1277 expediency, and that we are under no obligation ever to admit them. Although gentlemen should have ability to establish the power of Congress to impose restrictions as the condition of the admission of new States, yet, as they also admit the power of Congress to admit without restriction, and as the Government has given its solemn pledge, by the treaty, to admit the people of this territory, the refusal now to admit them into the Union, unless on their performance of a condition, suggested at our pleasure, and not stipulated for in the treaty, would be a breach of faith on our part, incapable of disguise. Good faith required us to give notice of, and insert in our obligation, any condition which we intended to exact previous to a fulfilment on our part. We should then have reserved the discretion now claimed, as was done by the treaty of alliance with France, of the 6th February, 1778, providing that the northern British colonies, or islands of Bermudas, should, if conquered, be confederated with, or dependent upon, the United States; and as was also done by the treaty with the Delaware nation of Indians, of the 17th September, 1778, in which the stipulation that the Delawares and certain other. tribes should form a State, and have a representation in Congress, was made to depend on the subsequent approbation of Congress. We have long been convinced that ours is the only free country on earth; that the colonies adjacent to us are the objects of tyranny, cruelty, and oppression, at all times willing to become ours by revolt or otherwise, and that the advantage of such a connexion is incalculable to them. Let us, however, beware of the injustice to which we may be tempted by national pride. It is certain that Louisiana has been aggrandized by her connexion with the United States, but a review of her condition, previous to her change of masters, may occasion a doubt whether the old inhabitants, on whose behalf the stipulations of the treaty were inserted, were improved in their circumstances by the cession. The Spanish Government afforded the inhabitants their land, gratuitously. By the ordinance of 1793, the inhabitants of Louisiana and the Floridas were admitted to a free commerce with Europe and America. No exception as to the articles sent or to be received. Tobacco and all other articles, the introduction of which into Spain had been prohibited from other places, were allowed to be taken from these provinces. The importation of foreign rice into Spain was prohibited for the avowed purpose of encouraging its growth in Louisiana and the Floridas; all articles exported from Spain to these provinces were free of duty, and a drawback of the duties which had been paid on foreign articles was allowed. The articles exported from those provinces to Spain were free of duty, whether consumed in Spain, or re-exported to foreign countries. The same ordinance had also provided that a preference should be given to all the productions of Louisiana and the Floridas, by prohibiting their importation from foreign countries, whenever those provinces should produce sufficient quantities for the consumption of Spain. The governments of these provinces | H. OF R. were mild and provident, having been guided by a policy which afforded a security against Indian depredation, which had not always been the good fortune of our frontiers. I think, if this people were indeed miserable, their sufferings were not imputable to their old government. We have divorced them from their ancient associations, and given birth and encouragement in that country to new objects of emulation, by engaging to couple their destiny (in the language of Governor Claiborne) with our own unexampled prosperity, and the world must now witness with what sincerity or ill faith we are to meet the demand for a performance of our compact. How is it, sir, that this Government attempts to prohibit slavery in the country west of the Mississippi? Our Government knew, in the acquisition of the country, that the people held slaves by a title equally legitimate with their claim to their lands and cattle. Indeed, the American Government previously well knew that species of property had met with extraordinary encouragement by the Spanish authorities; for the importation of slaves into Louisiana had been admitted free of duty, and even the exportation of silver to purchase slaves was tolerated, which regulations were known to our Government, as appears by the letter of Mr. Short, the American Minister at Madrid, to our Secretary of State, dated the first July, 1793. Also, besides the land granted to emigrants for cultivation and improvements, an additional quantity was granted to the master for every slave removed into Louisiana. The Spanish treaties with the Indian tribes had made effectual provision for the ample security of the property on the savage frontier, as is manifest by the treaties of 1784, between the Spanish authorities and the Tallapuche, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and other frontier tribes. Our Government was apprized of these treaties; our Minister at Madrid having transmitted copies of them to the Secretary of State in 1793; and, indeed, the treaty of 1795, between Spain and the United States, in the fifth article, has a recognition of, or at least reference to, those Indian treaties. The American Government, with full knowledge of all the circumstances to which I have referred, expressly stipulated in the treaty by which it acquired Louisiana, that the inhabitants should be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their property. Yet, the amendment of the gentleman from New York aims to vanquish that property. This clause of the treaty has, in my humble opinion, been greatly maltreated in the speech delivered at the last session, in one branch of Congress, by an honorable member from one of the most populous States of the Union. It cannot be improper to have an allusion to it now, as its sentiments are not different from those espoused by the restrictionists, in support of this amendment. It was said, and is yet urged, that the stipulation to maintain and protect the inhabitants in their property, could be only applied to the slaves held by them at the date of the treaty. This niggardly attempt to shelter our Government from the manifest import of its own obligation, and from what would have been its duty, H. OF R. Admission of Missouri. FEBRUARY, 1820. ing to the laws, forms, and usages of the colony. The cession by Virginia, to Congress, of the Northwest Territory, dated March, 1784, provides that the French inhabitants, and other settlers of the Kaskaskias, St. Vincents, and the neighboring villages, who had professed themselves citizens of Virginia, should have their property secured, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties. without express stipulation, is too well adapted to excite a feeling in which I shall not permit myself to indulge. The inhabitants of Louisiana will naturally ask themselves how this comports with the professions of the Chief Magistrate of the Union, who, in announcing our possession of the country, congratulated the nation on the acquisition of new brethren to partake of the blessings of freedom and self-government. They must arrive at the melancholy conclusion that we consider the When Congress, by the ordinance of 1787, estreaty of cession as articles of capitulation of a tablished laws for the government of the Territory, fallen enemy. Nor, as articles of capitulation, it expressed a proviso that they should not be concould we, in conscience, insist for this limited or strued to infringe on the laws affecting the prorather mangled interpretation. Even a robber, perty of those inhabitants. In the same cession who had received his black mail, or extorted rev- from Virginia, there were other stipulations reenue, on a promise that he would not depredate quired on the part of Congress, in relation, too, to your property, would be disgraced among his com- the mere advantage of the inhabitants of the rades by a quibble or pretence that you were only ceded territory, in like manner as the stipulations to be safe in your property to-day, but that to- in the cession from France contained clauses for morrow was a different thing. To what condition the protection of property, and for incorporation in would society be reduced if public assurances for the Union, for the mere benefit of the inhabitants. the protection of property only applied to the prop- But, when Congress became desirous to exercise a erty held at the instant? Every barter or exchange more ample discretion as to the circumstances unof property would exempt us from the protection. der which the new States of the Northwest TerriChildren would not be entitled to the benefit of tory should be admitted, it made application to the treaty, if born after its date, and all who be- Virginia, being the other party to the contract, for came inhabitants or citizens after its date would her consent, as will be seen by the resolution of the be excluded from the treaty and from the rights of Old Congress, of July the 7th, 1786. Yet the adcitizens. Their lands are not secured otherwise vocates of restriction do not think of applying, than their slaves, and would therefore be subject either to France or the inhabitants of Louisiana, to the same confiscation. The same interpretation, for consent to the exercise of regulations which reif applied to that portion of the Federal Constitu-peal the treaty of cession. This nation, whether tion which secures private property, would only afford protection to the property held in 1787, when the Constitution was made; and, by the same rule, we must be deprived of all authority over the Territories, for the clause giving to Congress authority to make needful rules and regulations to govern and dispose of the Territories, being adopted in 1787, could not be extended to Louisiana, acquired afterwards. A free Government protects or affects the property of its citizens through the medium of its laws, and in that respect has a discretionary power to make, alter, and repeal those laws. The sovereign authority makes treaties as well as laws; and, if such treaty contains a promise to maintain and protect property, it evidently relates to the discretion of the sovereign to make laws affecting property, and includes a pledge of faith for the continuance of the laws under which property is held and protected. But, if the infraction of such treaty be designed, the Sovereign authority proceeds to impair or alter the laws for the protection of property, and has no other means of violating such a treaty. considered with regard to its municipal institutions, or its character arising from its diplomatic intercourse, is the last from which the world could expect a disregard of public faith, by a violation of the lawful and pre-existing relations between the people of Missouri and their slaves. Previous to the treaty of cession, it was known to all the world that these States recognised slaves as property, and, indeed, that the political bond which knotted together their interests and energies had some of its most conspicuous features in an adjustment of its proportions to the interests or rights of slaveholders. The first essay by this Government of its diplomatic correspondence with any European nation, after the adoption of the Constitution, is found in an effort to obtain from the British Government compensation for slaves carried off by the King's troops in evacuating the country, for which I quote the correspondence of the President of the United States with Gouverneur Morris, our confidential agent in Europe, in 1789. Our Government in 1791, through the agency of Mr. Seagrove, its publie commissioner, negotiated with the Governor of East Florida to issue such proclamation and permanent orders as would prevent fugitive slaves from the United States from taking shelter in Florida; and our treaties with the bordering Indian nations have made effectual provision against the violation of property in slaves, for which, see the treaties with the Delawares, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Creeks, and other nations. We violate the treaty of cession if we repeal the laws of Louisiana, which maintain and protect their property. France, in 1762, ceded this same province of Louisiana to Spain by a treaty, with injunctions for the protection of property; and, in proof of the sense entertained by the parties of the import of that treaty, I refer to the letter of the King of France to L'Abbadie, the commandant of the province, to deliver up the possession, and expressing the King's expectation that the magis- The inhabitants of Louisiana, before the cession, tracy would continue to administer justice accord-had acquired a great portion of their slaves from INDEX TO THE PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE FIRST SESSION OF time, and passed 691 agreed to, and referred to the Post Office 300 American Colonization Society, Mr. Pinkney 696 presented the memorial of the 360 460 - 436 of Representatives to amend the act au- reported without amendment, read the third Aitkin, John, and Sons, Mr. Lowrie presented the Alabama, the constitution of, was referred to a a resolution to admit, into the Union, re- agreed to, and referred as therein intended 11 referred to a select committee 77 20 Annual Expense of Surveys, &c., Mr. Trimble - 650 - 656 Annuities to Indians, or Tribes, Mr. Sanford sub- 26 28 616 620 33 233 returned from the House of Representatives 36 with amendments - 617 100 Apportionment of Representatives for Massachu setts and Maine; Mr. Mellen, on leave, 494 read a third time, and passed 605 read a second time, and referred - 497 amended, and ordered to a third reading 540 557 |