As often as I
have brought forward and urged the adoption of measures to remedy these
evils, and afford security against the damages to which our people are
constantly exposed, they have been promptly voted down as not being
of sufficient importance to command the favorable consideration of
Congress. Now, when I propose to organize the Territories, and allow
the people to do for themselves what you have so often refused to do for
them, I am told that there are not white inhabitants enough permanently
settled in the country to require and sustain a government. True; there
is not a very large population there, for the very reason that your
Indian code and intercourse laws exclude the settlers, and forbid their
remaining there to cultivate the soil. You refuse to throw the
country open to settlers, and then object to the organization of the
Territories, upon the ground that there is not a sufficient number of
inhabitants. * * *
I will now proceed to the consideration of the great principle involved
in the bill, without omitting, however, to notice some of those
extraneous matters which have been brought into this discussion with the
view of producing another anti-slavery agitation. We have been told by
nearly every Senator who has spoken in opposition to this bill, that
at the time of its introduction the people were in a state of profound
quiet and repose, that the anti-slavery agitation had entirely ceased,
and that the whole country was acquiescing cheerfully and cordially
in the compromise measures of 1850 as a final adjustment of this vexed
question.
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