WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1854
493
demarkation between the free and slave States is fixed by the compromise. The right of the States lying south of that line. to be admitted with the institution of slavery, if the people asking such admission require it, cannot be questioned. The spirit of the rule would, in my opinion, be infringed, should Congress, by law, attempt to exclude the institution from any territory south of that line. I assert the principle that Congress has no 1-iaht to legislate upon the subject of slavery in any of om· territories of this Union. It is an institution of exclus1vely domestic regula- tion, subject alone to the control, jurisdiction, and authority, of the several States, each acting independently for itself. Con- gress would have the same right to impose slavery upon a State unwilling to receive it, as to exclude it from one desirous of retaining it." Mr. President, my opposition to this bill, I trust, will not be deemed of a factious or impertinent character, growing out of the present condition of the country, nor a disposition to oppose a measure introduced into this body. I do not know, nor do I pretend to know, the origin of this measure. I do not conceive that there was the slightest necessity for its introduction; and when I saw the question of repeal come up-for in fact it was that from the first-of the Missouri compromise, I foresaw the consequences which must necessarily arise from it-the agitation which must be renewed in this country, and which I, with every other public functionary, with every private man, had deprecated as one of the greatest misfortunes that could happen to us. Sir, I _was not prepared for this; and when it did come up in the shape and form which it has assumed, I had no alternative left but either to adhere to the principles which I had formerly avowed and acted upon, and upon which Texas was admitted, or to abandon them and vote for a contrary principle, repealing the acts which I had formerly recognized. Sir, if this gives offense to any, I regret it in the extreme. I took my ground early upon the compromise bill of 1850. I am not behind any man in my devotion to it. But, previous to its adoption, I had taken my position upon the Missouri compromise, and I stand there established as firmly as I now stand UPon the compromise of 1850. I am the only Senator upon this floor who voted "straight out," as they say, for every measure of the final compromise, and then for the whole collectively. A Senator then from Penn- sylvania, [Mr. Sturgeon,] voted also for every provision contained
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