The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904 Page: 190
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190 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
a municipal regulation, still prevailed and interdicted slavery,
without the intervention of congress.' Senator Baldwin, of Con-
necticut, for the purpose of defining especially the condition of the
territory claimed by Texas, offered an amendment declaring that
this law of Mexico should remain in force in the acquired territory
until altered or repealed by congress. This line of attack had
been met as early as 1848, by Mr. Calhoun, who said, "To extend
them [the humane provisions of the laws of nations] further and
give them the force of excluding emigrants from the United States,
because their property or religion are such as are prohibited from
being introduced by the laws of Mexico, would not only exclude
a great majority of the people of the United States from emigrat-
ing into the acquired territory, but would be to give a higher
authority to the extinct authority of Mexico over the territory than
to our actual authority over it. I say the great majority, for the
laws of Mexico not only prohibit the introduction of slaves, but
of many other descriptions of property, and also the Protestant
religion, which Congress itself can not prohibit. To such absurd-
ity would the supposition lead."2
It was maintained that the constitution followed the flag into
the ceded territories, not as "a mere cripple," but proprio vigore to
secure and protect every right guaranteed to the citizens.3 Inter-
national usage did not warrant the conclusion that the lex loci, op-
posed to provisions of the constitution assertive of inalienable
rights of liberty, property, and the religion which they professed,
should prevail until abrogated by congress. The page of history
is yet fresh which records the renewal of the question of the
supreme authority of the constitution over the islands acquired by
the Spanish American war. History repeats itself in the conten-
tion that the constitution follows the flag only so far as congress
enacts that it shall.
Many senators and representatives who opposed the extension of
slave territory declined to apply the principle of the Wilmot pro-
viso to the compromise bill, as such an amendment would be con-
sidered a taunt and a designed indignity, and unnecessarily inten-
'Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, I 94.
*Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 425; ibid., App., 993.
"Von Hoist, Constitutional Hietory of the United States, II 444, et seq.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904, periodical, 1904; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101030/m1/194/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.