providing for the Government of the Territory of Missouri, and the laws and regulations in force in the District of Louisiana were continued in operation. 8. On the 3d of March, 1817, a Government was formed for the Territory of Alabama, and the laws then in force within it as a part of Mississippi were continued in operation. These acts were passed under Mr. Madison's Administration. 9. On the 9th of March, 1819, the Territory of Arkansas was formed from the Territory of Mississippi, and a Government established for it. to the adoption of this act of Congress in 1820; neither is it necessary; for the facts connected with the admission of Missouri into the Union are now pretty well understood. It is sufficient for my present purpose to remark, that, after one of the most stormy periods of excitement through which this country ever passed, it was solemnly agreed that Missouri should be admitted into the Union with a Constitution allowing Slavery; and that all territory which had been acquired by purchase from France, north of 36° 30', should be forever free. The parties to this arrangement were the free States on the one side, and the of 36° 30' was both absolute and perpetual. I now propose to give some reasons why this contract should be restored in substance, if not in form. 10. On the 6th of March, 1820, the inhabitants of Missouri were authorized to form a State Gov-slave States on the other. The prohibition north ernment, and Slavery prohibited in all that part of the Territory north of 36° 30′ north latitude. 11. On the 10th of March, 1822, a Territorial Government was established for Florida, containing provisions making it unlawful "to import or bring into the said Territory, from any place, without the limits of the United States," any slave or slaves. These three acts were signed by Mr. Monroe. 12. On the 20th of April, 1836, an act was passed establishing the Territorial Government of Wisconsin, reaffirming the Ordinance of 1787. This act was signed by General Jackson. 1. Because the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a breach of good faith. Each section of the Union had become a party to this contract. It became a matter of national honor. The North and the South had both agreed to it. Each party was not only bound by a solemn act, but there was an implied pledge of honor, incidentally connected with the act, of which the parties could not divest themselves. 2. The South received the consideration com13. On the 12th of June, 1838, a Territorialing to them, paid in hand. The contract was ratGovernment for Iowa was established, extending ified; and, with the ratification, Missouri was the laws of the United States over the same, and admitted. This repudiation is the more insulting signed by Mr. Van Buren. to the North, from the fact that, just as soon as the consideration assigned her in this compact became of any value to her, she was cheated out of it. Good faith, fair play, and honest dealing all require the restoration of the contract. 14. On the 3d of March, 1848, an act was passed establishing the Territorial Government | of Oregon, with the proviso forever prohibiting Slavery in the same. This act was signed by Mr. Polk. Here is an almost uninterrupted series of legislative acts, commencing with the First Congress, and running through the long period of more than half a century, containing the official sanction of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, and Polk, directly recognising the constitutional right of Congress to prohibit Slavery in the Territories of the United States. Thus the legislation of the General Government for more than half a century furnishes a precedent, in strict conformity with the platform of the Republican party, on the right of Congress to interdict Slavery in the national domain. If, then, the Republican party are to be denounced as sectional, on account of entertaining and defending these time-honored doctrines, then the revolutionary heroes were sectional-the signers of the Declaration of Independence were sectional-that immortal instrument was itself sectional-the framers of the Constitution were sectional, and so is the Constitution itself. Every President of the United States, from Washington to Polk, were sectional; and nearly all legislation of Congress, in the formation of Territories, for over fifty years, has been of the same sectional character. Mr. Chairman, I now desire to call the attention of the Committee and the country to another leading idea in the Republican platform, to wit: The SUBSTANTIAL restoration of the Missouri Compromise. I have now no time to go into a historical detail of the circumstances that originally led 3. This compact was abrogated under false pretences, and in its practical operation was a fraud upon the people. This will appear for two reasons: First. At the time the Kansas-Nebraska bill was under consideration, it was declared over and over again, both in and out of Congress, that Slavery never would go into any part of these Territories. This pretext was used as an argument to quiet the excited feelings of the people, and reconcile them to the outrage. Charity would leave us to presume that no member of Congress would make such an assumption, and send it to the country, unless he believed it. If so, no greater mistake could have been made. In looking over the debates in the Senate upon the Nebraska bill, we find such opinions were expressed by Mr. Pettit, of Indiana; Mr. Hunter, of Virginia; Mr. Toucey, of Connecticut; Mr. Thomson, of New Jersey; Mr. Brodhead, of Pennsylvania; Mr. Badger, of North Carolina; Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts; Mr. Douglas, of Illinois; Mr. Dixon, of Kentucky; Mr. Jones, of Tennessee; and General Cass, of Michigan. In the House, the advocates of the bill generally said the same thing. These declarations were sent all over the country, and had their effect They were retailed out with great gusto by all the office-holders of the Administration, from the highest in grade and employment, to the four and six-penny postmasters and tide-waiters. The harrier of Freedom was stricken down; and what then became of all their pompous assumptions? 6 the people into the support of a measure abhorrent to all their better feelings. But I will call the attention of the Committee to one or two facts, which go to prove, beyond all controversy, that the friends of the bill, while they declared, when the same was under consideration, that the bill would confer upon the people of the Territories the right to legislate upon the Slaveholders went into Kansas, carrying with them their slaves. The first Legislature elected under the organic law of the Territory, by slaveholders and "border ruffians"-a Legislature, the laws of which the friends of the Administration say are legal and binding-laws which the President has threatened to enforce at the mouth of the cannon and the point of the bayonet, enacted and placed upon the statute book of the Terri-question of Slavery in the same, meant no such tory a law, declaring "If any person print, write, introduce into, or publish, or circulate, or cause to be brought into, printed, written, published, or circulated, or shall knowingly aid or assist in bringing into, printing, publishing, or circulating, within this Territory, any book, paper, pamphlet, magazine, handbill, or circular, containing any statements, arguments, opinion, sentiment, doctrine, advice, or innuendo, calculated to produce a disorderly, dangerous, or rebellious disaffection among the slaves of this Territory, or to induce such slaves to escape from the service of their masters, or to resist their authority, he shall be guilty of a felony, and be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term not less than five years." Here is another section of this barbarous statute: "If any free person, by speaking or writing, assert or maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory, or shall introduce into this Territory, print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into this Territory, written, printed, published, or circulated, in this Territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet, or circular, containing any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this Territory, such person shall be deem guilty of felony, and punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term not less than two years.” In the Squatter Sovereign, a newspaper published at Atchison, in Kansas Territory, by Stringfellow & Kelly, and which is receiving the patronage of President Pierce and his Administration, under date of February 19, 1856, I find the following advertisement: ́ ́ FOR SALE.—A very likely NEGRO GIRL, ten years old. Apply at this office. Feb. 18, 1856. 50 4w." We prove here by one of the Administration organs-which, by the way, lauds Pierce and the Democratic party to the skies-that Slavery not only exists de facto in Kansas, but that little negro girls are publicly advertised and sold in that Territory. thing; they were looking one way and rowing another; that while they were pretending to confer certain rights, they were forcing a bill through Congress, the very object of which was to deprive them of any such power. Now to the proof. When the Kansas bill was under consideration in the House, an honorable member from Indiana [Mr. MACE] offered the following amendment: with full power, at any session thereof, to establish or pro"And the Legislature of said Territory is hereby clothed hibit Slavery." This amendment was rejected-ayes 76, noes 94.-Cong. Globe, vol. 28, part 2, p. 1238. Another amendment to said bill was offered by one of my honorable colleagues, [Mr. FULLER,] which reads as follows: "And the Territorial Legislature shall have power to establish or exclude Slavery, as to them shall seem proper. In offering this amendment, my honorable colleague said: the ground that it gives the people of the Territory the My honorable colleague put the only reasonable, legal construction upon said bill that it would bear. This amendment, too, was voted down. In further proof of the position I am now considering, I will cite the thirty-second section I will give one more specimen of the barbarous of the "act to organize Kansas and Nebraska.” code of the "border ruffian" Legislature, which The phraseology of this section is peculiar. It is designed to corrupt the very fountains of justice, was artfully drawn; and, while it pretends one and establish and perpetuate Slavery in this Ter-thing, means quite another. It first undertakes to ritory: extend the "Constitution" over the Territory, by declaring that "The Constitution, and all laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect in said Territory of Kansas as elsewhere in the United States, excepting the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union." "No person, who is conscientiously opposed to holding slaves, or who does not admit the right to hold slaves in this Territory, shall sit as a juror on the trial of any prosecution for any violation of any of the sections of this act." Thus facts prove that the argument that, on account of soil, climate, or other reason, Slavery would not go into Kansas in consequence of the Who ever before heard of such a monstrous repeal of the Missouri Compromise, was all a de- absurdity? Congress, who derive all their power lusion; so far as it had an influence, it every-to act from the Constitution, here undertake to where deceived and cheated the people. extend this great fundamental law of the land Another reason, urged with great vehemence by over a Territory within the jurisdiction of the the advocates of the Nebraska bill, in favor of the United States. When did ever a Congress undermeasure, was this: that it would “establish the take before to legislate the Constitution into a Terdoctrine of popular sovereignty," and give the people ritory? Never, sir; never. No such provision of the Territories the right to form and regulate was ever contained in any previous act organitheir own domestic institutions. I have now no zing a Territory: hence, by fair reasoning, Oregon, time to go into an extended argument to show Washington, Utah, New Mexico, and Minnesota, the utter fallacy of this specious pretence, this pretence, this are all left without the protection of the Constifalse light, held out to blind, bewilder, and cheattution; and Congress can have no jurisdiction over them, for the reason that that branch of the General Government derives all its power to legislate from the Constitution; and the only legitimate conclusion which follows is, that these Territories are each now so many independent sovereignities, owing allegiance to no power but themselves. After declaring the Missouri Compromise "inoperative and void," the same section goes on to say: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate Slavery into any Territory or State, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." "If I had supposed there was any he opinion more that a Territorial Government, while it remained in a universal than any other in the South, it was the opinion state of infancy, has no power either to admit or to prabibit Slavery within its limits. I say that this Congress, this Government, having no right or power whatever to admit Slavery or prohibit it in the Territories, has no right or power to delegate that power to the Territories themselves." A distinguished Senator from Mississippi, (exGovernor Brown,) a few days since, in a speech in the Senate, said: "It will be seen at once that the line of argument wich I have marked out for myself will lead me to consider, to some extent, the doctrine of 'squatter sovereignty.' This doctrine, however well designed by its authors, has, in my judgment, been the fruitful source of half our troubles. Before the people of the two sections of the Union, havtile interests, and already inflamed by angry passions, were invited into the country, we, who gave them laws, should have defined clearly and distinctly what were to be their rights after they got there. Nothing should have been left to construction I believed, when the Kansas bill was passed, that it conferred on the inhabitants of the Territories, during their Territorial existence, no right to exclude, or in anywise to interfere with, Slavery." The deception lies in this-that, while this acting as they supposed, though I think erroneously-hosprofesses to make a certain grant of power to the people of the Territories, it contains a proviso which, according to the Southern sectional construction given it by the Democratic party, entirely takes it away. The argument to this: The Constitution is the great fundamental law of the United States. * "There seems to be a certain undefined idea in the minds of some men, that the sovereignty of a Territory is To make the fraud less perceptible, by a sort inherent in the peop e of a Territory; that it came to them of extra-judicial legislation, the Constitution is from on high-a sort of political manna, descended from Heaven on these children of the forest. This doctrine, I extended over the Territory. The grant of power confess, is a little too ethereal for me; I do not comprehere is made "subject to the Constitution," which hend it; but this I know-if the sovereignty is in the peois another piece of extra-judicial legislation. Then ple of the Territory, whether they obtained it from God or follow out the Southern construction-that the men, the conduct of this Government towards them is most extraordinary. It is nothing short of downright "Constitution allows slaveholders to carry their slaves usurpation and despotism. We have now seven Govern into the Territories, and there protects them in that ors appointed by the President, by and with the advice a d consent of the Senate, to govern the seven Territories kind of property," and you have the whole thing of the United States. We have seven different sets of Terin a nutshell. Of course the people of a Territory ritoria! Judges, appointed in the same way, to expoune cannot make a law contravening the Constitution. the laws for the seven Territories. We have Marshals to Thus it is plain that the act was intended, not to of these sovereignties, in their own country. We require arrest, and District Attorneys to prosecute, the inhabitants give "popular sovereignty," but to take it away; the Territories to legislate in obedience to our acts; and and, by a forced construction of the Constitution, lest they may go astray, we sometimes oblige them to legislate Slavery into the Territory of Kansas. In time and time again, that their legislation has fallen unsend up their laws for our approval. It has happened. order to show that I am treating this matter fair-der the disapprobation of Congress, and thereby become ly, and do not misrepresent our Democratic friends, I will read from remarks of an honorable member from Pennsylvania, [Mr. J. GLANCY JONES,] made in answer to certain interrogatories propounded to him by an honorable gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Cox,] prior to the organization of the House. From the acknowledged talents and high standing of the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania-from the fact that he was the author of the resolutions adopted by the first Democratic caucus of members of the House, and is a distinguished leader of that party-I feel justified in drawing the inference that he truly reflects the opinions of that party. In answer to certain questions propounded by the gentleman from Kentucky, as to the legality of the Territorial laws of Kansas, he said: void velves, declare that it is in the people of the Territory, and The Richmond Enquirer, (Virginia,) a leading Democratic paper, recently contained an elaborate article, from which I make the following ex tract: "We must, in the Cincinnati platform, repudiate squatter sovereignty, and expressly assert State equality. We must declare that it is the duty of the General Government to see that no invidious or injurious distinctions are made between the people or the property of different sections in the Territories. We do not mean to dictate. It may be that the assertion in the platform of the abstract proposition of State equality may suffice to carry along with it the consequences which we desire. But it is often! charged that the Kansas-Nebraska bill contains the doc"In my opinion, the Constitution limits the power of rine of squatter sovereignty, and that squatter sovereign Congress to the extent of prohibiting them either from ty is the most efficient agent of Free-Soilism. Some [all] establishing or abolishing Slavery in the Territories. Ad- Northern Democrats have maintained this ground. Now. mitting that view to be correct. I suppose it follows, as a THIS GUN MUST BE SPIKED. It must appear from our platmatter of course, that the Constitution of the United States form that we maintain practical State equality, and repuconfers upon the people of the Territory no right to dis-diate that construction of the Kansas-Nebraska act which possess any man of his right to property, whether it be would defeat it." SLAVE or any other property. And, therefore, the Legis lative Council of a Territory, though they may pass laws regulating the disposal and protection of property, have no right to so administer those laws as to establish or abolish the right to hold that property." Another honorable member, ex-Governor Smith, of Virginia, in the same debate, said: The doctrine that the Constitution carries Slavery into the Territories, and there legalizes and protects it, and that the people of the Territories have no right under the Constitution to legislate upon the subject, except to "regulate" it, was, at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebras Then I ask, sir, what becomes of your siren song of "Squatter Sovereignty," and the right given to the people of the Territories by the Nebraska bill to form their own domestic institutions?" It is all a baseless humbug, an outrageous imposition, whose light only "Leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind." 8 their constitutional attempts to restore the national honor, and protect the people of Kansas in the peaceful enjoyment of their civil rights? If there is, make the most of it. The second general proposition I now desire to discuss, is the "Sectionality of the Democratic party." In pursuing this investigation, I intend to speak respectfully, but plainly. There are many reminiscences still lingering about the old There is one more very important reason why Democratic party, of a pleasant character. It was the Missouri Compromise should be restored. It once a great and powerful party. It was the is to protect the people of Kansas in the enjoyment party originally founded by Jefferson; and as we travel from its organization down the stream of of their constitutional rights. As we have already travel from its organization down the stream of remarked, the Kansas-Nebraska bill was advo-time, we find in its front ranks some of the greatest cated on the ground that it would confer powers, and best men that ever honored and graced our rights, and privileges, upon the people of Kansas, country. It was once a party proudly standing not enjoyed by the people of other Territories upon a platform of national principles, around under their organic acts. Now, what has been which the patriotic of every section, North and its practical operation? I have now no time to South, could consistently rally. But "how have answer this question in detail. Instead of enthe mighty fallen," and the "fine gold become joying the extraordinary rights promised by the dim!" Where stands the so-called Democratic Kansas-Nebraska act, the people of that Terri- party of the present day? Has it not changed tory have been hunted down like wild beasts-fronts; abandoned its old landmarks; denied the been waylaid and butchered in the streets; they have been lynched and mobbed; their houses sacked and burned to the ground; their printing presses thrown into the rivers; their their property destroyed; and almost every indignity which the the founders of the Republic did not so consider wickedness of men or devils could invent, show-it. Both the Constitution and the early legisered down upon their devoted heads. The Territory has been invaded by armed mobs, who have spread themselves into every settlement; the peaceful settlers have been forced to surrender their ballot-boxes at the point of the bayonet, and then driven from the polls. In order to show the kind of spirit which actuated these invaders, I read the following extract from the Kickapoo Pioneer, a paper which supports this Administration, and receives its patronage: "The South must be up and doing; Kansas must and shall be a slave State Mark what we say, Southern freemen! Come along with your negroes, and piough up every inch of ground that is at this moment disgraced and defaced by an Abolition plough. Send the scoundrels back to whence they came, or send them to hell, it matters not which destination: suit your own convenience Sound the bugle of war over the length and breadth of the land, and leave not an Abolitionist in the Territory to relate their treacherous and contaminating deeds. Strike your piercing rifle-balls and your glittering steel to their black and poisonous hearts; let the war-cry never cease in Kansas again, until our Territory is divested of the last vestige of Abolitionism."` Sir, the "Constitution of the United States has been legislated into Kansas," and the people given popular sovereignty;" and this is the kind of protection it has afforded them. All the protection the National Administration has afforded these hardy pioneers has been the protection the "wolf affords the lamb," by removing Governor Reeder, and sending out Wilson Shannon to enforce the bogus laws of a border-ruffian Legislature. There never will be any permanent peace in Kansas until the question of Freedom or Slavery is settled, either by the restoration of the Missouri Compromise, or her admission into the Union as a free State, which is substantially the same thing. I now pause to inquire, Is there anything sectional, on the part of the Republican party, in faith, and gone over to sectionalism? These questions I now propose to discuss. tional institution. We have already shown that Slavery can in no just sense be termed a na lation of the country clearly indicate the fact, that Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison, and their cotemporaries, looked forward to the ultimate extinction of this evil at an early day. The framers of the Constitution left Slavery where they found it with the States a municipal regulation, subject entirely to their jurisdiction and control. Being left to the States, it became of necessity sectional. Beyond the jurisdiction of tion. Again: Slavery is an unnatural right, and the States where it exists, it has no legal proteccan only exist by virtue of the local laws of the States. This question has been so decided by our judicial courts, North and South, over and over again. But in order to put this matter beyond all doubt, I will cite two or three authorities from the decisions of courts in slave States. In the case of the State of Mississippi vs. Isaac Jones, the Court decided that "The right of the master exists not by force of the law of nature, or of nations, but by virtue only of the positive law of the State."-Walker's Reports, 86. In another case in the same State, the Court say: 6 Slavery is condemned by reason and the laws of nature. It exists, and can only exist, through municipal regulation."-Hary vs. Decker, Walker's Reports, 42. The next authority which I read is from 2 Martin's Louisiana Reports, 402, 403 : The relation of owner and s'ave is, in the States of this Union in which it has a legal existence, a creature of municipal law.” I will cite one other authority to this point, out of the many that are found in the Reports. I read from the case of Rankin vs. Lydia, 2 Marshall's Kentucky Reports, in which the Court say: "Slavery is sanctioned by the laws of this State. (Ken tucky,) and the right to hold them under our municipal | left the chair, made a speech which was reported regulations is unquestionable. But we view this as a in the New Hampshire Patriot, and among other right existing by positive law of a municipal character, without foundation in the law of nature, or the unwritten things said: and common law." “I would take the ground of the non-extension of SlaChattel Slavery has no existence except in one very that Slavery should not become stronger. But Congress have only re-enacted the old law of 1793. Unionsection of the country; therefore, any political party loving men, desiring peace and loving their country, conwhich favors Slavery, or in any way lends its ceded that point-unwillingly conceded it--and, planting influence to spread it, favors one section of the feeling, resisted the agitation which is assaulting all who themselves upon this law against the outbursts of popular country at the expense of the other, and is most stand up for their country. But the gentleman says that emphatically a sectional party. A party whose the law is obnoxious. What single thing is there connectleading object is to favor the "peculiar institu-ed with Slavery that is not obnoxious? Even the gentleman from Marlborough (1 r. Batchellar) cannot feel more tions" of the South, can have no element of na- deeply than I do on the subject." tionality about it. long known as the "Star in the East;" and the now venerable James C. Churchill, who was the standard-bearer of the "unterrified" in that great fight, is now an honored member of the Republican party. I have seen a letter written by him, dated Portland, March 21, 1856, in answer to an invitation from the "American Republicans" of Dover, New Hampshire, to meet with them and celebrate the late glorious victory in that State, in which he says: New Hampshire and Maine have heretofore I have already remarked that the Democratic been the two leading Democratic States, not only party was once a national party. The leading men in New England, but the Union. The Democratic of the party, until within a few years, held that party in these two States were the very last to party in these two States were the Congress had constitutional power to prohibit falter, and the last to be conquered; for they, like Slavery in the Territories, and that it is expedient General Taylor, never surrendered." As long to exercise this power. I have already spoken ago as 1828, the county of Cumberland, in Maine, of the position of leading Democrats in the early the larger portion of which is in my district, history of the country. So well settled was this "solitary and alone" in all New England, gave her principle, that when the Wilmot proviso was first electoral vote to Andrew Jackson. For this act of introduced into Congress in 1847, only two Dem-fidelity to the gallant old hero, this county was ocratic members from the free States voted against it. Among those who voted for it, were the Hon. Robert McClelland, now Secretary of the Interior; Senator Brodhead, of Pennsylvania; ex-Governor Dunlap, of Maine; and the late Senator Norris, of New Hampshire. The late lamented Silas Wright, General Dix, of New York, and other leading Democrats all over the country, favored the measure. The leading papers of the Democratic press came out for it. The Eastern Argus, the leading Democratic paper in Maine, and the "I congratulate you most heartily and sincerely in havNew Hampshire Patriot, the leading Democratic ing obtained a victory so signal and so glorious. It seems paper in New Hampshire, both took strong to me the advocate of Rum lacks good morals and good ground for the proviso. More than this, a ma- judgment; the advocate of extension of 'Slavery lacks jority of the free States of the Union passed reso-good sense and good principles. and every good thing for which our fathers fought and conquered in the Revolulutions instructing their Senators in Congress to tion." go for the measure, and in a majority of these States the Democratic party held the political control. In 1848, the following, among other Democratic members, voted for the bill organizing the Territory of Oregon, with a proviso forever prohibiting Slavery: Messrs. Allen, of Ohio; Benton, of Missouri; Bright and Breese, of Indiana; Douglas, of Illinois; Dodge, of Wisconsin; Dix and Dickinson, of New York; and Houston, of Texas.-Congressional Globe. President Pierce himself, at a meeting held at Concord, New Hampshire, June 12, 1845, as reported in the New Hampshire Patriot, in reply to Senator Hale, said: that "He had only to say now, what he had always said, he regarded Slavery as one of the greatest moral and social evils-a curse upon the whole country; and this he believed to be the sentiment of all men of all parties at the North. Mr. P. was free to admit that he had himself approached this subject of annexation [of Texas] with all his prejudices and prepossessions against it, and on one ground alone-its Slavery feature. His convictions on this subject were, as he had stated, strong--not the result of any new ligut, but deeply fixed and abiding. The only difficulty in his mind ever had been, that of a recogiti, by any new act of our Government, of the in-titution of domestic Slavery; and he had found it extremely difficult to bring his mind to a condition impartially to weigh the argument for and against the measure." In 1851, General Pierce, in the Convention of New Hampshire for revising the Constitution, But In 1832, Maine gave her ten electoral votes to Old Hickory, and gallant New Hampshire wheeled In 1836, they in by her side, with her seven. both went for Van Buren. In 1840, the Democ racy of Maine, after a terrible fight, was beaten only by a few hundreds. "Hard cider, log cabins, and gold spoons," were too much for her. New Hampshire, firm as her "granite hills," breasted the storm, withstood the shock, and gave her seven electoral votes for Van Buren. In 1844, both States went for James K. Polk; in 1848, both voted for General Cass; and in 1852, both, by overwhelming majorities, chose electors for Franklin Pierce. With this clean Democratic record, where has the Democratic party in these States stood upon the question of Slavery prohibition in the Territories? I answer, just where the Republican party now stand; and I will proceed to prove it. The Democratic State Committee of New Hampshire, in October, 1847, passed the following res olution: "Resolved, That we declare it OUR SOLEMN CONVICTION, as the Democratic party have heretofore done, that neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude should hereafter exist in any Territory which may be acquired by or annexed to the United States; and that we approve of the votes of our delegation in Congress in favor of the Wilmot Proviso." |