THE COMPROMISES OF THE CONSTITUTION.

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 7TH OF MARCH, 1850.

MR. PRESIDENT-I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a northern man, but as an American, and a member of the senate of the United States. It is fortunate that there is a senate of the United States; a body not yet moved from its propriety, not lost to a just sense of its own dignity and its own high responsibilities, and a body to which the country looks, with confidence, for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing counsels. It is not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong agitations, and are surrounded by very considerable dangers to our institutions of government. The impris oned winds are let loose. The east, the west, the north, and the stormy south, all combine to throw the whole ocean into agitation, to toss its billows to the skies, and to disclose its profoundest depths. I do not affect to regard myself, Mr. President, as holding, or as fit to hold, the helm in this combat of the political elements; but I have a duty to perform, and I mean to perform it with fidelity, not without a sense of surrounding dangers, but not without hope. I have a part to act, not for my own security or safety, for I am looking out for no fragment upon which to float away from the wreck, if wreck there must be, but for the good of the whole, and the preservation of the whole; and there is that which will keep me to my duty during this struggle, whether the sun and the stars shall appear, or shall not appear for many days. I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union. "Hear me for my cause." I

speak to-day, out of a solicitous and anxious heart, for the restoration to the country of that quiet and that harmony which make the blessings of this Union so rich, and so dear to us all. These are the topics that I propose to myself to discuss; these are the motives, and the sole motives, that influence me in the wish to communicate my opinions to the senate and the country; and if I can do anything, however little, for the promotion of these ends, I shall have accomplished all that I desire.

Mr. President, it may not be amiss to recur very briefly to the events which, equally sudden and extraordinary, have brought the political condition of the country to what it now is. In May, 1846, the United States declared war against Mexico. Our armies, then on the frontiers, entered the provinces of that republic, met and defeated all her troops, penetrated her mountain passes, and occupied her capital. The marine force of the United States took possession of her forts and her towns, on the Atlantic and on the Pacific. In less than two years a treaty was negotiated, by which Mexico ceded to the United States a vast territory, extending seven or eight hundred miles along the shores of the Pacific, and reaching back over the mountains, and across the desert, until it joins the frontier of the state of Texas. It so happened, that in the distracted and feeble state of the Mexican government, before the declaration of war by the United States against Mexico had become known in California, the people of that province, under the lead of American officers, overthrew the existing provincial government of California, the Mexican authorities, and run up an independent flag. When the news arrived at San Francisco that war had been declared by the United States against Mexico, this independent flag was pulled down, and the stars and stripes of this Union hoisted in its stead. So, sir, before the war was over, the powers of the United States, military and naval, had possession of San Francisco and Upper California, and a great rush of emigrants from various parts of the world took place

into California in 1846 and 1847. But now behold another wonder.

In January of 1848, the Mormons, it is said, or some of them, made a discovery of an extraordinarily rich mine of gold, or rather of a very great quantity of gold, hardly fit to be called a mine, for it was spread near the surface, on the lower part of the south, or American, branch of the Sacramento. They seem to have attempted to conceal their discovery for some time; but soon another discovery, perhaps of greater importance, was made, of gold in another part of the American branch of the Sacramento, and near Sutter's Fort, as it is called. The fame of these discoveries spread far and wide. They stimulated more and more the spirit of emigration toward California, which had already been excited; and persons crowded in hundreds, and flocked toward the bay of San Francisco. This, as I have said, took place in the winter and spring of 1848. The dig ging commenced in the spring of that year, and from that time to this the work of searching for gold has been prosecuted with a success not heretofore known in the history of this globe. We all know, sir, how incredulous the American public was at the accounts which reached us, at first, of these discoveries; but we all know, now, that these accounts received, and continue to receive, daily confirmation, and down to the present moment I suppose the assurances are as strong, after the experience of these several months, of mines of gold apparently inexhaustible in the regions near San Francisco, in California, as they were at any period of the earlier dates of the accounts. It so happened, sir, that although, after the return of peace, it became a very important subject for legislative consideration and legislative decision to provide a proper territorial government for California, yet differences of opinion in the councils of the nation prevented the establishment of any such territorial government for that territory at the last session of congress. Under this state of things, the inhabitants of San Francisco and California,

then amounting to a great number of people, in the summer of last year, thought it to be their duty to establish a local government. Under the proclamation of General Riley, the people chose delegates to a convention; that convention met at Monterey. They formed a constitution for the state of California, and it was adopted by the people of California in their primary assemblages. Desirous of immediate connection with the United States, its senators were appointed and representatives chosen, who have come hither, bringing with them the authentic constitution of the state of California; and they now present themselves, asking, in behalf of their state, that it may be admitted into this Union as one of the United States. This constitution, sir, contains an express prohibition against slavery, or involuntary servitude, in the state of California. It is said, and I suppose truly, that, of the members who composed that convention, some sixteen were natives, and had been residents of, the slave-holding states, and about twenty-two were from the non slave-holding states. The remaining ten members were either native Californians or old settlers in that country. This prohibition against slavery, it is said, was inserted with entire unanimity.

And it is this circumstance, sir, the prohibition of slavery, by that convention, which has contributed to raise, I do not say it has wholly raised, the dispute as to the propriety of the admission of California into the Union under this constitution. It is not to be denied, Mr. President, nobody thinks of denying, that, whatever reasons were assigned at the commencement of the late war with Mexico, it was prosecuted for the purpose of the acquisition of territory, and under the alleged argument that the cession of territory was the only form in which proper compensation could be made to the United States by Mexico, for the various claims and demands which the people of this country had against that government. At any rate, it will be found that President Polk's message, at the commencement of the session of De

cember, 1847, avowed that the war was to be prosecuted until some acquisition of territory was made. And as the acquisition was to be south of the line of the United States, in warm climates and countries, it was naturally, I suppose, expected by the south, that whatever acquisitions were made in that region would be added to the slave-holding portion of the United States. Events have turned out as was not expected, and that expectation has not been realized; and therefore some degree of disappointment and surprise has resulted, of course. In other words, it is obvious that the question which has so long harassed the country, and at times very seriously alarmed the minds of wise and good men, has come upon us for a fresh discussion; the question of slavery in these United States.

Now, sir, I propose, perhaps at the expense of some detail and consequent detention of the senate, to review historically this question of slavery, which partly in consequence of its own merits, and partly, perhaps mostly, in the manner it is discussed in one and the other portions of the country, has been a source of so much alienation and unkind feeling between the different portions of the Union.

We all know, sir, that slavery has existed in the world from time immemorial. There was slavery, in the earliest periods of history, in the oriental nations. There was slavery among the Jews; the theocratic government of that people made no injunction against it. There was slavery among the Greeks; and the ingenious philosophy of the Greeks found, or sought to find, a justification for it exactly upon the grounds which have been assumed for such a justification in this country; that is, a natural and original difference among the races of mankind— the inferiority of the black or colored race to the white. The Greeks justified their system of slavery upon that ground, precisely. They held the African, and, in some parts, the Asiatic tribes to be inferior to the white race; but they did not show, I think, by any close process of logic, that, if this were true, the