MR. WEBSTER'S 7TH OF MARCH SPEECH.

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gard it-the slavery of the colored race as it exists in the Southern States. I shall not discuss the point, but leave it to the learned gentlemen who have undertaken to discuss it; but I suppose there is no slavery of that description in California now. I understand that peonism, of penal servitude, exists there, or, rather, a sort of voluntary sale of a man and his offspring for debt, an arrangement of a peculiar nature known to the law of Mexico. But what I mean to say is, that it is as impossible that African slavery, as we see it among us, should find its way, or be introduced into California and New Mexico, as any other natural impossibility. California and New Mexico are Asiatic in their formation and scenery. They are composed of vast ridges of mountains of great height, with broken ridges and deep valleys. The sides of these mountains are entirely barren, their tops capped by perennial snow. There may be in California, now made free by its Constitution, and no doubt there are, some tracts of valuable land. But it is not so in New Mexico. Pray, what is the evidence which every gentleman must have obtained on this subject from information sought. by himself or communicated by others? I have inquired and read all I could find, in order to acquire information on this important subject. What is there in New Mexico that could by any possibility induce any body to go there with slaves? There are some narrow strips of tillable land on the borders of the rivers, but the rivers. themselves dry up before midsummer is gone. All that the people can do in that region is to raise some little articles, some little wheat for their tortillas, and that by irrigation. And who expects to see a hundred black

men cultivating tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or any thing else, on lands in New Mexico made fertile only by irrigation?

the

"I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use the current expression of the day, that both California and New Mexico are destined to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, in regard to New Mexico, will be but partially for a great length of time-free by arrangement of things ordained by the Power above us. I have therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed for freedom to as many persons as shall ever live in it by a less repealable law than that which attaches to the right of holding slaves in Texas; and I will farther say, that, if a resolution or a bill were now before us to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. Such a prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have upon the territory; and I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of Nature nor to re-enact the will of God. I would put in no Wilmot Proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, exercised for no purpose but to wound the pride-whether a just and a rational pride, or an irrational pride-of the citizens of the Southern States. I have no such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity; they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard as a proper equality of privilege. Whether they expect to realize any benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theoretic wrong, that something more or less derog

MR. WEBSTER ON THE WILMOT PROVISO. 135

atory to their character and their rights had taken place. I propose to inflict no such wound upon any body, unless something essentially important to the country, and efficient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be effected. I repeat, therefore, sir, and as I do not propose to address the Senate often on this subject, I repeat it because I wish it to be distinctly understood, that, for the reasons stated, if a proposition were now here to establish a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it.

"Sir, if we were now making a government for New Mexico, and any body should propose a Wilmot Proviso, I should treat it exactly as Mr. Polk treated that provision for excluding slavery from Oregon. Mr. Polk was known to be in opinion decidedly averse to the Wilmot Proviso, but he felt the necessity of establishing a government for the Territory of Oregon. The proviso was in the bill, but he knew it would be entirely nugatory; and since it must be entirely nugatory, since it took away no right, no describable, no tangible, no appreciable right of the South, he said he would sign the bill for the sake of enacting a law to form a government in that territory, and let that entirely useless and, in that connection, entirely senseless proviso remain. Sir, we hear occasionally of the annexation of Canada; and if there be any man, any of the Northern Democracy, or any one of the Frecsoil party, who supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot Proviso in a territorial government for New Mexico, that man would of course be of opinion that it is necessary to protect the everlasting snows of Canada from the foot of

slavery by the same overspreading wing of an act of Congress. Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is a foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to it from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again, and I will perform those pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily that wounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own understanding.

"Now, Mr. President, I have established, so far as I proposed to do so, the proposition with which I set out, and upon which I intend to stand or fall, and that is, that the whole territory within the former United States, or in the newly acquired Mexican provinces, has a fixed and settled character-now fixed and settled by law which can not be repealed, in the case of Texas, without a violation of public faith, and by no human power in regard to California or New Mexico; that therefore under one or other of these laws every foot of land in the states or in the territories has already received a fixed and decided character."

After referring to the Convention then expected to be held at Nashville, and expressing a hope that if "worthy gentlemen" should meet there in convention, "their object will be to adopt conciliatory measures;" after advising "the South to forbearance and moderation," and advis ing the North to forbearance and moderation "also," he brings this last of his great parliamentary efforts to a close in the following grand and impressive manner:

"Sir, I wish now to make two remarks, and hasten to a conclusion. I wish to say, in regard to Texas, that if

MR. WEBSTER ON THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 137

it should be hereafter at any time the pleasure of the gov ernment of Texas to cede to the United States a portion, larger or smaller, of her territory which lies adjacent to New Mexico and north of 36° 30′ of north latitude, to be formed into free states, for a fair equivalent in money or in the payment of her debt, I think it an object well worthy the consideration of Congress, and I shall be happy to concur in it myself, if I should have a connection with the government at that time.

"I have one other remark to make. In my observations upon slavery as it has existed in this country and as it now exists, I have expressed no opinion of the mode of its extinguishment or melioration. I will say, however, though I have nothing to propose, because I do not deem myself so competent as other gentlemen to take any lead on this subject, that if any gentleman from the South shall propose a scheme to be carried on by this government upon a large scale for the transportation of free colored people to any colony or any place in the world, I should be quite disposed to incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish that object. Nay, sir, following an example set more than twenty years ago by a great man,* then a senator from New York, I would return to Virginia, and through her to the whole South, the money received from the lands and territories ceded by her to this government for any such purpose as to remove, in whole or in part, or in any way to diminish or deal beneficially with, the free colored population of the Southern States. I have said that I honor Virginia for her cession of this territory. There have been received into the *Mr. Rufus King.