SEVENTH—Resolved, That more effectual provision ought to be made by law, according to the requirements of the Constitution, for the restitution and delivery of persons bound to service or labor, in any state, who may escape into any other state or territory of this Union.
The eighth and last resolution provided that congress has no power to prohibit the trade in slaves between the states. It was as follows:
EIGHTH—Resolved, That congress has no power to prohibit or obstruct the trade in slaves between the slaveholding states, and that the admission or exclusion of slaves brought from one into another of them, depends exclusively upon their own particular law.
It was obvious that no legislation was intended as a consequence of the resolution; it merely asserted a truth. He had thought that, in looking at this whole subject, it was fit and proper to resort to great and fundamental principles, to keep them before the mind, that they might not violate them. These resolutions involved no sacrifice of any principle; they were founded upon a basis of mutual forbearance and concession—a concession not of matters of principle, but matters of feeling merely. He thought, in view of all the circumstances, a more liberal concession might be expected from the free states than could be asked of the South; and, truly, with gentlemen from the North this question was an abstraction, while with the people of the South it was a principle involving their property, and, as a large portion of them believed, of their prosperity and peace. The North, too, was numerically more powerful, and greatness and magnanimity should always go together. Mr. Clay concluded with a most eloquent appeal in behalf of harmony, peace, mutual concessions, and forbearance, for the sake of the Union. In the course of his remarks, he exhibited a sacred relic—a piece of the coffin of Washington—presented that morning, and submitted some thrillingobservations relative to the distinguished dead, and the spirit which he, if upon the stage of action, would urge in the settlement of the momentous question under discussion.
Mr. Clay said, his proposition was not to take absolutely from Texas the territory which she claimed; it made a proposition to Texas for her consideration. He had expressed, it was true, his own opinion that the title of Texas was not good to the territory in question, and at the same time he would be happy to discuss that question.
In the course of a conversation which ensued between Mr. Clay and Mr. Foote, the latter asserted that the faith of congress was pledged to all the Southern states, and not Maryland alone, for the preservation of slavery in the District.
Mr. Clay. Suppose slavery be abolished in Maryland to-morrow, have we no power to abolish it here?
Mr. Mason, of Virginia, and Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, expressed their determination never to sanction such a compromise as that embraced in the resolutions which had been offered. They also indulged in some reflections upon the course of Mr. Clay, as a senator from a slave state.