Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/402



374 ELI THAYER

evil is deeper than the ink and parchment of their Constitu- tion. It is in the hearts of the people, and will not be eradi- cated by any harsh treatment that gentlemen on this floor may recommend. I doubt whether you will effect the salvation of the people of Oregon by heaping curses on their heads, or by excluding them for unworthiness. You mav send them away from the door of the Capitol, but they will go thinking less of you and less subject thereafter to your influence. They may come again with a hypocritical constitution, trusting to effect by statute law what you would not allow in organic law. They may not come at all, or they may come with a constitution tolerating slavery. Discouraged and repulsed by Northern votes finding no sympathy where they had most right to expect it, they might not be able longer to resist the Slave- State party in the Territory, acting under the Dred Scott de- cision. Is it not right, therefore, for the lovers of freedom to advocate the immediate transition of Oregon from the con- dition of a territory in which slavery is lawful, to the condi- tion of a state in which it is forbidden ? Which do we choose, a slave territory or a FREE STATE?

But, sir, there is another argument which may influence some members who doubt the security of this Union of States. By this act which I now advocate, we shall bind firmly to the old states, by indissoluble bonds, the remotest portions of our possessions. This will make secure all intermediate parts of the national domain.

This, then, may be grateful assurance to such as want assur- ance about the permanency of the Union. For myself, I have not much respect for any such assurance, but I do have an utter contempt for any doubts on the subject. This Union, Mr. Speaker, is not a thing to be argued for and advocated; it is a thing settled, fixed and determined. Far transcending in importance the temporary convenience of any one state or of all the states, it is in our hands, a trust, not for our posterity only, but for the world. We are bound to deliver it unim- paired to succeeding generations, and we WILL so deliver it. THE UNION IS AND WILL BE.