[28] John C. Calhoun's resolutions passed in the United States Senate January 12, 1838, are of the same tenor, but more elaborate:
Resolved, That domestic slavery, as it exists in the Southern and Western States of this Union, composes an important part of their domestic institutions inherited from their ancestors, and existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which it is recognized as constituting an important element in the apportionment of powers among the States, and that no change of opinion or feeling on the part of the other States of the Union in relation to it can justify them or their citizens in open and systematic attacks thereon, with the view to its overthrow; and that such attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect and defend each other given by the States respectively on entering into the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and as such are a manifest breach of faith and a violation of the most solemn obligations. Resolved, That any attempt of Congress to abolish slavery in any Territory of the United States in which it exists would create serious alarm and just apprehension in the States sustaining that domestic institution; would be a violation of good faith towards the inhabitants of any such Territory who have been permitted to settle with and hold slaves therein, because the people of any such Territory have not asked for the abolition of slavery therein, because when any such Territory shall be admitted into the Union as a State, the people thereof will be entitled to decide that question exclusively for themselves.Passed the Senate—yeas 35, nays 9—Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island voting in the negative.
