FINAL PASSAGE OF THE BILL. 7G9

the territory acquired since the passage of that ordi- nance. 19 From their point of view the people of the southern states were defrauded of their inheritance in the vast possessions of the federal Union by the exclu- sion of slavery from any part of the common territory of the United States. They claimed the right to go whither they pleased, and to carry their human chat- tels with them, fiercely combating the opposition of the northern men that negroes were not property, in the usual acceptation of the term.

It had been agreed that congress should adjourn on Monday the 14th, and the policy of the opposition was to defeat the Oregon bill by preventing the ayes and noes from being taken. Almost the whole of Saturday was consumed in debate, in which Calhoun Butler of South Carolina, Houston, Yulee, Davis' and other eminent southerners, argued the question over the same familiar ground with no other object than the consumption of time. Benton only had re- plied at any length.

In the evening session, after a speech by Webster, the debate was continued till after midnight, when a motion was made to adjourn, which was defeated Butler then moved to go into executive session, when an altercation arose as to the object of the motion at that time, 20 and the motion being ruled out of order,

betwe^nXflnw'f Sr/^^ '^ «J~ of 1787 was a compact formed between the Unued states government and the people of the north-west terri- tory before the constitution was formed. The' history of that ordnance 8 shrouded in secrecy, as the journals were not made public. But it^s well known that there was much conflict. The item concerning slavery waslt result of compromise Some states came into the measure wi^difficulty and some with a protest. Virginia would never have been a partv to tha t compac never would have mi&e the cession she did, IS sKpp^ed In'T Vl° CXtCnd hGr P°P ula ti°A thither she would, would havfbeen denied. . .There are now 3,000,000 of slaves penned up in the slave stales and they are a D increasing population, increasing faster thin the whites And are

^TcX^^X^ Wlthin lhat maybe deeme dthei ^

0 Thornton, in his History of the Provisional Government, in Or. Pioneer

Assoc., 1 rans., 18/4, 91, gives some particulars. He says Butler made the mo- tion to go into executive session for the purpose of inquiring into the conduct ot iSenton, who he had alleged communicated to the reporter of the New York Herald some proceedings done in secret session; that Butler called Benton's act dishonorable; and that Benton sprang toward him in a rage, with clinched Hist. Or., Vol. I. 49