133
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1850
to the late Vice President, and to myself, that they should be forthcoming, I have been informed by those who have conferred with the executive of the deceased reporter, that no notes of those remarks were to be found among the papers belonging to that individual at the time of his decease. Therefore I was deprived of the power of vindicating myself, through the publication of the expressions of any of my views on that occasion, and of showing to the world what my opinions were as then expressed. I adhered strictly to the Missouri compromise line. Wisconsin and Iowa (further south still, and within the old limits of Louisiana, and analogous in situation to Oregon,) had been received with the same prohibition, when they were constituted territorial governments, that were imposed upon Oregon. There is not a shadow of difference, yet no one was denounced for voting for the bills establishing those governments. The hon- orable Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. Calhoun,] who de- nounced my vote on the Oregon bill, and declared that I ought. to be held up to the reprobation of the whole South for that vote, either voted for or made no objection to the admission of Wisconsin, and subsequently of Iowa, with the same provision, though Iowa lay south of Oregon. I cannot see why I was not as fully justified in voting as others, Senators of the South, who unanimously voted for the admission of a State with the slavery prohibition, taken from the former limits of Louisiana as acquired from Spain and France. I regret, sir, being called upon to make any allusion to this matter, inasmuch as the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] is not present. But, as I have been denounced, and as this has been attempted to be made the subject of annoyance to me, it is due that in public, in my place in the Senate, regardless of everything, (other than becoming decorum, and a due deference to the superior age and standing of that gentleman,) that I should vindicate myself against whatever I deem a charge unjustly made ag~inst me. The Senator said, "the South is accused of having yielded her principles (referring to the Missouri compromise) and as admitting the power of Congress to exclude slavery from the T'enitories. It was a compromise where both waived, but neither yielded their opinion." I was not here then; I was not an actor on that stage; but I will refer to the history of the subject, to the history of the times, and will not on this occasion refer to the memoir or dairy of Mr. Adams. Very different, however, was the case in reference to the Oregon bill, passed at the session preceding the last. There the North contended for the absolute right to exclude slavery from
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