[Fugitive Slave Act] Butler, Thomas Beldin. The Slave Question. Speech of Hon. T. B. Butler, of Connecticut, in the House of Representatives, March 12, 1850, In Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, on the President’s Message transmitting the Constitution of California.

A most interesting address by a young Representative from Connecticut in which he debates with Southern Representatives regarding the admission of new States in the Westward expansion. At play in the current document are California, Deseret [Utah], and New Mexico. Under the wish of the Northerners, these would be admitted as “non-slavery” States. The South saw this as a way of gaining more abolitionist votes and thus amending the Constitution of the United States to abolish slavery; the North saw attempts at having new States allow slavery as the opposite.

Core to the conversation also was the Fugitive Slave Act, which the South saw as theft and a political move to help the North generate sympathy for the slaves by publishing the stories of those who had escaped, etc.

Scarce. No copies on the market at any price.

Complete, as issued, a bit of flotsam from previous sammelband binding on spine. Else clean. Trimmed affecting a few letters on penultimate leaf.