Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/231

Rh Not exclude slavery from California and New Mexico, because it can never exist there! Why, it was there once, and Mexico abolished it by positive law. Abolished, did I say! We are not so sure of that; I mean, not sure that the Senate of the United States is sure of it. Not a month before Mr. Webster made this very speech, on the 13th and 14th of last February, Mr. Davis, the Senator from Mississippi, maintained that slavery is not abolished in California and New Mexico. He denies that the acts abolishing slavery in Mexico were made by competent powers; denies that they have the force of law. But even if they have, he tells us, "Suppose it be conceded that by law it was abolished—could that law be perpetual? Could it extend to the territory after it became the property of the United States? Did we admit territory from Mexico, subject to the Constitution and laws of Mexico? Did we pay fifteen million dollars for jurisdiction over California and New Mexico, that it might be held subordinate to the laws of Mexico?" The Commissioners of Mexico, he tells us, did not think that " we were to be bound by the edicts and statutes of Mexico." They pressed this point in the negotiation, "the continuation of their law for the exclusion of slavery;" and Mr. Trist told them he could not make a treaty on that condition; if they would "offer him the land covered a foot thick with pure gold, upon the single condition that slavery should be excluded therefrom, I could not entertain the offer for a moment." Does not Mr. Webster know this? He knows it too well.

But Mr. Davis goes further. He does not think slavery is excluded by legislation stronger than a joint resolution. This is his language: "I believe it is essential, on account of the climate, productions, soil, and the peculiar character of cultivation, that we shall, during its first settlement, have that slavery [African slavery] in a part, at least, of California and New Mexico." Now on questions of "A law of nature and physical geography," the Senator from Mississippi is as good authority as the Senator from Massachusetts, and a good deal nearer to the facts of the case. In the House of Representatives, Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, amongst others, wants New Mexico for slave soil. Pass the Wilmot Proviso over this territory, and the question is settled, disposed of for ever. Omit to