As far as
I can see it would be perfectly competent even now for Congress to pass
any law that they pleased on the subject in the Territories under this
bill. But however that may be, even by this bill, there is not a law
which the Territories can pass admitting or excluding slavery, which it
is of in the power of this Congress to disallow the next day. This
is not a mere _brutum fulmen_. It is not an unexpected power. Your
statute-book shows case after case. I believe, in reference to a
single Territory, that there have been fifteen or twenty cases where
territorial legislation has been disallowed by Congress. How, then, can
it be said that this principle of non-intervention in the government of
the Territories is now to be recognized as an established principle in
the public policy of the Congress of the United States?
Do gentlemen recollect the terms, almost of disdain, with which this
supposed established principle of our constitutional policy is treated
in that last valedictory speech of Mr. Calhoun, which, unable to
pronounce it himself, he was obliged to give to the Senate through the
medium of his friend, the Senator from Virginia. He reminded the Senate
that the occupants of a Territory were not even called the people--but
simply the inhabitants--till they were allowed by Congress to call a
convention and form a State constitution.
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