sincerity. We judge you not, and He alone, | The temper of the nation is just, liberal, and who ordained the conscience of man and its forbearing. It will contribute any money laws of action, can judge us. Do we then, and endure any sacrifices to effect this great in this conflict, demand of you an unreason- and important change; indeed, it is half made able thing, in asking that, since you will have property that can and will exercise human powers to effect its escape, you shall be your own police, and in acting among us as such, you shall conform to principles indispensable to the security of admitted rights of freemen? If you will have this law executed, you must alleviate, not increase its rigors. The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. 66 But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes."-Mr. Seward's Higher Law Speech. "Wherein do the strength and security of slavery lie? You answer that they lie in the constitution of the United States, and the constitutions and laws of the slaveholding states. Not at all. They lie in the erroneous sentiment of the American people. Constitutions and laws can no more rise above the virtue of the people than the limpid stream can climb above its native spring. Inculcate, then, the love of freedom and the equal rights of man under the paternal roof; see to it that they are taught in the schools and in the churches; reform your own code; extend a cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your paternal gods. Correct your own error-that slavery has any constitutional guarantee which may not be released, and ought not to be relinquished." And he says further on: "Whenever the public mind shall will the abolition of slavery, the way will open for it. -Mr. Seward's Speech at Cleveland in 1848. Slavery can be limited to its present bounds; it can be ameliorated. It can be, and it must be abolished, and you and I can and must do it.-Speech of Mr. Seward." "The task is as simple and easy as its consummation will be beneficent, and its rewards glorious. It requires to follow only this simple rule of action: To do everywhere and on every occasion, what we can, and not to neglect or refuse to do what we can, at any time, because at that precise time and on that particular occasion we cannot do more. Circum stances determine possibilities."-Speech of Mr. Seward. "Slavery is not, and never can be, perpetual. It will be overthrown either peacefully and lawfully under this Constitution, or it will work the subversion of the Constitution together with its own overthrow. Then the laveholders would perish in the struggle. The change can now be made without violence, and by the agency of the ballot-box. already. The House of Representatives is already yours, as it always must be when you choose to have it. The Senate of the United States is equally within your power, if you only will persistently endeavor, for two years, to have it. Notwithstanding all the wrong that has been done, not another slave State can now come into the Union. Make only one year's constant, decisive effort, and you can determine what States shall be admitted. * * * * * * * * * * "I do not know, and personally I do not greatly care, that it [abolition] shall work out its great ends this year or the next, or in my lifetime; because I know that those ends are ultimately sure, and that time and trial are the elements which make all great reformations sure and lasting."-From the Hon. W. H. Seward's speech at Albany, Oct. 12, 1855. "In the case of the alternative being presented of the continuance of slavery or a dissolution of the Union, I am for dissolution, and I care not how quick it comes."-Judge Spaulding of Ohio, in the Republican Convention. Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, in a speech delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, on the 2d November, 1855, said: "Not that I love the Union less, but freedom more, do I now, in pleading this great cause, insist that freedom, at all hazards, shall be preserved. God forbid that for the sake of the Union, we should sacrifice the very thing for which the Union was made." Debate in the Senate on the 26th of June, 1854. 'Mr. Butler. I would like to ask the Senator, if Congress repealed the Fugitive Slave Law, would Massachusetts execute the constitutional requirements, and send back to the South the absconding slaves? "Mr. Sumner. Do you ask if I would send back a slave ? "Mr. Butler. Why, yes. "Mr. Sumner. Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing? the constitution. Sir, standing here before "Mr. Butler. Then you would not obey this tribunal, where you swore to support it, office of a dog to enforce it. You stand in my you rise and tell me that you regard it the presence as a co-equal Senator, and tell me that it is a dog's office to execute the Constitu tion of the United States ?" To which Mr. Sumner said: "I recognise no such obligation." The New York Tribune, a leading and powerful press in the North, whilst the Nebraska bill was before Congress, remarked :— "Better that confusion should ensue; better that discord should reign in the national coun cils; better that Congress should break up in wild disorder; nay, better that the Capitol itself should blaze by the torch of the incendiary, or fall and bury all its inmates beneath its crumbling ruins, than that this perfidy and wrong should be finally accomplished." Senator Wade of Ohio, in a speech to a mass meeting of the Republicans, held in the State of Maine in 1855, according to the Boston Atlas said: "There was no freedom at the South for either white or black, and he would strive to "We love (quoted) the Whig party, but we protect the free soil of the North from the love its principles more. We dislike Aboli- same blighting curse. There was really no tionism; but we would rather a thousand Union now between the North and the South, times vote for Garrison and Tappan as Presi- and he believed no two nations upon the earth dent and Vice-President than tamely submit entertained feelings of more bitter rancor tofor an hour to the humiliation which the Sen-wards each other than these two sections of ate has put upon us by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 46 We are willing (quoted again) to consort with the most rabid Abolitionists in order to restore the Missouri Compromise, and thus redress a great wrong." Gen. Webb's New York Courier and Enquirer. Gen. James Watson Webb was a delegate to the Republican Convention, at Philadelphia, and delivered a speech, from which we make the following extract:- "Why, I ask, are we here? We are here because the country is in danger. We are here because a solemn compact, by which the curse of slavery was limited for ever to latitude 36 deg. 30 min. has been violently disruptured, torn asunder, and the people of the North told you shall have this matter forced upon you.' Now, what are the people doing? Our people, loving order and loving law, and willing to abide by the ballot-box, come together from all parts of the Union and ask us to give them a nomination which, when fairly put before the people, will unite public sentiment, and, through the ballot-box, will restrain and repel this pro-slavery extension, and this aggression of the slaveocracy. What else are they doing? They tell you that they are willing to abide by the ballot-box, and willing to make that the last appeal. If we fail there, what then? We will drive it back, sword in hand, and, so help me God! believing that to be right, I am with them. [Loud cheers, and cries of "Good.'] Now, then, gentlemen, on your action depends the result. You may, with God's blessing, present to this country a name rallying around it all the elements of the opposition, and we will thus become so strong that through the ballot-box we shall save the country. But, if a name be presented on which we may not rally, and the consequence is civil war-yes, nothing more, nothing less, but civil war-I ask, then, what is our first duty?" The Hon. Benjamin F. Wade, now a U. S. Senator from Ohio, spoke thus: "He thought there was but one issue before the people, and that was the question of American slavery. He said the Whig party is not only dead, but stinks. It shows signs occasionally of convulsive spasms, as is sometimes exhibited in the dead snake's tail after the head and body have been buried." the republic. The only salvation of the Union, therefore, was to be found in divesting it entirely from all taint of slavery. There was no Union with the South. Let us have a Union, said he, or let us sweep away this remnant which we call a Union. I go for a Union where all men are equal, or for no Union at all, and I go for right." "Let us remember that more than three millions of bondmen, groaning under name less woes, demand that we shall cease to reprove each other, and that we labor for their deliverance. * * * * "I tell you here to-night, that the agitation of this question of human slavery will continue while the foot of a slave presses the soil of the American republic."-Henry Wilson, United States Senator. Hear Henry Wilson, Senator, in the Philadelphia American Convention, June 12, 1856: "I am in favor of relieving the Federal Government from all connection with, and responsibility for, the existence of slavery. To effect this object I am in favor of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and the prohibition of slavery in all the Territories." In October of 1855, Senator Wilson of Mass. made a speech at the Tabernacle, in New York, in which he said: "Every generous impulse of the human heart is with us-every affection of the human conscience is with us; the great hopes of the human race are all with us, and we shall triumph in the end; we shall overthrow the slave power of the republic; we shall enthrone freedom; shall abolish slavery in the territories; we shall sever the national government from all responsibility for slavery, and all connection with it; and then, gentlemen, then, when we have put the nation, in the words of Mr. Van Buren, openly, actually, and perpetually on the side of freedom, we shall have glorious allies in the South. We shall have men like Cassius M. Clay. [Loud applause.] We shall have generous, brave, gallant men rise upon the South, who will, in their own time, in their own way, for the interest of the master and bondsman, lay the foundations of a policy of emancipation that shall give freedom to three and a half millions of men, in America. [Enthusiastic applause.] I say, gentlemen, these are our objects, and these are our purposes. "We shall change the Supreme Court of the United States, and place men in that Court who believe with its pure and immaculate Chief Justice, John Jay, that our prayers will be impious to Heaven while we sustain and support human slavery. We shall free the Supreme Court of the United States from Judge Kane. [Loud applause.] And here let me say there is a public sentiment growing up in this country that regards Passmore Williamson in his prison-[tremendous applause]-in his prison in Philadelphia, as a martyr to the holy cause of personal liberty. [Great applause.] There is a public sentiment springing up that will brand upon the brow of Judge Kane a mark that will make him exclaim, as his namesake, the elder Cain, 'It is too great for me to bear.'" Hon. Henry Wilson spoke in Boston :— "Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen: This is not the time nor the place for me to utter a word. You have listened to the eloquence of my young friend, and here to-night I endorse every sentiment he has uttered. In public or private life, in majorities or in minorities, at home or abroad, I intend to live and die with unrelenting hostility to slavery on my lips. I make no compromises anywhere, at home or abroad; I shall yield nothing of my anti-slavery sentiments to advance my own personal interests, to advance party interest, or to meet the demands of any state or section of our country. I hope to be able to maintain, on all occasions, these principles, to comprehend in my affections the whole country— and when I say the whole country, I want everybody to understand that I include in that term Massachusetts and the North. This is not the time for me to detain you. You have called on me, most unexpectedly, to say a word, and, having done so, I will retire, thanking you for the honor of this occasion." "I recognise no power under heaven that can make a man a slave. I recognise no constitution--no law that can deprive a man of his personal rights and liberty; and I, a citizen of New York, am ready to place this state in that attitude. "Suppose New York takes that ground; what then? Some talk of revolution, as if that were to be the dreaded result. Sir, I love the word. When this great state, with her three millions and upward of freemen, takes that position, then I know that a deathblow is struck against African slavery. "I would not permit a fugitive from the South to be taken from our limits. What then? What power can compel us to acquiesce? Will James Buchanan march troops into New York to coerce us into submission? We know that no attempt will be made thus to coerce this state when it takes this position."-Speaker of the N. Y. House of Delegates, on the Dred Scott Case. Adams, John Quincy. SPEECH OF, ON THE ADMISSION OF ARKANSAS. Mr. Chairman, I cannot, consistently with my sense of my obligations as a citizen of the United States, and bound by oath to support their Constitution, I cannot object to the admission of Arkansas into the Union as a slave state; I cannot propose or agree to make it a condition of her admission that a convention of her people shall expunge this article from her constitution. She is entitled to admission as a slave state as Louisiana, and Mississippi, and Alabama, and Missouri have been admitted, by virtue of that article in the treaty for the acquisition of Louisiana, which secures to the inhabitants of the ceded territories all the rights, privileges, and immunities of the original citizens of the United States, and stipulates for their admission, conformably to that principle, into the Union. Louisiana was purchased as a country wherein slavery was the established law of the land. As Congress have not power in time of peace to abolish slavery in the original states of the Union, they are equally destitute of the power in those parts of the territory ceded by France to the United States, by the name of Louisiana, where slavery existed at the time of the acquisition. Slavery is in this Union the subject of internal legislation in the states, and in peace is cognizable by Congress only, as it is tacitly tolerated and protected where it exists by the Constitution of the United States, and as it mingles in their intercourse with other nations. Arkansas, therefore, comes, and has the right to come, into the Union with her slaves and her slave laws. It is written in the bond, and however I may lament that it ever was so written, I must faithfully perform its obligations. Aiken, William. VOTE OF, ON LAST BALLOT FOR SPEAKER OF House of Representatives, DEAR SIR:I observe in the Globe of this morning a note appended by Mr. Barclay to his remarks of Saturday, in which my reply to Mr. A. K. Marshall, of Kentucky, is incorrectly stated. I have this moment conferred with Mr. Marshall, and his recollection concurs with my own, that the following is the substance of his question and of my answer: Mr. Marshall's question: "Are you hostile to, or have you ever denounced the American party?" My answer was-"It is not my habit to denounce anything-either men or measures— and I have friends in the American party, though not a member of it myself." Let me request you to publish this note in the Globe, &c. Resp'y yours, WILLIAM AIKEN. John C. Rives, Esq. Alabama. By Act of Congress of March 3, 1817, the eastern portion of the territory of Mississippi was constituted into a territory, called Alabama. This act was silent as to slavery. ing an election, or who has resided in this state two years and six months, and declared his intention as aforesaid; and every civilized male inhabitant of Indian descent, a native of the United States and not a member of any tribe, shall be an elector and entitled to vote; but no citizen or inhabitant shall be an elector, or entitled to vote at any election, unless he shall be above the age of twenty-one years, and has resided in this state three months, On the 8th of December, 1819, in the Senate, and in the township or ward in which he the bill reported by Mr. Williams, of Missis-offers to vote, ten days next preceding such sippi, from a committee on the subject, admitting Alabama as a state into the Union, was passed by unanimous consent. By Act of March 2, 1819, the people of Alabama territory were authorized to form a state government. This act was also silent on the question of slavery. On the same day it was passed by the House without a vote by yeas and nays, and was approved by the President on the 14th of December, 1819. INDIANA. Sec. 1. All elections shall be free and equal. 2. In all elections, not otherwise provided for by this constitution, every white male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, who shall have resided in the state during the six months immediately preceding such election; and every white male of foreign birth of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, who shall have resided in the United States one year, and shall have resided in this state during the six months immediately preceding such election, and shall have declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, conformably to the laws of the United States on the subject of naturalization, shall be entitled to vote in the township or precinct where he may reside. ILLINOIS.-Sec. 1. In all elections, every white male citizen above the age of twentyone years, having resided in the state one year next preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote at such election; and every white male inhabitant of the age aforesaid, who may be a resident of the state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall have the right of voting as aforesaid, but no such citizen or inhabitant shall be entitled to vote except in the district or county in which he shall actually reside at the time of such election. MICHIGAN.-Sec. 1. In all elections, every white male citizen and every white male inhabitant residing in the state on the twentyfourth day of June, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five; every white male inhabitant residing in this state on the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, who has declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, pursuant to the laws thereof, six months preced election. WISCONSIN.-Every male person of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, of the following classes, who shall have resided in this state for one year next preceding any election, shall be deemed a qualified elector at such election. White citizens of the United States. White persons of foreign birth who shall have declared their intention to become citizens, conformably to the laws of the United States on the subject of naturalization. The Ordinance of 1787 provided the following qualification of voters in the N. W. Territory: "That a freehold in fifty acres of land in the district, having been a citizen of one of the states and being a resident in the district, or the like freehold and two years' residence in the district, shall be necessary to qualify a man as an elector of a representative." MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY.-The act of April 7, 1798, extended the above provision of the Ordinance of 1787 to that territory. INDIANA TERRITORY.-The act of May 7, 1800, retained the above provision of the Ordinance of 1787, over that portion of the N. W. territory formed into Indiana. ILLINOIS TERRITORY.-The act of May 7, 1800, also retained the above provision of the Ordinance of 1787, over the Illinois portion of Indiana territory. MICHIGAN TERRITORY.-Act of Jan. 11, 1805, retained the above provision of the Ordinance of 1787, over the Michigan portion of Indiana Territory. OREGON TERRITORY-Organic Law.-Every white male inhabitant above the age of twentyone years, who shall have been a resident of said territory at the time of the passage of this act, and shall possess the qualifications hereinafter prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office within the said territory; but the qualifications of voters and of holding office at all subsequent elections shall be such as shall be prescribed by the Legislative Assembly. Provided that the right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States above the age of twenty-one years, and those above that age who shall have declared on oath their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. MINNESOTA TERRITORY.-The organic law passed and approved by Congress, contained a similar provision to that of the Oregon bill. The territorial Legislature have passed the following act : 66 All free white male inhabitants over the age of twenty-one years, who shall have resided within this territory six months next preceding an election, shall be entitled to vote at any election for delegates to Congress and for territorial, county, and precinct officers: Provided, That they shall be citizens of the United States, or shall have resided within the United States for a period of two years next preceding such election, and declared on oath before any court of record having a seal and clerk, or in time of vacation before the clerk thereof, his intention to become such; and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and the provisions of an act of Congress entitled 'An act to establish the territorial government of Minnesota,' approved March the third, one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine; And provided also, That nothing in this chapter shall be so construed as to prohibit all persons of mixed white and Indian blood who have adopted the customs and habits of civilization, from voting." possess the qualifications hereinafter prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office within the said territory; but the qualifications of voters, and of holding office at all subsequent elections, shall be such as shall be prescribed by the Legislative Assembly: holding office shall be exercised only by citi Provided, That the right of suffrage and of zens of the United States and those who shall have declared on oath their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act. The Act of May 20, 1812, extended the free white male person of twenty-one years right of suffrage in Illinois territory to every of age, who shall have paid a county or territorial tax, and who shall have resided one year in said territory previous to any general election, &c. admission of Michigan into the Union being The amendment was rejected by the follow YEAS.-Messrs. Black of Miss., Calhoun of S. C., Clay of Ky., Crittenden of Ky., Davis of Mass., Ewing of O., Hendricks of Ind., Leigh of Va., Naudain of Del., Porter of La., Whird of N. J., Swift of Vt., Tomlinson of Conn., and White of Tenn.-14. NAYS.-Messrs. Benton of Mo.. Brown of N. C., Buchanan of N. II., Hubbard of N. H., King of Ala., King of Ga., Linn of Pa., Cuthbert of Ga., Ewing of Ill., Grundy of Tenn., Hill of Mo., Morris of O., Nicholas of La., Rives of Va., Robinson of Ill., Ruggles of Me., Shepley of Me., Talmadge of N. Y Tipton of Ind., Walker of Miss., and Wright of N. Y.-22. WASHINGTON TERRITORY-Organic Act.-ing vote:Every white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of said territory at the time of the passage of this act, and shall possess the qualifications hereinafter prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office. within the said territory; but the qualifications of voters and of holding office at all subsequent elections shall be such as shall be prescribed by the Legislative Assembly: Provided, That the right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States above the age of twentyone years, and those above that age who shall have declared on oath their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act. On the 2d of March, 1854, the Clayton amendment to the Kansas-Nebraska bill of the Senate, which prohibited alien suffrage in the territories, was adopted by yeas and nays as follows: YEAS. Messrs. Adams, Atchison, Badger, Bell, Benjamin, Evans, Fitzpatrick, Houston, Hunter, Johnson, Jones of Brodhead, Brown, Butler, Clay, Clayton, Dawson, Dixon, Tenn., Mason, Morton, Pratt, Sebastian, and Slidell.-23. NAYS.-Messrs. Chase, Dodge of Wis., Dodge of Ia., Douglass, Fessenden, Fish, Foot, Gwin, Hamlin, Jones of Ia., Norris, Pettit, Seward, Shields, Smith, Stuart, SUMNER, Toucey, Wade, Walker, and Williams.—21. Democrats in roman, Whigs in italics, FreeSoilers in small caps. Legislative Act.-That any white American citizen above the age of twenty-one years, and all other white male inhabitants of this territory above that age who shall have declared on oath their intention to become citizens, and to support the Constitution of the In the House of Representatives, on the United States, at least six months previous to 22d of May, 1854, the vote on inserting Mr. the day of election, and who shall have resided Richardson's substitute for the Senate Kansas six months in the territory, and twenty days and Nebraska bill was as follows. Mr. Richin the county, next preceding the day of elec-ardson's substitute was the same as the Senate tion, and none others, shall be entitled to hold office or vote at any election in this territory. NEBRASKA AND KANSAS-Organic Law. Every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years, who shall be an actual resident of said territory, and shall Ga., Thomas H. Bayley of Va., Barksdale of Miss., Barry of bill, with the exception that it allowed alien suffrage, whilst the Senate bill did not in other words, the bill of Mr. Richarson omitted the Clayton amendment. YEAS. Messrs. Abercrombie of Ala., James C. Allen of Ill., Willis Allen of Ill., Ashe of N. C., David J. Bailey of |