Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

1845-1853.] NEW YORK DEFENDED FROM ASPERSIONS. 223
pally with that subject. The bill for establishing such a government expressly excluded slavery, by declaring all laws then
existing in the Territory to be valid and operative; and one
of those laws prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude
otherwise than for the punishment of crimes whereof the
party should be duly convicted. Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was among the Senators on the Southern side of the
House who opposed the scheme. The bill passed, however, on
the 12th of August ensuing, with the restrictions and prohibitions of slavery contained in the memorable ordinance of 1787.
Again the question came before the Senate, when a bill was
introduced embracing the whole subject of organizing governments for the Territories acquired from Mexico, the material
point of disagreement being the question of permitting slavery to be established in those Territories. The Southern Senators insisted that citizens of the United States had the right,
under the Constitution, to carry into those Territories whatever was recognized as property in the States from which
they emigrated. The free States denied this doctrine, and insisted that, slavery having been abolished in Mexico, it could
only be restored by positive enactment. But, to remove all
doubt upon this point, it was contended that the acts organizing governments in those Territories should contain an absolute prohibition of slavery, in order to save the government
from the reproach of re-establishing it where it had long been
abolished by the fundamental law. General Dix, in addressing the Senate on this subject, took occasion to defend the
State of New York from aspersions cast on her by Senator
Butler, of South Carolina. In this speech, and in one delivered just a month before, may be found a full historical vindication of the course of the men who were equally opposed
to external interference with slavery in the States in which it
existed, and to its extension to territory where it did not exist.
If a calm, critical, and dispassionate examination of the public
records of the nation from the beginning, the statements of
its founders, and the acts of its representative bodies can