not the Decalogue part of the law of Moses? Do gentlemen deny the binding authority of the commandments?"

But he might be told that "a milder, a more benign system was promulgated by Christ and his apostles." They were surrounded by slaves and slavery, both Roman and Jewish. Christ, and in still more detail, His Apostles, had denounced sin in all forms; but he called on any one of those gentlemen to "point to one word or sentence spoken by Christ or His Apostles against the institution of slavery," to "lay his finger on a chapter, a verse, a line, or even a word, in the New Testament, which contained a denunciation against a master for holding a slave, or authorizing a slave to run away from his master."

He countered Mr. Wood's suggestion that the Mosaic law countenanced polygamy, by the rejoinder that it only strengthened his case. Christ "abolished polygamy, but suffered slavery to remain." He then turned to an argument for the economic necessity of the institution, as shown by the collapse of the British West Indies after "the stupendous folly of England in emancipating all their slaves," and concluded that the charge of unchristianity lay against the Wilmot Proviso, which would provide that "whatever acquisition may be made by the joint labor, the joint peril, and joint treasure of all the States, shall be divided among half of them, and that the remaining half shall possess none of the benefits or advantages accruing from it."

Mr. Washington Hunt entered the lists in support of the amendment,22 attacking the Administration for its purposes in beginning the war and its action in concluding it, especially for the intention of dismembering Mexico. He denied that the proposed restriction would impede the negotiation of peace; such an accusation, he said, was tantamount to saying that if the war were not to result in the acquisition of slave territory, then the South would withdraw from its support. The assertion that the South would be "excluded" by the 22 Cong. Globe, Appendix, p. 363.

Proviso was groundless; they were as free as the North to profit by the new regions, save only in the one item of taking their slaves there. He, like his predecessors, insisted on the North's determination to resist the extension of slavery, as both an economic and a moral evil and a source of overbalancing the political power of the South.

Timothy Jenkins, of New York, speaking for the Proviso, denied that it had any purpose or would have any effect of embarrassing the Administration.23 He went over again the argument for the constitutionality of the proposed legislation, and the demonstration of the evils of slavery, and insisted on the timeliness of the contemplated restriction. "If slavery were allowed to fasten itself on the bosom of the new country, free labor would not go there." It was "important to begin right," and he hoped the amendment would be supported by a large majority. Andrew Stewart, of Pennsylvania," "denounced the war as a Presidential war, and a war of conquest, and would vote for the Wilmot Proviso as the most effectual means, if carried, of bringing it to a speedy termination."

The hour was late; several members who wished to be heard on the question were unable to obtain the floor; others could only cover the main points they intended to make, leaving the fuller discussion to their written speeches, to be printed later. Of these, the most elaborate was that of William H. Brockenbrough, Florida.

Mr. Brockenbrough disclaimed any fears for the Union or for the institution of slavery.25 But he saw "two mighty floods of population marching with giant strides and equal footsteps toward the west," of which it was proposed "to stay one with a paper barrier and invite the other to overflow till it fills not only its own, but the natural channel of the population whose career you would abruptly terminate."

The Proviso was "idle, wild and visionary; no sane man

23 Cong. Globe, p. 418.

24 Cong. Globe, p. 420.

25 Cong. Globe, Appendix, p. 375.

could suppose it susceptible of accomplished perfection." But if it could be enforced, it was "the most unwise, unjust, unnatural, unstatesmanlike measure ever imagined, even for the interests of the northern States." The avowed object was to get rid of slavery; but "already, by the last census, the ratio of increase of slaves in the slave States had begun to diminishthe black tide had begun to ebb." Census tables were introduced to support this assertion. "The Wilmot Proviso is to start it again to the flood by confining it to a portion of the country whence slaves can not be carried, while free men can.

The immediate, necessary and contemplated result is that the black race must increase in the slave States until the few remaining whites would have to abandon the States themselves to the blacks. . . . You would thus abolish slavery by extinguishing white people over half your country." The Wilmot Proviso, and all the slave-confining movement, seemed to him to be "but a branch of the old and perpetual internal northern war of capital against labor." But he believed that neither the Proviso nor future legislation would create real difficulty upon the subject of slavery in territory to be acquired, and he ended with a long and elaborate justification of the war and the contemplated territorial acquisition.

26

The battle closed with a concentrated fire from the North, from friends of the Proviso. Henry I. Seaman, of New York, spoke chiefly 20 in condemnation of the war. He should, however, he said, vote for the appropriation, so that the President might not charge him with "withholding from him the requisite means of terminating hostilities," though he "felt no interest in the bill, but a deep interest in the Proviso." The North would "never consent to a further extension of the institution (of slavery) and it could never be premature to enact laws to keep slavery within its present limits." Robert McClelland, of Michigan, defended the constitutionality of the restriction 27 contemplated by the Proviso, and showed the support given it

26 Cong. Globe, Appendix, p. 392. 27 Cong. Globe, Appendix, p. 389.

29

by precedent, especially the ordinance of 1787. He assembled census figures to prove the deleterious influence of slavery, and urged its exclusion on grounds of economic expediency, denying that they worked any injustice to the slave States. Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, denounced the war 28 and condemned slavery bitterly. He "would rather see this Union rent into a thousand fragments than have his country disgraced and its moral purity sacrificed by the prosecution of a war for the extension of human bondage. . . . There could be no compromise between right and wrong, between virtue and crime." Party affiliations would be broken, and northern whigs and northern democrats would unite to carry the proposition (the Proviso) to enactment, if not at this session, then later. Alexander Harper, of Ohio, declared the war to be for conquest and increase of political power. He was utterly opposed to the purchase "an extent of country greater than the original thirteen States of the Union"-and with it the introduction of "the question of slavery which ultimately, and at no very remote period, in his opinion, would shake this Union from its center to its circumference" but he was "in favor of the Wilmot Proviso; it was not a question with the North-they were decided that no more territory should be acquired to be made slave territory." Then the last gun was fired by William P. Thomasson, of Kentucky,30 who "opposed the Three Million Bill, either with or without the Wilmot Proviso, and gave his reasons why he voted for it last year and then digressed into some discussion of political topics in general." After which the Committee rose and the House "at a very late hour, adjourned."

The discussion of the Three Million Bill had occupied the House day after day since the eighth of February, and on the fifteenth of the month it came up only fifteen minutes before noon, the hour set in advance for closing the debate. Mr.

28 Cong. Globe, Appendix, p. 403.

29 Cong. Globe, p. 421.

30 Cong. Globe, p. 421.

Dromgoole, the original and most insistent objector to the Proviso, remarked that the time for discussion had expired and the time for action had arrived. Being reminded by the Chair that it was not yet twelve, he used the remaining minutes to speak in favor of the bill, to give notice of a substitute which he intended to offer for a portion of the first section, and to indicate his intention of raising a point of order against the Proviso. If overruled on that, he declared, he should attempt to show that the Proviso contemplated the exercise of a power not granted by the Constitution, and that its adoption would defeat the very object which the bill itself proposed; it was an arrogant assumption of power, was of a most pernicious tendency, and would produce confusion and discord in the democratic party.

The finale was characterized by much parliamentary sparring. "There was a great deal of movement and disorder in the Committee, which required the Chairman frequently to suspend all proceedings until order could be restored." 1 In the words of a Washington correspondent who was present:

32

The House of Representatives has scarcely ever been the scene of such stirring excitement as was witnessed in it this day (Feb. 15, 1847). Mr. Wilmot could be seen crowding his way through and rallying his friends in this, the trying and darkest hour of his cause. Amendment after amendment was proposed and voted for, but it was no use. As the storm thickened, the friends of the Proviso stood more firmly by each other. Again and again they succeeded in voting down every proposition calculated to kill the Proviso.

33

In brief, according to the official record of the proceedings,' Preston King, of New York, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, both tried to offer the Wilmot Proviso as an amendment to the bill, and both were opposed by points of order, Mr. Drom

31 Cong. Globe, p. 424.

32 Bradford Reporter, Feb., 1847.

33 Cong. Globe, pp. 424, 425.