the previous authority of Congress.' The honorable gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Clemens) stated that in all the other instances of States admitted into the Union, they had served an apprenticeship of so many years. But the statement in the report stands uncontradicted. Michigan, Arkansas, Florida, if no other States, came into the Union without any previous act of Congress, according to the usage which prevailed in the early admission of States, authorizing them to meet in convention and form a constitution. But it is said that they were under the government of the United States. So much the better for them; they had a good government a territorial government. But how was it with California? She had no government. You abandoned and deserted her violated the engagement of the treaty of Hidalgo for herself as well as she could.

left her to shift In this state of

abandonment, she has formed a constitution and come here. I ask again, as I had occasion to ask some three months ago, if she does not present stronger claims upon our consideration than any of those States which had territorial governments, but which, not satisfied with them, chose to form for themselves State constitutions, and come here to be admitted into the Union ?

1 The Californians had met in Convention, framed, and by popular vote adopted, a Constitution excluding slavery, and thereupon applied for admission as a State.

I think, then, Mr. President, that with respect to the population of California, with respect to the limits of California, and with respect to the circumstances under which she presents herself to Congress for admission as a State into the Union, all are favorable to the grant of what she solicits, and that we can find neither in the one nor the other a sufficient motive to reject or to throw her back into the state of lawless confusion and disorder from which she has emerged. . .

[Mr. Clay here discussed territorial government for Utah and New Mexico, and settlement of the Texan boundaries.]

The next subject upon which the Committee acted was that of fugitive slaves. The Committee have proposed two amendments to be offered to the bill introduced by the Senator from Virginia, (Mr. Mason,) whenever the bill is taken up. The first of these amendments provides that the owner of a fugitive slave, when leaving his own State, and whenever it is practicable, for sometimes, in the hot pursuit of an immediate runaway, it may not be in the power of the master to wait to get such record, and he will always do it if it is possible, shall carry with him a record from the State from which the fugitive has fled; which record shall contain an adjudication of two facts: first the fact of slavery, and secondly, the fact of elopement;

and in the third place, such a general description of the slave as the court shall be enabled to give upon such testimony as shall be brought before it. It also provides that this record, taken from the county court, or from the court of record in the slaveholding State, shall be taken to the free State, and shall be there held to be competent and sufficient evidence of the facts which it avows. Now, Sir, I heard objection made to this that it would be an inconvenience and an expense to the slaveholder. I think the expense will be very trifling compared to the advantages which will result. . .

Mr. President, in all subjects of this kind we must deal fairly and honestly by all. We must recollect that there are feelings, and interests, and sympathies on both sides of the question; and no man who has ever brought his mind seriously to the consideration of a suitable measure for the recapture of runaway slaves, can fail to admit that the question is surrounded with great difficulties. On the one hand, if the owner of the slave could go into this nonslaveholding State, and seize the negro, put his hands upon him, and the whole world would recognize the truth of his ownership of property, and the fact of the escape of that property, there would be no difficulty then in those States where prejudice against slavery exists in the highest degree. But he goes to a State which does not recognize slavery. Recollect how different the state of fact is now from

what it was in 1793, nearly sixty years ago. There were, then, comparatively few free persons of colorfew, compared to the numbers which exist at present. By the progress of emancipation in the slaveholding States, and the multiplication of them by natural causes, vast numbers of them have rushed to the free States. There are in the cities of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston I have not looked into the precise number some eight or ten to one in proportion to the number there were in 1793 when the Act passed.

In proportion to the number of free blacks, multiplied in the free States, does the difficulty increase of recovering a fugitive from a slaveholding State.

Recollect, Mr. President, that the rule of law is reversed in the two classes of States. In the slaveholding States, color implies slavery, and the onus probandi of freedom is thrown on the persons claiming it, as every [colored] person in the slave-holding States is regarded prima facie as a slave. On the contrary, when you go to the non-slaveholding States, color implies freedom and not slavery. Every man who is seen in the free States, though he be a man of color, is regarded as free. And when a stranger from Virginia or Kentucky goes to remote parts of Pennsylvania, and sees a black person, who perhaps has been living there for years, and claims him to be his slave, the feelings and sympathy

of the neighborhood are naturally and necessarily excited in favor of the colored person. We all respect these feelings, where they are honestly entertained.

Well, Sir, what are you to do in a case of that kind? You will give every satisfaction that can be given that the person whom you propose to arrest is your property, and is a fugitive from your service or labor. That is the extent of one amendment which we propose to offer, but there is also another. The amendment upon which I have been commenting provides for the production of a record. Now, what is the inconvenience of that? It provides that when the owner of the slave shall arrest his property in a non-slaveholding State, and shall take him before. the proper functionary to obtain a certificate to authorize the return of that property to the State from which he fled, and if he declares to that functionary at the time that he is a free man and not a slave, what does the provision require the officer to do? Why, to take a bond from the agent or owner that he will carry the black person back to the county of the State from which he fled; and that at the first court which may sit after his return, he shall be carried there, if he again assert the right to his freedom; the court shall afford and the owner shall afford to him all the facilities which are requisite to enable him to establish his right to freedom. Now, no surety is even required of the master.