sion will hasten the day when slaves shall be without value, and slavery shall cease to exist. God has established certain great laws, by the silent and sure operations of which, slavery must ultimately be extinguished. It cannot long stand against the law of population, without constant expansion. If the laws of nature and of population necessarily tend to diminish the value of slave property, why should we be called up to retard their operation to save the institution of slavery from their influence by an extension of its area? Gentlemen of the South see that the field of slave labor is fast filling up; that the laborers are increasing, and that, unless the field is enlarged, labor will cheapen, and the laborer himself become worthless as an element of property. They see clearly that at no distant day they will be compelled, by the force of natural laws, to commence the work of emancipation, unless that day is put off by the opening of new fields for slave labor. Sir, I would not obstruct the operation of God's laws. I certainly would not interfere to save slavery from their influence. Looking, as I do, to the day of our ultimate redemption from this curse, I wish it to come before the evil shall have grown to such giant proportions as to defy our efforts for a peaceful deliverance. I do not wish the evil to grow beyond our control. We might, by a mighty effort, solve peacefully, and without blood, the problem of slavery, with ten millions of blacks. No human. power can solve it with fifty or a hundred millions. It would break in fragments the strongest Government on earth; it would produce scenes of commotion, strife, and blood, such as the world never saw. Why will gentlemen bring certain and widespread ruin upon the country? It is the spirit of selfishness that invokes this destruction upon our land-the selfishness of great interests, the selfishness of capital, blind to everything but its immediate and proximate interest. For resistance to this spirit of selfishness-for seeking to avert from my country this terrible doom-I am assailed by the gentleman from Illinois, in borrowed wit and studied denunciation.

Mr. Chairman, talk as gentlemen may, there is a settled and fixed determination on the part of the people in the free States to resist, by every lawful and constitutional means, the extension of slavery. They may be betrayed by their representatives-I fear they will

be; they may, for a time, be misled by those in whom they have placed confidence-party leaders may lick the dust at the bidding of slavery, may kiss its bloody hands-party organization may be used to crush the advocates of liberty-yet, sir, the great heart of the people beats for freedom. Gentlemen will learn that a cheat is no settlement-that a betrayal of trust is no adjustment of the difficulties-that the arrangements of Presidential aspirants is no compromise. Agitation is not to be quieted by the perpetuation of wrong. The friends of freedom will counsel no resistance to established law; but they will not cease to appeal to the judgments and the hearts of men, in behalf of righteousness and truth. Gentlemen want peace, quiet. Cease to urge a wrong and you will have peace. What is the quiet they want? Freedom from agitation upon the subject of slavery. I will tell gentlemen how they can have quiet upon this subject: Separate the General Government from all responsibility for the existence or support of slavery. Keep your institution within your States, and you will have no agitation. Cease to exert the tyranny of slavery in this Government-immolate no more northern men. You provoke agitation by the injustice of your demands. You declare your purpose to extend slavery into free territory, and when we offer resistance— when we demand for freedom the protection and security of law, you cry out against agitation. You ask us to reverse the policy of the Government in behalf of slavery and its interests, and because we refuse, you complain of injustice and wrong. We are struggling to maintain, against your encroachments, the early and settled policy of the Government. I stand upon this question of slavery extension, where Jefferson, and Madison, and Henry, stood sixty years ago. Were they now living they would advocate the policy I have advocated. They did so, in their day and generation. They would do so now.

It is the vast increase of this slave capital which has taken place in the last half century, that creates all our present difficulties. From two hundred millions of dollars it has grown to sixteen hundred millions. This immense capital is struggling for perpetuity and power. It wishes to make slavery eternal. This is your fanaticism, gentlemen of the South-the fanaticism of slavery-of sixteen hundred millions of dollars! It is a cold,

calculating fanaticism! It feeds on the souls and blood of men. Talk to me about fanaticism! May God preserve me from the fanaticism of slavery-from that fanaticism which forgets humanity and its rights, in the pursuit of an all-absorbing selfishness. Mr. Chairman, I have been led almost unconsciously into these protracted remarks. I contemplated but a few words when I arose. My object more particularly was to address myself to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. McClernand), and to repel the charge brought by him against the friends of freedom, of a desire to defeat the appropriation bills. They have never entertained such a thought. They are loyal to the Constitution and to the Government of their country, loyal, sir, and true. They desire action on California-that great question, which, more than any other, engrosses the mind of the nation. It is a shame-a personal dishonor to northern men-that California is not yet admitted into the Union. Why this protracted delay? Why this continual postponement of a measure which they all profess to favor? Are gentlemen afraid to act? Are we cowards, that we dare not perform our constitutional duty? Do we fear to take hold of the work which we came here to do? Sir, let us have done with this timid, this cowardly policy. Let us act. There is honor and safety in action-dishonor and danger in further delay. The gentleman from Illinois is waiting the action of the Senate on the "omnibus bill." After eight months of the session is exhausted, he is for giving time for slavery to mature its plans. When slavery is in danger, the gentleman is ever ready and prompt in action. No measure of slavery was ever delayed an hour for want of the gentleman's aid. Freedom must stand back, and only enter these Halls in the manner and at the hour slavery shall dictate.

I wish that the vote of to-day should arrest the attention of the country. Let it be known throughout the length and breadth of the land, that the consideration of California was postponed to make way for an appropriation bill for the support of the Military Academy at West Point, a bill which there was no occasion for pressing upon our attention, and which could have been acted upon a fortnight or a month hence, without any detriment to the public service. This was done by the votes of the South, united with the great body of northern Whigs, and a few northern

Democrats. California postponed after eight months' delay, by the strong vote of ninety-three to sixty! Yet, in the face of this vote, men will go home and try to make their constituents believe that they were friendly to the early and unconditional admission of California.

V

JUDGE WILMOT'S CHARGE TO HIS FIRST GRAND JURY

THIS speech was delivered at the opening of the December term, 1851, in the thirteenth judicial district of the state of Pennsylvania. It was published contemporaneously in the press of the district at the request of the Grand Jurors:

In taking upon myself the responsible duties of President Judge of this Judicial District, I deem it an appropriate occasion to address you upon the subject of the criminal law of this Commonwealth; in the prompt and impartial execution of which the Grand Inquest acts an important part. I shall not enter upon a recital and description of the various crimes and offenses known to our laws. Such a course would be both tedious and unprofitable as it is impossible for the clearest understanding and most retentive memory, to treasure up on a single reading or hearing, the definitions-the nice and often subtle distinctions entering into them, together with the precise legal import of technical words employed in describing the numerous offenses comprehended in the penal code of a State far advanced in the knowledge of government and laws, and which enforces, by judicial sanctions, many of the duties of a refined, social and domestic life-the obligations growing out of a complexed political system, and the high claims of a morality and religion founded upon the statutes and revealed word of God. An accurate knowledge of the penal laws of such a State is attained only by laborious study, and cannot be intelligibly presented in the limited space marked out for myself in this charge. Any information you may desire, touching either your general powers and duties, or relating to a particular case before you, will be cheerfully given by the Court, or by the gentleman who prosecutes on behalf of the State, and upon either you should feel at liberty to call, as I trust you will, whenever your minds are embarrassed by questions of difficulty and doubt. . . .