States; and the history
of the Federal government in regard to slavery shows that the power of
Congress to prohibit slavery has been exercised as to territory not
adapted to slave labor, and the power to permit it has been exercised as
to territory adapted to negro slave labor, and the criterion by which
the question of prohibition or permission has been determined, has been
the wants and consequent wishes of the white people of the territories.
The whole question, therefore, resolves itself into the consent or
non-consent of the local authority; and herein lies the absurdity of
both extreme sectional dogmas of Congressional power to prohibit and
Congressional power to permit, both conceding ultimate power in the
State legislatures to establish or prohibit slavery, and denying it to
the territorial legislatures, in the face of the admitted fact that it
is not the Congress, but the local authority that must ultimately
decide.

7. Assuming that there is in Congress a discretionary or sovereign power
to govern the territories, sound policy requires such government to be
administered in that "spirit of amity and mutual deference and
concession," in which the Constitution itself was conceived and adopted;
and the absolute prohibition of slavery in all the national territory in
which Free States and Slave States have a common right and common
interest, is in direct conflict with the spirit of the Constitution.

Lastly--Compromise is demonstrated to be the principle of the
Constitution and the policy of the Federal government in regard to
slavery. A Congressional geographical line is not the true mode of
compromise, as such a line implies the right of slavery to exclusive
possession on one side of the geographical line, and is therefore in
favor of slavery and against freedom. The question as a constitutional
one, is not a question between freedom and slavery, but a question of
constitutional authority, growing out of the clear and fundamental
distinction in the Constitution, between the powers of legislation for
local or domestic purposes and the like powers for national or Federal
purposes. The true principle of compromise on the part of the Federal
government is neutrality, non-interference, non-intervention, or the
leaving of the question to be fairly determined in the local
jurisdiction where it arises. A geographical line is arbitrary and not
adapted to varying circumstances or events; the principle of local
sovereign