Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, the ques.tion immediately before the Senate, I believe, arises on the amendment to the bill upon the table, offered by the honorable Senfrom Missouri, [Mr. Brown;] but in the discussion in which I am about to engage I shall consider myself at liberty to follow the course which has been adopted by the friends of this measure, to discuss the merits of the proposition itself contained in the bill, and I shall do it with all the brevity that I can command, and with all the perspicuity that I am able to use. The honorable member who offers the amendment, if I understand him aright, places the power to insert such a provision as the amendment contemplates upon one of 2 grounds; 1st, because new States may be admitted into the Union; and 2nd, because the U.S. may guaranty a RFG to each State. Irrespective of the political issues of the day, which may be very short lived for no one can tell how long they will continue to agitate the country there are, in my judgment, considerations which should influence the judgment of beyond Senators looking far such issues. during the deliberations of the Convention which led to the formation of the Constitution, it was at one time thought that the body was almost at the point of dissolution because of the proposed inequality of the representation in the other House and in this of the States represented in that Convention erthereafter to be introduced into the Union of the States, if the Constitution which the Convention should form should be legally ratified. 1st, it was doubted whether it was proper or republican in form to give to each of the States an equal representation in this body. 2nd ly, it was doubted whether it was not important to the interests of the States represented in that Convention to guard against being overborne by the representation of States which might : be admitted into the Union, unless there was some limitation upon the representation to which they would in the absence of limitation be entitled. Delaware and RhdIsland, to speak of none of the other States, which are now small comparatively with these which have since been introduced into the Union; all the maritime States whose interest at that time it was thought would be found safer in their own hands and actually imperiled if they were not secured such a representation as would enable them at all times thereafter to protect them, believed that it was dangerous in the extreme, looking to the future, and a future soon to come, to admit new States into the Union under the clause which the Constitution was to contain, and which it does contain, without limiting their right of representation. he representatives from the eastern States, and especially from that State which at that time contained the territory that now constitutes the State of Maine, which is so well represented on this floor, were exceedingly solicitous upon this subject, and sought to avoid the apprehended calamity, by proposing to provide that at no time should the States there after to be admitted into the Union have a representation exceeding in number the representation of the maritime States. The reason for that solicitude was very manifest. We may see it now exhibited in the opinions which are said to prevail in At the western States. that time the idea of the eastern States engaging in"manufactures was not contempla ted. It was supposed, judging by their colo nial history and judging by their locality, that their principal interest would be found to consist in objects of enterprise, maritime in their nature as contradistinguished from other objects of enterprise; in other words, that they would become the maritime States of the U.S., the carriers of the States away from the Atlantic, and continue to be the car riers of all the States away from the Atlantic that thereafter might be admitted into the Union. When the clause which gives to conE. the power to admit new States was before the Convention, the subject was brought to the attention of that body by the representatives from the eastern States, and especially as the representatives from the State of massachusetts, speaking upon this subject among others, through Gouverneur Morris, in a debate which the Senate will find reported in the 2nd volume of Mr. Madison's Papers containing the debates in that Convention. I will read a sentence or 2 from the speech made on that occasion by Mr. Gouverneur Morris: “The ruleoought to beso fixed as to secure to the Atlantic States a prevalence in the national councils. The new States will know less of the public interests than these, will have an interest in many respectsdifferent, in j.". particular will be little of involving the community in burden and operations of which would falwl acrhsietfhlye on the maritime States. Provision ought, therefore, to be made to prevent the maritime States from being outvoted by them. He thought this might be easily done by irrevocably fixing the number of representativeswhich the Atlantic Statesshould respect ively have and the number which each new State will have.” The representatives from the southern States and especially from the State of Virginia, an more especially in that representation, Mr. Madison, insisted upon it (and they prevailed) that a provision of that sort could not be made consistently with the principles upon which the Union was to be. that it was designed and could only be made with safety a Union of equal States, o in everything, equal in representation in the Senate, equal in representation in the House; and as with representation in the eastern States must from its nature be regulated by numbers, to limit the representation of the States thereafter to come into the Union by an irrevocable rule which should limit that representation at all times in the future, would be to place these States in a condition comparatively with the other States of the Union of inequality; and it was voted down. But the danger was still apparent, and that danger is now upon us. The eastern States have been forced, by no fault of their own, in a great measure to dro the business in which they were then engaged, apnridncwiphaiclh they supposed would constitute their business in all times to come, and to engage in the business of manufacturing. They have grown rich by their enterprise and their industry. They have millions and millions of money invested in these establishments, and they employ 1000s and 100s of 1000s of men of the best skill in the country. While they enrich themselves j?; they enrich all. They enrich those who start poor; they increase the wealth of those who start rich; and, what is chiefly to be admired, they immeasurably increase the wealth and the power of the nation. But how has that been accomplished? During the war of 1812 the system commenced, and found its inducement, its protection, in the effects of the war. Soqn the war was over. England, the manufacturer almost of the world, found herself in a condition in which she could by a comparatively insignificant sacrifice flood the U.S. with every variety of manufactures in which the eastern States were then engaged, and by doing so involve them in bankruptcy. The U.S., as I think wisely, determined to prevent such a dreadful calamity by protecting as against foreign competition Inanu facturing industry of the {}. States, and that protection has been continued from that time to this; and the fruits of it are what we now see throughout the East, what we have seen still more strikingly exhibited during the last 5 years through which the country has passed a trial to which no country in the world was ever before subjected everything was supplied that human industry could furnish; every species of manufacture entering into the necessities of an army in the field was near at hand, fashioned by the skillful industr of the workmen of the U.S. a skill that had become what it was under the protection of the laws to which I have adverted. Now, it is not to be denied that to a certain extent at least if not to the very extent apprehended and asserted by those who have here tofore assailed and are now assailing that system, it increases in time of peace the cost to the consumer of everything which he is obliged to get from the manufacturer. How much of that protective tax falls upon the consumer and how much falls upon the manufacturer or producer it is difficult to ascertain. Political economists themselves are at variance on that subject; but all unite in saying that to a certain extent, at least, the finality is that the consumer pays the amount of the tax, either wholly or partially. The western States which we have A.admitted, are, if we can judge from the signs of the times, under that impression; and just as you increase them will that impression be increased, and just as you increase them will it be in their power to strike at the system to which you in your States are so much indebted for the property which you now enjoy. " Mr. President, it is not to be inferred from what I have thus far said that I am hostile to the admission of any citizens of the U.S. into this Union as States; but Imention it merely for the purpose of saying that they ought not to be admitted until the necessity looking to them. selves is apparent. To give to the Territory which you propose now to admit 2 Senators and at leastone Representative, it having a population certainly not exceeding 50,000, and to give as you can only give to the State of NewYork and to the State of Pennsylvania each 2 Senators, with a population respect: ively of between 3 and 4 millions, would seem from the statement of the fact not to be altogether politically right. I i.said that the population of Nebraska does not exceed, I think, 50,000; and I suppose so by what I understand to be universally true, even in the older States where families have grown up, and there is a very little comparative difference between the numbers of the male and the female sex, that the proportion of voters is about one to 5. If the Senate will look at the last vote cast in Pennsylvania, they will find that it was 600,000, and her population was about 3,000,000, which shows that in that State the voters are in proportion to the whole number of the population as one to 5, and there is no reason to suppose that the proportion is as great in N or in any of these new Territories, or that it will be as great for years to come. But if you put it even at one to 5 there would be a population of but 45,000; and we are now called upon to admit into the Union as a State equal in all respects, as far as this Chamber is concerned, a Territory containing but 45,000 inhabitants, with the State of NewYork which contains nearly 4,000,000, or Pennsylvania which contains about 3,000,000, to say nothing of the large States in the West. May not this be carried to a dangerous extent? Nullification is at an end; thank God for that; secession is equally dead; and any attempt by force upon the part of the southern States to sunder their connection with the Union is never again to be made; but in the future and states men should look not to the exigencies, political or party, of the hour, but to what the fo. in all probability may produce who can tell how long the great West, sure in time to out number the rest of the Union, sure numeri cally to cast into shade at least the eastern States, will consent that measures which the think to be conducive to their own interest, which they think may be promotive of the public interest, shall be placed in the hands of States having numerically little or no comparative population? I think, now we have reason to say that they are getting exceedingly dissatis fied with the protective system of;country. I do not stop to inquire whether their grounds for that dissatisfaction are correct or not. The fact is they are getting dissatisfied with it, and would if they could now terminate it. How long will they consent peaceably to submit to a Government which places their destinies in the hands of a few as compared with them: selves? How long before it will be said by some political reformer, wiser than the men who. the Constitution, “There is to be found in that disparity an antirepublican principle, ” and if there be any States in the nion who with the powers now belonging to them are capable of exerting that principle, how long before we shall have it said here and throughout the country that those States are not truly republican in form, and a demand made to limit their representation in the Senate? What protection is there in the Constitution? T. men who framed it supposed that the equal representation of the States in the Senate was protected by the provision that the Constitution is not to be amended so as to defeat that equal representation; but how could that stand if a general convention were called? Literally it would stand; but there would be nothing in that provision which would prevent a majority of the States and the West will have a majority of the States from saying, “If you insist upon retaining that equal representation in the Senate, you and we part; we will not live under a Government which is founded upon such an antirepublican theory.” And when that time comes what is to become of Maine?