so here a stream flows southward which is larger than the Euphrates. And here, too, all amid the smiling products of Nature, lavished by the hand of God, is the lofty Tree of Liberty, planted by our fathers, which, without exaggeration, or even imagination, may be likened to
"the Tree of Life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold."
It is with regard to this territory that you are now called to exercise the grandest function of lawgiver, by establishing rules of polity which will determine its future character. As the twig is bent the tree inclines; and the influences impressed upon the early days of an empire, like those upon a child, are of inconceivable importance to its future weal or woe. The bill now before us proposes to organize and equip two new territorial establishments, with Governors, Secretaries, Legislative Councils, Legislators, Judges, Marshals, and the whole machinery of civil society. Such a measure at any time would deserve the most careful attention. But at the present moment it justly excites peculiar interest, from the effort made—on pretences unsustained by facts, in violation of solemn covenant, and in disregard of the early principles of our fathers—to open this immense region to Slavery.
According to existing law, this territory is now guarded against Slavery by a positive Prohibition, embodied in the Act of Congress approved March 6th, 1820, preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union as a sister State, and in the following explicit words:—
"Sec. 8. 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, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this Act, SLAVERY AND INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, SHALL BE, AND is HEREBY, FOREVER PROHIBITED."
It is now proposed to set aside this Prohibition. But there seems to be a singular indecision as to the way in which the deed shall be done. From the time of its first introduction, in the Report of the Committee on Territories, the proposition has assumed different shapes; and it promises to assume as many as Proteus,—now one thing in form, and now another,—now like a serpent, and then like a lion,—but in every form and shape identical in substance; with but one object,—the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery. At first it proposed simply to declare that the States formed out of this territory should be admitted into the Union "with or without Slavery," and did not directly assume to touch this Prohibition. For some reason this was not satisfactory, and then it was precipitately proposed to declare that the Prohibition in the Missouri Act "was superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, and is hereby declared inoperative." But this would not do; and it is now proposed to enact, that the Prohibition, "being inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention by Congress with Slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void."