SLAVERY-EXTENSION IN THE UNITED STATES. AMONG the phenomena presented by

the brief career of Republi-

can institutions in the United States of America, the extension of slavery is not the least, nor the least wonderful. While America consented to abolish the African slave-trade, nearly fifty years ago, she has dining that period fostered a slave-trade within her own limits, which has flung its black arms over some of the fairest territories of the Union, since the 4th of July 1776, when all men were declared to be free and equal. Instead of slavery becoming gradually extinct, suffocated in the atmosphere of freedom, it has were declared to be free and equal. Instead of slavery becoming gradually extinct, suffocated in the atmosphere of freedom, it has grown and expanded far beyond its original limits ; and if its ture progress be in the ratio of the past, the day will come when there will be a band of Black States from the Atlantic to the

Pacific. The present struggle in Kansas is only one of many. It differs from anterior struggles because in this, for the first time, there has been an appeal to the rifle instead of the vote, on both sides.

The struggle was born with the Republic. Mr. Horace Greeley has recently published a history of Slave-extension, compiled from the Journals of Congress and other official records; oppor- tunely recalling facts not generally remembered. As early as 1784, when the States were as yet without a constitution, and were only bound together by articles of confederation the Continental Congress found itself in possession of enormous confederation, of territory. Mt. Jefferson was the Chairman of a Committee appointed to report a plan for its government ; and that Committee proposed that after the year 1800 slavery should be abolished throughout the whole of the Western Territory—that is, territory West of the boundaries of the thirteen original States. This grand scheme for the limitation of slavery was defeated. There was an abso- lute majority of sixteen votes to six and six States to three, in its favour ; Maryland and Virginia divided their votes, and Georgia did not vote. But the Articles of Confederation required a vote of nine States to carry a proposition ; and so Mr. Jefferson's plan failed. In the last session of the Continental Congress, 1787, another Committee was appointed, with Mr. Dane of Massachu- setts as chairman. The spirit of compromise had grown up in the interim. The Southern States claimed vast regions West of their boundaries, and they resisted the attempt to cut them off from Slave institutions. Mr. Dane's report simply provided that slavery should be excluded from the Territory North-west of the Ohio—in other words, from the country lying in the angle made by the Ohio and the Mississippi. This ordnance was passed ; it was the first compromise between the Slave States and the Free ; and in process of time, as a natural consequence, the area of slavery was increased by the States of Kentucky, formed from the outlying territory of Virginia ; Tennessee formed from the terri- tories claimed by North Carolina ; and Alabama and Mississippi, formed out of Georgian territory. The ground of the compromise was the admitted validity of the claim of Virginia North Caro- lina, and Georgia, to the territories which they refused to cede to the United States without exacting the condition that they should have Slave institutions.

Thus began the struggle for territory. From that time to this the Slave interest in the Union has been aggressive. Notwith- standing what we may call the Compromise of 1787, desperate and sustained but legal efforts were made, from 1803 to 1807, to extend slavery into the territories between the Ohio and Missis- sippi. Those efforts originated in the territory itself. Congress was not asked to abolish, but to suspend the restrictive ordinance. It was alleged that the suspension would accelerate population, hitherto retarded by the exclusion of slaveholders ; that it would ameliorate the condition of the slaves, and diminish the dangers attending a crowded Black population. It was urged that the current of emigration flowing to the Western country, the Terri- tories should all be open to the introduction of slaves." "The abstract question of Liberty and Slavery," it was naïvely added, "is not involved in the proposed measure, as slavery now exists to a considerable extent in different parts of the Union." Thus early was the extension of slavery under the first compromise put forward as a reason for further extension. But the House of Re- presentatives nipped all these efforts in the bud, by shelving the Pro-Slavery reports of the Committees it appointed. It is re-

markable that of four reports only one, the first, made by Mr. John Randolph, was adverse to the proposal. The fruit of the preservation of the ordinance of 1787 in its integrity. is the Free States of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa: The purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon, in 1803, opened a

vast field for the extension of slavery. The addition of Louis- iana itself, although a politic measure, as it gave the Union pos- session of the mouths of its great river, was a practical addition to slavery. The boundaries of Louisiana were defined, and the State was admitted to the Union, in 1812. The residue of the pur- phase was called Missouri Territory. Slaveholders squatted over it ; and in 1817 they demanded admission as a State, on "an equal States." No progress was made ; but footing with the o in 1818, the bill authorizing the people to form a constitution was dealt with ; and the House of Representatives carried by 87 to 76 an amendment providing against the further introduction of slaves, and making free all children born after the admission of the State, but providing that they might be "held to service until the age of twenty-five years." In the debate on this bill we find traces of the first threats of a dissolution of the Union. Mr. Scott of Missouri said that the obvious tendency of the amendment was "to sow seeds of discord in, and perhaps eventually endanger, the Union." Mr. Cobb of Georgia boldly asked if they supposed that

the Southern States would submit to a measure that would de- prive them of the enjoyment of the vast region purchased by the 'United States beyond the Mississippi. "The people of the Slave- holding States, as they are 'called," he said, know their rights, and will insist upon the enjoyment of them." Further' he warned them, that the measure would destroy the peace and harmony of `the Union. "They were kindling a fire which all the waters of the ocean could not extinguish ; it could be extinguished only in blood." The bill went to the Senate ; they struck out the restric- tion; the House of Representatives adhered to its resolution ; and the bill fell to the ground.

In the mean time, Arkansas, lying South of Missouri, was or- ganized as a Slave Territory, after a close struggle, the votes being 71 to 70; and it entered the Union as a Slave State in 1836.

The Missouri struggle was renewed in 1819-'20. It raised a _veat ferment from one end of the Union to the other. The 'House of Representatives was resolute at first ; in the end it agreed to a compromise. It happened that Maine demanded ad- mission to the Union, of course as a Free State. Finding the Re- presentatives resolute to restrict slavery, the Senate tacked on to the Maine bill a rider authorizing the people of Missouri to form a constitution without restriction on the subject of slavery. Of course the kepresentatives struck out the rider. In the mean time, Mr. Thomas of Illinois, one of the Pro-Slavery members of the Senate, proposed and carried the famous compromise exclud- ing slavery from all the territories lying North of 36° 30" North latitude. At first the House of Representatives rejected this pro- posal, by 159 to 18; showing how distasteful it was to both par- ties. But finally the two Houses had a conference ; the Repre- sentatives were tired of the contest ; at the conference the Senate prevailed. It was agreed that the Maine and Missouri bills should be separate ; that the Slavery restriction clause should be abandoned ; and that the House should adopt Mr. Thomas's com- promise. This arrangement was accepted by the House, by 90 to

87; fourteen Free State members voting with the majority, the minority, being all Slave State men. In due time the State was admitted; not, however, without a further struggle with the Slave element. As late as 1835-'6, the Slave intPrest was suffi- ciently strong and adroit to pass a bill through Congress adding a slice of fertile country to Missouri within the Compromise line.

The later additions to Slave territory are tolerably well known.

'Texas was avowedly colonized, and afterwards avowedly annexed,. for the purpose of increasing the Slave power. The Democratic party, 'blinded and hurried away by a fierce desire to aggran- dize the Union, carried its admission against the Whigs. But the leaders of the Slave interest knew what they were about. General James Hamilton of South Carolina said, it would "give a Gibraltar to the South." There exists a remarkable despatch from Mr. Calhoun to Mr. King, American Minister at Paris, writ- ten in the Department of State in August 1844. That despatch unveils the policy, of the South in regard to the annexation of Texas. Mr. Calhoun feared that Louis Philippe would unite with Great Britain in a joint protest against the annexation of Texas ; and he suggested a variety of reasons why France should not do so. Mr. King was to point out to the French Monarch, that the object of England in desiring the independence of Texas was to abolish slavery in the United States. ? Because England, whose ',,political preponderance depended on her Tropical pos-

• sessions," had destroyed the prosperity of those possessions by the

" suicidal policy" of Emancipation. In order "to compete suc- cessfully with those who refused to follow" her, she desired Ne- gro emancipation in the United States. Mr. Calhoun contended that it was the interest of France and of all Europe to prevent England from regaining her lost superiority, and thereby to weaken her power. England, said Mr. Calhoun, becoming. confi- dential, "is too sagacious not to see what a fatal blow" would be given to slavery in the United States if the annexation of Texas were defeated. "To this continent the blow would be ca- lamitous beyond description." Couldrthen "enlightened France," &c. be so blinded by the stale and unfounded plea of philan-

as not to see that England alone would be benefited by the independence of Texas, and its consequence, the "inevitable" abolition of slavery ?—These few passages reveal the policy of the Southern States, and the complex motives that led to the annexa- tion of Texas.

When, by the war with 'Mexico, the fruit of the recent annexa- tion, California and New Mexico were added to the dominions of

the Union, an attempt was made, but without success, to preserve the acquisitions free from the taint of slavery. The famous "Wilmot proviso" was intended to effect that object ; but it was defeated by the opposition of the Senate. This body tacked the bill for the government of the new territories to an appropriation bill ; but they were obliged to recede. In 1850, California, having stolen a march upon the South, presented a free constitution, and demanded admission to the Union. This led to Mr. Clay's famous Compromise measures. By those measures it was proposed, that as "slavery did. not exist by law" in any of the territory acquired from Mexico, it was inexpedient to provide by law either for its intro- duction or exclusion; that the slave-trade should be abolished in the district of Columbia ; and that more effectual provision should be made for the arrest of fugitive slaves. These proposals having been adopted, it follows that the whole region is open to the enterprise of the slaveholders. In the course of the fierce debates on Clay's measures, Mr. Jefferson Davis, now Secretary at War, declared that he "would never take less than the Missouri Compromise line extended to the Pacific, with the specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line ; and that before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at the option of their owners." It will be seen that the legislation of 1850 paved the way for -the -opening of the whole region of Kansas Nebraska, extending from Texas to the British possessions on the North, and from the Rocky Mountains on the West, to Missouri, Iowa, and Minne- sota, on the East, to the slaveowners of -the South. The bill passed in 1854rapealed the Missouri Compromise, and gave slave- owners a legal right to enter the land with their slaves and pos- -seas it. The result of that legislation is the bloody struggle in Kansas which we now see.

Thus, since the Declaration of Independence, the Slave interest has extended its territory over Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri. It has by purchase added Florida and Louisiana to the Union ; it has reinforced its gigantic strength by annexing Texas ; and it has placed itself in a posi- tion to carry its extension to New Mexico and over the "spacious wilderness" of Nebraska. Where there were six States possessing 600,000 Slaves, there are now fifteen possessing 3,000,000. If we add to this, that it contemplates the annexation of Cuba, the picture will be complete ; showing that, instead of receding or approaching extinction, the Slave power,has increased, and is now increasing under our eyes, with no prospect of limitation except by unflinching action -where hitherto supineness has prevailed.