posing navy, and the new and hateful banner of sedition. Then the projectors of the new Republic of the South will meet the question-and they may well prepare now to answer it-What is all this for? What intolerable wrong, what unfraternal injustice, have rendered these calamities unavoidable? What gain will this unnatural revolution bring to us? The answer will be: All this is done to secure the instiution of African slavery. And then, if not before, the question will be disussed, What is this institution of slavery, that it ould cause these unparalleled sacrifices and these isastrous afflictions? And this will be the answer: When the Spaniards, few in number, discovered the Western Indies and adjacent continental America, hey needed labor to draw forth from its virgin stores some speedy return to the cupidity of the court and the bankers of Madrid. They enslaved the indolent, inoffensive, and confiding natives, who perished by thousands, and even by millions, under that new and unnatural bondage. A humane ecclesiastic advised the substitution of Africans reduced to captivity in their native wars, and a pious princess adopted the suggestion, with a dispensation from the Head of the Church, granted on the ground of the prescriptive right of the Christian to enslave the heathen, to effect his conversion. The colonists of North America, innocent in their unconsciousness of wrong, encouraged the slave traffic, and thus the labor of subduing their territory devolved chiefly upon the African race. A happy conjuncture brought on an awakening of the conscience of mankind to the injustice of slavery, simultaneously with the independence of the Colonies. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, welcomed and embraced the spirit of universal emancipation. Renouncing luxury, they secured influence and empire. But the States of the South, misled by a new and profitable culture, elected to maintain and perpetuate slavery; and thus, choosing luxury, they lost power and empire. When this answer shall be given, it will appear that the question of dissolving the Union is a complex question; that it embraces the fearful issue whether the Union shall stand, and slavery, under the steady, peaceful action of moral, social, and political causes, be removed by gradual, voluntary effort, and with compensation, or whether the Union shall be dissolved, and civil wars ensue, bringing on violent, but complete and immediate, emancipation. We are now arrived at that stage of our national progress when that crisis can be foreseen, when we must foresee it. It is directly before us. Its shadow is upon us. It darkens the legislative halls, the temples of worship, and the home and the hearth. Every question, political, civil, or ecclesiastical, however foreign to the subject of slavery, brings up slavery as an incident, and the incident supplants the principal question. We hear of nothing but slavery, and we can talk of nothing but slavery, And now, it seems to me that all our difficulties, embarrassments, and dangers, arise, not out of unlawful perversions of the question of slavery, as some suppose, but from the want of moral courage to meet this question of emancipation as we ought. Consequently, we hear on one side demands-absurd, indeed, but yet unceasing-for an immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery; as if any power, except the people of the slave States, could abolish it, and as if they could be moved to abolish it by merely sounding the trumpet violently and proclaim- | ing emancipation, while the institution is interwoven with all their social and political interests, constitutions, and customs. On the other hand, our statesmen say that "slavery has always existed, and, for aught they know or can do, it always must exist. God permitted it, and he alone can indicate the way to remove it." As if the Supreme Creator, after giving us the instructions of his providence and revelation for the illumination of our minds and consciences, did not leave us in all human transactions, with due invocations of his Holy Spirit, to seek out his will and execute it for ourselves. Here, then, is the point of my separation from both of these parties. I feel assured that slavery must give way, and will give way, to the salutary instructions of economy, and to the ripening influences of humanity; that emancipation is inevitable, and is near; that it may be hastened or hindered; and that whether it be peaceful or violent depends upon the question whether it be hastened or hindered; that all measures which fortify slavery, or extend it, tend to the consummation of violence; all that check its extension, and abate its strength, tend to its peaceful extirpation. But I will adopt none but lawful, constitutional, and peaceful means, to secure even that end; and none such can I or will I forego. Nor do I know any important or responsible body that proposes to do more than this. No free State claims to extend its legislation into a slave State. None claims that Congress shall usurp power to abolish slavery in the slave States. None claims that any violent, unconstitutional, or unlawful measure shall be embraced. And, on the other hand, if we offer no scheme or plan for the adoption of the slave States, with the assent and co-operation of Congress, it is only because the slave States are unwilling as yet to receive such suggestions, or even to entertain the question of emancipation in any form. But, sir, I will take this occasion to say, that, while I cannot agree with the honorable Senator from Massachusetts in proposing to devote eighty millions of dollars to remove the free colored population from the slave States, and thus, as it appears to me, fortify slavery, there is no reasonable limit to which I am not willing to go in applying the national treasures to effect the peaceful, voluntary removal of slavery itself. I have thus endeavored to show that there is not now, and there is not likely to occur, any adequate cause for revolution in regard to slavery. But you reply that, nevertheless, you must have guaranties; and the first one is for the surrender of fugitives from labor. That guaranty you cannot have, as I have already shown, because you cannot roll back the tide of social progress. You must be content with what you have. If you wage war against us, you can, at most, only conquer us, and then all you can get, will be a treaty, and that you have already. But you insist on a guaranty against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or war. Well, when you shall have declared war against us, what shall hinder us from immediately decreeing that slavery shall cease within the national capital? You say that you will not submit to the exclusion of slaves from the new Territories. What will you gain by resistance? Liberty follows the sword, although her sway is one of peace and beneficence. Can you propagate slavery, then, by the sword? You insist that you cannot submit to the freedom with which slavery is discussed in the free States. Will war-a war for slavery-arrest or even moderate that discussion? No, sir; that discussion will not cease; war would only inflame it to a greater height. It is a part of the eternal conflict between truth and error-between mind and physical forcethe conflict of man against the obstacles which oppose his way to an ultimate and glorious destiny. It will go on until you shall terminate it in the only way in which any State or nation has ever terminated it by yielding to it-yielding in your own time and in your own manner, indeed, but nevertheless yielding to the progress of emancipation. You will do this, sooner or later, whatever may be your opinion now; because nations which were prudent and humane, and wise as you are, have done so already. Sir, the slave States have no reason to fear that this inevitable change will go too far or too fast for their safety or welfare. It cannot well go too fast or too far, if the only alternative is a war of races. But it cannot go too fast. Slavery has a reliable and accommodating ally in a party in the free States, which, though it claims to be, and doubtless is in many respects, a party of progress, finds its sole security for its political power in the support and aid of slavery in the slave States. Of course, I do not include in that party those who are now co-operating in maintaining the cause of Freedom against Slavery. I am not of that party of progress which in the North thus lends its support to slavery. But it is only just and candid that I should bear witness to its fidelity to the interests of slavery. Slavery has, moreover, a more natural alliance with the aristocracy of the North and with the aristocracy of Europe. So long as Slavery shall possess the cotton-fields, the sugar-fields, and the ricefields of the world, so long will Commerce and Capital yield it toleration and sympathy. Emancipation is a democratic revolution. It is Capital that arrests all democratic revolutions. It was Capital that in a single year rolled back the tide of revolution from the base of the Carpathian mountains, across the Danube and the Rhine, into the streets of Paris. It is Capital that is rapidly rolling back the throne of Napoleon into the chambers of the Tuileries. Slavery has a guaranty still stronger than these in the prejudices of caste and color, which induce even large majorities in all the free States to regard sympathy with the slave as an act of unmanly humiliation and self-abasement, although Philosophy meekly expresses her distrust of the asserted natural superiority of the white race, and confidently denies that such a superiority, if justly claimed, could give a title to oppression. machinery of our system is necessarily complex. A pivot may fall out here, a lever may be displaced there, a wheel may fall out of gearing elsewhere, but the machinery will soon recover its regularity, and move on just as before, with even better adaptation and adjustment to overcome new obstructions. There are many well-disposed persons who are alarmed at the occurrence of any such disturbance. The failure of a legislative body to organize is to their apprehension a fearful omen, and an extra-constitutional assemblage to consult upon public affairs is with them cause for desperation. Even Senators speak of the Union as if it existed only by consent, and, as it seems to be implied, by the assent of the Legislatures of the States. On the contrary, the Union was not founded in voluntary choice, nor does it exist by voluntary consent. A Union was proposed to the colonies by Franklin and others, in 1754; but such was their aversion to an abridgment of their own importance, respectively, that it was rejected even under the pressure of a disastrous invasion by France. A Union of choice was proposed to the colonies in 1775; but so strong was their opposition that they went through and through the war of Independence without having established more than a mere council of consultation. But with Independence came enlarged interests of agriculture-absolutely new interests of manufactures-interests of commerce, of fisheries, of navigation, of a common domain, of common debts, of common revenues and taxation, of the administration of justice, of public defence, of public honor; in short, interests of common nationality and sovereignty-interests which at last compelled the adoption of a more perfect Union-a National Government. The genius, talents, and learning of Hamilton, of Jay, and of Madison, surpassing perhaps the intellectual power ever exerted before for the establishment of a Government, combined with the serene but mighty influence of Washington, were only sufficient to secure the reluctant adoption of the Constitution that is now the object of all our affections and of the hopes of mankind. No wonder that the conflicts in which that Constitution was born, and the almost desponding solemnity of Washington, in his Farewell Address, impressed his countrymen and mankind with a profound distrust of its perpetuity! No wonder that while the murmurs of that day are yet ringing in our ears, we cherish that distrust, with pious reverence, as a national and patriotic senti ment ! There remains one more guaranty-one that has But it is time to prevent the abuses of that sentiseldom failed you, and will seldom fail you hereaf-ment. It is time to shake off that fear, for fear is ter. New States cling in closer alliance than older always weakness. It is time to remember that ones to the Federal power. The concentration of Government, even when it arises by chance or aceithe slave power enables you for long periods to con- dent, and is administered capriciously and opprestrol the Federal Government with the aid of the newsively, is ever the strongest of all human institutions, States. I do not know the sentiments of the repre- surviving many social and ecclesiastical changes sentatives of California; but, my word for it, if they and convulsions; and that this Constitution of ours should be admitted on this floor to-day, against your has all the inherent strength common to Governmost obstinate opposition, they would, on all ques-ments in general, and added to them has also the tions really affecting your interests, be found at your solidity and firmness derived from broader and deepside. er foundations in national justice, and a better civil adaptation to promote the welfare and happiness of mankind. With these alliances to break the force of emancipation, there will be no disunion and no secession. I do not say that there may not be disturbance, though I do not apprehend even that. Absolute regularity and order in administration have not yet been established in any Government, and unbroken popular tranquillity has not yet been attained in even the most advanced condition of human society. The The Union, the creature of necessities, physical, moral, social, and political, endures by virtue of the same necessities; and these necessities are stronger than when it was produced-stronger by the greater amplitude of territory now covered by it-stronger by the sixfold increase of the society living under its beneficent protection-stronger by the augmenta- | He knows as well and feels as strongly as I do that tion ten thousand times of the fields, the workshops, this Government is his own Government; that he is the mines, and the ships, of that society; of its pro- a part of it; that it was established for him, and ductions of the sea, of the plough, of the loom, and that it is maintained by him; that it is the only truly of the anvil, in their constant circle of internal and wise, just, free, and equal government that has ever international exchange-stronger in the long rivers existed; that no other government could be so wise, penetrating regions before unknown-stronger in just, free, and equal; and that it is safer and more all the artificial roads, canals, and other channels beneficent than any which time or change could bring and avenues essential not only to trade but to de- into its place. fence-stronger in steam navigation, in steam locomotion on the land, and in telegraph communications, unknown when the Constitution was adopted -stronger in the freedom and in the growing empire of the seas-stronger in the element of nationalisted, and has not always menaced a trial, but behonor in all lands, and stronger than all in the now settled habits of veneration and affection for institutions so stupendous and so useful. The Union, then, Is, not because merely that men choose that it shall be, but because some Government must exist here, and no other Government than this can. If it could be dashed to atoms by the whirlwind, the lightning, or the earthquake, today, it would rise again in all its just and magnificent proportions to-morrow. This nation is a globe, still accumulating upon accumulation, not a dissolving sphere. I have heard somewhat here, and almost for the first time in my life, of divided allegiance-of allegiance to the South and to the Union-of allegiance to States severally and to the Union. Sir, if sympathies with State emulation and pride of achievement could be allowed to raise up another sovereign to divide the allegiance of a citizen of the United States, I might recognise the claims of the State to which, by birth and gratitude, I belong to the State of Hamilton and Jay, of Schuyler, of the Clintons, and of Fulton-the State which, with less than two hundred miles of natural navigation connected with the ocean, has, by her own enterprise, secured to herself the commerce of the continent, and is steadily advancing to the command of the commerce of the world. But for all this I know only one country and one sovereign-the United States of America and the American People. And such as my allegiance is, is the loyalty of every other citizen of the United States. As I speak, he will speak when his time arrives. He knows no other country and no other sovereign. He has life, liberty, property, and precious affections, and hopes for himself and for his posterity, treasured up in the ark of the Union. 3 You may tell me, sir, that although all this may be true, yet the trial of faction has not yet been made. Sir, if the trial of faction has not been made, it has not been because faction has not always ex cause faction could find no fulcrum on which to place the lever to subvert the Union, as it can find no fulcrum now; and in this is my confidence. I would not rashly provoke the trial; but I will not suffer a fear, which I have not, to make me compromise one sentiment, one principle of truth or justice, to avert a danger that all experience teaches me is purely chimerical. Let, then, those who distrust the Union make compromises to save it. I shall not impeach their wisdom, as I certainly cannot their patriotism; but indulging no such apprehensions myself, I shall vote for the admission of California directly, without conditions, without qualifications, and without compromise. For the vindication of that vote I look not to the verdict of the passing hour, disturbed as the public mind now is by conflicting interests and passions, but to that period, happily not far distant, when the vast regions over which we are now legislating shall have received their destined inhabitants. While looking forward to that day, its countless generations seem to me to be rising up and passing in dim and shadowy review before us; and a voice comes forth from their serried ranks, saying: "Waste your treasures and your armies, if you will; raze your fortifications to the ground; sink your navies into the sea; transmit to us even a dishonored name, if you must; but the soil you hold in trust for usgive it to us free. You found it free, and conquered it to extend a better and surer freedom over it. Whatever choice you have made for yourselves, let us have no partial freedom; let us all be free; let the reversion of your broad domain descend to us unincumbered, and free from the calamities and the sorrows of human bondage." NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. THE proposed Territory of NEBRASKA comprises in all that part of the Territory of the United States included within the following limits, except such portions thereof as are hereinafter expressly exempted from the operations of this act, to wit: beginning at a point in the Missouri river, where the fortieth parallel of north latitude crosses the same; thence west on said parallel to the summit of the highlands separating the waters flowing into Green river or Colorado of the west from the waters flowing into the great basin; thence northward on the said highlands to the summit of the Rocky mountains; thence on said summit northward to the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude; thence west on said parallel to the western boundary of the Territory of Minnesota; thence southward on said boundary to the Missouri river; thence down the main channel of said river to the place of beginning. The proposed Territory of KANSAS consists of all that part of the Territory of the United States included within the following limits, except such portions thereof as are hereinafter expressly exempted from the operations of this act, to wit: beginning at a point on the western boundary of the State of Missouri, where the thirty-seventh parallel of north latitude crosses the same; thence west on said parallel to the eastern boundary of New Mexico; thence north on said boundary to latitude thirty-eight; thence following said boundary westward to the summit of the highlands dividing the waters flowing into the Colorado of the West or Green river, from the waters flowing into the great basin; thence northward on said summit to the fortieth parallel of latitude; thence east on said parallel to the western boundary of the State of Missouri; thence south with the western boundary of said State, to the place of beginning. The following proviso applies to both NEBRASKA and KANSAS: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to impair the rights of person or property now pertaining to the Indians in said Territory, so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty between the United States and such Indians, or to include any territory which, by treaty with any Indian tribe, is not, without the consent of said tribe, to be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any State or Territory; but all such Territory shall be excepted out of the boundaries, and constitute no part of the Territory until said tribe shall signify their assent to the President of the United States to be included within the said Territory, or to affect the authority of the government of the United States to make any regulation respecting such Indians, their lands, property, or other rights, by treaty, law, or otherwise, which it would have been competent to the gov ernment to make if this act had never passed. MR. DOUGLAS'S REPORT IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JAN. 4, 1854. The Committee on Territories, to which was referred a bill for an act to establish the Territory of Nebraska, have given the same that serious and deliberate consideration which its great importance demands, and beg leave to report it back to the Senate with various amendments, in the form of a substitute for the bill: THE principal amendments which your commit- | evidenced by the fact, that one-half of the States tee deem it their duty to commend to the favorable action of the Senate, in a special report, are those in which the principles established by the compromise measures of 1850, so far as they are applicable to territorial organizations, are proposed to be affirmed and carried into practical operation within the limits of the new Territory. of the Union tolerated, while the other half prohibited, the institution of Slavery. On the other hand it was insisted that, by virtue of the Constitution of the United States, every citizen had a right to remove to any Territory of the Union, and carry his property with him under the protection of law, whether that property consisted in persons or things. The difficulties arising from this diversity of opinion were greatly aggravated by the fact, that there were many persons on both sides of the legal controversy who were unwilling to abide the decision of the courts on the legal matters in dispute; thus, among those who claim consequently that slavery was already prohibited in those territories by valid enactment, there were many who insisted upon Congress making the matter certain, by enacting auother prohibition. In like manner, some of those who argued that the Mexican laws had ceased to have any binding force, and that the Constitution tolerated and protected slave property in those territories, were unwilling to trust the decision of the courts upon that point, and insisted that Congress should, by direct enactment, remove all legal obstacles to the introduction of slaves into those territories. The wisdom of those measures is attested, not less by their salutary and beneficial effects, in allaying sectional agitation and restoring peace and harmony to an irritated and distracted people, than by the cordial and almost universal, approbation with which they have been received and sanctioned by the whole country. In the judg-ed that the Mexican laws were still in force, and ment of your committee, those measures were intended to have a far more comprehensive and enduring effect than the mere adjustment of the difficulties arising out of the recent acquisition of Mexican territory. They were designed to establish certain great principles, which would not only furnish adequate remedies for existing evils, but, in all time to come, avoid the perils of a similar agitation, by withdrawing the question of slavery from the halls of Congress and the political arena, and committing it to the arbitrament of those who were immediately interested in it, and alone responsible for its consequences. With the view of conforming their action to what they regard the settled policy of the government, sanctioned by the approving voice of the American people, your committee have deemed it their duty to incorporate and perpetuate, in their territorial bill, the principles and spirit of those measures. If any other consideration were necessary, to render the propriety of this course imperative upon the committee, they may be found in the fact, that the Nebraska country occupies the same relative position to the slavery question, as did New Mexico and Utah, when those territories were organized. Such being the character of the controversy, in respect to the territory acquired from Mexico, a similar question has arisen in regard to the right to hold slaves in the proposed territory of Nebraska when the Indian laws shall be withdrawn, and the country thrown open to emigration and settlement. By the 8th section of "an act to authorize the people of the Missouri Territory to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and to prohibit slavery in certain territories," approved March 6, 1820, it was provided: That, in all that territory ceded by France to the United States under the It was a disputed point, whether slavery was name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six prohibited by law in the country acquired from degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not inMexico. On the one hand it was contended, as a cluded within the limits of the State contemplated legal proposition, that slavery having been pro- by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, hibited by the enactments of Mexico, according otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof to the laws of nations, we received the country the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall with all its local laws and domestic institutions be, and is hereby, forever prohibited: Provided attached to the soil, so far as they did not conflict always, That any person escaping into the same, with the Constitution of the United States; and from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed, that a law, either protecting or prohibiting slave- in any State or Territory of the United States, ry, was not repugnant to that instrument, as was such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and con |