threatened to be abolished in the District of Columbia; or because fugitive slaves are not restored, as in my opinion they ought to be, to their masters. These, I believe, would be the causes, if there can be any causes which can lead to the dreadful event to which I have referred. Let us suppose the Union dissolved; what remedy does it, in a severed state, furnish for the grievances complained of in its united condition? Will you be able at the south to push slavery into the ceded territory? How are you to do it, supposing the north, or all the states north of the Potomac, in possession of the navy and army of the United States? Can you expect, I say, under these circumstances, that if there is a dissolution of the Union, you can carry slavery into California and New Mexico? Sir, you cannot dream of such an

occurrence.

"If it were abolished in the District of Columbia, and the Union were dissolved, would the dissolution of the Union restore slavery in the District of Columbia? Is your chance for the recovery of your fugitive slaves safer in a state of dissolution or of severance of the Union than when in the Union itself? Why, sir, what is the state of the fact? In the Union you lose some slaves, and recover others. But here let me revert to a fact which I ought to have noticed before, because it is highly creditable to the courts and juries of the free states-in every instance, as far as my information extends, in which an appeal has been made to the courts of justice to recover penalties from those who have assisted in decoying slaves from their masters-in every instance, as far as I have heard, the court has asserted the rights of the owner, and the jury has promptly returned an adequate verdict. on his behalf. Well, sir, there is then some remedy while you are a part of the Union for the recovery of your slaves, and some indemnification for their loss. What would you have, if the Union were severed? Why, then the several parts would be independent of each other foreign countries-and slaves escaping from one to the other would be like slaves escaping from the United States to Canada. There would be no right of extradition, no right to demand your slaves, no right to appeal to the courts of justice to indemnify you for the loss of your slaves. Where one slave escapes now by running away from his master, hundreds and thousands would escape if the Union were dissevered I care not how or where you run the line, or whether independent sovereignties be established. Well, sir, finally, will you, in case of a dissolution of the Union, be safer with your slaves within the separated portions of the states than you are now? Mr. President, that they will escape much more frequently from the border states, no one will deny.

"And, sir, I must take occasion here to say, that, in my opinion, there is no right on the part of any one or more of the states to secede from the Union. War and dissolution of the Union are identical and inevitable, in my opinion. There can be a dissolution only by consent or by war. Consent no one can anticipate, from any existing state of things, is likely to be given, and war is the only alternative by which a dissolution could be accomplished. If consent were given-if it were possible that we were to be separated by one great line-in less than sixty days after such consent was given war would break out between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding portions of this Union-between the two independent parts into which it would be erected in virtue. of the act of separation. In less than sixty days, I believe, our slaves from Kentucky, flocking over in numbers to the other side of the river, would be pursued by their owners. Our hot and ardent spirits would be restrained by no sense of the right which appertains to the independence of the other side of the river, should that be the line of separation. They would pursue their slaves into the adjacent free states; they would be repelled, and the consequence would be, that in less than sixty days war would be blazing in every part of this now happy and peaceful land.

And, sir, how are you going to separate the states of this confederacy? In my humble opinion, Mr. President, we should begin with at least three separate confederacies. There would be a confederacy of the north, a confederacy of the southern Atlantic slaveholding states, and a confederacy of the valley of the Mississippi. My life upon it that the vast population which has already concentrated, and will concentrate on the head waters and the tributaries of the Mississippi, will never give their consent that the mouth of that river shall be held subject to the power of any foreign state or community whatever. Such, I believe, would be the consequences of a dissolution of the Union immediately ensuing; but other confederacies would spring up from time to time, as dissatisfaction and discontent were disseminated throughout the country-the confederacy of the lakes, perhaps the confederacy of New England, or of the middle states. Ah, sir, the veil which covers these sad and disastrous events that lie beyond it, is too thick to be penetrated or lifted by any mortal eye or hand.

"Mr. President, I am directly opposed to any purpose of secession or separation. I am for staying within the Union, and defying any portion of this confederacy to expel or drive me out of the Union. I am for staying within the Union, and fighting for my rights, if necessary, with the sword, within the bounds and under the safeguard of the Union. I am for vindicating those

rights, not by being driven out of the Union harshly and unceremoniously by any portion of this confederacy. Here I am within it, and here I mean to stand and die, as far as my individual wishes or purposes can go, within it, to protect my property and defend myself, defying all the power on earth to expel me or drive me from the situation in which I am placed."

"I have said, what I solemnly believe, that dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inevitable; that they are convertible terms; and such a war as it would be, following a dissolution of the Union! Sir, we may search the pages of history, and none so ferocious, so bloody, so implacable, so exterminating -not even the wars of Greece, of England and France-none of them all have been characterized by such bloodshed as would the war which must succeed, if that event ever happens, the dissolution of the Union."

On these resolutions of Mr. Clay the debate was continued for several weeks, taking a very extensive range, and involving the discussion of the various controverted points, which, from the commencement of the government down to the present period, had occupied the attention and received the consideration of statesmen and politicians. In their support it was contended, by Messrs. Clay, Webster, Cass, Walker, Douglas, Baldwin, Seward, and others, that, in the present condition of the country, it was eminently desirable that all the controverted questions connected with the institution of slavery should, if possible or practicable, be harmoniously adjusted, and such a scheme of accommodation adopted as that neither of the two classes of states into which the country is divided should sacrifice any great principle; that concessions, not of principle, but of feeling and of opinion, should be exacted from each; that in reference to the admission of California, neither section is required to make any concession at all; the position of that state, in reference to slavery, having been determined by itself, in the exercise of its admitted rights of sovereignty, under the constitution of the Union; that in reference to the provision so generally insisted upon by the north, prohibiting the introduction of slavery into newly acquired territories, its waiver, for the sake of peace and in the spirit of mutual forbearance to other members of the Union, was demanded on the one hand, accompanied by the declaration on the other of the indisputable fact, that slavery no longer exists in any part of the acquisition made by us from the republic of Mexico, and that, according to the probabilities of the case, slavery never will be introduced into any portion of the territo ries so acquired; that while Congress has no power, under the

constitution of the United States, to touch the institution of slavery where it exists within the several states, except to adjust representation, impose direct taxes, or to secure the recapture and delivery of fugitive slaves, the power to permit or to prohibit its introduction into new territory belonging to the Union, if not a conceded, is yet a debatable power, upon which men may honestly and fairly differ in opinion, and which, however it may be decided, furnishes no just occasion for breaking up or destroying the Union; that there are two sources from whence, under the constitution, Congress has power to legislate, as well for the District of Columbia as for the territories, viz: the power to regulate the territories and other property of the United States and the treaty making power; that under the joint resolution of Congress, by which Texas was annexed as a state, her western and northern boundaries were left undefined, and subject to future adjustment and arrangement, and that the government of the United States is now invested solely and exclusively with that power of adjustment and settlement which, prior to the annexation of Texas, and the subsequent acquisition by the United States of the territory in dispute, appertained conjointly to Texas and Mexico.; that the enlargement of their boundaries, their extension to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and the southern limit of New Mexico, accompanied by the grant of a large sum of money for the payment of that portion of her public debt which existed at the period of her annexation, when taken in connection with the known repugnance of the inhabitants of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande to any political connection with Texas, should be regarded as a liberal and just proposition; that while the assertion, on the part of Congress, of power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia was made, the inexpediency of its exercise, unless by the assent of Maryland, while slavery continued to exist, in that state, the assent of the people of the district, and full and just compensation to the owners of slaves, was explicitly declared-conditions amounting to an absolute security for property in slaves in the district, and for the existence of slavery therein, so long as it existed in any of the southern states; that the slave trade within the limits of the district should, of right, be abolished and prohibited, and the revolting spectacle of manacled human beings, now so frequent in the streets of the metropolis of the American Union, no longer permitted or sanctioned-nearly every slaveholding state in the Union having claimed and exercised the power of prohibiting the introduction of this odious species of merchandise; that the constitutional provision for the restoration and delivery to their owner of fugitive slaves, is not limited in its operation to Congress, but extends to every state, and to the officers of every

state and every individual in the Union, and that the failure to fulfil this obligation in its spirit, as well as letter, has produced a strong feeling of irritation and excitement in the southern states; that during the last fifty years southern councils and southern policy have to a very great extent prevailed in the domestic and foreign administration of the government, terminating with the annexation of Texas and the consequent war with Mexico and the acquisition of the territory, the settlement and disposition of which is now in controversy between the two sections of the Union; that a dissolution of the Union would most disastrously affect all the great interests of the south, the vindication of which is the primary object of her statesmen; that in such an event slavery could under no circumstances be carried into the conquered territories, nor retained in the District of Columbia, nor the right of property in slaves recognised beyond the territory in which the institution itself existed; that no right exists on the part of any one or more of the states of the Union to secede from the rest, and that war and dissolution are identical and inevitable.

In opposition to the proposed plan of compromise brought forward by Mr. Clay, it was contended, by Messrs. Berrien, Butler, Calhoun, Badger, Mason, Hunter, and others, that the citizens of the southern states possessed an equal right with their brethren of the northern section of the Union to the full enjoyment of all the advantages to be derived from the acquisition of newly acquired territory; that, independently of any existing law or regulation in force previous to such acquisition, it was competent for them to enter into such territory, carrying with them their property of every description; that, in the enjoyment of such right, they could not be prejudiced by any congressional inhibition while such territory remained in a territorial condition, without a gross and manifest infringement of the equal rights due to each sovereign state of the Union, as well as a palpable violation. both of the letter and spirit of the constitution; that while it was not competent for Congress, in the exercise of the legitimate powers of legislation conferred upon it, to restrict or in any manner to prejudice such right, they might legally and constitutionally, and should remove all obstacles to its free exercise; that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories belonging to the Union, or to prevent the owners of slaves from emigrating with them to such territories, with all the rights, powers, and privileges which they possessed in the state from whence such emigration was made; that slavery, as an institution, is not of necessity or by law confined to the limits of the state wherein it exists, but once existing, it exists every