necessary to remove whatever legal obstacles might be found in the way
of its free exercise. It is only for the purpose of carrying out this
great fundamental principle of self-government that the bill renders the
eighth section of the Missouri act inoperative and void.
Now, let me ask, will these Senators who have arraigned me, or any one
of them, have the assurance to rise in his place and declare that this
great principle was never thought of or advocated as applicable to
Territorial bills, in 1850; that from that session until the present,
nobody ever thought of incorporating this principle in all new
Territorial organizations; that the Committee on Territories did not
recommend it in their report; and that it required the amendment of the
Senator from Kentucky to bring us up to that point? Will any one of my
accusers dare to make this issue, and let it be tried by the record? I
will begin with the compromises of 1850, Any Senator who will take the
trouble to examine our journals, will find that on the 25th of March
of that year I reported from the Committee on Territories two bills
including the following measures; the admission of California, a
Territorial government for New Mexico, and the adjustment of the Texas
boundary. These bills proposed to leave the people of Utah and New
Mexico free to decide the slavery question for themselves, in the
precise language of the Nebraska bill now under discussion. A few weeks
afterward the committee of thirteen took those two bills and put a wafer
between them, and reported them back to the Senate as one bill,
with some slight amendments. One of these amendments was, that the
Territorial Legislatures should not legislate upon the subject of
African slavery. I objected to that provision upon the ground that it
subverted the great principle of self-government upon which the bill had
been originally framed by the Territorial Committee. On the first trial,
the Senate refused to strike it out, but subsequently did so, after full
debate, in order to establish that principle as the rule of action in
Territorial organizations. * * * But my accusers attempt to raise up a
false issue, and thereby divert public attention from the real one, by
the cry that the Missouri compromise is to be repealed or violated by
the passage of this bill. Well, if the eighth section of the Missouri
act, which attempted to fix the destinies of future generations in those
Territories for all time to come, in utter disregard of the rights and
wishes of the people when they should be received into the Union as
States, be inconsistent with the great principles of self-government
and the Constitution of the United States. it ought to be abrogated.
The legislation of 1850 abrogated the Missouri compromise, so far as the
country embraced within the limits of Utah and New Mexico was covered
by the slavery restriction. It is true, that those acts did not in
terms and by name repeal the act of 1820, as originally adopted, or as
extended by the resolutions annexing Texas in 1845, any more than the
report of the Committee on Territories proposed to repeal the same acts
this session. But the acts of 1850 did authorize the people of those
Territories to exercise "all rightful powers of legislation consistent
with the Constitution," not excepting the question of slavery; and did
provide that, when those Territories should be admitted into the Union,
they should be received with or without slavery as the people thereof
might determine at the date of their admission. These provisions were
in direct conflict with a clause in the former enactment, declaring that
slavery should be forever prohibited in any portion of said Territories,
and hence rendered such clause inoperative and void to the extent of
such conflict. This was an inevitable consequence, resulting from the
provisions in those acts, which gave the people the right to decide the
slavery question for themselves, in conformity with the Constitution.
It was not necessary to go further and declare that certain previous
enactments, which were incompatible with the exercise of the powers
conferred in the bills, are hereby repealed. The very act of
granting those powers and rights has the legal effect of removing all
obstructions to the exercise of them by the people, as prescribed
in those Territorial bills. Following that example, the Committee on
Territories did not consider it necessary to declare the eighth section
of the Missouri act repealed. We were content to organize Nebraska in
the precise language of the Utah and New Mexico bills. Our object was
to leave the people entirely free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions and internal concerns in their own way, under the
Constitution; and we deemed it wise to accomplish that object in the
exact terms in which the same thing had been done in Utah and New Mexico
by the acts of 1850. This was the principle upon which the committee
voted; and our bill was supposed, and is now believed, to have been in
accordance with it. When doubts were raised whether the bill did fully
carry out the principle laid down in the report, amendments were made
from time to time, in order to avoid all misconstruction, and make the
true intent of the act more explicit. The last of these amendments was
adopted yesterday, on the motion of the distinguished Senator from
North Carolina (Mr. Badger), in regard to the revival of any laws or
regulations which may have existed prior to 1820. That amendment was not
intended to change the legal effect of the bill. Its object was to repel
the slander which had been propagated by the enemies of the measure in
the North--that the Southern supporters of the bill desired to legislate
slavery into these Territories. The South denies the right of Congress
either to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, or out of any
Territory or State. Non-intervention by Congress with slavery in
the States or Territories is the doctrine of the bill, and all the
amendments which have been agreed to have been made with the view of
removing all doubt and cavil as to the true meaning and object of the
measure. * * *
Well, sir, what is this Missouri compromise, of which we have heard
so much of late? It has been read so often that it is not necessary
to occupy the time of the Senate in reading it again. It was an act of
Congress, passed on the 6th of March, 1820, to authorize the people of
Missouri to form a constitution and a State government, preparatory to
the admission of such State into the Union. The first section provided
that Missouri should be received into the Union "on an equal footing
with the original States in all respects whatsoever." The last and
eighth section provided that slavery should be "forever prohibited" in
all the territory which had been acquired from France north of 36° 30',
and not included within the limits of the State of Missouri. There
is nothing in the terms of the law that purports to be a compact,
or indicates that it was any thing more than an ordinary act of
legislation. To prove that it was more than it purports to be on its
face, gentlemen must produce other evidence, and prove that there was
such an understanding as to create a moral obligation in the nature of a
compact. Have they shown it?
Now, if this was a compact, let us see how it was entered into. The bill
originated in the House of Representatives, and passed that body without
a Southern vote in its favor. It is proper to remark, however, that it
did not at that time contain the eighth section, prohibiting slavery in
the Territories; but in lieu of it, contained a provision prohibiting
slavery in the proposed State of Missouri. In the Senate, the clause
prohibiting slavery in the State was stricken out, and the eighth
section added to the end of the bill, by the terms of which slavery was
to be forever prohibited in the territory not embraced in the State of
Missouri north of 36° 30'. The vote on adding this section stood in the
Senate, 34 in the affirmative, and 10 in the negative. Of the Northern
Senators, 20 voted for it, and 2 against it. On the question of ordering
the bill to a third reading as amended, which was the test vote on its
passage, the vote stood 24 yeas and 20 nays. Of the Northern Senators,
4 only voted in the affirmative, and 18 in the negative. Thus it will be
seen that if it was intended to be a compact, the North never agreed to
it. The Northern Senators voted to insert the prohibition of slavery in
the Territories; and then, in the proportion of more than four to one,
voted against the passage of the bill. The North, therefore, never
signed the compact, never consented to it, never agreed to be bound by
it. This fact becomes very important in vindicating the character of the
North for repudiating this alleged compromise a few months afterward.
The act was approved and became a law on the 6th of March, 1820. In the
summer of that year, the people of Missouri formed a constitution and
State government preparatory to admission into the Union in conformity
with the act. At the next session of Congress the Senate passed a joint
resolution declaring Missouri to be one of the States of the Union, on
an equal footing with the original States. This resolution was sent to
the House of Representatives, where it was rejected by Northern votes,
and thus Missouri was voted out of the Union, instead of being received
into the Union under the act of the 6th of March, 1820, now known as the
Missouri compromise. Now, sir, what becomes of our plighted faith, if
the act of the 6th of March, 1820, was a solemn compact, as we are now
told? They have all rung the changes upon it, that it was a sacred and
irrevocable compact, binding in honor, in conscience, and morals, which
could not be violated or repudiated without perfidy and dishonor! * * *
Sir, if this was a compact, what must be thought of those who violated
it almost immediately after it was formed? I say it is a calumny upon
the North to say that it was a compact. I should feel a flush of
shame upon my cheek, as a Northern man, if I were to say that it was a
compact, and that the section of the country to which I belong received
the consideration, and then repudiated the obligation in eleven months
after it was entered into. I deny that it was a compact, in any sense
of the term. But if it was, the record proves that faith was not
observed--that the contract was never carried into effect--that after
the North had procured the passage of the act prohibiting slavery in the
Territories, with a majority in the House large enough to prevent its
repeal, Missouri was refused admission into the Union as a slave-holding
State, in conformity with the act of March 6, 1820. If the proposition
be correct, as contended for by the opponents of this bill--that
there was a solemn compact between the North and the South that, in
consideration of the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, Missouri
was to be admitted into the Union, in conformity with the act of
1820--that compact was repudiated by the North, and rescinded by the
joint action of the two parties within twelve months from its date.
Missouri was never admitted under the act of the 6th of March, 1820. She
was refused admission under that act. She was voted out of the Union
by Northern votes, notwithstanding the stipulation that she should
be received; and, in consequence of these facts, a new compromise was
rendered necessary, by the terms of which Missouri was to be admitted
into the Union conditionally--admitted on a condition not embraced in
the act of 1820, and, in addition, to a full compliance with all the
provisions of said act. If, then, the act of 1820, by the eighth section
of which slavery was prohibited in Missouri, was a compact, it is clear
to the comprehension of every fair-minded man that the refusal of
the North to admit Missouri, in compliance with its stipulations, and
without further conditions, imposes upon us a high, moral obligation to
remove the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, since it has been
shown to have been procured upon a condition never performed. * * *
Mr. President, I did not wish to refer to these things. I did not
understand them fully in all their bearings at the time I made my first
speech on this subject; and, so far as I was familiar with them, I made
as little reference to them as was consistent with my duty; because it
was a mortifying reflection to me, as a Northern man, that we had not
been able, in consequence of the abolition excitement at the time, to
avoid the appearance of bad faith in the observance of legislation,
which has been denominated a compromise. There were a few men then, as
there are now, who had the moral courage to perform their duty to the
country and the Constitution, regardless of consequences personal to
themselves. There were ten Northern men who dared to perform their duty
by voting to admit Missouri into the Union on an equal footing with the
original States, and with no other restriction than that imposed by the
Constitution. I am aware that they were abused and denounced as we are
now--that they were branded as dough-faces--traitors to freedom, and to
the section of country whence they came. * * *
I think I have shown that if the act of 1820, called the Missouri
compromise, was a compact, it was violated and repudiated by a solemn
vote of the House of Representatives in 1821, within eleven months after
it was adopted. It was repudiated by the North by a majority vote, and
that repudiation was so complete and successful as to compel Missouri to
make a new compromise, and she was brought into the Union under the new
compromise of 1821, and not under the act of 1820. This reminds me of
another point made in nearly all the speeches against this bill, and, if
I recollect right, was alluded to in the abolition manifesto; to which,
I regret to say, I had occasion to refer so often. I refer to the
significant hint that Mr. Clay was dead before any one dared to bring
forward a proposition to undo the greatest work of his hands. The
Senator from New York (Mr. Seward) has seized upon this insinuation and
elaborated, perhaps, more fully than his compeers; and now the Abolition
press, suddenly, and, as if by miraculous conversion, teems with
eulogies upon Mr. Clay and his Missouri compromise of 1820.
Now, Mr. President, does not each of these Senators know that Mr.
Clay was not the author of the act of 1820? Do they not know that he
disclaimed it in 1850 in this body? Do they not know that the Missouri
restriction did not originate in the House, of which he was a member? Do
they not know that Mr. Clay never came into the Missouri controversy as
a compromiser until after the compromise of 1820 was repudiated, and it
became necessary to make another? I dislike to be compelled to repeat
what I have conclusively proven, that the compromise which Mr. Clay
effected was the act of 1821, under which Missouri came into the Union,
and not the act of 1820. Mr. Clay made that compromise after you had
repudiated the first one. How, then, dare you call upon the spirit of
that great and gallant statesman to sanction your charge of bad faith
against the South on this question? * * *
Now, Mr. President, as I have been doing justice to Mr. Clay on this
question, perhaps I may as well do justice to another great man, who
was associated with him in carrying through the great measures of 1850,
which mortified the Senator from New York so much, because they defeated
his purpose of carrying on the agitation. I allude to Mr. Webster. The
authority of his great name has been quoted for the purpose of proving
that he regarded the Missouri act as a compact, an irrepealable compact.
Evidently the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Everett)
supposed he was doing Mr. Webster entire justice when he quoted the
passage which he read from Mr. Webster's speech of the 7th of March,
1850, when he said that he stood upon the position that every part
of the American continent was fixed for freedom or for slavery by
irrepealable law. The Senator says that by the expression "irrepealable
law," Mr. Webster meant to include the compromise of 1820. Now, I will
show that that was not Mr. Webster's meaning--that he was never
guilty of the mistake of saying that the Missouri act of 1820 was an
irrepealable law. Mr. Webster said in that speech that every foot of
territory in the United States was fixed as to its character for freedom
or slavery by an irrepealable law. He then inquired if it was not so
in regard to Texas? He went on to prove that it was; because, he said,
there was a compact in express terms between Texas and the United
States. He said the parties were capable of contracting and that there
was a valuable consideration; and hence, he contended, that in that case
there was a contract binding in honor and morals and law; and that it
was irrepealable without a breach of faith.
He went on to say:
"Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded
from these Territories by a law even superior to that which admits
and sanctions it in Texas--I mean the law of nature--of physical
geography--the law of the formation of the earth."
That was the irrepealable law which he said prohibited slavery in
the Territories of Utah and New Mexico. He went on to speak of the
prohibition of slavery in Oregon, and he said it was an "entirely
useless and, in that connection, senseless proviso."
He went further, and said:
"That the whole territory of the States of the United States, or in the
newly-acquired territory of the United States, has a fixed and settled
character, now fixed and settled by law, which cannot be repealed in
the case of Texas without a violation of public faith, and cannot be
repealed by any human power in regard to California or New Mexico; that,
under one or other of these laws, every foot of territory in the States
or in the Territories has now received a fixed and decided character."
What irrepealable laws? One or the other of those which he had stated.
One was the Texas compact; the other, the law of nature and physical
geography; and he contended that one or the other fixed the character
of the whole American continent for freedom or for slavery. He never
alluded to the Missouri compromise, unless it was by the allusion to
the Wilmot proviso in the Oregon bill, and therein said it was a useless
and, in that connection, senseless thing. Why was it a useless and
senseless thing? Because it was reenacting the law of God; because
slavery had already been prohibited by physical geography. Sir, that was
the meaning of Mr. Webster's speech. * * *
Mr. President, I have occupied a good deal of time in exposing the cant
of these gentlemen about the sanctity of the Missouri compromise, and
the dishonor attached to the violation of plighted faith. I have exposed
these matters in order to show that the object of these men is to
withdraw from public attention the real principle involved in the bill.
They well know that the abrogation of the Missouri compromise is the
incident and not the principle of the bill. They well understand that
the report of the committee and the bill propose to establish the
principle in all Territorial organizations, that the question of slavery
shall be referred to the people to regulate for themselves, and that
such legislation should be had as was necessary to remove all legal
obstructions to the free exercise of this right by the people. The
eighth section of the Missouri act standing in the way of this great
principle must be rendered inoperative and void, whether expressly
repealed or not, in order to give the people the power of regulating
their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the
Constitution.
Now, sir, if these gentlemen have entire confidence in the correctness
of their own position, why do they not meet the issue boldly and
fairly, and controvert the soundness of this great principle of popular
sovereignty in obedience to the Constitution? They know full well that
this was the principle upon which the colonies separated from the crown
of Great Britain, the principle upon which the battles of the Revolution
were fought, and the principle upon which our republican system was
founded. They cannot be ignorant of the fact that the Revolution grew
out of the assertion of the right on the part of the imperial Government
to interfere with the internal affairs and domestic concerns of the
colonies. * * *
The Declaration of Independence had its origin in the violation of that
great fundamental principle which secured to the colonies the right to
regulate their own domestic affairs in their own way; and the Revolution
resulted in the triumph of that principle, and the recognition of the
right asserted by it. Abolitionism proposes to destroy the right and
extinguish the principle for which our forefathers waged a seven years'
bloody war, and upon which our whole system of free government is
founded. They not only deny the application of this principle to the
Territories, but insist upon fastening the prohibition upon all the
States to be formed out of those Territories. Therefore, the doctrine
of the Abolitionists--the doctrine of the opponents of the Nebraska
and Kansas bill, and the advocates of the Missouri restriction--demands
Congressional interference with slavery not only in the Territories, but
in all the new States to be formed therefrom. It is the same doctrine,
when applied to the Territories and new States of this Union, which the
British Government attempted to enforce by the sword upon the American
colonies. It is this fundamental principle of self-government which
constitutes the distinguishing feature of the Nebraska bill. The
opponents of the principle are consistent in opposing the bill. I do
not blame them for their opposition. I only ask them to meet the
issue fairly and openly, by acknowledging that they are opposed to the
principle which it is the object of the bill to carry into operation.
It seems that there is no power on earth, no intellectual power, no
mechanical power, that can bring them to a fair discussion of the true
issue. If they hope to delude the people and escape detection for any
considerable length of time under the catch-words "Missouri compromise"
and "faith of compacts," they will find that the people of this country
have more penetration and intelligence than they have given them credit
for.
Mr. President, there is an important fact connected with this slavery
regulation, which should never be lost sight of. It has always arisen
from one and the same cause. Whenever that cause has been removed,
the agitation has ceased; and whenever the cause has been renewed, the
agitation has sprung into existence. That cause is, and ever has been,
the attempt on the part of Congress to interfere with the question of
slavery in the Territories and new States formed therefrom. Is it not
wise then to confine our action within the sphere of our legitimate
duties, and leave this vexed question to take care of itself in each
State and Territory, according to the wishes of the people thereof, in
conformity to the forms, and in subjection to the provisions, of the
Constitution?