should be non-action as to slavery both north and south of the line-far better that there should be non-action both sides of the line, than that there should be action by the interdiction on the one side, without action for the admission upon the other side of the line. Is it not so? What is there gained by the South, if the Missouri line is extended to the Pacific, with the interdiction of slavery north of it? Why, the very argument which has been most often and most seriously urged by the South has been this: we do not want Congress to legislate upon the subject of slavery at all; you ought not to touch it. You have no power over it. I do not concur, as is well known from what I have said upon that question, in this view of the subject; but that is the Southern argument. We do not want you, say they, to legislate upon the subject of slavery. But if you adopt the Missouri line, and thus interdict slavery north of that line, you do legislate upon the subject of slavery, and you legislate for its restriction without a corresponding equivalent of legislation south of that line for its admission; for I insist that if there be legislation interdicting slavery north of the line, then the principles of equality would require that there should be legislation admitting slavery south of the line.

I have said that I never could vote for it myself, and I repeat that I never can, and never will vote, and no earthly power will ever make me vote, to spread slavery over territory where it does not exist. Still, if there be a majority who are for interdicting slavery north of the line, there ought to be a majority, if justice is done to the South, to admit slavery south of the line. And if there be a majority to accomplish both of these purposes, although I cannot concur in their action, yet I shall be one of the last to create any disturbance; I shall be one of the first to acquiesce in that legislation, although it is contrary to my own judgment and to my own conscience.

I hope, then, to keep the whole of these matters untouched by any legislation of Congress upon the subject of slavery, leaving it open and undecided. Non-action by Congress is best for the South, and best for all the views which the South have disclosed to us from time to time as corresponding to their wishes. I know it has been said with regard to the territories, and especially has it been said with regard to California, that non-legislation upon the part of Congress * implies the same thing as the exclusion of slavery. That we cannot help. That Congress is not responsible for. If nature has pronounced the doom of slavery in these territories if she has declared, by her immutable laws, that slavery cannot and shall not be introduced there-who can you reproach but nature and nature's God? Congress you cannot. Congress abstains. Congress is passive. Congress is nonacting, south and north of the line; or rather if Congress agrees to the plan which I propose, extending no line, it leaves the entire theatre of the whole cession of these territories untouched by legislative enactments, either to exclude or admit slavery. Well, I ask again, if you will listen to the voice of calm and dispassionate reason-I ask of any man of the South, to rise and tell me if it is not better for that section of the Union, that Congress should remain passive upon both sides of the ideal line, rather than that we should interdict slavery upon the one side of that line and be passive upon the other side of that line?

Extract from Daniel Webster's speech in the United States Senate, March 7th, 1850.

Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded from those territories by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas-I mean the law of nature, of physical geography-the law of the formation of the earth. That law settles forever, with a strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in

California or New Mexico. Understand me, sir, I mean slavery as we regard it; slaves in gross, of the colored race, transferable by sale and delivery, like other property.

I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use an expression current at this day, that both California and New Mexico are destined to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, especially in regard to New Mexico, will be very little for a great length of time-free by the arrangement of things by the Power above us. I have therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed for freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live there, by as irrepealable, and a more irrepealable law, than the law that attaches to the right of holding slaves in Texas; and I will say further, that if a resolution, or a law, were now before us, to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. The use of such a prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have upon the territory; and I would not take pains to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. And I would put in no Wilmot proviso, for the purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, to wound the pride, even whether a just pride, a rational pride, or an irrational pride-to wound the pride of the gentlemen who belong to the Southern States. I have no such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity. They would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard a proper equality of privilege; and whether they expect to realize any benefit from it or not, they would think it a theoretic wrong—that something more or less derogatory to their character and their rights had taken place. I propose to inflict no such wound upon anybody, unless something essentially important to the country, and efficient to the preservation of liberty

and freedom, is to be effected. Therefore I repeat, sir and I repeat it because I wish it to be understood that I do not propose to address the Senate often on this subject. I desire to pour out all my heart in as plain a manner as possible; and I say again, that if a proposition were now here for a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it.

Now, Mr. President, I have established, so far as I proposed to go into any line of observation to establish, the proposition with which I set out, and upon which I propose to stand or fall, and that is, that the whole territory of the States in the United States, or in the newly-acquired territory of the United States, has a fixed and settled character, now fixed and settled by law, which can not be repealed in the case of Texas without a violation of public faith, and can not be repealed by any human power in regard to California or New Mexico; that, under one or other of these laws, every foot of territory in the States, or in the Territories, has now received a fixed and decided character.

Sir, if we were now making a government for New Mexico, and anybody should propose a Wilmot proviso, I should treat it exactly as Mr. Polk treated that provision for excluding slavery from Oregon. Mr. Polk was known to be in opinion decidedly averse to the Wilmot proviso; but he felt the necessity of establishing a government for the Territory of Oregon, and, though the proviso was there, he knew it would be entirely nugatory; and, since it must be entirely nugatory, since it took away no right, no describable, no estimable, no weighable, or tangible right of the South, he said he would sign the bill for the sake of enacting a law to form a government in that Territory, and let that entirely useless, and, in that connection, entirely senseless, proviso remain. For myself, I will say that we hear much of the annexation of Canada; and if there be any man, any of the

northern democracy, or any one of the free-soil party, who supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot proviso in a territorial government for New Mexico, that man will of course be of opinion that it is necessary to protect the everlasting snows of Canada from the foot of slavery, by the same overpowering wing of an act of Congress.

Then, sir, there are those abolition societies, of which I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions. I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I know thousands of them are honest and good men; perfectly well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do something for the cause of liberty; and in their sphere of action, they do not see what else they can do, than to contribute to an abolition press, or an abolition society, or to pay an abolition lecturer. I do not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies, but I am not blind to the consequences. I cannot but see what mischiefs their interference with the South has produced. And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who doubts of that, recur to the debates in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition, made by Mr. Randolph, for the gradual abolition of slavery was discussed in that body. Every one spoke of slavery as he thought; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I believe, were all published. They were read by every colored man who could read, and if there were any who could not read, those debates were read to them by others. At that time Virginia was not unwilling nor afraid to discuss this question, and to let that part of her population know as much of it as they could learn. That was in 1832. As has been said by the honorable member from