s one. The existence of slavery and the
slave-trade here in this District and elsewhere, under the exclusive
jurisdiction of Congress, was another. The apprehended introduction of
slavery into the Territories furnished other grounds of controversy.
The slave States complained of the free States, and the free States
complained of the slave States. It was supposed by some that this whole
agitation might be stayed, and finally put at rest by skilfully adjusted
legislation. So, sir, we had the omnibus bill, and its appendages the
fugitive-slave bill and the District slave-trade suppression bill.
To please the North--to please the free States--California was to be
admitted, and the slave depots here in the District were to be broken
up. To please the slave States, a stringent fugitive-slave act was to
be passed, and slavery was to have a chance to get into the new
Territories. The support of the Senators and Representatives from
Texas was to be gained by a liberal adjustment of boundary, and by the
assumption of a large portion of their State debt. The general result
contemplated was a complete and final adjustment of all questions
relating to slavery. The acts passed. A number of the friends of the
acts signed a compact pledging themselves to support no man for any
office who would in any way renew the agitation. The country was
required to acquiesce in the settlement as an absolute finality. No man
concerned in carrying those measures through Congress, and least of all
the distinguished man whose efforts mainly contributed to their success,
ever imagined that in the Territorial acts, which formed a part of the
series, they were planting the germs of a new agitation. Indeed, I have
proved that one of these acts contained an express stipulation which
precludes the revival of the agitation in the form in which it is now
thrust upon the country, without manifest disregard of the provisions of
those acts themselves.

I have thus proved beyond controversy that the averment of the bill,
which my amendment proposes to strike out, is untrue. Senators, will you
unite in a statement which you know to be contradicted by the history of
the country? Will you incorporate into a public statute an affirmation
which is contradicted by every event which attended or followed the
adoption of the compromise acts? Will you here, acting under your high
responsibility as Senators of the States, assert as a fact, by a solemn
vote, that which the pe