The Life of Jefferson Davis

“The re-annexation of Texas, at the earliest practicable period, is a great American measure, which the convention recommend to the cordial support of the Democracy of the Union.”

In 1848 they re-adopted the resolutions of 1844; and were not a little laughed at for keeping up the question of Texas after it had been annexed. In 1852 a new question had arisen; the measures of 1850 had presented, with great force to the public mind, the necessity for some expression of opinion upon the disturbing questions which the measures of 1850 had been designed to quiet. Therefore, in 1852, the party, true to its obligation to announce its principles, and to meet issues as they arise, said:

“Resolved, That the foregoing proposition (referring to the resolution of 1848) covers, and was intended to embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress; and, therefore, the Democratic party in the Union, standing on this national platform, will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the act known as the compromise measure, settled by the last Congress, the act for reclaiming fugitives from labor included; which act, being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, can not, with fidelity thereto, be repealed, or so changed as to destroy or impair its efficacy.

“Resolved, That the Democratic party will restrain all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slave question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made.”

This was the addition made in 1852, and it was made because of the agitation which then prevailed through the country against the fugitive slave act, and it was because the fugitive slave act, and that alone, was assailed, that the Democratic convention met the issue on that measure specifically, and for the same reason it received the approbation of the Southern States. Had this been considered as the indorsement of the slave trade bill for the District of Columbia, it would not have received their approval. The agitation was in relation to recovering fugitive slaves, and the Democratic party boldly and truly met the living issue, and declared its position upon it.

In 1856 other questions had arisen. It was necessary to meet them. The convention did meet them, and met them in a manner which was satisfactory, because it was believed to be full. I will not weary the Senate by reading the resolutions of 1856; they are familiar to every body. I only quote a portion of them:

“The American Democracy recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the ‘slavery question’ upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservatism of the Union – non-interference by Congress with slavery in State and Territory, or in the District of Columbia.

“That, by the uniform application of this Democratic principle to the organization of Territories, and to the admission of new States, with or without domestic slavery, as they may elect, the equal rights of all States will be preserved intact, the original compacts of the Constitution maintained inviolate, and the perpetuity and expansion of this Union insured to its utmost capacity of embracing, in peace and harmony, every future American State that may be constituted or annexed with a republican form of government.”

Pray, what can this mean? Squatter sovereignty? Incapacity of the Federal Government to enact any law for the protection of slave property anywhere? Could that be in the face of a struggle that we were constantly carrying on against the opponents of the fugitive slave law? Could that be, in the face of the fact that a majority had trodden down our constitutional rights in the District of Columbia, by legislating in relation to that particular character of property, and that they had failed to redeem a promise they had sacredly made to pass a law for the protection of slave property, so as to punish any one who should seduce, or entice, or abduct it from an owner in this District?

With all these things fresh in mind, what did they mean? They meant that Congress should not decide the question, whether that institution should exist within a Territory or not. They did not mean to withdraw from the inhabitants of the District of Columbia that protection to which they were entitled, and which is almost annually given by legislation; and yet States and Territories and the District of Columbia are all grouped together, as the points upon which this idea rests, and to which it is directed. It meant that Congress was not to legislate to interfere with the rights of property anywhere; not to attempt to decide what should be the institutions maintained anywhere; but surely not to disclaim the right to protect property, whether on sea or on land, wherever the Federal Government had jurisdiction and power. But some stress has been laid upon the resolution, which says that this principle should be applied to

“The organization of the Territories, and to the admission of new States, with or without domestic slavery, as they may elect.”

What does “may elect” mean? Does it refer to organization of the Territory? Who may elect? Congress organizes the Territories. Did it mean that the Territories were to elect? It does not say so. What does it say?

“That by the uniform application of this Democratic principle to the organization of Territories, and to the admission of new States, with or without domestic slavery, as they may elect.”

And here it met a question which had disturbed the peace of the country, and well-nigh destroyed the Union – the right of a State holding slaves to be admitted into the Union. It was declared here that the State so admitted should elect whether it would or would not have slaves. There is nothing in that which logically applies to the organization of a Territory. But if this be in doubt, let us come to the last resolution, which says:

“We recognize the right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly-expressed will of a majority of actual residents – ”

Does it stop there? No —

“and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution, with or without domestic slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States.”

If there had been any doubt before as to what “may elect” referred to, this resolution certainly removed it. It is clear they meant, that when a Territory had a sufficient number of inhabitants, and came to form a constitution, then it might decide the question as it pleased. From that doctrine, I know no Democrat who now dissents.

I have thus, because of the assertion that this was a new idea attempted to be interjected into the Democratic creed, gone over some portion of its history. Important by its connection with the existing agitation, and last in the series, is an act with the ushering in of which the Senator is more familiar than myself, and on which he made remarks, to which, it is probable, some of those who acted with him, will reply. I wish merely to say, in relation to the Kansas-Nebraska act, that there are expressions in it which seem to me not of doubtful meaning, such as, “in all cases involving title to slaves, or involving the question of personal freedom,” there should be a trial before the courts, and without reference to the amount involved, an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Territory, and from thence to the Supreme Court of the United States. If there was no right of property there; if we had no right to recognize it there; if some sovereign was to determine whether it existed or not, why did we say that the Supreme Court of the United States, in the last resort, should decide the question? If it was an admitted thing, by that bill, that the Territorial Legislature should decide it, why did we provide for taking the case to the Supreme Court? If it had been believed then, as it is asserted now, that a Territory possessed all the power of a State; that the inhabitants of a Territory could meet in convention and decide the question as the people of a State might do, there was nothing to be carried to the Supreme Court. You can not appeal from the decision of a constitutional convention of a State to the Supreme Court of the United States, to decide whether slave property shall be prohibited or admitted within the limits of a State; and if they rest on the same footing, what is the meaning of that clause of the bill?

But this organic law further provides, just as the resolution of the convention had done, that when a legal majority of the residents of either Territory formed a constitution, then, at their will, they might recognize or exclude slavery, and come into the Union as co-equal States. This fixes the period, defines the time at which the territorial inhabitants may perform this act, and clearly forbids the idea that it was intended, by those who enacted the law, to acknowledge that power to be existent in the inhabitants of a Territory during their territorial condition. If I am mistaken in this; if there was a contemporaneous construction of it differing from this, the Senators who sit around me and who were then members of the body, will not fail to remember it.

The Senator asserts that, in relation to this point, those who acted with him have changed, and claims for himself to have been consistent. If this be so, it proves nothing as to the present, and only individual opinions as to the past. I do not regard consistency as a very high virtue; neither, it appears, does he; for he told us that if it could be shown to him that he was in error on any point, he would change his opinion. How could that be? Who would undertake to show the Senator that he was in error? Who would undertake to measure the altitude of the Colossus who bestrides the world, and announces for, and of, and by himself, “We, the Democracy,” as though, in his person, all that remained of the party was now concentrated! Other men are permitted to change, because other men may be mistaken; and if they are honest, when convicted of their error, they must change, but how can one expect to convince the Senator, who, where all is change, stands changeless still?

In the course of his reply to me – if indeed it may be called such; it seemed to be rather a review of every thing except what I had said – he set me the bad example of going into the canvass in my own State. It is the first, I trust it will be the last time, I shall follow his example; and now only to the extent of the occasion, where criticism was invited by unusual publicity. In the canvass which the Senator had with his opponent, Mr. Lincoln, and the debates of which have been published in a book, we find much which, if it be consistent with his course as I had known it, only proves to me how little able I was to understand his meaning in former times.

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill having agreed the right for which I contend to be the subject of judicial decision; it having specially provided the mode and facilitated the process by which that right should be brought to the courts and finally decided; not allowing any check to be interposed because of amount, that bill having continued the provision which had been introduced into the New Mexico Bill, how are we to understand the Senator’s declarations, that, let the Supreme Court decide as they may, the inhabitants of a Territory may lawfully admit or exclude slavery as they please? What a hollow promise was given to us in the provision referring this vexed question to judicial decision, in order that we might reach a point on which we might peacefully rest, if the inhabitants of the Territories for which Congress had legislated could still decide the question and set aside any decision of the Supreme Court, and do this lawfully. I ask, was it not to give us a stone, when he promised us bread; to incorporate a provision in the organic act securing the right of appeal to the courts, if, as now stated, those courts were known to be powerless to grant a remedy?

Here there is a very broad distinction to be drawn between the power of the inhabitants of a Territory, or of any local community, lawfully to do a thing, and forcibly to do it. If the Senator had said, that whatever might be the decision of the Supreme Court, whatever might be the laws of Congress, whatever might be the laws of the Territories, in the face of an infuriated mob, such as he described on another occasion, it would be impossible for a man to hold a slave against their will, he would but have avowed the truism that in our country the law waits upon public opinion. But he says that they can do it lawfully. If his position had been such as I have just stated, it would have struck me as the opinion I had always supposed him to entertain. More than that, it would have struck me as the opinion which no one could gainsay; which, at any time, I would have been ready to admit. Nothing is more clear than that no law could prevail in our country, where force, as a governmental mean, is almost unknown, against a pervading sentiment in the community. Every body admits that; and it was in that view of the case that this question has been so often declared to be a mere abstraction. It is an abstraction so far as any one would expect in security to hold against the fixed purpose and all-pervading will of the community, whether territorial or other, a species of property, ambulatory, liable, because it has mind enough to go, to be enticed away whenever freed from physical restraint, and which would be nearly valueless if so restrained. It may be an abstraction as a practical question of pecuniary advantage, but it is not the less dear to those who assert the constitutional right. It would constitute a very good reason why no one should ever say there was an attempt to force slavery on an unwilling people, but no reason why the right should not be recognized by the Federal Government as one belonging to the equal privileges and immunities of every citizen of the United States.

But the main point of the Senator’s argument – and it deserved to be so, because it is the main question now in the public mind – was, what is the meaning of non-intervention? He defined it to be synonymous with squatter sovereignty, or with popular sovereignty…

The Senator and myself do not seem to be getting any nearer together; because the very thing which he describes constitutes the only case in which I would admit the necessity, and, consequently, the propriety of the people acting without authority. If men were cast upon a desert island, the sovereignty of which was unknown, over which no jurisdiction was exercised, they would find themselves necessitated to establish rules which should subsist between themselves; and so the people of California, when the Congress failed to give them a government; when it refused to enact a territorial law; when, paralyzed by the power of contending factions, it left the immigrants to work their own unhappy way; they had a right – a right growing out of the necessity of the case – to make rules for the government of their local affairs. But this was not sovereignty. It was the exercise, between man and man, of a social function necessary to preserve peace in the absence of any controlling power – essential to conserve the relations of person and property. The sovereignty, if it existed in any organization or government of the world, remained there still; and whenever that sovereignty extended itself over them, whether shipwrecked mariners, or adventurous Americans – whether cast off by the sea, or whether finding their weary way across the desert plains which lie west of the Mississippi – whenever the hand of the Government holding sovereign jurisdiction was laid upon them, they became subject; their sovereign control of their own affairs ceased. In our case, the directing hand of the Government is laid upon them at the moment of the enactment of an organic law. Therefore, the very point at which the Senator begins his sovereignty, is the point at which the necessity, and, in my view, the claim ceases.

But suppose that a territorial legislature, acting under an organic law, not defining their municipal powers further than has been general in such laws, should pass a law to exclude slave property, would the Senator vote to repeal it?

Mr. Douglas. I will answer. I would not, because the Democratic party is pledged to non-intervention; because, furthermore, whether such an act is constitutional or not is a judicial question. If it is unconstitutional, the court will so decide, and it will be null and void without repeal. If it is constitutional, the people have a right to pass it. If unconstitutional, it is void, and the court will ascertain the fact; and we pledged our honors to abide the decision…

Mr. Davis. If it will not embarrass the Senator, I would ask him if, as Chief Executive of the United States, he would sign a bill to protect slave property in State, Territory, or District of Columbia – an act of Congress?

Mr. Douglas. It will be time enough for me, or any other man, to say what bills he will sign, when he is in a position to exercise the power.

Mr. Davis. The Senator has a right to make me that answer. I was only leading on to a fair understanding of the Senator and myself about non-intervention…

I think it now appears that, in the minds of the gentlemen, non-intervention is a shadowy, unsubstantial doctrine, which has its application according to the circumstances of the case. It ceased to apply when it was necessary to annul an act in Kansas in relation to the political rights of the inhabitants. It had no application when it was necessary to declare that the old French laws should not be revived in the Territory of Kansas after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; but it rose an insurmountable barrier when we proposed to sweep away the Mexican decrees, usages, or laws, and leave the Constitution and laws of the United States unfettered in their operation in the Territory acquired from Mexico. It thus seems to have a constantly varying application, and, as I have not yet reached a good definition, one which quite satisfies me, I must take it as I find it in the Senator’s speech, in which he says Alabama asserted the doctrine of non-intervention in 1856. The Alabama resolutions of 1856 asserted the right to protection, and the duty of the Federal Government to give it. So, if he stands upon the resolutions of Alabama in 1856, non-intervention is very good doctrine, and exactly agrees with what I believe – no assumption, by the Federal Government, of any powers over the municipal territorial governments which is not necessary; that the hand of Federal power shall be laid as lightly as possible upon any territorial community; that its laws shall be limited to the necessities of each case; that it shall leave the inhabitants as unfettered in the determination of their local legislation as the rights of the people of the States will permit, and the duty of the General Government will allow. But when non-intervention is pressed to the point of depriving the arm of the Federal Government of its one great function of protection, then it is the doctrine which we denounce – which we call squatter sovereignty; the renunciation by Congress, and the turning over to the inhabitants a sovereignty which, rightfully, it does not belong to the one to grant or the other to claim, and, further and worse, thus to divest the Federal Government of a duty which the Constitution requires it to perform.

To show that this view is not new – that it does not rest singly on the resolutions of Alabama, I will refer to a subject, the action upon which has already been quoted in this debate – the Oregon Bill. During the discussion of the Oregon Bill, I offered in the Senate, June 23, 1848, an amendment which I will read:

“Provided, That nothing contained in this act shall be so construed as to authorize the prohibition of domestic slavery in said Territory, whilst it remains in the condition of a Territory of the United States.”

Upon this, I will cite the authority of Mr. Calhoun, in his speech on the Oregon Bill, June 27, 1848:

“The twelfth section of this bill is intended to assert and maintain this demand of the non-slaveholding States, while it remains a Territory, not openly or directly, but indirectly, by extending the provisions of the bill for the establishment of the Iowa Territory to this, and by ratifying the acts of the informal and self-constituted government of Oregon, which, among others, contains one prohibiting the introduction of slavery. It thus, in reality, adopts what is called the Wilmot proviso, not only for Oregon, but, as the Bill now stands, for New Mexico and California. The amendment, on the contrary, moved by the Senator from Mississippi, near me [Mr. Davis], is intended to assert and maintain the position of the slave-holding States. It leaves the Territory free and open to all the citizens of the United States, and would overrule, if adopted, the act of the self-constituted Territory of Oregon, and the twelfth section, as far as it relates to the subject under consideration. We have thus fairly presented the grounds taken by the non-slave-holding and the slave-holding States, or as I shall call them, for the sake of brevity, the Northern and Southern States, in their whole extent, for discussion.” —Appendix to Congressional Globe, Thirtieth Congress, first Session, p. 868.

I will quote also one of the speeches which he made near the close of his life, at a time when he was so far wasted by disease that it was necessary for him to ask the Senator from Virginia, who sits before me [Mr. Mason], to read the speech which his tameless spirit impelled him to compose, but which he was physically unable to deliver; and once again he came to the Senate chamber, when standing yet more nearly on the confines of death; he rose, his heart failing in its functions, his voice faltered, but his will was so strong that he could not realize that the icy hand was upon him, and he erroneously thought he was oppressed by the weight of his overcoat. True to his devotion to the principles he had always advocated, clinging, to the last hour of his life, to the duty to maintain the rights of his constituents, still he was here, and his honored, though feeble, voice was raised for the maintenance of the great principle to which his life had been devoted. From the speech I read as follows:

“The plan of the administration can not save the Union, because it can have no effect whatever towards satisfying the States composing the Southern section of the Union, that they can, consistently with safety and honor, remain in the Union. It is, in fact, but a modification of the Wilmot proviso. It proposes to effect the same object – to exclude the South from all territory acquired by the Mexican treaty. It is well known that the South is united against the Wilmot proviso, and has committed itself, by solemn resolutions, to resist should it be adopted. Its opposition is not to the name, but that which it proposes to effect. That, the Southern States hold to be unconstitutional, unjust, inconsistent with their equality as members of the common Union, and calculated to destroy irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. These objections equally apply to what, for brevity, I will call the executive proviso. There is no difference between it and the Wilmot, except in the mode of effecting the object; and in that respect, I must say that the latter is much the least objectionable. It goes to its object openly, boldly, and distinctly. It claims for Congress unlimited power over the Territories, and proposes to assert it over the territories acquired from Mexico by a positive prohibition of slavery. Not so the executive proviso. It takes an indirect course, and, in order to elude the Wilmot proviso, and thereby avoid encountering the united and determined resistance of the South, it denies, by implication, the authority of Congress to legislate for the Territories, and claims the right as belonging exclusively to the inhabitants of the Territories. But to effect the object of excluding the South, it takes care, in the meantime, to let in immigrants freely from the Northern States, and all other quarters, except from the South, which it takes special care to exclude by holding up to them the danger of having their slaves liberated under the Mexican laws. The necessary consequence is to exclude the South from the Territories, just as effectually as would the Wilmot proviso. The only difference, in this respect, is, that what one proposes to effect directly and openly, the other proposes to effect indirectly and covertly.

“But the executive proviso is more objectionable than the Wilmot in another and more important particular. The latter, to effect its object, inflicts a dangerous wound upon the Constitution, by depriving the Southern States, as joint partners and owners of the Territories, of their rights in them; but it inflicts no greater wound than is absolutely necessary to effect its object. The former, on the contrary, while it inflicts the same wound, inflicts others equally great, and, if possible, greater, as I shall next proceed to explain.

“In claiming the right for the inhabitants, instead of Congress, to legislate for the Territories, the executive proviso assumes that the sovereignty over the Territories is vested in the former, or, to express it in the language used in a resolution offered by one of the Senators from Texas [General Houston, now absent], they ‘have the same inherent right of self-government as the people in the States.’ The assumption is utterly unfounded, unconstitutional, without example, and contrary to the entire practice of the Government, from its commencement to the present time, as I shall proceed to show.” —Calhoun’s Works, vol. 4, p. 562.

Mr. Davis. I find that I must abridge, by abstaining from the reading of extracts. When this question arose in 1820, Nathaniel Macon, by many considered the wisest man of his day, held the proposed interference to be unauthorized and innovative. In arguing against the Missouri Compromise, as it was called – the attempt by Congress to prescribe where slaves might or might not be held – the exercise, by the Federal Government north of a certain point, of usurped power by an act of inhibition, Mr. Macon said our true policy was that which had thus far guided the country in safety: the policy of non-intervention. By non-intervention he meant the absence of hostile legislation, not the absence of governmental protection. Our doctrine on this point is not new, but that of our opponents is so.

The Senator from Illinois assumes that the congressional acts of 1850 meant no legislation in relation to slave property; while, in the face of that declaration, stand the laws enacted in that year, and the promise of another, which has not been enacted – laws directed to the question of slavery and slave property; one even declaring, in certain contingencies, as a penalty on the owner, the emancipation of his slave in the District of Columbia. If no action upon the question was the prevailing opinion, what does the legislation mean? Was it non-action in the District of Columbia? Be it remembered, the resolution of the Cincinnati platform says, “Non-interference, by Congress, with slavery in State and Territory, or in the District of Columbia.” They are all upon the same footing.

Again, he said that the Badger amendment was a declaration of no protection to slave property. The Badger amendment declares that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise shall not revive the laws or usages which preëxisted that compromise; and the history of the times, so far as I understand it, is, that it intended to assure those gentlemen who feared that the laws of France would be revived in the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, by the repeal of the act of 1820, and that they would be held responsible for having, by congressional act, established slavery. The Southern men did not desire Congress to establish slavery. It has been our uniform declaration that we denied the power of the Federal Government either to establish or prohibit it; that we claimed for it protection as property recognized by the Constitution, and we claimed the right for it, as property, to go, and to receive federal protection wherever the jurisdiction of the United States is exclusive. We claim that the Constitution of the United States, in recognizing this property, making it the basis of representation, put it, not upon the footing which it holds between foreign nations, but upon the basis of the compact or union of the States; that, under the delegated grant to regulate commerce between the States, it did not belong to a State; therefore, without breach of contract, they can not, by any regulation, prohibit transit, and the compact provided that they should not change the character of master and slave in the case of a fugitive. Could Congress surrender, for the States and their citizens, the claim and protection for those or other constitutional rights, against invasion by a State? If not, surely it can not be done in the case of a Territory, a possession of the States. The word “protecting,” in that amendment, referred to laws which preëxisted – laws which it was not designed, by the Democrats, to revive when they declared the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; and, therefore, I think, did not affect the question of constitutional right and of federal power and duty.

In all these territorial bills we have the language “subject to the Constitution;” that is to say, that the inhabitants are to manage their local affairs in their own way, subject to the Constitution; which, I suppose, might be rendered thus: “In their own way, provided their own way shall be somebody else’s way;” for “subject to the Constitution” means, in accordance with an instrument with which the territorial inhabitants had nothing to do; with the construction of which they were not concerned; in the adoption of which they had no part, and in relation to which it has sometimes been questioned whether they had any responsibility. My own views, as the Senator is aware from previous discussions, (and it is needless to repeat,) are that the Constitution is co-extensive with the United States; that the designation includes the Territories, that they are necessarily subject to the Constitution. But if they be subject to the Constitution, and subject to the organic act, that is the language used; that organic act being the law of Congress, that Constitution being the compact of the States – the territorial inhabitants having no lot or part in one or the other, save as they are imposed upon them – where is their claim to sovereignty? Where is their right to do as they please? The States have a compact, and the agent of the States gives to the Territories a species of constitution in the organic act, which endures and binds them until they throw off what the Senator on another occasion termed the minority condition, and assume the majority condition as a State. The remark to which I refer was on the bill to admit Iowa and Florida into the Union. The Senator then said:

“The father may bind the son during his minority, but the moment that he (the son) attains his majority, his fetters are severed, and he is free to regulate his own conduct. So, sir, with the Territories; they are subject to the jurisdiction and control of Congress during infancy, their minority; but when they attain their majority, and obtain admission into the Union, they are free from all restraints and restrictions, except such as the Constitution of the United States imposes upon each and all of the States.”

This was the doctrine of territorial sovereignty – perhaps that is the phrase – at that period. At a later period, in March, 1856, the Senator said:

“The sovereignty of a Territory remains in abeyance, suspended in the United States in trust for the people, until they shall be admitted into the Union as a State. In the meantime, they are admitted to enjoy and exercise all the rights and privileges of self-government, in subordination to the Constitution of the United States, and in obedience to the organic law passed by Congress in pursuance of that instrument.”

If it be admitted – and I believe there is no issue between the Senator and myself on that point – that the Congress of the United States have no right to pass a law excluding slaves from a Territory, or determining in the Territory the relation of master and slave, of parent and child, of guardian and ward; that they have no right anywhere to decide what is property, but are only bound to protect such rights as preëxisted the formation of the Union – to perform such functions as are intrusted to them as the agent of the States – then how can Congress, thus fettered, confer upon a corporation of its creation – upon a territorial legislature, by an organic act, a power to determine what shall be property within the limits of such Territory?

But, again, if it were admitted that the territorial inhabitants did possess this sovereignty: that they had the right to do as they pleased on all subjects, then would arise the question, if they were authorized, through their representatives, thus to act, whence came the opposition to what was called the Lecompton Constitution? How did Congress, under this state of facts, get the right to inquire whether those representatives in that case really expressed the will of the people. Still more; how did Congress get the right to decide that those representatives must submit their action to a popular vote in a manner not prescribed by the people of the Territory, however eminently it may have been advisable, convenient, and proper in the judgment of the Congress of the United States? What revisory function had we, if they, through their representatives, had full power to act on all such subjects whatsoever?

I have necessarily, in answering the Senator, gone somewhat into the argumentum ad hominem. Though it is not entirely exhausted, I think enough has been said to show the Senate in what the difference between us consists. If it be necessary further to illustrate it, I might ask how did he propose to annul the organic act for Utah, if the recognition by the Congress of a sufficient number of inhabitants to justify the organization of a territorial government transferred the sovereignty to the inhabitants of the Territory? If sovereignty passed by the recognition of the fact, how did he propose, by congressional act, to annul the territorial existence of Utah?