9 carry out a new principle recently adopted in New Mexico, yo^ can supplant a compromise in Nebraska, yet there is a maxim of public law which forbids you from supplanting ..that compromise, and establishing a new system there, until you first restore the parties in interest there to their statu quo before the compromise to be supplanted was established. First, then, remand Missouri and Arkansas back to the unsettled condition, in regard to slavery, which they held before the Compromise of 1820 was enacted, and then we will hear you talk of rescinding that Compromise. You cannot do this. You ought not to do it, if you could; and because you cannot and ought not to do it, you cannot, without ‘violating law, justice, equity, and honor, abrogate the guarantee of freedom in Nebraska. There is still iinother and not less serious difficulty. You call the Slavery laws of 1850 a compromise between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. For the purposes of this argument, let it be granted that they were 'such a compromise. It was nevertheless a compromise concerning slavery in the Territories acquired from. Mexico, and by the letter of the compromise it extended no further. Can you now, by an act which is not a compromise between the same parties, but a mere ordinary law, extend the force and obligation of the principles of that Compromise of 1850 into regions not'only excluded from it, but absolutely protected from your intervention there by a solemn Compromise of thirty years’ duration, and invested with a sanctity scarcely inferior to that which hallows the Constitution itself? < Can the Compromise of 1850, by a mere ordinary act of legislation, be extended beyond the plain, known, fixed intent and understanding of the parties at the time that contract was made, and yet be binding on the parties to it, not merely legally, but in honor and conscience? Can you abrogate a compromise by passing any law of less dignity than a compromise ? If so, of what value is any one or the whole of the Compromises? Thus you see that these bills violate both of the Compromises—not more that of 1820 than that of 1850. Will you maintain in argument that it was understood by the parties interested throughout the country, or by either of them, or by any representative of either, in either House of Congress, that the principle then established should extend beyond the limits of the territories acquired from Mexico, «in to the territories acquired nearly fifty years before, from France, and then reposing under the guarantee of the Compromise of 1820? I know not how Senators may vote, but I do know what they will say. I appeal to the honorable Senator from Michigan, [Mr. Cass,] than whom none performed a more distinguished part in establishing the Compromise of 1850, whether he so intended or understood. I appeal to the honorable and distinguished Senator, the senior representative from Tennessee, [Mr. Bell,] who performed a-distinguished part also. Did he so understand the Compromise of 1850? He is silent. I appeal to the gallant Senator from Illinois? [Mr. Shields.] He, too, is silent. I now thro^v my gauntlet at the feet of every Senator now here, who was in the Senate in 1850, and challenge him to say that he then knew, or thought, or dreamed, that, by enacting the Compromise of 1850, he was directly or indirectly abrogating, or in any degree impairing, the Missouri Compromise ? No one takes it up. I appeal to that very distinguished—nay, sir, that expression falls short of his eminence—that illustrious man, the Senator from Missouri, who led the opposition here to the Compromise of 1850. Did he understand that that Compromise in any way overreached or impaired the Compromise of 1820? Sir, that distinguished person, while opposing the combination of the several laws on the subject of California and the Territories, and Slavery, together, in one bill, so as to constitute a Compromise, nevertheless voted for each one of those bills, severally; and in that way, and that way only, they were passed. Had he known or understood that any one of 'them overreached and impaired the Missouri Compromise, we all know he would have perished before he would have given it his support. Sir, if it was not irreverent, I would dare to call up the author of both of the Compromises in question, from his honored, though yet scarcely grass-covered grave, and challenge any advocate of this measure to confront that imperious shade, and say that, in making the Compromise of 1850, he intended or dreamed that he was subverting, or preparing the way for a subversion of, his greater work of 1820. Sir, if that eagle spirit is yet lingering here over the scene of his mortal labors, and watching over the welfare of the Republic he loved so well, his heart is now moved with more than human indignation against those who are perverting his last great’public act from its legitimate uses, not merely to subvert the column, but to wrench from its very bed the base of the column that perpetuates his fame. And that other proud and dominating Senator, who, sacrificing himself, gave the aid without which the Compromise of 1850 could not have been established—the Statesman of New England, and the Orator of America— who dare assert here, where his memory is yet fresh, though his unfettered spirit may be wandering in spheres far hence, that he intended to abrogate, or dreamed that, by virtue of or in consequence of that transaction, the Missouri Compromise would or could ever be abrogated ? The portion of the Missouri Compromise you propose to abrogate is the Ordinance of 1787 extended to Nebraska. Hear what Daniel Webster said of that Ordinance
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