CHAPTER XXIV.

ABOLISHMENT OF SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES.

Early opinions. - Ordinance of 1787. - Increased profit of slavery and territorial extension.

- New purposes of the Slave Power. Arnold's bill. Debate and

its revelations.

- Border-State Republicans. - Democratic opposition. — Cox, Wickliffe, Crisfield, Fisher, Diven. - Speeches of Arnold, Olin, Sheffield. — Compensation. - Thomas, Stevens, Bingham, Kelley. - Difficulties. - Lovejoy's amendment. - Passage of bill.-In the Senate. - Baltimore "Ameri can."

FROM this survey of the Slave Power, now approaching its conclusion, these seem to have been, as already noted, among the conclusions reached by the framers of the Constitution: first, that slavery was an entailed evil for which their fathers were more responsible than themselves; second, that it was temporary, in its decadence, and soon to pass away; and, third, that it was to be restricted to limits already occupied. Being an evil so thoroughly inwrought into the body politic, in its social, domestic, and pecuniary relations and interests, was felt to be very difficult, if not dangerous, to attempt its immediate removal. It was therefore deemed the wiser policy to tolerate its existence for the time being, and wait for its seeds of weakness and decay to develop their fruits and work its own overthrow. But no one, it is reasonable to conclude, ever dreamed of its being extended beyond the limits within which it then existed. It was deemed a temporary, local, and exceptional matter, which, in their weak, exhausted, and perilous condition, they concluded it would be safer to bear with for a while than to run the risk of anarchy and civil strife they feared, and had great reason to fear, should they insist on emancipation as a condition precedent of forming the Union proposed. Therefore, though they recognized

most fully the wrongfulness of the system, its bald and gross inconsistency with their new and vaunted declaration of first principles and of the primal rights of man, they admitted into the proposed Constitution the "guilty fantasy that there could be property in man," and made provision in their organic law and by early legislation for its recognition and protection. But it was distinctly regarded as a compromise, referring to something then existing, and to territory then in possession of the nation. No enlargement of existing limits was contemplated, and the idea that slavery would ever demand additional area was, if entertained by any, most solemnly repudiated by the majority. This was evidenced by the ordinance of 1787, consecrating to freedom in perpetuity the mighty Northwest territory, on whose vast and unexplored expanses were to repose the imperial States of coming generations. But the invention of the cotton-gin and the increasing production of Southern staples had made slavery more valuable as a means of wealth, a source of political power, and more important as a domestic system; and so the idea that it was to be temporary gradually gave place to the thought and purpose to protect and strengthen it. Instead of resting under the stigma implied by restriction and prescribed limitations, it was determined that its area should be enlarged, and that its continued existence should be made less precarious and more sure. As additional territory was secured, it became a question of persistent and sharp debate, and of angry conflict, whether or not that territory should remain free, or be opened to the introduction of this legalized oppression.

Indeed, no question during the existence of the Republic has excited so profound and intense an interest. The vast extent of these territorial possessions, the prospective power of the rising commonwealths which were to be carved therefrom upon the destinies of the nation, rendered this question one of intense solicitude alike to the friends and foes of slavery; though, till the Republican victory of 1860, with fortunes generally adverse to freedom. By the election of Mr. Lincoln the friends of free territory achieved a national triumph in the choice of a President fully and unreservedly pledged to their policy.

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Very naturally, therefore, the minds of those who had struggled unavailingly so long for an object they deemed so important were turned to the necessity of using the power, for the first time possessed, to secure the adoption of a policy for which they had for so many years striven without avail.

On the 24th of March, 1862, Mr. Arnold of Illinois introduced a bill into the House of Representatives to render freedom national and slavery sectional. It was referred to the Committee on Territories, was reported on the 1st of May, with an amendment, and made the order of the day for the 8th. It provided that freedom should be the fundamental law of the land, and that slavery should no longer exist in all places under the direct and exclusive control of the Federal government. It prohibited slavery in all Territories, then or thereafter existing; in all places purchased by the government, with the consent of the legislatures of the several States, for forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings; in all vessels on the high seas, and on all national highways, beyond the territory and jurisdiction of the several States. The bill further provided that all persons then held, or thereafter attempted to be held, to service in either of the places specified, should be free, and that their claims to freedom could be maintained in any of the courts of the United States.

The debate on the bill, motions, amendments, and final substitute was brief, earnest, and suggestive, and revealed not only the essential difficulties of the situation, but the wide divergence of views, not only between Republican and Democratic, Northern and Southern, representatives, but between men equally anxious to maintain the government and to keep the Union unbroken. It also showed how the compromises of the Constitution and the antecedent proslavery legislation of the government embarrassed those who sought to do nothing unconstitutional, and to maintain the plighted faith of the fathers. It also brought into sharp contrast and conflict the positions of Northern representatives of antislavery constituencies who were impatient of any delay in striking at the guilty cause of all the trouble, and of the loyal men of the border States, who had grave reasons outside of their personal

interests and prejudices, whatever they may have been, for quieting the fears of their constituents and keeping out of the mouths of the secessionists of their States the argument that the government had ulterior purposes against the system of slaveholding. Nor did it require any great captiousness or hair-splitting to detect apparent and real conflict between the sweeping measure reported by the committee and what might be called the plighted faith of the fathers and the vested rights resulting therefrom. This was more noticeable in the debates upon those specifications of the bill concerning vessels on the high seas, national highways, forts, magazines, and arsenals. Indeed, so sharp was the criticism of some of the friends of the bill on these particulars, that it was moved, as a final substitute, that the prohibition of slavery should apply to the "Territories" only.

The Democracy, true to its instincts and traditions, could not allow such a proposition to remain unassailed, or pass, without placing on record its earnest and emphatic protest. On a motion to recommit, Mr. Cox of Ohio promptly moved an amendment, the design of which was to defeat the measure entirely. Accompanying his motion with a speech indicative of both his spirit and design, he said: "I move to add to the motion to recommit instructions that neither this bill nor any similar bill shall be reported back to the House. I believe it to be a suicidal bill, a bill for the benefit of secession and Jeff Davis. The army and the people are against all such aids to the enemy of the country. The conservative men of the House have the power, and ought to 'squelch' out the whole negro business. They are responsible for this continuous agitation. From the very commencement of the session we have had these bills before us in one shape or another, postponed from time to time, and delayed by dilatory motions and adjournments. Now I want to see the conservative element of the House, if there is any such thing left here, come up and vote this thing right down. I therefore hope the House will send this back to the committee; and, in sending it back to the committee, let us give it such a death-blow as will destroy all similar measures." He closed

by moving to recommit the bill, with instructions "to report it back at the next session, on the very last day." Mr. Wickliffe suggested that it be recommitted with instructions" not to report it back until next session, during the cold weather." He also read largely from the opinion of Justice Story of the Supreme Court "for the benefit of the country people," he said, and for the sake of showing, "he was fool enough to believe that there was property in slaves."

Mr. Crisfield of Maryland made a very violent speech in denunciation of the bill. He characterized it as "an indirect attack upon slavery in the States," as "doing by indirection that which you acknowledge you have no power to do directly." "It is not keeping, in word or in spirit, the pledge which you have made to the country; nor is it consistent with that instrument which we have all sworn to support." Alluding to the naval station at Annapolis, which his State had "confidingly granted to this government for a great national ob ject," he said: "You say to Maryland that you will plant in her very heart a system in violation and destruction of the policy she thinks fit to establish, as of right she may, for her own interests. . . . . Are constitutional guaranties nothing? Are solemn pledges nothing? Sir, I denounce this bill as a palpable violation of the rights of States, and an unwarrantable interference with the rights of property. I denounce it as a fraud upon the States which have made cessions of land to this government, a violation of the Constitution, and a breach of the pledges which brought the dominant party into power. I denounce it as an usurpation and a tyrannical exercise of power destructive of the peace of the country. Sir, I denounce it to this House and to the American people. I denounce it before the civilized world. I declare that those who seek to accomplish the great wrong this bill perpetrates seek the ruin of all constitutional government on this continent, and are the foes of regulated liberty everywhere."

In a very different strain spoke Mr. Fisher of Delaware, though in opposition to the bill. He avowed his hatred of slavery, expatiated at length on the relative advantages of freedom over slavery as exemplified by the States "

on the right