for a single moment to the
material objection urged by the Senator from Virginia. The portion of
the article to which the Senator from Virginia objects, declares that
the _status_ of persons bound to service and labor shall remain
unchanged; that neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature shall
pass any law affecting the relation, or the rights growing out of the
relation between master and servant--I do not pretend to recite the
exact words; but that is the exact idea--well knowing that, according
to the laws of the Territory, the _status_ of slavery was fully
established, and all the rights of the master in and to his servant
established, as they exist in the State of Missouri, or the State of
Virginia, by positive law of the Territory. It is therefore equivalent
to saying that that law shall stand, when it says that the _status_
shall continue unchanged. It then goes on to say (which I admit was
altogether unnecessary) that the remedy for the violation of the
rights of the master, whatever they might be, shall be had in the
Federal courts, and according to the course of the common law. Now,
sir, what right does this take away from any slaveholder? That law
which secured and gave him a right, is declared to be unchangeable.
That law acknowledges his property in any sense in which you please to
take it, or in any sense in which it is applicable. It acknowledges
it, and gives legal remedies for the violation of it; and in addition
to all that, and, as I admit, by a sort of pleonasm of expression, it
says that he shall have his remedy in the Federal court, according to
the course of the common law.

Mr. MASON:--Will the Senator allow me a moment?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Certainly.

Mr. MASON:--With the permission of the Senator I will put this
proposition to him: He says that the meaning of the language,
"according to the course of the common law," is confined to the
remedy. Now, admitting that to be the case, for the sake of the
argument, suppose, in one of these Territories, a slave is purloined,
seduced, got away; the slave of A gets into the possession of B, and
he is there at work for him upon his farm, or in his house, and A
brings an action of trover to recover him; that is an action known to
the common law; and the decision of the Federal court is, that trover
lies only to recover property, and a slave is not property: what is
the remedy? That is the decision in England; and I presume it would be
the decision