different character, and my action upon it must have
corresponded with my convictions.
Ought we now to disturb the Missouri and Texas compromises? Ought we at
this late day, in attempting to annul what has been so long established
and acquiesced in, to excite sectional divisions and jealousies, to
alienate the people of different portions of the Union from each other,
and to endanger the existence of the Union itself?
From the adoption of the Federal Constitution, during a period of sixty
years, our progress as a nation has been without example in the annals
of history. Under the protection of a bountiful Providence, we have
advanced with giant strides in the career of wealth and prosperity. We
have enjoyed the blessings of freedom to a greater extent than any other
people, ancient or modern, under a Government which has preserved order
and secured to every citizen life, liberty, and property. We have now
become an example for imitation to the whole world. The friends of
freedom in every clime point with admiration to our institutions. Shall
we, then, at the moment when the people of Europe are devoting all their
energies in the attempt to assimilate their institutions to our own,
peril all our blessings by despising the lessons of experience and
refusing to tread in the footsteps which our fathers have trodden? And
for what cause would we endanger our glorious Union? The Missouri
compromise contains a prohibition of slavery throughout all that vast
region extending twelve and a half degrees along the Pacific, from the
parallel of 36 degrees 30 minutes to that of 49 degrees, and east from
that ocean to and beyond the summit of the Rocky Mountains. Why, then,
should our institutions be endangered because it is proposed to submit
to the people of the remainder of our newly acquired territory lying
south of 36 degrees 30 minutes, embracing less than four degrees of
latitude, the question whether, in the language of the Texas compromise,
they "shall be admitted [as a State] into the Union with or without
slavery." Is this a question to be pushed to such extremities by excited
partisans on the one side or the other, in regard to our newly acquired
distant possessions on the Pacific, as to endanger the Union of thirty
glorious States, which constitute our Confederacy? I have an abiding
confidence that the sober reflection and sound patriotism of the people
of all the States will bring them to the conclusion that the dictate of
wisdom is to follow the example of those who have gone before us, and
settle this dangerous question on the Missouri compromise, or some other
equitable compromise which would respect the rights of all and prove
satisfactory to the different portions of the Union.
Holding as a sacred trust the Executive authority for the whole Union,
and bound to guard the rights of all, I should be constrained by a sense
of duty to withhold my official sanction from any measure which would
conflict with these important objects.
I can not more appropriately close this message than by quoting from the
Farewell Address of the Father of his Country. His warning voice can
never be heard in vain by the American people. If the spirit of prophecy
had distinctly presented to his view more than a half century ago the
present distracted condition of his country, the language which he then
employed could not have been more appropriate than it is to the present
occasion. He declared:
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now
dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your
peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty
which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from
different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken,
many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this
truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the
batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and
actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of
infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of
your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that
you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it;
accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of
your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with
jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion
that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the
first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country
from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the
various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens
by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to
concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to
you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of
patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.
With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners,
habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and
triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the
work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings,
and successes.
* * * * *
With such powerful and obvious motives to union affecting all parts
of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its
impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the
patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its
bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union it occurs as
matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for
characterizing parties by _geographical_ discriminations--_Northern_ and
_Southern_, _Atlantic_ and _Western_--whence designing men may endeavor
to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests
and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within
particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other
districts. You can not shield yourselves too much against the jealousies
and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend
to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by
fraternal affection.