MARCH, 1850.] Mr. Clay's Compromise Resolutions. [31ST CONG. "I shall concur, therefore, in no act, no measure, no menace, no indication of purpose which shall interfere or threaten to interfere with the exclusive authority of the several States over the subject of slavery, as it exists within their respective limits. All this appears to me to be matter of plain and imperative duty. "But when we come to speak of admitting new States, the subject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our duties are then both different. * "I see, therefore, no political necessity for the annexation of Texas to the Union-no advantages to be derived from it; and objections to it of a strong, and, in my judgment, of a decisive character." create surprise-more full of what does create, | It is a concern of the States themselves. They in my mind, extreme mortification-than that have never submitted it to Congress, and Congress of the conduct of the northern Democracy. has no rightful power over it. Mr. President, sometimes, when a man is found in a new relation to things around him, and to other men, he says that the world has changed, and that he has not changed. I believe, sir, that our self-respect leads us often to make this declaration in regard to ourselves, when it is not exactly true. An individual is more apt to change, perhaps, than all the world around him is to change. But, under the present circumstances, and under the responsibility which I know I incur by what I am now stating here, I feel at liberty to recur to the various expressions and statements, made at various times, of my own opinions and resolutions respecting the admission of Texas, and all that has followed. Sir, as early as 1836, or in the Mr. WEBSTER. I have nothing, sir, to add to, earlier part of 1837, a matter of conversation nor to take back from, those sentiments. That, and correspondence between myself and some the Senate will perceive, was in 1887. The private friends, was this project of annexing purpose of immediately annexing Texas, at that Texas to the United States; and an honorable time, was abandoned or postponed; and it was gentleman, with whom I have had a long ac- not revived, with any vigor, for some years. quaintance, a friend of mine, now perhaps in In the mean time, it had so happened, that I this chamber-I mean Gen. Hamilton, of South had become a member of the Executive AdCarolina was knowing to that correspondence. ministration, and was, for a short period, in the I had voted for the recognition of Texan inde-Department of State. The annexation of Texas pendence, because I believed it was an existing had become a subject of conversation--not confact, surprising and astonishing as it was, and fidential-with the President and heads of DeI wished well to the new Republic; but I mani-partments, as well as with other public men. fested from the first, utter opposition to bringing her with her territory into the Union. I had occasion, sir, in 1837, to meet friends in New York, on some political occasion, and I then stated my sentiments upon the subject. It was the first time that I had occasion to advert to it; and I will ask a friend near me to do me the favor to read an extract from the speech, for the Senate may find it rather tedious to listen to the whole of it. It was delivered in Niblo's Garden in 1837. Mr. GREENE then read the following extract from the speech of the honorable Senator, to which he referred: 'Gentlemen, we all see that, by whomsoever possessed, Texas is likely to be a slaveholding country; and I frankly avow my entire unwillingness to do any thing which shall extend the slavery of the African race on this continent, or add other slaveholding States to the Union. "When I say that I regard slavery in itself as a great moral, social, and political evil, I only use language which has been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens of slaveholding States. "I shall do nothing, therefore, to favor or encourage its farther extension. We have slavery already among us. The constitution found it among us; it recognized it, and gave it solemn guarantees. "To the full extent of these guarantees, we are all bound in honor, in justice, and by the constitution. All the stipulations contained in favor of the slaveholding States, which are already in the Union, ought to be fulfilled, and, so far as depends on me, shall be fulfilled in the fulness of their spirit, and to the exactness of their letter. Slavery, as it exists in the States, is beyond the reach of Congress. No serious attempt was then made to bring it about. I left the Department of State in May, 1843, and shortly after I learned, though no way connected with official information, that a design had been taken up, of bringing in Texas, with her slave territory and population, into the United States. I was here, in Washington, at the time; and the persons are now here who will remember, that we had an arranged meeting for conversation upon it. I went home to Massachusetts, and proclaimed the existence of that purpose; but I could get no audience, and but little attention. Some did not believe it, and some were engaged in their own pursuits. They had gone to their farms, or to their merchandise, and it was impossible to arouse any sentiment in New England or in Massachusetts that should combine the two great political parties against this annexation; and, indeed, there was no hope of bringing the northern Democ racy into that view, for the leaning was all the other way. But, sir, even with Whigs, and leading Whigs, I am ashamed to say, there was a great indifference toward the admission of Texas, with slave territory, into this Union.__It went on. I was then out of Congress. The annexation resolutions passed the 1st of March, 1845. Texas complied with them; the Legislature of Texas complied with the conditions, and accepted the guarantees, for the phraseology of the language of the resolution is, that Texas is to come in 66 upon the conditions, and under the guarantees, herein prescribed." I happened to be returned to the Senate in March, 1845, and was here in December, 1845, when the ac 1ST SESS.] Mr. Clay's Compromise Resolutions. [MARCH, 1850. States south of 36° 30′, how are we to deal with it? I know no way of honorable legislation, but, when the proper time comes for the enactment, to carry into effect all that we have stipulated to do. I do not entirely agree with my honorable friend from Tennessee, (Mr. BELL,) that, as soon as the time comes when she is entitled to another Representative, we should create a new State. The rule in regard to it I take to be this: that when we have created new States out of territories, we have generally ceptance by Texas, of the conditions proposed | many States, those States may come in as slave by Congress, were laid before us by the President; and an act, for the consummation of the connection, was laid before the two Houses. The connection was not completed. A final law, doing the deed of annexation, ultimately, had not been passed; and when it was upon its final passage here, I expressed my opposition to it, and recorded my vote in the negative; and there that vote stands, with the observations that I made upon that occasion. It happened, that between 1837 and this time, on various occasions and opportunities, I had ex-gone upon the idea, that when there is populapressed my entire opposition to the admission of slave States, or the acquisition of new slave territories, to be added to the United States. I know, sir, no change in my own sentiments, or my own purposes, in that respect. I will now, again, ask my friend from Rhode Island, to read another extract from a speech of mine, made at a Whig Convention, in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the month of September, 1847. tion enough to form a State-sixty thousand, or some such thing-we would create a State; but it may be thought quite a different thing when a State is divided, and two or more States made out of it. It does not follow, in such a case, that the same rule of apportionment should be applied. That, however, is a matter for the consideration of Congress when the proper time arrives. I may not be here-I may have no vote to give on the occasion; but I wish it to be distinctly understood to-day, that according to my view of the matter, this Government is solemnly pledged by law, to create new States out of Texas, with her consent, when her popu lation shall justify such a proceeding, and so far as such States are formed out of Texan territory lying south of 36° 30', to let them come in as slave States. That is the meaning "I feel some little interest in this matter, sir. Did of the resolution which our friends, the northnot I commit myself in 1838 to the whole doctrine, ern Democracy, have left us to fulfil; and I, fully, entirely? And I must be permitted to say, for one, mean to fulfil it, because I will not viothat I cannot quite consent that more recent dis-late the faith of the Government. coverers should claim the merit and take out a patent. Mr. GREENE here read the following extract: "We hear much just now of a panacea for the dangers and evils of slavery and slave annexation, which they call the 'Wilmot Proviso.' That certainly is a just sentiment, but it is not a sentiment to found any new party upon. It is not a sentiment on which Massachusetts Whigs differ. There is not a man in this hall who holds to it more firmly than I do, nor one who adheres to it more than another. # * "I deny the priority of their invention. Allow me to say, sir, it is not their thunder. "We are to use the first, and last, and every occasion which offers, to oppose the extension of slave power. "But I speak of it here, as in Congress, as a political question-a question for statesmen to act upon. We must so regard it. I certainly do not mean to say that it is less important in a moral point of view-that it is not more important in many other points of view; but, as a legislator, or in any official capacity, I must look at it, consider it, and decide it, as a matter of political action." Mr. WEBSTER. On other occasions, in debates here, I have expressed my determination to vote for no acquisition, or cession, or annexation, North or South, East or West. My opinion has been, that we have territory enough, and that we should follow the Spartan maxim, "Improve, adorn what you have, seek no farther." I think that it was in some observations that I made here on the three million loan bill, that I avowed that sentiment. In short, sir, the sentiment has been avowed quite as often, in as many places, and before as many assemblages, as any of the humble sentiments of mine ought to be avowed. But now that, under certain conditions, Texas is in with all her territories, as a slave State, with a solemn pledge that if she is divided into Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded from those territories by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas-I mean the law of nature-of physical geography-the law of the formation of the earth. That law settles forever, with a strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in California or New Mexico. Understand me, sir -I mean slavery as we regard it; slaves in the gross, of the colored race, transferable by sale and delivery, like other property. I shall not discuss that point. I leave it to the learned gentlemen who have undertaken to discuss it; but I suppose there is no slave of that description in California now. I understand that peonism, a sort of penal servitude, exists there; or, rather, a voluntary sale of a man and his offspring for debt, as it is arranged and exists in some parts of California and New Mexico. But what I mean to say is, that African slavery, as we see it among us, is as utterly impossible to find itself, or to be found in Mexico, as any other natural impossibility. California and New Mexico are Asiatic in their formation and scenery. They are composed of vast ridges of mountains, of enormous height, with sometimes broken ridges and deep valleys. The sides of these mountains are barren-entirely barrentheir tops capped by perennial snow. There may be in California, now made free by its con MARCH, 1850.] Mr. Clay's Compromise Resolutions. [31ST CONG. Now, Mr. President, I have established, so or fall; and that is, that the whole territory of the States in the United States, or in the newlyacquired territory of the United States, has a fixed and settled character, now fixed and settled by law, which cannot be repealed in the case of Texas, without a violation of public faith, and cannot be repealed by any human power in regard to California or New Mexico; that, under one or other of these laws, every foot of territory in the States, or in the territories, has now received a fixed and decided character. stitution and no doubt there are some tracts | provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would of valuable land. But it is not so in New Mex- not vote for it. ico. Pray, what is the evidence which any gentleman has obtained on this subject, from far as I proposed to go into any line of observainformation sought by himself or communicated tion to establish, the proposition with which by others? I have inquired, and read all II set out, and upon which I propose to stand could, to obtain information on this subject. What is there in New Mexico that could by any possibility induce any body to go there with slaves? There are some narrow strips of tillable land on the borders of the rivers; but the rivers themselves dry up before midsummer is gone. All that the people can do is to raise some little articles-some little wheat for their tortillas-and all that by irrigation. And who expects to see a hundred black men cultivating tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or any thing else, on lands in New Mexico, made fertile only by irrigation? I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use an expression current to the day, that both California and New Mexico are destined to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, especially in regard to New Mexico, will be very little for a great length of time-free by the arrangement of things by the Power above us. I have therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed for freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live there, by as irrepealable and a more irrepealable law, than the law that attaches to the right of holding slaves in Texas; and I will say further, that if a resolution, or a law, were now before us, to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. The use of such a prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have upon the territory; and I would not take pains to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. And I would put in no Wilmot proviso, for the purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, to wound the pride, even whether a just pride, a rational pride, or an irrational pride-to wound the pride of the gentlemen who belong to the southern States. I have no such object-no such purpose. They would think it a taunt-an indignity. They would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard a proper equality of privilege; and whether they expect to realize any benefit from it or not, they would think it a theoretic wrong that something more or less derogatory to their character and their rights had taken place. I propose to inflict no such wound upon any body, unless something essentially important to the country, and efficient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be effected. Therefore, I repeat, sir-and I repeat it because I wish it to be understood-that I do not propose to address the Senate of en on this subject. I desire to pour out all my heart in as plain a manner as possible; and I say again, that if a proposition were now here for a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a Sir, if we were now making a government for New Mexico, and any body should propose a Wilmot proviso, I should treat it exactly as Mr. Polk treated that provision for excluding slavery from Oregon. Mr. Polk was known to be in opinion decidedly averse to the Wilmot proviso; but he felt the necessity of establishing a government for the Territory of Oregon, and, though the proviso was there, he knew it would be entirely nugatory; and, since it must be entirely nugatory, since it took away no right, no describable, no estimable, no weighable, or tangible right of the South, he said he would sign the bill for the sake of enacting a law to form a Government in that territory, and let that entirely useless, and, in that connection, entirely senseless, proviso remain. For myself, I will say that we hear much of the annexation of Canada; and if there be any man, any of the Northern Democracy, or any of the Free-soil party, who suppose it necessary to insert a Wilmot proviso in a territorial government for New Mexico, that man will of course be of opinion that it is necessary to protect the everlasting snows of Canada from the foot of slavery, by the same overpowering wing of an act of Congress. Sir, wherever there is a particular good to be done-wherever there is a foot of land to be stayed back from becoming slave territory-I am ready to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to it from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again; and I will perform those pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessary, that wounds the feelings of others, or that does disgrace to my own understanding. Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North and the South. There are lists of grievances produced by each; and those grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the country from the other, exasperate the feelings, subdue the sense of fraternal connection, and patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a little attention, sir, upon these various grievances, produced on the one side 1ST SESS.] Mr. Clay's Compromise Resolutions. [MARCH, 1850. of conscience, What right have they, in all their legislative capacity, or any other, to endeavor to get round this constitution, to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by the constitution, to the persons whose slaves escape from them? None at all-none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the face of the constitution, are they justified, in my opinion. Of course, it is a matter for their consideration. They probably, in the turmoil of the times, have not stopped to consider of this; they have followed what seemed to be the current of thought and of motives as the occasion arose, and neglected to investigate fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional obligations, as I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfil them with alacrity. Therefore, I repeat, sir, that here is a ground of complaint against the North, well founded, which ought to be removed--which it is now in the power of the different departments of this Government to remove-which calls for the enactment of proper laws, authorizing the judicature of this Government, in the several States, to do all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves, and for the restoration of them to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the subject-and when I speak here, I desire to speak to the whole North-I say that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a right to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I think the constitution peremptorily and emphatically enjoins upon it as a duty. and on the other. I begin with the complaints | North, as a question of morals and a question of the South: I will not answer, farther than I have, the general statements of the honorable Senator from South Carolina, that the North has grown upon the South in consequence of the manner of administering this Government, in the collecting of its revenues, and so forth. These are disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I will state these complaints, especially one complaint of the South, which has in my opinion just foundation; and that is, that there has been found at the North, among individuals and among the Legislatures of the North, a disinclination to perform, fully, their constitutional duties, in regard to the return of persons bound to service, who have escaped into the free States. In that respect, it is my judgment that the South is right, and the North is wrong. Every member of every Northern Legislature, is bound, by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the Constitution of the United States; and this article of the constitution, which says to these States, they shall deliver up fugitives from service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man fulfils his duty in any Legislature who sets himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes, from this constitutional obligation. I have always thought | that the constitution addressed itself to the Legislatures of the States themselves, or to the States themselves. It says, that those persons escaping to other States, shall be delivered up, and I confess I have always been of the opinion, that it was an injunction upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into another State, and becoming therefore within the jurisdiction of that State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the passage is, that the State itself, in obedience to the constitution, shall cause him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority of the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to be delivered up, was a power to be exercised under the authority of this Government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. But, as it now stands, the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up, resides in the power of Congress, and the national judicature, and my friend at the head of the Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject now before the Senate, with some amendments to it, which I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men, of all conscientious men, in the North, of all men who are not carried away by any fanatical idea, or by any false idea whatever, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober and sound minds at the Complaint has been made against certain resolutions that emanate from Legislatures at the North, and are sent here to us, not only on the subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes recommending Congress to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the States. I should be sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not be referable to any committee or any power in Congress, and, therefore, I should be unwilling to receive from the Legislature of Massachusetts any instructions to present resolutions expressive of any opinion whatever on the subject of slavery, as it exists at the present moment in the States, for two reasons; because-first, I do not consider that the Legislature of Massachusetts has any thing to do with it; and next, I do not consider that I, as her representative here, have any thing to do with it. Sir, it has become, in my opinion, quite too common; and if the Legislatures of the States do not like that opinion, they have a great deal more power to put it down, than I have to uphold it. It has become, in my opinion, quite too common a practice for the State Legislatures to present resolutions here on all subjects, and to instruct us here on all subjects. There is no public man that requires instruction more than I do, or who requires information more than I do, or desires it inore heartily; but I do not like to have MARCH, 1850.] Mr. Clay's Compromise Resolutions. [31ST CONG. it come in too imperative a shape. I took no- | dom a proposition, made by Mr. Randolph for tice, with pleasure, of some remarks upon this the gradual abolition of slavery, was discussed subject made the other day in the Senate of in that body. Every one spoke of slavery as Massachusetts, by a young man of talent and he thought; very ignominious and disparaging character, from whom the best hopes may be names and epithets were applied to it. The entertained. I mean Mr. Hilliard. He told debates in the House of Delegates on that occathe Senate of Massachusetts that he would vote sion, I believe, were all published. They were for no instructions whatever to be forwarded to read by every colored man who could read, members of Congress, nor for any resolutions and if there were any who could not read, to be offered, expressive of the sense of Massa- those debates were read to them by others. chusetts, as to what their members of Congress At that time Virginia was not unwilling nor ought to do. He said that he saw no propriety afraid to discuss this question, and to let that in one set of public servants giving instructions part of her population know as much of it as and reading lectures to another set of public they could learn. That was in 1832. As has servants. To their own master, all of them been said by the honorable member from South must stand or fall, and that master is their con- Carolina, these abolition societies commenced stituents. I wish these sentiments could be- their course of action in 1835. It is said-I do come more common-a great deal more common. not know how true it may be-that they sent I have never entered into the question, and incendiary publications into the slave States; never shall, about the binding force of instruc- at any event, they attempted to arouse, and tions. I will, however, simply say this: if did arouse, a very strong feeling; in other there be any matter of interest pending in this words, they created great agitation in the body, while I am a member of it, in which | North against southern slavery. Well, what Massachusetts has an interest of her own not was the result? The bonds of the slaves were adverse to the general interest of the country, bound more firmly than before; their rivets I shall pursue her instructions with gladness of were more strongly fastened. Public opinion, heart, and with all the efficiency which I can which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited bring to it. But if the question be one which against slavery, and was opening out for the affects her interest, and at the same time affects discussion of the question, drew back and shut the interests of all other States, I shall no more itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether regard her political wishes or instructions, than any body in Virginia can, now, talk as Mr. I would regard the wishes of a man who might Randolph, Gov. McDowell, and others talked appoint me an arbitrator or referee, to decide there openly, and sent their remarks to the some question of important private right, and press, in 1832. We all know the fact, and we who might instruct me to decide in his favor. all know the cause, and every thing that this If ever there was a government upon earth, it is agitating people have done, has been, not to this Government; if ever there was a body enlarge, but to restrain, not to set free, but to upon earth, it is this body, which should con- bind faster, the slave population of the South. sider itself as composed by agreement of all, That is my judgment. Sir, as I have said, I appointed by some, but organized by the general know many abolitionists in my own neighbor. consent of all, sitting here under the solemn hood, very honest, good people, misled, as I obligations of oath and conscience, to do that think, by strange enthusiasm; but they wish which they think is best for the good of the to do something, and they are called on to conwhole. tribute, and they do contribute; and it is my Then, sir, there are those abolition societies, firm opinion this day, that within the last of which I am unwilling to speak, but in re- twenty years, as much money has been colgard to which I have very clear notions and lected and paid to the abolition societies, aboopinions. I do not think them useful. I think lition presses, and abolition lecturers, as would their operations for the last twenty years have purchase the freedom of every slave, man, woproduced nothing good or valuable. At the inan, and child in the State of Maryland, and same time, I know thousands of them are send them all to Liberia. I have no doubt of honest and good men; perfectly well-meaning it. But I have yet to learn that the benevo men. They have excited feelings; they think lence of these abolition societies has at any they must do something for the cause of lib-time taken that particular turn. [Laughter.] erty; and in their sphere of action, they do Again, sir, the violence of the press is comnot see what else they can do, than to con- plained of. The press violent! Why, sir, the tribute to an abolition press, or an abolition press is violent everywhere. There are outsociety, or to pay an abolition lecturer. I do rageous reproaches in the North against the not mean to impute gross motives even to the South, and there are reproaches in not much leaders of these societies, but I am not blind to better taste in the South against the North. the consequences. I cannot but see what mis- Sir, the extremists of both parts of this counchiefs their interference with the South has try are violent; they mistake loud and violent produced. And is it not plain to every man? talk for eloquence and for reason. They think Let any gentleman who doubts of that, recur that he who talks loudest, reasons the best. to the debates in the Virginia House of Dele- And this we must expect, when the press is gates in 1832, and he will see with what free-free, as it is here-and I trust always will be |