10 itself, in 1830, in this very place, in reply to one who had undervalued it and its author: “ I spoke, sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, which prohibits slavery, in all future time, northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and forethought, and one which has been attended'with highly beneficial and permanent consequences.” And now hear what he said here, when advocating the Compromise of 1850: “ I now say, sir, as the proposition upon which I stand this day, and upon the truth and firmness of wnich I intend to act until it is overthrown, that there is not at this moment in the United States, or any Territory of the United States, one sing e foot of land, the character of which, in regard to its bqing free territory or slave territory, is not fixed by some law, and some irrepealable law beyond the power of the action of this Government.” What irrepealable law, or what law of any kind, fixed the character of Nebraska as free or slave territory, except the Missouri Compromise act ? And now . hear what Daniel Webster said when vindicating the Compromise of 1850, at Buffalo, in 1851 : “ My opinion remains unchanged, that it was not within the original scope or design of the Constitution to admit new States out of foreign territory; and for one, whatever may7 be said at the Syracuse Convention or any other assemblage of insane persons, I never would consent, and never have consented, that there should be one foot of slave territory beyond what the old thirteen States had at the time of the formation of the Union ! Never! Never! “ The man cannot show his face to me and say he can prove that I ever departed from that doctrine. He would sneak away, and slink away, or hire a mer-' cenary press to cry out. What an apostate from Liberty Daniel Webster has become! But he knows himself to bo a hypocrite and a falsifier.” That Compromise was forced upon the slaveholding States and upon the non-slaveholding States as a mutual exchange of equivalents. The equivalents were accurately defined, and carefully scrutinized and weighed by the respective parties, through a period of eight months. The equivalents offered to the non- slaveholding States were : 1st, the admission of California; 2d, the abolition of the public slave trade in the District of Columbia. These, and these only, were the boons offered to them, hnd the only sacrifices which the slaveholding States were required to make. The waiver of the Wilmot Proviso in the incorporation of New Mexico and Utah, and a new fugitive ■slave law, were the only boons proposed to the slaveholding States, and the only sacrifices exaeted-'Of the non-slaveholding States. No other questions between them were agitated, except those which were involved in the gain or loss of more or less of free territory or of slave territory in the determination of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico, by a line that was at last arbitrarily made, expressly saving, even in those Territories, to the respective parties, their respective shares of- free soil and slave soil, according to the articles of annexation of the Republic of Texas. Again: There were alleged to be five open, bleeding wounds in the Federal system, and no more, which needed surgery, and to which the Compromise of 1850 was to be a cataplasm. We all know what they tv ere : California without a Constitution; New Mexico in the grasp of military power ; Utah neglected ; the District of Columbia dishonored; and the rendition of fugitives denied. Nebraska was not even thought of in this catalogue of national ills. And now, sir, did the Nashville Cbnvention of secessionists understand that, besides the enumerated boons offered to the slaveholding States, they were to have also the obliteration of the Missouri Compromise line of 1820? If they did, why did they reject and scorn and scout at the Compromise of 1850? Did the Legislatures and public assemblies of the nonslaveholding States, whomade your table groan with their remonstrances, understand that Nebraska was an additional wound to be healed by the Compromise of 1850? If they did, why did they omit to remonstrate against the healing of that, too, as well as of the other five, by the cataplasm, the application of which they resisted so long? Again: Had it been then known that the Missouri Compromise was to be abolished, directly or indirectly, by the Compromise of 1850, what Representative from a non-slaveholding State would, at that day, have voted fpr it ? Not one. What Senator from a slaveholding State would not have voted for it ? ‘ Not one. So entirely was it then unthought of that the new Compromise was to repeal the Missouri Compromise line of 36 deg. 30 min., in the region acquired from France, that one half of that long debate was spent on propositions made by Representatives from slave- holding States, to extend the line further on through the new territory we had acquired so recently from Mexico, until it should disappear in the waves of the Pacific.Ocean, so as to secure actual toleration of slavery in all of this new'territory that should be south of that line; and these propositions were resisted strenuously and successfully to the last by the Representatives of the non-slaveholding States, in order, if it were possible, to save the whole of those regions for the theatre of free labor. I admit that these are only negative proofs, although they are pregnant with conviction. But here is one which is not only affirmative, but positive, and not more positive than conclusive: In the fifth section of the Texas Boundary bill, one of the acts constituting the Compromise of 1850, are these words: “Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to -impair or qualify anything contained in the third article of the second section of the joint resolution for annexing Texas to rhe United States, approved March 1, 1845, either as regards the number of States that may hereaiter be formed out of the 'State of Texas, or otherwise.” What was that third article of the second
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