CHAP. The advocates of the system contended that they had a right to go into any of the territories and take with them 1819. their property, meaning slaves. That was admitted, but only under the laws of Congress, which so far protected such property, but it was denied that the slaveholder could carry with him the municipal law of the State from which he emigrated, any more than the emigrant from a free State could take with him its peculiar laws. The same object was sought by attempting to "extend the constitution of the United States to the territories," and this under the form of an amendment attached to the general appropriation bill, providing a temporary government for the ceded territories, and extending to them certain acts of Congress. The proposition elicited a discussion in which Calhoun and Webster each took part. The former argued that the Constitution recognized slavery; that it was the supreme law of the land; therefore it was superior to every law in opposition to slavery, not only overriding any territorial law to that effect, but even superior to any law of Congress designed to abolish it; and that the property of the South, meaning slaves, would thus be protected by the Constitution in the territories into which Calhoun openly avowed his intention to thus carry the institution of slavery. "The Constitution," said he, "pronounces itself to be the supreme law of the land;" the States as well as the Territories. Mr. Webster replied that the Constitution was made for the States and not for the Territories; that Congress governed the latter independently of the Constitution, and often contrary to it, and was constantly doing things in the Territories that it could not do in the States; and that the Constitution could not operate of itself in the Territories. When new territory has been acquired," said he, “it has always been subject to the laws of Con THE POWERS OF THE CONSTITUTION. 775 LV. gress, to such laws as Congress thought proper to pass for CHAP. its immediate government and preparatory state in which it was to remain until it was ready to come into the 1849. Union as one of the family of States." He quoted the Constitution itself, which declares that "it and the laws of Congress passed under it shall be the supreme law o the land." Thus it required a definite law of Congress to establish slavery in the Territories under the Constitution, as shown by the words of that instrument itself. The amendment failed in both houses; but it became the germ of another doctrine, that the Constitution of the United States, independently of an act of Congress, but in spite of it, not only goes of itself to the territories but carries with it a shield protecting slavery. During this session of Congress meetings were held at Washington, attended by a majority of the members of Congress from the slave-holding States, to take into consideration the measures best adapted to secure southern rights. They published an Address to the people of the South. It was drawn up by Calhoun, and by no means was it conciliatory in its tone and sentiments, and for that reason it failed to enlist in its favor all the delegates from the South. In truth it became a party measure. Only forty members, all from the slaveholding States, signed their names to the Address: of these, thirty-eight belonged to the Democratic party. This manifesto was soon followed by a Southern Convention to dissolve the Union. The Legislatures of two of the States, South Carolina and Mississippi, issued a call for a "Southern Congress," to frame a government for a "United States South." The agitation was not limited to the South; the North was as busily engaged in canvassing the exciting question, and both parties were summoning their energies for the conflict in the new Congress about to meet. CHAP. 3. The thirty-first Congress, called a month earlier than the usual time, met in its first session. Parties were 1849. nearly equally divided. The House spent three weeks, Nov. and balloted sixty times for a speaker, and only succeeded by changing the rule by which a majority of the whole is required to elect, to that of a plurality. Mr. C. Howell Cobb, of Georgia, was elected; his competitor was Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts. The first and only annual message of President Taylor was sent in. He saw the difficulties which lay in his path. The bitterness of party had been increased by sectional feelings. The President felt the responsibility of his position; but he fearlessly yet temperately gave his views, and plainly intimated that he should not shrink from his duty to the Union itself; deprecated sectional controversies, and referred to Washington in confirmation of this sentiment. The points at issue were various, and he recommended a plan to settle each. As California, whose population had increased so rapidly, had framed a Constitution, he advised that she should be at once admitted into the Union; that New Mexico and Utah should be organized as territories, and when they were prepared to come into the Union as States, be permitted to decide the question of slavery for themselves; and that the dispute between Texas and New Mexico, in relation to their boundaries, should be settled by the judicial authority of the United States. Early in the session Henry Clay moved in the Senate a series of resolutions designed to settle these disputes by a compromise. A committee of thirteen was appointed, to whom these resolutions and the various plans which had been proposed were referred. In due time Mr. Clay, as chairman, reported. The spirit of the resolutions was combined in one measure, which, from its character and the dissimilar objects it was designed to accomplish, was |