Mr. Clingman
of North Carolina, on January 22, when engaged in threatening war in order
to bring the North to terms, had said, in the House of Representatives:
"But for the anti-slavery agitation our Southern slave-holders would have
carried their negroes into the mines of California in such numbers that I
have no doubt but that the majority there would have made it a
slave-holding State."[1] At a later period Mr. Mason of Virginia declared,
in the Senate, that he knew of no law of nature which excluded slavery from
California. "On the contrary," he said, "if California had been organized
with a territorial form of government only, the people of the Southern
States would have gone there freely, and have taken their slaves there in
great numbers. They would have done so because the value of the labor of
that class would have been augmented to them many hundred fold."[2] These
were the views of practical men and experienced slave-owners who
represented the opinions of their constituents, and who believed that
domestic slavery could be employed to advantage anywhere.
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