Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 14

7. Joel Parker, Non-Extension of Slavery and Constitutional Representation. An Address before the Citizens of Cambridge, October 1, 1856 (Cambridge, MA: James Munroe & Co., 1856). (92 p.)

Speech denouncing the extension of slavery to territories in the western part of the United States, especially if such extension is accompanied by an increase in Congressional representation based on the number of slaves residing in the states formed from those territories. The speaker is willing to compromise, but warns that earlier compromises on the subject of slavery (e.g., the Missouri Compromise of 1820) have been negated by aggressive legislation introduced by representatives from Southern states. “Those States having had a representation founded on the slave basis, may be unwilling to part with it hereafter; and I, for one, am quite content that they shall retain it, upon a compromise that there shall be no farther extension of slavery; provided the compromise may be one which shall not be compromised over again” (emphasis in original). (The collection has another copy of this monograph in volume 66 [no. 1].)