portion of the Atlantic States. The eastern Asiatics, who will be their chief customers, are more numerous than our customers in western Europe, more profitable to trade with, and less dangerous to quarrel with. Their articles of commerce are richer than those of Europe; they want what the Oregons will have to spare, bread and provisions, and have no system of policy to prevent them from purchasing these necessaries of life from those who can supply them. The sea which washes their shores is every way a better sea than the Atlantic; rich in its whale and other fisheries; in the fur regions which enclose it to the north; more fortunate in the tranquillity of its character, in its freedom from storms, gulf streams and icebergs; in its perfect adaptation to steam navigation; in its intermediate or half way islands and its myriad of richer islands on its further side; in its freedom from maritime powers on its coasts, except the American, which is to grow up at the mouth of the Columbia. As a people to trade with, as a sea to navigate, the Mongolian race of eastern Asia, and the North Pacific Ocean, are far preferable to the European and the Atlantic.

In a

sidered a rash declaration eighty years ago, is old history, in our young country, at this day. Thirty years ago, I said the same thing of the Rocky Mountains and the Columbia; it was ridiculed then; it is becoming history to-day. The venerable Mr. Macon has often told me that he remembered a line low down in North Carolina, fixed by a royal governor as a boundary between the Whites and the Indians: where is that boundary now? The van of the Caucasian race now top the Rocky Mountains, and spread down to the shores of the Pacific. few years a great population will grow up there, luminous with the accumulated lights of European and American civilization. Their presence in such a position cannot be without its influence upon eastern Asia. The sun of civilization must shine across the sea: socially and commercially the van of the Caucasians and the rear of the Mongolians must intermix. They must talk together, and trade together, and marry together. Commerce is a great civilizer, social intercourse as great, and marriage greater. The White and Yellow races can marry together, as well as eat and trade together. Moral and intellectual superiority will do the rest; the White race will take the ascendant, elevating what is susceptible of improvement, wearing out what is not. The Red race has disappeared from the Atlantic coast: the tribes that resisted civilization met extinction. This is a cause of lamentation with many. For my part, I cannot murmur at what seems to be the effect of Divine law. I cannot repine that this Capitol has replaced the wigwam - this Christian people replaced the savages white matrons the red squaws, and that such men as Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson have taken the place of Powhattan, Opechonecanough, and other red men, howsoever respectable they may have been as savages. Civilization or extinction has been the fate of all people who have found themselves in the track of the advancing Whites, and civilization, always the preference of the Whites, has been pressed as an object while extinction has followed as a consequence of its resistance. The black and the red races have often felt their ameliorating influence. The yellow race, next to themselves in the scale of mental and moral excellence, and in the beauty of form, once their superiors in the useful and elegant arts, and in learning, and

It would seem that the White race alone received the divine command to subdue and replenish the earth! for it is the only race that has obeyed it the only one that hunts out new and distant lands, and even a New World, to subdue and replenish. Starting from western Asia, taking Europe for their field, and the sun for their guide, and leaving the Mongolians behind, they arrived, after many ages, on the shores of the Atlantic, which they lit up with the lights of science and religion, and adorned with the useful and the elegant arts. Three and a half centuries ago, this race, in obedience to the great command, arrived in the New World, and found new lands to subdue and replenish. For a long time it was confined to the border of the new field (I now mean the Celtic Anglo-Saxon division); and even forescore years ago the philosophic Burke was considered a rash man because he said the English colonists would top the Alleghanies, and descend into the valley of the Mississippi, and occupy without parchment, if the Crown refused to make grants of land. What was con

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still respectable though stationary; this race cannot fail to receive a new impulse from the approach of the Whites, improved so much since so many ages ago they left the western borders of Asia. The apparition of the van of the Caucasian race, rising upon them in the east after having left them on the west, and after having completed the circumnavigation of the globe, must wake up and reanimate the torpid body of old Asia. Our position and policy will commend us to their hospitable reception: political considerations will aid the action of social and commercial influences. Pressed upon by the great Powers of Europe the same that press upon us they must in our

approach see the advent of friends, not of foes; of benefactors, not of invaders. The moral and intellectual superiority of the White race will do the rest; and thus, the youngest people, and the newest land, will become the reviver and the regenerator of the oldest.

It is in this point of view, and as acting upon the social, political, and religious condition of Asia, and giving a new point of departure to her ancient civilization, that I look upon the settlement of the Columbia river by the van of the Caucasian race as the most momentous human event in the history of man since his dispersion over the face of the earth.

Mr. President: I deeply regret the course which this discussion has taken. I have remarked its progress with much pain, with a feeling of anxiety and depression, which I find great difficulty in expressing. It has been mixed up with all those small topics of party and personal bitterness which, whether properly or not, enter so largely into the ordinary debates of the Senate, but which are altogether misplaced, and dangerous when connected with the consideration of those deep and vital interests involved in any discussion of the institution of slavery. It is very desirable, as has been well suggested by the Senator from Massachusetts, that, if we must deliberate on this subject, we do so with all the calmness possible, and with a deliberate and combined effort to do what is best under the perilous circumstances which surround us, uninfluenced by the paltry purposes of party. In whatever temper you may come to it, the discussion is full of danger. The fact that you are deliberating on this subject of slavery, inspires my mind with the most solemn thoughts. No matter how it comes before you; no matter whether the question be preliminary or collateral, you have no jurisdiction of it in any of its aspects. These

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have no right to draw into question here an institution guaranteed by the Constitution, and on which, in fact, the right of twenty-two Senators to a seat in this body is founded- and, emphatically, you have no right to assail, or to permit to be assailed, the domestic relations of a particular section of the country, which you are incapable of appreciating — of which you are necessarily ignorant which the Constitution puts beyond your reach, and which a fair courtesy, it would seem, should exempt from your discussion. It exacts some patience in a southern man, to sit here and listen, day after day, to enumerations of the demoralizing effects of his household arrangements considered in the abstract to hear his condition of life lamented over, and to see the coolness with which it is proposed to admit petitioners who assail, and vilify, and pity him, on the ground that it would hurt their feelings if we do not listen to them. We sit here and hear all this, and more than this. We hear ourselves accused of being agitators, because we ask the question, is it the pleasure of the Senate to hear those who thus assail us? As yet, Mr. President, the incendiaries are but at your door, demanding admittance, and it is yet within your power to say to them, that they shall

not throw their burning brands upon this floor, or propagate the conflagration through this Government. Before you lend yourself to their unhallowed purposes, I wish to say a word or two upon the actual condition of the Abolition question; for I greatly fear, from what has transpired here, that it is very insufficiently understood; and that the danger of the emergency is by no means estimated as it ought to be. God forbid that I should permit any matter of temporary interest or passion to enter into what I am about to tell you of the real dangers which environ us. My State has been assailed. Be it so. My peculiar principles have been denounced. I submit to it. Sarcasms, intended to be bitter, have been uttered against us. Let them pass. I will not permit myself to be disturbed by these things, or, by retorting them, throw any suspicion on the temper in which I solemnly warn both sections of this Union of the impending dangers, and exhort this Senate to do whatever becomes its wisdom and patriotism under the circumstances. Let us not shut our eyes, sir, on our condition. Some gentlemen have intimated that there is a purpose to get up a panic. No, no, sir. I have no such purpose. A panic on this subject is a disaster. The stake is too great to play for under a panic. In the presence of so much danger as I solemnly believe exists, I would rather steady every mind to the coldest contemplation of it, than endeavor to excite my own, or the feelings of others, by adventitious stimulants. If I over-estimate the magnitude of the dangers which threaten us, it is in spite of myself, against my wishes, and after the most deliberate consideration.

Look round, then, sir, on the circumstances under which these numerous and daily increasing petitions are sent to us. They do not come, as heretofore, singly, and far apart, from the quiet routine of the Society of Friends, or the obscure vanity of some philanthropic club; but they are sent to us in vast numbers, from soured and agitated communities, poured in upon us from the overflowing of public sentiment, which everywhere, in all Western Europe and Eastern America, has been lashed into excitement on this subject. Whoever has looked at the actual condition of society, must have perceived that the public mind is not in its accustomed state of repose, but

active, and stirred up, and agitated beyond all former example. The bosom of society heaves with new and violent emotions. The general pulse beats stronger and quicker than at any period since the access of the French Revolution. Public opinion labors, like the priestess on her tripod, with the prophecy. of great events. In Germany, in France, and in England, there is a great movement party organized upon the spirit of the times, whose tendency is to overturn established institutions, and remodel the organic forms of society, for whose purposes the process of experiment is too slow, and the action of reason too cold; whose infuriated philanthropy goeth about seeking whom it may devour. To these ethical or political enthusiasts the remote and unsustained institution of slavery offers at once a cheap and fruitful subject. Accordingly, it is known that the doctrinaire and juste milieu party of France, and its leading paper, the Journal des Debats, conducted with much ability, is devoted to the purposes of abolitionism. The Duc de Broglie, Prime Minister of France, with St. Domingo before his eyes, is president of an abolition society, having in view the manumission of the slaves in the French West Indies. But the state of feeling in England has a much more direct influence upon us, and is therefore of more important investigation.

The honorable Senator, (Mr. Prentiss) with his characteristic earnestness, and with the weight communicated to everything he says, by the high estimate of his worth and ability, and the known gravity of his mode of thinking, has informed us that amongst these petitioners are men of as much worth and patriotism as are to be found anywhere; and the honorable gentleman himself vindicates the petitioners by the authority of his co-operation, when he declares here in his place that Congress is constitutionally endowed with the power of manumitting the slaves in this District, and that it is expedient to exercise this power. But a short time since the Legislature of the State which the gentleman represents passed resolutions. that the matter of slavery ought not to be agitated. Now, the Senator thinks it expedient to act. His colleague, too, assures us that the progress of the agitation in Vermont is greatly accelerated; that seven so

cieties have been recently organized in one county; and that he hears of societies springing up in quarters, remote neighborhoods, where he had supposed that abolition had scarcely been heard of. Is there nothing

in these facts?

Five hundred societies are now organized, and in active operation, and daily increasing in numbers. Is there nothing in this? In these wide-spread associations are there none but the weak and base, a noisy and impotent rabble, which will fret itself into exhaustion? Or are they composed, as all such popular movements are, of a mixed multitude of all those whom wild enthusiasm, mistaken piety, perverted benevolence, and blind zeal, hurry and crowd together, to swell the torrent of public enthusiasm, when it sets strongly towards a favorite object? However humbly I may think of the wisdom of these people, I do place a high estimate upon their zeal and enterprise. We have seen what these qualities effected in England on this subject, and they are not less efficacious here. There is at this moment in New York an association of twenty-five men of wealth and high standing, who, with a spirit worthy of a better cause, have bound themselves to contribute $40,000 a year to the propagation of abolition doctrines through the press. Five of these pay $20,000 a year, and one $1000 a month. Such is the spirit, and such the means to sustain it.

Again, I demand, sir, do these things indicate nothing? The press is subsidized societies for mutual inflammation are formed men, women, and children, join in the petitions rostrums are erected itinerant lecturers pervade the land, preaching up to nightly crowds a crusade against slavery. The pulpit resounds with denunciations of the sin of slavery, and infuriate zealots unfurl the banner of the cross - the standard to which the abolitionist is to rally. The cause of antislavery is made identical with religion, and men and women are exhorted, by all that they esteem holy, by all the high and exciting obligations of duty to man and to God, by all that can warm the heart or inflame the imagination, to join in the pious work of purging the sin of slavery from the land. Gentlemen have told us of the array of the reverend clergy on these petitions. Infatuated and deluded men! In the name of charity, they lay a scene of blood and massacre; in the blasphemed

name of the religion of peace, they promote a civil and servile war; they invoke Liberty to prostrate the only Government established for its preservation. But what voice can penetrate the deafness of fanaticism? It neither hears, nor sees, nor reasons, but feels, and burns, and acts with a ma ac force.

Nor are the all-exciting topics of religion the only sources from which this turbid and impetuous stream is swollen. All the sympathies of the American heart for liberty, (the word itself has a magic in it,) achieved through war and revolution, are perverted into it. When the war-cry is „God and Li

berty" when it is thundered from the pulpit, and re-echoed from the press, and caught up and shouted forth by hundreds of societies, until the whole land rings with it, shall we alone not hear it, or, hearing it, lay the flattering unction to our souls that it portends nothing? Be not deceived, I entreat, gentleman, in regard to the power of the causes which are operating upon the population of the non slaveholding States. The public mind in those States has long been prepared for the most favorable reception of the influences now brought to bear upon it. It has been lying fallow for the seed which is now sown broadcast. A deep anti-slavery feeling has always existed in the Northern and Middle States; it is inscribed upon their statute books. Each, in succession, impelled by this feeling, has abolished slavery within its own jurisdiction; and what has been effected there, without as yet any fatal consequences, unreflecting ignorance will readily suppose may be effected everywhere under all circumstances. The spirit of propagandism is in proportion to the distance of the object, and the ignorance of the propagandist. Of the whole population of those States, ninety-nine hundredths regard the institution with decided disapprobation, and scarcely a less proportion entertain some vague desire that it should be abolished, in some way, at some time, and believe that the time will come, and the mode be devised. They believe that slavery is bad in the abstract, and not incurable as it exists. The remoteness of it from themselves makes them at once more ignorant of its actual condition, and bolder in suggesting remedies. It is to such a temper of mind that the inflammatory appeals I have spoken of are addressed.

But there is still another element of power, scarcely less than either of those I have adverted to, which the incendiaries will not be slow to avail themselves of. Cast your eyes, sir, over the States where they have already gained foothold, and mark the eagerness and equality with which two great political parties are struggling for ascendency. Animated by the utmost intenseness of party spirit, and in the very height of a contest of life and death, they will be willing to snatch such arms as fury may supply, and avail themselves of such auxiliaries as chance may offer. A third party, even were it less numerous than the abolitionists, occupying for a time a neutral position, will of course be able to decide the controversy. Each party will dread its accession to the other, and each may, perhaps in turn, court its influence. Thus its consequence is enhanced, and, deriving strength from position, it acquires a new principle of augmentation, until it becomes sufficiently powerful to absorb one or the other of the contending parties, and become itself the principal in the controversy. Then are added party spirit, political ambition, local interests; and, with all this aggregation of strength and power, think you, sir, that abolitionism, at your next session, will pause at your door, waiting to see if it be your pleasure to ask it in? Even now, sir, candidates for popular favor begin to feel the influence of this new power. The very fact of the reluctance which we all feel to agitate this matter here, bespeaks our fears of exasperating the strength which we instinctively know resides in the abolitionists. Gentlemen say we must tread softly, lest we wake the giant; we must not breathe upon the spark, lest it burst into a blaze; we must bow down before the coming storm until it blows over, for fear that it will prostrate us if we stand up: and while the policy of such a course is urged, we are told there is no danger.

No gentleman will suppose that I take pleasure in indicating the cause of growth, or the present strength of the abolitionists, or would willingly exaggerate them. It is not, I confess, without the deepest apprehensions that I contemplate them; but my chief fears arise from the supineness with which they are regarded here, on both sides of the House. We repose in a false and fatal security. I am amazed and dismayed

at the view which my friends have taken of these matters. I know well that their interest is identical with mine. I know their honor and candor; and most willingly would I indulge in their soothing hopes, if the deepest sense of the most imperious duty did not exact of me to call upon them to awake to a sense of the danger, and be prepared to meet it with a thorough comprehension of its import; and as a member of the Senate of the United States, I warn and exhort gentlemen to take early and decided counsel as to what is fit to be done. The occasion concerns us all, not perhaps in an equal degree, but it deeply concerns all who feel, as I do, a profound veneration for the Constitution, and an ardent love for the Union. I conjure the Senators from the non-slaveholding States to approach this subject with a steady regard and unfaltering step; to come to the task at once, before it is too late; to interpose all the authority of this Government between the incendiaries and their fatal purposes; and to pledge the moral weight of their individual characters against it.

I heartily approve the sentiments which have been generally avowed in the Senate, and appreciate the patriotic feelings which gentlemen have expressed in regard to the abolitionists. I have read with unfeigned pleasure, the wise communication of the Governor of New York to his Legislature, and am gratified to believe that there is a mass of intelligence and worth in that great State, as well as in others of the Northern and Middle States, which deeply disapproves these proceedings. But what I fear is, that neither here nor elsewhere is there a sufficient perception of the imminence of the danger, or the potency and permanency of those causes which create it. Even honorable gentlemen from the South, who have all at stake; around whose hearths, and in whose bed-chambers, the cry of thousands is invoking murder, in the name of God and liberty with the example of Jamaica and St. Domingo before them, even they are not sufficiently aroused to the emergency. I entreat them to awake: I invoke gentlemen from all quarters, of all parties, to unite at once, to combine here, in the adoption of the strongest measures of which this Government is capable, and thus to enter into mutual pledges to oppose, by all possible means, and to the last extremity, the destructive and exterminating doctrines of these