PUTNAM'S RESOLUTION.

On the 28th of February Mr. Putnam moved the following preamble and resolution :

"Whereas, In the settlement of the difficulties pending between this country and Mexico, territory may be acquired in which slavery does not exist; and whereas, Congress, in the organization of a territorial government, at an early period of our political history, established a principle worthy of imitation in all future time, forbidding the existence of slavery in free territory: Therefore,

"Resolved, That in any territory which may be acquired from Mexico, over which shall be established territorial governments, slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, should be forever prohibited; and that, in any act or resolution establishing such governments, a fundamental provision ought to be inserted to that effect."

Mr. Putnam moved the previous question.

Mr. Brodhead moved to lay the resolution on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was decided by yeas and nays.

After the roll was called through, Mr. C. J. Ingersoll rose and asked leave to vote. Mr. I. said he was not within the bar when his name was called, but came in before the following name was called. Mr. I. said, if allowed to vote, he would vote aye. His vote was not received.

Mr. Murphy rose and said he was not within the

bar when his name was called, but he asked leave to vote. It being objected to

Mr. C. J. Ingersoll moved to suspend the rules, to allow Mr. Murphy and himself to vote. Disagreed to. The result was then announced, as follows:

Yeas.-Messrs. Green Adams, Atkinson, Barringer, Barrow, Bayly, Bedinger, Birdsall, Black, Bocock, Bowdon, Bowlin, Boyd, Boyden, Brodhead, Charles Brown, Albert G. Brown, Burt, Cabell, Cathcart, Chase, Clapp, Franklin Clark, Beverly L. Clark, Clingman, Howell Cobb, Williamson R. W. Cobb, Cocke, Crisfield, Crozier, Daniel, Dickinson, Donnell, Garnett Duncan, Featherston, Ficklin, French, Fulton, Gaines, Gayle, Gentry, Goggin, Green, Willard P. Hall, Haralson, Harris, Haskell, Henley, Hill, Hilliard, Isaac E. Holmes, George S. Houston, Inge, Iverson, Jackson, Jamieson, Andrew Johnson, Robert W. Johnson, Geo W. Jones, John W. Jones, Kaufman, Kennon, Tho. Butler King, La Sere, Levin, Ligon, Lord, Lumpkin, Maclay, McClernand, McKay, McLane, Mann, Miller, Morehead, Morse, Outlaw, Pendleton, Pettit, Peyton, Phelps, Pilsbury, Preston, Richardson, Richey, Robinson, Roman, Sawyer, Shepperd, Simpson, Sims, Robert Smith, Stanton, Stephens, Thibodeaux, Thomas, Tompkins, John B. Thompson, Robert A Thompson, Toombs, Turner, Venable, Wick, Williams, Wiley, Woodward-105.

Nays.-Messrs. Abbott, Ashmun, Bingham, Brady, Butler, Canby, Collamer, Collins, Conger, Cranston, Crowell, Cummins, Dickey, Dixon, Duer, Daniel Duncan, Dunn, Eckert, Edwards, Embree, Nathan Evans, Faran, Farrelly, Fisher, Freedly, Fries, Giddings, Gott, Gregory, Grinnell. Hale, Nathan K. Hall, Hammons, James G. Hampton, Moses Hampton, Henry, Elias B. Holmes, John W. Houston, Hubbard, Hudson, Hunt, Irvin, Jenkins, James H. Johnson, Kellogg, Daniel P, King, Lahm, William T. Lawrence, Sidney Lawrence. Leffler, LINCOLN, McClelland, McIlvaine, Marsh, Marvin, Morris, Mullin, Nelson, Nes, Newell, Pa!frey, Peaslee, Peck, Pollock, Putnam, Reynold, Julius, John A. Rockwell, Root, Rumsey, St. John, Schenck, Sherrill, Silvester, Slingerland, Caleb B. Smith, Truman Smith, Starkweather, Andrew Stewart, Charles E. Stuart, Strohm, Tallmadge, Taylor, Richard W. Thompson, William Thompson, Thurston, Van Dyke, Vinton, Warren, Wentworth, White, Wilmot, Wilson-92,

So the resolution was laid on the table.

Mr. Lincoln voted with the nays.

THE TEN REGIMENT BILL.

On April 3d Mr. Lincoln voted to suspend the rules tbat the Ten Regiment Bill might be taken up, and again did the same on the 18th of the same month.

THE TARIFF.

June 19, 1848, Mr. Lincoln put himself on record in favor of a protective tariff. Mr. Stewart of Penn., on that day moved a suspension of the rules to enable him to offer the following resolution :

"Resolved, That the Committee of Ways and Means be instructed to inquire into the expediency of reporting a bill increasing the duties on foreign luxuries of all kinds and on such foreign manufactures as are now coming into ruinous competition with American labor." Mr. Lincoln voted in the affirmative.

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES.

On the 28th of July, the famous bill to establish territorial governments for Oregon, California, and New-Mexico, was taken from the Speaker's table as it came from the Senate. The peculiar feature of the bill was a provision in reference to California and NewMexico, prohibiting the territorial legislatures from passing laws in favor or against slavery, but also providing that all the laws of the territorial legislatures shall be subject to the sanction of Congress. It will be remembered that it was this bill which Mr. Webster, who was then in the Senate, opposed in a great speech; using the following language:

"We stand here now-at least I do, for one-to say, that considering that there have been already five new slaveholding States formed out of newly-acquired territory, and one only, at most, non-slaveholding State, I do not feel that I am called on to go farther; I do not feel the obligation to yield more. But our friends of the South say, 'You deprive us of all our rights; we have fought for this territory, and you deny us participation in it.' Let us consider this question as it really is; and since the honorable gentleman from Georgia proposes to leave the case to the enlightened and impartial judgment of mankind, and as I agree with him that it is a case proper to be considered by the enlightened part of mankind, let us consider how the matter in truth stands. What is the consequence? Gentlemen who advocate the case which my honorable friend from Georgia, with so much ability, sustains, declare that we invade their rights— that we deprive them of a participation in the enjoyment of territories acquired by the common services and common exertions of all. Is this true? How deprived ? Of what do we deprive them? Why, they say that we deprive them of the privilege of carrying their slaves, as slaves, into the new territories. Well, sir, what is the amount of that? They say that in this way we deprive them of the opportunity of going into this acquired territory with their property. Their " property!'-what do they mean by that? We certainly do not deprive them of the privilege of going into these newly-acquired territories with all that, in the general estimate of human society, in the general, and common, and universal understanding of mankind, is esteemed property. Not at all. The truth is just this they have in their own States peculiar laws, which create property in persons. They have a system of local legislation, on which slavery rests, while everybody agrees that it is against natural law, or at least against the common understanding which pre

vails as to what is natural law. I am not going into metaphysics, for therein I should encounter the honorable member from South Carolina, and we should wander, in ‘endless mazes lost,' until after the time for the adjournment of Congress. The Southern States have peculiar laws, and by those laws there is property in slaves. This is purely local. The real meaning, then, of Southern gentlemen, in making this complaint, is, that they cannot go into the territories of the United States, carrying with them their own peculiar local law-a law which creates property in persons. This, according to their own statement, is all the ground of complaint they have. Now, here, I think, gentlemen are unjust toward us. How unjust they are, others will judge-generations that will come after us will judge.

"It will not be contended that this sort of personal slavery exists by general law. It exists only by local law. I do not mean to deny the validity of that local law where it is established; but I say it is, after all, nothing but local law. It is nothing more.

And

wherever that local law does not extend, property in persons does not exist. Well, sir, what is now the demand on the part of our Southern friends? They say, 'We will carry our local laws with us wherever we go. We insist that Congress does us injustice unless it establishes in the territory into which we wish to go, our own local law.' This demand I, for one, resist, and shall resist.

"Let me conclude, therefore, by remarking, that while I am willing to present this as presenting my own judgment and position, in regard to this case—and I beg it to be understood that I am speaking for no other than myself and while I am willing to present this to the whole world as my own justification, I rest on these propositions: 1st. That when this Constitution was adopted, nobody looked for any new acquisition of territory to be formed into slaveholding States