I had argued that the application of the principle of self-government, as contended for, would require the revival of the African slave trade; that no argument could be made in favor of a man’s right to take slaves to Nebraska which could not be equally well made in favor of his right to bring them from the coast of Africa.  The Judge replied that the Constitution requires the suppression of the foreign slave trade, but does not require the prohibition of slavery in the Territories.  That is a mistake in point of fact.  The Constitution does not require the action of Congress in either case, and it does authorize it in both.  And so there is still no difference between the cases.

In regard to what I have said of the advantage the slave States have over the free in the matter of representation, the Judge replied that we in the free States count five free negroes as five white people, while in the slave States they count five slaves as three whites only; and that the advantage, at last, was on the side of the free States.

Now, in the slave States they count free negroes just as we do; and it so happens that, besides their slaves, they have as many free negroes as we have, and thirty thousand over.  Thus, their free negroes more than balance ours; and their advantage over us, in consequence of their slaves, still remains as I stated it.

In reply to my argument that the compromise measures of 1850 were a system of equivalents, and that the provisions of no one of them could fairly be carried to other subjects without its corresponding equivalent being carried with it, the Judge denied outright that these measures had any connection with or dependence upon each other.  This is mere desperation.  If they had no connection, why are they always spoken of in connection?  Why has he so spoken of them a thousand times?  Why has he constantly called them a series of measures?  Why does everybody call them a compromise?  Why was California kept out of the Union six or seven months, if it was not because of its connection with the other measures?  Webster’s leading definition of the verb “to compromise” is “to adjust and settle a difference, by mutual agreement, with concessions of claims by the parties.”  This conveys precisely the popular understanding of the word “compromise.”

We knew, before the Judge told us, that these measures passed separately, and in distinct bills, and that no two of them were passed by the votes of precisely the same members.  But we also know, and so does he know, that no one of them could have passed both branches of Congress but for the understanding that the others were to pass also.  Upon this understanding, each got votes which it could have got in no other way.  It is this fact which gives to the measures their true character; and it is the universal knowledge of this fact that has given them the name of “compromises,” so expressive of that true character.