were either native Californians or old settlers in that country. This prohibition against slavery, it is said, was inserted with entire unanimity.

Mr. HALE. Will the Senator give way until order is restored?

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Sergeant-at-Arms will see that order is restored, and no more persons admitted to the floor.

Mr. CASS. I trust the scene of the other day will not be repeated. The Sergeant-at-Arms must display more energy in suppressing this disorder.

Mr. HALE. The noise is outside of the door.

Mr. WEBSTER. And it is this circumstance, sir, the prohibition of slavery by that Convention, which has contributed to raise, I do not say it has wholly raised, the dispute as to the propriety of the admission of California into the Union under this constitution. It is not to be denied, Mr. President, nobody thinks of denying, that, whatever reasons were assigned at the commencement of the late war with Mexico, it was prosecuted for the purpose of the acquisition of territory, and under the alleged argument that the cession of territory was the only form in which proper compensation could be made to the United States by Mexico, for the various claims and demands which the people of this country had against that government. At any rate, it will be found that President Polk's message, at the commencement of the session of December, 1847, avowed that the war was to be prosecuted until some acquisition of territory should be made. And, as the acquisition was to be south of

the line of the United States, in warm climates and countries, it was naturally, I suppose, expected by the South, that whatever acquisitions were made in that region would be added to the slaveholding portion of the United States. Very little of accurate information was possessed of the real physical character, either of California or New Mexico; and events have turned out as was not expected; both California and New Mexico are likely to come in as free; and therefore some degree of disappointment and surprise has resulted. In other words, it is obvious that the question which has so long harassed the country, and at some times very seriously alarmed the minds of wise and good men, has come upon us for a fresh discussion; the question of slavery in these United States.

Now, sir, I propose, perhaps at the expense of some detail and consequent detention of the Senate, to review historically this question, which, partly in consequence of its own importance, and partly, perhaps mostly, in consequence of the manner in which it has been discussed in one and the other portion of the country, has been a source of so much alienation and unkind feeling.

We all know, sir, that slavery has existed in the world from time immemorial. There was slavery, in the earliest periods of history, in the oriental nations. There was slavery among the Jews; the theocratic government of that people ordained no injunction against it. There was slavery among the Greeks; and the ingenious philosophy of the Greeks found, or sought to find, a justification for it exactly upon the grounds which have been

assumed for such a justification in this country; that is, a natural and original difference among the races of mankind, and the inferiority of the black or colored race to the white. The Greeks justified their system of slavery upon that idea, precisely. They held the African, and in some parts the Asiatic, tribes to be inferior to the white race; but they did not show, I think, by any close process of logic, that, if this were true, the more intelligent and the stronger had therefore a right to subjugate the weaker.

The more manly philosophy and jurisprudence of the Romans placed the justification of slavery on entirely different grounds.

The Roman jurists, from the first and down to the fall of the empire, admitted that slavery was against the natural law, by which, as they maintained, all men of whatsoever clime, color, or capacity were equal; but they justified slavery, first, upon the ground and authority of the law of nations, arguing, and arguing truly, that at that day the conventional law of nations admitted that captives in war, whose lives, according to the notions of the times, were at the absolute disposal of the captors, might, in exchange for exemption from death, be made slaves for life, and that such servitude might descend to their posterity. The jurists of Rome also maintained that by the civil law there might be servitude or slavery, personal and hereditary; first, by the voluntary act of an individual who might sell himself into slavery; secondly, by his being received into a state of slavery by his creditors in satisfaction of his debts; and, thirdly, by being placed in a state of servitude or slavery for crime. At

the introduction of Christianity, the Roman world was full of slaves, and I suppose there is to be found no injunction against that relation between man and man, in the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or of any of his apostles. The object of the instruction imparted to mankind by the founder of Christianity was to touch the heart, purify the soul, and improve the lives of individual That object went directly to the first fountain of all political and all social relations of the human race, as well as of all true religious feeling, the individual heart and mind of man.

men.

Now, sir, upon the general nature, and character, and influence of slavery, there exists a wide difference between the Northern portion of this country and the Southern. It is said on the one side that, if not the subject of any injunction or direct prohibition in the New Testament, slavery is a wrong; that it is founded merely in the right of the strongest; and that it is an oppression, like unjust wars, like all those conflicts by which a mighty nation subjects a weaker nation to its will; and that slavery, in its nature, whatever may be said of it in the modifications which have taken place, is not in fact according to the meek spirit of the Gospel. It is not "kindly affectioned;" it does not "seek another's, and not its own;" it does not "let the oppressed go free." These are sentiments that are cherished, and recently with greatly augmented force, among the people of the Northern States. They have taken hold of the religious sentiment of that part of the country, as they have more or less taken hold of the religious feelings of a considerable portion of mankind. The South, upon the other side,

having been accustomed to this relation between the two races all their lives, from their birth; having been taught, in general, to treat the subjects of this bondage with care and kindness, and I believe, in general, feeling for them great care and kindness, have not taken the view of the subject which I have mentioned. There are thousands of religious men, with consciences as tender as any of their brethren at the North, who do not see the unlawfulness of slavery; and there are more thousands, perhaps, that, whatsoever they may think of it in its origin, and as a matter depending upon natural right, yet take things as they are, and, finding slavery to be an established relation of the society in which they live, can see no way in which, let their opinions on the abstract question be what they may, it is in the power of the present generation to relieve themselves from this relation. And, in this respect, candor obliges me to say, that I believe they are just as conscientious, many of them, and the religious people, all of them, as they are in the North who hold different opinions.

Why, sir, the honorable Senator from South Carolina, the other day, alluded to the separation of that great religious community, the Methodist Episcopal Church. That separation was brought about by differences of opinion upon this particular subject of slavery. I felt great concern, as that dispute went on, about the result; and I was in hopes that the difference of opinion might be adjusted, because I looked upon that religious denomination as one of the great props of religion and morals, throughout the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, and westward, to our utmost western boundary. The