Sunday, May 28, 2023

Congressman Horace Mann, February 4, 1850

FEB. 4, 1850.

Gen. Taylor's Message is very good so far as it relates to California. He recommends that it be admitted as a State. But, in the same message, he recommends non-action in regard to New Mexico; that is, to form no territorial government for New Mexico, but to await its own motion on the subject. Now, the benefit of a territorial government in New Mexico, with a prohibitior of slavery in it, is, that, while such a prohibition exists, no slaveholders will dare go there, and therefore will not be there to infuse their views into the people, and help form a constitution with slavery in it. If there is no such government, and no such prohibition, the fear is that slaveholders will go there, and exercise an influence in favor of slavery, and help form a constitution which shall not prohibit it, and, when they send that constitution to Congress, will get in, and so slavery be ultimately established by reason of present neglect. I approve, therefore, of the California part of the message, but disapprove of the other.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 288

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