its just size, instead of preserving it in its true dimen sions. 6 "It is into this Union,' that is, the Union of the Federal Constitution, that you are to admit, or refuse to admit. You can admit into no other. You cannot make the Union, as to the new State, what it is not as to the old; for then it is not this Union that you open for the entrance of a new Party."* So much for samples of the speeches in the debate on the question. As additional strong proof on the same line, establishing beyond doubt the nature of the conflict, as well as the objects of the leaders of the Restrictionists, who had espoused this question with so much apparent zeal, I will ask your indulgence while I read something Mr. Jefferson said of both. Here is a letter he wrote to Mr. Pinkney, from whose speech I have just read. In this letter, Mr. Jefferson said: "The Missouri question is a mere party trick. The leaders of Federalism-(he here uses Federalism in the sense in which it was used in 1798 and '99) +-defeated in their schemes of obtaining power by rallying partisans to the principle of Monarchism, a principle of personal, not of local division, have changed their tack, and thrown out another barrel to the whale. They are taking advantage of the virtuous feelings of the people to effect a division of parties by a geographical line; they expect that this will ensure them, on local principles, the majority they could never obtain on principles of Federalism; but they are still putting their shoulder to the wrong wheel; they are wasting jeremiades on the miseries of Slavery, as if we were advocates for it." * Annals of Congress, 16th Congress, 1st Session, p. 397. Jefferson's Complete Works, vol. vii, p. 180. Here is another letter Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Holmes, from whose speech I also read. In this he says: "I thank you, dear sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened me and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, oned and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence, too, from this act of power, would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of the dif ferent descriptions of men composing a State. This certainly is the exclusive right of every State, which nothing in the Constitution has taken from them and given to the General Government. Could Congress, for example, say, that the non-freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any. other State ? "I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle, more likely to be effected by Union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect."* Then, here is another letter he wrote to Mr. Madison, in which he says: "I am indebted to you for your two letters of February 7th and 19th. The Missouri question, by a geographical line of division, is the most portentous one I ever contemplated. **** is ready to risk the Union for any chance of restoring his party to power, and wriggling himself to the head of it; nor is **** without his hopes, nor scrupulous as to the means of fulfilling them." *Jefferson's Complete Works, vol. vii, p. 159. These evidences, without resorting to more, show fully and conclusively, that the conflict in this Missouri Controversy, was not one between the advocates and opponents of Slavery, but between the advocates and opponents of our true Federal system under the Constitution. But I must proceed with the narrative. On the 18th of February, the House received from the Senate the bill for the admission of the State of Maine, which the House had passed on the 3d of January previous.* When this House Bill was before the Senate, a motion was made, and carried in that body, to tack on to it a bill for the like admission of Missouri. To this proposition Mr. Thomas, of Illinois, moved the following amendment: "And be it further enacted, That in all that Territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies North of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, Slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of Crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby forever prohibited: Provided always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service, as aforesaid."+ This was the Missouri Compromise, so-called. It did not come from the South. It was not moved by any member, or Senator from the South. Even Mr. Clay, whose name has been so erroneously connected with it, had nothing to do with its origination. It was proposed, * Annals of Congress, 16th Congress, 1st Session, p. 849. tween conflicting parties, whose object was to ward off great dangers from the Union, ought never to have been repealed by Congress. "The question of its Constitutionality ought to have been left to the decision of the Supreme Court, without any legislative intervention. Had this been done, and the Court had decided it to be a violation of the Constitution, in a case arising before them in the regular course of judicial proceedings, the decision would have passed off in comparative silence, and produced no dangerous excitement among the people." MAJOR HEISTER. Yes, these are the parts to which I refer. JUDGE BYNUM. They are certainly very high Democratic authority to sustain me in all that I said upon these points. It also fully sustains all that Mr. Sumner, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Seward, and the whole class of Restrictionists said in 1854. MR. STEPHENS. That is very true, but we shall soon see whether even this authority, however high, be it Democratic or of whatever character, can avail anything against the great indisputable facts of the case. The authority of names as well as theories, must yield to facts in history. I have said I was surprised at what Mr. Buchanan wrote on the subject. I repeat, I am exceedingly surprised at it, not only because it is so utterly unsustained by the facts, but so directly inconsistent with what he affirmed in his letter, accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party, for the Presidency, in 1856. Here is that letter, dated June 16, 1856; and in it he used this language in reference to the action of Congress in 1854, which, as he says, repealed the Missouri Compromise, and opened afresh the agitation of the Slavery ques |