Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded
from these territories by a law even superior to that which admits and
sanctions it in Texas. I mean the law of nature, of physical geography,
the law of the formation of the earth. That law settles forever, with a
strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist
in California or New Mexico. Understand me, sir; I mean slavery as we
regard it; the slavery of the colored race as it exists in the southern
States. I shall not discuss the point, but leave it to the learned
gentlemen who have undertaken to discuss it; but I suppose there is
no slavery of that description in California now. I understand that
peonism, a sort of penal servitude, exists there, or rather a sort of
voluntary sale of a man and his offspring for debt, an arrangement of a
peculiar nature known to the law of Mexico. But what I mean to say
is, that it is impossible that African slavery, as we see it among us,
should find its way, or be introduced, into California and New Mexico,
as any other natural impossibility.
Pages:
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197