try. Now, without stopping to inquire into the value of this apology, which is never adduced in behalf of other abuses, and which availed nothing against that kingly power imposed by the mother country, but overthrown by our fathers, it is sufficient for the present purpose to know that it is now proposed to make Slavery our own original act. Here is a fresh case of actual transgression, which we cannot cast upon the shoulders of any progenitors, nor upon any mother country, distant in time or place. The Congress of the United States, the people of the United States, at this day, in this vaunted period of light, will be responsible for it, so that it shall be said hereafter, so long as the dismal history of Slavery is read, that in the year of Christ 1854 a new and deliberate act was passed by which a vast territory was opened to its incursions.

Historic instances show how such an act will make us solitary among the nations. In autocratic Russia, the serfdom which constitutes the "peculiar institution" of that great empire is never allowed to travel with the imperial flag, according to American pretension, into provinces newly acquired by the common blood and treasure, but, by positive prohibition, in harmony with the general conscience, is carefully restricted within its ancient confines; and this prohibition — the Wilmot Proviso of Russia is rigorously enforced on every side, in all the provinces, as in Bessarabia on the south, and Poland on the west, so that, in fact, no Russian nobleman is able to move into these important territories with his slaves. Thus Russia speaks for Freedom, and disowns the slaveholding dogma of our country. India, the land of caste, and Turkey, the abode of polygamy, both fasten upon Slavery the stigma of repro

bation. The Barbary States of Africa, occupying the same parallels of latitude with the Slave States of our Union, and resembling them in the nature of their boundaries, their productions, their climate, and the "peculiar institution" which sought shelter in both, are changed into Abolitionists. Algiers, seated on the line of 36° 30', is dedicated to Freedom. Tunis and Morocco are doing likewise.

As the effort now making is extraordinary in character, so no assumption seems too extraordinary to be advanced in its support. The primal truth of the Equality of Men, proclaimed in our Declaration of Independence, is assailed, and this Great Charter of our country discredited. Sir, you and I will soon pass away, but that charter will continue to stand above impeachment or question. The Declaration of Independence was a Declaration of Rights, and the language employed, though general in character, must obviously be confined within the design and sphere of a Declaration of Rights, involving no such pitiful absurdity as was attributed to it yesterday by the Senator from Indiana [Mr. PETTIT]. Sir, who has pretended that all men are born equal in physical strength or in mental capacities, in beauty of form or health of body? Certainly not the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who could have been guilty of no such self-stultification. Diversity is the law of creation, unrestricted to race or color. But as God is no respecter of persons, and as all are equal in his sight, both Dives and Lazarus, master and slave, so are all equal in natural inborn rights; and pardon me, if I say it is a mere quibble to adduce, in argument against this vital axiom of Liberty, the physical or mental inequalities by which men are

characterized, or the unhappy degradation to which, in violation of a common brotherhood, they are doomed. To deny the Declaration of Independence is to rush on the bosses of the shield of the Almighty,-which, in all respects, the supporters of this measure seem to do.

To the delusive suggestion of the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. BADGER], that by overthrow of this Prohibition the number of slaves will not be increased, that there will be simply a beneficent diffusion of Slavery, and not its extension, I reply at once, that this argument, if of any value, if not mere words and nothing else, would equally justify and require the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery in the Free. States, and, indeed, everywhere throughout the world. All the dikes, which, in different countries, from time to time, with the march of civilization; have been painfully set up against the inroads of this evil, must be removed, and every land opened anew to its destructive flood. It is clear, beyond dispute, that by the overthrow of this Prohibition Slavery will be quickened, and slaves themselves will be multiplied, while new room and verge will be secured for the gloomy operations of Slave Law, under which free labor will droop, and a vast territory be smitten with sterility. Sir, a blade of grass would not grow where the horse of Attila had trod; nor can any true prosperity spring up in the footprints of a slave.

But it is argued that slaves will be carried into Nebraska only in small numbers, and therefore the question is of little practical moment. My distinguished colleague [Mr. EVERETT], in his eloquent speech, hearkened to this apology, and allowed himself, while up

holding the Prohibition, to disparage its importance in a manner from which I feel obliged, kindly, but most strenuously, to dissent. Sir, the very census attests its vital consequence. There is Missouri, at this moment, with Illinois on the east and Nebraska on the west, all covering nearly the same spaces of latitude, and resembling each other in soil, climate, and natural productions. Mark now the contrast! By the potent efficacy of the Ordinance of the Northwestern Territory Illinois is a Free State, while Missouri has eighty-seven thousand four hundred and twenty-two slaves; and the simple question which challenges answer is, whether Nebraska shall be preserved in the condition of Illinois or surrendered to that of Missouri? Surely this cannot be treated lightly. But I am unwilling to measure the exigency of the Prohibition by the number of persons, whether many or few, whom it may protect. Human rights, whether in a multitude or the solitary individual, are entitled to equal and unhesitating support. In this spirit, the flag of our country only recently became the impenetrable panoply of a homeless wanderer who claimed its protection in a distant sea;1 and in this spirit I am constrained to declare that there is no place accessible to human avarice or human lust or human force, whether the lowest valley or the loftiest mountain-top, whether the broad flower-spangled prairies or the snowy caps of the Rocky Mountains, where the Prohibition of Slavery, like the commandments of the Decalogue, should not go./

1 Martin Koszta, Hungarian by birth, who had made the preliminary declaration of citizenship, and had a protection from the United States Consul at Smyrna, was, July 2, 1853, surrendered by an Austrian manof-war in the harbor of Smyrna at the demand of a man-of-war of the United States.

I.

AND now, Sir, in the name of that Public Faith which is the very ligament of civil society, and which the great Roman orator tells us it is detestable to break even with an enemy, I arraign this scheme, and hold it up to the judgment of the country. There is an early Italian story of an experienced citizen, who, when told by his nephew, at the University of Bologna, that he had been studying the science of Right, said in reply, "You have spent your time to little purpose. It would have been better, had you learned the science of Might, for that is worth two of the other"; and the bystanders of that day all agreed that the veteran spoke the truth. I begin, Sir, by assuming that honorable Senators will not act in this spirit, that they will not wantonly and flagitiously discard any obligation, pledge, or covenant, because they chance to possess the power,- that they will not substitute might for right.

Sir, the proposition before you involves not merely the repeal of existing law, but the infraction of solemn obligations, originally proposed and assumed by the South, after protracted and embittered contest, as a covenant of peace, with regard to certain specified territory therein described, namely, "All that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana," according to which, in consideration. of the admission into the Union of Missouri as a Slave State, Slavery was forever prohibited in all the remaining part of this territory which lies north of 36° 30'. This arrangement between different sections of the Union, the Slave States of the first part and the Free States of the second part, though usually known as