CONGKESS, U. S. 



317 



connection with this subject, to sustain the 

 measure. I was one of those who voted for that 

 resolution, and I now intend to show why I was 

 not pledged to the support of this measure by 

 having voted for the resolution which the Pres- 

 ident recommended to the adoption of Con- 

 gress. Here is his accompanying message, and 

 the resolution which he recommended to Con- 

 gress is in these words : 



Resolved, That the United States ought to cooperate 

 with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment 

 of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid to be 

 used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for 

 the inconvenience, public and private, produced by 

 such change of system. 



" Whose measure was this ? Who conceived 

 it? "Who endeavored to enforce it upon the 

 favorable consideration of Congress ? It was 

 the President. On this subject he asked for a 

 conference of the members of both Houses of 

 Congress from the border Slave States, and we 

 held that conference with him, and he explain- 

 ed to us the nature of his proposition. It was 

 suggested to him in the course of that con- 

 ference, by members from some of the States, 

 that it was not competent for Congress to pass 

 such a measure, that it had no constitutional 

 power to pass it. He said, in reply : ' I do not 

 offer it as a practical measure. I commend it 

 to your consideration as a sentiment.' To use 

 his own phrase, which I heard, and which some 

 twenty-five other gentlemen heard : ' I do not 

 assume that Congress has the power to pass 

 such a measure, but the Constitution could be 

 amended to give it. I do not offer it to you to 

 be sustained as a practical measure ; I commend 

 it to your consideration as a proposition which 

 I desire you to lay before the people of your 

 respective States.' It was in that sense, and 

 in that sense alone, that the President of the 

 United States commended this sentiment to the 

 favorable consideration of the members of Con- 



g-ess who represented the border Slave States, 

 e still adheres to that interpretation of the 

 measure, and he has given the most satisfac- 

 tory and conclusive evidence upon that point 

 that it was possible for him to give ; for at the 

 commencement of the present session, in his 

 annual message to Congress, he recommends an 

 amendment of the Constitution. of the United 

 States, which shall confer upon Congress the 

 power to pass this measure. I voted for the 

 resolution, understanding it as the President 

 afterward explained it, in the conference to 

 which I have referred. 



" I have always been of the opinion, and I 

 am yet, that when any State of this Union 

 spontaneously, of her own free will, determines 

 to emancipate her slaves, then, in the form of 

 colonizing these slaves, the United States ought 

 to give that State aid, and ought to cooperate 

 in every legitimate manner to transport the 

 negroes that are thus liberated from the State 

 and from the United States. 



'' But, sir, I gave my consent to this senti- 

 ment, this principle of giving assistance to the 



States that would emancipate their slaves, just 

 as the President of the United States did when 

 he asked Congress to take the steps to amend 

 the Constitution to give them that power. Un- 

 til such an amendment as that is made, the 

 power does not exist in the instrument. What, 

 sir, said the President in his conference with 

 the border State members of Congress? He 

 said this, in the most distinct terms he did all 

 the talking himself, mostly : ' I concede and 

 recognize fully the property of a jlave owner 

 in his slaves. If I earn a thousand dollars and 

 invest it in land, and another man earns a thou- 

 sand dollars and invests it in a negro man, he 

 has as indefeasible a right to his slave as I have 

 to my land.' Well now, sir, that is th only 

 sanction of property that we have ever claim- 

 ed in relation to slaves ; and we contend that 

 we have precisely the same constitutional and 

 legal right to slave property that we have to 

 land or horses or any other property. No man 

 has refuted that proposition, and no man can 

 do it not even the learned and able lawyer 

 and former judge from Illinois." 



Mr. Ten Eyck, of New Jersey, expressed his 

 opinion in these words: "I am willing, with- 

 out taking up more of the time of the Senate, 

 to say that I am in favor of giving aid to all the 

 States that shall ask for it to compensate them 

 in establishing a system of gradual emancipa- 

 tion ; but I do not see my way clear in under- 

 taking to pay for all the slaves in Missouri, and 

 for every slave within the several border Slave 

 States, and for every slave in any other State 

 that may be restored to this' Union either by 

 force of arms or by the return of its citizens to 

 their former allegiance. It cannot be done; 

 the Treasury cannot stand it. The country can- 

 not sustain the burden. We may assist, we may 

 do a part, to gain the end in view ; we cannot 

 do it all. With these explanations and these 

 remarks, I shall vote in favor of the bill, if it 

 shall be so amended as to appropriate a sum of 

 money for gradual abolition ; but against it, if 

 it involves the principle of immediate abolition 

 and the payment of the full value of every slave 

 so emancipated." 



Mr. Powell, of Kentucky, urged that the 

 question should be submitted to a vote of the 

 people, thus : " Sir, from what is known to the 

 country, and from what we have heard to-day 

 from the senator from Missouri and others, we 

 know that at the present time the people of 

 Missouri cannot, unless this question should be 

 committed to them directly, have an oppor- 

 tunity of expressing the popular will upon this 

 great measure. It is well known that a minor- 

 ity, and a small minority, of the people of the 

 State of Missouri alone elected the Legislature 

 that is now convened in the capital of that 

 State. It is known, too, that the military in- 

 terfered in some instances with the elections in 

 that State. It is believed by a majority of the 

 members of Congress from that State, that if 

 there had been no military interference, there 

 would not have been an emancipation Legisla- 





