4 dispute concerning Slavery, which is raging within the Territory of Kansas. Yet it must be remembered that nine of the new States which have been admitted, expressly established Slavery, or tolerated it, and nine of them forbade it. The excitement, therefore, is due to peculiar circumstances. I think there are three of them, namely: First. That whereas, in tl^e beginning, the ascendency of the slave States was absolute, it is now being reversed. Second. That whereas, heretofore, the National Government favored this change of balance from the slave States to the free States, it has now reversed this policy, and opposes the change. Third. That national intervention in the Territories in favor of slave labor and slave States, is opposed to the natural, social, and moral developments of the Republic. It seems almost unnecessary to demonstrate the first of these propositions. In the beginning,, there were twelve slave States, and only one that was free. Now, six of those twelve have become free ; and there are sixteen free States to fifteen slave States. If the three candidates now here, Kansas, Minnesota, and Oregon, shall be admitted as free States, then there will be nineteen free States to fifteen slave States. Originally, there were twenty-four Senators of slave States, and only two of a free State; now, there are thirty- two Senators of free States, and thirty of slave States. In the first Constitutional Congress, the slave States had fifty-seven Representatives, and the one free State had only eight; now, the free States have one hundred and forty-four Representatives, while the slave States havemnly ninety. These changes have happened in a period during which the slave States have almost uninterruptedly exercised paramount influence in the Government, and notwithstanding the Constitution itself has opposed well-known checks to the relative increase of representation of free States. I assume, therefore, the truth of my first proposition. I suggested, sir, a second circumstance, namely: That whereas, in the earlier age of the Republic, the National Government favored this change, yet it has since altogether reversed that policy, and it now opposes the change. I do not claim that heretofore the National Government always, or even habitually, intervened in the Territories in favor of the free States, but only that such intervention preponderated. While Slavery existed in all of the States but one, at the beginning. yet it was far less intense in the Northern than in‘some of the Southern States. All of the former contemplated an early emancipation. The fathers seem not to have anticipated an enlargement of the national territory. Consequently, they expected that all the new States to be thereafter admitted would be organized upon subdivisions of the then existing States, or upon divisions of the then existing national domain. That domain lay behind’the thirteen States, and stretched from the Lakes to the Gulf, and was bounded westward by the Mississippi. It was naturally divided by the Ohio river, and the Northwest Territory and the Southwest Territory were organized on that division. It was foreseen, even then, that the new States to be admitted would ultimately overbalance the thirteen original ones. They were, however, mainly to be yet planted and matured in the desert, with the agency of human labor. The fathers knew only of two kinds of labor, the same which now exist among ourselves— namely, the labor of African slaves and the labor of freemen. The former then predominated in this country, as it did throughout the continent. A confessed deficiency of slave labor could be supplied only by domestic increase, and by continuance of the then existing importation from Africa. The supply of free labor depended on domestic increase, and a voluntary immigration from Europe. Settlements, which had thus early taken on a free-labor character or a slavelabor character, were already maturing in those parts of old States which were to be ultimately detached and formed into new States. When new States of this class were organized, they were admitted promptly, either as free States or as slave States, without objection. Thus Vermont, a free State, was admitted in 1791; Kentucky, a slave State, in 1792; and Tennessee, also a slave State, in 1796. Five new States were contemplated to be erected in the Northwest Territory. Practically it was unoccupied, and therefore open to labor of either kind. The one kind or the other, in the absence of any anticipated emulation, would predominate, just as Congress should intervene to favor it. Congress intervened in favor of free labor. This, indeed, was an act of the Continental Congress, but it was confirmed by the first Constitutional Congress. The fathers simultaneously adopted three other measures of less direct intervention. First, they initiated in 1789, and completed in 1808, the absolute suppression of the African slave trade. Secondly, they organized systems of foreign commerce and navigation, which stimulated voluntary immigration from Europe. Thirdly, they established an easy, simple, and uniform process of naturalization. The change of the balance of power from the slave States to the free States, which we are now witnessing, is due chiefly to those four early measures of national intervention in favor of free labor. It would have taken place much sooner, if the borders of the Republic had, remained unchanged. The purchase of Louisiana and the acquisition of Florida, however, were transactions resulting from high political necessities, in disregard of the question between free labor and slave labor. In admitting the new State of Louisiana, which was organized on the slavelabor settlement of New Orleans, Congress practiced the same neutrality which it had before exercised in the States of Kentucky and Tennessee. No serious dispute arose until 1819, when Missouri, organized within the former province of Louisiana, upon a slave-labor settlement in St. Louis, applied for admission as a slave State, and Arkansas was manifestly preparing to appear soon in the same character. The balance of power between the slave States and the free States was already reduced to an equilibrium,
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