Is it just or safe, with regard to our foreign relations | it. I will only say, that if, at this moment, when an alland domestic compact, to admit Texas into the Union? MR. EVERETT'S REPLY. BOSTON, 81st October, 183. SIR: I have duly received your communication of the 14th inst., in which you desire to be furnished with my views on certain questions therein propounded. Under other circumstances, I should deem it proper to preface my answer with some preliminary remarks, but my engagements at the present time compel me to reply as concisely as possible. In answer to the first question, I observe, that Slavery being, by universal admission, a social, political, and moral evil of the first magnitude, it is required by justice, humanity, and sound policy that the slaves should be emancipated by those having constitutionally the power to effect that object, as soon as it can be done peacefully, and in a manner to better the condition of the emancipated. I believe the most considerate portion of the people of the United States, in every quarter, unite in this sentiment; and you are aware that the most eminent Southern names can be cited in its support. In reply to the second question, I would remark, that all the considerations in favor of emancipation in the States, apply with equal force to the District of Columbia. My opinions on this subject are fully expressed in the resolution adopted by the legislature last winter, with a near approach to unanimity, in the following terms: "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia, possesses the right to abolish Slavery in the said District, and that its exercise should only be restrained by regard to the public good." I know that the slave-trade is carried on to a shocking extent in the District of Columbia. There is no part of the South, where it is reputable to be engaged in this traffic; and no Southern State, I am persuaded, would permit its existence in its own capital, as it exists at the national capital. The South and the North ought to unite in prohibiting it, by act of Congress-which is the local legislature of the District. This has been loudly called for, from the District itself. I have before me a copy of a petition, couched in very strong language, against both Slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, which was presented to Congress in 1824, signed by nearly seven hundred and fifty names of citizens of Washington, several of whom were known to me to be of the first consideration. I may observe in this connection, that at the same session, I voted in the negative on a motion to lay upon the table the petition of the American Anti-Slavery Society for the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, and on two other motions, intended, in like manner, to deprive this class of petitions of a respectful reception and consideration. Its ex The last question propounded by you refers to the annexation of Texas. It presents the subject of Slavery, in most of its bearings, in a new light. In the States, its introduction was the result of a legislation forced upon the colonies, and in many cases, in despite of acts passed by their legislators, for the prohibition of the slave-trade, and regulated by the crown. istence is recognized by the Constitution of the United States. The rights of property growing out of it are in some degree protected by law in the non-slaveholding States (see the opinion of Chief Justice Shaw in the case of the Commonwealth vs. Aves-an opinion in the doctrines and principles of which I fully concur); and morality and religion frown on all attempts to put an end to it by violence and bloodshed. But none of these principles countenance a voluntary extension of Slavery; and as the question of annexing Texas is one of voluntary, and almost boundless extension, it presents the subject, as I have said, in a new light. It has been officially stated by the Texan Envoy that the region so called contains two hundred thousand square miles. In other words, it might form twenty-five States as large as Massachusetts. In this vast region, Slavery was prohibited by Mexico; it has been restored, and is rapidly spreading itself under the new government; and no one denies, that if the independence of Texas is sustained, Slavery will be indefinitely extended throughout its ample borders. The Executive Government of the United States has promptly recognized this independence, and by so doing, has discharged the whole duty that could be required by the law of nations. Whatever step we take toward annexation is gratuitous. This whole subject has been so ably discussed by Dr. Channing, in his recent letter to Mr. Clay, that it would be superfluous to enlarge upon important experiment is in train, to abolish Slavery by peaceful and legal means in the British West Indies, the United States, instead of imitating their example, or even awaiting the result, should rush into a policy of giving an indefinite extension to Slavery over a vast region incorporated into their Union, we should stand condemned before the civilized world. It would be vain to expect to gain credit for any further professions of a willingness to be rid of Slavery as soon as possible. No extenuation of its existence, on the ground of its having been forced upon the country in its colonial state, would any longer avail us. It would be thought, and thought justly, that lust of power and lust of gold had made us deaf to the voice of humanity and justice. We should be self-convicted of the enormous crime of having voluntarily given the greatest possible enlargement to an evil, which, in concert with the rest of mankind, we had affected to deplore, and that at a time when the public sentiment of the civilized world, more than at any former period, is aroused to its magnitude. There are other objections to the measure drawn from its bearing on our foreign relations; but it is unnecessary to discuss them. I am, sir, respectfully, Your obedient servant, EDWARD EVERETT. man. amendment, were adopted by the legislature. They ap Those resolves, after having been somewhat enlarged by Pear to cover the whole ground of your two interrogatories. Having cheerfully cooperated in the passage of the resolves, and concurring in the general reasoning by which they are sustained in the powerful report of the chairman of the committee, I respond to both your inquiries in the affirmative. The first of the three subjects in your inquiry is the only one of them which came before Congress while I was a member. I voted in the negative on the motion Slavery Society for the abolition of Slavery in the Disto lay upon the table the petition of the American Antitrict of Columbia, and on other motions of the like character introduced to cast off the consideration of this class of petitions. I am, dear sir, very respectfully, your friend and ser The "several resolves" to which Mr. Everett refers in the above letter, in the passage of which he "cheerfully coöperated," as Governor of Massachusetts, are as follows: Resolved, That Congress has, by the Constitution, power to abolish Slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and that there is nothing in the terms or circumstances of the acts of cession by Virginia and Maryland, or otherwise, enforcing any legal or moral restraint on its existence. Resolved, That Congress ought to take measures to effect the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia. Resolved, That the rights of humanity, the claims of justice, and the common good alike, demand the suppression by Congress of the slave-trade carried on in and through the District of Columbia. Resolved, That Congress has, by the Constitution, power to abolish Slavery in the Territories of the United States. [For later views of Mr. Everett, see his letter | a fusion of the Republicans with the other Opposition ele accepting the nomination for the Vice-Presi- ments in the campaign of 1860, has been received. dency in 1860.] ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON THOMAS JEFFERSON. Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State, and I have no right to advise her in her policy. Yet, if any one is desirous to draw a conclusion as to what I would do, from what she has done, I may speak without improRe-sachusetts provision, I am against its adoption, not only priety. I say, then, that so far as I understand the Masin Illinois, but in every other place in which I have the right to oppose it. As I understand the spirit of our inI am, therefore, hostile to anything that tends to their destitutions, it is designed to promote the elevation of men. Mr. Lincoln having been invited by the publicans of Boston, to attend a Festival in honor of the anniversary of Jefferson's birthday, on the 13th of April, 1859, replied as follows: SPRINGFIELD, Ill., April 6, 1859. GENTLEMEN: Your kind note, inviting me to attend a festival in Boston, on the 18th inst., in honor of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My engagements are such that I cannot attend. Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political parties were first formed in this country; that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them and Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson, should now be celebrating his birthday in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere. Remembering, too, that the Jefferson party was formed upon its supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior; and then assuming that the so-called Democracy of to-day are the Jefferson, and their opponents the anti-Jefferson parties, it will be equally interesting to note how completely the two have changed ground as to the principle upon which they were originally supposed to be divided. The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are both for the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar. I remember being once much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men engaged in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after a long and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of his own coat and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have performed the same feat as the two drunken men. But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. basement. It is well known that I deplore the oppressed condition of the blacks; and it would, therefore, be very inconsistent for me to look with approval upon any measures that infringes upon the inalienable rights of white men, whether or not they are born in another land, or speak a different language from my own. can be effected on Republican principles, but upon no In respect to a fusion, I am in favor of it whenever it other condition. A fusion upon any other platform would be as insane as unprincipled. It would thereby lose the whole North, while the common enemy would still have the support of the entire South. The question in relation to men is different. There are good and patriotic men and able statesmen in the South, whom I would willingly support if they would place themselves on Republican ground; but I shall oppose the lowering of the Republican standard even by a hair's breadth. I have written in haste, but I believe that I have answered your questions substantially. Respectfully yours, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. NEW-YORK FOR THE WILMOT PROVISO. In January, 1847, Col. Samuel Young introduced the following resolve into the New-York State Senate, and on the 27th of that month it was adopted by a vote of 22 to 6: Resolved, That if any Territory is hereafter acquired by the United States, or annexed thereto, the act by which such Territory is acquired or annexed, whatever such act may be, should contain an unalterable, fundamental article or provision whereby Slavery or involuntary servi tude, except as a punishment for crime, shall be forever excluded from the Territory acquired or annexed. This resolve subsequently passed the Assembly by a vote which was almost unanimous. One would state with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless, he would fail, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The prinNEW-YORK FOR FREEDOM IN 1858. ciples of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied and evaded, with no The following preamble and resolutions were small show of success. One dashingly calls them "glit-adopted by the Assembly of the State of Newtering generalities." Another bluntly styles them "self evident lies." And others insidiously argue that they apply only to "superior races." These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect-the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people. They are the vanguard, the sappers and miners, of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it. All honor to Jefferson-to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity, to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day and in all coming days it ahall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression. Your obedient servant, Messrs. H. L. PIERCE, and others, etc. A. LINCOLN. ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON NATURALIZATION. SPRINGFIELD, May 17, 1859. DR. THEODOR CANISIUS: York on the 10th day of January, 1848, by a vote of 108 to 5, and by the Senate, a few days later, by a majority nearly as emphatic as that of the Assembly: Whereas, The President of the United States, in his last annual message, has recommended the establishment by Congress of territorial government over the conquered provinces of New Mexico, and the Californias, and the retention thereof as an indemnity, in which said Territories the institution of Slavery does not now exist, therefore Resolved (if the Senate concur), That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use their best efforts to insert into any act or ordinance, establishing any or all such provisional or territorial government or governments, a fundamental article or provision, which shall provide, declare, and guaranty, that Slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been first duly convicted, shall be prohibited therein, so long as the same shall remain a Territory. Resolved, That the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the Assembly, be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolutions and preamble to each of the said Senators and Representatives. NEW-YORK Again for freE TERRITORIES IN 1849. DEAR SIR-Your letter, in which you inquire on your The following preamble and resolves were inown account, and in behalf of certain other German chi- troduced into the New-York Senate on the 20 zens, whether I approve or oppose the constitutional provision in relation to naturalized citizens which was lately of January, 1849, passed that body by a unani enacted in Massachusetts, and whether I favor or oppose mous vote on the 4th, and were concurred in by the Assembly two days later, on the 6th of | following are extracts from the address then January: adopted: Whereas, The people of the State of New-Mexico FELLOW-CITIZENS: Hitherto when we have assembled in have petitioned Congress for the establishment of a Ter- Convention, there were well known and well recognized ritorial Government which shall protect them against the bounds to our country, but now that the spirit of coninstitution of domestic Slavery while they remain a ter- quest has been let loose, who can tell where is his counritory of the United States, and have also petitioned Con- try, whether on the Rio Grande, the Sierra Nevada, the gress for protection against the unfounded claims of the Rio Gila or the Gulf of California, or whether part SpanState of Texas to a large portion of their territory lying ish, much Indian, and some Negro, Santa Féan or Cali east of the Rio Grande; and, whereas, it would be un-fornian may not be as good an American citizen as himjust to the people of New-Mexico and California, and self? Our flag is borne, with fixed bayonets to surround revolting to the spirit of the age, to permit domestic it, and unmuzzled grape-shot to clear the way, in the Slavery an institution from which they are now free-conquering footsteps of Cortes-by the base of the snowy to be introduced among them: and, whereas, since the peaks of Popocatapetl, to the Eternal city of the acquisition of New Mexico by the United States the peo- Aztecs-and Mexicans of every color, and every breed, ple thereof have a right to expect the protection of the sprung from commingling Moor and straight-haired AfriGeneral Government, and should be secured in the full can, as well as from Castile and Leon, are made Ameripossession and enjoyment of their Territory: therefore can citizens, or prepared for being made so, by the genResolved, That our Senators and Representatives in tle logic of red-mouthed artillery, thundering from the Congress be requested to use their best efforts to procure bristling heights of Cerro Gordo to the bloody plains of the passage of laws for the establishment of govern- Contreras and Churubusco. Wherever that flag is, with ments for the Territories acquired by the treaty of peace its stars and stripes, the emblem of our Nationality, with Mexico, and that by such laws involuntary servi- there our hearts are; but woe! woe! to the men, we cry, tude, except for crime, be excluded from such Terri- who have dispatched it upon its mission of Conquest, and what is yet worse, the conversion of a Free into a Slaveholding Territory. tories. Resolved, That the territory lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande is the common property of the United States, and that our Senators and Representatives in Congress be requested to use their best efforts to preserve the same as such common property, and protect it from the unfounded claim of the State of Texas, and prohibit the extension over it of the laws of Texas, or the institution of domestic Slavery. Resolved, That the existence of prisons for the confinement and marts for the sale of slaves, at the seat of the National Government, is viewed by this legislature with deep regret and mortification; that such prisons and marts ought forthwith to be abolished; therefore be it further Resolved, That our Senators and Representatives in Congress be requested to use their strenuous efforts to procure the passage of a law that shall protect slaves from unjust imprisonment, and shall effectually put an end to the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. Resolved, That the Governor be requested to forward copies of the preceding resolutions to each Senator and Representative in Congress from this State. MR. DIX FOR SLAVERY PROHIBITION. These resolutions were presented in the U. S. Senate by the Hon. John A. Dix (now, 1860,) Postmaster of New-York, and defended by him in an elaborate and able speech. On the first resolution, he said: Fellow-citizens, disguise the Mexican war as sophistry may, the great truth cannot be put down, that it exists because of the annexation of Texas; that from such a cause we predicted such a consequence would follow: and that, but for that cause, no war would have existed at all. Disguise its intent, purposes and consequences as sophistry may struggle to do, the further great truth cannot be hidden, that its main object is the conquest of a Market for Slaves, and that the flag our victorious legions rally around, fight under, and fall for, is to be desecrated from its holy character of Liberty and Emancipation into an errant of Bondage and Slavery. In obedience to the laws, and in a due and faithful submission to the regularly constituted government of our country, we will rally by and defend our flag on whatever soil or whatever sea it is unfurled; but before high Heaven we protest against the mission on which it is sent, and we demand its recall to the true and proper bounds of our country, as soon as in honor it can be brought home. We protest, too, in the name of the rights of Man, and of Liberty, against the further extension of Slavery in North America. The curse which our mother country inflicted upon us, in spite of our fathers' remonstrances, we demand shall never blight the virgin soil of the North Pacific. We will not pour out the blood of our countrymen, if we can help it, to turn a Free hundred millions of dollars per year to make a Slave into a Slave soil. We will not spend from fifty to a Market for any portion of our countrymen. We will never, for such a purpose, consent to run up an untold mongers, Tax-Brokers, Tax-gatherers, laying an excise of National debt, and saddle our posterity with Fundan impost on everything they taste, touch or live by. The Union as it is, the whole Union, and nothing but the Union, we will stand by to the last-but No More Territory is our watch-word, unless it be Free. RESOLVES. This resolution was in sentiment, if not in words, identical with those which have been passed by fifteen of the thirty States of the Union. With a single exception, all the non-slaveholding and one of the slaveholding States have declared themselves opposed to the extension of Slavery into territory now free. Sir, I fully concur in the propriety of this declaration. I believe that Congress has the power to prohibit Slavery in California and New Mexico; that it is our duty to exercise the Among the Resolutions unanimously adopted power, and that it should be exercised now. I am by this Convention was the following: always for acting when the proper time for action has come. I am utterly opposed to any course which shall Resolved, That while the Whig Freemen of New-York, cast upon others the responsibility which belongs to our-represented in this Convention, will faithfully adhere to selves. The resolution looks to the exclusion of Slavery all the compromises of the Constitution, and jealously from New Mexico and California during their territorial maintain all the reserved rights of the States, they condition only. It does not look beyond that condition declare-since the crisis has arrived when the question with a view to control the people when they shall have must be met-their uncompromising hostility to the Excome into the Union. It contemplates no invasion of tension of Slavery into any Territory now Free, or which State sovereignty. In this view of the subject, one of the may be hereafter acquired by any action of the GovernNew-York presses which has resisted all interference with ment of our Union. Slavery, even in the Territories, pronounced these resolutions conciliatory in their character. I do not know that I should call them either conciliatory or the reverse. They take firmly the ground that New-York has always taken, that Slavery shall by no act of hers be further extended. She believes it to be the ground of principle, of justice, and of right and I do not hesitate to say she will never abandon it-never, never. THE NEW-YORK WHIGS FOR FREEDOM IN 1847. At the Whig State Convention held at Syraouse, October 6, 1847, the Hon. James Brooks reported a brief address to the Whigs of the State, which was unanimously adopted. The FREE DEMOCRACY OF NEW-YORK CITY AGAINST Park at New-York, October 9, 1848, at which Resolved, That the politics of the times indicate precisely to whom remain the principles of the Democracy; that the absence from the field of discussion of the finan cial and commercial questions which formerly defined political differences, permits that other party tests than single foot of soil where it is not now authorized by those which, even if demanding attention, still as but law. questions of expediency, should be, as they have been, postponed to the consideration of that one of vital importance, the freedom of our land. Resolved, that we think contemptuously of the mind which discovers in the extension of the area of Freedom cause for the degradation of the South. Could nature so belie herself that the preservation of their "inalienable rights" to any portion of mankind, must be attended by proportionate violation of those of any other portion, we say, perish those rights dependent on the Slavery of others, rather than one tittle of those be injured that are consistent with the rights of all; that our Constitution and our federal history speak to us through the voices of the Jeffersons, the Pinckneys, the Lees, and the Randolphs of the South, against this miserable, false pretense. It is not so! The success of the free principles for which we contend, will reestablish the lost equality of the States-lost in the insidious increase of the Slave States from six, their original and constitutional number, to fifteen, the present aggressive and unconstitutional number-lost in the twenty-one voices and votes which Southern chattel slaves possess among the representatives of a free people at Washington-lost in the limited wealth, in the low intelligence, and in the inferior civilization of the South. We would restore this lost equality, and, so far from degrading any portion of the Union, we mean to elevate the whole to the possession of that Freedom which alone should be the National characteristic. Resolved, That our senses reject the audacious assertion that the Extension of Slave Territory at the South will abate the evil at the North. Aside from the absurdity which it involves, that an evil declines in proportion to and expires with the substance which it procures, experience has taught, and the history of the "Peculiar Institution" itself manifests, that the slaveowner of the "Old Dominion" breeds an increasing gang, and amasses an accumulating hoard, just as the demand for slaves increases with the diffusion of Slavery over free territory at the South. In the year 1790, when Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Florida, were free soil, the slave population was 697,896. In the year 1840, when Slavery had spread over this free soil, it numbered 2,487,355, being an increase in fifty years of 1,787,457 slaves. The extension of Slavery to new territory, instead of abating the evil in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, where it numbered in the year 1810, 590,000 slaves, has multiplied them to 775,000, in the year 1840, showing an increase in thirty years of 185,000 slaves. The existence of Slavery depends on its diffusion. GREENE C. BRONSON'S OPINION IN 1848. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, To Messrs. J. COCHRANE, and others, Committee. NEW-HAMPSHIRE FOR THE WILMOT PROVISO. The legislature (then Democratic) of New Hampshire, in June, 1847, passed the following resolution: Resolved, That in all territory which shall hereafter be added to or acquired by the United States, where Slavery does not exist at the time of such addition, or acquirement, neither Slavery or involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crime, whereof the party has been duly convicted, ought ever to exist, but the same should ever remain free; and we are opposed to the extension of Slavery over every such Territory-and that we also approve the vote of our Senators and Representatives in Congress in favor of the Wilmot Proviso. OHIO FOR FREE SOIL. In the Ohio House of Representatives (session of 1847-8) the following resolution was passed by a vote of 43 to 12: Resolved, By the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, that the Senators and Representatives from this State in the Congress of the United States be and they are hereby requested, to procure the passage of measures in the National Legislature, providing for the exclusion of Slavery from the Territory of Oregon, and also from any other Territory that now is, or hereafter may be, annexed to the United States. ILLINOIS FOR FREE SOIL. The following Resolutions were adopted by the Senate of Illinois on the 8th of January, 1849, and the House of Representatives on the following day. The Legislature was largely Democratic in both branches at the time: Resolved by the Senate of the State of Illinois, the House of Representatives concurring, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use all honorable means in their power to procure the enactment of such laws by Congress for the government of the countries and territories of the United States acquired by the treaty of peace, friendship, limits and settlement with the Republic of Mexico, concluded February 2, 1848, as shall contain the express declaration" that there shall be neither Slavery nor involun the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have In a letter dated July 15th, 1848, Mr. Bron-tary servitude in said territories otherwise than in son, after declining an invitation to attend a been duly convicted." political meeting, says: Slavery cannot exist where there is no positive law to uphold it. It is not necessary that it should be forbidden; it is enough that it is not specially authorized. If the owner of slaves removes with or sends them into any country, State or Territory, where Slavery does not exist by law, they will from that moment become free men, and will have as good a right to command the master, as he will have to command them. State laws have no extraterritorial authority; and a law of Virginia which makes a man a slave there, cannot make him a slave in NewYork, nor beyond the Rocky Mountains. Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring herein, That the Governor be respectfully requested to transmit to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress a copy of the joint resolution of the Senate, concurred in by the House on the 9th inst., for the exclusion of Slavery from the new territories ao quired by our late treaty with the Republic of Mexico. SOUTH CAROLINA FOR THE FOREIGN SLAVE-TRADE. In the annual message of Governor Adams, of South Carolina, for the year 1856, he proceeded to argue in favor of the reopening of the slave-trade, as follows: Entertaining no doubt upon that question, I can see no occasion for asking Congress to legislate against the extension of Slavery into free territory, and, as a question It is apprehended that the opening of this trade will of policy, I think it had better be let alone. If our South- lessen the value of slaves, and ultimately destroy the ern brethren wish to carry their slaves to Oregon, New-institution. It is a sufficient answer to point to the fact Mexico or California, they will be under the necessity of asking a law to warrant it; and it will then be in time for the Free States to resist the measure, as I cannot doubt they would, with unwavering firmness. I would not needlessly move this question, as it is one of an exciting nature, which tends to sectional division, and may do us harm as a people. I would leave it to the Slaveholding States to decide for themselves, and on their own responsibility, when, if ever, the matter shall be agitated in Congress. It may be that they will act wisely, and never move at all; especially as it seems pretty generally agreed that neither Oregon, New-Mexico, nor California, are well adapted to slave labor. But if our Southern brethren should make the question, we shall have no choice but to meet it; and then, whatever consequences may follow, I trust the people of the Free States will give a united voice against allowing Slavery on a that unrestricted immigration has not diminished the value of labor in the northwestern Confederacy. The cry there is the want of labor, notwithstanding capital has the pauperism of the old world to press into the grinding service. If we cannot supply the demand for slave labor, then we must expect to supply with a species of labor we do not want, and which is, from the very nature of things, antagonistic to our institutions. It is much better that our drays should be driven by slaves, that our factories should be worked by slaves, that our hotels should be served by slaves, that our locomotives should be managed by slaves, than that we should be exposed to the introduction from any quarter of a population alien to us by birth, training, and education, and which in the process of time must lead to the conflict between capital and labor, which makes it so difficult to maintain free institutions in all wealthy and civilized nations where such institutions as To us eurs do not exist. In all slaveholding States true policy | necessary to a continuance of our morapoly in plantation dictates that the superior race should direct, and the inferior perform all menial service. Competition between the white and black man for this service may not disturb Northern sensibility, but does not exactly suit our latitude. Irrespective, however, of interest, the act of Congress declaring the slave-trade piracy is a brand upon us which I think it important to remove. If the trade be piracy, the slaves must be plunder, and no ingenuity can avoid the logical necessity of such a conclusion. My hopes and fortunes are indissolubly associated with this form of society. I feel that I would be wanting in duty if I did not urge you to withdraw your assent to an act which is itself a direct condemnation of your institutions. But we have interests to enforce a course of self-respect. I believe, as I have already stated, that more slaves are products. I believe that they are necessary to the full MR. HAMLIN RENOUNCES THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. On the 12th of June, 1856, Mr. Hamlin rose in his place in the Senate, and spoke as follows: Mr. Hamlin. Mr. President, I rise for a purpose purely personal, such as I have never before risen for in the Senate. I desire to explain some matters personal to myself and to my own future course in public life. Several Senators.-Go on. Mr. Hamlin.-I ask the Senate to excuse me from further service as Chairman of the Committee on Commerce. I do so because I feel that my relations hereafter will be of such a character as to render it proper that I should no longer hold that position. I owe this act to the dominant majority in the Senate. When I cease to harmonize with the majority, or tests are applied by that party with which I have acted to which I cannot submit, I feel that I ought no longer to hold that respectable position. I propose to state briefly the reasons which have brought me to that conclusion. During nine years of service in the Senate, I have preferred rather to be a working than a talking member; and so I have been almost a silent one. On the subjects which have so much agitated the country, Senators know that I have rarely uttered a word. I love my country more than I love my party. I love my country above my love for any interest that can too deeply agitate or disturb its harmony. I saw, in all the exciting scenes and debates through which we have passed, no particular good that would result from my active intermingling in them. My heart has often been full, and the impulses of that heart have often been felt upon my lips; but I have repressed them there. Sir, I hold that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a gross moral and political wrong, unequaled in the annals of the legislation of this country, and hardly equaled in the annals of any other free country. Still, sir, with a desire to promote harmony and concord and brotherly feeling, I was a quiet man under all the exciting debates which led to that fatal result. I believed it wrong then; I can see that wrong lying broadcast all around us now. As a wrong, I opposed that measurenot, indeed, by my voice, but with consistent and steady and uniform votes. I so resisted it in obedience to the dictates of my own judgment. I did it also cheerfully, in compliance with the instructions of the legislature of Maine, which were passed by a vote almost unanimous. In the House of Representatives of Maine, consisting of one hundred and fifty-one members, only six, I think. dissented; and in the Senate, consisting of thirty-one members, only one member non-concurred. That Senators might have voted for that measure under the belief then expressed and the predictions to which I have alluded, I can well understand. But how Senators can now defend that measure amid all its evils, which are overwhelming the land, if not threatening it with a conflagration, is what I do not comprehend. The whole of the disturbed state of the country has its rise in, and is attributable to that act alone-nothing else. It lies at the foundation of all our misfortunes and commotions. There would have been no incursions by Missouri borderers into Kansas, either to establish Slavery, or to control elections. There would have been no necessity, either, for others to have gone there partially to aid in preserv ing the country in its then condition. All would have been peace there. Had it not been done, that re pose and quiet which pervaded the public mind then, would hold it in tranquillity to-day. Instead of startling events we should have quiet and peace within our bor ders, and that fraternal feeling which ought to animate the citizens of every part of the Union toward those of all other sections. Sir, the events that are taking place around us are indeed startling. They challenge the public mind and appeal to the public judgment; they thrill the public nerve as electrity imparts a tremulous motion to the tele graphic wire. It is a period when all good men should unite in applying the proper remedy to secure peace and harmony to the country. Is this to be done by any of us, by remaining associated with those who have been instrumental in producing these results, and who now justify them? I do not see my duty lying in that direction. I have, while temporarily acquiescing, stated here and at home, everywhere, uniformly, that when the test of those measures was applied to me as one of party fidelity, I would sunder them as flax is sundered at the touch of fire. I do it now. The occasion involves a question of moral duty; and self-respect allows me no other line of duty but to follow the dictates of my own judgment and the impulses of my own heart. A just man may cheerfully submit to many enforced humiliations; but a self-degraded man has ceased to be worthy to be deemed a man at all. Sir, what has the recent Democratic Convention at Cincinnati done? It has indorsed the measure I have condemned, and has sanctioned its destructive and ruinous effects. It has done more-vastly more. That principle or policy of Territorial Sovereignty which once had, and which I suppose now has, its advocates within these walls, is stricken down; and there is an absolute denial of it in the resolutions of the Convention, if I can draw But the Missouri restriction was abrogated. The por-right conclusions-a denial equally to Congress, and even tentous evils that were predicted have followed, and are to the people of the Territories, of the right to settle the yet following, along in its train. It was done, sir, in question of Slavery therein. On the contrary, the Con violation of the pledges of that party with which I have vention has actually incorporated into the platform of always acted, and with which I have always voted. It the Democratic party that doctrine which, only a few was done in violation of solemn pledges of the President years ago, met nothing but ridicule and contempt here of the United States, made in his Inaugural Address. and elsewhere, namely: that the flag of the Federal Still, sir, I was disposed to suffer the wrong, while I should Union, under the Constitution of the United States, carsee that no evil results were flowing from it. We were ries Slavery wherever it floats. If this baleful principle told, by almost every Senator who addressed us upon be true, then that National Ode which inspires us always that occasion, that no evil results would follow; that no as on a battle-field, should be re-written by Drake, and practical difference in the settlement of the country, and should read thus: in the character of the future State, would take place, whether the act were done or not. I have waited calmly and patiently to see the fulfillment of that prediction; and I am grieved, sir, to say now that they have at least been mistaken in their predictions and promises. They have all signally failed. "Forever float that standard sheet; Where breathes the foe but falls before us, And Slavery's banner streaming o'er us?" |