wherever else you had the opportunity, that by the Nebraska Bill we have broken a covenant which dedicated Kansas and Nebraska to freedom "FOREVER." We are now told that "forever" means "hereafter," and lasts only until there are people enough to form a state, and that no particular number is required for that purpose.

The senator from Vermont attempts to ridicule the Nebraska Bill because it contains a provision declaring the Constitution of the United States to be in force in the Territory. He desires to know who ever doubted that such would be the case without that provision? Who was ever silly enough to suppose that the Constitution could be extended by law over a Territory which it did not reach without such law? I will answer his question. I will tell him the man. It was no less a person than Daniel Webster-New England's great statesman, whom she delighted to call the great expounder of the Constitution. Senators who were then members of this body have not forgotten, and will not soon forget, the debate between Mr. Webster and Mr. Calhoun upon this very point, in which the former contended that the Constitution of the United States did not extend over the Territories without an Act of Congress to that effect; while, on the other hand, the great Carolinian insisted that the Constitution was coextensive with the limits, and covered all the territories pertaining to the republic. Without endorsing the peculiar opinions of Mr. Webster on this point, Mr. Clay did not hesitate, in deference to them, to adopt, in the Compromises of 1850, the identical provision which the senator from Vermont now attempts to ridicule, under the supposition that I introduced it into the Nebraska Act for the first time in our legislation. I copied the provision from the compromise measures of 1850 for the same reasons which induced Mr. Clay to adopt it, although it is but fair to say that I never did concur in the opinion of Mr. Webster that the Constitution did not apply to the Territories without an act of Congress carrying it there.

Mr. President, I have a few words to say to the senator from New York [Mr. Seward] before I close my remarks. On the day I presented to the Senate the report of the Committee on Territories, and immediately after the minority report was read at the secretary's desk, he rose and volunteered the pledge that he would make good every position affirmed by it. As he has the floor for the next speech upon this question, he will be expected to redeem this pledge, or acknowledge his inability to do so. One of these positions is, that the "experiment" of allowing the people to settle the Slavery question for themselves in Territories preparatory to their admission into the Union was introduced into our legislation for the first time in the history of this republic in the Kansas-Nebraska Act; and that, if violence resulted from this experiment as a natural, and perhaps unavoidable consequence, it was the "vice of a mistaken law." I call on the senator from New York to sustain the truth of this allegation. I desire him to answer specifically whether the compromise measures of 1850 did not leave the people of New Mexico and Utah perfectly free to decide the Slavery question for themselves, and guarantee their admission into the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitution should provide at the time of admission? I ask him if he did not oppose the bills for the organization of those Territories at that time for the reason that they did not contain the Wilmot Proviso prohibiting slavery, and for the reason that they did contain the guarantee that they should be admitted with or without slavery, as they should decide for themselves? When he answers this question, I would like to have him explain at the same time whether he did not stand pledged in 1852 to sustain the Whig Baltimore platform, and to support General Scott, standing on that platform, "with the resolutions annexed," to use his emphatic language; and whether those resolutions did not bind General Scott, and the party supporting him, to carry out in good faith the compromise measures of 1850 "in substance and in principle?" I desire a direct answer on these points, in order that the Senate may judge how far he redeems his pledge to make good the positions of the minority report. I would like to have him explain the difference between the "experiment" of the compromise measures of 1850 and of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, in allowing the people to decide the Slavery question for themselves, and whether that principle in each case was equally the "vice of a mistaken law?" If he shall answer that he did regard both measures in the same light, I should be gratified if he will explain how it was that he united with the Whig party in 1852 to sustain the "vice of that mistaken law," and now calls upon all the odds and ends, fragments and portions of parties and isms, to merge all differences on other points, and form a fusion with him on the isolated point of eradicating this "vice of a mistaken law" in the name of freedom and humanity? While he is portraying the beauties of negro freedom and equality, and demonstrating the propriety of sacrificing the political and constitutional rights of 20,000,000 of white people for the benefit of 3,000,000 of negroes, I would be glad if he would point out the advantages which the negro will derive from the admission of Kansas with the Topeka Constitution. That Constitution provides that as long as Kansas shall be a state, as long as water runs and grass grows, no negro, FREE or slave, shall ever live or breathe under that Constitution.

Mr. Seward. Does the senator wish me to answer now?
Mr. Douglas. Yes, sir.

Mr. Seward. Then my answer is that, such being the Constitution, he is wrong in the premises that I am desirous to admit the State of Kansas for the benefit of the negro. It must be for the benefit of the white man.

Mr. Douglas. Am I to understand the senator that he has abandoned the cause of the negro upon the ground that his freedom and equality are inconsistent with the rights of the white man? What has become of his professions of sympathy for the poor negro? What are we to think of the sincerity of his professions upon this subject?

Mr. Seward. That is another thing.

Mr. Douglas. That is the very thing. If all other considerations are to be made to yield to the paramount object of prohibiting slavery in Kansas upon the ground that the inequality which it imposes is unjust to the negro, will that injustice be removed by adopting a Constitution which in effect declares that the negro, whether free or slave, shall never tread the soil, nor drink the water, nor breathe the air of Kansas? The senator from New York admits that the Constitution with which he proposes by his bill to admit Kansas contains such a provision. Under the code of laws enacted by the Territorial Legislature of Kansas, which the senator, in common with his party, professes to consider monstrous and barbarous, a negro may go to Kansas and be protected in all his rights, so long as he obeys the laws of the land. In order to get rid of those laws, the senator from New York proposes to give effect to a constitutional provision which is designed to prevent the negro forever from entering the state.

I should like to hear from the senator from Massachusetts on this point. I believe he took particular pains a few years ago to arraign the State of Illinois for inserting a similar clause in her Constitution.

Mr. Sumner. Never.

Mr. Douglas. Well, perhaps it was his predecessor, Mr. Winthrop. Upon reflection, I think it was. I think it once became my duty to vindicate the right of my own state to insert such a clause in her Constitution against the assaults of a Massachusetts senator. Had the present senator been here at that time, and found it necessary to have spoken on the subject, is it assuming too much to venture the opinion that he would have joined in that condemnation?

Mr. Sumner. I should condemn it, certainly.

Mr. Douglas. Then, will the senator approve in the Constitution of Kansas what he condemns in the Constitution of Illinois? I would like to hear the senator's response to this inquiry. If such a provision was wrong in Illinois, is it right in Kansas? Had not the Democratic State of Illinois as good a right to adopt such a provision as the Free-soil party of Kansas? Will the senator from Massachusetts vote for the bill introduced by the senator from New York to admit Kansas, at a time when she has not one third of the requisite population, with such a Constitution?

I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. I object to the admission of Kansas at this time, and under existing circumstances, on entirely different grounds. I affirm the right of Illinois to put such a clause in her Constitution. The people of Illinois had a right to do as they pleased on that subject. We tried slavery while a Territory, notwithstanding the ordinance of 1787, until we found that in our climate and with our productions it was not good for us to retain it, and for that reason we abolished and prohibited it. When we decided that Illinois should be a free state we also determined that it should be a white state. We did not believe in the equality of the negro with the white man, and hence were opposed to a mixture of the races. The Constitution of Illinois was made by white men for the benefit of white men. The same principle of state rights and state equality which authorized Illinois to abolish slavery secured to each other state the privilege of retaining it if it chose. The same principle which authorized Illinois to exclude the free negro allows each other state to receive him if agreeable to her tastes and consistent with her interests. We are perfectly content with the practical operation of this great principle, which teaches the people of each separate community to mind their own business, and accord the same right to their neighbors. Hence I should have no controversy with the senator from New York, or his political associates, in regard to this particular clause in the Kansas Constitution, did they not claim the right, and insist that it is their duty, to examine the provisions of the Constitution of each state applying for admission, and then either to admit or reject the application, according as they may approve or disapprove the Constitution. It is on this ground that they claim the right to inquire whether the Constitution prohibits or protects slavery, and to vote for a free state and against a slave state. It was on this ground that the Northern States voted against the admission of Missouri in 1821-one year after the adoption of the Missouri Compromise-because the Constitution had a similar provision against free negroes to the one in the Kansas Constitution. Hence I desire to learn from the senator from New York whether he and his sympathizing associates do really approve of a constitutional provision which shall deny to the negro forever not merely the right to enjoy the same liberty accorded to the white man, but also the right to live and breathe within the limits of the proposed State of Kansas. Mr. Seward. Will the honorable senator allow me to answer now? Mr. Douglas. Yes, sir.

Mr. Seward. I need scarcely inform the honorable senator that I do not approve of any such provision in any Constitution in the world. I never did, and I never shall, vote to approve or sanction, in any Constitution or in any law, a provision which tends to keep any human being-any member of the human family to which I belong, in a condition of degradation below the position which I occupy myself except for his own fault or crime.

Mr. Douglas. The senator does not approve of this position, and never can, for the reason that it does not put the negro on an equality with himself! Then, will he vote for admitting Kansas in this irregular manner, and with

out the requisite population, merely because her Constitution has a provision which keeps slaves from going into the Territory, together with another clause "which tends to keep a man-being a member of the human family to which he belongs in a condition of degradation below the position which he occupies himself?" Yet, if he votes for his own bill to admit Kansas with the Topeka Constitution, according to his own doctrine he does vote to sanction a provision to keep the negro out altogether; he will not allow a negro to come in a condition either below him or above him.

Mr. Seward. You can take it either way-above or below.

Mr. Douglas. Yes; he will exclude the negro absolutely if he is below or above him. He will insist upon having the negro upon a footing of entire and perfect equality with himself. Yet, if his bill passes, and Kansas is admitted with the Constitution which has been formed and presented here, all negroes, both free and slave, are forever prohibited from entering the State of Kansas by the terms of the instrument. He can not escape the responsibility of this result on the plea that he does not vote directly to endorse and sanction the Constitution in all its parts; for his doctrine, and the doctrine of his party, is that they not only have the right, but that it is their duty to examine the Constitution in all its parts, and vote for it or against it, according as they approve or disapprove of its provisions, and especially those provisions which degrade the negro below the level of the white man. He must abandon all the principles to which his life has been devoted; he must abandon the creed of the party of which he is the acknowledged leader before he can vote for his own bill. The Black Republican party was organized and founded on the fundamental principle of perfect and entire equality of rights and privileges between the negro and the white man-an equality secured and guaranteed by a law higher than the Constitution of the United States. In your creed, as proclaimed to the world, you stand pledged against "the admission of any more slave states;"

To repeal the Fugitive Slave Law;

To abolish the slave-trade between the states;

To prohibit slavery in the District of Columbia;

To restore the prohibition on Kansas and Nebraska; and

To acquire no more territory unless slavery shall be first prohibited.

That is your creed, authoritatively proclaimed. I trust there is to be no evading or dodging the issue-no lowering of the flag. Let each party stand by its principles and the issues as you have presented them and we have accepted them. Let us have a fair, bold fight before the people, and then let the verdict be pronounced.

Mr. Seward. You will have it.

Mr. Douglas. I rejoice in this assurance. I trust the senator will be able to bring his troops up to the line, and to hold them there. I trust there is to be no lowering of the flag-no abandonment or change of the issues. There are rumors afloat that you are about to strike your colors; that you propose to surrender each one of these issues, not because you do not profess to be right, but because you can not succeed in the right; that you propose to throw overboard all the bold men who distinguished themselves in your service in fighting the anti-Nebraska fight, and to take a new man, who, in consequence of not being committed to either side, will be enabled to cheat somebody by getting votes from both sides! Rumor says that all your veteran generals who have received scars and wounds in the anti-Nebraska campaign are now considered unfit to command, and are to be laid aside in order to take up some new man who has not antagonized with the great principles of self-government and state equality. Rumor says that, in pursuance of this line of policy, you dare not allow your committees in the House of Representatives to bring in bills to redeem your pledges and carry out your principles; that there is to be no bill passed in your Fusion House to repeal the Kansas-Nebraska Act-none to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law -none to abolish the slave-trade between the states-none to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia-none to redeem any one of your pledges, or carry out any one of your principles, upon which you secured a majority in the House by a fusion with Northern Know-nothingism. Rumor says that your committees were arranged with the view of keeping all these questions in the background until after the presidential election, in order that the agitation may be reopened with better prospects of success when power shall have been obtained under the auspices of a new man, who has not been crippled in the great battle. Would it not be a curious spectacle to see this great Anti-Nebraska or Black Republican party-which, less than eighteen months ago, proclaimed a war of extermination, in which no quarter was to granted or received, and no prisoners to be taken-skirmishing to avoid a pitched battle, and get an opportunity to retreat from the face of those whom they determined to hang, and burn, and torture with all the refinements of cruelty which their vengeance could devise? Are the offices and patronage of government so much more important to you than your principles that you feel it your duty to sacrifice your creed, and the men identified with it, in order to get power? Are you prepared to ignore the material points in issue for fear that they will compromit you in the presidential election ?

Mr. Wade. We will whip you then.

Mr. Douglas. That remains to be seen. We are prepared to give you a fair fight on the issues you have tendered and we accepted. Let the presidential contest be one of principle alone; let the principles involved be distinctly stated and boldly met, without any attempts at concealment or equivocation; let the result be a verdict of approval or disapproval so emphatic that it can not be misunderstood. One year ago you promised us a fair fight in the open field upon the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Act! You then unfurled your banner, and bore it aloft in the hands of your own favorite and tried leaders, with your principles emblazoned upon it. Are you now preparing to lower your flag-to throw overboard all your tried men who have rendered service in your cause-and issue a search-warrant in hopes of finding a new man, who has not antagonized with any body, and whose principles are unknown, for the purpose of cheating somebody by getting votes from all sorts of men? Let us have an open and a fair fight. [Applause in the galleries.]

The Chair. The galleries will be cleared if these demonstrations are renewed.

Mr. Douglas. I will not pursue the subject further.

The debate on the bill proceeded from day to day without any action by the Senate until the 25th of June. In the mean time, Mr. Seward had introduced a bill in the nature of a substitute, proposing to admit Kansas as a state under the Topeka Constitution; and Mr. Trumbull had prepared a bill annexing Kansas to Nebraska, and making it subject to the laws and government in force in that Territory, and abolishing the existing government in Kansas. Other bills had been proposed by Messrs. Clayton, Geyer, and others. On the 25th of June, Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, introduced an amendment in the nature of a substitute for the whole bill, and on that day the pending bill, as well as all the proposed amendments and sub