Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/600

 does not now exist by law in those countries. I understand one of these propositions to declare that, by law, slavery is now abolished in New Mexico and California. That was the very proposition advanced by the non-slaveholding states at the last session; combated and disproved, as I thought, by gentlemen from the slaveholding states, and which the compromise bill was framed to test. So far, I regarded the question of law as disposed of, and it was very clearly and satisfactorily shown to be against the spirit of the resolution of the senator from Kentucky. If the contrary is true, I presume the senator from Kentucky would declare that if a law is now valid in the territories abolishing slavery, that it could not be introduced there, even if a law was passed creating the institution, or repealing the statutes already existing; a doctrine never assented to, as far as I know, until now, by any senator representing one of the slaveholding states. Sir, I hold the very opposite, and with such confidence, that at the last session I was willing and did vote for a bill to test this question in the supreme court. Yet this resolution assumes the other doctrine to be true, and our assent is challenged to it as a proposition of law.'

"I do not mean to detain the senate by any discussion; but I deemed it to be my duty to enter a decided protest, on the part of Virginia, against such doctrines. They concede the whole question at once, that our people shall not go into the new territories and take their property with them; a doctrine to which I never will assent, and for which, sir, no law can be found. There are other portions of the resolution, for which, if they could be separated, I should be very willing to vote. That respecting fugitive slaves, and that respecting the organization of governments in these territories, I should be willing to vote for; and I am happy to declare the gratification I experience at finding the senator from Kentucky differing so much, on this subject, from the executive message recently laid before the senate. I beg not to be understood as having spoken in any spirit of unkindness towards the senator from Kentucky, for whom I entertain the warmest and most profound respect; but I cannot but express also my regret that he has felt it to be his duty, standing as he does before this people, and representing the people he does, to introduce into this body resolutions of this kind."

Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Miss., said: "Sir, we are called upon to receive this as a measure of compromise! As a measure in which we of the minority are to receive nothing. A measure of compromise! I look upon it as but a modest mode of taking that, the claim to which has been more boldly asserted by others; and, that I may be understood upon this question, and that my position may go forth to the country in the same columns that convey the sentiments of the senator from Kentucky, I here assert, that never will I take less than the Missouri compromise line extended to the Pacific ocean, with the specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that, before such territories are admitted into the Union as states, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at the option of the owners. I can never consent to give additional power to a majority to commit further aggressions upon the minority in this Union; and will never consent to any