On the Subject of Slavery in the Territories Part 2 - Jefferson Davis

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Thursday, February 14, 1850.

Mr. DAVIS resumed and concluded his remarks as follows:

One of the positions laid down by the honorable Senator from Kentucky, and which he denominated as one of his two truths, was, that slavery was excluded from the Territories of California and New Mexico by a decree of Nature.  From that opinion I dissent.  I hold that the pursuit of gold-washing and mining is better adapted to slave labor than to any other species of labor recognized among us, and is likely to be found in that new country for many years to come.  I also maintain that it is particularly adapted to an agriculture which depends upon irrigation.  Till the canals are cut, ditches and dams made, no person can reclaim the soil from Nature; an individual pioneer cannot settle upon it with his family, and support them by the product of his own exertion, as in the old possessions of the United States, where rain and dew unite with a prolific soil to reward freely and readily the toil of man.  It is only by associated labor that such a country can be reduced to cultivation.  They have this associated labor in Mexico under a system of peonage.  That kind of involuntary servitude, for debt I suppose, cannot long continue to exist under American institutions; therefore the only species of labor that can readily supply its place under our Government would, I think, be the domestic servitude of African slavery; and therefore I believe it is essential, on account of the climate, productions, soil, and the peculiar character of cultivation, that we should during its first settlement have that slavery in at least a portion of California and New Mexico.  It is also true, that in certain climates only the African race are adapted to work in the sun.  It is from this cause perhaps more than all others that the products of Mexico, once so important and extensive, have dwindled into comparative insignificance since the abolition of slavery.  And it is also on that account that the prosperity of Central and Southern America generally has declined, and that it has been sustained in Brazil, where slavery has continued; that Jamaica and St.  Domingo have now, from being among the most productive and profitable colonies, sunk into decay, and are relapsing to desert and barbarism; and yet Cuba and Porto Rico continue to maintain, I might say to increase, their prosperity.  I therefore deny what is affirmed by the Senator from Kentucky to be his second truth, and in support of that denial call attention to the wealth and productiveness of Mexico when slavery existed there, and invite a comparison between that and its condition at present.  In the great work of Humboldt we find the following statement:

“Mexico, in 1803, after defraying the annual expenses of her administration, $10,500,000, which included the cost of her army of 10,000 Spanish troops, and after remitting to Spain a surplus of $6,000,000 in specie, exhibits the singular spectacle of a distant colony sustaining the other colonies of Spain by the annual remittance to each of the following sums:

To Louisiana……………………………………………………$557,000

To Florida…………………………………………………………151,000

To Cuba…………………………………………………….……1,820,000

To Porto Rico……………………………………………………..377,000

To St. Domingo…………………………………………………..274,000

To Trinidad………………………………………………………..200,000

To Philippine Isles……………………………………………….250,000

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                           Aggregate………………………………..$3,635,000”

That she might have been called upon to contribute something to the everglades and sands of Florida is not so unreasonable; but that the rich alluvial of Louisiana, with her population industrial, intelligent, established, and engaged in the same pursuits then as now; that the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, which now, in addition to their own heavy expenditures, contribute to support the Spanish Crown, should then depend on annual contributions from Mexico; and that Mexico has, since the abolition of slavery, become so impoverished that, to derive money for her support, she sold territory to the United States, is proof that cannot be denied of the value of the institution of slavery in a soil and climate like hers.  The proof, if not in the whole is certainly in part of California and New Mexico applicable to the same extent as in the rest of the Republic of Mexico.  It certainly justifies a claim to trial before the decree is announced.

We do not ask Congress to express an opinion in relation to the decrees of Nature, or say that slavery shall be planted in any of the Territories of the United States.  We only claim that we shall be permitted to have the benefit of an experiment, that we may have that equal participation in the enjoyment of the Territories which would secure to us an opportunity to be heard in the determination of their permanent institutions.  We have only said that we are entitled to a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and that we should be allowed to try the institution of slavery, that thus it might be ascertained what the decree of Nature is.  Both these have been denied to us.  We have been denied by Congress an appeal to the Supreme Court; we have been debarred by Congressional agitation from obtaining the decree of Nature.  We ask that both shall be permitted to us; granted not as a boon, but secured to us as a right—an equal right of the sovereign States of the South.  More than this we have not claimed—more than this we do not desire.  Instead of insisting upon the expression of any opinion of Congress in accordance with our own, we ask that the expression called for by the Senator from Kentucky shall be suspended.  We ask that the decision of the Supreme Court and the decree of Nature may intervene; and that Congress shall oppose no legislative influence to the one, and no obstacles to the fair decision of the other.  No, sir, we have not sought to rest our rights upon the expression of Congressional opinion, but upon the principles of the Constitution and the laws of Nature; least of all do we desire a compromise like that the Senator from Kentucky informs us he brought forward, and which was passed by Congress in 1821—a compromise as devoid of substance as that made by William Deloraine, who, not having learnt his alphabet, being even unable to spell his neck verse, entered into a contract that he would not write.  Like this was the Senator’s compromise with the State of Missouri that she would not pass laws in violation of the Constitution of the United States—laws, which, if she had passed them, would therefore have been void from their inception.  We want something substantial, something permanent; something that will secure to us the peace of which we are now deprived; and something that will protect us from further interruption in the enjoyment of those rights and privileges to which we are entitled; something which promises reason and good feeling, instead of passion and bitterness in the halls of legislation; not a mere verbal, illusory, temporary, fruitless escape from the issue thrust upon us.  With this brief notice of what the Senator calls his second truth, I will now proceed to the consideration of the point that I was about to enter upon yesterday when the Senate adjourned.

It is asserted that the Texas boundary is an open question, and that the Government of the United States has power to close it, and that they derived this power from the terms of the annexation of Texas.  I deny that it is an open question.  I deny that the Government of the United States ever had, under the resolution of annexation, power to close it.  Texas agreed that her boundary should be settled by the treaty-making power of the United States; not by the Government of the United States—not by the Congress of the United States, but by the treaty-making power of the United States; and there is a great difference, as all will perceive, between referring this question to Congress and to the Senate and the President.  In referring it to the Senate, Texas referred it to a body in which, at that time, one half of the members had interests like those which she desired to maintain.  In referring it to the President, she referred it to a Southern man, whose education and associations warranted a reliance both on his information and sympathies.  If it had been referred to Congress, her rights would have been in the House of Representatives fully under the power of the North, and this consideration might have entered very largely into the selection of the Senate and President as her advocate, or umpire.  There was this difference, so far as her institutions were concerned, between referring it to the treaty-making power and to the law-making power of this Government.  The treaty-making power being unable to adjust it, the President of the United States having failed to settle by negotiation, the boundary dispute with Mexico, he then, in conformity with the obligations to defend the territory of every State in the Union, resisted the aggression committed in the invasion by Mexico on the territory of Texas.  The boundary which was defined by the Congress of Texas before the annexation, with which definition the United States accepted her, was the only boundary the President could recognise, until a new boundary should be agreed on by treaty with Mexico.

Whatever the United States might have done by treaty with Mexico, as to the boundary of the Rio Grande, it was plain that, when unable to enter into and settle the question by treaty, the United States was bound by every power the Government possessed, to maintain the jurisdiction of Texas, to the extent it was exercised at the date of annexation.  The Senator from Kentucky well said that the President of the United States -had no right to assume to settle the boundary of Texas.  Nor, sir, did that great and good man ever assume such a power; he but discharged the duties which devolved on him as the Chief Executive, to maintain the boundaries of the State, and to defend the Union against foreign invasion.  In the discharge of this duty, and in the execution of this high responsibility resting on him, the Mexican war was undertaken for the defence of Texas against Mexican invasion.  Then the question arises, shall the United States, after defending the boundaries of Texas, engaging in war to maintain those boundaries, and closing that war by acquiring all the territory claimed, and more besides, present her own claim as opposed to the claim of Texas, and thus falsify the position she assumed when she went to war with Mexico to maintain the boundary of Texas?  We must come to that, or admit the boundaries as laid down by her when an independent State, and which we asserted and maintained against the Government of Mexico.

I wish also to call attention to another distinction.  We did not acquire Texas as a Territory, out of which a State or States might be carved.  Congress refused to acquire her as a Territory, and she came in as a State.  As a State she had sovereign jurisdiction over all her territory; and, save under the qualified power granted in the resolutions of annexation, which must be strictly construed as a contract between the two sovereignties, the United States had no power to touch an acre or a foot even of her territory.  I leave the Senator who sits near me, (Mr. Rusk,) and who so ably represents that State, to maintain the boundary of Texas as asserted by her, to lay down the limits over which she has the right to claim sovereign jurisdiction, and further to maintain her title.  I promised to be brief, and I am glad to leave the whole question in such able hands.

But the Senator from Kentucky says we have paid $15,000,000 for the acquisition of this territory, and that, therefore, Texas has no right, without paying part of the purchase money, to expect the benefit of the acquisition to the extent of her claim.  Well, I am not able to make any distinction between Texas being called upon to make extraordinary contributions to pay a part of the purchase money and of the debt incurred in the prosecution of the war to maintain her boundary.  As a sovereign State of the Union, she pays, through the revenue imposts, her quota towards the defrayment of all the expenses of the Government, whether for peace or war.  This purchase money was to acquire territory from Mexico, and though efficient to settle the question between the Governments, which had been complicated by the events of the war, it was not a payment for any part of Texas, surely was not the purchase of a claim to be set up against our own citizens, nor a State of the Union.  The boundary of Texas had been maintained by arms, and I cannot admit that it was purchased with money.  But, if enumerated among the war debts, the sum agreed to be paid by the treaty goes in with all other expenditures incurred in the prosecution of the war.  Texas, with no more right can be called on in an extraordinary manner to furnish funds to reimburse the one than the other.

The Senator refers to the liberality of his proposition to give to Texas the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande; and, strangely enough, that little strip of country was assumed by him to be nearly equal to the territory of Texas east of the Nueces and of New Mexico.  I presume he meant of the province of Texas as she existed under the Mexican Government.  Well, sir, I have a table showing the extent in square miles of the old province of Texas.

Texas, within her ancient limits, had an area in square miles of 148,569

Between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, has - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  52,018

North of Ensenado and east of Rio Grande, being the part

             claimed as being in New Mexico - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 124,933

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             Aggregate - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 325,520

The country west of the Nueces being less than half—not much more than a third—of the size of the old State of Texas.

Texas, as annexed, was not the ancient province, but the independent State of Texas, as established by her revolution.  Her title is now disputed to all that part of her territory which was once within the limits of Tamaulipas and New Mexico—being 177,051 square miles—which leaves 148,509 square miles for the State of Texas; that is to say, more than one-half of the territory she comprises is to be claimed, less than a sixth to be restored, and this is called a liberal concession.  But the territory held out as a great boon granted to Texas—that between the Nueces and the Rio Grande—is the very desert once so eloquently described by the Senator from Missouri, who sits near me, as the country through which the dividing line between the United States and Mexico should be drawn.  And I now believe that a line drawn through that country would be a better boundary than the Rio Grande.  The boundary I desired was the mountain barrier south of the Rio Grande.  I wanted all the country drained by the Rio Grande; and I have regretted, from the time that amendment to the treaty failed, to the present day, that we did not decide to amend the treaty by taking from Mexico that portion of her northern possessions which, inhabited by a restless population, was an object of apprehension, and, infested by roving bands of Indians, was useless to her, and might have been highly beneficial to us.

But, sir, the boundary of ancient Texas the Senator from Kentucky, I think, once admitted to be the Rio Grande.  I think he once contended that the title to that boundary was as complete as that to the island of Orleans; but now when he refers to the acquisitions of territory which the United States have made within the last sixty years, he enumerates Louisiana, and Texas, and Florida, all of which he says inured to the benefit of the Southern States, save the amount above the line of 36° 30’.  Sir, I think the same Senator, in discussing the question of the acquisition of Florida, opposed it on the ground that we gave away the vast domain of Texas, more extended and valuable than the Territory of Florida.  I think also that the acquisition of Florida was not a Southern measure, and that Mr. Monroe justified himself before Southern men for that treaty by the necessity which sectional rivalry had created.  It never was a Southern measure; the Southern men wanted Florida, and were willing to pay a fair price for it.  They had long looked forward to the day when she would fall into our hands, as they believed, sooner or later, she must; but they did not wish to acquire it at the expenditure requisite at the time it was obtained.  Texas, therefore, should not be enumerated again; for she was included in the old Territory of Louisiana, and from which she was separated by a contract unfavorable to the South.  Leaving these things—stories twice told, and which are not necessary to repeat—let us take the question as it stands: let us take the Territories north and south of the line 36° 30’, and then see where the balance of acquisition has gone.  I shall refer to a pamphlet, very widely circulated over the United States, and which has been severely criticised, but I believe the facts set forth have not yet been denied—the pamphlet of Ellwood Fisher.  He says:

“When the North American colonies confederated for resistance to Great Britain, the territorial area of the southern portion of them was 648,202 square miles; that of the northern only 164,681, or about one fourth as large.”

 In reference to the cession of the Northwestern Territory by Virginia, he says:

“The object of this cession and the ordinance of 1787 was to equalize the area of the two sections.  The acquisition of Louisiana in 1803 added 1,138,103 square miles to our territory, of which, by the Missouri compromise, the South obtained only 226,013 square miles, or about one-fifth; the other four-fifths, notwithstanding they came to us as a slaveholding province, were allotted to the North, which thus had acquired more than 700,000 square miles of territory over the South.  Florida and Oregon were acquired by the treaty of 1819, by which the South got 59,268 square miles, and the North 341,463, making the North about 1,000,000 of square miles the most.  In 1845 Texas was annexed, which added only 325,520 square miles to the South, even if all Texas were included.  In 1848 we obtained 526,078 square miles more in the Territories of New Mexico and California.  And now the North claims the whole of this also; and not only this, but half of Texas besides, which would make the share of the North exceed that of the South nearly 1,500,000 square miles—a territory about equal in extent to the whole valley of the Mississippi, and leaving the South only about 810,812 square miles, while the North retains 2,097,124, or nearly three-fourths of the whole!”

Estimating all the territory not within the limits of any of the States, it will be found that the part which will inure to the benefit of the North, as against the South, if we extend the Missouri compromise to the Pacific ocean, will be something more than 4 to 1.  So much, sir, for the great advantages, territorially considered, which we of the South have derived from the acquisitions of the United States.

But we at the South are an agricultural people, and we require an extended territory.  Slave labor is a wasteful labor, and it therefore requires a still more extended territory than would the same pursuits if they could be prosecuted by the more economical labor of white men.  We have a right, in fairness and justice, to expect from our brethren of the North that they shall not attempt, in consideration of our agricultural interests—if that alone be considered—to restrict the territory of the South.  We have a right to claim that our territory shall increase with our population, and the statistics show that the natural increase of our population is as great as that of any part of the United States.  Take out the accession from foreign immigration, and compare the increase of population in the Northern States and the Southern States, and the latter will be found a fraction greater.  With this increase of population we must require increased territory; and it is but just, and fair, and honest that it should be accorded to us without any restriction or reservation.  I was surprised, then, to hear the Senator from Kentucky, while he admitted that he believed he had voted for the Missouri compromise, which asserted the power, and excluded the South from all the Territories she once owned north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, declare that no earthly power should induce him to recognise the right of slavery to go into territory south of 36 degrees 30 minutes, where that institution does not now exist.  He then said, in emphatic language, that he would not plant the institution of slavery anywhere.  That, sir, is not the proposition.  Nobody asks the Federal Government to compel its introduction, or to plant slavery in the Territories, or to engage in the slave trade, in order to furnish material for extending the institution into any new territory.  All that we assert is the right of the Southern people to go with that species of property into the territory of the United States.  That, therefore, is the right denied.  And, subsequently, while admitting that it was equally right and just if the majority excluded slavery north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, that it should be permitted south of that line, yet, at the same time, he says he could not vote for a proposition that carried slavery into any Territory where it is not already established, though he would yield to such a decision by the majority.  If it is equal and just that both rules or neither should be adopted; if it is in the power of the majority to pass one measure, but not their will to pass the other, it seems to be the duty of any one, in the name of equality and justice, to interpose whatever power he may possess to place those equal and just conditions on the whole proposition.  In denying our right, however, under the Constitution, to take slaves into the Territories, he stated it to rest on a position somewhat, I think, like this: that slavery did not exist in all the States of the Union, and that, therefore, it was not a property recognised throughout the United States, and in support of that position he supposed a case, that the Northern States should assert that the Constitution abolished slavery because they had no slavery within their limits.  Now, to make this an equal proposition, it is necessary to declare that the power to protect is the same as the power to destroy—that this Government is the creator and not the creature of the States—that it is the master and not the servant of the States, and that it created property in slaves and established the institution of slavery.  We claim that it is the duty of the Government to protect every species of property—that the Government has no right to discriminate between one species of property and another.  It is equally bound to protect on the high seas the slave in the vessel as the hull of the vessel itself, and it is equally bound to protect slave property, if wrecked on a foreign coast, against a hostile assertion of foreign power, as it would be the wreck of the vessel itself.  And to this error—for so I must consider it—this confounding of sovereign and delegated authority, is to be attributed the claim which is set up, of power to abolish slavery, as derived from the exclusive legislation granted to the Government in this District.  This construction of the word “exclusive” would render it synonymous with the word “unlimited.”  That exclusive legislation was necessary for the protection of the seat of government will be readily conceded.  It was essential to the Government to have exclusive legislation, so that no other authority might interfere with its functions.  But unlimited legislation surely is not required, and I say it could not have been granted by the Constitution; nay, more, I hold that the grant of exclusive legislation does not necessarily extend to the full power permissible under the Constitution of the United States, that there are restrictions, and broad distinctions, growing out of the vested rights and interests of others—in this case not merely of the ceding States, but of all the States of the Union.  The power of the Federal Government extends only so far as is necessary to secure the seat of government as such, and to protect therein the public property of the United States.  The Senator asserts, because of the grant of exclusive legislation, that the Government has equal power over the District with that which a sovereign State possesses within its limits, applies this to the regulation of the slave trade, and goes on to declare that which I will not deny, that the States have full power over this subject.  Yet I could quote himself against this argument, and could show that he denied this power to the States, and arraigned those who asserted it as being on the side of the abolitionists.  I refer to the case of Groves vs.  Slaughter, where the Senator appeared as counsel, and where the right of Mississippi, here referred to, the right of a State to exclude the introduction of slaves as merchandize, was the very matter in dispute, and where, having argued that the Constitution of Mississippi was directory, and not enacting—that it directs the Legislature to prohibit the importation of slaves as merchandise, but does not itself prohibit—he goes on to say:

“The last question in the case is, whether the provision of the Constitution of the United States which gives to Congress exclusively the right to regulate commerce between the States, is opposed by the Constitution of Mississippi.  The argument for the plaintiffs in error is on the abolition side of the question.  The counsel for the defendant sustain the opposite principle.

“The object of prohibition in the Constitution of the United States is to regulate commerce; to sustain it, not to annihilate it.  It is conservative.  Regulation implies continued existence—life, not death; preservation, not annihilation; the unobstructed flow of the stream, not to check or dry up its waters.

“But the object of the abolitionists is to prevent the exercise of this commerce.  This is a violation of the right of Congress under the Constitution.

“The right of the States to regulate the condition of slaves within their borders is not denied.  It is fully admitted.  Every state may, by its laws, fix the character and condition of slaves.  The right of Congress to regulate commerce between the different States, which may extend to the regulation of the transportation of slaves from one State to another, as merchandise, does not affect these rights of the States.  But, to deny the introduction of slaves, as merchandise, into a State from another State, is an interference with the Constitution of the United States.  After their introduction they are under the laws of the States.

“Nor is the power given by the Constitution of the United States to regulate commerce one in which the States may participate.  It is exclusive.  It is essentially so; and its existence in this form is most important to the slaveholding States.”

It is not important, however, for the present investigation, to examine these general positions taken then or now, and I will not pursue them further.  The opinion is adverse, it will be seen, to the one the Senator stated on this occasion to the Senate.  Both claim extreme powers for the Federal Government, and both therein I believe to be wrong.

Sir, it has been asked on several occasions during the present session, what ground of complaint has the South?  Is this agitation in the two halls of Congress, in relation to the domestic institutions of the South, no subject for complaint?  Is the action of the Legislatures of Northern States, defeating provisions of the Constitution which are among its compromises for our benefit, no subject for complaint?  Is the denunciation heaped upon us by the press of the North, and the attempts to degrade us in the eyes of Christendom—to arraign the character of our people and the character of our fathers, from whom our institutions are derived—no subject for complaint?  Is this sectional organization, for the purpose of hostility to our portion of the Union, no subject for complaint?  Would it not, between foreign nations—nations not bound together and restrained as we are by compact—would it not, I say, be just cause for war?  What difference is there between organizations for circulating incendiary documents and promoting the escape of fugitives from a neighboring State, and the organization of an armed force for the purpose of invasion?  Sir, a State relying securely on its own strength would rather court the open invasion than the insidious attack.  And for what end, sir, is all this aggression?  They see that the slaves in their present condition in the South are comfortable and happy; they see them advancing in intelligence; they see the kindest relations exist between them and their masters; they see them provided for in age and sickness, in infancy and in disability; they see them in useful employment, restrained from the vicious indulgences to which their inferior nature inclines them; they see our penitentiaries never filled, and our poor houses usually empty.  Let them turn to the other hand, and they see the same race in a state of freedom at the North; but instead of the comfort and kindness they receive at the South, instead of being happy and useful, they are, with few exceptions, miserable, degraded, filling the penitentiaries and poor-houses, objects of scorn, excluded, in some places, from the schools, and deprived of many other privileges and benefits which attach to the white men among whom they live.  And yet they insist that elsewhere an institution which has proved beneficial to this race shall be abolished, that it maybe substituted by a state of things which is fraught with so many evils to the race which they claim to be the object of their solicitude?  Do they find in the history of St.  Domingo and in the present condition of Jamaica, under the recent experiments which have been made upon the institution of slavery in the liberation of the blacks, before God, in his wisdom, designed it should be done do they there find any thing to stimulate them to future exertion in the cause of abolition?  Or should they not find there satisfactory evidence that their past course was founded in error?  And is it not the part of integrity and wisdom, as soon as they can, to retrace their steps?  Should they not immediately cease from a course mischievous in every stage, and finally tending to the greatest catastrophe?  We may dispute about measures: but as long as parties have nationality— as long as it is a difference of opinion between individuals passing into every section of the country—it threatens no danger to the Union.  If the conflicts of party were the only cause of apprehension, this Government might last forever: the last page of human history might contain a discussion in the American Congress upon the meaning of some phrase, the extent of the power conferred by some grant of the Constitution.  It is, sir, these sectional divisions which weaken the bonds of union and threaten their final rupture.  It is not differences of opinion; it is geographical lines, rivers, and mountains which divide State from State, and make different nations of mankind.

Are these no subjects of complaint for us? And do they furnish no cause for repentance to you? Have we not a right to appeal to you as brethren of this Union—have we not a right to appeal to you as brethren bound by the compact of our fathers, that you should, with due regard to your own rights and interests and constitutional obligations, do all that is necessary to preserve our peace and promote our prosperity?

If, sir, the seeds of disunion have been sown broadcast over this land, I ask by whose arm they have been scattered?  If, sir, we are now reduced to a condition when the powers of this Government are held subservient to faction; if we cannot and dare not legislate for the organization of Territorial Governments—I ask, sir, who is responsible for it?  And I can, with proud reliance, say it is not the South!  it is not the South!  Sir, every charge of disunion which is made on that part of the South which I in part represent, and whose sentiments I well understand, I here pronounce to be grossly calumnious.  The conduct of the State of Mississippi in calling a Convention has already been introduced before the Senate; and on that occasion I stated, and now repeat, that it was the result of patriotism and a high resolve to preserve, if possible, our constitutional Union; that all its proceedings were conducted with deliberation, and it was composed of the first men of the State.

The Chief .Justice—a man well known for his high integrity, for his powerful intellect, for his great legal attainments, and his ability in questions of constitutional law—presided over that Convention.  After calm and mature deliberation, resolutions were adopted, not in the spirit of disunion, but announcing, in the first resolution of the series, their attachment to the Union.  They call on their brethren of the South to unite with them in their holy purpose of preserving the Constitution, which is its only bond and reliable hope.  This was their object; and for this and for no other purpose do they propose to meet in general Convention at Nashville.  As I stated on a former occasion, this was not a party movement in Mississippi.  The presiding officer belongs to the political minority in the State; the two parties in the State were equally represented in the members of the Convention, and its deliberations assumed no partisan or political character whatever.  It was the result of primary meetings in the counties: an assemblage of men known throughout the State having first met and intimated to those counties a time when the State Convention should, if deemed proper, be held.  Every movement was taken with deliberation, and every movement then taken was wholly independent of the action of any body else; unless it be intended by the remarks made here, to refer its action to the great principles of those who have gone before us, and who have left us the rich legacy of the free institutions under which we live.  If it be attempted to assign the movement to the nullification tenets of South Carolina, as my friend near me seemed to understand, then I say you must go further back, and impute it to the State rights and strict construction doctrines of Madison and Jefferson.  You must refer these in their turn to the principles in which originated the revolution and separation of these then colonies from England.  You must not stop there, but go back still further, to the bold spirit of the ancient barons of England.  That spirit has come down to us, and in that spirit has all the action since been taken.  We will not permit aggression.  We will defend our rights; and if it be necessary, we will claim from this Government, as the barons of England claimed from John, the grant of another magna charta for our protection.

Sir, I can but consider it as a tribute of respect to the character for candor and sincerity which the South maintains, that every movement which occurs in the Southern States is closely scrutinized, and the assertion of a determination to maintain their constitutional rights is denounced as a movement for disunion; whilst violent denunciations against the Union are now made, and for years have been made, at the North by associations, by presses and conventions, yet are allowed to pass unnoticed as the idle wind—I suppose for the simple reason that nobody believed there was any danger in them.  It is, then, I say, a tribute paid to the sincerity of the South, that every movement of hers is watched with such jealousy; but what shall we think of the love for the Union of those in whom this brings no corresponding change of conduct, who continue the wanton aggravations which have produced and justify the action they deprecate?  Is it well, is it wise, is it safe, to disregard these manifestations of public displeasure, though it be the displeasure of a minority?  Is it proper, or prudent, or respectful, when a Representative, in accordance with the known will of his constituents, addresses you the language of solemn warning, in conformity to his duty to the Constitution, the Union, and to his own conscience, that his course should be arraigned as the declaration of ultra and dangerous opinions?  If these warnings were received in the spirit they are given, it would augur better for the country.  It would give hopes which are now denied us, if the press of the country, that great lever of public opinion, would enforce these warnings, and bear them to every cottage, instead of heaping abuse upon those whose ease would prompt them to silence—whose speech, therefore, is evidence of sincerity.  Lightly and loosely Representatives of Southern people have been denounced as disunionists by that portion of the Northern press which most disturbs the harmony and endangers the perpetuity of the Union.  Such, even, has been my own case, though the man does not breath at whose door the charge of disunion might not as well be laid as at mine.  The son of a revolutionary soldier, attachment to this Union was among the first lessons of my childhood; bred to the service of my country from boyhood, to mature age I wore its uniform.  Through the brightest portion of my life I was accustomed to see our flag, historic emblem of the Union, rise with the rising and fall with the setting sun.  I look upon it now with the affection of early love, and seek to maintain and preserve it by a strict adherence to the Constitution, from which it had its birth, and by the nurture of which its stars have come so much to outnumber its original stripes.  Shall that flag, which has gathered fresh glory in every war, and become more radiant still by the conquest of peace—shall that flag now be torn by domestic faction, and trodden in the dust by petty sectional rivalry?  Shall we of the South, who have shared equally with you all your toils, all your dangers, all your adversities, and who equally rejoice in your prosperity and your fame—shall we be denied those benefits guarantied by our compact, or gathered as the common fruits of a common country?  If so, self-respect requires that we should assert them; and, as best we may, maintain that which we could not surrender without losing your respect as well as our own.

If, sir, this spirit of sectional aggrandizement, or, if gentlemen prefer, this love they bear the African race, shall cause the disunion of these States, the last chapter of our history will be a sad commentary upon the justice and the wisdom of our people.  That this Union, replete with blessings to its own citizens, and diffusive of hope to the rest of mankind, should fall a victim to a selfish aggrandizement, and a pseudo philanthropy, prompting one portion of the Union to war upon the domestic rights and peace of another, would be a deep reflection on the good sense and patriotism of our day and generation.  But, sir, if this last chapter in our history shall ever be written, the reflective reader will ask, whence proceeded this hostility of the North against the South?  He will find it there recorded that the South, in opposition to her own immediate interests, engaged with the North in the unequal struggle of the Revolution.  He will find again that, when Northern seamen were impressed, their brethren of the South considered it cause for war, and entered warmly into the contest with the haughty Power then claiming to be mistress of the seas.  He will find that the South, afar off, unseen and unheard, toiling in the pursuits of agriculture, had filled the shipping, supplied the staple for manufactures, which enriched the North.  He will find that she was the great consumer of Northern fabrics—that she not only paid for these their fair value in the markets of the world, but that she also paid their Increased value, derived from the imposition of revenue duties.  And if, still further, he seeks for the cause of this hostility, it at last is to be found in the fact that the South held the African race in bondage, being the descendants of those who were mainly purchased from the people of the North.  And this was the great cause.  For this the North claimed that the South should be restricted from future growth—that around her should be drawn, as it were, a sanitary cordon to prevent the extension of a moral leprosy; and if for that it shall be written the South resisted, it would be but in keeping with every page she has added to the history of our country.

It depends on those in the majority to say whether this last chapter in our history shall be written or not.  It depends on them now to decide whether the strife between the different sections shall be arrested before it has become impossible, or whether it shall proceed to a final catastrophe.  I, sir—and I only speak for myself—am willing to meet any fair proposition—to settle upon anything which promises security for the future; any thing which assures me of permanent peace; and I am willing to make whatever sacrifice I may properly be called on to render for that purpose.  Nor, sir, is it a light responsibility.  If I strictly measured my conduct by the late message of the Governor, and the recent expressions of opinion in my State, I should have no power to accept any terms save the unqualified admission of the equal rights of the citizens of the South to go into any of the Territories of the United States with any and every species of property held among us.  I am willing, however, to take my share of the responsibility which the crisis of our country demands.  I am willing to rely on the known love of the people I represent for the whole country, and the abiding respect which I know they entertain for the Union of these States.  If, sir, I distrusted their attachment to our Government, and if I believed they had that restless spirit of disunion which has been ascribed to the South, I should know full well that I had no such foundation as this to rely upon—no such great reserve in the heart of the people to fall back upon in the hour of accountability.

Mr. President, is there such incompatibility of interest between the two sections of this country that they cannot profitably live together?  Does the agriculture of the South injure the manufactures of the North?  On the other hand are they not their life-blood?  And think you if one portion of the Union, however great it might be in commerce and manufactures, was separated from all the agricultural districts, that it would long maintain its supremacy?  If any one so believes, let him turn to the written history of commercial States; let him look upon the mouldering palaces of Venice; let him ask for the faded purple of Tyre, and visit the ruins of Carthage; there he will see written the fate of every country which rests its prosperity on commerce and manufactures alone.  United we have grown to our present dignity and power—united we may go on to a destiny which the human mind cannot measure.  Separated, I feel that it requires no prophetic eye to see that the portion of the country which is now scattering the seeds of disunion to which I have referred, will be that which will suffer most.  Grass will grow on the pavements now worn by the constant tread of the human throng which waits on commerce, and the shipping will abandon your ports for those which now furnish the staples of trade.  And we who produce the great staple upon which your commerce and manufactures rests, we will produce those staples still; shipping will fill our harbors; and why may we not found the Tyre of modern commerce within our own limits?  Why may we not bring the manufacturers to the side of agriculture, and commerce, too, the ready servant of both?

But, sir, I have no disposition to follow this subject.  I certainly can derive no pleasure from the contemplation of any thing which can impair the prosperity of any portion of this Union; and I only refer to it that those who suppose we are tied by interest or fear, should look the question in the face, and understand that it is mainly a feeling of attachment to the Union which has long bound, and now binds the South.  But, Mr. President, I ask Senators to consider how long affection can be proof against such trial, and injury, and provocation as the South is continually receiving.

The case in which this discrimination against the South is attempted, the circumstances under which it was introduced render it especially offensive.  It will not be difficult to imagine the feeling with which a Southern soldier during the Mexican war received the announcement that the House of Representatives had passed that odious measure, the Wilmot proviso; and that he, although then periling his life, abandoning all the comforts of home, and sacrificing his interests, was, by the Legislature of his country, marked as coming from a portion of the Union which was not entitled to the equal benefits of whatever might result from the service to which he was contributing whatever power he possessed.  Nor will it be difficult to conceive, of the many sons of the South whose blood has stained those battle-fields, whose ashes now mingle with Mexican earth, that some, when they last looked on the flag of their country, may have felt their dying moments embittered by the recollection that that flag cast not an equal shadow of protection over the land of their birth, the graves of their parents, and the homes of their children so soon to be orphans.  Sir, I ask Northern Senators to make the case their own—to carry to their own fireside the idea of such intrusion and offensive discrimination as is offered to us—realize these irritations, so galling to the humble, so intolerable to the haughty, and wake before it is too late, from the dream that the South will tamely submit.  Measure the consequences to us of your assumption, and ask yourselves whether, as a free, honorable, and brave people, you would submit to it?

It is essentially the characteristic of the chivalrous, that they never speculate upon the fears of any man, and I trust that no such speculations will be made upon the idea that may be entertained in any quarter that the South, from fear of her slaves, is necessarily opposed to a dissolution of this Union.  She has no such fear; her slaves would be to her now as they were in the revolution, an element of military strength.  I trust that no speculations will be made upon either the condition or the supposed weakness of the South.  They will bring sad disappointments to those who indulge them.  Rely upon her devotion to the Union, rely upon the feeling of fraternity she inherited and has never failed to manifest; rely upon the nationality and freedom from sedition which has in all ages characterized an agricultural people; give her justice, sheer justice, and the reliance will never fail you.

Then, Mr. President, I ask that some substantial proposition may be made by the majority in regard to this question.  It is for those who have the power to pass it to propose one.  It is for those who are threatening us with the loss of that which we are entitled to enjoy to state, if there be any compromise, what that compromise is.  We are unable to pass any measure, if we propose it; therefore I have none to suggest.  We are unable to bend you to any terms which we may offer; we are under the ban of your purpose; therefore from you, if from anywhere, the proposition must come.  I trust that we shall meet it and bear the responsibility as becomes us; that we shall not seek to escape from it; that we shall not seek to transfer to other places, or other times, or other persons, that responsibility which devolves upon us; and I hope the earnestness which the occasion justifies will not be mistaken for the ebulition of passion, nor the language of warning be construed as a threat.  We cannot without the most humiliating confession of the supremacy of faction evade our constitutional obligations, and our obligations under the treaty with Mexico, to organize governments in the Territories of California and New Mexico.  I trust that we will not seek to escape from the responsibility, and leave the country unprovided for unless by an irregular admission of new States; that we will act upon the good example of Washington in the case of Tennessee, and of Jefferson in the case of Louisiana; that we will not, if we abandon those high standards, do more than come down to modern examples—that we will not go further than to permit those who have the forms of government under the Constitution, to assume sovereignty over territory of the United States; that we may at least, I say, assert the right to know who they are, how many they are—where they voted, how they voted—and whose certificate is presented to us of the fact before it is conceded to them to determine the fundamental law of the country, and to prescribe the conditions on which other citizens of the United States may enter it.  To reach all this knowledge, we must go through the intermediate stage of Territorial Government.

How will you determine what is the seal, and who are the officers of a community unknown as an organized body to the Congress of the United States?  Can the right be admitted in that community to usurp the sovereignty over territory which belongs to the States of the Union?  All these questions must be answered, before I can consent to any such irregular proceeding as that which is now presented in the case of California.

       Mr. President, thanking the Senate for the patience they have shown towards me, I again express the hope that those who have the power to settle this distracting question—those who have the ability to restore peace, concord, and lasting harmony to the United States—will give us some substantial proposition, such as magnanimity can offer, and such as we can honorably accept.  I, being one of the minority in the Senate and the Union, have nothing to offer, except an assurance of cooperation in any thing which my principles will allow me to adopt, and which promises permanent substantial security.

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Source: Speech of Mr. Davis of Mississippi, on the Subject of Slavery in the Territories, available on the Internet Archive, here