Chapter CXCII (2)

[10] "It may be asked why not retain the blacks among us, and
incorporate them into the State. Deep-rooted prejudices entertained
by the whites; ten thousand recollections of the blacks of
the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real
distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances,
will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will
probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other
race."--_Jefferson._

In refusing to extend slavery into these seventy thousand square miles, I act in conformity not only to my own long-established principles, but also in conformity to the long-established practice of Congress. Five times in four years did Congress refuse the prayer of Indiana for a temporary suspension of the anti-slavery clause of the ordinance of '87. On the 2d of March, 1803, Mr. Randolph, of Roanoke, as chairman of the committee to which the memorial praying the suspension was referred, made a report against it, which was concurred in by the House. This is the report:

"That the rapid population of the State of Ohio, sufficiently
evinces, in the opinion of your committee, that the labor of
slaves is not necessary to promote the growth and settlement
of colonies in that region. That this labor, demonstrably
the dearest of any, can only be employed to advantage in the
cultivation of products more valuable than any known to that
quarter of the United States: that the committee deem it
highly dangerous and inexpedient to impair a provision wisely
calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the
north-western country, and to give strength and security to that
extensive frontier. In the salutary operation of this sagacious
and benevolent restraint, it is believed that the inhabitants of
Indiana will, at no very distant day, find ample remuneration
for a temporary privation of labor and of emigration."

This report of Mr. Randolph was in 1803: the next year, March, 1804, a different report, on the same prayer, was made by a committee of which Mr. Rodney, of Delaware, was chairman. It recommended a suspension of the anti-slavery clause for ten years: it was not concurred in by the House. Two years afterwards, February, 1806, a similar report, recommending suspension for ten years, was made by a committee of which Mr. Garnett, of Virginia, was chairman: it met the same fate--non-concurrence. The next year, 1807, both Houses were tried. In February of that year, a committee of the House, of which Mr. Parke was chairman, reported in favor of the indefinite suspension of the clause: the report was not concurred in. And in November of that year, Mr. Franklin, of North Carolina, as chairman of a committee of the Senate, made a report against the suspension, which was concurred in by the Senate, and unanimously, as it would seem from the journal, there being no division called for. Thus, five times in four years, the respective Houses of Congress refused to admit even a temporary extension, or rather re-extension of slavery into Indiana territory, which had been before the ordinance of '87 a slave territory, holding many slaves at Vincennes. These five refusals to suspend the ordinance of '87, were so many confirmations of it. All the rest of the action of Congress on the subject, was to the same effect or stronger. The Missouri compromise line was a curtailment of slave territory; the Texas annexation resolutions were the same; the ordinance of '87 itself, so often confirmed by Congress, was a curtailment of slave territory--in fact, its actual abolition; for it is certain that slavery existed in fact in the French settlements of the Illinois at that time; and that the ordinance terminated it. I acted then in conformity to the long, uniformly established policy of Congress, as well as in conformity to my own principles, in refusing to vote the extension of slavery, which the committee's line would involve.

And here, it does seem to me that we, of the present day, mistake the point of the true objection to the extension of slavery. We look at it as it concerns the rights, or interests, of the inhabitants of the States! and not as it may concern the people to whom it is to be given! and to whom it is to be an irrevocable gift--to them, and posterity! Mr. Randolph's report, in the case of Indiana, took the true ground. It looked to the interests of the people to whom the slavery was to go, and refused them an evil, although they begged for it.

This is a consequence which the committee's bill involves, and from which there is no escape but in the total rejection of their plan, and the adoption of the line which I propose--the longitudinal line of 102--which, corresponding with ancient title and actual possession, avoids the question of slavery in either country: which, leaving the population of each untouched, disturbs no interest, and which, in splitting the high sterile table land of the Staked Plain, conforms to the natural division of the country, and leaves to each a natural frontier, and an ample extent of compact and homogeneous territory. To Texas is left all the territory drained by all the rivers which have their mouths within her limits, whether those mouths are in the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi, or the Rio Grande: to New Mexico is left the whole course of the Rio Puerco and all its valley: and which, added to the valley of the Del Norte, will make a State of the first class in point of territory, susceptible of large population and wealth, and in a compact form, capable of defence against Indians. The Staked Plain is the natural frontier of both countries. It is a dividing wall between systems of waters and systems of countries. It is a high, sterile plain, some sixty miles wide upon some five hundred long, running north and south, its western declivity abrupt, and washed by the Puerco at its base: its eastern broken into chasms--cañones--from which issue the myriad of little streams which, flowing towards the rising sun, form the great rivers--Red River, Brasos, Colorado, Nueces, which find their outlet in the Mississippi or in the Gulf of Mexico. It is a salient feature in North American geography--a table of land sixty miles wide, five hundred long, and some thousands of feet above the level of the sea--and sterile, level, without a shrub, a plant, or grass, and presenting to the traveller a horizon of its own like the ocean. Without a landmark to guide the steps of the traveller across it, the early hunters and herdsmen of New Mexico staked their course across it, and hence its name, _El Llano Estacado_--the Staked Plain. It is a natural frontier between New Mexico and Texas; and for such a line, quieting all questions between them, all with the United States, yielding near two hundred thousand square miles of territory to the United States and putting into her hands the means of populating and defending New Mexico by giving lands to settlers and defenders--I am ready to vote the fifteen millions which my bill fairly and openly proposes. For the line in this bill I would not give a copper. But it would be a great error to suppose I would give fifteen millions for the territory in dispute between New Mexico and Texas. That disputed territory is only a small part of what the Texian cession would be. It would embrace four degrees of latitude on the north of Texas, and a front of a thousand miles on the Arkansas, and would give to the United States territory indispensable to her--to the population and defence both of New Mexico and Utah, in front of both which this part of Texas lies.

The committee, in their report, and the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay], in his speech, are impressive in their representations in favor of giving governments to New Mexico and the remaining part of California. I join them in all they say in favor of the necessity of these governments, and the duty of Congress to give them. But this bill is not the way to give it. These governments are balked by being put into this bill. They not only impede California, but themselves. The conjunction is an injury to both. They mutually delay and endanger each other. And it is no argument in favor of the conjunction to say that the establishment of a government for New Mexico requires the previous settlement of her eastern boundary with Texas. That is no argument for tacking Texas, with all her multifarious questions, even to New Mexico, much less to California. It is indeed very desirable to settle that boundary, and to settle it at once, and for ever; but it is not an indispensability to the creation of a government for New Mexico. We have a right to a government according to her possession; and that we can give her, to continue till the question of title is decided. The _uti possidetis_--as you possess--is the principle to govern our legislation--the principle which gives the possessor a right to the possession until the question of title is decided. This principle is the same both in national and municipal law--both in the case of citizens or communities of the same government and between independent nations. The mode of decision only is different. Between independent nations it is done by negotiation or by arms: between citizens or communities of the same government, it is done by law. Independent nations may invade and fight each other for a boundary: citizens or communities of the same government cannot. And the party that shall attempt it commits a violation of law and order; and the government which permits such violation is derelict of its duty.

I have now examined, so far as I propose to do it on a motion for indefinite postponement, the three bills which the committee have tacked together--the California, Utah, New Mexico and Texas bills. There are two other bills which I have not mentioned, because they are not tacked, but only hung on; but which belong to the system, as it is called, and without some mention of which, injustice would be done to the committee in the presentation of their scheme. The fugitive slave recovery bill, and the District of Columbia slave trade suppression bill, are parts of the system of measures which the committee propose, and which, taken together, are to constitute a compromise, and to terminate for ever and most fraternally all the dissensions of the slavery agitation in the United States. They apply to two out of the five gaping wounds which the senator from Kentucky enumerated on the five fingers of his left hand, and for healing up all which at once he had provided one large plaster, big enough to cover all, and efficacious enough to cure all; while the President only proposed to cure one, and that with a little plaster, and it of no efficacy. I do not propose to examine these two attendant or sequacious bills, which dangle at the tail of the other three.

This is the end of the committee's labor--five old bills gathered up from our table, tacked together, and christened a compromise! Now compromise is a pretty phrase at all times, and is a good thing in itself, when there happens to be any parties to make it, any authority to enforce it, any penalties for breaking it, or any thing to be compromised. The compromises of the constitution are of that kind; and they stand. Compromises made in court, and entered of record, are of that kind; and they stand. Compromises made by individuals on claims to property are likewise of that character; and they stand. I respect all such compromises. But where there happens to be nothing to be compromised, no parties to make a compromise, no power to enforce it, no penalty for its breach, no obligation on any one--not even its makers--to observe it, and when no two human beings can agree about its meaning, then a compromise becomes ridiculous and pestiferous. I have no respect for it, and eschew it. It cannot stand, and will fall; and in its fall will raise up more ills than it was intended to cure. And of this character I deem this farrago of incongruous matter to be, which has been gathered up and stuck together, and offered to us "all or none," like "fifty-four forty." It has none of the requisites of a compromise, and the name cannot make it so.

In the first place, there are no parties to make a compromise. We are not in convention, but in Congress; and I do not admit a geographical division of parties in this chamber, although the Committee of Thirteen was formed upon that principle--six from the South, half a dozen from the North, and one from the borders of both--sitting on a ridge-pole, to keep the balance even. The senator from Kentucky chairman of this committee of a baker's dozen and the illustrious progenitor of that committee, sits on that ridge-pole. It is a most critical position, and requires a most nice adjustment of balance to preserve the equilibrium--to keep the weight from falling on one side or the other--something like that of the Roman emperor, in his apotheosis, who was required to fix himself exactly in the middle of the heavens when he went up among the gods, lest, by leaning on one side or the other, he might overset the universe:

"Press not too much on any part the sphere,
Hard were the task thy weight divine to bear!
O'er the mid orb more equal shalt thou rise,
And with a juster balance fix the skies."--LUCAN.

I recognize no such parties--no two halves in this Union, separated by a ridge-pole, with a man, or a god, sitting upon it, to keep the balance even. I know no North, and I know no South; and I repulse and repudiate, as a thing to be for ever condemned, this first attempt to establish geographical parties in this chamber, by creating a committee formed upon that principle. In the next place, there is no sanction for any such compromise--no authority to enforce it--none to punish its violation. In the third place, there is nothing to be compromised. A compromise is a concession, a mutual concession of contested claims between two parties. I know of nothing to be conceded on the part of the slaveholding States in regard to their slave property. Their rights are independent of the federal government, and admitted in the constitution--a right to hold their slaves _as property_, a right to pursue and recover them _as property_, a right to it as a _political element_ in the weight of these States, by making five count three in the national representation. These are our rights by an instrument which we are bound to respect, and I will concede none of them, nor purchase any of them. I never purchase as a concession what I hold as a right, nor accept an inferior title when I already hold the highest. Even if this congeries of bills was a compromise, in fact, I should be opposed to it for the reasons stated. But the fact itself is to me apocryphal. What is it but the case of five old bills introduced by different members as common legislative measures--caught up by the senator from Kentucky, and his committee, bundled together, and then called a compromise! Now, this mystifies me. The same bills were ordinary legislation in the hands of their authors; they become a sacred compromise in the hands of their new possessors. They seemed to be of no account as laws: they become a national panacea as a compromise. The difference seems to be in the change of name. The poet tells us that a rose will smell as sweet by any other name. That may be true of roses, but not of compromises. In the case of the compromise, the whole smell is in the name; and here is the proof. The senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglass) brought in three of these bills: they emitted no smell. The senator from Virginia (Mr. Mason) brought in another of them--no smell in that. The senator from Missouri, who now speaks to the Senate, brought in the fifth--_ditto_, no smell about it. The olfactory nerve of the nation never scented their existence. But no sooner are they jumbled together, and called a compromise, than the nation is filled with their perfume. People smell it all over the land, and, like the inhalers of certain drugs, become frantic for the thing. This mystifies me; and the nearest that I can come to a solution of the mystery is in the case of the two Dr. Townsends and their sarsaparilla root. They both extract from the same root, but the extract is a totally different article in the hands of the two doctors. Produced by one it is the universal panacea: by the other, it is of no account, and little less than poison. Here is what the old doctor says of this strange difference:

"We wish it understood, because it is the _absolute truth_,
that S. P. Townsend's article and Old Dr. Jacob Townsend's
sarsaparilla are _heaven-wide apart, and infinitely dissimilar_;
that they are unlike in every particular, having not one single
thing in common."

And accounts for the difference thus:

"The sarsaparilla root, it is well known to medical men,
contains many medicinal properties, and some properties which
are inert or useless, and others which, if retained in preparing
it for use, produce _fermentation and acid_, which is injurious
to the system. Some of the properties of sarsaparilla are
so _volatile_ that they entirely evaporate, and are lost in
the preparation, if they are not preserved by a _scientific
process_, known only to the experienced in its manufacture.
Moreover, those _volatile principles_, which fly off in vapor,
or as an exhalation, under heat, are the very _essential medical
properties_ of the root, which give to it all its value."

Now, all this is perfectly intelligible to me. I understand it exactly. It shows me precisely how the same root is either to be a poison or a medicine, as it happens to be in the hands of the old or the young doctor. This may be the case with these bills. To me it looks like a clue to the mystery; but I decide nothing, and wait patiently for the solution which the senator from Kentucky may give when he comes to answer this part of my speech. The old doctor winds up in requiring particular attention to his name labelled on the bottle, to wit, "Old Doctor Jacob Townsend," and not Young Doctor Samuel Townsend. This shows that there is virtue in a name when applied to the extract of sarsaparilla root; and there may be equal virtue in it when applied to a compromise bill. If so, it may show how these self-same bills are of no force or virtue in the hands of the young senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglass), and become omnipotently efficacious in the hands of the old senator from Kentucky.

This is the end of the grand committee's work--five old bills tacked together, and presented as a remedy for evils which have no existence, and required to be accepted under a penalty--the penalty of being gazetted as enemies of compromise, and played at by the organs! The old one, to be sure, is dreadfully out of tune--the strings all broken, and the screws all loose, and discoursing most woful music, and still requiring us to dance to it! And such dancing it would be!--nothing but turn round, cross over, set-to, and back out! Sir, there was once a musician--we have all read of him--who had power with his lyre (but his instrument was spelt _l y r e_)--not only over men, but over wild beasts also, and even over stones, which he could make dance into their places when the walls of Ilion were built. But our old organist was none of that sort, even in his best day; and since the injury to his instrument in playing the grand national symphony of the four F's--the fifty-four forty or fight--it is so out of tune that its music will be much more apt to scare off tame men than to charm wild beasts or stones.

No, sir! no more slavery compromises. Stick to those we have in the constitution, and they will be stuck to! Look at the four votes--those four on the propositions which I submitted. No abolition of slavery in the States: none in the forts, arsenals, navy-yards, and dock-yards: none in the District of Columbia: no interference with the slave trade between the States. These are the votes given on this floor, and which are above all Congress compromises, because they abide the compromises of the constitution.

The committee, besides the ordinary purpose of legislation, that of making laws for the government of the people, propose another object of a different kind, that of acting the part of national benefactors, and giving peace and happiness to a miserable and distracted people--_innuendo_, the people of the United States. They propose this object as the grand result and crowning mercy of their multifarious labors. The gravity with which the chairman of the committee has brought forward this object in his report, and the pathetic manner in which he has enforced it in his speech, and the exact enumeration he has made of the public calamities upon his fingers' ends, preclude the idea, as I have heretofore intimated, of any intentional joke to be practised upon us by that distinguished senator; otherwise I might have been tempted to believe that the eminent senator, unbending from his serious occupations, had condescended to amuse himself at our expense. Certain it is that the conception of this restoration of peace and happiness is most jocose. In the first place, there is no contention to be reconciled, no distraction to be composed, no misery to be assuaged, no lost harmony to be restored, no lost happiness to be recovered! And, if there was, the committee is not the party to give us these blessings. Their example and precept do not agree. They preach concord, and practise discord. They recommend harmony to others, and disagree among themselves. They propose the fraternal kiss to us, and give themselves rude rebuffs. They set us a sad example. Scarcely is the healing report read, and the anodyne bills, or pills, laid on our tables, than fierce contention breaks out in the ranks of the committee itself. They attack each other. They give and take fierce licks. The great peacemaker himself fares badly--stuck all over with arrows, like the man on the first leaf of the almanac. Here, in our presence, in the very act of consummating the marriage of California with Utah, New Mexico, Texas, the fugacious slaves of the States, and the marketable slaves of this District--in this very act of consummation, as in a certain wedding feast of old, the feast becomes a fight--the festival a combat--and the amiable guests pummel each other.

When his committee was formed, and himself safely installed at the head of it, conqueror and pacificator, the senator from Kentucky appeared to be the happiest of mankind. We all remember that night. He seemed to ache with pleasure. It was too great for continence. It burst forth. In the fulness of his joy, and the overflowing of his heart, he entered upon that series of congratulations which we all remember so well, and which seemed to me to be rather premature, and in disregard of the sage maxim which admonishes the traveller never to halloo till he is out of the woods. I thought so then. I was forcibly reminded of it on Saturday last, when I saw that senator, after vain efforts to compose his friends, and even reminding them of what they were "threatened" with this day--_innuendo_, this poor speech of mine--gather up his beaver and quit the chamber, in a way that seemed to say, the Lord have mercy upon you all, for I am done with you! But the senator was happy that night--supremely so. All his plans had succeeded--Committee of Thirteen appointed--he himself its chairman--all power put into their hands--their own hands untied, and the hands of the Senate tied--and the parties just ready to be bound together for ever. It was an ecstatic moment for the senator, something like that of the heroic Pirithous when he surveyed the preparations for the nuptial feast--saw the company all present, the lapithæ on couches, the centaurs on their haunches--heard the _Io hymen_ beginning to resound, and saw the beauteous Hippodamia, about as beauteous I suppose as California, come "glittering like a star," and take her stand on his left hand. It was a happy moment for Pirithous! and in the fulness of his feelings he might have given vent to his joy in congratulations to all the company present, to all the lapithæ and to all the centaurs, to all mankind, and to all horsekind, on the auspicious event. But, oh! the deceitfulness of human felicity. In an instant the scene was changed! the feast a fight--the wedding festival a mortal combat--the table itself supplying the implements of war!

"At first a medley flight,
Of bowls and jars supply the fight;
Once implements of feasts, but now of fate."

You know how it ended. The fight broke up the feast. The wedding was postponed. And so may it be with this attempted conjunction of California with the many ill-suited spouses which the Committee of Thirteen have provided for her.

Mr. President, it is time to be done with this comedy of errors. California is suffering for want of admission. New Mexico is suffering for want of protection. The public business is suffering for want of attention. The character of Congress is suffering for want of progress in business. It is time to put an end to so many evils; and I have made the motion intended to terminate them, by moving the indefinite postponement of this unmanageable mass of incongruous bills, each an impediment to the other, that they may be taken up one by one, in their proper order, to receive the decision which their respective merits require.