OF HON. ALFRED IVERSON, OF GEORGIA, ON OUR TERRITORIAL POLICY; DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 9, 1860. WASHINGTON: The Senate proceeded to consider the following || resolution, which was submitted by Mr. PUGH December 15, 1859: Resolved, That the Committee on Territories be instructed to inquire into the expediency of repealing so much of the acts approved September 9, 1850, for the organization of territorial governinents in New Mexico and Utah, as requires that all the laws passed by the Legislatures of those Territories shall be submitted to Congress for approval or rejection. The pending question being on the following amendment submitted by Mr. HARLAN, to add: And said committee is also instructed to inquire into the propriety of authorizing the people of each of said Territories to elect all their territorial officers, executive, legislative, and judicial, in such manner as the Legislatures thereof shall provide Mr. IVERSON said: Mr. PRESIDENT: The Senator from Ohio, [Mr. PUGH,] in a speech delivered a few days since in this Chamber, took occasion to read some extracts from a speech made by me on the 26th day of July, 1848, in the House of Representatives, whilst I was a member of that body. The object of the Senator in making this reference was to show that I was once in favor of the doctrine of "popular sovereignty," as now understood and advocated by that Senator and those who agree with him in the northern States. Perhaps, sir, it would be sufficient for me, if I admitted the charge, to refer the Senator to an extract of a speech delivered by me at Griffin, in the State of Georgia, on the 14th of July last, in which, speaking of that doctrine, I said: of the truth and propriety of this doctrine, as I am of the doctrine of salvation declared to man in the sacred Word of God. But whilst I insist upon the absolute right of the southern people to legal protection in the possession and enjoyment of their slave propetry in the Territories of the United States, and the power and duty of Congress to give such protection, I utterly deny the power of Congress, under the Constitution or otherwise, to exclude slavery from the Territories, or of abolishing it, if there. To regulate and protect the property of the citizen is one thing; to deprive him of it is another, and altogether different thing. One is not only within the power of all Governments, but is one of the main objects and obligations of all Governments. The other cannot be done in our Government and under our Constitution, except for the public use,' and not then without just compensation to the owner. Such is the language of the Federal Constitution." Now, sir, if I ever did maintain the doctrine of "popular sovereignty, as explained, advocated, and enforced by the Senator from Ohio and the great majority of the northern Democracy, I have long since changed my opinion, and repudiated it as a heresy; and certainly, sir, it is more honorable to renounce error, when convinced of one, than to adhere obstinately to it. I commend the candor and honesty, as well as the courage and fortitude, which I have exhibited in this respect, to the imitation of the Senator from Ohio. But, sir, I fear that, instead of retracing the great error into which that Senator and thousands of his northern Democratic friends have fallen, he and they, under the lead of the distinguished Senator from Illinois, [Mr. DOUGLAS,] are plunging deeper and deeper into the abyss of political error and injustice. "I shall not stop here to argue the doctrine of congresBut, sir, what did I say, in 1848, on the occasion sional protection to slavery in the Territories, nor to com- alluded to; and how far did I adopt or advocate bat the errors of 'squatter sovereignty.' I take the occa- the doctrine of " squatter sovereignty" in the sion to confess that I was once the advocate of the latter Territories of the United States? Let the circumheresy-carried away by its attractive but delusive sophistry, which, like the ignis fatuus,' lures only to destroy, and stances under which that speech was delivered be without serious examination into its truth and general bear-stated and remembered. General Cass was the ings and looking at it as the only alternative of the Wilmot proviso, I was ready to take it as the 'best we could get.' I was wrong, and I admit, regret, and recant the error. Subsequent investigation and reflection soon convinced me that the only true theory, in relation to territorial governments in the Union, is, that both the power and the duty are conferred and imposed upon Congress to pass laws for the protection and regulation of slavery, wherever it exists or may exist upon the common soil. I'am as well convinced presidential candidate of the Democratic party, of which I was a member. General Taylor was the opposing candidate of the Whig party. The Oregon bill was under discussion in the House. The northern Free-Soil party having the majority in that body, brought forward the Wilmot proviso, excluding slavery from the Territory of Ore into political communities by gradual, regular, and natural emigration, and after territorial governments had been instituted and conferred upon them by Congress, had been left, uninfluenced by outside pressure, to form their political and domestic institutions for themselves, no southern man would probably ever have complained of or denied them that privilege, or have invoked the power and duty of the Federal Government to protect slaveholding emigrants in the possession of their slave property. gon. The question was upon the adoption of that proviso. My speech was intended mainly as an attack upon that odious, unconstitutional, unjust, and insulting indignity to the southern people. General Cass had only a short time previously produced his celebrated Nicholson letter, in which he advocated the doctrine of "popular sovereignty," or the non-intervention of Congress upon the subject of slavery in the Territories. It was a new doctrine, or, at any rate, it was new to me. It was plausible, and, even with the construction which some then put upon it, and which now But, sir, the history of emigration into the Terseems to be the settled construction of the north-ritories for the last ten or twelve years, has taught ern Democracy, it was considered by many southern men as less obnoxious to objection and less dangerous in its practical results to the rights and interests of the South than the Wilmot proviso. There were two constructions given to General Cass's Nicholson letter. His southern friends and supporters maintained that it meant only that Congress was not to intervene to establish or exclude slavery, but that the people of a Territory were to be left free to the exercise of the power of deciding the question of slavery or no slavery when they came to form a constitution and State government for admission into the Union. That they have such power at such time, no portion of the Democratic party, North or South, have ever denied or disputed; and that power, to be exercised in that way and at that time, has been universally approved by the southern people of all parties. The southern opponents of General Cass asserted that he meant to claim for the people of a Territory the exclusive power and right to determine that question at any time during their territorial existence, and that Congress could not intervene to correct or annul their decision. Now, sir, in my speech of 1848, I expressly disclaimed the intention to express any opinion or make any decision upon the question of constitutional power, either in Congress or the Territories, except so far as to deny the power in Congress to prohibit or exclude slavery. I did not affirm the doctrine of congressional protection-neither did I assert the right of the people of the Territories, during their territorial existence, to decide the question for themselves. I maintained only the total want of authority in Congress to exclude slavery by direct prohibition. It is true, sir, that, in the speech alluded to, I did express my willingness, waiving the question of power, to acquiesce, as a matter of expediency, in the privilege of the people of the Territories to establish or prohibit slavery at any time. I did not admit it as a constitutional right. I considered it, and assented to it, only in the light of expediency, and as contrasted in that respect to the Wilmot proviso; and, sir, if emigration to the Territories had been conducted from that time to this, as of former years, in the natural and usual way; if it had continued to flow into them through the natural and regular channels; if it had been left to the control and promptings of individual interests and inclinations; if no extraneous and extraordinary influences had been brought to bear upon it for the accomplishment of political objects; if no spurious, hot-bed emigration had been poured into the Territories, supported and encouraged by northern abolition aid societies, and stimulated by the rabid anti-slavery feeling of the free States; if the people of the Territories, formed the southern people a severe and salutary lesson. It has opened their eyes to the inevitable effects and fatal results of the "squatter sovereignty" doctrine of General Cass and his northern friends. The settlement and fate of California satisfied me and the whole South, that under that doctrine, as the established policy of the Government, the southern people, with their slave property, would be as effectually excluded from all the public Territories as they could possibly be by the Wilmot proviso. The emigration to California was under the general impression and understanding that Congress would not interfere to change the local Mexican law which prohibited slavery, but would leave the people to establish and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. Congress, in fact, refused and neglected to establish any territorial government, but left the people, who swarmed into that country from the great northern free-soil hive, to set up a government of their own, and admitted her into the Union with an anti-slavery constitution. The "Free-Soil" majority which then controlled Congress knew well that such would be the result of the "non-intervention" action of the Federal Government. The northern Whigs insisted upon positive prohibition. The northern Democrats, whilst they repudiated the Wilmot proviso, were unwilling to give the protection of Federal laws to slavery, and left the whole subject to the people of the Territory. The result was what all parties expected and anticipated, and what all parties at the North desired and intended. The Mexican law prohibited slavery. Slavery could not, therefore, be safely introduced into California. No man would risk such valuable property when it had no reliable protection. Few of the southern people emigrated to California; none of them carried their slaves with them. The consequence was inevitable. A State government was formed, without any previous territorial government, and without the authority of Congress; slavery was excluded, and the State admitted into the Union. 66 Sir, I saw then the practical operation of the new dogma of "popular sovereignty." It roused me, as well as the South generally, to a more critical examination of the whole subject, and I became convinced at an early day that the doctrine of 'non-intervention," as interpreted by its northern advocates, though plausible, was as erroneous as it was delusive and fatal to the rights of the southern people. I was, in 1850, one of the most decided opponents of the admission of California into the Union. I opposed the whole batch of the compromise measures of that memorable period. I opposed them because they recognized the doctrine of squatter sovereignty," and were founded upon and connected with the admission of California into the Union with a free-State constitution. Sir, when the southern people, upon a more mature investigation of the doctrine in question, and a knowledge of its practical workings in the case of California, came to understand its true character and bearing, and to comprehend and appreciate their just rights under the Constitution, and as equals in the Confederacy, they universally repudiated and condemned it. And when the KansasNebraska bill was passed, receiving, as it did, the sanction of the great body of the southern people of all parties, it was with the universal understanding at the South that it did not contain the doctrine of" squatter sovereignty" as advanced by General Cass, and subsequently so strenuously sustained and urged by the distinguished Senator from Illinois, [Mr. DOUGLAS,] and his antiLecompton friends. The language of a part of the thirty-second section of that bill, as applicable to Kansas, reads as follows: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor 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." passing the Kansas bill, and in using the language to which I have referred and quoted, Congress intended to confer a power which it did not itself possess, and which it could not exercise without a gross usurpation. Such a presumption would stultify the Congress of 1854, which passed that bill, and make it odious and contemptible in the eyes of all intelligent and honorable men. But, sir, what construction has been put upon that act by a large portion, if not a majority of the northern Democracy? What construction has been put upon it by Judge DOUGLAS and that large, respectable, and powerful section of the northern Democracy which has followed his lead on this important subject? And under what circumstances and influences was Kansas settled up and its fate as a political community and State decided? The Senator from Ohio [Mr. PUGH] knows, the Senate knows, the whole country knows, that from the very passage of the Kansas bill, it was contended, asserted, and urged, by Judge DOUGLAS and the northern Democracy that it not only conferred the power, but was intended by its framers to confer the power on the people of that Territory, to establish or prohibit slavery at pleasure, or, in the language of the bill itself," to form and Now, sir, what we of the South understood by regulate their domestic institutions in their own this clause, was, that Congress was not to assume way, subject only to the Constitution of the Unithe power or attempt to establish slavery in Kan- ted States, at any and all times during the exsas or to exclude it therefrom-that_Congress | istence of the territorial government; and it was should not declare, by resolution or law, either further contended and urged, that the exclusion, that slavery should exist or should not exist in prohibition, or abolition of slavery by the TerriKansas; but that the people of that Territory, torial Legislature was no violation of the Constiwhen forming a State constitution for the pur-tution of the United States, and might, therefore, pose of admission into the Union, had the power, be rightfully done. and should be left perfectly free to exercise it, of establishing or excluding slavery, as in their sovereign capacity of a State they might choose and determine. Such, sir, was our understanding of the Kansas bill; such the general interpretation of it at the South; such the uniform construction put upon it by all the southern people from that day to this. To that doctrine I have never been opposed; on the contrary, I advocated it in 1848, and have ever since given it my cordial sanction. But neither I, or any other southern man, as far as I know, have ever admitted the right of the people of a Territory to decide the question of slavery or no slavery, at any time during their territorial existence, or before the formation of a State constitution. The people of a Territory, after the formation of a territorial government by Congress, and under the power of legislation conferred upon them by the organic act, may, through their Territorial Legislature, recognize the existence of slavery, if it in fact exists in the Territory, and pass laws to regulate and protect it. This power can, in my opinion, be exercised by Congress itself, as I shall hereafter attempt to show, and may therefore be rightfully conferred upon the Territories; but I deny, and so do the southern people deny, that the Kansas-Nebraska act conferred, or intended to confer, upon the territorial governments enacted by that act, the power to exclude, prohibit, or abolish slavery. We deny that Congress itself has any such power, and in this position we have been sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Dred Scott. If Congress could not exercise that power itself, it could not confer it upon the territorial government; and surely it cannot be supposed that in Sir, it was with this construction of that act, and under the impression prevailing all over the free States, that those emigrant aid societies were formed from the hot-beds of northern abolitionism, which poured their thousands, armed with carpet bags and Sharpe's rifles, into Kansas to make up a majority of its population, to control the Territorial Legislature, and fix its political complexion and destiny as a free State. It was with this understanding that the northern Abolitionists pushed forward at the very outset their mongrel hordes of free-soil emigrants, with the object and determination of controlling the question by the power of numbers and the force of arms. It is true, sir, that under the influence of the early emigration from Missouri, the most contiguous and convenient State, the first Legislature of Kansas did recognize the existence of slavery, and passed laws for its regulation and protection. They established what the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] and others have so often and so contemptuously designated as a "slave code;" but how long did it exist? No longer than the northern construction of the Kansas-Nebraska act could work out its legitimate and certain results. As soon as slavery was recognized by the Legislature of Kansas, the northern abolition sentiment was aroused; it raised its gorgon head and hands and soon overran Kansas with its abolition scum. The violent, heated, and bloody character of the contest for supremacy; the uncertainty of its result; the doubtful security of slave property, and the danger of its final and total loss, deterred emigration from the southern States, whilst most of those who had gone into the Territory with their slaves at an early day, abandoned it in disgust or |