14 even that ? No; you do not and you cannot. In the very act of abnegating you legislate, and enact that the States to be hereafter organized •shall come in whether slave or free, as their inhabitants shall choose. Is not this legislating not only on the subject of slavery in the Territories, but on the subject of slavery even in the future States ? In the very act of abnegating, you call into being a Legislature which shall assume the authority which you are renouncing. You not only exercise authority in that act, but you exercise authority over slavery, when you confer on the Territorial Legislature the power to act upon that subject. More than this: In the very act of calling that Territorial Legislature into existence, you exercise authority in prescribing who may elect and who may be elected. You even reserve to your-, selves a veto upon every act that they can pass as a legislative body, not only on all other subjects, but even on the subject of slavery itself. Nor can you relinquish that veto; for it is absurd to say that you can create an agent, and depute to him the legislative authority of the United States, which agent you cannot at your own pleasure remove, and whose acts you cannot at your own pleasure disavow and 'repudiate. The Territorial Legislature is your agent. Its acts are your own. Such is the principle that is to supplant the ancient policy—a principle full of absurdities and contradictions. Again : You claim that this policy of abnegation is based upon a democratic principle. A democratic principle is a principle opposed to some other that is despotic or aristocratic. You claim and exercise the power to institute and maintain government in the Territories. Is this comprehensive power aristocratic or des- । potic? If it be not, how is the partial power aristocratic or despotic? You retain authority to appoint Governors, without whose consent no laws can be made on any subject, and Judges, without whose consideration no laws can be executed, and you retain the power to change them at pleasure. Are these powers, also, aristocratic or despotic ? If they are not, then the exercise of legislative power by yourselves is not. If they are, then why not renounce them also? No, no. This is a far-fetched excuse. Democracy is a simple, uniform, I logical system, not a system of arbitrary, contradictory, and conflicting principles! But you must nevertheless renounce National authority over slavery in the Territories, while you retain all other powers. ‘What is this but a mere evasion of solemn responsibilities ? The general authority of Congress over the Territories is one wisely confided to the National Legislature, to save young and growing communities from the dangers which beset them in their state of pupilage, and to prevent them from adopting any policy that shall be at war with their own lasting interests, or with the general welfare of the whole Republic. The authority over the subject of slavery is that which ought to be renounced last of all, in favor of Territorial Legislatures, because, from the very circumstances'of tne Territories, those i Legislatures are likely to yield too readily to I ephemeral influences, and interested offers of I favor and patronage. They see neither the ' great Future of the Territories, nor the comprehensive and. ultimate interests of the whole Republic, as clearly as you see them, or ought to see them. | I have heard sectional excuses given for supporting this measure. I have heard Senators from the slaveholding States say that they ought not to be expected to stand by the non- ; slaveholding States, when they refuse to stand by themselves; that they ought not to be expected to refuse the boon offered to the slaveholding States, since it is offered by the nonslaveholding States themselves. I not only confess the plausibility of these excuses, but I feel the justice of the reproach which they imply against the non-slaveholding States, as far as the assumption is true. Nevertheless, Senators Irom the slaveholding States must consider well whether that assumption is, in any considerable degree, founded in fact. If one or more Senators from the North decline to stand by the non-slaveholding States, or offer a boon in their name, others from that region do, nevertheless, stand firmly on their rights, and protest against the giving or the acceptance of the boon. It has been said that the North does not speak out, so as to enable youto decide between the conflicting voices of her Representatives. Are you quite sure you have given her timely notice? Have you not, on the contrary, hurried this measure forward, to anticipate her awaking from the slumber of conscious security into which she has been lulled by your last Compromise ? Have you not heard already the quick, sharp protest of the*Legislature of the smallest of the nonslaveholding States, Rhode Island? Have you not already heard the deep-toned and earnest protest of the greatest of those States, New York? Have you not already heard remonstrances from the Metropolis, and from the rural districts ? Do you doubt that this is only the rising of the agitation that you profess to believe is at rest forever? Do you forget that, in all su.ch transactidhs as these, the people have a reserved right to review the acts of their Representatives, and a right to demand a reconsideration; that there is in our legislative practice a form of re-enactment, as well as an act of repeal; and that there is in our political s_ystem provision not only for abrogation, but for restoration also ? And tvhen the process of repeal has begun, how many and what laws will be open to repeal, equally with the Missouri Compromise? There will be this act, the fugitive slave laws, the articles of Texas annexation, the Territorial laws of New Mexico and Utah, the slavery laws in the District of Columbia.
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