5 and in case of constitutional resistance, then to form a new slaveholding confederacy around the Gulf of Mexico. By this time, the capital States seemed to have become fixed in a determination that the Federal Government, and even the labor States, should recognize their slaves, though outside of the slave States, and within the territories of the United States, as property of which the master could not be in any way or by any authority divested; and the labor States, having become now more essentially Democratic than ever before, by the great development of free labor, more firmly than ever insisted on the constitutional doctrine that slaves voluntarily carried by their masters into the.common territories or into labor States, are persons—men. Under the auspicious influence of a Whig success, California and New Mexico appeared before Congress as labor States. The capital States refused to consent to their admission into the Union; and again threats of disunion carried terror and consternation throughout the land. Another compromise was made. Specific enactments admitted California as a labor State, and remanded New Mexico and Utah to remain Territories, with the right to choose freedom or slavery when ripened into States, while they gave new remedies for the recaption of fugitives from service, and abolished the open slave market in the District of Columbia. These new enactments, collated with the existing statutes, namely, the ordinance of 1787, the Missouri prohibitory law of 1820, and the articles of Texas annexation, disposed by law of the subject of slavery in all the Territories of the United States. And so the compromise of 1850 was pronounced a full, final, absolute, and comprehensive settlement of all existing and all possible disputes concerning slavery under the Federal authority. The two great parties, fearful for the Union, struck hands in making and in presenting this as an adjustment, never afterward to be opened, disturbed, or even questioned, and the people accepted it by majorities unknown before. The new President, chosen over an illustrious rival, unequivocally on the ground of greater ability, even if not more reliable purpose to maintain the new treaty inviolate, made haste to justify this expectation when Congress assembled. He said: “ When the grave shall have closed over all who are now endeavoring to meet the obligations of duty, the year 1850 will be recurred to as a period filled with anxiety and apprehension. A successful war has just terminated; peace brought with it a great augmentation of territory. Disturbing questions arose bearing upon the domestic institutions of a portion of the Confederacy, and involving the constitutional rights of the States. But, notwithstanding differences of opinion and sentiment, in relation to details and specific provisions, the acquiescence of distinguished citizens, whose devotion to the Union can never be doubted, has given renewed vigor to our institutions, and restored a sense of security and repose to the public mind throughout the Confederacy. That this repose is to suffer no shock during my official term, if I have the power to avert it, those who placed me here may be assured.” Hardly, however, had these inspiring sounds died away, throughout a reassured and delighted land, before the national repose was shocked again; shocked, indeed,- as it had never before been, and smitten this time by a blow from the very hand that had just released the chords of the national harp from their utterance of that exalted symphony of peace. Kansas and Nebraska, the long-devoted reservation of labor and freedom, saved in the agony of national fear in 1820, and saved again in the panic of 1850, were now to be opened by Congress, that the never-ending course of seed time and harvest might begin. The slave capitalists of Missouri, from their own well-assured homes on the eastern banks of their noble river, looked down upon and coveted the fertile prairies of Kansas ; while a sudden terror ran through all the capital States, when they saw a seeming certainty that at last a new labor State would be built on their western border, inevitably fraught, as they said, with a near or remote abolition of slavery. What could be done ? Congress could hardly be expected to intervene directly for their safety so soon after the compromise of 1850. The labor hive of the free States was distant, the way new, unknown, and not without perils. Missouri was near and watchful, and held the keys of the gates of Kansas. She might seize the new and smiling Territory by surprise, if only Congress would remove the barrier established in 1820. The conjuncture was favorable. Clay and Webster, the distinguished citizens whose unquestionable devotion to the Union was manifested by their acquiescence in the compromise of 1850, had gone down already into their honored graves. The labor States had dismissed many of their representatives here for too great fidelity to freedom, and too
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