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Page 7
It was just seven days, Mr. President, after the Senator from Kentucky
had offered his amendment, that a fresh amendment was reported from the
Committee on Territories, in the shape of a new bill, enlarged to forty
sections. This new bill cuts off from the proposed Territory half
a degree of latitude on the south, and divides the residue into
two Territories--the southern Territory of Kansas, and the northern
Territory of Nebraska. It applies to each all the provisions of the
Utah and New Mexico bills; it rejects entirely the twenty-first
clerical-error section, and abrogates the Missouri prohibition by the
very singular provision, which I will read:
"The Constitution and all laws of the United States which are not
locally inapplicable shall have the same force and effect within the
said Territory of Nebraska as elsewhere within the United States, except
the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri
into the Union, approved March 6, 1820, which was superseded by the
principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise
measures, and is therefore declared inoperative."
Doubtless, Mr. President, this provision operates as a repeal of the
prohibition. The Senator from Kentucky was right when he said it was in
effect the equivalent of his amendment. Those who are willing to break
up and destroy the old compact of 1820 can vote for this bill with full
assurance that such will be its effect. But I appeal to them not to
vote for this supersedure clause. I ask them not to incorporate into
the legislation of the country a declaration which every one knows to be
wholly untrue.
I have said that this doctrine of supersedure is new. I have now proved
that it is a plant of but ten days' growth. It was never seen or heard
of until the 23d day of January, 1854. It was upon that day that this
tree of Upas was planted; we already see its poison fruits. * * *
The truth is, that the compromise acts of 1850 were not intended to
introduce any principles of territorial organization applicable to any
other Territory except that covered by them. The professed object of
the friends of the compromise acts was to compose the whole slavery
agitation. There were various matters of complaint. The non-surrender
of fugitives from service was one. The existence of slavery and the
slave-trade here in this District and elsewhere, under the exclusive
jurisdiction of Congress, was another. The apprehended introduction of
slavery into the Territories furnished other grounds of controversy.
The slave States complained of the free States, and the free States
complained of the slave States. It was supposed by some that this whole
agitation might be stayed, and finally put at rest by skilfully adjusted
legislation. So, sir, we had the omnibus bill, and its appendages the
fugitive-slave bill and the District slave-trade suppression bill.
To please the North--to please the free States--California was to be
admitted, and the slave depots here in the District were to be broken
up. To please the slave States, a stringent fugitive-slave act was to
be passed, and slavery was to have a chance to get into the new
Territories. The support of the Senators and Representatives from
Texas was to be gained by a liberal adjustment of boundary, and by the
assumption of a large portion of their State debt. The general result
contemplated was a complete and final adjustment of all questions
relating to slavery. The acts passed. A number of the friends of the
acts signed a compact pledging themselves to support no man for any
office who would in any way renew the agitation. The country was
required to acquiesce in the settlement as an absolute finality. No man
concerned in carrying those measures through Congress, and least of all
the distinguished man whose efforts mainly contributed to their success,
ever imagined that in the Territorial acts, which formed a part of the
series, they were planting the germs of a new agitation. Indeed, I have
proved that one of these acts contained an express stipulation which
precludes the revival of the agitation in the form in which it is now
thrust upon the country, without manifest disregard of the provisions of
those acts themselves.
I have thus proved beyond controversy that the averment of the bill,
which my amendment proposes to strike out, is untrue. Senators, will you
unite in a statement which you know to be contradicted by the history of
the country? Will you incorporate into a public statute an affirmation
which is contradicted by every event which attended or followed the
adoption of the compromise acts? Will you here, acting under your high
responsibility as Senators of the States, assert as a fact, by a solemn
vote, that which the personal recollection of every Senator who was here
during the discussion of those compromise acts disproves? I will not
believe it until I see it. If you wish to break up the time-honored
compact embodied in the Missouri compromise, transferred into the joint
resolution for the annexation of Texas, preserved and affirmed by these
compromise acts themselves, do it openly--do it boldly. Repeal the
Missouri prohibition. Repeal it by a direct vote. Do not repeal it by
indirection. Do not "declare" it "inoperative," "because superseded by
the principles of the legislation of 1850."
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