whole affections of the people. No monarch-, ical throne presses these States together; no iron chain of despotic power encircles them. They live and stand upon a Government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and calculated, we hope, to last forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. It has been in all its influences, benevolent, beneficent; promoting the general glory, the general renown, and, at last, it has received a vast addition of territory. Large before, it has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This republic now extends with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore.

On Monday, March 11, Mr. SEWARD having the floor, addressed the Senate. He commenced his remarks by reviewing the objections raised to the admission of California.

First, California comes among us without previous consent of Congress, and, therefore, by usurpation. This allegation he thought not strictly true, for we tore her from among her sister Mexican States, and stipulated to admit her with due speed among the States of the Union. But still, by the letter, she does come without previous consent of Congress. So did Michigan; and Congress waived the irregularity and sanctioned the precedent. This precedent is strengthened by the greater hardships in the case of California. With Michigan, Congress had merely neglected to take the census. With California, she lected to act up to the treaty. Michigan had a civil government. California was under military rule; and military governments are against the genius of our institutions, oppressive to the governed, and full of danger to the parent State. Would those, he asked, who cite this objection, be better pleased with a territorial charter, which could in no ways be granted without an inhibition of Slavery?

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The second objection, pursued the Senator, is that California had marked her own boundaries. But none had been marked for her either by previous law or prescription. She was obliged to assume them, since without boundaries she must have remained unorganized.

A third objection is raised to the great size of this new State. But there is already one State in the Union of greater magnitude than California. She may be divided, too, with her own consent; and this is all the security we have against the preponderance of Texas. Her only neighbor, Oregon, makes no complaint of encroachment, and the advantage, if any, proceeding from her vast area, will be with the rest of the Union; for the larger the Pacific States, the less will be their relative

power in the Senate. Her boundaries, too, are in accordance with the natural features of the country; and the territory circumscribed, contiguous and compact.

The fourth objection to her admission is, that no previous census had been taken, and no laws existed prescribing the suffrage and apportionment of representatives in convention. But she was left without a census, and without such laws. She was left to act ab initio. Some of the electors, too, it is said, may have been aliens. The Pilgrim Fathers commenced in like manner on board the May Flower; and when they landed on Plymouth Rock were in like manner aliens. But this objection will surely fall, if her Constitution is satisfactory to herself and to the United States. Not a murmur of discontent has followed it from California; and as regards ourselves, we find that her boundaries have been assigned with discretion, that the public do

main has been secured to the General Government, that the representation is just and equal, and that the Constitution is thoroughly republican. In fact, it is this very republicanism, untainted by the aristocratic element of slavery, that is the real objection with her opponents.

The fifth objection is, that California comes in under executive influences; first in her coming in as a free State; and second, in her coming in at all. The first charge is unsupported by proofs, and is peremptorily denied. The second is true, and a venial fault it is for the Executive to wish to resign power and influence into the hands of regular legislative authority.

These objections, the Senator continued are all, it will be seen, technical; not founded in the law of nature or of nations, surely not in the Constitution; for the Constitution prescribes no form of proceeding in the admission of new States, but leaves the whole to the discretion of Congress. "Congress may admit new States." But it is said we should now establish new precedents for the future. This caution comes too late. It should have been exercised when we annexed Texas, when we hurried into the war with Mexico, when we ratified the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. We may establish precedents at pleasure, but our successors will use their pleasure in following them. States and nations certainly follow not precedent, either in the time or the circumstances of their birth. California sprang from the head of the nation, full-armed and fullgrown, and ripe for affiliation.

Having now reviewed the objections, the Senator proceeded to give his reasons for the admission of California. Well-established calculations prove that, one hundred years hence, the aggregate population of this nation will be two hundred millions, or one-fourth of

the present population of the globe. This is based upon the present rate of increase. But the mountains of California contain gold and silver, and those of New England granite; and we are safe in affirming, that long before that maximum of numbers shall be reached, our possessions on the Pacific, from their swifter advance of population, will be peopled, and politically and socially matured. Shall, then, this great people, one in origin, religion, interests, sympathies and hopes, be one also politically, or broken into two conflicting and hostile republics? Shall this new world, containing all the elements of wealth and of empire, marked out by Providence for the development of man's self-control and self-government, renovating Europe on the one hand, and the decreptitude of Asia on the other, shall it desert its duties, and cast away its magnificent destinies in the dissensions of divided sway?

On the decision of the present day, the present hour, hangs the perpetual unity of this empire.

California is already a State, complete and fully appointed. She never can be less. She never can shrink back into a federal dependency. Shall she then be taken into the bosom of the Union, or shall she be driven from among us? Reject her now, and she will never return. Forced apart by our policy, would independence have no charms for her? Are not power and aggrandizement before her on the coast of the Pacific? Your armies cannot pass the desert, nor over the remote and narrow isthmus, nor around the Cape of Storms. Your navies might reach her, but her mines would turn them to her own defence. Oregon would go with her, and thus the entire Pacific coast would drop from your grasp. where the long line should be drawn, dividing the empires of the West and the East, would depend neither on California nor on ourselves. The interests and convenience of the agricultural masses, filling up this vast area, would decide that question. Trade is now the God of boundaries; his decrees no man can foretell.

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But, it is said, let California be admitted, but attended by a compromise of questions arising out of slavery. All compromise, the Serator argued, was wrong and inconsistent with real virtue and sincerity of purpose-and what, too, are the equivalents such compromise offers? Power, freedom, wealth on the Pacific; bondage in the rest of the new territory, and in the District of Columbia; and stringent laws for the arrest of fugitive slaves in the free States. Human freedom and rights for gold.

But he should object, Mr. SEWARD pursued, to the compromise, on the score of the incongruity of the interests to be compromised.

California should be admitted, being a free State; she also should be received, had she been a slave State. This, the circumstances of her rise, and the inevitable dismemberment resulting from refusal, would render just and necessary. The questions connected with slavery, thus interposed, are consequently collateral, and present false issues.

Moreover, said Mr. SEWARD, I cannot consent to the compromise, because this compromise fails to meet the whole claims of the South. They demand the restoration of an equilibrium between the slave and free sections. Such equilibrium, he insisted, never did, and never can exist. Every political balance of power requires a physical basis. The basis, in the present case, must be an equality of territory, and a proximate equality in the number of slaves and freemen. These the South have irrecoverably lost. Were it even practicable, without this equality, it would change our national democracy into a simple confederacy, in which the minority have a veto on the majority.

Nor would success attend the details of this compromise. Mr. SEWARD went on to speak of the proposed alteration of the law concerning fugitives from labor.

"I shall speak on this," he said, "as on all subjects, with due respect, but yet frankly and without reservation. The Constitution contains only a compact which rests for its execution on the States. Not content with this, the slave States induced legislation by Congress; and the Supreme Court of the United States have virtually decided that the whole subject is within the province of Congress, and exclusive of State authority. Nay, they have decided that slaves are to be regard ed not merely as persons to be claimed, but as property and chattels to be seized without any legal authority or claim whatever. The of the slave States. With what reason, then, is thus subverted by the procurement compact can they expect the States, ex gracia, to reassume the obligations from which they caused those States to be discharged. I say, then, to the slave States, you are entitled to no more stringent laws; and such laws would be useless. The inefficiency of the present statute, he said, lay not in its leniency, but in its violation of the primary laws of God. It made hospitality a crime, and the human being a chattel; and it denied the citizen all the safeguards of personal freedom, to impede the escape of the bondsman. With respect to the other concession, proposed for the purchase of freedom in California, the bill of peace for slavery in the District of Columbia, Mr. SEWARD avowed himself uncompromisingly opposed to such peace. Congress had absolute power in the matter, and he could not see that any implied obligation ex

isted not to use that power. He saw no reason to hope for such emancipation, but he should vote for the measure whenever proposed, and was willing to appropriate any means necessary to carry it into execution.

Mr. SEWARD then cautioned Senators against ultra measures, either for the recovery of the fugitive, or against the inhibition of slavery in territorial charters. The temper of the people might be tried too far. The spring, if pressed too hard, would give a recoil that would not leave here one servant who knew his master's will and did it not.

He then spoke of the suggested compromise of boundary between Texas and New Mexico. This was a question of legal right and title, and it was due to national dignity and justice that it be kept separate from compromises of mere expediency, and should be settled by itself alone. In connexion with this question, he stated, he could not agree with the Senator from Massachusetts with regard to the obligation of Congress to admit four new slave States from Texas territory. When once formed, these States can come in as free or slave States at their own choice; but such formation depends entirely on the will of Congress. He denied the Constitutionality of the annexation of Texas. He found no authority in the Constitution of the United States for the annexation of foreign territory by a resolution of Congress, and no power adequate to the purpose, but the treaty-making power of the President and Senate."

Another objection to compromise, he continued, arises out of the principle on which the demand for compromise rests. That principle assumes the classification of the States as Northern and Southern, as slave and free States. Severally equal, the classes must be equal. To each of these classes, the new territory, being a common acquisition, falls in equal proportions.

On what, then, does this argument for the equality of the States rest? On the syllogism that all men are by the law of nature and nations equal; and States are aggregations of individual men, and thereby equal. But if all men are equal, slavery with its claims, falls to the ground. You answer, the Constitution recognizes property in slaves. But this Constitutional recognition must be void, for it is repugnant to the laws of nature and of nations, on which the Constitution is itself founded.

He denied, too, that the Constitution recognized slaves. It never mentions slaves as slaves, much less as chattels, but as persons. That this recognition of them as persons, was designed, is a historical fact.

But granting the original equality of the States, and granting the recognition of slavery, still the argument fails. The Constitution

is not the Constitution of the States, but of the people of the United States.

There is another aspect, he then said, in which this principle of compromise must be examined. These boundless Western domains are ours; but ours only in trust for our fellow men. They are the birthright of mankind. Shall we who are founding institutions for future generations, shall we who know by experience the wise and just, and are free to choose them, and to reject the erroneous and unjust, shall we fasten bondage on countless millions, or permit it by our sufferance to be established?

Mr. SEWARD then commented on arguments founded on extraneous considerations. The first of these is, that Congress has no power to legislate on the subject of slavery within the territories. But Congress, he argued, may admit new States. It follows that Congress may reject new States. The greater includes the less; and, therefore, Congress may impose conditions of admission. The right, too, to legislate and administer justice in regard to property is assumed in every territorial charter; and if to legislate concerning property, why not concerning personal rights? and freedom is a personal right.

But granting, it is said, the right, still legislation is unnecessary, for climate and sterility, the physical laws of God, lay a stronger injunction on slavery than any laws of man. Have climate and sterility, he asked, barred out slavery from arctic Russia? Did it not once brood over the length and breadth of Europe? and was not the enslaved race our own, and such as our own, the vigorous Anglo-Saxon, instead of the docile African? The laws of God may be transgressed.

"Sir," said he, "there is no climate uncongenial to slavery. It is true, it is less productive than free labor in many Northern countries. But so it is less productive than free white labor in even tropical climates. Labor is quick in demand in all new countries. Slave labor is cheaper than free labor, and will go first into new regions; and wherever it goes, it brings labor into dishonor, and, therefore, free white labor avoids competition with it. Sir, I might rely on climate if I had not been born in a land where slavery existed; and this land was all of it North of the fortieth parallel of latitude; and, if I did not know the struggle it has cost, and which is yet going on to get complete relief from the institution and its baleful consequences. I desire to propound this question to those who are now in favor of dispensing with the Wilmot Proviso-was the ordinance of 1787 necessary or not? Necessary, we all agree. It has received too many eulogiums to be now decried as an idle and unnecessary thing, and yet that ordinance

extended the inhibition of slavery from the 37th to the 40th parallel of north latitude, and now we are told that the inhibition named is unnecessary anywhere north of 360 30." We are told that we may rely upon the laws of God, which prohibit slavery north of that line, and that it is absurd to re-enact the laws of God. Sir, there is no human enactment, which is just, that is not a re-enactment of the law of God. The Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of every State are full of such re-enactments. Wherever I find a law of God, or a law of nature disregarded, or in danger of being disregarded, then I shall vote to reaffirm it with all the sanction of the civil authority. But I find no authority for the position that climate prevents slavery anywhere. It is to the indolence of mankind, and not the natural necessity, that introduces slavery in any climate."

Finally, Mr. SEWARD thought too much weight might be attached to the solemn admonitions of the South concerning the dissolution of the Union. Their violence, he said, was natural in a losing party who saw their side of the scales kick the beam. But there was a love of his country in the breast of every American citizen, which sectional feelings might dim, but never destroy. He knows no other country and no other sovereign. He has life, liberty, and property, precious affections and hopes for himself treasured up in the ark of the Union. Let those, then, he concluded, who distrust the Union, make compromises to save it. He had no such fears himself, and consequently should vote for the admission of California, directly, without conditions, without qualifications, and without compromise.

As a commentary on the above speeches, we give the following abstract of a letter published in a Mississippi paper. It shews that even peaceable secession will have its attendant dangers to the South; and that forces are now at work to lead a Southern confederacy to subsequent disunion and farther secession. The writer asks if their State laws are ample for the proper protection of property? Are their individual interests sufficiently guarded, in case that direst of calamities, a separation of these United States, should occur in the pending contest on the Wilmot Proviso? Is the farther introduction of slaves from other States, politic or safe, and is not the prohibition of such farther introduction demanded both on the score of individual and of State interest, and as concerns the permanent legitimate weal of the Southern domestic institution? The stability of property depends on its uniform value and proper protection by law. Slave property above all others, is considered the most delicate and most in need of

such protection. To unsettle its stability, would be to destroy or depreciate its value. Any rash measure tending to destroy its domestic feature is to be deprecated; and this can only be preserved by maintaining its value. On these depend its permanence. On its permanence, the destiny of the Southern States.

Out of the fifteen slaveholding States, two, Delaware and Maryland, are, in any material sense, useless to the rest; and, from the course taken by the Senators of Missouri and Kentucky, we are led to infer, that these States are distracted, and emancipation not distant. A proof and a consequence of this is found in the fact, that droves of slaves, by hundreds and thousands, are now on their way from the latter State, to this and others of the cotton and sugar growing States. Now, is it, this writer proceeds to say, the interest of Mississippians to encourage this state of things? Shall the domestic character of the institution be degraded, and its intrinsic value be suffered to depreciate by the sudden introduction of surplus slaves from other States? Shall our present effective and happy municipal regulations for the treatment and management of slaves be uprooted, and Mississippi converted into a camp, paraded daily by Provost guards and patrols to prevent insurrection? Thousands of wretched, despairing human creatures, torn rudely from home, from family, and from cherished local associations, will be driven in upon us in manacled gangs, and will soon infect those now living here with their rancorous and seditious spirit. We cannot at this day throw aside all considerations of humanity in the vain attempt to display an overwrought zeal in behalf of our cherished institution. Its worst enemies are they who abuse it. Its real friends are not dead to all sensations of sympathy as regards the family attachments and social condition of our negroes.

And what will be the result? The picture here contemplated, the writer continues, brings before the mind the frightful scenes of the British and French West India Islands. Daily apprehensions, hourly vigilance, jealous suspicions, groups of white men, shrinking with fear, hordes of sullen and desperate blacks these are the ground-work of that wretched scenery. And shall such things be seen in Mississippi? Shall the horizon be darkened with a cloud charged with such pernicious elements ? Shall her property be cut down to one-half its value, that speculators and traders only shall flourish? To this one fact, the writer attributed the apparent mystery of the impoverishment and unimproved face of a State, exporting, annually, nigh twenty millions worth of products. It is notorious, he says, that in Mississippi there is

less to captivate the eye of a visitor, less to ensure permanent local attachments, fewer proud associations, less to offer by way of emulous comparison, and less to invite available investments, than in any other Southern State. Nothing but the character of the people sustains her position, and commands respect. Nor must this state of things be attributed alone to financial derangement, or mismanagement. The cause is found in the source above suggested. Of the aggregate returns from the sale of her products, onehalf is disbursed on New Orleans, or Mobile, and the other half is carried off by negro traders from Tennessee, Virginia, or North Carolina. This is destructive beyond compensation, and will, in the end, beggar the State and its citizens. But, apart from pecuniary considerations, the writer urges, is it politic, or safe, under present circumstances, to allow the farther introduction of slaves within this State? We are threatened with dissolution of the Union. Congress is convulsed, and a kind of demi-revolution seems preparing. Should not the aggrieved States, then, contemplating the possibility of secession, be ready, at all points, for the result? Should not Mississippi pause in her deceptive and profitless policy, to husband her resources, and expend her wealth at home? In revolutionary times, a sudden accession of inflammable materials is dangerous in the extreme. No material is so inflammable as a horde of slaves, fresh from the trader's manacles, torn recently from family, and home, and early associations, discontented, corruptible, unreliable, thrust suddenly into our midst, ere yet system and familiarity have reconciled them to their new homes. These very domestic ties and feelings form the real value of our institution. The blacks have them, and every intelligent planter sedulously cultivates them. In times like this, then, harshly and rudely to sever them, is there no danger in such a course?

Finally, the writer asks if it is not the interest, politically, of his own State, to hold those States, which now so strongly manifest a desire to emancipate, to the slave interest, by refusing them opportunities of sale and profit. They will certainly hesitate, before they resort to colonization or manumission, and he urges the enforcement of the laws against the importation of slaves, which have been suffered to become a dead letter.

authority for that purpose. He considered such a convention as revolutionary in its tendency, and directly against the spirit of the Constitution of the United States, and if the object of this convention be redress of grievances, would not, he asks, the expression of an opinion, or a determination by the States in their sovereign capacity, be calculated to carry more weight, and command more respect than the proceedings of an irresponsible convention of delegates? But, it is answered, the States have already acted by reports and resolutions and addresses; and the North remains unmoved. What more then can this convention effect, unless it is to be considered, and considers itself a revolutionary body? "If called for this end," he says, "I most solemnly protest against it. The time has not arrived for such measures, and I pray God the time may never arrive. There are, however, restless spirits among us, who have calculated the value of the Union, and would sell it for a mess of pottage. Since the Southern convention has been projected, a Southern confeder ation has been more than dreamed of." He questioned the expediency of getting up this convention, before any overt act of agression had been committed on Southern rights. He saw, as yet, nothing new or startling in the relation of the slave and free States; at least nothing calling for such extraordinary and revolutionary measures. For more than fifty years have abolition petitions been presented in Congress. Thirty years ago, this identical Wilmot Proviso question convulsed the Government to its centre. From the time, he writes, that the slave question first made its appearance in the North, when it was a "little cloud like a man's hand," until the present moment, when it casts a deep gloom over the future, it has been one continual conflict of words between the abolitionists and agitators and politicians of the North, and the politicians of the South. Time has brought forth no wisdom-experience no knowledge. But in spite of mutual bluster and threats, he believed the Union would safely weather the storm. He found one assurance of safety in the fact, that the present chief magistrate of the Union, was from and of the South; and he was confident that every encroachment on the bulwarks of the Constitution, would be by him met with native energy and resolution.