APRIL, 1850.] The Select Committee of Thirteen. "3. The abolition of slavery within the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, and navy-yards of the United States. "4. The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. "And provided further, That said committee shall not take into consideration any questions relating to the subject of domestic slavery in the United States, which shall not be specially referred to them by order of the Senate." [31ST CONG two weeks more, in addition to the eight weeks which have already elapsed since the President communicated his message with the constitution of California. It is my desire, Mr. President, after having lost eight weeks, to avoid the loss of two more, which will be a dead loss, because we cannot touch the subject during that time, and all of us are sufficiently acquainted with what happens in parliamentary bodies, when any thing is laid down for two weeks and gets cold. When you take it up again, you take it up de novo, and give us a rehash of every thing that has been said before, with the addition of as much more as has been thought of in the mean time. To proceed in a "That the Senate does not deem it necessary to way which will not bring the Senate to a deexpress in advance any opinion, or to give any in- cision upon the admission of California this structions, either general or specific, for the guid-week, is to make a dead loss of two more weeks, ance of the said committee." Mr. CLAY. Mr. President, I now move my amendment, as just now proposed, to the amendment of the Senator from Missouri. Strike out all after the word "provided," and insert the following: Mr. Cass. It seems to me that the two amendments are in conflict. Do I understand that the amendment of the Senator from Kentucky is to be a substitute for the amendment of the Senator from Missouri? Mr. CLAY. Certainly. to be followed by as many more weeks as the Mr. BENTON. I rise with great reluctance and deference to the honorable Senator from Kentucky, who is confessedly one of the best skilled parliamentarians, and perhaps is equal in that respect to any in America or Europe I say, it is with great deference that I would suggest that he is not proceeding parliamentarily, when he offers such a resolve as that is, and calls it an amendment. I do not think it can come under the name, style, or description of an amendment at all. The object of it can be attained in a parliamentary way by voting down the proposition I have submitted. An Now, sir, I will read that bill, and let the amendment is to improve a thing, to make it Senate see how brief and to the point it is, and better; but here is a design to obtain a resolu- how comprehensive are the points which the tion from the Senate declaring that they will bill contains. They are these, sir: That the not act upon the subject at all. Now, Mr. State of California shall be and she is hereby President, it is my intention, before we go into declared to be one of the United States of the question of amendments, in consequence of America, on an equal footing with the original what was communicated yesterday as to the States in all respects whatever. That is the absence of a portion of the Senate on Monday whole bill, as far as it respects the admission next, to bring a motion before the Senate, which of California, and it is drawn in plain terms, I communicated yesterday. Half a dozen Sen- according to the early precedents of our Govators are to be absent by order of the Senate, ernment. The number of words is about the and it follows, of course, that no question in same as those used in the time of Washington, which the States they represent are interested in the cases of Vermont, Kentucky, and Tenwill be taken up during that time. If half a nessee. Then just about the same number of dozen members of the Senate go away on Mon- terms were employed, and the same identical day on a mission that must keep them away questions were presented. That is all that reone or two weeks, it will be one week or two lates to the admission of the State. Then the weeks-no one can tell how long-before any second section of the bill, which might be here thing that concerns California can again be or anywhere else, provides that, until the reptaken up in the Senate. Now, we have three resentation in Congress shall be apportioned days and a half of this week to work in, and, according to the enumeration of the inhabitduring these three days and a half, it seems to ants of the United States, the State of Calime that what concerns California can be dis-fornia shall be entitled to two representatives posed of one way or the other; and before in Congress. these gentlemen go away, that State will have a decision upon her application for admission. If any thing is done which prevents a decision upon her application, it stands over for one or Sir, from there to there is the whole billnot half a span by my hand, which is not a large span either. Now, sir, it is my opinion and I shall make a motion to that effect, and [APRIL, 1850. need of it; we have the bill here, brief, pointed, exactly in the words in which the bills in all such cases were introduced in the early part of our history. I shall, therefore, make the motion which I intended to make yesterday, that when the question shall be taken up this day, before the pending amendment is gone into, to lay the subject of raising a committee on the table, for the purpose of taking up the bill No. 169, for the admission of the State of California, and upon that motion I ask the yeas and nays. Mr. CLAY. I hope the honorable Senator from Missouri will withdraw his motion for a moment. Mr. BENTON. Oh, certainly, certainly; any thing in a spirit of compromise, except the compromising of California away. ask the yeas and nays upon it-that if the Senate will lay down the motion which is now before them, and postpone other subjects, and proceed to the consideration of this bill for the admission of California, we can finish it this week, while we have the benefit of the presence of those gentlemen who will be absent next week, under the order of the Senate. We shall save a great deal of time, besides doing what is proper in itself with regard to this subject; that is, to admit California as a separate measure. If, on the contrary, Mr. President, this motion shall not prevail, and we go on with the motion for raising a committee, there will be some time inevitably taken up by the consideration of that motion, and after that is decided, the committee of thirteen will necessarily be required by the imposing gravity of Mr. CLAY. With respect to the parliamenttheir mission, to consider it some length of ary objection made by the Senator from Mistime before they report. Dr. Franklin, sir, in souri to my amendment, if he chooses to prehis wisdom-and his wisdom was such that it sent that objection in form, I am ready to meet picked out whatever was wise or even deco- it. The amendment was drawn after the fullrous in the conduct of nations or individuals—est consideration that I could give to any posrelates an anecdote of an Indian chief, who, sible question of form that might arise. when called upon to sign a treaty of peace, I pass that by, sir. It is a most unhappy considered it disrespectful to answer any prop-non-concurrence for poor California between ositions which were made to him till the next the honorable Senator from Missouri and myday, in order that he might seem, at least, to self. He wants California to be admitted. So have considered the question. On the princi- do I. He regrets the lapse of time before her ple of the action of this Indian chief, who took admission can take place. So do I. But it is one night to seem to consider a question which a little singular that the honorable Senator he was to decide upon, this committee of thir- himself-I must say it, in all respect and defteen, acting under such impressive circum-erence-is one of the causes which prolong stances, with nothing less than the salvation of the Union in its hands, will have to consider many nights, before they can come back and tell us they have performed the duty which the Senate gave them. If they return incontinently, the Senate may suppose they had not considered it at all; or, what might be sup-be posed much more material, that they had considered it beforehand, and that it therefore was a solemn farce to go out and come back with what, in the vernacular, had been "cut and dried" beforehand. They must consider; they are obliged to consider a week, perhaps two or three weeks, under such grave circumstances as they will be placed in. Here, then, is to be a great deal of lost time, if the proposed committee is raised. This week is gone beyond all question; and the committee will need that, and perhaps all the time while others be absent, to consider. Any attempt, then, Mr. President, to go on and raise a committee, I consider as a postponement of the question for weeks, and then to stand the chance of being brought forward incumbered with questions which do not belong to it, and which must necessarily give rise to debate here, and possibly a disagreement between the two Houses; and this long delay may result in the loss of the California bill by the disagreement between the two Houses. I see nothing, sir, but long delay and imminent danger to the California bill, by proceeding any further with this motion to refer to a committee. We have no the admission of California into the Union, APRIL, 1850.] The Select Committee of Thirteen. the public domain and the rights of the United States in California, if the bill were to pass in that little, brief space, which the honorable Senator has read and exhibited to the Senate, the consequence will be the loss of the public domain in California. I know my honorable friend from Illinois, who has seen this objection to the bill, has, turned his attention to it, and I hope he will add to the valuable labors he has rendered the country and the Senate, by proposing a suitable provision to protect the rights and interests of the United States in California. But if California be admitted at all, she can only be admitted by annexing the condition to the act for her admission, that nothing in that act shall contravene or impair the rights of the United States in the public domain. I confess that, although I have rather brought my mind to her admission, upon the condition of the reservation of the rights of the United States in California, I do not think it quite equal to what it would be if it were a solemn compact between the people of California and the United States before it was admitted. Now, sir, the honorable Senator talks of the delay which will ensue if the California bill be not now taken up and acted upon, as a committee will in a few days depart upon a melancholy occasion, and probably be absent about two weeks. He thinks we may get through with this in two or three days. Let all opposition to the appointment of the committee be withdrawn; let it be appointed; then we can take up the California bill and act upon it. So that, really, I say, without any intentional disrespect towards the Senator from Missouri, he is prolonging the admission of California in thus continuing to oppose the appointment of this committee. Sir, let us look at all the facts connected with this matter. Suppose it were practicable to pass a bill for the admission of California, with suitable guards and protection to the public property; suppose it were practicable to pass it this week; why, then, we must turn our attention to the condition of things in the other House. The passage of a bill through the Senate, for the admission of California, does not admit California. It must first have the concurrence of the co-ordinate branch of the Nationl Legislature, and another co-ordinate department of the Government. If we are to judge of the future by the past, I should be very happy to be perfectly assured that the other branch of the Lgislature will be in a condition to transact the public business two weeks hence. If they consume any thing like the amount of time in electing an officer to supply the place of the lamented individual who has died, as they did in organizing at first, it may be weeks before that body will be even prepared to act upon any bill. I am willing to give California a chance, without our consuming time. It is so much waste of time, sir, to object to the committee. Let opposition to the [31ST CONG. committee cease. Let its fate be decided. If the Senate decide against it, there will be an end to it. But if there be a majority in favor of it, no dilatory proceedings, no parliamentary proceedings, no attempt to thwart the will of a majority of this Senate, (and I hope no such attempt will be made, and I charge no one with making it,) will, I trust, finally prevail. Let us then go to work and act like men, talk less and act more, and decide upon the question, and after that, take up the bill for the admission of California. That is my view of what we should do. Mr. BENTON. I propose the point of my objection, if there be any point in it, to his specious amendment. My objection to it is, that it is a resolve to govern the conduct of the Senate; that it is an independent resolve to govern the conduct of the Senate. It has nothing to do with the business which is included in the motion. It is simply a resolve, which can be introduced and considered by itself-a resolve, I repeat, to govern the conduct of the Senate in their action upon a certain case. In that point of view, it seems to me that what is called an amendment is not an amendment, but an independent resolve. But the Senator from Kentucky makes a proposition, or renews one made yesterday, and, in his extreme good nature, supposes that all parts of the Senate are in the most amicable temper possible. It is nothing more nor less than that a jury should go out with the case, and after the jury has gone out with it, the counsel and advocates may proceed to argue it. That is his proposition, and whether the case is sent to a jury of twelve or thirteen, makes no difference. The jury of thirteen is to go out in this case. Sir, it is nothing more nor less than a proposition to send a jury out with the case, and we have been sufficiently adver tised of the fact that that jury is to consist of the distinguished and leading members of the Senate. These distinguished and leading gentlemen will go out, and will deliberate upon the case, and while they are deliberating, why, the remainder-those perhaps who would necessarily fall into the category of led members may be amusing themselves-with discussing the subject and presenting their views; and, whenever the jury of thirteen shall have made up their verdict, they will come in, and whoever may happen to be upon his feet at the moment, will have to take his seat, and will be cut off exactly where he stood; the delivery of the verdict putting an end to the whole case he is arguing. This is rather a new proceeding in the Senate of the United States, and I object to the idea of sending out a jury with a case, and leaving other Senators here to argue it. The Senator from Kentucky, sir, charges me with occasioning all the delay in the admission of California. And how do I occasion it? By resisting a motion to send this question to a committee. Have I not a right to do that ? If I have no right to do it, it is a question of [APRIL, 1850. Presidents of the time in which those States were admitted, making eight in the whole, being as near half as eight can be of seventeen. I am doing what has been done for sixty years. Every State that has been admitted for sixty years has been admitted in a bill by itself, except in one single case, and then two were put together in the same bill. Two States applied for admission at the same time, and had no more right than California now has, for they made their constitutions for themselves, without the previous authority of Congress. I am doing what I have a right to do, what I feel it to be my duty to do, what sixty years of legislation justifies me in doing; and while this is the case, it will be lost labor to undertake to scare me off the track, by saying that I am obstructing legislation on the subject. The honorable Senator from Kentucky has said on several occasions, and repeated it again here to-day, that California will come in sooner if all these subjects be taken together, exciting as they appear. Come in sooner! Now, it is hard for me to conceive that the Senator has an insight into this matter which I have not. Though I profess to be able, when I have a view of things, to see as far into a millstone as he that picks it, yet I cannot see the pickers here. The Senator from Kentucky undertakes to say that these things will go on, and California will come in sooner, if she is mixed up with all these foreign questions-foreign to her certainly. Now, he certainly understands what he says. I do not. I do not understand why one subject, complicated with an immense number of others, is to go faster than it could go by itself. There may be a question in this, as to the public lands. I here repeat what I said the other day, that when the question of the admission of the State is up before the Senate, it will be proper to discuss the question of admission, and then I shall expect the Senator from Illinois, who has reported this bill, to satisfy me and the Senate upon this point. It will be sufficient time to discuss that, when we come to discuss the bill. The supposition is, that the bill is to go faster when complicated In the same identical manner, Mr. President, and loaded with all these subjects than it can with a parallelism which has been drawn here go alone. There is something in that which is somewhat too close for a parody, the Senator inexplicable to me. I know there is an idea, from Kentucky charges me with delaying the which may be called vernacular, prevalent in admission of California, because I resist where some parts of the country, that a horse can pull I have a right to resist; and more than that, stronger if he has a weight upon his back, and where I hold it to be my duty to resist, and I have often seen large packs with two or three where I am sustained by sixty years of uninter- bushels of grain upon a horse's back, while he rupted legislation of the two Houses of Con- was straining every nerve in pulling a load up gress. Sir, three times Washington, the Father hill. The argument was, that it kept the of his Country, sent in Messages for the admis- backbone straight, and enabled him to draw sion of new States, precisely under the same directly against the centre of every joint. circumstances as those under which_President [Laughter.] That was done in the case of Taylor sent in a Message in this case. Tennessee, drawing; but this is a case of running. Kentucky, and Vermont, were all admitted pre-fornia has to run, and as it seems to me, she has cisely under these circumstances, and upon the presentation of Messages precisely like this. Five other States were admitted afterwards, under the same circumstances, and by Messages of the Cali to run the gauntlet and a long line. I never heard it supposed that a horse ran faster for having a load upon his back; but when we come to look at what is proposed to California, APRIL, 1850.] The Select Committee of Thirteen. [31ST CONG, we shall find she has not only three hundred | Senator from Alabama, would succeed in mainpounds upon her back, but we shall have a hundred pounds to tie to each leg, and still a pretty considerable weight to tie to the tail. I should like to see how Californa would run with three hundred pounds upon her back, and a hundred to each leg, and fifty pounds to the tail. It will be a strange thing for the people of California to learn that, in the opinion of the American Senate, their State is to run faster precisely in proportion as she is loaded down. I have been occupied, Mr. President, wholly with the preliminary question of laying this resolution upon the table, and postponing its consideration for the purpose of taking up the California bill. I am not arguing the admission of California; I have not got to that. I am not arguing the motions which will be made to amend the motion to send out this committee; much less, sir, am I arguing the question of such a committee at all. All these things are in advance of what I want. All that I want, as I have made known, is to put this in a shape which will admit of no dispute. The question is now as to the delay, the almost indefinite delay, with the chance of eventually losing the admission between the two Houses. We have now three full days remaining of this week, and I think, if we proceed, we can in these three days come to a decisive vote on the California bill, and in doing that, we shall have washed our hands and done our duty; and it will then be for the House of Representatives to do their duty, a thing with which we have nothing to do. Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President, when the objection was raised the other day, by the Senator from Alabama, that if the bill reported by the Committee on Territories was passed, all the public lands within the limits of that State would be lost to the Government, would belong to the State of California, I promised the Senate that when that bill should be taken up, I would vindicate the bill entirely from all apprehenɛions on that score; and that, if I could not do it by argument, I would certainly do it by amendment. I had hoped, therefore, that criticisms upon that part of the bill would have been deferred, and that the public mind would not have been prejudiced by allusions to that supposed defect, until the California bill came up for consideration. It has, however, been alluded to, and the high authority of the Senator from Kentucky has been given to sanction the correctness of the opinion expressed by the Senator from Alabama. Sir, I hold myself entirely capable of removing all apprehensions upon that point, on reference to well-established authority-a large number of cases-forming such a current of authority, as, I apprehend, that no one, after investigating the facts, can question the correctness of the opinion which I expressed. Sir, as a Senator from the State of Illinois, I may rejoice if the Senator from Kentucky, or the taining the position that they have here assumed in regard to California. If that position be correct, I am prepared to show that this Government owes the State of Illinois nineteen millions of dollars, for lands sold within that State, and that fifteen millions of acres of unsold lands, held by the Government of the United States within the limits of that State, now belong to the State of Illinois. Yes, sir, and also that this Government owes Ohio twenty millions, and owes Indiana twenty-one millions; and other States large sums, to the amount of ninety odd millions of dollars, for lands sold within those States, the money for which has been received by this Government, when the proceeds belonged to those States, if the position assumed by the honorable Senators from Alabama and Kentucky be correct. Mr. FOOTE. I rise to a question of order. But if my friend from Illinois desires to make only a few remarks in vindication of his bill, I will certainly withdraw it. If, however, he designs extending his remarks, I feel bound, as the proposer of this resolution, to insist upon the point of order. Mr. DOUGLAS. I will state the limit of my remarks, and the Chair can then decide. I propose to extend my remarks just so far, and not one iota farther, than is necessary to reply to the charge made by the Senator from Kentucky. Mr. FOOTE. I understood the honorable Senator from Kentucky to throw out a single suggestion, which may or may not have been in order, accompanied by the additional suggestion to the Senator from Illinois, which I thought in order. Now, sir, my point of order is, that it is not in order, on the question now before the Senate, to go into the discussion of the general question. The VICE PRESIDENT. It is the opinion of the Chair that the remarks made by the Senator from Illinois (Mr. DOUGLAS) were foreign to the question under consideration, and consequently out of order. Mr. DOUGLAS. I will refrain, then, from any expression of opinion on the point on which I was proceeding to address the Senate. Mr. HALE. I move that the Senator from Illinois have liberty to proceed. Mr. FOOTE. If he desires it, I will not interpose any objection. Mr. DOUGLAS. I do not desire the Senate to depart from its usage on my account. The Senator from Kentucky was simply arguing a position, with the best of motives, which I thought would throw an imputation upon me as the chairman of a committee. Hence I thought it my duty to myself and to my committee, to vindicate the California bill from that imputation. And if the motion of the Senator from Missouri prevails, I shall take the floor and make that vindication. If not, I shall feel bound to do it on this resolution, when the subject comes up in the course of debate. |