"The only territory south of the line, except that which, by treaty with Indian tribes, cannot be included within the jurisdiction of a state, is New Mexico. She has now population enough for admission as a state. Let Congress admit her as a state, and then she has the acknowledged right to form, regulate, change, or modify her domestic institutions. She has now a nominal slave code, framed and urged upon her by territorial officers. Practically, slavery does not exist there. It never can be established there. In a region where the earth yields her increase only by the practice of irrigation, slave labor will not be employed. At any rate, it is better to settle all questions about slavery there, by admitting the territory as a state. While a territory, it is insisted that slavery shall be protected in it. We insist that Congress may prohibit it, and that the people have an undisputed right to exclude slaves. Why not, by terminating their territorial condition, determine this controversy? The same course might now properly be adopted with all the territories of the United States.
"In each of the territories there are, now, small settlements scattered along the lines of transit. Within five years, the least populous will contain sufficient population for a Representative in Congress. Dakota, Washington, Nevada, and Jefferson are destined soon to be as familiar to us as Kansas and Nebraska. It is well worthy the consideration of the old states, whether it is not better to dispense with all territorial organizations—always expensive and turbulent—and, at once, to carve the whole into states of convenient size, for admission. This was the Jeffersonian plan, which did not contemplate territories, but states. It was also sanctioned by General Taylor, and, but for his death, would have been adopted.
This is an easy, effectual remedy, within the power of Congress, and in its nature an irrevocable act. There is no necessity of an amendment to the constitution. It is not at all probable that two- thirds of both houses of Congress and three-fourths of the states can agree to any amendments. Why attempt it, unless to invite new contests, to again arouse sectional animosities? We know that if Mexico is acquired the south will demand it for slavery, and the north for free institutions. We must forego, for the present, new conquests, unless the love of acquisition is stronger than the love of domestic peace.
"Suppose it to be conceded that the constitution should be amended, what amendment will satisfy the south? Nothing less than the protection of slavery in the territories. But our people have pronounced against it. All who voted for Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Douglas —over three million three hundred thousand citizens—voted against this claim. Less than a million voted for it. Should the great majority yield to a meagre minority, especially under threats of disunion? This minority demand that slavery be protected by the constitution. Our fathers would not allow the word 'slave' or 'slavery' in the constitution, when all the states but one were slaveholding. Shall we introduce these words when a majority of the states are free, and when the progress of civilization has arrayed the world against slavery? If the love of peace and ease, and office, should tempt politicians and merchants to do it, the people will rebel. I assure you, whatever may be the consequence, they will not yield their moral convictions by strengthening the influence of slavery in this country. Recent events have only deepened this feeling.
"The struggle to establish slavery in Kansas; the frequent murders and mobbings, in the south, of northern citizens; the present turbulence and violence of southern society; the manifest fear of the freedom of speech and of the press; the danger of insurrection; and now the attempt to subvert the government rather than submit to a constitutional election—these events, disguise it as you may, have aroused a counter irritation in the north that will not allow its representatives to yield merely for peace, more than is prescribed by the letter and spirit of the constitution. Every guarantee of this instrument ought to be faithfully and religiously observed. But when it is proposed to change it, to secure new guarantees to slavery, to extend and protect it, you invoke and arouse the anti- slavery feeling of the north to war against slavery everywhere.
"I am, therefore, opposed to any change in the constitution, and to any compromise that will surrender any of the principles sanctioned by the people in the recent contest. If the personal-liberty bills of any state infringe upon the constitution, they should at once be repealed. Most of them have slumbered upon the statute book for years. They are now seized upon, by those who are plotting disunion, as a pretext. We should give them no pretext. It is always right and proper for each state to apply to state laws the test of the constitution.
"It is a remarkable fact that neither of the border free states— New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, nor Iowa—have any such upon their statute books. The laws of these states, against kidnapping, are similar to those of Virginia and Kentucky. The laws of other states, so-called, have never operated to release a single fugitive slave, and may be regarded simply as a protest of those states against the harsh features of the fugitive slave law. So far as they infringe upon the constitution, or impair, in the least, a constitutional right, they are void and ought to be repealed.
"I venture the assertion that there have been more cases of kidnapping of free negroes in Ohio, than of peaceable or unlawful rescue of fugitive slaves in the whole United States. It has been shown that the law of recapture and the penalties of rescue have been almost invariably executed. Count up all the cases of rescue of negroes in the north, and you can find in your newspapers more cases of unlawful lynching and murder of white men in the south. These cases have now become so frequent and atrocious, as to demand the attention of the general government. The same article of the constitution that secures the recapture of fugitives from service and justice, also secures the rights of citizens of Pennsylvania and Ohio to all the immunities and privileges of citizens of the several states. No law has been passed by Congress to secure this constitutional right. No executive authority interposes to protect our citizens, and yet we hear no threats of retaliation or rebellion from northern citizens or northern states. So, I trust, it ever may be.
"The great danger that now overshadows us does not arise from real grievances. Plotters for disunion avail themselves of the weakness of the executive to precipitate revolution. South Carolina has taken the lead. The movement would be utterly insignificant if confined to that state. She is still in the Union, and neither the President nor Congress has the power to consent to her withdrawal. This can only be by a change in the constitution or the acquiescence of the people of the other states. The defense of the property of the United States and the collection of the revenues need not cause the shedding of blood, unless she commences a contest of physical force. The increase, in one year, of our population is greater than her entire population, white and black. Either one of several congressional districts in the west has more white inhabitants than she has. Her military power is crippled by the preponderance of her slaves. However brave, and gallant, and spirited her people may be, and no one disputes these traits, yet it is manifest she is weak in physical force. This great government might well treat with indulgence paper secession, or the resolves of her convention and legislature, without invoking physical force to enforce the laws among her citizens.
"Without disrespect to South Carolina, it would be easy to show that Shay's rebellion and the whisky insurrection involved the government in greater danger than the solitary secession of South Carolina. But the movement becomes imposing when we are assured that several powerful states will very soon follow in the lead of South Carolina; and when we know that other states, still more powerful, sympathize with the seceding states, to the extent of opposing, and perhaps resisting, the execution of the laws in the seceding states.