WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1851
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the passage of the Oregon bill was but a reenactment or acknowl- edgment of the line of 36.30. Oregon territory lay above that line. The South did not contend for the right to carry slaves there. That matter was settled by the act of 1820. All Oregon was then declared to be freesoil. Besides the people of that ter- ritory when they asked for a government, petitioned Congress to prohibit the introduction of slave1:y there. He had planted himself on the Missouri line of 36.30; he had adhered to that compromise, regarding it as invested with the sanctity of the constitution itself until it had been abandoned and denounced by the South. He voted also for the admission of California. For this he had been denounced. California was admitted as other States have been admitted. The people adopted a republican form of government: they had prohibited slavery themselves. There was nothing in this repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. It was the very principle that the Democratic party had contended for-the principle that he had always contended for, and that he would always contend for-that the people have the right to make their own domestic and municipal regulations and laws. It was necessary for California to have a State Govern- ment; the emergency-the extraordinary state of things-de- manded it absolutely; the salvation of the people depended upon it; the peace of the Union itself-perhaps its very existence depended upon it-California was a remote territory. It was rapidly populating-the character of the population was anom- alous. A great majority of the people were good people, but there was a large intermixture of bad men amongst them-reckless and abandoned and lawless characters, whom it was necessary to intimidate and restrain by the strong arm of the law. The peo- ple needed protection from such men, and protection could only be afforded by a well regulated State Government. If that had been denied them, they would not have been treated as Ameri- can citizens. They would have felt it, and would it not have · weakened their attachment to this Government? Nay, who will say that such an act of injustice on our part-such a disregard of their interests and their rights-might not have resulted in a renunciation of their allegiance to this Government? What then would have been the result? Could we have forced them into subjection? Could we have conquered them? Even admit- ting that this were possible, it was not the way to preserve the Union-it would have endangered its existence. "\Ve regard the
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