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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
a [sic] absolute and complete as that which Ampudia made at Mon- terey and Cornwallis at Yorktown. In each of them we. are called upon to give up nearly every thing in dispute, and to receive nothing in return: The free-soilers have not made, nor do they propose to make any concessions to us. They call upon our delegates in Congress to vote with them in support of a measure which they themselves admit, . is founded upon a deep abhorrence of our most vital institutions and is designed to shield the national territories from its foul pollution; and in compensation for this our self-abasing vote they promise - to do what? They promise to restore to us a constitutional right of which we have been violently deprived for many years; the right of recover- ing our fugitive slaves - a promise, however which every body knows to be fallacious and deceitful, and which can not be fulfilled because the state authorities of the north will never permit it. And thus for an imaginery good, never to be realized, we are to place ourselves in the disgusting attitude of ratifying the wrong and confirming the calumnies of which we affect so much to complain. And this w~ are told is a compromise - an adjustment - a pacification. Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant." Surely the south will never be guilty of conduct so suicidal and degrading. It is bad enough to bear the wrongs and calumnies that are heaped upon us without sanctifying them our- selves and making them indellible. In giving their aid and co-opera- tion to those anti-slavery measures of our enemies the southern mem- bers to Congress become themselves the most fearful abolitionists, and cruel accusers of their country's institutions and integrity. And this is one of the great objects of the present proposed compromises; it is to make the south instrumental in her own degredation and destruc- tion. By voting for and sustaining such measures (the billR of Mr. Clay,) she necessarily adopts and ratifies the sentiments and principles upon which they are predicated and thus by her own act she places her slave property out of the pale of the constitution, and the protection of the government, and denounces the holding of it as an infamy and a crime. What greater victory can the free soilers desire than this? Wbat broader foundation for their future operations? . This much gentlemen, I have felt bound to say in a spirit of frank- ness and freedom and with a profound solicitude to advise onlv those things which may be for the benefit of' our common country. Viewing all compromises, violative of the constitution as fatal to the Routh, I cannot yield my assent to any; and I am free to confess that I would be as ready to take up arms to-morrow against the Missouri compro- mise as against any other whose boasted purpose should be the sub- version of our rights and the degredation of our character. No com- promise can ever be intended for our good. We desire none. Give us the consituation r sic] and we ask no more. We do not wish t.he north to surrender to us any of her fundamental rights; ·and why should we surrender anv of ours to her? That which she imperiously demands of UR, is not pretended to be necessary to her interest. pros- perity and welfare - it is demanded merely as a concession to her in- furiated fanati<'ism and arroirant ::ts!mmption of moral superiority. And shall the sacrifice be made? God forbid. I consider, gentlemen, the condition of the south as eminently peril- ous; embarrassing and painful. It is impossiblE: to contemplate it
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