son that he might possess. How can it be argued that the fifteen slave States, by the operation of the Constitution, carried into the ceded territory their institution of slavery, any more than it can be argued, on the other side, that by the operation of the same Constitution, the fifteen free States carried into the ceded territory their principles of freedom. Suppose, said he, that we had obtained the new territory with slavery existing in it, in fact and in law, would gentlemen from the slave States patiently listen to any argument which undertook to show that, notwithstanding this fact, the Constitution of the United States abolished it the moment it took effect over that country? The argument was just as good for one side as the other. Amid the conflict of interests, principles, and legislation, which prevails in the two parts of the Union, can you come to any other conclusion than that which I understand to be the conclusion of the public law of the world, of reason, and justice, that the status of law, as it existed at the moment of the con

quest or the acquisition, remains until it is altered by the sovereign authority of the conquering or acquiring power? This is the established public law of the world. The laws of Mexico, as they prevailed at the time of the cession, remained the same until and unless they were altered by that power which had newly obtained sovereign rights over it.

Mr. CLAY then noticed the general power which appertains to the Government on the subject of slavery. Congress has no power, under the Constitution, to touch slavery within the States, except in the three specified particulars in that instrument, viz: to adjust the subject of representation, to impose taxes when a system of direct taxation is made, and to perform the duty of surrendering fugitive slaves that may escape from service which they owe in slave States, and take refuge in free States. If, said he, Congress were to attack, within the States, the institution of slavery for the purpose of its extinction, then would his voice be for war, for then would there be a case which would justify, in the sight of God, and in the presence of the nations of the earth, resistance to such an unconstitutional and usurped attempt. Then should the slave States be acting in defence of their rights, property, safety, lives; and then, if unfortunately civil war should break out, and there should be presented to the nations of the earth the spectacle of one portion of this Union endeavoring to subvert an institution in violation of the Constitution and the most sacred obligations that can bind men, the slave States would have the sympathies of all men who love justice and truth. Far different would be our case if the same fearful condition should arise from an attempt to carry slavery into the new territories acquired from Mexico.

We have all read of the efforts made by France to propagate on the continent of Europe not slavery but the rights of man. If a civil war should break out in this country in the strife to establish slavery on the one hand, and to prevent it on the other, in the territories where it does not exist, what a scene would be exhibited to the contemplation of mankind? It would be a war in which we, of the slave States should have no sympathy, no good wishes, and in which all the world would be against us, for, from the commencement of the revolution down to the present time, we have constantly reproached our British ancestors for introducing slavery into this country; and it is one of the best defences which can be made for the institution that it was forced on this country against the wishes of the inhabitants.

He declared his belief that Congress has power over slavery in the territories, and referred to the argument of Mr. CASS in opposition by all the elementary writers of our country, to this view. When a point is settled, said he, by all the departments of our Government, legislative, executive, and judicial, when it has been so settled for a period of fifty years, and never was seriously disturbed till recently, then if we are to regard anything as fixed and settled, should this question be, which has been always decided in a particular way. The power of Congress over this subject he derived both from the right to regulate the territories and other property of the United States, and the right to make treaties. When our Constitution was written, the whole country northwest of the Ohio river was unpeopled. Is it possible that Congress had no right whatever, after it had become national property, to declare what description of settlers should occupy the public lands? If they had supposed that the introduction of slavery would enhance their value, would they not have had the right to say, in regulating the territory, that any one who chooses, may bring slaves to clear and cultivate the soil, &c.? Or, suppose that Congress might think that a greater amount of revenue would be derived from the waste lands beyond the Ohio river by the interdiction of slavery, would they not have a right to interdict it? The exercise of the power to make Governments for territories is temporary, and it ceases whenever there is a sufficient population for self-government. Sixty thousand is the number fixed by the ordinance of 1787. The first settlement of Ohio was about Marietta, and contained two or three hundred people from New England. Cincinnati was the next point, and was settled by a few persons from, perhaps, New Jersey. Did those few persons, the moment they arrived there, acquire sovereign rights, and had they power to dispose of these territories? Had they even

the South would entertain an opposite wish for an opposite reason. By the resolution of annexation, slavery was interdicted in all the country north of 36 deg. 30 min. There is, therefore, boundary and slave territory mixed together in the settlement of this perplexity. The state of things now existing in New Mexico renders it necessary that we decide this matter the present session. There is a feeling approximating to abhorrence on the part of the people of New Mexico, at the idea of any union with Texas. If these questions are not settled, I think they will give rise to future confusion there, and agitation here. The Wilmot Proviso will still be insisted on in the North, and we shall absolutely have done nothing, if we fail to provide against the recurrence of these dangers. He read an extract from the instructions to their Delegate to Congress, adopted by the Convention of the Territory of New Mexico, held at the city of Santa Fé, in September, 1849. The extract sets forth the deplorable condition of the country, from want of an efficient government, which government they represented as undefined and doubtful in its character, and they looked to the Congress of the United States for effectual protection against all the ills they complain of. After dwelling at some length on the necessity of furnishing the people of New Mexico with a government, and taking them under Congressional protection, he directed his argument entirely to the boundary of Texas. He alleged that the western and northern borders were unsettled at the period of annexation, and quoted the resolution of annexation in proof, which says: "said State to be formed, subject to the adjustment of all questions of boundary that may arise with other Governments, and the Constitution thereof," &c. That is to say, she was annexed with her rightful boundaries, without a specification of them; but inasmuch as the boundaries at the west and north were unsettled, the Government of the United States retained to itself the power of deciding with any foreign nation what the boundary should be. Suppose, said he, that at the conclusion of the war, the negotiations between Mexico and the United States had been confined to fixing the northern and western boundaries of Texas, could not the two countries have done it conjointly? Whatever may have been the boundary decided on, if it had been the Neuces, or even the Colorado, on the west, by the very terms of the annexing resolutions, Texas would have been bound by the decision. He then argued that if the two nations could have thus adjusted the limits, the United States is competent now to do it alone, for she has acquired, by the treaty, all the rights which Mexico possessed in that territory, which must form its western and northern borders. Mr. CLAY insisted, at some length, that the

United States has full power to settle the undecided boundaries. He admitted that it was a delicate power, and it ought to be exercised in a spirit of justice, liberality, and generosity towards the youngest member of the grea American family. He thought that if Cogress should fix a boundary, which, in the opinion of Texas, was adverse to her rights, it was possible the question might be carried into the Supreme Court, for a new adjudication-he, however, conceived there were certain matters too momentous for any tribunal of that kind to try. He alluded to the fifteen millions paid for territory. Texas cannot fairly come into the Union, and claim all that she has asserted a right to, without paying some portion of the sum which constituted the consideration of the grant by the ceding nation. She talks about the Government of the United States being her agent, but she was no more her agent, than she was the agent of the twenty-nine other States. Mr. CLAY then urged that what he proposed as the boundary, was liberal, and gave Texas a vast country to which she could not establish any undisputed title-a country, almost equal in extent to what she actually possessed before, and large enough to form two or three additional States. In addition, he proposed to pay off not less than three millions of the debt of Texas, that accrued before she came into the Union. Indeed, he thought the United States should, in justice, pay the debt for which Texas had pledged her custom's revenues, when she was authorized so to do by virtue of her sovereignty; and the Government of the United States, having appropriated those revenues to itself, as a just power, was bound to pay the debt for which those duties were assigned. He concluded this part of his argument by expressing a conviction that all the motives he presented to Texas were so liberal, that he should be greatly disappointed if the people of that State themselves, when they come to deliberate, hesitated a moment to accept the offers.

Mr. CLAY contended that Congress possessed the constitutional right to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and he quoted that part of the constitution which gives to Congress "exclusive legislation" over it. The power exists somewhere. "Suppose," said he, "that slavery was abolished in Maryland, or in all the States of the Union, is there then no power to abolish slavery here, or is it planted here to all eternity, without the possibility of the exercise of any legislative power for its abolition? It cannot be vested in Maryland, because the power with which Congress is invested is exclusive. Maryland, therefore, cannot do it, and so all the other States of the Union, individually, cannot do it. The power is here or it is nowhere." He reviewed the course he took in 1838, and showed that the

ground he took then was consistent with his present position. But when Virginia and Maryland ceded the District to the General Government, there was an implied understanding that the subject would not be interfered with without their consent. Congress, therefore, cannot, without the forfeiture of all those obligations of honor which men of honor and nations of honor respect, disturb the institution of slavery in the District of Columbia. By the retrocession, however, of so much of the ten miles square as belonged to Virginia, Maryland is the only State now that we are bound to consult. If Maryland should give her consent, the consent of the people residing in the District should also be obtained, and this being given, then the owners of slaves have the right to look for compensation. These are the three conditions of the resolution. There is a clause in one of the amendments of the Constitution, which declares that no private property shall be taken for public use without just compensation being made to the owner. Literally, he said, it may be that the property would not be taken for the public use, but it would be taken in consideration of a policy and purpose adopted by the public, and, by a liberal interpretation of the clause, it ought to be so far regarded as taken for the public as to demand compensation. If it is denied that this clause is a restriction on Congress, then is there no restriction of any kind, except the great one of the obligation of justice. The North have the Constitution in their favorthe South have expediency and honor in theirs. The resolution asks of both parties to forbear urging their respective opinions-the one to the exclusion of the other, but it concedes to the South all that the South ought to demand, insomuch as it requires such a condition as amounts to an absolute security for property in slaves in the District, and which will probably make the existence of slavery in the District co-eval with its existence in any of the States out of and beyond it. He then insisted that the slave trade ought to be abolished. The introduction of slaves in Kentucky, Mississippi, and in many other of the States, is prohibited. It is a right belonging to each State. It also belongs, in an equal degree, to the United States in the District, and there had been, he said, no time in his public life when he was not willing to concur in the abolition of the slave trade in the District. Why should slave-traders, who buy their slaves in Maryland or Virginia come here with them in order to transport them further South? Why are the feelings of citizens here outraged by the scenes exhibited, and the corteges which pass along our avenues of manacled human beings brought from the distant parts of neighboring States? Who is there having a heart that does not contemplate a spectacle of that

kind with horror and indignation? This is an object in which both the free and the slave States should unite, and which one side as well as the other should rejoice in effecting, as it would lessen one of the causes of inquietude which is connected with this District.

He then took up the next resolution, and declared that he would go as far as him who went the farthest for this clause of the Constitution. He held that the Constitution required every man to assist in recovering fugitive slaves; and the obligation was especially binding, as in cases of fugitives from justiceupon all officers of the several States, who had taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution applies precisely the same language to both classes of fugitives. He then alluded to a recent decision of the Supreme Court, and said he thought that that decision had been misapprehended. The true meaning was that any State laws which acted as an impediment to the recovery of fugitive slaves were contrary to the Constitution. It is, however, only fulfilling the duties imposed by the Constitution, for States to enact laws which may afford facilities for the more perfect observance of the obligations imposed by the Federal fundamental law. He thought that the whole class of legislation, beginning in the Northern States, and extending to some of the Western, by which obstructions have been placed in the way of recovering fugitive slaves, is unconstitutional. He then referred to the difficulties and losses of Kentucky in consequence of living contiguous to Ohio. He believed that the slave States had just cause of complaint on this score. It is no mark of good neighborhood, of kindness, or of courtesy, that a man living in a slave State cannot now, with any sort of safety, travel in the free States with his servants. On this subject, the legislation of the free States, within the last twenty years, has altered greatly for the worse. There used to be laws guaran tying to the sojourner the possession of his property during his temporary abode or pas sage in a State, when there was no intention of residing permanently in the Commonwealth. He complained strongly of this unkindness, and alluded to circumstances that had occurred in his own family. The existing law for the recovery of fugitive slaves being found inadequate, he thought it was incumbent on Congress to do something to remove this subject of complaint by making the law more effective.

But, said he, I do not think that the States, as States, ought to be responsible for all the misconduct of individuals, and the doctrines they propagate, unless the State itself adopts the doctrines. He then referred to the circumstances under which Massachusetts repealed

her laws for the restitution of slaves, and he considered it was an act of retaliation, because an agent of the State, Mr. Hoar, had been driven from Charleston, whither he had gone to protect the rights of negroes from Massachusetts, whom she regarded as citizens.

After making a remark or two on the last resolution, Mr. CLAY sketched a history of the Missouri compromise, and of the agency he had had in effecting that important measure. Then, as now, the Union seemed to be in danger, and now, as then, all difficulties may be settled, if men will only allow cool reason and judgment to rule. He then drew a glowing picture of the growth and grandeur of the country-of its wonderful increase in population and in all the elements of power, and of its successful wars. "Sir," he said, "our prosperity is unbounded; nay, I sometimes fear that it is in the wantonness of that prosperity that many of the threatening ills of the moment have arisen; there is a restlessness existing among us which I fear will require the chastisement of Heaven to bring us back to a sense of the immeasurable benefits and blessings which have been bestowed upon us by Providence. At this moment—with the exception of here and there a particular department in the manufacturing business of our country-all is prosperity and peace, and the nation is rich and powerful, and if it does not awe, it commands the respect of the powers of the earth, with whom we come in contact." He then pointed to the history of the great public measures of the country, and showed that Southern influence had generally prevailed in the councils of the nation; and the three great acquisitions of territory, those of Louisiana, of Florida, and of Texas, have almost wholly redounded to the benefit of the South. The South have no reason to complain, as they have constantly been the gainers, and now, after all this, "I put it," said he, "to the hearts of my countrymen of the South, if it is right to press matters to the disastrous consequences--extending to a dissolution of the Union-which have been indicated, on this very morning, on the presentation of certain resolutions?" If the Union is dissolved, for any existing cause, it will be because slavery is not allowed in the ceded territories, or because it is threatened to be abolished in the district of Columbia, or because fugitive slaves are not restored to their masters. If the Union is dissolved, can you of the South carry slavery into California and New Mexico? You cannot dream of such an Occurrence. Are you in any way benefitted by the separation? Where one slave escapes now, hundreds and thousands would escape, if the Union were dissevered. War and dissolution are identical and inevitable. If the Union were dissolved by mutual consent, still war

would follow in less than sixty days, (in consequence of the border difficulties respecting fugitive slaves,) in every part of this now happy and peaceable land. It was his opinion that, in the event of a separation, we should begin with at least three distinct Confederacies, one of the North, one of the Southern Atlantic slave-holding States, and a Confederacy of the Valley of the Mississippi ; and, subsequently, there would be many more growing out of these. He concluded his speech in the following patriotic and thrilling strain :

Look at all history-consult her pages, ancient or modern-look at human nature; look at the character of the contest in which you would be engaged in the supposition of war following upon the dissolution of the Union, such as I have suggested; and I ask you if it is possible for you to doubt that the final disposition of the whole would be some despot treading down the liberties of the people-the final result would be the extinction of this last and glorious light which is leading all mankind, who are gazing upon it, in the hope and anxious expectation that the liberty which prevails here will sooner or later be diffused thoughout the whole civilized world. Sir, can you lightly contemplate these consequences ? Can you yield yourself to the tyranny of passion, amidst dangers which I have depicted in colors far too tame, of what the result would be if that direful event to which I have referred should ever occur? Sir, I implore gentlemen, I adjure them, whether from the South or the North, by all that they hold dear in this world-by all their love of liberty-by all their veneration for their ancestors-by all their regard for posterity-by all their gratitude to Him who has bestowed on them such unnumbered and countless blessings-by all the duties which they owe to mankind—and by all the duties which they owe to themselves, to pause, solemnly to pause at the edge of the precipice, before the fearful and dangerous leap is taken into the yawning abyss below, from which none who ever take it shall return in safety.

Finally, Mr. President, and in conclusion, I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me upon earth, that if the direful and sad event of the dissolution of this Union is to happen, that I shall not survive to behold the sad and heart-rending spectacle."