Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/820

Rh the territory acquired since the passage of that ordinance. From their point of view the people of the southern states were defrauded of their inheritance in the vast possessions of the federal Union by the exclusion of slavery from any part of the common territory of the United States. They claimed the right to go whither they pleased, and to carry their human chattels with them, fiercely combating the opposition of the northern men that negroes were not property, in the usual acceptation of the term.

It had been agreed that congress should adjourn on Monday the 14th, and the policy of the opposition was to defeat the Oregon bill by preventing the ayes and noes from being taken. Almost the whole of Saturday was consumed in debate, in which Calhoun Butler of South Carolina, Houston, Yulee, Davis, and other eminent southerners, argued the question over the same familiar ground with no other object than the consumption of time. Benton only had replied at any length.

In the evening session, after a speech by Webster, the debate was continued till after midnight, when a motion was made to adjourn, which was defeated Butler then moved to go into executive session, when an altercation arose as to the object of the motion at that time, and the motion being ruled out of order,