When some immensely long speech made in the British House of Commons, was spoken of before Sheridan as being luminous, he expressed both a negative and an affirmative opinion respecting it, in a single word, by replying that it was vo-luminous. General Cass, in a speech that fills more than nineteen columns in the Washington Union, has reviewed the decisions of all the judges of the Supreme Court who have ever expressed any opinion on the subject of congressional power over territorial legislation; he has commented upon the views of all the jurists who have written upon it, and of most of the speakers in both Houses of Congress who have discussed it; he has surveyed the course of administration of all the Presidents we have ever had; and has come to the clear conclusion that all of them,—judges, jurists, legislators, and presidents,—have systematically violated the constitution of the United States, or commended its violation, on every practicable occasion for the last sixty years.
Omitting the hundred ways in which the absurdity of this conclusion can be exposed, let me subject it to one practical test. We have acquired territory from Mexico. General Cass voted to ratify the treaty of cession. Measures have been instituted for the formation of three separate governments in this Territory,—those of California, Deseret, [Utah,] and New Mexico. The boundaries marked out by California and Deseret overlay each other to the amount of thousands of square miles. If they have the exclusive right of self-government, as General Cass declares, and Congress none, then they must settle this question of boundary themselves. They may declare war against each other, make alliances with foreign powers, equip armies, build fleets; while Congress can do nothing within their limits but—sell land.
But what renders the argument of General Cass still more extraordinary is the fact, that, according to his own doctrine, he has spent the greater part of his political life in violating the constitution, while constantly repeating his oath to support it. As marshal of Ohio, as governor of Michigan, as Indian agent, he has appointed officers and magistrates, and executed laws, when, according to his own showing, he was a mere interloper and usurper; he has met territorial legislatures, which had no more right to assemble than a mob; he has doubtless imprisoned, if not executed many alleged offenders, who had as good a legal right to execute or to imprison him; and he has received salaries for more than twenty years, to which the khan of Tartary was as much entitled as he. Now, if he will refund the salaries he has unconstitutionally received; make reparation for the penalties or forfeitures he has wrongfully extorted; show some signs of contrition for the men whom he has unlawfully imprisoned or hung, it will remove the suspicions of many minds, in regard to the sincerity, if not the soundness, of his argument.
I mention these facts from no personal feelings in regard to the senator from Michigan; but only to show to what desperate extremities men are driven in order to defend the right of spreading slavery from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean; and because this is the last reading of the constitution which has been invented for the purpose.
Since the last session of Congress, the condition of a part of this territory has greatly changed. The unexampled velocity with which a living stream of men has poured into it within the last twelve months, has reversed its condition and decided its destiny. In other countries, individuals seek their fortunes by changing their residence. Under the vehement action of our enterprise, cities migrate. The new residents of California have framed a constitution, have applied for admission into this Union, and their application is now pending before us. Of their own accord, they have excluded slavery from their borders by their fundamental law. Until the discovery of gold in that country, and until all incredulity in regard to that remarkable fact had been overcome, it was confidently anticipated at the south, and intensely feared at the north, that the whole region would be overrun with slaveholders and with slaves. As far back as 1842, Mr. Wise, of Virginia, the administration leader in the House of Representatives, boldly declared that “slavery should pour itself abroad without restraint, and find no limit but the Southern Ocean.” The war with Mexico was waged for the twofold purpose of robbing that republic of its territory, and then robbing that territory of its freedom. Congressional orators and the southern press avowed that the object of acquiring territory was to extend the “divine institution.” I could quote pages in proof of this assertion. The north had no hope, the south had no fear, if the territories were left without control, but that they would first be filled with slaveholders, and would then incorporate slavery into their organic law. While these prospects continued, the south insisted that the territories should be left untrammelled. Distinguished men in this House, Mr. Calhoun and other senators, the government organ, which was supposed to express the views of President Polk and his cabinet, all proclaimed that the territories should be left free to institute such government as they might choose.[8] But since California has formed a free constitution, what a sudden change has taken place in the convictions of men! Within the present week we have had three most elaborate speeches in this House, in which the admission of California, with her free constitution, is vehemently opposed on constitutional grounds. Yes, sir, did you know it? the constitution of the United States has just been altered; or, what is intended to produce the same effect, without the trouble of an alteration in the manner prescribed by itself, its interpretation has been altered. While California promised to be a slave state, all interference was unconstitutional. Now, as she desires to be a free state, it has become constitutional to interfere and repel her. Not only so, but, according to the gentleman from Alabama, (Mr. Inge,) in swearing to support the constitution we have sworn to perpetuate, and not only to perpetuate, but to extend slavery. “To those,” he says, “who are disposed to resist my views, I commend a more attentive reading of that instrument. They will find that it not only guarantees slavery, but provides for its extension.” Or, as he says in another place, it makes provision “to extend the institution indefinitely.” And, therefore, when a territory asks to be admitted as a free state, it is to be repulsed, and virtually told, “If you will incorporate slavery into your constitution, you shall be admitted; if not, not.” Had the man who first uttered the adage that “circumstances alter cases,” foreseen our times, he would have said, “circumstances alter principles.”
The same gentleman defends slavery by an appeal to the Bible. But if the Bible be authority for the principal, is it not authority for the incidents also? If an authority for the cruelties of bondage, is it not an equal authority for its mitigations? Is not the command to “hallow the fiftieth year,” as a year of jubilee, and to “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” contained in the same code, and in the same chapter of the same code, with that oft-cited authority to buy bondmen and bondmaids of the heathen? If the Bible is your commission, why do you not follow the terms of the commission, observing its limitations as well as its powers? This is the fiftieth year of the century,—the very year of jubilee itself; and yet, instead of “returning every man unto his possession, and every man unto his family,” this is the chosen year for subjugating new realms to bondage. It is not to be “hallowed,” as a year of jubilee, but to be profaned as a year of captivity and mourning.
Sir, I must express the most energetic dissent from those who would justify modern slavery from the Levitical law. My reason and conscience revolt from those interpretations which
“Torture the hallowed pages of the Bible,
To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood,
And, in oppression’s hateful service, libel