Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/624

 some portion of human freedom in the District of Columbia, and in East California and New Mexico, for the mixed consideration of liberty, gold, and power on the Pacific coast. But, sir, if I could overcome my repugnance to compromises in general, I should object to this one, on the ground of the inequality and incongruity of the interests to be compromised. Why, sir, according to the views I have submitted, California ought to come in, and and must come.in, whether slavery stand or fall in the District of Columbia; whether slavery stand or fall in New Mexico and Eastern California; and even whether slavery stand or fall in the slave states. California ought to come in, being a free state; and, under the circumstances of her conquest, her compact, her abandonment, her justifiable and necessary establishment of a constitution, and the inevitable dismemberment of the empire consequent upon her rejection, I should have voted for her admission even if she had come as a slave state. California ought to come in, and must come in at all events. It is, then, an independent, a paramount question. What, then, are these questions arising out of slavery, thus interposed, but collateral questions? They are unnecessary and incongruous, and therefore false issues, not introduced designedly, indeed, to defeat that great policy, yet unavoidably tending to that end.

Mr. Foote. Will the honorable senator allow me to ask him if the senate is to understand him as saying that he would vote for the admission of California if she came here seeking admission as a slave state.

Mr. Seward. I reply, as I said before, that even if California had come as a slave state, yet coming under the extraordinary circumstances I have described and in view of the consequences of a dismemberment of the empire, consequent upon her rejection, I should have voted for her admission, even though she had come as a slave state. But I should not have voted for her admission otherwise.

I remark, in the next place, that consent on my part would be disingenuous and fraudulent, because the compromise would be unavailing. It is now avowed by the honorable senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) that nothing will satisfy the slave states but a compromise that will convince them that they can remain in the Union consistently with their honor and their safety. And what are the concessions which will have that effect? Here they are, in the words of that senator:

'The north must do justice by conceding to the south an equal right in the acquired territory, and do her duty by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled — cease the agitation of the slave question— and provide for the insertion of a provision in the constitution by an amendment, which will restore to the south in substance the power she possessed of protecting herself, before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of this government.'

These terms amount to this: that the free states having already, or although they may hereafter have, majorities of population, and majorities in both houses of congress, shall concede to the slave states, being in a minority in both, the unequal advantage of an equality. That is, that we shall alter the constitution