SPEECH
OF
JAMES. B. GARDENHIRE,
PRESIDENT
OF THB
frffomi d% INti &m\m.
Delivered in the Hall of the House ot Representatives of the State of
Missouri, Wednesday Evening, October 28,1857, in Defense of
the Company, the Bight of Emigration, and of
Political and Religious Freedom.
jefferson city.
Lkf.
SPEECH.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Senator Green, a few evenings ago, deliv¬
ered an address in this hall, upon the request, he said, of his personal
friends. It is not so with me. This interview with you has not bee®
sought upon the request or by the advice of anybody, but for other reasons,
one or two of which need only now be mentioned. *
Opinions upon the question of slavery have been announced in thii
newspapers and in public addresses, in this State, at war with the opinions
of the early Fathers of the republic, and, in my opinion, with the best
interests of the State. Holding no political position, I did not feel myself
specially called upon to notice them, until they, and the prejudices they
engender, were brought to bear directly upon my own private affairs, and
the private affairs of my neighbors.
It is well known here that myself and some of my neighbors, among
the oldest and most reliable citizens of the State, have organized a land
company, for the purpose of inviting population to the city, making it th»
chief seat of manufactures in the West, and supplying ourselves with aU
the educational advantages of the age. The position of the city, and th»
elements of wealth around it, we felt satisfied, fully justified the enterprise.
Midway between lit. Louis and our western border, on the two great cen¬
tral lines of trade and travel, the Missouri river and Pacific railroad, jus*
below their junction, without a rival on these long lines, nearly five hun¬
dred miles by water and three hundred by railroad, it^is better situatetL
we think, in reference to our railroad system, and great agricultural and
mineral resources, than any other point west of St. Louis. Surrounded
by vast deposits of coal, lead and iron, and magnificent forests of every
variety of timber usual in the West, for ship building and manufacturing
purposes, it commends itself as the chief seat of manufactures in the valley
©f the Mississippi.
Though we felt satisfied, from the tendencies of the times, that the
population we invited would come chiefly from the free States, our invita¬
tion was to all the world. Our purpose was to enrich ourselves and oui
neighbors, and those who should come among us arid assist us, by building
a city at the capital, and with it educational institutions, which should ex¬
cite the generous pride and moral enthusiasm of the whole State; and ll
mattered not to us from whence population, capital and enterprise came^
"whether from the North or the South, Europe or Ameriea.
Our progress thus far, with some exceptions, has answered our mosl
Sanguine expectations. The enterprise, we believe, is generally well though!
ef, both in the State and out of it, where information of it has-reached.
Reul estate in the city and its vicinity b*«
6
ft the greatest object of dmire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant
State But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to eiclur-t all fur¬
ther importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect tliis by prohibitions, and
fiy imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his
ittajesty's negative. Thus prefering the immediate advantages of a few African corsairs to
the lasting interests of the American States, and to the rights of human nature, deeply
Wounded by this infamous practice."—[Amer. Arch., <ith series, vol. 1, p. 695.
The solemn agreement just read from the proceedings of the provincial
Congress of Georgia, meant more than opposition to the slave trade. It
looked to the abolition of slavery, as an evil then existing in the colony,
And sought the prohibition of further importations, as a means of accom¬
plishing it. No higher authority than Mr. Jefferson is needed, but if it
Were, the solemn agreement itself would suggest it. If slavery is an evil,
Ihe slave trade is wrong; if a blessing, it is right. War upon the slave
trade is war upon slavery, and the vindication of slavery is the vindication
of the slave trade, unless the body politic may be surfeited by too much of
A good thing.
I read next a resolution of the provincial Convention of North Caro-
Ena, of 1774:
" Resolved, That we will not import any slave or slaves, or purchase any slave or slaves,
Imported or brought into this province by others, from any part of the world, after the first
day of November next."—[Amer. Arch., 4th series, vol. \, p. 735.
Next, a resolution of a general meeting of the freeholders and inhab¬
itants of the county of Fairfax, Virginia, of the 18th of July, 1774, of
which George Washington was chairman:
" Resolved, That it is the opinion of this meeting, that during onr present difficulties and
distress, no slaves ought to be imported into any of the British colonies on this continent;
and we take this opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see an entire stop for¬
ever put to such a wicked, cruel and unnatural trade."—[ Writings of Washington, vol. 2,
p. 494.
Jared Sparks says that the Fairfax resolutions, of which the above is
One, were found among Washington's papers, in the handwriting of George
l&ason, who probably wrote them ; (a) that they were framed with much care
and ability; exhibited the state of public feeling in a manner clear and
forcible, and were "the matured views of Washington, at the outset of
the great revolutionary struggle, in which he was to act so conspicuous a
part."—[ Washington's Writings, vol. 2, p. 488. Washington, then, was
an enemy of negro slavery, being opposed to the further importation of
slaves into any of the British colonies on the continent, and earnestly
wishing to see an entire stop forever put to such a wieked, cruel and un¬
natural trade. How it could be so, and yet slavery right, cannot well be
made out.
I read you next, a resolution of the inhabitants of Culpepper county^
Virginia, of July 7th, 1774. Mark it. I wish it specially noted, for a
reason which will readily occur to you when I read it:
" Resolved, That the importing slaves and convict servants is injurious to this colony, as
il obstructs the population of it with free men and useful manufactures, and that we will
iiot buy any such slaves or convict servants hereafter to be imported."—[Amer. Arch., 4
series, vol I,p. 523.
This is precisely the position steadily advocated by the Missouri Dem¬
ocrat, a paper not considered orthodox by its opponents, but which, in my
Opinion, has contributed more to the population and wealth of the State
than any other journal in it. I suggested as much, some time ago, in
conversation with an acquaintance, on a steamboat on the upper Missouri^
And it threw him into a fit of indignation. He abruptly left me, s»yi$$ j
T
was as bad as old Greeley. I hope he may read the resolution just sub¬
mitted, and, if he will not believe the Democrat, that he may the inhale
Hants of Culpepper. (b)
I have read you the slavery opinions of Georgia, North Carolina and
Virginia, and of the colonies, given by Mr. Jefferson. I now direct your
attention to the slavery article of the continental Congress of 1774. It
corresponds with all I have read, and fully sustains Mr. Jefferson's asser¬
tion, that the abolition of domestic slavery was the greatest object of de¬
sire in the colonies, where it was uhnappily introduced in their infant state,
and that the abolition of the slave trade was necessary to accomplish it.
The article is as follows:
"Second. That we will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first
day of December next; after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and
will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor will we sell our
Commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it."—Amer. Arch., 4.th series,
mL 1, p. 914.
The articles, of which the above is one, were signed by the continental
Congress. On the list stand the most distinguished names of the revolu¬
tion : Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Roger Sherman,
Caesar Rodney, Edward Rutlege, Benjamin Harrison, Richard Henry Lee,
Patrick Henry and George Washington. They fill a glorious page in
American history, and their sentiments on the slavery questio n can bat
commend themselves to every American heart.
I now introduce some special witnesses of revolutionary memory, the
mention of whose names awaken proud historical recollections of the times
that tried mens' souls. I begin with Franklin, the philanthropist, the
philosopher, the statesman. In a letter to Dean Woodward, of April 10,
1773, he uses this language :
"Desirous of being revived in your memory, I take this opportunity, by my good friend
Mrs Blacker, of sending you a printed piece and a manuscript, both on a subject you and. 1
frequently conversed upon with concurring sentiments, when I had the pleasure of seeing
you in Dublin I have since had the satisfaction to learn that a disposition to abolish slavery
prevails in North America, that many of the Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty,
end that even the Virginia Assembly have petitioned the King for permission to make a law
for preventing the importation of more into that colony. This request, however, will prob¬
ably not be granted, as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed, and as
the interest of a few merchants here has more weight with government than that of thou¬
sands at a distance."—[ Works of Franklin, vol. 8, p 42.
This letter was written in London, and fully sustains Jefferson's views
of the sentiments of the colonies against slavery, and the stubborn deter¬
mination of the King to force it upon them, at the instance of those en¬
gaged in the slave trade. Let me add one other remark. There is a
•trange and instructive contrast between the petition of the Virginia As¬
sembly and the remonstrance of Virginia politicians against Mr. Thayer's
efforts to settle Western Virginia, and wake it to life and animation, by
population, machinery, capital and enterprise from the north.
On the 9th of November, 1789, Franklin, in a public address signed
by him, used the following language:
"Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation,if
U®t performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils."—[ Works
qf Franklin, vol. 2, p. 515.
On the 5th day of April, 1783, Washington, in a letter to the Marquis
Do Lafayette, used the following language:
"The scheme, my dear marquis, which you propose as a precedent, to encourage the
emajneipation of the black people in this country from that state of bondage in which tkgy
8
are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be happy to jol®
you in so laudable a work, but will defer going into a detail of the business till I have thO
pleasure of seeing you."—[ Writings of Washington, vol. 8, p. 414.
This extract shows the opinions of Lafayette and Washington upon tho
question of emancipation. The scheme proposed by Lafayette was a
scheme of emancipation. (<?) It was approved by Washington, the great, th®
good, the noble Washington, " first in war, first in peace, and first in the
hearts of his countrymen." It was, he said, a '' laudable work" a striking
evidence of the benevolence of Lafayette's heart, and he should be happy
to join him in it. Lafayette ! the patriot stranger! self-sacrificing volun¬
teer! a proud and glorious name on freedom's page, lithographed in every
American heart, to be remembered and cherished as long as the eagle he
followed through the revolution shall nestle in its free eyry upon liberty's
rock. Shall his opinions upon emancipation, coming down to us with the
approval of Washington, when repeated by others, receive the bitter de¬
nunciation, or kindly indulgence of those whose battles he fought, and who
now, surrounded by all the multiplied blessings of human life, are in the
rich realization of the glorious fruits of his revolutionary struggles? Let
Missouri, the proud, free heart of Missouri answer.
May 1, 1815, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Barrow, as follows:
" I have duly received your favor of March 20th, and am truly thankful for the favorably
■entiments expressed in it towards myself. If, in the course of my life, it has been in any
degree useful lo the cause of humanity, the fact itself bears its full reward. The particu¬
lar subject of the pamphlet you enclosed me was one of early and tender consideration with
me, and had I continued in the councils of my own State, it should never have been out of
sight. The only practicable plan I could ever devise is stated under the 14th quaere of tha
Notes on Virginia, and it is still the one most sound, in my judgment. Unhappily, it is a
case for which both parties require long and difficult preparation. The mind of the master
Is to be apprised by reflection, and strengthened by the energies of conscience against tho
obstacles of self interest to an acquiescence in the rights of others; that of the slave is to
be prepared by instruction and habit for self-government, and for the honest pursuits of in¬
dustry and social duty. Both of these courses of preparation require time, and the former
must precede the latter. Some progress is sensibly made in it; yet not so much as I had
hoped and expected. But it will yield in time to temperate and steady pursuit, to the en¬
largement of the human mind, and its advancement in science. Wo are not in a world un-
governed by the laws and the power of a superior agent. Our efforts are in His hand, and
directed by it; and lie will give them their effect in His own time. Where the disease is
most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the northern States it was
merely superficial, and rarely connected. In the southern, it is incorporated with the whole
system, aud requires time, patience and perseverance in the curative process. That it may
finally be effected, and its progress hastened, will be the last and fondest prayer of him who
glow salutes you with respect and consideration."—£Jefferson's Works, vol. 6, pp. 450, 457
The subject of the pamphlet mentioned in this letter was emancipa¬
tion; and Mr. Jefferson declared, it will be seen, that it was " one of early
and tender consideration" with him; that had he continued in the councils
of his own State, should never have been out of sight,;" and that it
might " finally be effected, and its progress hastened," would be " the last
and fondest prayer" of his life. I shall presently give the '■''practicable
fflan" devised by him in the 14th quaere of his Notes on Virginia, but will
first give you his opinion on the evils of slavery. It is as follows:
"It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners of a nation may b«
tried, whether catholic or particular. It is more difficult for a native to bring to that stan¬
dard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There must doubtless be
an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery
among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the
most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading
submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an im¬
itative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to bis
(grave, he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either
#
In his philanthrophy or his self-lore, for restraining the intemperance of passion towarth
his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it ia
not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, putf
on the s.une airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a lease to the worst of passions, and
thus nur.-cd, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with
odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his manners and morala
undepi aved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be load¬
ed, who, permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample ou the rights of the others, trans¬
forms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the
amor patriae of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any
other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he
must lock up the faculties of his nature, contented as far as depends on his individual en¬
deavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the
endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry ie
also dos'royed. For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself, who can make another
labor lor him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves, a very small proportion,
indeed, are ever seen to labor And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when
we have lemoved their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that their lib¬
erties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed,
I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for¬
ever ; that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means oul}', a revolution of the wheel
of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable
by supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in
Buch a contest But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the
various considerations of policy, of morals, of history, natural and civil. We must oe con¬
tented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind 1 think a change already
perceptible since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating;
that of the slave rising from the dust; his condition mollifying; the way 1 hope preparing,
under the auspices of Heaven, for a total emancipation; and that this is disposed, in the
order of events, to be with the consent of the master, rather than by extirpation."—\Jeffer-
ton's Works, vol. 8, pp. 408, 404.
This was Mr. Jefferson's view of the effects of slavery upon the man¬
ners, morals, and industry of the people; to which he added a hope that
a way was preparing, " under the awspices of Heaven, for a total emanci*
pati<<n." I now give you the "practicable plan ' ot emancipation devised
by him in the 14th quaere of his Notes on Virginia, mentioned a little
while ago. It is this:
"To emancipate all slaves born after the act. The bill reported by the revisers does not
Itself contain this proposition ; but an amendment containing it was prepared, to be offered
to too Legislature whenever the bill should be taken up, and further directing that they
should co utinue with their parents to a certain age, then to be brought up at the public ex¬
pense. to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females should be
eighteen, .and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such place
as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms,
implements of the household, and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic
an.mals, &c. ; to declare them a free and independent people, and extend* to them 'our alli-
anceand protection till they have acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same time to
other ports of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants ; to induce thein to immi¬
grate hither, proper cncouragi ments were to be proposi d. It will piobably he asked, why
not retain and incorpoiate the blacks into the. state, and thus save the expense of supplying
by importation of white stttlers the vacancies they will leave? Detp rooted prejudices en¬
tertained by the whites; ten thousand i t collections by the blacks of the injuries tliey havo
sustained ; new provocations, the rial distinctions which nature has made, and many other
circumstances will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never
end but in the exteimination of the one or the other race."—[Jefferson's veL
%,p 880.
This was Mr. Jefferson's plan of emancipation. It proposed legisla¬
tive action, and the removal of emancipated slaves out of the State, without
a violent disruption of social relations, or material injury to slaveholders.
And let me repeat, in this connection, his emphatic declaration, that if he
bad continued m the councils of his own State, "it should never havebtqn
10
la passing, I simply mention the ordinance^ 1787, excluding slavery
frota the north-west territory. It was the work of the men of the revolu¬
tion, and shows their opinions on the question of slavery. It is in h nuno-
ny with the resolutions of Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and the Coo*
tinental Congress, anil the opinions of Franklin, Washington and Jefferson,
and nearly all the eminent men of the revolution.
This ordinance was followed up, in 1791, by congressional action against
the slave trade. This, too, was the work of the men of the revolution.
The first to burst their own fetters, they were the first to make war upon
the slave trade, and to counsel the gradual emancipation of slavery. The
act of 1791 was followed by others, in 1800, and in 1807; and iu 1820
the slave trade was denounced as piracy, and punished with death. Such
was the deep rooted and fixed hostility of the founders of the government
to the institution of slavery.
I proceed now to show that the same sentiments in reference to slavery
were impressed upon the State Convention of 1820, and found a place in
Our State constitution. In sec. 26, in art. 3, it is provided that the Gen¬
eral Assembly shall have no power to pass laws:
" First. For the emancipation of slaves, without the consent of their owners, or without
paying tliem, before such emancipation, a full equivalent for such slaves so emancipated."
This carries with it the implication that they may be emancipated*
with the consent of their owners, or by paying them, before emancipation,
a full equivalent. If the convention thought slavery a social and political
blessing, when engaged in making a fundamental law upon the subject^
why was it not declared a constitutional, 'peculiar institution of the Skate,
never to be abolished under any circumstances whatever? The conven¬
tion, like our fathers, thought it an evil; that it would be discussed and
dealt with as such, and provided a mode by which, if the body politic got
rid of it, it should be without disproportioued injury to slaveholders.
But again, the same section provides that the General Assembly shaB
have power to pass laws:
" Second. To prohibit the introduction of any slave for the purpose of speculation, or Of
an article of trade or merchandise."
This constitutional provision is enforced by stringent laws now on our statute hook, im-
Sosing penalties for bringing into the State slaves, or their descendants, imported into tha
nited States or territories, in contravention of the laws against the slave trade, or slavei
belonging to persons not residents of, or bona fide emigrants to the State. Non-residents ao-
quiring a right to a slave within this State from a resident, must remove such slave out of
the State within t^ree months; and slaves brought into the State for the purpose of passing
through it, cannot be kept in the State for a longer period than six months, and during that
time must be kept in the employment of the person bringing them into the State, and catt-
Jttot be sold or hired to labor therein."—[Rev. Stat., vol. 2, pp. 1471 1472.
It is impossible to read the constitutional provisions just quoted, in
connection with the opinions of the colonies, and the most eminent men of
the revo^tion, without a conviction that the State Convention of 1820
was fully impressed with similar views. And the legislative enactment®
now on our statute book, enforcing these constitutional provisions, mani¬
festly show that the people of this State entertain similar opinions; that
slavery is an evil, to be treated as such and dealt with as such. If a bless¬
ing, why is the introduction of slaves for the purpose of speculation, or
as an article of trade or merchandise, prohibited? Why not increase it,
by allowing slaves to be brought here for sale? It is a strange biessing
that will not bear increase or transmission; such as is rarely lavished upon
individuals or nations.
»
Who, then, are the enemies of negro slavery? I have shown that the
British king was its friend, and forced it upon the colonies, against their
repeated remonstrances. 1 have shown that the colonies were its enemies;
that the eminent men of the revolution — the Adamses, the Rutlegea,
Franklin, Jefferson, Henry and Washington — all who were great and glori¬
ous in our revolutionary history, were its enemies; and last, that the au¬
thorities of our federal and State governments are its enemies. The indis¬
criminate charge, then, made by Mr. Green, that slavery agitation and the
evils resulting from it, are attributable to the enemies of negro slavery, ia
leveled at all these high authorities, which, I am sure, will bring all right
minded men to indulgence, if not to conviction.
1 have been thus careful in compiling the opinions of the most eminent
men in our history, for the additional purpose of showing that similar opin¬
ions entertained by citizens of our sister States constitute no objection to
their purchasing our property, and settling down in our midst. Such an
objection would reach Franklin, Jefferson, Henry and Washington—the
whole revolutionary host, if living, and we ourselves would have to aban¬
don the State to the minority, or amend our constitution and repeal our
legi slative enactments.
I proceed now to show whence a part of the evils of slavery agita¬
tion comes. I shall not do it by misrepresenting the opinions and aims of
the north. They are not here to be convinced by my counsel, if right, or
to refute it if wrong. My business is with errors at home, among my ne gh-
bors, whose social progress is indissobly blended with my own. The great
and good Washington, in his farewell address, told us that: " One of the
expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts, is to
misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot," said
he '•shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burnings
which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to
each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection."
Let this warning admonition be severely applied by every good man to the
sectional agitators, who are appealing to the passions, and exciting the
prejudices of southern men against the north. The exigency of the times
imperatively demands it. Keep right at home, and good sense and patri¬
otism, not bounded by geographical lines, will correct the errors of the
north.
Much of the evil of slavery agitation has resulted from erroneous po¬
sitions assumed in the south. Some of these I propose now to consider.
When right at home, the north has never failed to sustain us, and some¬
times even when we were wrong. If we would take just positions at home,
and maintain them through our representatives in Congress, the food of
agitation would be consumed, and the dangerous occupation of sectional
agitators would be gone. Extremes might do their worst, but none would
fear for the Union, or dread the terrible scourge of civil strife.
The first of these errors I shall notice, is one advocated here by Mr.
Green the other night, that slavery is a moral, social, political and relig-
ous blessing, and to be treated as such. A doctrine so utterly at war with
humanity, and with the opinions of our most eminent statesmen, invites
refutation, especially when the prejudices it engenders are turned to polit¬
ical account, at the sacrifice of individual enterprise and social progress.
Slavery existed, it is said, when our Savior was upon earth, and He
did not condemn it. What sort of slavery ? Negro slavery ? Say ? The
12
argument proves too much. It enslaves, the white man as well as the n©*
gro. The slavery then existing was of the white man — the vanquished,
the victim of superior force, of conquest, of war. If the argument is
right, the freedom of the white man is left to the mercy of the strong.
But, without troubling you with theology, I will add that it has been thought
our Savior did condemn slavery, when he said, "All things whatsoever ye
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." A broad rule,
and applied to slavery, means, if you catch and enslave other men, you
must let other men catch and enslave you. Mr. Jefferson may have been
thinking of some such just rule when he said, as heretofore quoted, that
an exchange of situations was among possible events, and might become
probable by supernatural interference, and that the Almighty had no attri¬
bute which could take side with us in such a contest.
It is also said that our slaves are better fed and clothed and cared for,
than the white laborers of the north. This argument, also, proves too
much, and enslaves the white man. If true, arid being true, slavery is
therefore right, these poor laborers ought to be caught and enslaved, and
comfortably fed and clothed and cared for, as our slaves are. The poor
fellows could hardly be made to appreciate the advantages of the change,
without the unanswerable Portugeese argument — brute force — which con¬
vinced the African at the beginning of the slave trade.
It is again said that we enslave our children and apprentices, until
twenty-one years old, and the right to do this includes the right to enslave
the negro. This argument is of the same class with the others, and af¬
fects the white man in the same way. The right to enslave one race, in¬
cludes the right to enslave all races, and the right to enslave all races, in¬
cludes the right to enslave any individual of any race. This rule would
get us to catching and enslaving one another, and force alone, as between
the Portugeese and African, could determine who should be the master and
who the slave, reducing slavery to its known origin and argument—brute
force.
The civil law(defines slavery thus: "Slavery is an institution, by the
laws of nations, by which one man is subjected to another man, as master,
contrary to nature." And Chief Justice Marshall, expounding this, says:
"That slavery is contrary to the laws of nature, will scarcely be denied;
that every man has a right to the fruits of his own labor, is generally ad¬
mitted ; and that no person can rightfully deprive him of these fruits, and
appropriate them to his will, seems the necessary result of that ad¬
mission."
It is a well known historical fact, that the Barbary States, command¬
ing the navigation of the Mediterranean, were in the constant habit of
Catching and enslaving christians. Treaty stipulations, and the combined
efforts of civilized Europe, were not sufficient to prevent it. To protect
Our citizens from the Barbary argument, which always convinced, when
presented by the orators of the Mediterranean — the Algerine pirates —
the United States, in 1815, sent out a squadron under Decatur, and by his
bombardment of Algiers, he convinced them that the question of slavery
Was debatable, and that he was in favor of agitation.
Now, however plausible the argument in favor of negro slavery, sub¬
mitted to us the other night* I have a much better one, in favor of enslav¬
ing christians, made a hundred and seventy years ago, by Sidi Mehemet
13
Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of Algiers, and which may he seen in
Martin's account of his consulship, anno lt)87. It was against granting
the petition of the sect called Erika, or Purists, who prayed for the aboli¬
tion of Piracy and slavery as being unjust. The African's speech, as
translated, is as follows:
"Allah Bismil'ah, &c. God is great and Mahomet is his prophet."
" Have these Erika considered the consequences of granting their petition ? If we cease
our cruises against the christians, how shall we be furnished with the commodities their
countries produce, and which are so necessary for us ? If we forbear to make slaves of their
fteople, who in this hot clime are to cultivate our lands? Who are to perform the common
abors of our city, and in our families ? Must we not then be our own slaves ? And is there
not more compassion and more favor due to us as mussulmen, than to these christian dogs?
We have now above fifty thousand slaves inaud near Algiers. This number, if not kept up
by fresh supplies, will soon diminish, and be gradually annihilated. If we then cease taking
and plundering the infidel ships, and making slaves of the seamen and passengers, our lands
will become of no value for want of cultivation ; the rents of houses in the city will siuk
one-half; and the revenue of government arising from its share of prises be totally des¬
troyed! And for what? To gratify the whims of a whimsical sect, who would have us not
only forbear making more slaves, but even manumit those we have.
"But who is to indemnify their masters for their loss? Will the State do it? Is our
treasury sufficient? Will the Erika doit ? Can they do it? Or would they, to do what
they think justice to the slaves, do a greater injustice to the owners ? And if we set our
slaves free, what is to be done with them ? Few of them will return to their countries; they
know too well the greater hardships they must there be subject to ; they will not embrace our
holy religion; they will not adopt our manners; our people will not pollute themselves by
intermarrying with them.
" Must we maintain them as beggars in our streets, or suffer our properties to be the prey
of their pillage ? F ar men accustomed to slavery will not work for a livelihood when not
compelled. And what is there so pitiable in their present condition ? Were they not slaves
in their own countries ? Are not Spain, Portugal, France, and the Italian States governed
by despots, who hold all their subjects in slavery without exception ? Even England treats
its sailors as slaves : for they are, whenever the government pleases, seized and confined in
ships of war, condemned not only to work, but to fight for small wages, or a mere subsist¬
ence, not better than our slaves are allowed by us. Is their condition then made worse by
their falling into our hands ? No; they have only exchanged one slavery for another, and I
may say, a better; for here they are brought into a land where the sun of Islamism gives
forth its light, and shines in full splendor, and they have an opportunity of making themselves
acquainted with the true doctrine, and thereby saving their immortal souls. Those who re¬
main at home, have not that happiness. Sending the slaves home then, would be sending
them out of light into darkness. I repeat the question. What is to be done with them ? I
have heard it suggested, that they may be planted in the wilderness, where there is plenty of
land for them to subsist on, and where they may flourish as a free state; but they are, I
doubt not, too little disposed to labor without compulsion, as well as too ignorant to establish
a good government; and the wild Arabs would soon molest and destroy, or again enslave
them. While serving us, we take care to provide them with everything, and they are treated
with humanity. The laborers in their own country are, as I am well informed, worse fed,
lodged and clothed. The condition of most of them is therefore already mended, and re¬
quires no further improvement.
" Here their lives are in safety. They are not liable to be impressed for soldiers, and
forced to cut one another's christian throats, as in the wars of their own countries. If some
of the religious, mad bigots, who now tease us with their silly petitions, have in a fit of
blind zeal, freed their slaves, it was not generosity, it was not humanity, that moved them
to the action; it was from the conscious burthen of a load of sins, and a hope, from the
supposed merits of so good a work, to be excused from damnation. How grossly they are
mistaken, to suppose slavery to be disallowed by the Alcoran ! Are not the two precepts —
to quote no more: " Masters, treat your slaves with kindness. Slaves, serve your masters with
cheerfulness and fidelity," clear proofs to the contrary ? Nor can the plundering of infidels
be in that sacred book forbidden, since it is well known from it that God has given the world
end all it contains to his faithful mussulmen, who are to enjoy it of right, as fast as they
•onquer it. Let us, then, hear no more of this detestable proposition, the manumission of
christian slaves, the adoption of which would, by depreciating our lauds and houses, and
thereby depriving so many good citizens of their properties, create universal discontent, and
provoke insurrections, to the endangering of government, and producing general confusion.
I have, therefore, no doubt but this wise council will prefer the comfort and happiness of a
Whole nation of the true believers, to the wUin of a few Erika, and dismiss their petition."
14
The result was, as Mr. Martin tells us, that the Divan came to this
resolution:
"The doctrine that plundering and enslaving the christians is unjust, is, at best, prob*
fanatical; but that it is the interest of this state to continue the practice, is clear ; therefoW
let the petition be rejected. And it was rejected accordingly."
Franklin, in commenting upon this speech, twenty-four days before his
death, said that it showed "that mens' interests and intellects operate ana
are operated on with surprising similarity, in all countries and climates, when¬
ever t hey are under similar circumstances." I give the speech and comments
as I find, them in Franklin's Works, vol. 2, pp. 517. 618, 619, 620, 621,
A denial of the power of Congress over the subject of slavery in the
territories, and in the District of Columbia, I have thought another error
Contributing largely to unnecessary agitation. I had occasion to look into
this matter in 1849, and subsequent reflection and observation have but
confirmed the opinion I then formed, and announced in more than forty
Speeches in the canvass of 1^50. It is a matter I do not propose to discuss
now, but a suggestion or two occurs to me, too pertinent to be dismissed.
The question of power in the territories has been settled by the su¬
preme court. That decision ought to be treated with respect, and submit¬
ted to by all good citizens. The tribunal that made it is above the indi¬
viduals composing it. They may die, but the tribunal, it is hoped, will
live forever. The reputation of the judges is one thing, of the tribunal
another. One is individual, the other collective. But it is no disrespect
to say that if that decision is right, it is difficult to see how slavery can be
kept out of any territory or State even, formed since the adoption of the
Constitution. If Congress has no power, and the people of the territories
none, whence does it come? Not from a territorial convention. It repre¬
sents a territory, not a State. In constitutional parlance, it cannot be
Buch until admitted into the Union. All territories roust, then, be admit¬
ted as slave States, and made otherwise, if at all, afterwards; and where
the power to do it afterwards comes from, is a puzzle. The people did not
have it to keep, and Congress did not have it to give, and yet in a sove¬
reign State it exists. What particular process creates it, I have never been
able to settle.
I have connected the doctrine of the supreme court with the doctrine
maintained here, that the people of the territories have no power to ex¬
clude slavery. And, in this connection, it will not be out of place to men¬
tion the Jackson resolutions of 1849. They are fully endorsed by our
present executive, in his late inaugural, and announce this strange
doctrine:
" The right to prohibit slavery in any territory, belongs exclusively to the people thereof
*nd can only be exercised by them in forming their constitution for a State government, or
in their sovtreigu capacity as au independent State."—[Law® vf 1849, p. <i«7
This resolution denies the right of the people of a territory to exclude
slavery by a territorial law. It presents the confused idea that they have
it, and do not have it; that it exists, but cannot be exercised; sleeps, but
is waked by a name. Call the representatives of the people a Legislature.
end the power does not exist; call the same assemblage a Convention, and
|t does. But the resolution admits the power exists, and may be exercised
in forming a constitution for a State government. How does it happen
that so vital a power exists just at this time, and not before ? What clauso
of the Constitution does it. come from? Or from what source out&ide of
the Constitution ? If members of the Legislature cannot rxcludc slavery
15
how can the same men, representing the same people, as members of a
Convention, do it ? It is plain that the torpid power thus insisted upon, is
purely arbitrary, and made so to let slavery into all the territories, if a
Single individual chooses to carry it there, in spite of Congress, or the will
Of the local inhabitants.
I have a single remark to make in reference to the fugitive slave law.
An error was committed in its passage,-which, in my opinion, has largely
Contributed to the evils of slavery agitation.I speak of the clause com-
manding all good citizens to aid and assist in catching fugitive slave®,
whenever their services may ' e required. It is an anomaly. There is nb<
inch obligation between the citizens of the slave States.) We cannot here
he made to help catch runaway slaves, and any attempt to pass a law
making it our duty to do it, would meet the most decided opposition.
A law making it our duty to quit our own affairs and help our neigh¬
bors catch their stray horses, would not be tolerated. That it is the com
Btitutional right of slave owners to follow their runaway slaves into free
territory and recapture them, is beyond question ; but as slavery exists by
force^atul not by law, they ought to be left to their own exertions, aided
alone by those who are willing to do so. Catching slaves is one thing, keep¬
ing the peace is another. One is the business of slave owners and those wil¬
ling to assist them ; the other, of all good citizens.
Another error I shall notice, is the position assumed the other night,
that it is unconstitutional for emigrants to come here with a view to change
fur institutions. I am at a loss to know what clause of the constitution is
violated by such an emigration; what tribunal can take cognizance of it;
how the grievance is to be ascertained; or how redressed. The right of
emigration to this State is common to the citizens of our sister States, and
*11 the privileges and immunities of citizens are guaranteed to them by the
Constitution of the United States, when they get here. We have no in-
quesition to meet them at the border, and question them as to their motives.
Their emigration here is one thing, the motives that bring them, another.
With the first no authority can interfere, and for the last, they are answerable
alone to their God.^If they choose to come here, and become citizens with us,
and seek to change our institutions, according to the forms of the Constitution,
they have the right to do so, and the motives that brought them here, or
prompt them afterwards, are beyond the cognizance of human tribunals. ...
The same position was assumed by our State Executive, in his late in¬
augural, when he annexed to emigration the qualification of " moral worth
and 'political integrityThe " moral worth" necessary to admission,
might possibly be determined, if we had a tribunal to take cognizance of
the matter, but the "political integrity" would confound all attempts.
Know-Nothing, Anti, or Benton integrity would be required, as the one
or the other of these parties might have possession of the tribunal, taking
cognizance of the case. But, having no common tribunal, if each party
Organizes one of its own, I do not well see how anybody is to get into
the State at all.
This matter is well illustrated by the very occasion which forced me to
speak. Objections are made to emigrants from the free States, and to
their building a university here, because, it is said, they are abolitionists.
The objectors make themselves the judges, hear no evidence, admit no de¬
fense, and exclude. Such a tribunal may well be compared to the Spanish
Inquisition, and will certainly meet with the same determined resistance.
10
Mr. Douglass takes the same position, in his report on Kansas affairs.
A tribunal was organized to meet it. It acted independent of constituted
authorities, and was unknown to the Constitution and law. Tlie history of
Kansas tells a melancholy story of carnage and of blood, sadly illustrating
the fallacy of the position. No good citizen — none who love the quiet
6f their hearth stones, and the majesty of the law that guards it, can wish
to see such a doctrine put in practical operation here.
I have now finished my view of the errors from which, I think, much
of the evil of slavery agitation has resulted. That much has resulted
from improper northern agitation, is doubtless true; but we ought not to
allow such a consideration to lead us into similar errors. If ever there
were a people who ought to be studiously careful to be right, it is the peo¬
ple of the south. If the terrible conflict, so often predicted, should come
— I trust in God it may not — the civilized world will be against us; and,
if Mr. Jefferson is to be believed, God has no attribute that could side with
us in the conflict. The great masses of the free States have no interest
hut in being right, and they will be so, and sustain us in all our rights
here, if we will keep right ourselves; but if, in the face of humanity, the
united opinions of the founders of the government, and of all experience,
we assume that slavery is a blessing, that all restrictions upon it •>rght to
be removed, and political opinions sanctioned which would send it not only
into all the territories, but into all the free States, and result in reopening
the slave trade, everlasting and injurious agitation will be the inevitable
result.
I come now to speak of slavery in Missouri, and what ought to be our
policy in reference to it. That it is rapidly diminishing, is a tact well au¬
thenticated, and that it will ultimately disappear from among us, is a con¬
viction deeply fixed in the public mind everywhere. Missouri is now the
great central State of the Union, and is rapidly becoming the centre of
its wealth and population. Midway between the two oceans, directly on
the great railway route that must ultimately connect them; with a mild cli¬
mate, and unsurpassed agricultural and mineral resources, it is attracting
an immense emigration. It is coming, and will cont nue to come, princi¬
pally from the free States. Slaveholders not only will not come here, hut
those that are here, are, every now and then, going off to Texas. Our policy
is manifest. It is, to impose no qualification, no restriction, by our con¬
duct, upon emigration; but, on the contrary, to encourage it, by the exhi¬
bition of generous, fraternal feelings. Wearied as I am, I cannot better
give you my views,upon this branch of the subject, than by reading some
extracts from a letter written by me to a friend, and published some time
ego in the Boston Traveler:
441 feel well satisfied our movement will contribute largely to the prosperity of the capi¬
tal, and the whole State. It is a friendly invitation to those who waut to come among ua
anyhow, and who will get rich themselves, and make us rich when they do come. There ar«
a hundred thousand of them, with large capital, ready to come, as soon as their notions of
44 border rvffiav$" are corr«cted. Let us correct them, and at once, and let them come. Let
ns welcome them, not as mad partizans and sectionalists, but as citizens of one great com¬
monwealth— the commonwealth of Washington — one and indivi-ible, bounding to the rich¬
est commercial position among nations, and destined, if not checked by partizan and sectional
fanaticism, to become the model government of the earth. Let them come, and the capital,
touched by the hand of enterprise, wealth and cultivated taste, will become famous fur its
grandeur and beauty all over the Union; and Missouri, with her forests of pine and oak,
her coal fields and lead mines, and her iron mountains and rich agricultural lands, will reach
a point of wealth and prosperity not generally to be credited now. This is no fiction of the
brain; truth ia stranger than fiction; and, in this instance, it is the oonviction of all who
think of it, arising naturally from the vast resources at pur iviuiaaod
17
"It may be thought, a largo emigration from the free States would be injurious to
laveholders in Missouri. This is a great error. It would benefit them, and in two ways —
irst, by enhancing the value of their landed estates, and second, by cuhancing the value of
heir negroes. The first ought alone to be sufficient to influence the action of every landed
laveholder; for it is well known that wild lands in the free, sell for as much as improved
ands in the slave States. This is a common remark, upon the Missouri and Iowa border.
3ut as slavery gradually disappears, by deaths, in the course of nature, removals south, and
transportations there for sale, the family scrvauts left will adhere to their patriarchal homes,
;nhanced in value from their very scarcity, as corn is enhanced by a drought This r emark
s fully sustained by the present price of slaves in Missouri. Notwithstanding the St. Louis
flection, the increasing emigration from the free States, and the swelling doubt as to the
ultimate fate of slavery here, sweeping over the public mind like a continuous sea-breeze,
the tendency in prices is upwards.
"It is idle to think Missouri will continue a slave State. It is impossible. Destiny—■
the irresistible tread of opposing influences, in unmistakable lettering, has already declared
stherwise. Kansas is virtually free now. Three-fourths of our border are already pressed
by the flooding emigration from the free States. If some of it has passed our boundary
into Kansas and Nebraska, checked by the inferiority of soil, timber, climate and govern¬
ment, it is turning back upon us like a suddenly impeded flood. Under these girdling influ¬
ences, slavery in Missouri must pcri«h. It is destiny, and above, far above partisan
control. In this way it will gradually disappear, without any violent disruption of the rela¬
tion of master and slave; and in this way it ought to be allowed to disappear, without intha
least impeding the gradual and steady influences now blighting the institution, and driving
it over the border.
" Though born and bred in a Slave State, and a slaveholder myself, I do not regret the
graflual process of emancipation going on around me. It is for my interest, and the common
interest of the State. It will break down the opposition in the northern States to the great
central railroad to the Pacific, through Missouri. It will no longer be considered as running
through a slave State, and will be taken out of the boiling cauldron of slavery politics. It
will no longer be presented as a sectional, but as a central, national railroad. The northern
States are the majority, and if we treat them right, the road is ours; for it will also be tha
nation's road over the continent. Sectionalism alone can kill it; the people of Missouri can
kill sectionalism, at least, among themselves. Let us do it; and let Missouri take not the
position assigned her by politicians — the outpost — the battle ground of slavery, but the
proud position God has designed—the heart of the nation, fed by the great waters of the
valley of the Mississippi, and a continental railroad."
The tendencies of the times will free us of slavery, without injury to
the slaveholder; without a tax upon anybody; without leaving free ne¬
groes among us, and without agitation, unless it is wantonly thrust upon
us by those who, losing sight of the great landed and property interests of
the State, make the political ascendency of the ultra pro-slavery party the
chief labor of their lives, by exciting the fears of slaveholders, misrepre¬
senting ikthe opinions and aims of other districts," swelling the dangerous
element of sectional agitation, and imperiling the Union.
But it has been urged upon us, that we must not permit slavery thus
quietly to find its way to the cotton and sugar fields of the south; that
there must be a slave border somewhere; that we ought to furnish it;
and, if we do not, the Union will be dissolved. This is a monstrous
assumption, and a short answer will dispose of it. It is, that we must
keep slavery here, regardless of our local interest, or submit to the
horrors of dissolution. It is not pretended that Congress, the repre¬
sentative of all the States, can prevent us from abolishing slavery, if
we choose; yet, if we simply let it go, when it is going, we are threat¬
ened with a power coming from the southern States, not possessed by
all the States, not possessed by Congress, and made formidable by all
the horrors of civil war. What becomes of state rights, sometimes so
ardently advocated, if our southern neighbors can thus force us to con¬
tinue the out-post, the picket-guard of slavery, and to furnish them an
everlasting slave barrier ? Let those who, in opposition to the founders
0f nn»^yrrTmmm^D±^--iliink slavery a blessing, furnish it a barrier, and
18
A word or two in regard to the charter of the Land Company and
the University, and 1 am done. I do not wish to he indelicate, but
the assault made upon the charter and upon the university, by a. mem¬
ber of the General Assembly, and the countenance it met with iiom
other members, leave me no alternative but to meet it.
The objections taken to the charter are three: 1st, that the amount
of capital is not limited; 2d, that it gives the company authority to
build towns and villages all over the State ; and Jd, that we might build
& university under one section of it. There is one short answer to them
all. The charter is subject to all the provisions of the general corpo¬
ration law, and may be amended, suspended or repealed, at any time,
by the G< neral Assembly. If we should get more capital than is want¬
ed here, in the present monetary crisis, or attempt to ruin the State
by building towns and villages in it, or worse, (horrible! We hope
none will suspect us of such an act of Vandalism,) if we should steal
a march upon the community, and begin them a university lieie, to rank
with the first in the Union, arid at our own cost, a vigilant Legislatme can,
at once interpose, and stop onr desolating progiess. The promptness with
which some gentlemen have come to the rescue, during the piesent session,
furnishes the community a sufficient guaranty against such abominable Van¬
dalism. Let their names be immortal. Let them be cut in Parian maible,
and hung in our council houses, and sent to the future, as everlasting wit¬
nesses of the piogtess of the present time, and of their resolute hostility
to increasing the comforts of man, to building towns and villages, and
erecting institutions of learning.
But to be serious. If there is to be opposition to the charter and to
the university, let it be open and manly. Let it not strike from under a
cloak, or fiorn a thicket on the way side, with the shadows of night upon
it. Let the objections taken be the real ones. If they are based upon
politics and religion, say so; like men, say so. Let us have an open hand-
to-hand fight. Do not waylay us, and give us the mortal thrust, without
Warning tioui whence it is to come. If weareto be discriminated against,
refused a charter never refused to others, denied the common facilities of
improving our condition, of supplying ourselves with educational advanta¬
ges, with the comforts and luxuries of human life, because some of us dif¬
fer in politics with the party in power, let it be told in Gatli, and published
in the streets of Askelon. Let the discriminating hand thus laised against
the equably of citizenship, the war thus made upon the freedom of politi¬
cal and religious opinion, be submitted to public examination; and if thg
freemen of the State will not rebuke the tyranny that oppresses us, they
will deserve the fate with which we are threatened — the black oppiession
lowering over us like a cloud.
Objection is made to chartering the university, because some of those
engaged in it are members of the Methodist Episcopal Chuich, (north)
and are opposed to slavery. The objection is both political and religious,
and, if sustained, establishes a political and religious oligarchy, to discrim¬
inate against and oppress our citizens, on account of their political and re¬
ligious opinions. There is a striking similarity between the shivery opin¬
ions of tlm Methodist Episcopal Church, announced in their discipline,
and the opinions of Mr. Jefferson. The objection would therefore reach
Mr. Jefferson, if living, and, in fact, all the great founders of our govern¬
ment. Think of it. Franklin and Jeffersooyand Henry and Waslmtg+on
19
not fit to have a charter to build a university, because they were opposed
to sla very!
The opinions of Mr. Jefferson upon religious tolerance may be of ser¬
vice now, and I give them, commending them to the careful perusal of
those who are laboring to get the government to discriminate against Meth¬
odists, and to keep them out of the State by such discrimination:
" The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well a#
the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have nO
authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of con¬
science we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for thou to our God.
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
But it does me no 'injury for my neighbor to say there are tweuly Gods, or no God. It nei¬
ther picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg. If it be said his testimony, in a court of justice,
cannot be relied ou, reject it, then, and be the stigma ori him. Constraint may make him
worse, by making him a hypocrite, but it wdl never make him a truer man. It may fix him
Obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free inquiry arc the onl y effec¬
tual agents against error. Give a lease to them, they will support the true religion, by bring¬
ing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are t-tie natural
enemies of error, and of errot only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry,
Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at. tno
era of the reformation, the corruptions of Christianity couid not have been purged away, if
it be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new oues encouraged.,
Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such
keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine,
and the potato as an article of food. Government is just a~ infallible too, when it fixes sys¬
tems in physics. Gallileo was sent to the inquisition for affirming that the earth was a
Bphere; the government had declared it to be as Hat as a trencher, and Gallileo was obliged
to abjure his error. This error, however, at lenght prevailed, the earth became a gf me,
and Descartes declared it was whirled round its axis by a vortex. The government in which
he lived was wise enough to see that this was 110 question of civil jurisdiction, or we should
all have been involved by authority in vortexes. In fact, the vortexes have been exploded,
aud the Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established on the basis of
reason, than it would be were the government to step in and to make it an article ol neces¬
sary faith. Benson arid experiment have been indulged, aud error lias fled before them. It
is error alone which needs the suppoit of government; Truth can stand by itself. Subject
opinion to coercion; whom will you make your inquisitors ? Fallible men; men governed
by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To
produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and
stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes, tnen, and as there is danger that the largo men
may beat the small, make us .all of a size, by lapping the former and stretching the latter.
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a
censor n.orum over each other. Is uniformity attainable ? Millions cf innocent uien, women
and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured; fined, impris¬
oned ; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of
coercion? To make one-half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support
roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousaud mil¬
lions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That
ours is but one of that thousand. That if ihcre be but one right, and ours ttiat one, we
should wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the Ibid
of truth. But against such a majority, we cannot effect this by force. Season and persua¬
sion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be in¬
dulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it, while wc refuse it ourselves? Butevery
state, says an inquisitor, lias established some religion No two, say I, have establish d me
same. Is this a proof or the infallibility of establishments? Our sister States of Pennsyl¬
vania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all. The
experiment was new and doubtful when they made it It has answered beyond conception.
They flourish infinitely. Religion is well supported' of various kinds, indeed, but all giod
enough; rail sufficient to prcserre peace and order; or if a sect arises whose tenets would
subvert morals, gocd sense has fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors, without suf¬
fering the State to be troubled with it. They do not hang more malefactors than we do.
They are not more disturbed with religious discussions. On the contrary, their harmony ia
unparalleled, and can be ascribed to nothing but their unbounded tolerance, because there is
no other circumstance in which they difier from every nation on earth. They have made the
happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let
us, too, give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyranical laws.
It ia true, we are as yet secured against them by the spirit of the times. I doubt whether
20
the people of this country would suffer an execution for heresy, or a three years' imprison¬
ment for not comprehending the inysteries of the Trinity. But is the spirit of the people an
infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we re¬
ceive in return for the rights we give up ? Besides, the spsrit of the times may alter — will
alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence
persecueion, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the
time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis, is when our rulers are honest, and our¬
selves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not
then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten,
therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty
of making money, but will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights.
The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will re¬
main on us long; will be made heavier and hoavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a
convulsion."—[Jefferson's Works, vol. 8, p. 400-1-2.
The proscription of the Methodists, and the attempt made to keep
them out of the State, is infinitely worse than the proscription of the
Catholics and foreigners by the Know-Nothings. The Know-Nothings
never proposed to exclude Catholics and foreigners from the State, or to
prevent them from buying property here, or from joining other citizens in
building institutions of learning. The opponents of the Land Company
propose to exclude the Methodists, and to refuse our own citizens a charter
because they have consented to accept their assistance in building a uni¬
versity, and improving the city. The objection of the Know-Nothings was
to foreigners—people born and raised abroad, in foreign countries. The
objection of the opponents of the Land Company is to our own native born
citizens. Some of the opponents of the Land Company withdrew from
the order, because they said they had discovered it was unconstitutional to
oppose the Catholics; but they now oppose native born citizens on account
of their religion, and are endeavoring to prevent their coming into the
State, or buying property here, although the Constitution of the United
States expressly declares " that the citizens of each State shall be enti¬
tled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the severrl States."
A Know-Nothing never thought of prescribing to our citizens to whom
they should sell their property; but the opponents of the Land Company
are attempting to prescribe to us to whom we shall sell. Were we to sub¬
mit to such servitude, we should be unfit to be free, and were we forced to
submit, it would enslave«the whole State. Our case is the case of every
landed proprietor in the State. If we cannot sell to whomsoever we will,
no farmer in the State can do it. And thus the great landed interest of
the State must be subjected to a slavery test, and put under the direct con¬
trol of a political oligarchy.
A word more, and I am done. I have detained you too long, and have
gpoken, it may be, with too much temper; but it must be remembered that ,
I have imperiled ail I have on earth in the attempt to build up this city,
eupply it with educational advantages, and make it what it ought to be : the
proudest capital in the west, if not in the Union; and that the whole
power of the dominant party in the State is sought to be arrayed against
me. Not looking for so monstrous an act of tyranny, I have indulged in
pleasing anticipations of the good the enterprise would bring to me and
mine; of the rich luxuries and comforts of human life it would bring to
my neighbors, and the service I should render the State, in bringing
into its bosom a large population and wealth; but if the fatal power
which has sacrificed and lost to us the continental railroad, and the
great central mail route, and is pressing like a night-mare upon the
vitals of the State, is to be arrayed against me, let it come. I say, with
21
all the energy of the wronged, let it come, and it shall be resisted as long
as an element of resistance lasts. I conclude by entering my most solemn
protest against the cruel war thus waged against individual enterprise, and
the local affairs of my neighbors, simply to maintain the political ascend¬
ancy of a party.
You have my gratitude for the kindly courtesy with which you have
listened to me. It is a gratifying evidence of your high appreciation of
the freedom of speech — the manly utterance of individual opinion, the
scourge of tyrants, the sensitive sentinel of our liberties. I shall remem¬
ber it till I die. I am done.
APPENDIX.
a Mason was one of the Representatives of Virginia in the Federal
Convention, and, speaking of the slave trade, he said:
" This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British merchants. The British Gov¬
ernment constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it."—[Madison Papers,
aol 3, p. 1390.
b Again Mr. Mason said:
" Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed
by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a coun¬
try. They produce the most pernicious effects on manners. Every master of slaves is born
a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations cannot bo
rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of
causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calanjjties."—[Madison Pa¬
pers, p. 1390.
Figures, it is said, will not lie. The following tables, taken from the
census of 1850, show the contrast between three prominent slave, lying
contiguous to three prominent free States. It is lamentable to look at;
and must be mortifying to every freeman of Missouri, interested in the
progress of his State and his race :
TABLE I.
a ^
w o
5' ?
3
o o
3, °
^ P
3 "2. B
*0
CD S,
oo e
cr ro
O A
S° P
■? &
p--
rs
S JE?
cr P cr c
p. a> - <r>
O
^ S
p s.
o £■
3 p
B ■<
CO P
P P O
: o
.
o
: p
• o
: 3
3 s
a
^ PP ? 7
: <
• CD
Missouri
20,845
682,044
65,037
10,49
63,225,543
3,981,525
19,887,580
Illinois
12,282
851,470 55,409
15,37
96,133,290
6,405,561
24,209,258
Kentucky
406,511
982,640:87,680
26,07
155,021,262
5,169,037
29,661,437
230,760
1,980,329
39,964
49,55
358,758,262
12,750,585
44,121,741
Virginia
974,622
1,421,661
61,352
23,17
216,401,543
7,021,772
33,656,659
Pennsylvania.
810,091
2.311,786'47,000
49,19
407,876,099
14,722,541
41,500,053
THE REPUBLICAN.
Substance of a Speech made By Mf. Hough
of Jcflersou City,
oh ran political and business relations of the
north and south.
Delivered at the Court House in Jefferson Citv, October
29, 1856.
l'ellow- Citizens: The great questions which now agi¬
tate the American mind,demand of us deliberate and
thorough investigation. They involve the character
and permanency ot a government over nearly 3,000,-
000 square miles of territory, and the peace and safety
of 26,000,000 of people. This vast territory extends
from the Atlantic to the Pacific—embraces every va¬
riety of soil and climate, and is at present divided
into thirty-oae States and seven Territories. The
population inhabiting it enjoys a larger share of the
coiuiorts of life than has hitherto been vouchsaled to
an v people. The country abounds in all that is ne¬
cessary ior the comfortable existence of man; health
and prosperity smi e over the vt hole land—and a ra¬
tional people might be supposed content with an in¬
heritance so rich as that which has fallen to the citi¬
zens ot the American Union. But this great pros¬
perity has not produced in all parts of our country,
a corresponding degree of fidelity, contentment and
p-t riotism. In one of the great sections of ourUnion
the spirit of infidelity is at War with almost all the
in iitutions ot society, and the genius of discord
threatens to consume with her fanatical torch, the
social and political institutions Of our whole country.
Nothing but a proper appreciation of the value of
our wise and beautiful institutions, by the people of
the two great sections of the Union, can-save them
from the destructive influences of the Black Repub¬
licans in their effort to organize the whole of the Free
St .es into one great sectional party, for the purpose,
as the leaders avow, of taking the Government into
their own hands, and ruling the country without re¬
gard to the rights and equality of the other great
section of the Union This great party has organized
ou principles antagonistic to the Constitution, and
equal rights of the states. It is a revolutionary party.
It assumes the right, and asserts it to be the duty of
th Free States (being a majority of the whole) to
govern the Federal System without regard to the
stipulations reciprocally pledged by the States and
by :he people. This beautiful system of States could
never have been formed upon any other principle than
that of perfect equality among the members Equality
is the fundamental idea of the system. It was so de¬
clared by Mr. Martin and Mr. Dickinson in the Con-
ve tion that prepared the Bond of Union.
1 he H-'fficulty of uniting two different social systems
in on- „ommon government was then lelt and under¬
stood, but it was a problem that had to be solved.
No confederate government could have been institu¬
ted^ for the thirteen original States without uniting
the two dissimilar social systems upon such terms of
ecuality, as was thought would preserve each from
Id ustice or aggression from the other. The Conven-
f a believed they had accomplished this when they
; spared a Constitution in which the two were united,
otected, and guaranteed. The States believed it
(I hen they adopted it, and mutually pledged them-
Ives to maintain and execute all its stipulations—
1 d the whole people believed it and rejoiced The
venant was thought to be complete, and the fidelity
the parties was fully relied upon. But the cove-
mt though a great and solemn one—has to some
tent, already, been disregarded, and the fidelity of
ue ot the parties nearly destroyed. The wild and
rious Abolitionists now assume to speak in the
i,me of the sixteen Free States, who are parties to
4is covenant, and constitute a majority of the whole.
Iiev ignore the "justice" of the Constitution, and
Jsail the " domestic tranquility" of half the States in
Tie Union—they enact a higher law than the Consti-
ittion and demaqd that the government of the Union
I tail he administered for the preservation and exten-
llkn r»f rme 1 'Ull'IHI "SUSlCmUl Ullli *»* ih n rln
df what is here stated, I will give an extract or two
frofn a communication made by the President of the
United States Bank (Mr. Biddle) to a committee of
Congress, in 1832. The President says:
"There were large importations requiring means of
remittance to Europe to pay for them. There were
large amounts of revenue due to Government,
Amounting in New York alone, from March, 1831, to
March, 1832, to nearly seventeen million of dollars,
requiring great forbearanoe toward the debtors. Iu
the meantime, the Southern produce, which furnishes
the greater part of the means to pay for these importations,
was, owing to a great variety of causes, the state
of the crops, and the weather, unusually late in
appearing." * * * * He con¬
tinues: "The whole force of the institution was there¬
fore directed to strengthen that place (New York;) and
the distant branches were directed to avoid incom¬
moding it, and the Atlantic Branches near to it, by
drafts upon them; but to pay their balances to them
with as little delay as the convenience of their resp ac¬
tive localities would permit. This is the whole policy
of the Bank lor the last six monrhs. It will be seen,
therefore, that without a diminution, there has been
an actual increase of business in New York, and a large
increase of domestic bills at the branches. The in¬
crease of New York being for the purpose of protect¬
ing the interests there; and the increase of the remit¬
tances, tuingfrom the West and the South, to sustain
New York audtbe Northern Atlantic Branches "
This was but the continuation ot a policy Inaugu¬
rated at the beginning of the Government (1790—91,)
in adopting the funding and banking systems of that
period. The money power was then centied in the
North by governmental action, where it has remained
with Archimedean power over the exports and im¬
ports of the two great sections of the Union. And
although the South, as Mr. Biddle said in 1832,
and as the tables show, furnishes the greater
part of the produce which pays .tor the impor¬
tations of the country. Northern ship-owner*,
Northern merchants, and Northern bankers, all
deriye large profits from this management, in con¬
nection with the commerce of the world! They are
the medium through which almost the entire amount
of Southern exports are made to pass, as well as the
imports which are received in exchange for them.
Southern imports hardly make a figure in our com¬
merce. The Northern States import more than they
export, and the Southern States export more than
they import. I will take two or three different pe¬
riods to illustrate this: In 1833 and '37, Massachu¬
setts exported ©10,000,000 and imported $26,000,000;
New York exported only $23,000,000 and imported
the enormous amount ot $118,000,000; Pennsylvania
exported $3,000,000 and imported $15,000,000; while
South Carolina exported $13,000 000 and imported
only $2,800 000; Georgia exported $10,000,000and im¬
ported the small amount of $600,000; Alabama ex¬
ported $11,000,000 and impdrted $650,000; Louisiana
exported $37,600,000 and imported $15,000,000. In
1848, New York exported $53,000 000 and imported
$95 000,000; New Orleans exported $41,000,000 and
imported $9,000,000; Mobile exported $11,000,000 and
imported only $400,000. In 1853, Massachusetts ex¬
ported $16,895,304 and imported $41,367,959; New
York exported $66,030,355 and imported the large
value of $178 270,997! Pennsylvania exported $6,250,-
229 and imported $18,834,410; Alabama exported
$16,786 913 and only imported the small amount of
$809,562; South Carolina exported $15,400,408 and
only imported $1,808,517; Louisiana exported $67,-
768,724 and imported $13 630,686; Georgia exported
$7,371 888 and imported $508,261; Virginia exported
$3,302,561 and imported $399,004. The Maine Argus
gives, for 1854, the exports of' articles, the exclusive
products of the South—cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice,
naval stores, &c.—at $111,277,220; for the same year
it gives the exports, the exclusive products of the
North, at $33 218,833 only. These figures show that
nearly the whole trade ot the country is turned from
its natural channel, and made to pay tribute to the
Northern capitalists, and in many instances, no d oubt,
to such as declare themselves th.' worst enemies of
those who originate this great wealth.
^ But let us turn to the shipping interest, and see how
ryland, to wbite atfd black $857; North Carolina $244.
to white and black; Ohio $219; Illinois $184; and.
Missouri $166 to white, and $144 to white and black-
Missouri excels Illinois by either mode of division-
The number of miles of railroad, in proportion to
population, 1 have seen stated at about the same for
New York and Virginia—say one mile for every 1500
persons; and in Massachusetts and Georgia the pro¬
portion is also about the same—say one mile for
every 800 persons.
1 have now shown that the South is not inferior to
the North, as has been asserted, but that Northern
commerce, navigation, manufactures and banking,
all derive their chief stimulus and support from South¬
ern connection; that in many ot the great elements-
of wealth, and the ratio ot property to person, the
South excels the North, and in the results ot her so¬
cial system, as displayed in pauperism and crime, the
South is greatly bcr superior.
I have also shown that the practical influence of the
government ot the Union, lrom the earliest period,
has been thrown on the side of Northern interests-
Its tariffs, its fishing bounties, its internal improve¬
ments, and its banking, have all operated as so many-
agencies in swelling the profits of the North from.
Southern resources If either party has any right to
complain ot Fede-al action, it is the South and not
the North, The South is the goose that lays thegold-
en egg, and so iong as she is permitted to live under
the protection and guardianship of the Constitution,
she will divide this rich treasure with her Northern,
fellow-citizens. She asks no privileges or bounties,
from the Federal government; all that she requires
from the North is fidelity—from the government, jus¬
tice and "domestic tranquility." ForthiB, she became
a party to the Federal Union—and not for the pur¬
pose of moulding her system into one-homogeneous,
mass with that ot the North The highest excellence
ot the Federal system consists in its capacity to unite
and protect dissimilar interests and systems in one
harmonious bond. The individual members of the
solar system are of dissimilar natures, yet they, in obe¬
dience to the great law of supreme intelligence,
move on in eternal harmony. And why should not.
the States ot this Union, in analogy to the beautiful
system which journeys in the sky, move on in the har¬
monious order imposed by the law of their asso¬
ciation.
PUBLIC SALES.
TRUSTEE'S SALE OF REAL ESTATE—Whereas
Peter ■-Hre'clL and Mary his wife, did, by their deed of
trust, dated 18th September. 1857, and recorded in Book)
195, page 128, in the Recorder's office of St Louis county;
Missouri, convey to the undersigned, trustee, all that lot
of ground situated in the city and county of St. Louis, coni
taining fifty feet in front by one hundred and thirty-seven
and a half feet in aeDth, bounded north by Cozzens street,
east by lot of J. T Kenworthy, south by lot ot W. T. Far-
ray, and west by lot formerly of Rene Paul said lot being
immediately ninth and in continuati n of the lot hereto¬
fore sold ov Ri-ne Paul to said W. T. Farray bv deed dated
5tli September, 1848, in trust to secure the payment of a
ceitain promissory note made by said P. Stretch for the
sum of three huniirrd and forty-four 49 100 dollars, and in¬
terest as described in said deed ot trust; and,whereas, said
note and interest is long since due and remains unpaid;
now, thf rehire, in conformity with the provisions of said
deed oi trust, and at the request ol the legal holder of said
note, notice is hereby given that 1 will, on WEDNESDAY,
'J HE TWENTY-EIGHTH HA Y OF JULY, eighteen hun¬
dred and fifty-eight, between the hours of nine o'clock, a.
m and five o'clock, p. m , at the eastern front door of the
Court House in St Louis, sell sain property to the highest
bidder, for e-.sh, for the purpose« f satisfying said note, and,
interest, and the costs anu expenses of this trust.
je'27 td WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL, Trustee,
TRUSTEE'S SALE OF REAL ESTATE.—Where-i
as, Peter Stretch and Mary his wife, did, by their deed1
of trust dated 5th September, '.855, and recorded in Book
No. 165, page 495 in the Recorder's Office of St. Louis coun-j
ty, Mo., convey to the undersigned, Trustee, all that lot oft
ground situated in tne city and county of St. Louis, con¬
taining fifty feet in front by one huodred and thirty-seven
a d a halt feet in depth, bounded noith by Cozzens street,
east bv lot of J T. Kenworthy, south by lot of W. T. Far-
ray, and west by lot formerly of Sene Paul, said lot being
immediately north nnd in continuation of the lot heretofore
sold by bene Paul to said W. T. Farray by deed dated 5th
September, 1848, in trust to secure the payment of a cer¬
tain promissory note made by said P. Stretch for the sum
of eight hundred dollars and interest, as described in said
deed of trust, and whereas said note remains'due and un¬
paid, now, therefore, in conformity with the provisions of
said deed of trust and at the request of the legal holder of
said note, notice is lierebv given that I will, on
WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF JULY,
eighteen hundred and fllty-eight, between the hours of
nine o'clock, a. m and five o'clock, p m, at the eastern
front door of the Court House, in St. Louis, sell said p-op-
crty to th- highest bidder, for casli for the purpose of satis¬
fy i;ig said note and interest, and the cost and expenses of
executing this trust.
je'27 WILLIAM H CAMPBELL, Trustee.
PUBLIC SALES-
TRU STEE'R SALE OF REAL ESTATE^—WheresT
A by deed dated the twenty third day ot June, in he
year eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, ana recorded in the
office oi the Recorder of Deeds of St. Louis county, in
Book No 192, page 167, DeWitt C-. Sanford and Elizabeth
H. his wife, and James C. Crane, conve ed to the under ■
signed, P. Bauduy Garesche, the following described piece
or parcel ot ground, situated in the < ity of St. Louis, in
the county of St. Louis, and State of Missouri, and in block
No. 48 of said city, fronting filty-four (54) feet on the west
side of Second street, and running back wesiwardly be¬
tween lines parallel with Hazle street one hundred and
fiity feet to an alley, being the lot assigned in partition
among the heirs of I'eterProvenchere, Sr., to Maria Amelia,
wife of George M'aguire, and by said Maguire and wife con
veved to said Ssntord and Crane: which. conveyance was,
nevertheless, in trust to secure to George Maguira the pay¬
ment of four sever-d negotiable promissory notes of even
date with said conveyance, made by said DeWitt C. Sai.-
ford and James C. Crane, payable to the order of said ii a-
guire; one for the sum of fifteen hundred dol.ars,-one year
after date, with interest at the rate of six per centum per
annum, the other three each for the sum of twenty-five
hundred dollars and payable with like interest, respective¬
ly at two, three and four years after dale; and to secure,
also, the performance of a certain bond conditioned tor the
payment of all rates, taxes or assessments which might be
levied upon said property during the continuance of said
trust; and, wher as, the first mentioned of said notes has
accrued due and remains unpaid; now, th reforel, the
undersigned, at the request of the holder of said notes,
and to satisfy all oi those remaining unpaid as provided in
said conveyance, do herebv give public notice, that by
virtue of the power by said conveyance conferred, and in
pursuance of the terms thereof, I will, on SATURDAY,
THE TWENTY FOURTH DAY OF JULY next, (1858,)
and between the hours of nine o'clock, a. m. and hve
o'clock, p. m of that day at the eastern front door of the
Court House in said city of St Lon s, sell the property
above described to the highest bid er, for cash, to satisfy
said notes, as aforesaid, with*interest and costs.
je3) P. BAUDUY GARESCHE, Trustee.
UNITED STATES MARSHAL'S SALE.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J
Eastern District op Missouri, j
James Darby, Libellant,^
against Decre®on a lien under the mara-
The Steamboat Excels! ■ 1 time and admiralty Law oi
or, her en gines, machi- [ sajd United States,
nery, tackle, apparel, |
and iuiniture. J
In Admiralty.
■\A7HET1EA9, by virtue of an oroer or writ of venditioni
VV exponas, Issued from the office of the Clerk of the
District Court, for the Eastern District of Missouri,
dited the seventh day of July, 1858, I am directed, as
Marshal of the United States for the Eastern District of
Missouri, to expose for sale, the said steamboat Excelsior,
•with her engines, machinery, tackle, apparel and furniture,
on ten days' public notice of the time, place and terms of
sale, given by adverti«ementin tbreenewspapers, published
in the city of St. Louis, Mo., and also by handbills posted
in six different places in the saidfeity of St. Louis, Mo.:
Now theref re, in obedience to said oider of the District
Court of the United States lor the Eastern District of Mis¬
souri, dated as aforesaid, I hereby give public notice that
1 will,-on WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY
OF JULY, 1858, Between the hours of nine o'clock in the
morning and five o'clock in the afternoon of said day, at
public sale, and by public auction, sell to the highest bid¬
der, tne steamboat E xcelsior, with her engines, machinery,
tackle, apparel and furniture, ou the following terms, to-
wit:
Tervs—One-third of the purchase money in cash, one-
third in two months, and the remaining third in four months
with interest on the deferred payments at the rate oi
six per cent, per annum from day of sale until paid. The
deferred payments to be secureu by a stipulation to pay
the same at maturity; said stipulation to be executed
by the purchasers, with two securities of undoubted re¬
sponsibility, and residents in this District, and to con¬
tain a clause by which the stipulators submit them¬
selves to the jurisdiction of the Di-trict Court of the
United States tor the Eastern District of Missouri, and
consent, that in ease of default or contumacy, execution
for the amount ot said stipulation may issue out of the
aforesaid Court, against their goods and chattels, lands
and tenements _ o.
The sale wi 1 therefore take place on Wednesday, the 21st
day ol July, 1863, at or near the foot of Carr street on the
Levee, in said city of St. Louis, and within vhe Eastern
District of Missouri, and the hour of sale will be 3 o'clock,
p. M. precisely. THOMAS S. BRYANT,
U. S. Marsnal Eastern District of Missouri.
United States Marshal's Office, 1
Eastern District of Missouri, >
St Louis, Mo , July 9, A. D. 1858. ) JylO td
T-wr-n?r> vsTtTFI OP j
PUBLIC SALES.
TRUSTEE'S SALE.—Whereas, Benjamin H. P. But¬
ler, bv his certain deed dated the seventh day of July,
1857 recorded in the Recorder's office for St. Louis county,
Missouri, in Book 190, page 367, did convey to John Y.
Page, trustee, the following described lot or Parcel bf
ground lving in block number seventy-three, (73,) of the
city oi St Louis, in the county of St. Louis, and State of
Missouri, described as follows, to-wit: Beginning at a point
in the Eastern line of Fourth street, one hundred and forty
(140) feet southward from the north-west corner of said
block, running thence southward along the eastern l'ne of
Fourth street twenty-six (26) feet eight (8) inches, to the
northern line of a lot owned by Grossman and Keys, thence
eastward along the said northern line one hundred and
iortv (140) feet, to an alley, thence northwardly along the
western line of said alley twenty-six (26) feet eight (8)
inches, and thence along the southern line of a lot foimerly
owned bv Gabriel Paul, one hundred and orfy (140) feet, to
the place of beginning; which conveyance was in trust to
secure the payment of a certain promissory note therein
described, bearing even date with said deed of trust; and
whereas, default has been made in the payment of the said
note, and it is provided that in case of such default, then
the property thereby convey ed, might be sold by the under¬
signed, trustee, to pay said'note, both principal and inter¬
est, and also the costs and expenses of this trust; now,
therefore, public notice is hereby given, that the under¬
signed, trustee, at the request of the legal holde - of said,
note, and in pursuance ol the terms and conditions oi said
feed of trust, and by virtue of authority vested in him by
the same, will, on SATURDAY, THE THIRTY-FIRST
DAY OF JULY, 1858, between the hours ot nine o'clock,
a. m„ and three o'clock, p. m.. of that day. at the East front
door of the Court House ot St. Louis county, sell at public
vendue, to the highest bidder, tor cash, the above described
real estate, to pay said promissory note, interest, and ex¬
penses of this trust. JOHN Y. PAGE,
jyll dtd Trustee.
TRUSTEE'S SALE—Whereas Robert W. Hunt and
Phebe Hunt, his wife, did by their deed of trust, dated
July 8th, 1857, and recorded in the office of the countv Re
corder for the county of St. Louis, and State of Missouri,
in hook 190, page 384, convey to J ames M. Hughes and
Alton Long, trustees, the following described real estate,
situated in said St. Louis county, to-wit: The one-third of
a tract of land containing one hundred acres, being lot
three on the plat accompanying the report ot the commis¬
sioners in partition ot John D. McDonald's estate, and is
same lot assigned to Mary McDonald, afterwards Mary
Morton, who died intestate without issue, the interest
hereby described is that which said Fhebe HuDt, as one of
the three hcirsof said deceased, and also the interest ac¬
quired by said Robert W. Hunt of Thomas M. Morton, the
husband o i said deceased, by deed from him to said Hunt
and William McDonald, recorded in -aid office Y 5, page
166, being the half of the life estate ot said Morton,
which conveyance v\ as made in trust to secure the payment
of eleven promissory notes, and whereas it was provided
in said deed of trust that if any one of said notes should fall
due and remain unpaid it should cause the principal note
to become due, whether due on the face thereof or not;
and, whereas, one ot said notes is now passed due and re¬
mains wholly unpaid, and whereas it was provided in said
deed of trust that said trustees or the survivor of tliem, or
either ot them, might proceed to carry out the conditions
of said deed of trust. Now, therefore, in compliance with
the conditions aforesaid I, "the undersigned one of said
trustees, at ilie request of the legal holder ofsa. motes,
will, on MONDAY, THE NINE'J EENTH DAY OH aULY,
1858, between the hours of nine o'clock in the forenorsand
five o'clock in the afternoon of said day, proceed tc» sell
the property herein belore described at public sale, to the
highest bidder for cash, atthe east front door of the Court
House in the city of bt Louis, and State of Missouri, ill
order to pay said notes and interest according to the terrts
and provisions con ained in saio deed ot trust. <
je!7 JAMES M.HUG11ES, Trusted
PUBLIC RALE.—Whereas, Martin Thomas andMa^
rett M.,-his wife, did, by their certain deed ol mortgw
bearing date the twenty -eighth day of April, eighteen Se
dred and thirty-eight, and recorded in the Recorder's to.
of St Louis county, in book E, No. 2. pages 115 at d fo0,
ing, did convey unto Arthur Bronson, his heirs and as„,
by way of mortgage, ceriain real estate therein de 01
ed, to-wit: The following described pieces or pariD!
land lying and being in the county of St. Louis and ei
of Missouri, that is to say the first tract is bounded st
South by a certain tract of land hereinafter mention In
conveyed, on the North bya tract of land heretofo t,,
by Martin Thomas to John Rlggin, which last men i\
tract is bounded on the North by North St. Louis, T,
East by the Mississippi river, ana on the West by 1 -I
Louis common fields, and is described as follows, t #
Beginning at a point on the Mississippi river, beint
southeast corner ot the tract heretofore sold by MV
Thomas to John Riggin as aforesaid, thence snnthwi.i,
uid mill I KB iif liim 'Hoi tu u being dyj
THE KANSAS' QUESTION".
SPEECH
OF
HON. FRANCIS P. BLAIR, JR.,
OF MISSOURI.
Delivered in the House of Representatives, March 23, 1858.
The House being in Committee of the Whole
on the state of the Union—
Mr. BLAIR said:
Mr. Chairman : The attitude of the pres¬
ent Administration upon this Kansas ques¬
tion, and upon the question ot Slavery
generally, has been discussed in almost
every conceivable aspect. There is, how¬
ever, one point of view in which it has
not been treated in this Hall; and I pro¬
pose to state, as frankly and candidly as I
can, the position I conceive the Adminis¬
tration and the Democratic party hold
upon this question; and also to discuss
it in its bearings upon a large class of citi¬
zens of the Southern States, the non-slave-
holding people of those States. I make no
apology for approaching this subject. I
consider that the system of Slavery, which
has made the last two or three of our
Presidents " fetch and carry " at its beck
and nod, which has held the legislative
power of this Government in its hands for
a series of years, which has swayed even
the decisions of the Supreme Court, is of
sufficient importance to be discussed, to
be grappled with, and to be subdued ; and
therefore I shall not heed the querulous
complaint that this subject has been too
much discussed.
It is this institution which has cast its
dark shadow upon our land, and which
threatens the existence of our free Con¬
stitution. I know full well that there is
an instinct in the hearts of the people of
this country, whose ken looks beyond
that of the most acute intellect, and which
tells them that from this question they are
to apprehend danger to the instituiions of
our country. I am aware that those gen¬
tlemen who were elected to this House
as the friends of the President, have suf¬
ficiently exposed the forfeiture of the
pledges made by him in his letter accept¬
ing his nomination, made at Cincinnati ;
,and I consider that the violation of his
pledges contained in his inaugural ad¬
dress, and in his instructions to Governor
Walker, declaring his purpose to secure
the people of Kansas the right to decide
for themselves the institutions under
which they were to live, have also been
sufficiently exposed by those who were
elected here as Democrats. I never ex¬
pected him to redeem those pledges. I
always supposed they were made tobe
violated, and shall therefore express no
surprise at the result. I always believed
that Mr. Buchanan was nominated to
carry out the policy of his predecessor,
which was to fix Slavery upon Kansas by
force or fraud ; and, in my opinion, not
only Kansas, but the whole continent, is
embraced in this conspiracy. Hateful to
me as is the design of forcing upon Kan¬
sas a Constitution abhorred by her people,
hateful as are the low arid mean frauds by
which that policy has been pushed, hate¬
ful as are the crimes by which, for the
last three years Kansas has been held in
subjugation, still ffiore hateful is the de¬
sign which I believe has been deliberately
formed to extend this Constitution over
the whole country. I shall give the Presi¬
dent the benefit of his own language, to
define his own position upon this ques¬
tion. I have in my hand his late spe¬
cial message, transmitted to us with the
Lecompton Constitution ; and I call the
attention of his friends and admirers to
this sentence :
" It has been solemnly adjudged, by the high- I
est judicial tribunal known to our laws, that I
Slavery exists in Kansas, by virtue of the Con¬
stitution of the United States. Kansas is there¬
fore, at this moment, as much a slave State as
Georgia or South Carolina. Without this, the
equality of the sovereign States composing the
Union would be violated, and the use and en¬
joyment of a Territory, acquired by the common
treasure of all the' States, would be closed
against the people and the property of nearly 1
half the members of the Confederacy."
Kansas is here called a State, and a
slave State, made so by the Constitution—
says the President—and not by any ad
of her people. And 1 desire to know, if
the Constitution of the United States
makes a slave State of Kansas, the peo¬
ple of which country have never yet given
their assent to it, will not that same Con¬
stitution carry Slavery into those States
which acknowledge that Constitution
now assumed to establish Slavery, in
State or Territory, wherever the local
laws are silent ?
The argument of the President in this,
message, and in his annual message, and
in the paper published by him in answer
to certain gentlemen in Connecticut,
goes to this point. He declares, in effect,
that neither Congress, nor the people cf
a Territory themselves, have the power to
prohibit Slavery in the Territories. I
think his language goes even to the ex-,
tent of maintaining that a State cannot
prohibit or abolish Slavery; for, Mr.
Chairman, if neither the people of a Ter¬
ritory nor Congress can prohibit Slavery,
for the reasons assigned by the President,
the same reasoning would embrace the
States made from territory acquired by
"the Confederacy of sovereign States.''
How happens it that the people of the
State of Iowa can prohibit Slavery ? That
was territory acquired by the Confeder¬
acy of sovereign States. How can the
people of the State of Iowa reverse the
rule of justice, any more than the peo¬
ple of the Territory of Iowa? The whole
argument of the President, the argument
of all who agree with him, the argument
of the Supreme Court, all assign that as a
reason why the people of a Territory can¬
not prohibit Slavery, and why the Con¬
gress of the United States cannot ex¬
clude Slavery from its Territories. It
is all grounded on the fact that it is un¬
just to exclude the property of the people
of any one portion of the Confederacy
from that which was acquired by the peo¬
ple of the whole Confederacy.
Now, Iowa was acquired by the people
of the whole Confederacy—that is, by the
Government representing the whole Con¬
federacy; audit was quite as just and
right for Iowa, while a Territory, to ex¬
clude Slavery, as it was when she became
a State. There is no difference. And
how can this be accomplished ? How
•can Iowa, or any State, prohibit Slavery,
if the positions taken by the President
and the Democratic party are correct?
The people of a Territory have not the
power to do it; Congress has not the
power; and yet, when the people of a
Territory form a Constitution, and Con¬
gress accepts that Constitution—neither
of these agencies having the power to
exclude Slavery—it is found, by some
mysterious process, that the State thus
created has acquired a power which
neither agency concerned in its creation
could impart to it. It strikes me, Mr.
Chairman, that, if it be conceded that
there is no power in Congress, or in the
people of a Territory, to exclude the in¬
stitution of Slavery, it follows, as a mat¬
ters of course, logically and legitimately,
that the people of a State cannot do it.
And, sir, I find that the organ of the Ad¬
ministration—the Washington Union—
has taken that ground, and has declared
that it draws the conclusion legitimately
from the opinion of the Supreme Court in
the Died Scott case.
Mr. J. GLANCY JONES. Will the
gentleman be good enough to tell me
what that organ is? I am not aware that
the Administration has an organ.
Mr. BLAIR. If anybody has a right to
know whjit tnat organ is, the gentleman
from Pennsylvania is the man.
Mr. J. GLANCY JONES. Be good
enough to tell me.
Mr. BLAIR. I referred to the Wash¬
ington Union by name.
Mr. J. GLANCY JONES. I merely
wish to remark, that I know of no paper
recognised as the organ of the Adminis¬
tration.
Mr. BLAIR. Then the gentleman is
ignorant of what is known by everybody
else. I say that that paper declared, in
an article some time ago, that no State in
the Union could abolish the institution
of Slavery ; that it was unconstitutional
to do so ; and it grounded itself on the
decision of the Supreme Court. I know
that subsequently to that, the editor of
3
Printer of the Senate of the United States.
That goes very far—though the gentle¬
man [Mr. J. Glancy Jones] repudiates
the paper as the organ of the Administra¬
tion—to fix it in the minds of the people
that the Senate of the United States en¬
dorses his views on that subject, espe¬
cially when we know that these offices
go by favor, and that it is very seldom the
case that a man is elected printer, or to
any other office, whose sentiments do not
accord with those of the majority of the
body that elects him. I know that last
evening, in the other House, a very dis¬
tinguished gentleman denied that this
was the position of the Democratic party,
and, in his place, called for proof. He
denied that anybody from the South
claimed that a State could not prohibit
Slavery within its limits. But I under¬
take to say that the claim is embodied in
the extract which I have read from the
President's special message, in which he
calls Kansas a State, and says that it is a
slave State, and, that it was made a slave
State by the Federal Constitution, and not
by the people. That is the language of the
President, and I have heard from every
Democrat that has taken the floor, in this
or the other House, nothing but eulogy
of that message, since it was published ;
and I consider that as an endorsement of
the doctrine it contains.
But that is not all. This doctrine is
contained in the Dred Scott decision.
Every argument that is made to show that
neither Congress nor the people of a Ter¬
ritory has the power to prohibit Slavery
in the Territory, is equally applicable to a
State, and is more appropriate a£ applied
to the States, because the Constitution
was made for the States, and not for the
Territories, and is the supreme law over
the Constitutions and statutes of the States.
I think that is the doctrine of the Demo¬
cratic party. They may disclaim it now,
when it is proclaimed in all its naked¬
ness ; but they will come up to it when¬
ever occasion offers to carry their princi¬
ples to the result intended.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I ask those gen¬
tlemen, who have been so clamorous
about popular sovereignty, whether they
accept this doctrine ? I ask them if they
propose to deny all that they have said
on the subject of popular sovereignty, and
if they will submit to have this institution
injected into the Territories and States by
what is flaitirjjnJ *n |i n |1|| ynnyHntmn
the United States ? Will they do it? I
suppose they will not be able to resist the
majority of their own party in this matter,
and they must either embrace this doc¬
trine or be read out.
Now, it matters not to me what ground
the leaders of that party assume. They
may come forward to sustain this doctrine,
and to sustain the policy of the last Ad¬
ministration in forcing upon Kansas an
institution abhorred by a large majority of
the people, and in forcing this institution
on other Statejs and Territories. • I do not
care how many judicial decisions shall
sanction it, or how many regiments may
be called out to enforce it; in my opin¬
ion, the attempt will fail. The Territories
of this Government cannot be wrested
from the freemen to whom they belong,
to be given up to slaveholders and their
slaves, in order to strengthen the oligarchy
which rests upon this servile institution.
Gentlemen have proclaimed upon this
floor that the Lecompton Constitution was
accepted by a majority of the people of
Kansas. Sir, in my belief, there is not a
town or county in Kansas where the Le¬
compton Convention could have sat and
performed the work of fraud now before
us, without the support of the Federal
bayonets. I do not know one town or
county in Kansas where they would have
had the power to defy the will of the peo¬
ple as they have done, except under the
protection of the Federal bayonets. The
President tells us, and tells the country,
in no equivocal language, that the Gov¬
ernment which he calls the rightful Gov¬
ernment of Kansas would long ago have
been subverted by these factious people
out there, if it had not been supported by
the Federal army. This is a clear,admis¬
sion on his part that the Government there
is an usurpation, because there can be no
Government in violation of the sentiments
of the people, unless it be an usurpation.
But, sir, that Government would have
been subverted long ago, but for the inter¬
ference of the President of the United
States; and, whether the fact be admitted
by the President or not, it cannot be suc¬
cessfully controverted that the President
has exerted his entire energies—he has
perverted the whole power and patronage
of the Federal Government—to drive free
white men out of the Territory of Kansas,
to make room for negro slaves.
Now, sir, there is a parellel to the his¬
tory of this transaction, which took place
4
many centuries ago, and which I find in
a book published nearly a century since.
But it is so appropriate to the events that
are now transpiring, that 1 hope the House
will have the patience to hear me read it
through, I reaH from Hook's History of
Rome, to show how the great Republic of
antiquity fell to decay, when it ceased to
cherish the people as landholders, and
became an oligarchy, by the very means
now being employed in our own:
" It is recorded of Tiberius Gracchus, that, in
crossing Hetruria in his way to Spain, he ob¬
served that there were no other husbandmen or
laborers in the country than slaves ; and, accord¬
ing to Plutarch, the people, by writings affixed to
the porticoes, walls, and tombs, daily exhorted
Tiberius to prochre a restitution of the public
lands to the injured poor.
11 From the earliest times of Rome," proceeds
the historian, tl it had been the custom of the
Romans, when they subdued any of the nations
in Italy, to deprive them of a part of their terri¬
tory. A portion of these lands were sold, and the
rest given to the poorer citizens, on condition,
says Appian, of their paying annually a tenth of
the corn and a fifth of the fruits of the trees, be¬
sides a certain number of great and small cattle.
In process of time, the rich, by various means,
got possession of the lands destined for the sub¬
sistence of the poor. This gave occasion to the
law obtained by Licinins Stolo, about the year of
Rome 386, forbidding any Roman citizen to hold
more than five hundred acres of land, or to have
on his estate more than one hundred great and
five hundred small cattle, and requiring that a
certain number of freemen should be employed to
cultivate the farms. *
;1 But, notwithstanding these precautions, the
Licirlian law (observed for Some time, to the great
benefit of the public) fell at length under a total
disuse. The rich and mighty Continued to pos¬
sess themselves of the lands of their poor neigh¬
bors." " To cultivate the farms, they employedfor^
eign slaves. So that Italy was in danger of losing
its inhabitants of freq condition^ (who had no
encouragement to marry, no means to educate
children,) and of being overrun with slaves and
barharians, that fiad neither affection for the Re¬
public nop interest in her preservation."
" Tiberius Gracchus, now a Tribune of the Peo¬
ple, undertook to remedy these disorders ;" *
*■ * " atld, to soften the matter, Tiberius not
only proposed to remit the fines hitherto incurred
by the transgressors of the Licinian law, but also,
out of the public money, to pay to the present
possessors the price of the lands that were to be
taken from them." " Never (says Plutarch) was
proposed a law more mild ana gentle against in¬
iquity and oppression." For these were public
lands, of which the rich had taken possession
with their slaves; " yet the rich made a mighty
clamor about the hardship of being stripped of
their houses, their lands, their inheritances, the
burial places of their ancestors, the unspeakable
confusion such innovations would produce, the
estates in question (acquired by robbery) being
settled upon the wives and children of the pos¬
sessors'; and to raise an odium against Gracchus,
they gave out that ambition, not a view tp the
public good, had put him upon this project."
* * # a i>he poor, on the other hand, com¬
plained of the extreme indigence to which they
were reduced, and of their inability to bring up
children. They enumerated the many battles
they had fought in defence of the Republic, not¬
withstanding which, they were allowed no share
of the public lands ; nay, the Usurpers, to culti¬
vate them, choose rather to employ slaves than citi¬
zens of Rome. Graechus's view was not to make
poor men rich, but to strengthen the Republic by
an increase of useful members, upon which he
thought the safety and welfare of Italy depended.
The insurrection and war of the slaves in Sicily,
who were not yet qudlled, furnished him with
sufficient argument for expatiating on the danger
of filling Italy with slaves."
" On the day when the tribes met to determine
concerning the law, the Tribune maintaining his
cause, which was in itself just and noble, with
an eloquence that would have set off a bad one,
appeared to his adversaries terrible and irresist¬
ible. He asked the rich whether they preferred a
slave to a citizen ; a man unqualified to serve in ivar
to a soldier ; an alien to a member of the Repub¬
lic : and which they thought would be more
zealous for its interests ? Then, as to the mis¬
eries of the poor, he said: 1 The wild beasts of
Italy have caves and dens to shelter them; but
the people, who expose their lives for the defence
of Italy, are allowed nothing hut the light and
air. They wander up and down with their wires
and children, without house and without habita¬
tion. Our1 generals mock the soldiers ; when in
battle, they exhort them to fight for their sepul-
chrea and their household gods ; for, amongst all
that great number of Romans, there is not one who
has either a domestic altar or a sepulchre for his
ancestors. They fight and die, solely to maintain
the riches and luxury of others, and are styled
the lords of the universe, while they have not«
singlrfoot of ground in their possession."
After much resistance from the Patri¬
cians, the Tribune finally procured the
passage ftf the law :
" And it being resolved that Triumvirs, or three
commissioners, should be constituted for the ex¬
ecution of it, the people named to that employ¬
ment Tiberius himself, his father-in-law Appius
Claudius, and Caius Gracchus, who at this time
was in Spain, serving under Scipio in the Nn-
mantine wan These Triumvirs were to examine
and fudge what lands belonged to the public, as well
as to make the intended distribution of them."
Before the law could be put into opera¬
tion, Tiberius was assassinated in the Sen¬
ate House by certain Senators " who pos¬
sessed much of the public lands, and were
extremely unwilling to part with them."
These Senators, it is stated by the histori¬
an, were aided by their clients and slaves,
and the blow " which probably dispatched
him, he received from a man named L.
Rufus, who afterwards gloried in the ac¬
tion." Cicero, who was the orator and
trtis.in of the oligarchy, and whose false
osses in regard to these transactions
i m been followed by all the historians in
e interest of the privileged orders, was
mself constrained to admit
"That Tiberius Gracchus came nothing short
the virtue of his father, or his grandfather,
ricanus, but in this, that he forsook the party of
• Seriate."
Sallust, the great and perspicacious his-
rian, in a letter to the greatest general
d statesman of the Romans, Julius
esar, exhorting him to restore the Com-
onwealth, gives in a single sentence the
lole history of Rome, after the Roman
ople were robbed of all ownership in the
il to feed the grandeur and employ the
ives of the nobility. He says, a%nd I de-
e to mark the sentence :
' Men of the lowest rank, whether occupying
■ir farms at home or serving in the wars, were
ply satisfied themselves, and gave ample sat-
iction to their country, so long as they pos-
sed what was sufficient to subsist them. But
en, being thrust out of possession of their
ds by a gradual usurpation, they, through in-
ence and idleness, (having nothing to do,)
dd no longer have any fixed abodes, then they
;an to covet the wealth of other men, and to
their own liberty and the Commonwealth to
3 »
The law procured by Tiberius Gracchus
3 been denounced by all the writers in
3 interest of the privileged classes from
it day to this, as an agrarian law, a law
take from the rich and to give to the
or, when the fact is, Mr. Chairman, that
rt as a law to distribute among the peo-
: the lands which belonged to the pub-
; and now a similar attempt is made by
; party of oligarchs in this country to
ze the Territories of this Government,
i plant them with slaves, to the exclu-
n of freemen ; and they follow the ex-
pie of their Roman prototypes, and de-
unce those who oppose them in their
lemes as Free-Soilers. I do not know
t that the term " agrarian," taken in its
e sense, might well stand for a transla-
n of the term " Free-Soiler." In that
ise, in the sense of distributing to the
)ple the lands which belong to them, I
'e no hesitation in accepting the desig-
■ion ; and to show that there is as great
iessity for this measure now as there
s at the time when Tiberius Gracchus
scribed the destitution of the Roman
)ple, who made that Republic the mis-
ss of the world, I will read from some
h authorities in regard to the condition
the non-slaveholding white men of the
South, who constitute a large majority of
its citizens. I shall quote first the lan¬
guage of the Senator from Alabama, [Mr.
Clay.] He is giving an account, in a
speech made in Alabama, of the condition
of his own State, and more particularly of
his own county. He says:
" In traversing that county, one will discover
numerous farm-houses, once the abode of indus¬
trious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by
slaves or tenant'ess, deserted, and dilapidated ;
he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfeneed,
abandoned, and covered with those evil harbin¬
gers, fox-tail and broom-sedge; he will see the
moss growing on the mouldering walls of once
thrifty villages, and will find ' one only master
grasps the whole domain,' that once furnished
happy homes for a dozen white families."
This is the language of a distinguished
Senator from Alabama, describing his own
county; and I should suppose that if that
gentleman knew anything at all, he would
know the condition of the county in which
he reside.s. Nor is it to be supposed that
he would exaggerate that which is by no
means flattering to his county or his
State.
Mr. William Gregg, in a paper before
the South Carolina Institute, handling the
same subject, remarks:
" Any man who is an observer of things could
hardly pass through our country without being
struck with the fact that all the capital, enter¬
prise, and intelligence, is employed in directing
slave labor; and the consequence is, that a large
portion of our poor white people are wholly neg¬
lected, and are suffered to while away an exist¬
ence in a state but one step in advance of the
Indian of the forest. It is an evil of vast magni¬
tude, and nothing but a change in public senti¬
ment will effect its cure."
I propose to read what was said in the
Virginia Legislature, in 1832, by a gentle¬
man who is now a distinguished member
of this House, [Mr. Faulkjxer.] He
says:
"Slavery, it is admitted, is an evil. It is an
institution which presses heavily against the best
interests of the State. It banishes free white
labor; it exterminates the mechanic, the artisan,
the manufacturer; it deprives them of occupa¬
tion ; it deprives them of bread ; it converts the
energy of a community into indolence, its power
into imbecility, its efficiency into weakness. Sir,
being thus injurious, have we not a right to de¬
mand its extermination? Shall society suffer,
that the slaveholder may continue to gather his
crop of human flesh? What is his mere pecu¬
niary claim, compared with the great interests
of the common weal? Must the country lan¬
guish, droop, die, that the slaveholder may
flourish ? Shall all interests be subservient to
one—all rights subordinate to those of the slave¬
holder? Has not the mechanic, have not the
middle classes, their rights—rights incompatible
with the existence of Slavery ? "
6
And now, sir, I shall conclude these
quotations by reading from another very
distinguished Southern gentleman, who
has recently been chosen from the very
elite of the chivalry of South Carolina to
represent his State in the most august and
dignified body in the land—I refer to Gov¬
ernor Hammond. Here is his testimony
as to their condition, in an address be¬
fore the South Carolina Institute, in 1S50 :
" They obtain a precarious subsistence by oc¬
casional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plunder¬
ing fields or folds, and too often by what is in
its effects far worse—trading with slaves, and
seducing them to plunder for their benefit."
I do not know whether thi3 picture is
an accurate one or not. It is not true
when applied to the slave States in which
I have resided. It is not true, where Sla¬
very obtains nominally, or where the slaves
are few; and especially it is not true of
the city and county which I represent
upon this floor. The workingmen' and
mechanics of St. Louis have too just a
sense of the dignity of their own employ¬
ments, to permit themselves to be degraded
by the competition of negro slaves. A
man might as well attempt to educate his
negro for the legal profession, as to attempt
to put him at a mechanical trade in com¬
petition with the mechanics of my dis¬
trict. But, sir, if it be true in regard to
those remote Southern States where the
slaves fill every industrial avocation and
employment, why did the Carolinian stop
short in his heart-rending description?
Why did he not exclaim, with the Roman
Tribune, " shall we prefer our slaves to the
citizens of the Republic; men incapable
of bearing arms to soldiers?" Unless
some voice shall speak that language in
tones that will be heard by the people, the
history of this country will be written in a
sentence similar to that I have read from
Sallust. If by gradual usurpation the peo¬
ple are thrust out of their lands by this
dominating oligarchy, they will, as they
did in Rome, " put their own liberty and
the Commonwealth to sale."
It is very clear that the Senator from
Soath Carolina does not prefer the citi¬
zens of the Republic to his slaves. He
has, in his recent speech, shown that he
was the mouthpiece of the privileged
classes—the Cicero of this new oligar¬
chy, and not a tribune of the people. In
that speech he says:
"The Senator from New York said yesterday
that the whole world had abolished Slavery.
Ay, the name, but not the thing; and all thj
powers of the earth cannot abolish it. Godonlj
can do it when He repeals the fiat, ' the poor t|
always have with you ;' for the man who lives hi
daily labor, and scarcely lives at that, and wli
has to^put out his labor in the market, and hik
the best he can get tor it; in short, your wholi
class of manual laborers and operatives, as ym
call them, are slaves. The difference betwepi
us is, that our slaves are hired lor life, and wel
compensated; there is no starvation, no begging
no want of employment, among our people, an:
not too much employment either. Yours an
hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily com.
pensated, which may be proved in the most ik,
plorable manner, at any hour, in any street in
any of your large towns." * * * "Youi
slaves are white, of your own race; you an
brothers of one blood. They are your equals it
natural endowment of intellect, and they fed
galled by.tbeir degradation. Our slaves do not
vote. We give them no political power. Yours
do vote, and being the majority, they are tlie
depositaries of all your political power. If" they
knew the tremendous secret, that the boJ'ot-boi
is stronger than an army with bayonets, and-
could combine, where would you be? Your so¬
ciety would be reconstructed, your Government
reconstructed, your property divided, not as tliey
have mistakenly attempted to initiate such pro¬
ceedings by meeting in parks, with arms in their
hands, but by the quiet process of the ballot-box
You have been making war upon us to our very
hearth-stones. How would you like for us to
send lecturers or agitators North, to teach these
people this, to aid and assist in combining, and
to lead them!
" Mr. Wilson and others. Send them along. :
"Mr. Hammond. You say, send them North.'
There is no need of that. They are coming
here. They are thundering at our doors for
homesteads of one hundred and sixty acres of
land for nothing, and Southern Senators are sup¬
porting it." * * * «Transient and tempo¬
rary causes have thus far been your preservation.:
The great West has been open to your surplus i
population, and your hordes of semi-barbarbn ;
emigrants, who are crowding in year by year.
They make a great movement, and you call it
progress."
Sir, he prefers his slaves to the citizens
of the Republic, and would have the latter
deprived of the right of elective franchise,
as his negro slaves are. He denounces
the man who lives by daily labor, and the
whole class of manual laborers and opera¬
tives, as slaves. He characterizes our,
foreign population as a horde of semi-
barbarous emigrants, and he would deny
them a share of the public lands upon
which to build their homes and educate
their children. How would this gentle¬
man have appeared, leading the Demo¬
cratic column in the days of General
Jackson's Administration? Why, sir,
there would have been sompbodyelse read
out of that party—rather different persons
7
om those who are now being read out.
['this is Democratic doctrine, it is a Dovel
octrine to me, though I have been reared
^Democrat.. I make no complaint, hovv-
ver, of having been read out of the party,
should as soon think of complaining of
eing read out of a chain-gang. [Laugh¬
er.] It is not a Democracy which I
hould wish to sustain, by any means. I
;ave always understood that Democracy
•oncerns itself more about personal rights,
ran about rights of property—the rights
f individuals, rather than those of mono-
olizing institutions. In this I may be
tistaken, and certainly I am mistaken, if
ae revelations under this new dispensa-
on are to be received.
• Suppose this doctrine had obtained at
te time California was acquired. When
■;e acquired California, and the gold dis-
overies wete made there, it is very well
snown that a workingman could earn in
California $1,000 a year by his labor,
-hat was then the value of an able-bodied
lave in the old slave States. Do you not
appose that a great many of them would
;ave been carried to California under
;:ich a stimulus as that? A distinguished
Politician of Virginia, in a letter which he
idressed to the public press, or to some
"(dividual, pending the last Presidential
.eciion, in speaking of this subject, cal¬
culated that Virginia had lost several
undred million dollars by not being per¬
mitted to carry her slaves to California;
^because," he said, " if a slave could
f^ve been taken to California, where he
grpuld earn $1,000 a year, instead of being
corth $1,000, he would have been worth
25,000." Why, sir, the profit of the busi¬
ness of carrying slaves to California
"ould have been greater than the profits
the African slave trade, without its
Perils. If the decision of 1857 had been
; ade in 1847, so that slaves could have
lBteen removed to California, the whole de-
1(111,1 and for labor in that land of gold would
^'tve been supplied by slaves, and the busy
If.nrts of trade, and the gold mines of
ci iat country, would have been blackened
fsfith slaves, and not a foot of land in the
^'hole State would have been left for the
'"hite man to stand upon, and in that way
^rie free white men of this country would
five been excluded from their own inher¬
ence—the land they won by their own
l^rong arms.
ft ■'That is what these gentlemen call
democracy. They are willing to see the
free white men of the country excluded
from every Territory, and especially from
those where the reward of labor is great;
and' they claim that it is their constitu¬
tional right that it shall be done ; and they
call it Democracy. Why, sir, I want to
know whether the white man has not the
same right of property in his own labor
as the slaveholder has in the labor of his
slave? If you exclude the free white man
from the Territories, do not you diminish
the value of his labor just as you diminish
the value of the slave to the owner by
excluding them ? Which are we to choose
between, the millions and millions of free
white men in this country, or the few
thousand slaveholders? Was the Govern¬
ment founded to protect rights of property
in slave labor and not to protect the rights
of freemen to their own labor? This
Democracy is very tender of the property
of the slaveholder, and is utterly regard¬
less of the rights of property of any other
class of people in the Territories.
Now, 1 apply another test. The oli- '
garchy say that they have the right to take
their slaves into the Territoiies of the
Union, and employ them as they see fit,
under the Constitution of the United
States, and nobody can take that right
from them. They can take them into (he
Territories, and make them mechanics,
and work them in the mines, in ihe fac¬
tories, or in any other way ; and if white
men don't like that sort of competition,
the Democracy will tell them to go some¬
where else. In Russia, a man can edu¬
cate his serf or slave, and they frequently
do, and make lawyers, doctors, and mer¬
chants, of them. Now, suppose these
Southern gentlemen should exercise their
constitutional right of educating their
slaves, and put them into the learned
professions; do you suppose the peoole
of this country would submit, for one in¬
stant, to this Russian innovation ? Would
there not be a cry raised, from one end of
this land to the other? And why? Have
they not the same constitutional right to
make lawyers, doctors, and merchants, of
their slaves, as they have to make them
mechanics? Precisely the same. There
is no difference whatever. But the Rus¬
sian nobles never engage in those avoca¬
tions themselves, and therefore they do
not feel the degradation of putting their
serfs into the professions. But with us
that would be trenching upon the occu¬
pation of the slaveholders themselves-—
8
the oligarchs—and here the shoe pJnchbS.
They demand that they shall be allowed
to put iheir slaved to work side by side
with mechanics and laborers* and, in the
Same breath, they claim that no slave shall
be allowed lo degrade the employments
in which they Cbndescentj to engage. I
contend that they have no more right to
inflict this degradation on mechanics, by
placing slave labor in competition with
their free labor. Not a whit more; and.,
as they exercise the right of excluding
slaves from the professions in which they*
are therrlselves engaged, (as they do by
inhibiting their education,) I say they* ad¬
mit the right of others to exclude them
from the mechanical trades, dm. from
competition with every freeman who fol¬
lows an honest calling.
There was a time when this Democratic
party was not Democratic in name alone.
Thtfre was a time when this party took
ground against privileged classes, and
against every attempt on the part of capi¬
talists to usurp the power of this Govern¬
ment, and pervert it to their own pur¬
poses. I instance the case of the United
States Bank, where the stockholders un¬
dertook to force this Government to allow
them to bank on the national revenue.
The Democratic party took issue with
them, and put them down. Since that
time, we have had the tariff" discussion,
where the manufacturing interests of the
country—a vast aggregation of wealth—
undertook to influence legislation, and
effeet the passage Of laws for their especial
benefit, in derogation of the rights and
interests of the working classes of the
country. The Democratic party took
ground against the high protective tariff,
and defeated it.
And now here is another question in
which this struggle between capital and
labor is presented in its most odious and
revolting form. Here is a colossal aggre¬
gation of Wealth invested in negroes,
which undertakes to seize this Govern¬
ment, to pervert it to its own purpose,
and to prevent the freemen of the coun¬
try from entering the Territories except
in competition with slave labor; and the
Democratic party, instead of standing
where it used to stand, in opposition to
these anti-Democratic measures, is as
servile a tool of the oligarchy as are the
negro slaves themselves.
This is no question of North and South.
TfilKIJi k K t j A N (I hi A RT> ~
It is a question between those who Cot
tend for caste and privilege, and tlios
who neither have nor desire to have privi
leges beyond their fellows. It is the ol
question that has always, in all fre
countries, subsisted—the Question of thi
wealthy and crafty few endeavoring t!
steal from the masses of the people &l
the political power of the Government;
Those gentlemen are wrong who say thai
ft is a question of North and South, J
there is one class of people on this conti
nent more interested than another iri put
ting a stop to the extension of Slaver;
into the Territories, it is the free whiti
laborers of the South. Thfey have infinite
ly more interest in the matter than htq
other class of the people, because the;
have felt the pressure of the institution
They have been shut out from all owner
ship in the soil, and driven out of all em
ployinent in the States where Slavery nor
exists; and should we allow the territorie
of the Government to be closed agains
them, they will have no escape from th
oppression which has ground them to th
dust. No, sir; it is not a question he
tween the North and South. It is a ques
tion which commends itself especially ti
the non-slaveholding and laboring whit
men of the South.
Now, sir, this controversy will, iii m
opinion, end in gteat good. In the strug
gle which terminated the American Ret
olution, the principles of liberty were n
deeply instilled in the heart of the peopk
that when that struggle ended, the slave
were emancipated in a large number <i
the States, from the impulse which th
love of liberty received in that coutes
fins struggle, which is on the same prir
ciple, will terminate in the same way.
know that there are as good men in th
South now as there were in the days l
the Revolution. There are men—slav<
holders—now there, who burn to emi
late the noble examples of the illustrioi
men of the Revolution; and-the nob
State which I have the honor, in pal
to represent 6n this floor, will, in W
opinion, have the glory of leading tl
way in this magnanimous career. H
honor and interest alike beckbn her; ai
that she will not be insensible to the!
high motives, nor regardless of the gl«i
ous destiny which awaits her, the legef
which she bears upon her shield, ustd
populi svprema lex esto," sufficiently atteM
Printuru Ws.sihiiiot.mi I) I!
AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
PRO-SLAYERY CONTENTION
OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI,
Held in Lexington, July 13, 1855,'
DOMESTIC SLAVERY,
AS EXAMINED IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURE, OF NATURAL RIGHTS,
CIVIL GOVERNMENT, AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF
CONGRESS.
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE CONVENTION.
ST. LOUIS, MO.
PRINTED AT THE REPUBLICAN BOOK AND JOB OFFICE.
1855.
CORRESPONDENCE.
Lexington, Mo., July 16, 1855.
Pres't James Shannon,
Dear Sir: — Having been appointed by the Pro-Slavery Convention, recently
held in this city, a committee for that purpose, we respectfully ask of you a copy
of your Address (delivered by request of the Convention) for publication. We
sincerely hope it will be convenient for you to comply with the wishes of the
Convention, as we feel assured there is a very general desire to have it published.
Very respectfully, your obed't servants,
WM. SHIELDS,
ED. WINSOR,
C. PATTERSON.
Lexington, Mo., July 17, 1855.
Messrs. Wm. Shields, E. Winsor, C. Patterson,
Committee of the Pro-Slavery Convention.
Gentlemen : — In answer to your polite request of the 16th inst., that I would
furnish for publication a copy of my Address, delivered before the Pro-Slavery
Convention in this place on the 13th inst., I have the pleasure herewith to trans¬
mit a copy as requested.
With great respect, yours,
JAMES SHANNON.
INTRODUCTION.
Me. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention:
Out of respect for the prejudices of those, who think that it is improper
for Ministers of the Gospel to engage in political discussions, and who,
therefore, censure me for discussing the question of domestic slavery, I
offer the following explanation. I feel impelled to pursue the course I
have taken on this subject, by the two following considerations :
1. I am an American citizen, possessing the same rights, and subject
to the same obligations, as other citizens ; and I would consider myself
recreant to these high obligations, and unworthy of the exalted privileges
of American citizenship, were I, for any personal considerations, to shrink
from the performance of any duty, that might contribute even a little to
the enlightenment of the public mind, and thus to the peace, prosperity
and perpetuity of the American Union.
2. I am a Christian, and a Proclaimer of the unsearchable riches of
Christ. For many years I have been fully convinced, that God has raised
up these United States as his own chosen instrumentality for the regen¬
eration, political, social and moral, of a debased and down-trodden world.
But it is manifest, that the Union must be preserved, if it would exert
any influence whatever for the accomplishment of this sublime result. In
my deliberate judgment, however, the Union is placed in jeopardy by the
persevering aggressions of anti-slavery fanaticism on the Constitutional
rights of the South ; and no created power can save it many years, unless
those aggressions are successfully resisted and arrested, and a proper re¬
gard paid to the Constitutional rights of the slaveholding States. How,
then, can this be accomplished, fanaticism converted or beaten back, and
the Union saved, to fulfil its high destiny in the regeneration of a ruined
world ?
I am free to confess, that 1 can conceive of no better means for the ac¬
complishment of these sublime results than to cure or kill free-soil fanati¬
cism, the only hydra by which, at present, our country is in danger of
being destroyed. And I am unable even to imagine a better method for
correcting this fanaticism, than to enlighten the public mind on the sub¬
ject of slavery in its various aspects. Hence I feel impelled alike by
patriotism, and the highest regard for the salvation of a lost world, to en¬
lighten my fellow-men to the utmost of my ability on this absorbing topic.
And never did I descend into the baptismal waters, or enter into the place
of secret prayer, or come to the communion table of my God, with a bet-
vi
ter conscience, or a purer regard for the glory of God, and the salvation
of the human family, than I br'mg to the present discussion.
Indeed I would consider myself wholly unworthy the privileges of an
American citizen, unworthy the name of a man, or a Christian, were I to
shrink from a faithful performance of this duty through the fear of any
consequences that might result to myself personally. Even martyrdom
in such a cause should not appal the patriot, or the Christian.
Besides, were it at all allowable to apply ridicule to subjects involving
such momentous issues, it might justly be called supremely and con¬
temptibly ridiculous to characterize a defence of slavery in a Slave state
as an act of dabbling in party politics.
It is generally believed, that Ministers of the Gospel are, as indubitably
they ought to be, the best qualified to discuss moral questions. That do¬
mestic slavery is a moral question—nay, more, a Bible question—will not
be doubted ; and its defence, especially in a slave State, cannot be re¬
garded as dabbling in party politics, unless we admit, that an abolition
party exists among us, and is entitled to our respect.
In the name of reason, then, has it come to this, that in the slavehold-
ing State of Missouri a Minister of the Gospel is to be denounced as a
"politico-religious priestto be unceasingly slandered and persecuted
for daring to teach publicly, as well as privately, that slaveholding is not
morally wrong, and for thus defending the Constitution and laws of the
State in which he lives ? Are Missourians sufficiently demented to en¬
courage and sanction such vile persecution, whether it proceed from
avowed abolitionists, or from their less honorable emissaries, hypocriti¬
cally professing to be pro-slavery men] If so, they are already sold to the
abolitionists, and it only remains to have the writings drawn to complete
the contract. But we shall see.
Again, look at the inconsistency of those men who censure me for dis¬
cussing this subject. Rob't J. Breckenridge, D.D., a Presbyterian Min¬
ister in Kentucky, has just published, on the same subject, a scathing re¬
ply to the recent speech of Senator Sumner. Who denounces him as
dabbling in party politics?
The venerable Dr. Lord, President of Dartmouth College, N. H., de-
spite the efforts of the Trustees to suppress it, is said to have published re¬
cently a book in defence of slavery, a book in which he takes substantially
the same ground that I do. For this act, it will be strange if he do not
suffer, at the hands of fanaticism, official decapitation. Lives there, how¬
ever, in America even a pretended pro-slavery man so lost to shame as
to advocate such a measure? If such a one exist, let him but stand forth,
and he will be universally denounced and execrated by all but free-soilers
and abolitionists. And, yet, can any thing be plainer than that if it be
wrong for me to defend slavery in a slave State, much more so is it for
Dr. Lord, President of Dartmouth College, to do the same, especially in
opposition to the wishes of the Trustees, in a free State ?
Consistency, thou art a jewel!
DOMESTIC SLAVERY.
The subject of domestic slavery, in the present crisis, assumes
an importance not easily exaggerated. No intelligent and un¬
prejudiced mind can doubt that the repeated invasion of the Con¬
stitutional rights of slaveholders by the foul demon of anti-slave¬
ry fanaticism, if not speedily arrested, will, at no distant day,
force a dissolution of the Union. However appalling the contem¬
plation may be, unless the aggressions of free-soilism can be
checked, this fearful result is as inevitable as the day of judg¬
ment. How important, then, that we discard all prejudice, and,
as patriots and philanthropists, contemplate this momentous sub¬
ject in its true light,—not as a mere speculative question about
an abstract principle, but, as it really is, a fixed and stubborn
fact.
Slavery is found in our midst. It was forced on the South by
the combined efforts of old England and New England, now also
leagued together for selfish ends, in an unholy alliance, for its
extermination. The present generation of slaveholders are in no
shape responsible for its existence. They had no agency in its
introduction; and, therefore, although its existence were admit¬
ted to be their misfortune, it can never be proved to be their fault.
Its abolition, under existing circumstances, is believed to be mor¬
ally impossible. In 1850, according to the census of the United
States, there were in the slave States, including the District of
Columbia, three million one hundred and ninety-five thousand
nine hundred and fifty-one slaves. The average value of an or¬
dinary lot of slaves is generally estimated at one-half the price
of a prime field hand. Such a slave will now readily sell for
1,200 dollars. Taking $600, then, as the average, it will give
us 1,917,570,600 dollars as the total value of the slaves in 1850.
The natural increase, since that time, makes it reasonable to es¬
timate their present value, in round numbers, at two thousand
millions of dollars. At six per cent., the annual interest on that
sum will amount to one hundred and twenty millions.
Strike out of existence at once this vast amount of productive
capital, and it is not in the power of human arithmetic to com¬
pute, or of human language to express, the amount of financial
ruin that would result, not merely to the slaveholding, but also to
the non-slaveholding States, and to the civilized world. Besides,
8
it should not be forgotten that negro slaves alone are constitu¬
tionally adapted to labor in those climates where the great sta¬
ples of cotton, rice and sugar can be produced. Emancipation,
therefore, would convert this vast region, the abode of wealth,
civilization and refinement of the highest order, into a howling
wilderness. The loss of productive property in land, houses,
machinery, and improvements of various kinds, thus rendered val¬
ueless, can hardly be estimated. An able article in "Black¬
wood's Magazine" for February, 1848, estimates the loss in this
way, in the British West Indies, as being "certainly not less than
two hundred millions sterling," whilst the estimated value of the
slaves was only fifty millions. Though volumes might be written
on this topic, my time only permits me to suggest it, and pass on.
But the financial ruin is by no means the most important item
in this account of prospective abolitionism. Look to St. Domin¬
go and the British West Indies. In short, look where you please,
all history attests that emancipation would be the greatest calam¬
ity that could be inflicted on the blacks themselves ; that Ameri¬
can slavery has elevated their character, and ameliorated their
condition, in all respects ; and that wherever fanaticism or mis¬
guided philanthropy has cut them loose from the guardianship of
the white race, they have not merely degenerated, but have retro¬
graded with rapid strides towards a savage, and even a brutal state.
Facts innumerable a'nd well authenticated might be produced to
sustain this position, did time permit. Again, the blacks form
about one-third of the whole population included in the slave
States: what disposition could be made of them, if emancipated?
The free States, although rabid to steal them—when, in so doing,
they are compelled to commit perjury, murder, and the most un¬
blushing and indubitable nullification of the Constitution and laws
of the United States—would not consent to receive even a moiety
of them, if they could be had honorably and without committing
these crimes.
They could not be sent to Africa. Even if benevolence pre¬
sented no barrier to their expulsion, the resources of the Union—
impoverished, as it would be, by their emancipation—would be
inadequate to transport them to Africa, or to any foreign land.
They could not remain in our midst. It needs no argument to
prove that the two races, in numbers so nearly equal, especially
under a republican form of government, could not possibly
coexist on a footing of social and political equality. Self-pres¬
ervation, the first law of Nature, would compel one race to expel,
exterminate, or enslave the other. The foregoing difficulties ex¬
ist in their full magnitude even on the hypothesis that emancipa¬
tion could be effected peaceably. But who that is not absolutely
insane, or idiotic, can imagine for a single moment that this is
at all possible? Who can imagine that more than six millions of
American citizens, inhabiting fifteen States of this Union, would
9
consent to be robbed of property to the extent of two thousand
millions, to which their rights are as clearly recognized, and as
sacredly guarded, in the Constitution, and in the Bible, as to any
other species of property ? Would they not rather, in view of the
inevitable and utter ruin that emancipation must bring in its train,
appeal to the God of battles, buckle on their armor, meet the fa¬
natical invader on the outposts of the Constitution with fire and
faggot, and, if need be, perish bravely in the defence of their al¬
tars and their firesides, rather than meanly live to drag out a
wretched existence, and in the end to suffer a more wretched and
intolerable doom. In view of such appalling results, even sup¬
posing them to be barely probable, who but a madman, a traitor,
or a fiend, could give countenance to that reckless anti-slavery
fanaticism, which is rushing madly forward—through perjury,
theft and murder, and over the prostrate, mangled, bleeding Con¬
stitution—to rob six millions of their fellow- citizens of two thou¬
sand millions of property ; at the imminent peril, too, of dissolv¬
ing the Union, or lighting up the torch of civil, perhaps servile
war; baptizing our happy land in a sea of fraternal blood, and
plunging in an abyss of rayless gloom this last, this best, this
only hope for the regeneration of a debased and ruined world?
To all this, however, it may be objected, that slavery is a moral
wrong; that our obligation to do right is paramount to all others;
and that it never can be justifiable to do wrong from an appre¬
hension of any evils, whether real or imaginary, that may be an¬
ticipated to result from doing right.
I reply most unhesitatingly, that if the first of these positions
can be established, I admit all the balance. If it can be fairly
shown that the philosophy of slavery is on a par with the philoso¬
phy of lying, of theft, or of murder, I will frankly acknowledge
myself a wretch, justly deserving to be abandoned by God, and
scouted from the society of all honorable men, if I ever thence¬
forward open my lips in its defence, or if I do not use all lawful
and honorable means for its immediate and eternal overthrow.
In such an event, I can see no other alternative for me, than, in
my own sober judgment, to become either an abolitionist or a
villain. This, fellow-citizens, is the rule, by which I desire to be
tried myself. You will, of course, adopt or reject it, as you
think best, in trying others.
In deciding the question, whether slavery be a moral wrong, I
premise that I hold it as an axiom, that the Bible is the only
infallible standard of moral truth and human duty. Not de¬
siring impiously to presume to be wiser than God—to condemn
what he has not condemned, or to justify what he has not justi¬
fied—I repudiate, as the quintessence of infidelity, the sentiment,
that men are able by the light of Nature, by any power of intel¬
lect, or by any feeling " away down in the heart," to prove that
to be wrong which the Bible sanctions.
10
My time will not permit me to do more, at present, than to cast
a very hasty glance at the Bible argument; for a more extended
view of that subject, the public are referred to my " Philosophy
of Slavery," a work that has been before the American people
for the .last eleven years, and which, although it has been malig¬
nantly! mricatured, perverted and assailed with all the powers
of wifczridicule, billingsgate and sophistry, has never yet been
logicQeily answered, nor a logical answer thereto even so much as
attempted. This fact (taking into account the unenviable atti¬
tude in which the edition of 1849 placed many of the first men in
America, both in church and state—all indeed who advocated or
even sympathized with the scheme of emancipation then on foot
in Kentucky) I am compelled to regard as an indirect admission,
that the work is logically and scripturally impregnable. Indeed
I hardly know if it is not superfluous to delay even for a moment
on this aspect of the question. All who are well informed on the
subject know, that, if the Bible sanctions any thing, it sanctions
slaveholding. The most candid and prominent of the anti-slave¬
ry leaders (whether religious or infidel') have, within the last
ten years, totally abandoned the Bible argument; and many of
the latter class may now be heard blaspheming the God of the
Bible in terms so malignant and fiendish, as might well make
demons shudder. Let us, however, for the sake of those, who
have not access to the work aforesaid, take a hasty glance at this
view of the subject.
Very soon after the Deluge, Jehovah, by a positive decree,
adjudged the posterity of Canaan to the relation of bond servants
to the posterities of Shem and Japhet. (Gen. 9: 25-27.) The
position of Abolitionism, that God in this passage merely predicts
the future history of the three families, but does not sanction do¬
mestic slavery, is too stolid to need refutation. Piety and com¬
mon sense alike revolt at the lea that God could be capable of
predicting a wicked act, and i ;he same time, without even an
intimation of his displeasure, pronouncing the most emphatic
blessings upo^ the wicked actor. Yet such is the reproach im¬
piously cast upon the spotless character of Jehovah by the ab¬
surd efforts of abolition logic to nullify the plain import of this
passage.
When the war of the nine kingfc^occurred in the vale of Siddim,
there were found among Abram's/U^rvants, born in his house, no
less than three hundred and eighteen men capable of bearing arms.
(Gen. 14:14.) h
As this distinguished captain and'slaveholder returned from the
slaughter of the kings, God sent his servant Melchisedec to
meet him in the way, and bless him. (Gen. 14 : 18-20.) Not
long after this event, God changed his name to Abraham (Father
of Nations), made a covenant with him, and stereotyped his ap~
probation of domestic slavery, by engraving it on that covenant,
11
and incorporating it with the ordinance of circumcision. "He that
is horn in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must
needs be circumcised ; and my covenant shall be in your flesh
for an everlasting covenant." (Gen. 17: 13.) About four hun¬
dred and thirty years after this occurrence, when God was preparing
to lead his chosen people out of the land of Egypt, and h" make
of them a great nation, he gave them the ordinance of the pat < Tmr,
and engraved his approbation of domestic slavery on that ai as
he had previously done on the ordinance of circumcision.
"And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance
of the passover : There shall no stranger eat thereof : but every
man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast cir¬
cumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner, and
a hired servant, shall not eat thereof. (Exod. 12: 43-45.)-
Thus did Jehovah stereotype his approbation of domestic slavery
by incorporating it with the ordinances of the Jewish religion, the
only religion on earth that had the divine sanction, from the-
calling of Abraham, three hundred and sixty-seven years after the-
Deluge, till the introduction of Christianity, a period of more than
nineteen hundred years.
Nor is this all. When Jehovah had brought his chosen people
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, he gave
them at Mount Sinai the law of the Ten Commandments, generally-
recognized throughout the civilized world as the Moral haw, and'
incorporated in its provisions a distinct recognition of the prin¬
ciple (so arrogantly denied by infidel abolitionism), that man
may rightfully hold property in man. "Thou shalt not covet:
thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,
nor his man-servant, nor his maid- servant, nor his ox, nor his -
ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." (Exod. 20 : 17.)
The character of the servants here spoken of, is put beyond;the
possibility of a doubt, in the statutes concerning circumcision i
and the passover. They are slav\ \diome born, or bought with -
money, as contra-distinguished bi God himself from hired ser¬
vants. Again, "If a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a;
rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Not¬
withstanding, if he continue a day or ttyo, he shall not be pun¬
ished; for he is his MONEY. (Exod. 21 : 20-21.) We have
already seen that, in the Decalogue given at Mount Sinai, God
recognized right of property in : ...ves as distinctly (and guarded:
that right as sacredly) as in any thing else. But this is not all.
Jehovah then and there prohibite ,1 the holding of a Jew in bondage -
longer than till the year of JuLdee, exept in a single case, which
is clearly defined, wherein the bondage even of a Jew might be
for life. (Exod. 21: 2-6.)
At the same time, however, by express statute he permitted the
Jews to buy the children of the gentiles, residing in the land of
Judea, and in the surrounding states, into hereditary bondage
12
forever. ''Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou
shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you ; of
them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the
children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them
shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they
begat in your land : and they shall be your possession. And ye
shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you,
to inherit them for a possession ; they shall be your bondmen for
ever." (Lev. 25 : 44-46.)
In the light of these Scriptures, clear as a sunbeam, who will
dare—who will impiously dare—to give Jehovah the lie to his
face, and affirm, that man cannot rightfully hold property in man ;
that slavery is a moral wrong, and on a par with lying, theft, and
murder ? Volumes might readily be filled with passages in the
Old Testament, going directly to prove that, in accordance with
the divine approbation, slaves were held by God's chosen people,
and recognized as property. But it is unnecessary, and I must
hasten on. I am well aware that there is a passage in Deuter¬
onomy, which abolitionists interpret so as to conflict with the un¬
deniable import of the foregoing scriptures. " Thou shalt not de-
diver unto his master the servant that is escaped from his master
unto thee : he shall dwell with thee, EVEN AMONG you, in that
place where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him."
(Deut. 23 : 15-16.)
Abolition higher-law traitors andnullifiers triumphantly quote
this text, seeming to regard it as a justification of their perjury in
violating their oath to sustain the constitution and laws of the
United States. This is most obviously a gross, if not a wicked,
perversion of the passage. The precept in question is manifestly
given to the whole Jewish nation, to regulate their conduct with
respect to the surrounding heathen, and not their conduct indi-
dividually to each other. For a moment suppose it otherwise,
and seethe inevitable result. By statutes, than which none can
possibly be plainer, God had at this time stereotyped his appro¬
bation of slaveholding, by incorporating it with the ordinances of
the Jewish religion. He had explicitly recognized, and sacredly
guarded the right of property in slaves, in the moral as well as in
the ceremonial law ; and had prohibited most emphatically, not
merely the violation of that right, but even the indulgence of a
disposition that might tend, directly or indirectly, to such viola¬
tion. Who, that is not blinded by prejudice, or incurably infidel
at heart, can imagine, that God, in such circumstances, would
himseli: enjoin a violation of those rights, which he had so sacredly
guarded? Messiah says : "A kingdom divided against itself
cannot stand." Abolitionists wrest this passage from its obvious
import, and convert the truth of God into a lie, by forcing upon
it a meaning that sets God in opposition to himself, and would
involve his empire in ruin.
IB
Hence, if the Bible be true, to denounce slavery as being essen¬
tially criminal, is to blaspheme God by pronouncing sentence of
condemnation on his statutes, and making him the author of sin.
But does not the New Testament repeal on this subject what
had been previously sanctioned in the Old? The most talented
anti-slavery men in America, with Dr. Wayland at their head, are
compelled to acknowledge, that neither Christ nor his Apostles
ever commanded masters, not even Christian masters, in a soli¬
tary instance, to free their slaves, nor even advised them to do so;
nor permitted slaves to free themselves from their masters. ' 'Un¬
der-ground railroads" in those days would have been disposed
of without much ceremony. It is also admitted, that slavery was
then general throughout the known world. The Apostolic epis¬
tles abound with direct references to the relation, and with instruc¬
tions to Christian masters and servants how they shall best dis¬
charge their respective duties; but nowhere is there even a hint
given that the relation is unlawful, or that a Christian master is
laid under any obligation, either by the letter, or by the spirit
of his religion, to emancipate his slaves ; not even though they be
converted to Christianity, and have become his brethren in the
Lord. We have time to quote only a very few of such passages
out of a great many that might be produced.
"Let every man abide in the same calling (or state) wherein he
was called. Art thou called being a bondman ? care not for it:
but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather." (1 Cor. T: 20-21.)
"And so ordain I in all churches" (v. 17). " Servants, be obe¬
dient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with
fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of
Christ, doing the will of God from the heart ; with good will
doing service, as to the Lord and not to men: knowing that
whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of
the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the
same thing unto them, forbearing threatening ; knowing that
your master also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of persons
with him." (Eph. 6: 5-9.)
" Let as many servants (douloi, slaves) as are under the yoke
count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God
and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have
believing masters, let them not depise them, because they are
brethren ; but rather do them service, because they are faithful
and beloved, partakers of the benefit." {Literally—but let them
serve them the more, because faithful and beloved are those who
partake of the benefit.) "These things teach and exhort. If any
man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the
words of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is proud, knowing nothing,
but doating about questions and strifes of words, whereof
cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disput-
14
ings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, sup¬
posing that gain is godliness : from such withdraw thyself."
(1 Tim. 6: 1-5.)
Thus, it seems, that they had some abolition ignoramuses
even in Paul's day ; and that inspired Apostle pronounced them
iimen of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth f and com¬
manded Christians to withdraw from their society.
If this be so, then indeed is the broad seal of heaven's rep¬
robation stamped on the brazen forehead of abolitionism in
characters, than which none could possibly be plainer, or more
easily understood. Not more plainly does God prohibit the viola¬
tion of the right of property in the eighth commandment, "Thou
shalt not steal," nor the indulgence of a disposition to violate
that right, in the tenth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet,"
than he has, in this passage, stereotyped the infamy, and
published the condemnation of abolitionism.
In short, neither Jesus Christ, nor any of his Apostles, ever in¬
terfered with the institution of slavery, except to rebuke abolition¬
ism, and exhort both masters and slaves to perform faithfully,
as in the sight of God, their respective duties.
It is contended, however, by Dr. Wayland and others, that "the
moral principles of the Gospel are directly subversive of slavery.
The principles in question are contained in the precepts, "Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and "All things whatsoever
ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them."
Now it is obvious, that the whole force of this argument depends
on the assumption, that these principles are peculiar to the Gos¬
pel, and did not pertain equally to the law ; for it is undeniable,
as we have seen, that, under the law, God gave to the Israelites,
by express statute, the right of buying and selling slaves, and
of handing them down to posterity as an inheritance forever.
And if, at the same time, they were required to love their neigh¬
bors as themselves, there can not be any incompatibility between
this principle and the relation of hereditary domestic slavery; for
it would be alike arrogant and impious to charge Jehovah with
Sanctioning and instituting what, at the same time, he condemned
and reprobated. And it would be no less arrogant and impious
for the creature to pretend to be wiser than the Creator, and to
be able to discover an incompatibility between a principle and a
practice, where God saw none.
Now it is evident, that this is not a question of doubtful reason¬
ing, but simply a question of fact, that must be proved or dis¬
proved by direct testimony. How, then, stands the case ? By a
reference to Lev. 19: 18, it is proved, that the Jew was required
to "love his neighbor as himself whilst he was expressly per¬
mitted, by statute, to buy a Jew into bondage for a limited time,
and a gentile into hereditary bondage forever. And by referring
to Mat. 22: 89, 40, it will be seen, that Jesus himself affirms that
15
this precept involves the very essence of the law, so far as regards
the duties of man to his fellow-man. Hence it can not be incom¬
patible with any practice, which that law instituted, or sanctioned.
To the unprejudiced mind, possessing even ordinary intelli¬
gence, the true meaning of those precepts is obvious: 1 'Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," can not possibly signify more
than, that we should pay the same regard to his rights, that we
desire him to pay to ours. It does not define what those rights
are, but leaves that matter to be ascertained wholly from other,
and independent sources. So also, "Do to others as you would
that they should do unto you," means simply—Do to others what,
were you in their circumstances, it would be reasonable and proper
for you to desire, that they should do unto you. The anti-slavery
interpretation of this passage is, most evidently, both absurd and
wicked. It makes the erring and sinful desires of selfish and
wicked men the standard of duty, instead of God's unerring and
inspired word. According to that interpretation, if A desires B
to aid him in an infernal plot of seduction, theft, or murder, it
becomes immediately his duty to aid B in a similar plot, if B is
sufficiently a villain to desire his co-operation. I am amazed, that
such men as Wayland and Chalmers should suffer their intellect to
be so blinded by prejudice as to advocate an interpretation of these
passages necessarily involving conclusions so horrible. Can there
be better evidence, that prejudice is a torpedo, whose touch be¬
numbs and paralyzes the most gigantic intellect ?
I regard it, therefore, as proved beyond the possibility of a
doubt, that, if slavery can be shown to be morally wrong, the Bi¬
ble is thereby demonstrated to be a cheat.
But is not slavery opposed to natural rights, which are inalien¬
able? I reply, that the laws of Nature are the laws of God as
really as those promulgated in the Bible. Hence there can be no
better evidence, that we misinterpret Nature, than the fact, that
we draw from her teaching an inference at variance with plain
Scripture doctrine. None but an infidel can deny this conclusion.
With this single remark I might reasonably dispose of this spe¬
cious objection, but for the sake of proving how utterly untenable
is this, the very strongest of all the strongholds of abolitionism,
I will examine for a little the alleged incompatibility of slavery
with natural rights.
The relation of master and slave is merely that of debtor and
creditor extended—namely, to service for life. The relation
of debtor and creditor is a relation rightfully subsisting between
moral agents, and no man, except a knave or a simpleton, will
affirm, that this relation is incompatible with the laws of Nature.
But it a human being can owe service for a year, and be right¬
fully compelled to pay it, he can for fifty years, or for life.
The only conceivable objection to this view is, that a man can
not be thus bound without his own consent. To this objection I
16
reply very briefly, that moral obligation depends wholly on the
relation rightfully subsisting between moral agents, whether with
or without the consent of the parties. A few examples will estab¬
lish this position beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt.
Children are brought into the filial relation without their con¬
sent; yet even Way land admits that, "by the law of Nature,"
they owe their parents service " for so long a period as may be
suflicientto secure an adequate remuneration" for the cost of rais¬
ing ; and that " this right he," the parent, " may, if he see fit,
transfer to another, as in the case of apprenticeship."
Again: The human family became God's accountable creatures
without their own consent; yet are they his (doaloi) slaves, owe
him service for life^ and can never exhaust their indebtedness.
And the highest dignity to which they can attain in this life is to
be faithful (tlouloi) slaves—bond-servants, not hirelings, of
the Lord Jehovah.
This relation, too, when properly contemplated, is much more
independent, dignified and endearing than that of hireling. There
is an identity of interest, and there frequently is, and always
should be, one of sympathy, between master and slave ; but no
such identity exists between master and hireling.
The master of a slave knows and feels, that he is bound to pro¬
tect that slave from all possible harm, to supply all his reasonable
wants while living, and to bury him decently when dead ; and
that his whole estate, even if he be a millionaire, together with
his own personal energies, are legally as well as morally bound
for the faithful performance of these duties, although that slave
should never be able to render him compensation to the value
of a single cent. The slave knows this, and that, if he have
a good master, he need not be troubled about these things, but
attend faithfully, when able, to the performance of reasonable
service, and his necessary wants will all be supplied.
It must not be forgotten or overlooked, that the relations of
master and slave are correlative, and the duties of these rela¬
tions reciprocal. Both legally and morally, the master as truly
belongs to the slave for the performance of a master's duties,
as the slave belongs to the master for the performance {when
able) of a slave's duties. In this respect, each may with equal
propriety be said to own the other. Hence, in decrepitude
from sickness or old age, the slave can say, "I have all things
and abound." " I own a master, whose whole estate, and whose
own personal energies are pledged for my support." The slave
is, therefore, independent and happy.
Not so the poor hireling, who is wholly dependent on his
daily labor for his daily bread. In sickness or old age, and
often at other times, his only prospect is starvation, or the
repulsive charity of a selfish and often heartless world.
In the very nature of things, then, no such identity of interest
17
or sympathy of feeling can possibly exist between the master and
the hired servant, as we have seen to exist between master and
slave. On the contrary, the relation of master and hired servant
is purely mercenary, and the interests of the two parties antago-
nistic rather than identical. Each is impelled continually by sel¬
fishness to obtain the greatest possible amount, whether of service,
or of hire, for the least possible equivalent. This thought is ca¬
pable of being indefinitely extended and elaborated did time per¬
mit ; but it does not, and I must hasten on.
Again : The Son of God, by his death, as a sin-offering, be¬
came, in a very important sense, " the Saviour of all men," and
thus established a relation ivithout their consent, by virtue of
which they are justly held obligated as slaves—not hirelings—to
serve him with all their faculties as long as they exist, doing not
their own will, but his, in every thing. And if they refuse to
render this service, they can be justly punished.
It is, therefore, self-evidently absurd, and directly subversive
of the highest moral obligations in the universe—those that bind
man to the throne of the Eternal, and of his Son Jesus Christ—to
affirm that an individual can not, by the law of Nature, be right¬
fully bound, without his own consent, to render service for life.
Again : Two men, A and B, are thrown, by accident, on a
lonely island. A assails B with an avowed purpose of killing
him. In such circumstances, B has an undoubted natural right
to take the life of A, to save his own. Much more has he a right
to commute this penalty for the lesser evil of making him his
slave for life.
The same reasoning will apply to communities as well as to in¬
dividuals. And thus originated the natural right—in ancient
times universally recognized—to make slaves of captives taken in
war. It was a merciful commutation of the right to put them to
death under the paramount law of self-preservation. In Deuter¬
onomy 21 : 14, a statute may be found, that clearly implies the
divine recognition of this right. But time would fail me to spe¬
cify a tithe of the modes in which a man may, by the law of Na¬
ture, be invested with an indubitable moral right to compel another
to serve him for life.
It is almost superfluous to say, that, if a man can have this
right, he can justly transfer it to another. Hence, if it is lawful
to hold slaves on any account whatever, those slaves can be law¬
fully bought and sold. Nay, more, they can be lawfully born in
a state of bondage. Suppose that B is the rightful owner of a
female slave, who, in that capacity, gives birth to an infant; lin¬
gers a few weeks, months or years, all the time a burden and an
expense to her master, and then dies. B nurses the child, feeds
it, clothes it, pays doctor's bills, protects it personally, and pays
taxes to the government for its protection as well as for his own.
2
18
All this he does and is legally bound to do, although he may have
no hope of remuneration even to the value of a single cent, and
may besides be burdened with the support of that child during the
whole period of a long and sickly life. When the child has been
thus raised to maturity, tell me, I pray yqu, has B a natural
right to its service (a right which Waylan<jconcedes even to the
parent over his own child) "for so long a period as may be suffi¬
cient to secure an adequate remuneration" for the cost of raising,
and for all the incidental liabilities and responsibilities, of which
we have spoken, superadded? If he has not, it will hardly be
affirmed by any but a madman, that he has any right to the labor
of his hands expended in the raising of a horse, an ox, or a crop
of grain.
But this case is too plain to admit of an argument. Now, it is
admitted by intelligent men generally, that this compensation
would be more than his market value, the only fair test of his
real value as a slave, i. e., the exchangeable value of his service
for life. Hence it has passed very generally into an adage, that
slave labor is the dearest sort of labor; in other words, that the
compensation which slaves receive for their services, all things
considered, is much greater than what is generally paid for the
same amount of labor performed by hired servants. Of the truth
of this adage I have myself no doubt.
From the foregoing reflections, it is evident, that it would be
difficult to conceive a more absurd and indefensible position than
the vaunted dogma of abolitionists and free-soilers, viz., that
slavery is opposed to natural rights, and can subsist only by vir¬
tue of the lex loci. The very opposite of this is true. Right of
property in slaves, if it exist at all, must exist in pursuance of,
and in harmony with, natural rights. It never has been created,
and never can be created rightfully, by local law. Nor can local
law rightfully impair it. It existed in this country, in its
most perfect form, long before the States, as such, or the United
States, came into existence. All that the constitutions and laws
of the several States did in this matter, was to recognize, regu¬
late and protect the pre-existing right. They did not originate
or create it. This is all they did, and all that local law can right¬
fully do.
Slavery, then, is a relation rightfully subsisting between moral
agents, and it is self-evidently absurd to identify that relation
with soil. Hence there is just as little sense, and as much non¬
sense, in talking about free soil and slave soil, as there is in
talking about debtor soil and creditor soil, parental soil and
filial soil, married soil and bachelor soil, drunken soil and sober
soil, or learned soil and ignorant soil.
Now, if it be admitted, as we think has been clearly proved,
that slavery is a relation rightfully subsisting between moral agents,
it follows necessarily, that the relation having once been estab-
19
listed anywhere, exists as a matter of course everywhere; and
its obligations, like those of any other moral relation, may be
rightfully enforced wherever the parties may be found, until it
comes legitimately under the control of a sovereignty by which it
is prohibited. This, too, will account for the fact already stated,
that it never has been established by local law ; and that the first
legislation on the subject of slavery, everywhere, merely recog¬
nized and affirmed pre-existing rights. Nothing more was ne¬
cessary where the relation was properly understood.
The provision of the Constitution of the United States, for the
restitution of fugitive slaves, fully recognizes this principle: —
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor,,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such ser¬
vice or labor shall be due."
Here we have not merely a full recognition of the correctness;
of the principle aforesaid, but also a positive compact between the
sovereign States, that each will respect the relation, even on its
own soil, although it may have prohibited it between its own sub¬
jects.
Has Congress, then, the power to exclude slavery from the ter¬
ritories? This question naturally resolves itself into two others,,
viz : What power can government, abstractly considered, right¬
fully exercise over property ? and, 2d. What power, in this re¬
spect, has been specially given to Congress ?
In this enlightened age, among those whose opinions are en¬
titled to consideration, there is but little, if any, difference with;
respect to the fundamental principles of the social compact.
All admit, that human government is, in its very nature, an
abridgment of natural liberty, and can be justified only on the*
ground of its necessity; but, at the same time, it is univer¬
sally conceded that human government is indispensably neces¬
sary to protect its subjects from the wrongs which self-willed;
man is constantly liable to commit on the person, property and
character of his brother man.
The principles, which lie at the very basis of this whole subject
may be comprehensively stated in the following propositions, which
may be justly regarded as self-evident truths, viz :
1. That God wills the existence and happiness of the human
race, and, by necessary consequence, whatever is indispensable tO;
the attainment of these ends.
2. That these objects can not be secured, unless rights are pro¬
tected, and wrongs redressed..
3. That this protection of rights and redress of wrongs can not
be had, in a degree commensurate with the necessities of our race,
without social organization, alias human government.
4. And, therefore,.that we have the same evidence, that God
20
wills human government for the 'protection of all the rights, and
the redress of all the wrongs of its subjects, as we have, that he
wills the existence and happiness of the human race.
Now, if these self-evident truths be admitted, it follows incon-
testably, that human government, in the nature of things, neither
has, nor can have any power, except for protection of rights, and
redress of wrongs.
The inviolability of private rights, therefore, that of property
included, lies at the very basis of the social compact. Conse¬
quently, government has no more right to take a single dollar of
private property, except so far as may be necessary for its sup¬
port and for the accomplishment of its lawful ends, than the high¬
wayman has to take the traveler's purse. Hence it can not create
right of property in slaves, nor can it impair it, where it already
exists.
I admit that government has, and must have, the right to take
private property, where it is necessary that it be thus taken for the
accomplishment of its lawful ends ; but not even then has it a
right to take private property for the public good without full
'Compensation to the owner. Deny this, and you make govern¬
ment but despotism, and liberty but a name.
This inviolability of the right of private property extends to
Tight of property in slaves as really as in any thing else. Hence,
if an individual has a just claim to the service of another—wheth¬
er for a period of years, as in the case of an apprentice—or for
life, as in the case of a slave—government can not possibly have
a right to impair that claim. To concede such a right to govern¬
ment, would be to subvert the very purpose for which, and for
which alone, God wills its existence.
If a political community, or State, considers domestic slavery
incompatible with its prosperity, it has an indubitable right, in the
exercise of its sovereignty, to cancel that institution ; provided,
however, that it make full compensation to the owners for the
slaves thus emancipated. Without such compensation, govern¬
ment has no more right to emancipate a single slave than the rob¬
ber has to the purse or to the life of his victim.
Even the monarchy of Great Britain in effect fully recognized
this principle in the emancipation of her West India colonies, by
making partial compensation for the slaves thus emancipated to
:the extent of twenty millions sterling, (nearly 100,000,000 of
dollars,) which was forty per cent, of their estimated value.
Also, the mongrel republic of Mexico, (a republic in name, but
in reality a despotism,) in 1837, fully recognized the correctness
of this principle. In that year, the Mexican Congress passed an
act (I stop not to inquire by what authority they did it) to abol¬
ish slavery. This act, however, provided that the negroes to be
emancipated should first be appraised; that government scrip,
21
payable to their owners for their full value, should he issued, and
then the certificate of emancipation should be granted.
In our sister commonwealth of Kentucky, after a most thorough
discussion of this whole question, on the stump and through the
press, during the campaign of 1849, the Convention affirmed this
principle almost bj acclamation, and incorporated it in the funda¬
mental law of the State, in words to this effect: " Absolute, ar¬
bitrary power, over the lives and property of freemen, exists no¬
where in a republic, not even in its largest majority."
The principle is undoubtedly correct, and ought to be explicitly
stated in every political constitution.
By way of episode, and to let the audience see the infernal de¬
signs of at least some of the leading actors in that movement, I
will here introduce a Circular written by T. H. Shreve, Paul Sey¬
mour, J. H. Heywood, Noble Butler, F. Crosby, and Wm. H. Gf.
Butler, all of them citizens of Louisville, Kentucky, and addressed
to the Editor of the Ripley Bee, a newspaper printed in the State
of Ohio. Here is the Circular ; let it speak for itself :
EMANCIPATION IN KENTUCKY.
Louisville, January, 1849.
Dear Sir :—The people of Kentucky have resolved to hold a Convention for
the amendment of the Constitution of the State. In August next delegates to this
Convention will be elected. The present movement in this State on the subject
of slavery, so deeply interesting to all the friends of emancipation, has reference
to this Constitution. It is confidently believed that, if proper exertions are used,
the friends of emancipation will succeed in engrafting on the new Constitution
some provision by which the State will be relieved from the great evil of African
slavery. There is a great demand throughout Kentucky for some practical argu¬
ments, showing the moral, social and economical evils of slavery ; and we have
no doubt that if the friends of emancipation had the means of printing and dis¬
tributing tracts and newspapers containing such views as are needed, an immense
amount of good would be accomplished. So firmly convinced are we of the ad¬
vantages which would result from printing and circulating, gratuitously, argu¬
ments in favor of emancipation adapted to the wants of the people, that we do
not hesitate to say that the success of the present movement will probably depend
upon the adoption of such a course.
We have no doubt that if the profound interest of the present movement in
Kentucky was fully appreciated, all the difficulties in the way of raising the re¬
quisite funds for the gratuitous distribution of tracts and newspapei s would
speedily vanish. If Kentucky breaks ut> her system of bondage, her example will
have a powerful influence on the other slaveholding States. Delaware, Maryland
and Missouri would soon rid themselves of slavery, and an agitation would arise
in Virginia that would shake that ancient commonwealth to its foundations.
Slavery hemmed in by impassable barriers on the South-west, with no new terri¬
tory on which it could discharge its surplus, and with the present tier of Northern
slave States arrayed on the side of freedom, would have a limit to its existence as
well as to its extension. How long would it be before the people of the States in
which the system would then exist, with all its dark and fearful features greatly
aggravated, would call on the General Government for relief?
To all who desire the extinction of African slavery, the present movement in
Kentucky commends itself with peculiar force. It affords the only practicable
means of affecting the duration of the institution as a National evil. THIS
MOVEMENT RISES INTO A NATIONAL IMPORTANCE AND LOSES
ITS LOCAL CHARACTER AS WE REGARD IT AS THE FIRST GREAT
STEP TOWARDS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED
STATES. WHO, THEN, THAT DESIRES TO SEE OUR COUNTRY
REDEEMED FROM THE CURSES OF SLAVERY, WILL NOT BE
WILLING TO CONTRIBUTE TO A FUND TO BE APPLIED TO THE
22
GRATUITOUS CIRCULATION OF TRACTS AND NEWSPAPERS IN
KENTUCKY? These documents will necessarily circulate beyond the borders
of this State, and have due influence in neighboring slave States, as they will
emanate from a slave State, and express views displaying entire familiarity with
the subject as it presents itself to those who have been long accustomed to its evils.
The arguments, facts and truths that we use will be treasured up and used to pre¬
pare the public mind in other States for movements similar to that now in pro¬
gress in Kentucky.
WE EARNESTLY INVOKE THE SYMPATHY AND AID OF
FRIENDS WITHIN BOTH OUR OWN AND OTHER STATES. WE
ASK THEM TO COME FORWARD AND CONTRIBUTE TO A FUND
WHICH SHALL BE MOST SACREDLY APPLIED TO PRINTING AND
GRATUITOUSLY CIRCULATING TRACTS AND NEWSPAPERS CAL¬
CULATED TO STRENGTHEN, DEEPEN AND WIDEN THE FEEL¬
ING IN FAVOR OF EMANCIPATION. We are willing to superintend the
preparation and distribution of such documents, and hope that enough persons
will be found ready to co-operate with us in this great and glorious work of
philanthropy, patriotism and humanity, to place its success beyond peril.
We would especially direct the attention of the friends of emancipation to the
Louisville Examiner. This paper, we are satisfied, has been instrumental in do¬
ing a great deal of good. If permitted to go out of existence at a period of such
profound interest as the present, it would sadden the hearts and the hopes of those
who are contending for the removal of slavery from the States; and yet, as the
subscription to the paper is unequal to its support, it can be continued only by the
assistance of friends. It is of the last importance that " The Examiner" be con¬
tinued, and that a FUND BE CREATED FOR THE PURPOSE OF PRINT¬
ING A LARGE NUMBER OF COPIES FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBU¬
TION IN EVERY PART OF THE STATE. The non-slaveholders com¬
prise a large portion of the voters of Kentucky, and we are deeply solicitous that
they shall be reached by the facts and arguments presented by " The Examiner."
What friend of emancipation can refuse to contribute liberally to a work of such
magnitude and interest? THOM. H. SHREVE,
PAUL SEYMOUR,
F. CROSBY,
JOHN H. HEYWOOD,
NOBLE BUTLER,
W. H. G. BUTLER.
N. B.—Contributions forwarded to Rev. J. H. Heywood, Treasurer of our So¬
ciety, will be reported to the Committee.
You will observe that the authors of the foregoing Circular re¬
garded the emancipation movement in Kentucky "AS THE
FIRST GREAT STEP TOWARDS THE ABOLITION OF
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES that if emancipa¬
tion then succeeded in Kentucky, the States of "Delaware, Ma¬
ryland and Missouri would soon rid themselves of slavery, and
an agitation would arise in Virginia that would shake that ancient
commonwealth to its foundations." In that event, say they,
slavery " would have a limit to its existence as well as to its ex¬
tension. How long would it be, before the people of the States in
•which the system would then exist, with all its dark and fearful
(features greatly aggravated, would call on the general government
for relief?"
Who is ignorant of the fact, that Northern abolitionists glory
"in avowing publicly that they are actuated by the same treasona¬
ble and hellish designs, in their efforts to abolitionize Kansas, and
thus plant a colony of negro-thieves on our Western border.
Believing the scheme of emancipation then advocated to be
23
nothing else than a barefaced system of public robbery, and that
its success would inevitably and speedily result in a dissolution
of the Union,—at the call of my fellow-citizens, and impelled
alike by piety and patriotism, at the risk of reputation and even
life itself, I threw all my energies of soul, body and spirit into
the campaign, and did what I could, whether much or little, to
save the Constitution and the Union from the imminent peril to
which they were then exposed. The glorious results of that cam¬
paign, soul-cheering to every true patriot, are before the country.
The assaults of anti-slavery fanaticism were beaten back, the
rights of slaveholders defended, and the sacred guarantees of the
Constitution triumphantly vindicated.
During its progress, and immediately after its close, the most
malignant threats of vengeance were made against me by eman¬
cipation leaders, whose unholy and ambitious schemes I had aided
to defeat. A fiendish system of wholesale lying and defamation,
publicly and privately, was immediately set on foot, and has con¬
tinued, with but little abatement, to the present time. Anony¬
mous and lying assaults were made upon me in the emancipation
organ in Kentucky, and promptly republished in Missouri, in fil¬
thy sheets, which self-respect forbids me to name. This was done
before I had ever set foot on Missouri soil.
The wholesale lying and slander with which I have been perse¬
cuted since my arrival in Missouri by the entire phalanx of abo¬
lition and free-soil leaders, and by the filthy lying sheets identi¬
fied with them in interest and sympathy, whether political or re¬
ligious, some of which seem to be incapable of telling the truth
when a lie can be made to serve their purpose,—these things mul¬
titudes of my fellow-citizens well know, and can truly attest.
I leave you to judge how far these fiendish efforts to destroy
my reputation, and to prostrate the State University, over which I
have the honor to preside, were prompted by a spirit of revenge
for the part I then acted—a conviction that abolitionism and free-
soilism could get no foothold in the University so long as I pre¬
sided over its destinies, and an apprehension that the part which I
acted in Kentucky in 1849, I would act over again in Missouri
should a similar emergency ever occur.
If they regard me as at all in their way, I commend the cun¬
ning and the untiring zeal, which they manifest to compass my
assassination—so far, at least, as reputation is concerned, which,
to an honorable and sensitive man, is often dearer than life itself.
But I fear them not. I hurl proud defiance in the viper teeth of
Abolitionism, and the motley crew of his abettors and sympathiz¬
ers ; and I assure them, one and all, that, should the day arrive,
when my labors shall be needed in Missouri as they were in Ken¬
tucky in 1849, I shall, without a moment's hesitation, draw the
sword of the Spirit—a true Damascus blade as was ever forged
in the armory of Heaven—and I shall neither ask nor give quar-
24
ter till the battle is fought, and the victory won, or the friends of
the Constitution and the rights of the South lie buried in the com¬
mon grave, that entombs the liberties of our country. To God
Most High, and under him to the general intelligence, virtue and
patriotism of my fellow-citizens, do I most cheerfully commit my
reputation. My motto this : " The Lord will defend the right."
But, to return from this digression, we have seen that protec¬
tion, not plunder, being the only lawful object of government,
no matter what may be its form, it follows of necessity that were
the government of the United States a consolidated despotism,
even then it could not possibly have the right to violate a vested
right of property. And if, as we have seen, right of property in
slaves is sanctioned by the light of Nature, the Constitution of the
United States, and the clear teaching of the Bible, a deliberate
and persistent violation of that right, even by government, is
as villainous as highwTay robbery ; and, when peaceable modes of
redress are exhausted, IS A JUST CAUSE OF WAR BE¬
TWEEN SEPARATE STATES, AND OF REVOLUTION IN
THE SAME STATE.
Proclaim it aloud, then, in the hearing of my enemies ; publish
it, if you please, to the ends of the earth, that I have said it;—
and if this be treason, let free-soil traitors and abolition negro-
thieves, leagued with British tories in an unholy conspiracy to
dissolve the Union, make the most of it.
But the government of the United States is not a consolidated
central despotism, although many who glory in the name of
American, whilst they dishonor that name, seem to think so. On
the contrary, it is that of a federal republic, having no powers
whatever except what its creators, the States, expressly granted
in the Constitution, and which are " necessary and proper" to
carry the granted powers into effect.
If, therefore, it would be wholly inadmissible for even a des¬
potism to impair a vested right of property in any thing, slaves
included, much more so would it be for Congress. Hence, any
interpretation, of any part of the Constitution, which claims this
power for Congress, is manifestly absurd, abolishes at a single
stroke all constitutional restraints upon its authority, makes it
despotic in the highest sense possible, and gives it powers, that
not even a despotism can rightfully exercise.
I am well aware, that the foregoing principles, if correct, place
in a very unenviable light the notorious three thousand JVew
England clergymen, who sent the anti-Nebraska memorial to the
Senate last year, notwithstanding their implied claim of superior
merit as Protestants. The friends of the South will do well to
remember this fact. If truth, so important to be known and un¬
derstood by the public, should cast discredit even on Protestant
clergymen, I see no reason why it should be concealed on that
account. It will require better authority than that of even three
25
thousand fanatical Protestant clergymen to convince any rea¬
sonable man, that Congress possesses the power to prohibit slavery
in the Territories.
But some imagine that Art. 4, Sec. 3, clause 2, gives Congress
the power to abolish slavery in the Territories, and exclude it
therefrom. This clause reads thus : "The Congress shall have
power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations
respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United
States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as
to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular
State."
On this I remark, that the power here granted is limited ex¬
pressly to the disposal of the territory as property, and to the
making of " all needful rules and regulations" for that end. The
word " otherqualifying property in this clause, is undoubtedly
nonsensical and absurd, unless territory in this connexion is con¬
templated as property ; the words " other property" necessarily
implying at least a second class of property, which can not pos¬
sibly be any thing else than " territory" immediately preceding.
And, therefore, before it can be admitted, that this clause gives
Congress the power to exclude slavery from the Territories, it
must be shown, that the possession of this power by Congress is
absolutely necessary for the disposal of the territory regarded as
public property.
Again : Whatever power this clause gives to Congress, extends
in all its length and breadth to all the territory and public prop¬
erty belonging to the United States. Not a single acre of land,
or dollar's worth of property, is excepted. If, therefore, by vir¬
tue of this clause, Congress has power to abolish slavery in the
Territories, and exclude it therefrom, it has the very same right
to erect on every acre of land that it owns, within the limits of the
slave States, an asylum for British tories and abolition negro-
thieves. The conclusion is irresistible.
But who can believe that the framers of the Constitution intend¬
ed to give Congress this monstrous power ? What inhabitant of
a slave State, who has fairly and fully examined the subject, can
advocate it, unless identified, at least in sympathy, with the abo¬
litionists ? And when the advocates of this pernicious political
heresy have accomplished, in their own estimation, this marvelous
exploit of logical legerdemain, what have they proved ? Why,
simply, that the Constitution confers on Congress a power, the
exercise of which, even in a despotism, would, as we have clearly
seen, be a just cause of revolution.
Missourians ! beware, as you would of the viper's deadly fang,
of the upas influence of those men, whether native or natural¬
ized, who exert their ill-gotten influence, and exhaust all their
powers of argumentation and sophistry, to convince you that the
power question is an immaterial issue ; who, instead of warning
26
their fellow-citizens of the fearful and impending danger to which
they are exposed, and laboring to arouse and unite them as one
man in a manly and determined resistence to the common enemy,
traitor-like, raise the wolf-howl of nullification, secession, dis¬
union, against the best, the most loyal, the only true friends of
the Constitution—men who, at every hazard, would protect it
against the assaults of despotism. Can any plan be conceived
by which they could more successfully promote the schemes of
abolition traitors than by this parricidal course, laboring to divert
the attention of the South from their real danger, and making a
pretended love for the Union a masked battery, from which to co¬
operate more effectively with its only real enemies, for its speedy
and everlasting overthrow ?
It should never be forgotten, that no government is, or ought to
he, esteemed among men, except for its capacity, supposed or real,
to protect the rights, and redress the wrongs of its subjects. When
any government becomes either too weak, or too wicked, to perform
this duty, wise men will gladly exchange it, though nominally a
republic, for any other form of government, though nominally a
despotism, that may be necessary to secure the aforesaid objects.
And when a government, instituted solely for protection and re¬
dress, becomes itself an instrument of oppression and plunder,
and all reasonable hope that it can be reformed is lost, in that
event revolution (peacefully, if possible—but at the bayonet's
point and cannon's mouth, if necessary) becomes one of the high¬
est and most patriotic duties,that a moral and intelligent commu¬
nity can have to perform. In such a case, " resistance to tyrants
is obedience to God." In this country, at least, the Declaration
of Independence has canonized this sentiment in the heart of ev¬
ery true patriot. " When a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce
them [any community J under absolute despotism, it is their right,
it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new
guards for their future security."
This sentiment of our revolutionary heroes and patriots is un¬
doubtedly correct; and no man calling himself American, whether
native or naturalized, unless he be a tory or a traitor, will call it
in question ; much less will he strive to render 'its advocates
odious by stigmatizing them with opprobrious epithets.
Were the government of the United States, then, even a con¬
solidated despotism, the usurpation by it of a power to impair or
abolish right of property in slaves, in anyplace on earth, to which
its authority under the Constitution extends, would be a just cause
of revolution.
And can any sane man imagine, that the usurpation of such
despotic power by a very limited government, which the sovereign
States created " to provide for the COMMON DEFENCE,"
will not be resisted at all hazards, and to the utmost extent, by
27
more than six millions of American freemen, inhabiting fifteen
sovereign States of this Union, whose property to the extent of
two thousand millions, and whose very lives, are put in jeopardy
by this usurpation? Believe it not, fellow-citizens. The advo¬
cate of a doctrine so self-evidently absurd is not to be trusted.
The framers of the Constitution were not so insane as to grant
to Congress this despotic power. They affirm with unmistake-
able plainness, that the powers not granted, or "necessary and
proper" to carry into effect the granted powers, are withheld.
This power has neither been granted, nor can it be shown that it
is " necessary and proper" to carry into effect any one of the
granted powers. By logical necessity, therefore, it follows, that
it has been withheld. If it has not, it is absurd to call our gov¬
ernment one of limited powers. In such circumstances, it would
be impossible to conceive a more absolute despotism.
In the present alarming crisis, then, what should be done to
beat back the aggressions of anti-slavery fanaticism, and thus,
if possible, prevent a dissolution of the Union, or a result still
more to be dreaded ?
The friends of the Constitution and of the constitutional rights
of the South should unite as one man, forgetting all other party
issues ; and let our enemies see how vain is their hope, that do¬
mestic traitors, in disguise, can succeed in keeping us warring
upon each other on account of exploded and comparatively insig¬
nificant party issues, that they may thus, at an unexpected mo¬
ment, deliver us up an easy prey into the hands of our enemies.
Regard the man, who would even counsel such division, as an
enemy, a second Arnold, an emissary of the unholy alliance be¬
tween England, France and New England abolitionists.
By their fruits ye shall know them. It is not to be expected
that any man in a slave State will acknowledge himself an aboli¬
tionist, or an emissary of abolitionists, any more than that Bene¬
dict Arnold, while commander of a stronghold, which he designed,
at the first opportune moment, to surrender to the British, would
acknowledge, that he had been bribed by British gold. Such an
acknowledgment, if it did not endanger their persons, would at
least in a great measure destroy their capacity for mischief.
They must be judged by their acts. If they labor to weaken
the South by keeping alive the foul demon of party spirit; if they
are ready to palliate the aggressions of the negro-thieves, and
the States and parties by which they are sustained ; if they are
prompt to exaggerate and denounce the measures of necessary
self-defence that an injured and exasperated community may be
compelled to take in providing new guards for their future secu-
lity; and, especially, if they denounce by opprobrious epithets
those, whose only alleged offence is too great devotion to the con¬
stitutional rights of the South,—you neither need, nor can get,
better evidence of their complicity with our enemies.
28
Good men, especially such as have not thoroughly examined the
Bible on this subject, may honestly think, that slaveholding is sin¬
ful, and it would be an outrage to interrupt them on account of
this opinion. Again : A bona fide settler in Kansas (of course
I do not mean a paid agent of abolitionism, whether a pauper, or
a felon, from New England or Old England) may really believe
that it his duty to vote to make Kansas a free State, having proper
regard meanwhile 'to the rights of slaveholders ; and for such
opinion and vote he ought not to be interrupted.
But the practical abolitionist, who labors to impair a vested
right of property in slaves, is a negro-thief. And a negro-thief
should be regarded and treated as a horse-thief, a burglar, or any
other sort of thief; and those who give them aid and comfort
should be regarded and treated as their accomplices in guilt. An
organized band of such persons, and for such ends, should be
treated as an organized band of conspirators against the lives and
property of the citizens, enemies alike to God and man; and,
therefore, slaveholding communities have just the same right to
take all necessary measures of defence, whether legal or extra
legal, judicial or extra judicial, against a negro thief, or an or¬
ganized band of negro thieves, as they have a right to take, and
are universally acknowledged to have a right to take, against
horse-thieves, or house-thieves.
The man, therefore, who, in point of law and morals, puts the
man who is robbed on a par with the robber—him who " agitates
the subject of slavery in Congress or elsewhere," for the defence
of vested rights, on a par with him who agitates for the violation
of those rights,—must necessarily have either a very weak head,
or a very bad heart; and, in either case, is wholly unfit to be
trusted, especially in a slaveholding community. It was mainly
for this cause that, in the late Kansas meeting in Columbia, I ob¬
jected to the passage of (what are called) Switzler's Resolutions
by themselves. Those resolutions, in the main, contain excellent
sentiments, which I most heartily endorse, and, as I then stated,
are susceptible of such an interpretation throughout as would be
unexceptionable. Hence I was willing to vote in mass for both
sets, as the second would contain the necessary explanation and in¬
terpretation of the first; but, without that explanation, I could not
begin to vote for the 6th Resolution, because it was easily sus¬
ceptible of an interpretation that made no distinction between agi¬
tation on the part of slaveholders in necessary self-defence, and
the aggressive agitation of abolitionists and negro-thieves : and
I asked barely ten minutes to show that such a sentiment was dark
as Erebus, and replete with lurking treason to the South.
For the foregoing reasons, too, I approbate, adopt, and en¬
dorse with my whole heart the doctrine of Lee's Resolutions,
as follows :
29
DR. LEE'S RESOLUTIONS.
Whereas, it is indubitable that God wills the existence and hnppiness
of the whole human family ; that the capacity of the races respectively,
and of the successive generations of those races, are adapted to the sev¬
eral spheres they are designed to fill; that their existence and happiness
can not be secured without the protection of rights, and redress of wrongs;
and that this protection and redress can not be secured in any degree com¬
mensurate with our necessities without social organization, which organi¬
zation must necessarily be adapted to the moral and intellectual condition
of those for whom it is intended: Therefore,
Resolved, That human government exists in accordance with the will
of God, (and by the consent of the governed if they are morally and intel¬
lectually qualified for self-government,) for the protection of the rights and
the redress of the wrongs of its subjects, deriving all its just powers from
its necessity for, and its adaptation to, the accomplishment of these pur¬
poses.
Resolved, That to resist government in the accomplishment of its law¬
ful objects, and the exercise of its just rights, or to subvert its authority
when directed to these ends, is highly criminal, and destructive of the best
interests of society and the human family.
Resolved, That when any government, from whatever cause, is inca¬
pable of protecting the rights and redressing the wrongs of its subjects, it
is their inalienable right, both as individuals and as communities, and it is
their duty, to take protection and redress into their own hands, and to pro¬
vide all necessary guards for their future security.
Resolved, That, in accordance with these principles, all communities,
whether savage or civilized, admit the right of necessary self-defence,
and the consequent right of abating, by extra-legal means, such nuisances
as are intolerable and can not be abated by regular operations of Jaw.
Resolved, That the fanatical and persevering efforts of Abolitionists and
Abolition Societies to render our slave property insecure, and to excite
the evil passions of those slaves to insubordination, has a direct tendency
to incite them to servile war, with all its attendant horrors; and is such
an invasion of our rights, that we feel justified in pledging our lives, our
fortunes, and our sacred honor, to each other, to the State, and to our
sister slave Srates, that we wirl abate it, to the utmost extent of our
ability, peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.
Resolved, That the repeated invasion of the constitutional rights of the
slave States, has a direct tendency to dissolve the Union, and, if persisted
in, must inevitably lead to this deplorable result, as the only refuge from
impending evils of the most appalling and intolerable character; and we
therefore pledge ourselves, irrespective of all previous party ties, to ab¬
jure all minor issues, and unite as one man in waging a deadly war on
abolitionism, and rosisting all its vile efforts, whether made by force or
fraud, to trample our constitutional rights under its unhallowed feet.
Resolved, That we appeal to the intelligence, patriotism and loyalty of
the free States, to arrest the torrent of abolition fanaticism that is sweep¬
ing over them in open violation of our constitutional rights, exposing the
Union of these States to imminent peril, and if not speedily arrested, to
certain annihilation.
Resolved, That the whole State is identified in interest and sympathy
with the citizens on our Western border; and we will co-operate with
them in all proper measures to prevent the foul demon of Abolitionism
from planting a colony of negro-thieves on our frontier to harass our citi¬
zens and steal their property, it matters not whether that colony be im-
30
ported from European poor-houses and prisons, or from the pestilential
hot-beds of New England fanaticism.
Resolved, That we regard the emissaries of Abolitionism, whether
open or disguised, as our vilest enemies—conspirators against the peace
and permanency of our Union, and as such we feel bound to give them no
countenance nor encouragement whatever, but on the contrary, as it is
our duty in self-defence, we will use all lawful and proper means to ex¬
pose them to a just retribution, and a lawful and well merited infamy.
Resolved, That as we believe the Missouri Compromise to have been
at variance with the spirit and objects of the federal compact, in which
are conferred all the powers of the General Government, we most hearti¬
ly approve of the repeal of that most odious measure, and as cor¬
dially endorse the Kansas-Nebraska bill, believing its principles to be cor¬
rect, We, therefore, have seen with feelings of indignation and abhor¬
rence the efforts made by citizens of free States to deprive slaveholders
of the rights which the Kansas bill was designed to restore; and while
we deprecate the necessity, we can not too highly appreciate the patriot¬
ism of those Missourians who so freely gave their time and money for the
purpose, in the recent election in Kansas, of neutralizing said abolition
efforts, and preventing the fraud attempted by the importation of hireling
voters into that Territory.
Resolved, That the other counties in the State be requested to hold
meetings and express their sentiments on the subject, so that whatever
hopes may be entertained by the abolitionists of reaping any advantage
from division among us, may be dispelled; and that the people of this
State, irrespective of all party considerations, may present an unbroken
front of opposition to the foul designs of the abolitionists.
Resolved, That we view with indignation the efforts made in Congress
as well as in the Northern States to repeal or render inoperative the Fu¬
gitive Slave Law, and that we will not submit to the repeal.
Resolved, That delegates be appointed to represent this meeting in
the Convention to be held in Boonville, and that the Chairman make the
appointment.
These, fellow-citizens, are my sentiments, politically, legally,
morally, constitutionally. I endorse them, as already said, with
my whole heart.
Standing on this platform, I desire to be a real, bona fide
know-nothing ; not caring to inquire whether a man, who is sound
on this question, be whig or democrat, native citizen or natural¬
ized. All I ask is, that he be loyal to the Constitution, and the
constitutional rights of the South. If, then, the Union is to be
saved, the South must not allow themselves to be divided, weak¬
ened and betrayed by domestic traitors, no matter to what extent
she may have previously secured their confidence; but, on the
contrary, must combine all their forces in one compact and ser¬
ried host, and present an unbroken front in defence of their con¬
stitutional rights, and in unyielding opposition to Northern ag¬
gressions.
I am fully satisfied, had the South been thus united for the last
thirty years, the foul fiend of Abolitionism would long ere this
have been crushed by the intelligence and patriotism of the free
States. So long as we are divided among ourselves, and are war-
31
ring on each other rather than on the common enemy, we give aid
and comfort to the anti-slavery feeling in the North; and thus
help, though unintentionally, to crush those patriotic and noble
spirits in that section, who have hitherto rallied to the defence of
the Constitution, and the rights of the South. We owe these noble
spirits a united and unfaltering support. We must have North¬
ern votes in Congress, or a dissolution of the Union is inevitable.
And I, for one, am bold to avow, that I am unalterably opposed to
disunion, until it is proved beyond a reasonable doubt, that an
anti-slavery majority in the North has permanently resolved
to trample under foot the constitutional rights of slavehold¬
ers. We owe it, then, to ourselves as well as to our generous,
noble and patriotic friends in the non-slaveholding States, to be
united among ourselves ; and to repudiate, as traitors and abo¬
lition emissaries, all who labor to divide, weaken and betray the
South by keeping alive party spirit.
The abolitionists have madly sworn, and confirmed their trea¬
sonable oaths by acts no less treasonable—by judicial decisions,
legislative acts, forcible resistance to the Constitution and laws
of the Union, and repeated murder of officers employed in their
execution—that the fugitive slave law shall be repealed or nulli¬
fied ; that slavery shall be abolished in the District of Columbia
and in the Territories ; that Kansas shall never come into the
Union as a slave State; that no more slave States shall ever be
added ; that they will steal our slaves at pleasure, resisting the
Constitution and laws for their delivery to service, and mal-treat¬
ing their owners and the public officers, who may go in their pur¬
suit ; and that they will never cease till they have abolished slave¬
ry in all the States, or dissolved the Union.
With the South, then, thus driven to the wall, the present
struggle is obviously one of life or death. We can retreat no
farther, and it would be infinitely more horrible than death TO
SUCCUMB.
The fanatics have already driven us to the very brink of the
precipice; and if they persist in the execution of their unholy
and treasonable designs, and are not speedily crushed by the in¬
telligence and patriotism of the free States, where alone it can
be done, who so blind as not to see, that the Union will inevitably
and speedily be dissolved ! And who in the South so craven, so
lost to manly impulse, so very a traitor, as to advise or desire,
that the slave States should take no vigorous measures of even
necessary self-defence, until they are completely wound up in
the anaconda folds of this deadly serpent, and crushed, without
the power of even a feeble resistance ! The free States, if they
choose, can elect an abolition President. The legislative balance
of power in the Senate has been lost by the introduction of Cali¬
fornia as a free State, while it is obvious, that the salvation of the
Union may depend on its restoration; and if the intelligence and
32
patriotism of: the North are not brought to the rescue in this fear¬
ful crisis, what have the fifteen slave States, with more than six
millions of free citizens, to depend on,but their own brave hearts,
and strong arms ?
Thank Heaven, they have all the courage, more than twice the
numbers, and at least twenty times the resources, that our revo¬
lutionary sires had, when they defied the haughty tyrant George
the Third, and, after a protracted struggle, drove his menial co¬
horts off the soil, that had been polluted by their unholy tread.
It is, therefore,vain to imagine, it is suicidal to hope, that such
a people will submit to a worse tyranny in that government, which
they themselves created for the " common defenceand which
thev could not have been induced to create at all, and CAN NOT
NOW BE FORCED TO TOLERATE, FOR ANY OTHER
PURPOSE.
Let us then, fellow-citizens, be united, be vigilant. Let us
husband our resources, concentrate our energies, and exhaust all
peaceable means to protect our rights, and save the Union, if pos¬
sible, from the Vandal assaults of abolition traitors and nullifiers.
Let us hope for the best, and prepare for the worst; and then,
having done all that men can do to save the Union, if a disso¬
lution is forced upon us by domestic traitors, instigated thereto
by the decrepid monarchies of the Old World, then I, for one,
say, in the language of a distinguished Georgia statesman and
patriot, " having exhausted the argument, we will stand to
our arms f our motto this, " God will defend the right!" and
our consolation, that, if Rome must fall, we are innocent.
s r e jh c i i
OF
HON. JAMES A. BAYARD, OF DEL.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 22, 1858, ON
THE BILL FOR THE ADMISSION OF KANSAS INTO THE
FEDERAL UNION UNDER THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.
Mr. BAYARD. Mr. President, the questions involved in the debate
upon the admission of Kansas into the Union as a coequal State have
been so thoroughly and ably discussed upon both sides, that I have hesi¬
tated whether I should take part in it, and at one time had abandoned
all idea of so doing. Subsequent reflection, however, has satisfied me
that it is a duty which I owe as well to my immediate constituents as to
the country, to assign the reasons which will control my vote ; for though
no one can suppose that any vote in this body will be affected by the
debate, yet if the views I have to present may perchance change the ad¬
verse opinions or remove the lingering doubts of a single citizen as to
the propriety of the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitu¬
tion, I shall feel that I have not spoken in vain. Besides, sir, I am a
believer in the capacity of the American people for self-government, and
hold that it is by discussion—full, frank, and ardent discussion, if you
will—addressed to the intelligence, and not to the passions of the peo¬
ple, that a republic must be sustained.
In this stage of the debate, I shall endeavor to confine my remarks to
those matters which I deem material to the decision of the immediate
question before the Senate : whether Kansas shall be admitted as a State
under the Lecompton constitution, or whether that constitution shall be
rejected, and the people of Kansas be suffered to remain under the terri¬
torial government? There are two classes of opponents to the admis¬
sion of Kansas. One consists of the Republican party, with whom the
real and vital objection is that her constitution tolerates slavery; and
therefore, irrespective of any other objection, as it is a cardinal rule of
their political faith that in the future no slaveholding State shall be ad¬
mitted into the Union, they object to the admission of Kansas. The
second class consists of Senators who have hitherto acted with the Dem¬
ocratic party—fortunately but few—who, disclaiming any objection to the
admission of Kansas on the ground that her constitution tolerates slave¬
ry, hold that it was adopted in violation of the principles of the Kansas-
Nebraska bill, and that, in its mode of adoption, the great principle of
popular sovereignty was violated.
Now, sir, there are three rational grounds, if sustained, (and a fourth
question may be added,) which would form valid objections to the admis¬
sion of Kansas or any other Territory as a State. The first objection is,
the want of sufficient population ; the second, that the constitution is not
republican ; the third, that it is not the result of the legally expressed
will of the people. To these I would add a fourth question; whether
the admission or rejection of Kansas will be most conducive to the
interests, the peace, and the prosperity of the Federal Union ? On the
first two grounds no objection is made. The sufficiency of the popula¬
tion of Kansas has been either admitted or waived throughout the de¬
bate. As to the second, it will s'carcely be denied that the inchoate State
has presented a constitution republican in form. The third ground,
whether this constitution is the result of the legally expressed will of the
people, presents most of the points of contest except those which arise
from the determination on the part of the Republican party in future to
admit no slaveholding State into the Union.
In considering this third ground, we must look first to the power of
Congress over a Territory acquired for the common benefit of the people
of all the States. I do not doubt as to the extent of their authority, nor
do I mean to enter into any discussion as to its origin. I am satisfied to
accept it as it has been hitherto exercised. Since the origin of the Gov¬
ernment, Congress has always exercised the right to dispose of the soil,
to permit or restrict its settlement by the citizens of the country, and to
organize territorial governments where the settlement was permitted,
with a view to the formation of future States; and in the exercise of this
authority, Congress, in the early stages of the Republic, delegated to the
people of the Territory the power of self-government more sparingly
than has been the usage in later days.
Formerly, many of the Territories were goverend by the judges and
Governor; in others, there was an Assembly who were allowed to nomi¬
nate members of a council, to be appointed by the President of the
United States, and the two together, with the Governor, governed the
Territory. In some cases, the Governor had an absolute veto on the acts
of the Legislative Assembly. In others, the laws were required to be
submitted to Congress for approval. This was the earlier course of ac¬
tion in the delegation of power by Congress ; and I admit that, whilst the
people occupy a Territory of the United States, their right of govern¬
ment within the Territory is a delegated right.
Gradually, in accordance with the spirit of the institutions of this
country, Congress has enlarged the popular control over the government
of the Territories, in their territorial form, until finally, in the Kansas-
Nebraska bill, nearly full powers of government were delegated.
In the true construction of that bill, and drawing the intent of Con¬
gress, not from the views which might have been entertained by individ¬
ual legislators at the time of its passage, but from the language used by
the Legislature as expressive of their intent, the conclusion seems irresisti¬
ble that its provisions delegated to the people and Territorial Legislature
of Kansas all the powers that we could constitutionally exercise in the Ter¬
ritory, except those which are expressly excepted in the act itself. Sub¬
ject to the constitution of the United States, and the express exceptions
of the act, all powers of legislation are vested in the people of Kansas,
through their Territorial Legislature.
I am aware that the objection is made—I believe in the paper pre¬
sented by the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] as the views of one of
the minority of the Committee on' Territories—that without an express
3
authority from Congress, the Territorial Legislature, with the assent of
the people, have no right or power to prepare the Territory for admission
into the Union as a sovereign State; and secondly, tliat they cannot at
their own will and pleasure resolve themselves into a sovereign power,
abrogate and annul the organic act and territorial government ordained
by Congress, and establish a constitution and State government upon
their ruins, without the consent of Congress. I differ with him as to the
law on the first ground. I admit fully the doctrine stated in the second,
but deny its application to Kansas, or that there has been any attempt to
subvert the territorial government without the consent of Congress. That
I may do no injustice, I will read from the views of the Senator from Illi¬
nois at page 62 of the document containing the report of the committee
and his minority views. After citing the authority of the Attorney Gen¬
eral of the United States under the administration of Andrew Jackson
in reference to the territorial organization of Arkansas, he says:
"Thus it appears that under the administration of General Jackson, the doctrine ob¬
tained, and I have never heard its correctness questioned until the present session of Con¬
gress, that a convention assembled under the authority of a Territorial Legislature, 'with¬
out an express authority from Congress,' had no right or power to prepare the Territory
for admission into the Union as a sovereign State, and thereby abrogate or impair the au¬
thority of the Territorial Legislature over all rightful subjects of legislation consistent
with the organic act."
In support of this doctrine, he makes quotations from the opinion of
Mr. Butler, then Attorney General of the United States. I shall read
two clauses of that opinion, to show both the terms of the act upon which
the opinion was given, and the conclusion at which the Attorney General
.arrived; and shall then endeavor to show there is a broad distinction in
the delegation of power between the authority delegated by the United
States to the people of the Territory of Arkansas, and that which is dele¬
gated to the Territory and people of Kansas by the Kansas-Nebraska act.
In the "Opinions of the Attorneys General," volume 2, page 728, on
"The right of Territories to become States," this is the language of Mr.
Butler:
" The act providing for the government of the Territory of Missouri, approved June 4,
1812, and which is adopted in the laws relating to Arkansas as defining the powers of the
legislative department, declares ' that the General Assembly shall have power to make
laws in all cases, both civil and criminal, for the good government of the people of said
Territory, not repugnant to, or inconsistent with, the Constitution and laws of the United
States.'"
This gives the language of the act establishing a territorial government
for Arkansas. The conclusion at which the Attorney General arrived
upon the authority delegated in such terms, is to be found at page 732,
and it is:
" No law has yet been passed by Congress which either expressly or impliedly gives to
the people of Arkansas the authority to form a State government. For the reasons above
stated, I am, therefore, of opinion that the inhabitants of that Territory have not, at pre¬
sent, and that they cannot acquire, otherwise than by an act of Congress, the right tp fprm
such a government."
Now, Mr. President, what are the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska
act ? The delegation of power to the Territorial Legislature of Arkansas
was that they might make all laws, both civil and criminal, for the good
government of the people of the Territory, not repugnant to, or incon¬
sistent with, the Constitution and laws of the United States, When th§
4
Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed, every one knows that the great object
of extending the powers of the Territorial Legislature was that the agita¬
ting question of slavery might be withdrawn from the Halls of Congress.
It may have failed in effecting that object, but the failure does not alter
or affect the intent and construction of the law. The Kansas-Nebraska
bill, in the nineteenth section, after describing the boundaries of the Ter¬
ritory of Kansas, provides that the Territory within those boundaries is
" hereby created into a temporary government, by the name of the Ter¬
ritory of Kansas ; and when admitted as a State or States, said Territory,
or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or with¬
out slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their ad¬
mission." Section twenty-two, in conferring legislative power, gives it in
the broadest language that is possible to be employed. It provides that
" the legislative power and authority of said Territory," not for any par¬
ticular purpose; not confined as in the case of Arkansas, but " the legis¬
lative power'and authority of said Territory shall be vested in the Gover¬
nor and a Legislative Assembly." Then in section twenty-four "comes
the limitation, " that the legislative power of the Territory shall extend
to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the
United States and the provisions of this act." The act then specifies
three exceptions; that there shall be no law passed by the Territorial
Legislature, interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; that no tax
shall be imposed upon the property of the United States; and that no
greater tax shall be imposed upon the property of non-residents than on
the property of residents. These are the only exceptions, other than
those imposed by the Federal Constitution.
On all legal reasoning, with a general grant of legislative power over
all rightful subjects of legislation, inasmuch as this Territory was formed
for the purpose of becoming a future State, is there not an implied power
to take the preparatory steps for a State organization ? The authority
to make a State is twofold : first, the people of a State forming a State
constitution, which we have no right to prescribe or form for them; and
next, the consent of Congress to the admission of that State into the
Union. Is there not under this law full authority given to the people of
Kansas, under territorial legislation, to prepare and form a State consti¬
tution with a view to admission into the Union with the consent of Con¬
gress ? Congress did not delegate the power to come into the Union, be¬
cause that would be an infraction of the Federal constitution, and the
grant of legislative power is subject to the constitution. The admission
into the Union must be an act in preesenti—an act of Congress, no mat¬
ter what its form. The admission, or the recognition, or consent of Con¬
gress, if you so please, must be an act in preesenti after the State consti¬
tution has been formed. Is there any restriction, then, in the general
grant of legislative power, which prohibits what the people of Kansas
have done ? Is there the remotest resemblance or analogy to be drawn
from the Askansas case as to the intent of Congress to authorize the
Legislature of the Territory of Kansas to provide for holding an election
at which the will of one of these authorities necessary to form a State
was to determine whether it would form a State constitution ? The
6
authority of the Territorial Legislature to ascertain by election the
will of the people of Kansas, comes, within the general grant of
legislative power; and most certainly it cannot be contended that a
general grant of power may not, by necessary implication, convey
authority as fully as an express grant of the particular power in ques¬
tion ; and in reference to the Kansas bill, the expression of the excep¬
tions out of the general grant renders the implication irresistible that all
other acts of legislation consistent with the Federal constitution legiti¬
mately belonged to the territorial government.
But, sir, the qualification of the opinion of the honorable Senator from
Illinois is, that they have no authority to form a State constitution for
the purpose of subverting the territorial government, without the consent
of Congress. Who contends that they have ? Here is his language as
employed at page 53 of the document containing his views:
" By the Kansas-Nebraska act the people of the Territory were vested with all the
rights and privileges of self-government on all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent
with, and in obedience to, the organic act; but they were not authorized, at their own
will and pleasure, to resolve themselves into a sovereign power, and to abrogate and an¬
nul the organic act and territorial government established by Congress, and to ordain a
constitution and State government upon their ruins without the consent of Congress."
I concede, Mr. President, that no sueh power exists; but the answer
is, that no such power was attempted to be exercised by the Territorial
Legislature and people of Kansas. The subversion of the territorial
government without the consent of Congress, is an act widely different
from the authority exercised by the Territorial Legislature in authorizing,
by law, the taking of the sense of the people of Kansas, who, and who
alone, could form a State constitution; and when their wishes were as¬
certained, framing a State constitution to go into effect by actual organi¬
zation under it, when, and not until, Congress should agree to admit Kan¬
sas as a State. The two things are essentially different. It seems sus¬
ceptible of demonstration, that no act done by the people of Kansas un¬
der "the authority of the territorial government was intended to subvert
that government without the consent of Congress; and, therefore, the
objection falls to the ground, because it is not supported by the facts of
the case.
The honorable Senator from Illinois recites a clause of the constitution
of Kansas, as adopted and sent to us, which declares that—
" This constitution shall take effect and be in force from and after its ratification by
(pie people, as hereinbefore provided."
" That is a very proper provision, but the declaration must be taken in
connection with the other clauses of the instrument; and, referring to
them, you find that there is to be no organization of government, and
that none was contemplated or intended, until Congress should assent to
the State constitution, and admit Kansas into the Union. The object of
the clause in question is very obvious. The State constitution was to
take effect from the time of ratification, provided Congress should sanc¬
tion the proceeding by admitting Kansas as a State. If Congress did
assent to the action of the people under the authority of the Territorial
Legislature, then the retrospective operation would be to give a legal ef¬
fect to the elections held under the State constitution, and nothing more.
6
The validity of the elections was made dependent upon the will of Con¬
gress ; and the principle involved, and the object to be attained, was in
accordance with the principle on which Congress has frequently acted in
admitting Senators from States, elected before the States were admitted
as members of the Union. Acting on the principle, omnia ratihabitio
retrotrahitur et mandato sequiparatur, this declaration was made for the
purpose of giving a retrospective effect and validity to the constitution,
after the action of Congress should have called the organization of the
government into existence. This does not rest on mere argument. Now
for the facts. Provision is made that—
" This constitution shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States at its next
ensuing session, and as soon as official information has been received that it is approved
by the same, by the admission of the State of Kansas as one of the sovereign States of
the United States, the President of this convention shall issue his proclamation to con¬
vene the State Legislature at the seat of Government within thirty-one days after publi¬
cation."
It is very evident that no government could have been contemplated in
subversion of the territorial government except with the consent of Con¬
gress, because the legislative power was not to come into existence by or¬
ganization until after Congress had approved the law; but the provisions
do not stop there ; not only is there no time prescribed for the assembling
of the Legislature until after Congress have admitted the State, but in the
same constitution it is provided:
" The first general election in this State shall be held on the day and year provided by
this constitution, and all general elections thereafter on the day and year provided by sub¬
sequent legislative enactment."
Without assembling the Legislature, there can be no State organization,
and no subsequent elections of any kind: and it is provided that the
State Legislature shall not assemble antil thirty days after proclamation
that Congress has admitted Kansas as a Stq^te into the Union. The evi¬
dence, however, becomes conclusive. The twelfth section of the schedule
declares:
" The Governor, and all other officers, shall enter upon the discharge of their respective
duties as soon after the admission of the State of Kansas as one of the independent and
sovereign States of the Union as may be convenient."
Sir, with these provisions standing in this constitution, can it be
seriously urged that it was the intention of the Territorial Legislature or
the people of Kansas to subvert the territorial government without the
consent of Congress ? They provide for an election of State officers, but
it passes for nothing, and those officers are never to enter upon the dis¬
charge of their functions, unless Congress shall ratify the act of the Ter¬
ritorial Legislature, and the people of Kansas, by admitting her as a
State into the Union. There is no room for controversy that the State
organization was made dependent upon the will of Congress. Then the
objection, in fact, does not apply. The authority we delegated was a
right to legislate for the purpose of ascertaining the will of the people of
Kansas, and the right to form a State constitution subject to our consent,
and Kansds has been strictly legal in her course. The Legislature pre¬
scribed ari election for that purpose, and the will of the people was ex¬
pressed at that election. Subsequently they provided for the election of
delegates to framie a constitution; The people of Kansas elected those
7
delegates, and they provided in their own way for the submission of the
constitution as formed for the ratification of the people; and it was rati¬
fied by the people of Kansas.
Can I be told, then, that the legally expressed will of the people of
Kansas is not embodied in this constitution, or that there was anything
revolutionary in their action ? That action does not contemplate the or¬
ganization of a State government, as the Topeka constitution did, (which
I shall show hereafter,) without the consent of Congress. If you choose
to reject the Lecompton constitution, you leave Kansas in her territorial
condition, and everything contained in it is a perfect nullity. It is to go
into effect, for all practical purposes, as an organized government, only
after Congress has admitted Kansas into the Union. Is there revolution
in that? Is there anything illegal in such an exercise of power? Was
it not competent for Congress to grant, under the Nebraska bill, power
to the Territorial Legislature to ascertain the will of the people of the
Territory, upon a subject-matter on which Congress could not act without
the expression of their will; and had not these people the right to form a
constitution, without claiming or attempting to derogate from the authori¬
ty of Congress, by the organization of a State government without its
consent?
Believing, therefore, that it was perfectly competent, under the grant
of powers to the territorial government and people of Kansas, contained
in the organic law called the Kansas-Nebraska act, for the Legislature to
ascertain the sense of the people, and to provide for forming a State con¬
stitution, which was to be organized after our consent was given, and con¬
sidering all this to be strictly and perfectly legal, the question arises :
what were their acts, and has the will of the people been expressed in a
manner that authorizes us to admit Kansas as a State ? whether, in other
words, under the lawful authority vested by us in the Territorial Legis¬
lature and people of Kansas, the Legislature have authorized the people
to express first their sense that a State ought to be formed ; whether they
afterwards authorized delegates to be elected to form that constitution;
and whether that constitution, as it is presented to us, is the will of the
people of Kansas legally expressed. Ay, sir, and fairly expressed, for if
it is, there can be no objection to her admission as a State, unless on the
ground that her constitution tolerates slavery.
The first election in the Territory of Kansas took place on the 30th of
March, 1855. The organic act vested in the Governor the right to can¬
vass the returns, and to give the seats to such members as, on that can¬
vass, he ascertained were entitled to them under that law. There could
be no other mode in which the canvass could be made. The Governor
(Reeder) certainly cannot be accused of any proclivities against Free-
Soilism. He has disconnected himself, throughout his career in Kansas,
with the intentions and wishes of the Democratic party; he seems to have
had no desire for a peaceful settlement of the Kansas question, but a dis¬
position, for some purpose—I shall not pause to investigate his motives—
to create difficulties, and throw that Territory into hostile relations to the
Government of the United States. This Governor to whom the authori¬
ty was delegated, gave seats to more than a quorum of the members of
8
the Territorial Legislature of Kansas, in 1855. Some seats were vacated
by him, and he ordered new elections. When the Legislature assembled,
the right of investigation and decision being vested in them, under the
organic law, they filled up their own body.
I am perfectly aware that on the other side it is said, not that there
was fraud in the first election-—that is not the allegation—but, by an
afterthought, after the Legislature had assembled, it was charged that
the election was carried by an armed invasion from the State of Missouri.
I shall not enter into that question. It has been decided by the Con¬
gress of the United States to be a valid election. It was conducted under
all the forms of law ; as I believe, rightfully conducted. It was ratified by
the verdict of the American people in the election in 1856, by which the
present President became Chief Magistrate of the Union. I hold, there¬
fore, that there can be no shadow of doubt—and I presume Senators on
this side of the chamber who are opposed to the admission of Kansas
will not now question it—as to the validity of the Territorial Legislature
elected in March, 1855. If they do not question that, it would seem
difficult for them to escape from the conclusion that the will of the peo¬
ple of Kansas has been legally expressed to us in their subsequent elec¬
tions, and that we are bound to take the constitution presented as the
result of that legally-expressed will.
After the Legislature was organized, there was a portion of the peo¬
ple of the Territory of Kansas (whether a majority or a minority outside
of the legal expression of their will is perfectly immaterial) who ques¬
tioned the validity of the organization of the Territorial Legislature, as,
indeed, it was questioned by the party with whom they acted in concert
in this body and in the House of Representatives of the United States.
This minority, as I believe they were then, whatever they may be now,
assumed a revolutionary attitude—which I shall comment on hereafter—
and refused to vote at any election between the month bf March, 1855,
and the month of October, 1857. I presume it will not be denied that
a portion (on the other side it is alleged that a large majority) of the
people of Kansas refused to vote at the elections held in October, 1856,
and June, 1857. Then what is the rational rule applicable to such ac¬
tion ? The only principle on which a republican government can stand
is that a majority of the votes cast shall be held to be a majority of those
entitled to vote, and therefore obligatory—subject, of course, to inquiry
into the legality of the proceeding by the body to whom the inquiry
rightfully and legally belongs. In elections in the States, under that
rule of order, we constantly admit elections by plurality alone, and
sometimes pluralities constituting not one third of the whole number of ac¬
tual votes cast. A plurality elects members of Congress, Governors, and
other functionaries throughout the Union in most of the States. What
induces it ? Because it is a necessary rule of order to prevent convul¬
sion and revolution. Whether a majority of the people do not vote,
from indifference, or from any other cause resting on their own volition,
is immaterial. Those who do not vote must be understood, under the
necessary rule upon which republican governments are founded, as con¬
senting that the majority of those who do vote shall decide for them.
9
On no other implication can a government of numbers be preserved.
The implication is not that those who do not vote are satisfied with the
action of, or would vote in the same way with the majority of those who
do vote ; but it is a presumptio juris et de jure necessary to the very
existence of a republican government that those who do not vote, hav¬
ing the opportunity to vote, must be considered as assenting that the
question to be decided shall be decided by the majority of those who
do vote.
But, Mr. President, it is said that frauds have been perpetrated. This
may be so. I think it not improbable. When you look to the agitation
that took place immediately after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska
bill, the organization throughout different parts of the country—-I make
no allusions to particular States-—for the purpose of sending into the
Territory of Kansas, not emigrants in the natural course of settlement,
but emigrants for the purpose of establishing there an abolition State, it
is not improbable that the people of the neighboring State of Missouri,
bordering on Kansas, naturally became excited by the danger of such a
population to their own institutions; and that as there were lands there
suitable for their purpose, they should flock there for the purpose of
making a settlement, so as to prevent the establishment of a government
by persons so hostile to the vital interests of Missouri. Under these cir¬
cumstances, in a border country, it would be idle to suppose that no irreg¬
ularities, (or frauds, as they are called,) that no illegal voting should
occur or no violence should be used. I have little doubt that irregulari¬
ties, illegal voting, and frauds, may be charged upon both sides; but as
regards statements taken from newspapers, or testimony even upon oath,
as to specific acts of fraud derived from partisan sources, I have seen too
much in a forensic life of the liability to bias and misstatement in human
testimony, under less exciting causes, to place the slightest reliance upon
such testimony, unless under the most rigid cross-examination and sub¬
jected to the severest scrutiny. But, sir, the question is not whether
there were frauds or irregularities committed in any election in the Ter¬
ritory of Kansas, but whether we are the appropriate body to inquire into
allegations of that kind. Under the principles of the Nebraska bill,
which meant to vest sovereignty in the people and Territorial Legislature
of Kansas, Congress intended they should determine all these questions
for themselves. The very object of the bill was to withdraw from Con¬
gress struggles connected with the exciting passions of the character
which have led to the disorganization in Kansas.
But, sir, I believe it is a maxim of all philosophy, that, when you find
one sufficient cause for a result, you ought never to look further. I hold
that there is an all-sufficient cause, without reference to any allegations
of fraud, to account for the vote of the people of Kansas, as expressed
in their different elections, in the fact that those who were called the
Topeka party by their opponents, (whether a majority or a minority,) re-'
fused to vote; refused to exercise their elective franchise, no matter un¬
der what pretence. Whether that refusal resulted from indifference, or
whether it resulted from the assumption that their votes would not effect
their purposes, they cannot complain that, whenever they refused or ne¬
glected to exercise their right, others should decide for them.
10
Does any Senator doubt that, at the election in the fall of 1856, in
■which the people of Kansas determined their will was that a State con¬
stitution should be formed ; that the election in June, 1857, when they
elected delegates to form a constitution; or that, at the vote taken for
^he purpose of ratifying it under two aspects in which it was presented,
there was a bona fide majority of those who voted who were in favor of
forming a State constitution, of electing the delegates, and of ratifying
the constitution, in the manner in which it is presented ? I presume not.
There was, in those elections, no necessity and no object to induce frauds.
The truth is, that one party voted, and one party alone; the other de¬
clined to vote. This cause, then, is all-sufficient to account for the mode
of forming and the adoption of the constitution without reference to these
profuse allegations of fraud. We come, then, to the practical principle,
that those who, having the right to vote, by their own default in refusing
to vote, or attempting to vote, are, in reason and justice, not by any nar¬
row technical rule of estoppel, but on every principle of order in human
government, estopped to question the decision of those who, abiding by
the law, exercise their rights as voters. What other principle has been
adopted in any State to ascertain the will of the people ? and on what
other principle could any election be sanctioned or sustained ? In the great
State of Pennsylvania, when amendments to her constitution were submit¬
ted to the people of the State, not one half of those who voted for Governor
at the same time voted on those amendments ; yet no one ever questioned
the validity of that vote, and that a majority of those who did vote set¬
tled the question. There were, say, twenty thousand votes against one
hundred^ thousand on those amendments, while the actual vote of the
State for State officers was over three hundred thousand; yet a majority
of those who did vote on the constitutional amendments must be, and
were, considered as carrying the assent of all; not that all agreed with
them in opinion, but that all who did not vote agreed that those who did
should decide the questions submitted. This is an essential rule from the
form of our republican governments, and without it no organized gov¬
ernment of numbers, founded on the principle of self-government, could
be maintained.
I hold, then, sir, that, no matter what the cause, if the fact be (and I
presume it will scarcely be denied) that a large portion of the people of
Kansas, whether a majority or minority is immaterial, willfully and de¬
liberately refused, on any pretence whatever, to vote at the election
which authorized the constitution to be made, and at those which elected
the delegates and ratified the constitution, those who did vote must be
considered as embodying the legally and fairly expressed will of the peo¬
ple of Kansas, not on technical grounds, but on the only grounds upon
which the government of any State in this Union does or can stand.
I conclude, therefore, both that there was plenary power in the Terri¬
torial Legislature to authorize these elections, as the legitimate evidence
of the will of the people of Kansas, and that they were not merely lawful,
but strictly and perfectly legal; and that the constitution formed under
them does not contemplate a subversion of the territorial government
without the consent of Congress. That when the Legislature had thus
11
authorized these elections, and the people of the Territory had voted, the
decision of those who did vote must be held to be the legal expression of
the will of the whole people, which the indifferent, the negligent, or the
factious, are estopped to deny or question.
But, sir, all these allegations of fraud have, in fact, no application
whatever to these elections. I have heard no pretence or specification
that, at the election to decide whether Kansas should form a State con¬
stitution, there were any frauds committed in the votes taken. Nor has
any fraud been alleged in reference to the election of delegates to the
convention which framed the constitution, nor at the election in December
last, when it was ratified. The allegation of frauds relates to the election
subsequently held for members of the Legislature, under the constitution,
in January last. Over that election we have no pretence of authority.
We might as well interfere with the election of Representatives of a State
Legislature; because, if this constitution was legally formed, and legally
expressed the will of the people, we are under an implied obligation, un¬
der the treaty with France, and the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska
bill, to admit the State; and if we admit the State, our admission gives
effect to the constitution from the time of its ratification. Of course the
authority of the Legislature, when it meets, to inquire into the rights of
persons to seats in that body will be the same in the State of Kansas as
in any other State of the Union. The returns were, in the first instance,
to be made to the president of the convention. The honorable Senator
from Ohio [Mr. Wade] objects to that as unauthorized action, on the
ground that the convention could give no such authority to its president;
yet in this famous Topeka constitution, for which he voted two years ago,
the provision is not only that the chairman of the executive committee
should be the judge of the returns; but that—
" Until otherwise provided by law, the chairman of the executive committee of Kansas
Territory shall announce by proclamation the results of the elections and the names of the
persons elected to office.
" No person shall be entitled to a seat in the first General Assembly at its organization
except the members whose names are contained in the proclamation of the chairman of the
executive committee; but after the General Assembly is organized, seats may be con¬
tested in the usual way."
This far exceeds the authority conferred on the president of the con¬
stitutional convention assembled at Lecqmpton, because he was simply to
investigate the returns, and duplicates were to be left in the hands of the
judges, and he was to certify the result of the election. The other is a
broad power to the chief of an executive committee of a revolutionary
party, organizing themselves as they did, that his proclamation should be
conclusive evidence of the rights of all members to seats in the first Le¬
gislature, and then that the matter should be referred to them. It was
not a power of investigation; it was simply a right of proclamation—in
other words, the chairman of the executive committee had the right to
seat whom he pleased, according to the Topeka constitution. If such a
power could be vested then, and supported by the Republican party in
this body and the House of Representatives, I ask with what semblance
of consistency can that party now question the authority of Mr. Calhoun 1
I notice this only in passing, not that I suppose any weight can be at-
tn.nhpd t.n snr>li n.n nbiefitinn.
12
I have said there is 110 allegation of fraud as to any elections which
we should supervise for the purpose of determining whether Kansas should
be admitted as a State. There are no alleged frauds, no specifications,
no scintilla of proof as to frauds in the election by which the people of
Kansas authorized a convention to be called. There was no opposition
to the delegates elected to the convention, because a portion of the people
refused obstinately to vote, standing in a rebellious and revolutionary at¬
titude. There were no frauds in the ratification election, even if ratifica¬
tion was essential. The constitution, therefore, comes to us as the legally-
expressed will of that portion of the voters of Kansas who chose to vote
under a perfectly legal enactment; and if others did not choose to vote,
of course their assent must be implied, or the structure of your Govern¬
ment must fall. Whoever heard or contended that frauds, if they ex¬
isted, would vitiate an election, unless the result would have been differ¬
ent if the frauds had not have taken place ? There is no pretence, in
any of these elections, that the result would have been different, fraud or
t no fraud.
In order to vitiate the election, it must be shown that the fraudulent
or illegal voting has been sufficiently "extensive to alter the result; or, at
least, to render it uncertain. But, where frauds have not existed to such
an extent as to prejudice the rights of bona fide voters and overrule their
decision, however worthy of condemnation, they cannot vitiate the elec¬
tion. If they did, the fraudulent might always defeat any election, and
so disorganize Government.
The next question, Mr. President, is whether it is essential to the
validity of this constitution that'it should have been ratified by a vote of
the people of Kansas, and if that be necessary, whether it has been so.
ratified 'i I cannot doubt that when the people elect delegates with au¬
thority to form a constitution, they vest iiT their delegates, if there is no
limitation of power in the law under which they are elected, the absolute
and entire sovereignty of the State ; and those delegates may form a
constitution which will become valid and obligatory, without any subse¬
quent action of the people ; or they may—-and in my judgment it is safer
and -vpser in a republican government—submit that constitution to the
people for ratification.
I held this doctrine in a convention assembled in my own State a few
years ago, and have been charged in some papers there, mingled with
something of personal bitterness, and also in papers here and in Penn¬
sylvania, with action inconsistent with the opinions I then expressed in
advocating the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution.
Sir, I have changed no opinion I then entertained. I claim no exemption
from error incident to humanity, and shall never hesitate, when I do
change a previous opinion, to avow the change, and give the reasons
which produce it. In this case I have no admission to make, for I thought
then, and think still, that it is better—that it is the duty of a convention,
for a reason which I shall state—to submit the constitution which they
frame to the people. It is in their discretion. They have the power to
make a constitution which is as valid without as with submission. Of
that there can be no doubt. To admit the doctrine—for which the Sen-
13
ator from Michigan [Mr. StuartJ did seem to half contend—that a con¬
stitution would not be valid unless it was submitted to and approved by
the people, would invalidate the constitutions of all the earlier States of
the Union. Sir, I was born, and have lived, and live now, under a con¬
stitution which never was submitted to the people, yet never for a moment
have I doubted its validity and obligation. Perhaps I might
question the wisdom, the propriety of action and adherence to duty
,of a delegate to a convention who refused to submit a constitution
framed by him to his constituents for ratification. Such would not
be my own course, with my present and former convictions; and for
this reason, in forming a constitution founded upon the social compact,
the people at large being the basis of power, I think it wiser, with
a view to its permanence and stability, and in order to prevent muta¬
bility, that it should be ratified by the vote of the people over whom
it is to exist as the organic law. That is the only reason. But what right
' has Congress to control the mode of forming the constitution of Kansas?
Just what it would have had if the convention in Delaware, in 1853, had
determined not to submit the constitution they formed to the people.
Your interference would be unwarrantable in either case. Of what con¬
cern is it to the Congress of theUnited States, whether a convention of del¬
egates who form a constitution in Delaware, or any other State, determine
to act finally themselves, or choose 'to submit it to their constituents f The
responsibility is there, not here. Of its validity there can be no doubt;
and when Kansas is forming a State constitution, you have as little right
to inquire into the mode in which she pleases to form it as you have to
inquire into the mode in which any other State has formed her constitu¬
tion. It is sufficient for Congress that it is republican in form, and that
it represents the will of the people. Even if Senators && members of the
Kansas convention would have considered the submission of the constitu¬
tion to the people as the rightful and proper action on the part of that
body, we have no right here to interfere with that question without an
invasion of the rights and duties of others.
But, Mr. President, there is another point connected with this doctrine
of submission, and that is the mode of submission. Submission does not
merely mean submitting the whole constitution for the purpose of public
approval or public dissent. That course may be adopted, and in some
instances, may be preferable; but, in my judgment, the true mode of sub¬
mitting constitutions for the ratification of the people is to select the
great principles, the leading provisions on which the people are known to
be divided in opinion, and thus allow them to ratify those which they ap¬
prove, and reject those which they do not. In this Avay, you will have
in the result the true will of the State: but in the submission of a consti¬
tution as a whole, even though a majority may ratify it, it may embody
many provisions which the same majority, if they had been submitted
separately, would have rejected. The submission, therefore, should not
include mere formal provisons, about which there is no difference of opinion;
but the good faith required on the part of the representative who forms
the constitution is, that having formed organic law, he should fairly sub¬
mit, for the decison of the people, those questions on which he know or
14
believes there is division of sentiment among his constituents. This
seems the true and proper mode of submitting constitutions for ratification,
and the only mode in which submission can correctly astertain the will of
the people. In my own State we have had an illustration of the necessity
of this rule. When the last convention met, there were three great
questions to be decided: first, representation in proportion to population ;
second, the payment of taxes as a qualification for voting. The amend¬
ments on both these subjects, I was decidedly in favor of; but there was
a division of opinion in the State on another question, whether we should
alter the existing judicial tenure of good behavior. To such an alteration
I was as decidedly opposed. Can it be supposed that every man who
differed on these questions would not have preferred that they should be
submitted separately to the people ? And would not the will of the people
of Delaware have been more truly ascertained by submitting them dis¬
tinctively, than by the submission of the amendments as a whole ? Had
I remained a member of that convention to its close, I should have ad¬
vocated that mode of submission, because I desired to defeat one proposed
amendment, and was equally desirous to adopt the others.
In reference to this mode of adoption, let me now consider the present
case. According to the Kansas-Nebraska bill we agree that the people
of Kansas are to form their domestic institutions in their own way. The
organic law by which those domestic institutions are ultimately to be es¬
tablished must certainly be formed in their own way, or they have not the
control of their own institutions. The material question is, whether the
mode of ratification adopted by the convention did not submit to the peo¬
ple of Kansas, if they had chosen to vote, the only question, about which
there was difference of opinion among the people, and submit it fairly ?
According to altffeat I have read or heard in reference to the dissentient
opinions that exist in Kansas, there is but one ground on which the peo¬
ple have differed, and which has formed them into hostile parties; and
that is, whether the institution of slavery should or should not be estab¬
lished. There is a provision of the Kansas constitution that free negroes
shall not emigrate into the State. The same provision was inserted in
the Topeka constitution, or in an ordinance annexed to it; and whether
called an organic ordinance, or a part of the constitution, is immaterial.
On this question the two parties did not differ. I know, then, of no dis¬
sentient opinions whatever among the people of Kansas as to the provi¬
sions which should exist in their State constitution, except as to the es¬
tablishment of the institution of slavery. There is high and conclusive
evidence of this. First, what was the question submitted ? The Kansas
constitution provided for holding an election on the 21st of December, the
ballot-boxes of which were to be kept by clerks appointed by the judges;
and then that the ballots cast at said election should be indorsed "consti¬
tution Avith slavery," and "constitution with no slavery." That is clearly,
in the natural import of the words, a direct submission to the people of
Kansas of the question whether the institution of slavery shall be prohibi¬
ted by the organic law of Kansas, or whether it shall be tolerated by that
organic law. What follows? If the majority is for the constitution with
slavery, the president of the convention is to submit to Congress the con-
15
stitution unaltered; but, if "a majority of the legal votes cast at said
election be in favor of the 'constitution with no slavery,' then the article
providing for slavery shall be stricken from the constitution by the presi¬
dent of the convention, and slavery shall no longer exist in the State of
Kansas, except that the right of property in slaves now in this Territory
shall in no manner be interfered with."
The general proposition is, that, if the people vote for the constitution
with no slavery, the article allowing slavery shall be stricken out, and that
slavery shall not exist in Kansas, except as regards the right of property
in existing slaves. Such was the question submitted; and I have said
that the only question on which the people of Kansas were divided was,
whether the institution of slavery should be established in Kansas. I
hold the evidence of it in my hand ; not a newspaper report, not a tele¬
graph dispatch, but "the proceedings of the people of Kansas in mass
meeting at Topeka on the 4th of July, 1856," when we were deliberating
here in reference to their admission under the Topeka constitution. I
take it for granted that the facts asserted in their resolutions will not be
denied by their supporters here. These resolutions were sent to me at
the time in a letter from Chicago, and I presume other Senators received
similar letters during the session of 1856^ inclosing the proceedings of the
Topeka mass meeting, aftejL-they had elected their Legislature and organ¬
ized their revolutionary government. I shall refer to another of their
resolutions hereafter, for a different purpose :
" We, the people of Kansas, in mass convention assembled at Topeka, July 4, 1856, in
favor of preserving forever the freedom of this Territory and State, and the total exclu¬
sion of slavery, dp herein distinctly state our position and our cause, that our fellow-citi¬
zens in the North and in the South, at the East and at the West, as well as at the Gov¬
ernment of the United States, may rightly appreciate our motives and conduct.
" 1. We do most solemnly declare before God and our fellow men, that we have asked
no more than a fair and impartial vote ; a free vote on the part of the citizens of this
Territory as to whether the institution of slavery should or should not be established in this Ter¬
ritory."
These resolutions were adopted on the 4th of July, 1856. In October,
1856, under a law passed in July, 1855, by the Territorial Legislature,
an election was held to determine whether a convention to frame a State
constitution should be called, and the people of Kansas decided that it
should be called. At this election none of these people voted. They
adhered to the Topeka constitution, and continued in a revolutionary at¬
titude. The Territorial Legislature, in obedience to the decision of the
people, in February, 1857, passed an act prescribing the time, place, and
manner of electing delegates to a convention to form a constitution ; and
the act was framed on the model of the bill rejected here by tfhe House
of Representatives in the summer of 1856. Was this law not fair ? Did
it contain any of those test oaths or restrictions on the right of voting
which were the grounds of objection to voting in 1855^? None what¬
ever.
The election of delegates under this act, was held in June, 1857, and
the Topeka party still refused to exercise the right of suffrage, though it
was fully secured by the provisions of the law. If they had the majority,
which is alleged, and had performed their duties as citizens, they might
have elected a majority of the delegates, and formed such a constitution
16
as they desired. The delegates elected by the law-abiding citizens of
Kansas at this election, formed a State constitution with a view to ad¬
mission into the Union as a State. They had the authority, as there
was no restriction in the law under which they were elected, to form a
valid constitution without submitting it for ratification; but they did sub¬
mit this, the only question upon which the Topeka party solemnly de¬
clared they asked for a fair and impartial vote—"whether the institution
of slavery should or should not be established" in Kansas.
The election was held December 21, 1857, and still this alleged ma¬
jority, notwithstanding their declaration, refused to vote.
The objection that they were compelled to vote for the constitution
whichever way their vote was cast, is the mere pretence of disorganizers.
On their own declaration, all they wanted was a fair vote on the question
of slavery. It was given to them; but when it was given, the same
spirit of disorganization which originally led to the Topeka constitution
existed to a sufficient extent to prevent them, in disregard of their own
declaration,, from voting at an election at which, if they had a majority,
they might have determined that the institution of slavery should not
exist in Kansas. It is by their own default and wrong that the constitu¬
tion of Kansas presented to us tolerates the institution of slavery; and
unless every rule of law and order is to be abandoned, that constitution
has been ratified by the people of Kansas.
But, Mr. President, the honorable Senator from Michigan, [Mr.
Stuart,] with the aid of the honorable Senator from Vermont, [Mr. CoL-
lamer,] attempts to establish that this is all a trick; that the constitu¬
tion as submitted, even if the people had voted for striking out the slavery
clause, would have left slavery as a permanent institution of the State,
not only as to the right of property in existing slaves, but as to the issue
of all existing slaves, and would have prevented manumission. The mi¬
nority of the committee, in the views which they present, at page 86 say:
" They framed a constitution establishing slavery in two forms—first, for perpetuating
in slavery all slaves then in the Territory and their progeny, and prohibiting abolition;
second, allowing their unlimited introduction with their owners for settlement, 'They
then provided for submitting this constitution to the people, professedly for their appro¬
val or rejection, on the .21st day of December, 1857, but in this form'only, that they
might vote ' the constitution with slavery,' or ' the constitution with no slavery.' If the
former had a majority, the whole constitution was adopted; if the latter ha'd a majority,
it rejected only that clause allowing the further importation of slaves. They were not
allowed to vote against the constitution; so it was to be adopted, however objectionable,
and to be a slaveholding State in any event. In this manner the first object was to be
effected."
The honorable Senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] in his remarks,
is more explicit; and so is the honorable Senator from Ohio, [Mr.Wade.]
I will read what the honorable Senator from New York said, because the
view taken by b^jth is precisely the same, and I mean to controvert it.
In the pamphlet speech of the honorable Senator from New York, at
page 9, he uses this language :
" Each voter was permitted to cast a ballot ' for the constitution with slavery,' or 'for
the constitution with no slavery;' and it was further provided that the constitution should
stand entire, if a majority of votes should be cast for J the constitution with slavery,'
while, on the other hand, if the majority of votes cast should be 'for the constitution
with no slavery,'then the existing slavery should not be disturbed, but should remain,
with its continuance, by the succession of its unhappy victims by descent forever. But
17
even this miserable shadow of a choice between forms of a slave-State constitution was
made to depend on the taking of a test oath."
The allegation is, that slavery was to remain forever the condition o
the issue as well as of the parents. That is the point in question between
us. I hold that, by the practice of every State in this Union which has
ever emancipated slaves, unborn issue has never been treated as property.
It is an expectancy; it may or it may not be born. It might as well be
contended that, if the law of primogeniture existed in a State, and there
was an heir apparent, the Legislature could not alter the law of descent,
because, if it were not altered, the heir apparent would inherit the whole
to the exclusion of his brothers and sisters. The law of entail affords a
more striking illustration; and yet most States of the Union have abol¬
ished it without considering that they violated any right of property.
The right of the heir is an expectancy alone ; it is not capable of sale ;
it is not property. So, too, in the case of slaves, the right to the issue
is a mere expectancy; it is not capable of sale ; it is not property until
the issue is born, because there is nothing upon which the right of prop¬
erty can attach; and that I suppose to be settled law. There is no
State of the Union which has not acted upon this principle in abolishing
slavery. In my own State, in several instances, laws have been passed
setting free the issue born after a certain day, where the Legislature
would not have ventured to affect the right of property in the individual
who was actually existing as property.
It is true that, through the ingenuity and ability of the honorable and
learned Senator from Vermont, we are referred by the Senator from
Michigan to the first clause of the constitution of Kansas in relation to
slavery, as showing what its framers thought of the right of property in
slaves. By the provisions, however, of the clause authorizing the vote
upon slavery, that article was to be stricken out, and therfore could have
no obligatory effect if the people voted for the constitution "with no
slavery." But the article remains in the constitution as adopted, but in
reality is nothing more than a general declaration, and, like many other
general declarations in constitutions, has no legal effect whatever. The
language of the first section of the seventh article is:
" The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the
right of the owner of ^a slave to such slave and its increase is the same, and as inviolable
as the right of the ower of any property whatever."
But be the construction of this article what it may, it was, in the event
of the vote being in favor of the constitution "with no slavery," to be
stricken out, and if stricken out, its provisions could have no legal effect or
beaming, even for the purpose of interpretation, on the construction of that
which remained as part of the constitution. The construction would rest
upon the legal principles properly applicable to the interpretation of any
constitution.
If the people of Kansas had voted for the constitution " with no
slavery," the first section of the seventh article being stricken out, the
provision in relation to slavery reads thus:
" And slavery shall no longer exist in the State of Kansas, except that the right of
property in slaves now in the Territory shall in no manner be interfered with."
If slavery is no longer to exist in the State of Kansas, and the excep-
2
18
tion merely being that no interference shall be had with slaves now in the
State of Kansas, can there be a rational doubt that persons born after¬
wards are not now in the State of Kansas, within the plain import of the
language ? I do not say that this language would not cover an infant en
ventre sa mere, but it would go no further. The right of property in issue
does not exist until the issue is born, and by the provision slavery is
positively prohibited, with the exception, that the vested right of property
in slaves then in the Territory, is guarded against confiscation.
The Legislature of every State in the Union which has abolished
slavery, has always guarded and protected the sacred right of property
in existing slaves precisely as Kansas provided in her constitution, in the
event that the decision of the people was against the continuance of the
institution of slavery. In an ordinary act of legislation abolishing
slavery after a given day, and excepting the right of property in existing
slaves, on no rule of legal interpretation could the issue of a slave born
after that day be held as a slave ; for such a construction would make
the exception overrule the general object and intent of the law, as well as
the natural import of the words, which is entirely inadmissible. The same
rules of interpretation would be applicable to the constitution of Kansas,
if it had been adopted "with no slavery;" and in that event the issue of a
slave born after its adoption would have been free, for a contrary con¬
struction would be in conflict, not only with the language, but the general
intent of the clause which declares that "slavery shall no longer exist in
Kansas."
So strong has the conviction of the necessity of guarding property
against legislative confiscation always been in the minds of the people of
this country that, although the clause which prohibits the taking of pri¬
vate property for public use without compensation did not exist at its
original adoption in the constitution of the United States, it was ratified
by some of the States with the express proviso that such a clause should .
be inserted, and it was among the first of the amendments adopted. I
presume there is not a State of the Union whose constitution does not
contain a provision which guards the right of property against seizure by
the public, except upon compensation given. What more in any legal in¬
tendment, or any rational construction, does this exception in the consti¬
tution of Kansas do than secure the right of property in existing slaves
in Kansas, at the time of the adoption of the constitution? The general
provision is that slavery shall no longer exist in Kansas if the people so
will. If it had stopped there, can any one doubt that the effect would
have been, as the constitution of the United States does not interfere, to
set free every slave in Kansas ? But then comes the exception looking to
and guarding the right of property, which is done in all civilized commu¬
nities, and certainly it would be a reproach to any State in.this Union if
she confiscated or destroyed that which was held and treated previously
as property, founded upon any freak of fanaticism, or even any real pub¬
lic good, moral or material in its character, without compensation to the
owners of that property. That is all that the constitution of Kansas pro¬
vides in the event that the people of Kansas determined that the State
should not tolerate slavery.
If, then, Mr, President, the revolutionary portion of the people of
19
Kansas had chosen to vote for the ratification of that constitution with¬
out slavery, at this day no slave could exist in Kansas who was not there
in existence at the time when that constitution was ratified, unless we re¬
ject the constitution, and then slavery will remain the law of the Terri¬
tory, under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, un¬
til the people of Kansas form a State constitution prohibiting it. The
convention properly and fairly, by no trick, but in accordance with this
very Topeka resulution, which, in July, 1856, announced, before God and
their country, that the only question which they desired to see fairly de¬
cided by an election was whether the institution of slavery should be es¬
tablished in Kansas, submitted to a fair vote of the people, the only ques¬
tion which they said they desired to have so snbmitted for their decision.
After the declarations at the Topeka mass meeting of their own proteges,
the other side are precluded from saying there was any other question
of dispute between the people of Kansas than that of slavery. All they
asked was granted, and I think I give the legal interpretation of this con¬
stitution, as it would be decided in any court of justice in this country.,
The honorable Senator from Michigan seems to admit, apart from the
seventh article of this constitution, that the Legislature would have a
right to abolish slavery without making compensation for unborn issue of
slaves. If they have the right to do that—and it has been done unques¬
tioned in every State of the Union which has become a non-slaveholding
State—yet I believe in every State which has hitherto abolished slavery,
they have sacredly guarded existing rights of property. They have suf¬
fered the existing slave to remain the property of his master, or provided
for compensation. If I mistake not, in the State of my honorable friend
from New Jersey [Mr. Thompson] there are slaves still in existence ; and
also one or two in the State of Pennsylvania; although slavery has been
abolished there for years. The men of that day, whatever may be the
spirit of reckless fanaticism in ours, regarded property, no matter what it
was founded upon—recognized property as a thing which no civilized
community could touch without compensation.
Mr. President, there is another question connected with this Kansas
constitution which shows how unjustly there have been attributed to the
men who formed it designs of fraud, violence, and trickery, and other
terms of opprobrium, which have been so lavished upon them by the
honorable Senator from Michigan. I am aware that fraud is a very re¬
sonant word, and that repetition of the charge—mere repetition—too
often creates a belief in its existence; but it should not be forgotten that
assertion is not proof, nor violence of invective, evidence of rational con¬
clusions. This very constitution of Kansas, which, it is said, as adopted,
is meant to establish slavery, does not, in fact, establish it beyond legis¬
lative control. It only tolerates and authorizes slavery, but it leaves the
Legislature of the State, on the principle of compensation for property,
without any change of the constitution, at liberty to abolish slavery in
Kansas, and to prevent the migration of slaves into Kansas whenever
they see fit. Such it the provision. I will read it, and we shall then see
how causeless is this outcry about the attempt to restrict the rights of the
people. The right is given to a Legislature elected biennially by the
will of the majority, on simply respecting existing rights of property, if
20
they consider it necessary for the public benefit, whether material or
moral, in their discretion to abolish slavery in Kansas by the payment of
a sum not exceeding $150,000. Here is the provision. Article seven,
section two, provides:
"The Legislature shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves with¬
out the consent oi the owners, or without paying the owners, previous to their emanci¬
pation, a full equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated."
The article does not establish slavery ; it leaves it in the power of the
Legislature, if the owner of the property consents, or if he does not con¬
sent, on the payment of the value of his property, to emancipate the
slave for the general purposes of the public. Is that an establishment of
slavery ? The further provision is :
"They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to the State from bringing with them
such persons as are deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States or Terri¬
tories, so long as any person of the same age or description shall be continued in slavery
by the laws of this State."
These provisions are the only restrictions upon the legislative control
of slavery in the constitution of Kansas. The Legislature which has
been elected, when it organizes, upon payment of not more than one hun¬
dred and fifty thousand dollars, can set every slave free in Kansas, and
prohibit the future introduction of slaves from Other States. There can
be no doubt of the correctness of this construction by any intelligent
lawyer who will read the section. It does not provide that slavery shall
not be prohibited by the Legislature of Kansas, but that it shall not be
prohibited except with the consent of the owners, or on payment of an
equivalent in money for the value of the slave emancipated. It does not
provide that the Legislature shall not prohibit the immigration of slaves
from other States recognizing slavery into Kansas, but that it shall not
prohibit them as long as Kansas has similar property recognized and ex¬
isting within her limits. Now, we have the authority of Governor
Walker, which at this moment, I suppose, whatever might be the case
formerly, gentlemen on the other side, or those who differ with us on this
side, will hardly dispute—it is a matter with which he must have been ac¬
quainted—that there are not three hundred slaves in Kansas. Suppose
we average them at $500 apiece—I think, myself, the soil and climate of
Kansas are only adapted to slavery in a small portion of the Territory,
and the probabilities therefore are, if you take into consideration the
state of sentiment there and the insecurity of that kind of property, that
the average would be over estimated, if you value a slave at $500; you
have, then, as the outside limit the people of Kansas would have to pay
for obtaining this great good, and for getting rid of this enormous out¬
rage which has been fruitful of so much declamation, $150,000. We
have been told that slavery is established there by this constitution, so
that it cannot be interfered with until 1864, and yet I have shown you
that, for $150,000 paid to the owners of slaves, or probably for a much
smaller sum, the Legislature, without any change of the constitution, can
abolish slavery in Kansas and prohibit the introduction of any more slaves
into the State by a mere law, whenever the people who elect them as the
exponents of their will, see fit to require such action. It is clear, there¬
fore, that the present constitution of Kansas tolerates but does not estab¬
lish slayery, and that it is in the power of the Legislature, on the simple
21
condition that they shall not violate the right of property in existing
slaves without compensation, to make Kansas a free State to-morrow if
they were in session.
I am aware, sir, that I have consumed much time, and I may have to
consume much more if my strength does not fail; for there are many and
varied objections made to the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton
constitution which should not be passed unnoticed. I have discussed
such of them as I deem most material; but there are two more which I
cannot without pass comment.
The honorable Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Wade,] who, I have no doubt,
entertains his opinions quite as conscientiously as I do mine, and always
enunciates them with great frankness and boldness, though sometimes,
perhaps, when under the excitement of debate, with a harshness of ex¬
pression as regards the opinions or conduct of others, which his own
calmer judgment would not subsequently ratify—the honorable Senator
from Ohio, in the speech which he made in this debate, alluding to the
action of those who organized the Topeka constitution, (whom I intend to
show were revolutionists and rebels,) said:
" There was no rebellion in the actiojj of these people ; nothing unlawful in it. What¬
ever they may have said—and I do not know what they said, for I do not watch men's
words much ; their actions are what I take cognizance of ; their actions are what the law
takes cognizance oi—the people of Kansas, in framing that constitution, have done noth¬
ing more than they had a pefect right, as American citizens, to do ; and 1 challenge all
the legal acumen of this body to contradict what I now declare."
Again, he said of their action:
" But did they promise to organize under it in defiance of the laws of the United States
Not at all. From the time they called the convention, they always accompanied their
action with a notice that it was to be submitted to the Congress of the United States for
their approval or disapproval. It took barely the form of a petition; nothing more nor
less."
Much as I may respect the honorable Senator from Ohio, I stand at
issue with him here. I have before me the House document which con¬
tains the Topeka constitution, and I intend to refer to it. I agree with
him that actions are more to be relied upon than words. We are not to
judge by what they said alone, but by the acts which accompanied what
they said. The Senator from Ohio declares that the friends of the Topeka
constitution did not assume a revolutionary or rebellious attitude; that
their government was intended to be provisional only, and not to go into
effect but with the consent of Congress. That is what I have contended
for as to the constitution framed by the people of Kansas under the au^
thority of the law. I shall endeavor to show that such is not the charac¬
ter of the Topeka constitution.
The Senate will recollect that under the Lecompton constitution no
organization is to take place until Congress have admitted the State, be¬
cause the Legislature is never to assemble if the State be not admitted.
No officer is to be sworn in or enter upon the performance of his duties
until after Congress have admitted the State into the Union. There can
be no doubt that the intention was to create a government only with the
consent of Congress.
Now, let us us examine the Topeka constitution. In the month of Au¬
gust, 1855, aft£r the meeting of the first Territorial Legislature, a deter¬
mination was made on the part of a portion of the inhabitants of Kansas,
22
incited, as I suppose, by exterior influences, to set the territorial govern¬
ment at defiance. They held a mass meeting ; they detei mined to have
an election in disregard and in defiance of the law of the Territory, and
they appointed judges for the purpose of holding this election. They did
hold it; they elected delegates to a convention, and they adopted a con¬
stitution which was submitted for ratification to the people in 1855, and
was reported to have been ratified by a vote of between seventeen hundred
and two thousand persons—the number is immaterial. Their action was
without color of legal authority, and revolutionary and lawless throughout.
In the schedule which accompanies the Topeka constitution, the provi¬
sion is:
" The General Assembly shall meet on the 4th day of March, A. D., 1856, at the city
of Topeka at twelve m. ; at which time and place the Governor, Lieutenant Governor,
Secretary of State, judge of the supreme court, treasurer, auditor, State printer, reporter,
and clerk of the supreme court, and attorney general, shall appear, take the oath of office,
and enter upon the discharge of the duties of their respective offices under this constitu¬
tion ; and shall continue in office in the same manner and during the same period they
would have done had they been elected on the first Monday of August, A. D., 1856."
Nothing is said as to the consent of Congress ; no provision is made
in regard to admission into the Union as a State; but a time fixed when
the officers are to be sworn in and enter upon the performance of their
duties. Every officer elected by these people under their revolutionary
action was to be sworn into office, and a government to be organized with¬
out application to Congress. Is not that revolution ? What is the
meaning of revolution and rebellion ? I am aware that, in the primitive
or original sense in which the word revolution or revolutionary was
used, it meant simply a change of government; but the words that
long since lost their primitive meaning. The English revolution of 1688.
was a revolution. Why ? Because it was in defiance of the existing
government of the country. The Lords and Commons deposed the
Crown, which constituted the third estate of the realm; and the act,
therefore, was a revolution, because it was not in accordance with law,
but in defiance of the existing legal authorities. As to the character of
the revolution in France, no one doubts. Our own revolution in this
country was a revolution, because the Colonies owed allegiance to Great
Britain ; and they determined to break that allegiance, though they legal¬
ly owed it, by revolution, on causes which justified revolutionary action.
Revolution, in the sense in which the word is now used, designates pre¬
cisely what rebellion meant formerly. It means acts done in defiance
and resistance to the laws, with the intent to subvert or change the form
of government without the consent, or against the consent, of the exist¬
ing authorities.
I do not deny the right of revolution—that there are moral causes
which will justify revolutionary action. Our fathers were rebels; but
they were justifiable. Revolution almost invariably leads to war. The
revolution of 1688 in England, though peaceable at its occurrence, owing
to the want of power on the part of the Crown, did lead ultimately to
war, resulting in the invasions of 1715 and 1745 in England, and was
the cause of infinite bloodshed. Such myist generally, if not invariably,
be the consequence of revolutions. Though peaceful at the time, if war
does not immediately ensue it will be an almost inevitable consequence.
28
But that is no reason against the existence! of the right of revolution or
the propriety of its exercise, if the moral causes will justify that exercise.
The oppression must be intolerable, the grievance must be great, and,
further, all other modes of redress must be exhausted, before revolution
becomes justifiable by any people. Now, what was the position of these
people in Kansas? I have shown you that they did form a government,
called into existence and organized without the consent .of the Territorial
Legislature, in defiance of it, and in defiance of the authority of the
United States. Is not that a revolutionary act ? In point of fact, they
engaged in revoluiion and rebellion, and only stopped short at the line
which separates treason from rebellion, because they feared the penalties
of treason.
Mr. Wade. I wish to enquire of the Senator in what consisted the
treason of these persons? What were their overt acts?
Mr. Bayard. I am speaking of the organization of a government un¬
der the Topeka constitution ; not the formation of the constitution, but
the organization of a government under it. I say that was an act of re¬
bellion.
Mr. Wade. I do not know that I understand the Senator. Treason
consists, in this country, I believe, in levying war against the United
States or adhering to the public enemies. I want to know which of these
acts these people were guilty of, or what overt acts they committed
amounting to treason ?
Mr. Bayard. I will endeavor to make the honorable Senator under¬
stand me. I did not say that they had been guilty of treason. I said
they had stopped short at the line of treason, whatever they might have
contemplated. Though they committed a revolutionary act, an act of re¬
bellion, in forming a State constitution, and organizing a government un¬
der it without the consent of the United States, and in defiance of their
authority, and in defiance of the territorial government, they did not
commit treason unless they had attempted to sustain it by force of arms.
Mr. Wade. Will the gentleman inform me whether rebellion is a
crinie in this country? He speaks of a difference between treason and
rebellion. I do not understand any such difference; but if there be re¬
bellion, it is not criminal to my knowledge.
Mr. Bayard. Treason is a legal offence; there must be an overt
act accompanying it. You may speak of an act, sustained by force of
arms as rebellious or revolutionary, which is not treason—I use the words
in the same sense precisely—where an act is done contrary to law, and
subversive of legal authority. An organization may be effected for the
purpose of revolution ; and yet, if an overt act is not committed, and sus¬
tained by force of arms, it would not be treason. The distinction is very
apparent. I mean to say that any government is revolutionary in its
character which is set up in defiance of the existing government. Look
back to the revolution of 1688, in England, and you have an illustration.
The Crown was one of the estates of the realm. The constitution could
not be changed without the concurrent authority of the three estates, the
House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the Crown; but the Lords
and the Commons deposed the King, altered the line of succession, and
24
drove him from his throne without his consent. That was a revolution
because it was in defiance of the existing law and the existing authority.
What is the case here ? The United States authorized the formation
of a territorial government in Kansas. It was organized. No matter
whether there were irregularities or not, the lawful authority to determine
and certify the election of sufficient members for the organization of the
Legislature, having inspected the returns, did authorize the organization,
and it was recognized by Congress, and has been recognized since. A
portion of the people of Kansas chose to denounce this Legislature as a
fraud, as the result of an armed invasion from Missouri; and on this pre¬
tence, in defiance of the existing government, and against the authority
of the United States, called a convention for the purpose of forming a
State constitution. That they had a right to form a constitution and
present it to us for recognition, if they had not attempted to organize
a government under it, I do not deny—that would be a mere petition for
redress of alleged grievances; but they went further, and organized a
government under it. Everyjofficer whom they elected was sworn into of¬
fice, and sworn to perform his duty, and continue in the discharge of his
functions without reference to any authority or consent of Congress, or
any admission into the Union. That was an act of revolution and rebel¬
lion. Where is the difference between the Utah case and the conduct of
those who supported the Topeka movement, except in two respects ? One
.is, that the people of Utah stand in defiance of the laws of the United
States, in defence of the doctrine of polygamy; and the Topeka people
took their position in defiance of the laws of the United States on ac¬
count of their determination that under no circumstances should slavery
become an institution in the Territory of Kansas, whether legally estab¬
lished or not. The people of Utah being more numerous and more re¬
mote, have chosen to resist, by force of arms and military organization,
the Federal Government, and have become traitors as well as rebels.
The Topeka people stopped short, as I have stated, at the line which sep¬
arates rebellion, or revolution, from treason. Though they had organized
a government, and sworn their officers to support it and perform their du¬
ties without reference to any action of Congress, they shrank from placing
themselves in a treasonable position by attempting to sustain it by armed
force. I am glad they paused, and should have regretted deeply such a
result. Yet it is an undoubted fact that, such was their attitude in sup¬
port of the government which they had organized under the Topeka.con¬
stitution, that it required the forces of the United States to be kept there
for the purpose of preserving the peace and enforcing the laws ; and that
is one of the great evils which will be remedied by the immediate admis¬
sion of Kansas as a State.
I have admitted revolution would be justifiable if the evil was intolera¬
ble, and there were no other means of redress. Had not these people
other means of redress ? They aver they have a majority of the inhabi¬
tants of the Territory, and have had it for a long time. The election was
held for delegates to the constitutional convention in June, 1857.
Would they vote? No. Had they not a right to vote? Look at the
bill, and you will see that it secured a fair and full right of voting to
every citizen. When the delegates were elected, they would not vote j
25
nor would they vote when the constitution was submitted for ratifica¬
tion, although the opportunity to do so was fully and freely and
accorded. They were unwisely dissuaded, or perversely abstained, from
the exercise of their rights, at both these elections. If they be a
majority, they had the remedy in their own hands ; and if they be not a
majority, they have no right to deny that this constution is the will of
the people of Kansas, but are bound to obey it. If they had the majority
they could have elected the members of the convention in June, 1857,
and adopted their Topeka constitution, if they had seen fit, and ratified
it by a vote of the people in such manner as the convention deemed ad¬
visable ; and we could not, and would not, have denied the State admis¬
sion into the Union under it. Instead of taking this orderly course, they
stood aloof from all the legal elections down to October, 1857. It does
not lie in their mouths now to object to the legality of the Territorial
Legislature, after voting and carrying an election under its laws. The
truth is, that they adhered to the Topeka constitution, and maintained
their lawless and rebellious attitude down to October, 1857; and then,
being better advised, or finding it perilous to Assist in this course, they
abandoned it, and voted at the legislative election in October, 1857; but
still, the spirit of revolution or rebellion predominating, they would not
vote on the ratification of the constitution upon the 21st of December,
1857, though they did vote at a subsequent election, the effect of which
I shall consider hereafter.
They had then a peaceful remedy, and therefore a revolutionary course
was not justifiable. I have endeavored to show that they stood in an
attitude of rebellion to the territorial government—or a revolutionary
attitude, if that phrase be more agreeable to Senators—an attitude of re¬
sistance to the laws of the United States, for no one can deny that the
Territorial Legislature was recognized by the Executive Government of
the United States from the time of its origin, and that it constituted the
lawful government of the Territory, and resistance to it was revolution.
But, sir, there is something more. The people at Topeka, those who
there resisted the legal organization, and had nearly produced civil strife
by an attempt to inaugurate a government without color of law, did
not stop in their revolutionary movements with Kansas, but carried their
designs still further, and sought to involve this whole Union and disor¬
ganize the Federal Government. I will read the eighth resolution passed
at the mass meeting held at Topeka on the 4th of July, 1856. The Sen¬
ate will recollect that we had very arduous struggles here, during the
last Congress, about passing the different appropriation bills, unless with
riders placed upon them, by a majority of Republicans in the House of
Representatives recognizing the action of these Topeka revolutionists as
legitimate and proper—no rider of ours, but theirs. I find, in this eighth
resolution, where those extraordinary movements originated. That reso¬
lution is in these words:
" 8. Resolved, That having hitherto invariably acted in accordance with the spirit and
letter of the American Constitution, and having framed by our delegates regularly elected,
a State constitution ; and believing that the only measure by which peace can be secured
to this section of the Republic, and justice done to ourselves and posterity, is the immedi¬
ate admission of Kansas into the Union under our present constitution, we earnestly call
upon our friends in the National House of Representatives to stop all supplies until the Senate
and Executive are compelled to admit us."
26
Is not that a revolutionary attitude ? Is that the sentiments of law-
abiding citizens ? Because they choose to form a government against
the will of the legal government of Kansas, without color of law, and an
accidental majority of their friends is obtained in one branch of the Fed¬
eral Legislature, they advise those friends in the House of Representa¬
tives to disorganize the Federal Government, unless it will submit to their
acts of revolution and rebellion. Such was the advice. Ah ! Mr. Presi¬
dent, was it not acted upon ? Do we not all know that the appropriation
bills were put in hazard ? Do we not all know that the Army appropriation
bill was lost under the advice contained in that resolution, and that an
extra session of Congress had to be assembled, for the purpose of keep¬
ing the Army from actual disorganization, and preventing the country
from being left a prey to disorder ? There were provisoes in other appro¬
priation bills, which were ultimately given up ; but in regard to the bill
for the support of the Army of the United States, involving some fourteen
millions dollars, the House of Representatives tacked to it a proviso—
" That no part of the military force of the United States, for the support of which ap¬
propriations are made by this |ict, shall be employed in aid of the enforcement of any en¬
actment heretofore passed by the bodies claiming to be the Territorial Legislature of
Kansas."
That is the last form in which it appeared. In its first form, it was
still more objectionable. On that issue, the House of Representatives
adjourned, and the Army appropriation bill was lost. Is not that in
accordance with the advice given in this resolution, that unless we should
sanction revolution and rebellion against the authority of the United
States, and admit Kansas into the Union as a State, under a constitution
formed without color of law, and in defiance of existing authority, the
Government of the United States should be disorganized? Do we not
know, if that course had been persevered in, and the passage of the Army
bill had been finally defeated, an entire disorganization of the Army
throughout the country would have resulted, which would have cost the
country millions of dollars for reorganization, independent of the diffi¬
culties and evils which must have been consequent upon such indefensible
action? Congress adjourned on the 18th of August, the Army bill hav¬
ing been lost by the adherence of the House of Representatives to this
proviso, and on no other ground. Congress was reassembled, and new
bills were introduced, and the proviso was still adhered to. The last bill
finally came to us from the House of Representatives, with the proviso I
have read, on the 29th of August. In the Senate, the proviso was struck
out by a strict party vote. All the Senators on the other side, who were
present, with the single exception of the honorable Senator from New
York, who did not vote, because he stated that he had paired off, voted
against the passage of the bill, with the clause struck out. The vote
stood 7 to 25—every one of the seven being members of the Republican
party. The bill, with our amendment, went back to the House of Repre¬
sentatives, and there, upon concurring in the amendment, the vote stood
101 to 98—the 98 nays being composed entirely of members of the Re¬
publican party, and the 101 yeas of the American patty and the Demo¬
cratic members of the House of Representatives. The bill thus was finally
passed, which prevented the disorganization of the Army, and the stop¬
page of supplies so as tt> affect the Government generally, as well as keep
27
up the disorganization in Kansas, in accordance with the wishes of these
peaceable, orderly citizens, who stood in no revolutionary attitude to the
Government of the United States!
Mr. President, there is another question which I propose to notice
briefly—the vote under legislative authority on January 4, 1858, which
is claimed as evidence that this constitution is not the legally-expressed
will of the people of Kansas. Now, I have already stated what I con¬
sider the only legitimate evidence which we can accept of the will of a
people—their vote, when a question is rightfully and legally submitted to
them. I have endeavored to show that at previous elections this matter
was legally submitted. There were ten thousand two ■ hundred votes
polled at this election on the 4th of January. The answer is, that after
the Territorial Legislature once appealed to the people of Kansas to de¬
cide whether they would form a State government, and the people had
responded to them by authorizing the call for a convention, and a conven¬
tion had been elected and formed a constitution, no subsequent Territo¬
rial Legislature had authority to control the action of that convention;
because, whenever the people have authorized the assembling of a con¬
vention to form a constitution, its power is paramount over the existing
territorial authority. Take the case of the Legislature of any of your
States; the legislative power is superseded, because, when the Legisla¬
ture pass a law to ascertain by a vote of the people whether a convention
shall be held, and the people authorize it, the power springs from them ;
and then comes the act of the act of the Legislature regulating the time,
mode, and place of electing delegates, in obedience to the public will;
but when the convention assembles, is it not paramount to the legislative
authority ? and has any subsequent Legislature authority to qualify, or
in any way interfere with, the acts of that convention ? It represents
the entire sovereignty of the State, and may adopt a constitution with or
without submission for ratification by the people. It may submit for rat¬
ification the constitution it has formed, in such mode as is deemed ad¬
visable, either as a whole, or in different parts ; but no subsequent Legis¬
lature can stand for the purpose of amending the constitution in any oth¬
er position than as subordinate to the paramount power which the people
have vested in the constitutional convention. Such would be the case in
a State. The Territorial Legislature of Kansas, which called the con¬
vention, stood in precisely the same relation to subsequent Legislatures af¬
ter the members of the convention had been elected, that a State Legis¬
lature would stand to its successors; and a subsequent State Legislature
has no authority to interfere with the action of a State convention. It
is for the people, and for the people alone, to remedy their action when
the constitution has been adopted, or is submitted for ratification by the
convention.
The law authorizing the vote in January was utterly irregular; not
revolutionary, because it was the act of the existing authority in the
State; but it was an excess of power, and therefore nugatory and void.
The Legislature had no right to interfere with the action of the convention.
Its interfence was irregulaA* and unlawfnl, but not revolutionary. I can¬
not regard the vote taken under the action of the Territorial Legislature
as the will of the people of Kansas legally expressed. I cannot go behind
28
the election of delegates to form the constitution when all might have
voted if they had seen fit. I cannot admit that the Legislature may in«
terfere with and abrogate the action of the constitutional convention which
was legally authorized. I therefore should disregard this vote, without
reference to it samount, as evidence of the legally expressed will of the
people. There is, however, a further answer. On the same day, and
under a power which the convention undoubtedly possessed, an election
Was held for the purpose of choosing the officers of fthis inchoate State
which was to become a State whenever Congress should recognize and
admit it into the Union. At that election on the same day, under legiti¬
mate authority, there were between twelve and thirteen thousand votes
polled for State officers. It is true the result of that election, as now an¬
nounced, has given the State into the hands of those who are opposed to
me in political sentiments. I care not for that; but beyond all contro¬
versy, those who voted at the election recognized and ratified the constition
under which they voted for the election of officers. At that election, the
aggregate of the votes polled exceeds by two thousand any vote ever
before polled in Kansas, and it must be looked upon as operating as a
condrmation of the constition bocause a large majority of the people, larger
than any number that ever voted against, voted under it. I may be told
that a portion of those who voted for officers under this constitution were
the same persons who voted against the constitution on the same day
under an irregular election. My answer is that the acts would be incon¬
sistent, and the regular act must prevail. I cannot assume it. I do not
know it. It may be that they were totally distinct men. It may be that
the ten thousand who voted against the constitution, or a part of them,
belonged to that portion of the people who, seeing the destruction of their
own interests arising from continual feuds and continual disorganization
in Kansas, had come to a determination to abide by the laws; and that that
portion of the free-State party and the opposite party combined outnum¬
bered those who still wish to maintain Kansas in a state of disorganization
and revolution. I think that not improbable; though the opinion is merely
conjectural, and the fact immaterial. I find a legal vote, taken under
legal authority in the one case, and an irregular vote in the other. The
legal vote so taken shows two thousand majority over this irregular vote,
with all its boasted effect; and I hold, therefore, that it operates of neces¬
sity as evidence that the will of the people of Kansas is that this con¬
stitution shall stand until they see fit to amend or abrogate it. It shows,
further, that the less partisan portion of the free-State party have deter¬
mined to return to a government of law and order.
Mr. President, there is another question which I shall endeavor to treat
succinctly, but it is too important to be passed without notice, and has
been made the subject of extended comment by the Senator from Michi¬
gan ; and my opinions are so entirely at variance with his, that I cannot
hesitate to declare them, and give the authorities by which they are sup¬
ported. It is contended by him, and also by the honorable Senator from
Illinois, that where a provision exists in the constitution of a State, pre¬
scribing a mode in which that constitution may be amended, it follows
that though the right may exist in the people at large to alter their con¬
stitution at all times, yet the exercise of the right would be revolutionary,
29
and that no amendment can be constitutionally made, except according to the
terms prescribed in the constitution. I hold-not only that there is no ob¬
ligation to follow the mode prescribed in the constitution, though it may
be the more convenient course, but that if a constitution expressly pro¬
hibited, as the Topeka constitution did, any convention from being held
prior to the year 1865, the provision would be merely void and of no valid¬
ity, as against the right of the people to change it; and that the right can
ibe exercised, notwithstanding the provision to the contrary, by perfectly
■peaceful means, without revolution. On this question it is requisite to
state my view of the principle on which our State governments rest, and
J shall then proceed to point out the distinction applicable to the Federal
Government.
| What is the basis of all our State governments? That from the nature
>of man it necessarily results that in the formation of mankind into dis¬
tinct communities, the only admissible axiom is, that the power of self-
rgovernment is inherent in the people at large, and of necessity to be ex¬
ercised by a majority.
Two propositions are essential parts of the axiom. First, that the
xright of government vests in the people at large ; and secondly, that a
^majority of those who choose to act may organize a government; and the
;fight to change is included in the principle which gives the authority to
organize.
: The constitution of a State cannot restrain or impair this right; be¬
cause it exists in the people outside of the constitution. It is the politi¬
cal axiom upon which the constitution itself is founded.
r In governments founded on the social compact, no express or actual
jontract exists between the different members of society ; but the theory
,;s that the consent of of all is implied, and an indefinite authority exists
~n the majority to bind the whole.
~ This assumed right of the majority under the axiom must exist at all
"imes, and cannot be controverted, except by those who place the right of
government on some other foundation.
Whence does the right of the majority spring to form governments, if
:: .ot from the assumed- principle, the doctrine of implied compact, as the
"rue basis of government ?
If the people of one generation have an inherent right to form gov¬
ernments, the same inherent right must exist unfettered in those of a
-:ibsequent generation.
# The right of the majority to organize a government under the law of
le social compact, precludes any power in that majority to render the
Government they form unalterable, either for twenty or ten years, or for
:>ie year ; because such a restriction is inconsistent with their own author¬
ity to form a government, and at war the very axiom from which their
3*vn power to act is derived.
G The Senator from Illinois admits the right; but considers that, where
iii*e constitution prohibits change, or specifies a mode of change, altera¬
tion in any other mode would be an act of revolution. In this I differ
^ith him. The change of organic law in modes other than those speci-
• ^d in the constitution, may be made without revolution in the present re-
30
eeived sense of the word. Wherever the ultimate power of government
rests, there the power to change its form must rest.
I have stated the principle without enlarging upon it, on which, I sup¬
pose, all national governments rest, and all the governments of these
States "are national. They have no other basis, if it be not the doctrine
of the social compact. They are national because they were all independent
sovereignties, constituting separate nations, when they entered into a
Confederacy, and subsequently formed the Federal Government which
now exists. They parted with certain powers of sovereignty, but their
distinct nationality none the less exists. They are national governments,
as contradistinguished from the Government of the United States, which
is Federal; and the social compact is the only basis supported by reasoh
or authority for forming a government by the will of the majority. The
law of that social compact which renders obligatory the action of a ma¬
jority, can rest only on the political axiom I have stated,* and the axiom
as necessarily continues the right in posterity to alter as it assumes the
original right to form governments. As to the mode of exercise being
revolutionary, the answer is obvious. Wherever the ultimate power and
the legislative power are in one and the same body, the change of gov¬
ernment may be made without revolution at any time, by mere legislation.
Take England : if the Crown, Lords, and Commons, which constitute not
only the legislative but the ultimate power, see fit to change the Brit¬
ish Constitution, either by a reform bill, altering the structure of the
House of Commons, or by making peers of the realm elective, as ten¬
ants for life instead of hereditary, or by abolishing hereditary descent of
the Crown, or altering the line of succession and providing for the as¬
cent of some other family to the throne; if the three estates of the realm
constituting the ultimate power of sovereignty—the Crown, the Lords,
and the Commons—assent to such change, they possessing, also, the le¬
gislative power, of course there could be no revolution. Revolution must
include resistance to existing governmental authority. The change must
always be peaceful and strictly legal- when made by the authority of the
ultimate power and legislative power combined in the same persons. The
difference in our Republics is, that the ultimate power reposes in the peo¬
ple. The honorable Senator from Michigan, and the honorable Senator
from Illinois, do not deny the right of the people to change a government
whenever they see fit. Such denial would be very inconsistent with their
doctrines of popular sovereignty; but they contend that the people can¬
not exercise the right except by revolution, unless in the mode prescribed
in the constitution. If a majority of the people have the right to change
their form of government, as they have the means always of bringing the
legislative power into accord with the ultimate power, all that is necessary
is to elect a Legislature which will provide for holding a convention, and
as the right exists, of course the exercise of the right cannot be revolu¬
tionary if it is in accordance with the will of the existing government.
If I am right in my principle as to the basis of all governments founded
on the social compact, the very authority to form a constitution of neces¬
sity includes the right of change in the people, and that right of the peo¬
ple need not be exercised in a revolutionary manner because having at all
times the control over the Legislature, and revolution consisting in resis-
31
tance to the existing authority, the people can always bring their Legis¬
lature into accordance with the ultimate power in themselves, and^so ex¬
ercise their right peacefully and without rovolution.
But, sir, it may be and has been said that this doctrine is dangerous ;
that it is revolutionary ; that it would lead to constant changes of govern¬
ment, if not to anarchy. Mr. President, the man who believes in the ca¬
pacity of the people for self-government, cannot assume that because the
right to change exists, it will be exercised without cause. There exists,
on the contrary, indelibly implanted in the human heart a spirit of resis¬
tance, which prompts to the assertion of a real or supposed right from its
mere denial; when the right is conceded, the individual would care little
for its exercise. The same spirit of resistance exists with greater force in
communities of men, and therefore restrictions upon the acknowledged
right inherent in the people at all times, in national governments, to form
or change their'governments, inserted in a constitution, but tend to stimu¬
late the assertion of the right, when otherwise no change would be desired
or thought necessary. The right will be asserted because the attempted
restriction involves its existence; and the importance of that principle
quickens the spirit of resistance, without regard to the extent of change
which may be desired. In a community capable of self-government, the
right to change their form of government without restriction, at all times,
will not conduce to mutability by its too frequent exercise. It will be
sufficient for them that the right is acknowledged to exist.
The doctrine for which I have contended does not stand upon theoretic
reasoning alone. It is supported both by practice and authority. In
many of the States of this Union, certainly in New York, in Maryland,
and in my own State, it has been acted upon, and constitutions changed
in modes other than those prescribed in them, without revolution. It was
sustained in practice in my own State to its fullest extent, and sustained
by men who understood the principles of republican government quite as
well as their posterity at this day. The first convention to form a consti¬
tution in the State of Deleware was held in the year 1776. It provided
for no convention whatever to change the constitution, but contained this
provision:
" No article of the declaration of rights and fundamental rule of this State, agreed to by
this convention, nor the first, second, fifth, (except that part thereof that relates to the
right of suffrage,) twenty-sixth, and twenty-ninth articles of this constitution, ought ever
to be violated on any pretence whatever. No other part of this constitution shall he
altered, changed, or diminished, without the consent of five parts in seven of the Assembly,
and seven members of the Legislative Council."
The Legislative Council consisted of nine members, and therefore it
required seven ninths of one body, and five sevenths of the other, to make
any alteration of that constitution; and it was to be altered in no other
mode according to its terms. The people of Delaware, in the year 1791,
becoming satisfied that the constitution required alteration, the Legisla¬
ture without hesitation passed an act in which they recited the principles
which I have mentioned as the foundation of government. The recital
reads thus:
' " By the thirtieth article of the constitution of this State, the power of revising the
same, and of altering and amending certain parts thereof, is vested in the General As¬
sembly ; and it appears to this House'that the exercise of the power of altering and
amending the constitution by the Legislature would not be productive of all the valuable
32
purposes intended by a revision, nor be so satisfactory and agreeable to our constituents ;
and that it would be more proper and expedient to recommend to the good people of this
State to choose deputies for this special,purpose to meet in convention."
Then follows the enacting clause authorizing the election of delegates
to a convention to change the constitution. Delegates were elected and
the constitution was changed, and no man in the State of Delaware ques¬
tioned the legality of the act or pretended that it was revolutionary, and
yet here was an express inhibition against any other mode of change
than the mode specified. The next constitution, adopted in 1792 by a
convention of which John Dickerson was a member, contained a provision
which it would be well, in my judgment, to insert in every State consti¬
tution. It provided, in accordance with the principle of the right of the
people to self-government, that at every annual election the people might
vote for holding a constitutional convention, and if they did so vote, it
was mandatory on the Legislature to call a convention. It is strong evi¬
dence that mutability of government is not a consequence of yielding to
the people the unrestricted right to change, in a legitimate and legal
mode, their form of government, that the people of Delaware remained
under that constitution from 1792 to 1831 without calling a convention,
though it might have been done by a majority vote in any one year.
The constitution as amended in 1831 continues to the present day. I cite
this to show that the recognition of the right in the people to change
their constitution every year by the expression of their will at any gen¬
eral election, does not lead to a frequent exercise of the right. Sir, no
man is more opposed to mutability of government than I; no man would
sooner lose his confidence in the capacity of any people for self-government
if constant change was their incessant cry; but the existence of the power
and its frequent exercise are very different things. In my belief, the
attempt to restrict the power leads to more frequent changes than the
acknowledged exisence of a right which underlies the constitution of
every republican State, with proper provisions for its exercise in a legal
and orderly mode at all times.
But, Mr. President, I have said there is a distinction between the State
governments and the Federal Government. A State government is na¬
tional in its character; this government is Federal. The illustration of
Mr. Webster applies only to the Federal Government. The Government
of the United States is formed by the people of the several States of this
Union. It is Federal in the extent of its powers ; Federal in its founda¬
tion, but national in the operation of those powers. It is, a mixed Re¬
public ; a Government founded not on the law of the social compact, but
on the express contract of separate, independent sovereignties, and it
cannot be altered except according to the terms prescribed in the con¬
tract, unless by the unanimous consent of the parties,. It is as regards
amendments, analogous to a treaty which is the .contract of sovereigns in¬
capable of alteration without the consent of both parties. Unless the
alteration were made in accordance with the provisions of the constitu¬
tion, like an infraction by one sovereign of a treaty made with another,
the act would justify its entire abrogation. Though a government, it is
a government formed by express compact of separate sovereignties, and
the infraction of the instrument which forms and is the only evidence of
33
the compact, by attempting to amend or alter it in any other mode than
that prescribed, unless with the unanimous consent of all the separate
sovereignties, which are parties to it, would destroy the government itself,
by destroying the very basis on which it rests. The distinction is, that
the Government of the United States is not founded, though the State
governments are, on any political axiom, but on the express contract of
separate sovereignties.
On this question I do not rely upon my own opinions or my own argu¬
ment. Though to me the principle is clear, I may not have presented
that principle with sufficient force; but I cannot be mistaken either in the
weight of the authority, or in the fact that that authority supports the
position I have taken as to the basis both of the Federal and State gov-
ernmentsr The authority is Mr. Madison, and among all the statesmen
who have flourished in this country, no more philosophical mind has ex¬
isted than that of James Madison. He had what is rarely united in man :
great comprehensiveness and power of generalization, with thorough
power of analysis. In speaking of the old Confederacy, in reply to Mr.
Patterson, of New Jersey, Mr. Madison, in the course of his argument,
holds this language : (volume 5, page 206, of the Debates of the Federal
Convention:)
" It has been alleged (by Mr. Patterson) that the Confederation, having been formed by
unanimous consent, could be dissolved by unanimous consent only. Does this doctrine re¬
sult from the nature of compacts ? Does it arise from any particular stipulation in the arti¬
cles of Confederation ? If we consider the Federal Union as analogous to the fundamental
compact by which individuals compose one society, and which must, in its theoretic ori¬
gin at least, have been the unanimous act of the component members, it cannot be said
that no dissolution of the compact can be effected without unanimous consent. A breach
of the fundamental principles of the compact by a part of the society would certainly
absolve the other part from their obligations to it. If the breach of any article, by any
of the parties, does not set the others at liberty, it is because the contrary is implied in
the compact itself, and particularly by that law of it which gives an indefinite authority
to the majority to bind the whole, in all cases. This latter circumstance shows that we
are not to consider the Federal Union as analogous to the social compact of individuals ;
for, if it were so. a majority would have a right to bind the rest, and even to form a new
constitution for the whole ; which the gentlemen from New Jersey would be among the
last to admit. If we consider the Federal Union as analogous, not to the social compacts
among individual men, but to the conventions among individual States, what is the doc¬
trine resulting from these conventions ? Clearly, according the to the expositors of the law
of nations, that a breach of any one article, by any one party, leaves all the other parties
at liberty toconsider the whole convention as dissolved, unless they choose rather to com¬
pel the delinquent party to repair the breach."
I will next quote from the thirty-ninth number of the Federalist, at
page 241, Mr. Madison's language in exposition of the Constitution. I
might multiply extracts, but those which I shall present are strong enough
for my purpose:
" If we try the Constitution by its last relation to the authority by which amendments
are to be made, we find it neither wholly national nor wholly federal. Were it wholly
national, the supreme and ultimate authority would reside in the majority of the people
of the Union ; and this authority would be competent at all times, like that of a majority
of every national society, to alter or abolish its established Government."
Not by revolution, because I have shown you that if the ultimate power
exists with the people, it can always be peaceably exercised, as the peo¬
ple can bring the Legislature into accordance with their will at all times,
3
34
and therefore any attempt to destroy this right, which exists at all times
would be beyond the power of any constitution.
" Were it wholly federal, on the other hand, the concurrence of each State in the
Union would be essential to every alteration that would be binding on all. The mode
provided by the plan of the convention is not founded on either of these principles. In
requiring more than a majority, and particularly in computing the proportion by States,
not by citizens, it departs from the national and advances towards the federal character.
In rendering the concurrence of less than the whole number of States sufficient, it loses
again the federal and partakes of the national character."
Further quotation is unnecessary. The authority is quite high enough
—certainly for me, and, I think, for the people of this country, and is sup¬
ported by reason and by principle.
I waive all discussions of the question whether the Lecompton con¬
stitution intends to restrict all amendments until 1864. I do not so read
it; but believing any such restriction upon the right of the people to al¬
ter, their organic law would be merely void, the inquiry is needless as to what
was the intent of the framers of the Constitution in this respect.
Mr. President, I have closed my argument on the objections to the admis¬
sion of Kansas, which I admitted to be sufficient if sustained, but there re¬
mains what I called the question which addresses itself to the Senate.
Do the best interests of the Union—its peace, quiet, and repose—de¬
mand the present admission of Kansas as a State, or do they require the
rejection of the Lecompton constitution ? To me it seems perfectly clear,
that by disconnecting the Territory of Kansas as a Territory from the
Federal Government, you prevent agitation on a question perilous to the
Union.
Admit Kansas, and you can withdraw the Army which has been kept
there for years to preserve peace and enforce the laws, and you will leave
the people of Kansas as you have the people of every other State, to fight
out their own battles, pass their own laws, and settle their own institu¬
tions. When you force on them, as it is contended you do, this constitu¬
tion, you but yield to them the entire control of their own affairs. You
also localize an agitation in reference/to the question of slavery, and the set¬
tlement of the institutions of Kansas, which ought to be localized, and which
properly belongs to the people of Kansas, and to them alone. But if you re¬
fuse to admit Kansas as a State into theUnion under the constitution presen¬
ted to us, it will be considered by the great body of the people in the slave-
holding States of this country as a determination by Congress that in fu¬
ture no State even tolerating slavery shall be admitted into the Federal
Union: and, in truth, such is the determination, and such is the real ob¬
ject of the major part of the opponents of the Lecompton constitu¬
tion—the Republican party. Sir, whenever that becomes the settled con¬
viction of the.slaveholding States, rely upon it that the bonds which bind
this Union will soon be severed. I say this, not because I desire or would
promote such a result ; not that I consider, whether Kansas be admitted
under the Lecompton constitution or rejected,; either event would justify
a dissolution of the Union, but because I canno t shut my eyes to a danger
which I believe to be imminent, but not realized by the public sentiment
of the people of the middle States,
35
Sir, no effort of mine which could preserve this Union, or tend to its
permanence, will ever be spared. I claim no better intentions than other
men ; but from the fact that the political existence of my own State de¬
pends upon its permanence, naturally her citizens look with more rev¬
erence and more regard to the preservation of the Union than the citizens
of larger States, which may be supposed able to maintain their political
existence outside of the Federal organization.
For the reasons which I have stated, I believe that the passage of this
bill will—not stop the agitation of the slavery question in some form, but
will remove one practical disturbing cause, connected with that question,
from the Halls of Congress and from the minds of the people of the coun¬
try. It will do that good, at least; and if, in the progress of time, the
public sentiment of the country can be brought to view this system of agi¬
tation rightly, we may hope that no other question will arise that can put
the Union in peril.
Mr. President, I heard, with extreme regret, the declarations made by
the honorable Senator from New York. That honorable Senator, if I
understood the purport of his remarks—and I shall read those passages
on which I intend to comment—has declared to us what I have always
feared, whatever might be their present intentions, would become the ul¬
timate object of the Republican party; and that is, the placing of the
negro race on an equality with the white race throughout the United
States, as to all civil and political rights. That is their ultimate doctrine
whatever may be the professed doctrine now, and for that purpose, by all
the powers they can legitimately exercise after obtaining the control of
the Federal Government, they mean to induce, if not force, the emanci¬
pation of all slaves throughout the United States. No thanks to them
for the admission that the power is not claimed to abolish slavery in a
State through the agency of the Federal Government—every one knows
that that would be impracticable folly; but if, holding the doctrine that
it is their duty to abolish slavery througout the United States, and to
place the negro on an equality with the white man, as to his civil and po¬
litical rights, they obtain the control of the Federal Government, and
wield it even to the extent of controverted constitutional powers, for the
destruction of the institution of slavery, of course, when they obtain that
power, this Union must necessarily perish, because not merely the wealth
but the existence of the planting States—their social relations and civili¬
zation, are inseparably connected with that institution. Yet such I un¬
derstand to be the doctrine of the honorable Senator from New York.
Allow me to read from his speech:
"Free labor has at last apprehended its rights, its interests, its power, and its detiny,
and is organizing itself to assume the government of the Republic. I will henceforth
meet you boldly and resolutely here ; it will meet you everywhere, in the Territories or
out of them, wherever you may go to extend slavery. It has d#ven you back in Califor¬
nia and in Kansas ; it will invade you soon in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri,
and Texas. It will meet you in Arizona, in Central America, and even in Cuba. The in¬
vasion will be not merely harmless, but beneficent, if you yield seasonably to its just and
moderated demands. It proved so in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the
other slave States, which have already yielded in that way to its advances. You may,
indeed get a start under or near the tropics, and seem safe for a time, but it will be only
a short time. Even there you will found States only for free labor to maintain and oc¬
cupy The interest of the white race demands the ultimate emancipation of all men.
36
Whether that consummation shall be allowed to take effect, with needful and wise pre¬
cautions against sudden change and disaster, or be hurried on by violence, is all that re¬
mains for you to decide. For the failure of your system of slave labor throughout the
Republic, the responsibility will rest not on the agitators you condemn, or on the politi¬
cal parties you arraign, or even altogether on yourselves, but it will be due to the inhe¬
rent error of the system itself, and to the error which thrusts it forward to oppose and
resist the destiny, not more of the African than that of the white races."
I can draw from these declarations, and they are well considered and
deliberately made, but one conclusion, that whatever may be the measure
of the hour, the ultimate views of the party of which the honorable Sena¬
tor stands, if not the sole leader, at least one of its chief exponents, are
the emancipation of the black race, on the ground that it is demanded
by the interest of the white races. The avowed intent is not merely a
restriction on the admission of new States into this Union with constitu¬
tions tolerating slavery, which admission he calls the extension of slavery;
but he tells you that he will attack the institution in every State in which
it now exists, in some of which it forms the very basis of their social or¬
ganization. He tells you tha't the object of his party is to proceed until
they have placed all men on an equality by emancipation.
Mr. President, dearly as I love my country, whenever the hour comes
when, with large relative numbers of an inferior race residing in the same
community with a superior race, incapable of an amalgamation, which is
alike revolting to the instincts of humanity and destructive of the better
characteristics of both races, there is to be equality of races, civil and
political, I desire no longer to be a citizen of the United States. It can
never come without bloodshed and civil war. The honorable Senator tells
us if we submit to their beneficent demands it will be well for us. The
demands are, that the whole social structure throughout every south¬
ern State of the Union shall be subverted, almost the entire property of
every southern State abandoned, and all the flourishing planting States
of the South reduced to the condition which Jamaica and Hayti now oc¬
cupy, or to that which Mexico presents to the civilized world. If we will
not consent to this by submitting to their counsels, he intimates that vio¬
lence will ultimately achieve that result, because he thinks "the interest
of the white races demands the ultimate emancipation of all men."
I do not know whether the honorable Senator, in predicting the results
to be reached when his party shall have achieved power, has considered
the effect of this universal emancipation and the mode in which it is to
take place. I do not know whether he looks to amalgamation, or to the
extinction of the black race; or, it may be, to the extinction of the white
race in the southern country. Which of them he contemplates, he has
not told us; but I hold it to be a truth as eternal as the records of history
that no instance can be found where two races of men have inhabited in
large relative numbers the same country, unless they were capable of
amalgamation and fusion; they have existed together without one^ or the
other becoming the subject race, or one or the other being exterminated.
Nor will the future contradict the past. How has it been with your In¬
dians ? When the whites came here they found this country with a dense
population of Indians; but the Indian, too proud for subjection, has per¬
ished before the onward march of civilization. The negro, whose condi-
37
tion throughout all history, in contact with the white race, has been one
of subjection, has yielded to it because it is suitable to his more animal
nature, and essential to his civilization, to the extent of his capacity.
Subjection must be the condition of his race, where it exists in large re¬
lative numbers, for his own benefit as well as ours; unless you come to
the.conclusion that amalgamation is possible and desirable. You have
the effect of that in Mexico, and I suppose no Senator wishes to reduce
the white people of this country to the condition exhibited by the mixed
races of Mexico.
Such a mixture of races is forbidden by the laws of nature, and at war
with progressive civilization. I leave to the physiologists the decision of
the question of the original unity or diversity of races; but it is an un¬
deniable truth, though the offspring of the white and the negro is not
strictly hybrid, that in the mixed race produced by their union, the ca¬
pacity of reproduction is lessened, and the duration of life shortened. I
want no better evidence of the impossibility, under the laws of nature and
the instincts of humanity, that the union of these races can be productive
of benefit to either.
The honorable Senator from New York, on another occasion, during
the present session, declared on the floor of the Senate, that under no
circumstances could he vote to recognize the right of property in man
I know how easy it is to raise a specious argument, founded on whatis
called the law of nature, as to rights of property of any kind. The hon¬
orable Senator from New York may tell us that man should not hold
property in man. It is a good subject for declamation, and naturally
appeals to human sympathies and human feelings. With the exception
of where it is forced upon you by the existence of an inferior race in the
same country, in large numbers, I hold to the same doctrine myself. But
if you press that doctrine on the theoretical ground that man should not
hold property in man, by the law of nature, let me ask, where does your
authority to hold any property spring from ? I have been lately looking
at a treatise—and an English treatise, too—published within a few years
past, on the law of nations ; and the law of nations is a law of perfect ob¬
ligation as to property, which binds all nations, and I hold, does bind the
Federal States of this Union, as regards rights of property. I there find
the doctrine thus laid down.
Mr. Seward. What book is it ?
Mr. Bayard. Wildman on International Law. At page 10, speaking
of slavery, he says :
" It is found existing, and, as far as appears, without animadversion, in the earliest and
most authentic records of the human race. It is recognized by the codes of the most pol¬
ished races of antiquity. Under the light of Christianity itself, the possession of persons
so acquired has been, in every civilized country, invested with the character of property,
and secured as such by all the protections of the law. Solemn treaties have been framed,
and national monopolies eagerly sought, to facilitate the commerce in this asserted prop¬
erty; and all this, with all the sanction of law, public and municipal."
Mr. President, if a right of property, recognized in all ages, sanc¬
tioned under Christian and heathen dispensations, can be questioned now,
when the preservation of that right involves not merely the prosperity,
but the entire wealth, the civilization and the very existence of the South-
38
era States, has the honorable Senator from New York no fears that at
some future day some speculative mind may start the idea that if you are
to rest the right of property on the law of nature, (of which I shall speak
presently,) you may extend the investigation still further, and reach the
conclusion that, by the law of nature, man has no right to property of any
kind, except while in his immediate occupation. It would be a most at¬
tractive theory for the socialist. It would he just as defensible and just
as specious as the view of the honorable Senator from New York as to
the right of the white race to hold negroes as slaves. The difference in
effect would be, that while his doctrine would simply devastate one sec¬
tion of this country, its extension to the right of property generally be¬
yond its actual occupation, would destroy civilization throughout the
continent. Such doctrine is no novelty. La propriete c est le vol, is the
language of the French socialist, Proudhom, and his followers have not
been few; not would it be difficult to find specious arguments in support of
that delusion.
In either case, the answer is obvious, that property is the result of
the organization of mankind into civilized communities. It is a civil right,
arising out of the complex relations induced by civilization; and, unless
it is considered desirable to retrograde to a savage state, it must be pro¬
tected without regard to visionary efforts to trace its origin to some sup¬
posed law of nature. The passion for acquisition is indelibly implanted
in the heart of man; and, if you deprive him of the right of acquisition
and transmission to his children, you paralize his energies, and remove
the basis of progressive civilization. Tell the world that man shall hold
property which he has acquired only whilst it is in his actual possession
and use, and human progress terminates it once and forever. So, too, if
carrying into practice the doctrines of the honorable Senator from New
York, you can and do force upon the southern people the emancipation
of their slaves; the prosperity and civilization of the South will pass
away, her social fabric be subverted, and her very name be obliterated in
the future annals of the country.
Sir, what is this law of nature ? Do honorable Senators who deny
rights of property recognized by public and municipal law and by the
law of nations on the ground that it is contrary to the law of nature,
mean the primary or secondary law of nature, according to the theories
of the Roman lawyers ? They tell us that the primary law of nature
"consists of those instincts which are common to all animals, such as natu¬
ral affection and the like." Of course that can afford no rule of proper¬
ty applicable to civilized communities. The secondary law of nature is
defined as consisting of those institutions "which natural reason has es¬
tablished among mankind." In its modern acceptation the law of nature
means nothing more than natural justice and equity—the law of ethics.
If that be the law of nature referred to, the answer is, that the natural
law of ethics founded on man's infirm reason, which even in the brightest
intellect is too often perverted and clouded by disease, by the passions,
and other causes, has been superseded by the revealed law, for the pur-
39
pose of human obligation, in all Christian communities. Blackstone
■writes thus:
"Yet, undoubtedly, the revealed law is of infinitely more authenticity than that moral
system which is framed by ethical writers, and denominated natural law. Because one
is the law of nature, expressly declared so to he by God himself ; the other is only what,
by the assistance of human reason, we imagine to be that law."
Looking to the revealed law of God, if you take the Jewish dispensa¬
tion—and it is beyond controversy, that under it slavery was authorized
not only of Jews to a limited extent, but permanent slavery, chattel
slavery of the heathen—even though you regard that dispensation as ap¬
plicable only to a peculiar people under peculiar circumstances, it re¬
quires great confidence in human intellect to pronounce institutions formed
under the immediate mandate of the Creator a violation of any law of
morals or of ethics. Passing from that to the advent of our Savior,
search through the New Testament, and though slavery was then the law of
the civilized world, though slavery was all around Him, and His mission
was to reform the morals as well as the religion of the world, where do
you find His condemnation of this institution, or inhibition of the right
of property in man, as violative of the law of morals ? Sir, it is a
political institution founded on the progress of civilization and the natu¬
ral relations of races in this world.
When gentlemen indulge in denunciation of negro slavery as a vio¬
lation of the law of God, and of the laws of nature, whatever respect I
may have for them individually, I attach little weight to that opinion
which attempts to establish a refinement of the law of morals as a rule of
human conduct and human legislation, which is not recognized in the re¬
vealed will of the Almighty.
Mr. President, there are other views and facts in relation to the rela¬
tive condition of the two races which exist in this country, which I had
contemplated presenting, but I forbear, as I have already trespassed
longer upon your patience than I intended. I trust that Kansas will be
admitted into the Union ; I trust that even on the other side of this cham¬
ber they will weigh the fact that their great object can be effected, and
Kansas made a non-slaveholding State by the Legislature elected under
the present constitution. I am confident the cost in money would never
weigh with them, and the right of compensation for property taken for
what is deemed a public good should be freely acknowledged, as it was
recognized property when the constitution was formed. They can achieve
their object by the Legislature which has been elected in Kansas provi¬
ding a sufficient fund to pay the owners for the value of less than three
hundred slaves now there, and then have full authority to abolish slavery
in Kansas by mere legislative enactment. If that be, as I believe, the real
basis of the contest with them, and they desire the permanence of this
Union, why should they seek to keep up an agitation which cannot sub¬
side whilst Kansas remains in a Territorial condition ?
Sir, this Union has hitherto withstood many trials in the contests of
sections and parties, and I would fain hope, almost against belief, that it
may endure through many more. But Senators .may rely that we cannot
remain a united people, if the non-slaveholding States, acting up to the
40
declaration of the honorable Senator from New York, persistently con¬
tinue agitation with a view to the emancipation of the negro slaves of the
South. I have confidence, however, in the intelligence of the northern
masses, and believe that when they truly appreciate that the real and
ultimate object of these incessant attacks upon the institution of slavery,
is to place the negro on an equality with the white man, their decision
will rebuke agitation, and preserve the Union. My confidence is increased
by the fact that whenever this question of equality of races has been
hitherto presented to the people of any northern State, except Massa¬
chusetts, they have uniformly sustained the ascendency of their own race.
Polkinhora's Steam Printing Office, D street, bet, 6th & 7th sts
FREEDOM EST KANSAS.
SPEECH
OF
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
MARC JET 3, 1858.
WASHINGTON.
BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS.
STEREOTYPE EDITION.
1858.
SPEECH OF MR. SEWARD.
Mr. President : Eight years ago, we slew the
Wilmot Proviso in the Senate Chamber, and
buried it with triumphal demonstrations under
the floors of the Capitol. Four years later, we
exploded altogether the time-honored system of
governing the Territories by Federal rules and
regulations, and published and proclaimed in its
stead a new gospel of popular sovereignty, whose
ways, like those of wisdom, were to be ways of
pleasantness, and all of whose paths were sup¬
posed to be flowery paths of peace. Neverthe¬
less, the question whether there shall be Slavery
or no Slavery in the Territories, is again the stir¬
ring passage of the day. The restless Proviso
has burst the cerements of tne grave, and, striking
hands here in our very presence with the gentl'e
spirit of popular sovereignty run mad, is seen
raging freely in our halls, scattering dismay
among the Administration benches in both
Houses of Congress. Thus an old and unwel¬
come lesson is read to us anew. The question
of Slavery in the Federal Territories, which are
the nurseries of future States, independently of
all its moral and humane elements, involves a
dynastical struggle of two antagonistical sys¬
tems, the labor of slaves and the labor of free¬
men, for mastery in the Federal Union. One of
these systems partakes of an aristocratic charac¬
ter ; the other is purely democratic. Each one
of the existing States has staked, or it will ulti¬
mately stake, not only its internal welfare, but
also its influence in the Federal councils, on the
decision of that contest. Such a struggle is not
to be arrested, quelled, or reconciled, by tempo¬
rary expedients or compromises.
Mr. President, I always engage reluctantly in
these discussions, which awaken passion just in
the degree that their importance demands the
impartial umpirage of reason. This reluctance
deepens now, when I look around me, and count
the able contestants who have newly entered the
lists on either side, and shadowy forms of many
great and honored statesmen who once were elo¬
quent in these disputes, but whose tongues have
since become stringless instruments, rise up
before me. It is, however, a maxim in military
science, that in preparation for war, every one
should think as if the last event depended on his
counsel, and ip every great battle each one
should fight as if he were the only champion.
The principle, perhaps is equally sound in politi¬
cal affairs. If it be possible, I shall perform my
present duty in such a way as to wound no just
sensibilities. I must, however, review the ac¬
tion of Presidents, Senates, and Congresses. I
do indeed, with all my heart, reject the instruc¬
tion given by the Italian master of political sci¬
ence, which teaches that all men are bad by na¬
ture, and that they will not fail to show this de¬
pravity whenever they have a fair opportunity.
But jealousy of executive power is a high, prac¬
tical virtue in Republics; and we shall find it hard
to deny the justice of the character of free legis¬
lative bodies, which Charles James Fox drew,
when he said that the British House of Com¬
mons, of which he was at the moment equally an
ornament and an idol, like every other popular
assembly, must be viewed as a mass of men ca¬
pable of too much attachment and too much an¬
imosity, capable of being biased by weak and
even wicked motives, and liable to be governed
by ministerial influence, by caprice, and by cor¬
ruption.
Mr. President, I propose to inquire, in the first
place, why the question before us is attended by
real or apparent dangers.
I think our apprehensions are in part due to
the intrinsic importance of the transaction con¬
cerned. Whenever we add a new column to
the Federal colonnade, we need to lay its found¬
ations so firmly, to shape its shaft with such
just proportions, to poise it with such exact¬
ness, and to adjust its connections with the ex¬
isting structure so carefully, that instead of fall¬
ing prematurely, and dragging other and ven¬
erable columns with it to the ground, it may
stand erect forever, increasing the grandeur and
the stability of the whole massive and imperial
fabric. Still, the admission of a new State is
not necessarily or even customarily attended by
either embarrassments or alarms. We have
already admitted eighteen new States without
serious commotions, except in the cases of Mis¬
souri, Texas, and California. We are even now
admitting two others, Minnesota and Oregon;
and these transactions go on so smoothly, that
only close observers are aware that we are thus
consolidating our dominion on the shores of Lake
Superior, and almost at the gates of the Arctic
ocean.
It is manifest that the apprehended difficulties
in the present case have some relation to the
4
dispute concerning Slavery, which is raging
within the Territory of Kansas. Yet it must be
remembered that nine of the new States which
have been admitted, expressly established Sla¬
very, or tolerated it, and nine of them forbade
it. The excitement, therefore, is due to peculiar
circumstances. I think there are three of them,
namely:
First. That whereas, in the beginning, the as¬
cendency of the slave States was absolute, it is
now being reversed.
Second. That whereas, heretofore, the National
Government favored this change of balance from
the slave States to the free States, it has now
reversed this policy, and opposes the change.
Third. That national intervention in the Ter¬
ritories in favor of slave labor and slave States,
is opposed to the natural, social, and moral de¬
velopments of the Republic.
It seems almost unnecessary to demonstrate
the first of these propositions. In the beginning,
there were twelve slave States, and only one that
was free. Now, six of those twelve have become
free ; and there are sixteen free States to fifteen
slave States. If the three candidates now here,
Kansas, Minnesota, and Oregon, shall be admitted
as free States, then there will be nineteen free
States to fifteen slave States. Originally, there
were twenty-four Senators of slave States, and
only two of a free State; now, there are thirty-
two Senators of free States, and thirty of
slave States. In the first Constitutional Con¬
gress, the slave States had fifty-seven Representa¬
tives, and the one free State had only eight; now,
the free States have one hundred and forty-four
Representatives, while the slave States have only
ninety. These changes have happened in a period
during which the slave States have almost unin¬
terruptedly exercised paramount influence in the
Government, and notwithstanding the Consti¬
tution itself has opposed well-known checks to
the relative increase of representation of free
States. I assume,' therefore, the truth of my first
proposition.
I suggested, sir, a second circumstance, name¬
ly: That whereas, in the earlier age of the Re¬
public, the National Government favored this
change, yet it has since altogetheb reversed that
policy, and it now opposes the change. I do not
claim that heretofore the National Government al¬
ways, or even habitually, intervened in the Territo¬
ries in favor of the free States, but only that such
intervention preponderated. While Slavery ex¬
isted in all of the States but one, at the begin¬
ning, yet it was far less intense in the Northern
than in some of the Southern States. All of
the former contemplated an early emancipation.
The fathers seem not to have anticipated an
enlargement of the national territory. Conse¬
quently, they expected that all the new States to
be thereafter admitted would be organized upon
subdivisions of the then existing States, or upon
divisions of the then existing national domain.
That domain lay behind the thirteen States, and
stretched from the Lakes to the Gulf, and was
bounded westward by the Mississippi. It was
naturally divided by the Ohio river, and the
Northwest Territory^.nd the Southwest Territory
were organized on that division. It was foreseen,
even then, that the new States to be admitted
would ultimately overbalance the thirteen origi¬
nal ones. They were, however, mainly to be yet
planted and matured in the desert, with the
agency of human labor.
The fathers knew only of two kinds of labor,
the same which now exist among ourselves—
namely, the labor of African slaves and the
labor of freemen. The former then predomina¬
ted in this country, as it did throughout the
continent. A confessed deficiency of slave labor
could be supplied only by domestic mcrease, and
by continuance of the then existing importation
from Africa. The supply of free labor depended
on domestic increase, and a voluntary immigra¬
tion from Europe. Settlements, which had thus
early taken on a free-labor character or a slave-
labor character, were already maturing in those
parts of old States which were to be ultimately
detached and formed into new States. When
new States of this class were organized, they
were admitted promptly, either as free States br ¬
as slave States, without objection. Thus Ver¬
mont, a free State, was admitted in 1791; Ken¬
tucky, a slave State, in 1192; and Tennessee,
also a slave State, in 1796. Five new States
were contemplated to be erected in the North¬
west Territory. Practically it was unoccupied,
and therefore open to labor of either kind. The
one kind or the otb%r. in the absence of any an¬
ticipated emulation, would predominate, just
as Congress should intervene to favor it. Con¬
gress intervened in favor of free labor. This,
indeed, was an act of the Continental Congress,
but it was confirmed by the first Constitutional
Congress. The fathers simultaneously adopted
three other measures of less direct intervention.
First, they initiated in 1789, and completed hi
1808, the absolute suppression of the African
slave trade. Secondly, they organized systems#
of foreign commerce and navigation, which
stimulated voluntary immigration from Europe.
Thirdly, they established an easy, simple, and
uniform process of naturalization. The change
of the balance of power from the slave States
to the free States, which we are now witness¬
ing, is due chiefly to those four early measures
of national intervention in favor of free labor.
It would have taken place much sooner, if the
borders of the Republic had. remained un¬
changed. The purchase of Louisiana and the
acquisition of Florida, however, were transac¬
tions resulting from high political necessities, in
disregard of the question between free labor and
slave labor. In admitting the new State of
Louisiana, which was organized on the slave-
labor settlement of New Orleans, Congress prac¬
ticed the same neutrality which it had before
exercised in the States of Kentucky and Tennes¬
see. No serious dispute arose until 1819, when
Missouri, organized within the former province of
Louisiana, upon a slave-labor settlement in St.
Louis, applied for admission as a slave State, and
Arkansas was manifestly preparing to appear
soon in the same character. 'The balance of
power between the slave States and Hhe free
States was already reduced to an equilibrium,
5
and the eleven free States had an equal repre¬
sentation with the eleven slave States in the
Senate of the United States. The slave States
unanimously insisted on an unqualified admis¬
sion of Missouri. The free States, with less
unanimity, demanded that the new State should
renounce Slavery. The controversy seemed to
shake the Union to its foundations, and it was
terminated by a compromise. Missouri was ad¬
mitted as a slave State. Arkansas, rather by
implication than by express agreement, was to
be admitted, and it was afterwards admitted, as
a slave State. On the other hand, Slavery was
forever prohibited in all that part of the old
province of Louisiana yet remaining unoccu¬
pied, which lay north of the parallel of 36° 30/
north latitude. The reservation for free labor
included the immense region now known as
the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and
seemed ample for eight, ten, or more free States.
The severity of the struggle and the conditions
of the compromise indicated very plainly, how¬
ever, that the vigor of national intervention in
favor of free labor and free States was exhausted.
Still, the existing statutes were adequ^ to se¬
cure an ultimate ascendency of the free mates.
The policy of intervention in favor of slave labor
and slave States began with the further removal
of the borders of the Republic. I cheerfully
admit that this policy has not been persistent or
exclusive, and claim only that it has been and
yet is predominant. I am not now to deplore
the annexation of Texas. I remark simply that
it was a bold measure, of doubtful constitution¬
ality, distinctly adopted as an act of intervention
in favor of slave labor, and made or intended to
be made most effective by the stipulation that
fee new State of Texas may hereafter be divided
and so reorganized as to constitute five slave
States. This great act cast a long shadow before
it—a shadow which perplexed the people of the
free States. It was then that a feeble social
movement, which aimed by moral persuasion at
the manumission of slaves, gave place to political
organizations, which have ever since gone on in¬
creasing in magnitude and energy, directed against
afurther extension of Slavery in the United States.
The war between the United States and Mexico,
and the acquisition of the Mexican provinces of
New Mexico and Upper California, the fruits of
that war, were so immediately and directly con¬
sequences of the annexation of Texas, that all
of those transactions in fact may be regarded as
constituting one act of intervention in favor of
slave labor and slave States. The field of the strife
between the two systems had become widely
enlarged. Indeed, it was now continental. The
amazing mineral wealth of California stimulated
settlement there into a rapidity like that of vege¬
tation. The Mexican laws which prevailed in
the newly-acquired Territories dedicated them to
free labor, and thus the astounding question
arose for the first time, whether the United States
of America, whose Constitution was based on the
principle of the political equality of all men,
would blight and curse with Slavery a conquered
land which enjoyed universal Freedom. The slave
States denied the obligation of these laws, and in¬
sisted on their abrogation. The free States main¬
tained them, and demanded their confirmation
through the enactment of the Wilmot Proviso.
The slave States and the free States were yet in
equilibrium. The controversy continued here
two years. The settlers of the new Territories
became impatient, and precipitated a solution of
the question. They organized new free States
in California and New Mexico. The Mormons
also framed a Government in Utah. Congress,
after a bewildering excitement, determined the
matter by another compromise. It admitted
California a free State, dismembered New Mexico,
transferring a large district free from Slavery to
Texas, whose laws carried Slavery over it, and
subjected the residue to a Territorial Govern¬
ment, as it also subjected Utah, and stipulated
that the future Statesto be organized in those
Territories should be admitted either as free
States or as slave States, as they should elect. I
pass over the portions of this arrangement which
did not bear directly on the point in conflict.
The Federal Government prssented this compro¬
mise to the people, as a comprehensive, final, and
perpetual adjustment of all then existing and all
future questions having any relation to the sub¬
ject of Slavery within the Territories or else¬
where. The country accepted it with that pro¬
verbial facility which free States practice, when
time brings on a stern conflict which popular
passions provoke, and at a distance defy. This
halcyon peace, however, had not ceased to be cel¬
ebrated, when new-born necessities of trade,
travel, and labor, required an opening of the
region in the old province of Louisiana north of
36° 3C, which had been reserved in 1820, and
dedicated to free labor and free States. The old
question was revived in regard to that Territory,
and took the narrow name of the Kansas ques¬
tion, just as the stream which Lake Superior
discharges, now contracting itself into rivers and
precipitating itself down rapids and cataracts,
and now spreading out its waters into broad
seas, assumes a new name with every change o*
form, but continues nevertheless the same ma¬
jestic and irresistible flood under every change,
increasing in depth and in volume until it loses
itself in the all-absorbing ocean.
No one had ever said or even thought that the
law of Freedom in this region could be repealed,
impaired, or evaded. Its constitutionality had
indeed been questioned at the time of its enact¬
ment; but this, with all other objections, had
been surrendered as part of the compromise. It
was regarded as hearing the sanction of the pub¬
lic faith, as it certainly had those of time and
acquiescence. But the slaveholding people of
Missouri looked across the border, into Kansas,
and coveted the land. The slave States could
not fail to sympathize with them. It seemed as
if no organization of Government could be effect¬
ed in the Territory. The Senator from Illinois
[Mr. Douglas] projected a scheme. Under his
vigorous leading, Congress created two Territo¬
ries—Nebraska and Kansas. The former (the
more northern one) might, it was supposed, be
settled without Slavery, and become a free State,
or several free States. The latter (the southern
6
one) was accessible to the slave States; bordered
on one of them, and was regarded as containing
a region inviting to slaveholders. So it might be
settled by them, and become one or more slave
States. Thus indirectly a further compromise
might be effected, if the Missouri prohibition of
1820 should be abrogated. Congress abrogated it,
with the special and effective co-operation of the
President, and thus the National Government
directly intervened in favor of slave labor. Loud
remonstrances against the measure on the ground
of its violation of the national faith were silenced
by clamorous avowals of a discovery that Con¬
gress had never had any right to intervene in the
Territories for or against Slavery, but that the
citizens of the United States residing within a
Territory had, like the people of every State,
exclusive authority and jurisdiction over Slavery,
as one of the domestic relations. The Kansas-
Nebraska act only recognised and affirmed this
right, as it was said. The theory was not indeed
new, but a vagrant one, which had for some time
gone about seeking among political parties the
charity of adoption, under the name of Squatter
Sovereignty. It was now brought to the font,
and baptized with the more attractive appellation
ofPopular Sovereignty. It was idle for a time
to say that, under the Missouri prohibition, free¬
men in the Territory had all the rights which
freemen could desire — perfect freedom to do
everything but establish Slavery. Popular Sov¬
ereignty offered the indulgence of a taste of the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of evil as well
as of good—a more perfect freedom. Insomuch as
the proposition seemed to come from a free State,
the slave States could not resist its seductions,
although sagacious men saw that they were de¬
lusive. Consequently, a small and ineffectual
stream of slave labor was at once forced into Kan¬
sas, engineered by a large number of politicians,
advocates at once of Slavery and of the Federal
Administration, who proceeded with great haste
to prepare the means so to carry the first elec¬
tions as to obtain the laws necessary for the
protection of Slavery. It is one thing, however,
to expunge statutes from a national code, and quite
another to subvert a national institution, even
though it be only a monument of Freedom loca¬
ted in the desert. Nebraska was resigned to free
labor without a struggle, and Kansas became a
theatre of the first actual national conflict be¬
tween slaveholding and free-labor immigrants,
met face to face, to organize, through the ma¬
chinery of republican action, a civil community.
The parties differed as widely in their appoint¬
ments, conduct, and bearing, as in their princi¬
ples. The free laborers came into the Territory
with money, horses, cattle, implements, and en¬
gines, with energies concentrated by associations
and strengthened by the recognition of some of
the States. They marked out farms, and sites
for mills, towns, and cities, and proceeded at
once to build, to plough, and to sow. They pro¬
posed to debate, to discuss, to organize peace¬
fully, and to vote, and to abide the canvass.
The slave-labor party entered the Territory ir¬
regularly, staked out possessions, marked them,
and then, in most instances, withdrew to the
States from which they had come, to sell their ;
new acquisitions, or to return and resume theaa^
as circumstances should render one course or tb®
other expedient. They left armed men in the.
Territory to keep watch and guard, and to sum¬
mon external aid, either to vote or to fight, as
should be found necessary. They were fortified
by the favor of the Administration, and assumed'
to act with its authority. Intolerant of debate,
and defiant, they hurried on the elections which
were to be so perverted that an usurpation,
should be established. They rang out their
summons when the appointed time came, and-
armed bands of partisans, from States near and
remote, invaded and entered the Territory, with
banners, ammunition, provisions, and forage, and
encamped around the polls. They seized the
ballot-boxes, replaced the judges of elections
with partisans of their own, drove away their
opponents, filled the boxes with as many votes ■
as the exigencies demanded, and, leaving the re<»
suits to be returned by reliable hands, they
marched back again to their distant homes, to'
celebrat^the conquest, and exult in the prospect
of the "tablishment of Slavery upon the soil'
so long consecrated to Freedom. Thus, in a
single day, they became parents of a State with¬
out affection for it, and childless again without
bereavement. In this first hour of trial, the new
system of popular sovereignty signally failed—
failed because it is impossible to organize, by
one single act, in one day, a community per¬
fectly free, perfectly sovereign, and perfectly con¬
stituted, out of elements unassimilated, unar-
ranged, and uncomposed. Free labor rightfully
won the day. Slave labor wrested the victory
to itself by fraud and violence. Instead of a free
republican Government in the Territory, such
as popular sovereignty had promised, there vtt
then and thenceforth a hateful usurpation. This
usurpation proceeded without delay and without
compunction to disfranchise the people. It
transferred the slave code of Missouri to Kansas;
without stopping in all cases to substitute the
name of the new Territory for that of the old
State. It practically suspended popular elections
for three years — the usurping Legislature as¬
signing that term for its own members, while
it committed all subordinate trusts to agents
appointed by itself. It barred the courts and the
juries to its adversaries by test oaths, and made it
a crime to think what one pleased, and to write
and print what one thought. It borrowed all the
enginery of tyranny, but the torture, from the
practice of the Stuarts. The party of free labor
appealed to the Governor (Reeder) to correct the
false election returns. He intervened, but inef¬
fectually, and yet even for that intervention was
denounced by the Administration organs, and,
after long and unacceptable explanations, he was
removed from office by the President. The new
Governor (Shannon) sustained for a while the
usurpation, but failed to effect the subjugation
of the people, although he organized as a militia
an armed partisan band of adventurers who had
intruded themselves into the Territory to force
Slavery upon the people. With the active co¬
operation of this band, the party of slave labor
7
disarmed the Free State emigrants who had now
learned the necessity of being prepared for self-
defence, on the borders of the Territory, and on
the distant roads and rivers which led into it.
They destroyed a bridge that free-labor men used
in their way to the seat of Government, sacked
a hotel where they lodged, and broke up and
cast into the river a press which was the organ
of their cause.
The people of Kansas, thus deprived, not mere¬
ly of self-government, but even of peace, tran¬
quillity, and security, fell back on the inalienable
revolutionary right of voluntary reorganization.
They determined, however, with admirable tem¬
per, judgment, and loyalty, to conduct their pro¬
ceedings for this purpose in deference and sub¬
ordination to the authority of the Federal Union,
and according to the line of safe precedents.
After due elections, open to all the inhabitants
of the Territory, they organized provisionally a
State Government at Topeka ; and by the hands
of provisional Senators, and a provisional Repre¬
sentative, they submitted their Constitution to
Congress, and prayed to be admitted as a free
State into the Federal Union. The Federal au¬
thorities lent no aid to this movement, l5ut, on
the contrary, the President and Senate contempt¬
uously rejected it, and denounced it as treason,
and all its actors and abettors as disloyal to the
Union. An army was dispatched into the Terri¬
tory, intended indeed to preserve peace, but at
the same time to obey and sustain the usurpa¬
tion. The provisional Legislature, which had
met to confer, and to adopt further means to urge
the prayers of the people upon Congress, were
dispersed by the apmy, and the State officers
provisionally elected, who had committed no
criminal act, were arrested, indicted, and held
in the Federal camp as State prisoners. Never¬
theless, the people of Kansas did not acquiesce.
The usurpation remained a barren authority, de¬
fied, derided, and despised.
A national election was now approaching.
Excitement within and sympathies without the
Territory must be allayed. Governor Shannon
was removed, and Mr. Geary was appointed his
successor. He exacted submission to the statutes
of the usurpation, but promised equality in their
administration. He induced a repeal of some of
those statutes which were most obviously uncon¬
stitutional, and declared an amnesty for political
offences. He persuaded the Legislature of the
usurpation to ordain a call for a Convention at
Lecompton, to form a Constitution, if the measure
should be approved by a popular vote at an
election to be held for that purpose. To vote at
such an election was to recognise and tolerate
the usurpation, as well as to submit to dis¬
franchising laws, and to hazard a renewal
of the frauds and violence, by which the usurp¬
ation had been ^established. On no account
would the Legislature agree that the projected
Constitution should be submitted to the people,
after it should have been perfected by the Con¬
vention. The' refusal of this just measure, so
necessary to the public security in case of sur¬
prise and fraud, was a confession of the purpose
on the part of the usurpation to carry a Consti¬
tution into effect by surprise and fraud. The
Governor insisted on this provision, and demand¬
ed of the President of the United States the re¬
moval of a partial and tyrannical judge. He
failed to gain either measure, and incurred the
displeasure of the usurpation by seeking them.
He fled from the Territory. The Free State party
stood aloof from the polls, and a canvass showed
that some 2,300, less than a third of the people
of the Territory, had sanctioned the call of a
Convention, while- the presence of the army
alone held the Territory under a forced truce.
At this juncture, the new Federal Administra¬
tion came in, under a President who had obtained
success by the intervention at the polls of a third
party—an ephemeral organization, built upon a
foreign and frivolous issue, which had just
strength enough and life enough to give to a Pro-
Slavery party the aid required to produce that un¬
toward result. The new President, under a show
of moderation, masked a more effectual interven¬
tion than that of his predecessor, in favor of
slave labor and a slave State. Before coming
into office, he approached or was approached by
the Supreme Court of the United States. On
their docket was, through some chance or de¬
sign, an action which an obscure negro man in
Missouri had brought for his freedom against his
reputed master. The Court had arrived at the
conclusion, on solemn argument, that insomuch
as this unfortunate negro had, through some igno¬
rance or chicane in special pleading, admitted
what could not have been proved, that he had
descended from some African who had once
been held in bondage, that therefore he was
not, in view of the Constitution, a citizen of
the United States, and therefore could not im¬
plead the reputed master in the Federal courts ;
and on this ground the Supreme Court were
prepared to dismiss the action, for want of juris¬
diction over the suitor's person. This decision,
certainly as repugnant to the Declaration of In¬
dependence and to the spirit of the Constitu¬
tion, as to the instincts of humanity, never¬
theless would be one which would exhaust all
the power of the tribunal, and exclude con¬
sideration of all other questions that had been
raised upon the record. The counsel who had
appeared for the negro had volunteered from
motives of charity, and, ignorant of course of
the -disposition which was to be made of the
cause, had argued that his client had been freed
from Slavery by operation -of the Missouri pro¬
hibition of 1820. Thp opposing counsel, paid by
the defending slaveholder,-had insisted, in reply,
that that famous statute was unconstitutional.
The mock debate had been heard in the Chamber
of the Court in the basement of the Capitol, in the
presence of the curious visiters at the seat of
Government, whom the dullness of a judicial in¬
vestigation could not disgust. The Court did not
hesitate to please the incoming President, by
seizing this extraneous and idle forensic discus¬
sion, and converting it into an occasion for pro¬
nouncing an opinion that the Missouri prohibi¬
tion was void, and that, by force of the Consti¬
tution, Slavery existed, with all the elements of
property in man over man, in all the Territories
8
of the United States, paramount to any popular
sovereignty within the Territories, and even to
the authority of Congress itself.
In this ill-omened act,-the Supreme Court for¬
got its own dignity, which had always been
maintained with just judicial jealousy. They for¬
got that the province of a court is simply tljus
dicere" and not at all u jus dare." They forgot,
also, that one " foul sentence does more harm than
many foul examples; for the last do but corrupt
the stream, while the former corrupteth the foun¬
tain." And they and the President alike forgot
that judicial usurpation is more odious and
intolerable than any other among the manifold
practices of tyranny.
The day of Inauguration came—the first one
among all the celebrations of that great national
pageant that was to be desecrated by a coalition
between the Executive and Judicial departments,
to undermine the National Legislature and the
liberties of the people. The President, attended
by the usual lengthened procession, arrived and
took his seat on the portico. The Supreme Court
attended him there, in robes which yet exacted
public reverence. The people, unaware of the im¬
port of the whisperings carried on between the
President and the Chief Justice, and imbued with
veneration for both, filled the avenues and gar¬
dens far away as the eye could reach. The Pres¬
ident addressed them in words as bland as those
which the worst of all the Roman Emperors pro¬
nounced when he assumed the purple. He an¬
nounced (vaguely, indeed, but with self-satisfac¬
tion) the forthcoming extra-judicial exposition of
the Constitution, and pledged his submission to it
as authoritative and final. The Chief Justice and
his Associates remained silent. The Senate, too,
were there—constitutional witnesses of the trans¬
fer of administration. They too were silent,
although the promised usurpation was to subvert
the authority over more than half of the empire
which Congress had assumed contemporaneously
with the birth of the nation, and had exercised
without interruption for near seventy years. It
cost the President, under the circumstances, little
exercise of magnanimity now to promise to the
people of Kansas, on whose neck he had, with
the aid of the Supreme Court, hung the millstone
of Slavery, a fair trial in their attempt to cast it
off, and hurl it to the earth, when they should
come to organize a State Government. Alas!
that even this cheap promise, uttered under such
great solemnities, was only made to be broken!
The pageant ended. On the 5th of March, the
Judges, without even exchanging their silken
robes for courtiers' gowns, paid their salutations
to the President, in the Executive Palace. Doubt¬
lessly the President received them as graciously
as Charles the First did the Judges who had at
his instance subverted the statutes of English
Liberty. On the 6th of March, the Supreme Court
dismissed the negro suitor, Dred Scott, to return
to his bondage; and having thus disposed of that
private action for an alleged private wrong, on
the ground of want of jurisdiction in the case,
they proceeded with amusing solemnity to pro¬
nounce the opinion, that if they had had such
jurisdiction, still the unfortunate negro would
have had to remain in bondage, unrelieved, be-
cause the Missouri prohibition violates rights of
general property involved in Slavery, paramount
to the authority of Congress. A few days later,
copies of this opinion were multiplied by the
Senate's press, and scattered in the name of the
Senate broadcast over the land, and their publi¬
cation has not yet been disowned by the Senate.
Simultaneously, Dred Scott, who had played the
hand of dummy in this interesting political game,
unwittingly, yet to the complete satisfaction of
his adversary, was voluntarily emancipated; and
thus received from his master,* as a reward, the
freedom which the Court had denied him as a
right.
The new President of the United States, bar.
ing organized this formidable judicial battery at
the Capitol, was now ready fo begin his active
demonstrations of intervention in the Territory.
Here occurred, not a new want, but an old one
revived—a Governor for Kansas. Robert J. "Walk-
er, born and reared in Pennsylvania, a free State,
but long a citizen and resident of Mississippi, a
slave State, eminent for talent and industry, de¬
voted to the President and his party, plausible
and persevering, untiring and efficient, seemed
just the man to conduct the fraudulent inchoate
proceedings of the projected Lecompton Conven¬
tion to a conclusion, by dividing the friends of
Free Labor in the Territory, or by casting upon
them the responsibility of defeating their own
favorite policy by impracticability and contu¬
macy. He wanted for this purpose only an army
and full command of the Executive exchequer of
promises of favor and of threats of punishment.
Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, honorable
and capable, of persuasive address, but honest
ambition, was appointed his Secretary. The new
agents soon found they had assumed a task that
would tax all their energies and require all their
adroitness. On the one side, the Slave • Labor
party were determined to circumvent the people,
and secure, through the Lecompton Convention,
a slave State. On the other, the people were
watchful, and determined not to be circumvented,
and in no case to submit. Elections for dele¬
gates to that body were at hand. The Legisla¬
ture had required a census and registry of voters
to be made by authorities designated by itself,
and this duty had been only partially performed in
■fifteen of the thirty-four counties, and altogether
emitted in the other nineteen. The party of Slave
Labor insisted on payment of taxes as a condi¬
tion of suffrage. The Free Labor party deemed
the whole proceeding void, by reason of the usurp¬
ation practiced, and of the defective arrange¬
ments for the election. They discovered a design
to surprise in the refusal of any guaranty that the
Constitution, when framed, should be submitted
to the people, for their acceptance or rejection,
preparatory to an application under it for the ad¬
mission of Kansas into the Union. The Govern¬
or, drawing from the ample treasury of the Ex¬
ecutive at his command, made due exhibitions
of the army, and threatened the people with
an acceptance of the Lecompton Constitution,
however obnoxious to them, if they should
refuse to vote. With these menaces, he judi-
9
ciously mingled, promises of fabulous quantities
of land for the endowment of roads and educa¬
tion. He dispensed with the test oaths and taxes,
lamented the defects of census and registry, and
promised the rejection of the Constitution, by him-
Self, by the President, and by Congress, if a full,
fiir, and complete submission of the Constitution
should not be made by the Convention; and he
Obtained and published pledges of such submis¬
sion by the party conventions which nominated
the candidates for delegates, and even by an im¬
posing number of those candidates themselves.
The people stood aloof, and refused to vote. The
army protected the polls. The Slave Labor party
alon,e voted, and voted without legal restraint,
and so achieved an easy formal success by cast¬
ing some two thousand ballots.
Just in this conjuncture, however, the term of
three years' service which the usurping Legisla¬
ture had fixed for its own members expired,
and elections, authorized by itself, were to be
held, for the choice, not only of new members,
but of a Delegate to Congress. While the Le-
compton Convention was assembling, the Free
Labor party determined to attend these Terri¬
torial elections, and contest, through them, for
self-government within the Territory. They put
candidates in nomination, on the express ground
of repudiation of the whole Lecompton proceed¬
ing. The Lecompton Convention prudently ad¬
journed to a day beyond the elections. The
parties contended at the ballot-boxes, and the
result was a^omplete and conclusive triumph of
the Free Labor party. For a moment, this victory,
ro important, was jeoparded by the fraudulent
presentation of spurious and fabricated returns of
elections in almost uninhabited districts, suffi¬
cient to transfer the triumph to the Slave Labor
party, and the Free State party was proceeding to
vindicate it by force. The Governor and Secreta¬
ry detected, proved, and exposed, this atrocious
fraud. The Lecompton Convention denounced
them, and complaints against them poured in
upon the President, from the slaveholding States.
They were doomed from that time. The Presi¬
dent was silent. The Lecompton Convention pro¬
ceeded, and framed a Constitution which de¬
clares Slavery perpetual and irreversible, and
postpones any alteration of its own provisions
until after 1864, by which time they hoped that
Slavery might have gained too deep*a hold in the
soil of Kansas to be in danger of being uprooted.
All this was easy; but now came the question
whether the Constitution should be submitted
to the people. It was confessed that it was
obnoxious to them, and, if submitted, would be
rejected with indignation and contempt. An
official emissary from Washington is supposed
to have suggested the solution which was adopt¬
ed:. This was a submission in form, but not in
fact. The President of the Convention, without
any laws to preserve the purity of the franchise
by penalties for its violation, was authorized to
designate his own agents, altogether irrespective¬
ly of the Territorial authorities, and with their aid
to hold an election, in which there should be no
vote allowed or received, if against the Consti¬
tution itself. Bach voter was permitted to cast a
ballot "for the Constitution with Slavery," or
"for the Constitution with no Slavery;" and it
was further provided, that the Constitution
should stand entire, if a majority of votes should
be cast for the Constitution with Slavery, while,
on the other hand, if the majority of votes cast
should be "for the Constitution with no Slavery,"
then the existing Slavery should not be disturbed,
but should remain, with its continuance, by the
succession of its unhappy victims by descent
forever. But even this miserable shadow of a
choice between forms of a slave State Constitu¬
tion was made to depend on the taking of a test
oath to support and maintain it in the form
which should be preferred by the majority of
those who should vote on complying with that
humiliation. The. Governor saw that by conni¬
ving at this pitiful and wicked juggle he should
both shipwreck his fame and become responsible
for civil war. He remonstrated, and appealed to
his chief, the President of the United States, to
condemn it. Denunciations followed him from
the Lecompton party within the Territory, and
denunciations no less violent from the slave
States were his greeting at the National Capital.
The President disappointed his most effective
friend and wisest counsellor. This present Con¬
gress had now assembled. The President, as if
fearful of delay, forestalled our attention with
recommendations to overlook the manifest ob¬
jections to the transaction, and to regard the an¬
ticipated result of this mock election, then not yet
held, as equivalent to an acceptance of the Consti¬
tution by the people of Kansas, alleging that the
refusal of the people to vote either the ballot for
the " Constitution with Slavery," or the false and
deceitful ballot for the " Constitution with no Sla¬
very," would justly be regarded as drawing after
it the consequences of actual acceptance and
adoption of the Constitution itself. His argument
was apologetic, as it lamented that the Constitu¬
tion had not been fairly submitted; and jesuitical,
as it urged that the people might, when once ad¬
mitted as a State, change the Constitution at their
pleasure, in defiance of the provision which post¬
pones any change seven years.
Copies of the message containing these argu¬
ments were transmitted to the Territory, to con¬
found and dishearten the Free State party, and
obtain a surrender, at the election to be held on
the 21st of December, on the questions submitted
by the Convention. The people, however, were
neither misled nor intimidated. Alarmed by this
act of connivance by the President of the United
States with their oppressors, they began to pre¬
pare for the last arbitrament of nations. Tho
Secretary, Mr. Stanton, now Governor ad interim,
issued, his proclamation, calling the new Territo-
, rial Legislature to assemble to provide for pre¬
serving the public peace. An Executive spy dis¬
patched information of this proceeding to the
President by telegraph, and instantly Mr. Stanton
eeased to be Secretary and Governor ad interim,
being removed by the President, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate of the United
States. Thus the service of Frederick P. Stanton
came to an abrupt end, but in a manner most hon¬
orable to himself. His chief, Mr. Walker, was less
10
• wise and less fortunate. He resigned. Paetus
Thrasea (we are informed by Tacitus) had been
often present in the Senate, when the fathers de¬
scended to unworthy acts, and did not rise in op¬
position; but on the occasion when Nero pro¬
cured from them a decree to celebrate, as a festi¬
val, the day on which he had murdered his mother,
Agrippina, Paetus left his seat, and walked out
of the chamber—thus by his virtue provoking
future vengeance, and yet doing no service to
the cause of Liberty. Possibly Robert J. Walker
may find a less stern historian.
The new Secretary, Mr. Denver, became Gov¬
ernor of Kansas, the fifth incumbent of that
office appointed within less than four years,
the legal term of one. Happily, however, for
the honor of the country, three cf the recalls
were made on the ground of the virtues of the
parties disgraced. The Pro-Consuls of the Ro¬
man provinces were brought back to the Capital
to answer for their crimes.
The proceeding which the lato Secretary Stan¬
ton had so wisely instituted, nevertheless, went
on; and it has become, as I trust, the principal
means of rescuing from tyranny the people whom
he governed so briefly and yet so well. The Le-
compton Constitution had directed, that on the
4th of January elections should be held to fill
the State offices and the offices of members of the
Legislature and member of Congress, to assume
their trusts when the new State should be ad¬
mitted into the Union. The Legislature of the
Territory now enacted salutary laws for preserv¬
ing the purity of elections in all cases. It di¬
rected the Lecompton Constitution to be submit¬
ted to a fair vote on that day, the ballots being
made to express a consent to the Constitution,
or a rejection of it, with or without Slavery. The
Free Labor party debated anxiously on the ques¬
tion, whether, besides voting against that Consti¬
tution, they should, under protest, vote also for
officers to assume the trusts created by it, if Con¬
gress should admit the State under it. After a ma¬
jority had decided that no such votes should be
cast, a minority hastily rejected the decision, and
nominated candidates for those places, to be sup¬
ported under protest. The success of the move¬
ment, made under the most serious disadvanta¬
ges, is conclusive evidence of their strength.
While the election held on the 21st of December,
allowing all fraudulent votes, showed some six
thousand majority for the Constitution with Sla¬
very, over some five hundred votes for the Con¬
stitution without Slavery, the election on the
4th of January showed an aggregate majority
of eleven thousand against the Constitution
itself in any form, with the choice, under pro¬
test, of a Representative in Cpngress, and of a
large majority of all the candidates nominated
by the Free Labor party for the various Executive
and Legislative trusts under the Lecompton Con¬
stitution.
The Territorial Legislature has abolished Sla¬
very by a law to take effect in March, 1858,
though the Lecompton Constitution contains pro¬
visions anticipating, and designed to defeat, this
great act of justice and humanity. It has organ¬
ized a militia, which stands ready for the defence
of the rights of the people against any power.
The President of the Lecompton Convention has
fled the Territory, charged with an attempt to pro¬
cure fraudulent returns to reverse the already de¬
clared results of the last election, and he holds
the public in suspense as to his success until
after his arrival at the Capital, and the decision
of Congress on the acceptance of the Lecompton
Constitution. In the mean time, the Territorial
Legislature has called a Convention, subject to
the popular approval, to be held in March next,
and to form a Constitution to be submitted to
the people, and, when adopted, to be the organic
law of the new State of Kansas, subject to her
admission into the Union. The President ofthe
United States, having received the Lecompton
Constitution, has submitted it to Congress, and in¬
sisting that the vote taken on the juggle of the Le¬
compton Convention, held on the 21st of Decem¬
ber, is legally conclusive of its acceptance by the
people, and absolute against the fair, direct, and
unimpeachable rejection of it by that people, made
on the 4th of January last, he recommends and
urges and implores the admission of Kansas as a
State into the Federal Union, under that false,
pretended, and spurious Constitution. I refrain
from any examination of this extraordinary mes¬
sage. My recital is less complete than I have
hoped, if it does not overthrow all the President's
arguments in favor of the acceptance of the Le¬
compton Constitution as an act of the people of
Kansas, however specious, and without descend¬
ing to any details. In Congress, th&e who seek
the admission of Kansas under that Constitution,
strive to delay the admission of Minnesota, until
their opponents shall compromise on that para¬
mount question.
This, Mr. President, is a concise account of the
national intervention in the Territories in favor of
slave labor and slave States since 1820. No
wonder that the question before us excites ap¬
prehensions and alarms. There is at last a North
side of this Chamber, a North side of the Cham¬
ber of Representatives, a North side of the Union,
as well as South side§ of all these. Each of
them is watchful, jealous, and resolute. If it be
true, as has so often been asserted, that this Un¬
ion cannot survive the decision by Congress of a
direct question involving the adoption of a free
State which^will establish the ascendency of
free States under the Constitution, and draw
after it the restoration of the influence of Free¬
dom in the domestic and foreign conduct of the
Government, then the day of dissolution is at
hand.
I have thus, Mr. President, arrived at the third
circumstance attending the Kansas question
which I have thought worthy'of consideration,
namely, that the national intervention in the
Territories in favor of slave labor and slave States
is opposed to the material, moral, and socia' de¬
velopments of the Republic. The proposition
seems to involve a paradox, but it is easy to
understand that the checks which the Constitu¬
tion applies, through prudent caution, to the
relative increase of the representation of the free
States in the House of Representatives, and es¬
pecially in the Senate, co-operating with the
11
differences of temper and political activity be¬
tween the two classes of States, may direct the
Government of the Federal Union in one course,
while the tendencies of the nation itself, popularly
regarded, are in a direction exactly opposite.
The ease and success which attended the ear¬
lier policy of intervention in favor of free labor
and free States, and the resistance which the
converse policy of intervention in favor of slave
labor and slave States encounters, sufficiently es¬
tablish the existence of the antagonism between
the Government and the nation which I have
asserted. A vessel moves quietly and peacefully
while it descends with the current. You mark its
way % the foam on its track only when it is forced
against the tide. I will not dwell on other
proofs—such as the more rapid growth of the free
States, the ruptures of ecclesiastical Federal
Unions, and the demoralization and disorganiza¬
tion of political parties.
Mr. President, I have shown why it is that the
Kansas question is attended by difficulties and
dangers only by way of preparation for the sub¬
mission of my opinions in regard to the manner
in which that question ought to be determined-
and settled. I think, with great deference to the
judgments of others, that the expedient, peaceful,
and right way to determine it, is to reverse the ex¬
isting policy of intervention in favor of slave labor
and slave States. It would be wise to restore the
Missouri prohibition of Slavery in Kansas and Ne¬
braska. There was peace in the Territories and
in the States until that great statute of Freedom
was subverted. It is true that there were fre¬
quent debates here on the subject of Slavery,
and that there were profound sympathies among
the people, awakened by or responding to those
debates. But what was Congress instituted
for but debate ? What makes the American peo¬
ple to differ from all other nations, but this—that
while among them power enforces 'silence, here
all public questions are referred to debate, free
debate in Congress. Do you tell me that the Su¬
preme Court of the United States has removed
the foundations of that great statute ? I reply,
that they have done no such thing ; they could
not do it. They have remanded the negro man
Dred Scott to the custody of his master. With
that decree we have nothing here, at least nothing
now, to do. This is the extent of the judgment
rendered, the extent of any judgment they Could
render. Already the pretended further decision
is subverted in Kansas. So it will be in every
free State and in every free Territory of the
United States. The Supreme Court, also, can re
verse its spurious judgment more easily than we
Could reconcile the people to its usurpation
Sir, the Supreme Court of the United States at¬
tempts to command the people of the United
States to accept the principles that one man can
own other men, and that they must guaranty the
inviolability of that false and pernicious property
The people of the United States never can, and
they never will, accept principles so unconstitu¬
tional and so abhorrent. Never, never. Let the
Court recede. Whether it recede or not, we shall
reorganize the Court, and thus reform its po¬
litical sentiments and practices, and bring them
into harpaony with the Constitution and with the
laws of nature. In doing so, we shall not only
reassume our own just authority, but we shall re¬
store that high tribunal itself to the position it
ought to maintain, since so many invaluable
rights of citizens, and even of States themselves,
depend upon its impartiality and its wisdom.
Do you tell me that the slave States will not
acquiesce, but will agitate ? Think first whether
the free States will acquiesce in a decision that
shall not only be unjust, but fraudulent. True,
they will not menace the Republic. They have
an easy and simple remedy, namely, to take the
Government out of unjust and unfaithful hands,
and commit it to those which will be just and
faithful. They are ready to do this now. They
want only a little more harmony of purpose
and a little more completeness of organization.
These will result from only the least addition to
the pressure of Slavery upon them. You are lend¬
ing all that is necessary, and even more, in this
very act. But will the slave States agitate? Why?
Because they have lost at last a battle that
they could not win, unwisely provoked, fought
with all the advantages of strategy and in¬
tervention, and on a field chosen by themselves.
What would they gain ? Can they compel Kan
sas to adopt Slavery against her will? Would
it be reasonable or just to do it, if they could ?
Was negro servitude ever forced by the sword
on any people that inherited the blood which cir¬
culates in our veins, and the sentiments which
make us a free people ? If they will agitate on
such a ground as this, then how," or when, by
what concessions we can make, will they ever be
satisfied? To what end would they agitate ? It can
now be only to divide the Union. Will they not
need some fairer or more plausible excuse for a
proposition so desperate ? How would they im¬
prove their condition, by drawing down a certain
ruin upon themselves ? Would they gain any new
security for Slavery? Would they not hazard
securities that are invaluable ? Sir, they who
talk so idly, talk what they do not know them¬
selves. No man when cool can promise what he
will do when he shall be inflamed; no man in¬
flamed can speak for*his actions when time and
necessity shall bring reflection. Much less can
any one speak for States in such emergencies.
But, I shall not insist, now, on so radical a
measure as the restoration of the Missouri pro¬
hibition. I know how difficult it is for power to re¬
linquish even a pernicious and suicidal policy all
at once. We may attain the same result, in this
particular case of Kansas, without going back so
far. Go back only to the ground assumed in 1854,
the ground of popular sovereignty. Happily for
the authors of that measure, the zealous and ener¬
getic resistance of abuses practiced under it has
so far been effective that popular sovereignty in
Kansas may now be made a fact, and Liberty there
may be rescued from danger through its free ex¬
ercise. Popular sovereignty is an epic of two
parts. Part the first presents Freedom in Kansas
lost. Part the second, if you will so consent to
write it, shall be Freedom in Kansas regained. It
is on this ground that I hail the eminent Senator
from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] and his associates,
12
the distinguished Senator from Michigan, [Mr.
Stuart,] and the youthful, but most brave
Senator from California, [Mr. Broderick.] The
late Mr. Clay told us that Providence has many
ways for saving nations. God forbid that I
should consent to see Freedom wounded, because
my own lead or even my own agency in saving
it should be rejected. I will cheerfully co-ope¬
rate with these new defenders of this sacred cause
in Kansas, and I will award them all due praise,
when we shall have been successful, for their
large share of merit in its deliverance.
Will you tell me that it is difficult to induce the
Senate and the House of Representatives to take
that short backward step? On the contrary, the
hardest task that an Executive dictator ever set,
or parliamentary manager ever undertook, is to
prevent this very step from being taken. Let
the President take off his hand, and the bow,
bent so long, and held to its tension by so
hard a pressure, will relax, and straighten itself
at once.
Consider now, if you please, the consequences
of your refusal. If you attempt to coerce Kan¬
sas into the Union, under the Lecompton Consti¬
tution, the people of that Territory will resort
to civil war. You are pledged to put down
that revolution by the sword. Will the people
listen to your voice amid the thunders of your
cannon ? Let but one drop of the blood of a free
citizen be shed there, by the Federal army, and
the countenance of every representative of a free
State, in either House of Congress, will blanch,
and his tongue will refuse to utter the vote neces¬
sary to sustain the army in the butchery of his
fellow-citizens.
Practically, you have already one intestine and
Territorial war. A war against Brigham Young
in Utah. Can you carry on two, and confine the
strife within the Territories ? Can you win both ?
A wise nation will never provoke more than
one enemy at one time. I know that you argue
that the Free State men of Kansas are impracti¬
cable, factious, seditious? Answer me three
questions: Are they not a majority, and so pro¬
claimed by the people of Kansas ? Is not this
quarrel, for the right of governing themselves,
conceded by the Federal Constitution ? Is the
tyranny of forcing a hateful Government upon
them, less intolerable than three cents impost
on a pound of tea, or five cents stamp duty on a
promissory note ? You say that they can change
this Lecompton Constitution when it shall once
have been forced upon them. Let it be aban
doned now. What guaranty can you give
against your own intervention to prevent that
future change ? What security can you give
for your own adherence to the construction of
the Constitution which you adopt, from expe¬
diency, to-day ? What better is a Constitution
than a by-law of a corporation, if it may be forced
on a State to-day, and rejected to-morrow, in
derogation of its own express inhibition ?
I perceive, Mr. President, that, in the way
of argument, I have passed already from the
ground of expediency, on which I was standing,
to that of right and justice. Among all our
refinements of constitutional learning, one prin- 1
cipie, one fundamental principle, has been faith¬
fully preserved, namely: That the new States
must come voluntarily into the Union ; they must
not be forced into it. " Unite or Die," was the
motto addressed to the States in the time of the
Revolution. Though Kansas should perish, she
cannot be brought into the Union by force.
. So long as the States shall come in by free
consent, their admission will be an act of union,
and this will be a Confederacy. Whenever they
shall be brought in by fraud or force, their ad¬
mission will be an act of consolidation, and the
nation, ceasing to be a Confederacy, will become
in reality an Empire- All our elementary in¬
struction is wrong, or else this change of the
Constitution will subvert the liberties of the
American people.
You argue the consent of Kansas from docu¬
mentary proofs, from her forced and partial ac¬
quiescence, under your tyrannical rule, from elec¬
tions fraudulently conducted, from her own con¬
tumacy, and from your own records, made up
here against her. I answer the whole argument
at once: Kansas protests here, and stands, by
.your own confession, in an attitude of rebellion
at home, to resist the annexation which you con¬
tend she is soliciting at your hands.
Sir, if your proofs were a thousand times
stronger, I would not hold the people of Kansas
bound by them. They all are contradicted by
stern fact. A people can be bound by no ac¬
tion conducted in their name, and pretending
to their sanction, unless they enjoy perfect free¬
dom and safety in giving that consent. You hare
held the people of Kansas in duress from the
first -hour of their attempted organization as a
community. To crown this duress by an act, at
once forcing Slavery on them, which they hate,
and them into a union with you, on terms which
they abhor, would be but to illustrate anew, and
on a grand scale, the maxim—
"Prosperum et felix scelus, virtus vocatur."
Mr. President, it is an occasion for joy and
triumph, when a community that has gathered it¬
self together under circumstances of privation and
exile, and proceeded through a season of Territo¬
rial or provincial dependence on distant central
authority, becomes a State, in the full enjoyment
of civil and religious liberty, and rises into the
dignity of a member of this Imperial Union. But,
in the case of Kansas, her whole existence has
been, and it yet is, a trial, a tempest, a chaos—
and now you propose to make her nuptials a
celebration of the funeral of her freedom. The
people of Kansas are entitled to save that free¬
dom, for they have won it back when it had been
wrested from them by invasion and usurpation.
Sir, you are great and strong. On this continent
there is no Power can resist you. On any other,
there is hardly a Power that would not reluctant¬
ly engage with you—but you can never, never
conquer Kansas. Your power, like a throne
which is built of pine boards, and covered with
purple, is weakness, except it be defended by a
people confiding in yea, because satisfied that
you are just, and grateful for the freedom that,
under you, they enjoy.
1
"Sir, in view, once more, of this subject of I
Slavery, I submit that our own dignity requires
that we shall give over this champerty with
slaveholders, which we practice in prescribing
acquiescence in their rule as a condition of toler¬
ation of self-government in the Territories. We
are defeated in it. We may wisely give it up,
and admit Kansas as a free State, since she will
consent to be admitted only in that character.
Mr. President, if I could at all suppose it de¬
sirable or expedient to enlarge the field of slave
labor, and of slaveholding sw ay, in this Republic, I
should nevertheless maintain that it is wise to
relinquish the effort to sustain Slavery in Kan¬
sas. The question, in regard to that Territory,
has risen from a private one about Slavery as a
domestic institution, to one of Slavery as a
national policy. At every step, you have been
failing. Will you go on still further, ever con¬
fident, and yet ever unsuccessful?
I believe, sir, to some extent, in the isothermal
theory. I think there are regions, beginning at
the North pole, and stretching southward, where
Slavery will die out soon, if it be planted j and I
know, too well, that in the tropics, and to some
extent northward of them, Slavery lives long,
and is hard to extirpate. But I cannot find a
certain boundary. I am sure, however, that 36°
30' is too far north. I think it is a movable
boundary, and that every year it advances to¬
wards a more southern parallel.
But is there just now a real want of a new
State for the employment of slave labor? I see
and feel the need of room for a new State to be
assigned to free labor, of room for such a new
State almost every year. I think I see how it
arises. Free white men abound in this country,
and in Europe, and even in Asia. Economically
speaking, their labor is cheap—there is a surplus^
of it. Under improved conditions of society, life
grows longer, and men multiply faster. Wars,
which sometimes waste them, grow less frequent
and less destructive. Invention is continually
producing machines and engines, artificial labor¬
ers, crowding them from one field of industry to
another—ever more from the Eastern regions of
this continent to the West, ever more from the
overcrowded Eastern continent to the prairies
and the wildernesses in our own. But I do not
see any such overflowing of the African slave
population in this country, even where it is
unresisted. Free labor has been obstructed in
Kansas. There are, nevertueless, 50,000 or 60,000
freemen gathered there already; gathered there
within four years. Slave labor has been free to
importation. There are only 100 to 200 slaves
there. To settle and occupy a new slave State
anywhere is, pari passu, to depopulate old slave
States. Whence, then, are the supplies of slaves
to come, and how ? Only by reviving the African
slave trade. But this is forbidden. Visionaries
dream that the prohibition can be repealed. The
idea is insane. A Republic of thirty millions of
freemen, with a free white laboring population so
dense as already to crowd on subsistence, to be
brought to import negroes from Africa to sup¬
plant them as cultivators, and so to subject them¬
selves to starvation Though Africa is yet un¬
organized, and unable to protect itself, still it has
already exchanged, in a large degree, its wars to
make slaves-, and its commerce in slaves, for
legitimate agriculture and trade. All European
States are interested in the civilization of that
continent, and they will not consent that we
shall arrest it. The Christian church cannot
be forced back two centuries, and be made to
sanction the African slave trade as a missionary
enterprise.
^very nation has always some ruling idea,
wnich, however, changes with the several stages
of its development. A ruling idea of the colonies
on this continent, two hundred years ago, was
labor to subdue and reclaim nature. Then Afri¬
can Slavery was seized and employed as an aux¬
iliary, under a seeming necessity., That idea
has ceased forever. It has given place to a new
one. Aggrandizement of the nation, not indeed
as it once was, to make a small State great,
but to make a State already great the great¬
est of all States. It still demands labor, but it
is no longer the ignorant labor of barbarians,
but labor perfected by knowledge and skill,
and combination with all the scientific principles
of mechanism. It demands, not the labor of
slaves, which needs to be watched and defended,
but voluntary, enlightened labor, stimulated by
interest, affection, and ambition. It nqgds that
every man shall own the land he tills ; that every
head shall be fit for the helmet, and every hand
fit for the sword, and every mind ready and qual-
fied for counsel. To attempt to aggrandize a
country with slaves for its inhabitants, would be
to try to make a large body of empire with feeble
sinews and empty veins.
Mr. President, the expansion of territory to
make slave States will only fail to be a great
crime, because it is impracticable, and therefore
Will turn out to be a stupendous imbecility. A
free republican Government, like this, notwith¬
standing all its constitutional checks, cannot
long resist and counteract the progress of socie¬
ty. Slavery, wherever and whenever, and in
whatsoever form it exists, is exceptional, local,
and short-lived. Freedom is the common right,
interest, and ultimate destiny, of all mankind.
All other nations have already abolished, or are
about abolishing, Slavery. Does this fact mean
nothing ? All parties in this country that have
tolerated the extension of Slavery, except one,
has perished for that error already. That last
one—the Democratic party—is hurrying on, irre¬
trievably, toward the same fate. All Adminis¬
trations that have avowed this policy have gone
down dishonored for that cause, except the pres¬
ent one. A pit deeper and darker still is open¬
ing to receive this Administration, because it
sins more deeply than its predecessors. There
is a meaning in all these facts, which it becomes
us to study well. The nation has advanced
another stage; it has reached the point where
intervention, by the Government, for Slavery and
slave States, will no longer be tolerated, Free
labor has at last apprehended its rights, its in¬
terests, its power, and its destiny, and is organi¬
zing itself to assume the government of the Re¬
public. It will henceforth meet you boldly and
14
resolutely here ; it will meet you everywhere, in '
the Territories or out of them, wherever you may
go to extend Slavery. It has driven you back in
California and in Kansas ; it will invade you soon
in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and
Texas. It will meet you in Arizona, in Central
America, and even in Cuba. The invasion will be
not merely harmless, but beneficent, if you yield
seasonably to its just and moderated demands. It
proved so in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylva¬
nia, and the other slave States, which have al¬
ready yielded in that way to its advances. You
may, indeed, get a start under or near the tropics,
and seem safe for a time, but it will be only a
short time. Even there you will found States
only for free labor to maintain and occupy. The
interest of the white races demands the ultimate
emancipation of all men. Whether that con¬
summation shall be allowed to take effect, with
needful and wise precautions against sudden
change and disaster, or be hurried on by vio¬
lence, is all that remains for you to decide. For
the failure of your system of slave labor through¬
out the Republic, the responsibility will rest not
on the agitators you condemn, or on the political
parties you arraign, or even altogether on your¬
selves, but it will be due to the inherent error of
the system itself, and to the error which thrusts
it forward to oppose and resist the destiny, not
more oPthe African than that of the white races.
The white man needs this continent to labor
upon. His head is clear, his arm is strong, and
his necessities are fixed. He must and will have
it. To secure it, he will oblige the Government
of the United States to abandon intervention in
favor of slave labor and slave States, and go
backward forty years, and resume the original
policy of intervention in favor of free labor and
free States. The fall of the castle of San Juan
d'Ulloa determined the fate of Mexico, although1
sore sieges and severe pitched battles intervened
before the capture of the capital of the Aztecs.
The defeats you have encountered in California
and in Kansas determine the fate of the principle
for which you have been contending. It is for
yourselves, not for us, to decide how long and
through what further mortifications and disas¬
ters the contest shall be protracted, before Free¬
dom shall enjoy her already assured triumph.
I would have it ended now, and would have the
wounds of society bound up and healed. But this
ean be done only in one way. It cannot be done
by offering further resistance, nor by any eva¬
sion or partial surrender, nor by forcing Kansas
into the Union as a slave State, against her will,
leaving her to cast off Slavery afterwards, as she
best may; nor by compelling Minnesota and Ore¬
gon to wait, and wear the humiliating costume
of Territories at the doors of Congress, until the
people of Kansas, or their true defenders here,
shall be brought to dishonorable compromises.
It can be done only by the simple and direct ad¬
mission of the three new States as free States,
without qualification, condition, reservation, or
compromise, and by the abandonment of all fur¬
ther attempts to extend Slavery under the Fede¬
ral Constitution. You have unwisely pushed
the controversy so far, that only these broad con¬
cessions will now be accepted by the interest of
free labor and free States. For myself, I see this
fact, perhaps, the more distinctly now, because
I have so long foreseen it. I can therefore
counsel nothing less than those concessions. I
know the hazards I incur in taking this position.
I know how men and parties, now earnest, and
zealous, and bold, may yet fall away from me, as
the controversy shall wax warm, and alarms and
dangers, now unlooked for, shall stare them in
the face, as men and parties, equally earnest,
bold, and zealous, have done, in like circum¬
stances, before. But it is the same position I
took in the case of California, eight years ago.
It is the same 1 maintained on the great occa¬
sion of the organization of Kansas and Nebraska,
four years ago. Time and. added experience
have vindicated it since, and I assume it again, to
be maintained to the last, with confidence, that
it will be justified, ultimately, by the country
and by the civilized world. You may refuse to
yield it now, and for a short period, but your re¬
fusal will only animate the friends of Freedom
with the' courage and the resolution, and pro¬
duce the union among them, which alone are ne¬
cessary, on their part, to attain the position it¬
self simultaneously with the impending over¬
throw of the existing Federal Administration and
the constitution of a new and more independent
Congress.
Mr. President, this expansion of the empire of
free white men is to be conducted through the
process of admitting new States, and not other¬
wise. The white man, whether you consent or
not, will make the States to be admitted, and he
will make them all free States. We must admit
them, and admit them all free; otherwise,
they will become independent and foreign States,
constituting a new empire to contend with as for
the continent. To admit them is a simple, easy,
and natural policy. It is not new to us, or
to our times. It began with the voluntary
union of the first thirteen. It has continued
to go -on, overriding all resistance, ever since.
It will go on until the ends of the continent
are the borders of" our Union. Thus we be¬
come co-laborers with our fathers, and even
with our posterity throughout • many ages.
After times, contemplating the whole vast
structure, completed and perfected, will for¬
get the dates, and the eras, and the individu¬
alities, of the builders in their successive genera¬
tions. It will be one great Republic, founded by
one body of benefactors. I wonder that the
President of the United States undervalues the
Kansas question, when it is a part of a transaction
so immense and sublime. Far from sympathizing
with him in his desire to depreciate it, and to be
rid of it, I felicitate myself on my humble relar
tion to it, for I know that Heaven cannot grant
nor man desire a more favorable occasion to ac¬
quire fame, than he enjoys who is engaged in
laying the foundations of a great empire ; and I
know, also, that while mankind have often dei¬
fied their benefactors, no nation has ever yet
bestowed honors on the memories of the founders
of Slavery.
I have always believed, Mr. President, that
15
th:s glorious Federal Constitution of our? is
adapted to the inevitable expansion of the empire
■Which I have so feebly presented. It has been
perverted often by misconstruction, and it has
yet to be perverted many times, and widely, here¬
after; but it has inherent strength and vigor
that will cast off all the webs which the ever-
ohanging interests of classes may weave around
it. If it fail us now, it will, however, not be
our' fault, but because an inevitable crisis, like
that of youth, or of manhood, js to be encoun¬
tered by a constitution proved in that case to
be inadequate to the trial. I am sure that
no patriot, who views the subject as I do,
could wish to evade or delay the trial. By de¬
lay we could only extend Slavery, at the most,
throughout the Atlantic region of the continent.
The Pacific slope is free, and it always must and
will be free. The mountain barriers that sepa¬
rate us from that portion of our empire are quite
enough to alienate us too widely, possibly to sep¬
arate us too soon. Let us only become all slave-
holding States on this side of those barriers, while
only free States are organized and perpetuated on
the other side, and then indeed there will come
a division of the great American family into
two nations, equally ambitious for complete
control over the continent, and a conflict be¬
tween them, over which the world will mourn,
as the greatest and last to be retrieved of all
the calamities that have ever befallen the human
race.
KLAJ3STS.A.S BXXjXJ-
SPEECH
OF
HON. J. P. BENJAMIN, OF LA,
DELIVERS® IN
SENATE OF UNITED STATES ON THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1858.
SL1VEEY PROTECTED
BY THE
COMMON LAW OF THE NEW WORLD.
<3-"0.0,3^£S,23.ti0C5L 00»XLJStit-U.t±<021-
Vindication of the Supreme Court of the U, S.
WASHINGTON:
$. S. GIDEON, PRINTER.
1858.
SPEECH.
Mi'. BENJAMIN. Mr. President, after the very able and eloquent
discourse of the Senator from Missouri, [Mr. Polk,] if I had regard
simply to my own reputation in giving utterance to the thoughts which
I have conceived upon the subject now before us, I should better consult
its interests by seeking another occasion for addressing the Senate; but
I am admonished by the increasing impatience of the Senate, by the
desire, not only in this Chamber, but in the public at large, to arrive
at an early vote on,this subject, that all personal considerations must
be made to give way, and that each of us must do his duty as promptly
as he can.
Mr. President, the issue to which the American people have been
looking forward for some years past, with almost instinctive apprehen¬
sion, is now before us. The urgent, the imperative necessity for its
decision is upon us.. Again is a slaveholding State demanding admis¬
sion into the Union, and again is that admission opposed by a large
majority of the Senators and Representatives of the non-slaveholding
States of the Confederacy. I am aware that every effort is being made
to conceal the true motive for this hostility. Pretexts about the irregu¬
larity of the territorial government, charges of fraud and deception,
vehement asseverations of a disregard of the popular will in the forma¬
tion of the State constitution—every pretext, every cause, every motive,
that the ingenuity of their ablest and most practiced debaters can
suggest, have been brought forward as the grounds of this hostility.
But, sir, as the discussion has progressed, as the excitement of debate
has overcome the cold teachings of prudence, various Senators have
made admissions; the truth, which had been concealed behind a cloud,
has become apparent to us all, and it is now boldly avowed that Kansas
shall never be admitted as a slaveholding State into the Confederacy,
not even, to use the words of the Senator from Maine, [Mr. Fessenden,]
if the whole people of the Territory should establish a constitution
recognising that institution.
Opinions thus maturely formed, thus openly avowed, are not to be
affected by any argument that I can hope to offer. But, sir, as long as
the Constitution of my country endures, as long as I have a constitu¬
tional duty to perform upon this floor, I feel myself under the most
sacred of all obligations to protest against the doctrines thus asserted,
4
and to expose, as far as I can, the fallacies by which those doctrines
are upheld.
I have still, sir, another duty to perform. As a member of that
committee which is charged in the Senate with the examination of all
subjects touching the judiciary of the country, it is my duty to make
answer to those charges which are brought against the highest judges-
of the land with a violence, a recklessness, and, I regret to be compelled
to add, with a disregard of truth and decency which will yet bring down
upon their authors the indignant condemnation of their outraged coun¬
trymen.
Mr. President, the whole subject of slavery, so far as it is involved
in the issue now before the country, is narrowed down at last to a con¬
troversy on the solitary point, whether it be competent for the Congress-
of the United States, directly or indirectly, to exclude.slavery from the
Territories of the Union. The Supreme Court of tne United Stated
have given a negative answer to this proposition, and it shall be my1
first effort to support that negation by argument, independently of the-1,
authority'of the decision.
It seems to me that the radical, fundamental error which underlies;'
the argument in affirmation of this power, is the assumption tMt1
slavery is the creature of the statute law of the several-States where it
is established; that it has no existence outside of the limits of those5
States; that slaves are not property beyond those limits; and that prop¬
erty in slaves is neither recognised nor protected by the Constitution of
the United States, nor by international law. I controvert all the^li
propositions, and shall proceed at once to my argument.
Mr. President, the thirteen colonies which, on the 4th of July, 1776]/
asserted their independence, were British colonies, governed by British!'
law's.1 Our ancestors, in their emigration to this country, brought wifff
them the common law of England as their birthright. They adopted'
its principles for their government so far as it was not incompatible'
with the peculiarities of their situation in a rude and unsettled country
Great Britain then having the sovereignty over the colonies, possessed
undoubted power to regulate their'institutions, to control their com¬
merce, arid to give laws to their intercourse, both with the mothef
country and the other nations of the earth. If I can show, as I hop#'
to be able tc establish to the satisfaction of the Seriate, that the nation
thus exercising sovereign power over these thirteen colonies did establish
slavery in them, did maintain and protect the institution, did originate
and carry on the slave trade, did support and foster that trade, that it
forbade the colonies permission either to emancipate or export their
slaves, that it prohibited them from inaugurating any legislation in
diminution or discouragement of the institution—nay, sir, more, if at
the date of our Revolution I can show that African slavery existed in
England as it did on this continent, if I can show that slaves were sold
upon the slave mart, in the Exchange and other public places of resort
in the city of London as they were on this continent, then I shall not
hazard too much in the assertion that slavery was the common law of
the thirteen States of the Confederacy at the time they buret the bonds
that united them to the mother country.
t
•The first permanent colonial settlement made 011 this continent "by
the English was made under a charter granted in "1606, in the fourth'
year of James I, to Sir Thomas Gates and his associates. I leave out
of view, as a matter of course, the few abortive attempts that were'
made towards the close of the sixteenth century by Sir Gilbert Hum¬
phreys in the north, and by Sir Walter Raleigh in the State which is
represented by my friend from Virginia. Those attempts were all
abortive. It is familiar to us all how disastrously they terminated. I
say the first permanent settlement made under the authority of the
British Crown on this continent, was under the charter of 1606. That
charter was subsequently superseded upon quo warranto, issued at the
instance of the British Crown, and in 1620 another charter took its
place, granted to the Duke of Lenox and his associates, who were in¬
corporated under the name of the Plymouth Company. To that com¬
pany the coast was granted from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree
of north latitude. This charter was followed by successive grants to
different noblemen and companies, until the entire coast was disposed
of. In 1664, to the Duke of York was granted all the territory as far
south as Delaware Bay; and in 1663 and 1666, to Lord Clarendon and
his associates the entire coast of the continent, from the twenty-ninth
degree of north latitude to that celebrated line of 36° 30' north, since
so famous in the history of our intestine disputes. Thus was conveyed
the whole coast comprised within our present limits.
Prior to this very first settlement, the slave trade had been inaugu¬
rated and established in Great Britain. The first notice which history
gives us of it is the grant of a charter by Queen Elizabeth, to a com¬
pany formed for the purpose of supplying slaves to the Spanish-Ameri¬
can colonies. The Virgin Queen herself was a share-holder. Subse¬
quently, in 1662, under Charles II, a monopoly was created in favor
of a company authorized to export to the colonies three thousand slaves
per annum; and so valuable was this privilege considered, so great
was the influence required for the purpose of obtaining a share in it,
that it was placed undor the auspices of the Queen Dowager and the-
Duke of York. The King himself issued his proclamation, inviting
his subjects to establish themselves on this side of the Atlantic; and as
an encouragement to the migration, tendered a grant of one hundred
acres of land for each four slaves that they would employ in the culti¬
vation of it.
The merchants pf London found their trade to the slave coast very
much cramped by this royal monopoly, granted to royal favorites; and
they continued to stun the ear of the Commons with loud complaints
that they were excluded from the advantages of so prosperous a traffic;
and in 1695 the Commons of England, in Committee of the Whole,
resolved, "That for the better supply of the plantations, all the sub¬
jects of Great Britain should have liberty to trade in Africa for ne¬
groes, with such limits as should be prescribed by Parliament."
In the-9th and 10th William III, an act was passed partially relax¬
ing this monopoly, the preamble to which states that—
"The trade was highly beneficial and advantageous to the kingdom, and to the plantations
and colonies thereunto belonging."
6
This partial relaxation was unsatisfactory. Petitions continued to
pour in. In 1108 the Commons again resolved—
"That the trade was important, and ought to be free and open to all the Queen's subjects
trading from Great Britain."
And in 1711 they again resolved that "this trade ought to be free
in a regulated companythe plantations ought to be supplied with
negroes at reasonable rates; a considerable stock was necessary for
carrying on the trade to the best advantage, and that an export of
£100,000 at least, in merchandise, should be annually made from Great
Britain to Africa." Finally, in the year 1749, these repeated resolu¬
tions of the Commons, and petitions of the merchants of London, ac¬
complished the desired result. They gained their object by the passage
of the act of 23d George II, throwing open the trade, and declaring
4'the slave trade to be very advantagoous to Great Britain, and neces¬
sary for supplying the plantations and colonies thereunto belonging
with a sufficient number of negroes at reasonable rates."
This legislation, Mr. President, as I have said before, emanating
from the mother country, fixed the institution upon the colonies. They
could not resist it. All their right was limited to petition, to remon¬
strance, and to attempts at legislation at home to diminish the evil.
Every such attempt was sternly repressed by the British Crown.
In 1760, South Carolina passed an act prohibiting the further impor¬
tation of African slaves. The act was rejected by the Crown; the
Governor was reprimanded; and a circular was sent to all the Gov¬
ernors of all the colonies, warning them against presuming to coun¬
tenance such legislation.
In 1765,. a similar bill was twice read in the Assembly of Jamaica.
The news reached Great Britain before its final passage. Instruc¬
tions were sent out to the royal Governor; he called the House
of Assembly before him, communicated his instructions, and forbade
any further progress of the bill.
i In 1774, in spite of this discountenancing action, of the mother
Government, two bills passed the Legislative Assembly of Jamaica;
and the Earl of Dartmouth, then Secretary of State, wrote to Sir Basil
Keith, the Governor of the colony, that " these measures had created
alarm to the merchants of Great Britain engaged in that branch of
commerce ;" and forbidding him, "on pain of removal from his Gov¬
ernment, to assent to such laws."
Finally, in 1775—mark the date—1775—after the Revolutionary
struggle had commenced, whilst the Continental Congress was in ses¬
sion, after armies had been levied, after Crown Point and Ticonderoga
had been taken possession of by the insurgent colonists, and after the
first bipod shed in the Revolution had reddened the spring sod upon
' the green at Lexington, this same Earl of Dartmouth, in answer to a
remonstrance from the agent of the colonies, replied:
"We cannot allow the colonies to check or discourage in any degree a traffic so beneficial
to the nation."
I say, then, that down to the very moment when our independence
was won, slavery, established by the statute law of England, had become
the common law of the old thirteen colonies.
7
But, sir, my task does not end here. I desire to show yon that by
her jurisprudence, that by the decisions of her judges, and the answers
of her lawyers to questions from the Crown and from public bodies,
this same institution was declared to be recognised by the common law
of England; and slaves were declared to be, in their language, mer¬
chandise, chattels, just as much private property as any other mer¬
chandise or any other chattel.
A short time prior to the year 1713, a contract had been formed be¬
tween Spain and a certain company, called the Royal Guinea Company,
that had been established in France. This contract was technically
called in those days an assiento. By the treaty of Utrecht of the 11th
of April, 1813, Great Britain, through her diplomatists, obtained a
transfer of that contract. She yielded considerations for it. The ob¬
taining of that contract was greeted in England with shouts of joy. It
was considered a triumph of diplomacy. It was followed, in the month
of May, 1713, by a new contract in form, by which the British Govern¬
ment undertook, for the term of thirty years then next to come, to
transport, annually, 4,800 slaves to the Spanish American colonies, at
a fixed price. Almost immediately after this new contract, a question
arose in the English Council as to the true legal character of the slaves
thus to be exported to the Spanish American colonies; and, according
to the forms of the British Constitution, the question was submitted by
the Crown in Council to the twelve judges of England. I have their
answer here; it is in these words:
"In pursuance of his Majesty's order in Council, hereunto annexed, "we do humbly certify
our opinion to be that negroes are merchandise.'1'1
Signed by Lord Chief Justice Holt, Judge Pollexfen, and eight other
judges of England.
Mr. MASON. What is the date of that?
Mr. BENJAMIN. It was immediately after the treaty of Utrecht,
in 1713. Very soon afterwards the nascent spirit of fanaticism began
to obtain a foothold in England; and although large numbers of negro
slaves were owned in Great Britain, and, as I said before, were daily,
sold on the public Exchange in London, (see 2 Haggard's Rep., p. 105,)
questions arose as to the right of the owners to retain property in their
slaves; and the merchants of London, alarmed, submitted the question
to Sir Philip Yorke, who afterwards became Lord Hardwicke, and to
Lord Talbot, who were then the solicitor and attorney general of the
kingdom. The question was propounded to them, ""what are the
rights of a British owner of a slave in England?" and this is the an¬
swer of those two legal functionaries. They certified that " a slave com¬
ing from the West Indies to England, with or without his master, doth
not become free; and his master's property in him is not thereby deter¬
mined. nor varied, and the master may legally compel him to return to
the plantations."
And, in 1749, the same question again came up before Sir Philip
Yorke, then Lord Chancellor of England, under the title of Lord Hard-
8
wicke, and, by a decree in chancery in the case before him, he affirmed
the doctrine which he had uttered when he was attorney general qf
Great Britain. *
Things thus stood in England until the year 1771, when the spirit
of fanaticism, to which I have adverted, acquiring strength, finally
operated upon Lord Mansfield, who, by a judgment rendered in the
case known as the celebrated Sommersett case, subverted the common
law of England by judicial legislation, as I shall prove in an instant. I
say it not on my own authority; I would not be so presumptuous. The
Senator from Maine (Mr. Fessenden] need not smile at my statement.
I will give him higher authority than anything I can dare assert. 1
say, that in 1771 Lord Mansfield subverted the common law of England
in the Sommersett case, and decided, not that a slave carried to England
from the West Indies by his master thereby became free, but that, by the
law of England, if the slave resisted the master, there was no remedy
by which the master could exercise his control; that the colonial legis¬
lation which afforded the master means of controlling his property had
no authority in England, and that England by her laws had provided
no substitute for that authority. That was what Lord Mansfield de¬
cided. I say this was judicial legislation. I say it subverted the entire
^previous jurisprudence of Great Britain. I have just adverted to the
^authorities for that position. Lord Mansfield felt it. The case was
•argued before him over and over again, and he begged the parties to
compromise. They said they would not. " Why," said he, "I have
known six of these cases already, and in five out of the six there was a
compromise ; you had better compromise this matter/' But the parties
said no, they would stand on the law; and then, after holding the cabe
up three terms, Lord Mansfield mustered up courage to say what I
have just asserted to be his decision: that there was no law in England
affording the master control over his slave; and that therefore the
master's putting him on board of a vessel in irons, being unsupported
by authority derived from English law, and the colonial law not being
in force in England, he would discharge the slave from custody pn
habeas corpus, and leave the master to his remedy as best he coul^L
find one. p
Mr. FESSENDEN. Decided so unwillingly.
Mr. BENJAMIN. The gentleman is right—very unwillingly. He
was driven to the decision by the paramount power of that fanaticism
which is now perverting the principles and obscuring the judgment pf
the people of, the North, and of whose effects, I must say, there is no
more striking example to be found than is exhibited by its influence pp.
the clear and logical intellect of my friend from Maine.
Mr. President, I make these charges in relation to that judgment,
because in them I am supported by an intellect greater than Mans¬
field's—by a judge of resplendent genius and consummate learning—
one who, in all questions of international law, on all subjects not
dependent upon the peculiar municipal common law of England, has
won for himself the proudest name in the annals of her jurisprudence—
the gentleman knows well that I refer to Lord Stowell. As late as
9
1827, twenty years after Great Britain had abolished' the slave trade,
six years before she was brought to the point of confiscating the
property of her colonies which she had forced them to buy, a case was
brought before that celebrated judge—a case known to all lawyers by
the name of the slave Grace. It was pretended in the argument that
the slave Grace was free, because she had been carried to England; and
it was said, under the authority of Lord Mansfield's decision in the
Sommersett case, that, having once breathed English air, she was
free-—that the atmosphere of that favored kingdom was too pure to be
breathed by a slave. Lord Stowell, in answering that legal argument,
said that, after painful and laborious research into historical records, he
did not find anything touching the peculiar fitness of the English at¬
mosphere for respiration during the ten centuries that slaves had lived
in England.
I desire to call the attention of the Senate to some passages in that
celebrated decision, in answer to another proposition wThich the Senators
who are opposing this bill assume in nearly all their arguments, and
that is, that slavery is the creature of positive legislation, and cannot
be established by customary law or usage. That point was raised in
this case, and Lord Stowell thus disposed of it :
II Haying adverted to most of the objections that arise to the revival of slavery in the
colonies, I have first to observe that it returns upon the slave by the same title by which it
grew up originally. It never was in Antigua the creature of law, but of that custom which
operates with the force of law; and when it is cried out that malus usus abolendus est, it is first
to be proved that, even in the consideration of England, the use of slavery is considered as a
malus usus in the colonies. Is that a malus usus which the court of the King's privy council
and the courts of chancery are every day carrying into full effect in all considerations of prop¬
erty^—in the one by appeal, and in the other by original causes—and all this enjoined and
confirmed by statutes? Still less is it to be considered as a malus usus in the colonies them¬
selves, where it has been incorporated into full life and establishment—where it is the system
of the State and of every individual in it: and fifty years have passed without any authorized
condemnation of it in England as a mains vsus in the colonies."
This, sir, was fifty years after Lord Mansfield's speech in the Som¬
mersett case.
"The fact is, that in England, where village of both sorts went into total decay, we had
communication with no other country; and, therefore, it is triumphantly declared, as:
I have before observed, 'once a freeman ever a freeman,' there being no other country with
which we had immediate connection, which at the time of suppressing that system we had
any occasion to trouble ourselves about. But slavery was a very favored introduction into
the colonies; it was deemed a great source of the mercantile interest of the country, and wag,
on that account, largely considered by the mother country as a great source of its wealth and
strength. Treaties were made on that account, and the colonies compelled to submit to those
treaties by the authority of this country. This system continued entire. Instead of being
condemned as malus usus, it was regarded as a most eminent source of its riches and power.
It was at a late period of the last century^that it was condemned in England as an institution
not fit to exist here, for reasons peculiar to our own condition; but it lias been continued in
our colonies, favored and supported by our own courts, which have liberally imparted to it
their protection and encouragement. To such a system, whilst it is supported, I rather feel it
to be too strong to apply the maxim, malus usus abolendus est. The time may come when this
institution may fall in the colonies, as other institutions have done in other flourishing coun¬
tries; but I am of opinion it can only be effected at the joint expense of both countries, for it
is in a peculiar manner the crime of this country; and I rather feel it to be an objection to this
species of emancipation, that it is intended to be a very cheap measure here by throwing the
whole expense upon the country."—2 Haggard's Reports, 12G el seq.
After that decision had been rendered, Lord Stowell, who was at that
time in correspondence with Judge Story, sent him a copy of it, and
10
wrote to him upon the subject of his judgment. No man will doubt the
anti-slavery feelings and proclivities of Judge Story. He was asked to
take the decision into consideration and give his opinion about it. Here
are extracts from his answer:
"I have read, with great attention, your jugdment in the slave case. Upon the fullest con¬
sideration which I have been able to give the subject, I entirely concur in your views. If I
had been called upon to pronounce a judgment in a like case, I should have certainly arrived
at the same result."
That was the opinion of Judge Story in 1827; but, sir, whilst con¬
tending, as I here contend, as a proposition based in history, main¬
tained by legislation, supported by judicial authority of the greatest
weight, that slavery, as an institution, was protected by the common
law of these colonies at the date of the Declaration of Independence,
I go further, though not necessary to my argument, and declare that
it was the common law of the whole continent of North and South
America alike. Why, Mr. President, the European continental powers,
which joined and co-operated with Great Britain in the discovery and
establishment of colonies on this continent, all followed the same views
of policy. France, Spain, Portugal, and England, occupied the whole
continent, North and South. The legislation of all of them was the
same. Louis XIII, by royal edict, established slavery in all his colo¬
nies in America. Everybody knows that it was through the interfer¬
ence of Las Casas that the Spanish Crown inaugurated the slave trade
with a view of substituting the servile labor of the African for that of
the Indians, who had been reduced to slaveyv by their Spanish con¬
querors. As regards Portugal, she inaugurated the trade; she origi¬
nally supplied all the colonies; and the Empire of Brazil to-day, with
its servile labor, is the legitimate fruit of the colonial policy of the
Portuguese Government in the sixteenth century. She began her trade
in 1508, and some authors say even before the colonization of America
in the-fifteenth century.
I say that slavery was thus the common recognised institution of the
New World. I clo not thereby mean to admit for a moment that it was
not the common law of the Old World when this nation was formed.
Have we all forgotten that white slavery existed in England until a
comparatively very recent period? It did not finally disappear until
the reign of James II. What was that system of villenage, of which
all the old law-writers speak? They were all slaves. These villeins
were divided into two classes—v-illeins-regardant and villeins in gross—
both slaves. The only difference between them was, that the villeins-
regardant were attached to the soil; they could not be sold away from
the glebe; they followed the conveyance of the estate into the hands of
the new lord; but the villeins in gross were mere chattels, sold from,
hand to hand, just as negroes are sold at the present hour. If any gen¬
tleman is curious to see something on this subject, he will find a concise
' account of it in the first volume of the celebrated treatise of Mr. Spence,
on the equity jurisdiction of the courts of chancery. That volume con¬
tains a very concise and admirable history of the English law. He will
find there some statements in relation to the law of villenage in En-
11
gland. But, sir, a true picture, a fair picture of the state of the vil¬
leins of England, is nowhere better given than in the celebrated argu¬
ment of Hargrave, the great lawyer who was the counsel for the slave
in the Sommersett case. One passage will give us his description of
what the villein was under the common law of England:
"The condition of a villein had most of the incidents which I have before described in giv¬
ing the idea of slavery in general. His service was uncertain and indeterminate, such as his
lord thought fit to require; or,"as some of our ancient writers express it, he knew not in the
evening what he was to do in the morning; he was bound to do whatever he was commanded.
He was liable to beating, imprisonment, and every other chastisement his lord might prescribe,
except killing and maiming. He was incapable of acquiring property for his own benefit,
the rule being lqiricquid acqniritur servo} acquiritvr domino.' He was himself the subject of
property; as such, saleable and transmissible. If he was a villein regardant, he passed with
the manor or land to which he was annexed, but might be severed at the pleasure of his lord.
If he was a villein in gross, he was a hereditament or a chattel real, according to his lord's
interest; being descendible to the heir where the lord was absolute owner, and transmissible
to the executor where the lord had only a term of years in him. Lastly, the slavery extended
to the issue, if both parents were villeins, or if the father was a villein; our law deriving the
condition of the child from that of the father, contrary to the Roman law, in which the rule
was 'partus sequitur ventrem.' The origin of villenage is principally to be derived from the
wars between our British, Saxon, Danish and Norman ancestors, whilst they were contending
for the possession of this country. Judge Fitzherbert, in his reading on the fourth of Edw.
I, stat. 1, entitled 'extenta manerri,' supposes villenage to have commenced at the Conquest, by
the distribution then made of the forfeited lands, and of the vanquished inhabitants resident
upon them. But there were many bondmen in England before the Conquest, as appears by
the Anglo-Saxon laws regulating them; and therefore it would be nearer the truth to attribute
the origin of villeins as Avell to the preceding Avars and revolutions in this country as to the
effects of the Conquest."—-20 HoivelV s State Trials, pp. 36-7.
I say, then, sir, that white slavery was protected by the common law
of England down to James II; and if any man is peculiarly curious
to learn the process by which it gradually disappeared, and has any
taste for antiquarian lore, if he will look to the appendix to the
twentieth volume of Howell's State Trials, he will find a commission
issued by Queen Elizabeth to Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and Sir William
Milclmay, giving them authority to go into her counties of Gloucester,
Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset, and there to manumit her slaves, by
getting from them a reasonable price for their liberty. That is the way
slavery was abolished in England. It was abolished by the gradual
emancipation of the slaves, resulting from the sale, by the lord to the
slave himself, of his right over him. I will read a passage of this
commission:
"Elizabeth, by the grace of God, &c. To our right trustie and well-beloved counsellor, sir
W. Cecill of the Garter Knighte, lord Burghley and Highe Treasorer of England, and to our
trustie and right well-beloved counsellor, sir Walter Mildmay, Knight, chauncellor, and under
treasorer of our exchequer, greetinge.
"Whereas, divers and sundrie of our poore faithfull and loyal subjectes, being borne bonde
in blode and regardaunt to divers and sundrie our manors and possessions within our realm of
England, have made humble suyte unto us to be manumysed, enfraunchised, and made free, with
theire children and sequells, by reason Avhereof they, theire children and sequells, may become
more apte and fitte members for the service of us and of our common wealthe.
1 "We therefore, having tender consideration of their said sute, and well considering the same
to be acceptable to Almightie God"
How, we all suppose she is going to give them their freedom. Hot
at all. She is willing to sell them to themselves at a fair price; and
so she goes on:
' 'And we do commytt and give unto you full power and authoritie by these presents, to accepte,
admitte and receive to be manumysed, enfraunchised, and made free, suche and so many of our
12
bondmen and bondwomen in blood, with all and every theire children and seqaells, theire goodes,
landes, tenementes, and hereditaments, as are now apperteynynge or regardaunte to all or any
of our manors, landes, tenementes, possessions, or hereditaments within the said several cotra-
ties of Cornwall, Devon, Somersett, and Gloucester, as to you by your discretions shall seme
mete and convenient, compoundinge with thc-m for suche reasonable fines or sornmes of money io
be taken and received to our use for the mannmyssion and enfraunchisement, and for the posses¬
sions, and enjoying of all and singular theire landes, tenementes, hereditaments, goodes and
cliattells whatsoever, as you and they can aggree for the same after your wisdomes and discre¬
tions."
Here, then, was slavery in its widest and broadest acceptation, in
Great Britain, in the time of Elizabeth, and it never finally disappeared
from the kingdom until the reign of James II.
How was it in France ? In France they had a system of white slaves
of the same kind. There they called them gens de main morte—mort¬
main people, because they belonged to the estates; and they, in„ 1779.,
were enfranchised by royal edict, commending in these words:
"We have been greatly affected by the consideration that a large number of our subjects,
still attached as slaves to the glebe, are regarded as forming part of it as it were; that deprived
of the liberty of their persons, and of thg rights «f property, they themselves are considered as
the property of their lords; that they have not the consolation of bequeathing their goods, and
that, except in a few cases rigorously circumscribed, they cannot even transmit to their own
children the fruits of their own labor."
Thus fell the last remnant of white slavery in France in 1779, after
our independence.
As regards Spain, let any one who is in the habit of reading the
literature of that country for the eighteenth century tell me if he re¬
members a solitary tale or romance of her authors in which some Moorish
or negro slave is not introduced as the familiar inmate of the household.
The remainder of the European continent is still governed with bene¬
ficent sway by the civil law; and all know that that law protects, in
every aspect, the relation between master and slave.
Thus, Mr. President, I say, that even if we admit for the momeht
that by the common law of the nations which colonized this continent,
the institution of slavery, at the time of our independence, was dying
away by manumissions, either gratuitous or for a price granted by those
who held the people as slaves; yet so far as the continent of America
was concerned, North and South, there did not breathe a being who did
not know that a negro, under the common law of the continent, was
merchandise, was property, was a slave; and that he could only extri¬
cate himself from that status, stamped upon him by the common law
of the country, by positive proof of manumission. No man was hound
to show title to his negro slave. The negro was bound to show manu¬
mission under which he had acquired his freedom, by the common law
of every colony. Why, sir, can any man doubt, is there a gentleman
here, even the Senator from Maine, who doubts that if, after the Revo¬
lution, the different States of this Union had not passed laws upon the
subject to abolish slavery, to subvert this common law of the continent,
every one of these States would be slave States yet? How came they
free States? Hid not they have this institution of slavery imprinted
upon them by the power of the mother country? How did they get rid
of it? All, all must admit that they had to pass positive acts of legie-
13
lation to accomplish, tliis purpose. Without that legislation they would
(still he slave States. What, then, becomes of the pretext that slavery
only exists in those States where it was established by positive legisla¬
tion, that it has no inherent vitality out of those States, and that slaves
arc not considered as property by the Constitution of the United States?
When the delegates of the several colonies, , which had thus asserted
their independence of the British Crown, met in convention, the de¬
cision of Lord Mansfield in the Sommersett case was recent—known to
,$11. At the same time, a number of the northern colonies had taken
incipient steps for the emancipation of their slaves. Here permit me
to say, sir, that, with a prudent regard to what the Senator from Maine
[Mr. Hamlin] yesterday called the "sensitive pocket-nerve," they all
made these provisions prospective. Slavery was to be abolished after a
certain future time—-just enough time to give their citizens convenient
opportunity for selling the slaves to southern planters, putting the
money in their pockets, and then sending to us here, on this floor, re¬
presentatives who flaunt in robes of sanctimonious holiness; who make
parade of a cheap philanthropy, exercised at our expense; and who say
to all men, "Look ye now, how holy, how pure we are; you are polluted
by the touch of slavery; we are free from it." *
I say that was the position of the delegates when they met in con¬
vention; and it was necessary to make provision in relation to slaves.
In the northern States slavery was about to be abolished. If Lord
Mansfield's decision in the Sommersett case was to be followed as the
rule, it was obvious that southern slaves were exposed to being plun¬
dered, robbed, carried away from their masters. On the other hand,
by a compromise between the North and the South, slaves had entered
into the representative basis of the country. What was to be done ?
Two clauses were put in the Constitution, one to guaranty to the
South its property—it provided for the return to the southern owner of
the slave that was recognised as his property; another clause for the
North, to prevent a disturbance of the representative basis by importa¬
tion of slaves. The North said to the South, "You 'shall not increase
your laboring population by importation after twenty years, because
we of the North have an interest in that question; we have agreed they
shall be counted in the representative basis, and we want protection as
well as you." That is all the Constitution says on this subject. It
guaranties to the South the sanctity of its peculiar property; it protects
the North against any abnormal augmentation of the number of slaves
in the South which might give them an undue preponderance in the
representation of the different States of the Union.
Now, sir, because the Supreme Court of the United States says—what
is patent to every man who reads the Constitution of the United States—
that it does guaranty property in slaves, it has been attacked with
vituperation here, on this floor, by Senators on all sides. Some have
abstained from any indecent, insulting remarks in relation to the court.
Some have confined themselves to calm and legitimate argument. To
them I anq|about to reply. To the others I shall have something to
$&y a littlelater. What says the Senator from Maine? [Mr. Fessenden.]
14
He says:
' Had the result of that election been otherwise, and had not the [Democratic] party tri¬
umphed on the dogma which they had thus introduced, we should never have heard of a.
doctrine so utterly at variance with all truth; so utterly destitute of all legal logic; so founded
on error, and unsupported by anything like argument, as is the opinion of the Supreme
Court."
.He says, further:
"I should like, if I had time, to attempt to demonstrate the fallacy of that opinion. I have
examined the view of the Supreme Court of the United States on the question of the power of
the Constitution to carry slavery into free territory belonging to the United States, and I tell
you that 1 believe any tolerably respectable lawyer in the United States can show, beyond all
question, to any fair and unprejudiced mind, that the decision has nothing to stand upon
except assumption, and bad logic from the assumptions made. The main proposition on which
that decision is founded; the corner-stone of it, without which it is nothing, without which it
fails entirely to satisfy the mind of any roaq. is this: that the Constitution of the United States
reoognises property in slaves, and protects it as such. I deny it. It neither recognises slaves
as property, nor does it protect slaves as property."
The Senator here, you see, says that the whole decision is based on
that assumption, which he pronounces false. He says that the Consti¬
tution does not recognise slaves as property, nor protect them as prop¬
erty, and his reasoning, a little further on, is somewhat curious. He
says:
"On what do they found the assertion that the Constitution recognises slaves as property?
On the provision of the Constitution by which Congress is prohibited from passing a law to
prevent the African slave trade for twenty years; and therefore they say the Constitution
recognises slaves as property."
I should think that was a pretty fair recognition of it. On this point
the gentleman declares:
"Will not anybody see that this constitutional provision, if it works one way, must work
the other? If, by allowing the slave trade for twenty years, we recognise slaves as property,
when we say that at the "end of twenty years we will cease to allow it, or may cease to do so,
is not that denying them to be property after that period elapses?"
That is the argument. Nothing hut my respect for the logical in¬
tellect of the Senator from Maine could make me treat this argument
as serious, and nothing hut having heard it myself would make me
helieve that he ever uttered it. What, sir! The Constitution of our
country says to the South, "you shall count as the hasis of your repre¬
sentation five slaves as being three white men; you shall he protected
in the natural increase of your slaves; nay, more, as a matter of com¬
promise you may increase their number if you choose, for twenty years,
by importation; whdn these twenty years are out, you shall stop."
The Supreme Court of the United States says, "well; is not this a re¬
cognition of slavery, of property in slaves?" "Oh, no," says the gen¬
tleman, "the rule must work both ways; there is a converse to the
proposition." Now, sir, to an ordinary, uninstructed intellect, it would
seem that the converse of the proposition was simply that at the end of
twenty years you should not any longer increase your numbers hy im¬
portation; but the gentleman says the converse of the proposition is
that at the end of the twenty years, after you have, under the guarantee
of the Constitution, been adding by importation to the previous number
of your slaves, then all those that you had before, and al| those that,
under that Constitution, you have imported, cease to be recognised as
15
property by tbe Constitution, and on tbis proposition be assails tbe
Supreme Court of tbe United States—a proposition which be says will
occur to anybody!
Mr. FESSENDEN. Will tbe Senator allow me? _
Mr. BENJAMIN. I should be very glad to enter into tbis question
witb tbe Senator now, but I fear it is so late tbat I sliall not be able to
get tbrougb to-day.
Mr. FESSENDEN. > I suppose it is of no consequence.
Mr. BENJAMIN. What says the Senator from Vermont, [Mr. Col-
lamer,] who also went into tbis examination somewhat extensively ? I
read from his printed speech:
"I do not say that slaves are never property. I do not say that they are, or are not. Within
the limits of a State -which declares them to be property, they are property, because they are
within the jurisdiction of that government which makes the declaration; but I should wish to
speak of it in the light of a member of the United States Senate, and i* the language of the
United States Constitution. If this be property in the States, what is the nature and extent of
it ? I insist that the Supreme Court have often decided, and everybody has understood, that
slavery is a local institution, existing by force of State law; and of course that law can give it
no possible character beyond the limits of that State. I shall, no doubt, find the idea better ex¬
pressed in the opinion of Judge Nelson, in this same Dred Scott decision. I prefer to read his
language. He declares:
" 'Every State or nation possesses an exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction within her own
territory; and her laws'affect and bind all property and persons residing within it. It may
regulate the manner and circumstances under which property is held, and the condition, capacity,
and state of all persons therein; and also the remedy and the modes of administering justice.
And it is equally true that no State or nation can affect or bind property out of its territory, or
persons n,ot residing within it. No State, therefore, can enact laws to operate beyond its own
dominions; and, if it attempts to do so, may be lawfully refused obedience. Such laws can.
have no authority extra-territorially. This is the necessary result of the independence of dis¬
tinct and separate sovereignties.'
"Here is the law; and under it exists the law of slavery in the different States. By virtue of
this very principle it cannot extend one inch beyond its own territorial limits. A State
cannot regulate the relation of master and slave, of owner and property, the manner and title
of descent, or anything else, one inch beyond it3 territory. Then you cannot, by virtue of the
law of slavery, if it makes slaves property in a State, if you please, move that property out of
the State. It ends whenever you pass from that ,State. You may pass into another State that
has a like law; and if you do, you hold it by virtue of that law; but the moment you pass
beyond the limits of the slaveho'lding States, all title to the property called property in slaves
there ends. Under such a law slaves cannot be carried as property into the Territories, or any¬
where else beyond the States authorizing it. It is not property anywhere else. If the Consti¬
tution of the United States gives any other and further character than this to slave property,
let us acknowledge it fairly, and end all strife about it. If it does not, I ask, in all candor,
that men on the other side shall say so, and let this point be settled. What is the point we are
to inquire into? It is this; does the Constitution of the United States make slaves property
beyond the jurisdiction of the States authorizing slavery ?' If it only acknowledges them as
property within that jurisdiction, it has not extended the property one inch beyond the State
line; but if; as the Supreme Court seems to say, it does recognise and protect them as property
further than State limits, and more than the State laws do, then, indeed, it becomes like other
property. r£he Supreme Court rest this claim upon this clause of the Constitution; 'No person
held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, shall, in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on
claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' Now the question is, does that
guaranty it ? Does that make it the same aether property ? The very fact that this clause
makes provision on the subject of persons bound to service, shows that the framers of the Con¬
stitution did not regard it as other property. It was a thing that needed some provision; other
property did not. The insertion of such a provision shows that it was not regarded as other
property. If a man's horse stray from Delaware into Pennsylvania, he can go and get it. Is
there any provision in the Constitution for it?4 No. How came this to be there, if a slave is
property? If it is the same as other property, why have any provision about it?"
It will undoubtedly have struck any person, in hearing this passage
read from the speech of the Senator from Yermont, whom I regret not
16
0 see in his seat to-day, that the whole argument, ingeniously as it is:
put, rests upon this fallacy—if I may say so with due respect to him—
that a man cannot have title in property wherever the iaw, does ijot
give him a remedy or process for the assertion of his title; or, in other-
words, his whole argument rests upon the old confusion of ideas which
considers a man's right and his remedy to he one and the same thing.
1 have already shown to you, by the passages 1, have cited from the
opinions of Lord Stowell and of Judge Story, how they regard this
subject. They say that the slave who goes to England, or goes to
Massachusetts, from a slave State, is still a slave—that he is still his
master's property; but that his master has lost control over him, not
by reason of the cessation of his property, but because those States
grant no remedy to the master by which he can exercise his control.
There are numerous illustrations upon this point—illustrations fur¬
nished by the copy-right laws, illustrations furnished by patent laws.
Let us take a case—one that appeals to us all. There lives now a man
in England who from time to time .sings to the enchanted ear of the
civilized world strains of such melody that the charmed senses seem to
abandon the grosser regions of earth, and to rise to purer and serener
regions above. God has created that man a poet. His inspiration is'
his; his songs are his by right divine; they are his property, so recog¬
nised by human law. Yet here in these United States men steal Ten¬
nyson's works and sell his property for their profit; and this becafis&y
in spite of the violated conscience of the nation, we refuse to give him
protection for his property.
Examine your Constitution; are slaves the only species of property
there recognised as requiring peculiar protection? Sir, the inventive-
genius of our brethren of the hiorth is a source of vast wealth to them"
and vast benefit to the nation. I saw a short time ago in one of the;
Hew York journals, that the estimated value of a few of the patents^
now before us in this Capitol for renewal was $40,000,000. I cannot
believe that the entire capital invested in inventions of this character"
in the United States man fall short of one hundred and fifty or twb'
hundred million dollars. On what protection does this vast property
rest ? Just upon that same constitutional protection which gives a
remedy to the slave owner when his property is also found outside of
the limits of the State in which he lives.
Without this protection, what would be the condition of the north¬
ern inventor? Why, sir, the Vermont inventor protected by his owfi"
law would come to Massachusetts, and there say to the pirate who had
stolen his property, 'Lender me up jmy property or pay me value for
its use." The Senator from Vermom. would receive for answer, if he:
were the counsel of this Vermont inventor, "Sir, if you want protec¬
tion for your property go to your own State; property is governed by
the laws of the State within whose jurisdiction it is found; you have'
no property in your invention outside of the limits of your State; you
cannot go an inch beyond it." Would not this be so? Does not every
man see at dnce that the right of the inventor to his discovery, that the
right of the poet to his inspiration, depends upon those principles of
11
eternal justice which God has implanted in the heart of man, and that'
wherever he cannot exercise them it is because man, faithless to thee
trust that he has received from God, denies them the protection to
which they are entitled?
Sir, follow out the illustration which the Senator from Vermont him¬
self has given; take his very case of the Delaware owner of a horse riding'
him across the line into Pennsylvania. The Senator says : "Now, yon
see thatslaves are not property like other property; if slaves were property*
like other property, why have you this special clause in your Constitu¬
tion to protect a slave ? You have no clause to protect the horse, be¬
cause horses are recognised as property everywhere." Mr. President^
the same fallacy lurks at the bottom of this argument, as of all the
rest. Let Pennsylvania exercise her undoubted jurisdiction over per¬
sons and things within her own boundary; let her do as she has a per¬
fect right to do—declare that hereafter, within the State of Pennsyl¬
vania, there shall be no property in horses, and that no man shall
maintain a suit in her courts for the recovery of property in a horse y
and where will your horse-owner be then? Just where the English
poet is now; just where the slaveholder and the inventor would be if
the Constitution, foreseeing a difference of opinion in relation to rights
in these subject-matters, had not provided the remedy in relation to'
,such property as might easily be plundered. Slaves, if you please, are-
not property like other property in this : that you can easily rob us of
them; but as to the rigid in them, that man has to overthrow the*
whole history of the world, he has to overthrow every treatise on ju¬
risprudence, he has to ignore the common sentiment of mankind, Kef
has to repudiate the authority of all that is considered sacred with
man, ere £e can reach the conclusion that the person who owns a slave,.-
in a country where slavery .has been established for ages, has no other
property in that slave than the mere title which is given by the statute
law of the land where it is found.
I never h^ard this question disputed before; I never heard a sugges-,
tion that slaves were not protected as property by the Constitution of
the United States till I heard it from the Senator from Maine here the
other day. In the sixteenth volume of Peters's Keports there is the re¬
port of a case which occurred between the States of Maryland and Penn¬
sylvania. It was elaborately argued. The Commonwealth of Penn¬
sylvania sent her attorney general into the room below to affirm her
right to the legislation which she had passed. Although the suit was
in the name of an individual, really it was the rights of Maryland
that were concerned, and it w^s the State of Maryland that was inter¬
ested in the decision. The case is known by the title in the law-books
of Prigg versus the State of Pennsylvania. Every judge on the bench
gave' his decision in that case. Every judge on the bench con¬
curred in the decision. Judge Story delivered the opinion of the
court, the other judges delivering their individual opinions, where
they did not precisely agree with the general language of the court.
Amongst those judges was judge McLean, one of the dissentient judges
in the Dred Scott case. Let us hear what he says about slaves being
18
property under the Constitution. I shall read a short passage, a para¬
graph or two only. I take this out of his statement of his opinion at
page 661, of 16th Peters. He quotes the clause of the Constitution
that protects us in our rights to fugitive slaves, and he says:
"It-was designed to protect the rights of the master, and against- whom? Not against the
State, nor the people of the State in which he resides; but against the people and the legisla¬
tive action of other States, where the fugitive from labot might be found. Under the confede¬
ration, the master has no legal means of enforcing liis eights in a State opposed to slavery.
A disregard of rights thus asserted, was deeply felt in the South. It produced great excite¬
ment, and would have led to results destructive of the Union. To avoid this, the constitu¬
tional guarantee was essential."
Now, what is this guarantee? He tells us, at page 671 of the same
volume:
"I cannot perceive how any one can doubt that the remedy given in the Constitution, ifj
indeed, it give any remedy without legislation, was designed to be a peaceful one; a remedy
sanctioned by judicial authority; a remedy guarded by the forms of law. But the inquiry is
reiterated, is not the master entitled to his property? I answer that he is. His right is guar¬
antied by the Constitution ; and the most summary means for its enforcement is found, in the act
of Congress. And neither the State nor its citizens can obstruct the prosecution of this
right."
That was Judge McLean's language. When I find language like
this, even from the minority of the court in the Dred Scott case, when
I find the entire court, man for man, concurring that the constitutional
rights of the South are guarantied in slaves as property by this clause
in the Constitution, I must express my intense surprise at hearing the
Senator from Maine declare that the Dred Scott decision was not to be
supported, because it rested for a corner-stone on the assumption that
slaves were recognised by the Constitution as property, which as¬
sumption he denied.
But, Mr. President, all these gentlemen who thus fail in the slightest
degree to impugn the opinion of the court by argument, attempt to
shake its authority by an assertion entirely destitute of the slightest
foundation. Every Senator who has spoken on the subject of this de¬
cision has declared that the court said it was without jurisdiction to
determine it, and then determined it. I say that all the judges declared
that they had jurisdiction of the merits, and determined that point
before they decided the merits; and I am prepared to prove it. There
was not a judge on the bench who did not declare that he had juris¬
diction of the merits. There were some of the judges who declared
that they had jurisdiction of no other question, and Judge McLean was
one of them. He said the question of jurisdiction was not before them
at all, and so did Judge Catron; and both those judges said that the
court had nothing before them but the merits. Every judge said that
he had the merits before him. I will prove it.
When this decision was first published; when, as I am sorry to say,
two of the judges of that court so far forgot the proprieties of their
judicial station as to send forth a minority opinion to forestall the pub¬
lic judgment, and to produce among the people of the country the im¬
pression that the integrity of their judiciary was no longer to be relied
upon, and thus to subvert one of the foundations of our Government;
when those opinions first went abroad, they were seized upon by the
19
Bepublican presses through, the land, and it was said everywhere, "this
court is usurping power; it has no such power as that which it assumes;
irt first says it has no jurisdiction, and then, after declaring itself to be
without power over the subject-matter, presumes to determine it."
Every Senator on this side of the Chamber, who has spoken, has re¬
peated this. I want to nail the assertion to the counter; the coin is
false.
Mr. FESSENDEN. The Senator will allow me to make a suggestion
as to the statement of the court.
Mr. BENJAMIN. Undoubtedly.
Mr. FESSENDEN. I understand the Senator to assert that two
judges sent forth their opinions. Did they do anything more than put
their opinions on file in the clerk's office, where they were copied?
Mr. BENJAMIN. I think they did; but I am not going to filter
into that now.
Mr. FESSENDEN. I understand it is not the fact. They simply
put their opinions on file in the clerk's office, as was the rule of the
court; the others kept theirs back.
Mr. BENJAMIN. The gentleman is mistaken about that.
Mr. FESSENDEN. I am so instructed.
Mr. BENJAMIN. The gentleman is mistaken. The copies of those
opinions were not furnished by the clerk of the court.
Mr. FESSENDEN. They were not s^nt forth by the judges, that I
am aware of.
Mr. BENJAMIN. I do not mean to say that the judges themselves
took their opinions and carried them to the printing offices; but they
furnished them for publication. It is idle to deny it. Everybody
knows it.
Now, sir, I come back to the point from which I started. I say that
every judge of the court, in his opinion, declared that he had juris¬
diction—jurisdiction over the merits of this case. First, let us take
the Chief Justice, who was the organ of the court. I cannot read all
the reasoning; I should detain the Seriate too long if I were to do so,
and I see too many visible signs of impatience about me to desire to
detain them any longer. The Chief Justice said this:
"But, before we proceed to examine this part of the case, it may be proper to notice an
objection taken to the judicial authority of this court to decide it; and it has been said, that
as this court has decided against the jurisdiction of the circuit bourt [not its own jurisdic¬
tion] on the plea in abatement, it has no right to examine any question presented by the ex¬
ception; and that anything it may say upon that part of the case will be extra-judicial, and
mere obiter dicta.
"This is a manifest mistake; there can be no doubt as to the jurisdiction of this court to
revise the judgment of a circuit court, and to reverse it for any error apparent on the record,
whether it be the error of giving judgment in a case over which it had no jurisdiction, or any
other material error; and this, too, whether there is a plea in abatement or not."—19 How¬
ard, 427.
That is the language of the Chief Justice, the organ of the court,
who delivered the opinion of the majority. Judge Wayne says the
same thing, at page 456. Judge Nelson says, in giving his opinion:
"In the view we have taken of the case, it will not be necessary to pass upon this question,
[of jurisdiction,] and we shall therefore proceed at once to an examination of the case upon
its merits."—Ibid. p. 458.
20
Judge drier says:
'1 The record shows a prima facie case of jurisdiction, requiring the court to decide all the
questions properly arising in it; and as the decision of the pleas in bar shows that the plain¬
tiff is a slave, and therefore not entitled to sue in a court of the United States, the form of
the judgment is of little importance."—Ibid. p. 469.
Mr. Justice Daniel (p. 482) says that the questions arising on the
pleas in bar might he passed by after determining the plea in abate¬
ment; but he does give his opinion on the merits, although he thought
it would be possible to decide the case without a decision on its merits.
Mr. Justice Campbell says: ^
"My opinion in this case is not affected by the plea to the jurisdiction, and I shall not dis-
•cuss the questions it suggests. The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends upon the effect
to be given to his absence from Missouri, in company with his master, in Illinois and Minne¬
sota, and this effect is to be ascertained by a reference to the laws of Missouri."—Ibid. p. 493.
He determines nothing but the merits.
Mr. Justice Catron (p. 518) says that the judgment of the circuit
court upon the plea in abatement—that is, the plea to the jurisdic¬
tion—was not, in his opinion, open to examination in the Supreme
Court, and that they had nothing before them but the merits.
Mr. Justice McLean says:
"The plea to the jurisdiction is not before us, on this writ of error. A demurrer to the
plea was sustained, which ruled the plea bad, and the defendant, on lepve, pleaded over.
"The decision on the demurrer was in favor of the plaintiff; and as the plaintiff prosecutes
this writ of error, he does not complain of the decision on the demurrer. The defendant
might have complained of this decision, as against him, and have prosecuted a writ of error
to reverse it. But as the case under the instruction of the court to the jury was decided ia
his favor, of course he had no ground of complaint."—Ibid. p. 530.
Judge McLean then says that the court had no question of jurisdic¬
tion before it at all, nothing but the merits.
Mr. Justice Curtis says the same thing:
"That as the plea to the jurisdiction in this case shows no facts, except that the plaintiff
yras of African descent, and his, ancestors were sold as slaves, and as these facts are not incon¬
sistent with his citizenship of the United States, and his residence in the State of Missouri,
' the plea to the jurisdiction was bad, and, the judgment of the circuit court overruling it was
Correct."—Ibid. p. 588.
And, therefore, he goes on to determine the merits. Now, shall I
detain the Senate by reading passages from the speeches which I hold
in my hand, and in which every Senator in succession, who has spoken
of this decision, has spread before the country the bold, plain statement
that the Supreme Court first decided that it had no jurisdiction, and
then went on to determine the merits?
Mr. FESSENDEN. I must beg the Senator to give me leave to ex¬
plain, because I do not know that I shall have an opportunity to answer
him.
Mr. BENJAMIN. I will yield for a Jew minutes, of course.
Mr. FESSENDEN. I merely wish to explain on this specific point.
I do not know what particular language I used myself in the speech I
made on this subject. I remember very well the idea which I meant
to convey; and I presume that idea is conveyed in sufficiently distinct
language. It is this: I did not speak of the individual judges, but I
21
$aid that, in, the opinion of the court, which was delivered by Judge
Taney, and to which only I alluded, the point decided in the first place,
Was, that the court below, and consequently the court above, had no
jurisdiction of the case, for the reason that the party plaintiff was not
qualified to sue; he had no standing in the court. That was the de¬
cision; and the inference I drew (I do not know whether I used the
term or not) was, that the court admitted they had no jurisdiction. I
did not mean to say that they admitted in terms that they had no juris¬
diction beyond that, and over the merits ®f the case; but that the sub¬
stance of their decision was, that the plaintiff having no standing in
the court whatever, the case must consequently be dismissed; and that,
whatever they undertake to say afterwards, was mere assertion.
I know they go on to give a reason for expressing their opinion, and
that is, that in all writs of error they may confine themselves to the
particular error which they find in the record below, or do not find, as
the case may be; but that, in certain cases, they may look into other
parts of the record in order to preclude the necessity of revising the
case afterwards. The Senator, however, is perfectly aware that this
idea has been answered over and over again by the remark, that the
case could not possibly come before them again, when the decision was
that the plaintiff had and could have no standing in court. What my
particular language was I do not undertake to say. I may have said
that the court admitted they had no jurisdiction of the case; not that
they admitted it in terms, but by the original decision they made, that
the plaintiff had no right in the court below, and consequently could
have none in the court above. I did not under hike to dispute that the
Supreme Court of the United States had power to revise the decision of
the court below, if properly brought there; but I say, when they de¬
cided that the plaintiff* had no standing in the court originally, there
,yras an end of the whole matter, and the court could not properly, and
it was contrary to all custom, go into an examination of other questions
that did not necessarily arise. That is the position I mean to take. I
did not go into it at length, as perhaps I may hereafter; but the Sen¬
ator misrepresents me, not intentionally; he misunderstands me if he
asserts that I said, or meant to be understood as saying, that the court
had in terms admitted that they had no jurisdiction of any question
beyond the first. He may read the language of my speech, if he sees
-fit to do so.'
Mr. BENJAMIN. It is rather late in the day, and I have not time
to go at any length into this discussion, but I have the Senator's lan¬
guage before me; I have the language of the Senator from New York
[Mr. Seward,] and of the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer.]
Every one of those Senators said that the Supreme Court had decided
that it had no jurisdiction. The language is here; and now what does
the Senator from Maine answer to that position ? That although the
Supreme Court decided it had jurisdiction, in his judgment its decision
was wrong!
Mr. FESSENDEN. That is not what I said.
Mr. BENJAMIN. It cannot be anything else. The Supreme Court
22
of the United States was the only tribunal to determine in the last
resort whether it had jurisdiction or not over the question. It deter¬
mined that it had. The Senator says it began by determining that the
plaintiff in the court below had no right to come into the court, and by
reason thereof determined that the circuit court had no jurisdiction,
and he puts in himself that consequently the Supreme Court had no
jurisdiction. It is precisely his "consequently" that Chief Justice
Taney says is a manifest mistake. Here is what the honorable Senator
from Maine said:
"It is said that this question has been carried to the Supreme Court of the United States and
settled there. Does the honorable Senator from Louisiana"
The Senator turned to me. We are always having little legal quar¬
rels in this corner between ourselves, particularly on the slavery ques¬
tion.
"Does the honorable Senator from Louisiana, as a lawyer, undertake to tell me that the
question has been settled by a judicial decision in that court? Did that question ever arise
and present itself to the mind of the court with reference to any necessity of the case ? To
what extent does the honorable Senator, or anybody else who'is a lawyer, undertake to say
that the decision of the court is binding? It is binding so far, and so far alone, as it.can issue
its mandate. Its opinion is of force only upon the question which settles the cause."
Who is to say what the question is that settles the cause in the
opinion of the court ? Is it the court or the Senator ?
Mr. FESSENDEN. The court had settled it originally.
Mr. BENJAMIN. The court said, "in our judgment, there are
two points which settle the cause; one is the jurisdiction, the other the
merits." The Senator says that by the time they had got through
stating the first half of their opinion, he has a right to shut their,
mouths and say, "you shall not go on and give any other reason; the
reason you have given is enough; you cannot say another wor^L"
This is a most curious proposition to maintain to anybody that has ever
heard decrees or opinions rendered in courts of justice. Hear the Senator
again:
" Am I bound to recognise opinions that may be advanced by any set of judges, in any
court, simply because, after they have decided a cause, they undertake to give their opinions?
They may be bad men, they may be weak men, but their mandate in the cause before them
must be obeyed; and I will go as far and as readily as any man to obey the mandate of any
court to which I am bound to render obedience; and I am bound to render obedience to the
Supreme Court of the United States; but when they undertake to settle questions not before
them, I tell them those questions are for me as well as for them."
Thus, sir, the honorable Senator declares, point blank, that this ques¬
tion was not before the court. They consider that it was; the dissent¬
ing judges said it was; everybody there said it was; everybody hut the
Senator from Maine and his worthy colleagues, the Senator from Hew
York and the Senator from Vermont. This notion was first started
by some indecorous expressions in the opinions of the dissenting judged.
They themselves, declaring that they had jurisdiction over the subject-
matter, suggested that they would not consider the opinion of the other
judges binding, because, in the opinion of other judges, the court below
had no jurisdiction; "hut," said Judge Taney, " this question is be¬
fore me on its merits; I must decide it; it is my duty to decide it; I
Cannot avoid the duty." That is the language, if the gentleman will
refer to it.
23
Now, Mr. President, I come to another point in my argument, which.
I approach with extreme pain, with unfeigned regret. From my earliest
childhood I have been taught to revere the judges, of the highest court
in the land, as men selected to render justice between litigants, not
more by reason of their eminent legal acquirements than because of a
spotless purity of character, an undimmed lustre of reputation, which
removed them far, far beyond even a doubt of their integrity. The
long line of eminent judicial worthies, which seemed to have culminated
in a Marshall, has been continued in the person of one upon whom the .
highest eulogium that can be pronounced is to say that he was eminently
worthy of being the successor of that illustrious judge. I know not, Mr.
President, whether you, as I, have had the good fortune to see that
magistrate in the administration of justice in his own circuit, or in the
court sitting below us, of which he is the honored chief. I know not,
sir, whether it has been your good fortune, as it has been mine, to hear
the expressions of affectionate reverence with which he is spoken of by
the people amongst whom he has passed his pure, his simple, and his
spotless life. I know not, sir, whether you have listened, as I have, with
' interest to the expressions of respect and admiration that come from the
members of his bar in their familiar intercourse with each other—spon¬
taneous tributes, worth a thousand labored eulogies, to his eminent
sagacity, to his vast legal learning, to the mild and serene dignity of
his judicial deportment—above all, sir, above all, to the conscientious,
earnest, almost painful sense of responsibility with which he holds the
scale of justice in even and impartial hand between the litigants whose
rights depend upon his judgment.
Mr. President, he is old, very old. The infirmities of age have bowed,
his venerable form. Earth has no further object of ambition for him ;
and when he shall sink into his grave, after a long career of high office,
in our country, I trust that I do not rudely or improperly invade the
sanctity of private life in saying that he will leave behind him, in the
scanty heritage that shall be left for his, family, the noblest evidence
that he died as he had lived, a being honorable to the earth from which
he sprang, and worthy of the heaven to which he aspired.
This man, sir, thus beloved, thus revered, thus esteemed, has been
compared upon this floor to the infamous Jeffreys, by the Senator from
Maine^ [Mr. Hamlet.] This man has been charged by the Senator
from New York [Mr. Seward] with a corrupt coalition with the Chief
Magistrate of the Union. He charges, in fact—not always in direct lan¬
guage, but partly by bold assertion and partly by insidious suggestions—
that the Supreme Executive Magistrate of the land, and the judges of
our highest court, and the parties to the Dred Scott case, got up a mock
trial—that they were all in common collusion to cheat the country. He
represents the venerable Chief Magistrate of our country, whose repu¬
tation hitherto has been beyond reproach—he represents the venerable
Chief Justice—as enacting a solemn farce, in the face of the American
people, on the eastern portico of this Capitol; and he tells us, that on
the clay when that great sea of upturned faces was here presented, all
looking on the solemn pageant that was passing before them, the Chief
u
Justice of the nation was whispering into the ear of the President the
terms of this nefarious bargain—and that, too, at. the very moment
when the former was administering and the latter taking the oath of
office, by which the high majesty of Heaven was invoked as witness to
the purity of his intentions in the administration of the government
of his country !
Mr. President, accursed, thrice accursed, is that fell spirit of party
which desecrates the noblest sentiments of the human heart; and which,
in the accomplishment of its unholy purposes, hesitates at no reckless
violence of assault on all that is held sacred by the wise and good. It
was difficult, extremely difficult, for us all to sit here and hear what
was said, and observe the manner in which it was said, and repress the
utterance of the indignation that boiled up within us. All this is
charged by the Senator without the proof of a solitary fact, without the
assertion even of a fact, on which to base the foul charge. Luckily, sir,
luckily for us, these eminent men are too highly placed in the reverence,
the estimation, and the regard of the American people, to have their
bright escutcheon injured by such attacks as these. Mr. President, iri
olden times a viper gnawed a file.
Although it may not be possible to make direct answers to all these
insinuations, because no fact is even suggested on which they rest, there
are some of them in relation to which I have the authentic evidence
upon my desk fn proof of their falsity.
Was this case got up? What are the facts? Men should be a little
careful in making such accusations as these; unless, indeed, they care
not whether they be true or false, being intended to answer the same
purpose, whether the one or the other. This case was got up, was it?
By accident or design? In the exquisitely decorous and appropriate
language of the Senator from Hew York, the Chief Justice of the Lnited
States and the Chief Magistrate of the Union were gambling at cards
for the case, and Dred Scott was dummy in the imaginary game! What
truth is there in these insinuations of design? Why, sir, Dred Scott
had sought his freedom by the assertion of his rights in the State
courts of Missouri years before the Kansas-Nebraska act was ever sug¬
gested, and years before the President of the United States was even a
candidate for office; years before he was even Minister' to Englanjl.
- This case was determined in the supreme court of the State of Mis¬
souri, in 1852, adversely to Dred Scott, and wrns remanded to the lower
court for further trial. Mr. Buchanan had, I believe, not then gone to
England. The Kansas bill had not been heard of, and was not in the
imagination of any man. When the case got back into the lower court,
the counsel for Dred Scott, finding that the opinion of the supreme court
of the State was adverse to his rights, withdrew his case from the State
court, and endeavored to better his client's chances by g<?ing into
another jurisdiction. That is the way the case got into the Federal court;
and. when was this? The case was carried into the Federal court in the
city of St. Louis, in November, 1853, before even the meeting of the
Congress which passed the Kansas-Nebraska act; of course months be¬
fore Mr. Dixon, tho Senator from Kentucky, first sprang upon the
25
country, by his amendment, tbe question in relation to tbe repeal of the
Missouri compromise. Here is the record:
"Be it remembered that heretofore, to wit: on the second day of November, in the year of
our Lord 1853, came the above named plaintiff, Dred Scott, by his attorney, and filed in the
clerk's office o'f the circuit court of the United States for the Missouri district, the following
declaration against the defendant, John F. A. Sandford."
Was that a case gotten up by design, between the President and the
court here? It was never carried there until they had lost all chance in
the State court; it was carried there as the last desperate resource of
defeated counsel; eager to maintain what he conceived to be the rights
of his client. Who was the counsel? The Senators from Missouri can
tell us who R. M. Field, of St. Louis, is, and probably they will verify
the assertion which I make here upon hear-say—I give it only upon
hear-say—that he is one of the most determined Free-Soilers in the
State of Missouri; has always declined to vote at elections until he wa<8
able to cast his vote for a Free-Soil candidate, and until he aided in the
election of the Free-Soil Representative from the St. Louis district who
now sits in the other Chamber.
This case, thus instituted in November, 1853, was determined in
the court below, and'a writ of error was taken to the Supreme Court of
the United States, before the Kansas bill was passed, and whilst Mr.
.Buchanan was in England! When it reached the Supreme Court of
the United States what became of it? What does the Senator from
New York say became of it?
"Tbe counsel who had appeared for the negro had volunteered from motives of charity, and,
ignorant of course of the disposition which was to be made of the cause"——
—which the Senator had previously insinuated was gotten up by
design—
—"had argued that his client had been freed from slavery by operation of the Missouri'pro-
hibition of 1820. The opposing counsel, paid by the defending slaveholder" —
I happen to know, however, whatever may he the fact with the other,
that one of the opposing counsel was not paid by any slaveholder at all;
that one of the opposing counsel volunteered as amicus curiae by virtue
of' his position as head of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United
States, by virtue of his position as ex-Attorney General .of the United
States, by virtue of his position as a compeer of the honorable Senator,
and his former colleague on this floor from the State of Maryland, Mr.
Reverdy Johnson. That gentleman volunteered in the case as amicus
curiae, because the whole section of the country to whose interests hej
had been devoted from his birth had an interest in this great question
to be decided, and which, at the . time of his volunteering in the case,
he did not yet know to be represented by counsel. The honorable Mr.
Geyer, of Missouri, afterwards entered his name of record, and appeared"
for the defendant.
Says the Senator from New York:
"The opposing counsel, paid by the defending slaveholder, had insisted, in reply, that thtyt
famous statute was unconstitutional. The mock debate had been heard in the chamber of the
court in the basement of the Oapitol, in the presence of the curious visitors at the seat of Gov¬
ernment, whom the dulness of a judicial investigation could not disgust. The court did not
hesitate to please the incoming President"-^—r
26
Where are we, sir, that such language as this is used? Is this the
Senate of the United States, and are we here the embassadors of coequal
sovereignties, to be insulted by language like this? Is nbt this an in¬
sult to every one of us, direct and personal?
' 'The court did hot hesitate to please the incoming President by seizing this extraneous and idle
forensic discussion, and converting it into an occasion for pronouncing an opinion that the
Missouri prohibition was void, and that, by force of the Constitution, slavery existed, with
all the elements of property in man over man, in all the Territories of the United States, parar
mount to any popular sovereignty within the Territories, &nd even to the authority of Congress
itself.
"The day of inauguration came—'the first one among all the celebrations of that great na¬
tional pageant that was to be desecrated by, a coalition between the executive and judicial de¬
partments, to undertime the National Legislature and the liberties of the people."
Is there a solitary word of truth in this? Not one. Is a solitary fact
alleged? Not one; but a broad and naked charge is made, which is
intended to stamp infamy upon characters hitherto beyond the breath
of reproach. Shame, shame upon the Senator that makes such charges
as these, and has no proof to support them.
' 'The President, attended by the usual lengthened procession, arrived and took his seat on
the portico. The Supreme Court attended him there, in robes which yet exacted public rever¬
ence. The people, unaware of the import of the whisperings carried on between the President
and the Chief Justice, and imbued with veneration for both, filled the avenues and gardens far
away as the eye could reach. The President addressed them in words as bland as those which
the worst of all the Roman Emperors pronounced when he assumed the purple. He announced
(vaguely, indeed, but with self-satisfaction) the forthcoming extrajudicial exposition of the
Constitution, and pledged his submission to it as authoritative and final."
Does anybody find that in the President's inaugural? Does anybody
find in the President's inaugural anything on this point, except that he
learns the question is to be decided by the highest tribunal of the land,,
and that he, as every other good citizen is, is willing to render obedience
to that tribunal ?
"A few days later, copies of this opinion were multiplied by the Senate's press, and scat¬
tered, in the name of the Senate, broadcast over the land, and their publication has not yet
been disowned by the Senate."
As if we were going to disown publishing the opinions of the Supreme
Court of the United States.
"Simultaneously, Dred Scott, who had played the hand of dummy in this interesting polit¬
ical game, unwittingly, yet to the complete satisfaction of his adversary, was voluntarily
emancipated; and thus received from his master, as a reward, the freedom which the court
had denied him as a right."
Now, does not the Senator from New York know, was it not pub¬
lished in every newspaper in the country, that the slave's master had
died? Was it not known that the man who emancipated the slave was
a Black-Republican compeer in the other house, of the Senator of
New York, [Mr. Chaffee, of Massachusetts,] who was forced to give
this emancipation after having long hesitated, by the indignant denun¬
ciations of the fellow-Republicans around him. Everybody knows that,
and yet here we are told by the Senator that this gift of freedom to the
slave was the reward granted by his master, the defendant, for playing
the hand of dummy in a game of cards—a political game—with the-
27
venerable Chief Justice and Chief Magistrate of the Union. Shame;
shame once more, upon the Senator who makes charges like these,
without the shadow of ground for their support.
Mr. President, I am tired. I have no doubt that others are too. I
have gone so much at large into these collateral subjects that, so far aa
regards the simple question before us, as to the admission of Kansas
under this constitution, what I have to say is little indeed, The sub¬
ject has been exhausted, thoroughly so, admirably so, this morning,
by the honorable Senator from Missouri. I will, however, make one or
two suggestions and close.
I take the ground that the Congress of the United States is not
bound to give to the people of a Territory any more protection than
they are willing to receive. I take the ground that about eighteen
months ago the Congress of the United States listened to the complaint
of the present rebels in Kansas, who said to us this: "A band of armed
marauders has invaded us from a neighboring State; they have posses¬
sion of our Territorial Legislature; they have passed a law by which
they are about to call together a convention to form a constitution for
the new State of Kansas; they will not allow us to vote fairly; we are
a majority, and unless you come to our relief there is no help for us."
They asked us then to admit them as a State into the Union under the
Topeka constitution, as the best of all possible remedies against the
usurpations of which they complained. At that time the Territorial
Legislature had inaugurated the scheme for the adoption of a constitu¬
tion. The law for calling a convention had been passed. They were
about to vote for delegates. That was the precise time in which this
vaunted majority of Free-Soilers in Kansas approached the Congress of
the United States with complaints that they were down-trodden:
What did the Senate^ of the United States reply? The Democrats
were in a majority here, and they said: "It may be that what you say
is true; it may be that you are down-trodden and oppressed in violation
of law; you assert it yourselves, and you have complaisant advocates
here on this floor to prove it; but it is no remedy for that, that we
shall admit you as a State into this family of States, under a constitu¬
tion formed by one party in the Territory. We cannot do that. You
say that if the territorial law is carried out, a constitution will be formed
by the other party alone. Come now, we will do justice to both sides;
we will pass a law by which all shall be protected, Free-Soilers and
Democrats, by the strong arm of the' Federal Government, by which
you shall be free all to vote, free all to exercise this vaunted popular
sovereignty, free all to make manifest to the nation that great majprity
of which you boast." The Senator from Georgia elaborated a bill for
the purpose with the greatest possible care; and every possible safe¬
guard that human ingenuity could throw around the rights of these
people to protect them from invasion was there employed. Every Sena¬
tor on this side suggested amendments; and when the bill finally passed
the Senate, it extorted from the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr.
Hale] the admission that it was fair, that it was unexceptionable; "give
' us that, and we are content."
2^
* ]£ow, what occurred? In the progress of the debate upon that biH'
the leaders of this 'Republican party in the Territory informed their ad¬
vocates here, in both branches of Congress, that that would not suit
them; that it would put a stop to violence; that it would put a stop to
uproar and confusion; and that thus the Black Republican candidate
for the Presidency would be in a very lean minority, Us the injured
form of "bleeding Kansas" could not be presented to the eyes of the
people during the impending canvass. So, sir, after the Democratic
party—being in a majority in this Hall—had passed the bill to do jus¬
tice to these men, and sent it to the other House, they, who now stand
up for the outraged rights of those down-trodden people, defeated the
bill; themselves prevented the protection which they now say it was
our duty to give; and then tell us here to-day' that it would be a mon¬
strous outrage to admit Kansas into the Union with th® constitution
which the people formed under their own legislation. Both modes
were before them; the Territorial Legislature was proceeding to pass
enactments which were to result in the formation of a constitution for
the new State, and the Republican party—the Free-Soil party—was
imploring us for help. We told them, "choose now between the terri¬
torial legislation, and take your own chances at the polls; or take the'
full, strong, firm protection of the Government of the United States,
which is now tendered you." They refused the latter. They said
they would have Topeka or nothing; and having taken that choice,
nothing, with my consent, shall they have. Topeka I Topeka! that
miserable rabble of insurgents; a wretched raking together of men thev^ry'
scum of the large northern cities, seeking naught but violence and blood¬
shed; presuming to set up their populace law, their will, against the
government of this country; presuming to come and dictate to the
Congress of the United States, "you shall do this or we will fight;
you shall give us this Topeka constitution, or there shall be blood¬
shed." Miserable, miserable, indeed, would be our dereliction from
duty; despicable, indeed, would fall the Congress of the United States
if it grounded arms and bowed in submission to the insurgent violeno#
of these traitors. Every law that has been passed for their protection
has been scorned by them. Every attempt to give them full and ade¬
quate maintenance of their rights has been repudiated. Kow, again,
the attempt is made to make us do what they please, to sacrifiee all
rights to their threats of violence; and we are again told, upon this
floor, where a cheap display of valor is made, that they will be oowards
if they do not fight for their rights; and some Senators even insinuate-
an intention of going to help them. Mr. President, the day of that
fight will never come, and the vaunt costs nothing.
The territorial legislation has gone into effect in the absence of con¬
gressional legislation, which they refused. All the forms of law,
which gentlemen around me so deride, but which I respect, have been
observed, and the last and sole question that remains for us is, shall
Kansas still be "bleeding Kansas?" shall she still continue to display
her wrongs and to cry aloud to the people of the land during another
presidential canvass, or shall that noise be hushed forever? That is
29
the sole question, sir. The object is to keep up the excitement for an¬
other canvass. We say to these men, you shall not do it. Their ob¬
ject is to keep the people of this country constantly inflamed and exci¬
ted. They shall not succeed in it. And now, now the great wrong
and outrage that is to be done to this community is to admit her as a
State into the Confederacy! Great Heavens! they are crying all around
us, "What an outrage! what an outrage!' "The history of the world
has never seen anything like,this."
This outrage, this horrible wrong, consists in admitting them into
the Union! That is all, all. Who is to organise this State govern¬
ment? Who is to administer it? Who will have supreme power over
it, uncontrolled by congressional intervention, uncontrolled by the
Federal bayonet? The people of Kansas; none but the people of Kan¬
sas. What a foul wrong it is to give them sole control of their own
affairs! The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] would have us be¬
lieve that this is an abandonment of the principle of popular sover¬
eignty. Mr. President, it is its very essence; it is carrying out its true
intent apd meaning. Let any man here tell me what higher, what
more exalted example can be afforded of the right of a people to gov¬
ern its own institutions, than that which is given by the people of a
sovereign State of this Confederacy. That is the right we now want
to bestow upon Kansas. That is the legitimate fruit of the Kansas bill.
That is the act now before us. For that act I will vote.
SPEECH
OF
HON. J. M. MASON, OF VIRGINIA,
ON THE
-AJDIMIISSIOlSr OIF KANSAS.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 15, 1858.
The Senate having under consideration the bill (S. No. 161) for the admission of the State
of Kansas into the Union, and Mr. Wade having concluded his speech in opposition to the bill,
the debate was continued as follows:
Mr. MASON. In the remarks which I am to submit on the subject before the Senate, I de¬
sire to review as briefly as I may the history of the events and causes which have brought the
question of African bondage into discussion before the American Congress, in connection with
Hie expansion of the country in the addition of new States.
The question of slavery, as it has existed upon this continent now for more than two hun¬
dred years, was, before our colonial independence, a subject of no contention whatever between
the colonies—none that I have been able to trace. It was found, after the Declaration of Inde¬
pendence, (when the colonies, before that time perfectly independent of each other, came to¬
gether to form a common government, in a spirit of fraternity that I wish could actuate States
and statesmen now,) that the existence of African bondage was, to a large extent, confined to
the southern States; but still it existed in all the States. The subject of this form of servitude
became a question of discussion in the Federal convention, upon the inquiry whether those
subject to it should be treated, in the formation of the government, as an element of political
power. It constituted a part of their population; it was their property, conceded on all
hands; and it became immediately a sine qua non to the formation of any common govern¬
ment, on the part of the southern colonies, that their African slaves should constitute an element
of political power in the colonies where they were found. It was a subject of great deliberation,
as all Senators know who have looked back into the history of the country.
Many most disturbing questions arose in that convention—questions naturally springing out
of the dissimilarity of interests and the dissimilarity in the pursuits of labor—questions be¬
tween the planting States and the commercial and navigating States, and other questions that
%rose upon the demand of the smaller States to stand as equals in the Confederacy, by an
equality of representation in one branch of the national Councils; but there lay at the bottom
of all, as was conceded by the patriots and statesmen of that day, this question of domestic
servitude in the population of the southern States, as the most difficult to adjust. Senators
will find, in looking back to the proceedings of the convention, that, one of its greatest minds
and most illustrious members—I mean the late James Madison—when there seemed to be al¬
most an irreconcilable rupture between the large and the small States, on the Question of
equal representation, told them, all that could be overcome; should they go back "and settle
the political relations of African bondsmen in the Confederacy, they would find the rest of
more easy adjustment. It was done, and resulted in the stipulations of the second section and
first article of the Constitution, by which three-fifths of the slaves were to be, computed' in fix¬
ing decennially the ratio of representation, thus constituting the slave pupuiation an element
of political power.
Now, sir, statesmen may look at this subject as they please, but +Jhey -vyill- be brought, of
necessity, back to this very question of representation of the slaves as the. true point of divi¬
sion between the different sections of the country. Sir, if that we;re not fixed, by the Constitu¬
tion as an element of political power in the South, the sickly sentiment of the North, now so
sedulously nursed by their politicians, against African bondage, vfould find little sympathy at
their hands. Let us meet the question, then, as men and as st^^smeu, apd, I trust, also as
patriots.
2
When did it first arise since the Confederation—I mean the question of political power in the
Confederacy resulting from this slave representation? It was first agitated in the attempt
made in the year 1820, upon a question exactly such as agitates our councils now—the admis¬
sion of a new State into the Confederacy. What was attempted then ? To make it a condi¬
tion of admission that the State should abolish slavery within her limits; and, if I recollect
aright the history of that day, a distinguished Senator on this floor, then representing the
State of New York, (Rufus King,) frankly avowed that the purpose of the condition was to
impair the political power of the southern States. He honestly avowed it. Without subter¬
fuge or evasion, it was then frankly avowed, that the condition sought to be imposed on Mis¬
souri was to prevent the expansion of political power in the South, by the constitutional right
of slave representation. , .
What was the result ? The State of Missouri, then constituting a part of that large country
derived by us from France as the Territory of Louisiana, was admitted upon condition—a con¬
dition unknown to the Constitution. The State of Missouri was admitted upon condition
that a parallel of latitude should be drawn across the whole Territory of Louisiana; and
whilst slavery should be excluded north of it, there was no guarantee that it should be ad¬
mitted south of it. The prohibition was, that north of the parallel of 36° 30/ this involuntary
servitude, as it was termed, should be forever excluded. And this unconstitutional restric¬
tion became handed down, in the traditionary history of the times, as the "Missouri compro¬
mise."
Mr. President, I have yet to see the southern statesman, looking back to the history of that
day, and to the consequences which followed, who does not deplore in his heart that a final
stand on the part of the Southern States, based on the,securities of the Constitution, was not
made there and then, and no step taken backwards. But the law passed; Missouri was ad¬
mitted upon condition that involuntary servitude, except for crime, should be forever pro¬
hibited north of the line prescribed; and that, passed, as I have said, in the traditionary his¬
tory of the day, as a compromise.
Well, we have believed, on our side, ever since that, compromise or no compromise, it had
no warrant in constitutional law; Time ran by, and it was acquiesced in. There was no
express agreement, but a sort of tacit understanding, for the peace and repose of the country,
that if, on one side they would fairly commit themselves to that line, we would assent that
slavery should not extend north of it if they would assent that it should be extended south of
it. How were we met? This line honorable Senators from the North, and those whomithey
represent, now speak of as a line founded in sacred compact, that was intended to give repdse
and peace to the country, and did give it; and yet when in after years further territory was
acquired west of the Territory of Louisiana, and the proposition was made to carry out the
"compromise" by extending the line, it was met by a decided refusal. "Here, in 1848, when
we were organizing the Territory of Oregon, it was insisted that this interdict should, be
placed on that Territory, far north as it was, and the proposition was made—not from me;
I, had the honor then of a seat upon this floor, but no such 'proposition ever came from me—
but a proposition was made from southern men, again, if they could, to secure the repose and
peace of the country by extending that line to the Pacific; and according to pay recollection,
almost every vote from the northern States was against it. ■ '
So far to the contrary were they, indeed, frbm adhering to any compromise, that on the
very first proposition to organize a territorial government in one of the new Territories,' pub¬
lic men, representing the interests of the non-slaVeholding States, exhumed from the dust,of
a half century the ordinance of 1787, and presented it to the country as a chart of republican
freedom from our fathers, containing within it, as they alleged, a repudiation of the oondition
of slavery, and recommended it for a like interdict in all the hew Territories, giving birth to
what was called, from the gentleman who first presented it, the"Wilmot proviso." The
ordinance ofl787, or this clause in the ordinance, has been resorted to from that dayto this
as evidence that, even before the foundation of the present Government, our fathers looked to
a power in the United States to affect, by emancipation or otherwise, the condition of Afri¬
can bondage on the continent.
Now, Mr. President, the people of that day haveall passed from among us, but they have
left some memorials behind; and I have one herefrom the same venerated man to whom I
have before alluded, showing in what policy that clause in the ordinance of 1 *787 was founded.
It was not intended in any manner to affect the condition of African bondage, as it then ex¬
isted upon the continent. It was aimed as a blow against the foreign African slave trade, and
nothing more. I will read it. In a letter addressed by Mr. Madison, in 1819, to Robert
Walsh, then, I think, the editor of an abolition newsy aper in Philadelphia
Mr. SEWARD. He edited a newspaper. You said an abolition newspaper.
Mr. MASON. I did.
Mr. SEWARD.: I never knew that.
Ml. MASON. That is my recollection. I will say a newspaper.*
* Mr. Mason is not certain that Mr. Walsh's newspaper was established in Philadelphia so early afl 1819.
But his recollection is distinct, that, after the slave question arose in .1820, he did conduct an aboliiiun press in
that city.
3
Mr. SEWARD. I am glad to know that he was.
Mr. MASON. Unlike the honorable Senator, I was a boy in those days, and take it from
history and tradition. In a letter to Robert Walsh dated November 27, 1819, Mr. Madison said:
"With respect to what has taken place in the(Northwestern Territory, it may be observed,
that the ordinance giving its distinctive character on the subject of slaveholding proceeded
from the old Congress, acting with the best intentions, but under a charter which contains no
shadow of authority exercised. And it .remains to be decided how far the States formed
within that Territory, and admitted into the Union, are on a different footing from its other
members as to their legislative sovereignty. .
"Whether the convention could haye looked to the existence of slavery at all in the new
•States, is a point onwhich I can add little, to what has been already stated. The great object
of the convention seemed to be to prohibit the increase by the importation of slaves. A power
to emancipate slaves was disclaimed ; nor is anything recollected that denoted a view to con¬
trol the distribution of those within the country. The case of the Northwestern Territory was
probably superseded by the provision against the importation of slaves by South Carolina and
Georgia, which had not then passed laws prohibiting it. When the existence of slavery in
that Territory was precluded, the importation of slaves was rapidly going on, and the only
mode of checking it was by narrowing the space open to them. It is not an unfair inference,
that the expedient would not have been undertaken if the power afterwards given to terminate
the importation everywhere had existed, or even been anticipated. It has appeared that the
present Congress never followed the example during the twenty years proceding the prohibitory
epoch."
I would say, then, to honorable Senators and to the country, if any argument is to be
derived from this source, in favor of the doctrines of restraining the distribution of slaves upon
the continent, that they would derive the true argument from the policy known to belong to
' our fathers of that day, and carried out as soon as they were permitted to do it by the Federal
"Government, in the abolition of the slave trade altogether. This was an attempt, by limiting
the area in which slavery could be used in thus excluding it from the Northwest Territory, so
far to discourage or diminish importation of slaves. And it clearly follows, if any argument
is to be derived from this manifestation of a policy by the Continental Congress in regard to
Blavery, its truth and its strength lies in the subsequent prohibition of the foreign slave trade,
as soon as such power could be exercised by Congress.
It is a little curious, however, that, in all the commendations which we have heard from
certain quarters upon this ever-memorable, able, and truly republican paper, the ordinance
of 1787, honorable Senators have not connected with it what is found in that same clause pro¬
hibiting involuntary servitude, and afterwards incorporated into the Constitution of the United
States—a clause providing for the rendition of fugitive slaves. In the same sixth article of the
ordinance the proviso is: -
"That any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in
one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person
claiming his or her labor or service, as aforesaid."
If the public mind of America, which has been thus violently drawn to this truly great re¬
publican paper of 1787, would look at it in all its provisions, and all its tendencies, it would
show to them what really constituted at that day what I have always claimed constitute now
the true political relations subsisting between a Territory of this Government and the Govern¬
ment itself, and that would put an extinguisher forever upon the misuse or perverse use of the
idea of popular sovereignty in Territories; not by dogma, but by the proofs to be drawn from
that paper. What were the relations between the Government of the United States under the
Continental Congress, and this immense domain generously surrendered by my own State for
the purpose of cementing a Federal Union, and inviting the fraternity of the people? What
were its provisions? Was there anything like sovereignty recognised in the people who went
there—anything like a right to govern themselves independent of the Federal Government ?
No; the very opposite. The ordinance itself declares that the lawgivers of the people who
went there should be officers appointed by Federal authority. The Governor and judges con¬
stituted the legislative tribunal for that Territory. The legislative power in the Territory is
thus disposed of by the ordinance of 1787 :
"The Governor and judges, (appointed by Congress,) or a majority of them, shall adopt
and publish in the district such laws of the original States, criminal and civil, as may be
necessary and best suited to the circumstances of the district, and report them to-Congress
from time to time, which laws shall be in force in the district until the organization of the
General Assembly therein, unless disapproved of by Congress; but afterwards, the Legisla¬
ture shall liave authority to alter them as they shall think fit;"
With a further provision, that when the population should amount to five thousand they*
should have power to, elect representatives, &c., to a Territorial Legislature.
Such were the relations subsisting between a Territory and the United States in the very
first Territory that was organized under the old Congress.
4
I would remark here, incidentally, that I do not recollect, and have not made the research
to ascertain, whether Mr. Madison was a member of the Continental Congress at the time this
ordinance passed.
Mr. SIMMONS. He was, sir. *
Mr. MASON. So I presumed ; and he was a member of the Federal Convention sitting in
Philadelphia at the same time and engaged in framing the Constitution.
We all know how large a share Mr. Madison had in perfecting and maturing the leading
political measures of that day; and there can, then, be little doubt that he has given the true
history and object of this prohibitory clause in the ordinance of 1^87.
Mr. President, years after the pseudo-compromise, made on the occasion of admitting the
State of Missouri, this sixth article of the ordinance of 1787 was exhumed, perverted, and
successfully applied, without warrant of constitutional law, by the Congress of the United
States, under the name of the " Wilmot proviso," to the Territory of Oregon ; thus showing
a determination on the part of Congress, whatever result might follow, to carry out that
policy, in prohibiting the expansion of slavery on the continent. We all know the deep sen¬
sation produced at the South by the adoption of this proviso : the interdict was denounced
as unconstitutional; and although applied to a Territory far north of the Missouri line, it was
looked'upon at the South as the manifestation of a fixed policy to prevent the further exten¬
sion of a slave population, which if persevered in could only end in dissolution.
In 1848, after the peace with Mexico, we acquired a large territory from her, embracing
California. It became necessary lu pro vide governments for the population actually there,
not in California alone, but in New Mexico ; and instantly upon the proposition to organize
territorial governments for these people, then living without a government, this demand of
interdiction was at once set up in both Houses of Congress. It was successfully resisted so
far as to prevent its being done, but at the cost of leaving these people whom we had acquired
under the faith of treaty, without a government for a period of some two years.
I want to trace the history frankly, and I hope truthfully, that we may the better under¬
stand the exact position of the question now presented on the admission of Kansas. Under
the auspices of a very able and successful statesman of that day from Kentucky, the late Mr.
Clay, a new scheme of adjustment was suggested to the American people, by a series of what
were called compromise measures. I will not go over them here further than to show the re¬
sult to have been the violent admission of an additional non-slaveholding State, with an
equivocal postponement of the question of future prohibition of slavery in the new Terri¬
tories.
I was one of those who were opposed to this new (so styled) compromise. I never knew a
compromise made between a majority and a minority, unless on a basis by which the majority
succeeds in establishing a position for further aggression at a future day; and I think the his¬
tory of all the compromises on the question of slavery, so far as they have progressed, warrants
that conclusion. It was done. California was admitted into the Union as a free State; not
objected to by southern men because it was a free State, but objected to because of the machinery
that was put in practice to produce that very effect. .
Governments were organized for the Territories of New Mexico and Utah as a part of this
system of compromise; and there, as I have said, without meeting the issue directly, southern
men were again called upon to surrender thus much of their position. They insisted that the
principle of interdiction on the part of Congress should be repudiated in those Territories. This
was not done, although a new principle was adopted in the organization of these territorial
governments, so far as .the question of slavery was concerned. Our position always had been
that the Constitution, proprio vigore, recognising the condition of African bondage on the con¬
tinent, protected it in the Territories everywhere ; and therefore it was not competent to Con¬
gress to legislate against it any more than it Was competent to Congress to legislate against
any other of the provisions of the Constitution. But that direct issue was evaded, and the Ter¬
ritories were then organized on this basis.: that they should at once have legislative councils
by representatives of their own; that to these legislative councils should be committed all
subjects of rightful legislation under the Constitution ; and that as to the question of slavery
it should be decided by the people of the Territory themselves, but not until they were ripened
into a State government and applied for admission as such.
This was a step gained on our part, and a very important one. We denied the power of
Congress to interdict slavery in a Territory, but Congress exercised it notwithstanding the
denial. We denied the right of the occupants of the Territory, while in the territorial form;
equally to prohibit slavery in the Territory. And this was substantially conceded, because
the laws organizing those governments left the question of slavery an open question, and
not to be decided by the people of the Territory until they had matured a State government.
It took away any power of interdiction from the occupants of the Territory while in a ter¬
ritorial form. So the law was passed. It was objected to in some quarters, even in the South,
as leading to the doctrine of squatter sovereignty ; but that imputation, I think, was very
successfully met by showing that the people of the Territory, to whom the whole subject of
legislation was given, were remitted directly to the Constitution of the United States as the
limitation of their power; and further, that the condition of slavery was not to be legislated
upon for its exclusion or its establishment while it remained in the territorial form.
5
Such were the provisions of the laws organizing territorial governments in Utah and in New
Mexico. It was known very well, as resulted, that no practical effect could ever he derived
from leaving the question of slavery in that condition with respect to those Territories, because,
the laws of climate being far more inexorable than the laws of man, slaves never would go
there, because they would be of no value. We had the paper guarantee, though no practical
consequences arose; and therefore the question never was agitated afterwards in reference to
those Territories.
We came, in 1854, again to the organization of territorial governments, in consequence of the
great expansion of our country continually taking place. Nebraska, then an Indian country,
lying contiguous to one of the slaveholding States, and adjacent to another, offered her tempt¬
ing soil to emigration and settlement. It was determined that that Territory should be divided
into two parts—the northern to be called the Territory of Nebraska, and the southern the Ter¬
ritory of Kansas. It was generally believed—I certainly was one of those who believed—that,
although African slavery would hardly penetrate into the northern portion, the Territory of
Nebraska, yet that, as regards Kansas, being contiguous to the State of Missouri, which had a
very large and a very valuable slave population, and adjacent to the State of Arkansas, the
natural consequence would be that the population of those two States would be largely throwm
into it, together with their slaves.
In organizing these Territories, what was done? Nothing, in fact, but to carry into effect
the principles of the new compromise, as it was called, of 1850. There had been a very large
number in both Houses of Congress, who commended the legislation of 1850 to the country,
as great measures of peace and reconciliation, and sang hosannas to the illustrious name of the
very distinguished gentleman who projected and carried them through. I do not mean to say
that Senators on the other side, whose specialty is to prevent the extension of slavery, and thus
ultimately to extinguish it, were a part of the majority that carried those measures; but I do
mean to say that, so far as I could gather the sentiment of the American people in the States,
slaveholding and non-slaveholding, those compromise measures, as measures of peace, were
acceptable to them, and received their approbation. And yet, in 1854, when it was proposed,
in organizing the new Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, to do nothing more than to carry
out the principles adopted in 1850, it was met in limine with the sternest opposition. A part
of the compromise of 1850 was that the question of slavery in the Territories was to be left as their
constitution should prescribe when they were admitted as States into the Union. Until then,
and whilst in a territorial condition, it followed that this question must be left unaffected, exy
cept by the Constitution of the United States. There was no prohibition of slavery in the
organic law. The people of the Territory, under the restraints of the Constitution, could not
prohibit it; and thus the true principle of compromise was, that slavery was to be left to
climate, until a final policy should be established by the people who were to be affected by it,
when they attained the maturity of State government. The whole of both the Territories of
Kansas and Nebraska lay north of the parallel of 36° 30/, and thus within the interdict of the
Missouri law of 1820. By that law, slavery had been prohibited north of that parallel. How
then could the question of slavery be left open until the people should form a State govern¬
ment, unless in the mean time that prohibition was removed?
I say, then, that good faith to the compromise measures of 1850 required that this interdict
should be removed; and it was done accordingly in the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854, by de¬
claring the law of 1820 null, inoperative, and void.
Thus at last, and by a series of legislation, the principle was attained of non-intervention by
Congress, as regarded.slavery in the Territories. This was the great principle both of the com¬
promise measures of 1850 and the Kansas aet of 1854; by it the South has stood, and by it we
mean steadfastly to abide. It was a departure from the established relation between the
Federal authorities and the territorial governments. There had always been reserved, even
in 1850, what was reserved in the ordinance of 1?8?—a power in Congress to disaffirm the
legislation of the Territories. This power was not reserved in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, show¬
ing the clearest purpose of the law, not only in what it said, but in what it failed to say, to
remit the people who might go there to self-government whilst in a territorial state, subject
only to the restraints of the Constitution. We knew Congress was a most unsafe depository
of a power to mould the domestic institutions of a Territory; and so far as slavery was concerned
it was safer to transfer the question from Congress to the people who were to be affected by it.
So much for the disposition of the slavery question by the Kansas act. The principle of
non-intervention by Congress recommended it to the South; and it contained, moreover, a full
and final repudiation and abrogation of the odious Missouri interdict of 1820.
Since that day, upon a case properly made in the Supreme Court of the United States, the ■
question has been decided by the highest judicial tribunal of the land, composed of judges
who by the tenure of their office, ought to be presumed to be divested of all interest or feel¬
ing other than to do what is right; to be guided alone by that great judicial star which leads
judicial minds to attain the truth, and to enforce it; and the question coming before them,
the Supreme Court have decided that the law of 1820 was unconstitutional and void, thus
confirming what had been the substantial declaration of Congress in its later policy of terri¬
torial organization. What is said of that on the other side? The honorable Senator from
6
New York, [Mr. Seward,] as to whose dramatic representation of what never passed between
the judges of that court and the President I shall say nothing, after what fell from the hon¬
orable Senator from Louisiana, [Mr. Benjamin,] says to the American people in reference to,
this high and important act of judicial power by the last court of appeal—what? He says to;
the American people, there is but one way to manage this Government on that subject; the way
in which the French physician in the play managed his patients. I will get rid of the disease,
says the doctor, even if it is necessary to carry the patient with it. The court shall be reor¬
ganized, says that Senator—for what purpose? That he may sap the foundations of our popu¬
lar Government, and the rights and liberties of this people, to effect the lawless purposes of
his Abolition confederates. The court shall be reconstructed or reorganized—that is to say,
if those with Whom he acts get possession of the Federal Government, the offices held by the
judges are to be vacated, and in their places are to be put supple instruments to do the will of
the Senator's associates upon the Government of the country. That is the purpose of the
honorable Senator from New York, avowed to the country and to his party as their theory of
action in the administration of the Government.
Mr. President, I remember some years ago, when I was then a very young member of the
convention that sat in Virginia to alter the constitution of that State, of which, among the
very illustrious men then remaining with us, the late John Marshall, Chief Justice of the
United States, was a member, the question was about remodelling the judicial tenure. In our
early institutions, I believe, in every State—certainly in mine, and in all that I now recol¬
lect—the tenure of the judicial office was during good behavior, or, in effect, during life.
The popular mind got hold of the opinion that this stable tenure worked an irresponsibility in
the judges requiring reform, and the proposition was to limit the tenure to a term of years.
That great and illustrious man made a speech against it, among the very few speeches which,
he made in that body; one of that judicial exactness and conciseness that illustrated his great"
mind. I remember well, in speaking of the judicial tenure, how very opposite his views of
government were to those now promulged by the honorable Senator from New York in regard
to the judicial office. He said, as the experience of a long life and a great intellect, that " the.
greatest curse which an angry God could inflict upon a sinning people would be to leave
them to a dependent judiciary "—a great truth which lay at the foundation, not of the struc¬
ture alone, but of the security of our Government. But what does the honorable Senator,
from New York say? That the Supreme Court of the United States, believed to be not only
pure but unsuspected, held secret and corrupt intercourse with an incoming President to ob¬
tain a political end; and he announces to the American people that when the party with
which he acts gets into power, they will take care that the court shall interpose no obstacle
to their pathway, for they will reorganize that court—I presume to put it out of their way!
That is the substance of the declaration.
Mr. SEWARD. I know that the honorable Senator from Virginia is entitled to the course
of his argument, and I have not the least disposition to interrupt him or embarrass him in it.,
I only rise because, being here, and hearing the honorable Senator, and sitting silent, it might
perhaps be inferred that I assented to the justice of the description which he gives of my ex¬
pectations in regard to the reorganization of $ie judiciary, to say that, at the present session
of Congress, I had already given notice, before I made the speech on which the honorable
Senator comments with so much severity, of a bill to reorganize the Supreme and Circuit.
Courts of the United States in such a way as to equalize the representation of the several
States in the courts as far as possible, according to their Federal population, and at the same
time to secure greater facility and despatch to business. That plan, at some future day, I shall
bring in. I need not stop now to say what it is for—it is not matured in my own mind, I
do not care to confess or to deny any particular system which may be attributed to me in re-;
gard to the mode in which it shall be done. I expect to propose a feasible one, a reasonable,
one, a just one, and one which every Senator of the United States will approve, or ought to
approve, because it will be conservative in its character, and at the same time it will be just
as it is necessary.
Mr. MASON. From the corrupt practices suggested by the honorable Senator as passing
between the judges of that court and an incoming President, I could see no other conclusion,
in his mind than that which mine attained, that the practical mode of getting rid of corrupt
men was to put them out of the way by some mode. I shall of course not undertake to criti¬
cise now any new scheme of organization which the honorable Senator may have in view,
more esjiecially as he tells us that it is not as yet matured in his own judgment; but I think
he has foreshadowed enough to show that the leading idea in his mind is, by some mode of
sectional organization, to make that a political court which shall represent on the bench not
the political views of the day alone, but the popular emotions of the day, which shall repre¬
sent on the bench political parties, and more than all, judges who shall be placed in some con-;
dition to be subservient to the fluctuations of political parties. I cannot conceive how a court
can be organized in such manner as to attain the ends which the Senator avows, unless it is
organized in such a way as to make it the mere conduit of the party passions of the day, to,
popularize the court of last resort; but I have no right to criticise this new organization which
the honorable Senator suggests, because he has not yet matured it in his own mind, as he
tells us.
Mr. SEWARD. The honorable Senator will indulge me in one word more. Perhaps I
ought to have added that I <to expect thai the court ;will be brought in its principles and its
practices to conformity with the Constitution of the United States, and the sentiments and
principles of humanity and justice, as I staled in the speech 6n which the Senator is remark¬
ing-
Mr. MASON. As the Senator understand them.
Mr, SEWARD. As I understand them.
. Mr, MASON. And his party.
Mr. SEWARD. No; as I understand them.
Mr. MASON. Now, Mr. President, let us come back to the Kansas question. A law was
passed creating territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska, according to their appro¬
priate boundaries. The question of slavery was left open to be decided by the people to be
affected by it, as I have said, in consequence, not of the spirit only, but the letter of the laws
of 1850. What was the next step? Hardly was the ink dry by which the bill became a law,
when there was fulminated from the halls of legislation here a manifesto to all the Abolition
societies of the NorthJ telling them that the Territory was thrown open to population, and
inviting and encouraging them, under every stimulant that could arouse their passions or
excite their hopes, to throw their people'into it with the utmost rapidity. I do not claim
to be wiser than others, but yet to have some little knowledge of humanity and of my fellow-
men; and I say that the state of things tha,t has existed in Kansas ever since; events which
Senators delight in depicting as the efforts of" great and noble-minded freemen to vindicate
their rights; scenes of blood, rapine, and murder, disgraceful to the age, of fraud and violence
in every form of licensed depravity, were but the legitimate consequences of throwing (by
artificial means altogether) a population utterly irresponsible into a common Territory, under
instructions, if not under contract, to carry out the political views of those who sent them.
The emigrant aid societies formed a hew feature in. the laws governing emigration in our
country—societies that were got up with large capital for the purpose of throwing a popula¬
tion into the Territory of Kansas at once which should preoccupy it, in order that politicians
might1 effect what the laws had prohibited, in regard to the expansion of slavery. I do not
mean to say that we had. any law, or could pass any law, prohibiting these societies—but I
do mean to say, before the American people, -and before posterity, that those who were in¬
strumental in getting up such societies, and in carrying through their objects, are responsible
fop the bloodshed, and rapine, and murder, and the utter destitution of every moral principle,
which, have disgraced that Territory ever since.
Slaveholders from the adjacent and contiguous States, and from a distance, went there, as
they,had a right to do, with their slaves, and mingled with this population. The Territory
became at once a scene of contention and strife, because they found it pre-occupied by men
who had been sent there under contract for the very purpose of excluding them. Civil war
almost ensued—civil strife certainly did. It was necessary to bring in the strong arm of
Federal power through its military force, in order to repress it. Soldiers were quartered there
for more than two years to keep peace amongst the people, and make them obedient to the
laws. What, then, did we find on the part of the Emigrant Aid Societies in the New England
States ? Pen and pulpit were employed alike to fan the flame and to supply the munitions for
civil war in the Territory of Kansas ; sermons were preached; the popular mind was stirred
up from its foundations to induce them to contribute money and fire-arms to be used in
Kansas against their fellow-countrymen. If that is the sort of government which these peace
arid order-loving people prefer, be it so. Our duty only is to see that the laws are enforced ;
thgt the laws are obeyed; that the institutions of the country are preserved unimpaired, and
not made the sport either of reckless fanaticism or the calmer calculations of reckless aspirants.
I think the President at the head of the last adminstration, as well as the present, have done
no more than their duty in seeing that the laws were duly enforced by the full use of the
military power.
What next? Kansas in due time, through its regularly organized government, passed a
law to take the sense of the people whether they desired to remain in a territorial condition or
to become a State. The polls were then thrown open ; the vote was cast; and it was found
that there was a very large majority in favor of organizing a State government. This law
w,as fairly devised to take the sense of the people, to. register the votes so as' to preclude fraud,
and for electing delegates to a convention to frame a constitution. They were elected, and
they formed a constitution. Immediately upon the adjournment of that convention, it became
manifest thaCt" nothing was to be left undone or unattempted to defeat its work. It was said
that frauds were committed at the polls, and gentlemen here have been insisting that we
shblild send out commissions to Kansas, or. bring people from Kansas here, to inquire into
them. I think if very probable that frauds were committed at the polls. It would be very
remarkable, in such a population as they seem to have there, if frauds were not committed ;
but I should like to know what popular election has , been held in many of the States of this
Uni0I1 1 will not designate them further—under great popular excitement, where frauds
have not been charged upon both parties, precisely', as they are charged in Kansas ? In a neigh¬
boring State, within less than fifty miles from this Capitol, such allegations were made at the
8
last elections; and questions are now depending before the co-ordinate branch of Congress to
determine not only whether frauds were perpetrated at the polls, but whether the people were
not kept from the polls by armed resistance—a matter coming properly before that House as
affecting the election of its members. Do we not know that some years ago, in New York,
they got up a sort of popular term, understood almost as a technical term, called "pipe-laying?"
Parties charged each other at every election that took place with fraud, by means of what
they called "pipe-laying"—the very offence now ascribed to the people.of Kansas. It was
said that men were carried from Philadelphia to the city of New York, or the villages on the
Hudson, under the pretext of correspondence to get leaden pipe, or something of that sort;
strangers were brought there who were to control the vote of the citizens of the State. I
know not whether it was true or false; but I do know that a vote has not been taken in many
of the States, in times of popular excitement, that the successful party were not charged with
having carried the election by fraud or violence.
But, sir, be such charges true or not, is a matter that belongs to Kansas to determine. It
does not belong to us. They are competent to determine it; we are not. Nor should we give
any heed or countenance to such charges, unless shown to be true by the constituted authori¬
ties of Kansas. We can know the people of Kansas only as we can know any other people
on this continent, through an organized government. Sir, it is the great boast of the institu¬
tions of this country, that the people are subordinate to law; that political power can be
exercised only through the forms of law and of organized communities. Mobs, be they large or
small, who attempt to exercise political power, ought to be, and are, repressed by the strong
arm of law. We can only know what the wish of the people is when it is expressed in conformity
to law; to look elsewhere for it, is to lapse at once to anarchy.
Another of the incidental or auxiliary objections put out, like skirmishers, to mask the bat¬
tery which is directed against the form of government adopted by Kansas, is, that the consti-
.tution was not submitted to the people after the convention framed it. It is said that this was
an interference with popular sovereignty; that the people of Kansas had a right to have it
submitted to a popular vote; and that if it were not submitted, or if it were submitted in
part and not in the whole, it was in derogation of the great principle of popular sovereignty.
Mr. President, what is popular sovereignty? I do not mean that term in the acceptation of
demagogues or politicians : but what is it in the meaning of law, American law and Ameri¬
can sense ? It means nothing in the world but an assertion of a great principle, which none
of us deny —that a people constituting a political community are their own rulers. How is it
carried out in that system of government first established upon this continent? That the
popular will can only be known through their representatives, or through the forms of law
passed to ascertain their will; that the turbulent masses, be they large or small, are to be
treated as turbulent masses, and to be repressed by force, if necessary. Perfect obedience to
law lies at the very foundation of every security of government here, as force is the founda¬
tion of the security of every government elsewhere.
Sir, I need hardly say to this body that, whether Kansas is to be admitted or rejected as a
State, we can rightfully look no further into her constitution than to see that the government
is republican in form. We, to be sure, are bound to see that it is a constitution framed by
the people of Kansas, and not by others—not to have one imposed, as some gentlemen seem
to suggest; but when the constitution is here as the act of that people, we can look into it
for no purpose whatever but to see what is its form; and if its form is republican, we have
no right to look further.
The organic law providing a territorial government for Kansas provides that their Legisla¬
ture shall have committed to them all subjects of rightful legislation ; that they shall regu¬
late all their domestic institutions in their own way, subject to the Constitution, and contains
an utter disclaimer of any intent or purpose in the Federal councils, whilst they are so con¬
ducted, to interfere with them at any time or for any purpose.
Now, what has been done? Only what every other State has done. They passed a law
prescribing the mode of electing representatives to a convention, confided to that convention
the power to frame a State government, and did no more, as far as legislation was concerned.
The law did not require that the constitution, when framed under the authority confided to
the convention, should be submitted to the people. It was competent to the law to have done
it. In my own State of Virginia, when a convention was called there, a few years ago, to
amend or alter the form of government, the law calling the convention provided that the
constitution should be submitted to the people; but suppose the law had been silent: would
it not have been competent to the convention to submit it or to withhold it, as the .convention
thouglit proper ? In other words, if the law which authorizes the convention does not pre¬
scribe that the constitution is to be submitted to a popular vote, it remits the whole power to
those who represent the people in convention. That, I should say, must of necessity be the
law of this question, unless you are to look outside of law and outside of government, to get
at the popular will, I say the convention unquestionably possessed the power to submit the
whole constitution, or none of it, or part of it. They did submit, I think with statesmanlike
propriety, the only question on which that people was divided—the question of slavery.
There was no occasion to submit any more; but, whether there was or not, the convention
9
were the sole judges. They submitted the slavery question; and it has struck me, in looking
into that constitution, that this so-called slave question is there stated with a compactness and
truth that would challenge criticism from any quarter. The section is this :
"The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction* and the
right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same, and as inviolable, as
the right of the owner of any property whatever."
It does not speak of slavery in any sense as a creation of law; it speaks of it as an exist¬
ing thing, a status of property in the country; recognising it exactly as it exists, requiring
no law whatever, and dependant on no law to create it in Kansas; suggesting none, but sim¬
ply declaring that slave property is, like all other property, superior to any law that is known
to civilized man, for the law of civilized man recognises the right of property.
That is the declaration in the constitution, so far as the condition of slavery is concerned.
Another clause provides that the question should be submitted to the people of Kansas, whe¬
ther it was their will to continue that species of property in the State, or not.
This brings me to the consideration of a position very strangely assumed on the other side
(as I think) by the honorable Senator from Vermont, [Mr. Collamer;] and from which he,
and those who think with him, derive most important conclusions affecting the condition of
slavery. Their theory is, that slavery is the creation of positive law; and, being so, that
wherever the law ordaining is not in force there is no slavery. I know of no authority for
any such position.
Mr. FESSENDEN. I will suggest to the Senator that Lord Mansfield says so expressly in
the Sommersett case.
Mr. MASON. I had hoped, after what we heard with so much pleasure and instruction
from the honorable Senator from Louisiana, that Lord Maftsfield's decision in the Sommersett
case would have been received, even by the honorable Senator from Maine, and as I think it
will by all when the passions of the day subside on the subject of African slavery, as a mere
judicial flourish—nothing else.
Mr. FESSENDEN. I beg leave to say that I have a great respect for the Senator from
Louisiana; but it would take many such authorities to overturn my respect for Lord Mans¬
field's decision in that case—certainly more than one.
Mr. MASON. I am to deal with slavery on this continent. I aver, so far as I have been
able to trace it, and I have examined it with care in legislation of the southern States—I have
not looked into that of the northern States, because it does not exist there now—I have been
unable to find any statute from the beginning, creating the condition of African slavery on
this continent. I know from the history of the country that the first slaves which werelande'd
upon the continent from Africa, were taken hold of by the 1' common law'' of that day and
recognised as property. The first slaves, I think, landed on the continent of America were
brought to Jamestown, in Virginia, in 1620, eighteen in number. I do not recollect whether
they were brought directly from Africa or indirectly through one of the Spanish islands.
Mr. FESSENDEN. To what common law does the Senator refer?
Mr. MASON. 'The common law of England, sir—the law of your ancestors and mine. The
common law of England was the only law in the colonies at that day; it certainly was the
only law in Virginia, for at that day she had no Legislative Assembly. The common law of
England, as it has existed the law of that State from that day to this. When those slaves
were landed in 16'20, they were purchased by the planters, precisely as any other property, taken
to their plantations, and put to work, as successive importations of slaves in following years
were received and treated. They were recognised by that law as property, and protected as
such in the same manner. The common law of your ancestors and mine, the great common
law of England, was the only law then in Virginia regulating the rights of property. It has
remained the law of Virginia from that day to this, except so far as it may have been altered
by statute.
Mr. FESSENDEN. The Senator from Virginia I know to be a very able lawyer, and I
wish simply to ask him what maxim, what provision of the common law of England, author¬
ized the importation of slaves as property?
Mr. MASON. After the manner of the honorable Senator's country, I might answer that
question by asking another: what maxim of the common law of England recognises property
in a horse, or a cow, or any other chattel ?
Mr. FESSENDEN. That is answered by Blackstone.
Mr. MASON. What is the answer?
Mr. FESSENDEN. I cannot repeat the words.
Mr. MASON. It is all answered by Blackstone.
Mr. FESSENDEN. Oh, no.
Mr. MASON. It is all answered by the commentators on the law of England. I would
give to the honorable Senator this answer, that the common law of England recognised in Eng¬
land as property, even at the day when the Sommersett case was decided, as it did in Virginia
when the slaves to which I have alluded were imported, whatever was property in the coun¬
try from which it was brought, and treated it as such, unless there was some positive law
prohibiting it being property.
10
Mr. BENJAMIN. If the Senator from Virginia will permit me, I will say that both.in;
Keble and in Salkeld he will find actions of trover for negro slaves sustained under the com¬
mon law o^England.
Mr. MASON. I doubt not if such action was brought, the common law sustained it; and
if the honorable Senator from Maine desires to know what maxim or provision of the com¬
mon law treats slaves as property, I will say to him that the common law of England, so justly
called the consummation of human wisdom, recognised everything as property which was the
subject of property in the country from which it,was brought unless prohibited by some pos¬
itive law of that realm; and thus it was, that when slaves were first landed in Virginia, there
being no law there but the common law, they were admitterhas other property, that law re¬
cognising that as their condition in the country whence they were brought. The condition of
property did not attach to them after they reached the soil of Virginia, but they brought it
with them. Such has been the law from that day to this. You may look through all the
southern States where slaves are best known to us, and you will find laws passed from time to:
time, as they increased in number, regulating their condition; sometimes declaring them to
be real estate; at others, declaring them to be personal estate, exempting them from execution
if there was other property upon which an execution could be levied, and making peculiar
regulations in relation to them in the distribution of the estate of an intestate. You find laws
of that sort almost from the earliest day, and every one of them carries with it a recognition
that slaves were property, and nothing but property.
Sir, the common law of England is the accumulated treasure of human experience, gathered
in the lapse of ages by a great, wise, and intellectual people; adapting itself from age to age
in the progress of the world, by a contractile and expansive power, to the varying wants or
necessities of progressive civilization and wealth. Its greatest achievement has been to ele-t
vate the social condition of man by securing to him the fruits of his labor; and thus it has ■
ever been a tenet of that law, that whatever comes within its jurisdiction as property must
remain and be protected as such. It required statute law of England to destroy slavery in
her colonies, as it requires statute law in the States of this Confederacy to take that condition
from the descendants of African bondsmen. ■
In the ordinance of HSI, by which involuntary servitude, except for crime, was prohibited-
in the Northwestern Territory, the sixth section provides for the surrender of fugitive slaves
escaping into that Territory. Following this, the Constitution of the United States contains
a like provision. I am not at all prepared to say that, as a pure question of law, when a
slave absconds from his master and escapes to a State where the condition of slavery has been:
abolished, he would, because of such law, and in the absence of prejudice or passion in the:
administration of the law, be declared free.. Such a decision would be at war with that
comity of Jaw recognised in civilized societies, by which the laws of one State are on grounds
of policy and general safety recognised.and carried into effect by another. But, be this as it'
may, the security of this kind of property in framing a common government, was not to be
left at hazard; and hence the provision of the Constitution. By its virtue, a slave escaping
into Massachusetts remains a slave still, by the law of the Constitution. No law of Massa¬
chusetts can set him free; but he remains the property of his owner—protected as such by
the fundamental law to which all the States have assented. •
There is another dogma which I have heard from honorable Senators on the other side more'
than once, as a maxim pretty much like this theory of theirs, that slavery is the subject of
positive institutions—a misnomer, by the way, for slavery is not an institution at all, it is a
mere condition. Another of their dogmas, just as untenable, but asserted by them as though
it were a maxim in law received in all civilized countries, is that there can be no property in
man. Why, sir, I should like to know if there is not property in man by contract. What
. is the relation of master and apprentice but a property in the apprentice during the time that
the indentures rim, and a control over him and his time, recognised and enforced by law?
How is it with an indentured servant, in regard to which honorable Senators from the North
have more information than I have, for we have very few of that class of servants in my
country ? An indented servant is one who sells his time for a given period and a given price.
And is there no property in that man? What is the property in a slave but the property in
his time and labor during life, instead of a property in his time, and his labor, for a term of
years ? What then becomes of this dogma, that there can be no property in man ?
There was a time, and in my remembrance, when emigrants from Europe were brought to
this country under contracts made at the place of embarkation, that the-shipper should dis¬
pose of them in this country for a stated term, the consideration for which was to pay their
passage and subsistence on the voyage. They were called redemptioners, because they were
the property of the shipper, until redeemed by his sale of them for a term of years ; and then
the purchaser stood in his place. The time of service was regulated as in all other subjects of
property, by the value of the commodity—as-age, skill, capacity, &c. Until so disposed of,
the redemptioner was as entirely under the control of the shipper, so far as liberty was con¬
cerned, as any other living chattel on board his ship—and when he passed into the hands of
a purchaser he carried that condition with him.
What difference, then, in every principle of law, between one so brought into the country
11
as property, for a term of years, definite—and another, imported for a term, indefinite? The
common law certainly knows of none, nor can such be found, unless by absolute statute. I
should, therefore, confidently assume, that in the reverse of the position assumed on the other
side, is the true principle of law ; that is to say, whilst it requires no positive law to fix the
condition of slavery y it does require positive law to destroy it.
A gentleman brought to my notice this morning an extract from one of the northern pa¬
pers which I would not use without first referring it to the honorable Senator from Maine to
know what was their legislation on the subject. I have said the law of all humane and civil¬
ized communities establishes a right of property in man, and the extract to which I have
alluded states that a man who had once attained distinction, and had substantial wealth,
had in his old age fallen into poverty, and had been sold at auction in the State of Maine.
The honorable Senator explained it by saying that it was a part of their poor-law system;
not that the man was sold at auction, but that each town is obliged to maintain its own pau¬
pers, and where they have no poor-house, and no organization for the purpose of doing it, a
part of their system is to put them out to be maintained by him who will maintain them at
the lowest rates; but he said that according to his recollection it gave to the party no right
to the man's time. Every humane society has a system of poor laws. What are they ? No¬
thing in the world but this : when, a part of the population, from age or disease, or infirmity,
is unable to maintain itself it shall be maintained by the public; and the necessary incident
to, that is, that as long as the public maintains the pauper, the public shall have the right to
the time of the pauper. It is part of the whole system of poor laws everywhere. They give
a property in the man—that is, in the time of the man—as long as he is the subject of public
bounty, and properly so. The public is just as inexorably his owner for that time as these
honorable Senators would represent a slaveholder to be the owner of his property in a slave.
I say, then, it is a mere catch-word, an unfounded dogma, that has no position in law or
in sense, to say that there can be no property in man. It is the law of thecivilized World
everywhere, must be the law, ought to be the law, for the protection and well-being of society.
Where you have a population amongst you, as a pauper population always is, unable to feed
and to clothe themselves, humanity devolves it upon the public, and devolves with it a prop¬
erty in the time of the subject of the public bounty.
Mr. FESSENDEN. If the Senator will allow me, I should like to explain, with distinct¬
ness, what I said in reference to the case of which he speaks.
Mr. MASON. Certainly. • ' ^
Mr. FESSENDEN. I noticed that statement in the papers, and I remarked to the Senator
that there was no sort of correctness in the statement that anybody was sold by virtue of the
poor laws of Maine, and I suppose cannot be by the laws of any other State of the Union, ex¬
cept in the slave States, where a slave may be sold. The provision of our law is very simple,
and I presume it is like that of most other States. The towns are obliged by law comfortably
to support all poor. persons who are unable to take care of themselves. The general mode
of doing this, in large towns, is to provide an alms-house, where all the poor people may be
supported at the expense of the municipal corporation ; but some small towns are unable to
do this, and they make a contract with individuals to support the poor—-sometimes the whole
poor, sometimes certain numbers of them; and in order to arrive at that contract they have.
. a bidding, to see who will agree with the town to support its poor at the lowest price. That
is all the auction there is. Those who agree to do it at a less price than anybody else will, if
proper persons, assume the contract, come under certain obligations to afford these poor people
comfortable subsistence for a fixed price. That is the only mode in which a person is sold.
There is no contract for his service, no obligation to serve, or anything of the kind.
While I am up, I wish to say another thing. The Senator from Virginia asked me for the
foundation of other property by the common law, and I replfed that the answer was to b®
found in Blackstone, but that I could not give him the exact words. I happen now-to have
the second volume of Blackstone; and, if he will excuse me for doing so, I will read the words
to which I referred, and the Senator will see whether the argument he is making can be sus¬
tained upon what Blackstone says is the foundation of the law of property:
"In the beginning of the world, we are informed by Holy Writ, the all-bountiful Creator
gave to man 'dominion over all the earth, and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over every living thing that mcaeth upon the earth.' This is the only true and solid
foundation of man's dominion over external things, whatever,airy, metaphysical notions may
have been started by fanciful writers upon this subject. The earth, therefore, and all things
therein, are the general property of all mankind, exclusive of other beings, frqm the immediate
gift of the Creator. And while the earth continued bare of its inhabitants, it is reasonable
to suppose that all was in common among them, and that every one took from the public
stock, to his own use, such things as his immediate necessities required."—2 Blackstone11
Comm., p. 3. •
That is the answer to the Senator's whole question, as to what is the true foundation of the
law of property, as recognised by the laws of England.
Mr. MASON. I read with a great deal of interest, not very long since, quite an instructive
12
book that was printed in the section of country to which the honorable Senator belongs—the
State of Massachusetts—the diary kept by the first Governor of New England, old John Win-
throp, and a very instructive paper it was, as to the condition of the population in that part
of the continent at that day, and their habits and usages. I found that when they constituted
tribunals of justice, vested with proper jurisdiction over all questions, civil and criminal, a
part of their jurisprudence was this : they were not very thoroughly read, I presume, in the
laws of England, or they had not the books, I do not know which ; but they had very few
laws of their own, and it was the invariable practice of the tribunals of that early day, in the
administration either of civil or of criminal justice, where there was no law to direct their
counsels, to refer it to the Bible; and they took the dispensations of the Mosaic code as the
true arbiter of the rights of their fellow-men brought before them in their tribunals of justice,
and punished them accordingly.
Now, it is very true that Blackstone, who h^s made a digest of the common law, adopted
probably as one of the theories of the common law, that the foundation of all property was
derived during the theocracy, when the Almighty directly governed man without any inter¬
mediate tribunal whatever; and when the Almighty gave to man dominion over the birds of
the air, the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea, that He there ordained property, and
that we must go back to that to ascertain what are the rightful subjects of property. That is
his theory. But the common law has certainly very far trenched upon that since; because at
last property is but an incident to the relations that must subsist between men in civilized
society. It has grown up by a series of usages. The common law of England is but the law
of usage and of custom. 1 have attempted to show, I confess very feebly, that the common
law does recognise a property in something that is neither a beast of the field, a bird of the
air, nor a fish of the sea, and enforces those rights of property. I take the case of master and
apprentice; of the servant by indenture; the case of the poor laws, where the interests of
society in civilization devolve the maintenance of the pauper on the public. I would instance
further the case of vagrants.- There are laws of general police in most of the States, (cer¬
tainly there are in my own, and police laws are very much the same everywhere,) providing
that men who wander about society without having any visible means of support, shall be
arrested and sold to those who will undertake to support them for their time. It is a police
law; and the necessity of it is not so much to punish the vagrant for his vice in idling his
time, but for the great moral example of society to make all contribute to the common good
by the proper employment of their time.
Now, what is property in a slave at last? If the slave is killed by his master, it is just as
much murder as if he had killed his neighbor white man. If he is maimed by bis master, it
is just as much a mayhem at common law. If he is inhumanly or cruelly treated, it is just
as much an offence as if an apprentice had been so treated, and it is punishable criminally.
He cannot kill him; he cannot abuse or misuse him in such a way as to amount to cruelty or
ill treatment; but yet, he has a substantial right, and what is it? Trace it as you will, it is
at last nothing in the world but the exclusive property in the time and labor of that man so
long as he shall live. I can see, so far as the right of property is concerned, no difference
whatever between property for life and property for a given term under contract or under law.
How that property arose it is not so easy to determine. The publicists tell us that, at the
1 dawn of civilization, a prisoner of war held his life at the mercy of his captor; and, as the latter
might deprive his prisoner of life, it lay at his discretion either to kill him or to keep him in
life as his property. Such was certainly the practice in the earlier days of the Romans.
History tells us that such has always been, and yet continues, the custom among the negro
tribes in Africa. Certainly there the natives sell their own race as slaves; they sell to each
other as they sold to the white man, while such sales were allowed by the laws of the white
man. Thus it was that the ancestors of those now held in bondage on this continent brought
ftom Africa with them their condition as property. How it was acquired there can now be a
subject of conjecture only, and would be an inquiry as fruitless as vague. The common law
recognised them as property, and they were treated and sold as such; the offspring "following
the condition of the female parent, (a maxim of the common law,) made equally slaves of
their descendants.
Mr. BENJAMIN. I will ask the Senator from Virginia to allow me a minute to correct an
error that I made a few moments ago. I stated to the Senator that he would find, both in
Keble and Salkeld, actions of trover maintained at the common law for a slave. 1 find that
the decision in Salkeld was not for trover, but for trespass. In Keble, the decision was trover,
Here is the old common law statement of the case—it is only five or six lines, and if the Senator
will indulge me, I will read it:
11 Butts vs. Penny.
11 Special verdict in trover of ten negroes and a half, find them usually bought and sold in
India, and if this were sufficient property, or conversion, was the.question. And Thomson,
on 1 Institutes, 116, for the Defendant, said here could be no property in the plaintiff more
than in Villeins ; but per Curiam they are by usage tanquam bona, and go to administrator
until they become Christians; and thereby they are enfranchised; and judgment for the
13
Plaintiff, Nisi, and it lieth of moiety or third part against any stranger, albeit not against
the other copartners."—Keble's Reports, vol. 3, p. 185, Trinity Term, 29 Car. II., B. R.
In Salkeld, the decision was that trespass was the proper remedy; the court making the
distinction that villeinage arose from captivity, and '' a man may have trespass quare captivum
suum cepit, but cannot have trover de Gallico suo he might maintain an action against his
Frenchman whom he had taken captive and made a slave, but he could not trover.
'' And the court seemed to .think that in trespass quare captivum suum cepit, the plaintiff
might give evidence that the party was his negro, and he bought him." Salkeld's Reports,
vol. 2, p. 661.
■ The court sustained the action of trespass.
Mr. FBSSENDEN. I did not hear whether that was in England or not. It does not say
that the purchase or sale was in England.
Mr. SEWARD. What year was that?
Mr. BENJAMIN. In the fourth of Queen Anne.
" Trover for several things, and among the rest, de uno JEthiope, vocat, a negro, and on not
guilty pleaded, verdict was for the plaintiff and several damages ; and as to the negro 30/.
And it was moved in arrest of judgment, that trover lays not for a negro, for that the owner
had not an absolute property in him; he could not kill him as he could an ox. Contra, it
was said property implies the right of having and enjoying and disposing; but it does not
always imply a power to destroy; that this power holds in beasts, fowl, and fish, which were
made the property of mankind by the act of God, and have a natural existence, but not in
things incorporeal, which consist in jure tantum; for this being a property ex instituto
only, the owner has only a power according to the measure of this instituted right; and it was
instanced in the case of a common, a way and a ward. On a ca. sa. the plaintiff has an in¬
terest in the body of the prisoner as a pledge not to sell, but to keep, and it goes to the
executors." Salkeld's Reports, vol. 2, p. 66?.
This was the argument of counsel. I certainly will not trench on the time of the honorable
Senator from Yirginia by reading through the argument; but the decision in this case was,
that trespass would lie, though trover would not. In the case in Keble the action was trover,
and it was sustained.
Mr. FESSENDEN. It does not appear where the action arose. The courts afterwards made
a distinction on that point.
Mr. BENJAMIN. It is enough, for the purpose of our argument, that trover would lie for
a negro on the other side of the water by the common law.
Mr. CLARK. I will ask the Senator from Louisiana if judgment was rendered in the case
he has just read ? It was held by the court, in the first instance, that trover would lie; but
afterwards, as I understand it, as the case is reported in Levinz, time was taken to consider
it, and no judgment was ever rendered.
Mr. BENJAMIN. This is a different case. There are two in 3 Salkeld.
Mr. CLARK. I desire to know where the case of Butts against Penny is ?
Mr. BENJAMIN. In 3 Keble.
Mr. CLARK. Then will the Senator be kind enough to give me the name of the next case?
Mr. BENJAMIN. Smith vs. Gould, 2 Salkeld, 66?.
Mr. FESSENDEN. Mr. Presidentr-
Mr. MASON. If the honorable Senator will allow me to close my remarks, I shall feel
obliged to him, as I am not very well. I shall give the Senator the floor very soon.
Mr. FESSENDEN. I do not wish to take it at present.
Mr. MASON. I will not trace the condition of slavery, as belonging to the African, back
to the Bible, because, although I recognise that as the law which to a great extent governs the
relations between man and man, yet it is not a law which is to be enforced by any human tri-
■ bunal. I will not undertake to say that the African got his condition of slavery jure divino,
although it has been so ascribed. It is enough for me that such is the fact. I know of no
race of men now upon the earth whose original normal condition was that of slavery but the
African. You find him "precisely in the same form of slavery in every land where he has gone,
and at every age of his existence—at home a slave, abroad a slave; and when that slavery of
the African is brought within the influences of civilization, we know, upon the experience of
our continent at least, that it has elevated him very far beyond the uttermost conceptions of
his ancestors in the scale of being. The African upon this continent, in the bondage to which
he is subjected here, compared with the African in his own country upon the continent of
Africa, might be compared to the difference between a high grade of civilization and the lowest
condition of the savage. I will not undertake to say, or even to suggest, what great ends the
Supreme Ruler of the world may have designed, and is now executing in the transfer of a
portion of the African race to this continent; but I have seen what feeble results have been
obtained from the attempt to carry him back to his own continent. There is a philanthropic
society now in existence, formed some thirty or forty years ago, originating, I think, with
some statesman of Yirginia, intended to deport the African back to bis own country. I know
14
that the colony which that society has established has been maintained as a very feeble colony
only by the strong arm of civilized power to this day. I know that wherever the African,
even after he has been civilized in bondage, has been left to himself, he has lapsed into bar¬
barism and savageism. I cannot, therefore, but entertain a hope that there is some great end
to be attained by the Deity who rules over all races, in the subjection of the African to bond¬
age upon this continent, because I know that whilst in bondage he improves in civilization,
and when he is freed from bondage he sinks in the scale of humanity.
Sir, if there are benevolent purposes on the part of those communities represented by honora¬
ble Senators here, how are they exercised in the attempt to free the African on this continent?
Look at him in their own cities; look at him in any community where you find the African
race free. You will see of course individual instances where they have preserved that degree
of elevation which they had attained while slaves; but in successive generations they loSe it;
and the great mass of those who are emancipated, when they are freed from involuntary ser¬
vitude, or, what is the same thing, involuntary labor, decay and die out. All the great incen¬
tives that belong to the white race to improve their condition mentally and physically, ot to
rear and educate their families to advance in civilization, are utterly lost to the African wher¬
ever he is found amongst the white race, in freedom, or not subjected to slavery. He will not
labor. You cannot make him labor by any of the incentives you can apply to him but the
will of a master. That is the condition of the African race on this continent, and everywhere
where I know them.
Now, what is proposed? If the African race were left on this continent to the ordinary laws
of emigration, do we not know, has not our experience, even in the short time it has been
proved here, established it, that the laws of emigration are the laws of nature; that the African
in bondage will go into those climates where his labor is most productive, or which are most
congenial to his condition? They cannot exist in a northern climate, because their constitu¬
tions are not adapted to it by nature; and if they could, their labor would be of so little value,
compared with their labor at the South, that they would necessarily not emigrate there.
What purpose, then, have honorable Senators, or what purpose have their constituents, in
view, in constantly agitating the public mind on the question of African slavery? They say
they have wiped their hands of it, when, in truth, the climate alone has extinguished it in
their section. They glorify themselves, as Lord Mansfield did in England, that the air of their
country is so pure that a slave cannot breathe it; that his shackles fall instantly from his
limbs. We envy not their condition, I assume them. Why, then, should they seek to inter¬
fere with ours? Whatever of good, or of ill, belongs to the relations that subsist between
the two races on this continent is ours, not theirs. The responsibility is with us, not with
them. Why is it, then, that whenever opportunity olfers, the whole public mind throughout
this country is vexed and disturbed and agitated by the question of slavery—-not by us, for
we are silent; but by those statesmen who are trying to destroy, or to curtail, or to impair it,
and always in terms of denunciation? Sir, there is but one reason; and it is exemplified in
the very case before us now. It is a resistance to that principle of the Constitution which makes
it an element of political power. Take away that, and I warrant you there will be no more
clamor on the subject of slavery. It is, then, opposition to a feature of the Constitution; it is
opposition to a part of the compact which brought the Sates together, and to that part of the
compact without which the States never could have been brought together.
The people of the Territory of Kansas have come before Congress, asking to be admitted
into the Union as a State. All the class of objections which have been made in the nature of
technical pleading about the frauds in their elections, and their not submitting the constitu¬
tion to a popular vote, are but to mask the great battery which is directed against the Consti¬
tution of the United States in the representation of African bondsmen. Strike that feature
out of the Constitution, and there would be no longer objectahts to slavery.
We have then before the American people now a State applying for admission, and entitled
to it by all those relations, and by fulfilment of all the requisites which have heretofore gov¬
erned in the admission of new States, marked only by this—that there is a recognition of
slavery in its constitution ; and he must indeed be willingly blind to scenes around him, who
does not know that this recognition of slavery alone bars the way to admission. It is the
objection taken to it in the review, the very able review, though I think not exactly accord¬
ing to history in many of its facts, of the honorable Senator from New York. It was the
point against which were levelled the arguments of the honorable Senator from Yermont.
Slavery is the theme, the only theme. Now let us have it frankly avowed. Here are two
States applying for admission at the same time; and it is understood that the honorable gen¬
tleman who now represents the Committee on Territories is to propose, as a substitute for this
bill, one that shall admit both together, the State of Minnesota and the State of Kansas. Are
any objections taken to Minnesota? I have heard of none. That cdmes here as a free State;
and, too, with abundance of irregularity in all that has been done in preparing a State gov¬
ernment. I challenge gentlemen on the other side now to object to the admission of Minne-
1 Bota because of the irregularity under which she comes. What has she done? In the first
place, she had no convention at all. A law was passed by CongreSs to take the sense of the
people, and provide for. a convention to form a constitution for Minnesota; but she has never
15
executed that law, because there never was a convention; but, on the contrary, there assem¬
bled two bodies, each claiming to be the convention, with power to form a constitution.
Mr. SEWARD. Will the honorable Senator undertake to say, much less to show, that the
people of Minnesota, or any majority of the p'eople of Minnesota, or any pqrtion of the peo¬
ple of Minnesota, object to being admitted into the Union under this constitution? That is
the difference in the cases; in the one the people desire to be admitted.
Mr. MASON. I would answer the honorable Senator that I am utterly unavfare that any
portion of the people of the Territory of Kansas object to being admitted into the Union under
this constitution. If you listen to pop'ular clamor, to irresponsible mobs, who undertake to
regulate government, not by law, but in despite of law, you may say they are unwilling to be
Admitted. But I answer the Senator as an American statesman, that the only way in which
. the popular voice should reach him, or can reach me, is through organs of law. I have yet to
hear the first voice from Kansas objecting to this constitution. However, that shall ijot disturb
the level of my argument. I'want to know whether, when Minnesota comes, as she will come
"in1 the same bill for admission with Kansas, we shall hear any objection made as to the irregu¬
larity of the proceedings by which her constitution was framed; There was no convention in
the first place. The delegates met, and, before organization, separate?! into two parts, and
- remained separate up to the day of adjournment. They finally flamed a constitution by a
- committee. These separate bodies, not claiming to be co-ordinates, but each claiming to be
the convention, by a committee of conference formed a constitution. Some clumsy mode of
that sort was adopted. The instrument was afterwards submitted separately to these separate
"bodies, and taken by them as the constitution. But here is a still greater irregularity, which
Kansas certainly has not attempted; the Territory of Minnesota has undertaken to elect two
" Senators of the United States, who shall be Senators when Minnesota becomes a State, and has
undertaken to elect three members of the other House of Congress, who shall be members of
the other House provided it shall be found that the law of Congress assigns three members to
them. That, it is true, has been done heretofore. It was done in the State of California—
contested by us—objected to as irregular and revolutionary; but the objection was overruled
* by Congress. I do not mean to say, in the case of Minnesota, or the case of California, that
the objections were insuperable; because, if we admit the State, and admit the Senators elected
before it was a State, our act of admission may be as good in ratification of what is done, as
if authorized in the first instance. But I say these irregularities exist, and very great ones
they are.
It is proposed that Kansas and Minnesota shall be admitted together. I for one, gratified as
I should be to see the States holding slaves multiplying in this confederacy as rapidly at least
; as those not holding slaves, yet seeing the verj opposite, and that the great increase is to be
" on the part of the free States, still am not prepared to cast my vote against the admission of a
State because it is a free State. I ask honorable Senators on the other side if they hold the
satne position before the American people? The Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Wade,] who was
questioned on that very point to-day, said it w'as enough for him to know that a State was a
slave State, to deny her admission; and I take it that is the spirit and feeling of honorable
Senators on the other,side who represent the non-slaveholding States. How then do we stand?
What equality have We in this Union? The social condition of the slaveholding States, to¬
gether with its just and legitimate expansion, must be preserved as necessary both to their
honor and to their safety. It cannot be, if the existence of slavery within its borders is enough
to preclude its admission as a member of the Federal Union. What do honorable Senators on
the other side intend? Do they intend to force the people of the southern States to put an end
to this Confederacy ? Answer us that. We have the occasion before us now in which almost
avowedly you refuse to admit another State because it is a slaveholding State. How far you
. will succeed I do not know, but that is the purpose. We have been admonished by the hon¬
orable Senator from New York that when the time comes which he anticipates when his friends
get into power, there shall be no further admission of slave States. That honorable Senator
, announced in exulting tones, but I think rather in advance of the fact, that the battle had
been fought and already won. The battle, he said, was to give the numerical preponderance
to the free States, because the States are equally represented on this floor, and that was already
attained. That battle is fought and won. This is a very significant warning. What are to
be the fruits of victory? He shadowed them out to some extent. One branch of the Govern¬
ment, the judiciary, stands in his path, or in the way of his party. That branch is to be
reorganized, reconstructed, or, as the honorable Senator explains it now, popularized. I
would say to that honorable Senator, though in no exulting tones, however, that so far as I
can read the public mind of this country, the battle is not fought—far less is it won.
What do we see? For the.first time in forty years, it is proclaimed on this floor, you shall
have no more slave States. That is the direct issue before us in this Kansas question, not¬
withstanding the mist which some have endeavored to throw around it. That battle is now
depending. It is neither fought nor won. I will not undertake to say how it will result;
but I do know that, although friends around me from the northern States have been told on
the other side there is not a man amongst them who will survive a vote for the admission of
Kansas, they are prepared to do it, and take the consequences. If it be true, that to vote for
16
the admission of another slave State into this Confederacy is to consign the representative to
political death, it will take no prophet to tell how long this Union will hold together.
But what do they want? What do they propose when they get the Government—if they
should get it? We have three million slaves in the southern States. .As my honorable and
eloquent colleague said the other day, they are operating there as the means of culture and
civilization#uppn the swamps, and morasses, and wilderness of the southern country. They
are contributing more than any other laboring population known at this day, to the promo¬
tion and the extension of all the great benefits resulting from the highest civilization. What
do you propose? What is to be done with these three million slaves when the Government
passes into your hands? To manifest the elevated purposes of your philanthropy, they are
to be set free and returned to barbarism; and that country which they have redeemed by
their labor, a country that no other labor could redeem, is to be consigned to its original
desolatioll of swamps, and wilderness, and morass! That is the result of your theory; that
is to be the result of this high philanthropy and benevolence by which you claim to be
actuated. »
Mr. President, if the States and the people of the States would only look at the things as
they are, they would see that we have a continent here peculiarly fitted for that priceless form
of government which we have adopted, and a government equally fitted for the continent.
There was an impression, I know, actuating the minds of many of our early statesmen, that
our forms of government were not susceptible of expansion, but that, in course of time, by its
very expansion, the government would break to pieces of its own weight. So far as I can
read the great mission of popular government upon this continent, the very reverse is
to be the result. If there be a government on earth that is susceptible of Indefinite ex¬
pansion, it is the government of these States. What are they? A confederation of equal
sovereigns, each member of the Confederacy a separate organized political community; and,
if one or more should fall from the Confederacy, at the very instant of the severance such
State would be a perfect whole, and in the immediate exercise of every function that pertains
to government—teres atque rotund,us—an executive, a legislative, a judiciary department, or¬
ganized with officers .capable of exercising every function of independent power; hardly re¬
quiring any additional legislation but what might be necessary to make provision for foreign
intercourse. If the American mind could only be brought to look on this government in its
true character, and remit to the States what belongs to them—the exclusive jurisdiction of
their own affairs within their own limits—not interfering with them, but adhering to the be¬
hests of the Constitution, and administering only those great Federal powers which were con¬
ferred upon the common government for the common good of the whole, in the administration
of which, appropriately done, there would be no interference or collision with State authori¬
ties : what would be the result? State after State might come into the Union; they might
expand, as they have done, from thirteen to thirty-one and to sixty-one, and to one hundred
and one; and they would all revolve as harmoniously around their common orbit, the Federal
Government, as did the original thirteen ; susceptible of expansion to any extent, and stronger
as they expanded. And as if to anticipate such expansion in the advancement of the arts of
civilized life, the telegraphs and railroads of modern construction lend their powerful aid to
bind them together by agencies that annihilate time and space.
What then is proposed ? To get a political party into power by crushing out of existence
one of the greatest agencies of civilization that the world has ever known—destroying not
only the constitutional, but the domestic harmony, that fraternal regard, that should ever
actuate citizens of a common country. Violence and discord, detraction and calumny, are
badly calculated to promote good will or to retain communities in friendly relations. If the
great American mind could only be made to realize what would be the condition of things if
their public agents were kept within the limits of constitutional control, they would see, as I
sometimes venture (I hope without Utopian vision) to contemplate, this government extended
over a confederation of States, the number of which shall be limited only by the boundless ex¬
panse of a continent stretching from sea to sea; State after State entering the Union; and
each received with that cordial wel :ome which should signalize the access of a new confederate
of common lineage, ranging side by side under a common destiny. To what may we not
aspire if this great and prosperous Confederacy can be preserved ? But if it must be other¬
wise, let the responsibility rest where impartial history shall assign it.
Geo. S. Gideon, Print., 5X1 Ninth St., Washington, D. C.
SPEECH
OF
HON. J. S. GREEN, OF MISSOURI,
IN FAVOR OF THE
ADMISSION OF KANSAS
UNDER
THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.
DELIVERED
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
MARCH 23, 1858.
WASHINGTON':
^SINTED BY LEMUEL TOWERS.
1 € * «t
SPEECH
Of
HON. J. S. GREEN, OF MISSOURI,
in favor of thk
ADMISSION OF KANSAS INTO THE UNION
UNDER
THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.
delivered in the senate of the united states, march 23, 1ss8.
Mr, President : The Committee on Territories examined the subject that
N?as submitted to them, having before them the constitution of the State of
Kansas and all the facts connected with its formation. The result of that
examination has been reported to the Senate and the country. The major¬
ity of the committee deemed it proper to select me to make that presenta¬
tion to the Senate. In consequence of that fact, it now devolves upon me
to review the arguments that have been presented against that report, and
against the positions of the friends of this measure, and to reply to them as
briefly as I well can. I need not undertake to magnify the importance of
this subject. I could not do so. It extends in its effects and consequences
to the vital interests of the Republic. Nothing could strike a more fatal
blow at what ought to be tbe permanent interests of all sections of the
Union, than the improper decision of the subject now under' consideration.
.The Senator from Michigan, (Mr. Stuart,) with a flourish of trumpets
unusual with him, said that the friends of the Kansas measure had been
driven from ail their positions. With due deference to him, I must be per¬
mitted to remark that I am not conscious of any friend of this bill being
driven from its support; or of any position taken in the report of the com¬
mittee being surrendered or abandoned; nor am I conscious of any suc¬
cessful answer to any single position taken in that report. If we have been
driven from any one, I would like to have that one pointed out. General
charges, general -assertions, and general allegations will not do for the Sen¬
ate of the United States, They will not do for a court of justice of the
lowest grade. They will not even do upon the stump, or at the hustings.
We must come to specific facts—to the true questions that have to be
decided; and not undertake to prejudice the one side or the other by
making broad, general, unsupported assertions.
So it is with the Senator from Illinois, (Mr, Douo-las.) He says that
the principle of the Kansas hill was, that the people should be left perfectly
free to decide all'-domestic questions for themselves in their own way; and
then assumes that such freedom of action has not been accorded to them.
As I have previously remarked, before we can arrive at a safe and just con-
4
elusion we must take all material facts and trace them up in their proper
connection; and if, in such connection, we cannot agree in the deductions
or in the conclusions, that variance in opinion will he an honorable differ¬
ence between honorable Senator's. For my part, I see no cause and have
heard no reason to justify a sound logician in changing one single position.
The principles upon which the report is based remain unshaken. But one
single point of the report was called in question by the Senator from Illi¬
nois. What point in it was even controverted by the Senator from Michi¬
gan ? What principle enunciated in it has been called in question by any
Senator on the opposite side ?
It is true, exception was taken by riie honorable Senator from Vermont
(Mr. Collamer) to the language. He said there were harsh expressions in
it; that the Opposition party in Kansas were characterized as " rebels," as
"contumacious as standing in a position of hostility to the Government.
It does so characterize them; and, if the facts presented in that report
will not justify the accusations, it is a duty to take them back. Each sin¬
gle charge, with regard to the character of the Opposition in Kansas, is
sustained by official evidence presented in the report, from which there is,
and can be, no escape. If the honorable Senator supposes it unparliament¬
ary or "indecorous to make specific charges, upon evidence presented, in a
State paper, to remain upon the parliamentary records of the country, 1
remark that the speech Of his colleague from the same State of Vermont,
(Mr. Foot,) which also becomes a part of the parliamentary history of this
country, has more of abuse, more of denunciation, more of harsh epithet,
than can be found in any speech, or in any paper, presented on the subject
from this side of the Chamber. With what propriety, therefore, shall one
representative of a State complain of the expressions of opponents, whilst
tolerating, in his colleague, the use of language so extraordinarily harsh as
to have taken the whole Senate by surprise?
I say, further, that that was the only exception taken by the honorable
Senator to the report. The Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Clars)
desired an explanation in regard to one expression in it; which explanation
was at once given, and is borne out by the context in the report, and leaves
no possible chance for misconstruction. With what justice, therefore, shall
we be taunted with having been driven to the wall; with having been
driven from our position; with having been vanquished in all the debate
and in all the investigation had before the Senate and the country ? Such
is not the case, as I understand it.
But the Senator from Michigan says, that although it is true that the
convention adopted this constitution, yet that adoption is not evidence that
it embodies the will of the people of Kansas. There seems to be a sort of
oneness in the moulding of expressions by the Opposition—" embodying the
will of the people!"—as if mutually adopted by agreement among the
Opposition. I will make no issue upon that point. There is not a Sena¬
tor, nor a member of the House, nor a citizen of the Union, but what says
that all constitutions ought to embody the will of the majority. How that
fact is to be ascertained—what legal steps can be pursued for its ascertain¬
ment, consistent with order, peace, and constitutional government—is
another question; but that we ought to take the proper steps, the legal
steps, to ascertain the will of the people, is a conceded fact. It is imagined
by some, and I believe by the Senator from Michigan, that the best mode
of ascertaining the will of the people is by a submission to a vote of the
5
people; and lie referred to the vote on the 4th of January as affording the
clearest and most conclusive evidence that the people of that Territory dis¬
approved the constitution. He also brought, as evidence of that assertion,
•what he says is a direct vote of the people; and he also referred to a mass
meeting, held at Leavenworth, consisting of delegates claiming to represent,
by voluntary action, a vast majority (as he says) of the people of the Ter¬
ritory. How, I ask, can he undertake to give the sense of the people from
the mere action of a meeting at Leavenworth ? Why rely on a single
meeting to ascertain public opinion, if we are to reject as unreliable the
opinion of a legal convention, legally elected at a public election, and thus
representing the opinions of the people in a legal sense? Those who could
get up a meeting, without law, without system, without order, through
their delegates to a self-constituted assembly at Leavenworth, can be relied
upon to represent the people and speak their will, according to his argu¬
ment; but when the legally chosen, the legally appointed delegates, elected
by the people at the ballot-box, speak, it is not to be received as evidence
of the will of the people ! The irregular and the irresponsible, this body is
told, can be relied upon; the regular, legal, and the responsible, should be
rejected as unreliable ! Are the friends of the constitution to be vanquished
by reasoning and by facts like these ?
Mr. President, as I propose to notice the several objections urged by the
Senator from Illinois, and others, my train of remark will be rather de¬
sultory. The Senator from Illinois takes the position, that, although there
was a submission of the slave article of the constitution on the 21st of
December, yet it was an unfair submission. I have, on several occasions,
corrected Senators in their quotation of the constitution on this subject.
This is the last time that I shall ever correct them upon it. They all have,
including the Senator from Illinois, uniformly represented this to have been
the mode of voting; that no man could vote for or against slavery on the
21st of December until he first voted for the constitution. Such is not the
fact. There is no such provision in the schedule—none in the constitution.
There was but one single question submitted. The complaint has been
often made, by these same Senators, that there was no submission of the
whole constitution ; yet they now say that it was submitted,'and unfairly
submitted, because each man was compelled to vote for the constitution
before he could vote upon the other subject. I answered that objection in
the first remarks I ever submitted to the Senate on this subject. I took
the ground, and it has never yet been successfully answered, that there was
but one question submitted by the convention—not for the constitution as
one question, and slavery or no slavery another question ; but the one single
question of " slavery or no slavery." It will be observed that the form of
the ballot which each voter had to make use of was not for the constitution
and slavery, or for the constitution and no slavery. No such ballot as that
was proposed—none whatever. What then ? Why, the question of sla¬
very was submitted. How was slavery to be protected ? How was it to
be guarantied in the constitution. It was already inserted in the constitu¬
tion. The question submitted, then, was, shall it remain there, or not?
That was the vital question which was submitted to the people to decide.
The voter was not called on to vote for the constitution with slavery, or for
the constitution with no slavery; but, shall the protection of slavery be, or
shall it not be, in the constitution ?
Thus, as I heretofore exemplified, when the constitution of the State of
6
Louisiana was adopted, each voter voting was required to mate use of a
ballot, thus: "Constitution accepted," or "Constitution rejected." There
would have been just as much plausibility for the Senator from Illinois to
complain of the action of the convention of the State of Louisiana, alleg¬
ing that each voter should be compelled to vote first for the constitution
and then its acceptance, or for the constitution and its rejection, as to un¬
dertake to build up an argument that under this schedule the voter is com¬
pelled to vote for the constitution and then slavery, or for the constitution
and then against slavery. They are presented in identically the same man¬
ner. The whole scope of this section of the schedule shows that but one
single question was submitted for decision. All other questions were set¬
tled by the convention. It is said the people of Kansas complained that
no other question was submitted. It is said that the people of the country
complain because no other question was submitted. I understood the Sen¬
ator from Illinois, in the speech he made here in the Senate before the arri¬
val of the constitution from Kansas, to predicate his objections upon the
non-submission of the constitution.
Mr. Doolittle. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question ?
Mr. Green. Certainly.
Mr. Doolittle. I would inquire of the honorable Senator whether the
schedule does not require of the man offering to vote, not only to vote for
the constitution
Mr. Green. It requires no such thing.
Mr. Doolittle. Does it not go beyond that, and require him to take
an oath to support it ?
Mr. Green. Of course, if adopted.
Mr. Doolittle. Does it not only require him to vote for the constitu¬
tion with slavery, or the constitution with no slavery, but to take au oath
to support it before he can vote at all ?
Mr. Green. I will answer the Senator. First, I see the remains of that
old error still clinging to the mind of the Senator. He asks me the ques¬
tion, with the schedule before him, whether it did not require a voter to
vote for the constitution with or without slavery ? There is no such word
in it. Let the Senator look at it. It is now in his hand. Second, with
regard to the oath to be taken : if challenged, the voter was required to
take an oath to support the constitution if it become the supreme law of
the land, as all good citizens are. There would have been a peculiar pro¬
priety of the people of Kansas making such a requisition, as there had
been a proclamation by the Opposition that they would never submit to
law and order. Those who stand in open rebellion to the government,
ought to be subject to some honorable and fair test before they are permit¬
ted to participate in shaping the fundamental law.
As I do not wish to be drawn off from the train of remarks I contem¬
plate making, I will return to the point at which I was interrupted. The
Senator from Illinois made the remark, in his first speech on this subject, that
the President of the United States did not understand the Kansas-Nebraska
bill, he being at that time our distinguished representative at London; and
he excused the ignorance of the President on the ground of his absence from
the United States. The President's fundamental error, to which he then
called attention, consisted alone in this : the President said that the Kansas-
7
Nebraska act clid not require the constitution, when formed, to be submit¬
ted to the vote of the whole people. This was regarded by the Senator as
the fundamental error. He, the author of the hill—he, the advocate of
the bill—he, the defender of the bill before the country, ought to know
more about it than the President, who was then absent from the country,
and who, perhaps, bad not read all that had taken place on the subject.
Sir, I have a right to believe that the President of the United States has,
at least, read the report of the honorable Senator, made at the time he in¬
troduced the Kansas-Nebraska bill; and if he took his impressions from
that report, if they are false impressions, the responsibility falls upon the
report, and not upon the President. To show what justification he had in
his belief upon the subject, I will read a few words.
Here is the report by Mr. Douglas to accompany the bill (S. No. 22)
made January 5, 1854. He goes on and gives a history of the compromise
measures of 1850—a very clear, forcible illustration of the principles in¬
tended to be thereby established, in the same strain that he did last night
with so much ability, and which gratified me so much to hear. The object
then was to organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The object
of the bill was to apply the same principles settled in the compromise mea¬
sures of 1850 to the Kansas-Nebraska bill organizing these Territories in
1854. He reasons out the subject with great force and with great beauty,
and arrives at the following conclusions :
" From these provisions it is apparent that the compromise measures of 1850 affirm
and rest upon the following propositions: ' The substitute for the bill which your
committee have prepared, and which is commended to the favorable action of the
Senate, proposes to carry these propositions and principles into practical operation
in the precise language of the compromise measures of 1850.'"
What are those principles ?
"First. That all questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories, and the new
States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the people residing
therein."
That would seem to sustain the view which the Senator from Illinois
pressed, when he said that the President was out of the United States, and
he therefore excused him for not understanding what the principles of that
bill were. But, sir, I have not read all of that first principle. It suys what
I have read, and then goes on to say:
" Are to be left to the decision of the people residing therein, by their appropriate
representatives, to be chosen by them for that purpose."
This is the report of the Senator from Illinois, made when the Kansas
bill was presented. At that time he said the decision of the slavery ques¬
tion was to be left to the people, to be exercised—how ? By their appro¬
priate representatives in convention assembled. Because the President did
not complain of the action of the people of Kansas in not submitting the
constitution to a vote of the people, but followed out the principle which
the Senator had presented as the leading idea in the Kansas-Nebraska act,
that it was to be decided by their representatives, he complains of the
President, and of the action of the people of Kansas. I have ever held,
and yet bold, that it was for the people, acting through their convention,
either to submit or not to submit the constitution; that the Congress of
the United States has no constitutional right to stop and demand of them
to submit it; that, if such demand should be made, it would be a violation
of duty, a violation of constitutional right, and that we who did it would
8
be setting an example never set by our predecessors in office, and, I trust,
never will be set by those who are to come after us.
It is said, however, with a great deal of ingenuity, by the Senator from
Vermont, that it is true the people, by convention, can act; but, in order
to make it binding and conclusive action, they must have legal authority
to act; that the action of the people.of Kansas, not being predicated upon
an enabling act, is mere voluntary action, and not, therefore, legal action—
not binding upon those who do not choose to act. The Senator from Illi¬
nois shadows forth about the same idea in his first speech. It is this:
" So far as the act of the Territorial Legislature of Kansas calling this convention
was concerned, I have always been under the impression that it was fair and just in
its provisions. I have always thought the people should have gone together en
masse and voted for delegates, so that the voice expressed by the convention would
have been the unquestioned voice of the people of Kansas. I have always thought
that those who staid away from that election stood in their own wrong, and should
have gone and voted, and should have furnished their names to be put on the regis¬
tered list, so as to be voters. I have always held that it was their own fault that
they did not thus go and vote; but yet, if they chose, they had a right to stay
away."
There seems to be in this a little contradiction. If they did wrong when
they staid away, then it was their duty to have voted; and hence those
who did vote did right. He further says:
"They had a right to say that that convention, although not an unlawful assem¬
blage, is not a legal convention to make a government; and hence we are under no
obligation to go and express our opinion tebout it. They had a right to say, if they
chose, ' we will stay away until we see the constitution they shall frame, the petition
they shall send to Congress; and, when they submit it to us for ratification, we will
vote for it if we like it, or vote it down if we do not like it.' I say they had a right
to do either, though I thought, and think yet, as good citizens, they ought to have
gone and voted; but that was their business, and not mine."
The Senator from Vermont proclaims the same idea that there was no
legality attached to it; and drew a distinction, which I think my honorable
colleague completely answered—that there was a difference between a
legal proceeding and a proceeding by authority. What he meant by legal
was, that it was not prohibited by law, and therefore not unlawful. 1 think
I can adduce a little authority to show that this was a legal proceeding.
The authority that I propose to present consists, first, in the report repre¬
sented by the Senator from Illinois in 1856, in which he makes his cele¬
brated argument upon the power of Congress over the Territories. He
deduces the power that Congress has under the Constitution to legislate for
the Territory, or over the Territory, from that clause which says:
"New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union."
Without conceding the correctness of his source of power, I will proceed
to show what he thought had been accomplished by the establishment of a
territorial government. He uses this language on page 4:
"Hence, before the power can be safely exercised, the right of Congress to organ¬
ize Territories, by instituting temporary governments, must be traced directly tio
some provision of the Constitution conferring the authority in express terms, or as a
means necessary and proper to carry into effect some one or more of the powers
which are specifically delegated. Is not the organization of a Territory eminently
necessary and proper as a means of enabling the people thereof to form and mould
their local and domestic institutions, and establish a State government under the
authority of the Constitution, preparatory to its admission into the Union."
9
His idea, as shadowed forth in this report, and not only shadowed forfh'j
but expressed in very explicit language, is, that the exercise of tfye power
to establish a temporary government for a Territory was a means to execute
another constitutional power; that that other constitutional power was to
admit a State; and that the establishment of a territorial government was
to enable them to prepare for that admission. Thus, according to his idea
at that time, it, in the language of Governor Walker, is an enabling act; but
I care nothing about that. It was a legal proceeding, when they proceeded
to form a State government, whether this is an enabling act or not. It is
well known that a prior consent of Congress has not been the established
practice of the Government. It is equally well known that all these terri¬
torial governments are in the law expressly stated to be for the purpose of
preparing them for admission into the Union. They are all said to be
temporary. The express word is employed even in the Kansas act—a
temporary government for Kansas in the territorial form. So of Nebraska
—a temporary government in the territorial form.
Now, if it be a "temporary" government, if it be to enable them to pre¬
pare for admission into the Union, if it be as a means to enable Congress
to execute the power to admit a State, as he argues in his report, then it is
all that an enabling act could possibly be. But whether that be so or not,
I proceed upon a broad principle of equity, which is this: the uniform
practice of the Government has been to admit Territories as States; and
citizens of any of the old States, North, jEast, South, or elsewhere, going
and settling in a new Territory established during the past practice of the
Government, looking at the past action of Congress, have a right, growing
out of the common practice, to expect the organization of a State govern¬
ment, when they obtain the requisite strength. The common practice to
so admit them is an inducement to them to settle there; and not to concede
to them what has been uniformly conceded to all others, without exception,
would be a fraud upon the people who settle in the Territory. It would
be a breach of the common law which has grown up. Now, as Congress
has not been uniform in granting enabling aets, as Congress has heretofore
said an enabling act is not a necessary prerequisite, as the practice of the
Government has been uniformly to admit them as States at the proper
time, he who settles there has a right, under that practice, to expect that
that common-law practice shall be adhered to and carried out in good
faith—more especially when settling in the Territory acquired from France
by the Louisiana treaty, which specially stipulated that it should be done.
But, independent of all that, there was a government in Kansas, clothed
with governmental power, subject only to the Constitution of the United
States, which contemplated their admission into the bosom of the old
family. That government was a territorial government. It has been said
that it was a usurped government; that it was established by fraud and vio¬
lence; that external power from the State of Missouri went over there and
forced it upon them, all of which I pass by as unworthy of notice. Whether
true or untrue, it was a government de facto. It was a government wield¬
ing the power of the territorial authority. It was a government authorized,
under the organic act, to do all that any other government, under that act,
could have done. California was under a kind of military government,
established under General Riley, and the Senator from Illinois, with great
ingenuity, and great plausibility, (and I am willing to adopt it for the pur¬
poses of t the argument,) in his report predicates the right of the State of
10
California to admission into the Union on these points: First, that there
was a government de facto there, and that, acting through this de facto
government, the people had establshed a State government, and asked ad¬
mission into the Union.. Such is the history of the case. He employs this
language:
"It also appears, from the proclamation of General Riley, acting Governor, to the
people of California, dated June 8, 1849, that the government de facto was consti¬
tuted as follows: * * * * * * * ' * * * * *
" On the 3d of April, 1849 President Taylor appointed Thomas Butler King agent,
for the purpose of conveying important instructions to our military and naval com¬
manders who were intrusted with the administration of the civil government de facto
in California."
Thus predicating his whole argument on the double idea that the people
had acted, and acted through a government de facto. Had you not a gov¬
ernment de facto, as regular, as legal, as just, in the case of Kansas, as you
had in California, even if you admit that in its origination frauds were
committed, force resorted to, and external aid brought to hear? Now, sir,
here is a government de facto. They proceeded to call a convention. So
in Kansas; there was a government de facto, and they proceeded to call a,
convention. The Senator from Vermont says, however, that it is not a
legality. Let us see what the Senator from Illinois says upon that subject;
for I love to answer one of my oponents with the language of another.
The Senator from Illinois, speaking of the action in California, says:
"But there is not an irregularity in the case of California which has not occured
and been waived in the admission of some new State into the Union. If the Senator
will point to me any irregularity in the case of California, I will point him to a
corresponding one in the case of some other State which has been received into the
Union." * * * * "I hold that the people of California had a right
to do what they have done; yea, that they had a moral, political, and legal right to
do all they have done."—Appendix to Globe, 1850, page 1523.
So that the action of the people of California, being subordinate to the
government de facto, was a legal action. The action of the people of Kan¬
sas, being through the coustituted authorities, and a government de facto,
was clearly legal action. This, like other complaints which have been
gotten up since the first day of December, seems to be an afterthought.
Read the Springfield speech of the honorable, Senator from Illinois. Would
he have spoken iu such terms as he did with reference to the expected
action in Kansas if he had looked upon it as a mere farce—that people
could have stayed away if they pleased ? Did he say so then ? I desire to
read it. It has been read frequently. I wish to incorporate it in the
proper connection as it bears on the proposition I am discussing. I ask
my friend from Indiana to read it for me.
Mr. Bright read as follows :
"Of the Kansas question but little need he said at the present time. You are
familiar with the history of the question, and my connection with it. Subsequent
reflection has strengthened and confirmed my convictions in the soundness of the
principles and the correctness of the course I have felt it my duty to pursue upon
that subject. Kansas is about to speak for herself through her delegates assembled
in convention to form a constitution, preparatory to her admission into the Union
on an equal footing with the original States. Peace and prosperity now prevail
throughout her borders. The law under which delegates are about to be elected is
believed to be just and fair in all its objects and provisions. There is every reason to
hope and believe that the law will be fairly interpreted and impartially executed,
so as to insure to every bona fide inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elec¬
tive franchise.
11
<c If any portion of the inhabitants, a<$ing under the advice of political leaders in
■distant States, shall choose to absent themselves from the polls, and withhold their
votes, with a view of leaving the free-State Democrats in a minority, and thus se¬
curing a pro-slavery constitution in opposition to the wishes of a majority of the
people living under it, let the reponsibility rest on those who, for partisan purposes,
will sacrifice the principles they profess to cherish and promote. Upon them and
upon the political party for whose benefit and under the direction of whose leaders
they act, let the blame be visited of fastening upon the people of a new State, institu¬
tions repugnant to their feelings and in violation of their wishes. The organic act
secures to the people of Kansas the sole and exclusive right of forming and regu¬
lating their domestic institutions to suit themselves, subject to no other limitation
than that which the Constitution of the United States imposes. The Democratic
party is determined to see the great fundamental principles of the organic act
carried out in good faith. The present election law in Kansas is acknowledged to
be fair and just—the rights of the voters are clearly defined—and the exercise of
those rights will be efficiently and scrupulously protected. Hence, if the majority
of the people of Kansas desire to have it a free State, (and we are told by the Re¬
publican party that nine-tenths of the people of that Territory are free-State men,)
there is no obstacle in the way of bringing Kansas into the Union as a free State, by
the votes and voice of her own people, and in conformity with the great principles
of the Kansas-Nebraska act; provided all the free-State men will go to the polls and
vote their principles in accordance with their professions. If such is not the result,
let the consequence be visited upon the heads of those whose policy it is to produce
strife, anarchy, and bloodshed in Kansas, that their party may profit by slavery
agitation in the Northern States of this Union. That the Democrats in Kansas will
perform their duty, fearlessly and nobly, according to the principles they cherish, I
, have no doubt; and that the struggle will be such as will gladden the heart, and
strengthen the hopes of every friend of the Union, I have entire confidence."
Mr. Green. Now, sir, I have had that speech read because in the con¬
nection I am now speaking it shows he then regarded it as a proceeding
that would be binding, perfectly obligatory, and was anticipating that some
of the contumacious would stay away and not vote, alleging at the same
time that they would be equally bound as though they had appeared at the
polls and voted. That shows that he regarded it as a legal proceeding.
That speech was made on the 12th of June, three days before the election
held under the election law of Kansas, and hence when he takes another
position, on the first day of December, it seems to me—I will not impute
to him any motive—to have been entirely an afterthought. So understood
the whole country; so understood every friend of the Kansas-Nebraska
bill; so understood the President, and all of the party that sustained him;
and never until some subsequent proceedings were had, was any complaint
ever uttered. It was a legal proceeding. It is easy to demonstrate, in ad¬
dition to what I have said, that there is full legislative power, including the
power to call a convention at the instance of the people, to form a consti¬
tution preparatory to their admission into the Union ; that it was with this
view, as, stated by the Senator from Illinois, that the organic act of the
Territory was first passed to enable them to prepare for admission under
the clause of the Constitution, which says that Congress may admit new
States. It -then results that the voice of the people, fairly expressed, de¬
manded a change of government from that of a territorial to that of a State.
There was no pretence of fraud at that time; no pretence of any invasion
from Missouri, or from the Camanches of the West; no pretence of im¬
proper influences; all was admitted to be fair, regular, just, and proper.
The first step in the proceeding, then, is a legal step of the people in the
exercise of their power. Ah, says the Senator from Vermont, they will
have 110 power until Congress enables them to come into the Union.
12
Mr. Collamer. I did not say that they had not power. They had the
power to meet and petition, and all that.
Mr. Green. Did you not say that they had no power ?
Mr. Collamer. Not authoritative.
Mr. Green. I understand the Senator. He spoke of their political
rights, because there is a difference between a mere physical act and a
moral and political right. They have a physical ability to gather in mass
meeting, and utter expressions, if they have the power of articulation, and
physical power to draw up a petition and present it to Congress.
Mr. Collamer. And a political right.
Mr. Green. And a political right to present it. But what political
right have they to form a State government at any time ? Never till Con¬
gress says so ? He shakes his head. Can they do it before ? Can they
do this before Congress passes a provision giving them power to do so?
Mr. Collamer. They may meet, form a constitution, and present a
petition to Congress with the constitution for admission under it; but it is
for Congress to say whether they will admit them in their discretion.
Mr. Green. There is no difficulty about this subject when we come to
a proper understanding. The admission of a State is one thing; the form¬
ation of a State another. Congress caDnot form a State. Congress, there¬
fore, cannot give power to the people to form a State; for they cannot
confer a power they do not possess. If, then, there ever is a power in a
Territory to form a State, from whom is it derived ? Not from any sister
States, because they cannot create another State; not from the Federal
Government, because it cannot create a State. Then, from whom is de¬
rived the power to create a State ? From' Heaven ; that is the source of
the power. An enabling act was given to the people by Him, and Him
only. It has been held by the wisest statesmen in this Government that
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the inalienable rights of man;
and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted, deriving their
just powers—from whom ? From Congress ? From a sister State ? From
an enabling act? No; but deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed, and whenever the consent of the governed is given, the just
power has been conferred, and they (the governed) are the people of the
Territory. They cannot, however, force themselves into the Union. That
Territory belongs to all the States, and Congress is the administrator of it.
The people of the Territory cannot appropriate the public lands to them¬
selves. They cannot oust the rightful jurisdiction of the Federal Govern¬
ment. Therefore, an assent, either by admission or otherwise, must be
given by Congress before the independence, the sovereignty of the State
becomes complete; but the power to form a government is an original in¬
herent power which they may of right exercise when their numbers justify.
If they may thus exercise it; if it be au original power; if it be an in¬
herent power; if it be an inalienable power; then it is a legal power.
True, they cannot establish a government that would abrogate the Federal
power. They cannot be brought into collision with Congress, because as
the ownership of the Territory is in the States, and jurisdiction over it is in
Congress, the assent of Congress must be had either before the formation,
or after the formation of the State government, and the one is as regular as
the other; as the past history of the Government proves*
13
In tire next step of this proceeding, (for that territorial government has
been indorsed by Congress and all the authorities of this Government,) the
Territorial Legislature passed the convention act—that one of which the
Senator from Illinois spoke, when he said it was just and fair in all its pro¬
visions. It provided for a registry; a registry was taken—fairly taken.
Those objections which have been urged to it have been so completely and
so fully and so often answered, that I really do not like to stop and do it
now. I have answered them; my colleague has answered them; the
Senator from Georgia (Mr. Toombs) has answered them; various other
Senators have answered them; and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Bigler) has answered them; proving the employment of terms by our
opponents in this question, which may not be designed, but which are
calculated to convey a false impression to the public mind. They say,
generally, nineteen counties only were registered, and nineteen unregistered.
Now, (he employment of language like that—I will not say is designed—
but it is calculated to make the public at a distance—not in the city of
Washington—but tbe public at a distance—believe that half the people
were disfranchised, when there is not one word of truth in it.
No at, if we desire to investigate, according to the facts, and present the
facts to the country, why do we not speak of the people ? Did you want
unpopulated counties represented in convention ? I thought it was the
people whose rights you talked about protecting, and not the barren hills
and wastes, the prairies and the swamps. They have no voice in it, and
ought not to have any. They are the creatures for the use of man, and not
the masters; they are to be used by man, and are given for bis accommo¬
dation and benefit. All of the nineteen counties that had any inhabitants
at all were attached to other counties, except two or three, and from them
tbe registry officer was driven of!. This is established by abundant evidence.
In all of them only one thousand four hundred and twenty-three votes
were given at the 4th of January election under a qualification of voters
which would not have permitted them to vote for the delegates to the con¬
vention. The qualification for those who should vote for delegates to the
convention was, that they should be citizens of the United States, and
residents of the Territory on the 15th day of March. The qualification of
those who voted on the 4th of January was, that they should then be in¬
habitants of the place. Now, if, with this broader latitude, with this free
license for people to come in, through the influence of the emigrant aid
societies, with all the machinery of importation, they could at this later
period only manufacture one thousand four hundred and twenty-three
votes, when there was no restraint of law as to the number polled, how
many could that same locality have polled with the qualification required
under the convention act on the 15th day of June preceding? Iam
assured, by good authority, not over five hundred. So that it dwindles
into mere insignificance. But, whether large or small, whether great or
little, it resulted from their own acts, as is proven by the testimony of
Secretary Stanton and others.
Then the convention is elected. It legally assembles. It performs its-
work. The people adopt the constitution finally, as they had a right to do,
in pursuance of the principles incorporated into the organic act, as Senator
Douglas, in his own language, asserts they were to settle these questions
for themselves, by represenatives cbosen for tbat purpose. Not by a direct
vote of the people; not by a subsequent submission to a popular vote; but,
14
though he attributed that idea of President Buchanan to his absence from
the United States, as a fundamental error, still his own report says they
are to settle it by their representatives, chosen for that purpose. Just in
that way the people of Kansas did settle all questions pertaining to their
domestic institutions, except the question of slavery; and that question
was submitted to a subsequent vote of the people on the 21st of De¬
cember.
What is arrayed against all this? What imputation is made against
this proceeding? What is to lessen the force of it? Why, says the Sen¬
ator from Vermont, (Mr. Foot,) there were broken pledges; they had a
right to stay away and not vote; they had assurances from the President,
assurances from Governor Walker, assurances from Governor StantoD, and
pledges from the candidates, that the constitution, when framed, should be
submitted to them for ratification or rejection. I called upon the Senator
at the time, and requested him to favor me with the evidence of his asser¬
tion. He did not have time to produce it then, but I suppose be will, if
he can, at a more convenient season. The Senator from Vermont (Mr.
Collamer) went off and hunted up a little item, and brought it up here
for his colleague, but that does not even reach the case. I know, and the
country knows, that Governor Walker preferred that the constitution should
be submitted; but Governor Walker never did assume to fledge to the
people that it should be submitted. Mark tbe difference. Governor Wal¬
ker says to them, if tbe convention does not submit the constitution, I
promise you I will oppose its admission; but that very,assertion shows that
he understood the convention were not bound to do it, for it implied a
doubt whether they should submit it or not. Do you tell me that amounts
to an assurance that the constitution should be submitted? There is noth¬
ing like it on the record ; and when gentlemen make the assertion, they
make it without any evidence upon which tie found it. Even Governor
Walker, with his strong proclivities to invite the action of emigrant aid
societies to rush out a population to vote down the constitution or vote
out slavery—even he, in his own zeal, never undertook to pledge to the
people that it should he submitted to them for a vote. He preferred it, he
advocated it, he urged it; but he had no power to pledge that it should be
submitted, and he never did.
How is it with Governor Stanton? Governor Stanton, on the contrary,
said expressly and explicitly that the distracting question of slavery ought
to be submitted, and that was as a mere question of policy. Now the con¬
vention, I suppose, had more confidence in Governor Stanton than in Gov¬
ernor Walker. I presume so from their action ; for they acted on the sug¬
gestion of Governor Stanton, adopted the constitution finally in all its
branches, and in all its parts, except the article on the subject of slavery,
and that they submitted to a vote of the people. But neither Governor,
nor Secretary, nor President, nor anybody else, had any right to dictate to
the convention any part of their action, either in the form of the constitu¬
tion, or the mode of its adoption.
The election took place on the 21st of December, and the character of
that election is a great bone of contention. I can show, by Governor Wal¬
ker's own position, that the question whieh constituted the real matter of
controversy was, shall there be slavery or no slavery ? Is there anything
else in controversy before the Senate ? Is there anything else that stirs up
the least feeling, even in the Republican party, save and except this slavery
15
question ? Not one particle. Everything else is hunted up with eager
anxiety merely as make-weights, as it seems to me; but there is not one
single valid objection pointed out. On the 21st of December, then, the
■question was submitted. To disfranchised counties, or to but nineteen
counties? No; but submitted to every county in the State, submitted to
every citizen of the State, whether he had been registered or whether he
had not been registered. I have before said, that those who failed to regis¬
ter themselves committed a wrong in their own light. But the Senator
from Vermont said that the argument reminded him of an anecdote of a
boy who could not count the pigs because one of them kept running about
all the time. Now, if that, pig had to give his name to be registered, and
would not do it—what then ? How register him ?
Mr. Collamer. Count him.
Mr. Green. But if the law says that he should give his name to be
registered, so that when he came up to vote it might be known whether he
was entitled to do so or not, how could you ascertain his name without he
gave it ? That is the cause of all the difficulty. Now, it is a fact not to
be controverted, that they did refuse to be registered, and the imperfect
registration was the result of their own wrong. But whether right or
wrong, whether it was the fault of the officers or the fault of the people,
when the great question was submitted, whether registered or unregistered,
whether entered upon the poll-list or not entered upon the poll-list, all
were allowed to come and vote. Why did they not do it ? It is said they an¬
ticipated fraud. Anticipated fraud I A majority anticipate that a mi¬
nority would whip theml It is not a part of the American character; nor
do I believe that to have been the reason, nor does anybody here on either
side believe it; but if true, it amounts to no excuse.
But, says the Senator from Illinois, why did they not submit the whole
constitution ? He answers the question himself by saying the only reason
given, was that it would be voted down. Who said so? Why, the Sen¬
ator from Illinois, and, I believe, the Senator from Michigan. Who else
said so ? Did the people of Kansas say so ? Some one of that convention
may have said so; but the convention itself, as a convention, never put its
action on any such ground. To represent them as being influenced by
such a consideration when you have not the slightest evidence, I say is
neither legitimate nor logical.
But assumptions have been made from the beginning of this discussion
down to the present time; and no more gross assumptions have been made
by any Senator, than by the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. Why,
said he, this election was all very fair on its face, but gross frauds have been
perpetrated. That Senator is a distinguished lawyer; he knows the force
and weight of evidence; but if he referred to anything that would be re¬
ceived as evidence before any justice of the peace in any county of his
State, I should like to-have it pointed out. Why, said he, both the Gov¬
ernors have given it as their opinion that a large majority of the people of
the Territory are against the constitution. Talking about legal proceedings,
the Senate of the United States having a constitution, adopted according
to law, brought before them, it is to be overruled, broken down by the
opinion of two gentlemen who rode through the country! Why, sir, will
a lawyer assert that to be evidence at all ? When did they give that evi¬
dence ? Since they fell out with the Administration, and joined the enemy.
It is no evidence at all, and comes in a very questionable shape.
16
Again : the Senator from Illinois says this.constitution does not meet the
•will of the people. Where is the evidence of that ? Why the Legislature
elected in October passed resolutions protesting against its reception and
admission. Does that prove that the constitution does not meet the will
of the people of Kansas ? Does he not know that, when that Legislature was
elected, the constitution had not been formed ? That Legislature was
elected in October; the convention had not then formed the constitution.
Did they condemn it in advance ? Did they reflect the will of their con¬
stituents ? The question had not been before the voters of the Territitory
to say whether they approved that constitution or did not approve it; and,
consequently, the Legislature elected could not possibly represent them and
reflect their will on that subject. It is worse than idle, it is absolutely
ridiculous, to say that the Legislature elected in October, before the consti¬
tution was formed, could express the will of the people on that constitution.
The convention, chosen by the people to make the constitution, can better
reflect the will of the people than the Legislature chosen for a different
purpose.
The people elected that convention to make a constitution. They bad
not then performed their work. They elected a certain set of men to go to
the Territorial Legislature. Subsequent to that election the people's con¬
vention did form a constitution, and the Legislature undertook to pronounce
judgment upon the work of the people's representatives. Does that afford
any evidence that it would be condemned by the people ? I cannot so un¬
derstand it; nor do I believe that any man who will turn his attention to it
for one moment will believe it is entitled to any weight or consideration
whatever. Even the Senator from Illinois, following the example of the
distinguished Senator from Kentucky, says, "Ask the Governors what the
will of the people there is." Is that to have any weight ? I submit, with
due deference to the longer experience of the distinguished Senators, that
the way to ascertain the people's will is not to ask their Governors what it
is. Can you have the people's will except when collected in the form of
law ? Will you look at a mob, guess at its size, and say that that overrides
a legal vote ? You sanction that principle when you undertake to repudiate
the action of this legal convention, because a Governor may have said he
rode through the country and counted so many stumps and so many cabins,
and he was inclined to think the majority was on that side. I trust such
arguments will never be made here again. Moreover, the Governors were
not chosen by the people, while the convention was, for the direct purpose
of making the constitution, and their action is the best evidence of the peo¬
ple's will.
The Legislature of the Territory was not chosen for the purpose of ex¬
pressing the will of the people on the constitution; neither was the Gover¬
nor, who was appointed by Federal authority.
But the great question, it is said, is, does the constitution embody the
people's will ? Now, I come to the point which I have been incidentally
noticing for some time. Their will is collected only through the forms of
law. But, says one Senator, we do not object to these forms of law, but we
go for the equity of the case. Well, what is equity ? First, equity follows
the law; second, the rules of evidence in equity and law are the same If
in law your evidence would not be admissible, neither will it he received iu
equity to ascertain the equity of this case. Flying reports, wild guesses, vis¬
ionary imaginations, are to be brought up to weigh down legal evidence, by
17
old experienced lawyers and statesmen. I am astonished at it. There must
he an impelling power behind to rush them into error so gross, else it could
never be done. What that impelling influence is I know not. In the
United States of America, distinguished for its endeavors to protect the peo¬
ple's rights, there has never been but one rule to collect the people's will—
by a legal proceeding. The moment you depart from this rule, when you
next have an election of President of the United States the ballots
will be cast, the votes will be counted, the electors returned, and a
wild cry will be raised outside of this Capitol—Governors A, B, C,
c*r D will say that an immense majority of the people of the United States
were opposed to the President. They will say he does not represent the
public will; that a majority are against him. I have already heard it said
that Mr. Buchanan is a minority President, that Mr. Pierce was a minority
President. Take one more step, incite the people in their frensy to go one
inch further under the example intimated here that you may guess at num¬
bers, and not take the people's will in the forms of law, and you will have
bristling bayonets and threatening cannon pointed at the walls of your
Capitol to displace those legally elected to put in the mob and the candi¬
date of the mob. It is fraught with a danger that demands the most serious
reflection. We should pause before we set an example so calamitous in its
tendency.
Does this constitution embody the people's will ? I say, yes; and when
I answer, I predicate my answer upon that which cannot be controverted
cxr gainsayed. When the Opposition answer, it is a loose, unsupported asser¬
tion. But the question, does it embody the people's will ? comes back with
all its force, agaiu and again. What is the test? Were there disfranchised
counties where members were not elected ? That does not affect it. There
were but very few people in them, and nearly all the people were regis¬
tered—all were, that desired it. You cannot compel a man to vote. You
ought to give all the privilege of voting; and having the privilege, if they
refuse to vote, the consequence must rest upon their own heads. Take the
case of Iowa, to which the Senator from Kentucky referred
Mr. Crittenden. Not Iowa; Wisconsin.
Mr. Green. I thought it was Iowa to which the Senator referred.
Mr. Crittenden. No, sir.
Mr. Green. I think I am correct, and the Senator will see that I am
correct in a moment. He was upon the point that a constitution was
formed by them, and the boundary, or some other part, was not acceptable
to Congress. Congress said to them, you may come in, if you conform
your boundary to the northern boundary of the State of Missouri, and com¬
ply with certain conditions. The constitution went back to the State, and
Congress never heard anything more of it; and I will tell you why. The
people voted it down. Congress undertook to change the boundary which
the people had inserted in the first constitution, and to prescribe terms to
them. They voted down the proposition which Congress made to them,
and subsequently formed a new constitution ; but when they did come into
the Union, what was the evidence that it embodied the people's will ?
Mr. Harlan. Will the Senator allow me a moment ?
Mr. Green. Certainly.
18
Mr. Harlan. Congress prescribed no new bouudary to Iowa, as the
Senator will see by examining the act.
Mr. Green. It prescribed some conditions whicli they repudiated. How
was the second constitution received ? By a submission to the people.
"What was the vote upon that ? Now you want clear, unmistakable evi¬
dence that the constitution embodies the people's will. In the case of Iowa,
over nine thousand four hundred and fifty voted for the constitution, and
nine thousand and sixty voted against the constitution, and three counties
were disfranchised. If the votes of those three counties had been brought
in, and counted in the negative, they would have overturned that majority.
Yet you see the forms of law were observed. One of those counties, which
seems to be rather remarkable, was named Buchanan; not a vote was re¬
ceived from it. There were two other counties from which not a vote was
received ; but yet it was their own negligence. The law afforded them the
opportunity, and if they did not avail themselves of that opportunity, they
were bound by the decision of those who went to the polls and voted. So
in Kansas; so in California; so in every instance. I believe there never
has been a vote taken in the United States in which every man participated
who was entitled.
Take the case of the recent amendments to the constitution in the State
of Pennsylvania. I am informed by the Senator from that State that they
can poll about five hundred thousand votes in the State. Last year they
adopted some amendments to their constitution, less than one hundred and
forty thousand voting. The highest vote that any amendment received
was one hundred and sixteen or one hundred and eighteen thousand. -Yet
it was the will of the people—the legally expressed will. Those who do
not think it proper to come forward and exercise the rights which are ex¬
tended to them, are bound by the decision that is made. Deal with Kansas
on the same principle; extend to her the same rule of action, and you will
be estopped from finding any fault or making any complaint. But every
time they hear this word estopped, a cold shudder seems to run over these
Republican Senators. Estopped ! They say that is the lawyer's plea. I
trust we are not opposed to law and order. I trust we will ever act on the
legal rules established by centuries of experience, by enlightened human
reason, as best calculated and designed to protect the rights of the people.
On those we ever act; and when we depart from them, we will be not only
at sea without rudder and without compass, but we will be in a terrific
storm driving us upon the rocks of destruction.
But one of the great and important points—it looms up with great mag¬
nificence in the Opposition here—is the vote on the 4th of January. After
the constitution had been finally adopted, and was complete, on the 21st
day of December, after the work of the convention had been consummated,
a Legislature meets—not appointed for that purpose, not selected for that
purpose, because when they were elected, in October, the constitution had
not been formed—but in spite of that, without instruction from the people,
without authority from the people, they undertake to defeat the will of the
people by ordering a subsequent election. I would like to know if I could
dare to ask that question, who gave instructions out there to get up that
vote? Whence did the orders emanate? Who sent them the advice? It
makes no difference to me how it originated, its consequences are just the
same ; but, as a matter of curiosity, to go into and fill up the vacant spaces
in the history of this strange transaction, I would like to know who issued^
19
the orders. Had that Legislature the power to order an election ? Why,
say Senators, it had as much power over the subject of a constitution as
had any preceding Legislature. I say they had not. I have before stated
to you that the source of power was the people, not the Legislature. They
only make use of the Legislature as a legal instrumentality to collect the
people's will. The people instructed the Legislature to call that conven¬
tion. . The people had by a direct vote, said, we want a State organization.
Therefore, when the Legislature met, they were but doing and performing,
in the language of the report, " a ministerial act," providing a fair, just, and
equitable method for the people to exercise their rights, and elect delegates
to form a constitution. When that convention assembled, it was, in con¬
templation of law, according to all ideas of representative government, the
people of Kansas; and could no more be interfered with, stayed, checked,
or controlled in its action, than could a convention in one State be con¬
trolled by a Legislature in another. The Legislature of the Territory,
after this constitution is adopted, undertakes to set it aside; undertakes to
make a submission in a manner that must set it aside, and for the design of
setting it aside, if it could have any legal effect whatever. But who ever
heard of a State constitution being thus submitted ?
Now, if I have been successful in proving that the steps taken there
were legal steps, were usual steps, were proper steps, all of them ended in
the consummation of the instrument on the 21st of December, and it was
then a fixed fact and a constitution of a State—not in the Union, because
it cannot be in the Union without the assent of Congress. Then, being a
constitution, thus formed and emanating from the people, it could be no
more interfered with than could the constitution of the State of New York
be voted down by submitting it to a vote of the people. What would any
Senator think if he should hear it stated that in his own State the Legisla¬
ture had said, " we will see whether this is the constitution or not, and we
will submit it to a vote of the people?" Suppose the constitution had
been performing its functions for twenty years, yet that at once somebody,
like the sentimental German mentioned by Mr. Webster, should say, "an
idea strikes me; let us see whether our constitution embodies the people's
will; and let us submit it to a vote of the people." When the Senator
from Kentucky holds forth the idea it strikes me with real astonishment.
I had not learned in the same school. He uses this language:
".Was it not of consequence, was it not of importance, to know the will of the
people, whether they really did approve of this constitution which was about to be
offered to Congress—a law which, when Congress puts its imprimatur on it by ad¬
mitting the State, is to be permanent? Would it be any harm to take the vote over
and over again ? What objection could there be to it? You might have said, 'it is
an unnecessary care of the people's rights; you have had their decision once; there¬
fore, it is not necessary to have it againbut out of abundant care and abundant
zeal you may choose to take it again and again, and ascertain whether there may be
change or variation in the public opinion. Where is the man who can say aught
against it? Do you object to it because it is taking too great care of public liberty ?
paying too great respect to popular rights ? Nobody will take that ground."
According to this idea of the Senator, although a constitution may be
fairly and finally adopted, yet we should adopt the principle of saying
there may be a change of opinion, and we will take the sense of the people
again and again and again upon it. After Kentucky has adopted a consti¬
tution, and the people have lived under it for years, would it be in the
power of any one all at once to say, " an idea strikes me; I will see whether
20
this embodies the will of the people; let us take the vote again and again
and again." You can with as much propriety do it in the one case as in
the other. If that convention adopted a constitution at all, you could no
more interfere with it than could the Legislature of Kentucky interfere
with their constitution by saying, "we will ascertain again and again
whether the people now approve of it." It is contrary to the princi¬
ples of government. Take the case on the election of the smallest officer
in the smallest municipality. Even in the election of a constable, could
any one the next day after the election say, "let us try this over again,
and see if there is any changeand the day after that say, " let us try it
over and over again, in order to see if there is any change in public opin¬
ion." I expect Colonel Fremont would like to have adopted the doctrine
of the Senator fi ovn Kentucky, in order to try the presidential election over
again. (Laughter.) I remember when I went to school and played at
marbles, the boys used to cry " slips" on me, in order to try it over again.
When a power has been exercised according to law, there is no power to
try it over again except by pursuing all the customary legal steps requisite
to reach the same end.
But to create doubt, to excite suspicion, to generate distrust, and make
men afraid to do their duty, the Opposition insinuate and charge fraud. I
have heard the cry of fraud so often, that I would almost think the old
maxim had been adopted—I do not apply it to Senators—but a very dis¬
tinguishing man once said, a lie well stuck to and oft repeated was as good
as the truth. Fraud? What fraud affecting either one of the elections
relating to the adoption of this constitution ? I challenge any Senator to
show it. What fraud ? Was there fraud when the people voted and said
in an emphatic voice, we want a State government? It was not alleged.
Was there fraud when the people of Kansas elected delegates, and sent
them up to a convention to make a constitution? Neither has that been
alleged. Was there fraud affecting the validity of the decision on the
slavery question on the 21st of December? That is not alleged.
It has been said by the Senator from Kentucky that some two thousand
of the votes cast on that day are believed to be fraudulent votes. Suppose
they were; it leaves the question unaffected. The Senator from Georgia
well answered that objection. But what is the evidence that there were
any fraudulent votes ? Why, says the Senator, the President of the Coun¬
cil, Mr. Babcock, and Mr. Deitzler, Speaker of the House of Representa¬
tives, both say they rode through the country, and did not see cabins
enough to hold the people who voted. Look at the character of the evi¬
dence. Here are two men, called voluntarily—not in the performance of
duty in obedience to law, without any jurisdiction over the subject—to see
the fairness of the opening and counting of this vote; and the}7 say there
were six thousand seven hundred and ninety-five votes cast. They then
volunteer a statement in regard to some of the votes. Who are they?
Bitter enemies of the constitution—men who have been classed in the se¬
cret legion—men who have been arrayed against all government—men
who have doubtless taken the secret oath reported here as being dicovered
and brought to light, and embodied in this report by Senator Douglas—
an oath by all means to accomplish their nefarious ends. That class of
persons, standing out in rebellion, standing out in defiance of law, standing
out in opposition to Federal authority as well as territorial authority, with
a sworn purpose to defeat that State organization, with a sworn purpose to
21
defeat that constitution, who have taken an oath to prohibit slavery—they
are the witnesses called upon by the honorable Senator from Kentucky.
They volunteered a statement, and made a statement, not in the discharge
of any official duty ; and the statement itself shows that they knew nothing
about that of which they spoke; for they say, we have been through those
counties, and are satisfied there is not that number of people there.
Why, Mr. President, it is a fact known to those familiar with the subject,
that in Johnson county there was a reservation of land for the Indians of
about double the quantity to which they were entitled under the treaty.
It was discovered ; and citizens, before it was opened up to settlement by
the operation of the Department, went there, and made their locations all
over it. They could not live on it, because it is prohibited under the res¬
ervation ; but it would ultimately be open to market. Those holding
claims, could not make permanent improvements, and perfect them, and
were compelled to live iu the small towns around, and watch their claims,
until the reservation should be opened by the Department. That is the
secret of this whole matter. There was not fraud there. As Governor
Walker has well said, there was no danger of Missourians undertaking to
influence those elections; there was no danger of Missourians going over
there, and voting. I have his evidence in this document 4o vindicate them
from the charges that have been so unjustly heaped upon their heads.
But was there no fraud at the election on the 4th of January? Yes;
there was. There can be no qusstion about that. They cast more votes
than they had in the whole Territory on the same day at the same voting
at a hotly contested election. On the constitution there was no contest at
all. Our side did not vote at all on that question ; the constitution being
finally adopted. We stand upon our rights and we do not intend to be
trifled with, said the Democratic party. I do not mean pro-slavery men
only, for there are hundreds of men from the Northern States who are in
favor of a State organization, and then, if subsequent events should shdw
that they ought not to have slavery, to change the constitution, who will
act shoulder to shoulder with us and do do it. They said the constitution
being finally adopted, we will not attend the polls. Hence these same peo¬
ple who could only poll for State officers, at a hotly contested election, six
thousand two hundred and thirty-eight votes, at an election where there was
no contest, polled ten thousand and sixty-four. What do you think of
them ? Why was this ? There was no difference in the qualification
which the voters should possess in order to exercise the elective franchise.
What constituted the difference in numbers? This : at the one place they
were watched, there was a contending party arrayed against them ; in the
other case they were not watched and put in as many votes as they pleased.
We know they are a class who are in the habit of making use of fictitious
names; and that is proved by Mr. Secretary Stanton. If a man will use
a fictitious name for one purpose, as we have proved it on him, will he not
do so again for another purpose?
It is also known that over four hundred came from Lawrence and voted
at that day in Leavenworth. This is shown by the Lawrence vote. The
vote at Leavenworth was four hundred larger than was their actual vote.
The vote for State officers at Lawrence fell off a corresponding number;
and yet, on the vote on the constitution at Lawrence, they gave more votes
than they ever gave in their lives before. They involve contradiction;
they involve absurdities; and when we see their course, as portrayed by
22
Governor Stanton and Governor Walker, we have a right to regard them
as spurious. I care not, however, if they were the most legal imaginable;
I care not if you prove them to be the bona fide citizens voting; it was
voting on a subject previously decided, and I trust that this Congress will
never set an example which would induce the people to say: " we will call
an election on a day not appointed by law, when a question has been finally
decided, and we will then vote just as many votes as we please." It is well
known that, if this principle was to be sanctioned, the subsequent election
would always prevail. Knowing exactly how many votes were previously
cast, knowing what they had to work up to, they could of course manu¬
facture a majority, and thus lead to fraud, to violence, and bloodshed. The
character of those persons may be pretty well understood from what I have
quoted in the report presented to the Senate; but, as still better evidence
upon the same subject, I beg leave to have read an extract from a speech
delivered in New York, June 11, 1856, by the very distinguished Senator
from Illinois.
The Clerk read as follows :
"On the other hand, in Kansas you find that the New England Emigrant Aid
Society, through pauperism, with a eapital of $5,000,000, undertook „to regulate the
Territories fifteen hundred miles off, and to control their liberties, without respect to
the rights, wishes, and interests of the people of the Territory. This foreign inter¬
ference on the part of the Free-Soilers; this foreign interference by,corporations
from New England to regulate Western affairs, has created in Kansas what every
man had a right to suppose it would create—civil war, dissension, violence, and
bloodshed. For every drop of blood that has been shed in the Territory of Kansas,
the 'Black Republican' leaders are responsible. (Loud cheers.) It is a part of their
line of policy to get up civil war there, and then make political capital out of the
innocent blood shed by their tools and dupes, for the purpose of promoting their
candidates in the Presidential election. What is their excuse for not obeying the
law in Kansas? They tell us that the laws enacted by the Territorial Legislature
are barbarous and inhuman!
" Out of a volume of at least a thousand pages, containing innumerable enactments,
applicable to every relation in life, and protecting every interest in society, yet out
of that long list of laws relating to all the affairs of human concern, only two
short enactments have been specified as being either unjust or improper. One of
them relates to the question of slavery, and the other regulates the affairs of elec¬
tions. It is worthy of remark, and should never be forgotten, that under neither of
those laws has any one case yet arisen—no one case has arisen under those two laws
which are objected to as being improper. No case has ever arisen, no writ has ever
been issued, no trial has ever been had, no act of violence has ever occurred, under
either of these two obnoxious laws. Then, what excuse is there for that violence?
Why, these men, these Abolitionists, these 'Black Republicans,' send out their agents
there to get up strife and bloodshed, to be copied into the Abolition papers here for
political effect. Contributions are taken to buy Sharpe's rifles, and to send men out
there to resist the law.
" Preachers of the Gospel, instead of expounding the Holy Scriptures, convert the
house of God into a recruiting office for brigands to go to Kansas to stir up strife
and civil Avar, in order that the Tribune, Times, Post, and other Abolition papers
here may portray the horrors of the border ruffians. These men, sent out by your
Beecliers, by your Sillimans, by your Theodore Parkers, by your Garrisons, go into
Kansas, burn innocent people's houses; and when the court issues a Avrit against the
house-burner, and when the sheriff goes to execute that writ, they shoot down tire
officers of the laav; screen the house-burner from the penalty of the Ioav, and pro¬
tect him in his violence, and then talk of the consequences and effects of the Nebraska
bill. Every act of violence that has occurred in Kansas in resistance to the officers
of the law, has been either house violence, murder, breach of the peace, or some
other crime recognized as such in all civilized countries; but the 'Black Republicans'
have protected the criminal in his laAvless course."
23
Now, Mr. President, that is presented as evidence to show the character of
those who have gotten up the opposition, who have managed the opposition,
who have controlled the opposition. Senator Douqlas well portrayed them.
When the Senator from Kentucky says the last expression of the people
ought to prevail, I must say to him that, with some qualification, it is correct.
The last legal expression on the subject, properly submitted to the people, on
which they have a right to vote, ought to prevail, and will prevail; but a
subject having been completely decided, no other proceeding can be insti¬
tuted to undo what has been done. Even when they did attempt to undo
it, it was by the use of instrumentalities like those portrayed by the Sena¬
tor from Illinois. They sought to get up strife and bloodshed to fill the
columns of the Tribune, his present friend and supporter, the Post, and
other papers in the Northern States, to manufacture capital for political
purposes. I hope the Senate and House of Representatives will take a
course to remove these means if they desire to make use of them for elec¬
tioneering purposes, and to quiet the subject forever.
But, sir, it has been said that the Legislature instituted a commission to
go around and collect evidence to prove what frauds have been committed
at the various elections; that this commission has been perambulating the
country collecting the facts, and that these facts sustain all the charges of
fraud. I said many weeks ago that I had no doubt of the fact that in
most of the elections of the United States, frauds to a greater or less ex¬
tent are committed. It is because of the imperfection of man. If he were
perfect, there would be no difficulty, and he would need no law. But what
I have ever said, and what I will adhere to, is that no fraud has been es¬
tablished affecting the validity of this constitution. If there were frauds
in the October election, they do not affect the constitution adopted by the
people; if there were frauds in the election on the 4th of January at Del¬
aware Crossing, they do not affect any of the proceedings in the formation
of the constitution; if there were frauds at the election on the 21st of De¬
cember, they do not affect it, because there was majority enough without
even the alleged fraudulent votes. Why, then, shall we stop to inquire
about the proceedings of that commission ?
But, sir, the whole action of that commission is null and void, and enti¬
tled to no consideration for various reasons. First, the legislative authority
that created that commission had no jurisdiction over the subject they un¬
dertake to investigate. They had no jurisdiction over the election of the
21st of December. They had no jurisdiction over the other elections. All
that they could do was to test the legality of their own election. Having
no jurisdiction Avliatever on this subject, any commission they may have
created is null and void, and its acts are of no ayeiglit or consequence
whateArer.
More than that,'they could not even swear a man so as to bind him.
They had not poAver to administer an oath ; and a man sworn by them,
even if he made a false statement, under that form of oath, Avould not be
guilty of perjury. We knoAV the instruments they could make use of, and
the character of the persons they could call on for testimony. Their ob¬
ject was to break doAvn the legal constitution of the Territory. That was
their sole purpose. It was their declared purpose. It Avas not to ascertain
the truth, for at one of the examinations at Leavenworth they asked a
1 witness whether he knew of any fraudulent votes in that place ? He re¬
plied, "yes, I do; four hundred came from Latvrence, and voted on your
24
side." "Oh," said the commissioner, "we do not want to hear a word
about that." The question was asked of another, "do you know of any ille¬
gal vote being given?" He replied, "yes; forty or fifty Germans, living in
Missouri, were carried over by Pomeroy, and voted in Atchison county."
" Oh, hush," said the questioner, " we do not want to know anything about
that."
Mr. Polk. They were earned from Weston.
Mr. Green, Such proceedings were common. I attach no importance
to that commission for the reasons that I have assigned. They had no
jurisdiction, and, therefore, their acts could have had no validity, and the
oath administered by them would have had no validity. Ho perjury could
be committed under it. Therefore, they could get their own tools to swear
to what they pleased; and I am not certain that they could not get a re¬
spectable number to swear anything, even if the oath were legal—I mean
respectable in point of numbers, not character.
But, Mr. President, if I were to follow on in a close examination of all
this, I should consume too much time, weary the Senate, and travel over
and over again the ground others have occupied so well. I shall, there¬
fore, hasten on as rapidly as I can. It has been demonstrated that a legal
constitution is presented. It has been demonstrated that there is no legal
evidence to prove that it does not embody the will of the people, and that
if we depart from the legal rules we are striking at the foundation of civil
liberty. Why, then, shall Kansas not be admitted ? What reason can be
urged against it ? The principal part of the Opposition on the other side
of the Chamber is alone in consequence of the slave question. They are
now but carrying out, when the question is first presented in its practical
form, what the Senator from Illinois, with great power, said was their fixed
and determined purpose in 1856. Here is what Mr. Douglas said :
" What were those principles that they (that is, the Republican party) proudly
and defiantly proclaimed to their opponents? They were, first, the restoration of
that black line called the Missouri compromise; secondly, the repeal of the fugitive
slave law; thirdly, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; fourthly,
the abolition of the slave-trade among the States; fifthly, the admission of no more
territory or States into this Union, unless slavery was first prohibited; sixthly, the
crucifixion of every man who voted for Kansas and Nebraska."
I am afraid tbey have crucified one by getting him in their embrace. I
hope not; because I yet believe that he is not influenced in his opposition
by the consideration of the existence of slavery in the constitution. I be¬
lieve it; and I believe the Senator from Michigan (Mr. Stuart) when he
makes the same assertion; and I believe the Senator from California (Mr.
Broderick) when he makes a similar assertion. They are governed by
one principle; but they are building up and strengthening a dangerous
party that exists in this country, whose fixed purpose is to admit no more
slave States. The first time that practical issue is presented, we find the
Senator from Illinois, our old leader, who has fought so many gallant bat¬
tles, and gained so many brilliant victories, going over on that issue which
they tender, though he may be governed, and is governed, by another con¬
sideration. The motive does not sanctify the deed. In a moral sense, be¬
tween him and his Creator, it doubtless does ; but in a political sense, when
practical results are to follow, the motive is a small matter. The deed is
good or bad, according to the results that follow from it. At the time he
portrayed this as the platform qf the Republican party, he said :
25
"The Cincinnati convention had accepted that gauntlet and has negatived every
one of the propositions and has proclaimed a creed which meets the cordial appro¬
bation of every Democrat in America, no matter from what point of the compass he
may come."
Tliis was in 1856. In 1858 the practical question is presented. In 1856
it was wrong to oppose the admission of a State on account of its toler¬
ating slavery. In 1858 that question comes before the Senate of the
United States, and every Republican opposes it, for, as he has before said,
their creed is to oppose that admission ; and lie, for other considerations,
not on account of slavery, cooperates in the work. Without his aid, his
lead, his guidance, in this Chamber, and his friends in the other House,
Kansas would have been a young sister of the Confederacy many weeks
ago; and that very work which he deprecated, that very purpose which
he said constituted an issue with the Democracy, he aids them in carrying
out—not for the same motive and reason that they have, but in practical
results it is all the same thing.
As the Senator from New York (Mr. Seward) announced to us, the
real question is, shall any more States ever be admitted ? The real ques¬
tion for the South is not the permanent existence of slavery in Kansas;
that is but the John Doe and Richard Roe of the case. The South, of
necessity, as well as the North, with the enterprise and energy of the
American character, will need expansion. It must have expansion. If
penned in with a Chinese wall applied only to the blacks, with the privi¬
lege of exit to the whites, when the country becomes over populated, the
disparity will become greater and greater between the two races, and insur¬
rection, civil war, and extermination will be the natural consequences.
This you seek to hasten; this the Republican party of the United States
proclaim to be their supreme purpose. To increase their strength, to
increase their hopes, to encourage them in their prospects- our best of
friends on this question, heretofore, have gone over to them. I speak it
with extreme regret. I will never build up the enemy of my country, even
if I do have some small objections to the proceedings of my political
friends. Even if the proceedings in Kansas did not come up exactly to my
notions, I would not go to the aid of the enemy, on a dangerous vital point
like this, that strikes a fatal blow at the heart of our country.
My old friend from Kentucky, too, I find on that side ; not for the pur¬
pose of aiding them—I know his patriotism too well to believe that—but
because he has objections to the proceedings in Kansas. Well, whether
he has objections ill or wrell founded, he should not aid in building up, and
I hope he may not, a party which will, if any party ever does, divide this
Union. The more especially am I astonished at him, in consequence of
another reason. I understand him as being favorable to the principles of
tire American party. I am no American in that sense, but I have no hos¬
tility to them personally, and do not esteem them dangerous, in compari¬
son to the Republicans. To one of their principles, at least, I heartily
subscribe—that no man ought to be permitted to vote until he is natu¬
ralized. That, however, is a question for the States, not Congress. But,
sir, this emigrant aid society seeks to abolitionize Kansas; and their pro¬
gramme is to extend to every other Territory, after succeeding there.
Here is their organization. Their purposes are declared, and the instru¬
mentalities they intend to use are shown. Here is what they say in their
address:
26
" Of the whole emigration from Europe, amounting to some four hundred thou¬
sand persons, there can he no difficulty in inducing some thirty or forty thousand to
take the same direction," [to Kansas.]
They are to bring their appliances to bear on the freshly-arrived emi¬
grant before he becomes familiar with our institutions and induce him to
go to Kansas to abolitionize Kansas. These are the instrumentalities they
make use of. The Senator from Kentucky, abhorent as he esteems that
class, as much as he thinks they ought not to be permitted to participate
in the Government, is to encourage and ajd the very party that makes use
of them to accomplish this damning deed. How far will they be able to
accomplish their ends, by taking their stand at emigrant ships, and catching
a newly-arrived emigrant, and before he becomes familiar with our insti¬
tutions, before he becomes imbued with the character of our Govern¬
ment, extending to him a hand and saying: " I will help you to go into a
new Territory about being opened, if you will keep African slavery out of
there ?"
They apply to him arguments like these: " The African comes into
competition with your labor, and it is your interest to vote against slavery."
Thus, that class are deceived, misled, many of them honestly misled. They
have prejudices against slavery, and they are strengthened in it if they are
taken in hand by the emigrant aid societies, whose purpose is to keep up a
relentless war against slavery, and against the South. They continue to
do this by making use of the emigrant, and my old friend from Kentucky
still stands by them. They have done it to a great degree in regard to
Kansas. We, of Missouri, from our proximity, from the facility of our set¬
tlements over the line, maintained a permanent majority in the Territory
of actual bona fide inhabitants, and defeated their schemes up to the adop¬
tion of this constitution, and because they encouraged this sort of subse¬
quent emigration, they now think they have a majority. I should not be
surprised if they had ; but up to that time we had the majority. By sub¬
sequent proceedings, making use of instrumentalities like these, they sought
to prevent Kansas from entering the portals of the Union.
Sir. President, establish this as the system, establish this as the settled
policy of the Government, by the aid of those of the South who may have
some little peculiarity of distinction, and are called by the name American
rather than Democrat, still our interest in the great question is none the
less identical; and if ruin should overtake us by Southern defection, the
fatal effects will fall upon all alike, while execrations will follow the faith¬
less. It is not the importance of holding slaves in Kansas that is the great
question; but the decree is to go forth from the decision of this question
whether the South shall be permitted to expand as well as the North. Dis¬
guise it as you may, explain it as often as you please, proclaim it from the
house-tops, and publish it from hill to hill, and from mountain to moun¬
tain, let it echo and reecho over the valley that A, B, and C did not vote
against the bill on that account, still the public judgment will stand that
it was on account of slavery. Then Black Republicanism—I use the term
with respect—will become bolder, and onward and onward in its career,
crushing out the last hope of Democratic aid at the North ; and will never
find its barrier until it meets the sullen, stubborn cannon of the South.
To the Democratic party of the North, noble, bold, and true as they are
and have been to us, though we may differ on some peculiarities of the
proceeding in Kansas, are we to bid them an everlasting farewell ? I trust
27
we are not; but whether we do or do not, is their influence to be cast in
the scale, in a cause like this, that will be for weal or for woe to the Union ?
Do it, and you break down the last hope of Democracy. Do it, and that
party which has held the reins of Government, under which we have pros¬
pered, expanded, progressed, as no other people on the globe have, falls
powerless, scattered into forty thousand atoms. The pride, the honor, the
glory of the party has been that it was not confined to the South or the
North; that it was not confined to the East or the West; and I trust the
time will never come when the Democratic party will be thus circum¬
scribed. The scorching sun of the South will wither up Republicanism.
It can fructify only in the snows and icebergs of the North. There is
something cold in the heart that sustains it. The warm, gushing feelings
of the man that sympathizes with the whole country never permits it to
find a lodgment. If, on a question like this, the Democratic patty is to be
broken up and torn asunder—if a sectional party is to be substituted for
it—if a single idea, and that idea based on the right of Government to
annihilate the property of a citizen, is to predominate—the consequences
will be upon those who take the fatal step. However rightful the motive
may be; however praiseworthy the object, it never can be explained; the
people cannot be deceived; they will know that it was on account of
slavery. The moral influence of this decision will be felt as decisive action
cm the one side or the other. It will either be to sustain the Constitution
and rights of the people, the rights of the South, and the rights of the
North—for if I could bound my vision by the line that separates the slave-
holding from the non-slaveholding States, I would deserve to be thrown
out of the Avails of the Capitol—or that party thus expansive in its views,
noble in its purposes, and thereby powerful for good, will be broken down.
If it is done by the aid or sanction of Southern men, the consequences to
the South and North will be equally disastrous.
We are appealed to on another subject. It has been said General Cal¬
houn has given certificates to the anti-slavery party in Kansas. Well, sir,
suppose he has done so, is that a reason why you and I shall defeat a great
principle ? I told you in the beginning that " Kansas " is but the form of
the issue, and the name of the case. Shall we sacrifice the opportunity of
establishing a great principle, vital to the South, and, as far as the North
depends upon the South, vital to the North ?—for our interests are so in¬
terlocked that they never can be separated without injury to both. I say
this is a vital question, and the principle is not to be affected by the elec¬
tion of officeholders there. Where is the Senator, Avliere is the member
of tbwi House of Representatives, rvho will say, " I would vote to admit
Kansas if my party had prevailed in the State election ? I rvould vote to
admit Kansas if the American party had been elected ? I Avould vote to
admit Kansas if the Republican ticket had been elected; but I will vote
against it if the Democratic ticket is elected ?" Where is the Democrat
who will say, on the reverse, " I would vote to ailmit it, if the Democrats
carried the election ; but I will vote against it if either of the other parties
had carried it ? "
When you act upon that principle, you violate the Constitution of your
country that you have sworn to support. That Constitution gives you a
right to look into the constitution of a new State, to see if it be republican.
It does not give you the right to go and inquire rvho has been elected
Governor and members of the State Legislature. With the same pro-
28
priety you might inquire whether Governor Wise has been legally elected;
whether Governor Banks has been legally elected; and you might insti¬
tute a commission with as much propriety as. the Kansas Legislature did,
to see if frauds were committed in the election of Governor Banks, or in
the election of Governor Wise, or in any State election. What right
have you, then, to look into that question? None ; and if not, what right
have you to vote against the admission of a State merely because the newly
elected State officers are not such as you approve ? If the Constitution
does not give you that right, you dare not attempt to exercise it.
Again : the Senator from Illinois complained, some two or three weeks
ago, bitterly complained, that Calhoun was here m the city, and keeping
the people still in doubt whether the Democratic ticket was elected, or
whether the Republican ticket was elected. He absolutely complained of
that. Last night, when he addressed the Senate, he spoke of the fact of
issuing the certificates, and he complained still louder. Why these double
complaints—in one case for not acting, and in the other case because be
did act ? It reminds me of certain persons of whom it was said they were
"Likeunto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
"And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have
mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
"For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.
" The son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man glutton¬
ous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."
He then complaind because it was not done; and, on the other hand,
he now complains still more loudly because it is done. But I care noth¬
ing about it in either event. It is none of my right to stop and inquire
into the election. The Constitution under which I am acting does not
give me that privilege; and if I dare transgress the boundary of my right
and duty under the Constitution in the one case, where shall I stop in any
other case ?
Now, Mr. President, I intend to close my remarks. My object has been
to show that there has been no fraud affecting the legality of this proceed¬
ing. That there have been frauds in all the elections, I think highly
probable; but so there have been in New York city; so there have been
in Baltimore; so there have been in Louisville, where, I believe, two
thousand men were disfranchised at the last election—at least it has been
so reported; it may not be true.
Mr. Seward. Will the honorable Senator allow me to state one thing
I would like to hear him upon in this connection ?
Mr. Green. Certainly.
Mr. Seward. I wish to ask the honorable Senator whether the Lecomp-
ton constitution did not direct the canvass of the votes cast upon the con¬
stitution itself, and in both elections, to be made within eight days after the
elections were held; whether, in regard to the question of fraud, he attaches
no importance whatever to the delay which has attended the ascertaining
and reporting of the results of those elections? If the honorable Senator
will take it in kindness, I should like to hear him on that point.
Mr. Green. It does not embarrass me in the least; the subject does not
require me to be bashful: The election on the 4th of January, for State
officers, is a question with which we have no concern. It is an election
that cannot come before us, and I should be travelling beyond my duty,
and touching upon ground that does not properly belong to me, if I should
29
undertake to give any opinion at all upon the subject. Suppose the
returns were to be made in eight days. Were they or were they not? I
do not know, nor does the Senator from New York. Suppose they were
not made in eight days: does that affect the legality of this constitution
after it has become a finality, after it has been adopted and become an
entirety ? Could it affect any vote in this Chamber ?
While the Senator from New York was asking me this question, the
momentary pause I made brought to my mind another subject, upon which
I must say a few words. It is this : it has been alleged on the other side
of the Chamber that the submission of the seventh article of the constitu¬
tion, including the slave clause, Avas not a'fair submission. The people
could have voted out slavery, if they had a majority, and chose to come
forward; yet they say, if they had voted it out, slavery Avould still have
been retained in Kansas as perfectly as if that article had been retained.
The able and distinguished Senator from Delaware, (Mr. Bayard,) so
completely and so triumphantly answered that objection that I should do
wrong to undertake to improve it. I cannot do it; it is not susceptible of
improvement; it is conclusive and unanswerable.
But there is one point growing out of the same idea that I must notice;
and that is, that point upon which the Senator from Illinois dwelt so long
when he spoke of the right of property being older than the Constitution,
and he held that declaration up to animadvert upon. He contended that
it Avas a fallacy; and because the Washington Union published that fal¬
lacy, therefore he would not vote for the editor for a certain office. I do
not complain of his action on that question. He had a right to do it.
My opinion is founded on the Declaration of Independence: Ave hold these,
truths to be self-evident—speaking of the Avhite race—that all men are
created free and equal, and endoAved by their Creator with certain inalien¬
able rights; and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap¬
piness—that pursuit of happiness includes the acquisition of' property ; and
to secure these ends governments are instituted. What ends ? Life, lib¬
erty, and the pursuit.of happiness. What does the pursuit of happiness
include? The lawful acquisition of one's oavii labor; and therefore it is
before the Constitution, older than Government, and Government cannot
destroy it.
I go further than that. This declaration says these are inalienable
rights. What is meant by inalienable right ? That Avhich a man cannot
alienate from himself: he cannot part from it. In forming a political as¬
sociation, the government you create has just such power as you can con¬
fer upon that government. Noav, if this pursuit of happiness is one of the
inalienable rights, and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to private
property, and it cannot be alienated, then the government never can pos¬
sess it. If government never can possess it, and a man cannot part from
it, much less can a majority take it from a minority. I go so far as this :
if I were in Kansas and had a horse, or a slave, or a saAV-log, or a farm, or
a Yankee clock, and every man in the Territory or State should vote to
say that clock shall not be your property; that horse shall not be your
property; that farm, or that saw-log, or slave, shall not be your
property, I hold that their vote of ninety-nine thousand nine hundred
and ninety-nine against me alone would not and could not divest me
of my right. In the regulation of future political action in the Terri¬
tory you may say we will not have a slave here ;• those that arc here we
30
will set free, but we will pay you for tliem. He who brings them in after
the law prohibits it, comes in with his eyes open, and the law, in taking
the property from him, does not confiscate it—he is forfeiting property by
his own act. That is the difference. No man can be despoiled of his
rights by numbers. They may crush him; they may overpower him ; they
may trample him in the dust; but still the voice of justice will cry aloud to
Heaven for redress—not for vengeance; for I never want to hear venge¬
ance invoked in this Chamber.
In reply to the question put some time since by the Senator from New
York, i will state that I am informed by a friend here that all the returns
with regard to the State election were made within eight days. That is a
matter en pais, but I had never turned my attention to it. My attention
had been confined to the legal point on which I had the right to act. The
Senator from New York, therefore, is now answered. They were returned
within that time.
There is one point, however, that I have hastily passed over, and that is
the one which the Senator from Illinois animadverts upon with so much
peculiar zest—the mode of amendment of the constitution. The Senator
says that, when the constitution prescribes a certain mode of amendment
that mode only can be pursued; and if any other mode is resorted to, it is
revolutionary. He quotes the article from the declaration of rights, to be
found in the report I made to the Senate at the time the bill was presented,
and he says that is a revolutionary right. He says it is like the Declara¬
tion of Independence. Here it is :
"All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are found¬
ed on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and therefore they have at all
times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of
government in such manner as they may think proper."
This, says the Senator from Illinois, is a right of revolution by war—
grim-visaged war—a revolution by the sword. I answer, that such is not
the interpretation; and I intend to prove, to my own satisfaction at least,
the postion I take on that subject. This provision "is but copied, in the
language of President Buchanan, from various other State constitutions.
Nearly all the States of the Union have a similar declaration in their bill
of rights. When, therefore, it was put into the declaration of rights in
Kansas, it was put in there with its known construction and ordinary exe¬
cution and application. What is that known construction, ordinary execu¬
tion, and application in the several States ? I will tell you. Indiana, with
a similar provision, and also a provision in the constitution which said that
no change should be made in it for twelve years, called a convention and
amended it before that time, not in the method pointed out in the constitu-
• tion. It has been thus construed in Indiana; it has been thus construed
in Delaware; it has thus been construed in Pennsylvania, in New York,
and in various other States. Now, with this known construction, with this
known application, it was incorporated into the bill of rights in the State
of Kansas; and what truer, more unanswerable rule is there than this:
that when a law has been received with a certain known approved con¬
struction uniformly, if another community adopt the same law, they are
held to adopt the same construction ? Hence, I say, they adopted it with
that known application.
31
But I have two other reasons to present to the Senator. He says it is
a revolutionary right. I do not care what you call it:
" That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Call it revolution, if you please. It is a civil means in conformity with the
declaration of the Constiution by which the people may reform, alter,
amend, or abolish their constitution. I care nothing about the name. He
says it is a revolution by the sword. I say it is not that, but a legal change
through the agency of the ballot-box. First, this provision is found in all
our State constitutions. They are all republican, because they could not
be in the Union without being republican. Second, the Constitution says
that the Federal Government shall protect each State from domestic vio¬
lence. It is bound to do it. Suppose the Senator from Illinois should un¬
dertake to put his construction into effect, and say it is a right to draw the
sword to revolutionize the Government; it would be domestic violence, and
the Federal Government would have to crush it on the instant. Therefore
it proves that it cannot be understood as implying a resort to the sword
to revolutionize a State government. That construction, therefore, is ex¬
cluded. _ »
Finally, when a constitution makes two provisions on the same subject,
it is the duty of both the judge and the statesman to give a construction
to both clauses that will give force and effect to each if it be possible; and
if not, if they be so repugnant that they cannot stand together, one or the
other must give way. Now, a reasonable construction can be given to
both of these clauses which will enable both to stand and have vitality,
force, and effect. I explained this before, but I passed over it so hastily
that perhaps I shall be excused for repeating the same idea again. The
constitution says, after the year 1864, the Legislature, by a two-thirds vote,
may proceed to amend the constitution. The constitution also says that
the people at all times have the right to amend their constitution. How
shall you construe the two clauses so as to allow the people at all times to
have the power to amend it? I answer, if the government takes the initia¬
tive, if the government of its own volition—I mean the governing power,
the Legislature—undertakes to amend the constitution, they can only do it
in the way pointed out in the constitution, because their power is derived
from the constitution ; and if a certain method be specified and pointed out
for their action, it prohibits the government, the governing officers, the
Governor, and Legislature, or otherwise, just according as the amending
power may be vested for the time being, from pursuing any other method.
Now, the governing power is limited to the mode pointed out. The peo¬
ple are not limited, and cannot be limited. How can you get them together?
I answer, just as they always do, get together. They instruct their
Legislature to provide a rule of uniform action to enable them legally to
come together. It may be called revolution if you choose, but when the
people come together en masse, or by representatives under the sanction of
law, they are in the exercise of their original rights untrammelled by con¬
stitutions, unrestrained by any provisions in their old constitution. They
can do just as they please, consistent with private rights. This is the con¬
struction that is to be placed upon the two provisions.
If you say otherwise, that will bring you in conflict with the honorable
Senator from Michigan. It amounts to just this : if they may be tied up
and prohibited from amending their constitution until the year 1864, they
32
can be until 1865, 1866, 1870, and seventy times seventy. The principle
is the same; and yet the Senator from Michigan says the people will never
submit to the doctrine that they shall not govern themselves. If they will
not, they must retain the power of amending their constitutions in a legal,
orderly method. Otherwise, a preceding generation governs them. Other
wise, the people may be restrained from changing their constitution for as
long as they live, which is a doctrine repugnant to the genius of our insti¬
tutions. There is no question about this fact that this is the received and
known construction, that it has been followed out time and time again.
I believe, with others, that constitutions ought not to be changed too fre¬
quently ; that they ought not to be twisted and turned to suit the emer¬
gency of any particular occasion; that they ought to have stability and
uniformity, and be continued long enough to command veneration. If our
Federal Constitution had been changed every year, there would be but
little veneration for it. If our State constitutions were changed every few
years, there would be but little respect for them. I desire, therefore, to
see stability, uniformity, and every constitution kept in existence long
enough to command the entire respect of the people. If they see the
blunders and errors, they can suggest a remedy without endangering its
other better parts. They can resort to legal means, call a convention, and
mould and make a new constitution. What I mean by legal means is, to
devise a rule which shall make the action uniform, equal, and just; just as
the convention law in Kansas was; just as the convention laws in all the
States of this Union are and have been. It is simply to prescribe a rule
by the existing government, at the instance of the people by which they
may come together, in person or by representatives, and exercise an origi¬
nal power in the reformation of their government.
I shall now leave the subject. I have shown that this is a legal consti¬
tution, fairly adopted; that the allegations of fraud made against it are
unsupported ; and that there is no well-sustained allegation of fraud against
any single proceeding affecting the validity of this constitution. I have
also endeavored to show that it is a very important question, vital to the
interests of the whole Union, vital to the Democratic party, vital to the
South. I would not appeal to " Americans" to build up the Democratic
party, but I would appeal to them not to assist in building up the only
party dangerous to the integrity of the institutions of our country. I
would appeal to them, if they cannot be of us, at least help us to break
down the common enemy of us both.
SPEECH
OF
HON. J. S. GREEN, OF MISSOURI,
orr
THE CONSTITUTION OF KANSAS;
DELIVERED
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 16, 1857.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE.
1857.
THE PKESIDENT'S MESSAGE—KANSAS.
The Senate having, on motion of Mr. Brown,
resumed the consideration of the motion to print
the President's message and accompanying doc¬
uments—
Mr. GREEN said: Mr. President, when, on
Wednesday last, the honorable Senator from Il¬
linois [Mr. Douglas] addressed the Senate, I
was taken completely by surprise. I was sur¬
prised not only that he should have made his re¬
marks at that time, but I was still more surprised
at the manner and the matter of the speech. He
himself stated, if I recollect correctly, that the
President had made no recommendation on the
subject of Kansas. It is a fact known by us all
that no application on the part of Kansas was
before Congress in any shape. If, therefore,
there was neither an executive recommendation
nor an application upon the part of Kansas,
wherefore should the subject have been thrust on
the attention of the country? When practical
action is required on the part of Senators, the
views of Senators are expected to be elicited;
but when neither an executive recommendation
required any practical action, nor any applica¬
tion on the part of Kansas had been made, it
seemed to me most extraordinary that we should
be compelled to engage in an abstract discussion
with no reference to practical results. It is not
my purpose to inquire into the motive of the
honorable Senator. I am willing to concede, as I
do, that it was patriotic; but I must think it very
improper. It was well calculated to prejudice
the question now pending before the people of
Kansas. An election is to be held on the 21st of
this month, and the public mind was prepared
to see the people go forward and express their
preferences for and against, as the question may
be presented to them; but his speech, going as a
counter manifesto to the just and fair message of
the Executive of this Government, is well calcu¬
lated, though no doubt not designed, to prejudice
the question before the people of Kansas, as well
as before the people of the country.
But, sir, whether this question has been right¬
fully or wrongfully brought up for consideration,
it is now before us; and justice to the Executive,
justice to the question itself, justice to the people
of Kansas, and justice to my own State, which
cannot fail to feel a deep interest in the proper
adjustment and final settlement of the question,
require that I should meet, and, as far as I may
be able, counteract the positions assumed by the
honorable Senator from Illinois.
The honorable Senator from Illinois sets out
with imputing to the President a "fundamental
error." Before we can discuss, we must have the
issue presented. Before our arguments can have
a practical bearing on the question before the Sen¬
ate, it is necessary that we should understand
what that question is. In what, according to the
positions assumed by the Senator from Illinois,
does this "fundamental error" consist? I un¬
derstand him to say that the " fundamental error"
into which he charged the President with having
fallen, is that the President says there was no
law either in the Kansas-Nebraska act, in the
Constitution of the country, or in the common
usages of the Government, that made it obliga¬
tory on the convention of Kansas to submit their
constitution to a subsequent vote of the people.
This is the imputed "fundamental error." To
that point I shall direct the attention of the Sen¬
ate.
It is not for me to say whether the propriety
of the submission of the slave branch of that con¬
stitution to a separate vote, ought to have been
considered by the Executive or not. I choose not
to trace him in the course of his reasoning on the
subject. I choose rather to notice the conclusion
at which he has arrived—a conclusion that prom¬
ises a full adjustment of this whole question; that
promises peace to the country; that promises sat¬
isfaction to the North and to the South; and that
promises to remove a bone of contention over
which the public mind has been too much ha¬
rassed for the last several years.
The real practical question, then, which we have
to consider is this: ought Kansas, when her con¬
stitution shall be presented, be admitted into the
4
Union? or ought the consideration of what the
honorable Senator from Illinois calls a " funda¬
mental error" of the President, to be deemed a
sufficient reason to keep Kansas out of the Union,
and to keep this most unfortunate subject still
agitating the public attention? This is the real
issue. It is not whether we approve of parts of
the constitution of Kansas: it is not whether we
think the qualification required by the convention
in framing the constitution of Kansas, of twenty
years' citizenship of the United States in order to
be Governor, is right. That^is a subject upon
which the people of Kansas alone have the right
to decide.
It is true the honorable Senator does not say
that we have a right to supervise the action of
the convention of Kansas in that regard. But
he seems to bring up what he regards as objec¬
tionable parts of their constitution, and traces
them in such a manner that the public might be
prejudiced against the result of the labors of the
convention. In his great anxiety to so present
that feature in regard to the qualification which
the Governor of Kansas is required to possess,
he even misstates.and misconstrues the constitu-
tution of Kansas as presented before us. He says
" twenty years' citizenship is required." That
istrue;butis that acauseof objection ? The Sen¬
ator's own State oflllinois,when she was admitted
into the Union, required as a qualification of the
Governor that he should have been thirty years
a citizen of the United States; and surely he will
not invoke the application of a more rigorous rule
to Kansas, which, under the peculiar circum¬
stances of the case, requires rather a relaxation
for the sake of peace and quietude.J* Surely he
will not object to the application of the same
liberality to Kansas, so as to leave that question
unprejudiced; for if Illinois could come into the
Union with a constitution requiring the Governor
to be a citizen for the space of thirty years, surely
it is no insuperable objection to Kansas that she
requires only a twenty years' citizenship. So
with the State of Missouri—my own State. Her
constitution requires the Governor to be a native-
born citizen of the United States; and so it is
with various other States. The constitution of
the State of Mississippi requires twenty years'
citizenship of the United States on the part of
the Governor; and a large number of the consti¬
tutions of the States require them to be native
born. The Constitution of the United States
requires the President to be a native-born citizen
of the United States.
I refer to these facts for the purpose of show¬
ing that, in all times past, such a matter has never
been urged on the Senate as any reason why the
application of a State for admission into the Union
ought to be rejected. Perhaps the Senator will
say, however, that he did not urge it in that view,
and that he only stated that the people should
have a right to pass on that question. I shall
advert to that point after a while. In the same
connection, however,he uses this language, which
an examination of the constitution does not war¬
rant:
" If men think no person should vote or hold office until
he has been here twenty years, he has a right to think so."
The employment of this language on the part
of the Senator induces those who have not ex¬
amined the constitution of Kansas, to believe
that it requires twenty years' citizenship before
the right of voting can attach. The Senator has
fallen into an error. The constitution simply
requires for the exercise of the right of suffrage
in Kansas, that a person shall be a citizen of the
United States, and a free white male inhabitant
of the State. If this were to go broadcast through
the land, those who object to the stringent rules
which the party to which he referred sometimes
have been held to advocate, would feel greatly
prejudiced against the Kansas constitution; while,
if they examine it, and see what its provisions
are, they will find that the Senator has misstated
its provisions.
So on other questions—tlm subject of banks,
and the mode of taxation. He animadverted oil
all these points with pleasure, and with a view,
as it would seem, (though doubtless for no such
purpose,) at least to point out objections'in the
Kansas constitution, on the subject of banks, as
well as on the subject of taxation. Now if he
concedes, as I know he will concede, that Con¬
gress has no right to consider any of the features
of the constitution of a State save whether it be
republican, why need he dwell on anything else)
It would, if he regarded it as obnoxious, connected
with the powerful influence of that distinguished
character which he possesses, spread a prejudicial
influence abroad on a subject which he admits he
has no right to consider in the Senate of the United
States.
So with regard to one other branch of his ar¬
gument. The ordinance that accompanies tfye
constitution is held by some to be extravagant in
its demands on the Federal Government. It may
or may not be so. Whether it be right to accede
to the proposition submitted in the shape of ait
ordinance or not, I shall not now stop to discuss;
for I hold that it is 110 part of the constitution of
Kansas. It is a separate proposition presented
by tlie convention of Kansas, and it is matter of
contract with the Federal Government whether
we accede to it or not. We may disaffirm that
contract. In other words, it is a proposition, and
we may make a counter-proposition. It is a mat¬
ter for consideration, for adjustment; and it is
no branch or part of the constitutiorfof the State.
The question which we have to consider is, not
the qualification required in the Kansas constitu¬
tion for Governor; not the mode in which the
elective franchise is to be exercised; not the pro¬
visions in regard to banks; not the provisions
with regard to the mode of taxation. These are
all subjects with which we have nothing to do.
Tliey exclusively pertain to the people ofKansas.
This they have, through their convention, decided
for themselves.
There is but one single legal question to which
ourattention can be directed; is ita " republican"
form of government? As it respects the numbers
requisite to entitle the people of Kansas to ad¬
mission into the Union, I believe it has never been
called in question. Certainly the Senator from
Illinois has not called it in question, and I have
not heard it called in question by any other Sen-
5
ator. I do not understand the Senator from Illi¬
nois to say that the constitution of Kansas is not
"republican," On the contrary, I have no doubt
of the fact that all will admit it to be as republican
as the constitution of any State in the United
States; as consonant with the principles of repub¬
licanism as. any constitution that has ever been
presented to the American people. If it comes
before us in that shape—admitted to be repub¬
lican—admitted to have a sufficient population to
entitle them to admission—admitted that the pe¬
culiar features of the constitution are questions
with which we have no concern, wherefore is it
that the admission of the State into the Union is
to be resisted and opposed ? For what purpose ?
What reason is to be assigned ?
The first reason that is assigned is, that there
is no" enabling act." Mr. President, there seems
to be a want of clear understanding of the relation
which the Federal Government sustains to the
Territories. What is an " enabling act r" Is it
to impart power to the people of a Territory? for
we must remember that a Territory organized,
constitutes a people. Individuals may live on the
.lands belonging to the United States,and yet not
be a people. They are individuals scattered over
the land; but in a technical and appropriate and
governmental sense, whenever they are organized
into a political community they constitute a peo¬
ple. Kansas is apolitical community and apeople.
What " enabling act" was required to impart to
them the power to propose a change in their form
of government? What enabling act can give them
more political and inalienable rights than they
already possess? It would be a solecism, a con¬
tradiction, to assert it. Among the inalienable
rights are " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi¬
ness, to secure which governments are instituted,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed." Who are the " governed ?" The peo¬
ple of Kdnsas. From whom, then, will the gov¬
ernment of the State of Kansas derive its just
powers? From the "governed," and not from
your" enabling act." Their power was mheretit,
and all the action of the Federal Government can
give them no additional political power. That
inherent power is incapable of transfer; it is
unchangeable; it is indefeasible; it is original.
What then ? Does it follow that the people in an
Organized or unorganized shape, living in a Ter¬
ritory, can set up an independent government
when they please ? No; 1 answer most emphat-.
ically, no. They may pro-pose their form of gov-'
ernment; they may shape its features; they may
parcel out its powers; they may guard the rights
and interests of the people under the newly pro¬
posed government; but they cannot become an
absolute sovereignty; they cannot become an ab¬
solute independent State. Why? Because the
Territory belongs to the Federal Government for
the use of all the States. Nothing but the assent of
the Federal Government in some manner, shape,
or form, will ever impart to them independence and i
sovereignty. The only purpose of an " enabling
act" to an organized Territory ought simply to
be a law of assent. If it is but an unorganized
Territory, and not a "people," Congress then
ought to throw them into an organic shape, as
well as give its assent. This will be found to be
the true principle, and ought to be the rule to reg¬
ulate the steps of this Government in its dealings
with the Territories. States come into the Union
by their own will, and with the assent of the Uni¬
ted States.
All the power of the Federal Government can¬
not create an independent sovereign State. The
power of this Federal Government is not to cre¬
ate, but to admit. To " admit" a State, implies
its existence prior to admission. Thus, what is
now ordinarily called an " enabling act," is, to
all intents ana purposes, nothing but a law of.
assent. The great Federal Government, in which
is vested the sovereignty of the Territory, may
give that assent before or after the organization of
the proposed new government; it is perfectly op¬
tional with the Federal Government to give it
before or after such organization, with this single
difference: when that assent is in the shape of
what is now called an " enabling act," and when
the people of the Territory have proceeded ac¬
cording to the principles of that enabling act, and
created a government, the assent being given, the
whole sovereignty becomes vested, the independ¬
ent State exists, and then if Congress do not
admit it, it is a foreign State in spite of all our
powers. The danger, therefore, is in passing an
enabling act, not in withholding one.
Who is it that does not remember the unfor¬
tunate Missouri controversy of 1820? An " en¬
abling act," as latterly called, had been passed
for the State of Missouri, in pursuance of which
Missouri formed its constitution and asked for-
admission. Some quibbles were raised, and some
non-essential points were alleged against its ad¬
mission, and Missouri was well nigh rejected.
All the Republican Senators and members of the
House of Representatives at that day—I use the
term in its old signification, not the new—said,
" the assent of the Federal Government has been
given to the act of Missouri. Missouri had cre¬
ated its government in pursuance of an enabling
act, and was, therefore, sovereign and independ¬
ent; and if Congress had not admitted Missouri,
that State would have been a legally recognized
foreign government on the west bank of the Mis¬
sissippi river."
Ifcis true that the physical power of the Federal
Government might have sent armies and coerced
Missouri into submission, but that would have
converted it into a subjugated State; Missouri
would not have been, in that case, a free and in¬
dependent State; it would have made it an inferior,
dependent vassal, subservient, and a subordinate
member of the Confederacy. According to the
true principles of the theory of our Government,
whenever congressional assent to sovereignty and
independence are conceded, the people of a Ter¬
ritory may act as they please, and it is an inde¬
pendent State thereafter. Now, when assent is
not given prior to the time of admission, there is
no danger of that kind of difficulty.
But, Mr. President, is it so important that an
" enabling act" should be passed? The Senator
thinks so, and refers to instances when such acts
were passed. Why, sir, Tennessee, Arkansas,
Michigan, Florida, Iowa, California, Maine, and
6
Vermont, eight States—new States, not in the
original Confederacy—came into the Union with¬
out any enabling act on the part of Congress.
Was Tennessee improperly admitted? It was
recommended by George Washington. The pro¬
ceedings that were instituted under Governor
Blount in the then Territory of Tennessee, met
the sanction of the Republicans of that State.
Among the members of the convention, that rev¬
olutionary—no, the Senator does not give it that
name—that " irregular" convention, is found the
name of Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee. He
was one of that "irregular convention;" and
that "irregular convention," formed in part of
General Jackson, made a constitution which was
never submitted to the people, but was sent up to
General Washington, then President of the United
States; and here is the letter that he sent to Con¬
gress at the time he submitted the constitution of
Tennessee for their consideration. It will be seen
that it harmonizes well with what President Buch¬
anan has said with regard to the constitution of
Kansas:
United States, April 8, 1796.
Gentlemen of the Senate
and of the House of Representatives:
By an act of Congress passed on the 26th of May, 1790,
it was declared that the inhabitants of the territory of the
United States south of the river Ohio should enjoy all the
privileges, benefits, and advantages set forth in the ordi¬
nance of Congress for the government of the territory of the
United States northwest of the river Ohio, and that the
government of the said territory south of the Ohio should
be similar to that which was then exercised in the territory
northwest of the Ohio, except so far as was otherwise
provided in the conditions expressed in an act of Congress
passed the 2d of April, 1790, entitled " An act to accept a
cession of the claims of the State of North Carolina to a
certain district of western territory."
Among the privileges, benefits, and advantages thus se¬
cured to the inhabitants of the territory south of the river
Ohio, appear to be the right of forming a permanent consti¬
tution and State government, and of admission, as a State,
by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on
an equal footing with the original States, in all respects
whatever, when it should have therein sixty thousand free
inhabitants: provided the constitution and government so
to be formed should be republican, and in conformity to the
principles contained in the articles of the said ordinance.
As proofs of the several requisites to entitle the territory
south of the river Ohio to be admitted, as a State, into the
Union, Governor Blount has transmitted a return of the
enumeration of its inhabitants, and a printed copy of the
constitution and form of government on which they have
agreed, which, with his letters accompanying the same, are
herewith laid before Congress.
GEO. WASHINGTON.
It contained no special executive recommenda¬
tion; and, in that respect, harmonizes most beau¬
tifully with the position taken by President Buch¬
anan. The Territory thus had an organic form;
ft was a people. Without any enabling act they
met, formed a constitution, which was presented
to Congress and approved, and the State admitted
into the Union with as much regularity, with as
much system, with as much order, as has accom¬
panied the movements of any Territory and of
any people within the compass of our whole
republic.
How is it with Arkansas? The Senator from
Illinois would have us understand that the move¬
ments in Arkansas seemed to meet the disappro¬
bation of President Jackson. President Jackson,
who had himself participated in the convention in
Tennessee, is to be presented to us as though he
condemned the proceedings in Arkansas. An
examination of the opinion of the Attorney Gen¬
eral in that case, will show the distinction, and
make it clear as the noonday sun, unless I am
greatly deceived in regard to the purport of that
opinion:
" In the exercise of this right, the inhabitants of Arkansas
may peaceably meet together in primary assemblies, or in
conventions chosen by such assemblies, for the purpose of
petitioning Congress to abrogate the territorial government,
and to admit them into the Union as an independent State.
•The particular form which they may give to their petition
cannot be material, so long as they confine themselves to
the mere right of petitioning, and conduct all their proceed¬
ings in a peaceable manner. And as the power of Congress
over the whole subject is plenary and unlimited, they may
accept any constitution, however framed, which in their
judgment meets the sense of the people to be affected by it..
If, therefore, the citizens of Arkansas think proper to ac¬
company their petition with a written constitution,framed
and agreed on by their primary assemblies, or by a conven¬
tion of delegates chosen by such assemblies, I perceive no
legal objection to their power to do so, nor to any measures
which may be taken to collect the sense of the people in
respect to it; provided always, that such measures be com¬
menced and prosecuted in a peaceable manner, in strict
subordination to the existing territorial government, and in
entire subserviency to the power of Congress to adopt, re¬
ject, or disregard them, at pleasure. It is, however, very
obvious that all measures commenced and prosecuted with a
design to subvert the territorial government, and to establish
and put in force, in its place, a new government, without the
consent of Congress, will be unlawful."
Kansas has never proposed to put in operation
a State government without the consent of Con¬
gress. They have formed it in subordination to
the powers of the territorial government. It is
but an emanation of the territorial government.
It is to be submitted to Congress. If admitted into
the Union, the constitution takes effect as the su¬
preme law of that State in subordination to the
Federal Constitution only; but, if not admitted,
they do not propose to setup a separate State gov¬
ernment. This, it will be seen, harmonizes with
what I said on the subject of the assent of Con¬
gress, to wit: wherever any Territory undertakes
to set up a territorial or State government, in op¬
position to Federal authority, it is rebellion. If
the present acting, or claiming to act, Governor
of Utah should undertake to set up a separate
government,we have the undoubted right to refuse
our assent, and to subjugate him to our authority
by the force of the military arm of this Govern-'
ment. If the people of Kansas were to under¬
take to set up a government in opposition to the
Federal authority, the same power could be ex¬
ercised there. But while they do not propose to
interfere with the Federal Government, nor to
interfere with the territorial government until the
assentof Congress is received, it makes no kind
of difference whatever. This, too, harmonizes
with the opinion of the Attorney General, which
the honorable Senator from Illinois introduced
and read.
There are, therefore, eight States in the Union
that have formed their constitution without an
enabling act; for two of those States the Senator
from Illinois voted. California had no enabling
act. But the Senator undertakes to show that
though there was no enabling act, yet all the
steps taken by the authorities of California were
in subordination to the local government estab-
7
lished there, under General Riley. Whether that
be right or wrong, whether his reference be cor¬
rect or incorrect, I shall not stop to inquire, but
this much is true: the action of the convention in
the Territory of Kansas is as much in subordin¬
ation to the Federal authority as was the action
in the Territory of California; and if he could
vote for the admission of California, there can be
no reason why he may not vote for Kansas with
the same propriety. If he could vote for the ad¬
mission of Florida, there can be no reason as¬
signed why he may not vote for that of Kansas.
If he could vote for Iowa, there can be no good
reason why he should not vote, under the same
circumstances, for the admission of Kansas. By
his own deed he is estopped; by his own act he
is forever estopped from alleging, as a necessary
prerequisite, an enabling act. The assent of Con¬
gress may be given at any time; either before or
after the formation of a constitution.
There is a peculiar reason for it in the case of
Kansas. The Louisiana treaty defines and guar¬
antees the rights of the people living in that Ter¬
ritory. The law of Congress, subsequently
passed, made an additional pledge that the people
should have a right to admission at the proper
time. The authors and advocates of the great
Kansas-Nebraska act thought it had added to
the rights, or reclaimed the rights of the people
living in organized Territories. Its framers
thought they had conferred some principles here¬
tofore denied to them. If so, under the treaty of
Louisiana, under the law of Congress, under the
Kansas act, the right of the people, whenever
their numbers are sufficient to take preparatory
steps for the formation of a constitution, and pre¬
sent it for admission into the Union, is conceded.
They do not present it for approval; they do not
present it in order to have it indorsed. They
present it, if at all, for the sake of being admitted
into the Union. If the constitution is republican,
we may admit them; if it is* not republican, Ave
eannot admit them.
In strict conformity with this doctrine stands
the Democratic platform to which the Senator re¬
ferred. It says, in emphatic terms, that the peo¬
ple of a Territory should, whenever they had
numbers sufficient, proceed to form their State
constitution, and to adopt such institutions as
they should think proper.
But the main objection which the Senator has
presented is, that while he may forego these ob¬
jections, there are other reasons why we should
not forego either them or any others. My po¬
sition is, that the mere want of an enabling act is
not an objection; that lawful proceedings in an
organized Territory, to form a constitution, are
regular, in conformity to law, in conformity to
usage, and I have presented cases just such as the
Senator has heretofore indorsed and approved;
and, consequently, they ought not to be consid¬
ered in the list of objections that he raises against
the admission of Kansas.
His chief objection, however, seems to be, that
the constitution is not submitted to the people.
On that he dwells; and wherefore? Why, that
the principle of popular sovereignty required the
constitution to be submitted to the people? In
other words, he says that a subsequent vote ought
to have been had in addition to what the conven¬
tion has done, so that the people by subsequent
vote might decide this question of constitution or
no constitution. Mr. President, if, as the Senator
from Illinois says, the Kansas-Nebraska act puts
the slave question where all other questions before
were, then, in order to see what the rights of the
people were under the Kansas act, we have but to
ascertain what their rights were on all other ques¬
tions before the Kansas act was passed.
How were they? Is it true that the people do
not act, in any case, unless they meet in mass
meeting?—in a tumultuous assemblage?—or is it
not in harmony with the genius of republican in¬
stitutions—is it not in strict conformity with the
Americanism of government that we act through
delegates, through agents, through representa¬
tives? The constitution of the Senator's own
State was not submitted to the people of Illinois.
The constitution of his native State, Vermont,
was not submitted to the people of that State,
and yet it is worthy of remark that the constitu¬
tion of Vermont uses this language: "We, the
people of the State of Vermont, do ordain and
establish." They ordain and^establish by their
delegates, by their representatiAres. So with Illi¬
nois. In its constitution the words, " we, the
people," are used; and yet the people never acted
upon it, save through their agents, their delegates
in convention assembled.' In the State of Illinois
the constitution says, " all prosecutions shall be
in the name of the people of the State of Illinois,"
not in the name of the State. The people stand
as prosecutors. I believe the first time I ever had
the honor to make the acquaintance of the very
distinguished gentleman was while he presided
on the bench in the city of Gluincy. There was
a prosecution conducted in the name of the peo¬
ple of the State of Illinois. Was that prosecution
by the people, in their own proper person? No;
the people were ably and well represented on the
bench by the distinguished Senatorfrom Illinois;
the people were represented in the grand jury
room by selections made for their purpose; the
people were represented by the prosecuting attor¬
ney, a distinguished gentleman selected for that
purpose. It Avas all done in the name of the
people, in behalf of the people, for the people,
but done by the people's agents and representa¬
tives.
Mr. President, it is not only so in these in¬
stances, but, as I before remarked, it is the great
Americanism, of Government more peculiar in the
United States than anywhere else. The people
act through agents; and I believe it to be a uni¬
versal rule of agency, that where there is a gen¬
eral power given, the principal is bound by all the
acts of the agent, unless there be a reservation
of a right of submission to the principal for his
approbation.
I have before me a list of States, showing that
Kansas was not peculiar in this respect. A ma¬
jority of the constitutions of the States forming this
Union were adopted by conventions, and never sub¬
mitted to the people! More than this; the very
opinion of the Attorney General, read by the
Senator from Illinois, with reference to the Ark-
8
ansascase, (his own authority,) says the people
may, in primary assemblies, or through delegates
chosen by them for that purpose, form a consti¬
tution and send it to Congress for their consid¬
eration.
We have, then, the gentleman's own State, na¬
tive and adopted; we have a large majority—the
exact number I will not state—of all the States
of this Union, whose constitutions were formed
by the people, through their agents, and without a
submission of them to a vote of the people; and in
a minority of instances only, have the constitutions
of States been submitted to the people for their
approbation or rejection. More than that; we
have the Senator's own committal in his support
of the Toombs bill at the last Congress. The
Toombs bill was taken by the honorable Sena¬
tor, who was then chairman of the Committee on
Territories,pressed by him, and passed through
the Senate. That bill did not contain any clause
requiring the constitution to be submitted to a
vote of the people. The bill which he had first
introduced did contain such a requirement; and
yet, when the two were put side by side and he
was called on to choose between them, he took
that which had no such provision in it, thus leav¬
ing it for the convention of the Territory to decide
as they might deem proper.
If the Senate of the United States, and if the
father of the Kansas-Nebraska act—if the great
advocate of popular sovereignty could introduce,
support, and cause to be passed, an enabling act
permitting the convention of Kansas to make
their constitution, and to make it final, to ordain
and establish it without submitting it to the peo¬
ple, surely, when the people of Kansas, through
their territorial government, came to act on the
same subject, if they imitated the honorable Sen¬
ator, and passed a similar bill, they ought not to
be held up to public scorn and indignation. They
had an "illustrious predecessor;"they had avery
distinguished example in the person of the Sen¬
ator from Illinois, and if they but followed that
example, they ought not to be held up to public
scorn and indignation. I think they acted wisely
in submitting the matter to the convention which
represented the people. It is better for the people
of Kansas to be heard through their representa¬
tives than for the people of Illinois to interfere in
Kansas matters through the able Senator from
that State, or the people of Missouri through my¬
self or my colleague.
We have heard much of popular sovereignty
and popular rights, but they seem to be frittered
away and cut down, limb after limb. First you
cut off one, and then another, until you leave
nothing whatever to boast of when you go before
the people of the country and speak of the great
merits of the Kansas-Nebraska act. If you can
tie up the people's hands, and say to them, " You
shall do this,"are you carrying out the principles
of the Kansas act? The act says they may do it
in any manner they please. They did please to
adopt a constitution finally in convention, as did
Tennessee, Illinois, and Vermont. Now it is
gravely proposed that the Senate and House of
Representatives shall say the people of Kansas
did not please to do it in a way which Congress
is pleased to consider right, and, therefore, it shall
be undone, thus trampling under foot the very
principle which the Senator said had been sanc¬
tioned in the bill, that they might do as they
pleased; that they might adopt a constitution in
any manner and form they thought proper; that
they might establish their domestic institutions in
their own way. The express language of the bill
is, " in their own way"—not the way I might ad¬
vocate, not the way the Senator from Illinois
might advocate, not the way the North, or the
South, might like, but the language, the spirit,
the principle, the essence of the bill, is "in their
own way." The people of Kansas have adopted
their own way, and that " way" is in strict con¬
formity with the example set when the Senator
from Illinois supported the Toombs bill. It was
to let the convention, as the representatives of the
people, do as they pleased on the subject pre¬
sented to them. That convention did as they
pleased on the subject, and now it is formally pro¬
posed to revise, reform, remodel, and recast, all
the action that has taken place, although the peo¬
ple of Kansas, through their convention, hava
done their work only " in their own way." I can
see no consistency in this. But I do see in it a prin¬
ciple set up in opposition to what we have been
told was the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska
act.
It has, however, been intimated by the hon¬
orable Senator from Illinois that the Kansas-Ne¬
braska act itself required the constitution to b#
submitted to the people of Kansas after its com¬
pletion by the convention. On that point, I join
issue. The act makes no such requirement. It
contains no such obligation. On one point, I
confess I did not distinctly understand the posi¬
tion of the Senator, and I hope, therefore, he will
not consider me intrusive if I ask him how I arrf
to understand him on the subject of the Govern¬
or's interference in regard to submission or non-
submission of the constitution? ,
Mr. DOUGLAS. I declined to discuss that,
because the Governor had acted under the instruc¬
tions of the President.
Mr. GREEN. Then I understand the Senator
as taking no position on the point, whether the
executive of the Territory did right or wrong
when he proposed that the whole constitution
should be submitted. My view is, that, if he
says the Governor did right, it conflicts with the
principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act, and lets
the agent of the Federal Government interfere to
do what he said the people of the Territory might,
uninfluenced,and of right, do " in their oion way,"
If the Senator says the Governor did wrong; if tha
Senator says the Governor'Of the Territory had
no right to advise on this point, that is an admis¬
sion that the Governor's conduct is not justified
by the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska act.
Because, if that act required the submission of
the constitution to a fair and uninfluenced popular
vote, it was the official duty of the Executive to
see that part of the bill, like every other, exe¬
cuted and carried out. Here is a dilemma,and I
leave the Senator to take either horn. If he saya
the Governor did right, he permits a Federal func¬
tionary to dictate to the people, when the language
9
of the act is, that they may act in their own way.
If he says the Governor did wrong, it is an ad¬
mission that the act did not require the submis¬
sion of the constitution.
But we are told that the people have been de¬
ceived in this matter; that pledges and promises
were made to the people of Kansas which have
been broken and Vrolated. On questions of fact,
about which there is great controversy, and upon
which we have no evidence, I do not deem it
proper to dwell at all. Who made the pledges
alluded to, and to what extent were they made?
I apprehend it will be found that the Senator from
Illinois is mistaken on this point. That an indi¬
vidual pledge in favor of submission may have
been made, I do not pretend to controvert; but
that it was general, or very extended, I wholly
deny. We have no evidence of it. It is true that
Mr. Stanton, who was acting Governor of the
Territory before Mr. Walker arrived, made use
of this language.
Mr. DOUGLAS. From what book is the
Senator about to read ?
Mr. GREEN. From the " Political Text-
Book," a compilation by Mr. Cluskey.
Mr. DOUGLAS. It is a private book.
Mr. GREEN. Yes; it is not a public docu¬
ment. The correspondence and proclamations
have not yet been officially printed; but I suppose
the genuineness of what I am about to read will
not be controverted.
Mr. DOUGLAS. I presume not. ,
Mr. GREEN. Mr. Stanton, before the people
had voted for delegates to the convention, used
this language, in speaking of the act providing for
the convention :
" In this light the act must be allowed to have provided
for a full and fair expression of the will of the people through
the delegates who may be chosen to represent them in the
constitutional convention."
Here, before the members of the convention
were elected, the idea of the acting Governor is
promulgated to the people, that they have a full
and fair opportunity to speak through the conven¬
tion. What else?
" I do not doubt, however, that, in order to avoid all pre¬
text for resistance to the peaceful operation of this law"—
Not because there is any obligation to do so,
but to avoid all pretext for complaint—
" the convention itself will, in some form, provide for sub¬
mitting the great distracting question regarding their social
institution, which has so long agitated the people of Kansas,
to a fair vote of all the actual bona fide residents of the Terri¬
tory, with every possible security against fraud and violence.
If the constitution be thus framed, and the question of differ¬
ence thus submitted to the decision of the people"—
That is, if the slavery question be submitted
to the people—
. " I believe that Kansas will be admitted by Congress with¬
out delay as one of the sovereign States of the American
Union; and the territorial authorities will be immediately
withdrawn."
Now we see what was the understanding of
the people before the election of the convention.
It was this: the people can be heard through del¬
egates if they choose; now is the time for them
to exert their power; if you have any preferences
on the subject, come up and vote; "but," says the
2
acting Governor, "as a mere question of policy,
to avoid all pretext of complaint, let the slavery
question be submitted to a separate vote. " Gov¬
ernor Walker is a little broader in his language,
but he substantially takes the same position.
There seems to be in the mind of Governor
Walker a confusion of ideas. He does not seem
to apprehend that they could have a separation
of the slave question from the body of the con¬
stitution. The policy or propriety of this sepa¬
ration is not a matter for me to consider. It is a
matter for the consideration of the people of Kan¬
sas, who have the power to settle all these ques¬
tions " in their own way," and I am the last who
would trample under foot that principle which
has been so much lauded by the honorable Sen¬
ator from Illinois. While the Governor has the
confusion of ideas of which I have spoken, it is
very manifest that his whole attention was directed
to the slavery question as the proper matter for
submission to the people. Before the election of
delegates took place he arrived in the Territory,
and published his inaugural address, in which,
talking to the whole people of Kansas, he said:
" You should not console yourselves, my fellow-citizens,
with the reflection that you may, by a subsequent vote,
defeat the ratification of the constitution. Although most
anxious to secure to you the exercise of that great consti¬
tutional right"—
He does not say it is a legal right emanating
from the Kansas-Nebraska act, but a constitu¬
tional right. I should like to have him, or any
other man, show me the clause of any constitu¬
tion, State or Federal, that requires the people of
a new Territory, in forming the first constitution
under which they act, to submit it, or even any
part of it, to a subsequent vote of the people—
" and believing that the convention is the servant and not
the master of the people, yet I have no power to dictate the
proceedings of that body."
They were acting under a law which said the
people might settle all these questions in their
own way. The Governor adds:
" I cannot doubt, however, the course they will adopt
on this subj ect. But why incur the hazard of the preliminary
formation of a constitution by a minority, as alleged by you,
when a majority, by their own votes, could control the
forming of that instrument?"
This shows that he did not regard it as a fixed
fact that the law, or any other power, could induce
the convention, necessarily, to submit the consti¬
tution to a popular vote. His argument was
advisory. Addressing those who were disposed
to keep aloof, he says to them, " If you have the
majority, why not go to the polls, secure the
convention, and have a constitution made in the
manner you prefer?" May I not say that they
refused to participate in the election from one of
two considerations; either they knew that they
were a minority of the Territory, or they were
standing out in open rebellion to the legal author¬
ities, defying both the territorial and the Federal
Government.
The honorable Senator's speech conforms to
precisely this position. He admits that the con¬
vention was regularly called, in pursuance of law,
acting in conformity both to Federal and local
authority. Why was it opposed ? Was it for any
wise purpose ? Was it in order to accomplish any
10
good end ? The opposition was in order to keep
the subject open. It was a captious, a factious
opposition. It was an opposition from a party
composed of two elements which have been dan¬
gerous to the peace of our western country, unit¬
ing, on the one hand, fanatacism, with a hope of
pecuniary reward on the other. Fanaticism is
sterile. Fanaticism is barren. Fanaticism is un¬
productive. Fanaticism will die out of itself when
the sober reflection of the people comes round.
To keep up that fanaticism they unite with it an¬
other element—the element of wild speculation,
the hope of pecuniary gain. The union of these
two elements has fanned the flame, endangered
the Government, hazarded our peace, rendered
insecure our property, alienating the feelings of
brother from brother, because they happen to
live on different sides of an imaginary line. I
hope to see this union of elements broken down.
I hope to see the Kansas embroglio ended; ended
in conformity with law; ended in conformity with
the action-of the legal convention of the people;
ended by giving force and effect to a constitution
that has been as regularly, as honestly, as fairly
agreed on as any constitution that this Govern¬
ment finds within the range of the thirty-one
States. Should Kansas be admitted; should the
peace of the country be reestablished; should this
bone of contention be taken away forever; town
lots, land investments, and the other means of pe¬
cuniary profit broken down, the fanatical excite¬
ment will cease and determine. It is the hope of
some to keep up the excitement, and I am sorry
to see the course of the honorable Senator from
Illinois who has fought for us so long—not for
" the slave power," but for justice, for equality
north and south, for equality without reference to
locality, for great principles. Knowing that he is
still wedded to these principles, I am sorry to see
his course calculated to give that fanatical ele¬
ment the benefit of his powerful talents. This is
the real cause of my regret.
It is said—and I throw in the expression here
to let my view be known, and not as material to
the matter under consideration—that the law of
climate has dedicated Kansas to freedom, mean¬
ing thereby that it is not adapted to African
slavery. That may be so or not. I am not a
very good judge of climate, and I do not believe
the Senators present are very good judges of the
climate of Kansas. I do not think many of them
have seen it, or have had very accurate reports of
the range of the barometer and thermometer there
.for the last few years. What I say is, that if the
law of climate is to determine the question of
slavery in any Territory within the limits of the
United States, where the two races are thrown
together, I am content to trust it to that law of
itlimate, without any coercive law, without any
law of Congress, without any territorial law,
\yithout any State law. Let me appeal to my
northern friends who believe there is so much
p otency in the law of climate, the law of produc¬
tion, the law of vocation, the law of pursuit; if
tl lese be sufficient, open your northern States and
si !e whether you wijl not soon have a few of our
si aves there performing menial services. Whether
th at be true or not, is it not well to leave Kansas
to the people of Kansas, to the voters of Kansas?
If they are willing to trust this matter to the layv
of climate they are settling it in their own way.
If they are determined to have a positive prohibi¬
tion of slavery in their constitution they are set¬
tling it in their own way, in conformity with the
law which gave them an organic form. Those of
us who boasted of the rights„they had under the
law, should be the last to complain of the manner
in which they exercise those rights.
I know, however, that there is one thing greatly
complained of by various persons, and which in
regarded by some as a sufficient reason why Kan¬
sas ought to be kept out of the Union; white
others, who do not go to that extreme, express
much regret on the subject—I allude to the fact
that the whole constitution has not been sub¬
mitted to the popular vote. I hold that there was
no necessity for any such submission. If after
the convention expressed their judgment, it was
proper, as a mere matter of policy or prudence,
to submit any question to a separate vote of the
people, they ought to submit the real bone of
contention. I hold further, that the submissioh
of the slavery question in the manner in which
it has been submitted, is fairer, better calculated
to collect the real will and judgment of the peo¬
ple, than if the whole constitution had been sub¬
mitted. Suppose the convention had adopted a
constitution prohibiting slavery, and had sub¬
mitted it to the people as the Senator from Illinois
thinks the law required. If this had been done,
and my friend from Mississippi [Mr. Brown]
lived there, he would have been compelled to vote
againstslaveryoragainsttheconstitution. When¬
ever many questions are mixed up together, and
they are all presented as an entirety, neither one
of them has a fair expression of the people who
thus pass judgment on them. So far is this prin¬
ciple known to be correct, that the constitution
of Louisiana requires that every law shall em¬
brace but one subject, which shall be stated in its
title. '
Mr. BIGLER. That feature is in the new eon-
titution of Kansas.
Mr. GREEN. It is in the constitution of Kan¬
sas.
Mr. GWIN. And of California.
Mr. GREEN. If the matter were investigated,
I think it would be found that the same provision
exists in many other States. The object is to pre¬
vent log rolling," and to insure a fair, honest
expression of the people or their representatives "
when they pass judgment on any subject. You
may put together in an improvement appropria¬
tion bill many items, neither one of which has
sufficient intrinsic merit to receive the assent of
Congress; but tie them together, and perhaps you
can pass all. If the slave question had been tied
to the suffrage question; the governor's qualifi¬
cation question; the taxation question; the bank
question; and if I had been a citizen of Kansas*
I should have been compelled, in order to vote
for holding negroes in Kansas, to swallow all the
objectionable features in every other branch of -
the constitution. To submit a single question is
the only fair way, the only just way, the only
simple, certain method of collecting the public
11
will. There is uncertainty in all human proceed¬
ings. The people may not come to the polls; the
representatives may not do their duty; but we
proceed on the idea that there is a just principle
involved; and if the principle be just, and the peo¬
ple have an opportunity to carry it out, and do
not carry it out, but forfeit their rights, it.is their
misfortune, not ours; and our sympathies are
blunted when we consider that their passions
were the sole cause of the grievances of which
they complain.
The constitution is not submitted to the people
of Kansas. I know the Senator undertook to
prove that the people were placed under coercion,
that they were compelled to go to the polls and
vote, and that before they could vote on the slave
question, they were compelled to vote for the con¬
stitution. If the whole constitution had been
submitted before they could vote for or against
slavery, they would have been compelled to
vote in the manner which the Senator represented
as objectionable, which he animadverted upon,
which he censured and condemned. If the whole
constitution had been submitted, the voter, in
order to vote for slavery, would have been com¬
pelled to indorse every feature of the constitu¬
tion; and, in order to vote against it, would have
been compelled to vote against the other features
of the constitution, and thus leave him without a
State government. The anxiety to get a State
government might be strong enough to induce him
to forego his objections to other branches of the
constitution, and hence, as I before remarked, the
mode of submission adopted by the convention
was the only simple, fair, and just method of
collecting the popular will upon the slavery ques¬
tion. In the convention of California, a propo¬
sition was made to submit the slavery question
to a separate vote of the people. The conven¬
tion was anxious not to endanger the admission
of the State into the Union. They did not be¬
lieve a majority of their people desired slavery,
and therefore they did not submit it as a separate
question, but they submitted the whole consti¬
tution to a vote of the people of California. It
came up here, and we all know there was a great
deal of complaint on the part of northern as well
as southern Senators and members in consequence
of the non-submission of the slavery question.
By an examination of the schedule, framed by
the Kansas convention, it will be seen that the
constitution itself is not submitted. The Senator
is mistaken when he says that the constitution
is submitted, and that the people are required to
vote for it. He says the constitution receives
its vitality and takes effect from its ratification.
The Senator is entirely mistaken. It never does
take effect until Kansas shall be admitted into
the Union by Congress. " But," says the Sen¬
ator, " the schedule says the constitution is to
be submitted to the people." Yes. For what
purpose? For ratification. What is the mean¬
ing of " to ratify ?" It is to settle, to fix. There
is a part of the constitution not settled, not fixed,
and that must be ratified. That question is to be
passed upon by the people, when they say at the
polls whether they will retain a provision sanc¬
tioning African slavery, or will strike it out.
They are to settle, fix, ratify tfiat, unsettled, un¬
fixed, unratified part. That is all the article pro¬
vides for. We are not to take a mere expression,
but must take the purport of the whole article.
If a logician, or a judge, or a statesman, under¬
takes to construe the meaning of that article, he
takes the whole of it together, and so taking it,
what does he find ? That nothing is to be rati¬
fied, fixed, settled; but the unratified, unfixed,
unsettled part, which is whether slavery shall be
retained in the constitution or not. There is to
be no decision on any part of the constitution,
except that which relates to slavery.
The Senator from Illinois, however, seems to
think that each voter must first vote for the con-
titution, before he can vote for or against sla¬
very. That is another mistake. The voter does
not vote for or against the constitution. He sim¬
ply votes a ballot which is to be counted for or
against slavery. If he votes the ballot contain¬
ing the words " constitution with slavery," it is
to be counted in favor of slavery; but if he votes
" constitution with no slavery, "it is to be counted
ip favor of striking out the article in the consti¬
tution providing for slavery. The only question
submitted is, Will you, or will you not, have in
the constitution of Kansas a clause sanctioning
slavery? Is the writing of the word " constitu¬
tion" on the ballot to be construed as making the
voter vote for the constitution ? Then I can show
that, if a man in Louisiana voted on the adoption
of their new constitution, he was involved in this
seeming contradiction. The constitution of Lou¬
isiana was submitted to the people, under a sched¬
ule which required, " each ballot shall be indorsed
'the constitution accepted,'or 'the constitution
rejected.' " There would be just about as much
plausibility in saying that a voter in Louisiana
was compelled to vote first for the constitution
and then for its rejection, or first for the consti¬
tution and then for its acceptance, as in saying
here that a man in Kansas is to vote %st for the
constitution and then for or against slavery. The
question submitted in Louisiana was the accept¬
ance or rejection of the constitution. The ques¬
tion submitted in Kansas is the insertion or strik¬
ing out of an article sanctioning slavery. That
is the sole question to be decided.
The opposition party in Kansas—I do not know
what title they assume to themselves—deny that
the constitution is submitted, and the Senator
makes an issue with them. Those who live on
the ground, who know what has been done, say
that the whole constitution is not submitted. I
say there was no more necessity for its submis¬
sion than there was for the submission of the con¬
stitution of Illinois. The people of Kansas acted
through their representatives. Those represent¬
atives had power either to adopt a constitution
finally, or simply to make a proposition, and
submit it for the consideration of the people.
There is nothing novel in the positions which
I have stated. They are in conformity with the
past action of the Government. I have before me
statements showing what States have been ad¬
mitted with an enabling act, and those admitted
without any such act having been previously
passed.
12
The following States were authorized to form
constitutions by acts of Congress previous to their
admission: Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Missis¬
sippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, and Wiscon¬
sin. The States for which no enabling act was
previously passed, authorizing the formation of
a constitution, were Vermont, Tennessee, Maine,
Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Texas, and Iowa.
I have also a list of all the new States admitted
since the Federal Constitution went into oper¬
ation in 1789, showing what States were organ¬
ized without the previous authority of Congress,
and what States submitted their constitutions to
a vote of the people, after being framed by their
conventions. This throws important light on the
past history of the Government, and that past
history is in strict accordance with the views I
have advanced.
For Vermont, the constitution was formed by
a convention, in July, 1777. It was revised by a
convention December 25,1777, without authority
of Congress. " The constitution was not ratified
bythe people." I quote from Thompson's " Ver¬
mont," part 2, page 105. The application for
admission was made February 9, 1791, and the
State was admitted March 4,1791, as I find from
the Statutes at Large, vol. 1, page 191.
Kentucky applied for admission through the
delegates of a convention, December 9, 1790; her
constitution was not then formed. My authority
is the appendix to the House Journal, vol. 1,
pages 411-12. She was admitted June 1, 1792;
her constitution was laid before Congress, No¬
vember 7, 1792, as I learn from the House Jour¬
nal, vol. 1, page 614. There is no evidence that
the constitution was submitted to a vote of the
people.
For Tennessee, the constitution was formed by
a convention without authority of Congress, Feb-
rury 6, 1796, as I learn from American State
Papers,"miscellaneous,"vol. 1,pages 146-7. She
applied for admission, April 8,1796, as is shown
by Senate Journal, April 11, and House Journal
April 8, 1796. She was admitted June 1, 1796.
The constitution was not submitted to the people,
but it was forwarded to the Secretary of State, as
I learn from the annals of Tennessee, pages 656-7,
and the history of Tennessee, page 471.
For Ohio, the constitution was formed by a con¬
vention, under authority of Congress, November
29, 1802, as is shown by the Statutes at Large,
vol. 2, pages 173, 201. She applied for admis¬
sion January 7, 1803, as is shown by Senate
Journal, vol. 3, page 251. She was admitted
February 19, 1803, as I find in the Statutes at
Large, vol. 2, page 201. The constitution was
not submitted to the people, as I learn from
Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio, page 16.
In Louisiana, the constitution was formed by
a convention January 22, 1812, under authority
of Congress of the date of February 10, 1811.
I refer to the Statutes at Large, vol. 2, page 641.
She was admitted April 8, 1812, and there is no
evidence that the constitution was submitted to
a vote of the people.
The constitution of Indiana was formed by a
convention June 29, 1816, under authority of
Congress, as 1 find in the Statutes at Large, vol.
3, page 289. She was admitted December 11,
1816. 1 quote from the Statutes at Large, vol.
3, page 399. Her constitution was submitted to
Congress June 10, 1817, as is shown by the
House Journal, second session, Twenty-Fourth
Congress, page 180. There is no evidence that
the constitution was submitted to a vote of the"
people.
The constitution of Mississippi was formed by
a convention August 15, 1817—I again refer to
the Statutes at Large, vol. 3, page 472—under
authority of Congress. (Statutes, vol. 3, page'
348.) Her constitution was submitted to Con¬
gress December 4, 1817. She was admitted De¬
cember 10, 1817, (Statutes at Large, vol. 3, page
472,) and there is no evidence that the constitu¬
tion was submitted to a vote of the people.
The constitution of Illinois was formed by a
convention August 26, 1818, under authority of
Congress—(see Statutes at Large, vol. 3, page
428;) submitted to the House of Representatives
November 7, 1818, and admitted December 3,
1818. (Statutes, vol. 3, page 536.) There is no
evidence that the constitution was submitted to',
a vote of the people.
The constitution of Alabama was formed by
a convention August 2,1819, under authority of
Congress, (Statutes at Large, vol. 3, page 489;)
her constitution was submitted to the House of
Representatives December 6, 1819; and she was
admitted December 14, 1819, (Statutes at Large,
vol. 3, page 608.) There is no evidence that the
constitution was submitted to the people.
The constitution of Maine was formed by a con¬
vention without authority of Congress, October
29,1819. Her constitution was submitted to Con¬
gress, December 8,1819, (see House Journal, first
session Sixteenth Congress, pages 18-60,) and
she was admitted, March 15, 1820. The consti¬
tution was submitted to a vote of the people, as
I learn from Williamson's History of Mairte,
vol. 2, page 674.
The constitution of Missouri was formed by a
convention, 19th July, 1820, under authority of
Congress, (Statutes at Large, vol. 3, page 545.)
Her constitution was submitted November 16,
1820. One of my authorities is Mr. Lowndes's
report, November 23, 1820, (American State Pa¬
pers, " Miscellaneous," vol. 2, page 625.) The
joint resolution admitting the State on a " certain
condition," was approved March 2, 1821. The
condition was accepted, and the State admitted
by proclamation of the President, of August 10,
1821. There is no evidence that the constitution
was submitted to a vote of the people.
The constitution of Michigan was formed by a
convention under the authority of the ordinance
of 1787, and without the authority of Congress.
It was submitted to and ratified by the people,
(see Lammon's History of Michigan, pages 241-
243; also, Senate Documents 5 and 211, Twenty-
Fourth Congress, first session, and Reports of
Committees of House of Representatives, first
session Twenty-Fourth Congress, 380.) She was
admitted on the condition that she should amend
her constitution so as to change her boundary,
(Statutes at Large, vol. 5, page 49.)
The constitution of Arkansas was formed by
13
a convention without authority of Congress. I i
refer to House Documents, Twenty-Fourth Con¬
gress, first session, No. 164; Niles's Register, vol.
49, page243, for Attorney General's opinion; and ■,
for debates, to " Congressional Debates," vol. 12,
parts 1 and 2. She was admitted with a consti¬
tution, by joint resolution, June 15, 1836. The
constitution was not submitted to the people. >
The constitution of Florida was formed by a
convention without authority of Congress, and
submitted to the people. (See House Doc. 208,
Twenty-Fifth Congress, third session, and Stat¬
utes at Large, vol. 5, page 742.) She was admit¬
ted with a constitution, March 3, 1845.
The constitution of Wisconsin was formed by
a convention under authority of Congress. (Stat¬
utes, vol. 9,page 56;and House Doc. 49,Twenty-
Ninth Congress, second session.) She was ad¬
mitted on certain conditions. (Statutes, vol. 9,
page 178.) The constitution had not been sub¬
mitted to the people previous to her application
with a constitution. For debates see Congres¬
sional Globe and Appendix, Twenty-Ninth Con¬
gress, first and second sessions.
The constitution of Iowa was formed by a con¬
vention on the 18th May, 1846, without authority
of Congress, and was submitted to the people.
(See House Doc. 16, Twenty-Ninth Congress,
second session, page 17.) She was admitted with
her constitution, March 3, 1845.
The constitution of California was formed by
a convention without authority of Congress, and
it was submitted to and ratified by the people.
(See Senate Mis. Doc. 68, page 14, Thirty-First
Congress, first session.) She was admitted Sep¬
tember 9,1850.
I have thus, as briefly as I could, undertaken
to show, first, that Kansas is, under the Louis¬
iana treaty, under the law of Congress, under the
Kansas-Nebraska act, under the special pledge of
theDemocratic party in the Cincinnati convention,
entitled to admission, having now a republican
form of government; second, that the convention
was legally and fairly called, sanctioned by the
Federal authorities, acting in conformity with the
territorial government, not in conflict, not in
antagonism, not in opposition. Third, I have
shown that the presumption is that the conven¬
tion fairly and truly represented the people and
reflected their will. On this point we have heard
of broken pledges and violated promises. We
have heard of vows that have not been fulfilled,
but we have no evidence on the subject.
I heard the Senator from Illinois also make re¬
marks here touching what would be the final re¬
sult of the submission of the slave question; that
he had no doubt " returns" would come in, inti¬
mating that he believed frauds would be perpe¬
trated. But eight months ago, who so loud, so
forcible, and so eloquent as the Senatorfrom Illi¬
nois in denouncing the party that had insinuated
fraud ! On what evidence is it that he would in¬
sinuate that frauds will be committed in the re¬
turns that are to come in when the question of
slavery shall be submitted. I have no right to
impute fraud. I never will impute fraud, Fraud
is to be proved, not presumed. When the honor¬
able gentleman occupied a place on the bench, if
an attorney had made an argument like that, he
would be ready almost to strike his name from
the roll of attorneys. Is there any evidence, or
are there any facts developed in this case which
would justify him in inferring or presuming fraud?
None that I have seen, and he does us injustice
if he has it in his possession and retains it as a
secret; it ought to be developed; it ought to come
before the country in a tangible shape, for we are
as much responsible for our action, when that ac¬
tion depends on facts, as the honorable Senator
himself.
The legal presumption is, that the representa¬
tive reflects the will of the represented. There
is no evidence before us conflicting with that legal
presumption. The election has not yet taken
place. Is there any preparation for fraud? Have
schemes been concocted, have plans been devised
by which fraud is to be perpetrated in the voting
upon that question ? I will not believe it in ad¬
vance of the fact itself. Is it for that reason the
honorable Senator thinks this whole matter should
be reversed, the whole subject thrown back, and
a complete revival of the complication of difficul¬
ties that have beset us on our western border? Is
it because of this anticipated fraud ? I have shown
it cannot be because of the want of an enabling
act, for he has voted the other way in several in¬
stances. I have shown that it cannot be for the
want of submitting the whole question to the
people, because he has voted the other way in
several other instances. I have shown that this
convention was legally and constitutionally called.
That he admits. I have shown that the legal pre¬
sumption is, that they reflect the will of the peo¬
ple. Is there then any rebutting evidence ? There
is nothing else in the preceding part of the argu¬
ment to justify his now separating from us, and,
when we come to this bifurcated road, his taking
the left hand. Is there any reason why he should
do it on this simple, anticipated idea of fraud, on
which there is no particle of evidence before us ?
No; the legal presumption still stands unassailed.
The legal presumption is still potent enough to
justify our action on it, and we must act on it.
In the next place, I have shown that the con¬
vention was under no obligation, imposed either
by law or usage, to submit the constitution to a
vote of the people. Further, I have shown, I
think, that a majority of the States entered the
Union with constitutions not previously submitted
to the people. If Kansas has copied the example
set by a majority of its elder sisters, surely nothing
will be urged in complaint against Kansas because
it did not follow the minority. It is true, I heard
the Senator commending the rule, which he says
is found in the Minnesota bill.
Here I will remark that, as far as I have ex¬
amined the law — and I have examined every
case I could—I find, from the beginning of the
Government, in 1789, down to the present day,
there never was a prerequisite, even where Con¬
gress passed an enabling act, that the result of
the convention should be submitted to the people,
save in the Minnesota bill. It was not in the
Ohio bill; it was not in the Indiana bill; it was
• not in the Illinois bill; it was not in the Alabama
bill; it was not in the Mississippi bill. The other
14
States were formed on their own responsibility,
without an enabling act. In none of those en¬
abling acts—not even in the Wisconsin bill—was
there a provision requiring the Constitution to be
submitted to the people. In no bill, save one,
that ever passed Congress was any such provision
contained. If the convention of the Territory of
Kansas deemed it proper to copy the example
which Congress had set, which a majority of
sister States had set, I can see in this no cause of
objection to Kansas at our hands.
Again, I have shown that the only question
about which there is any controversy is separately
submitted to a fair vote of the people. About
this I have no doubt or controversy. The only
question that has been a bone of contention, that
has been the cause of stirring up strife, that
has been made the pretext for assaults on differ¬
ent sections of this Union—that one single, im¬
portant question, is submitted to a fair vote of
the people. What the result of that vote will be
it is impossible for me to foretell. This much,
however, I can with propriety say: If a majority
of the people there are determined not to have
African slaves, it would be folly, by any scheme,
by any trick, to get up a constitution adverse to
the will of the majority, and hence I am glad this
slavery question is fairly submitted. Although
1 greatly prefer having no constitutional and no
legal barriers, though I subscribe most heartily
to the doctrine of .climate, of production, and of
vocation, and think it the only sound solution of
this question within the limits of the Federal
Union, still my opinion is not to be set up as dic¬
tatorial to influence others. It is but my indi¬
vidual property; I shall act upon it so far as I am
able. As it is thus submitted, it is the only ques¬
tion of controversy. Who is it that complains of
any provision in the Kansas constitution? and
who is it that could complain of a provision in
that constitution, who did not have a fair oppor¬
tunity to make it otherwise, if he is in the ma¬
jority? and if he is in the minority, let him com¬
plain and gnash his teeth in vain. Minorities
are expected to complain; but it is the duty of
minorities to submit as gracefully as their feel¬
ings will well permit. If they were the majority,
they had the opportunity to make it otherwise.
If they did not choose to exercise their right,' it
is their fault and their misfortune. If the
majority have exercised their legal rights in an
honorable, upright, and fair manner, they are
not to be forced to give way to a factious mi¬
nority.
I have also shown there is no legal objection,
and no prudential consideration, to prevent the
admission of Kansas. How, then, are we to
act on this subject? Are we to go back and
travel over the detail of circumstances that oc¬
curred in Kansas, so far as presented in the
President's message ? It is unnecessary, except
so far as they bear on the fairness of this con¬
vention, the fair opportunity for the free expres¬
sion of the will of the people. Whether the
President's reasoning be right or wrong, let it
pass. It ought to commend him for his patriot¬
ism, for his disinterested view, and for the sound
conclusion at which he arrives. With this com¬
mendation, and with this support, whether he it
right or wrong in saying the law requires thq
slave branch of this controverted matter to bp
submitted to a vote of the people, 1 shall oof
utter one word of complaint.
There is a still greater object in view than to
look back at the past, and find fault with this or
that proceeding which occurred in Kansas. This
is the President's view. Practical men must take
hold of subjects and act in a practical manner, to
effectuate the most good in a constitutional and
legal way. From all the investigation I have given
to this subject, I am satisfied that the good of
Kansas, the good, the peace, the prosperity of the
whole Union will be affected more or less by the
decision that we make on this Kansas question.
If Congress keeps it open, if excitement is still tp
spread through the land, if a system of warfare
is to be gotten up plunging the land ih gloom,
and perhaps reaching to the extreme of shedding
human blood, the consequences will be on thops
who reopen the slave question, the Kansas ques¬
tion, the squatter sovereignty question, or any.
other question connected with the well-being of
Kansas. If there be any question that can be '
fairly decided in Kansas, it is the slave question.
I believe that it will be fairly decided there. I
believe the constitution meets the approbation of
a majority of the people of Kansas. In regard to
that, I have no question or doubt, and my belief,
founded on the slight sources of information I
possess, is at least to be treated as a set-off to the
fear of fraud, and to the allegation of improper
influences, on the part of the people of Kansas,;
as alleged by the Senator from Illinois.
Mr. President, I have thus given my views of
this subject. I have elaborated no single point,
It has been my purpose simply to show that thers
is no obstacle in the way, and that there ara
considerations why, in conformity with the past
action of the country, we should admit Kansas
at once. I believe she has acted as fairly as any
other Territory. I have stated the reason why
I have given my view of the case. Whether the
constitution will come up in the one shape or tha
other, is a subject about which I have no right to
express an opinion. Whether it will come up at
all, or not, I am not able to say, though I appre¬
hend it will. I have only felt bound to meet tha
objections urged by the Senator, because 1 thought
they would have a prejudicial effect upon tha
country, find an exceedingly prejudicial effect in
Kansas, where an election ia to be held on the
21st of this month. It is true little that I can say
or little that others can say, wall reach Kansas
before the election; but, at least, both sides ought
to be partially heard—heard enough, at least, to
compare them together and see which is in con¬
formity with the Federal Constitution, and which
is in conformity with the law, which is in con¬
formity with the practice of the Government.
Whether 1 have succeeded in showing that th# ;
position I take is correct, is, of course, for others
to determine.
Mr. BIGLER obtained the floor.
Mr. DOUGLAS. I trust I shall be permitted
to say a few words in explanation.
Mr. BIGLER. I shall most cheerfully yield
15
the floor to the Senator from Illinois, after a very
few remarks. My object is to take the floor—
not to speak to-day, but to move the postpone¬
ment of this subject until Monday, unless some
other Senator desires to speak to-morrow.
Mr. DOUGLAS. I will make the motion in
the Senator's name, with that understanding.
Mr. BIGLER. That is satisfactory.
Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President, I have lis¬
tened to the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Green]
with unfeigned pleasure. There has been a fair¬
ness in his tone and in his line of argument which
shows that he has been arguing from his convic¬
tions, with the view of stating what he conceives
to be the true, sound aspect of this question. It
is gratifying to me to hear the subject discussed
in that spirit and tone before the Senate. I but
do the Senator justice when I say that he has
presented the question with marked ability and
clearness; and I am inclined to think that the
best view of the subject has been presented to¬
day which we shall have from the Senator's side.
I should not utter a word, but for the fact that
the Senator has misapprehended my meaning
and my position on one or two points, and I deem
it due to myself to restate my views on those
points, in order that he, the Senate, and the
country, may see what the true position is. I
acquit him of any intention to misstate; there was
only a misconception. This may have been occa¬
sioned by my own fault, as 1 spoke rapidly,
without preparation, and had no opportunity to
revise the report of my speech. The Senator is
under a misapprehension in supposing that I
have assumed it to be a fatal objection to the
admission of a State into this Union that there
was no enabling act giving the consent of Con¬
gress in advance to the formation of a constitu¬
tion. I took no such position.
The Senator is also mistaken in supposing that
I took the ground that it was a fatal objection that
the constitution was not submitted to the people
before being sent to Congress for acceptance. I
did not assume that position. My ground was
this: the regular mode of proceeding is by an
enabling act, and if the Territorial Legislature
proceed to call a convention without first having
the assent of Congress to do so, it is irregular, but
not so irregular that it necessarily follows their
constitution cannot be accepted. I argued and
cited the opinion of the Attorney General in the
Arkansas case, to show that, although a conven¬
tion called by a Territorial Legislature without
the previous assent of Congress, was irregular,
yet it was not an unlawful assemblage, but was
a body of men having a right to petition under
the Constitution of the United States, and that
having been assembled in convention, more force
ought to be given to the mode of assemblage, but
that it was not a constitutional body, authorized
to institute government. In other words, I con¬
tended that a convention, constituted in obedi¬
ence to an enabling act of Congress previously
giving assent, is a constitutional body of men,
with power and authority to institute government;
but that a convention assembled under an act of
the Territorial Legislature, without the assent of
Congress previously given, has no authority to
institute government. It has power to petition;
it may put its petition in the form of a consti¬
tution; and when it comes here we are at liberty
to accept or reject that petition.
This was my position in regard to the effect of
an enabling act. I then went on to show that,
there having been no enabling act passed for Kan¬
sas, the Lecompton convention was irregular. I
argued that it was not an unlawful assemblage,
but might present a petition to us in the shape of
a constitution, which we should be at liberty to
accept or reject, as we pleased. It was a con¬
vention authorized to petition, but not to estab¬
lish or institute government.
I was aware that in the history of this Govern¬
ment some new States had been admitted without
the passage of an enabling act by Congress in
the fifst instance. I must be permitted, however,
to spoil the effect of one or two of the Sena¬
tor's cases—those upon which he dwelt with th#
greatest pleasure and most satisfaction to himself.
He tells us there was no enabling act for Mich¬
igan. If the Senator will look back into the his¬
tory of Michigan, he will find that the authority
existed under the old ordinance of 1787. That
ordinance, which was the organic act of Mich¬
igan, provided that the Northwestern Territory
should be divided into not less than three nor
more than five States, and each of those States
was, by the ordinance, authorized to be formed
and admitted into the Union when it should have
sixty thousand inhabitants. Thus an enabling
act was incorporated into the ordinance of 1787
for the five northwestern States. This is the
reason why it was not necessary that there should
be an enabling act for Michigan, nor for Ohio,
nor for Indiana, nor for Illinois, nor for Wiscon¬
sin.
Next, with regard to Tennessee. The Senator
quotes the names of Washington and Jackson—
names that raise a thrill of patriotic feeling in the
bosom of every American when they are men¬
tioned, and to whose example we should, of
course, yield the tribute of our approbation. How
was it with Tennessee ? The Senator says it was
the first new State admitted without an enabling
act. Tennessee, when cut off from North Caro¬
lina and formed into a Territory known as the
Southwestern Territory, was organized into a
territorial government by an act of Congress,
which extended to it all the provisions of the or¬
dinance of 1787, except the slavery clause. Thus.,
the territorial organic act of Tennessee contained
within itself an enabling act, declaring that the
people of Tennessee should have authority to
form a constitution and State government when¬
ever the Territory should have sixty thousand
inhabitants. Being thus authorized, the Legisla¬
ture of Tennessee took steps to find out when
they had the sixty thousand inhabitants. When
they ascertained that fact by a census, they called
a convention to form a constitution. When they
applied to Congress for admission, President
Washington, in that beautiful letter which ths
Senator read, referred to the fact that in the act
organizing the Territory of Tennessee there was
an enabling clause, guarantying to that Terri¬
tory the right to come into the Union whenever
16
it should have sixty thousand inhabitants. The
Governor of the Territory having furnished the
evidence showing that there were then sixty
thousand inhabitants in Tennessee, according to
the census, that people had a right to come into
the Union on an equal footing with the original
States. These facts dispose of the alleged ex¬
ample of Washington and Jackson, for they show
that in the very case in which both acted, the as¬
sent of Congress had been previously given.
I am aware that in the Florida case and in other
cases there was not an enabling act in the first
instance. The rule upon which we acted was,
that, although this was an irregularity, it might be
waived or insisted upon according as we thought
public policy and public duty required. I took
that ground in my speech last week. J. said
further that,where an enabling act had been passed
and a convention had been organized in the man¬
ner therein provided for, it was a constitutional
convention empowered to institute government;
and hence stood on a different footing. That dis¬
tinction has been clearly taken, elaborated, and
established by the Senator from Missouri in his
speech. If he is right and I am right in this argu¬
ment, it follows that the convention which met
at Lecompton and formed a constitution was not
a body properly constituted and empowered to
institute a government, for the reason that it had
not the previous authority of Congress, but was
merely an assemblage of citizens regularly col¬
lected for the purpose of petitioning for a change
of government from a territorial to a State gov¬
ernment, and when that petition comes here we
shall be at liberty to accept it or to reject it—to
dispose of it as we may see fit.
Again, sir; the action of the convention shows,
in my judgment, clearly, that they took the same
view of the subject; for I must still insist that the
convention did not assume that they had a right
to institute government by virtue of the power
which they possessed, but only to frame a con¬
stitution to be submitted to the people, and go
into operation when ratified. TheSenatorthought
I was mistaken in this. Let us refer to the record
and see which of us is mistaken. The sixteenth
section of the schedule provides:
" This constitution shall take effect, and be in force, from
and after its ratification by the people, as herein before pro¬
vided."
If not ratified it is to be void; if ratified it is to
take effect from that time, and by virtue of that
ratification. This clearly shows that the conven¬
tion did not claim to be a body empowered to in¬
stitute government, but simply a body authorized
to frame a constitution in the shape of a petition,
and to pray for its acceptance by Congress. That
was the distinction.
Again, in the seventh section of the schedule
we find:
" Before this constitution shall be sent to Congress for ad¬
mission into the Union, as a State, it shall be submitted to
all the white male inhabitants of this Territory, for approval
or disapproval as follows :
It then goes on to give the form of the vote,
"constitution with slavery," or "constitution
with no slavery;" but before it can be sent to
Congress the schedule says it shall be submitted
for approval or disapproval. Can it be said, in
the face of this language, that the convention dp-
clared the constitution in force without submit¬
ting it to the people ? Can it be said that tits
constitution can ever take effect, unless ratified by
a vote of the people ? If I can understand the
plain meaning of language which appears to be
unequivocal, it is not susceptible of doubt that
the constitution is referred to the people for ac¬
ceptance or rejection, and that whatever validity
or vitality it is to have, will be received from the
people's ratification. If I am right in this posi¬
tion it brings me back to the old point, that the
submission is such as not to give an opportunity
for a fair vote on the slavery or any other ques¬
tion.
I come, next to the position which I assumed
with reference to the submission of a constitution
for ratification. I did not contend that a consti¬
tution might not, under any circumstances,be put '
in operation unless submitted to the people for
ratification. I said before, and I say now, that
the constitution must be the act and deed of the
people of Kansas; it must embody the will of
the people of Kansas; no constitution should be
received by Congress, and none can fairly be con¬
sidered republican which does not embody the
will of the people who are to be governed by It,
and is not formed by their act. Having assumed,
as an essential fundamental principle, that the
constitution must embody the will of the people,
the next question is, what is the best and most
appropriate mode of ascertaining that will ? Upon
that point I concur with the President of the
United States in his message, that the best mod#
is to refer it to the people for their acceptance or
rejection by a fair vote. The principle being that
it shall embody the will of the people, its sub¬
mission to a popular vote is only a means of as¬
certaining a fact, which fact, namely, that it
embodies the will of the people, gives it vitality,
and makes it an appropriate constitution. I
regard the argument of the President of the United
States in favor of that mode of ascertaining the
people's will as conclusive. The President's argu¬
ment is, that delegates represent districts, and a
majority of the delegates may represent a mi¬
nority of the people, in consequence of some
being elected by large majorities and others by
small majorities; hence the President says a del¬
egate election is not a fair test, but you must
refer it to a vote of the whole people in order to
ascertain the vital, the fundamental, the cardinal
Eoint whether or not the constitution Is the em-
odiment of the will of the people. I advocate
submission, as a means of ascertaining an end,
not as a principle. I do not say that there could
be no possible case in which I would not accept
a constitution without its having been thus sub¬
mitted. Suppose, for instance, a constitution h(ld
been formed by delegates, and there was not a
murmur against it, not a protest, not the slightest
reason to believe that anybody dissented from it,
and the only question in dispute was the suffi¬
ciency of the population, I am not certain but
that I should waive the irregularity, and take it
for granted that such a constitution did embody
the will of the people. If I should accept it on
17
such terms, it would be because there was satis¬
factory evidence that it was the will of the people.
That will embodied in the constitution is the
cardinal principle which is, or should be, a sine
qua non in the establishment of governments for
the admission of a ney State.
This is the point of difference between the
Senator from Missouri and myself. As he evi¬
dently misconceived my meaning on the matters
to which I have referred, it has seemed to me to
be due to him to restate my views, especially as
he has treated the subject with a candor and
courtesy that deserve to be followed and imitated.
Certainly they will leave their impression on me
in conducting discussions with him. I shall en¬
deavor to profit by the example he has set this
day in the mode of debate.
Mr. GREEN. I am somewhat surprised at
the position taken by the honorable Senator from
Illinois. He undertakes to prove that the State
of Michigan was authorized to form a constitu¬
tion by an enabling act, and this by a process of
reasoning which I had not expected from him.
He undertakes to prove it by the ordinance of
1787, which contained a provision that the Ter¬
ritory should be divided into not less than three
and not more than five States. So far as this
division is concerned, he is well aware of the fact
that it has been violated. The Territory is made
into more than five States; but does the ordinance
give authority to the people of a Territory to
form a constitution ? Does it convey from Con¬
gress to the people authority to create a govern¬
ment? He says yes. Congress did not so con¬
sider when they passed an enabling act for Ohio.
Congress did not so consider when they passed
an enabling act for Indiana. Congress did not
so consider when they passed an enabling act for
Illinois, the gentleman's own State. Four out
of the five States in the Northwest Territory
formed their constitutions only after enabling acts
had been passed by Congress.
But I propose to show that, if that process of
reasoning be submitted to prove the existence of
an enabling power to create a State government
for Michigan, it exists in Kansas in all the per¬
fection it ever possessed in Michigan. There was,
«ays the Senator, an enabling act in the case of
Michigan, because the ordinance of 1787 said the
people, when they numbered sixty thousand,
should be entitled to form a State government.
Now the Louisiana treaty, by which the United
States acquired Kansas, contains similar pro¬
visions, and the law of Congress, passed to give
effect to that treaty when the United States took
possession of the Territory, contains an express
stipulation to that effect. The opinion of the
Attorney General in relation to Arkansas, which
the Senator read, is as follows:
" The treaty by which Louisiana was ceded to the United
States, though undoubtedly, for many important purposes,
a part of the supreme law, must, therefore, be laid out of
tire present question. It is true that the third article ' im¬
poses on the United Slates, as a nation, the duty of incor
porating the inhabitants of the ceded territory into the
Union of the United States,' and of admitting them as soon
as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Con¬
stitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and
immunities of citizens of the United States; and, in the
meau time, they are to be maintained and protected in the
free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion
which they profess. And it must also be admitted that Con¬
gress, by the seventh section of the act of the 2d March,
1805,' providing for the government of the Territory of Or¬
leans,' have construed this article as pledging the faith of
the United States to admit the inhabitants of Louisiana
into the Union of the American States as an independent
State, or States, and on the footing of the original States,
whenever the proper number of free inhabitants shall ha
found therein."
Now, we have a treaty stipulation, which is
the supreme law of the land, providing, prospect¬
ively, for the people of Kansas to form their con¬
stitution. We have a legislative construction by
the Congress of the United States, guarantying
that right to them. If the mere ordinance of 1787
conferred on the people of Michigan the power,
(which is disproved by the acts of Congress in
four cases out of the five in the Northwest Terri¬
tory to which the ordinance of 1787 applied,) the
same argument proves that an enabling act doea
exist for Kansas.
That is not all. The Senator said he referred
to it for the purpose of taking away one of the
instances to which I referred with so much gusto.
I did refer to it v/ith pleasure; but he fails to take
it away; or, if he does, he supplies an enabling
act for Kansas; and he may take his choice of
the positions. If he does not take it away, the
argument I before made stands unanswered. If
he does take it away, he proves the existence of
an enabling act for Kansas, which is the very
question we are talking about. He may take
either horn of the dilemma.
He says I misconstrued him; that he did not
mean to say this, that, or the other, was conclu¬
sive why we should notadmitKansas. I did not,
I hope, represent him as saying that either one
of those objections was conclusive why we should
not; but he urged them as objections to the ad¬
mission of Kansas,and I answered his objections.
He did not say in his chain of argument that the
want of an enabling act was conclusive why Kan¬
sas must be rejected, but it was one of the links
of the chain, and I thought it best to break each
link, one at a time. I broke the link of an en¬
abling act, or tried to do so. I broke the link of
previous submission of the constitution to the
people, or tried to do it, and, as a conclusive
example, I instanced his own State, the constitu¬
tion of which was not submitted to the people. I
have shown by examples in the Government that
a large majority of the State constitutions were
never submitted to the people before they were
admitted as States, and, hence, I am urging no
new doctrine, I am propagating no new theories.
We stand upon the practices of our republican
fathers, and but follow in the footsteps of George
Washington and Andrew Jackson.
But the Senator says, when Territories have
no enabling act, and the constitution has not been
submitted to the people, Congress may, or may
not, admit them into the Union as States. I un¬
derstand him as taking that position. Very well.
There is no physical compulsion that can be
brought to bear in any case to compel Congress
to admit any State. There is a moral obligation,
and that appeals to us. I hold that that moral
obligation exists not only as strongly, but, per¬
haps, forty thousand times stronger, in regard
18
to Kansas, than any State which has ever pre¬
sented itself at our doors for admission. No
armies could inarch to this Capitol, and compel
Congress to admit Texas, California, Illinois,
Missouri, or any other State. There is no phys¬
ical compulsion on us to admit Kansas into this
Union. There is no legal objection, there is no
prudential consideration, why it should not be
done. Is there not a moral obligation to do it?
That is the question. That moral obligation
exists as strongly in regard to Kansas, as it ever
did in regard to Illinois; and if the constitution of
Kansas has not been submitted, neither was the
constitution of Illinois, neither was the constitu¬
tion of Missouri; and.I would be very unfair to
Kansas if I sought to apply a rule and a prin¬
ciple to it that were not applied to my own State
when it was admitted.
Missouri came and asked admission into this
Union, having formed a State government in
compliance with what gentlemen are pleased to
call, in this latter day, an enabling act, which
imparts, as I before remarked, no new power to
the people. All it does is to give, in advance,
the assent of Congress, which maybe given sub¬
sequent to the formation of a constitution for
admission. The one is as regular as the other;
the one is as legal as the other, and the latter is
the safer of the two; for, as the Senator admits,
and as I contended, if Congress give the assent
in advance, that State stands as an independent
State, in spite of the Federal Union, and nothing
but physical power can ever bring her into the
Union, except her voluntary action in conjunction
with your voluntary action.
Butagain: theSenatorthinks I misapprehended
him in regard to the submission of the consti¬
tution. If I make any blunders, I will take great
pleasure in correcting them. I undertook to show
that the mere technical phraseologjr of this in¬
strument was not the subject to be determined.
It was its legal construction, and that we, as
judges or statesmen, must pass sentence on its
purport and meaning. What is its purport and
meaning? That but one single subject is sub¬
mitted for the consideration of the voters; that
the whole subject was before them when they
voted for the members of the convention; that if
they stayed away, they stayed away in their own
wrong; that they did their duty when they voted
for members of the convention; that that conven¬
tion was as legal and regular as any that ever sat
in the whole limits of this Confederacy; and that
this one question submitted to them is presented
to them from a mere consideration of propriety
and policy, and not from any legal compulsion
whatsoever. This was my position.
Now, is the fair construction of this clause of
the schedule in accordance with the position I
take; or is it in accordance with the position as¬
sumed by the Senator from Illinois ? The seventh
section of the schedule says:
" That this constitution shall be submitted to the Con¬
gress of the United States at its next ensuing session, and
as soon as official information has been received that it is
approved by the same, by the admission"—
For that is the only approving they have to do—
" of the State of Kansas as one of the sovereign States of
the United States, the president of this convention shall
issue his proclamation to convene the State Legislature'St
the seat of government within thirty-one* days alter publi¬
cation. Should any vacancy occur by death, resignation;
or otherwise, in the Legislature or other office, he Shall
order an election to fill such vacancy : Provided, howivttr.
In case of refusal, absence, or disability of the president Of
this convention to discharge tlm duties herein imposed on
him, the president pro tempore of this convention shall per¬
form said duties ; and in case of absence, refusal, or dis¬
ability of the president pro tempore, a committee consisting
of seven, or a majority of them, shall discharge the duties"
required of the president of this convention."
Then comes the section marked " eleven,1®
which has reference to the mode of submitting W1'
the people of Kansas whether they will have sla*'
very in the constitution, or whether slavery shall
be stricken out of the constitution. It is in this
language:
" Before this constitution shall be sent to Congress."
It never takes effect until the admission of th^
State by Congress. Before it shall be sent to.
Congress certain things shall be done. The ques¬
tion on which I intended to correct the Senator
was, that the constitution, as the constitution of
a State government, never is to take effect unle'iaa,
Kansas be admitted by Congress into the Union,,
" Before this constitution shall be sent to Congressfor
admission into the Union as a State, it shall be submit-,
ted"—
What is to be passed upon ? Let us see. ;
—" to all the white male inhabitants of this Territory for
approval or disapproval, as follows:"
What is to be approved? It is submitted to
them to be approved or not approved, on wha,f
point? Why, "as follows." What does fol¬
low: - /
—"The president of this convention shall, by proclama¬
tion, declare that on the 21st day of December, 1857, at the
differerit election precincts now established by law, or
which may be established, as herein provided, in the Ter¬
ritory of Kansas, an election shall beheld, over which shall
preside three judges, or a majority of them, to be appointed ,
as follows: The president of this convention shall appoint
three commissioners in each county in the Territory, whose
duty it shall be to appoint three judges of election in tha
several precincts of their respective counties, and to estab¬
lish precincts for voting, and to cause polls to he opened at
such places as they may deem proper in their respective coun-' ■
ties, at which election the constitution framed by this con-*
vention shall be submitted." V
How?
" To all the white male inhabitants of the Territory of' '
Kansas in the said Territory upon that day, and over tha "
age of twenty-one years, for ratification or rejection, iqtb§,
following manner and form."
The term " ratification" and the term " rejec¬
tion" are both used, but to what had they refer¬
ence? "For ratification or rejection in the fob!
lowing manner and form." It has reference fn,
the pnly one thing submitted to them. What i*.
that?
" The voting shall be by ballot. The judges of said elec¬
tion shall cause to be kept two poll-books by two clerks by
them appointed. The ballots cast at said election shall bi'
indorsed,'constitution with slavery."
Not "for constitution" and "for slavery."
There is but one vote cast—not for two things. It
is for one thing;the vote is cast" constitution with
slavery,"or on the other side," constitution with
no slavery." So that there is but one single point
submitted to the people on which they can vote,
or were intended to vote, by the mode in which
19
this question was submitted. I remarked on the
word " ratified," that it did not mean the whole
constitution should be ratified and fixed and de¬
termined, but that the people were to fix, settle,
and determine that which had not been fixed, set¬
tled, and determined, to wit: whether there should
be a clause sanctioning slavery in the constitution
or not. The last section is as follows:
"Sec. 16. This constitution shall take effect and be in
force from and after its ratification by the people, as here¬
inbefore provided."
Its ratification means settling and determining,
as before remarked; but it is to take effect " as
hereinbefore provided." It is provided that it shall
not take effect until Kansas has been admitted by
Congress as one of the sovereign States of the
Union. The people of Kansas have never pro¬
posed, and do not prop6se,in this constitution to
erect a government in opposition to Federal au¬
thority. They have been pursuing Federal au¬
thority from the inception of their movements
down to the present period of time. It met the
sanction of the local government; it met the sanc¬
tion of the executive power, and they have thus
been acting in conformity with the Federal Gov¬
ernment. When thus finished, it says it shall not
go into operation until admitted as a sovereign
State. Do they propose to elect Governors and
judges, who are to be sworn into office and ad¬
minister the government in opposition to the Fed¬
eral Government?' Do they assume the sov¬
ereignty of the Territory embraced within their
boundaries? Nothing like that, whatever. We
must not stop bn a simple phrase or a single sen¬
tence, but take the whole scope of it together,
and give it a fair construction; not the construc¬
tion of a critic who is hunting for something to
which to find objection, but a fair, reasonable con¬
struction; and that construction is in strict con¬
formity with what 1 have before stated it to be.
When the Senator says he wants a constitu-
tiorifcthat will reflect the will of the people, I re¬
spond to him as heartily,and say I want no other
kind of constitution. I must say, however, that
when his bill says to the people of the Territory
they may fix this constitution in their own way,
and they have seen proper to take a way he did
not approve, he has no power to supervise them;
unless, indeed, he is prepared to trample under
foot the very principles asserted in that bill.
I have also asserted, and again repeat, that the
people can act as effectually, and completely,
through delegates representing them in conven¬
tion, as in any other way. Who in this Govern¬
ment would rise and say that the presumption is,
not that the laws passed by Congress are ap¬
proved by the States and the people ? Who would
rise and say the presumption is that the laws
of the State Legislatures afford no intendment
that they emanate from the people ? It is sub¬
versive of the whole representative principle; it
strikes at the foundation of republican govern¬
ment in this great Confederacy. Even if another
why be preferred and be believed to be most in
accordance with what Democracy requires, still
it is for the Territory and not for the Federal
Government to decide.
Mr. DOUGLAS, The Senator from Missouri
will not find an enabling act in the treaty with
France. True, the treaty provides that the in¬
habitants of the territory ceded by France to
the United States shall be admitted into the Union
as soon as possible, according to the principles of
the Federal Constitution—not when there shall
be sixty thousand inhabitants, not when there
shall be any particular number of inhabitants,
but as soon as may be consistent with the prin¬
ciples of the Federal Constitution. Nor does it
provide with what boundaries they should be
admitted. We admitted the inhabitants of Lou¬
isiana, then those of Missouri, then those of
Arkansas, then those of Iowa, until we had thus
admitted all the inhabitants there were in the
country acquired from France. There was
waste country still left, but there was no time
fixed by the treaty, no data laid down by which
it could be determined when or how they should
be admitted into the Union. Thus it has been
reserved to Congress to determine when they
may have the requisite population. It is for
Congress to determine what shall be the bound¬
aries. It is not for the people of a Territory to
say authoritatively what boundaries they shall
take. On the contrary, Congress has always re¬
served and insisted on the right of establishing
the boundaries, and such is undoubtedly the
case in the Kansas-Nebraska act. !
Congress never intended that Kansas should
necessarily have a right to come into the Union
with her present boutidaries; for the organic act
expressly reserves to Congress the right to alter
and divide the Territory, and attach parts of it
to other Territories. In the enabling act which
the Senate passed last year, we cut off about one
third of the present Territory of Kansas, and pro¬
vided for the admission of the remainder as a
State. We never contemplated bringing her into
the Union with the boundaries fixed by the organic
act, and by the Lccompton constitution. Will it
be contended that the Kansas-Nebraska bill con¬
templated bringing the whole of Nebraska into
the Union as one State ? Does that act authorize
the people of Nebraska to form a constitution
when they please, and to come into the Union
with a territory eighttimes as large asNewYork?
Certainly it was never the intention of that organic
act to confer on the people of a Territory the au¬
thority of saying that they will come in when
they please, with as few or as many inhabitants
as they please, with such boundaries as they
choose, absorbing the whole waste country of the
United States, and making an empire instead of
a State.
The meaning of the Kansas-Nebraska act was,
that when the time should come for them to form
a State government, they should be admitted into
the Union with or without slavery, as their con¬
stitution might prescribe, and that they should
be left perfectly free to decide on their local and
domestic institutions for themselves; but there
was no pledge, no authority given to the'm to form
a State with the extended limits included within
the Territory, nor to form a State at all until
Congress should determine that they were au¬
thorized to form a State. It was for the very
reason that the Kansas-Nebraska act did not con-
20
tain an enabling provision that President Pierce,
in his message at the first session of the last Con¬
gress, recommended to Congress to pass an en¬
abling act authorizing the people of Kansas to
form a constitution when they should have the
requisite population. The President said:
"This, it seems to me, can behest accomplished by pro¬
viding that, when the inhabitants of Kansas may desire it,
and shall be of sufficient number to constitute a State, a
convention ofdelegates,duly elected by the qualified voters,
shall assemble to frame a constitution, and thus prepare,
through regular and lawful means, for iis admission into
the Union as a State. I respectfully recommend the en¬
actment of a law to that effect."
This message proves that, in the estimation of
President Pierce and his administration, in the
beginning of 1856, the time had not then arrived
for the admission of Kansas, because she had not
the requisite population, and also that an enabling
act was necessary to give her authority to pro¬
ceed to form a constitution and State government.
Now, sir, let us see how the Committee on Ter¬
ritories of the Senate that year understood it.
Here is the response of the committee to the
President's message:
" In compliance with the first recommendation, your
committee ask leave to report a bill authorizing the Legis¬
lature of the Territory to provide by law for the election of
delegates by the people, and the assembling of a convention
to form a constitution and State government preparatory to
their admission into the Union on an equal footing with
the original States, so soon as it shall appear, by a census
to be taken under the direction of the Governor, by the
authority of the Legislature, that the Territory contains
ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty inhabitants
— that being the number required by the present ratio of
representation for a member of Congress."
Thus, the Committee on Territories in 1856
responded to the recommendation of President
Pierce, and the Senate responded to the report
by passing through the body a bill authorizing
the people of Kansas to form a constitution and
State government. This shows that I am not the
only man who construes the Nebraska bill to mean
that an enabling act is necessary before the right
of admission into the Union becomes complete.
I show you that the President of the United
States, who approved the bill, the President who
made it an administration measure, so understood
it at the time, and so declared in his message. I
show you that the Committee on Territories
which drafted the Nebraska bill, so understood it i
at that time. I show you that the same Senate I
which passed the Nebraska bill by the votes of j
the identical Senators who passed that bill, thus |
construed it at the time. j
It is too late now to say that neither the Pres- j
ident who signed the Nebraska bill, nor the com- j
mittee who reported it, nor the Democratic Senate j
who passed it, understood it. The evidence can j
be accumulated mountain high, that it was the !
true intent and meaning of the act, as we ex-1
pounded it at the time, that the people should be !
left free to form their institutions in their own !
way up to the last moment of admission—not!
slavery only, but all local and domestic institu¬
tions in contradistinction to Federal or national
institutions. They have as much right to vote on
the banking system, the judiciary system, the
taxation system, the school system,as they have
to vote on the slavery question.
The Senator tells us that the Nebraska bill
meant only the slavery question, because we here
felt no interest in anything else. It may be that
the people of Missouri felt no interest in anything
else. It may be that the people of Illinois feltno
special interest about the banking system or school
system of Kansas. It may be that the people of
Virginia did not care what sort of a taxing system
Kansas might have; but does it follow that th#
people of Kansas did not care ? The people of
Kansas had an interest in the taxation system,
in the school system, in the banking system,in
the judiciary system,-in the elective franchise.-.
These local and domestic institutions were every*,
thing to them. We did not care about them.'5
Why? Because they were none of our business;
The Senator says that I ought not to refer to
these questions, because I have no right to a voics
in them. True, I have no right to a voice in their
local institutions, but the peopleof Kansas have;
and it is my duty to see that they have a free and
untrammeled expression of that voice upon.ail
their institutions. I deny that you have a repub¬
lican constitution unless that is done. A consti¬
tution forced on a people against their will is not
a republican constitution within the spirit of our .
institutions. It is no argument to say that this con¬
stitution is an excellent one. You have no righl
to cram agood thing down thethroats of thepeopitf
of Kansas against theirwill. It strikesat the fun¬
damental principles of liberty. This question
between us is radical. It is whether that peofils
shall be permitted to form their own constitution;
and whether the constitution under which they
are to live shall embody their will or not. It is
not a matter of form whether the constitution
shall be submitted to them. That is but one mods
of obtaining the evidence of the fact of their wilL
The President says it is the best mode, and I
agree with him, the principle being that theirwill
is the great essential sine qua non before yot^can
bring them into the Union as a State.
Then, Mr. President, the simple question comes
back, shall that people have the authority to form
and regulate their institutions to suit themselves?
The Senator says we may admit them if we sea'
proper, and ought to do so, in order to terminal,
the controversy.- Sir, I will do anything that it
right, anything that is just, in order to terminate
this controversy. No man living is so anxious,
for its termination as I am. I will sacrifice every*
thing but principle and honor, and my country,
in order to close this controversy. But how art
you to close it? You must close it on principles
of eternal justice and truth, or it will not stay
closed. You must terminate it on the principal
of self-government, or the constitution under
which the people are to live is not republican. No
patching up, no system of trickery by which the
majority are cheated by the minority, will settle
this question. Instead of producing peace, that
will only be the beginning of undue controversy.
When the broad fact stands admitted before tap
world that this constitution is the act of a mi¬
nority, and not of the majority, the injustiol
becomes the more manifest and the more mon¬
strous. The only reason for not submitting ths
constitution fairly is, that it would be voted down
21
if it were submitted. This is an admission that
it is the act of a minority, not of a majority. Do
you expect that you will restore peace and quiet
to the country by forcing upon a people a consti¬
tution which does not embody their will? I tell
you that you will have to avail yourselves of the
recommendations of the message to increase the
Army, and to use the military power of this
country if the majority is to be subjected to the
oppression of a minority. I trust there will be
no outbreak, no violence. I will use every influ¬
ence, by counsel and exertion, to insure submis¬
sion; but I fear the result if you shall use power
to coerce a majority of four fifths into subjection
to a minority of one fifth.
But, sir, we are told that they ought to submit,
because they can easily get rid of this constitu¬
tion. The President says they may change it im¬
mediately after theiradmission. Ah! how is that?
The constitution formed at Lecompton, provides
that it may be changed after the year 1864, by a
convention called by two thirds of the Legislature.
1 hold it to be a principle of law, that when a con¬
stitution provides for its own change at a particu¬
lar time and, in a particular manner, that excludes
all other times and all other modes. I undertake
to say that any court in Christendom would thus
construe this constitution. When it says that it
may be amended at one time, it excludes all other
times. When it says it may be amended in one
mode, it excludes all other modes. Will you tell
me that the Constitution of the United States can
be changed by a town meeting, or a mass meeting,
or in any other mode than that pointed out in the
instrument itself ? No, sir! There is no constitu¬
tional modes by which this constitution of Kan¬
sas, if once in force, can be changed before 1864.
There is another mode—a revolutionary mode. It
is by the Legislature first coming together, taking
an oath to support the constitution, and then pro¬
ceed to call a convention to change it, in violation
of the constitution and of the oath. Suppose they
should do this, and the convention thus called
should make a constitution and establish a new
government, and the old government should re¬
fuse to surrender the possession, who would be
Governor—the one elected under the old consti¬
tution or the new? You would have two govern¬
ments in operation at the same time, one under
the old and the other under the new constitution,
and you would call on the Army to decide be¬
tween them.
The scheme is a scheme of civil war. It leads
directly to war. If I ever voted for it, I should
expect to vote also for an increase of the Army,
and for supplies to the Army, to enforce it at the
point of the bayonet. It means ^iolence, or it
means the subjection of the majority to the mi¬
nority. I beseech Senators to pause before they
commit themselves to so fatal a step. I beseech
all to pause and see whether this is right or wrong,
for on this matter we are free from party ties.
The Senator from Missouri and myself agree that
• the President has not made it an Administration
measure. We agree that he has not recommended
it in his message. We agree, therefore, that every
man on this floor is at liberty to go for oragainst
it without changing his party ties or affecting his
party relations. Why, then, can we not stop and
pause before we rush on to a step that not only
rends asunder the Democratic party, but threatens
the peace and perpetuity of the Union itself.
It will not do to tell me that the President is in
favor of it. Sir, I believe the President to be a
frank, a bold, an honest man. I will not believe
that he will make any measure a party one which
he does not recommend in his message. I will
not believe that he would ask his party to go for
a measure to which he would not commit himself
on paper. I will not believe that he wishes us to
run our necks into the halter of disunion and civil
war before he takes the lead and points the way.
The absence of a recommendation in the message
sliows that no man can, consistently with the
President's dignity of character, assert that he is
in favor of this measure. Then I say, let us re¬
store peace to the country by ignoring the irreg¬
ular convention at Lecompton, by ignoring the
irregular convention at Topeka, by passing an
enabling act in proper form, authorizing the
people to form a constitution and State govern¬
ment for themselves. Such an act will restore
peace to the country in ninety days. In fact,
the day you pass it everything will be quiet in
Kansas.
The people of Kansas will then see that Con¬
gress is going to carry out in good faith the prin¬
ciple of self-government. They will see'that Con¬
gress is going to allow them to have slavery, if
they want it, and to prohibit it if they do not
want it. They will see that Congress is going to
allow them to make their own constitution and
laws in their own way. The moment they dis¬
cover that impartiality is to prevail, and justice
is to be carried out, they will be content; all will
be quiet; there will be peace at the North, peace
at the South, peace in the Democratic party,
peace throughout the whole country. I trust that
we shall discuss this question in calmness, in
good humor, and in a kind and respectful spirit,
as we have discussed it to-day.
Mr. GREEN. I do not propose to notice the
exhortation of the honorable Senator. It is only
his argument and the points of difference between
us that deserve investigation, and to them I shall
direct my attention. He mistakes entirely when
he assumes that I admitted that the slavery
branch of this controversy must, of necessity,
under the law, be submitted to the people. I said
just the contrary. I said it was a question with
the convention of the people of Kansas Terri¬
tory. They were under no responsibility or ob¬
ligation, legal or otherwise, to submit any branch
, of the result of their labors to a subsequent vote
: of the people at tire polls; but I remarked that if
j they saw proper, if they deemed it a matter of
' propriety to submit that question, as it had been
i a matter of controversy, there was more pro¬
priety in submitting it as a separate question, for
that was the only way to submit it in order to
get a fair decision of that question and nothing
else. That was my position.
But the Senator says that four fifths of the peo¬
ple there are against the constitution. He assumes
this; he has no evidence of it; and I doubt his
right to make the charge in the Senate. He says
22
that the only reason why the convention did not
submit the constitution to ^he people, was because
they said it would be voted down. Some indi¬
vidual may have said so. I do not believe it my¬
self. I believe that it meets the approbation of
a large majority of the people of Kansas Terri¬
tory. All these charges are only so many pre¬
texts gotten up for ulterior purposes, to keep up
that speculation and that fanaticism to which the
Senator, with his influence, makes himself an un¬
willing coadjutor; for I know he does not aim at
that.
When he says that no people ought to have a
constitution forced down their throats, and that
when a majority are not in favor of it, that it is
not republican, he utters a truism that nobody
denies; and he must not expect to lead me from
the real points between us, by any such asser¬
tions. If the non-submission of the constitution
to the people of Kansas is forcing down their
throats a constitution which they do not want,
and if it be anti-republican, then Illinois came ;
into the Union anti-republican, with a constitu- '
tion forced down the throats of her people.
I refer to that for the purpose of proving the
fallacy of his argument. It does not follow
because the people have not voted on a question
forty times that they have not been heard. They
voted on it when they elected members to repre¬
sent them in convention. How often would you
have them repeat it? If this constitution was
submitted to them now, perhaps they would raise
the same objection again, and we should hear
the Senator say, " do not force this down the
throats of the people of Kansas;" and so it would
go on ad infinitum, with no limit. The true
policy of this Government has been, as I hold, to
adhere to the legal presumptions. The legal
presumptions are that the people speak and act
on all such questions when they form their con¬
vention and shape the constitution ; and the peo¬
ple may instruct their convention as they deem
best; and even if they violate their instructions,
the Senator from Illinois cannot step in between
a representative and his constituents. It is still
a question between them. We cannot interpose.
1 had thought that non-intervention was to be
the principle of action on the part of Congress,
and that the Senate would not intervene. Will
the Senator set himself up as a judge whether
Mr. Calhoun, or any other member of the con¬
vention, did right or wrong? To his own mas¬
ters he is responsible, and by their verdict he
stands or falls. His constituency constitute the
master, and not the Senate of the United States.
Why shall we therefore review it? Why shall
we call it in question ? They have had every sub¬
mission of the question that a majority of the
States of the Union have had, and now to say,
that, because they have not had more, it is anti-:
republican,coercive,forcing it down their throats,
is to say that a majority of the States have been
thus tyrannically dealt with—one of which States ;
the Senator represents, another I represent, and '■
another, the honorable Senator from Vermont
[Mr. Collamer] represents, and another of them
is the State of Florida.
So I might name mcfre than seventeen out of
the thirty-one States which never had a vote oh
their constitutions before they were admitted intp
the Union. Are they republican ? Yes. Wer»
they submitted to the people? Yes; but thft
people in those cases spoke through their repre?
sentatives. Had the people of Kansas the sama
opportunity to speak through their represent?
atives? Yes. Was the convention in Kansasa*
legal as it was in Illinois? Yes. Was it as reg¬
ular—was it as fair? Was the qualification of
voters as just and as reasonable? Yes. Where-,
fore, then, will Congress apply a rule in the on%.
case that was not applied in the other? Where¬
fore will you assume that one is anti-republican
and the other republican ? that the one is a coerced
measure, forced down the throats of the peoplej
and the other perfectly fair, and just, and pop¬
ular? No, Mr. President, it is a mere assumption..
More than that, when the gentleman says that
the people ought to rule, there is not a Senator
in this Chamber who dissents; but it is of no use
to dwell on points of perfect agreement. Fet us
come to the points of difference. Do the peoplS
act through the convention, or is it possible that
the people can act in no way except by mass
meeting ? It may be that the people of Kansas
did not wish to undergo the expense, and excite?
ment, and danger, and tumult, of an election.
Ten thousand considerations may have entered
into it, and we have every presumption that the
people were as fairly heard and as fairly repre:
sented as in any other convention that ever sal
in this Federal Union.
Such being the case, I hold that I have mora
legal evidence that this is the people's work, that .
this is the people's constitution, than he has to
assume that four fifths of the people would vote
it down. His is a mere assertion; mine is a legal.
presumption. Mine is in accordance with the
principles oflaw, with the usage of constitutional
representative government; his is the opposite in,-
every particular. Judge ye, then, between usf-
whether I defend the people,. constitutionally^,
justly, fairly, or whether I seek to trample dow4v
the voice of the people. The Governor of Kan?'
sas Territory told them " you ought to vote; if,
you have got the numbers, control it." If they
had the numbers, is it not reasonable to suppoia
they would have voted ? Knowing they did »6i
have the numbers, they wanted to keep up a,;
pretext for a revolutionary and insurrectionary,
measure, and that insurrectionary, rebellious por?
tion of Kansas is to be reckoned as four fifths of
the people of that Territory.
More than that, sir, the people of Kansas have
this question submitted to them as a matter of
propriety, nofra matter of necessity, not a matter
of compulsion. Kansas can come into the Union
as a majority of the States have come in. Kansas
has a republican form of government. As to
the questions of boundary and of numbers, why
bring them up at this late period of the discussion?
On Wednesday last, when I thought the ingeniou*
mind of the Senator had scanned the whole ques¬
tion from the beginning to the end, and hau
hunted up all the objections he deemed tangible
and ticorthy of consideration, he said not ona
word as to the boundary of Kansas; he said no!
23
one word as to the numbers of Kansas. Where¬
fore, then, refer to it now? To lead me from the
point under consideration? No; but because, I
suppose, he wished to name certain matterswhich
Congress might consider if they deemed it proper
to consider them. Nobody controverts that. This
is not an attempt on the part of the Administra¬
tion or of its friends to coerce the people. It is,
however, an attempt on our part to sustain the
will of the people. That will has been fairly and
legally expressed. We have all the presumptions
in that way, and we have none whatever against
it.
But the honorable Senator brings out another
objection. True, he does not claim the right to
supervise the proceedings of the convention; but
he is very fond of naming defects that the people
ought to have an opportunity to pass upon; and,
amongst others that he names, is the mode of
amending the constitution. All I have to say is,
that the Senator is mistaken. In all the sovereign,
independent States in this Government, the peo¬
ple being organized—the people being political
communities—there are two ways for the State to
make a change. One is for the State, as a gov¬
ernment, to make a change of its form of govern¬
ment. Its government is composed of its officers
—a Senate, House of Representatives, Governor,
and so on. The constitution generally points out
a method by which the government may effect a
change in the constitution. There is also an
original power of change behind, superior to and
, overtowering that by which the people may call
a convention, and this convention, acting in con¬
formity with the constituted authorities, may be
called regularly, as was that of Kansas, and form
a constitution and adopt it themselves, or submit
it as they please to the people.
Now, let us take the case of Kansas and ex¬
emplify. Four fifths of the'people, says the Sen¬
ator, are on his side. In other words, four fifths
of them are opposed to the constitution. In the
very first Legislature that meets there will be four
fifths of the Senate and House, and the whole of
the Governor, in favor of a convention. Four
fifths of both Houses, and the whole Governor—
because we cannot parcel him out—will pass a
law calling a convention. They will make just
such a constitution as they please, and four fifths
of the people will ratify it, if you will have it sub¬
mitted for a vote; and after that, those four fifths
will elect another Governor, another House of
Representatives, another Senate, and fill all the
offices of State. I do not apprehend any conflict
of authority. This thing has been done ten thou¬
sand times, to speak by mere way of hyperbole;
it has been done an indefinite number of times.
The question in the Rhode Island case was entirely
different from this. It was there the people act¬
ing in opposition to the government. The initia¬
tive steps for a change of government were not
taken by the government itself, and of that there
was complaint. I do not pretend to go into the
question whether that was rightful or wrongful.
1 have about enough points to consider now with¬
out lugging in unnecessary ones. I do say, how¬
ever, that it has never been held, and will not b$
held by the Senator himself when he reflects on
it, that if four fifths of the people of Kansas de¬
sire to change their constitution they cannot do
it in three months if they please.
Mr. DOUGLAS. By revolution.
Mr. GREEN. A revolution instituted by the
government itself, conducted by the government
itself, a change effected in such a manner as does
not conflict with the government. It was done
in the Senator's own State. Was that revolu¬
tion ?
Mr. DOUGLAS. It was done in conformity
with the constitution there, not in opposition to it.
Mr. GREEN. There is ope part of the con¬
stitution of Kansas which is worthy of being con¬
sidered, for it bears on this subject.
"All political power"—
Say the people of Kansas, speaking through
their convention—
"is inherent in the people, and all free governments are
founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit,
and therefore they have at all times an inalienable and
indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their form df
government in sueh manner as they may think proper."
That is a part of the constitution of Kansas.
Surely, therefore, the regular government of Kan¬
sas can institute a proceeding which will result
in the exercise of those inalienable and indefeas¬
ible rights in perfect and entire reformation of
the constitution. There is no question on this
point; there is no difficulty in it. It is a very
little thing brought in as a makeweight.
Mr. DOUGLAS. At the desire of the Senator
from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Bigler,] I renew the
motion to postpone the further consideration of
this question until Monday next.
The motion was agreed to.
SPEECH
OF
HON. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS,
OF GEORGIA,
ON THE
ADMISSION OF MINNESOTA AND ALIEN SUFFRAGE;
DELIVERED
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 11, 1658
. WASHINGTON:
PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE.
1858..
SPEECH.
The House having under consideration the bill for the
admission of the State of Minnesota into the Union—
Mr. STEPHENS said:
Mr. Speaker: My time will not allow me to
answer all the objections that have been made to
the admission of Minnesota. I do not think it
necessary, however, to consume time, or to ex¬
haust my feeble strength in answering all the ob¬
jections that have been raised. Many of them are
of small import, while some of them are grave,
important, and go to the very foundation princi¬
ples of our Government. This latter class of ob¬
jections are not new; they are not novel; they in¬
volve principles coeval with our institutions. In
reply to them, I must be brief in the forty min¬
utes allotted to me. They involve two inquiries.
The first question in reference to them is, whether
they be" well taken in fact; and the second is,
whether, if well founded, they amount, in them¬
selves, to a good and valid ground for the rejec¬
tion of a State.
The gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Garnett]
objects because of the State boundaries violating
the stipulation between Virginia and the United
States in the cession of the Northwest Territory.
In point of fact, I do not consider that objection
well taken; but if it were good, it ought to have
been taken when the enabling act was passed last
Congress, fixing the boundaries of Minnesota.
That portion of the old Northwestern Territory
now included in the State of Minnesota was in¬
cluded then, and the objection should have been
taken then, if at all. There is, however, but a
small portion of the old cession of Virginia in-
cludedin this State. Twenty-odd thousand square
miles of that cession, it is true, have been added to
the ninety-odd thousand square miles constituting
the main body of Minnesota. This was for con¬
venience. Only a small portion, therefore, of the
original Virginia cession has been taken oflf and
added to the large extent of country that makes
the State of Minnesota, for the public convenience.
There has been no injury resulting anywhere, and
no breach of faith, in my judgment.
It was stated, also, that the number ef delegates
who formed the State constitution was larger than
that ordered in the enabling act. That objection
has been well answered by the gentleman's col¬
league, [Mr. Jenkins.] The act of Congress pro¬
vided that as many delegates should be chosen as
there were representatives in the Territorial Le¬
gislature. Well, sir, the people of Minnesota con¬
strued that to embrace their Senators or Council-
men as well as Representatives in the lower House.
The bill admitted of a doubt. I do not conceive
that that objection has much force in it.
But I must pass on to notice the other objections
of a graver character. It was stated bj®the gen¬
tleman from Ohio, [Mr. Sherman,] who opened
this debate, and has been repeated by several other
gentlemen, that the constitution of Minnesota is
violative of the Constitution of the United States
—in this, that it permits aliens to vote, or other
than citizens of the United States to vote, in State
elections.
Mr. Speaker, before arguing the point whether
this clause of the constitution of Minnesota does
or does not violate the Constitution of the United
States, let me ask right here this question: sup¬
pose it be true that that feature of their constitu¬
tion does violate the Constitution of the United
States, or is inconsistent with it: is that a good
ground for her rejection ? I put it strongly and
broadly in the fore front of the argument—sup¬
pose that be conceded: is it a legitimate ground
of objection to the admission of a State that a pro¬
vision of its constitution is inconsistent with the
Constitution of the United States? I say, sir, not.
I say itas a State-rights man, advocating the prinr
ciples of the State-rights school. We can only,
look into the constitution of a new State applying;
for admission, to see that it is republican inform,
and that it legally and fairly expresses the will of"
the people. If there be conflicts, the Constitution
of the United States points out how those conflicts
are to be settled. After coming into the Union,
such clause, if it be in, will of course have to yield
to the supreme law of the land. Sir, the case of
Minnesota, if this be true of her constitution, will
not be a singular one.
4
The constitution of Illinois declares that no man
shall be eligible to a Federal office who has been
elected to and has accepted a judgeship in that
State within two years after the expiration of the
term for which he accepted it. A Senator from
that State, now holding a seat in the other wing of
the Capitol, [Mr. Trumbull,] was elected to that
body during the term of a judgeship of a State
court, which he had been elected to and had ac¬
cepted. In the Senate of the United States, the I
question was raised as to his eligibility, and as
to whether the constitution of Illinois could,
under the Constitution of the United States,
impose such a qualification; in other words,
whether the qualifications for Senators set forth
in the Constitution of the United States were not
absolute and binding, and did not supersede the
provision of the constitution of Illinois. The
Senate #o determined; and that Senator now holds
his seat in the face, in the teeth, and against that
constitutional provision of his own State.
Whether that decision of the United States
Senate was right or wrong, I will not now stop to
inquire, or to express an opinion.
I cannot take up my time in citing other analo¬
gous cases. Many instances might be adduced
from decisions of the courts. It is enough for me
to affirm that the Constitution of the United States
declares that " this Constitution, and the laws of
the United States which shall be made in pur¬
suance thereof, and all treaties made, or which
shall be made, under the authority of the United
States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and
the judges in every State shall be bound thereby,
anything in the constitution or laws of any State
to the contrary notwithstanding." I say, there¬
fore, in answer to all that has been said in refer¬
ence to the constitution of Minnesota being in vio¬
lation of the Constitution of the United States, that
even conceding the point for argument's sake,
(which I do not concede in fact,) this would not be a
just and valid ground on which to reject her admis¬
sion. It is a question which can be properly de¬
cided when it arises, if ever, by the proper judi¬
cial tribunal before which it may arise. We, on
the question of admission, can only look into a
constitution to see that it is republican in form.
Mr. TRIPPE. I desire to ask my colleague
whether he concurs in the Green amendment to
the Kansas bill, which asserts the right of Con¬
gress to inquire into the constitution of any State
applying for admission into theUnion,in order to
see whether it is consistent with the Constitution
of the United States?
Mr. STEPHENS,, of Georgia. My time is
short, and I want to argue other questions; but I
will say to my colleague that there was nothing
in the original Green amendment which did not
meet my cordial and hearty approval. There
was nothing in it which inquired into a constitu¬
tion. It was altogether negative in its character.
Mr. TRIPPE. If my colleague will allow me,
I think that right was directly asserted in the
Green amendment.
The SPEAKER. The Chair desires to sug¬
gest that the constitution of Kansas is not before
the House.
Mr. TRIPPE. The same principle involved
in the amendment to the Kansas bill, to which I
have referred, is contained in this bill.
Mr. STEPHENS, of Georgia. I cannot dis¬
cuss thatquestion now. There were words added
to the original Green amendment that I considered
liable to objection; but, being negative, were not
insuperable with me. Now, Mr. Speaker, I lay
down this proposition, that there is nothing, in
my judgment, in the constitution of Minnesota,
inconsistent with the Constitution of the United
States.
The gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Sherman,] who
led off in this debate, argued that there was no
clause in the constitution of Minnesota by which
the present elected members of the Legislature
could be prevented from holding for life. Well,
sir, suppose the gentleman was correct—but I do
not concede the fact: the constitution would not
therefore be anti-republican. I would not vote
for such a constitution if I were there. But, sir,
what constitutes a republican form of govern¬
ment? It is, as I understand it, a division of the
three great branches of government—the execu¬
tive, the judicial, and the law-making powers.
That division is certainly in this constitution.
Several of the States have made the judiciary
elective, or holding office for life. Does that make
their constitutions anti-republican ? The Consti-
titution of the United States does this. If the
judiciary can hold office for life, why not the ex¬
ecutive ? and why may not representatives as
well, if the people see fit to make such a consti¬
tution? It would not cease to be republican in
consequence. It might and would be, in my
judgment, a very bad constitution; but I say that
of that we cannot rightfully judge.
I now come to the .main question in this debate-—
the alien suffrage clause, as it is called, in this con¬
stitution. I have said that it was no new ques¬
tion. It is agraveand important one, but itisco-
eval with the Government. Mr. Speaker, if there
was any subject which was seriously watched and
guarded, in the formation of the Constitution of
the United States, above all others, it was that the
Federal Government should not touch the right
of suffrage in the States. The question of who
should vote in the several States was left for each
State to settle for itself. And so far as I am con¬
cerned, I say for myself that there is nothing in
the doctrine of State-rights that I would defend
and stand by longer, and fight for harder, than
that which denies the right of the Federal Gov¬
ernment, by its encroachments, to interfere with
the right of suffrage in my State. The ballot-box—~
that is what each State must guard and protect for
itself; that is what the people of the several States
never delegated to this Government, and of course
it was expressly, under the Constitution, reserved
to the people of the States. Upon the subject of
alien suffrage,aboutwhich we have heard so much
lately, I wish in this connection to give a briefhis-
tory. I state to this House that the principle was
recognized by the ordinance of 1787, which was
before the Government was formed.
It was recognized by the act of 7th August,
1789, soon after the Government was formed,one
of the first acts signed by Washington—an act
making provisions for carrying out that ordi¬
nance.
, It was recognized in the territory South in the
cession by North Carolina, on the 2d April, 1790.
It was again recognized in the bill creating a
government for the Territory of Tennessee, on
the 26th May, 1790.
It was recognized in the act of settling the limits
of the State of Georgia, and creating the Missis¬
sippi Territory, on the 7th April, 1798.
It was recognized in a supplemental act to the
last, on the 10th May, 1800.
Itwas recognized in the division of Indiana Ter¬
ritory, on the 3d February, 1809. I
It was recognized in an act for Illinois Terri-1
Miry, on the 20th May, 1812. I
It was recognized in the act organizing the
Michigan territorial government: the date of this
I do not recollect.
But I cannot take tip my time by referring to j
other instances in their order. I know that in
some cases voting in the Territories was restricted
to citizens. This was the case in the Territories
of Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Utah, and New
Mexicb; while alien suffrage was again recog¬
nized, in express terms, in the Territories of Ore¬
gon, Minnesota, Washington, Kansas, and Ne¬
braska.
Of the Presidents of the United States who,
in some form or other, gave the principle their
sanction either in the Territories or States, may
be mentioned Washington, the elder Adams, Jef¬
ferson, Madison, Jackson, Polk, Fillmore, and
Pierce.
Reference, sir, has been made in this debate to
a speech made by Mr. Calhoun on this subject,
in the Senate, in 1836, on the act providing for
the admission of Michigan, upon which com¬
ments have been made by several gentlemen. The
views of that distinguished statesman have been
presented as authority on their side. I have sim¬
ply this to say about that speech: I cannot find
it in the Globe. I cannot find it in the debates of
the day.
Mr. RICAUD. I think it is in his published
speeches.
Mr. STEPHENS, of Georgia. I have seen it
in his published works, but I cannot find it in the
published reports of Congress. It is stated to
have been made in 1836, on the bill authorizing
Michigan to form a constitution. Michigan was
admitted with alien suffrage in her constitution,
on the 3d March, 1837; and Mr. Calhoun does
not'appear to have made any objection to her ad¬
mission on that ground. I find speeches made by
him upon that bill, but none objecting to this
clause. I find he offered a substitute for the bill
admitting Michigan without objection to the alien
suffrage clause in her constitution. Still, it is
stated that this speech of his was made the year
before,-on the occasion referred to, and I do not
wish to be understood as questioning it. That
was on Congress conferring the right. He did
not raise any objection to the admission of the
State as far as I can find, because of alien suffrage -
being allowed in her constitution.
Again: on the 26th of July, 1848, the Clayton
compromise bill for the organization of certain
territorial governments passed the Senate. The
fifth section of the act provides—
" That every free white male inhabitant, above the age
of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of said
Territory at the time of the passage of this act, shall be en¬
titled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to
any office in said Territory ; but the qualification of voters,
and of holding office, at all subsequent elections, shall be
such as shall be prescribed by the Legislative Assembly:
Provided, That the right of suffrage, and of holding office,
shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States, and'
those who shall have declared on oath their intention to be¬
come such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Con¬
stitution of the United States and the provisions of this act."
On the engrossment of this bill, the vote was—
"Yeas—Messrs. Atchison, Atherton, Benton, Berrien,
Borland, Bre.ese, Bright, Butler, Calhoun, Clayton, Davis
of Mississippi, Dickinson, Douglas, Downs, Foote, Hanne-
gan, Houston, Hunter, Johnson of Maryland, Johnson of
Louisiana, Johnson of Georgia, King, Lewis, Mangunx,
Mason, Phelps, Rusk, Sebastian, Spruance, Sturgeon, Tur-
nev, Westcott, and Yulee—33.
"Nays—Messrs. Allen, Badger, Baldwin, Bell, Brad¬
bury, Clark, Corwin, Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dix-
Dodge, Felch, Fitzgerald, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Metcalfe,
Miller, Niles, Underwood, Upham, and Walker—22."
Mr. Calhoun was on the committee which re¬
ported this provision, and he does not appear as
having objected to it. And though he may have
made that speech in 1836, yet it is equally certain
and true that twelve years afterwards he voted for
the very principle he had previously opposed.
His vote for the principle in 1848, in my opinion,,
is a sufficient answer to his speech against it in
1836. This is, therefore, Mr. Speaker, no new.
question.
The same principle, as I have said, was incor¬
porated in the same words, I think, in the bill
for the organization of Washington Territory in
1853, and in the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854.
Thegentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Maynard]
put this question to some gentleman the other day:
whether, if this bill should pass, Minnesota might
not confer the right of voting upon an alien ene¬
my? By no means, sir; the person of foreign
birth, who is entitled to vote under this constitu¬
tion, has first\to purge himself of his allegiance to
other Powers. He must have declared his inten¬
tion to become a citizen of the United States, and
sworn to support the Constitution of the same.
This is the condition precedent. By no possibil¬
ity, therefore, could an alien enemy legally vote in
Minnesota.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States has been read and com¬
mented on by the gentleman fromMaryland, [Mr.
Davis,] who led off in this discussion, and whose
speech I listened to with a great deal of interest—
an argument as well got up and made on that side
of the question as I think it possible for ingenuity,
ability, and talent, united with eloquence, to pre¬
sent. He rested his argument mainly on the decis¬
ion of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case,
where Judge Taney says that the words " people
of the United States," in the Constitution, are
synonymous with "citizens." After reading that
part of the decision, thegentleman quoted an article
in the Constitution which says that " the House
6
of Representatives shall be composed of members
chosen every second year by the people of the sev¬
eral States;" and his argument was, that as the
Supreme Court had defined that the word " peo¬
ple" was synonymous, in the Constitution of the
United States, to " citizens," therefore members
of this House could be elected by none but " citi¬
zens of the United States." That was the gen¬
tleman's argument; but I am far from concurring
with him in it. His argument rests upon the
assumption that the Constitution of the United
States, in the clause quoted, intended to define the
class of voters in the several States, and to limit
suffrage. I think that it will take me but a mo¬
ment, by recurring to that clause of the Constitu-
'tion and comparing it with others, to show that
the object of that clause was simply to point out
the mode of the election of the members of this
House in contradistinction from the mode of elect¬
ing Senators, and not the class of voters. The
House was to be elected by the people by a pop¬
ular vote, by the masses; while the Senate was to
be elected by the State Legislatures. That is all
that is meant in that clause. The Constitution is
in these words:
" The House of Representatives shall be composed of
members chosen every second year by the people of the
several States,"—
There the gentleman stopped. What follows ?
—" and the electors in each State shall have the qualifica¬
tions requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of
the State Legislature."
There, coupled with what the gentleman "read,
is the right which 1 say that the people insisted
upon beyond all others—the reserved right that
the General Government should never interfere
with suffrage in the States; not even for members
of this House. Immediately after the words he
read, sir, without a semicolon separating them,
is the express declaration that the States shall fix
the qualification of electors or voters. Who shall
say to each State in this particular, thus far mayest
thou go, and no further? Who shall say to the
sovereignties where they shall stop ? The States,
over this subject, have never parted with any of
their sovereignty. It is their right, therefore, to
fix the qualifications of voters unrestrictedly and
absolutely. If they say an alien may vote, it is
their fight to do so.
The other clause of the Constitution to which
I referred, showing what was meant in the first
part of the one read by the gentleman, is in these
words:
" The Senate of the United States shall be composed of
two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature
thereof."
The first clause the gentleman read the other
day refers simply, as it clearly appears, to the
manner of the election, the mode of the election,
the constituency of those elected—to distinguish
them from the constituency of the Senators. The
one was to be the people, contra-distinguished
from the Legislatures of the States; this was one
of the points of difficulty in forming the Federal
Constitution. It was finally determined that the
House should represent the people and the Senate
should represent the States.
I will refer briefly to the same authority on that'
point. I read from Yates's Minutes of the Debates
tn the Federal convention, the fourth resolve: 1
" That the members of the first branch of the natinhal
Legislature ought to be elected by the people of the severSh
States was opposed ; and, strange to tell, by Massachusetts
and Connecticut, who supposed they ought to be chosen hy.
the Legislatures; and Virginia supported the resolve, ak
leging that this ought to be the democratic branch of the
government, and, as such, immediately vested in the peo¬
ple."
Again, Mr. Pinckney moved:
" That the members of the first branch, (that is, this
House,) be appointed in such manner as the several State
Legislatures shall direct."
Mr. Madison said:
" I oppose the motion."
Mr. Mason said:
" I am for preserving inviolably the democratic branch of
the Government. True, we have found inconveniences
from pure democracies ; but if we mean to preserve peace
and real freedom, they must necessarily become a cojnpo-
nent part of a national Government. Change this neces-^
sary principle, and if the Government proceeds to taxation
the States will oppose your power."
The idea that prevailed at the formation of our
Constitution was, that representation and taxa¬
tion shpuld go together. It was mainly upon that
ground that the men of that day went to the war
with thd mother country; it was because the col¬
onies were taxed and not allowed representation;
and if you trace the'history of this Government
down, you will find this great American idea run,;
ning throughout—that taxation and represent¬
ation should go together. Whoever pays taxes
should vote—that is the idea.
Great confusion seems to exist in the minds of
gentlemen from the association of the words citi¬
zen and suffrage. Some seem to think that rights'
of citizenship and rights of suffrage necessarily go
together; that one is dependent upon the other,'
There never was a greater mistake. Suffrage, or
the right to vote, is the creature of law. Thereare
citizens in every State of this Union, 1 doubt not,
who are not entitled to vote. So, in several of the
States there are persons who by law are entitle^
to vote, though they be not citizens. If therebe
citizens who cannot vote, why may there not b#
individuals, who are not citizens, who may nev¬
ertheless be allowed to vote, if the sovereign will
of the State shall so determine ? In all the States
nearly there are other qualifications for voting, even
with the native-born, besides citizenship. Resi¬
dence for a certain length of time. Virginia,/or,
instance, requires of all citizens of other States,
native-born citizens of Maryland or North Carq-;
lina, a certain term of residence. They shall not
vote in Virginia unless they have been there
, twelve months. In Alabama, I think, the provis¬
ion is the same.
Why, sir, in my own State, where we have
universal suffrage, as it is called, no man can vote
unless he has paid his taxes, and resided in the
county six months. There are thousands of citi¬
zens in Georgia, and 1 suppose in every other,
' State, who are not entitled to the right of suffrage,
under our Constitution and laws. Citizenship
and suffrage by no means go together in all cases."
My time will not allow me to enlarge on that idea.
7
I will only refer briefly again to what was said
in the Federal convention on the subject of the
States retaining the control over the subject of
Suffrage, showinghow vigilantly this was watched
and guarded by the State-rights men. Gouver-
neur Morris had proposed to restrain the right
of suffrage to freeholders. This gave rise to a
long debate. Mr. Ellsworth said:
"The qualification of electors stood on the most proper
footing. The right of suffrage was a tender point, and
strongly guarded hy most of the State constitutions. The
• people will not readily subscribe to the national Constitu¬
tion if it should subject them to be disfranchised. The States
are the best judges of the circumstances and temper of their
own people."
Again, he says, (I read from the Madison Pa¬
pers:)
" Ought not every man who pays a tax to vote for the
Representative who is to levy and dispose of his money r
Taxation and representation ought to go together."
I barely refer to this to show that I am sus¬
tained in my view by the highest authority. This
subject of the qualification of electors, and who
should determine it, was mooted at the settlement
of the Government; and it was left to the State
Legislatures, under State constitutions.
Now, sir, a few moments on the decision of the
Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Ta¬
ney, in my judgment, fully confirms everything
I have said. He says:
" The words ' people of the United States,' and ' citi¬
zens,' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing.
They both describe the political body who, according to our
republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold
the power and conduct the Government through their Rep¬
resentatives. They are what are familiarly called the sov¬
ereign people; and every citizen is one of this people, and
a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question '
before us is, whether the class of persons described in the
plea in abatement [Dred Scott was a negro] compose a por¬
tion of this people, and are constituent members of this sov¬
ereignty. We think they are not; and were not intended
to be included under the word ' citizens' in the constitution,
and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges
which that instrument provides for, and secures to citizens
of the United States."
' It was the first words of this clause of the de¬
cision the gentleman from Maryland relied on, but
he did not pursue the argument far enough.
The object of the Chief Justice was to show that
persons of the African race descended from those
who were bought and sold as slaves, were not in
the original body-politic, and could not, by State
laws,.incorporated into that body-politic. But
now mark what immediately follows that part of
his decision:
" In discussing this question, we must not confound the
rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its
own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the
Union."
Here-is the distinction. By naturalization,Con¬
gress can confer citizenship throughout the Union.
What are the rights created by that? Three in
all. The right to hold land is one; the right to
sueJn the Federal courts is another; and the right
to claim the protection of this Government, or the
right of passport abroad, is the other. No State
can confer these rights throughout the Union; but
each State may confer them within her limits.
Each State may confer upon an alien the right to
j hold lands. No man can question that; but if
Indiana or Georgia confers this right upon an
alien, he cannot go into South Carolina and hold
; land there by virtue of that. If he were naturalized
he could. So each State may give the right to an
alien to sue in its own courts; but, therefore, he
i does not acquire a right to sue in any other State
court or the Federal courts. Each State may
guaranty her protection within her limits, but not
throughout .the Union. She cannot pledge the
protection of the common Government.
But the court goes right on with this language:
ft docs not hy any means follow, because he has the
rights and privil-ges of a citizen of a State, that he must be
a citizen of the (foiled Stales. He may have all therights
and privileges of a citizen of a Slate, and yet not be entitled
to Hie lights and privileges of a citizen' in any other State ;
for, prev ious to the adoption of the Constitution of the Uni¬
ted Slates, every State had the undoubted right to confer
. on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to
endow hint with at! its rights; but this character, of course,
was confined to the boundaries of the Stale, arid gave him
I no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured
i to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States.
J Nor have the several States surrendered the power of con-
ierring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitu¬
tion of the United States. line h Stale may still conferthetn
upon an alien, or any one it. thinks proper, or upon any class
or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen in
the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of
the United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its
courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in
the other States. The rights which he would acquire would
be restricted to the State which gave them."
I ask, then, if the constitution of Minnesota,
: according to this Dred Scott decision, has an iota,
or a single clause in it, so far as alien suffrage is
concerned, which Chief Justice Taney has not
said she has a right under the Constitution of the
United States to put in it? This is a right none
of the States have ever surrendered. Every State
in this Union has the right of fixing the status of
all its constituent elements absolutely,- as each
State may determine for itself, and also the right
of determining who may and who may not vote
at elections for public officers under her authority.
What part of the constitution of Minnesota, then,
is in violation of the Constitution of the United
States ? Why, then, should she not be admitted ?
Let me say, in conclusion, that the constitution
of Illinois has such a clause. Is not she an equal
in this Union ? Why not rule her out? Indiana
has such a clause. Why not rule her out? Mich¬
igan has such a clause. Why not rule her out ?
Wisconsin has such a clause. I have the Journal
here. When Wisconsin was admitted, in 1848,
Mr. Calhoun was in his seat and he did not even
call the yeas and nays on it. And yet we are told
that this is a great and a dangerous example we
are setting, if we admit Minnesota on an equal
footing with Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wis¬
consin, and all of the States. Deprive her of this
great right, would she be their equal ? Are Illinois
and South Carolina now equal? Are Indiana
and Massachusetts now equal ? Why, then, if
you deny Minnesota the power that Illinois and
Indiana have, will she be equal to them? Things
equal to one another are equal to each other. If
those in the Union now are equal, will not Min¬
nesota be unequal if you deprive her of this right?
If you put upon her a condition you have never
8
put upon these others, will not you make her
unequal? and if you bring her in, would she be
Upon an equal footing with her sister States ? If
she confers suffrage upon those born abroad, who
purge themselves of their foreign allegiance and
swear to support the Constitution of the United
States, she has the right to do so. Any State in
the Union now has the same right, if any see fit
to exercise it. The several States cannot confer
citizenship of the United States upon any body or
class of persons; but every State, in her sovereign
capacity, has a right to say who shall vote at elec¬
tions in that State. • Let us, then, drop this objec¬
tion; let us admit Minnesota, and let her come in
clothed with all the sovereignty that the other
States possess. My time is out.
One word about the amendment I have offered,
I thought that by this time Minnesota would be
entitled to three members. The enabling act enti¬
tled her to one, with additional Representatives,
according to her population under the last appor¬
tionment. The information I have received since
I .offered my amendment has led me to believe
that her population at this time would not entitle
her to three members, but will to two; and there¬
fore I withdraw my amendment, and hope the
House will pass the bill as it came from the Sen¬
ate. I call for the previous question.
SPEECH
OP
HON. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS,
OF GEORGIA,
ON
THE BILL TO ADMIT KANSAS AS A STATE
UNDER TEE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION.
"DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 28, 1856.
ADMISSION OF KANSAS.
The Hoi^e having under consideration the bill reported
from thACommittee on Territories, providing for the admis¬
sion of ™ nsas into the Union as a State, with the consti¬
tution .prepared at Topeka by the free-State party.
Mr. STEPHENS said: I propose, Mr. Speaker,
before 1 proceed to what I have arisen mainly to
say on this occasion, to ask the consent of the
House to al'ow me now to offer the amendment
which I stated yesterday I wished to propose to
the bill now before us.
Mr. WASHBURN, of Maine. If the gentle¬
man aslt3 that consent cow, I shall object to it,
as I shall at all times.
Mr. STEPHENS. On the motion to commit
the bill to the Committee of the Whole on the
state of the Union, the amendment is not in order,
unless by unanimous consent.
Mr. WASHBURN. I understand that to be
a side measure, intended to destroy the hill, and
I shall object to it now, and at all times.,
Mr. STEPPIENS. I state to the gentleman
that I have no side bloivs for this bill, nor is my
amendment intended as any side measure. I wish
my proposition to come distipctly before the
House as a substitute for the pending bill. I am
opposed out and out to this bill as it now stands.
J want no misunderstanding on that point. I will,
however, vote for the substitute; and what I want
is a direct vote between the bill now pending,
and the substitute offered as an amendment. But
gs the gentleman from Maine will not allow me
to offer my proposition as an amendment, I now
move to amend the motion to commit this bill to
the Committee of the Whole on the state of the
Union, by adding to it, "With instructions to
feport this amendmentin lieu of the original bill;"
in other words, with instructions to strike out all
in the original bill, and to insert my amendment
in iieu thereof. That is the motion w^ V- T-
mit to the Blouse, anf
uie practice of the House under it. No
.ILu can any longer question that. Then, sir,
how can gentlemen rise up here, and say that the
myself prepared to vote on it to-day, either in th«
House or in the Committee of the Whole on the
state of the Union. But I am inclined to think that
it had better go to the committee. We can then
take up this amendment, and consider it in detail.
It may be some gentlemen would suggest modifi¬
cations, which I would accept. We can then
discuss the merits of the original bill. Its friends
can amend that, if they wish. My amendment
can be put in such form as a majority of the com¬
mittee may desire, if a majority be favorable to its
objects. I "therefore ^hall vote for the reference.
But the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Campbell]
the other day said, that the motion to refer or
commit, made by the" gentleman from Indiana,
[Mr. Dunn,] and which is now pending, was
equivalent, if successful, to a defeat of the bill.
The gentleman from Maine [Mr. Washburn]
i also followed in the same line. Now, I told
these gentlemen, day before yesterday, and I
state it again to the House, that I do not consider
the motion to commit the bill to the Committee
of the Whole on the state of the Union, if carried,
as equivalent to a defeat of the measure at all.
By no means, sir. What is the argument of those
who say a reference of the bill is tantamount to
its defeat? Nothing better than this, as argued
by the gentleman from Maine, to wit: that all the
friends of the Kansas bill, two years ago, when
that bill was referred to the Committee of th®
Whole on the state of the Union, considered it as
equivalent to its defeat. That is his argument, and
the authority adduced by him to sustain it. Sir,
it is immaterial to me what certain friends of the
Kansas bill may have thought would be the effect
of its reference, when it was referred. If they
considered that reference as equivalent to its de¬
feat, the sequel showed that they were in error.
bountiful supply \To?J&rrei;
the tillers of her soil than it was then passed.
the average value of products eve"ien^c,1jnan , J
dustry, in every department of business,ieBljr0Ee
upon the ocean or the Ihnd, never had more
ments to ply its energies, not only for competency3
4
Mr. STEPHENS. Will the gentleman state
what two instances ?
Mr. WASHBURN. In thefirstplace, by decid¬
ing that under the 119 th rule you might strike out |
the enacting clause of the bill. In the second
place, by rising and reporting the bill to the House
When there was no quorum voting, as every body
knows.
Mr. RICHARDSON. ' The gentleman from
Maine is totally mistaken when he says there was
no quorum.
Mr. STEPHENS. I hope the gentleman from
Illinois will let me proceed. The gentleman from
vMaine is mistaken in both his instances. The
record shows that the tellers,. Mr. Clingman and
Mr.. Sapp, reported 103 in favor of the motion,
and 22 against it. That is more than a quorum—
one hundred ajad eighteen'was a quorum—one
hundred and twenty-five voted. Though a great
m^ny present refused to vote, more than a quo¬
rum, however, did vote on the motion to strike
©ut. It does not require a quorum to vote on a
motion to rise, as every one .knows. And as far
as the violation of the 119th rule is concerned, I
have this to say to the gentleman—as I said the
day before yesterday—that nothing can be clearer
than that everything done in the committee on the
passage of the Kansas bill under the 119th rule,
lwas legitimate and proper; and that no rule of
this House was violated or overrode on that oc¬
casion. This I intend to show beyond cavil or
doubt. The charge that there was no quorum
voting is answered by the record, as I have stated;
then as to the two other charges—for besides the
charge relating to the 119th' rule now made, the
gentlemanfrorn Maine, [Mr. Washburn,] or some
other gentleman, said, two days ago, that there
was another rule violated. What one I do not
know—for no one was mentioned—but the state¬
ment was, that the committee had violated the
rules of the House by setting aside other bills
having priority in the order of business on the
Calendar to the Kansas-Nebraska bill. That was
one statement; and I think it was also said that
upwards of a hundred bills were thus set aside to
reach this one. Now, Mr. Speaker, I have the
rules of the House before me, and ask the atten¬
tion of the House to the 133th rule:
" In Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union
the lulls shall benakpn up and disposed of in their order on
tlmVulendur; but whrnohjet tionis made tqthe con-ddemtion
of a bdl ft majority of the < nmmittee shall deride, vUhoitt de¬
bute, whether it ahull lie taken up and di-.po-.ed of, or laid
ft-ode; provided, that fienmal appropriation bills, and, in
tune of war, lulls lor rawng men or money, and lulls con¬
cerning a tieuty of peace, shall be preferred to all other bills
at the ditcrHum of the committee; and when demanded by
any member the question shall.flrst be jnU in regard to them."
Even in times of war, appropriation bills, and
bills t-olnting to treaties of peace, have no other
preference, except that tire question of taking
litem up first shall be first put. A majority may
lay even them aside.'
Sir, could a rn'
language lie
—tlint v '
tlie1*
mitted to the committee whether it will be taken
up or not; and a majority of the committee have file
expressly-granted power to determine, without debate,
whether they will "then act on it, or lay it aside
for other business; and so on to the second, and
so to the third, and to the fourth, and to the one
hundred and fiftieth, if you please ? Was it not
perfectly competent for a majority of the Commit,
tee of tire Whole on the state Of the Union, when
tire Kansas bill was in committee, to pass over
other bills, and take up that bill when they wished
to do so ?
This they did. Each bill was laid aside ?r it
was reached. They had a right to do it. They
violated no rule in doing it. The number of biila
laid aside to reach it was only eighteen, I think.
But if the number had been legion—if there had
been one hundred, or five hundred, or* thousand,
it would have made no difference.
Sir, the rule in this case is fts clear as it couH
be made; and the action of th« committee On that
occasion was strictly in order. This I maintain,
and defy an answer or reply to it.
Now, then, sir, as to the 119th rule.
When the committee on that occasjfc had laid
aside the first bill, and the second bill, and the
third bill, and so on, until they had conle to the
Kansas bill, the eighteenth in order—which they
had a right.to do—they took it up for considers,
tion; ana after it had been discussed for two weeks
in committee, which was as long as was thought
proper by the House, the 119th rule was resorted
to, to stop debate in committee and bring the sub¬
ject before the House for a vote. That rule is ss
follows:
"A motion to strike out the enacting words of a bill shall
have precedenceof a motion to amend; and, if carried, ska!
be equivalent to its rejection."
Under this rule, a motion was made by myself
in committee to strike out the enacting words of
the Kansas bill—a motion which took preceitntt
of all motions to amend, as the rule says, The
motion was properly put; and it was carried by
a vote of one hundred and three for it, to but
twenty-tWo against it, as I have said. Where,
then, was there any violation of the rules in this!
But the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Campbell,]
who says he wishes to# reply to what I say, in¬
sisted the day before yesterday that this 119th
rule never.was intended to apply in committee,
The rule, in its language, was too clear, too
I overwhelming, too unanswerable; but to avoid ill
I conclusiveness against him, he said it was node
to apply to the House, and not to the Committee o/l/o
I Unite, 8)C. Well, sir, let us see how this sub¬
terfuge will avail the gentleman.. The history
of tins rule, as given in our Manual, is as Mows
" In a Committee of the Whole struck out the first
and only section of a bill, and so reported to tilt Hint
Mr. Speaker Cheves refut-ed to receive the report, ont n
ground tliat it was tuiuuiioiint to a rejecUnn ol tlrtl,
which the committee hid not powt r to do." Jut as to
•innowsays. "fc.h'rthi* tli,ittiiememoiqiii-%u
" '*> «"oiii imtee of uie Whole, rule llllw
-titwaseiprwly
I
5
occasion alluded to—that the Committee of the
Whole on the Kansas bill did just exactly what
the rule intended that they might do, and fully
empowered them to do. But gentlemen say, if this
rule was intended to be applied to the Committee
of the "Whole, why has it never been put in prac¬
tice before ? That was the argument of the gen¬
tleman from Maine.
Well, Mr. Speaker, my reply to him is, that it
has been rfut in practice before. It was adopted
in 1822. Ten days after its adoption, on the 2d
of March, 1822, first session of the Seventeeth
Congress, I find the Journal of the House record
thus:
"The House took up and proceeded to consider the bill
fbr the relief of Benjamin Freclanrt and John M. Jenkins;
and the amount reported thereto l'rom the Committee of
the Whole House, on the 14th instant, being read as fol¬
lows : ' strUrfng out the enacting cluuse of said hillf
"The question was pur. on concurring with the Committee
of the Whole House in the said amendment,
"And passed in the affirmative."
Here the committee did the very same thing,
ten days after the rule was adopted, that was done,
on the Kansas bill. What did the House do?
Did they say that the Committee of the Whole
had acted improperly? No,, sir. The Journal
says: " the question was taken upon concurring
with the Gfcmmittee of the Whole on said amend¬
ment, and it passed in the affirmative."
I find in the first session of the Eighteenth Con¬
gress., on the 22d of May,"this record:
"The question was then taken to concur with the Com-
nittee of the Whole House on striking out the enacting
vordsof the bill from the .Senate, entitled ' An act relative
o the Patent Office and to tire salary of the superintendent
hereof,1
"And passed ip the affirmative."
Again, sir, in the first session of the Twenty-
first Congress, I find on the Journal this record:
" The House resolved itself into a Committee; of the
fhole House on the bill (No. 127) for the relief of Walter
ivingston, deceased, and after some time spent therein,
e Speaker resumed the chair, and Mr. St'orrs, of New
1 ork, reported the same, with the enacting clause stricken
•t."
" The question was Then put, that the House do concur
ith the Committee ef the Whole Heuse in striking out the
acting words of said bill,
" And passed in the affirmative—yeas 84, nays 59."
I find in the same Congress, in the action of-
e House on the bill for the relief of John Rob-
son, that
' The question was then put to concur with the Commit-
of tire Whole House in striking out the enacting words
the kill (No. 175) for the rclief.of John Robinson,
: And passed in the affirmative.
' So the land bill was rejected."
Sir, I shall not go on with this record. It is
ficient for me to state to those gentlemen who
nplain of my motion under this rule, that their
t knowing that such a motion had ever been
de before does not seem to me to*be an argu-
nt of much merit or force. I show you, Mr.
eaker, the House, and the country, the rule.
• man can question that. I show you, also, its
tory; and from that, that it was made for just
h a purpose as the one I applied it to. No
n now can gainsay that. I go further, and
M> >w you the practice of the House under it. No
man can any longer question that. Then, sir,
how can gentlemen rise up here, and say that the
I passage of the Kansas and Nebraska bill was
accomplished by overriding the rules of the
House? Gentlemen may have been surprised and
astonished at the parliamentary tactics practiced
under the rule; they may never have dreamed
pf how the friends of a rqeasure, in committee,
could vote to strike out the enabling words—thus
apparently defeating it—and then, when it was so
reported to the House, reverse their position,
disagree to the report of the committee striking
out the enacting words, and then pass it. They
may not have understood the process by which a
bill might be temporarily apparently killed by its
friends in Committee of the Whole, for the pur¬
pose of getting it out, and then revived again in
the House, by disagreeing to the report of the
committee; but this is the whole of it. This is the
ground of all this clamor about the violation of
the rules of the House, in the passage of the'
Kansas bill—for it is nothing but clamor.
The charge of a violation of rules has not the
semblance of a fact to rest upPn. And let no
man hereafter say that sending a bill to the Com¬
mittee of the Whole is equivalent to its defeat.
Our rules requiring this committee, and directing
how business shall be disposed of in it, are wise
and proper. And the rules, when properly ad¬
ministered, work harmoniously for the perfection
and dispatch of legislation. It is only those
who do not understand them who see confusion
and mystery in them. Where, then, was the
wrong or the fraud perpetrated on the rules in
the passage of the Kansas bill ? It exists only in
the fancy of gentlemen who declaim so violently
on the subject. I said, sir, I intended to vindi¬
cate thfe" action both of the committee and the
House on that occasion, and put the matter be¬
yond all future cavil or doubt. This, I think, I
have done. Now, sir, I intend also, with the
same confidence, to vindicate the principles of
that bill against the equajly unfounded assaults
which have been made upon them. What, sir,
are those assaults ?
The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Campbell] said
the other day, and again says, that the passage of
the Nebraska bill was the origin of all the troubles
in the country. ' Sir, what troubles dOes he allude
to? What troubles have we upon us? Standing in .
my place in the Hall of the Representatives of the
United States, I ask to-day, what troubles is the
country laboring under ? Were any people of the
world ever more prosperous than the people of the
United States now are ? We are at peace with all
other nations; we hear of no complaint about Fed¬
eral taices or high tariffs; we hear of no disarrange¬
ment of the currency or of the finances of the
country, we hear of no clamor against banks; our
tables are not loaded down with petitions or re¬
monstrances against grievances of any sort; thrift
and plenty seem to be smiling over the land from
one extent to the other. Our commerce was never
• more flourishing; agriculture never yielded a more
bountiful supply from the bosom of the earth t® -
the tillers of her soil than it now does, nor was
the average value of products ever higher. In¬
dustry, in every department of business, whether
upon the ocean or the l&nd, never had more induce¬
ments to ply its energies, not only for competency
6
and comforts, but for the accumulation of .riches
and wealth. Never did labor, in all its branches,
receive more readily than it now does fair andjudtly
compensating wages. Our internal and foreign
trade was never in a more flourishing condition.
What are the troubles, then, of which the gentle¬
man speaks ? Why, sir, if one could cast his eye
over this wide Republic at this time, and see the
thrift and prosperity in every department of indus¬
try, arising from our benign institutions, he would
almost be compelled to exclaim, that all the trou¬
bles of-which we hear grow out of nothing but that
exuberance of liberty and multitude of blessings
which seem to be driving, us on to licentiousness.
This we see in the mobs at Cincinnati, Louis¬
ville, New Orleans, in this city, and in San
Francisco. The laws have been set aside; force
has been resorted to; arms have been used; and
men have been slain. But the absorbing theme
now is the " civil war," as it called, in Kansas.
This is the announcement made in a neighboring
city, the commercial metropolis of this Union,
the other night, according to a report of their
proceedings which I find in a newspaper, to a
large crowd of people there assembled. I see it
was proclaimed that civil war was raging in
Kansas; and that that assembly gave shouts of
applause at the announcement! These are the
troubles I suppose of which the gentleman
speaks — troubles produced not by this Kansas
bill, but by the mischievous designs and reck¬
less purposes of those who, in their efforts to
defeat the quiet and peaceful operation of the
sound purposes of that bill, have for some time
been engaged in their unholy work of attempting
to get up civil war in the country, and can now
shout in applause at even the most distant pros¬
pect of success.
This, sir, is the work of that class of restless
malcontents, who have for years been endeavor¬
ing to produce a sectional conflict in this country;
who have po regard for the constitutional equality
of the States of this Union; who repudiate the
most sacred obligations of that compact which
binds us together, and who have proclaimed that
the Constitution itself is a league with death and
a covenant with hell! How far they shall be
permitted to go on with their work until checked
by a sotind reactive public sentiment—how far
they shall get sympathy and cooperation from
those whom they are now attempting to mislead
—hSw far they may be successful in their long
cheriske'd wish for civil strife, I cannot say. That
is a problem for the future to settle; that depends
upon the virtue, intelligence, and integrity of the
people. But that they ought not to succeed—that
they ought not only to be discouraged, but rebuked
and condemned in every part of this country, and
by every man who has a spark of patriotism in
, his bosom, as well in.the North as in the South,
I this day maintain. But the gentleman from
Ohio says all this comes from the Kansas bill.
How ? In what way ?
What is there wrong in that Kansas measure?
It has been said that it is a fraud. It has been said
that itis the greatestof iniquities. It has been said
that it is a crime against God. It has been said
that it is a crime against nature. Well, sir, what
is-this fraud, this iniquity, this crime against
nature and against Goa ? It is the simple decla¬
ration of the principle that the people of the Ter¬
ritories of Kansas and Nebraska—the pioneer
freemen there—our own brothers in flesh and
blood—going there from every State of the Union,
for the purpose of settling that distant frontier—
there to build up new homes for themselves and
their posterity—should have the right, without
limitation or restriction from any quarter, save
the Constitution of the United States, to form
ttnd mold just such institutions for their own
government as they pleased—a right which lies
at the foundation of all our State governments,
and upon which the whole Republic, in its several
parts, is builtand established. This is the fraud,
this is the iniquity, this is the great crime of
crimes, the security to the people of the Terri¬
tories of the right of self-government under the
Constitution. The amount of the crime is, that
freemen shall be permitted to make such consti¬
tutions, republican in form, for their own govern¬
ment, without dictation or control from any other
power, ad they 'pleasq. 1 Tell it wherever you go,
that this was the monstrous outrage committed
by an American Congress in 1850, the middle of
the nineteenth century, on the Territories of Utah
and New Mexico, and repeated by ftie same
body in 1854, on the Territories of Nebraska and
" bleeding Kansas!" This is the whole of it—
nothing more and nothing less. These troubles
we now hear of—these efforts to get up civil war¬
tlike shouts at the announcement that civil'war
has already commenced—are but part and parcel
of that spirit which animated a portion, and only
a portion, of the opposition to the Kansas bill,
during the pendency of that measure in this
House. That same spirit at the North tliaL had
so bitterly opposed the establishment of this great
principle of territorial policy in 1850 could not
bear the idea of its being carried out in the future
I recollect very well, sir, that while theKansa
bill was jirogressing here, a newspaper in in
city »of New York, edited by a man of great
ability, untiring energy and industry, and who ip
now the head and front—the animating spirit of
the present opposition, and civil war champion's
undertook to lecture this House as to our duty
in regard to that' bill. We were told then by him
what an enormous wrong it would be; and when
the measure was about to pass an editorial in. that
paper reached here, from which JL wish to present
some extracts, to show that it is the same spirit
now at work:
"We urge, therefore, unbending determination on the
part of the northern members hostile to this intolerable
outrage, and demand of them, in behalf of peace—in behall
of freedom—in behalf of justice and humanity—resistance
tothe last. JBeifcr thatconfusionshould ensue—betterthat
discord should reign in the national councils—better that
Congress should break up in wild disorder—nay, better that
the Capitol itself should blaze by the torch of the incendiary,
or fall and bury all its inmates beneath its crumbling ruins,
than that this perfidy and wrong should be finally accom¬
plished."
This is the language of the New York tribune
in reference to the Kansas bill a few days before
| it passed. Yes, sir, even then that editor declared
I that it was better that this Capitol should be burnt
by the torch of an incendiary^-better that the'
Groveriiment should go into dissolution, than that
the people colonizing and settling Kansas and ;
Nebraska should be just as free as the people of
New York, or, as he states it, than that this act
of perfidy, and wrong should be finally accom¬
plished.- What wrong did the act contain ? Wrong
to Whom ? to whom was there anything in it either
wrbng or unjust ? Was it wrong to the people of j
the South, one large section of the Union, to per¬
mit them to enjoy an equal and fair participation
of the public dofhain purchased by the common
blood and common treasure of all ? Was it wrong
or unjust to permit the people of New York, Mas¬
sachusetts f and other States of the North going
into a nevv Territory, to be as free there as they
were in.their native homes? it wrong or
unjust to allow all from all the States, who might
be disposed to quit the old States, and seek to
better their fortunes by cutting down the forests
of the West, turning up its virgin soil, and making
the wilderness to blossom as the rose, to.enjoy
the same rights which their fathers did in the
early formation of all our present State constitu¬
tions andigovernments? Whom, I .say, did the
bill wrong? To whom did it deal any injustice ?
Was it the .slave, the African, whom his southern
master might take'there ? How could it be unjust
.even to him ? Is not his condition as much bet-
tered»by new lands and virgin soils as that of his
master? Is not expansion of that portion of
southern population quite as necessary for their
comfort and well-being as it. is for the whites ?
Would, you keep them hemmed in yi their
present limits, until subsistence shall fail,and
starvation shall effect the objects of a misguided
humanity ?
Wjthout stopping here to say a word upon the
subject of southern society, and the relation which
the negro there sustains to the white man, either
as to the necessity of that relation, or its wisdom
or propriety, does it work any wrong or injury
t® the slave to take him from old lands to new
lands? Is nothishondition bettered by the change?
And have we not new lands enough for all ? Your
Topeka convention, which formed the pretended
free-State constitution now before us, proposed to
exclude the negro and mulatto forever from that
country. Upon the score of humanity, then, even
towards the 11 poor negro" about whom so much
sympathy is attempted to be excited, I ask, which
does him the greater wrong, the Kansas bill, or
the project of your free-State constitution ? Who,
to him, is the Good Samaritan in this case? The
Free-Soil Levite, who would leave him to starve
without land to work ? or his humane southern
master, who is willing to provide both land and
shelter, food and raiment? Where, then, is the
wrong of this bill ? It consists in nothing but
permitting the freemen of our own race to settle
thi§ question of the status of the African amongst
themselves, as they in their wisdom and patriotism
may think best for the happiness of both races,
just as the freemen of our own race did in each
of the old thirteen States of the Union.
But, sir, the House did not heed this lecture of
the editor.! The bill passed this body; it passed1
the Senate; it received the constitutional approval
of the Executive, and became the law of the land.
TWb revolutionary spirit, however, which invoked
: the burning of the Capitol, did not stop with defeat
in all three of the departments of legislation.
Members of Congress with others, beaten in the
House of Representatives, beaten in the Senate,
failing in their threats and denunciations of the
Executive, betook themselves forthwith to plot-
i ting schemes to defeat the will of the people as
constitutionallyexpressed. Societieswereformed,
one of them,by members of this House, imme¬
diately after the bill passed; money'was raised;
circulars were issued,—all.with the avowed pur¬
pose of sending people to Kansas to prevent the
j peaceful and quiet operation of the wise and
| beneficent principles of the territorial law—move-
ments having a direct tendency to kindle this civil
war of which we now hear.
The Capitol- fortunately was not burnt—that
suggestion did not take. Disorder did not reign
here—that suggestion did not take. But bodies
of men were organized—not allowing the legiti¬
mate laws of nature, of climate, anddf soil to de-.
terroine the character of the pioneer population
from all the States alike who -might choose to
make settlement there. Men were sent out in
large companies, with arms and munitions of
war; Sharpe's rifles were sent; artillery was sent
What for ? Did these colonists go to Kansas as
our forefathers sought homes at Plymouth, St.
.Mary's, Jamestown, and Savannah? Or did they
not rather go as the train-bands of Cortes and
Pizzaro went forth thirsting for the conquest of
the Montezumas and the Incas? Was not their
sole object to effect by force and violence what
they had failed to do by legislation ? What other
meaning can be put upon the following manifesto
which was published in the " Herald of Free¬
dom, "their organ at Lawrence, the head-quarters
of these emigrants in the Territory:
" Come one, come all, slaveocrats and nullifiers; we have
rifles chough, and bullets enough, to send you all to your
(and Judas's)' own place.' ' if you're coming, why don't
you come along?'"
Was not this a direct invitation to arms ? And
whatever troubles or disturbances exist in Kan-
' sas, let them not be charged to the Kansas bill,
; but to thosenvho have sworn in their wrath that
; that'bill never, shall work out its natural and legiti¬
mate results,-if they can prevent it.' As well
i might the wars about points of doctrine and re-
• ligious creeds which have disgraced Christendom,
, be charged upon the heavenly principles of the
! gospel. Christ himself said that it was impcwsi-
! ble but that offenses in this world of wickedness
would come. When bad men are at work, they
cannot be prevented. The principles of that bill
are in no way responsible for any outrages or
; trampling upon rights by parties on the other
s side of the controversy, got up and provoked in
i that Territory by designing men outside, for mis-
[ chievous purposes. - And the friends of that bill—
those who stand pledged to its principles—con-
l demn outrages on either or both sides alike.
But a word, sir, as to the nature and extent of
f these difficulties. Are they not greatly exagge-
1 "rated and magnified? Let us look at the facts.
1 Some men, it is true, have been killed—some on
8
both sides. And what else could have been ex¬
pected? What other result could have befn
looked for by those instigating the movements
I have alluded to ? The first man killed in the
Territory was Davis. He fell by the hands of
those calling themselves free-State men. Then
Dow, a free-State man, was killed by Coleman;
but the quarrel between them arose about a land
claim. It was a private and personal matter.
Coleman immediately gave himself up to the legal
authorities, claiming to have acted in self-defense.
Whether he did or not, I do not know, and will
not'pretend to say; but a friend of Dow, of the
name of Branson, having made threats of aveng¬
ing his death, was .arrested under a peace war¬
rant, and, while in the hands of an officer, was
rescued by a party of free-State men. War¬
rants were taken out for these, and they took
shelter in Lawrence, where they put themselves
m defiance of the civil authorities. The posse was
called out to aid in the arrest, and this led first
to .the seige of Lawrence, and then to the capitu¬
lation of December last. In this war, no lives
were lost. Two or three other liomicides had
been committed in the Territory; but in all, from
the organization of the Territory, up to the at¬
tempted assassination of Sheriff Jones, I think
not exceeding half a dozen! In what part of the
United States, sir, in the same length of time,
with the same population they have in Kansas,
have thhre been fewer murders or deaths by vio¬
lence? How many were killed in the riots last
year in Cincinnati? How many in Louisville,
Kentucky ?
I venture to say to-day, that with all this clamor
about civil war in Kansas, more lives have not
been lost there, since the organization of the Ter¬
ritory, than have been in several of the large city
elections of the United States within the last
twelve months. It is not my wish to make light
of these things, but to take a calm and dispas¬
sionate view of them. A strong and. general
tendency to disregard law and order is one of the
most lamentable evils of the day. It is not con¬
fined to Kansas, but it is seen and felt everywhere.
And our object, and that of all good men, should
be to check it rather than excite it. -
Then, sir, as to the election in Kansas and the
laws passed by their Legislature. One word upon
this point. The first election was held there for
a Delegate to Congress in November, 1854. That
there were illegal votes on both sides I have no
doubt; but I believe it is admitted' by every one
that, notwithstanding the efforts of the emigrant
aid companies to prevent it, General Whitfield
had much the larger number of the legal votes of
the Territory, and was duly elected. In March
afterwards greater efforts were made to carry the
Legislature. The result was the commission or
certificate of election by Governor Reeder himseff
to a large majority of both branches of that body.
They were therefore legally constituted as a le¬
gislative body. There may have been illegal vot¬
ing on both sides, as there is doubtless in all our
elections. But upon the well-settled and fixed
principles on which aii our representative institu¬
tions rest, and without a maintenance of which
there can be neither " law nor order," thatis now
a closed question. The laWs, therefore, of that
Legislature must be observed and obeyed until
repealed or modified by legislative power, or set
aside by the courts as void. And upon the char¬
acter of these laws I wish to make but a passing
remark. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Col-
. fax] pointed out quite a rfumber of them the
other day, which he said were very bad one/3.
Well, sir, I am not going to discuss their respect¬
ive merits. Perhaps some of'them are bad; it
would be an extraordinary code if it were other¬
wise. I know the advocates of the present gov¬
ernment in the Territory—the law-and-order
party there—do not themselves approve of all of
them. I will read what they say on the subject:
" The law for "the protection of slave property has also
been much misunderstood. The right to pass such, a law
is expressly stated by Governor Reeder in his inaugural
message, in which he says: ' A Territorial Legislature may
undoubtedly act upon the question to a limited and partial
extent, and may temporarily prohibit, tolerate, or regulate
slavery yi the Territory, and in an absolute or modified
form, with all the force and effect of any other legislative
act, binding until repealed by the same power that enacted
it.' There is nothing in the act itself, as has been charged,
to prevent a free discussion of the 'subject of slavery. Its
bearing on society, its morality or expediency, or whether
it would be politic or impolitic to make this a slave State,
can be discussed here as freely as in any State in this
Union, without infringing any of the provisions of the law.
To deny the right of a person to hold slaves under the law
in this Territory is made penal; but, beyond this, there is
no restriction to the discussion of the slavery question in
any aspect in which it is capable of being considered.
We do not wjsh to be understood as approving of all the
laws passed by the Legislature; on the contrary, we would
state that there are some that we do not approve of, and
which are condemned by public opinion here, and which
will no doubt be repealed or modified at the meeting of the
next Legislature. But this is nothing more than what
frequently occurs, both in the legislation of Congress and
of the various State Legislatures. The remedy for such
evils is to be found in public opinion, to which, sooner or
later, in a Government like ours, all laws must conform."
Mr. COLFAX. What is the date of that?
Mr. STEPHENS. Last November. 'Now,
sir, I have examined this whole code of laws, and
as a whole, some few exceptions out, I say that
no State in the Union has got better ones. There
are. some in it I do not approve—there are soma
in all the codes I have ever seen that I do not ap¬
prove. I will not go to the gentleman's State, or
to any other gentleman's State, to find laws that I
do not approve. We have plenty of them in my
own State. And the gentleman ought to feel
highly blessed if he has none in Indiana that he
disapproves. 'We have a great many in Georgia
I do not approve. There is one in particular which
I fought in the Legislature and opposed before
the courts with all the power that I had. It was
a law making it penal to bear concealed deadly
weapons. I am individually opposed to bearing
such weapons. I never bear weapons of -any
sort; but I believed that it was the constitutional
right of every American citizen to bear arms if
he chooses, and just such arms, and in just such
way, as he chooses. I thought that it was the
birthright of every Georgian to do it. I was de¬
feated in our Legislature. I was defeated before
our courts. The question went up to the highest
judicial tribunal in our State, theSuptreme Court,
which sustained the law. In that decision all had
to acquiesce. Sir, the people in all the States
9
have to obey the laws as pronounced and ex¬
pounded by the courts. The difference between
a republic and a monarchy is, that the one is a
government of laws, subject to be changed by thp
people ; the other is a government dependent
upon the caprice or whim, and arbitrary will of
one man. And when the people of a Republic
array themselves against their laws, the first step
is jnto anarchy, and then, comes monarchy. The
speech of the gentleman from Indiana is suffi¬
ciently answered by the address of his own party_
adopted at Pittsburg, though those who issued it'
seemed not to be conscious of the effect of the
admission. That address, after specifying the
same objectionable laws in the Kansas coae which
he lias, says:
" That these despotic acts, even if they had been passed
by a Legislature duly elected by the people of the Territory,
would have been null and void, inasmuch as they are
plainly in violation of the Federal Constitution, is too clear
for argument. Congress itself is expressly forbidden by the
Constitution of the United States to make any laws abridg¬
ing the freedom of speech and of the press; and it is absurd
to suppose that a Territorial Legislature, deriving all its
power from Congress, should not be subject to the same
restrictions."
The latter is a very clear proposition, to my
mind. Neither Congress nor a Territorial Legis¬
lature can pass any law abridging the freedom of
speech or of the press. This is, indeed, too clear
for argument. I indorse that part of the Pitts¬
burg platform. But not a single disturbance in
the Territory has grown out of either of these
laws complained of as despotic. But if there had
—if these laws be so clearly unconstitutional and
so manifestly violative of the freedom of speech
and of the press, why should not any party
aggrieved refer the question to the judicial tribu¬
nals ? If the case is so clear, why not go to the
courts ? There are Federal courts in the Terri¬
tory; and an appeal can be taken to the same
high tribunal that all of us in such matters have
to appeal to in the last resort—the Supreme
Court of the United States.
Mr. CAMPBELL, of Ohio, (interrupting.) I
rise to propound a question, if it is entirely agree-
■ able to the gentleman from Georgia, and not
otherwise. !
Mr. STEPHENS. Perfectly agreeable; but
I hope the gentleman will not take much of my
time.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I was similarly responded
to-on a former occasion, and I shall take warn¬
ing, and occupy but a moment of the gentleman s
time. Why did not you,'and those who sought
to disturb the time-b onored compromise of our
fathers of 1820, if they regarded the eighth sec¬
tion of the Missouri act as unconstitutional, re¬
sort to the courts to test its constitutionality?
' Mr. STEPHENS. There is a case of that
sort now before the Supreme Court.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Why, instead of bringing
all this trouble on the country, did he not then
resort to the courts?
Mr. STEPHENS. Why, Mr. Speaker, it was
first my duty as a legislator, believing it to be
wrong, to vote to repeal it, and I did so, [laugh¬
ter;] and if the Congress .'of the United States
had not repealed it, and I had been personally
affected by it in the Territory, then I might have
resorted to the courts.
•Mr. CAMPBELL. Did not the gentleman vote
to repeal it because of its unconstitutionality ?
Mr. STEPHENS. Standmg as it did, I "did,
for that and oth'er reasons. As long as it stood
as a regulation founded *<m the principle of a
division of the Territory* I was willing to abide
by it; but when it was abandoned and repudiated
as such, it was, in my judgment, an odious and
unjust restriction. But I do not wish the gentle¬
man 'to divert me from the line of argument I was
pursuing.
Mr. CAMPBELL. If the gentleman voted to
repeal it in 1854 because^it was unconstitutional,
why did he vote to fasten it upon Texas in 1846,
unless, in the meanwhile, there vtas a change in
the Constitution?
Mr. STEPHENS, For the Very reason that
I have just stated. In 1845, on the annexation
of Texas, I voted for it, upon the principle of a
division of the Territory. Congress has a right to
pas;3 all needful laws and regulations for the
Territory, as property; so said Mr. Madison; this
includes the power to divide, if necessary or
needful for public peace and harrpony. When I
voted for it, it was upon that principle. And, sir,
it was in. 1850', after the gentleman's party had
repeatedly—in 1846, 1847, 1848, 1849; and 1850
—denied, repudiated, and. scouted at what they
now call the time-honored compromise of our
fathers of 1820, that I voted for the reestablish-
ment of the old principle in our territorial policy
—of leaving the publicHomain open for the free
and equal, settlement and colonization of the
people from all the States alike, without congres¬
sional limitations or restrictions upon any. This
principle was reestablished in 1850—after the one.
proposed in 1820 had been abandoned—and this
principle I voted to,carry out in 1854, in the
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Will the gentleman ex¬
plain to the House and to the country, how it is
that a measure may be constitutional which ex¬
cludes slavery on one side of a given line, in a
Territory belonging to the people 'of the States ia
common, and unconstitutional on the other?
Mr. STEPHENS, My explanation of the
point the gentleman makes is this.' Upon the
principle of a division of the Territory as public
property between the two sections, it might bes
constitutional to set aside a portion to one by fixed
lines and boundaries, while the appropriation of
the whole of it to that section would be manifestly
wrong, unjust, and. therefore unconstitutional.
Just as in the case of the division of the surplus
revenue—public property—among the States—the
part assigned to each, on division fairly and justly
made, was constitutionally held; but if some States
had taker; all to the exclusion of the rest, that
would have been manifestly unjust, and therefore
unconstitutional. But I have given my views at-
large upon this subject once before this?session.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Well then
Mr. STEPHENS. I do not wish the gentle¬
man to divert me from my argument by a con¬
tinuation of questions upon other subjects.
Mr. CAMPBELL. I hope I may be fortunate
• •• • ••• 1" *» —
enough to get the floor at the expiration of the
gentleman's hour, and therefore will not preds my
inquiries now on this interesting point.
• Mr. STEPHENS. Now, sir, just here I wish
to say a word more about " that time-honored
compact of our fathers," which jt is said has
been violated. Mr. Speaker, I say that the fa¬
thers who made this K^jublic, from the begin¬
ning of it—from the date of the Constitution and
up to 1820, never in a single instance exercised the
power of excluding the migration of slaves from
any of the States of this Union to the common
territory. The gentleman now claims to follow
the fathers of the Republic. Well, I suppose Gen¬
eral Washington, Mr! Madison, and Air. Jeffer¬
son, are as eminently entitled as any others to
occupy that position'. Mr. Jefferson especially
is often quoted by those holding seats on this
side of the House. Mr. Jefferson, it is said, was
against slavery. I grant that. But how ? Mr.
Jefferson was in favor of every State retaining and
exercising jurisdiction over tn'e< subjeet for itself.
Mr. Jefferson was himself opposed to'the passage
of that restriction in 1820, now called a time-hon¬
ored compact. I do not care as to what his ab¬
stract opinions were. I believe he was for pro¬
viding for the gradual abolition of slavery in Vir¬
ginia. Eut his plan was for the people of Virginia
to do it for themselves, without any interference^
from abroad or influence from this Government—
I mean after the present Constitution was formed
and adopted. I have Mr. Jefferson's sentiments
here before me on this particular Missouri re¬
striction, when it was passed. It is immaterial
what his opinions of slavery were—what did he
think of that measure ? The author of the Dec¬
laration of Independence is often appealed to as
authority by the gentleman's party. Sir, if the
departed Jefferson could return from the realms
above—if the seals of the tomb at Monticello could
be broken, and that spirit could htf permitted to
revisit the earth, believe you that he would speak
a different sentiment to-day from that he uttered
then ?
Here is the letter which Mr. Jefferson wrote.
It is too long to read the whole; but in this letter
to Mr. Holmes, of Maine, dated the 29th April,
1820, after strongly condemning the establish¬
ment of a geographical line, and the attempt to
restrain the "diffusion of slavery over a greater,
surface," he says:
"An abstinence, too, from this act of power would re¬
move the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress
to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men
composing a State. This, certainly, is the exclusive right
of every State, which nothhtgin the Constitution has taken
from them and given to the' General Government. Could
Congress, for example, say that the now freemen of Coru
necticut should be freemen, and that they shall not emigrate
into any other State ?"
This is plain and explicit, and on the very
question.
Again, in a letter to Mr. Madison on the same
^ubject, he says:
" I am indebted to you for your two letters of February 7
and 19. This Missouri question, by a geographical line of
division, is the most portentous one I have ever contem¬
plated." * * * " Is ready to risk the Union fo»
any chance of restoring his party to power, and wriggling
himself to the head of it." '
The allusion here is evidently to Rufus King,
who was the first mover of the restriction. Such,
sir, were the sentiments of him who was not only
the author of the Declaration of Independence*
but the author of the ordinance of 1787, under*
the old Confederation. This is what he said of
the restriction of 1820, under our present Consti¬
tution.
Here is also Mr. Madison's emphatic opinion
against the same measure. I cannot take up my
time in reading it. .1 state the fact, and challenge
contradiction. Je,fferson was against the restric¬
tion of 1820. Madison was against it, and Jack¬
son was against it. No man can deny these facts.
It was reluctantly accepted by the South, however,
as an alternative, and only as an alternative* for
the sake of peace and harmony. And who arc
those now who call it a sacred compact? Those
very men, the gentleman and his party, who de¬
nounced every man from the North as " a dough"
face," who from 1846 to 1850 were in favor of
abiding by it for the sake of union and harmony.
Not a man can be named from the North who was
willing to abide by that line of division during
the period I have stated who was not denounced
by the gentleman and his party as " a dough¬
face." Who noware the " dough-faces?" And
if the gentleman wishes to know what tree brought'
forth that better fruit of which he spoke the other
day, I will tell him. It was not the Kansas tree,
but that old political upas planted by Rufus King
in 1820. It grew up; it flourished, and it sent its '
poisonous exhalations throughout this country
till it came well nigh extinguishing the life of the
Republic in 1850.
Mr. CAMPBELL. That tree was planted
when—[Cries of " Order!" Order!"]—when
slavery was first brought to theshorfes of America.
[Cries of " Order!" "Order!"]
Mr. STEPHENS. Well, then, Mr. Speaker, '
it is much older than the Kansas bill. It was
planted before the Government was formed. The
Constitution itself was grafted upon its stock.
,The condition or slavery of the African race, as
it exists amongst us, is a " fixed feet" in the
Constitution. From this a tree has indeed sprung
—bearing, however, no troubles or bitter fruits.
It is the tree of national liberty, which, by the
culture of statesmen and patriots, has grown up
and flourished, and is now sending its branches
far and wide, ladened with no fruit but national
happiness, prosperity, glory, and renown.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Will the gentleman from
Georgia read the preamble to the Constitution?
Mr. STEPHENS. Yes; and I believe I can
repeat it to him. It is " in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquillity."
Mr. CAMPBELL. " And secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
Mr. STEPHENS. Yes, sir, to themselves
and their posterity—not to the negroes and Afri¬
cans—and what sort of liberty ? Constitutional
liberty ; that liberty which recognized the inferior
condition of the African race amongst them; the
liberty which we now enjoy; the liberty which
all the States enjoyed at that time, save one, (for
all were then slaveholding, except Massachu-
II
Bettsf.) That is the sort of liberty.. None of your
Socialism liberty. None of your Fourierism lib¬
erty. Constitutional liberty—" law and order"
abiding liberty. That is the liberty which thef
meant to perpetuate.
Now, Mr. Speaker,Ho return from this digres
sion—I was*on the subject of the Kansas laws—
I had a good deal to say on that point I must, now
,'omit; for 1 have a good deal 1 wish also to say
on the measure immediately before us, and the
amendment which I have submitted, and my time
is rapidly passing away. I shall proceed, then,
to the bill and the amendment.
* The bill under consideration proposes to admit
Kansas as a State at once under the Tcpelta con¬
stitution. I am opposed to it; because that con¬
stitution was formed without any authority of
law, either from the territorial authorities or from
Congress. It was forrhed in open opposition to
law; it was formed by men in open rebellion,
with arms in their hands, against the only legally-
constituted government in the Territory. The
leaders most conspicuous in getting it up are now
under arrest for treason. Whether they are guilty
or not, I will not even express an opinion. That
, is a question for the courts—the Federal courts—
not the courts created by the Territorial Legisla¬
ture, but the United States courts, with an appeal
to the Supreme Court of the United States—to
determine. I do not wish in any way to interfere
with that judicial question. Let these gentlemen
stand or fall according to their guilt or innocence,
; as it may be made to appear before the proper
tribunals, at the proper time. Let us not, in the
mean time, prejudge the case either for or against
them. The man who claims to be Governor
uqder this Topeka. constitution is now in custody
awaiting his trial for the highest offense known
to the laws and Constitution of the.United States.
1 am opposed to this bill, because we have no
evidence that a majority, or anything like a ma¬
jority, of the people of Kansas are in favor of
this pretended Topeka constitution. It is an
txparte proceeding from beginning to end. It was
got up by a party. It was contrived by Governor
Reeder; and though he and his associates now
place the whole grounds of their justification
upon the plea thatthe Territorial Legislature was
composed of usurpers—thatthe election was car¬
ried by an invasion of non-residents, who passed
laws that they cannot submit to, yet it must be
recollected by all fair-minded men that this Legis¬
lature, however elected, was organized under the
auspices of Governor Reeder himself. He was
the judge of the election returns of its members
in tie first instance, and he duly commissioned a
large majority of both branches of it, and gave
his own official certificate that they were duly
elected. * If what is now asserted by him and
others be true, why did he not at the proper time
arrest it ? Why now lay a complaint at the door
■ of the President for not preventing an invasion
of Kansas, or setting aside the legislative election,
while he, as Governor, made no complaint to the
President ? He was the sentinel placed upon the
watch-tower in Kansas. The only cry heard from
him by the President or the country, during this
now-pretended invasion, and for eeveral long
months afterwards, was, " All's well!" He rec¬
ognized this Legislature after it was organized,
and after he knew full well how it was elected.
I must therefore receive with many grains of al¬
lowance what he now asserts, all tending towards
nothing more strongly than .the impeachment of
his own official integrity. His position is not such
as to warrant me, as afair man, now to back him
in his present revolutionary movement. I see no
sufficient grievance even alleged to justify me in
doing it.
Grant that some of the laws passed by the-Le¬
gislature Ihat Reeder certified to as having been
duly elected were bad xlaws—riot a single case of
oppression, growing out of any one of these laws,
has arisen. I was on this point when interrupted
by the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Campbell.]
How does it appear but that the courts would pro¬
nounce these laws unconstitutional, as some on
this floor maintain that they are ?- Why resort to
revolution until the courts fail? Nay, more: if a
majority of the people of Kansas are opposed to
these laws, as is so boldly asserted on this floor,
why can they not have thorp repealed by the next
Legislature, soon to be elected, even if the courts
should sustain them ? The next Legislature is to
be cllosen in October. Why not settle that ques¬
tion at the ballot-box ? Is not that a fair and just
way of settling such questions ? Is it not the
way we have to do in All our States ? Are those
who press this ex parte constitution up6n us afraid
of the ballot-box? Whatever else maybe said
of the acts of the Kansas Legislature, they cer¬
tainly secured the purity of the fountain of po¬
litical power. Here is a part of their election
law:
" Sec. 24. If any person, by menaces,threats, and force,
or by any other unlawful means, either directly or indi¬
rectly, attempt to influence any qualified voter in giving
his vote, or to deter him from giving the same, or disturb or
hinder him in the free exercise of his right of suffrage, at
any election held under the laws'of this Territory, the per¬
son so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be adjudged
gi'ffty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by fine not ex¬
ceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the
county jail not exceeding one year.
" Sec. 25. Every person who shall, at the same election,
vote more than once, either at the same or a different place,
shall, dn conviction, be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor,
and be punished by fine not exceeding fifty dollars, or by
imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding three months.
"Sec. 26. Every person not being a qualified voter ac¬
cording to the organic law and the laws of this Territory,
who shall vote at any election within this Territory, know¬
ing that he is not entitled to vote, shall be adjudged guilty
of a misdemeanor, and punished by fine not exceeding fifty
dollars.
" Sec. 27. Any person who designedly gives a printed or
written ticket to any qualified voter of this Territory, con¬
taining the written or printed names of persons for whom
said voter does not design to vote, for the purpose of caus¬
ing such voter to poll his vote contrary to his own wishes,
shall, on conviction, be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor,
and punished by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or
by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding thsee
months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
<' Sec. 28. Any person who shall cause to be printed and
circulated, or who shall circulate, any false and fraudulent
tickets, which upon their face appear to be designed as a
fraud upon voters, shall, upon conviction, be punished by
fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment
in the county jail, not exceeding three months, or by both
such fine and imprisonment.
" This act to take effect and be in force from and after-its
passage."—Chap. 52, p. 281,
12
Does any free man want a- better security for
his sovereign right of suffrage than is here given ?
Does this look like the work of •"border ruf¬
fians" who were looking to carry elections by
fraud or violence ? But it is said that in the same
law it is provided that no man shall be entitled to
vote who has been guilty of a violation of the fu¬
gitive slave law passed by Congress! "Well, sir,
is this an onerous restriction ? Ought men who
set themselves up in open violation of the laws of
our country to complain of being deprived of'the
right of having a voice in making laws ? Are
not certain offenses in all our States grounds of
denying suffrage? But the great question is, can¬
not this provision of the election law be repealed
by the next Legislature if a majority of the honest
people there are against it? The case then pre¬
sented by the Governor and his associates in the
Topeka movement is not such as to justify, in
my judgment, this revolution which they have
set on foot, and now ask Congress to approve and
sanction. Besides this, Mr. Speaker, the evi¬
dence, is very strong to my mind, if not conclu¬
sive, that this Topeka constitution docs not meet
the approval of a majority of the people of Kan¬
sas. When it Avas submitted to popular vote,
only about seventeen hundred in the whole Terri¬
tory approA'ed it. Now, sir, I am for no such
judgment either way—I am for fair dealing in this
matter on bgth sides.
I wish for nothing but a fair expression of the
will of the bona fide residents of Kansas upon
this subject. When I voted for the Kansas bill,
I did so, not for the purpose of makin'g it a slave
State, unless a majority of the ivhite freemen
there desired it; and if they did desire it, I was
for permitting them to exercise the same power
over the subject that the freemen of the other
States of the Union exercise over the same sub¬
jects within their respective limits. I never re¬
garded the succe ss of that measure as a triumph
of the Sohth over the North, further than it was
a triumph of this great constitutional principle
of equality oirer that sectionalism of a party at
the North, which denied it. Whether Kansas
or Nebraska would be slave States or free States,
I did not know. I left that to time, clirrfate, soil,
and the people, to settle. And now, sir, though
upon-general principles I am opposed to the ad¬
mission of any State into the Union without
population sufficient to entitle them to a member
on this floor, according to the ratio of representa¬
tion, yet, in the present case, if gentlemen are
so anxious to press the admission of Kansas, I
am willing to forego the usual inquiry into the
exact- amount of population there. I will waive
that point. I do not know the number of people,
there. Gentlepien °h the other side vary ip their
estimatesfrom sixty thousand to ninety thousand.
I think it would be best first to ascertain the facts.
Still I will, I say, waive that point; and if gen¬
tlemen are so anxious for the admission of the
people of that Territory, whatever may be their
numbers, as a State, I meet them, and offer the
substitute to this bill which I have submitted.
Mine is an alternative proposition. If Kansas
i^ to be admitted, let it be done in a fair, just,
and proper way, and not at the instance of an 1
irregular, illegal, and revolutionary convention
of only a portion, and a very small portion at
that, of the people of the Territory. The plan I
submit is the same offered by my colleague [Mr.
Toombs] in the Senate. I suppose gentlemen
have read it. I. cannot now read it. Its main
features are to provide for the admission of Kan1
'sas, under such constitution as her people may
form, at as early a day as is*practicable.
It provides, first, for the taking of a census.
This is to be done by five commissioners, to be
appointed by the President, and ratified by the
Senate.
It provides, secondly, for an election to be held
in, the Territory on tlie first Tuesday after the
first Monday in November next, (the day of the
Presidential election in the States,) for delegates
to a convention to form a State constitution.
Representation in this convention is to be ac¬
cording to the number of voters in the severed
counties and districts, as shall appear from the
census, which is, amongst other things, to exhibit
the names of all the actual residents of the Terri¬
tory at the. date of the passage of the bill.
These commissioners are to appoint the officers
to conduct the election. Returns are to be made
to them, and they are to judge and determine all
questions relating to the.election, and to give cer¬
tificates of the same.
Three months' residence in the county is re¬
quired to entitle any one to vote.
And to guard the purity and sanctity of the
ballot-box, so that the untrammeled voice of the
people may be heard, let it be as it may, these
stringent provisions are inserted:
Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That every white male
citizen of the United States, (including Indians of l(Jte de¬
scription qualified by existing laws to vote,) over twenty-
one years old, who may be a bona fide inhabitant of said
Territory at the pasage of this act, and who shall have re¬
sided three months next before said election in the county
in which he oflurs to vote, and no other persons whatever,
shall be entitled to vote at said election ; and all persons
qualified as voters may be elected delegates to said conven¬
tion, and no others.
Sec. 11. And be it further enacted, That, if any person,
by menaces, threats, or force, or by any other unlawful
means, shall directly or indirectly attempt to influence
any qualified voter in giving his vote, or deter him from
.giving the same, or disturb or hinder him in the free exer¬
cise of his right of suffrage, at the election provided for by
this act, the person so gfl'cnding shall be adjudged guilty of
a misdemeanor, and be punished by fine nof exceeding five
hundred dollars, or by imprisonment npt exceeding one
year, or by both, at the discretion of the court.
Sec. 12. And be it further enacted, That any person n»t
being a qualified voter, according to the provisions of this
act, wi.o shall vote at the election herein provided for,
knowing that he is not entitled to vote, and any person who
shall, at the same election, vote more than once, wUe|hc
at the same or at different places, shall be adjudged guiltj
of a misdemeanor, and punished by fine not exceeding twe
hundred and fifty dollars, or by imprisonment not exceed¬
ing six months, or both, at the discretion of the court.
Sec. 13. And be it further enacted, That any person
whatsoever who may be charged with the holding of the
election herein authorized to be held, who shall willfully
and knowingly commit any fraud or irregularity whatever,
with the intent to hinder or prevent, or defeat a fair ex¬
pression of the popular wiM in said election, shall be guilty
of a misdemeanor, and punished by fine not exceeding on»
thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding twe
years, or both, at the discretion of pie court.
But, sir, my time will not allow me to go more
into details. The object of the bill, from the
IB
-beginning to the end, is to provide for ajs fair an
expression of the popular will of the Territory
as human ingenuity can devise. F'y the expres¬
sion of that will, when thus made, I shall abide,
let it be which way it may. For your bill as it
stands, I can never vote. Against the substitute
1 offer, who can raise any objection that is in favor
of disposing of this question upon principles of
fairness, of justice, of law, of order, and of the
Constitution ? I present the distinct issue between-
these two measures to the House and the country.
I am constrained, Mr. Speaker, to believe that
all this clamor we hear about " free Kansas,"
and "down-trodden Kansas," and "bleeding
Kansas," arises much more from a desire ana
hope of exciting by it sectional hate and the alien¬
ation of one portion of the Union from the other,
than from any wish to have even " free Kansas"
admitted into the Union, or from any conviction
'that a majority of the people there are in favor of
"this Topeka constitution. The object, I am con*
strained to believe, is not so much to get another
State added to the Union, as it is to use the ques¬
tion to produce a severance of those States
now united. Why these violent denunciations
against one "vyhole section of the Confederacy?
Why is such unbridled vituperation indulged in
towards southern men and southern institutions?
Why these shouts of joy in New York on the
announcement that " civil war" was raging in,
Kansas? What other construction can be put
upon the movement of a late sectional convention
held in Philadelphia to nominate party candidates
for President and Vice President? What is the
meaning of all these appeals to the passions'and
prejudices of the people of the northern States,
exciting them ttqrise up against their southern
brethren? Is it hot part and parcel of that same
spirit which proclaimed that it were better that
the Capitol should blaze by the torch of an incen¬
diary, and wild disorder ensue, than that the free
people of Kansas and Nebraska should regulatp
their own domestic institutions in their own way ?
That is all that the advocates of the Kansas bill
asked; that is all it was designed to effect; and
that is all I this day ask this Plouse to join me
in carrying out in good faith to the letter and
Bpirit.
To show the House and the country some of
the grounds for my belief touching the ulterior
objects of some of those who are joining in this
" Kansas cry" at the North, I ask attention to
an editorial of the-NewYork Courier and En¬
quirer of the 26th instant. In this, that editor
.says: ,
" We are in the midst of a revolution, the origin of which
is sectional, and its avowed object to gratify the grasping am¬
bition of the slave power; and a civil war waged in behalf
of freedom and in resistance-of slavery extension is a fitting
accompaniment of an attempt on the part of the South and
their co-laborers of the North, to trample on the principles
and guarantees of the Constitution, 6y the extension of
slavery, into free territory through the direct legislation of
trie General Government."
Here it is announced that we are in the " midst
af a revolution, the origin of which is sectional.'"
But most strange to,say, the cause of it is charged
upon the South; and stranger still, that causg is
asserted to be an attempt on the part of the South
to " trample on the principles and guarantees
of the Constitution, by the extension of slavery
into free territory through the direct legislation of the
General Government." Wa^evet accusation more
groundless and utterly unfounded, than this
against the South ?' The South never asked Con¬
gress,by legislation, to extend slavery; nor has it
ever been done by any such legislation. All that
the South ever asked, or now asks, is, to leave the
question to be settled by those who are to be
affected by it.
General James Watson Webb, the editor of
this paper, (the Courier and Enquirer,) was a
delegate to the late Philadelphia convention, the
object of which was to embody this sectional
movement of the North against the South. In
that convention he made a speechv From that
speech, as reported in the New York Times, we
are not left to inference as to what is the design
and intention of'the leading spirits controlling it..
In speaking of the people the convention repre¬
sented, he says:
" They ask us to give them a nomination which, when
put fairly before the people, will -unite public sentiment,
and, through the ballot-box, will restrain and repel this
pro-slavery extension, and this aggression of the slave-
ocracy. What else are they doing ? They tell you that they
are willing to abide by the ballot-box, and willing to make
that tile last appeal. If we fail there, what then ? We will
drive it back, s-word in hand, and so help me God! belieping
that to be right, I am with them. [Loud cheers, and cries
of'Good!']"
This was in no common town or city meeting.
But it was in that great northern sectional con¬
vention lately assembled at Philadelphia, that
these sentiments received such bursts of applause.
There is, I say, no mistaking the object of the
leaders of this movement* They evidently intend
to use this Kansas question to make as much
political capital out of it as they can to aid them
in carrying the election, by which "means they
hope to get power to " crush out" the South, as
they suppose; but, if they fail.in the election,
then they are, sword in hand, to join the revolu¬
tionists in Kansas.
In the first editorial I read from, in this mam¬
moth sheet, (the Courier and Enquirer,) issued the
26th instant, and written, doubtless, by General
Webb himself, who seems to be the Magnus
Apollo of the Black Republican hosts, arcthese
significant, as well as studied, words:
" The remedy is, to go to the polls, and through the bal-
lot-boi repudiate the infamous platform put forth at Cin¬
cinnati, and over which the black flag of slavery waves with
characteristic impudence; and failing in this, do as our
fathers did before us—stand by our inalienable rights, and
drive back with arms those who dare to trample upon our
inheritance. There is no boasting and ho threat in this. It
is the calm language of honest, conscientious, and determ¬
ined freemen, wafted to us by every breeze from the West;
and they are already acting in strict conformity with their
avowed determination."
Now, sir, I care as little for these belligerent
manifestoes of this redoubtable general of the
Courier and Enquirer, as I did two years ago for
Ihe " blazing" and "incendiary" bulletins of his
cotemporary of the Tribune. I refer to theijxonly
to show the purposes at work; and I put the
question directly to this House: Are yo% going
to allow this subject to 'be used for any such
purposes ? If you. want Kansas admitted as a
14
State, do I not offer you a fair, liberal, and just
proposition for accomplishing that object? Do
you wish to go before the country with the ques¬
tion, to inflame the» public mind at the North, to
njove their passions, to stir, up their blood, and
prepare their hearts for a war of extermination
against their southern brethren?—" to drive them
hack, sicordin hand, in case yon fail in the election ?"
If so, then be it so. But be it known to you, that
you will have to take the question with the issue
this day joined. Between you and me—between
these two propositions, I am willing that the
people North, as well as the South, may judge.
Nothing would afford me more pleasure than to
argue the question with you before any intelligent
fconstituency in the Republic.
Patriotism, as I have heretofore found it, is the
same everywhere. Nor has it in days past been
confined to any locality in this broad land. It is, I
believe, indigenous wherever the national flag
floats. In the forests and ship-yards and market
towns of Maine it is to be found; in the factories,
workshops, and commercial houses of the old
Bay State it is to be found. In State street and
Faneuil Hall its voice has often been heard. So
on the White Mountains of New Hampshire and
the Green Mountains of Vermont; on the hills
and valleys of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New
York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. It is a
plant that heretofore has grown with as much
vigor.'onthe most sterile soil of the East as it has
upon the fairest plains of the South or the richest
prairies of the West. I cannot .believe that a
change of political climate has rendered it an
exotic in any part of this country yet. Upon
nothifig, however, should I rely in presenting this
issue everywhere, but upon tne reason, justice,
intelligence, virtue, integrity, and patriotism of
the people; upon these all our republican institu¬
tions must rest; when they fail, all that we hold
dear must go jvith them. And if the North shall
decide to follow General Webb, let the responsi¬
bility rest upon him and them.
I cannot believe that the great body of honest
business people of the North are prepared to join
a set of reckless leaders in this crusade against
the South, or will lend their influence and aid in
kindling a civil war in Kansas which may extend
until it involves the whole country. This I can¬
not believe, and will not believe for the present'
at least. It is for them to determine whether
they will or not. That question they will have
to meet, not only on this issue, if the majority of
this House so determine, but upon that other,
and at this time more absorbing, issue of the Cin¬
cinnati platform. That platform bears no black
flag, as this " sword-in-hand" general asserts.
Black flags belong to those who think more of
black men than they do of the white man, and
who exhibit more sympathy for the well-provided
African race than they do for the suffering and
oppressed .poor of their own. The -flag of the
Cincinnati platform on this subject bears no prin¬
ciples ascribed upon its .broad folds but those of
the Constitution. The friends of the Union under
the Constitution must and will approve them ev¬
erywhere; while none but the enemies of one or
the other of these, or both, can denounce them.
Upon this great sectional question all national
men, I care not of what party—all true hearted
patriots, who look from the bright history of the
past with hopes to a brighter future before us,
must and will give those principles, announced at
Cincinnati, their sanction and approval. The
issue on this subject presented at Cincinnati is
nationalism against sectionalism—the issue pre¬
sented at Philadelphia is sectionalism against na¬
tionalism. ' -
Are we, Mr. Speaker, to remain a united people?
Are we to go On in .that high career of achieve¬
ment in siience, in art, and ill civilization, which
we have so conspicuously entered upon? Or art
we to be arrested in our upward course long before
reaching the half-way point towards ultimate
culmination? Are our deeds'of glory all. num¬
bered ? Are the memories of the past to be for¬
gotten , and the benefits and blessings of the present
to be derided and rejected ? Is the radiant ofb *
of day brightening the morning of our existence
to be darkened and obscured, and with it the light
of the world extinguished forever? And all this
because Congress, in its wisdom, has thought
proper to permit the free white men of Kansas to
determine for themselves whether the negro, in
that Territory shall be the same nondescript out¬
cast., neither citizen nor slave, amongst them, that
he is in sixteen States of the Union, or whether
he shall occupy the same condition there in rela¬
tion to them which a Christian philanthropy has
assigned him in the-rother fifteen States. I say
Christian philanthropy, notwithstanding the re¬
marks of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Dunn]
and,the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Giddings,]
the other day, denouncing slavery as a violation
of the laws of nature and of God! To tho'sa
remarks, though my time is short, I wish very
briefly to reply before I close.
.Even, however, if slavery be sinful, as they
a«ffirm, or their language implies, permitme here to
ask, is not the sin the same whether the-slave b«
held in Georgia, Carolina, or in Kansas ? Is it any
more sinful in one place than another? But ^re
these gentlemen correct ? Is African slavery, as
it exists in the South, either a violation of the
laws of nature, the laws of nations, or the laws
of God ? 1 maintain that it is not. It has been
recognized by the laws of nations from time im¬
memorial. The highest court in this country, the
Supreme Court of the-United States, has so de¬
cided the laws of nations to be. And where do
we get the laws of nature but in nature's works
about us? Those general rules and principles
by which all things in nature,.according to their
kinds respectively, seem to be regulated, and to
which they seem to conform, we call laws; and
in the handiwork of creation nothing is more
striking to the philosophic observer than that
order is nature's first great law.
Gradation, toa, is stamped upon everything
animate as well as inanimate—if, indeed, there
be anything inanimate. A scale, from the lowest
degree of inferiority to the highest degree of supe¬
riority, runs through all animal" life. We see it
in the insect tribes—we see it in the fishes of the
sea, the fowls of the air., in the beasts of the
earth", and we see it in the races of men. We
15
the same principle pervading the heavenly bodies
above us. One star differs from another star in
magnitude and luster—some are larger, others
are Smaller—but the greater and superior uni¬
formly influences and controls the lesser and
inferior within its sphere. * If there is any fixed
principle or law of nature it is this. In the races
of men we find like differences in capacity and
development. The negro is inferior to the white
man; nature has made him so; observation and
history, from the remotest times, establish the
fact; and all attempts to make the inferior equal
to the superior is but an effort to reverse the
decrees of the Creator, who has made all things
as we find them, according to the counsels of his
own will. The Ethiopian can no more change
his nature or his^kin tlian the leopard his spots.
Do what you will, a negro is a negro, and he
will remain a negro still. In the social and polit¬
ical system of the South the negro is assigned to
that subordinate position for which he is fitted by
the laws of nature. Our system of civilization is
founded in strict conformity to these laws. Order
and subordination, according to the natural fitness
of things, fs the principle upon which the whole
fabric of our southern institutions rest.
Then as to the law of God—that law we read
not only in his works about us, around us, and
over us, but in that inspired Book wherein he has
revealed his will to man. When we differ as to
the voice of nature, or the language of God, as
spoken in nature's works, we go to that great
Book, the Book of Books, which is the fountain
of all truth. To that Book I now appeal. God,
in the days of old, made a covenant with the human
family—for the redemption of fallen man: that
' covenant is the corner-stone of the whole Chris¬
tian system. Abram, afterwards called Abraham,
was the man with whom that covenant was made.
He was the great first head of an organized visi¬
ble church here below. He believed God, and it
was accounted to him for righteousness. He was
in deed and in truth the father of the faithful.
Abraham, sir, was a slaveholder. Nay, more,
he was required to have the sign of that covenant
administered to the slaves of his household.
Mr. CAMPBELL. . Page, bring me a Bible.
Mr. STEPHENS. I have o/ie here which the
gentleman can consult if he wishes. Here is the
passage, Genesis xvii., 13. God said to Abra¬
ham: ,
" 13. He that is born in thy house and he that is bought
with thy money must needs be circumcised ; and my cove¬
nant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant."
Yes, sir, Abraham was not only a slaveholder,
but a slave dealer, it seems, for he bought men
with his money, and yet it was with him the
covenant was made by which the world was to
be redeemed from the dominion of sin. And it
was into his bosom in heaven that the poor man
who died at the rich man's gate was borne by
angels, according to the parable of the Savior.
In the 20th chapter of Exodus, the great moral
law is found-r-that law that defines sin—the
ten commandments, written by the finger of
God himself upon tables of stone. In two of
these commandments, the 4th and 10th, verses
10th and 17th, slavery is expreSsly recognized,
and in none of them is there anything against it
—this is the moral law. In Leviticus we have
the civil law on this subject, as given by God to
Moses for the government of his chosen people
in their municipal affairs. In chapter xxv., verses
44, 45, and 46,1 read as follows:
" 44. Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou
shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about
you; of them ye shall buy bondmen and bondmaids.
" 45i Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do
sojourn among you;'' of them ye shall buy, and of their
families that are with you which they begat in your land:
and they shall be your possession.
"46. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your
children after yob, to inherit them for a possession; they
shall be your bondmen forever; but over your brethren, th«
children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another,
with rigor."
This was the law given to the Jews soon after
they left Egypt for their government when they
should reach the land of promise. They could
have had no slaves then. It authorized the intro¬
duction of slavery amongst them when they should
become established in Canaan. And it is to be
noted that their bondmen arid bondmaids to be
bought, and held for a possession and an inheritance
for their children after them* were to be of the
heathen round about them. Over their brethren
they were not to rule with rigor. Our southern
system is in strict conformity with this injunc¬
tion. Men of our own blood and our own race,
wherever born, or from whatever clime they come,
are free and equal. We have nc^ castes or classes
amongst white men—no "upper tendom" or
" lower tendom." All are equals. Our slaves
were taken from the heathen tribes—the bar¬
barians of Africa. In our households they are
brought within- the pale of the covenant, under
Christian teaching and influence; and more of
them are partakers of the benefits of the gospel
than ever were rendered so by missionary enter¬
prise. The wisdom of man is foolishness—the
ways of Providence are mysterious. Nor does the
negro feel any sense of degradation in his condi¬
tion—he is not degraded. He occupies and fills the
same grade or rank in society and tfip State that
he does in the scale of being; it is his natural
place; and all things fit when nature's great first
law of order is conformed to.
Again: Job was certainly one of the best men of
Whom we read in the Bible. He was a large slave¬
holder. So, too,were Isaacand Jacob,and all tha
patriarchs. But, it is said, this was under the Jew¬
ish dispensation. Granted. Has any change been
made since? Is anything to> be found in the New
Testament against it? Nothing—not a word. Sla¬
very existed when the Gospel was preached by
Christ and his Apostles, and where they preached:
it was all around them. And though the Scribes
and Pharisees were denounced by our Savior for
their hypocrisy and robbing " widows' houses,"
yet not a word did He utter against slaveholding.
On one occasion, He was sought for by a centu¬
rion, who asked him to heal his slave, who was
sick. Jesus said he would go; but the centurion
objected, saying: "Lord, I am not worthy that
thou shouldst come under my roof; but speak the
word only, and my servant shall be healed. For
I am a man under authority, having soldiers
under hie; and I say to this man, go, and he
16
roeth; and to another come, and he cometh; and
to my slave, do this, and he doeth it." Matthew
7iii.,9. Tlioword rendered here "servant" in our
translation, means slave. It means just such a ser¬
vant as all our slaves at the South are. I have'
the original Greek.
[Here the hammer fell. Mr. Stephens asked
that he might be permitted to go on as long as
the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Campbell] had
taken up his time- He had but a little more to
say. Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, objected; and what
follows is the substance of what he intended to
say, if he had not been cut off by the hour rule.]
The word in the original is doulos. and the
meaning of this word, as given in Robinson's
Greek and English Lexicon, is this—I read from
the book: " In the family the doulos was one
bound to serve, a slave, and was the property of
his master—'a living possession,' as Aristotle
calls liim." And again: "The doufrs, therefore,
was never a hired sen«)»<,_ the latter being called
»lis// ios," Ac. This is the. moaning of the word,
as given by Robinson, a honied doctor of divin¬
ity, as well as of laws. The centurion on that
occasion said to Christ himself," I say to my slave,
do this, and he doeth it, find do Thou but speak
the word, and he shall be healed." What was
the Savior's reply? Did He tell him to go loose
the bonds that fettered his fellow man? Did He
tell him he was sinning against God for holding
a slave ? No such thing. But we ait told by the
inspired penman that:
" When Jesus heard it he marveled and want to them
that followed: Verily, I say unto you, ! have not found do
great faiih, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that
many shall conic from the east and west and shall sit
down with Abraham,and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom
of Heaven. Cut the children of the kingil un shall lie cast
oat into utter darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. And Jesus said, unto the centurion, f,o thy way,
and as thou hast boliaved so be it done unto tbee. And
his seivant [or slave] was healed in the selfsame hour.''
Was Christ a " doughface ?" Did He quail
before tlie slave power? And if he did not rebuke
the lordly centurion for speaking as he did of
his authqrity over his slave, but healed the sick
man, and said that he had not found so great
faith in all Israel as he had in his master, who
shall now presume, in His name, to rebuke others
for exercising similar authority, or say that their
faith may not be as strong as that of the cen¬
turion's?
In no place in the New Testament, sir, is slavery
held up as sinful. Several of the Apostles alluded
to it, but none of them—not one of them,'menr
tions or condemns it as a relation sinful in itself,
or violative of the laws of God, or even Chris¬
tian duty. They enjoin the relative duties of
both master and slave. Paul ,sent a runaway
slave, Onesimus, back to Phileifion, his master,
He frequently alludes to slavery in his letter^ to
the churches, but in no case speaks of it as sinful.
To what he says in one of these epistles I ask
special attention. It is 1st Timothy, chapter 6th,
and beginning with the 1st verse:
" 1. Let as many servants [douloi, slaves in the original,
which I have before me] as are under the yoke [that is,
those who are the most abject of slaves] count their own
masters worthy of all honor,, that the name of God and his
doctrine be not blasphemed.
" 2. And they that have believing masters, [according »
modern doctrine there can be no such thing as a slavchuld-
inghelievcr; so did not think Paul,] let them not despise
[or neglect and not care for] them,because they are brethren,
but rather do them service, because they are faithful and
beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and
exhort.
i "3. If any man tench otherwise and consent not to Whole¬
some words, even the words o f our Lard Jesus Christ, and to
the doctrine which is according to godliness :
" 4. He is proud, [or self-conceited,] knowing nothing hit
doting about questions ana strifes of words, whereof cometh
envy, strife, railings, evil sunnisings,
""5. Perverse disputiAgs of men of corrupt minds, and
destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from
such withdraw thy .elf."
This language of St. Paul, the great Apostle of
the Gentiles, is just as appropriate this day, in
this House, as it was when he penned it eighteen
hundred years ago. No man could frame a more
direct repiy to the doctrines of the gentleman from
Ohio, [Mr. Giddings,] and the gentleman fiom
Indiana, [Mr. Dunn,] than is here contained in the
sacred book. What does all this strife, and envy,
and railings, and "civil war" m Kansas come
from, but the teachings of those in our day who
teach otherwise than Paul taught, and " do not
consent to wholesome words, even the words of ow
Lord Jesus Christ?" '
Let no man, then, say that African slavery as it
exists in the South, incorporated in, and sanc¬
tioned by, the Constitution of the United States,
is in violation of either the laws of nations, the
laws of nature y or the laws of God !
And if it " mustmeeds be " that such an offense
shall come from this source as shall sever the
ties that now unite these States together in frater¬
nal bonds, and involve the land in civil war, then
" wo be unto them from whom the offense
cometh!"
ADMISSION OF KANSAS.
SPEECH
OF
HON. THOMAS L. ANDERSON,
OF MISSOURI,
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 26, 1858,
On the admission of Kansas as a State under the Lecompton Constitution.
The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the
state of the Union—
Mr. ANDERSON said:
Mr. Chairman: I rise for the purpose of avail¬
ing myself of the present opportunity to submit
to this House and the country the views that will
control my action in reference to the admission of
Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. But,
before doing so, as I am a stranger here, belong¬
ing to neither of the prominent political parties,
and having up to this time remained a silent
member, it may be well enough for me, in order
that I may not be misunderstood by my political
friends, nor misrepresented by my political ene¬
mies, to define my position. I am, sir, the rep¬
resentative of a constituency who, looking to the
purity and permanency of our institutions, de¬
mand that the term for the naturalization of for-:
eigners shall be extended; who desire to render
harmless all foreign influence in our political af¬
fairs; who deny to Congress the constitutional
power to interfere with the domestic institutions
of either States or Territories; who insist upon
a strict construction of the Federal Constitution;
who believe that the wisest and best relation that
can subsistin this Government between the white
and African races is that of master and servant;
and who ardently desire the harmony of the States
of this Confederacy, and their perpetual union.
These are the principles enunciated by me dur¬
ing my canvass in 1856, and fully indorsed by a
very respectable majority of my constituents.
These principles shall by me be defended to the
utmost of my ability, whenever and wherever as¬
sailed.
Permit me also to remark, before I advance to
the discussion of the subject under consideration,
that I now find my self placed in a condition where
I must from necessity act with one or the other
of the prominent political parties in this House
upon the great subject of our domestic institu¬
tions—a subject which, from my observations
here, and the known sentiments and purposes of
the Republican party, I am reluctantly and pain¬
fully forced to say is hurrying us on with fearful
rapidity to that point of time in the history of our
country when in all probability (without divine
interposition) the chain that now binds this Union
together will be severed.
Actuated by a loyal and unwavering devotion
to my country, I have no hesitancy in adopting the
only course left me as a member of this Congress,
and the representative of a just and intelligent,
magnanimous and patriotic constituency; and that
is, to support the Administration in every attempt
to resist the fearful encroachments sought to be
made upon the constitutional rights of the South.
By so doing, I am satisfied that I shall faithfully
represent the will of the American party of my
district and State, who have no affinity or sym¬
pathy with the principles of the Republican party.
I come now, Mr. Chairman, to the contempla¬
tion of the important and agitating subject under
consideration—a subject now engrossing the
undivided attention of the American people—one
that we should seek to settle wisely and judicious¬
ly; for the result of the disposition we may make
of it will be either to allay-or greatly increase this
excitement. The lawless events connected with
the history of Kansas have been the exciting
theme for years; outrage after outrage has been
perpetrated there; the laws of the Territory and,
the authority of the United States have both been
contemptuously spurned and trampled underfoot
by a part of her population. No Territory of this
Union has ever before been settled by such an
ungovernable, reckless people. They have been
the source of continual trouble and expense to
the Government; and if I do not greatly mistake
the sentiment of a majority of the people of this
nation, they demand that Kansas shall now be
admitted as a State and left to manage her internal
affairs in her own way. Then the excitement, be¬
yond her own limits at least, will in all probabil¬
ity pass away.
I insist, Mr. Chairman, that no apparent cause
exists in the proceedings of the people of Kansas
in the formation of the Lecompton constitution,
2
that can justify us in refusing her admission; but
that we may rightfully, legally, and constitution¬
ally permit her to become one of the States of this
Union.
The celebrated Kansas-Nebraska bill, approved
on the 30th of May, 1854, authorized the people
of that Territory to elect representatives, make
their own laws, and form and regulate their do¬
mestic institutions in their own way. The twenty-
first section of that act provides that the time,
place, and manner of conducting all elections shall
be prescribed by law. The people, under this
act, met and elected their representatives to the
Territorial Legislature. On the 19th of February,
1857, the Kansas Legislature passed an act pro¬
viding for the election of delegates to frame a
State constitution. That election was held on the
third Monday in June, and the convention met
on the first Monday in September. Much has
been said in the newspapers and elsewhere as to
the inefficiency of that law to secure a fair, honest
vote of the people.
Now, sir, in order to disabuse the public mind
and satisfy the country that there never was an
election law enacted that sought to guard more
vigilantly the rights of the electors, and to secure a
fair and full vote, than the Kansas convention act,
I shall ask the reporters to append to my remarks
a synopsis of it, and also certain parts of a letter
from H. Clay Pate, indorsed by gentlemen of
high respectability in the Territory of Kansas.
You will perceive, from an examination of that
act, that the probate judge of each county in the
Territory was required to-transmit to the Secre¬
tary and Governor of the Territory, immediately
after the 1st day of May, and weeks before the
inaugural address of Governor Walker, delivered
on the 27 th day of May, 1857, a list of the voters
in each county. Before the delivery of this ad¬
dress, it is fair to presume that Governor Walker
had fully informed himself in regard to the affairs
of Kansas. He knew that the registering of the
voters could not by law be continued beyond the
1st day of April; and he must have known, I pre¬
sume, on the 27 th day of May, what counties had
failed to return the lists required by law, and the
reasons why that failure had occurred. In that
address he uses the following language:
'■'Gut. it is said that the convention was not legally called,
and that the election will not be freely and fairly conducted.
The Territorial Legislature is the power ordained for this
purpose by the Congress of the United States, and1, in oppo¬
sing it, you resist the authority of the Federal Government.
The Legislature was called into being by the Congress of
1854, and is recognized in the very latest congressional le¬
gislation. It is recognized by the present Chief Magis¬
trate of the Union, just chosen by the American people,
and many of its acts are now in operation here by univer¬
sal assent. As the Governor of the Territory of Kansas, I
must support the laws and the constitution ; and 1 have
no other alternative, under my oath, but to see that all
constitutional laws are fully and fairly executed. I see in
this act calling the convention no improper or unconsti¬
tutional restrictions upon tho right of suffrage. I see in it
no test oath, or other similar provisions objected to in re¬
lation to previous laws, but clearly repealed as repugnant
to the provisions of this act, so far as regards the election
of delegates to this convention. It is said that a fair and
full vote will not be taken. Who can safely predict such a
result? Nor is it just for a majority, as they allege, to throw
the power into the hands of a minority, from a mere appre¬
hension (I trust entirely unfounded) that they will not be
permitted to exercise the right of suffrage."
Thus you find himeulogizingtheact,and giving
it as his opinion that a fair election will be held;
he anticipates that, in all probability, a portion
of the people would not vote. Now, Governor
Walker was very remiss in advising himself of
the affairs of the Territory if he did not know
that they had determined not to vote; if he did
not know that the people in those counties where
no registry had been made were the warm, de¬
termined advocates of the Topeka constitution,
and that they did not intend to participate in the
election, and were resolved that no other consti¬
tution than that framed by the mobocratic Topeka
convention should ever become the supreme law
of Kansas. Had he sought information on this
subject, I apprehend he would have ascertained
that it was the fault of the people that no registry
was made in the counties where no vote was taken.
Hear the chief Executive of the nation on this
subject; a man who rises above the sectional pre¬
judices of the day. In his message, he says:
" At the time of the election for delegates an extensive
organization existed in the Territory, whose avowed object
it was, if need be, to put down the lawful government by
force, and to establish a government of their own under the
so-called Topeka constitution."
The persons attached to this revolutionary or¬
ganization abstained from taking any part in this
election. It was then their own choice not to vote.
They had a fair opportunity to exercise the right
of suffrage; but they preferred to follow the advice
of partisan leaders at a distance, and to continue
that resistance to law and order that had marked
their rebellious course from the time they set their
feet upon the soil of Kansas. The distinguished
author of the Nebraska-Kansas bill, on the 12th
day of June, 1857, but three days before the elec¬
tion for delegates, and six weeks after the expi¬
ration of the time within which the registry of
the votes was by law completed, and after it was
known that the " emigrant aid" agitators and dis-
organizers in Kansas did not intend to vote, de¬
livered a speech at Springfield, Illinois, in which
he said:
" Kansas is about to speak for herself through her dele¬
gates, assembled in convention to form a constitution, pre¬
paratory to her admission into the Union on an equal footing
with the original States. Peace and prosperity now prevail
throughout her borders. The law under which her delegates
are about to be elected is believed to be just and fair in all
its objects,and provisions. There is every reason to hope
and believe that the law will be fairly interpreted and im¬
partially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide inhab¬
itant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise.
" If any portion of the inhabitants, acting under the ad¬
vice of political leaders in distant States, shall choose to
absent themselves from the polls, and withhold their votes,
with a view of leaving the free-State Democrats in a minor¬
ity, and thus securing a pro-slavery constitution, in oppo¬
sition to the wishes of a majority of the people living under
it, let the responsibility rest on those who, for partisan pur¬
poses, will sacrifice the principles they profess to cherish
aud promote. Upon tliem, and upon the political party for
whose benefit, and under the direction of whose leaders
they act, let the blame be visited of fastening upon the peo¬
ple of a new State institutions repugnant to their feelings,
and in violation of their wishes. The organic act secures
to the people of Kansas the sole and exclusive right of form¬
ing and regulating their domestic institutions to suit them¬
selves, subject to no other limitation than that which the
Constitution of the United States imposes. The Democratic
party is determined to see the great fundamental principle
of the organic act carried out in good faith. The present
election law in Kansas is acknowledged to be fair and just.
The rights of the voters are clearly defined ; and the exer¬
cise of those rights will be efficiently and scrupulously
protected. Hence, if the majority of the people of Kansas
desire to have it a free State, (and we are told by the Repub¬
lican party that nine tenths of the people of that Territory
are free-State men,) there is no obstacle in the way of bring-
3
ing Kansas into the Union as a free State by the votes and
voice of her own people, and in conformity with the great
principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act; provided all the
free-State men will go to the polls, and vote their principles
in accordance with their professions. If such is not the re-
salt,let the consequences be visited upon the heads ofthose |
Whose policy it is to produce strife, anarchy, and bloodshed I
in Kansas, that their party may profit by slavery agitation
in the northern States of this Union."
Thus spoke Senator Douglas. The principles j
enunciated by him on that occasion, were just and |
true; and all we now demand is that they shall I
be faithfully carried out. He admits, and I desire
to repeat it, that the election law is just and fair
in all its objects and provisions, and if the free-
State party fail to vote—acting under the advice
of political leaders in distant States—let.the re¬
sponsibility rest upon those whose policy it is to
produce strife,anarchy, and bloodshed in Kansas,
that their party may profit of slavery agitation in
the northern States of this Union. I hope, sir,
that the Democratic party, as a body, will follow
his advice, and enforce this responsibility though
he may " back down." Sir, the position cannot
be maintained that a portion of the people of Kan¬
sas had no opportunity to vote, and therefore the
Lecompton constitution should be rejected. The
opportunity was offered, and they refused to avail
themselves of it. They did it voluntarily. They
preferred to risk the consequences; let them now
reap the fruit of their rebellion- Is the lawless
spirit manifested by them to be sanctioned and
encouraged by us, the representatives of a law-
abiding people ? Are we to become parties to their
rebellious conduct, and permit them to triumph
over law and order? No. I apprehend we know
too well the paramount importance of sustaining
the laws of the country.
But, sir, it is urged as an objection to the ad¬
mission of Kansas that the constitution made by
delegated authority has not been submitted to the
people. Is that any business of ours? Are we
authorized to supervise their action in the form¬
ation of their government? Had not the people
the sole and unquestioned right to determine
whether they would have their constitution sub¬
mitted or not? They have not required it to be
done in the Kansas convention act. They have
demanded it by no act of theirs. Then tell me, I
ask, by what authority do we demand it? The
act simply declares—
"That the delegates elected shall assemble in convention
at the capital of said Territory, on the first Monday in Sep¬
tember next, and shall proceed to form a constitution and
State government which shall be republican in its form, for
admission into the Union on an equal footing with the ori¬
ginal States, in all respects whatsoever, by the name of the
State of Kansas."
This is the only direction given to their dele¬
gates, from which it is evident that its submis¬
sion was not required. The people had the right
to intrust their delegates with the entire formation
of their constitution. The startling and monstrous
doctrine recently promulgated in certain quarters,
that the people could not delegate this power to
their agents is utterly irreconcilable with the prin¬
ciple of popular sovereignty. If they had not the
right to delegate that power, then they are not sov¬
ereign—then they have not the right to manage
their affairs in their own way. On the contrary,
I assert that the very highest exercise of popular
sovereignty is the right to delegate power; with¬
out this power on the part of the people no rep¬
resentative government could exist; and I believe
it is the first time in this country that I have heard
it boldly asserted that the sovereign people could
not constitute agents to transact their business.
Is it not absurd for you to undertake to limit or
contravene their authority to act by their agents,
.and, at the same time, declare that they possess
sovereign powers ? Are we not here to-day the
agents of the sovereign people, clothed by them
with the most solemn and important functions ?
Have they not confided to us the very highest in¬
terests o( the nation ? Are we not exercising sov¬
ereign power in regulating commerce with foreign
nations; in coining money, and regulating the
value thereof; in declaring war; in raising and
supporting armies; in providing and maintaining
a Navy; in the enactment of all laws necessary
to carry on the machinery of this mighty Gov¬
ernment; to protect the honor and integrity of
this Union; to promote and advance the great in¬
terests of this nation; and are our acts to be sub¬
mitted to them for ratification before they take
effect? No; our acts are their acts. If the laws
enacted by us are unwise or injudicious, they
direct us or others to repeal them. If the people
of Kansas do not like the Lecompton constitution,
they can change it any time they think proper.
They possess, as all must admit, the inherent and
inalienable power to alter or remake their consti¬
tution whenever they, in their wisdom, choose to
do so.
Permit me, sir, to inquire how has it become
so important to submit the constitution of Kansas
to a vote of the people ? When before in the his¬
tory of this Government has it been demanded by
the national Legislature that the constitution of
a State asking for admission should be first sub¬
mitted to the vote of the people ? The constitu¬
tions of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama,
Missouri, Maine, Vermont, and Wisconsin were
not^ubmitted. Was the great doctrine of popu¬
lar sovereignty violated in the admission of each
of those States? Did the great and patriotic men
who then composed the national Legislature, and
who, by their patriotism, their wisdom, their un¬
equalled statesmanship, and devotion to the sov¬
ereignty of the people, reflected unfading honor
upon their country and its institutions—did they
permit them to be robbed of this transcendant
power? No. They knew, as every disinterested
statesman now knows, that the people had the
right to exercise their sovereign power in the way
and manner they thought proper.
But, sir, let me ask if the people of Kansas
have not had submitted to them by the conven¬
tion the great question that inaugurated the Kan¬
sas-Nebraska bill, the question out of which has
grown all the difficulties that have for so long dis¬
tracted the peace, safety, and quietude of that
people? That act declares " that the true intent
and meaning thereof is not to legislate slavery in-io
any State or Territory, nor to exclude it there¬
from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free
to regulate their institutions in their own way."
Under it, " Kansas," when admitted as a State,
was to be received into the Union " with or with¬
out slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at
the time of their admission." The entire scope and
effect of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was to render
4
" void and inoperative the Missouri compromise
line," which prohibited slavery north of 36° 30'.
It reinstated a great principle; conferred upon the
people a great and important right north of that
line—the right to regulate their institutions as
they might choose: all other governmental rights
they could exercise before. Immediately after the
passage of this bill, the controversy in regard to
the institution of slavery in that Territory com*
menced. It was the great and all-absorbing ques¬
tion; the one that rose paramount to all others;
the one that has alone convulsed that people and
produced the " strife, contention, and bloodshed"
that has brought everlasting disgrace upon that
Territory, and given to it an unenviable name in
the history of this country. It was the question
that the Kansas bill designed should be settled by
the people; it was the only one that the great body
of that people expected everto.be submitted to
them for their decision, until recently; and as ev¬
idence of this fact, I call your attention to a part
of the address of the Hon. F. P. Stanton, then
Secretary and acting Governor of the Territory
of Kansas, published on the 17th of April, 1857.
He says:
" The Government especially recognizes the territorial
act which provides for assembling a convention to form a
constitution with a view to making application to Congress
for admission as a State into the Union. That act is re¬
garded as presenting the only test of the qualification of
voters for delegates to the convention; and all proceeding
repugnant restrictions are repealed. In this light the act
must be allowed to have provided for a full and fair expres¬
sion of the will of the people through the delegates who
may be chosen to represent them in the constitutional con¬
vention. I do not doubt, however, that in order to avoid
all pretext for resistance to the peaceful operation of this
law, the convention itself will, in some form, provide for
submitting the great distracting questions regarding their
social institution which has so long agitated the people of
Kansas, to a fair vote of all the actual bona fide residents of
the Territory, with every possible security against fraud and
violence. If the constitution be thus framed, and the ques¬
tion of difference thus submitted to the decision of the peo¬
ple, I believe that Kansas will be admitted by Congress
without delay, as one of the sovereign States of the Amer¬
ican Union, and the territorial authorities will be imlhedi-
ately withdrawn."
This was the language of Secretary Stanton to the
people of Kansas, after the passage of the Kansas
convention act, long before the election of dele¬
gates to the convention. He distinctly informed
them that the Government of the United States
recognized the territorial act,-which provided for
assembling a convention to form a constitution;
that the "distracting question which had so long
agitated the people of Kansas would be submitted
to a fair vote of the people." He knew their views,
feelings, and sentiments, in relation to this dis¬
tracting question, and he doubtless concluded that
by giving them assurance that the question of
slavery would be submitted, (the only question
designed to be submitted,) they would be satisfied.
But no, sir; as intimated by Senator Douglas,
there were doubtless "other actors in this contro¬
versy, far away from the borders of Kansas,"
who controlled and directed the movements of
the reckless Abolition army that had been quar¬
tered on Kansas by the Emigrant Aid Society,
who urged that that deluded people should not
submit to the legally constituted authorities of the
country. They obeyed; became rebels to the
Government, and refused to vote upon this agi¬
tating question,fairly and legally submitted; and
now have the temerity to ask us to reject the con¬
stitution and sanction this fell spirit of insubordi¬
nation to the legally constituted authorities of the
land. Can any one doubt the wisdom and propriety
of submitting the slavery clause alone to the people
of Kansas ? It was the question that far tran¬
scended in importance and interest all others com¬
bined. Had it been involved with other ques¬
tions, none will pretend that a fair expression of
the popular voice could have been had. The con¬
stitution has been made in strict compliance with
the laws of the land; it is republican in form; and
we now have no other alternative left us in the
faithful discharge of our duty but to admit Kan¬
sas as a State into this Union. The entire con-
[ stitution is as unexceptionable in its provisions,
if not faore so, than the constitution of any of
the States of this Confederacy. The framers of
! that instrument have availed themselves of the
wisdom and experience of the statesmen of our
country, and introduced into their fundamental
law many wise provisions, found together in no
one of our State constitutions. We may be indi¬
vidually opposed to some of the provisions in that
instrument; but it is not our right, nor within the
scope of our authority, to pass upon them. They
alone concern the people of Kansas, not us.
But, sir, we are told by gentlemen who oppose
the admission of Kansas, that a law must be
passed by the Congress of the United States to
enable the people of Kansas to elect delegates and
form a constitution. My first reply to this prop¬
osition is, that Congress did pass such a law when
it enacted the Kansas-Nebraska bill. That bill
confers upon the people the right to provide by
law for all elections, and to manage their affairs
in their own way; and under it, if authority was
necessary to make a constitution, they derived it.
But, sir, when once organized as a territorial gov¬
ernment, I deny that any such necessity exists.
Cannot the sovereign people act without our au¬
thority? Must they have permission from us to
make a constitution—to exercise an inalienable
right—a power neither conferred upon us by the
people themselves nor the Constitution of the Uni¬
ted States? Under what provision of that once
sacred instrument do you find such authority? If
it exists as either a granted or implied power,
under any clause in that instrument, it has alto¬
gether escaped my observation; and I think but
few, if any, of the great constitutional lawyers
whose names are conspicuous upon the pages of
our country's history, have ever contended for
any such power in Congress. Suppose you reject
this constitution, and pass what you denominate
an enabling act, and the people of Kansas should
hold an election and adopt a constitution without
any reference to its provisions: would you feel
authorized to refuse them admission for the sim¬
ple reasoa that they did not choose to follow your
directions as to the form by which their consti¬
tution was made? I apprehend not. Why the
necessity, then, of an enabling act for Kansas?
Congress, at different periods in our history, has
admitted States that had formed constitutions
without enabling acts. The States of Tennessee,
Iowa, Michigan, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, and
several others, I believe, were admitted without
any authoritative act on the part of Congress.
The ablest expounders of tne constitution of the
5
United States admitted their right to form a State
constitution, without the permission of Congress;
and if so formed, that such State must be admit¬
ted, if the constitution was republican in form.
Why, then, the necessity of any such act in ref¬
erence to Kansas ? One of two reasons must op¬
erate upon those who demand it: either the tolera¬
tion of slavery under the present constitution, or
a desire upon the part of anti-slavery men to keep
up this slavery agitation, and continue their frat¬
ricidal war upon the people of the South.
But, sir, every objection to this constitution that
human ingenuity can devise is being pressed upon
our consideration. We are told that the ordinance
contains exorbitant demands from the general
Government, on the part of Kansas, as regards
the public lands. Admit it: and what then? I
suppose no gentleman here will seriously contend
that the ordinance is any part of the constitution.
Surely no statesman will insist that we cannot
accept the constitution and reject the ordinance.
I confess that I am altogether unwilling that we
shall accede to the propositions contained in that
ordinance; and if Kansas enters the Union, she
must do so without any such exactions. I am
willing to give to her the same portion of the pub¬
lic domain within her territory that we have given
to other States; but no more.
But, sir, disguise it as you may, the real oppo¬
sition to Kansas is the slavery aspect it presents.
We have been told by the leaders of the Repub¬
lican party in this House that the submission
of the slavery clause of the constitution was a
" swindle and a cheat;" that even if that part of
the constitution which was submitted to the vote
of the people of Kansas had been stricken out,
that still slavery was perpetuated there. What
disposition would those gentlemen have had the
convention to make of the slaves already in Kan¬
sas ? Would it have been right, just, and consti¬
tutional to have deprived the owners of their
property in them—to have declared them free ?
Would it have been just and honest to do so?
How came they in Kansas; and under what
guarantees were they taken there ? The Terri¬
tory of Kansas was the joint property of the en¬
tire people of the Union. It had been purchased
with common treasure, on the joint account of the
whole nation. The people of the South were
equally interested with the people of the North,
in its ownership and joint occupation, and had the
unquestionable right to take to that Territory any
species of property recognized by the Constitu¬
tion of the United States; and no power there or
elsewhere had the right to deprive them of that
property, without first paying them a just com¬
pensation—nor even then, unless it was needed
for public use. It would, in my opinion, have
been a monstrous outrage for the majority of the
people of that Territory to have deprived the mi¬
nority of property taken there under the protec¬
tion of the Constitution of the United States, and
guarantied and sanctioned by that instrument. I
should like to know by what code of morals, or
upon what principle of common honesty, the
Kansas convention could have liberated the slaves
already in that Territory ? Permit me to say that
when the Constitution of this Union ceases to pro¬
tect the property of a large portion of the people
of this nation against the ruthless hand of a wild
fanaticism, then that Constitution fails to accom¬
plish the great purposes for which it was designed
—then this Government becomes tyrannical, un¬
just, and oppressive, and this Union valueless.
Why this continued effort to outrage the rights
and exasperate the people of the South to alienate
forever those fraternal feelings that bind together
the hearts of this entire nation? We of the South
make no assault upon the people or institutions
of any portion of this wide-spread Confederacy,
and all that wo ask or demand is, that you let
us and ours alone. If slavery is either a moral,
social, or political evil, the responsibility rests
upon us, not you. We of the South recognize it
as an institution, established in the early ages of
the world, under the express authority of Heaven,
and neither condemned nor interfered with by the
Savior of mankind in his glorious and benevolent
mission to earth—an institution introduced and
perpetuated by the descendants of the Pilgrims for
more than one hundred years before the Decla¬
ration of Independence.
Brought to these shores in large numbers by the
people of New England, under the operation of
the slave trade, and held in bondage by them until
they became satisfied that they were unprofitable
in their northern climate and the culture of their
barren hills. Then, and not till then, a large por¬
tion of them were sold to the people of the South;
and the money invested in other property. An in¬
stitution ratified and indorsed by our revolution¬
ary fathers; sanctioned and guarantied to us by
the Constitution of the United States; that instru¬
ment, framed by the noblest, purest, and wisest
body of patriots, statesmen, and philanthropists
that ever assembled on earth. An institution that
has elevated the negro from barbarism to civiliza¬
tion and Christianity; that has placed the race in
a better and happier condition than they ever oc¬
cupied before. An institution better adapted to
their nature and capabilities than any ever devised
by that disinterested philanthropy exhibited by a
portion of the northern people, who ask us of the
South to liberate our slaves and permit them to
remain a part of our population, and at the same
time refuses to allow them to emigrate to their own
States.
Great sympathy has been expressed for the
negroes of the South, and the institution of sla¬
very denounced in this House in the most bitter
terms, by gentlemen representing the North. If
I am correctly informed, I apprehend they would
find a much more commendable field for their op¬
erations and the outbursts of their philanthropy
in first seeking to elevate in the scale of being that
part of the race within the limits of their own
States. Go to the cities and towns where the free
negroes congregate, and you find them a lazy,
miserable, poverty-stricken people, sunk into the
lowest depths of moral degradation. Go, then,
disinterested philanthropist, and contrast their
social, moral, and physical condition with the
negroes of the South. There you see, as a gen¬
eral thing, a happy, contented African race, well
fed, well clothed, well treated, well taken care of
in sickness and in old age.
And now, sir, while upon this subject, I desire
to correct a false impression that has been made
in the North by the public press, in reference to
the feelings and sentiments of the people of Mis-
6
souri on the subject of slavery during and since
the gubernatorial election in that State, which
took place in August last. You were told in sub¬
stance that the citizens there were upon the verge
of emancipating their slaves. That public senti¬
ment was rapidly tending in that direction; that
the candidate who ran in opposition to the nomi¬
nee of the Democratic party was a Free-Soiler, and
the closeness of the contest between him and the
Hon. Robert M. Stewart, the Democratic candi¬
date, was evidence of the disposition of the people
of Missouri to rid themselves of slavery. A more
unfounded statement was never published to the
American people. Major Rollins, the candidate
of the Opposition, received a majority of the votes
in many of the largest slaveholding counties of the
State. He was regarded by the American party
as a pro-slavery man. He proclaimed in his pub¬
lic speeches that he was the owner of twenty-
five slaves; and but four days before the election
he announced in a public speech in my own city
that he believed the wisest and best relation that
could subsist between the white and African races
was that of master and servant, and that he was
violently opposed to the emancipation of slavery
in Missouri. In the very county in which I have
the honor to reside, in northeast Missouri, one of
the strongest pro-slavery counties in the State, he
received a majority of four hundred and ninety
votes. In my opinion, the great body of the people
of Missouri have never at any time since the or¬
ganization of the State been better satisfied with
the institution of slavery, or more determined to
resist all assaults upon it. The people of the
North need not delude themselves with the idea
that Missouri will yield up this institution. It is
with the people of Missouri, as I apprehend it is
with the other slave States of the Union—the more
bitter and violent the assaults of the common
enemy of the South, the more closely will they
cling to it, and the more determined their purpose
to defend it against every foe from within and
from without.
Permit me, also, to say a few words in defense
of the citizens of Missouri against the denuncia¬
tions they have received from the people of the
North, and their representatives, for their inter¬
ference in the affairs of Kansas. The people of
Missouri watched, with intense interest, the set¬
tlement of that Territory. I willingly confess that
they were exceedingly desirous that it should be¬
come a slave State. Considerations of momentous
importance were involved in its occupation. They
deemed it of vast moment to their peace, safety,
and quietude, to have upon their border a neigh¬
bor that would not interfere with their property;
that would not, by incendiary publications and
speeches, spread disaffection among their slaves,
and render insecure their habitations. But not¬
withstanding the intense interest and anxiety felt
by them upon this subject, they never would have
interfered had it not been for the unwarrantable
and unjustifiable means resorted to by the Abo¬
litionists of the North, in the organization and
machinery of emigrant aid societies. Had these
Abolitionists permitted Kansas to settle in the
quiet,usual, and ordinary way in which the other
Territories of this Union have been supplied with
population, the citizens of Missouri would have
submitted without a murmur to any regulation
they might have made in reference to their do¬
mestic institutions. But when they saw the people
of the North impelled by a spirit of mad fanat¬
icism, organizing large moneyed associations,
under the authority of One of the States of this
Union, for the purpose of sending to that Terri¬
tory, " to prevent the introduction of slavery," a
population such as they might gather principally
from the purleius of their large cities—such as had
recently landed upon our shores, unacquainted
with our laws and Constitution, unimbued with
the spirit and genius of our institutions, for the
purpose of molding and controlling the institutions
of that Territory, and for the unjust and unconsti¬
tutional purpose of dispossessing the people of the
South of their legitimate interest in it; with the
undisguised object in view of compelling those
who had gone, or might go, with slave property,
under the protection and by the authority of the
Constitution of the United States, either to for¬
sake their homes and flee the country, or yield up
their property to the unconstitutional demand of
this predatory army, whose next field of opera¬
tions, as announced by many of them, was Mis¬
souri; then, and not till then, did the people of
Missouri think themselves excusable at least, if
not justifiable, at the commencement of this un¬
holy crusade, in aiding in the protection of their
rights
Let me also say, Mr. Chairman, that when this
excitement shall pass away, and when the faith¬
ful historian shall commit to paper the stirring
events connected with the settlement of Kansas,
the people of this country will learn, and coming
generations know, that the emigrant aid societies
of the North—by the character of the population
they sent there, with the avowed purpose for
which it was sent—superinduced the outrageous
and unlawful acts that have been perpetrated upon
the soil of Kansas.
And let me say to the gentleman from Massa¬
chusetts who spoke so eloquently the other day
in favor of the efficiency of this new mode for the
" Americanizing of Central America and the set¬
tling of the Territories of this Union," that it may
perhaps be safe to apply his policy to foreign
semi-barbarian countries; but let me advise him
in all sincerity, if he is a lover of peace, law, and
order, never to advocate such an attempt in ref¬
erence to the Territories of this nation for the
accomplishment of the same purpose that it was
resorted to in regard to Kansas; for fear that the
reenactment of the same scenes might be pro¬
duced in a more aggravated form.
It is but right and just, Mr. Chairman, for me
to say that when I speak of this improper and
unjustifiable interference on the part of the North
with southern rights and southern institutions,
I do not mean to include a large portion of that
people. No; I cherish the belief that the great
body of them love this Union, respect the Con¬
stitution, and are disposed to do equal justice
to every portion of this Confederacy. Would,
from the bottom of my heart, that I could say so
in reference to the whole people of the non-slave-
holding States. Then I should feel assured that
this glorious Union was safe; that the stars and
stripes that now command the respect and elicit
the admiration of the whole civilized world, would
float perpetually over this Capitol; and we should
7
be able to transmit to our posterity the priceless
heritage we received from our illustrious and peer¬
less ancestry. Hitherto, the North has treated us
with fairness and justice in the admission of new
States. Until recently, one slave and one free
State came into this Union together; but the non-
slaveholding States now have the vantage ground
—a majority in both the Senate and House of
Representatives, with two free States asking for
admission, which must'still increase that major¬
ity. The South, I apprehend, if treated fairly,
will make no objection to their admission. They
have been settled in the usual and ordinary way,
without the illegal and improper interference of
emigrantaid societies, and have been left perfectly
free to form and regulate their domestic institu¬
tions in their own way. But when Kansas comes
with her institutions and constitution, adopted
under all the forms and sanctions of law; and after
the people of that Territory, both free-State and
pro-slavery men, in the election of State officers
under the constitution, have recognized it as the
supreme law of Kansas, we are still told she can¬
not enter this Union. It may be so, but I cannot
believe it. I still entertain such an abiding confi¬
dence in the justice and patriotism of the American
people, and their representatives here assembled,
as assures me that the fearful act of rejecting Kan¬
sas will not be cosummated.
[APPENDIX.
Synopsis of the Kansas Convention Jlct.
The act provides that the sheriffs of the several
counties shall, between the 1st day of March and
the 1st day of April, 1857, make an enumeration
of all the free male inhabitants over the age of
twenty-one years, with power to appoint depu¬
ties; and, in case of a vacancy in any county, the
duty to devolve on the probate judge. The list
thus made is required to be filed in the office of
the probate judge of each county, on or before the
10th of April, 1857. The list of the voters of each
county is to be posted up in three of the most pub¬
lic places in each election district. Said probate
judge is required to remain in session each day
from the time of receiving said returns, until the
1st day of May, 1857, to hear and determine all
questions concerning the omission of any person
from said returns, or the improper insertion of
any name in said returns, or any other question
affecting the integrity or fidelity of said returns;
and as soon as said lists have been revised and
corrected, said judges are required to make out
full and fair copies, and, without delay, furnish
one copy to the Governor, and one to the Secre¬
tary. The Governor shall cause said returns to
be printed and distributed among the people, and
one copy deposited with the clerk of each court
of record in the limits of said Territory; also, a
copy delivered to each judge of the election, and
at least three copies posted up at each place of
voting.
It further requires the judges and clerks of the
election to be sworn, duplicate returns of the poll-
books made out and certified by the judges and
clerks—one deposited with the board of county
commissioners, and the other transmitted to the
Secretary of State.
It also provides that every bona fide inhabitant
of the Territory of Kansas, on the third Monday
in June, 1857, being a citizen of the United States
over the age of twenty-one years, and who shall
have resided three months next before said elec¬
tion, in the county in which he offers to vote, and
no other person whatever, shall be entitled to vote
at said election.
It further provides for the punishment of any
person who, by menace, threats, or force, or by
any other unlawful means, shall, directly or indi¬
rectly, attempt to influence any voter in giving
his vote, or deter him from going to the polls, or
disturb or hinder him in the free exercise of his
right of suffrage at said election.
It further provides for the punishment of any
person holding said election who shall, willfully
and knowingly, commit any fraud or irregularity
whatever, with the intent to hinder, prevent, or
defeat a fair expression of the popular will at said
election.
It also requires all officers to make oath before
entering upon the discharge of their duties, that
they will faithfully and impartially discharge
them.
Extract of a letter from H. Clay Pate.
" At the October election in 1856, a majority of five thou¬
sand votes were cast in favor of a convention, and at the ses¬
sion of the Kansas Legislative Assembly, which met on the
secondMonday of January last, [1857]' all necessary provi¬
sions were made for' that convention. A law was passed,
taking for its basis the principles of the celebrated Toombs
bill, which Senator Douglas helped to make, and for which
he voted. It provided for the registry of all the legal voters
ofthe Territory by the Sheriff of each county and his depu¬
ties. The probate judges were required to hold courts or
sessions in convenient parts of the counties, and add to the
lists returned by the sheriffs any names accidentally or
wrongfully omitted. It also provided that in cases where
there was no probate judge, or he would not act, then the
sheriff should, and if there was no officer at all to perform
the duties specified, then the people might petition the Gov¬
ernor to appoint some one to carry out the law. The Gov¬
ernor says that 'fifteen counties' were entirely disfran¬
chised, 'and by no fault of their own.' Let us see. In
Franklin county, one of the ' oldest organized,'-Esquire
Yocum, probate judge,was driven away by the Abolitionists,
as was also Richard Goulding, sheriff of said county ; each
of these officials was threatened with death should they at¬
tempt to perform the duties conferred upon them by the
registry law. Under the same circumstances, George Wil¬
son, judge of probate for Anderson county, was prevented
from executing the law. So with Allen county; Passmore
Williams had to leave in order to save his life. J. J. Bar¬
ker, probate judge of Breckinridge, being a free-State man,
refused to act. These four were the only organized counties
not represented in the convention. Why not represented ?
It was the fault of those who now complain, and ' on their
heads, and theirs alone, will rest the responsibility.'
" It is well to observe that, of the nineteen counties
spoken of as not represented, the census was not taken in
four for the reasons stated ; the other fifteen were, for civil
purposes, attached to organized counties, as follows :
" Two, Richardson and Weller, to Shawnee ;
" Three, Madison, Butler, and Wise, to Breckinridge;
" One, Coffee to Anderson ;
" One, McGee to Bourbon ;
" Six, Greenwood, Hunter, Dorn, Wilson, Woodson, and
Gregory, to Allen;
" One, Brown to Doniphan ;
" One, Davis to Riley.
" The countiesof Brown, Washington, Clay, and Dickin¬
son, were organized at the last session of the Legislature;
in the last named three there were no inhabitants.
"The registry law was executed, and voters were regis¬
tered in the following counties : Johnson, Lykins, Lynn,
Bourbon, Douglas, Shawnee, Doniphan, Atchison, Leaven¬
worth, Jefferson, Nemeba, Calhoun, Marshall, and Riley.
" It will thus be seen that the only counties really dis¬
franchised were the four in which Abolitionists would per¬
mit no registry to be taken ; audit is an established fact that
many factious people refused to tell their names, and other¬
wise obstructed the officers—some giving fictitious appella-
8
tions, and others threatening the lives and property of cen¬
sus-takers.
" '• These officers were political partisans,' and they ' re¬
fused or neglected to take any census or make any registry,
and therefore they were entirely disfranchised, and could not
and did not give a single vote.' Why did they not compel
the officers to do their duty ? It was possible; but if not,
they could have petitioned the Governor for redress. If the
people of those counties could not and did not vote, it was
' a faultof their own,' and on ' their heads, and theirs alone,
will rest the responsibility.'
"Prom first to last, every opportunity has been given for
an expression of the will of a majority; and now if the prin¬
ciples of a minority, as alleged, are to triumph in Kansas,
by the neglect or factious opposition of the so-called ma¬
jority, ' on their heads, and theirs alone, will rest the re¬
sponsibility.' H. CLAY PATE.
" We concur in the foregoing:
"George W. McKown, ex-member of the Lecomp ton Con¬
vention.
"Francis J. Marshall, Democratic candidate for Gov¬
ernor.
"William G. Mathias, Democratic candidate for Lieu¬
tenant Governor.
"J. H. Danforth, ex-member of the Lecompton Convention.
"Blake Little, ex-member of the Lecompton Convention.
" Westport, January 4, 1858."]
Printed at the Congressional Globe Office.
REMARKS
OF
SENATORS BROWN AND TOOMBS,
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 29, 1858.
The Senate having resumed the consideration of the report of the committee of con¬
ference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the bill (S., No. 161) for the ad¬
mission of the State of Kansas into the Union, Mr. BROWN said:
Mr. President : I desire, in a few words, and without making a speech, to assign the
reasons why, if we are ever brought to a vote, I shall record mine in favor of this propo¬
sition. I must say in the outset that I do not like it; there are a great many reasons
why I do not; but as I have brought my mind to the conclusion to vote for it, I shall not
assign the reasons why I do not like it, but rather assign the reasons which influence me
to vote in its favor.
- The first is this: that we settle this question; and better on these terms, than leave it
open. I can see, if left open, that it is to be made the fruitful source of discontent and
strife, and of political tui-moil, perhaps for years to come. I can see how in very many
ways it may endanger, seriously endanger the perpetuity of the Government itself. As
long as the question is kept open it must continue to irritate the feelings of the people of
the two sections of the Union. Until this question is settled you cannot begin to nave
a reconciliation on that great controversy which has been going on for years and years
between the North and the South. This question is a thorn which rankles in the side of
the nation. You must extract it or you can have no permanent peace. If I had no.
other reason for going for this bill, I would do it for that, and that alone. It is a J>eaee
measure; it brings healing upon its wings; it brings the different sections of the country
in closer neighborhood, in better fellowship.
How much is there in the bill, to forbid our taking it? First it is said by some of
those who vote against it, that it is a submission of the Lecomptou constitution to the
people of Kansas. And then again others vote against it because it is not a submission..
I mean to state my own views with perfect candor and with entire fairness. I do-not
understand it to be the submission of the constitution to the people, but I do understand
this to be true, that you submit -collateral questions—the land question, and others in¬
volved in the Kansas ordinance—to the people of Kansas; and that if in voting upon
those questions they choose to determine that they will not come into the Union under
the Lecompton constitution they have the right to do it-
They pass no judgment directly at the polls on the constitution, one way or the other,
but each voter can control his own vote by his own reasons; and if he chooses, under
cover of voting to sustain the ordinance, to vote against the whole constitution, and
against coming into the Union, he can do so; and if a majority take that view of the
subject, the State is not in the Union.
That much is fairness and candor, for thus stands the question if 1 properly compre¬
hend it-
No w what just ground have we Southern men to object to that?; "What just'reason is
there for our opposing it? We took the ground in the beginning, and maintain it now,
that we would not and will not sustain a submission of this constitution to the people
under the circumstances of its coming here. But we took the ground at the same time
tbftt we would not sanction this ordinance, making as it did exorbitant land demands
upon the Government, and setting up other pretences which had not been tolerated in
ON THE
KANSAS
BILL.
2
the admission of other new States. From the beginning the friends of the Lecompton
constitution struck at that ordinance, determined not to receive it, and not to give it
their sanction. The original Senate bill declared that it was no part of the constitution,
and could not be so recognized by Congress. After we made that declaration, I appre¬
hend, if the bill had passed, it would have rested with Kansas to decide whether she
would organize under the constitution or not; whether she would come into the Union,
or be considered a member of it. You had stricken off her ordinance. You chose not to
regard it as a part of the constitution. But did Kansas so regard it ? She did not. You
struck it off without her consent. She thought.it a material part of her propositions -
Then, was she in the Union ? She was not, Until, either by silent acquiescence in your'
action, or by some positive declaration of her own,'she placed herself into the Union.
I hold that if you had passed the regular Senate bill, and Kansas had refused to organ¬
ize a State government under the Lecompton constitution, and under that bill, there,
would have been no power in this Government to force her, and therefore that she would
not have been in the Union. She would not, because you had not met . her proposition,
and she had not accepted yours. Your minds had not agreed. She would not accept
the proposition you had sent to her. You had ..changed her proposition so far as to
strike off .her ordinance, and she had not agreed to have it stricken off.
Then it rested with her to say whether she was in the Union or not; and what does
this proposition amount to ? It simply declares that Kansas may determine for herself
whether she is in or out of the Union—a right which she had without your saying so:
and which she would still have, whether you said so or not. You do not, by this decla*
ration, confer any right on Kansas. You simply recognize a right which already exists,
and which, if she chose, I repeat again, she could have exercised without your consent,
just as well as with it. "When this debate first opened, the Senator from Michigan (Mr.
Stuart) employed this language on this point: " They"—meaning the people of Kansas—
"are arming; they are determined to resist an admission under this constitution, by any
and every power with which God has clothed them; and yet we are to sit here and say,
' we admit you into the Union of the United States.' As well might you take a prisoner,
under the sentence of a court of justice, handcuffed, with your officers surrounding him,
by force to the prison, and say to him, ' there is no coercion; we admit yon into the peni¬
tentiary.'"
I thought then, sir, and so declared, that there was no power to force Kansas into the-
Union. If she proposes to come in, and you accept her upon the terms which she pro¬
poses, then she is in, and she cannot recede. But if she proposes to come in, and you
alter her proposition, then it depends upon' her to say whether she accepts or rejeets
the alteration. That right, I repeat again and again, she has, whether you admit it
or not.
To reduce it to a simple question of law, suppose you and I, Mr. President, have deal¬
ings in reference to an estate, and we agree upon terms; I draw the bond of the deed,
and attach to it a memorandum, or condition, or ordinance, explaining what I understand
.to be the meaning of the paper, how I expect to see it executed, and send it to you, and
you sfgn it, but strike out the memorandum, or condition, or ordinance: I ask any lawyer
whether the contract is binding on me until, either by silent acquiescence, as by proceed¬
ing to execute it, or by some positive declaration, I make it my own deed ? Just so with
Kansas. She sent you a constitution; she sett along with it her ordinance, the memo¬
randum which explained the reasons why, and the terms upon which, she proposed to
.enter into the bargain, and become a member of the Union. You choose to strike the
ordinance out; you choose to strike it from the constitution. Then I hold, as a simple
.legal proposition, she had aright to say, "you have changed the terms upon which I
propose to come in; I will not come in; I choose entirely to recede from the proposition."
It does not depend on you, sir, as one of the contracting parties, to say whether she shall
recede or not; the right exists independent of you. If you meant to bind Kansas abso¬
lutely, you should have accepted her proposition in totidem verbis. You could not strihae
out what you did not like, stand by what you did like, and still insist that Kansas was
: bound by her proposition.
But, Mr. President, how am I to understand Senators? The Senator from Illinois, (Mr.
.Douglas,) who has just closed his speech, opened the session with an argument in favor
. of submitting this constitution to the people of Kansas for their reception or rejection;
yesterday, in a colloquy with, the Senator from Ohio, (Mr. Pugii,) he said no State ought
,to be admitted until she has the requisite population to entitle her to one Representative, ■
and be.,repeated the declaration, with some qualification, to-day. Now, what does the
hill before us propose? According to the argument of the Senator from Michigan^ (Mr.
Stuabt) yesterday.; according to the argument of the Senator from Illinois to-day; ac¬
cording to tire argument of nearly all the gentlemen on the other side, this bill proposes
to send* back the constitution, and give the people of Kansas an opportunity to accept ii<
xejaet ityAS they choose. It is true, the honorable Senator from Illinois says you put
them UTtdersome sort of compulsion; but he does not, pretend to deny that tliey will
have the power to reject, under this submission, if they choose to do it Then, if they do?
What follows, according to this bill! That they shall not come into the Union until they
have the ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty population requisite to entitle
thbm to one Representative under the existing ratio. And yet, Mr. President, when
both these propositions are before us, one to submit the constitution for rejection or sub¬
mission, as gentlemen argue, and the other to reject the State entirely until she has the
requisite population—they being, in plain English, the two propositions of the Senator
from Illinois himself, embodied in the same bill—he rejects them both. In the name of
popular sovereignty, he rejects two of his own propositions, either of which he thinks
would be just to the people.
Under this bill, as I have admitted, and as other Senators have claimed in broader
language than I have, the people of Kansas may, if they choose, accept or reject the Le-
oompton constitution. The Senator thinks they ought to have a right to reject or accept
it; or, if that be denied them, that the people be authorized to form a State constitution
only when they have the full ratio of representative population. Very well; this bill
takes both horns of the dilemma; and yet the Senator rejects it. For myself, I am free
to say, I hope the people of Kansas will, if this bill passes, adhere to their ordinance, and
insist on remaining out of the Union. If they come in they must come in under the Le-
cbmpton constitution ; if they Btay out they must stay until they have the population to
entitle them to one Representative in Congress. That suits me. I close in with that
offer.
But, says the Senator from Illinois, this land grant is a bounty held out to the people
of Kansas to accept this constitution—a bribe, as it has been elsewhere termed. How,
sir I It reduces the amount of the grant claimed in the ordinance by more than twelve
million acres. The Senator from Michigan, in a carefully prepared table, which he in¬
troduced into his speech delivered on December 23d last, shows that the whole grant was
upwards of sixteen million acres; that the railroad grant alone was upwards of seven
millions. Iunderstand from the Senator from Missouri, (Mr. Green,) who brought forward
this bill, that he. has had a calculation made, and that the grant proposed for all purposes
is about four million acres. And yet, when you reduce the grant from sixteen millions,
to four millions, the Senator from Illinois comes forward and says that is a bribe held out
; to these people to accept the constitution. It is a queer way of bribing them to offer
twelve million acres Of land less than they claimed in their ordinance.
.Mr. President, so far as I am concerned, I am willing to deal fairly with this young
State. I have dealt, so far as my vote went, fairly with other States in reference to these
grants; but I never saw the moment, from the first introduction of this constitution down
to the present time, when I would have conceded to Kansas all that the ordinance
- attached to her constitution claimed for her. She had no right to set up any such claim.
And if it be called compulsion, as the Senator has intimated, to refuse admission to this
State unless she will yield her exorbitant demands, I deny it. If it be said that in one
1 sense this is a bribe, and in another sense it is an attempt to coerce Kansas, I deny as
much the one as the other. It is no bribe, for the reason I have shown you. It is no
compulsion, because Kansas'has no more right than other States have had to make these
exorbitant demands. Why, sir, if she can claim sixteen million acres, and say she will
not come into the Union unless she gets it, why cannot she with the same propriety claim
sixty or one hundred million acres of your lands, or claim them all? She may justly
claim to the outer verge all that has been granted to the other young States, but she can
claim nothing more. Whatever she gets beyond that must be by the grace of Congress,
and not because she has a right to demand it. I simply protest that it is no compulsion
to say to Kansas, "we refuse your demands; if you are not willing to come in as other
, States have come, then stay out."
I shall b%glad, Mr. President, to see this question settled on the terms proposed in the
present bill, although, as I said, I do not like the terms. I suppose no Southern Senator
does; very few Northern men do; but I have been so accustomed to vote for things that
I do not precisely like, that I have no great trouble in bringing my mind to the conclusion
that I ought to vote for this. If I voted for nothing except that which I think precisely
right, which commended itself in all respects to my judgment, I should be found on the
negative side of most of your propositions. I believe that this measure will have a ten¬
dency to heal pending difficulties ; that it will bring peace and quiet, to some extent, to
the country; that it will open the way for a permanent and lasting peace between the
sections; and, if it have that effect, objectionable as it may be to me in many of its feaT
tures, I shall feel justified in voting for it. If it fail in all this, I shall justify myself to
my own conscience and the country on the ground that I so meant it—that it was so de¬
signed. If it fail of its objects, that will not be my fault. It is as good a proposition as
the original Senate bill. Nothing so good can now be obtained. It will do for all sec-
4:
tions of the country—for the South as -well as for the North; and it is not decidedly bad
for either.
The features of this bill have, in many respects, been changed from the original Senate
bill; but I have not seen that they have been changed for the worse; I rather think
they have been improved. We have certainly got clear of some objectionable points,
and we have brought into bolder (.relief others that are bad, but which a close observer
would have found in the original. On the whole, for the reasons I have given, and for
others, which the time and place and surrounding circumstances forbid me to give, I
shall vote for the bill; and I send up my devoutest prayers that it may pass.
Mr. TOOMBS said:
Mr. President : As it is the very obvious purpose of the Senate, I suppose, not to take
this vote until there is action elsewhere, I shall occupy a few minutes of its time in giving
the reasons why I approve the action of the committee of conference. It is in no wise
distasteful to me. I heartily approve it; I think it is a wise measure—a good measure.
I like it because it settles this question upon a principle, and not on a concession. It is
a concession by nobody, by no section of the Union; but it settles this question upon
principles which I have maintained from the beginning of the controversy. It is not sub¬
ject to two interpretations. To suppose so is an imagination of its opponents, and
their very difficulty in finding reasons for their opposition to it has strengthened my
oWn opinion in its favor. I believe the cabal, the coalition, took about three days to
determine whether they should go for or against it. I very much regret that they did
not come to a determination to maintain, because it is based upon principle.
The idea has been suggested, I believe, first by my honorable friend from Kentucky,
(Mr. Crittenden,) and then fallen into generally by those who cooperate with him in
this opposition, that that is capable of two iterpretations; that it is a submission and not
a submission. Now, Mr. President, the bill itself is clear, plain, and distinct, and admits
of no two interpretations. Kansas proposed to the Congress of the United States to
come into the Union under a constitution made at Lecompton, and upon the further con¬
dition that we should grant to her certain land bounties, among others, seventeen millions
for the completion of railroads. We entered into this discussion for and against the Le¬
compton constitution. The friends of that constitution, those who supported the measure,
the friends of the Administration, held that the Lecompton constitution was the legally
and»fairly expressed will of the people of Kansas. Therefore we accepted it; we accepted
it in the measure which we sent to the other House ; we accept it in this measure. We
do not put that in controversy. We stand upon the ground that it was legally adopted;
that it was the legal expression of the popular will of Kansas; and we in no wise disturb
that. We simply say to Kansas, who is treating with us here as an equal, as a sovereign,
we accept your constitution as fully and freely as we have that of any other of your
sisters who have come into this Union. We decline to interpret it. We deny all these
allegations of its fraud, or its force, or its violence; we put them under our feet, and we say we
accept it as your act and deed. We say it is the emanation of your people; that it is
the fair exercise of the popular sovereignty of the people of Kansas. You did not choose
to submit it to the people. Your convention adopted it, promulgated it—except as to the
one clause which you did submit, and that was accepted by the people. Hence we re¬
ceive it as the act of the people. We have laid out of the account wholly the ten thou¬
sand, or twenty thousand, or fifty thousand—if there were so many—who did not vote.
We care not whether any of the people declined to act when the question was legally
submitted to them ; whether they voted or not. We hold that they were bound by the
action of the legal voters who did perform their duty as citizens.
For these reasons, the Senate of the United States accepted that constitution. We
sent our bill accepting it to the other House. They put in a proposition to submit it,
the House of Representatives assuming, and the other side declaring, that it was possibly
fraudulent; that there were allegations of fraud against it; that it was not the popular
will. They sent the bill back to us, declaring that the constitution should be submitted
to the people. We rejected that proposition. The two Houses agreed to a conference
on their disagreeing votes. This committee of conference then declared that they would
accept the Lecompton constitution as fully as the Senate accepted it in their bill; but
m
vary offer of this Lecomptoh oonstitution to- the United States hy Kansas, 'was
pled with a further condition demanding the ordinary grants of lands given to the
"States, and seventeen millions besides. What have this committee done? They
e said we accept the Lecompton constitution; we pass no judgment upon that, we
t '6 that where the Senate's bill left it, as your act and deed, ana properly reflecting
(legally-expressed will of the people of Kansas; but we will not give you the seven-
j i millions of land for railroads; we will give you what we tiave given your other
irs. What, then, are the legal consequences and effect of this declaration ? Precisely
>6 of the Senate's bill, because the Senate's bill accepted only a part of the proposition,
rejected the rest. It does not vary the land granted by that bill one acre—not one
iteenth part of a hair. We said, we will not give you the land you ask. Your pro-
tion is, "Receive me into the Union with this constitution, with the ordinary lands
ited to the States, and with seventeen million besides." The Senate said, we will
give you these seventeen millions.
fhen this question was under debate some month or two ago, the honorable Senator
1 Illinois (Mr. Douglas) stated that we had not a right to vary the propositions at all;
. the ordinance as to land must go with the constitution. I differed with him in that
ement In my judgment the constitution was the business of the people of Kansas,
land and the boundary were our business as well as theirs—matters of contract
veen equals; and therefore, if we varied the boundary, or varied the proposition in
* shape, the contract would not be complete until the other side acted.
c'r. DOUGLAS. On the statement now made by the Senator from Georgia, we under-
i;; d the matter exactly alike. I agree you could not vary the proposition unless you
s. it back to them to ratify the change.
s\ •
^ j\ TOOMBS. I am happy to know that we agree in that respect. That is my own po$i-
ir. I hold that; but I did not understand the Senator before as going to the extent
Ij; >. they had to accept it before the contract became binding. That was my position
it is mine to-day. We accept part of the proposition of Kansas; we accept her
" ititution, and we accept the call for the ordinary grant of land; we reject the extra-
, nary land grant of seventeen million acres. Well, if the Senate's bill had passed,
j compton," as it is sometimes called, without one word of dissent, except striking out
:l seventeen million acres, she would not have been in the Union without the acqui-
f nee of her people in that change. If she had organized her State government under
"constitution, after our act of admission in that form, it would, according to the gene-
practice hitherto, be an acquiescence; but her proposition being changed, she could
'*•' come into the Union without an agreement to or an acquiescence on her part in the
? ige-
Jhat would have been the result of the Senate's bill. Kansas could have rejected it.
* made an offer. We rejected her offer in part. We made her a proposition. She
L;.d have rejected that; and where would the parties have been then? She would
Pbeen where she was—in a territorial condition. There is where the Senate's bill
^.ld have placed her. If the convention had placed the power in the Legislature to
date this matter of the land grant, as Arkansas did, the committee would have put
it lerq as being the most convenient tribunal; or, if the convention had reserved to
1 f the power, it might have been put there; but as the constitution of Kansas has
c .eno provision for anybody else adjusting these rights of sovereignty, (for the grants
si given in consideration of yielding the sovereign power of taxation,) as the people
rf e not delegated it to anybody in their constitution, the committee very wisely sent it
ii ie source of all power—the people themselves. The consequences are identically the
( e as though we had passed the Lecompton bill with or without the amendment of the
: deman who introduced it, usually called the Green amendment. It is not in the
xtest degree varied, nor is there any dispute about it, nor are there any two construo-
s about it.
will allude now to the only point which gentlemen attempt to torture into double-deal-
in this bill. My honorable friend from Illinois supposes it will be represented one way
he South and another at the North. I know of no way in the world to prevent parti-
i—the vicious and the vile demagogue and deceiver of the people—from doing that
espect to any measure. My honorable friend knows that the bill of his, which I sup-
ted with so much pleasure in 1854, met with the same fate, though there was a perfect
3ement among every one of its friends here.
lr. DOUGLAS. The distinction between the cases is obvious. That bill provided that
jre there was a difference of opinion it should be decided as a judicial question. Here
re is no arbiter made in this bill in regard to Kansas.
dr. TOOMBS. I do not understand the Senator. .
6
Mr. DOUGLAS. All questions delating to personal liberty and slave property ^
referred to the Supreme Court of the United States by the bill of 1854, to which the j(
-ator alludes. i
Mr. TOOMBS. That was not the clause. ' The great clause was what was called|
stump speech that was injected into its bowels. It was contended by its enemies that
had a different meaning at the North and at the South. It had not. It was univernj
accepted by its friends with the same meaning everywhere, as far as I am informed; n
I never knew two constructions put upon it by them. Again and again, however,i
was reiterated here, and the enemies of the measure did so construe it. Of course, t|
.enemies of a measure will always do that, especially if it involves a sectional issue, {
tentimes arguments will be used to make a measure, which is even a just settlema
palatable to one section or the other, which are construed to present it in different forn
Everybody understands, however, that we, having varied this proposition by strikii
out the seventeen million acres of, land, simply say to the people of Kansas, will yi
; come into the Union with your constitution as it is ? "We do not alter that) we atee
that part of your proposition, and, we give you the ordinary grant of land, but we i
not give yon the extra seventeen million acres that yon claim. If they will not agree
this, what is the consequence! The bargain is at an end, of course the constitutionfai
the ordinary grant fails, and she is in a,territorial condition.
Gentlemen seek to torture that into a submission of the constitution. Undoubted
the effect of a rejection by the people of Kansas of our proposed alteration of their prop
sition, annuls the whole contract; and is not that the case in similar transactions evei
day between man and man? You make me an offer to sell me a piece of land; yousaj
may have it for $10,000 upon two years' time. I say I will give you that, hut I u
five years. You reject the five years; there is no dispute between us about thepria
but the whole contract falls. Kansas is treating with us as an equal contracting part
she offers to come into the Union on certain terms; and we accept a portion andrrji
others. Then if she says, "I will not come in under the modified terms," the wbc
contract falls, and that is the way the constitution falls. It is a mode, a fair and legi
mate mode, an irresistible mode, a mode that would exist whether you submitted iti
not; because, I say, when you varied the contract, even under the Lecomptonbillai
went from this House, it was the right of Kansas to reject it, and if she had rejected
she would have been where this bill proposes to place her in that contingency—in a ti
ritorial condition.
This objection comes from the opponents of this bill; they are sorry that this isei
of the results of the proposed action. I am not If it be true that the people of Ki
sas do not like this constitution; if it be true that those who are in rebellion may go
the polls and vote it down, when we only submit a proposition for a change of the Ian
the people asked, they may have what reasons for their vote they please-. I do noli
ject to it because they may give a vote upon a wrong reason. They might have do
, that under the Senate's bill; • they may do that under any bill; for you cannot few
State into this Union, you cannot bring her in except on terms to which she agrees; si
I say that naturally results in all treaties with equals, with sovereigns, and with citizel
If you make a contract and the other party makes a substantial variation, unless tk
variation is agreed to by. both, it annuls the whole. That is the simple fact about*J
contract. The rejection of the constitution may be one of the consequences ofi(
know, but it has no double meaning; it is not pretended by any friend of the bill, 1* i
or South, that we submit the constitution. We accept the Lecompton constitutive
the will of the people of Kansas, and we accept a part of their other proposition
which their constitution is accompanied, to wit: that she shall have the same quart
of lands that Minnesota had; but we reject that clause of her proposition by which i
olaims seventeen million acres.
Now we are told, by the Senator from Illinois, and other Senators, that here is ate
and a threat. Our bribe is, striking off seventeen million acres of lands that she a»
to come in. Our threat is, proposing to leave her, if she rejects our proposition, jtril
she would be if we had no bill. That is a fair statement of the case. Our bribe, 111
peat, is, striking out the seventeen million acres of land that she demanded, with 'J
compton. If we had given her the seventeen million acres of land, an unusual anui
traordinary grant to a State coming into the Union, which never had been made k':
you and I know, and all the country knows, that a clamor would have gone up from 1<
to Canada, throughout this broad land to the Pacific ocean, "See, these slave-drivers!
these people Seventeen millions of acres of land, this extraordinary grant, to make
take slavery in their constitution! " But we strike it out; we put her preciselyuM
same basis with other States; and now, because we tell her that if she does not cou<
at this time, she shall not come until she has the requisite population, it is attempt"
be tortured into a threat 1 I suppose this idea never would have occurred to the pe
7
itisas, or to anybody but persons who were hunting for objections. Everybody
e that -when Kansas is admitted, no matter at what time, she will get the same land
ither States have had. The bill does not prohibit it; and, I suppose, it would never
agined but by some politician who was seeking for a pretext, when he could not find
wn-
;t Senator from Illinois says that he is willing to agree t6 thd principle of not allowing
be to be admitted until she has ninety-three thousand people, or a sufficient number
te member, according to the ratio. He voted for it, and so did I; and when, two
Ago, I introduced a bill to solve this difficulty by bringing her into the Union then,
ared, from my seat here, that it was a violation of a principle. This is the general'
I supposed the then condition of the country made Kansas an exceptional case; I
exclusively on the ground of an exceptional case; I was really desirous of pacifi*
^ the country on this question. We have labored to do it. The Administration has
.id to do it; the Democratic party has labored to do it; but a majority of the people
"nsas, it seems, or at least a large portion of them, taking their counsels from the
ition, have, even to the extent of refusing to vote, used all the means in their power
vent it. Well, what do we say now? "We accept your constitution—it is your
ve give you the ordinary grant of land; but if you do not wish to come in, we re-'
hi to the general rule"—that is all. The Senator from Illinois says that general
a right rule, and we ought never to depart from it. It is one from which Congress
t usually departed, and which never ought to be departed from, except under extra-
ry circumstances. As a general rule, it is a sound one; but there may be excep-
0 all rules. When I proposed to depart from it, I was acting for Kansas, endeav-
to pacificate her, and also endeavoring to take this question, which was a disturbing
mgarous element, out of the politics of the United States. That was not agreed
it Kansas, acting in the spirit of that proposition, has presented herself for admis-
1 say to her, I will accept the constitution you have made; I will give you the
ry land grants; but I will not allow you to make constitutions every six months,
mduct of the population of Kansas bas been such as not at all to increase my esti-
if their capacity for self-government. It would he sufficient for me, even after
; voted for it, in 1856, to say now that the events of the last two years have con-
me that she ought not to be admitted as a State. I apply this remark to all; I
apply it to the free-State men more than to others. There have been wars, and
s, and frauds, and cheatings, and a disposition manifested everywhere in that Ter-
totally to disregard the law. If one party get a Legislature, they turn everybody
t, no matter which party it is; and a majority bf one is as good as a unanimous
There seems to be an incapacity in this population, thrown in there, I admit, under
St unfortunate circumstances, to govern themselves; and I am free to acknowledge
shall not regret if one consequence of this measure shall be to put them back in a
•ial condition.
t where is the concession by the North? None. Neither the Senator from Illinois,
y other person here, denies that the people speak finally through a convention,
sple of Kansas have done it. We accept the act of this convention; we accept a
of her proposition for lands, and we tell her that we do not accept the rest, and
mit to her a modified proposition, in place of her proposed contract in regard to
If, for any reason you please, you refuse to take this modification of the contract,
r it be because you do not like the Lecompton constitution or not, we take it that
not want to come into the Union now. If you refuse to take the proposition
ve submit to you, the contract falls, constitution and all.
therefore, we do not submit the constitution. One of the necessary consequences
modification of the proposition, however, is that if she votes against it, she is
ritorial condition, and we require her to stay there exactly the time which it is
id all around the Senate the general rule would require. To this general rule I
sretofore uniformly adhered, and declared my convictions of its propriety. We
l shall stay, as every other Territory ought to stay, and not bring two Senators
s body, and one member into the other House, until you have a population suffi-
ader the Federal Constitution, to entitle you to a Representative according to the
■ ratio. That is all there is in it
louth, then, has made no concessions of any sort, and the North has made none.
,mor of cramming constitutions down free people's throats is at an end. Hine
■a—hence these tears! They wanted the cramming process. Although the re-
jrybody knew, would be the same with the people of Kansas, still it would have
7erj available argument on the rostrum; but that is gone. Now, they say, it is
is gone; but.it is not gone in the right way. That seems to be the objection of
josition. It is true the peo.ple may say we will not take this modification; we
come in unless with the seventeen millions; but I can assure my friends I will
t them the seventeen million acres. We have not seized eagerly at this bait; we
8,
have not given them this bribe to bring in a slave State. If we were disposed to d
what we are charged with, we have acted the most foolish part any sensible men eve
did. If we wanted to bribe them, we would have stood by Lecompton, ordinance, ant
all, and given them the seventeen million acres; but we cut off the ordinance and gin
them only what we have given Minnesota and ail the other States coming into this fret
sisterhood. Now, I apprehend that but for the committals of gentlemen, but for politica
reasons, but for the strength of the coalition looking to the other thirty-one States, no
to this new sister, but to its effect outside of Kansas, there would be very little different
between us on this question. We cannot alter this constitution if we would. We do no
wish to take any advantage in this mode of submission. Inasmuch as Kansas, instead o
offering us a simple constitution, proposed other terms and conditions, we had to aecep
them, as the Senator from Illinois admits, in their entirety—or, if we modify them, sni
has the power to reject them. That is all there is in this proposition. You did it ij
Michigan. You did it in Wisconsin. You did it in Iowa. In Iowa you rejected her ap
plication on the question of boundary, which is no stronger than this, because here th
point is, whether Congress, in consideration of the new State giving up her power q
taxation, the highest power of a sovereign, over the public lands, and over those lani
you grant to others for a brief time, will make a grant of lands such as has been mad
to other States, and give her seventeen million acres more to make railroads. Isayti
her, you must release your sovereignty in this respect; and you have no right to demam
of this sisterhood of States lands, more pecuniary advantages for releasing this sov<
reign power, than each of the otner eighteen new States that have come into the Unioi
had. We will give you that and no more. Thus we offer her no bribe.
So far from holding out to her a threat, we leave her just where you would leave he
by defeating the measure—in a territorial condition; and in a territorial condition undp
the sound principle that she ought not to come here unless you can show her to be a|
exceptional case, with less than the number prescribed by the Federal ratio for one Red
resentative. 1
For these reasons, Mr. President, I say that I have no reluctance in voting for this prj
position. I do not vote for it as a compromise or concession, but I here state, there isi
it no concession by the North or by the South, but a present settlement, firmly basd
upon a broad, right, ever enduring, constitutional principle; and as such, it not on!
meets my acquiescence, but my hearty concurrence. |
Mr. HALE. I wish to ask the Senator from Georgia a question: he says it is propo^
to submit this back to the people of Kansas because there is a modification of their lai|
proposition, and it is necessary to submit it because it is modified. My question is, wi
the first Senate bill did not send it back, for that modified the proposition equally wi|
this, but still that admitted the State without resubmission ?
Mr. TOOMBS. That is true; but, as I stated, the consequences would have been tl
same, with or without submission. I do not think this submission necessary to be put]
the bill; but, according to the original Senate bill, without its being nominated intt
bond, Kansas could reject it, as Arkansas and Iowa did. It might have been there witj
out objection from me; I thought it was proper to put it there; but in the case of A
kansa3, the convention had authorized the Legislature to accept a modification of t
land terms, and hence Congress referred that to the Legislature. In the other case itffl
referred to the people of Iowa, and Iowa rejected it, and made a new constitution sum
quently. I say that if it was not there, the consequences would be the same as thouj
it were there; and I should not have objected to it if it had been in the original Scnij
bill. The legal consequences would be the same, whether it wa? there or not.
Printed by Lemuel Towers.
SPEECH
HON. T. POLK, OF MISSOURI,
ON THE
ADMISSION OF KANSAS.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 11, 1858.
The Senate having under consideration the bill to admit the State of Kansas
into the Union—Mr. POLK said:
Mr. President : A constitution and State government have been formed in the
Territory of Kansas; and Kansas having tendered us her constitution, asks
admission into the Union.
The birth of a new State into the great American family is an event of pro¬
found concern, not merely to the patriot statesman, but to every reflecting
mind in the nation. But there are good reasons, sir, why I, as one of the Sen¬
ators from Missouri, should feel a special interest in the admission of Kansas.
She, as well as my own State, is a part of that Louisiana ceded by France to the
United States. The treaty of cession guaranties to Kansas, as well as to Mis¬
souri and the other States to be formed out of that territory, admission into the
Union on an equal footing with the original States. Kansas is in the nearest
neighborhood of my own Missouri, stretching for the whole length of her east¬
ern boundary coterminously with the western limit of Missouri, and separated
from her, by only an imaginary line, from the Missouri river on the North to
her uttermost southern extremity.
Are there any good reasons why we should not admit her ? If so, what are
they? Has she not the requisite population? All concede that she has. No
one raises an objection on this ground.
Do dot her people desire to be admitted ? There can be as little question on
this point. No party, and as far as I know, no person, in Kansas has opposed
her admission, for the reason that the people prefer that she should continue to
occupy a territorial condition. Even the disorganizes there, the opponents of
the party who favor the constitution now before Congress, the opponents of
order and of law, and of the Democratic party, had themselves, before the Kan¬
sas constitutional convention assembled at Lecompton, assumed to form a State
constitution at Topeka, and had actually presented it to Congress, and asked to
be admitted as a State of the Union under it. Of course, the party which has
presented the Lecompton constitution as the organic law of the Territory are in
favor 6f the admission of Kansas as a State. Hence all parties and all individ¬
uals are in favor of Kansas coming into the sisterhood of States.
One other question, and only one, remains to be settled. Is the constitution
before lis republican in its form? I know of no one, unless it may be the Sen¬
ator from Connecticut, who maintains that this constitution is not republican in
form. That I consider a conceded point.
Thus, Mr. President, the whole case is presented in a nut-shelL The Terri¬
tory of Kansas seeks to be admitted into the Union as one of the equal confed¬
erate States. She has the requisite population. Her people desire to be
admitted; and her constitution meets the only demand of the Constitution of
the United States. It is republican in form; yet her admission is opposed. It
Printed by Lemuel Towers.
2
is resisted by argument, by denunciation, by strategy, by all tbe means that
can be brought into requisition, "per fas et per nefas."
As Senators, realizing the importance of the questions involved, and the
momentous consequences that may be at stake, and penetrated with a sense of
the responsibilities under which we are acting, let us examine the case
fully, fairly, and dispassionately.
The constitution before us is the deliberate, formal, and solemn act of a con¬
vention chosen by the people' of Kansas Territory, for the express purpose of
making it. That convention was the result of a series of -acts of the people,
done under all the solemnities and all the forms of law ; done, not all at once,
but at regular and proper intervals; not in hot haste and without time to exam¬
ine and reflect, but with sufficient time, at each successive stage of the proceed¬
ings, to enable the people to ascertain all the facts, and to weigh their conse¬
quences and bearings, and then to judge of every step and its tendency, before
taking it.
Sir, let us look at these successive steps. The sense of the people is first
taken as to the propriety of forming a constitution and State government. This
was done by taking a vote of the people, at the polls, by a regular election,
with all the forms and sanctions and officers proper to elicit a true expression of
the popular; will.
This election was held in pursuance of a statute law, passed by the Terri¬
torial Legislature, acting under the authority, and according to the forms, of
the organic act. This law was passed at the July session of the Territorial
Legislature, in the year 1855; and the sense of the people was taken in com¬
pliance with it, on the first Monday of October, 1856—a year and a quarter
thereafter. There was, therefore, full time given them for reflection, and for
the formation of deliberate opinions. Not hasty, not precipitate, but calm,
and fair, and temperate; and even slow.
This vote of the people to express their opinions on the propriety of forming
a constitution and State government for themselves, was not taken at a special
election,vat which only a few voters might have turned out to the polls; but it
was fixed on purpose, at the same time and place as the general election for
members of the Territorial- Legislature and the other territorial officers. Thus,
it was so ordered and ordained that there might be the fullest possible turn out
of the people, and consequently the fairest utterance of the popular voice.
That the popular will was1 fairly expressed by this election, I hold to be beyond
doubt. No qne can successfully impugn it.
In the mean time, in the October preceding this election and next after the
passage of the law for it, there was an election holden for a Delegate to Con¬
gress, from the Territory, which had the effect to fix the attention of the people
upon this constitutional election.
Now, the next step in the progress of events; three months after it trans¬
pired, the result of this election for testing the sense of the people upon the
question of forming a constitution and State government comes before the Ter¬
ritorial Legislature for their consideration and action. Time enough had inter¬
vened for the result to be known in every log-cabin in the Territory, and indeed
throughout the whole country. This very Legislature had been chosen by the
people, with the clear knowledge, on the part Of both constituent add delegate,
that the result of the election theretofore held to test the sense of the people
upon the expediency of a change from a territorial to a State government would
come before it. The Legislature enter upon the consideration of the subject.
Every member has had long time to inquire into all the circumstances of the
election—its legality and significance; and after abundant time for delibera¬
tion—^for they met on the first Monday of January, and acted on the 20th of
February—^tliey bow to the will of the people, and provide for the election of
delegates to a constitutional convention. For this purpose they pass a stat¬
ute law. ! .
In the meantime—dn 1856—the matter of passing a law for directing, the
people of Kansaf! as to forming a constitution and State government had been
before Congress, and a bill for the purpose, known as the Toombs bill, had
passed the! Sehate of the United States. This Legislature, in deferenee, it would
seem, to the views of the Senate of the United States, pass an act providing for
s
the election of members of a constitutional convention, which it is conceded on
all hands embodies the main provisions of the Toombs bill, especially in the
matter .of the registration of voters. And it establishes a liberal standard of
Jualification for voters. It fixes the day of election on the third Monday of
une, 1857. Thus there is an interval of four months between the passage of
the law and the day of the election—a period long enough for making all the
necessary preparations—for complying with all the requirements of the law„
for bringing out candidates and canvassing their merits before the people—long
enough for full investigation and intelligent voting.
The meeting of the convention is appointed for the 4th of September, 1857. A
three months' interval is given between the day of the flection and the session
of the convention—an interval all-sufficient to enable any person who might
desire to do so, to contest the seat of any member who may have received a
certificate which he was not entitled to; and giving the members, elected ample
opportunity for preparing themselves to discharge well the responsible trust
committed to them by their sovereign constituents.
Contrast this with what transpired in Minnesota. (I do not by this mean to
say that I am opposed to the admission of Minnesota into the Union.) There
they elected delegates to a convention; and those delegates, when assembled,
first determined by vote whether it was the wish of the people to be admitted
into the Union. Yes, sir, on this first step of the procedure, the will of the
.people was determined by these delegates; and then these very delegates
immediately proceeded to form a State constitution.
"What a contrast does this present in favor of Kansas! The great primordial
question, whether they wished to come into the Union at all or not, under any
constitution, and which must necessarily precede the formation of a constitution,
is determined—how ? Not by the people themselves, but by these delegates.
To the people of Minnesota this question was never submitted for a direct vote.
In Kansas it was. If it was necessary in the case of Kansas that the whole con¬
stitution should be submitted to .the people at the .polls, was it not equally
neces'sary, in the case of Minnesota, that the question of whether they would
have a State constitution at all, or not, should'have .been submitted to the peo¬
ple? In Kansas they submitted to the vote of the people the question whether
they wished to come into the Union. In Minnesota they did not. In Minne¬
sota they submitted the whole constitution to. a vote of the people. In Kansas
they submitted only a part—but that was the single and vital question before
the people. J,
The convention of Kansas met and framed a constitution. Tliey made pro¬
vision for submitting to the people,' by direct-vote, whether they would tolerate
slavery by their constitution. That question was so submitted on the 21st of
December last, according to the provisions of the constitution itself; and it was
decided by an almost unanimous vote, and thus indisputably settled.
Mr. President, when we view these proceedings of the people of Kansas in
forming for themselves a State constiration, in the succesive stages of their de¬
velopment—not from the low arena of partisan strife and passion, but from the
elevated stand-point of the patriot, who reveres the sovereignty of the people
ahd loves representative liberty—liberty reposing on written constitutions and
regulated by law, what a majestic spectacle is presented! The people march¬
ing forward in fetately pace to the accomplishment of their purpose, with a
movement as grand as the lapse of the tide-or the travel of a planet.
This Kansas constitution,- so formed, is now before us, conformably to the
Constitution of the United States; and the nascent State prays to be admitted
into the Union as one of the equal States of our glorious Confederacy. What
its several provisions are, it is not for Congress, under the Constitution of the
United States, to inquire, beyond the single-question, is it republican in form?
If inquired info, however, it will be found to be quite as unexceptionable as
the constitutions of most of the States of the Confederacy, And, sir, if it did
not contain an article tolerating slavery, I apprehend it would, have passed
without challenge from most of the persons throughout the land who are now
raising the most vehement clamor against it.
But, objections are urged here against the admission of Kansas under this
constitution, because, as it is alleged, there have been,irregularities in some of
4
the proceedings which preceded its adoption. And Senators, Mr. President,
who have embarked with great zeal in this enterprise of opposition, and of
consequent agitation in Kansas, and throughout the country, have fallen, in
my judgment, into flagrant errors of fact and of theory, and, of course, have
been led to conclusions most fallacious.
The Senator from Maine seems to have spoken against the admission of Kan¬
sas, under the mistaken impression that the delegates to the Lecompton conven¬
tion were elected under the operation of a test oath; that persons were pre¬
cluded from voting for them, unless they would do violence to their consciences
by swearing to support the fugitive slave law. Sir, I don't understand how a
man's conscience can be violated by assuming upon it the obligation to do only
what the Constitution of his country imposes upon every one of its citizens as
a sacred duty. That Constitution expressly declares that "persons held to ser¬
vice in one State, escaping into another, shall be delivered up on claim of the
party to whom such service may be due."
But, sir, the Senator is grievously mistaken. The law providing for the
election of delegates to the constitutional convention, ordained in its eleventh
section that—
"Every bona fide inhabitant of the Territory of Kansas, on the third Monday
of June, 1857, being a citizen of the United States, over the age of twenty-one
years, and who shall have resided there three months next before said eleetion
in the county in which he offers to vote, and no other person whatever shall be
entitled to vote at said election."
These, sir, are all the qualifications the voters for delegates to the convention
are required to possess. The act of the 20th February, 1857, fixing the qualifi¬
cations for voters in all other elections, expressly excludes from its operation the
election of delegates to the constitutional convention, though its standard of
qualifications is exactly the same aa that just given, except, only, that a resi¬
dence of six months is required instead of three; and this law repeals all the
laws referred to by the Senator from Maine as requiring "test oaths," as he
termed them. And so it Was expressly held by Governor Walker in his opinion
published by him officially to the people of the Territory with reference to this
very election.
Another Senator has told us that the sheriffs and probate judges, whose duty
it was to make the enumeration of the voters for the purposes of the election of
the members ofithe convention, were selected by the first Legislature. He then
assuihed, against the facts and the truth—as I will show—that that first Legis¬
lature was illegally elected—and concluded that the convention was, therefore,
a fraudulent one. Sir, any such a conclusion is unwarrantable, even if it had
been true that this first Legislature elected the sheriffs and probate judges. For,
I hold, first, that this is the very essence of all uncharitableness, to pronounce
men dishonest and fraudulent knaves, (as this charge does, the sheriffs and pro¬
bate judges,) against whom not a particle of proof is produced to condemn
them. Again, it is the verdict of common fairness, I do not say charity, that
every officer intrusted with the discharge of a legal duty, and sworn to its per¬
formance, has discharged that duty fairly and impartially. Sir, even the stern
law, which knows neither mercy nor compassion, presumes that every officer
has faithfully discharged his legal duty. Would the Senator have had the first
Legislature create these offices and leave them without incumbents until a pop¬
ular election could be held ? On the contrary, it was clearly their duty to have
filled them, as they did. But, sir, before the election of delegates to the consti¬
tutional convention, and at the very next Legislature after the first, and at the
very earliest moment at which it could be done, these offices were made elective
by the people.
Mr. President, almost every gentleman who has either spoken or written in
opposition to the admission of Kansas on the Lecompton constitution, both in
ana out of the Senate, and including both the actual Governor Walker and the
acting Governor Stanton, seems to have labored to produce the false impression,
that about half of the legal voters in Kansas were disfranchised, and not al¬
lowed to vote for delegates to the convention for want of a registration of their
names. When this had been substantially affirmed, on a former occasion, in the
5
course of the debate on Kansas affairs, and when a semblance of verity had been
assumed for it, by quoting the declaration of Governor Walker, and asserting
that it had not been denied, I then took occasion to dissipate the untruthful in¬
ference by proving that the statement had been denied by gentlemen of respec¬
tability, both in the territory and out of it—and among them, two of the mem¬
bers of the Leeompton convention itself, and also the Democratic candidate for
Governor at the late election for State officers. And when that statement of
facts presented by me had swept from under him the foundation upon which he
had built up a Charge of fraud in the election of members to the constitutional
convention, the Senator from Michigan said that "there was but one reason for
requiring a registration of voters in the election of the members of that con¬
vention, and that was, that under a show of fairness they might defraud the
people, and the result had justified the prediction." And yet he admitted that
the Kansas Legislature had taken the provisions of the Toombs bill, and conce¬
ded that the provisions of that bill were wise and good. To show I do not mi*'
represent him, I read the paragraph of his speech on this point:
"It was perfectly clear to me that that Legislature had taken the provisions
of the Toombs bill, which was to be executed by men appointed by the Presi¬
dent and confirmed by the Senate of the United States, whose character should
be 6ueh as to secure an honest exercise of its provisions, and the provisions of
that bill were designed for the purpose of excluding all who were not actual
inhabitants and residents of the Territory."
Indeed, so highly did the Senator think of the excellence of that bill that
he voted for it here in his place. I wonder if he then thought that the provis¬
ions of that bill might be used "to defraud the people." I wonder if the same
provisions that were wise and good in the Toombs bill, can be any less so in tha
act of the Kansas Legislature. I read another extract:
"But, sir, there is an additional fact stated in that newspaper extract which
goes to show either that those gentlemen did not understand the subject, or did
not intend fairly to present it. It is this: that if anybody was aggrieved in that
Territory they could apply to the'Governor for redress, in regard to the regis¬
tration of votes. There is not a single word in the law that authorized the
Governor to act at all, and he had no more power to act in that case than I
had."
This is strong language, strong assertion, Mr. President.
Let me now call the attention of the Senate to the provisions of that law.
Its second section is as follows: ,
"In case of any vacancy in the office of sheriff, the duties imposed on such
sheriff by this oct shall devolve upon, and be performed by, the judge of the
probate court of the county in which such vacancy may exist, who. may appoint
deputies, not to exceed one in each municipal township; and in case the office
of both sheriff and probate judge in any county shall be or become vacant,, the
Governor shall appoint some competent resident of such county to perform such
duty, who shall have the same right to appoint deputies, take and subscribe
the same oath, and perform all the requirements of this act, as applied to
sheriffs."
Sir. I forbear any remark, further than to inquire which is nearer the truth,
nearer the very letter of the section just read, that "newspaper extract," as the
Senator termed it,-or the Senator's asseveration?
Let me here say, Mr. President, that since I read the statement in question, in
regard to' the fifteen counties in Kansas Territory attached to other counties for
civil, and. of course, for election purposes, I have been able to get access to the
laws of Kansas; and I find that that statement—that "newspaper extract"—is
in the very words of the thirty-fourth section of the act of 20th February, 1857,
which is as follows:
"The counties of Weller and Richardson are hereby attached to the county
of Shawnee.
"The counties of Madison, Butler, and Wise, are hereby attached to the coun¬
ty of Breckinridge.
6
"The county of Coffee is hereby attached to the county of Anderson.
"The county of McGee is hereby attached to the county of Bourbon.
''The counties of Greenwood, Hunter, Dorr, "Wilson, Woodson, and Godfrey,
are hereby attached to the county of Allen.
"The county of Brown is hereby attached to the county of Doniphan.
"The county of Davis is hereby attached to the county of Riley."—Acts of
Kansas Territory, 1855, p. 183, sec. 34.
But, sir, if ire look at one of the exhibits accompanying the report of the
Committee on Territories, we find that the Territory of Kansas was divided, for
the purpose of this election, into eighteen districts. What else do we find?
Why, that of these eighteen districts, there were only four in which there were
no returns of the enumeration of voters. There were returns from every other
district. ' We further find, that there were twenty-one counties represented; so
that it took the whole number of the counties unrepresented to constitute four
"ofit Of the eighteen election districts. Of course the population of these coun¬
ties must havebeen exceedingly sparse. The fact is, that three of them, as has
been already said—Clay, Dickinson, and Washington—are without inhabitants
down to this present speaking. The four most populous of these counties were
Anderson, Allen, Franklin, and Breckinridge. In the three first named, the re¬
bellious Abolitionists prevented the census being taken by force and threats-—;'
and in Breckinridge, the judge of probate, being an Abolitionist, refusd .to exe¬
cute the law. Anderson and Franklin severally constituted each one election
district. This disposes of two out of four of the districts unrepresented; and
as to the two others, it is sufficient to say that, to the county of Breckinridge,
"where an Abolitionist probate judge refused to act, were attached, for election
purposes, the counties of Madison, Butler, and Wise; and to the county of Allen,
in which Passmore Williams, the judge of probate, was not allowed to take the
census, but driven out by the Abolitionists, were attached the counties of Green¬
wood, Hunter, Dorr, Wilson, Woodson, and- Godfrey. What, then, becomes of
the assumption that half of the voters of the Territory were disfranchised, and
that by no act or default of their own ? --
It has been moreover said that this first election of a Legislature in Kansas
was1 carried by illegal means—by frauds and violence—and that consequently
that body was an illegal body. He who makes such an assertion ought to
stand ready and able to prove it. The proof has not yet been produced. Can
it be produced ? I maintain that it cannot be.
By the organic act, the Governor was empowered to declare who was elected,
and to give certificates of election. Accordingly, he gave certificates to seven¬
teen out of twenty-six members of the House, and refused them to nine. Of
the'members to the Council, he declared nine elected and refused certificates to
four. A new election was ordered by the Governor to fill these vacancies—and
two of the members of the House and two of the Council, whose election had
been set aside by the Governor, wei'e reelected by the people, and he gave them
their certificates. There were seven contested cases in the House, and two in the
Council. All of the members, both of the Council and the House, attended at
the time and place of the meeting of the Legislature. The two Houses passed
'on the questions of the contested seats in them respectively. They were the
sole judges of the election and qualifications of the members of their respective
bodies—and from their decision there was no appeal. This is as old as parlia¬
mentary law, and is one of its elementary principles. That decision, therefore,
was final and conclusive; and accordingly it was submitted to and aequiesced
in, both by the Governor and the contestants. The question, therefore, is for¬
ever closed, and it is too late to attempt to except to what has been done. But,
sir, who ever heard of one legislative body claiming the power of passing on
the election and qualification of the members'of another one? To my mind,
the assumption of such a power is a monstrous proposition. What right has
Congress to pass upon the election or qualification of the members of the Legis¬
lature of Kansas? None in principle, none in parliamentary law, none in the
act organizing the Territorial Legislature. .
Mx*. President, I have looked into th.e voluminous House document that has
been referred to in this debate, containing the evidence taken by the committee
raised to investigate Kansas affairs. The census was completed in February, a
7
month before tlie election. There were 2,905 legal voters registered. Erom
the southern States there were 1,610, and from the northern 1,018, and from
other countries 217. There was a majority, therefore, from the southern States,
over and above those from the northern States, of 652, and over and above all
other voters, of 435. The men from the southern States had the numbers, there¬
fore, of registered voters in the Territory to carry this first election over all
opposition and combinations.
Again, there were fourteen representative districts. In eleven of these, there
were majorities of registered voters from the South, and majorities from the
North in only three. And the majorities of the voters from the South in these
eleven districts would give twenty-one members, while the majorities from the
North in the remaining three would only give five members.
There were ten Council districts, n Qf these, there were majorities from the
southern States in eight, while there were majorities from the northern in only
two, (And the majorities from the South in these eight Council districts would
give ten out of the thirteen members of the Council, leaving only three for the
North. I cannot take time, Mr. President, to make this demonstration more
full. For a complete analysis of all the facts of this first territorial election, I
refer to the masterly expose of the whole subject by the Hon. A. H. Stephens,
made in the other end of the Capitol, on the 81st of July, 1856.
In suchra condition of things, why talk of Missourians going over to Kansas
in order to vote and carry this election?
Sir, there was no necessity for any such thing. It would have been a work
of absolute supererogation. There were pro-slavery men enough there already
to carry the.election overwhelmingly.
The Senator from New Hampshire, (Mr. Hale,) admitted that the Missourians
did not resort to fraud to carry the election. 'But he said that they marched
over as an invading army and took possession of the polls, and so usurped the
government of the Territory. And this has been repeated so often, and in so
many forms of expression, that it would seem that Senators think to practice
upon the credulity of the country, and to compel credence by pertinacious reite¬
ration—vainly dreaming that falsities may be made to pass for truths by plausi¬
ble and unceasing repetitions of them,
A sufficient and conclusive answer to all such charges, for all time to come, is
the simple statement of the fact that there was no necessity for any. such ac¬
tion; for the pro-slavery party, as it has been called, had already a controlling
majority of the voters of the Territory.
But, sir, I make bold to assert that there can be no proof adduced to make
good the charges. In the mass of evidence taken by the House committee in
1856, there is not a single witness who swears that a single voter, in any single
precinct, in any single representative or council district, was} prevented from
voting by any single Missourian, or any number of them. They were there
with arms, it was said; but they made no aggression or attack upon any body.
It was strictly a peaceful election—not interrupted by fights or violence. In
that respect it contrasted well with similar occasions in some of the oldest of
the States in the Union. The electors may have been at the polls, in some in¬
stances, in their wagons and with their rifles, their inseparable companions. To
the mercenaries sent out by emigrant aid corporations, from the cellars and
alms-houses and tombs of the great New England cities, this may have seemed
strange and even alarming; but to those accustomed to frontier life, in a new
country, it is known to be common and habitual.
I propose, Mr, President, to examine for a moment, the circumstances attend¬
ing the election of the first Legislature in Kansas. Previous to the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska act, on the 30th of May, 1854, the settlements of Missouri
had pressed up against the boundary of the unopened Territory, until an almost
unbroken length of fences and farms marked the line for long miles of its course.
The neighboring population were ready to pour in and occupy the land so soon
as the Territory should be opened to settlement. And immediately upon the
passage of the act, they did immigrate into the Territory. They "staked out
their claims" and commenced their improvements. They built houses, made
inclosures, and began to plow and to plant. During the fragment of this first
season, many of them had not been able to make crops, nor surround themselves
8
with warm houses, necessary to enable them to endure the rigors of an inclem¬
ent winter on the inhospitable prairies of Kansas. They sought a temporary
winter shelter in Missouri. They had, however, in most cases, domiciliated
themselves in Kansas, and when they left it, they left it "animo revertendi." So
soon as the water should flow and the grass should grow in the spring, they in¬
tended to return to complete their houses and farms and to abide in their pe>
manent homes.
Sir, Mr. "Webster, speaking eloquently in the language of filial veneration for
his own revered sire, said of him, that in order to raise his children to a condi¬
tion better than his own, he had moved up into the border settlements of New
Hampshire so far that there was not a human habitation between the smoke
that curled from his humble home over the frozen hills of the North, and the
far off settlements of Canada. These fathers of families had gone into Kansas
urged by the self-same desire to improve the condition of their offspring—to
raise their children to a condition better than their own. They went under the
promptings of the better instincts of our nature, and in the same manner as
these promptings have carried immigration into the other Territories that have
grown into States.
Now, in contrast with such settlers, look at the emissaries sent into the Terri¬
tory for political purposes by the Abolition fanatics. So soon as the first steam¬
ers began to navigate the Missouri river in the early spring, the dwellers on its
shores were surprised to find their decks and cabins crowded by the New Eng¬
land immigrants making their way into Kansas with nothing but black carpet
sacks in their hands, containing all their worldly goods. It was too eai*ly to go
into the Territory in the way of ordinary settlement, and it was matter of won¬
der to see these immigrants pushed into this new and unsettled region in such
crowds, and in such p; emature haste, before there were provisions there to feed
them, and when all their supplies must be furnished from abroad.
But, on inquiry, it was ascertained that Governor Reeder had issued his pro¬
clamation for the election of the members of the Territorial Legislature for the
unusually early date of the 30th of March. This proclamation had been pub¬
lished in the east and northeast long before anything was known of it in Mis¬
souri or Kansas. The men who had been shipped into Kansas by associations
organized and endowed for the express purpose, were among the first to bear
the intelligence to the citizens of the borders of Kansas and Missouri. Sir, the
Senator from Vermont, (Mr. Collamer,) well said of these men, " they went then
to vote, and they staid there to vote and he might also well have added that
they staid there, many of them, no longer than to vote, and then came away
forever.
To the citizens of Kansas who had settled there from Missouri this looked like
a deliberate purpose to disfranchise them. They determined to defeat the con¬
summation of the foul plan. Accordingly, those of them who had temporarily
left their homes, at once returned, in order to secure themselves against this
outrage upon their rights. The party with which they acted had a majority of
the qualified voters, and triumphed at the election. The men who had been
hurried into the Territory by aid societies, who could not be trusted to manage
their own removal, but who had to be sent under the conduct of overseers spe¬
cially appointed for the purpose, and who had boasted, as they passed through
Missouri, that they were flocking into Kansas in order first to abolitionize that,
and then to overrun Missouri, were disappointed in their unpatriotic designs.
And then the plotters, foiled in their efforts, set up a shriek for bleeding Kansas,
which, has been reechoed by anti-slavery fanatics until the clamor has reached
the remotest hamlet of the land.
After awhile these operators changed their tactics, and instead of sending
their instruments into the Territory with black carpet sacks, they sent them
with Sharpe's rifles and Colt's revolvers, and bowie knives and artillery. The
armed invader was substituted for the unarmed hireling—and these were sent
into the Territory in bands and companies, armed and equipped for the most
desperate enterprises. One such company, two hundred and forty strong, came
down into the Territory, through its northern border, organized with military
officers and discipline, and with all the equipments of a military camp.
But, in Spite of all this original wrong, and of the lawlessness and rebellion
which followed it, fortunately for the welfare of Kansas, the law and orde
party there, by their forbearance, their fortitude, their numbers, and their cha¬
racter, were able, until the close of the labors of the Lecompton convention, to
maintain and preserve the supremacy of the legal government in that Territory.
Sir, the dominion of law and of legitimate authority there has produced and
presented to Congress a constitution for Kansas.
Now, Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Vermont to concede, that
if there was authority for the action of the Lecompton convention, then the
constitution framed by it is binding, and that the vote east on the 21st of De¬
cember last was decisive and conclusive. I do not stop to controvert or to dis¬
cuss his distinction between "legal and authoritative." I think it is manifest,
from what I have already said, that that constitution was authoritative. But
how does the Senator undertake to prove that it is not authoritative ? By main¬
taining, first, that the unlimited sovereignty of the Territory is in Congress;
and, therefore, secondly, that the Territorial Legislature "could take no step
towards forming a constitution and State government without an enabling act;
and then, that Congress had passed no enabling act. Sir, it will not be ques¬
tioned that the sovereign power of the Territory could form a constitution for
its people. The sovereign power is the highest power; and if there is any
power higher than the power to form a constitution and State government, I
would like to be told what it is. I know, of no better definition of sovereignty
than that it is the power of forming a constitution and government for a peo¬
ple. If, therefore, Congress has the actual and present sovereignty over the
Territory, it follows that Congress could form a constitution and State govern¬
ment for Kansas. That is a position it is useless to controvert. I do not under¬
stand anybody to assert it. It is against the very letter of the Federal Consti¬
tution. Even the power in Congress to establish a temporary tei'ritorial
government is only inferential and by implication, not expressly granted. Any¬
thing beyond this, is utterly without warrant in the Constitution. The postu¬
late, then, on which the Senator builds up his argument fails, and of course his
whole effort to prove the Lecompton convention, and the constitution ordained
by it, not to be authoritative, must, of necessity, fail also. That authority re¬
mains still untouched.
Sir, the State government which is to supersede a territorial organization, can
be formed only—first, by the Congress of the United States; or, secondly, by
the people of the Territory themselves. I have already shown that Congress
cannot form a constitution and State government for a Territory. It follows,
therefore, that the people of a Territory, and they only, can perform that high
function. And, Mr. Presidgnt, as citizens of a Government which recognizes
the people as the only legitimate source of power—and especially as Demo¬
crats—we should never lose sight of the great cardinal truth, that it is the high
prerogative of the people of a Territory, and of the people only, to form a con¬
stitution and State government. On this point, with all due deference to the
Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Douglas,) it is perfectly idle, it seems.to me, to talk
about the sovereignty of the Territories being "in abeyance, suspended in the
United States in trust for the people when they become a State." For when¬
ever a State government is formed—be that when it may—it must be made by
the people of the Territory. Sovereignty is not vested in them after they have
become a State, but before. For they exert the highest attribute of sovereignty
in the very fact of forming a State government. And though we should con¬
cede that, before then, their sovereignty may have been, as it were, in adoles-
ence; still, before that act is achieved, it has attained the maturity and perfec¬
tion of its growth.
It has been upon the recognition of this fundamental truth of our American
political science, that a majority of the new States have been received into the
Confederacy. The instances in which enabling acts have been resorted to, are
the exceptions which establish the rule.
But, Mr. President, it seems to me that even those whose opinions differ from
my own on this point, must be convinced, on examination, that the people of
Kansas needed no authorization to form a. State government beyond the Kansas-
Nebraska act. This is the opinion of the President of the United States, as
announced in his instructions to Governor Walker, and in all his messages to
10
Congress touching Kansas. It is the opinion of Governor Walker often re¬
peated. In the same opinion, too, Mr. Secretary Stanton concurs. And the
Senator from Illinois, himself, on the 12th of June, 185*7, at the capital of his
State, spoke as tollows :
" Kansas is about to speak for herself through her delegates, assembled in
convention to form a constitution, preparatory to her admission into the Union
on an equal footing with the orginal States. Peace and prosperity now prevail
throughout her borders. The law under which her delegates are about to be
elected is believed to be just and fair in all its objects and provisions. There
is every reason to hope and believe that the law will be fairly interpreted and
impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide inhabitant the free and
quiet exercise of the elective franchise.
" If any portion of the inhabitants, acting under the advice of political lead¬
ers in distant States, shall choose to absent themselves from the polls, and with¬
hold their votes, with a view of leaving the free State Democrats in a minority,
and thus securing a pro-slavery constitution, in opposition to the wishes of a
majority of the people living under it, let the responsibility rest on those who,
for partisan purposes, will sacrifice the principles they profess to cherish and
promote. Upon them, and upon the political party for whose benefit, and un¬
der the direction of whose leaders they act, let the blame be visited of fasten¬
ing upon the people of a new State institutions repugnant to their feelings, and
in violation of their wishes.' The organic act secured to the.people of Kansas
the sole and exclusive right of forming and regulating their domestic institu¬
tions to suit themselves, subject to no other limitation than that which the Con¬
stitution of the United States imposes. The Democratic party is determined to
see the great fundamental principle of the organic act carried out in good faith.
The present election law in Kansas is acknowledged to be fair and just. The
rights of the voters are clearly defined; and the exercise of those rights will
be efficiently and scrupulously protected. Hence, if the majority of the peo¬
ple of Kansas desire to have it a free State, (and we are told by the Republi¬
can party that nine-tenths of the people of that Territory are free State men,)
there is no obstacle in the way of bringing Kansas into the Union hs a free
State by the votes and voice of her own people, and in conformity with the great
principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act; provided all the free State men will go
to the polls, and vote their principles in accordance with their professions. If
such is not the result, let the consequences be visited upon the heads of those
whose policy it is to produce strife, anarchy, and bloodshed in Kansas, that
their party may profit by slavery agitation in the Northern States of this
Union."
Sir, this quotation from the Senator's Springfieid speech in pregnant with
meaning at this juncture, and bears on the question of the admission of Kansas
in many other points than the one just now indicated. If authority, sir, can
have any weight on this point, can any man ask for it any higher, or ask for
any more.
The very first Legislature that ever assembled in Kansas passed an act to take
the sense of the people upon the question of forming a State government, and
the topic has been before the country from that time to the present: and"yet I
have, for the first time, during the present session of Congress heard it affirmed
that the Kansas constitutional convention "had no power to do any act, as a
convention, forming a constitution; and that the act calling it was null'and
void from the beginning." Sir, in what striking contradiction stands this de¬
claration of the Senator from Illinois, with the passage of his Springfield speech
just quoted. By the terms of the act, " the legislative power of the Territory
shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitu¬
tion of the United States, and the provisions of this act."
Now, I remark, fii'3t, that passing a law to initiate proceedings to erect
a Territory into a new State, is consistent with the Constitution of the United
States, because that Constitution expressly provides for the admission of new
States formed out of th$ Territories of the United Stated. Secondly, it is con¬
sistent with the provisions of the act. know it has been argued that the Ter¬
ritorial Legislature could do nothing (;o destroy itself; but the argument does
11
not apply to this case; for the aot itself expressly declares that, the government
organized by it is to be a temporary government. If so, then the act itself con¬
templates that the territorial government is to have an end put to it; in other
Words, it is to be superseded by a State government. How, then, can it be in¬
consistent with the provisions of the act that the Legislature should institute
proceedings for facilitating the people in the formation of a State constitution?
The Lecompton convention, then, was not only legal, but it was vested with
full authority to form a constitution for .the people of Kansas. It was author¬
ized by the Territorial Legislature. It was authorized by Congress. And last,
and highest, and chiefest of all, it was authorized by the people of Kansas. It
has made a constitution, and that constitution is authoritative.
But, it is objected that the constitution it made was not submitted—-the
whole of it—*by the convention to the vote of the people. I answer, first, that
of the eighteen new States that have been received into the Union, the consti¬
tutions of thirteen were never submitted to the votes of their people prior to
their admission, while the constitutions of only five were submitted ; secondly,
of the thirteen original States, the constitutions of not more than a single one
was ever submitted to a vote of the people before coming into the Union ; and
thirdly, the Constitution of the United States was never submitted to the votes
of the people of a solitary State preparatory to entering into the national Union;
that great act was done, in every instance, by a convention chosen for the pur¬
pose; and lastly, the very delegates to the Convention itself, which framed the
Federal Constitution, were not elected by the votes of the people of the several
States, but were chosen, in every instance, by the Legislatures of the States.
But, sir, what has Congress got to do with this question ? Have we any
Tight to reject a constitution made in a legal convention, clothed.with full pow¬
er to act in the premises, because we may not happen to like the manner in
which it was made? Under the Constitution of the United States, which au¬
thorizes us to inquire only whether the constitution offered to us is republican in
its form; have we any right to go beyond this, and to inquire what was the
method the people saw fit to adopt in making their constitution? Especially,
what right have we to set aside the great principle of the Kansas-Nebraska act
—non-intervention—and to obtrude ourselves into the affairs of the people of
the Territory by objecting to the mannfer selected by them for framing their
fundamental law? This, it seems to me, would be a flagrant violation of the
very spirit of the Kansas-Nebraska act. That act declares, in so many words,
that "its true intent and meaning is not to legislate slavery into any Territory
or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject
only to the Constitution of the United States." Thus, the people were not on¬
ly to be left free to form domestic institutions, of whatever kind they might
please, but they were to be perfectly free to do this in their own way ; that is, they
-Bhall determine the mode and manner of forming them, whether it shall be done
-by the people in mass meeting or through their representatives chosen express¬
ly to that end. Now, sir, shall Congress take upon itself to prescribe the way
they shall pursue in forming their domestic institutions by their constitution ?
Shall we arrogate to ourselves the authority to reject the State because its peo¬
ple have seen fit to adopt a way of forming their constitution which we do not
.approve?
Further, sir, the-delegates constituting the Lecompton convention were the
;repre'sentatives and agents of the people of Kansas, not of Congress, nor of the
United States. What right, then, has Congress, on the well-known law and
relation of principal and agent, of constituent and representative, to inquire
whether those delegates did right or wrong in not submitting their work to
the vote of the people? "Who are we, that we should judge another man's
servant? To his own master he shall stand or fall."
But sir, we know the fact to be that on .this point these delegates faithfully
discharged the trust committed to their hands. The people of the Territory
had not required them to submit the constitution they should make to a pop¬
ular vote. They were willing to give their delegates a commission in the same
terms as had been used by the people of more than half of the Territories that
hhd come into the Union as new States, and of every one of the Old Thirteen,
12
in the formation, both of their own State constitutions, and of the Constitution
of the United States. And this course was pursued deliberately and purposely.
Governor Geary, it is well known, vetoed the bill providing for the convention
for the very reason that it did not require the constitution that might be framed
by it to be submitted to a vote of the people. It was yet passed, by a two-
thirds vote, over his veto. All this was known, not merely to the party sus¬
taining the Lecompton convention, but also to the disorganizers and rebellious
recusants. These factionists were more than notified of it. They were
appealed to on this very ground by both Governor "Walker and Secretary Stan¬
ton to come forward and vote for delegates. They were argued with, and
entreated—addressed in public and private—in season and out of season. They
were warned of the consequences of standing out, and told that a constitution
might be formed for them tolerating slavery which they professed so intensely
to hate. And now, if they refused to vote after all this, does it lie in their
mouths to complain? And if they do complain, has Congress any right, on
account of their complaints, to reject an authoritative constitution legally
formed, and that, too, against what has been its course and custom in all similar
cases—against the express letter and spirit of the Kansas-Nebraska act, and
against the plain provision of the Constitution of the United States on the sub¬
ject of the admission of new States into the Union.
The Kansas convention did not submit the constitution, as a whole, to a vote
erf the people; but it did submit the article on slavery.
I have not time, Mr. President, to stop to explode the shallow sophism that
the convention resorted to a trick in the mode of submission, by which no man
could vote either for or against the slavery clause without voting for the con¬
stitution. No man, it seems to me, can carefully read the schedule on this point
without being convinced that this is a mere pretence, (if I may be allowed to use
so harsh an expression in this presence,) and more deserving of the epithet of
trick than that of the schedule to which that epithet has been applied.
The article on slavery, sir, was the only part of the instrument about which
there was any serious difference of opinion. Has any man ever heard any
objection, even from the rebellious Abolitionists in Kansas, against the articles
011 banks, or taxation, or the qualifications prescribed for Governor, or against
any other part of the instrument, except the article on slavery? Who has ever
heard any exception taken against its provisions on these subjects, except from
the Senator from Illinois ? And he frankly admitted that his difference of opin¬
ion from the Convention on these subjects, would not be sufficient ground for
vdting against the admission of Kansas. Where was the necessity, then, of sub¬
mitting to a vote of the people provisions of the constititution about which
there was no difference of opinion, and about which a difference of opinion is
conceded to be unimportant? '
The article in her constitution which was to fix the condition of Kansas as a
slaveholding or non-slaveholding State, was the sole point of contest. This was
the question that had agitated that Territory from the period of its first organ¬
ization. Indeed, it was this that had populated1 her with emissaries sent out by
the Emigrant Aid corporations. And this it was that had drawn to Kansas the
attention of every section of the entire country.
This question was submitted to a fair vote of the people; and that, too, in
the fairestjnode in which it could be done; that is, it was submitted alone,
as an isolated issue. If it had been incumbered with other questions there
would not have been so fair an expression of the popular will upon it. A man
might have voted for or against the slavery article, in order to reach some
other object. And, sir, this submitting a particular provision of a State con¬
stitution, as a single question, to be voted on by the people, is no strange pro¬
ceeding. It has been done in the case of Oregon, whose constitution is now
before this Senate. And it has often been done in other States.
Mr. President, in the estimation of those who profess to consider this action
of the Lecompton convention a great outrage upon the rights of the people of
Kansas, the people of Indiana must have been most deeply aggrieved by Con¬
gress when that State was,admitted into the Union; for, l am told, by one of
her Senators on this floor, that an article establishing slavery in that State was
voted out of her constitution by a majority of two votes only; and yet that
13
constitution was never submitted to a vote of the people of that State. Still»
she was admitted into the Union as a non-slaveholding State. Sir, when that
vote was so very close in the convention, it is altogether possible that the result
would have been different if it had been submitted to a direct vote of the
people. But Congress did not stop to make this a condition precedent, which
must be met before the State should be admitted.
So, too, the same was true in Illinois. There, an article proposing to estab¬
lish slavery by her constitution was voted down, in her constitutional conven¬
tion, by but a small majority of votes; and that constitution was never sub¬
mitted to a vote of the people. Yet the people of Illinois have never found out
that their rights were trampled on by Congress, when that State was admitted
into the Union.
The submission of this article of the constitution was in exact compliance
with the requirements of the Kansas-Nebraska act. That act repealed the Mis¬
souri restriction. That restriction excluded slavery from the Territory of Kan¬
sas. The repeal of the restriction left the people of that Territory free, " per¬
fectly free," to introduce slavery intoi it at their option. What was the grand
question that immediately followed ? It was, shall slavery be introduced into
the Territory of Kansas, or excluded therefrom ? This question is left by the
convention to the decision of the people, by a direct vote, clean and naked;
separated from every other issue.
Again, this act declares that its true intent and meaning is, not to introduce
slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom—yes, sir, slavery
is the thing that it neither introduces nor excludes—"but to leave the people
thereof perfectly free to form their domestic institutions in their own way."
"What domestic institution is meant by this language ? Sir, does not the first
part of,the sentence make it perfectly plain what domestic institution is meant?
Before the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act were not the people perfectly
free to form all tlieir other domestic institutions in their own way, except the
institution of slavery only?
But, Mr. President, this issue was not only submitted to the people in the
best possible way to procure a true decision upon it, in the grand fact that it
was disentangled from every other issue, but in the further fact that it was
submitted in such manner, as to time, as was best calculated to reach the
unbiased judgment of the people. It was submitted, not at a general election,
when offices were to be filled—offices both of emolument and of a political
character, calculated to enlist personal feeling and the might of party disci¬
pline—but it was submitted with perfect fairness q,t a special election, held for
this purpose only, where no disturbing influence could be brought to bear upon
it; and that, too, in spite of the certainty that a comparatively small vote
would be the consequence.
After proceedings of such a character, shall any man be heard to accuse the
Lecompton convention of contriving to secure the adoption of the slavery arti¬
cle into the constitution of Kansas by trickery? Sir, if they intended to impose
this constitution upon the people of Kansas by contrivance, they were certainly
bunglers in the business. They might have learned a lesson, perhaps, from the
Minnesota convention. That convention first fixed the election of the State
officers under the proposed constitution, on the very same day the people were
to vote upon the constitution. They thereby secured a full vote. They next
provide, in the eighteenth section of the schedule, that "no voter should vote
for or against the constitution on a separate ballot from that cast by him for
officers to be elected at that election under the constitution." Why not? Why
should he not be permitted to vote on a separate ballot? Why subject the
voter to this compulsion ? I would say that, so far from compelling him to vote
for or against the constitution only on the same ticket he should cast for State
officers, if any compulsory mode was to be prescribed, it ought to have been
the reverse. Could the mode adopted have any other effect than to compel
votes for the constitution ? Similar means were resorted to by the disorgani¬
zed in the Kansas Legislature when called together by acting Governor Stan¬
ton, no doubt for this very purpose. They fix the time for their illegal and
fraudulent voting upon the Kansas constitution on the very same day ordained
14
by the convention for the election of State officers under that constitution, but
to he conducted, not by the same officers, but by officers of their own.
But, Mr. President, that Legislature proceeded, without the shadow of an?
thority, in attempting to take any action at all on the Lecompton constitution*
The whole authority to make a constitution had been delegated, by the people
of the Territory, to the convention that made that constitution. That conven¬
tion had already acted, and -was functus officio. The duty and trust committed
to it had been already discharged. Its entire work had been executed—noth¬
ing remained to be done. Its members had fallen back into the mass of their
fellow-citizens. A mere Territorial Legislature, therefore, could not interfere
with the completed work of that convention, clothed, as it had been, with the
sovereign authority of the people. Moreover, that Legislature was a body with
only subordinate powers. It could act only within the limits prescribed to it
by the act of Congress organizing the Territory. It could neither make a con¬
stitution, nor intervene in the making of one. Why, sir, think of the conse-
sequences of a contrary doctrine. If the Legislature which undertook to sub¬
mit the Kansas constitution to a vote of the people was competent to do it, so
could any subsequent Legislature do the same thing. And if it could he done
within six weeks, it could equally be done within six years. What could be
more anarchical or destructive? The calamities that must flow from such a
theory put into practice are sufficient to demostrate its fallacy.
I beg. Mr. President, to call attention for a moment to this 4th of January
vote on the Lecompton constitution. The facts and figures, I think, demon¬
strate that the vote pretended to have been ca9t is fraudulent.
The vote cast for the slavery clause, at the speeial election on the 21st of
December last, when there was not a full turnout of the people, was 6,226.
The vote, according the certificate of C. W. Babcock and G. W. Dietzler, on the
4th of January, was 10,226, making an aggregate of 16,452. But the average
vote for the disorganizers' ticket, on the 4th of January, according to Babcock
and Dietzler's pronunciamento, omitting "returns received since/'was 6,304,
and that for the Democratic ticket was 6,519, making an an aggregate of
12,823. So that the aggregate of the vote cast on the constitution, according
to these figures, is 3,629 more than the whole vote of both parties cast at'the
election for State officers, when there was a full turnout of the people.
Again, no fair-minded man will think I go too far, in assuming that all the
electors who voted the constitutional ticket as against the ticket of the disor¬
ganizers, at the election of officers and members of the Legislature, on the 4th
of January, under the Lecompton convention, were in favor of that constitution.
Now, in the light of {his position, how does the matter stand? The average
vote cast for the pro-slavery ticket was 6,519. The vote for the constitution
with slavery, on the 21st of December, was 6,226, or 293 votes less than the
vote of the constitutional party on the 4th of January—a differance which is
more than accounted for When we recollect that the voting on the 21st of De¬
cember was at an electron where no officers were to be chosen—where there
had been no previous canvassing before the people.
How, Mr. President, does this refute the charge of fraud in the vote on the
21st of December? For the constitutional vote on the 4th of January was
larger than the vote of the same party in December by near three hundred.
So, too, it is justifiable to assume that those who were opposed to the constitu¬
tion would vote for the disorganizers' ticket on the 4th of January; yet the
vote purporting to have been cast against the constitution is 10,226 ; while the
average vote for the disorganizers' ticket is only 6,304, or 3,922 less than the
vote against the constitution. This election on the 4th of January, Mr. Presi¬
dent, presents this still further singular spectacle: grownup men, not under
twenty-one years of age, citizens of the United States, saying they were op¬
posed to the constitution, and yet at the same time voting for the State officers
and legislators provided for by that very Constitution; estopping themselves,
in the most solemn manner, by the exercise of the highest franchise possessed by
freemen; contradicting their words by their acts.
" Yerba non audiam quura facta videam."
Mr. President, this pronunciamento of Babcock and Dietzler about the votes
is
for State officers under the Lecoiripton constitution, and which is quoted from
by the Senator from Illinois, in his. report of one, is certainly a most extraordi¬
nary paper. It bears date on the, 14th of Janury, 1858. They say, after giving
a tabular statement of the votes,
"Returns received since."
Since when, I ask? The only date that the paper gives is the 14th January,
1858. Therefore the word "since" must refer to that date. But that is im¬
possible, because that is the very date of making the proclamation. It is con¬
tradictory, and necessarily false—absurdly so.
But there is this further extraordinary feature about these " returns received
sinceand that is, that, according to them, each one of the candidates of the
disorganizers gets exactly the same number of these votes, to wit, 637. But it-
does not stop here. Each one of the constitutional candidates, too, gets exactly
the same number of them, to wit, 6.
How happens it, too, that of the "returns received since," the disorganizers
get 637, while the constitutional candidates get only 6?
Why, sir, it appears from their own figures that, unless they can count " re¬
turns received since," their ticket is defeated; but 637 for the flisorgaaizers
against 6 for the constitutional party, would prevent defeat. I read from that
pronunciamento as follows:
On the State ticket, the vote, as returned, stands as follows:
FREE STATE.
Smith,
Roberts,
Schuyler, Mead,
Goodin,
Parrot,
Gov.
Lt. Gov.
Sec. State. Treas.
Auditor.
Gong.
6,238
6,310
6,230 6,248
6,176
6,623
Returns received since.
637
637
637 637
637
637
6,875
6,947
6,867 6,885
6 ,*813
' 7,260
PRO-SLAVERY.
6,539
6,440
6,560 6,508
6,503
v 6,568
Returns received since.
6,545 6,446 6,566 6,514 6,509 6,574
Mr. President, after a patient investigation of the case, I can see no serious
obstacle to the admission of Kansas ijito our Federal Union, upon the constitu¬
tion now before us. On the contrary, 1 see controlling reasons demanding this
Co isummation for 'that people—reasons of expediency and right, reasons of
legality and constitutional obligation. The welfare of the inhabitants of the
Territory, and the exigencies of the whole nation, conspire to demand it, and
the past action of the Government in like cases justifies it. For myself, sir, I
cannot hesitate as to the vote I ought to give. With the convictions I enter¬
tain, I can meet my own responsibilities according to my own estimate of them,
but by one course. But it is suggested that civil war may be the result of
doing justice to Kansas. No man, sir, can contemplate that most direful of
. all calamities with more horror than I do. Hide, oh hide me from the day
when American soil shall be reddened by fraternal blood, shed by fratricidal
hands! That may be the day when the dying agonies of my country will begin.
But, Mr. President, I cannot oe deterred from my duty by any such vain sur-
misings of evil. I am convinced that the temperate, industrious, and order-
loving citizens of Kansas want quiet and repose. The heads of families desire
peaceful homes for themselves and their households. The people are not all,
nor are the most of them, restless factionists and agitators, but solid men of wortb
and substance. And if the accounts we get from there are at all reliable, such
men are longing for a cessation of the turmoil which political agitators from
abroad have imposed upon them so long. Let the people of Kansas once assume
the responsibilities of a State government, let them realize that they must bear
16
its burdens and expenses, and soon their contentions will be composed. The
heavy load of quelling turbulence, and of maintaining the officers and the
supremacy of the law in that Territory, has heretofore been carried by the
Government of the United States. Let it falFupon the shoulders of the people
there, and it will reduce insubordination with marvelous rapidity.
Sir, the whole country is sighing for peace. It wants this slavery agitation
banished from the halls of legislation, both State and national, and localized in
Kansas, where it can be dealt with by those who alone are interested in the
question. The admission of Kansas, therefore, so far from exciting rebellion in
tnat Territory, I verily believe will prove a measure of pacification—pacification
there and throughout the country.
I cannot sit down, Mr. President, without a word of comment upon another
topic. A portion of the constituency which I have the honor, in part, to repre¬
sent on this floor, have been stigmatized, in connexion with Kansas, with infa*
mous names, and charged with vile outrages, without proof. Sir, I am one of
those who think that vilifying epithets are seldom justifiable, under any circum¬
stances. even against individuals—never against whole communities ; that they
are justly and always more disgraceful to the utterer of them, than to the sub¬
ject. Moreover, that he who puts himself forward to make base charges and
does not fortify them with proof, by the fair-minded and thejust will be classed
in the same category with those who are denounced by Heaven's law as ready
to " bear false witness against their neighbor." My constituents border ruffians!
Sir, I undertake to say, that among tne population inhabiting the counties of
Missouri bordering on Kansas, are men who, in point of natural endowments, in
point of breeding, education, and intelligence, will not suffer by comparison
with the population of the same number of counties in any part of our wide¬
spread country.
The frontiersmen may also be found in these counties. Sturdy, and even
sometimes rough of exterior—not silken, and slippery, and supple, and yielding
—the fit instrument of deception and treachery—but true, brave, generous,
intrepid, hospitable. Theirs are the stern manily virtues which constitute the
strongest intrenchments for the preservation of liberty, and the safest barriers
against degeneracy and decline.
As a western man I may claim to know in some degree—inadequately, I ad¬
mit—how much our country and the cause of humanity owe to these frontiers¬
men. They have been the first to follow " the star of empire" on its westward
way.^, The wilderness has disappeared before them. The seeds of liberty and
learning have been scattered by them broad-cast as they have advanced in their
onward career, and, tailing into the rich and virgin soil, they have sprung up
and produced abundant fruit for the people who shall succeed them in all gen¬
erations. In their march have risen cities and villages, and agriculture, manu¬
factures, and commerce. Pioneers they truly are—pioneers of progress and
population and prosperity; pioneers of liberty and law: pioneers of science
and civilization. Our country and the race^re their debtors. Courageous, and
uncaring of personal consequences, the impetuosity of passion in moments of
excitemeut may urge them sometimes to violence; but they are never false, never
fraudulent—never.
ar-KKUii
1 C. CLAY, JR.", OF ALABAMA,
ON THE
BILL TO ADMIT KANSAS.
SOUTHERN RIGHTS:
HOW MENACED BY NORTHERN REPUBLICANISM.
DELIVERED IN UNITED STATES SENATE, MARCH 19, 1858.
Mr. President : At tlie beginning of this session I did not design
or desire to participate in any discussion of the Kansas or slavery issues;
for if not identical, they are inseperable. After the protracted debate
of those issues, I feel reluctant to weary the Senate or myself with so
trite a theme ; but having been placed, instead of my colleague, upon
the Committee on Territories, during his detention from the Senate by
severe illness, it may be expected of me to say something in support of
the bill which, as one of the majority, I agreed to report, and to re¬
commend to the Senate. Besides, the unanimous action of both houses
of the Legislature of Alabama, in providing for calling a convention of
the people of that State to " determine their course of action," in case
of the refusal of Congress to admit Kansas into the Union, has been al¬
luded to by Senators in terms of reproach and of ridicule. Identified
with Alabama by my birth, education, interest, and affection—regarding
her as "my nursing mother and my grave"—indebted to her for the
highest honors and greatest trusts she could bestow, and standing here
as one of her ambassadors, in this council chamber of sovereign States
I feel it my duty, as well as privilege, to justify or excuse, so far as I
can, all her acts relating to her sister States or to the Federal Gov¬
ernment. I shall speak rather in vindication of her Legislature • than
of my vote, and more, of the principles and purposes of the free-soil
party in Kansas and in Congress, than of their objections or argu¬
ments against her admission into the Union.
Mr. President: The people of Kansas ask admission into the Union.
Men of all parties and of every political faith have signified in some
manner, at some time, their desire to enter the Union. All parties in
Congress have indicated at some time, and in some manner, a willing¬
ness to admit Kansas into the Union. Disguise it as we may, sir, it is
nevertheless true, that Kansas would ere this have been admitted into
the Union without serious objection or protracted debate, but for the
sectional struggle in that Territory and in Congress upon the subject of
slavery.
J have heard with amazement and regret the assertion, on the part
even of southern Senators, that slavery is not implicated in these Kan¬
sas issues. Sir, those men must be deaf or blind to the passing events
of the hour who can hug to their bosoms that delusion. Parties in a
Territory may wrangle and war upon each. other ever so fiercely; may
'STAR OFFICE, Print.
dissolve legislative bodies an-Vrxmrontions mnyMefy federal aullmrj
tj ; may resist Territorial laws ; may enact rebellion ; may do all
with impunity from federal legislature, and immunity from federal«
State intervention, provided tliey are not divided upon geograpliin
questions, or engaged in a sectional struggle involving sectional riglu.
of property.
Look at Utah : From the settlement of Brighan Young and his fol¬
lowers at Salt lake, in a state of open, undisguised rebellion against
your government, rejecting federal officers, refusing obedience to feder¬
al laws, and establishing an insurgent government. Look at Nebraska;
dissolving her legislative body, defying her governor, and enacting an¬
archy and revolution. Look at Minnessota : dissolving the convention
called to frame her constitution, each party segregating to itself, and
determining by itself. Yet what Senator thinks these matters of mo¬
mentous concern, or any cause of care and solicitude. What section,
or what State in the Union, has been frenzied, qr agitated, or disturb¬
ed by these outrages and eriormeties ? None, Sir, none. The revolu-l
tions of Mexico or of Europe disturb our repose quite as much. The
reason is obvious; there is no geographical or sectional issue there;
there is no negro implicated. But, sir, the introduction, or the attempt¬
ed introduction,-of his head into a Territory of this Union, seems to
be regarded by the dominant party of the Northern States like the wand
bound round with woll, which was carried by the ancient Athenian her¬
ald—a declaration of Avar.
Why was the passage of the Nebraska-Kansas act resisted so stren¬
uously ? Because it permitted the introduction of slaves into that Terri¬
tory. Before that act had passed, an organization of members of Con¬
gress was formed with a vieAV of controlling the destiny of that country
by emigrant aid societies. .The most noisy, active, and efficient agents
of that party repeatedly declared that they intended to colonize Kansas
with men " who could not do without the aid of that association "to
be retained in its service ;" "to be under its control;" "to be bound
by it;" "to be under bonds to make Kansas a free State." To wrest
from the South every foothold in that Territory, -all the means have
been invoked which fanaticism, avarice, ambition, hatred of the South,
or lust of dominion over it could suggest. The vyestern nations in the
twelfth century were not more grieved that the Holy land was in the
hands of the Moslem, than this party were, or (affected to be, that Kan¬
sas, " a soil consecrated to freedom," was opened to the immigration
of the slaveholder. Ministers of the Gospel, like Peter the Hermit,
traversed the North, inflaming religious zeal, &nd arousing Christian
crusaders to the rescue of that consecrated soil from the sacriligious
tread of the slaveholder. Political leaders aroused the lucrative desires
of the North by highly colored pictures of the exhaustless treasures* and
incomparable charms of her virgin soil; or appealed to the lust of do¬
minion, the vengeance of mortified pride, or the indignation of insulted
justice against the violations of plighted faith, the aggressions and the
outrages of the " slave oligarcy." In the madness of their zeal, or the
bitterness of their hate, they declared that if they failed to expel sla¬
very from Kansas by moral means, they would do so by fire and sword.
Such a declaration in the Northern Republican Convention at Phila¬
delphia was greeted with tumultous applause. Such were the weekly
3
Sabbath day counsels of the -Buechers and barkers, who disgraced the
Northern, pulpits and dishonored the cause of the Prince of Peace they
professed to advocate.; Such were the daily menaces of the leading
Northern,; Republican papers. Such were the repeated suggestions in
the form of prophetic admonitions to the South, uttered by Senators on
the other side of this chamber.
Sir, the free soil party in Kansas have fully illustrated the principles
and purposes of their advisers and advocates in Congress and in the N orth.
In their first meeting to call a convention to frame a constitution, they
solemnly resolved that the laws of that Territory were without validity
or binding force, and that they would resist and defy them, even to a
bloody issue, if they found that peaceable remedies would fail. Gover¬
nor Reeder, addressing the party, declared "we must conquer, or mingle
the bodies of the oppressors with the oppressed upon the soil which the
Declaration ©f Independence no longer protects." The President of
the Philadelphia Republican Convention of June, 1856, declared "such
rebellion was sanctioned by God and man;" and he but echoed a senti¬
ment we have often heard uttered upon this floor. Hence, in accordance
with the edicts of the New York Tribune, whosenower over its party is
superior to that of any individual, if I may expKffc the distinguished
Senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] who is sometimes honored with
the soubriquet of "the Wizard of the North"—hence, they continued
to "pour free setlers into Kansas, well armed with Sharpe's rifles, or
other convenient weapons." Hence they refused to coalesce or to co¬
operate with Southern men, in elections either to the Legislature or the
Convention. Hence thein secret organizations, their formation of mi¬
litary companies, their preparation for war, and their attempt to es¬
tablish an insurgent government. These men went to Kansas not so
much to build as to destroy a State; not so much to organize as to dis¬
organize-; not to promote order but to produce disorder; not to vindicate
acknowledged rights, but to avenge imputed wrongs; not to meet in the
peaceful contest of the ballot box with southern brethren, but to engage
in the hostile encounters of the cartridge box with southern .enemies.
They went, in the language of this same New York Tribune, " not
for commerce but for vengeance. They went to meet southern "enemies,"
"vandals," "a dishonorable and perfidious privileged class," "heartless,
grasping and tyranical robbers." Such were the characteristic names ap¬
plied even by Senators to southrons, or at least, to slaveholders. The
President truly characterizes this contest in Kansas, when he says :
"The dividing line there is not between two political parties, both ac¬
knowledging the lawful existence of the government but between those
who are loyal to this government and those who have endeavoured to
destroy its existence by force and unsurpation—between those who sus¬
tain and those who have done all in their power to overthrow the Ter¬
ritorial Government established by Congress."
The president is sustained in that assertion by the declaration of
Governors Denver, Stanton, Walker—of all the governors of that Ter¬
ritory. He is sustained by the confessions—yea, by the bold avowels of
that party themselves. He is sustained by the very convention which
assembled to frame that Topeka constitution, and by. the manner of its
presentment here. A convention, called in pursuance of no enabling act
of.Congress or act of the Territorial Legislature; in accordance neither
4
with federal nor Territorial executive authority; in obedience to no ex¬
pressed will of the people, but called by audacious and violent party
leaders, representing, according to their own confessions, as expressed
by the free-soil papers of that Territory, but seven hundred out of near
seven thousand voters—this convention, representing but one-tenth of
the voters of that territory, undertook to frame, a constitution and State
government, and sent that constitution to Congress for admission into
the Union. They were so inflated with the spirit of rebellion that they
even insulted Congress in their memorial while asking its favor, and re¬
nounced federal authority while invoking its sanction of their work, by
declaring that a territorial government was unknown to the constitution,
and extra constitutional, and could mot remain in force against the will
- of the people living under it. Thus they asserted their will to be para¬
mount to the laws of the United States, and their right to enter upon the
public domain, and .to annul all the laws of Congress, to -be beyond all
question. Yet, sir, this constitution, thus presented, met the approval
of the Northern Republican party, I believe in both Houses of Congress.
They passed a bill to admit Kansas under this constitution through the
House of Representatives, and it received the favor of all the Senators of
that party. Thlis Jsfeiouraged by. the approbation of their party in
Congress and throughout the Northern States, I am not surprised-that
these men should have continued to this day in an attitude of rebellion
and defiance against the Federal Government. These are the men, or
"thepeople,"who oppose the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton
constitution. The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] understood
and portrayed their character truly in his report and speeches during
the last Congress. Gov. Walker understood and presented them truly
in his communications to the President, and the President fairly portrays
their character in the paragraph which I have read from this message.
Shall we, sir, defer to these malcontents, factionists, and rebellionists ?
Shall we refuse to admit Kansas because of the opposition of this fac¬
tion, dignified by the name of party, or the people of Kansas ? If so,
why shall we do it? Not because there was no enabling act passed;
not because they want the requisite population for admission into the
Union; not because the question of calling a convention of the people was
not fairly submitted; not because the law providing for a registration of
voters was not regular, just, and fair in all its provisions; nor, I think,
because that law was not fairly executed; for the Senator from Missouri
on my left, [Mr. Polk, ]in the able argument made by him the other
day, showed clearly and conclusively that if -that law was not fairly
executed, it was not the fault of those who made it, or those who endea¬
vored to execute it. He showed that in some counties where no regis¬
tration was taken, there were no voters to register; others, where no re¬
gistry was taken, were attached to adjoining counties and formed one
district, in either of which counties they might have been registered,
or might have voted; and that in a few counties no registry was taken,
because the free-state party would not permit it. In the language of
Gov. Stanton, " they resolved not to take part in the registration ;
and we may well attribute any errors and omissions of the sheriffs to
this well known and controlling fapt."
Sir, there are but two objections made to the admission of Kansas,
in my opinion, worthy of consideration—the only two which involve
5
any question of principle; One is, that the whole constitution was not
submitted to the people. I am surprised to hear this objection pre¬
ferred by Senators at this day, with the experience afforded us by near
seventy years of Republican Government. No support for this objec¬
tion can be derived either from the practices of our States or Territories,
or from the genius and theory of our governments, or from any legis¬
lation of the Congress of the United States. In the younger and purer
days' of our Republic, constitutions were not submitted to the popular
vote. The federal constitution was adopted by a convention of dele¬
gates, in the first instance, from the several States, and afterwards by
delegates in convention in the several States. It was never submitted
to the popular vote. Neither of the original thirteen States submitted
its constitution to a vote of the people. A majority of the States now
in this Union adopted constitutions without ever submitting them to
the popular vote.' Precedents and authorities are numerous to sustain
the course of the conventionists at Lecompton in declining or refusing
to submit the constitution to a popular vote. In my opinion, they
would have acted in stricter accordance with the spirit and genius of
our institutions if they had not submitted it in whole or in part to the
popular vote. Our governments are Republics, not Democracies. The
people exercise their sovereignty not in person at the ballot-box, but
through agents, delegates, or representatives. Our fathers founded
Republican Governments in preference to Democracies, not so much
because it would be impracticable as because it would be unwise and
expedient, for the people themselves to assemble and adopt laws. They
were satisfied from reading and from reflection of the truth of Mr.
Madison's observation about pure Democracies, that they "have ever
been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found
incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and
have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent
in their deaths." They knew from the examples furnished' by Greece
and Italy, that it is impossible in a pure Democracy to remove the causes
or control the effects of faction ; that an absolute majority is oftener
swayed by passion than by reason ; that its voice is oftener that of a
demon than of a God ; that it is the most cruel, rapacious, intolerant,
and intolerable of all tyrants. They knew that it is a wholly irrespon¬
sible power: acknowledging no superior, for it is itself supreme, owing
no obedience, for it is its own master ; respecting no authority, for it is
a law unto itself; subject to no control or restraint, except the still
small voice of conscience, which is too often drowned in the tumultuous
waves of party or of faction. It might sacrifice public good or private
rights to any ruling passion or interest of the hour, with impunity. It
-hadrobbed the rich to relieve the poor, and oppressed the poor to ag¬
grandize the rich, with equal ardor or indifference. It had voted
hemlock to-day and statues to-morrow, to its best citizens.- They
suffered no man to be a judge in his own case lest he should be biassed
by passion or by interest; and could find no better reason why a
large body of men, although a majority, should be the supreme and
final arbitoi* of its cause. On the contrary, they knew that a large
body of men is more liable to be controlled by passion or by interest
than a single individual, and is more apt to sacrifice the rights of the
minority, because it can be done with more impunity. Hence they en-
6
deavored to impose restraints upon themselves. Hence they committed
the making of all their laws, organic .or municipal, to their delegates or
representatives; whose crimes they could punish, whose errors they
could correct, and whose powers they could reclaim.
The great security of our rights of life, liberty, and property, is in
the responsibility of those who make, and of those .who execute the law.
Establish as a principle that to give sanction to law it must be approved
by the majority at the ballot-box, and you take away this security and
surrender those fights to the most capricious, rapacious and cruel of
tyrants. I regret to see the growing spirit in Congress and throughout
the country to democratize our government, to submit every question,
whether pertaining to organic or municipal laws, to the vote of the people.
This is sheer radicalism. It is the Red Republicanism of revolutionary
France, which appealed to the sections on all occasions, and not the
American Republicanism of our fathers. Their republicanism was
stable and conservative ; this is mutable and revolutionary. Theirs
afforded a shield for the minority; this gives a sword to the majority.
Theirs defended the rights of the weak ; this surrenders them to the
powers of the strong. God forbid that the demagogism of this day should
prevail over the philanthropic and philosophic statesmenship of our fathers.
But we are told that the will of the majority has not been expressed,
in this constitution; that it has been achieved by force or fraud. Three
times have the voters of Kansas been authorized and enabled to vote upon
this question of a constitution: first, whether a convention to frame it
should be called; next, in electing delegates to the convention; and lastly,
whether the slavery clause should be retained or rejected. Previously
to the last vote, two elections for a legislature and. three for delegate
to Congress had been held; and in all these elections, except the last
for delegate, the free-soilers were beaten, and in that succeeded by only
a small majority, and then because of the division of the Democratic
party. And yet, notwithstanding oft repeated defeats, they have ever
claimed a larger number of voters than the majority cast at each of
those elections—forsooth, have claimed two to one, ten to one, and even
twenty to one of the pro-slavery party. Admit the assertion, and it
follows that this large majority have either from want of courage,
energy, and resolution, feared and failed, or from want of patriotism,
and self-love, and concern for their welfare, neglected and refused to
assert and exercise their right and power to control elections and possess
themselves of the Legislatures and of the convention, and thus form the
municipal laws of the Territory and the organic law of the State to suit
themselves. They either dared not or cared not to make the laws,
and mould the domestic institutions of Kansas. They were either sub-
missionists from cowardice, yielding to the domination of a feeble
minority, or anarchists from choice, unwilling to govern or be governed
according to the forms of law and theory of ^American governments. In
either case, they are unworthy of our sympathy or countenance, be¬
cause unfit to frame or execute laws for a State or Territory. Such
men should be governed. They are deficient in the moral qualifications
for forming or administering free governments. I do not share in the
charitable commisseration for that large and oppressed majority, or in
the generous indignation towards that small and tyrannous .minority,
that has been so feelingly expressed on this floor. 1 feel rather disgust
7
nd contempt for that majority, and respect and regard for that mi-
arity. These are true popular sovereigns—those, servile submissionists
: rebellious anarchists.
But, sir, knowing as I do that Northern men are not deficient in wit
> discern, or tact to manage, or courage to maintain their rights, I
ave never believed that the free-soilers in Kansas, if in a majority,
ave ever been cheated out of their rights or had them ravished by
>rce. Often as I have heard that chaste and striking expression—a
mstitution crammed down the throats of the majority of the people
gainst their will and in violation y>f popular sovereignty—it has failed
) produce in me any qualms of conscience as an accessary after the
ict in voting to admit Kansas, although I confess to some revulsion
f stomach in contemplating that prodigious and marvellous operation,
have wondered less at the miracle than at those who repeated it.
'hat sage and sober Senators should credit, or seem to credit, or expect
itelligent people to credit, this exceeding miracle, is matter of "special
ronder." If it had happened but once, I would have believed it; but
cannot believe that so large a majority has been overcome by fraud
r by force six or more times in succession ; it is contrary to my reason*
nd to my knowledge of the character of American freemen. But, if
rue, they are unworthy of their rights because unfit to exercise them.
These are plausible arguments, but cannot be controlling objections
o the admission of Kansas into the Union. There is no constitutional,
r legal, or moral obstacle to her admission, unless it be that the right
f property in slaves is recognized and guaranteed by her constitution.
Ihe Senator from New York [Mr. Seward] told us truly and frankly,
hat the question presented to us is, " whether there shall be slavery
r no slavery in the Territories." The shibboleth of the party of which
ie is the acknowledged leader, was, during the last canvass for the
Residency, and still is " no more slave States." Many of the most
ii'ominent of that party deny that property in slaves is protected or even
ecognized by the Federal Constitution. Such was the explicit denial of
he Senator from Maine, [Mr. Fessenden.] All of them deny that it has
my sanction in Divine or moral law, or common law, and denounce it
,s hostile to our republican institutions. The platform adopted "by the
Northern Republicans at Philadelphia, in Juue, 1856, alleges all these
Ejections to the institution of slavery, and commits them against the
Emission of any slaveholding State. If all the voters in Kansas
lesired admission into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, no
Northern Republican could vote to admit her without violating theprin-
iples of that platform; and some have conceded that the recognition
if slavery by that constitution, was to them an insuperable objection
o her admission. There are Senators, I believe, who are not actuated,
n opposing her admission, by the principles or sentimepts of that party,
)ut they are exceptions to the general rule of opposition.
If, as alleged by the Senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] the
principles and sentiments of his party predominate in the Northern
States; if the toleration of the expansion of slavery has been death to
ill parties there but the Democratic, and is fast hurrying that on to the
iame fate; if the North demands " the ultimate emancipation of all
men," and leaves the South only the election " whether it shall be
elfected with needfaUandr-wifre preemption against sudden ^change or
hurried on by violence ;" then it behooves the South to deliberate an<
determine whether she will yield herself to these Northern ministers u!
her late, or assert her right to shape her own destiny. Within tin
Union she cannot control her destiny against the preponderating ma.
jority of the North, when imbued and influenced by the principles am
sentiments proclaimed by the Northern Republicans. When they get
the control of the Federal Government, (which they vauntingly pre¬
dict,) the Southern States must elect between independence out of tln>
Union or subordination within it. The principles of that party are nut
only hostile to the constitutional rights of those States, but to their
political integrity and social organization. They are not only uncon¬
stitutional and sectional, but radical and revolutionary. Alabama, in
common with the Southern States, has repeatedly declared that she
will not submit to the measures of that party, and especially to the re-
fusal to admit a slaveholding State into the Union; and if she be true
to herself, she will resent and resist those measures, or either of them,
even to disunion.
Property is the foundation of every social fabric. To preserve, pro¬
tect, and perpetuate rights of property, society, is formed, and govern¬
ment is framed. No government was ever formed to destroy the prop¬
erty of its citizens ; although some have been perverted to that end by
usurpation. No government ever existed, the design of whose framers
was to enable some of them to seize and appropriate, or abolish, the
property of the others; although, by the tyranny of force or fraud,
such results have ensued. On the contrary, the primary, fundamental,
and inseparable idea of every social or political organization is, to guard
and secure every member thereof in the freedom, use, and enjoyment
of his property. These are self-evident truths which every tyro in
political law understands, and no intelligent man will deny. A necesj
sary corollary of these principles is, that government is bound to take
care that foreign governments do not rob its citizens, and that its citi¬
zens do not rob each other; and, much more, is government itself bound
not to rob its own citizens. These are absolute duties of government,
independent of any injunction of the organic law. To fulfil these duties
powers are conferred.
But our forefathers were not content to rest their rights to freedom
of property upon these necessary implications. They knew that life,
liberty, and property are so intimately blended in the social state, that
they must co-exist, in order to preserve the full enjoyment of either, am
that sovereignty over one could not be surrendered without imperiling
the safety of the others. They had learned from experience, as well as
history, the overwhelming and endless evils that flowed from the sov¬
ereignty of government over property, either public or private. Thej
had read that, at one period of English history, kings and barons be
stowed and resumed lands at pleasure ; and at another, parliament en¬
riched the few at the expense of the many, by means of bounties, pen¬
sions, tithes, monopolies, and exclusive privileges. Hence, in theii
petition to the crown for redress of grievances, they declared that thej
regarded " the giving of their property by their own consent alone, a;
the inalienable right of the subject, and the last sacred bulwark of con¬
stitutional liberty;" that " to deprive them of this right, would be tnj
reduce them to a state of vassalpeopW can long en-!
9
dure,"—and that "they would be utterly unworthy of their English an¬
cestry," which.is their claim and pride, were they tamely to submit." In
contending, however, that their property could not be taken without
their conspnt, they admitted, Avhilst colonies of England, that it might
be taken and expended by their representatives, without restraint, in
accordance with the English theory of the sovereignity of parliament.
But, when they established their independence, they renounced this dog¬
ma, and formed their constitutions upon the theory that sovereignty
resides in the people, and that governments are their trustees. They
knew that even election and representation, when coupled with a sov¬
ereign right* over property, afford no refuge of protection to popular
rights; and they endeavored to prescribe the duties, limit the powers,
and control the action of their representatives, both in respect to per¬
sons and property, by a written constitution. The word sovereign is
not found in that instrument, or the Declaration of Independence, and
does not belong to our governmental dialect.. It would have been inap-
propiate, because inconsistent with their intention, to form a govern¬
ment of limited and specific powers, to be held in trust for their benefit.
The form, tenor, and spirit of the constitution, all show a purpose to
withhold from government sovereign power over property, either pub¬
lic or private, and to retain for the people freedom of property, as well
as of conscience, and of all other personal rights. They instituted sep-
erate departments of government, defining the rights and duties and as¬
signing the patronage of each, and divided the powers transferred among
them, that they might serve as mutual checks-and balances.
They gave exclusive power to originate revenue bills to their repre¬
sentatives, because they were the servants over whom they could exer¬
cise most immediate control.
They required that all duties, imposts, and exercises, should be uni¬
form throughout the United States; that no capitation or other direct
tax should be laid unless in proportion to the census—that no preference
shoud be given, by any regulation of commerce or of revenue, to the
ports of one State over those of another State—thereby inhibiting and
restraining a geographical majority from indulging partiality for them¬
selves, or prejudice against a geographical minority, by sectional or
#class legislation, whereby the property of some States or classes of cit¬
izens, might be taken and transferred to other States or classes of cit¬
izens, or other acts of oppression or injustice might be achieved.
They gave Congress the power to pass " uniform laws on the subject
of bankruptcy throughout the United States," because if that power was
reserved to the States exclusively, injustice might be done the bankrupt
or his creditors, when they resided in different States, or he held prop¬
erty in several States.
They inhibited the States from " coining money, making anything but
gold or silver coin a legal tender, or passing any law impairing the ob¬
ligation of contracts ;* empowered Congress to " coin money and reg^-
ulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and to fix the standard of
weights and measures and declared that private property should not
be taken for public use, without just compensation thereforand that'
•" no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due
process of law." All of which were precautions for the freedom of prop¬
erty and its defence against the. usurpations or assults of government.
10
In the same spirit, to enable citizens of each State to trade or travel in any other State,
or to hold property therein, free from confiscation, escheat, unequal taxation, robbery,
or other injury, by that State or its citizens, they declared-that " the citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."
No power was given Congress to define property—except in respect to money—or to
discharge any article from being property. These powers were retained by the States
or the people. And to make assurance doubly sure, tbey superadded two amendments to
the constitution, declaring " the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," and " the
powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to
the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the peopio.
Thus was sovereignty over property not only withheld from the Federal Government
hut specifically guarded against. All these delegations and prohibitions of power were
efforts to protect the rights of private property, or the rights of individuals to what be¬
longs to them. They evince the jealous anxiety and care of the people to preserve the
free use and enjoyment of their property, and to prevent government from exerting over
it any absolute or indefinite power.
One species of property, held in all the States, except Massachusetts, (where it was
abolished by judicial construction and not by intentional legislation,) was an object of
peculiar solicitude—that was slave property. That property which had existed among
the most cultivated nation of the earth, from the days of Abraham, was then recoguized
an 1 tolerated not only in America, (as shown by the Senator from Louisiaua, [Mr. Ben¬
jamin,] in his very able argument, a few days since,) but by the first powers of Europe.
It was recognized by customary or common law, or by prescription, in the larger por¬
tion of Christendom. And, notwithstanding the oft quoted and misapplied phrase of the
Declaration of Indipendence, that all men are born free and equal—the author and sign¬
ers of that instrument were either slaveholders or their representatives. Indeed, a clause
reprobating the enslaving of the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out of that instrumet,
Mr. Jefferson says, in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, and our Northern
brethren ; thereby refusing to acknowledge their right to freedom and equality with white
men.
The framers of the Federal Constitution, too, were either slave owners or their rep-'
resentatives. I believe they were all tohite men ; were not bastards or foundlings, but
knew their parentage and race ; and were not theoretic amalgamationists, contemplating
with complacency the commixture of their blood with that of their negroes, and the trans¬
mission to a mongrel progeny of the political inheritance they were amassing. Hence,
I presume that by the words " ourselves an(>our posterity," in the preamble of the con¬
stitution, they meant to secure to white men the blessings of liberty. I am confirmed in
that opinion by the intrinsic evidence of the constitution itself.
As slaves were then recognized as property by' nearly all of Christendom, and by all
the States of the confederacy but one, and as no power was given Congress to defiae prop¬
erty, except as to money or to abolish property, slave owners would have been entitled
to governmental protection of their slave property, without any constitutional recogni¬
tion of it, by force of those clauses of the constitution which I have quoted, and, even
without these, by virtue of those fundamental principles of society to which I have al¬
luded.
But the framers of that charter did not rest their rights upon necessity intendment or*
implication from those clauses of the constitution, or from general principles of social
organizationbut superadded cumulative, specific, and stringent provisions for the pro¬
tection and preservation of slave property.
It was, as Mr. Madison said in the Federal constitution, the most material cause of
the div:sion of interests of the United States, anJ*was to be adjusted before a common
government was formed. It was one of those "particular interests" the convention had
to provide for and defend, in order to secure the Union of South Carolina and Georgia,
and North Carolina, with the other States. Hence, no power was given Congress to
abolish, impair, circumscribe, or restrain that institution, but, on the contrary, the
framers of the constitution provided for augmenting, strengthening, guaranteeing, and
maintaining it.
They recognised, tolerated, and even encouraged it, in sanctioning the importation of
slaves, by expressly denying to Congress power to prohibit it before 1808, or to impose
on it a tax or duty exceeding $10 for each negro imported : and by further inhibiting
the States from amending that clause of the constitution within that period. °
Here was given the triple guarantee of the'States and Federal Government for the
augmentation of slavery, in inhibiting Congress from suppressing the slave trade, or from
discouraging it by heavy taxes or duties, and in inhibiting the States from empowering
Congress to suppress or restrain it by amending that clause, for twenty years. But while°
the power of Congress to prohibit or rlisoonmge wis. tlm« Bmita»jJ
11
Jii its power to extend, revive, or even perpetuate ,the slave trade. The eonsti-
said to Congress, you shall not prohibit -the importation of slaves for 20 years,
jreafter, you may prohibit or allow it. And Congress might, at this day, license
ide with strict conformity to the spirit and intent of the constitution. Yet,
to tell, this clause of the constitution has been cited as proof of its disfavor of
'.not only recognized, but consolidated and strengthened slavery, by adopting it
feral institution, in making it the basis of federal representation aud of federal
it; thus preferring and fostering it above alhother property, by making it alone,
roperty, an element of political power in the Union, as well as a source of reve-
the Federal Government.
nuchas the " revenue is the State," or, without revenue, the State could not
rfd as.representation is a vital ^principle of republics, it maybe truly said that
feral Union owes its being at this day, and its birth in 1788, in part to slavery
t slavery enters into the vexy life-blood of the Federal Government.
jODStitntion recognizes slavery^as a federal institution in providing for its pro-
and preservation, by inhibiting each State from destroying or jmparing the right
erty in slaves, by any law or regulation discharging from service any slave that
tape into it, and by requiring that he be delivered up on claim of his master. " At
fe, [says Chancellor Walworth, in Jack vs. Martin, 14 Wend., 526.] the existence
ijntary servitude, or the relation of master and servant, was known to, and re-
Sl by the laws of every State in the Union, except Massachusetts; and the legal right
tion by the master existed in all, as apart of the customary or common law or
ole confederacy."
iotwithstanding this customafy or common law, the constitutional right of recap-
l constitutional obligation not to discharge hut to deliver, were superadded, as
ind stronger and surer guarantees for the defence and preservation of slavery,
are slaves acknowledged and warranted in the constitution as property: property
(ported—to be taxed, to be represented, to be delivered upon demand of the
J Thus was slavery shown, in several respects by the federal' constitution—pe-
tvor instead-of disfavor. It is the only property, that is specifically provided for
Jed beneath the regis of the Union. The constitution recognizes it as a reserved
the people and of the States, but imposes a federal duty on the States and their
. government to respect and uphold U, in several particulars and relations, above
r property. Power to abolish, circumscribe or restrain it, is withheld, but power
jid and the duty imposed on the Federal Government to protect and preserve it.
s cannot touch it, except to take care of it. jtk
(institution further guarantees the institution of sla"^Py in two other clauses,
i,wering Congress to call forth the militia to suppress insurrections and repel in¬
land by requiring the United States to protect each State against invasion, and
(cation of her legislature, or executive (when the legislature cannot be convened)
domestic violence. Thus, by delegations and prohibitions of power, the framers
, tonstitution endeavored to hedge about, guard and fortify slave property against
hits and above all other property.
( ip'twithstanding,.property is the foundation of the social fabric ; notwithstanding,
operty was recognized by nearly all Christendom, by all the States of the con-
Jh, and was held in all, but one, when the constitution was adopted ; notwith-
; the framers of that instrument were slave owners or representatives of slave
f . notwithstanding it,is so zealhusly and sedulously guarded and guaranteed in
institution} notwithstanding it formed one of the laws of the Federal Union,
(to the frame-work of the Federal Government, is one of the aliments of its ex-
is one of the elements of the life-blood that copses through the veins of the
Republic, and is entitled to, the defence of its sword and shield; the Northern
tan party is pledged by its party platform of 1856, and by the principles and
? its leaders, proclaimed here, to a war of extermination upon slavery. I shall
3m that platform instead of fhe speeches of Senators, because they but elaborate
s.it contains, and it is the most authorative, as well as the most condensed sura-
their party creed. That Philadelphia platform of June, 1856, denounces slavery
rous, unchristian, contrary to the law of nature, the Declaration of Independ-
d the purpose and design of the Federal Government.
est resolution pledges the party to maintain the principles promulgated in the
i<jn and embraced in the constitution:
icond resolution specifies those principles to be the right of all men to life, liberty,
declares " the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were
those rights to all persons within its exclusive jurisdiction."
jits that those principles promulgated in the declaration, are embodied in the
tion, and to maintain them "is essential to the preservation of our republican in-
i."
aes " the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individual
12
r association of individuals, to give legal assistance to slavery in any TerrihrJ
United States while the present constitution shall be maintained." It claims '• thattJ
stitntion confers on Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the Unite I j
for their government, and that, in the exercise of this power, it is both the right J
duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism—polyj J
slavery." I
The preamble of the constitution declares its object was to secure liberty to whihi
if, forsooth, by " ourselves and our posterity" the framers meant to designate tbi
casion race. But this platform blackens the faces or the fame of the frausers of tl
strument, by declaring those words'embrace, or were intended to embrace, the J
race, or a mongrel race of white and black. 1
The constitution recognises property in negro slaves in at least three clauses, encQf
its acquisition, and binds the Federal Government to assist in maintaining the a
right to, and possession of such property. But this platform asserts the inalienablj
of all men to liberty, by virtue of the laws of God, the Declaration of Independent
the Federal Constitution! And Northern Republican Senators frequently deny lij
explicit words that there cm be any property in man !
The Constitution guaranteed to each State its reserved right to import slaves, aij
vided that the Federal Government should participate in the profits of their importati
the first twenty years after the birtn of that government; thus providing for the [
tion of slave property on board of vessels bearing the federal flag on the high seas,
its jurisdiction was exclusive of the States and of any other government, flat tbil
form alleges the primary object of that government was to secure liberty to all j
within its exclusive jurisdiction! • ^
The constitution guarantees to slave property representation in Congress, thus;
nizing it as one of the elements of our republicanism. But this platform alU-gui
the maintenance of the right' of all men to liberty is essential to the preservation
republican institutions. I
The constitution recognized slavery as of federal importance, and having a feda
istence, and encouraged the indefinite multiplication of slaves by importation, and
illimitable expansion, by giving its sanction to the foreign slave-trade, aud bysa
to each State the right of importation of slaves. All power to interdict or iJ
with the inter-State slave-trade, also, was withheld. .
One of the arguments used by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in the Federal Conv
against the*foreign slave-trade was, the spread of slavery over those Territories \
Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. After alluding to the prohibition of sl.iv
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, he said: "All this will be in vain if
Carolina and Ge'orgia be»»t liberty to import. The western people are already cu/'j
for slaves for'their new lands, and will fill that country with slaves if they can b
through South Carolina and Georgia." Thus forewarned that slavery would take
westward, beyond the limits of the orignal States, and would be used to form oib
new States, and urged to prevent this consummation, the framers of the consl
refused to do so, but gave their assent and encouragement to its expansion <
western wilderness But this platform repudiates slavery as without the pale of
protection, where the Federal Government has exclusive legislation, denies tbe
of Congress, or of any Territorial Legislature, or of any person, to aid or profs]
the Territories, and maintains the power and duty of Congress, to prohibit or all
in the Territories.
The constitution provided for augmenting, consolidating, preserving and perp»
slavery, by making it one of the pillars of the General Government, in securing it
sentation, and by binding the government to protect it against foes within or witl
Union, in inhibiting tbe discharge from service of a fugitive slave by any law or
tion of any State, and in pledging the States and their common government top
against foreign invasion or domestic insurrection. But this platform maintains
primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government was to secure lib;
men within its exclusive jurisdiction".
The constitution conferred on Congress no power to define property, except
But this platform claims for it power to say what shall, and shall not be pvopertj
ever it has exclusive jurisdiction. Tbe constitution conferred 011 Congress noj
discharge any article from being property. But this platform claims the right
gress to discharge negroes from being property. Our ancestors declared they!
the giving of their property by their own consent, the inalienable birthright oftli
subject; but you, Northern Republicans, assert your right to take away the
of American people, who are sovereigns and not subjects, against their consent
Your platform expressly repudiates tbe obligations of tbe constitution. Ith
rights of property existing before the Union in all the States, which formed 0
bases of the Union, and which are better graduated by the constitution tham
property in the Union.
.ongress Las no authority to give legal assistance to Slavery in a Territory, it can-
ve it any assistance in this District, in any navy yard, fort, arsenal, barracks, hos-
. ustom house, court house, or prison belonging to tlie Federal Government, or on any
n sea or land covered by the tederal flag, and not under the jurisdiction of a State,
t may not pass laws for the recapture of a fugative slave in a Territory, it may not
aws tor his recapture anywhere within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal
nment. The power of Congress is certainly as great in this District, or iu any
yard, fort, or any of the places designated as in a Territory; for in those places the
~>i exclusive legislation is expressly granted to Congress.
! federal flag that covers slave property on hoard a vessel at sea, or in this District,
7 yard, or fort on land, instead of being an emblem of protection, is like the blue
iu our last war with Great Britain—an iuvitation to plunder, held out to foreign
ouiestie fges.
ongress cannot pass laws for securing theright of recaption of fugative slaves in the
ovies, or in this District, or in a navy yard within the States, or iu any place
the federal jurisdiction is exclusive, a fortiori: it cannot pass laws for recovery of
ve slaves in the States, where its power is concurrent; for its power is certainly
limited where it is concurrent than where it is exclusive.
ler the Northern Republican administration of the government, if the slaveholder
his property into a Territory, this District, a navy yard, on sea, iu a non-slave
g State, anywhere beyond the limit and jurisdiction of the slaveholdiug States, ha
do so at peril of its loss. If robbed by a public enemy or a domestic foe, the go-
ent would not enforce restoration of his property or exact indemnity. Iu such
c must look on an impassive and neutral spectator. It must abdicate its power,
legate its duty to protect that property. The government will be potent to des-
out impotent to protect. It may and must prohibit, deny, and defeat his right of
:ty, outside of the slaveholding States, but may not, and cannot, admit, sustain,
cure that right. The slaveholder must live in perpetual quarantine, confiued to
tot on which he resides, deuied all egress by laud or sea, in the Territories, non-
oldlng States, this District, or the public vessels, under menace if robbery of his
•ty, without recovery or indemnity. He must keep in his prisou-bounds or become
daw, beyond governmental protection.
government must not only abdicate its power to protect.it must confederate with
emies to destroy, the slaveholders' property. It must discriminate against the
in favor of the North. It must denounce Southern laws, defining and regulating
'ty, as inhuman and execrable—Northern laws as benign and admirable. It must
i the latter and counteract the former. Congress and the federal executive officers
ecome allies of abolition, and in compliance with the behests of the original Ameri-
nti-Slavery Society, established in 1833, "must abolish slavex-y in all those por-
if our common country which come under its control," or, in the language of this
irn Republican platform, " must secure the right of liberty to all persons within
lusive jurisdiction." In other words, Congress must .abolish slavery in this JJis.
he navy and dock yards, forts and arsenals, and vessels at sea; must inhibit in
irritories, inhibit the inter-state slave-trade, repeal the fugative slave act, and, in
ge of abolition orators and essayists, must "sever the government from all connec-
ith slavery," and "efface so foul a blot from the national escutcheon." Thus the
ution, which was designed to serve as a shield to protect, is converted into a sword
roy slave property. Such is the programme of federal legislation laid down by
on societies for a quarter of a century, and such is the import and meaning of
ortbern Republican platform. Those societies declare their meaning in language
be misunderstood. This platform only announces the single measure of inhibiting
:' in the Territories; but its declaration of principles and of the power and duty of
: iss, commits that party to all the measures of those societies. Those measures
-1 logical and necessary consequence of the principles of the platform putin act.
more, the right and duty of Congress to assail slayery in the States may be fairly
d from the doctrines of this platform, notwithstanding the vain boast that " the
: of the States, and the Union of the States, shall be preserved." _ It declares the
iles promulgated in the declaration are embodied in the constitution—pledges the
■o maintain those principles—asserts those principles, thus promulgated and em-
', to be theright of all men to liberty, $c. ; and alleges that the primary object and
• design of the Federal Government was to secure liberty to all men, within Us exclusive
tion. If true, why should not Congress so legislate as to secure liberty- to all
13 in the United States ? Where in the constitution, is found this right of all men
•ty; or that to secure this right to all men, within the exclusive jurisdiction of
ieral Government, was the primary object and ulterior design of the Federal Gov-
it ? Where iu the constitution do you find evidence that it was the design of the
1 Government to -secure liberty to negro slaves ? Where, in that instrument, do
44-
you find a design to secure 4'bert.y to negroes ■wherever the Federal Governum
exclusive jurisdiction ? Where is the proof of any intention ot the frainers of tf
strnment to seeure liberty to till men iu(a territory, or in this District, but noti,
several states ? What privilege, immunity, or liberty is guaranteed in a Tim
that is not equally guaranteed in the States. It cauuot be found. There is in
dence of a design to secure other or greater blessings, liberties, or rights to mem
a territory or where the x>ower of the Federal Government is exclusive of the titn
vernments, thau to men within a State, or where the Federal and state government,
operate concurrently. There can be shown no contrary or antagonistic designsi;
Federal Constitution. If it had an anti-Slavery design upon the Territories, it In
same design upon the States, and must carry out that design, to the extentol itspu
in the latter as well as the former.
There is abundant evidence in the constitution of the design ofithe frapiers to sin
geographical, sectional, or personal partialities, put, on the contrary, to secure the
common and equal rights, privileges, immunities, aDd blessings to citizens of the If
States, wherever they might dwell within the bounds of its-operation. It was intern
secure the blessing of liberty to "ourselves and our posterity" throughout the C
where it was to operate exclusively or directly, a d where it was to operate coneuri
or indirectly. If it was formed by negroes or for negroes, as well as white men;
sweeping generalities and cabalistic abstractions of the Declaration about the liberl
equality of all men, are embodied in the constitution •, if the words, "ourselves an
posterity," fur whom it was formed, embrace blacks, as well as white men, (as alleg]
this platform,) then those who administer the government are bound to exertitspi
to the extent given in the constitution, so as to abolish slavery in the States. I
formed with no double meaning or contrary objects and designs but with the
meaning, object, and design iu States or Territories. If its objects and design w
secure liberty to all tnen any where, the same object and design in every other plac
he deduced from the same premises.
This platform thus pledges that party, if they get the control of this governmi
exert it on the side of negro freedom everywhere. It warrants and egeouruj
saults upon thd right to slave property in the States, notwithstanding its expressed]
for the rights of the States. If its principles be embodied in the constitution, (l
framers were guilty of the insane folly of founding a government for the destruit
the property of its citizens ; for encouraging foreign nations to plunder them an
class of States or citizens to plunder anotherclass of States or citizens; a goverumn
taking their property without just compensation therefor ; for depriving them of
property without due process of law ; for taking .their property without their cm
And they did this while protesting against the sovereign power of the mother countr
their property, while professing a contrary purpose and design, and while actual!;
viding against the invasion or abuse of their righls of property !
The principles enunciated in this platform and expressed on this floor byNm
Republicans, if they ever prevail in the administration of the Federal Governmeii
place the slaveholdmg States under its ban and induce abuses and oppressions si
no brave and free people will long endure. They condemn the political and social
tutipns of those States as barbarous and inhuman. They deny their equality i
Union, and the equality of the slaveholder among the citizens of the Union. The
nouuee against him sentence of outlawry. They denounce his title to his slavep
ty to be irreconcilable with the Divine law, the law of nature, or of nations, or ei
constitution of his country ! They reprobate the institution of slavery as hostile!
Republican institutions, as the crime of the south and the reproach of the Union.
What can we expect but neglect and disregard of our claim to protection of oui
erty from those who deny our title ? What can we expect but habitual and syst
insult, injury and outrage, from those who profess to abhor, contemn and loath i
mestic institutions—condemning alike " those twin relics of barbarism—polygai
slavery." What respect for our right of property in slaves can we expect from
who maintain that they are bound by the constitution, as well as " higher law,''
cure the blessings of liberty to all men? What inducement or motive could tin
have to remain in the Union under a Federal Government whose legislative, tx
and judicial departments were administered by men imbued with the sentiment!
ciples and opinions which Northern Republicans entertain or profess ? The Suutli
with the North in conferring on their common government certain powers to full!
duties. If it refuse to discbarge^hose durtes it betrays our trust. Protection
enjoyment of equal rights and privileges, iu equal security of person and of prop
the political bond of our Union. If such protection be denied the bond is brut
she cau have no worthy motive for longer preserving the Union. The FedeiaH
jnent will become towards her a worse tyranny thau that of any autocrat. It w.
support without yielding protection. It wili cxtoit tribute, nut for her advauti
T5-
jor ivorttiern aggrandizement; not for her defence, but for her despoliation; not to
maintain her independence, but to effect.her subjugation. It will require of the South
payment of taxes and performance of military 'duty to acquire territory, and yet deny
her any share of it. or admission into it—in virtue of the power claimed and the duty felt
to prohibit therein " those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy, and slavery." It will tax
us and our slaves to support armies and navies, and yet refuse to exact or demand in¬
demnity for slave property stolen or sn itched from us by foreign foes—upon the ground
that such property is not recognized by Christian nations. It will tax us and our slaves
to support a judiciary that will always decide for the freedom of the fugitive slave and
against slavery—upon the grouud that the constitution does not recognize or protect
slave property—in order to achieve that reform the Senator from New Yyrk (Mr. Se¬
ward) so fondly anticipates and so confidently predicts. It will tax us and our slaves
to support post offices aud carry mails, to disseminate incendiary documents among our
slaves and incite them to insurrection, arson and assassination—in order to prevent, any
abridgment of the freedom of the press. It will tax us and our slaves to support soldiers
to mau forts, arsenals and navy yards, and to keep a Federal constabulary in our towns,
to vindicate freedom of speech, or the right to tell our slaves that they are oppressed
and should slay their oppressors. It will tax us and our slaves to build forts, arsenals
navy yards, custom, and court-houses, which shall serve as sanctuaries for fugitive s aves.
It will tax us and our slaves to keep its janissaries ou the highways that lead across the
boundaries of the slaveholdiug States, to prevent the carrying of slaves from one State
to another—asserting it right to do so, under the power granted Congress to reguiate
commerce. It would effect the destruction of the institution of slavery, by these indirect
means, and within the, letter of the constitution, though in utttr violation of its spirit
and meaning. It would render that property not only insecure, and valueless, but
a curse and a torment to the Southern people. In fact, it would subvert our State gov¬
ernments and our social organism, without, perhaps, ever passing any act of Congress
directly abolishing slavery in the States. Suffer that party to take into its control the
legislative, executive amd judicial powers of this government—extending its Briarean
arms around and over the entire southern States—and it would stealthily and gradually
achieve their ruin and desolation. It would distil from the fruit of southern fields the
fatal poison'it would administer to their owners.
None can-deny the justness of these charges who believe you Northern Republicans
are sincere in the faith you profess, or would redeem the pledges you have given. That
you would break tHfough all constitutional restraint and go to the furthest extreme, to
despoil and subjugate us, in order to gratify fanaticism, avarice and ambition, we have
full assurance in the sad experience of Kansas, and in the admonitory lessons of the last
Congress. If these prophetic warnings are not unnoticed or unheeded by the South,
sbe will be forearmed for those struggles for .dominion which we are assured by the
Senator from New York (Mr. Seward) the freemen of the North will continue in the Ter¬
ritories and in the slaveholding States, until the foot of a slave does not press the soil of
the United States.
With the control of but one ITouse of Congress, and opposed by the other and by the
Executive and judiciary, you tried, with sublime audacity, to seize the reigns of govern¬
ment and absorb the powers of all ^ts departments, in order to expel slavery from Kansas
and annihilate Southern power in that Territory. To achieve that purpose, you en¬
deavored to arrest the wheels of government and to revolutionize it, to nullify ail laws
and subvert all authority in Kansas, and to subject its people to all the horrors of anarchy
and fratricidal war. Great indeed would be the humiliation and degradation of submis¬
sion to your demand, by surrendering to you the exclusive occupancy of all the Terri¬
tories of the United States. But that would not purchase'our peace or satisfy your de¬
mands. And if the South decide to yield this demand, in the vain hope of an inglorious
peace, let Her check her pride and make up her mind with becoming meekness and hu¬
mility to live, while she is let live, in a state of subjugation, subordination and sub¬
serviency to the North, impetrating mercy of her masters instead of exacting justice o
her equals.
I do not doubt that you think she will yield all you demand. I do not doubt you be¬
lieve you can extort from her fears of your power all that you cannot seduce from her
love of the Union. I believe you expect to excite discord among her own sons, and to
array against the slaveholders all who are not slaveholders,, by persuading these that
they are oppressed and wronged. But the example of Kansas, where tb^ere cannot have
been more than two hundred slaveholders out of six thousand pro-slavery voters, should
have taught you that the sons of the South know and feel that they have a common in¬
terest in preserving the institution of slavery—that they must keep the negro in his
normal condition of slavery or destroy him, or surrender to him tlieir country. I do not
fear that you can delude and beguile them to their own self-destruction, or the desolation
of their country. I know you count largely upon the defections and desertions of South
16
eru leaders, and I confess, ■with shame and regret, that you have but too good reason for
your calculations in the mortifying examples we have furnished of those who have betray¬
ed their trust and broken their allegiance to the South, not, perhaps, because they loved
her less, but the Union more, and themselves most. I know it is idle to try to disenchant
your minds of impressions which you are fond to retain and wish to be true, but which
I think dishonor the South, wrong the North, and may dissolve the Union. Yet, at the
hazard of your ridicule, I must tell you that Alabama, in common with all her Southern
sisters but two, has by the universal voice of her people, as expressed by party conven¬
tions, by popular assemblies, and by her late and former Legislatures, resolved—" that
she will and ought to resist, even (as a last resort) to a disruption of every tie which binds
her to the Union, any action of Congress upon the subject of slavery in the District of
Columbia, or in places subject to the jurisdiction of Congress, incompatible with the
safety, the domestic tranquility, the rights and honor of the slaveholding States; or any
reTusal to admit as a State any Territory hereafter applying, because of the existence of
slavery therein; or any act prohibiting the introduction of slavery into the Territories
* * * * * j or aUy apt repealing or materially modifying the law now in force
for the recovery of fugitive slaves.!'
If this be mere bravado, she shares the folly and the shame in common with twelve of
her Southern sisters. While I have indulged, and shall indulge, in no menace, or prom¬
ise or phrophecy of her course, yet I can, and will say, for myself, that in the day of her
self-degradation, by disregarding her pledges and submitting to your government, I will
not sit here to endure the contumely and reproach which you justly may, and certainly
will, heap upon the heads of her Senators.
Mr. President, I have not been addicted to singing poeans or utteriDg eulogies upon the
Union, or accustomed to regarding it as "the paramount political good," or "the primary
object of patriotic desire." I have ever felt that I owed my'first and highest allegiance
to my State, and that her sovereignty, her independence, and her honor, even without
the Union should be dearer to her sons, than the Union and her subordination, depen¬
dence, and dishonor within it. Yet, sir, the Union of the constitution, which our fath¬
ers made, I love and reverence and would preserve ; but this Union, without the con¬
stitution, or with it, as construed by Northern Republicans, I abhor and scorn, and would
dissolve, if my power were equal to my .will- To this Union, the South is commended
as a choice of evils, and commanded with menaces of compulsion. Whether she will choose
the Union as a lesser evil or submit to it by compulsion and abandon her self-Govern-
ment and surrender her destinies to your control, you will surely test, if you get the pow¬
er, and time will surely prove. If she yield to your advice or to your commands, she
will deserve to suffer all the wrong and all the shame you can and will accumulate upon
her head. But as honor, interest, self-preservation—all that is dear to freemen—all- urge
her to maintain her individuality and equality as sovereign States, either within or with¬
out the Union, I trust she will give you full demonstration of her courage and self-reli¬
ance, by refusing any, the least concession to your demands, and by resenting your men¬
aces and repelling your attempts at coercion in such manner as will prove that the spirit
of the fathers, who, at Yorktown and at New Orleans, consummated in triumph our
two wars of Independence, yet lives in her sons.
KANSAS-LEOOMPTON CONSTITUTION.
SPEECH
OF
HON. W. K. SEBASTIAN, OF ARKANSAS,
OX THE
ADMISSION OE KANSAS AND MINNESOTA.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES MARCH, 10, 1858.
The Senate haying tinder consideration the bill to admit the State of Kansas
into the Union—Mr. SEBASTIAN said:
I ask the indulgence of the Senate for a short time while I consider the subject
before us; not in its general and enlarged relations, but in th° limited aspect
which it presents as a practical question connected with the legislation of the
Aay.
Mr. President, the most remarkable feature in the discussions and proceedings
which have originated here as to the .domestic affairs of Kansas, and its right
to mould its own institutions in its own way, is, that we are earnestly seeking
to intervene, when non-intervention is the great principle upon which we pro¬
pose to act. We are usurping the consideration of those very questions that
were referred-to the people of that Territory; and more restrictions and inva¬
sions of the rights of the people are sought to be enforced than were removed
from them by the repeal of the Missouri restriction. We are questioning the
exercise thereof the very powers which we have here abdicated, and under the
pretexts of a parental sovereignty "held in abeyance" and "in trust" for them,
to emasculate their great charter of freedom of all its value and virtues. That
famous restriction imposed upon the people of the Territories but one disability—
a grievous and offensive one—a professed bond of peace, but a fruitful source
of sectional discoid. That was removed, and the question which it had arbi¬
trarily decided was referred to its proper arbiters, the people of the respective
Territories. Now, when the people, in the exercise of their highest powers,
have determined this question, and seek to give repose to the country, a new
element of discord appears; new and fearful issues are presented, as menacing
as the old. They have settled this question in the formation of a State consti¬
tution, and now the very validity of that constitution is questioned, its provi¬
sions assailed, and the form of its adoption denounced. Indeed, almost every
objection which is urged here to the admission of Kansas is such as has been
already determined by Kansas herself, in her own way; and were that Territory
to be denied admission into the Union as a State, it would present the anomaly
of conferring rights upon a Territory and punishing her for exercising them;
of enabling them to " form their domestic institutions in their own way" and
then quarrelling with them because they had not formed them in " our way."
It would be to transfer the discords of Kansas to the Halls of Congress, and
make national issues of Kansas quarrels; and, in the spirit of jealous and cap¬
tious power, review the internal politics of that Territory upon the question of
her admission into the Union. Mr. President, let us not mistake the true issue
here, and confound the great question between the Union and Kansas with the
smaller discords and rivalries of parties and factions there.
A preliminary question arises, which demands a passing notice. The friends
of Kansas and Minnesota propose to unite their fortunes and their destinies in
Printed by Lemuel Towers. ■
2
the same measure. This is a step in the right direction; and I rejoice that each
section, through its national men of whatever party, can in this manner give
earnest to each other of their loyalty to a common faith. One is a free and the
other a slave State; and each, in the exercise of the acknowledged right to form
its domestic institutions according to its own views, has arrived at quite different-
results, and shaped them in different moulds. It may be the last opportunity
which is afforded of thus testing the sincerity and integrity of those who pro¬
fess devotion to the; principles of pppplar rights in the Territories. Suchin-
stances have.occurred before, and this Scheme is not; without precedents. Iowa
and Florida were admitted tegether, and in the same bill; while Arkansas and
Michigan, though not embraced in the same bill, the historical fact is notorious that
they were considered as kindred and dependent measures, and supported by the
same influences. This coincidence, of course, is no attempt to revive the idea
of preserving the balance of power, by admitting a slave'and a free State to¬
gether. That ephemeral security for the constitutional equality of the rights
of the southern States has passed away forever. It was virtually destroyed in
the admission of Califoimia; and the progress of events renders all hope of the
restoration of that equilibrium in the Senate more desperate and delusive every
day. The free States of this Union have outstripped the southern States in the
march of empire, and the rapid, if not precocious, development of population
and formation of States. With their preponderance of population, their large
accessions from Europe, and the constant stream of emigration from the southern
States to the free States of the Northwest and the Pacific, they have accelerated
the laws of population, and established a disparity between the two sections of
the Union, which it is in vain to expect will ever be diminished or destroyed.
If, in the race of progress, of development, of empire, or aggrandizement, we
in the southern States have been distanced, it is a result at which we neither
complain nor repine. This great Union is not a partnership of sections, but a
Union of States; and, whether slave or free, of republican States. The southern
States seek not empire or aggrandizement. In those additions to the Union
supposed to have been made under the agency and influence of the southern
States, the northern States have had ever the lion's share in the benefits which
followed.
These accessions were but contributions to the national wealth and strength;
to the greatness and glory of the Union. We claim no monopoly of them, but
lonly an equal right to the enjoyment of a common inheritance. Whether this
consists of constitutional rights—the security of our institutions, the settlement
of the common domain—or the additions of new members to ofir great family
of States, our rights are equal and the same. We would place no part of this
national heritage under the dominion of any section, or mould their institutions
in conformity with any will but that of the people with whose welfare they
are connected. While this union of States, equal in dignity and rights, is pre¬
served, there should be no association but that between equals. Whatever the
diversities of institutions, founded in the varied accidents of origin, race, or
history, the influences of climate, habits, and pursuits, the spirit of our political
associations is that of equals and sovereigns among the States, and one Govern¬
ment as to all national purposes. There is, therefore, an eminent propriety in
the associations of these two measures as one, not to suffer in the disasters of
a common defeat, but to share a common success. Let them enter the Union as
twin-sisters. The spectacle has been witnessed in our past history, and it will
lose none of its moral or its significance if it is witnessed by us. We shall thus,
by one comprehensive and decisive measure, rid ourselves of two subjects of en¬
grossing interest. The country needs repose from this sectional agitation, which
threatens to become, if it is not so already, a leprous and incurable vice in our
political system. Let us dismiss from our Halls this national discord over the
domestic quarrels of a distant Territory which has come upon us unbidden and
uninvited. Let us refer this question to the State of Kansas as a sovereign
among her sisters in this Confederacy, and discords must Cease, and the law be
restored to its supremacy. If these anticipations of the future are not realized;
if the scenes of strife, of carnage, and revolution, which have convulsed that
Territory, and threatened to extend themselves beyond her border, are to be
immortal; if Kansas is to bring into the Union no gifts but her discords, with
whieh to embroil sections in her own unhappy strife, it will be because of that
mischievous and malign intervention in her affairs from outside her borders that
has counseled resistance to the law, to her legitimate government, and has in
cited her turbulent malcontents to rebellion. It will be because there are those
3
•who, having predicted the'failure of this measure to restore peace} will adopt
all expedients to insure that result. If all these causes combined should un¬
happily shceeed in protracting the struggle, and defeat all efforts at pacification,
then we shall have acquitted ourselves of our whole duty, and the consequences
can take care of themselves.
Mr. President, let not the friends of Minnesota think that she is dishonored
or. cdntaminated by the association with Kansas in this form. They both come
here irregularly, and both need the same indulgence to enable them to enter the
portals of the Union. If Minnesota presents herself under the authority of a
previous act of Congress, preparatory to her admission, those who refused at
last Congress, to smooth the way for Kansas by a similar mode, cannot now
justly arrogate for Minnesota any preeminence of rights on that score. If Kan¬
sas brings here a republican constitution, as the triumph of government over
faction and revolution, Minnesota has not been free from factious strifes in ac¬
complishing her purpose. Her convention split in twain, upon its assemblage;
its two hostile fragments pursuing their labors under separate organization^
each claiming to be the legitimate convention, and each acting for the whole
people. They only reached a common result through a joint committee, and
adopted the same constitution on separate parchments. If Kansas comes here
as a nominal slave State, in defiance of the exploded Missouri compromise, does
not Minnesota ask admission with boundaries embracing a portion of the North¬
west; which, by the compact with Virginia, was to be carved into only five
States? If Minnesota has fortunately obtained the previous consent of Con¬
gress to her admission, it does not detract from the obligation of Congress to
Kansas to redeem its pledges in the organic act, and in the treaty with France
iii 1803. They both occupy the same legal footing,' and I shall cheerfully vote
for both. Each has, in the exercise of these rights—"to form their domestic
institutions i-n their own way "—established for themselves " republican" forms
of government. This enables us to perform our constitutional duty and guar¬
antees, and exhausts our whole power over the subject. All beyond that is
usurpation, and invites back here the very mischief to which we thought we
had bid adieu forever. It robs the Kansas declaration of rights of its chief vir¬
tue, and restores to us the power of intervention, none the less distasteful or
offensive because of the spurious pretext of intervening in their affairs to en¬
force nob-intervention.
Mr. President, that I may be intelligible in my remarks upon the main sub¬
ject of discussion, I must recall some of the history of the Kansas question, and
advert to some considerations connected with it. In doing so, 1 must draw
largely on the labors of my colleague on the Committee on Territories, whose
finished and logical statement of facts'would, if generally known, spare me the
labor of attempting to condense them.
The contest in which we are now engaged is but another chapter in the his¬
tory of the slavery question. The form has changed; the struggle is the same.
Eight years ago scenes transpired in this Chamber which many of us remem¬
ber. No One desires to Witness their repetition. How long and how arduous
were the labors to put a period to thai state of things, are matters of familiar
history. We had* approached a period in our national career when no one
could divine or cared to know its future. Our arms and our diplomacy had
given us an empire to govern, and the attempt to organize and fix its political
condition and to devote it to the North, had unlocked the pent-up elements of
discord in our political system, and having escaped the control of the politics
of parties, seemed armed obly for mischief. The antagonisms of half a century
seemed to have been precipitated into a last conflict for supremacy, while the
cohesive and conservative legaments of the Union, auxiliaries of our Constitu¬
tion, either slumbered in repose or awakened to a task to which they seemed
unequal. The country had been dragged to the very threshold of revolution.
The great disease of our system, planted at its birth, and matured with its
growth, menaced speedy dissolution. I speak of the antagonism, restless and
aggressive, of the free States to the institutions of the southern States. If this
array had been but a mere proxysm of party, it would have soon passed, and
after the storm we should have hailed the Sunshine again; but this antagonism
had outgrown its original dimensions, and was: fortified by others coinciding
with it. The Missouri compromise had boldly avowed and taught the danger¬
ous lesson that there was a North and a South, with hostile systems of institu¬
tions, of labor, of philosophy, and religion on its opposite sides. The project
was boldly avowed to surround the southern States with a cordon of free
4
States, and forbid the further expansion of the southern institutions; to line
our borders with hostile influences, before which the security for property
would melt away. To declare the ocean free, that the slave trade between the
States might be paralyzed; to make free territory wherever the flag of the
Union waved ; to convert our forts and arsenals into a refuge for fugitive slaves;
and desecrate the stars and stripes of the Union to ideas and objects of a sec¬
tion. As if to show with what precision this crusade had been planned, a
member from Massachusetts congratulated himself that when this consumma¬
tion was complete, there would be less than two hundred miles between any
slave in the southern States and his freedom.
The struggle was for empire and dominion upon the one side, and for self-.
preservation on the other. Truth triumphed, and this great agitation ended in
the declaration of that just and universal principle that States may be admitted
into the Union "with or, without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at
the time of their admission." This was no triumph of one section over another;
it was a triumph of the Constitution over all. The legislation in which it was
conceived was confined to Utah and New Mexico, but the principle was univer¬
sal. It was of necessity applicable to all Territories, and bounded by no lati¬
tudes It was not alone a southern but an American idea. Sections had been
arrayed in the ceaseless hostility of rival systems—defying all pacification, know¬
ing neither peace nor truce, and separated by a broad ground of debatable
questions, about which it were folly to suppose they could ever agree. Here
was a common umpire, selected by the Constitution, to which this question
could be submitted. This was a second declaration of independence—not an
act of emancipation. It did not propose to emancipate the slave from his mas¬
ter in the Territories, but to emancipate the Territories themselves from the in¬
tervention of the Federal Government. It was the higher freedom of govern¬
ment in the Territories—the freedom of American citizens to shape their own
destinies, and to mould the institutions under which they are to live.
Four years later it became necessary to test the value of this great principle
of territorial freedom in its application to territory north of the Missouri line.
In terms, this had not been repealed by the compromises of 1850. The longer
toleration of this restriction was plainly inconsistent with the principles of
that act, and considerations of the highest import demanded its total repeal.
It . was offensive as a statutory reproach of Congress upon the institutions
of half the States of the Union. It was anomalous, as prescribing inter¬
vention north. of the line and non-intervention on the subject of slavery
south of it. It was unjust, as conferring a different measure of political
rights on different Territories. Northern citizens could go into all parts
of the common domain, while southern citizens were restricted by a line.
It had arrayed the country in hostile sections, and fostered the idea that they
had separate rights in the Union. It was an unmitigated mischiefj and by its
tendency to create hostile systems developing in opposite directions, had half
accomplished the rupture of the Union. The history of its origin ceased to en¬
title it to respect. It was no compromise. It was, accepted by the South as an
evil less than that of the alternative—total exclusion from all the common ter¬
ritory. Such was the hard necessity of their condition, that they claimed as a
triumph what was a vast sweeping capitulation. It had fulfilled its mission,
and its virtues were now gone; it had purchased a peace at the price of a per¬
manent source of discord, and this was its whole virtue. It was therefore re¬
pealed, and the Kansas and Nebraska act was passed.
I have indulged in a seeming latitude of remarks upon the chief features of
the great discussions and agitations of 1821, 1850, and 1854, in which the sub¬
ject of slavery in the Territories was the only question; but it forms a part of
my purpose to show that this is the only question referred to the people of the
Territories, and the only power abdicated by Congress in their favor. It is
worth while .to repeat the words of this enactment, which provides, in the ex¬
act language of the compromise measures of 1850, that " when admitted as a
State, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the
Union with or without slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe at the time
of their admission." Again, after declaring the Missouri act inoperative and
void, as repugnant to these principles, the purpose of Congress in passing the
act is declared in these woi'ds:
"It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into
any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people
5
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their dorhestic institutions in their
own way; subject only to the Constitution of the United States."
To these express recognitions of the perfect freedom of the Territories to form
theiy domestic institutions, was added another, more general and comprehen¬
sive, that the power of the Legislature should "extend to all rightful subjects
of legislation not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States;" and
this completed the code of the powers and privileges of the Territories.
Mr. President, too much importance cannot be ascribed to the principles of
this enactment. It finally ascertained and rigidly defined the true relation be¬
tween the Federal Government and. the Territories, and traced the line that
separates the just.powers of the one from the legitimate rights of the other.
Regarding the Territories as political communities and embryo States preparing
for admission into the Union, and having a clear right under the Constitution
to it, it assimilated as far as. possible their political rights to those of the States.
They were not sovereign, it is tihie, but they were exclusive masters of their
own, in their internal affairs. By an abuse of terms, this application of the
principles of self-government to the Territories has been called " popular sove¬
reignty," "squatter sovereignty." Our form of Government admits of no squat¬
ter sovereignty, except where there is no Government, and no allegiance supe¬
rior to their right I know of no illustration of this right, thus perverted, ex¬
cept that defiant and treasonable attempt at Topeka, to subvert the Govern¬
ment and authority of the United States, by aft independent and revolutionary
State government. But that absolute sovereignty, defined to be the supreme
power of a State, and which in every government is lodged somewhere, is
shared between the Federal and territorial governments. , The Federal Govern¬
ment, reserving to itself all its national power of admitting new States, and
its necessary incident of instituting temporary governments, as a means to at¬
tain that end, is supreme in the exercise of these powers. The Territories, hav¬
ing the right to form and regulate, since this act, all their domestic institutions
in their own way, are supreme in the exercise of those rights. Among the great
mass, and prominent in it, is this subject of slavery, now also referred to their
jurisdiction as a domestic institution—-domestic from the nature of the jurisdic¬
tion which forms and regulates it—national only in the guarantees and securi¬
ties with which the rights of property connected*with it are invested by the
compromises of the Constitution. But for this last feature, which attaches to
it the right of property in slaves, through all the common Territories, I should
not know of any exemption which it possessed from the power of the Legisla¬
ture. This subject, with all the domestic institutions, the civil relations of life,,
the internal polity, the municipal concerns, of the Territory, are alike confided
to their own regulation and administration, These are not rights derived from,
Congress, but only recognized by the form of government which it it has insti¬
tuted for their protection, and which it is the right of Congress to ordain, as a
necessary means to their, admission into the Union. It is in this sense, and in
this only, that Congress is supreme, and that the sovereignty of the Territories
is said by the Senator from Illinois to be "in abeyance, suspended in the United
States, in trust for the people when they become a States," Among the "right¬
ful subjects of legislation" with which they are clothed, among the "domestic
institutions" which they are empowered "to form and regulate," is that high¬
est act of the supreme power with which they are invested—the formation of a
State government preparatory to admission into the Union, and prescribing the
mode and manner of accomplishing this purpose. "When they are to exercise
this right, and how to exercise it. When they have outgrown the capacity of a
territorial government, and desire the stronger and more vigorous energies of a
State government, are questions concerning themselves alone, and no one else.
If Congress is to determine that question, then territoi'ial self-government is
worse than a shadow, and the Kansas act a delusion. These Territories, as part
of the territories acquired from France in 1803, hold our bond to admit them
into the Union according to the principles of the Federal Constitution; and it
is theirs to decide , when they will ask its fulfillment. The acts organizing these
Territories contemplate their speedy admission as States, and are adopted as a
necessary means to accomplish that result: and it is for them to detei'mine
when they will, ask that these, just expectations shall be realized. These are
their high functions to perform—-and in their performance they are not subject
to the surveillance of Congress—the officious intermeddling of Governors—un*
c|er no obligation to propitiate the sullen resentments of insurgent factions, nor
6
to accommodate themselves to the views of distant States, but are to be "per¬
fectly free" to carve out their own destinies, "in their own way." It is xhis
which makes them sovereign within the sphere which I have thus described.
But on the other hand, there are corresponding rights and powers of the Union
to be observed. This is what is meant by the language of the Kansas act—
"subject only to the Constitution of the United States." What are these rights
and powers of the Federal Government, in which she is also supreme, and
Which are a limitation upon the unqualified freedom of the Territories ? They
are these, and no others: The Constitution provides that "Congress may admit
new States into the Union"—a discretion converted into an absolute obligation
by the treaty with France; and the United States "guaranties to each State in
the Union a republican form of government." With the performance of these
high constitutional powers and duties, Congress fulfills its treaty obligations,
and exhausts its whole powers. Consistently with these principles, a Territory
cannot, by her own act alone, either escape from her territorial dependence, set
up an independent government of her own upofij the" ruins of her legitimate
government, or induct themselves into the Union, "without the consent of Con¬
gress." Such an act would be revolution, like that ordained at Topeka. On
the contrary, the whole power of Congress cannot admit a State into the UniOn
against its consent, expressed through its constitutional forms. The admission
of a State into the Union is a compact between the St^te and the Union, in
Which each acts in perfect harmony in performing its own appropriate func¬
tions. It requires the assent of hoth, and it matters but little which may take
the initiative; whether, as in the case of Minnesota, Congress tenders her con¬
sent in advance, and invites a State to propose for admission; or whether, as in
Kansas, the Territory takes the first step, and presents hex-self a State with her
republican constitution, and asks admission into the Union. In either case the
legal attitude of both is the same. Each requires the consent of Congress to
complete her admission. A republican constitution is alike necessary to both,
"as well as the requisite population. In either case the act of the Territory is
the exercise of its whole and highest sovereignty, and valid as such, for that
reason. If admitted, they are States; if not, they remain Territories.
Mr. President, these are the general principles which I entertain as to the
true relation between the Feberal Government and the Territories. A few facts
in the history of Kansas of controlling significance will make their application
obvious. On the 30th of May, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska act was passed. It
opened a boundless field for American enterprise, and new conquests for Ameri¬
can civilization. The western frontier, the advanced posts of our progress, was
skii-ted from the Red to the Missouri liver with an Indian empire which, secured
by the faith of ti-eaties, seemed anchored in the gi-eat pathway of commerce
alnd emigration to the Pacific. The march of civilization had beCn ari-ested by
a line of longitude. This checked for a period the advancing stream of emi¬
gration which, coursing with ceaseless and swelling tide, and followirig the path
of the sun, shall meet the reflex of the tide from the Pacific, and mingling amid
the crests of the Rocky Mountains, end its mission in completing the circuit of
the globe. This barrier was removed. The Indian, unfixed in his home, and
forced again upon his retreat to accomplish his destiny. Of all this vast empire
so suddenly unlocked, with its countless capacities and treasures, nine-tenths of
it was devoted irrevocably, by an irrepealable law of climate, to settlement
from the northern States of tne Union, and destined inevit'dbly to swell the
number of free States; besides which there lay, too, the recently opened Terri¬
tory of Minnesota—the Eden of the continent—and the regions hovering around
the great lakes and the heads of the Mississippi. Then there, too, beyond the
Rocky Mountains, and on the Pacific coast, were Oregon and Washington—all
dedicated by this great law of climate to the free labor of the North. Here
was a prospect which ought to have satisfied the highest aspirations of those
whose whole conception of the objects of the Union consists of the one idea of
"free soil." Upon the south of this great empire, the opening of which for
settlement could, at any time, and at every pei-iod of acquisition, have been de¬
feated by less than the vote of southern Senators, lay the small Territory of
Kansas, embraced between three parallels of latitude. It lay immediately West
of Missouri, and in close pi-oximity to Arkansas; and, as such, its future politi¬
cal condition was an object of lively interest in the South. The situation of
Missouri was peculiar; upon her eastern and northern boundaries she had free
States for her neighbors, and to complete the circle of hostile influences, by ex¬
tending it to her western border, where most of her slave population was con-
7
gregated, was a step which ought, as it did, arouse her most terrible energies
for self-preservation. When the fierce struggle was over which ended in a long
delayed act of justice to the South, and the principles of non-intervention- were
established, it was'hoped that they would receive the sanction of the great
lip-u-f ol the nation, and be enthroned in it as an American principle. The
southern States of the Union, in the ti-ue spirit of this principle, expected only
that, in the fair '•ompetilion for the extension of their form of institutions into
Kansas, its settlement hnd political complexion would be determined by the
laws of climate and the eneies of a natural and legitimate emigration. If, in
the hazards ol * fair contest lor supremacy upon this debatable ground, they
should be defeated tney would have had the solace of being vanquished in a
fair though unequal contest But this issue was not to be determined in this
way. It was not to be settled bv those peaceful and natural agencies which
had heretofore determined the institutions of other States. The struggle of
sections was transferred from the Capitol to Kansas, which henceforth was to
be the battle ground. The power of intervention, abandoned by Congress, was
taken up by Massachusetts. She, true to her traditions and Pharisaical instincts,
and with a generous oblivion of her own faults, became devoutly concerned for
the welfare of distant Kansas. A new scheme of assault upon the southern
States was devised. Those who had opposed the principles of the Kansas bill,
now professing to accept them, determined to subvert them by a resort to what
I am free to say is the most offensive and extraordinary interference of one
State in the affairs of another that has marked our history. It was nothing
less than, virtually, an armed invasion, under the pretext of peaceful emigra¬
tion. A new pretext was invented. New England, it was said, had been im¬
prisoned within her regions of ice and granite long enough. Their emigrations
were no longer to follow the line of the lakes and of latitude. An error was
suddenly discovered in the laws of emigration, and its development was found
to be southwest. By a happy coincidence this new gravitation was found to
point with unerring index to Kansas, and in conformity with the maxims de¬
duced from the world's history. The march of science, of civilization, and of
Christianity, has moved with steady and untiring step from the East to the West,
while the wars of ambition and of eonquest have carried their desolating scourge
from the North to the South. Massachusetts organized that stupendous enter¬
prise, the "Emigrant Aid Society." Its modest title implied that it was but a
philanthropic friend of the poor emigrant, while, in its objects and ends, it was
destined to be to Kansas what the East India Company was to the Hindoos.
Its capital was $5,000,000, of which only $20,000 eould be invested in Massa¬
chusetts. Its directors, resident in Massachusetts, could each have fifty votes
for himself, and as many more by proxy. Sitting there, in Massachusetts, in
conclave, upon the affairs of Kansas, they develop and publish their plans of
operation. They were to contract with some of the "competing lines of rail¬
roads" for the transportation of twenty thousand emigrants to Kansas; and
while the controlling object of the society was declared to make Kansas a "free
State," a keen eye was directed to "the sections of land in which the boarding
houses and mills are located." I do not wish to misrepresent the objects and
aims of this society, and I shall permit it to speak for itself
"Organization, objects, and plan of operation'^.of the Emigrant Aid Com¬
pany ; also, a description of Kansas, for the infordtlition of emigrants.
"Trustees—Amos A. Lawrence, Boston; J. M. S. Williams, Cambridge; Eli
TJbayer, Worcester. ' [
" Treasurer—Amos A. Lawrence.
" Secretary—-Thomas H. Webb, Boston.
"For the purpase of answering numerous communications concerning the
plan of operations of the Emigrant Aid Cbmpany, and the resources of Kansas
Territory, which it is proposed now to settle, the secretary of the company has
deemed it expedient to publish the following definite information in regard to
this particular ;"***********
" For these purposes it is reoommended, first, That the trustees contract im¬
mediately with some of the competing lines of travel for the conveyance of
twenty thousand persons from Massachusetts to that place in the West which
the trustees shall select for their first settlement." * * * * *
" It is recommended that the company's agents locate and take up for the
company's benefit, the sections of land in which the boarding houses and mills
are located, and no others. And further, whenever the Territory shall be or-
8'
ganized as a free State, the trustees shall dispose of all its interests there, re¬
place by the sales the money laid out, declare a dividend to the stockholders,
and that they then select a new field, and make similar arrangements for the
settlement ard organization of another free State of this Union." * * . * *
" With the advantages attained by such a system of effort, the Territory se¬
lected as the scene of operations would, it is believed, be filled up with free in¬
habitants." * * ■ * * * * * * * * * *
" There is reason to suppose several thousand men of New England origin
propose to emigrate under the auspices of some such arrangement, this very
summer. Of the whole emigration from Europe, amounting to some four hun¬
dred thousand persons, there can be no difficulty in inducing some thirty or
forty thousand to take the same direction." * * * * * *
" Especially will it prove an advantage to Massachusetts, if she create the
new State by her foresight, supply the necessities to its inhabitants, and open
in the outset communications between their homes and her ports and facto¬
ries." * * . * * * * * * * * * * *
"It determines in the right way the institutions of the unsettled Territories,
in less time than the discussion of them has required in Congress."
It will astonish my constituents to know that the next " field " in which they
were to extend their operations of manufacturing " free States " was the Indian
country west of Arkansas, which they supposed half abolitionized by the labors
of northern missionaries, and the rigid test of the right of Christian communion
which they have sought to apply, in exclusion of the slaveholding members of
the church. To Virginia, it will be interesting to know that the person who
figures as secretary of this mammoth company is one whose name is so inti¬
mately counected with the scheme of colonizing Virginia with the free labor
from the North, and that the venerable mother of States is probably the next
field for their operations.
How many persons were dispatched under those auspices I am not informed.
That movement became the nucleus around which gathered all the elements of
this newly-awakened fanaticism. The Abolition societies, the church, the uni¬
versities, all affiliated in the enterprise, and contributed contingencies to swell
the numbers of this crusade. Every expedient was enlisted to insure its suc¬
cess. The church, forgetting its holy mission, preached its sanction of this sec¬
tional crusade from a thousand pulpits, and sacrilegiously commended "Sharpe's
rifles " in place of the Bible, as a more potent agent in propagating their fanat¬
icism. The press teemed everywhere with fabulous Stories and wicked exag¬
gerations of atrocities of the slave-power in Kansas, and prostituted its powers
to inflame the resentments and arouse the worst passions of the people. Con¬
tributions were levied' from the credulous votaries and partisans of the cause.
Itinerant missionaries traversed the country, and filled the lecture-rooms with
exciting harangues, while monster mass-meetings assembled, and electrified the
conntry with the wrongs of Kansas. These were the appliances and auspices
under which unnatural and forced emigration to Kansas was stimulated. It re¬
sembled more an armed invasion, than a peaceful emigration; and it is quite
clear that more was expected from the arms than the votes of settlers. The
character of many of these immigrants was such that their removal was no loss
to New England, and still le||. an acquisition to Kansas. I do not thus charac¬
terize all the free States settlers of that Territory. Some were doubtless hon¬
est and orderly citizens, seeking homes and better fortunes in the West. We
have been told that association is a form of enterprise common in New England,
and that her history affords frequent instances of peaceful colonization in large
bodies, armed for self-protection. That is true; but I know of no parallel to
this most extraordinary movement. In its avowed objects and controlling fea¬
tures it was a war of Massachusetts agginst Missouri, without its responsibilities.
The sequel is thus graphically portrayed in the report of the Senator from Illi¬
nois :
"When the emigrants sent out by the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company,
and their affiliated societies, passed through the State of Missouri in large num¬
bers, on their way to Kansas, the violence of their language, and the unmistak¬
able indications of their determined hostility to the domestic institutions of that
State, created apprehensions that the object of the company was to abolitionize
Kansas as a means of prosecuting a relentless warfare upon the institutions of
slavery within the limits of Missouri. These apprehensions increased and
spread with the progress of events, until they became the settled convictions
9
of the people of that portion of the State most exposed to the danger by their
proximity to the Kansas border. The natural consequence was, that immediate
steps were taken by the people of the western counties of Missouri to stimu¬
late, organize, and carry into effect a system of emigration similar to that of
the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, for the avowed purpose of counter¬
acting the effects, and protecting themselves and their domestic institutions
from the consequences of that company's operations.
"The material difference in the character of the two rival and conflicting
movements consists in the fact that the one had its origin in an aggressive, and
the other in a defensive policy; the one was organized in pursuance of the pro¬
visions, and claiming to act under the authority of, a legislative enactment of a
distant State, whose internal prosperity and domestic security did not depend
upon the success of the movement; while the other was the spontaneous action
of the people living in the immediate vicinity of the theatre of operations, ex¬
cited, by a sense of common danger, to the necessity of protecting their own
firesides from the apprehended horrors of servile insurrection and intestine war.
Both parties, conceiving it to be essential to the success of their respective plans
that they should be upon the field of operations prior to the first election in the
Territory, selected principally young men, persons unencumbered by families,
and whose condition in life enable them to leave at a moment's warning, and
move with great celerity, to go at once and select and occupy the most eligible
sites and favored locations in the Territory, to be held by themselves and their
associates who should follow them.
"For the successful prosecution of such a scheme, the Missourians who lived in
the immediate vicinity possessed peculiar advantages over their rivals from the
more remote portions of the Union. Each family could send one of its mem¬
bers across the line to mark out his claim, erect a cabin, and put in a small crop,
sufficient to give him as valid a right to be deemed an actual settler and quali¬
fied voter as those who were being imported by the emigrant aid societies. In
an unoccupied Territory, where the lands have not been surveyed, and where
there were no marks or lines to indicate the boundaries of sections and quarter
sections, and where no legal title could be had until after the surveys should be
made, disputes, quarrels, violence, and bloodshed might have been expected as
the natural and inevitable consequences of such extraordinary systems of emi¬
gration, which divided ahd arrayed the settlers into two great hostile parties,
each having an inducement to claim more than his right, in order to hold it for
some new comer of his own party, and at the same time prevent persons belong¬
ing to the opposite party from settling in the neighborhood. As a result of this
state of things, the great mass of emigrants from the Northwest and from other
States, who went there on their own account, with no other object, and influ¬
enced by no other motives than to improve their condition and secure good
homes for their families, were compelled to array themselves under the banner
of one of these hostile parties, in order to insure protection to themselves and
their claims against the aggressions and violence of the other."
And thus was introduced into Kansas that relentless strife, which, with varied
incidents and details, and but short periods of repose, has continued to the pres¬
ent time. Through all its phases it has faithfully and consistently preserved
its original and distinct features of aggressive policy on the one side, and a de¬
fensive policy on the other. It matters not in such a contest that scenes tran¬
spired, and that atrocities were committed, by rival parties which it is not fit
should be detailed here. Such consequences were inevitable; and those who
first provoked and excited the terrible energies of such a strife are responsible
for the blows given, and for those received. The Abolition or free State party
there have never abandoned their original purpose of making Kansas a free
State by every means, except an obedience to that great principle to which
they now profess such devotion. They have declined to resort to the mild
mode of determining the great issue by the ballot. They have refused to vote
under the laws of the regular government, openly defied its authority, and de¬
nounced it as a usurpation. They formed their partisans into a secret, military
organization, under the captivating title of the "Kansas Legion,"which extend¬
ed its ramifications throughout the Territory. The avowed object of this or¬
ganization was to make Kansas a free State ; and to this end its members were
sworn with imposing form and solemnity. This organization, introduced before
the first election of a Legislature, was superseded only by the later organiza¬
tion of the militia, under color of law of a new Stanton Legislature. Not only
10
is their military organization distinct, but their political association is that of
separate organized factions, outside of the forms of law, and in defiance of its
authority. As soon as the election of 30th March, 1855, by an overwhelming
majority, installed a Legislature largely pro-slavery in its views, they renounced
the ballot-box, denounced the government as a Missouri conquest, and defied its
enactments. They assembled a convention at Topeka, without the sanction of
law, without the authority of either territorial or Federal Government, and or¬
dained a State constitution and government, which was to be indepent of both.
And this open treason, the work of mercenaries and invaders, organized into a
grand secret military encampment, was set up in hostile rivalry to the lawful
government established by Congress. Around this, the idol of their worship,
they have rallied all their strength, and all their devotion, to maintain it. From
that time they have been a separate peopie, acting under their own organiza¬
tion, hostile to the regular government, and never yielding in obedience, or par¬
ticipating in its administration. Can a people who have thus ostracized them¬
selves complain of a grievance which they have taken no pains to avert ? Can
they complain that the constitution was never submitted for approval to those
who had repudiated it in advance, and owed allegiance to its rival ? Such com¬
plaisance to the rights of poprlar sovereignty is an instance of extreme devo¬
tion to that principle that was not expected by the Topekaites, even at the
hands of Governor Walker. •
The very first Legislature of the Territory, elected on the 30th March, 1855,
passed a law for taking the sense of the people upon the question of forming a
State government, which, by a large majority, was determined to be in favor of
the proposed measure. Thus all parties coincided in the propriety of the
change of government. On the 19th February, 1857, the Legislature passed a
law for the calling of a convention, taking a census, and providing for a registry
of all the bona fide voters of the Territory. It provided with the most anxious
care and with studied impartiality in all its features, for attaining the true and
final expression of the popular will, and attempted to secure the ballot against
all invasion of its integrity. This law was vetoed by the Governor because it
did not provide for submission of the whole constitution to the people for rati¬
fication, but was passed by the requisite majority, notwithstanding. This act
pursued substantially the provisions of the Senate bill, introduced by the Sen¬
ator from Georgia, (Mr. Toombs,) and which the Senator from New Hampshire,
(Mr. Hale,) had admitted to be fair in its provisions. In neither was there any
provisions submitting the constitution to be thus formed for popular ratifica-
cation. : This was at least a significant fact of the intentions of those who
desired to make a constitution, and no one could be surprised by the result. In
taking the registry of voters, every obstacle was interposed to defeat the exe¬
cution of the law. In some counties the officers were openly resisted, or intim¬
idated from the performance of their duty, while in others the registration of
fictitious names frustrated the objects of the law. The result, after all, showed
a legal registration of nine thousand two hundred and fifty-one voters in eigh¬
teen counties, while in fifteen others, believed to contain less than fifteen hun¬
dred voters, no returns were made at all. Many of these last were but geo¬
graphical divisions of territory on the map, without settlements, and attached,
for all civil purposes, to other more populous counties. They were, of course,
omitted in the apportionment of delegates. Elections were held in all but these
counties, disfranchised by their own wilful act, and their legitimate right to
participate in the election was thus transferred to others. The Republicans, as
a party, took no part either in the registration of voters or in the election of
delegates. The convention assembled and formed the constitution, republican
inform, which she has presented for our consideration; and this has opened
again, in another form, in all its length and breadth, that great periodical agita¬
tion which seems doomed to continue until its legitimate and inevitable conse¬
quences shall follow and terminate it forever. That contention made their
work complete, and referred but the one all-engrossing subject to the people,
that of domestic slavery. On the 21st of December last this vexed question was
decided at an election m which all had the right to vote, and the result pro¬
claimed to the world. It is one which puts at rest all the fabulous boasts of
the countless majorities of free-State men with which a credulous public has
been entertained for the last two years. The figures are brief but decisive.
For slavery, 6,226, against it, 569.
And now let me briefly review the prominent objections urged against the
admission of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution. They are all compre-
11
bended in the idea that it is not "the act and deed" of Kansas. Indeed, the
pretension is no<w openly avowed, which would subordinate this entire proceed¬
ing of a people from the just rank of an act of sovereignty to a mere petition
fo? the redress of grievances. Her past history is all explored, an inquisitorial
scrutiny is instituted into her domestic .affairs, and her institutions subjected to
unfriendly criticism, that pretexts for her exclusion may be multiplied. This is
all interventibh of the most odious tod offensive character in Kansas affairs.
We have reserved to ourselves no such powers; Congress has expressly resigned
that pretension, tod conferred it on the Territories. By thus investing Kansas
with the right to form her institutions, we agreed not to fashion them for her.
In allowing her to form them in her " own way," we agreed not to interfere in
the mode or manner in which she did so. Whence do we derive this power of
going behind her constitution to adjust conflicting equities of rival parties, in
an act of admission ? It is claimed that there are great irregularities in the
whole proceeding. That may be true, hut they were such as afforded us no
right to complain. We had not, as in the case of Minnesota, prescribed a mode
of forming a constitution, and thus afforded a standard by which irregularities
could be tested. Kansas was thps left to ordain her constitution after her own
prescribed forms. If, in so doing, irregularities occurred, frauds were perpe¬
trated, counties unrepresented or disfranchised, or injustice done to minorities
they are all questions of political responsibilities between the government of
Kansas and the people. In all her proceedings she acted in strict, conformity to
her,laws, in subservience to the existing government, and in violation of no alle¬
giance to the Federal Government. Her constitution is the work of the people
in. their sovereign capacity. It is the act and deed of the people, executed and
authenticated according to the forms through which they speak. It is the act
of the people expressed through their accredited government; and who doubts
that it is in accordance with the sense of all the people who ever acknowledged
allegiance to it? As an act of the people, it was final and conclusive upon us.
If it is not, then there was some mental reservation in the Kansas and Nebraska
act, or new doctrines have been ingrafted upon its original construction.
The objections to the constitution, in detail, are easily answered, and it shall
be briefly done. It is no longer pretended that a preparatory act of Congress
is essential to the right of admission of a new State. It does not alter the right
of a State; it prescribes a form of proceeding which is sometimes
"More honor'd in the breach, than the observance."
Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, and California, were all thus admitted; the essen¬
tial requisites to legitimate such a proceeding are that it should originate with,
and be conducted in, subordination to the authority of the local government
established or recognized by the Government of the United States. This was
the doctrine of the Senator from Illinois; and he traces a parallel and finds a
fancied resemblance between the Leeompton and Topeka constitutions. For
this purpose he denounces them both as revolutionary, and as attempting to set
up governments independent of the local government of the Territory. He
seizes upon that section which declares that "this constitution shall take effect
ahd be in force from and after its ratification by the people." He omits to
notiee the provision that suspends the convening of the Legislature, and the
entrance of the State officers upon the discharge of their official duties until
after the admission of the State into the Union, and that all the officers of the
Government are still there and in authority. Equally untenable is that objec¬
tion which has of late acquired such importance—the failure of the convention
to submit the whole constitution for popular approval. This is a new phase of
popular sovereignty, and a new construction of the Kansas bill. A majority of
the States of the Union have been admitted under constitutions which were not
so approved. • Others have been submitted. No one questions their validity
now. I am not aware of any necessity which requires that the people can exer¬
cise sovereignty only in one form. Their sovereign right to institute govern¬
ment is not sovereign after all, if they cannot exercise it in their own mode. I
know of no reason which requires a constitution to be submitted more than a
law, or a treaty, or any other act of the supreme power of a State. Our forms
of govornment are representative republics, rather than popular democracies.
Indeed, the representative principle pervades our whole political system. The
sovereignty of the people is claimed to be inalienable, but it is quite consistent
with this view, that it can be exercised by representatives and agents. Whether
exercised by the people directly themselves, or in any other mode, or by any
12
other agency, it is still the act of the people. "When the people elected the
convention, they invested that convention "with their whole power; and when
the convention ordained a constitution complete, it was the act of the people,
and as binding as if submitted directly to them. When the slavery clause was
submitted to, and decided by, a popular vote on the 21st of December, the last
feature of the constitution was added, and the work finished. The act of the
special session of the Legislature, which authorized the popular vote on the 4th
of January, was a usurpation, as it employed its limited authority to contra¬
vene a previous sovereign act of the people. It could have no such right until
that proposition should be disposed of by Congress.
The Senator from Illinois contends tnat the act of the " convention was not
an exercise of sovereign power; that, inasmuch as it was convened under an act
of the Legislature, it derived its whole authority from it, and possessed no more
than the Legislature conferred." It would be a sufficient answer to this, that
the Legislature is supreme within its just range of powers, and that the calling
of this convention was "a rightful subject of legislation." But that is not all.
The convention derived its authority from the people, and exercised it in their
name; while the Legislature lent only the sanctions of law and authority, and
prescribed the forms under which this potent voice of the people was to speak.
Nor is it true that the people had no opportunity to express their wishes on the
adoption of a constitution. If it is said that a large number of counties were
disfranchised, I answer that their inhabitants defied and frustrated the law, and
wilfully refused to exercise their rights. If it is said that they were unrepre¬
sented in the convention, I answer that they voluntarily excluded themselves
from the apportionment by failing to return a census. Whatever may be said
of these preliminary steps, it cannot be said that, on the 21st of December, they
had no opportunity to vote. The convention had submitted the slavery ques¬
tion to a direct vote of the people, and the whole people. Congress had
referred that subject to the people of the Territories to settle in their own way,
and now they determined upon a direct appeal to the people. It had been
claimed that the free-State men were in an overwhelming majority. Here was
an opportunity to test it, and finally measure strength with their rivals. Cen¬
sus and registration laws were now alike things of the past, and every one was
invited to the polls. Executive proclamations and manifestoes were put forth,
imploring the Republicans to vote. At one time they were told that the con¬
vention would be legal, and its action final, and asked to participate in its elec¬
tion. Governor Walker committed the grave error of supposing that he spoke
for the Congress of the United States, in assuring them that the whole constitu¬
tion should be submitted to a vote of the whole people; or if not, it would and
ought to be rejected by Congress. The adherents of Topeka neither t usted his
assurances nor acted upon them. They voted neither upon the election of del¬
egates nor upon the slavery question. They abdicated their share in the gov-,
ernment, and thus authorized the voting majority to speak for them. They
were neither deceived nor surprised by the result. It was what they both
anticipated and desired.
A kindred objection of the same class with those to which I have adverted,
is founded upon the sweeping charges of fraud in the local elections of Kansas,
It belongs as little to us to investigate the frauds in their elections, as any other,
of the internal affairs of that Territory. It cannot be denied that frauds, and
irregularities, in elections have occurred, and other atrocities committed in Kan¬
sas, during the period of her troubles, and that both sides should share in the
reproach which they merit. It would be strange if it were not so. In a country
harassed and vexed with a bloody strife for the whole period of her history,
often on the verge of revolution, and always in the midst of a conflict between
excited parties, could it be expected that her elections should be free from the
spirit that animated her less peaceful contests? The people who contended in
this fierce discord, often with violence and with arms, could not be expected to
conduct the administration of government, with that perfect impartiality and
obedience to form which belongs to more peaceful times. It was in vain to ex¬
pect it. The only cause for wonder is that the forms of law and the integrity
of the ballot were not subjected to more irregularities and graver abuses. Still,
I believe that the substantial ends of justice were attained, and that the frauds,
alledged upon one side, were counterbalanced by an offset in kind upon the other.
It is charged that there were frauds in the elections at Delaware crossing, at
Kickapoo, and at Shawnee. Have the proceedings upon the other side escaped
all suspicion ? It would be strange indeed if those who had been in organized
13
rebellion and treason to the lawful government, should in a moment become
honest and impartial in an election. How do Senators account for the signifi¬
cant disparity between the vote for State officers, and that against the constitu¬
tion at Lawrence? How can they account for that astounding increase in the
vote at Leavenworth, which so suddenly swelled its magnitude ? And above
all, by what means was that overwhelming majority of ten thousand votes pa¬
raded against the constitution, when, in the exciting election of a member of
Congress, the same party polled; on the same day, less than seven thousand?
It is not ours to adjust the balance between the opposite sides. The pro-slavery
party in Kansas have been the party of law and order. In a contest which they
did not provoke, and in which they stood upon the defensive, they have doubt¬
less learned something of the tactics of their enemies, and turned them upon
them. If in a disreputable contest of that kind, that party, which has lived
outside of the pale of the law, has been beaten by their own weapons, it is not
theirs to complain of their fiat
But, sir, I may say of this as of other objections—what power have we over
it? Whence do we derive the power to investigate frauds in the municipal
elections in Kansas? Some of these which have undergone such severe criticism
relate to the elections of State officers, and members of their proposed State
legislature—a matter which the constitution has clearly placed beyond our
reach. The legislature of Kansas, like every legislatsve body, can inquire into
frauds and irregularities affecting the elections of its members. It is the only
■ proper judge of that question. No legislative body can be independent in its
functions, if any other power can decide these questions. We, here, have the
same right to judge of the elections of members of this body; but it would be
a monstrous pretension, and usurpation of authority here, to attempt, in a
national legislature, to decide upon the legality of the local elections in K 4ns as,
and that, too, while we are performing the elevated constitutional duty of in¬
ducting a sovereign member into the Confederacy of States.
Mr. President, it is a little curious to notice the development of the different
phases of this question. Those who opposed the extension of the Missouri line
in 1850, were its strenuous advocates when it was proposed to repeal it in 1854.
Those who then thought that the people should receive their institutions ready
formed to their hands by Congress, are now loyal to the opposite extreme of
popular sovereignty. The Republicans in Kansas decline the opportunity to
right their fancied wrongs on the 21st of December, but two weeks after vote
against the whole constitution. They denounce slavery in Kansas, yet refuse
to vote it away. They declaim against their government as a Missouri usurpa¬
tion, yet vote down* the State government which was to supersede it; and thus
continue the territorial condition where slavery has a constitutional existence.
It is impossible to resist the conclusion that, with them, there is no purpose to
settle this issue, but to keep it open as long as it can influence the passions or
feed the excitement of fanaticism.
Another argument, which has, in turn, been enlisted to serve a purpose, is
that which prescribes the mode of amending the constitution. It is worth
while to give the exact language of this disputed clause. It is contained in the
schedule, and provides that—
"Sec. 14. After the year 1864. whenever the Legislature shall think it neces¬
sary to amend, alter, or change this constitution, they shall recommend to the
electors at the next general election, two thirds of the members of each House
concurring, to vote for or against calling a convention, and if it shall appear
that a majority of all citizens of the State have voted for a convention, the
Legislature shall at its next regular session call a convention, to consist of as
many members as there may be in the House of Representatives at the time, to
be chosen in the same manner, at the same places, and by the same electors that
choose Representatives; said delegates so elected shall meet within three months
after said election, for the purpose of revising, amending, or changing the con¬
stitution; but no alteration shall be made to affect the rights of property in the
ownership of slaves."
This, it is said, is a prohibition of all amendment before the year 1864. Some¬
times it has been used as one of the facts arrayed to show a disposstion upon
the part of its framers unfairly to place their work beyond the reach of reform
or innovation, as they at the same time declined to submit the entire constitu¬
tion for popular approval. The Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Douglas,) in his mi'
nority report, attempts to prove that this provision is a prohibition of al
14
amendment, except in that mode which is " revolution if successful; and rebel¬
lion in case of failure." He knows no means by which that " overwhelming"
and fabulous majority of ten thousand free-State men can assert their right,
except'by the "terrible right of revolution;" and argues that the President
holds out delusive hopes of a reform or change in the constitution by suggest¬
ing a resort to an impracticable scheme. It is to be wished that this provision
had the virtue which has been ascribed to it. It would be but a1 reasonable
regulation, and, at most, but a short postponement of the great right of peace¬
ful and lawful revolution. Many of the older and earlier constitutions, spring¬
ing from a peribd convulsed by the throes of the Revolution, or molded under
the auspices of men whose' patriotism has been elevated above either reproach
or suspicion, contained either similar provisions or maintained significant si¬
lence upon the subject. The time has been when stability of government and
of law was considered no mean virtue in our institutions, and when the organic
law of States was exempt from the sudden caprices and ruthless innovations by
which the institutions of to-day are marred or unmade on to-morrow. The
time has been when these attempts, futile though they often were, to lend a
short life to organic law, were respected, and the constitutions which contained
them were deemed and accepted as republican in form. But whether such
specific provisions, either regulating or partially limiting the inherent right of
altering or abolishing forms of government, be. void or valid, it is evident that
they never seriously stood in the way of change when the people, acting under
the forms of law, have willed it. The President; in his message, has referred
to the great State of New York, now governed under the new constitution
made in direct opposition to the form prescribed by its predecessor. The State
of Rhode Island, until quite a recent period in her history, had remained under
the government of a royal charter, which, I am informed, contained no previs¬
ion for its own amendment. Under it the people lived and prospered, bore
their part in the Revolution, and acceded to the Union. Yet this old charter,
venerable for its antiquity, if not respectable for its wisdom, was finally super¬
seded when the ideas and necessities of a later progress had outgrown its capa¬
city for good government: The States of Ohio and Indiana contained prohibi¬
tions respectively against amendment, the first for twelve, and the second for
ten years; yet the latter was changed within the prohibted period, and all of
them in pursuance of a form prescribed by law, and without a resort to the
"terrible right of revolution." Indeed, in the past history of our State consti¬
tutions, they have probably too often illustrated the vieWi of the President ih
his late message, that the people "can make and unmak>.constitutions at
pleasure," and that "the will of the majority is supreme aihdirresistible when
expressed in an orderly arid lawful manner." < •>! t
The chairman of the Committee on Territories, (Mr. Douglas,) in his report
of March 12, 1856, on the affairs of Kansas, in reviewing the history of such
of the States as had formed constitutions without the previous authority of
Congress, redeems them all from illegitimacy by the assurance that, "in every
instance, the proceeding has originated with, and been conducted in subordina¬
tion to, the local government. Attorney General Butler, in the case of the ad¬
mission of Arkansas, justifies the proceeding of the Territory.in forpiing a con¬
stitution, without the previous assent of Congress, on the ground that such
measures be commenced and prosecr&ed in a peaceable manner, and in strict
subordination to the existing territorial government." These were all instances
of a change from territorial to State government; but the principle extracted
from them illustrates the efficiency of every appeal for a change of government
to the sovereignty of the people, when prosecuted under the forms of law and
in subordination to the existing government. These modes of changing consti¬
tutions, so familiar in our political history, can solve the problem and relieve
the Senator's doubts, and enable the, people of Kansas to know " how they are
to exercise that great indefeasable right," of which the President speaks when
he says "they can make and unmake constitutions at pleasure." The free-
State party, so lately denounced by Governor Walker as " insurgents," seem to
have a keener appreciation of their "inalienable rights" than the President,
and their practical attempts to assert them have gone far beyond the sugges¬
tions in his message. In their hot haste to reverse the lawful decision of the
people on the 21st of December, and inaugurate "a reign of terror'," they an¬
ticipated and outstripped the view's of the President. They did not await the
action of the State Legislature, after admission into the. Union, to inaugurate
proceedings for a change of the constitution, but attempted to accomplish it by
15
a surprise, in a Legislature called for a specific purpose, precipitated into a
premature birth by one Governor, and betrayed into their hands by the extra¬
ordinary action of the other. If it be true that the partisans of a free State
have this "overwhelming majority," no barrier in the constitution, no safe¬
guards protecting the rights of property will long restrain them in their mad
career. Frenzied by their first taste of power, they have, during the short life
of their called session, economized the opportunity, and perpetrated the great¬
est amount of mischief in the shortest period of time.
The Senator from Illinois and the Senator from Vermont, arriving at the
same result by a different form of logic, yet find themselves in happy accord
upon the peaceful results and redeeming virtues of the October election. The
Senator from Illinois says, " that from the day on which the members elected
in October assembled tad organized as a legislative body, all the opponents Of
the Lecompton constitution have recognized the government as valid and legiti¬
mate, acdnowledging their allegiance to it, and their determination and duty
to sustain and support it." The Senator from Vermont says, " that the people
of that Territory, in the late territorial election, have reclaimed their rights,
and that territorial government is, for the first time, now moving peaceably on
in its legitimate sphere." Their first act was to attempt to defeat the Lecomp¬
ton constitution, formed under the auspices and authority: of the territorial gov¬
ernment, and to inaugurate a new eonvention ; and that is called " acknowl¬
edging their allegiance to the territorial government, and their determination
and duty to sustain it," What a wonderful magic in this October eletion!
Men who had been arrayed in armed hostility and open rebellion against the
territorial government for years, while in a minority, succeeding at last in install¬
ing themselves in power, are suddenly transformed into peaceful citizens and
loyal partisans of the territorial government, acknowledging their " allegiance"
to themselves! Their second act was to organize the armed militia of their
partisans, and place them under the control of a reckless adventurer and ruth¬
less agitator; under whom, as we are informed, a systematic persecution, by
murder, confiscation, and plunder, of the pro-slavery party prevails, before
which pale the atrocities of the Danites of Utah. And this is called " moving
peaceably on in its legitimate sphere of promised freedom." Should this pro¬
cess of extermination and exile, which is fast depopulating the Territory, con¬
tinue, there will be but little difficulty in altering the constitution. They will
soon attain that condition " were the public sentiment in favor of change is
unanimous, or approaches so' closely to unanimity as to silence all opposition;"
and in such case, the Senator from Illinois admits that " constitutions and gov¬
ernments have been changed without violence or bloodshed." The people,
says the President, " can make and unmake constitutions at pleasure;" can any
one doubt that " at least it is so in" Kansas ?
But, Mr. President, if it belongs to us in our limited sphere to go behind the
constitution, and look at the motives of the men who framed it; if it is permit¬
ted to us to weigh the considerations which, in e vexed and protracted strug¬
gle to restore peace and order to a distracted couT„ry, may have counted with
the members of the convention, is it fair to denounce, as a fraud and a grievance,
the attempt, if such it was, to give a short-lived vitality of six years to the
work which they were doing? What real or imaginary grievance was there
that could not be endured'for that short period! Was it a vice in the consti¬
tution that it proposed, at least a short truce to the conflict which had made
the land a desert and the government an anarchy ? If it was' believed that
this provision of the schedule was intended to infringe, to qualify, or invade
the fundamental principles declared iu their bill of rights, it was but a propo¬
sition of peace tendered to the people at a time when it was unknown which
party would prevail in the final decision of the great question submitted to
them; and whichsoever might be the victor in the contest, it proposed a short
aequiesence of the vanquished in the result.
Mr. President, undue importance has been ascribed to this feature in the con¬
stitution of Kansas. It will figure far more here than there. If it does not, it
will not be for want of the promptings which emanate from this great metropo¬
lis of agitation, inviting strife and revolution, and sounding the notes which are
echoed in every nook and corner of the Union. Does any one undertake here
to say that this is a just cause of complaint there ? It has been truly said that
those who preach to the world of its misgoverument will find many listeners;
but is it not a gratuitous patriotism which invents grievances for those who
never feel them ? Will this constitutional restriction stand one moment in the
16
■way of those who wish to overcome it ? Will this great faction, whose num
bers of late have swelled with such wonderful development—whose past histo¬
ry affords no instance where it has scrupled at the means where the end was to
be attained—hesitate to overleap this feeble restraint ? No. Those who are in
open array and in armed defiance of the whole authority of the constitution
will not stop to criticise an obnoxious feature of it. Those who desire the res¬
toration of peace, the reign of order, and the supremacy of law, will not com¬
plain ; while those who would perpetuate this anarchy and make the strife im¬
mortal, would soon overcome this frail barrier.
In the remarks which I have just made, I have treated this clause in the con
stitution as if it was a restriction imposed by the people on themselves, and a
suspension of the general right of amendment to the constitution until the year
1864. There are certain fundamental principles of American organic law, which
I hope and trust are, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, unalterable.
There are other px-ovisions which find a place in our constitutions which should
be subjected to change and reform when the will of the people, duly expressed,
demands it. This great and universal principle of American organic law is con¬
tained in the bill of rights. It declares "that all political power is inherent in
the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and insti¬
tuted for their benefit; and therefore they have, at all times, an inherent and
indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government in such
manner as they may think proper." This is one of those fundamental princi¬
ples of which I have said that they should be eternal. It is a logical necessity
of our form of government. If it is wrong, then representative and republican
governments are wrong. The right is essential to self-government; and while
I would deprecate a too frequent resort to its exercise, and would always limit
that, ip subordination to the forms of law, yet it is one which is first in import¬
ance, and it is better that it should be subject to abuse than to limitation. This
right is theirs to exercise "at all times," and cannot be postponed or suspended
for a moment. If it can be suspended for a period, it can be indefinitely post¬
poned—and thus constitutions would be perpetual and forms of government
immortal. If this language of the constitution is hostile to, or inconsistent with,
the bill of rights, it must to that extent yield to its superior authority. This is
one of those original and reserved rights of the people, not delegated or aliena¬
ted by the people, neither surrendered nor susj>ended, but withheld from the
grant which makes up the just powers of government, and which are enumera¬
ted in the Constitution. In this contest for supremacy between reserved rights
and delegated power, it is easy to determine which is the higher and which the
subordinate law. •
I hold, however, that there is no real hostility between these provisions. The
conflict is more plausible than real. The one is the declaration of a great prin¬
ciple of American fundamental law, the other the mere regulation of the " man¬
ner" of the exercise of this right. Indeed, the latter clause does not form any
part of the constitution, but is one of the articles of the " schedule" which pro¬
vides against the inconveniences arising from a change of government. It finds
no place in, and forms no part of the constitution, the great charter, prescribing
the powers of government, and regulating their exercise. The right to alter
the constitution " in such manner as they may think proper," is one of the rights
retained to the people; and this so much condemned clause of the schedule
only prescribes that manner after the year 1864. Until then, the right is un-
trammeled, and without prescribed form for its exercise. After that time, I
agree that the Senator from Illinois may be right in stating the judicial rule of
interpretation " that when a constitution prescribes one mode of amendment, it
must be understood and construed as having thereby precluded all other modes,
and prohibited all other means of accomplishing the same object." Suppose',
however, some other peaceable mode of change be successfully adopted; is not
the constitution thus adopted the supreme law of the land, and are our consti¬
tutions, thus adopted, legitimate governments or successful revolutions? It is
not for us to express controlling views to solve this problem. In admitting
Kansas as a State, we trust her to her own destinies, and accomplish our whole
duty.
SPEECH
OF
OAPT. M. M. PARSONS,
DELIVERED
AT THE COURT HOUSE,
IN'JEFFERSON CITY,
OsaL Tlxx«.:r<3c3.£*ry- *Fia.xa.o 22-3:, 1858,
Reported for the Jefferson Examiner by T. J. Henderson.
JEFFEESQN CITY:
C. J. COKYV1N, PRINTER.
18-38.
SPEECH
OF
CAPT. M. M. PARSONS,
DELIVERED IN THE COURT HOUSE IN JEFFERSON CITY, ON THURSDAY
EVENIN(J. JUNE 24TH, 1858.
[ rkported for the .jefferson kxashxer ry t. J. henderson.]
At the hour appointed, Capt. Parsons rose and
said:
Fellow Citizens : I stated yesterday evening
that I would to-night reply to the extraordinary
speech delivered here last night by Gen. Garden-
hire, in opposition to Slavery and the white interests
of the people of Missouri. In doing this I shall not at¬
tempt to amuse you, as did the gentleman, by any play
upon words or strained witticisms. I suppose he
did amuse you-r-I was amused myself. But I have
now a different and higher object in view, and hence
will make no attempt to draw your attention away
from the vital points at issue between us, by a
course of that kind. One who aspires to such a po¬
sition as that for which the gentleman is a candi¬
date, or the one for which I solicit your suffrages,
can find better employment when addressing his fel¬
low citizens.
defense of his right to hold his seat in the
last general assembly after his appoint¬
ment as united states district attorney.
On yesterday evening, in order, no doubt, to fur¬
ther his purpose of drawing you and me from the true
lino of argument, Gen. Gardenbire endeavored to
.turn this discussion to a consideration of my con¬
stitutional right to a seat in the last General Assem¬
bly. While upon that point I called his attention
to the Journal of the House. I wished him to read
before his large and intelligent audience the record
of the matter. He did so, and what was the re¬
sult? It was seen that the committee to which the
matter was referred found, in the first place, that I
was holding an office under the General Govern¬
ment, but afterwards the chairman of that commit¬
tee says:
" I consider it my duty to report to this House,
that a majority of the committee entertain doubts
as to the unconstitutionality of the gentleman from
Cole holding his seat on this fioor, but the prepond¬
erance of their minds is that he is not entitled."
Mark you, now, the chairman of the committee
says the majority entertain doubts as to She uncon¬
stitutionality of my sitting as a member. How
did these doubts arise ? It will be remembered that
those gentlemen who managed the constitutional
argument for the opposition press at that period,
held that the 11th, section of article 3d of the Con¬
stitution, disqualified me for membership. I will
read it:
" No judge of any Court of Law or equity, Secre¬
tary of State, Attorney General, State Auditor,
State or County Treasurer, Register or Recorder,
Clerk of any Court of Record, Sheriff, Coroner,
Member of Congress—"
It is not protended that I filled any of the posi¬
tions here enumerated. But I read on :
" Nor other person holding any lucrative office un¬
der the Hnited States or this State, (militia officers,
justices of the peace and postmasters excepted)
shall be eligible to either House of the General As¬
sembly."
Now, does .any one suppose that I was disquali¬
fied by this clause? Will not the merest tyro of a
lawyer see that the letter of the law does not touch
my case? What is the meaning of the word eligi¬
ble ? It cannot mean anything irilre than " fit to
be chosen," or, as defined by Webster, "legally qual¬
ified to be chosen: and at the time of my election in
August of the preceding year, I was "eligible," "fit
to be chosen." I did not then hold any other office.
The people, at any rate, said I was fit to be their
Representative, and they chose me, accordingly. It
was thus seen that this section did not apply. But
afterwards, these constitutional lawyers, who wrote
for the press and spoke for the people, turned to the
Amendments. I will read the section on which
they relied: *
"Noperson holding an office of profit under the
United States, and commissioned by the President,
shall, during his continuance in such office, be eligi-
4
ble, appointed to, hold, or exercise any office of
profit under this State."
Now these constitutional law writers and law
speakers here ignored the fact that there was a broad
distinction—a plain line of demarkation—between
a seat in the General Assembly and an office of
profit under this State. I will show you how they
misconstrued even the Constitution, the mostsaered
instrument of law known to us, merely to accom¬
plish their own political purposes. I will show that
the Constitution itself draws this line of demarka¬
tion. We have seen that the 11th section of article
3d applies solely to the question of eligibility. But
let me read the next section—the 12th :
" No person who now is, or who hereafter may be,
a collector or holder of public money, nor any as¬
sistant or deputy of such collector or holder of
public money, shall be eligible to either Home of the
General Assembly, nor to any office of profit or trust.,
until he shall have accounted for and paid all sums
for which he may be accountable."
You see here the framers of the Constitution drew
the distinction I have mentioned, else they would
not have enumerated the two positions separately.
But let us goon to the 13th section :
"No person while he continues to exercise the func¬
tions of a bishop, priest, clergyman, or teacher of
any religious persuasion, denomination, society or
sect whatsoever, shall be eligible to either House of
the General Assembly ; nor shall he bo appointed to
any office of profit within the State, the office of Jus¬
tice of the Peaco excepted."
Here the distinction is still more emphatically laid
down. Now with such a distinction existing in the
Constitution, i^,is evident that the 4th section of ar
tide 1st of the Amendments could not have exclu¬
ded me from my seat on the floor of the House; and
this it was which caused the doubts reported by the
Chairman of the Committee on Elections, in their
investigation of the matter. But here let us inquire,
how shall wc construe the Constitution in cases of
this kind ? Shall it be literally, or to suit the exigen¬
cies of the times ? As to the proper rule of con¬
struction, I will read 17 Sargent and Rawle's Reports,
page 226:
The Commonwealth, ex relatione Bnohe vs. Binns.
Todd, Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court,
and Houston, Judge, concurred.
" The established rule is to give the strictest pos¬
sible construction to every part of the Constitution
and to every act of Assembly, declaring State offices
incompatible with offices or appointments under the
Federal Government, or declaring different State
effiees incompatible with each other, and never to
bold anything to be within the prohibition unless
expressed and named; and to take in no jjossible
iase by construction."
"The Constitution has been already cited, deelar-
ng that no member|oi' Congress or other person
molding any otfico (except of attorney at law and in
he militia,) under the United States, or this Com-
nonwealtli, shall be a member of either House du¬
ring his continuance in Congress or in office. And
tgain, no member of Congress from this State, nor
iny person holding or exercising any office of trust
tr profit under the United States, shall at the same
,ime hold or exercise the office of judge, secretary, &c.
{et Mr. Sam'l Maclay was elected Senator to Congress
vhilehe was Speaker of the Senate of Pennsylvania,
,ndhe continued to sit in the State Senute«ven after
hethirdof March, although his right was disputed,
nd the question was brought to debate and decision
iforc or.L or both Houses of the Legi.-Liture. Dr.
Leib, a member of Assembly from this eitj , held his
seat in the House for some short time after his elec¬
tion to supply a vacancy in the United States Sen¬
ate. I do not know that as to him the matter was dis¬
puted. But afterwards, Gen. Lacockand Mr. Roberts,
being chosen members of Congress while they were
in the Senate of the Commonwealth, they themselves
voluntarily brought before the Senate the question
of their right to continue members of that body
after the term for their service in Congress had com¬
menced. Mr. Wayne, Chairman of the Committee
to which the subject was referred, broughtin an ar¬
gument and able report denying the right. But this
decision of the Committee was reversed by the Sen¬
ate, and the two gentlemen continued to hold their
seats after their term of service in Congress had
commenced. In strict conformity with all these
precedents, General Barnard, while holding an office
expressly named in the Constitution, that of Secre¬
tary, being elected United States Senator, did, as we
all know, continue to hold the office of Secretary of
the Commonwealth, until last November; rightly, iu
my opinion, according to old construction and pre¬
cedents." *
"To finish the chain of authorities, we have the
decision of this Court in the case of Mr. Dallas. He
held a commission under the United States ; ho was
at the same time Recorder of the City of Philadel¬
phia, and as such his chief duty was that of Judge
of an important Court of Pennsylvania. The word
in the Constitution, under which the case was deci¬
ded, is Judge. Mr. Dallas was Judge in effect, in
name Recorder. The argument was identically this,
as reported in 4th Dallas, 229 ; that the Recorder of
Philadelphia is a Judge, and that the policy of the
exclusion originated in a jealousy lest the federal
government should, overshadow the State govern¬
ments, and if there was a doubt upon the subject
that policy required a decision affirming the incom¬
patibility of the offices in question. But this Court
unanimously answered no, and held that the doubt
and uncertainty of the letter was to have an opera¬
tion directly the reverse."
You will now perceive, fellow-citizens, the reason
why I called on the gentleman, when he was dis¬
cussing this matter, to read the Journal. I knew
that when the doubts of the Committee and the
House were viewed in connection with the law as de¬
cided in Pennsylvania, no blame could attach to me
for the course I pursued.
But I will let this matter pass now, because, al¬
though I might have much more to say about it, I
know some of my friends (?) are particularly unfor¬
tunate in giviilg Constitutional opinions, and it
would perhaps be ungenerous in me to remind them
of it too sharply. As to the question of eligibility
between Judge Cordoll and my friend Mr. Garden-
hire, I have nothing to say. I have nothing to say
here, because should I bo elected, I am precluded
by the Constitution from passing upon the matter if
it comes up in the Legislature.
Gen. Edwards.—I would ask if Mr. Cordell's term
as a County Court Justice does not expire on the 1st
Monday of August ?
Capt. Pabsons.—Yes sir, and be is not a candi¬
date for re-election to that post, though I have heard
persons solicit him to run for both offices.
I have but one thing more to say on this point.
While Mr Holliday, American, the mover of the
question in regard to my right to hold my seat, and
Mr. Cratz Brown, the leader of the Black Republi¬
can hosts from St. Louis, were anxious to over-ride
the Constitution, to nnss an e.c most facto law whioH
5
would put money into their pockets,they were sudden¬
ly seized with a most extraordinary reverence for that
fundamental law of the land when your representa¬
tive's right* were to be considered. They could
reach clear over and around the Constitution to put
their hands into the Treasury, and actually did so ;
and I call upon you, my fellow-citizens, to bear in
mind how I acted when this money question,—this
ex post facto law, giving these gentlemen the five
dollars per day from the Commencement of the ses¬
sion, was before the Legislature. I not only opposed
its passage, but refused to take the money in con¬
travention to the Constitution. I will read to you
what the Auditor of the iState says:
Auditor's Office, Missouri, )
City of Jefferson, June 24, 1868. j
I, Wm. H. Buffington, Auditor of Public Accounts
of the State of Missouri, do hereby certify, that M.
M. Parsons, Esq., a member of the 19th General As¬
sembly from the County of Cole, received for his per
diem the sum of one hundred and thirty-eiaht dollars,
the same being three dollars petf day from the 29th
day of Dec. 1866, the day on which the said 19th
General Assembly convened, to the 12th day of Peb.
1857, the day on which the act to increase the per
diem of members to five dollars per day took effect.
In tostimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my
[l. a.] name and affixed the seal of my said office,
the day and year above written.
WM. H. BUFFINGTON,
JLud. Pub. Ac'is.
You will perceive, fellow-citizens, from the read¬
ing of this certificate, that concerning this money
question I stand '• solitary and alone " on the Con¬
stitution. Your Representative, if ho did hold his
scat despite the bowlings oi these gentlemen about
that instrument, got considerably less pau for bis
services than his opponents,
I have alluded to this subject, not for the purpose
of arraigning gentlemen who voted for this bill,
neither d» I impugn their uiolives—they are respon¬
sible to their constituents, not to me. But as I was
charged with having violated the Constitution, by
the opposition, and as it was reiterated here last
night by Gen. Gardenhire, one of their champions,
I have the right to show by the legislative blunders
of the leaders of the opposition party that they were
wanting in capacity both as my prosecutors, and as
triers of my case. •
slavery exists by divine law.
I come now to the grand, momentous question o
the day. It will be recollected that in my address to
you on last Saturday evening, I attempted to main¬
tain the proposition, that slavery exists by law, and
not by force. Gen. Gardenhire last night took the
converse of this proposition, in trying to prove that
slavery exists by force and not by law. Here then
we have a distinct issue.
I assumed, first, that slavery existed by authority
of the Divine Law j second, by authority of the Com¬
mon Law v hieh has descended to us from our Eng¬
lish ancestors ; lastly, by authority of the Ordinance
of 1787, and of the Constitutions of the United Statos
and the State of Missouri. * .
I told you that I would not decide the points by
mere assertions and declamations j and while I call
upon our Anti-Slavery people to produce the au¬
thorities for their dogmas, that on which I rely for
the support of my positions is not lacking.
Let us take up the inquiry involved here, How did
Slavery originate? To answer this inquiry I do not
read from the Encyclopedia Americana, nor any simi¬
lar unauthoritative work, but from the Book of books,
—the oracles of Jehovah. In 'the Sth Vhajitcr of
Genesis, 25th verse, we have the first intimation of
the creation of the relation of a slave, I will read
from the 20th verse:
"AndNoah began.to be an husbandman, and he
planted a vineyard,
And he drank of the wine, and was drunken j and
he was uncovered within his tent.
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the naked¬
ness of his father, and told his two bretborn without.
And Shorn and Japheth took a garment, and laid
it upon both their shoulders, and went backward,,
and covered the nakedness of their father ; and their
faces were backward, and they saw not their father's,
nakedness. ' .
And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew whati
his younger son had done unto him.
And he said. Cursed br Canaan j a scrmnt if ecr-
cemts shall he be vnto his brithren. I
And htJ said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem j
and Canaan shall be his servant.
God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall d^ell in'
the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his ser¬
vant. ''
We find in tracing back this institution of negrc
shivery, that here is the first record concerning it
the meaning of the word Ham is black, of Shem red
of Japheth, white. The respective destinies of the
black, of the red and of the white races are in tbi.:
passage of Scripture prophetically set forth, and al
subsequent history evidences that this is the true'
rendering of it. Black Ham committed a great in-' |
decency, and the curse of God rested upon him and
his descendants forever. From that day the blac it
race has been the servant of the white—of Japhetb
and his progeny. '
At a later date we fitad that Abraham, the father
of the faithful, owned a great many slaves, ant1
since he bought many of them from other men, hi.
eotemporaries must have hold slaves also. And Job
the righteous man, whofeared God and eschewed evil'
had several thousand. I will call your attention t
little further to this inspired account of the erigii
and history of slavery. By the way, let me remark'
fellow citizens, that we ought to consider this man
ner of treating the question an appropriate an<
pra.etieal one, because of its bearing on matters wit!
which we are immediately connected* It serves tf
assist us in determining whether any religion profess
ing to be founded upon this sacred book, which seek
to upturn this institution now existing among us, i
a fanatical religion, or whether it is really author
ized by the law of God to meddle with our affairs'
From the 21st chapter of Exodus, I read, commune
ing at th.e 1st verse:
'.'Now these are the judgments which thou shul
set before them. If they buy an Hebrew servant'
six years shalt he serve; and in the seventh he shal1
go out for' nothing. If he came in by himself, In
shall go out by himself; if he were married, then hi1
wife shall go out with him. If bis master hav
given him a wife, and she have borne him sons 0'
daughters, the wife and her children shall be hel
master's, and he shall go out by himself. And ?
the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, in?
wife, and my children ; I will not go out free. The?
his master shall bring him unto the judges ; he sbaP
also bring him to the door, or unto the door post'
and his master shall bore his ear through with ar
awl, undhe. shall serve him foreser."
What a rebuke is this to Abolitionists ! When ■
servant refused to leave his master, the chosen peo'
pie of God, under the immediate direction of the?
Divino Master, bored hi3 ear and kept him forever
But among these latter day saints, how would it be
in such a case ? Suppose you take one of your ser¬
vants to Chicago, and wish to keep him there.--
Suppose he clings to you like a brother,—would
they let you alone ? No, they would laugh to scorn
your divine authority, and run for an officer to ar¬
rest you for kidnapping, and by force wrest your ser¬
vant from you.
But we have seen what the Old Testament has to
say on that subjoct, now what is iD the New? "What
does St. Paul say ? We shall see in a moment that
Paul must have been a wonderfully acute .observer
of human nature ; and it would realy seem that he
was inspired to prophesy particularly what would
happen in these our times. After telling, in an¬
other place, servants to be "obedient unto their
masters," and after setting the managers of all un¬
der-ground railroads and negro stealers a good ex¬
ample, which they are all too slow to follow, by send¬
ing home to his master Onesimus, a runaway servant,
Paul, in the 6th chapter of 1st Timothy, says:
" Let as many servant* as areunder the yoke count
their own masters worthy of all honor, that thy name
of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
''And they that have believing masters, let them
not despise them, because they are brethren ; but
rather do them service, because they are faithful and
beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things
teach and exhort.
"If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to
wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to
godliness,
" He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about
questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy,
strife, railings, evil surmising*,
" Perverse disputing* of nun of corrupt, winds, and
destitute of the truth, supposing that gain* is <;oi>u-
xkss: from such withdraw thyself."
I wonder, fellow citizens, if Paul could have been
thinking, when he wrote this to Timothy, about any
of our anti-slavery University corporators. " Do¬
ting about questions and strifes of words, whereof
cometh envy, strife, railings, evil suriuisings,"— can
this mean these northern people who have come
into this State and stirred up envy, and strife, and
railings, about our attachments to those relations of
master and servant of which ho was talking ?
When he tells Timothy to teach and exhort "ser¬
vants under the yoke to count their own masters
worthy of all honor," and that " if any man teach
otherwise," &c., " he is proud, knowing nothing,''
could he have supposed that Timothy would ever
encounter our northern friends who do most assuredly
"teach otherwise?" When I speak of northern
people I would he understood. I have found some
of the best of men and best of citizens in and from
the North. Many of our best Democrats are there,
—they stand up nobly for our rights, for the Con¬
stitution, and the Union,—and in many instances
have sacrificed positions and home popularity in do¬
ing so. All honor, say I, to tho valorous men who
jfight the lion of faniticism in its den 1 But I pro-
eed. 1 cannot but wonder if Paul descried in the
^im future the land speculators and paper towns,
^nd much paraded " private fortunes" of our day,
when he talks of that class of men who thought
^ that gain is godliness." Perhaps he did not.
'Perhaps there was no direct allusion to a state of
"acts now existing here in Jefferson City ; but we
must at least conclude that he knew mankind well,
'—that he knew many would arise who, for purposes
'T gain, would sacrifice and destroy the peace and
^araony of their country.
I have thus given you the proofs, fellow-citizens,
that slavery exists and was recognized by divine
authority in the days of the Apostle Paul, and I
would to God that Paul were more studied by gen¬
tlemen of our times 1 I will now pa^s to my next
proposition. But before I do so, I must ask you to
notice that Gen. Gardenhire never pretended to
touch my Biblical argument, but glided over it by
saying he would leave that part of the question to
theologians. What does he mean? Would he ig¬
nore divine law as the foundation of all other sys¬
tems ? I can tell him the theologians in our State
do not discuss this question. The Baptist, the
Presbyterian, Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, (South)
Lutheran, Christian—no church, in fact, but one,
(which I shall mention hereafter, and which I will
show ought not to be counted among the churches in
this State,) tolerates the discussion of a political law
question by its ministers.
SLAVERY EXISTED RY THE COMMOX LAW, AXb KOW
EXTSSS I!Y THE t'OXSTHTTIOX.
Now for my second proposition. Did slavery ex¬
ist by the common law of England ? Last Saturday
evening I quoted authority which conclusively estab¬
lished that as far back as the time of James II.,
and up to a comparatively recent date, slaves were
held in England—were bought and sold there—that
property in them was recognized and protected by
the Common Law Courts—that actions of trespass
and trover had been instituted for the protection of
slave property, which the Courts sustained—that
Slavery, in short, existed by the Common Law, and
was only abolished by legislative adjudication of
the Courts. Gen. Gardenhire did not dispute my
authority. nor toe facts. On this point " he stands
confessed," and for The best of reasons—itisbeyond
controversy.
How did ,-dovery come here? Who will deny
that in the establishment of the Colonies, the Eng¬
lish Common Law was made authoritative in this
country, and how could slavery have been made one
of the lending interests of the Colonies if it had
been in contravention of that law ? " The memory
of man runneth not to the contrary '' when slavery
did no) exist in this country. It was a weighty and
much discussed question in the Convention which
formed the Federal Constitution. A portion of that
body opposed the counting of slaves in making up
the ratio of representation for the districts in which
they were held. Where stood Jefferson and Madi¬
son, and the other patriots, in whose wake my friend
General Gardenhire professes to follow—where did
they stand then ? By the ordinance of 1787. They
compromised all tlieir distinct, and different notions
in framing the Constitution of the United States.
Whatever may have been the piivate opinions of
Madison and Jefferson previously, they compromis¬
ed, and yielded them up for the public good, and
left the official exposition of their views, as to this
vexed question, embodied in the Constitution. All
these things, proving most indubitably the truth of
my position that slavery exists by Is.w and not by
force, as I mentioned in my former speech. I also
proved from the gentleman's own printed speech,
that he contradicted his proposition himself, when
he says that slavery exists by foree and not by law,
in the same sentence with the admission of the
right of the slaveholder, under the Constitution, to
pursue and capture runaway slaves. If such
rights exist, doesn't slavery exist by virtue of Con¬
stitutional larr? But to get out of this fix—to ex¬
plain away this manifest contradiction—he answer¬
ed, that.it was true there were laws made to hold tho
7
slave in subjection, but that slavery originated in
force. I would like to know if his whole super¬
structure, based upon the sophism that " slavery
exists by force and not by law," does not tumble to
the ground when he substitutes the word " origi¬
nates" for "exists?" I ask this plain question:
How does horse-owning exist? will any gentle¬
man show me that it exists by lav, in General Gar-
denhire's understanding of that phrase ? Show me
the original law for owning horses ! What is the
fact about this and other kinds of property ? Orig¬
inally the horses were all wild and free as the wind.
Men went to the broad prairies where they roved
thus wild and free, and with great dexterity lariated,
or otherwise caught them. When caught, tho law
authorized holding them, and hence, I say, horse-
owning is a legal right. I have myself, out upon
the great plains of the West, witnessed the practi¬
cal workings of this system of acquiring horso
property. There, when a man captures and subdues
a horse, the law keeps that horse for him. You nor
I could not trespass upon that property any more
than we could upon other kinds. When we cut the
lariat which binds the horse for the man, we break
the law. And the man who would deliberately tell
the world that horse-owning " exists by force and
not by law,'' would excite suspicions that he was
connected with the gangs held in such detestation
out here in our south-west counties, of which gangs
we have some specimens safely housed in the insti¬
tution over here under charge of my friend Carrol
Hughes.
But they may say that the Creator made all infe¬
rior animals for the use of man, and hence there is a
divine authority for capturing and using horses.
Does not divine authority also authorize the holding
of servants ? The only practical distinction is that
the master has, by Divine law, only a right to ser¬
vices—not to kill and eat. This, I say, is the only
distinction made between the use of animals and
the uge of servants.
I tell you, fellow-citizens, such speeches as we
have had here are enough to set young white boys
to rebelling against their mothers. We must not
be surprised to see some specimen of Young Ameri¬
ca ere long running to his mother exclaiming, "Tell
me, mother, how is this that you hold mo to servi¬
tude ? " The mother replies, " By the law of the
land my son, you are bound to obey and serve me
until you are twenty-one years old." Then the re¬
joinder comes from the boy, " I'd like to look at
this law ; I heard Gen. Gardenhire the other night
telling how all slavery and subjection exists by
force and not by law. He is a lawyer and ought to
know. You must show me the law, mother." In
such a case, I suppose the mother would have to
turn to the law to retain her authority over her son.
It is to be hoped that mothers and fathers will keep
all such ideas out of their children's heads, but it
is hard to see how they will succeed in doing so, if
the boys are permitted to hear Gen. Gardenhire's
speeches. And the same difficulty may arise with
apprentices if thi3 rampant and unreasonable radi¬
calism is not cheeked. An apprentice is a servant.
Suppose you have a white boy bound to you, and he
runs away, you could pursue and capture him be¬
cause you have a right to his services. You have a
right to the services of a slave on exactly the same
principle, and if you invalidate one right the other
must be affected in the same degree.
I shall now leave you, fellow-citizens, to decide
whether slavery exists by force or by law. I ask
your indulgence for but one additional remark on
tonic. I noticed one thing last evening, while
Gen. Gardenhire was speaking, which I am glad to
see is not the ease this evening. I saw slaves heTO
listening to him. I thought it would have been
bettorif they had been at home. I could not help
thinking that the remarks were calculated to prompt
them to inquire into the right of their masters to
hold them, and that it might lead to scenes which I
do not wish enacted in this community,—to a vio¬
lent sundering of the cords which hold them in
slavery—to blood-shed and insurrection 1 I hope this
discussion will not have that effect, but I dare not
say it will have no such tendency. For my part,
if a slave were here listening to my remarks, I
would attempt to show him that his true friend is
in the Pro-Slavery party, and not in the party seek¬
ing his destruction by tearing him away from his
kind master and mistress, and the land of his na¬
tivity.
EMANCIPATION IMPOLIIC
This brings me down to the question of eman
cipation. Gen. Gardenhire and his friends alleg»
that it is the inevitable result of the present as
pect of affairs in Missouri, and they say let it come.
They say it will be better for the white man an<
better for the black man, that freo white labor shouli
be left to develope the resources of our great State
Yes, they propose it sls a measure to benefit tht
whito laboring man ! And how ? Look around you
mechanics aud laborers, and descry, if you can, th(
benefits to accrue to you from an emancipation ol
the slaves! When the negro is emancipated whal
becomes of him? Where do you find him? I an¬
swer, your competitor in the labor market 1 Lool
down our principal street, and you will find twt
honest white persons,—one of them but a helpless
lad, who has by great industry maintained himsel
from his earliest years,—and who are opposed ti
these two in business ? Who are the competitors o
this lad for your patronage ? Manumitted slaves
Suppose they had masters, instead of competing
with white mechanics, they would be on farms ani
plantations where Jehovah placed them and intend
ed they should be kept. I-ask you to look at th
facts, fellow-citizens. How is it about this free labo
in the free States ? What is the condition o
the laboring man in Chicago to-day, compar
ed with his condition here? The price o
a day's labor in that headquarters of Black Republi
canism—that built-up town, is fifty cents! Here i
it is at least a dollar. Why this difference ? Thi
is a slave State and a small place. Chicago is ;
great city and in a free State. It costs more to liv
there than it does here. Why this disparity in th
prico of labor? It is because this free white labor
with all its freedom, has to compete with fre
negro labor? It is because there a ragged negr
will do a day's work for fifty cents, and a white mai
must work for the same wages or starve.
But if my adversary replies that they would sent
all the negroes out of the State, I answer with th
question, where will you send them to? It is wel
known that all the free States have laws forbiddinj
the importation of blacks and what is to become o
them after they arc emancipated if they are no
left here among us ? My opponent says he is in favc
of Frank Blair's plan of colonizing them in Centrn
America. But stop, my friend, if slavery must b
abandoned in the States because it exists by fore,
and not by law, after it is abandoned, what author '
ity will you have left for sending the slave awa
from his home, for banishing him from his nativ
land, where he has just recovered his right to b
free ? Oh ! no, it is wrong to hold the negro in slave
ry, but to tear him away from the land in which I
8
has been born and bred, to banish him like a felon,
and do it by force, yea brutrfow, that is right and
philanthropic I Tell ine that you will benefit the
condition of the African by taking him from his
kind master and comfortable home, separating fam¬
ilies, sundering every tie that binds him to life, and
sending him to the land of fever, sickness and death!
I want nothing to do with that kind of philanthro-
phy. If this project should succeed—if the negroes
were thus transported, every Southern breeze would
waft to us the song—
'• All up nut rtuwn tiie whole ei.ulion,
Saillv T roam,
Still lonc'iiy for the old plantation.
Arid Jor the old folks at home."
Ah ! this is a little Yankee philanthropy* in the gen¬
tleman's argument deserves notice. In his printed
speech, (I do not remember the page or precise lan¬
guage, but I will not misrepresent it,) he says sla¬
very must give way before the coming tread of these
Northern philanthropists—that the slave interest
must give way to the landed interests and manufac¬
turing interests. And just here I must remark, that
in spite of all the out-pry about making this a Free
State, the number of slaves is increasing every day,
—not in proportion, it is true, to the increase of the
white population ; hut it is a false argument to say,
because the white population is increasing with
more rapidity than the black, that the black mud
therefore be decreasing. But without digressing, I
wish you to look at the Yankee philanthropy of the
gentleman. He would have you take your slave, a
part and parcel of your household,—attached and
bound to you by ties of affection as intense in many
instances as that of your children, and to gratify his
i philanthropy, send him South, to Texa.s and other
I parts. You must make him a stranger in a strange
land,—and you are not to loose anything by it,—oh !
no, you are to turn him into cash, and come back
I and invest in a land speculation 1 That's the gen¬
tleman's plan for making slavery give way to the
landed, irtUrctfK—that's his philanthropy. Dare he
disavow it ? Truly, the declaration that slavery
exists by force and not by law, comes from the gen¬
tleman with a had grace !
Another thing, although not exactly in place, here,
II wish you to notice. Let us see where this argu¬
ment, thai o.ll men an: born free and equal, must
inevitably lead the gentleman. If slavery exists
by force, by brute force only, then it is wrong, and
we should break off those brute force bands which
,oind the slave. Whore then will wo stand ? Brute
"oree must, still farther be relaxed ; we must remove
■i he disabilities which it has imposed upon the negro ;
be must have the lights of other men ; rau.-d be per-
o.itted to vote and be voted for; he must be made
idigible to the Legislature; must be a, competent
ivitness and juror; must even he allowed to robe
aimself in ermine and adjudicate questions of law
.tnd fact between his follow men. If slavery is the
' feature of mere force, what possible sophistry can
oe made to show that all these disabilities are not
uero creatures of force also? And who will deny
'hat the exercise of mere force, of arbitrary power,
's tyranical, and should he abandoned ? No, fellow-
dtizens, admit this entering wedge of Abolitionism,
'nd there is no stopping place short of giving the
light, hand of fellowship to Fred. Douglass himself 1
^nd what abhorent, monstrous positions would this
cail us to 1 Take but a single <ase ; it, is almost too
'elicate a point to ho mentioned here, but I would
kit feel that I dii my duty if I failed to call your
jinds to a contemplation of the hideous conrcquen-
■s following in th»> train of the gentleman's argu¬
ment. Suppose one of thoe freo "niggers" comes
to you and asks for the hand of your daughter ; he
is a free man ; an equal; never was enslaved but by
brute force; why, then, must you not take him by
the hand, lead hiin to your daughter, give jour con¬
sent and blessing to their union in the holy bonds
of matriinonjT ? Will the gentleman deny that this
kind of unions are part and parcel of even the
practice of the people whence comes his doctrine on
the slavery question ? But when it comes to that,
fellow-citizens, when it comes to amalgamation,
Deity steps in for the protection of humanity. We
are not only so constituted that we revolt at the very
idea, hut the fiat of a kind Providence has ordained
that the third or fourth cioss of the races shall es
tinguish the compound race. It is a fact well estab¬
lished that the quadroon or the woman of the third
remove from her black ancestor will seldom propa¬
gate by connection with the white man. Who doeu
not know and see that these mulattoes aro not so
strong and healthy as tho real negro. The degon-
eraej'commences from the first, and finally, at th«i
third or fourth cross, is so complete that further
propagation is impossible. I think this a divine
interposition, or provision that when mankind be¬
comes so debased as to embrace the doctrine of amal¬
gamation, they shall be exterminated by their owa
wickedness. But I must leave this disgusting
subject.
NORTHERN .VI .THODISTS AND THEIR UNIVERSITY.
I told you laat. night, fellow-citizens, that I Lad
made no assault upon this notorious Laud Company
of ours, and I still have nothing particular to say
about it. I consider it too small a matter to be
dragged into the political discussions of the day.—
But I have something to say about this LTniYers.ty
under the Northern Methodist Church, which it pro¬
poses to build up among us. This Church is uppos
ed to slavery, its ministers and members are bound
to preach and toac-h anti-slavery views at all has
ards and in all places, and for this rea-'on we are op
posed to legalizing an organized system for the pro
pagation of it® revolutionary tenets. Let me revert
briefly to the history of this Church. At one day it
was one of the most powerful in the United States
It was then iu a better condition, peihaps, than any
other ; there was in it no division, no difference in
creed ; it, acted as a unit from Maine to Georgia.—
But the fire-brand of fanaticism has destroyed this
unity. If I recollect rightly, as far hack as 17?G, a
slavery agitation was introduced into the Church by
a Divine from across the water. This brought about
contentions whic-h gradually increased till they be¬
came dangerous tq the efficiency of the Church ; and
and to put them forever at rest, in 1S4.0 there was »
grand compromise of the rppcoing factions on the
slavery question. In order to .how you how the
whole matter was settled, upon the division of the
Church, I will read you a resolution of the General
Conference which met in that year:
" lltnu/ctd, By tho delegates of the several Annual
Conferences, in General Conference assembled, tnat,
under the provisional exception of tho general vie
on the subject of slavery, tho simple holding of
slaves, or mere ownership of slave property in Htatea
or Territories where the laws do not. admit of eman
cipation, and permit the liberated slave to enjoy free¬
dom, constitutes no legal harrier to the election o*
ordination of ministers to the various grides cf
office known in the ministry of the, Methodist Epis¬
copal Church, and cannot, therefore, bo eoicjidcrtid
as operating any forfeituie of light in view cf i»aobi
election and ordination."
This resolution thovvt that a, .-olemn e »mpnL.iiH»,
9
a compact to abide by the principle of this resolu¬
tion, was entered into in 1840. How long did this
operate as a quietus to the slavery agitation ? How
loDg did the anti-slavery Methodists abide by this
compact ? In 1844, only four years afterwards, they
contrived to get up another cause of complaint. Let
me, fellow-citizens, show you how they treated.a
Southern Bishop—Bishop Andrew. Hero is his
statement ofithe matter complained of in his ease,
in reply to questions propounded to him by the
General Conference in regard to his connection with
slavery :
" Letter of Bishop Andrew to the Committee on
Episcopacy :
Dear Brethren : In reply to your inquiry, I sub¬
mit the following statement of all the facts bearing
on my connection with slavery. Several years sinco
an old lady of Augusta, Georgia, bequeathed to nre
a mulatto girl, in trust, that I should take care of
her until she should be nineteen years of age; that,
■with her consent I should then send her to Liberia;
and that in case of her refusal, I should keep her,
and make her as free as the laws of the State of
Georgia would permit. When the time arrived, she
refused to go to Liberia, and of her own choice re¬
mains legally my slave, although I derive no pecu¬
niary profit from her. She continues to live in her
own house on my lot; and has been and is at present
at perfect liberty to go to a free State at her pleasure ;
but the laws of the State will not permit her eman¬
cipation, nor admit suoh deed of emancipation to
record, and she refuses to leave the State. In her
case, therefore, I have been made a slave-holder le¬
gally, but not with my consent.
About five years since, the mother of my former
wife left to her daughter, not to me, a negro ; and
as my wife died without a will more than two years
since, by the laws of the State he becomes legally
my property. In this ease as in the former emanci¬
pation is impracticable in the State ! But he shall
be at liberty to leave the State whenever I shall be
■satisfied that he is prepared to pro-vide for himself,
or I can have sufficient security that he will be pro¬
tected, and provided for in the place to which he
may go.
In the month of January last I married my pre¬
sent wife she being at tho time possessed of slaves,
inherited from her former husband's estate, and be-'
longing to her. Shortly after my marriage, being
unwilling to become their owner, regarding them as
strictly hers, and the law not premitting their
emancipation, I secured them to her by a deed of
trust.
" It will be obvious to you from the above state¬
ment of facts that I have neither bought nor sold
a slave ; that in the only instance in which I am le¬
gally a slaveholder, emancipation is impracticable.
As to the servants owned by my wife, I have no le¬
gal responsibilty in the premises, nor could my wife
emancipate them if she desired to do so. I have
thus plainly stated all the facts in the case, and
submit the statement for tho consideration of the
General Conference.
Yours Respectfully,
JAMES 0. ANDREW."
Here, now, fellow-citizens, Bishop Andrew was
doing a humane act, in refusing to drive this girl
away from her home. His statement of the facts
was not disputed. Did they then tell him by a
unanimous vote that he was blameless—that his
conduct was in accordance with the highest princi¬
ples of humanity and religion ? What happened
after this truthful and frank statement had been
made ? The Conference took the matter into consid¬
eration, and we shall see in their action in this ease
the entering wedge which split this noble and long
revereu Cnurch. I will read the preamble and-reso¬
lution of the Conference on Bishop Andrew's ease ;
"Whereas, Tho discipline of our Church forbids
the doing anything calculated to destroy our itiner¬
ant general superintendence, and whereas Bishop
Andrew, has become connected with slavery by
marriage and otherwise, and this act having drawn
after it circumstances which, in the estimation of the
General Conference, will greatly embarrass tho ex¬
ercise of his office as an itinerant General Superin¬
tendent, if not in some places entirely prevent it,
therefore,
"Resolved, That it is tho sense of this General.
Conference that he desist from the exercise of his
office so long as this impediment remains."
A great and good man was thus deprived of his
rights and privileges. How utterly defenceless wa3
this action of the Conference! What now did tho
Southern Methodists do? Thoy besought the Con¬
ference,—they begged and prayed that this tyrani-
cal resolution should be rescinded. They insisted
that it would break up the Church, that the South¬
ern States would not stand it; until finally, as one'
of their pious writers says, "with many jwayors and
tears" the separation took place. This once noble
Church, extending throughout the United Statbs,
working together for the promotion of the one great
cause of religion, was thus severed by tho action of
Abolitionists just four years after entering into a
solemn compact to respect the rights and consciences
of the Slave holding portion of the Church. But
the separg^ion was formal and amicable, and I ask
your atteution to the stipulations accompanying it,
because out of the terms of this division of the
Church into Northern and Southern branches will
come the question as to what moral right this North¬
ern Church has to come here and attempt to build up
their societies in this State i I will read the resolu¬
tions of separation:—
"Whereas, A declaration has been presented to
this General Conference, with the signatures offifty-
one delegates of tho body from thirteen annual Con¬
ferences in the slave holding States, representing
that for various reasons enumerated, the objects and
purposes of the Christian ministry and Church organ¬
ization cannot be successfully accomplished by them
under the jurisdiction of this General Conference,
as now constituted ; and
"Whereas, In the event of a separation, a con¬
tingency to which the declaration asks attention as
not improbable, we esteem it a duty of this General
Conference to meet tho emergency with Christian
kindness and the strictest equity ; therefore,
"Resolved, By the delegates of tho several Annual
Conferences in General Conference assembled,
" That should the Annual Conferences in tho
Slave-holding States find it necessary to unite in a
distinct eeclesiatieal connection, the following rnlo
shall b6 observed with regard to the northern boun¬
dary of 3uch connectien : All the societies, stations
and conferences, adhering to the Church in the
South, by a vote of a majority of the members of
'said societies, stations and conferences, shall remain
under the unmolested pastoral care of the Southern
Church: and the ministers of the Methodist Episco¬
pal Church shall in no wise attempt to organize
churches or societies within tho limits of the church
South, nor shall they attempt to exercise any pas¬
toral oversight therein: it being understood that
the ministry of the South reciprocally observe the
same rule in relation to societies, stations and con¬
ferences, adhercing, by vote of a majority to the
10
Methodist Episcopal Cliurch, provided also, that
this rule shal^apply only to societies, stations and
conferences bordering on the line of division, and
not interior churches, which shall in all cases be left
to the care of that church within whose territory
they are situated."
Now, there is a new compact, to be carried out
"with Christian kindness and the strictest equity."
A line of division was plainly drawn, with no room
left for cavil or quarrels. And to-day the Southern
branch of the Church can look to her God and say
she has kept her promise inviolate. How has it been
at the North ?
First, when it came to dividing the property, and
the Methodists South asked for their share of the
book concern in Cincinnati, the Church North sud¬
denly discovered that the compact, which was to be
executed with the strictest equity, was contrary to
the constitution of the Church and therefore void;
and they claimed the whole concern, worth about
$750,000, thus cutting away from the Church South
all interest in the property which she had contributed
largely to purchase. Perfectly constitutional to
sever the cord which united the membership, but
after it was done, and it was necessary to divide the
property in the strictest equity—oh ! it was unconsti¬
tutional then. But fortunately for us, the Supreme
Court interfered and forced them, in this particular,
to carry out the compact in "the strictest equity.' Yes,
the Supreme Court, as often before and since, had
to assert and force a recognition of these rights of
-Southern men and Southern christians. Let me re¬
fer for a moment to the ease as reported in 21 Curtis
Reports U. S. Supreme Court decisions. It may be
found on the 137th page. The case is stated atlength
in the opinion of the court, at the conclusion of
which statement, it is said:—
" There is no material controversy between the
parties, as it respects the facts. The main difference
lies in the interpretation and effect to be given to
the acts and proceedings of these several bodies and
authorities of the Church. Our opinion will be
founded almost wholly upon facts alleged in the
bill, and admitted in the answer."
From this it will be seen that the facts as I
have stated thein, were admitted by both parties.
The Church North relied upon the unconstition-
ality of their own action, and upon this point
the Court says :
"But we do not agree that this division was
made without the proper authority. On the con¬
trary. we entertain no doubt but that the General ]
Conference of 1844 was competent to make it,
and that each division of the church, under the
separate organization, is just as legitimate, and ,
can claim as high a sanction, ecclesiastical and ,
temporal, as the Methodist Episcopal Church ]
first founded in the United States. The same au- \
thority which founded that church, in 1784, has
divided it, and established two separate and in- ,
dependent organizations, occupying the place of '
the old one." j
Again: (
"The division of the Methodist Episcopal
Church having thus taken place, in pursuance of '
the proper authority, it carried with it, asa mat¬
ter of law, a division of the common property ]
belonging to the ecclesiastical organization, and <
especially of the property in this book concern." i
It is a long argument, and I will not weary you '
by reading the whole of it. It concludes, how- 1
ever, with a decision and decree in favor of the ]
Church South. Then, although the Church North i
had refused, and had been forced into executing
the compact '"with the strictest equity" in this
particular, how does that compact stand to-day?
Not satisfied to stay right on this question, after
the Supreme Court had set them right, in viola¬
tion of all their solemn obligations—in violation
t of the resolution of the General Conference that
" the ministers of the M. E. Church shall in no wise
1 attempt to organize churches within the limits of
j the Church South we find them here in Jefter-
eon City to-day, not only attempting to build up
1 a church, but asking the Legislature to incorpor-
[ ate for them an institution for the express pur-
, pose of spreading their pestilential anti slavery
' doctrines ! I say, fellow-citizens, they have no
, moral right to come here at all; and the church
which will disregard the commonest principles of
mora ity, as they have done, deserves no'legisla-
tive patronage or encouragement. As a matter
of course, I admit that they have a legal right to
come into this State, and I would not interfere
with that legal right. Any citizen of: any State
in the Union has a legal right to come here if he
chooses; and when a Northern Methodist comes,
he is welcome so long as he does not attempt to
encroach upon the rights of his Southern broth¬
ers ; but when he does that, I have no fellowship
for him. If these two churches agree in creed,
have one and the same faith, the same form of
service,—if they are identical in every respect,
save the one question of slavery, which is the
case,—why do the Northern faction, when comiog
into this State, insist upon having a separate or¬
ganization ? The reason is obvious, fellow-citi¬
zens. They cannot be content to let the institu¬
tion of slavery alone. Yes, it is the ever¬
lasting slavery question, on which they have
split the church at large, and would
split it here in Missouri. They have commenced
their attempts to revolutionize our institutions
here at the capital. It remains to be seen wheth¬
er we will tamely submit to their immoral, Heav¬
en-defying course. I must read you some resolu¬
tions of this church to show you that I do not
misrepresent them. First let us look at some
resolutions reported in the New York East M.
E. Conference:
"Resolved, That we affirm the language of our
church in 1794, namely, that the practice of
holding our fellow creatures in slavery is con¬
trary to the golden rule of God, and the inalien¬
able rights of mankind as well as the principles
of the American Revolution; ar.d we therefore
deem it our most bounden duty to take some ef¬
fectual method to extirpate this abomination
from among us.
"Resolved, That it is the duty of our Church as
a unit to educate her membership to the high
standard of these, her primitive doctrines, and
to this end it is her duty to inculcate them pru-
denty, but firmly, through her organs, whether
press or pulpit."
Let me ask here what is meant by "inculcating
prudently" their anti-slaveryism ? The experi¬
ence of our citizens in the counties bordering
upon Illinois, would perhrps furnish the answer,
'"prudently"—that is, so the law would not take
hold of them, and under a legislative charter if
possible, but still so distinctly that slaves will
understand. But I read on:
11
4t Resolved, That while we oppose slavery as
■citizens, and give our sympathy to those who in
the State are maintaining the cause of freedom
against the Slave Power, we are especially the
opponents of oppression as a sin, and the sup¬
porters of emancipation as the requirements of
righteousness: and, we would, therefore, remem¬
ber that our anti-slaveryism should be deeply
imbrued with the spirit of the Holy Gospel; that
it should wisely consult the honor and unity of
our church in the full faith that the highest good
will be obtained through the legitimate instru¬
mentality of her established institutions.
" Resolved, That we offer our unfeigned thanks
to Almighty God, and tender our cordial congrat¬
ulations to the friends of humanity, for the rapid
extension of the principles of justice and free¬
dom during the past year, as well as for the
cheering prospects of the extension of Free In¬
stitutions in our country; and we cherish the
anticipation that with proper effort in maintain¬
ing and diffusing light and truth on the subject,
all misunderstanding will disappear, and the
church will unite, as with the heart of one man,
upon the ancient Wesleyan platform, and, as in
the great English emancipation struggle, Metho¬
dism will be unanimous and energetic in the cause
of freedom."
You might suppose this enough, but let me read
to you, my fellow citizens, a couple of the resolu¬
tions adopted by the Northern Methodist Black
River Conference of New York, held on the 2nd
ol the present month :
*• Resolved. That we deem it a great impro¬
priety, if not a compromise of christian principle,
for any minister of our Cburch to invite a slave
holder to his pulpit, and thus to recognize him as
a minister of Christ, From the Bishop down¬
ward we should have no fellowship with the un¬
fruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove
them. And we are equally opposed to ?he re¬
cognition of ministers of the M. E. Church, South.
whether personally connected with slavery or
not"
0 yes, these pious gentlemen's sanctified righ¬
teousness is shocked at the idea of permitting
any minister holding slaves, to preach the Word
of God from their pulpits. Yet they can boldly
come to a slave holding State, and not ask hut
audacionaly demand of our General Assembly,
representing a slave holding constituency, the in¬
corporation of their University at the capital, for
the purpose of disseminating disaffection and re¬
bellion among our slave population. No, and
they will not recognize a minister of the Metho¬
dist Church South as christian, because he puts
his heel upon the seeds of discord they attempt
to sow S
Again:
" Resolved, That inasmuch as we are an anti-
slavery Church, with an anti-slavery discipline,
we respectfully request the next General Confer¬
ence to provide for the introduction of a few anti-
slavery hymns into our standard Hymn Book,
that we may sing of liberty, as well", as preach
and pray about it."
Prose does not do the work fast enough; the
negroe's comprehension is a little too dull to
learn their prosy lessons with the rapidity they
would wish ; they have resolved to try him on
the musical tack, and introduce "a few anti-
slavery hymns into our standard Hymn Book."
I woncler if a page of it will not be devoted to a
hymn in praise of General Gardenhire, for his
martyr-like sacrifices in their behalf ?
These are the tenets of this church. This op-
positson to an institution protected by our Con¬
stitution and our law is its guiding star. And it
was for reasons growing out of these facts that
the Legislature of Missouri, by a vote ot ninety-
six to sixteen, refused to incorporate the Uni¬
versity proposed to be established by this church.
The attempt is made to put upon the Demo¬
cratic pfrty «he entire responsibility of this re¬
fusal. A cry of persecution is raised against
this party, and with how much regard to the
facts? There were seven of the Benton men in
the Assembly who voted with the National Dem¬
ocratic party, in refusing to incorporate the Uni¬
versity, and only one out of St. Louis voted for
the charter. The great majority of the Know
Nothing or American party' also voted against
the charter. The one Benton man and the open
and avowed Black Republicans, one National
Democrat, one old line Whig and one American,
were the only members who voted for it. Why
then must the Democratic parly be charged with
having been actuated solely by personal animos¬
ity to the friends of this University in this city,
wiien almost the entire State, and all parties but
one, united to defeat their unparalleled and pre¬
sumptuous demands upon the law-makers of the
State? Not the slightest animosty to either per¬
sons or any company, had anything to do with
the refusal of these demands. No; the Demo¬
cratic party and the Legislature did not even
make the issue as to whether they would incor¬
porate a Black Republican, Abolition thing hero
at the Capital. It was made by the gentlemen
themselves. To poke it at the Legislature, and
determined that it should not act in the dark as
to fheir character and designs, they put in Mr.
Frank Blair, and some others the most notorious
Abolitionists in the State, as Trustees for their
proposed concern. This was more than any
Legislature ever assembled in Missouri could
stand. Thank God, the issue was met in a bold
and manly manner, and with greater unanimity
than was attained upon any other important
question during the session.
One word in regard to the Land Company and
its redoubtable President, and then I have done.
I have no objection to any of our citizens engag¬
ing in the land speculation if they think it will
pay, and I don't care how many of them amass
" private fortunes " as great as that of John Ja¬
cob Astor or Stephen Gerard. I would be glad
to see the Land Company sell all their lots well,
would be glad to see them all flourish, individu¬
ally ; but from the bottom of my heart I would
prefer introducing a bill into the Legislature for
an appropriation to buy their lots, at the round¬
est price they can find it in their conscience to
ask for them, and then to sell them again and
put the money back into the Treasury, rather
than see a school for journeymen nigger stealers
built up bere, to be a pest to the slaveholders in
the vicinity. These are my views on that head.
As to Gen. Gardenhire's remarks in wnicn nc
affected to be amused at the new Democratic par¬
ty, allow me one word, He says he belonged to
the party of Jefferson and Monroe, and has al-
12
ways stood by them, and so on. I think the
gentleman very unfortunate in making any allu¬
sion to his political antecedents. In 1846 we
fotand him in and acting with the Democratic
party, from which he received his appointmeni as
Attorney General. In 1852, alter the split in
Ihe Democratic party, it was well known that
unless a union was affected, both branches would
be defeated, and all the offices would be lost.
Serarate resolutions were introduced before the
Democratic convention of 1852 ; among others
were resolutions on the slavery question, in
which Mr. Gardenhire then acquiesc^h and by
the acquiescence of Gen. Gardenliire >nd the
Benton , party to which he then belonged, a
union was accomplished. He was nominated for
the office of Attorney General. Here is another
resolution in which he then acquiesced :
"Resolved, That inscribing the Baltimore reso¬
lutions upon our banner, and observing unfalter¬
ing devotion to the union of the Slates, we will
hold no political fellowship with the. abolition¬
ists of the North or the Nullifiers of the South,
and we discard as unworthy of our confidence all
enemies of the Union of the States and all ene¬
mies of the Democracy."
GEN. GARDENHIIIE'S ASSAULT ON THE NATION¬
AL ADMINISTRATION HI3 ANTECEDENTS.
Gen. Gardenhire was nominated for Attorney
General then, and sailed tinder this flag ; he was
to hold no fellowship with abolitionists, and he
"discarded as unworthy of all confidence, all en-
neinies of the union of the Democracy." That
was his position in 1852. The Benton men of the
Slate couldn't agree to this set of resolutions
but Mr. Gardenhire was among the number who
concluded to acquiesce in them in order to get a
little share of the offices. And by thus acquies¬
cing he got the support of both wings of the
party, and was elected to the Attorney General¬
ship. But as soon a3 he got that position, or
rather before he finished drawing paj for his
services in that capacity, finding the Democratic
party so widely suudered that there was no hope
of bringing it together again, and that the acqui¬
escing policy would not do again, he then turned
against the National Democracy. The record
shows how clear he steered for the harbor of
spoils, and that he was perhaps the first instance
of an acquiesiant Democrat in Missouri. He is a
very shifty gentleman, indeed—an adept in con¬
forming himself to a new state of affairs—and
can throw over his metamorphoses a polish that
is quite astonishing. He is now the great inter¬
nal improvement champion and hero of the State.
Let me allude briefly to this, another example of
his political boxing-of-the-compass. When the
famous Omnibus bill, making the State assist in
the construction of our Pacific and other great
railway lines, passed the General Assembly and
became a law, application was made to the Gov¬
ernor for the bonds of the State authorized by
the act.- A question was raised as to whether the
act was constitutionally passed. The Governor
called upon our learned friend , who was
then Attorney General, to give his opinion as
to the constitutional passage of the law. What
did he do ? He wrote a long and elaborate
opinion, instructing the Governor as his le¬
gal adviser, that the law was iioteonstitutionally
( passed, and that no bonds could legally issue.
The question was taken into the Supreme Court,
examined there, and it was found that the learned
constitutional lawyer was wrong. Internal im¬
provements throughout the State went on, in spite
of his learning and his opposition. What next?
He didn't think of improving Jefferson City then.
The idea of such a thing at that time had never
entered his head. He became soured by his dis¬
comfiture and the failure of his legal and politi¬
cal aspirations, and like a petted child, in a great
pout, he determined to leave the State and go to
California. He goes up to St. Joseph, and some
of his personal friends there, knowing him pretty
well, and thinking he had better not leave the
State in a pet, got up a barbecue and some can¬
died resolutions for him, and the great transfor¬
mation was at once effected. He returned to jef-l
ferson City the leader of all the internal im¬
provement men in Ihe Slate! He is now not
only in favor of building all the main railroads
which will be our great thoroughfares, but he
wants to build cross-roads in every direction,
and connecting the most obscure places his knowl¬
edge of the country will permit him to name.
Wherever he goes, ai every farm house where he
stops, I expect him to point out some ridge as a
proposed route for some new railroad. As for
myself, should I be elected to the Senate, I will
remark that I expect to advocate the earl; com¬
pletion of the Pacific, ihe South West Branch,
the North Missouri, and other great railroads
already begun. 1 wi-h to give .these the atten¬
tion and assistance of the State first, so far as in
my judgment it can be done with safety to,her
credit, andthenAo build cross-roads as fast as
we- can with safety to the tax-paying portion of
our citizens, and no faster. I know hat cross¬
roads add greatly to the improvnment of an al¬
ready wealthy country, but to try to build them
before the country is read}- for them, and before
you have the means, is utter 'oily.
But the attempt of the gentleman last night to
make out that the National party and Adminis¬
tration were opposed to interna] improvements
was too absurd ior even him. Why, has not the
General Government, under the Scontrol of the
Democratic party, given us lands to build our
roads? Is it not now projecting a great military
road connecting with our read and the Pacific
Ocean? Where would the means have come
from to build the South West Branch and all the
other roads in this State if it had not been for
the Democratic party? Yet we are denounced as
opposed to internal improvements ! Away with
such arguments! The actions of both the State
and Federal Governments,—the acts of the Dena-
cratic party—prove otherwise. 1 know that
some persons attempt to take things by storm;
and when the party will not second some insane
movement to forward some pet project, cry out to
the mechanics and laborers,"you must come up
and vote against the Democratic party—it op¬
poses your interna] improvements !" "But I ask
the mechanics and laborers to remember what
our party, assisted by Old Line Whigs and a por¬
tion of the American party, has already done,—
These frantic appeals will meet their fittest an¬
swer in this way.
By the way, (and I came near forgetting it,)
Gen Gardenhire last night alluded to this matter
13
of removing the Capitol away from us. He stated
that the project of moving it was started in this
town, and made his statement in such a manner
as to cause the impression that I got it up. Ii
the gentleman had looked a little further ai the
record, he would have seen that a resolution with
a view to moving the Capitol, was introduced by
Mr. lJames of S°ott county. Gen. Gardenhire
says it is only a plan to frighten you into voting
against him at the next election ; ca'ls on you not
to be afraid, and would have you defy the uni¬
verse. Now I do suppose that Mr. Darner in ver
thought of Gen. Gardenhire and the election,
when he offered that resolution. There always
has been a party in the State in favor of a remo¬
val. The substance of all 1 have ever said about
it is, that the course of Gen Gardenhire arid his
friends was calculated to provoke even greater
hos llity to our town than has yet been mani¬
fested.
But he alluded in this connection to the course
of the Administration at Washington City in re¬
gard to an election there. A very sligh' exami¬
nation will show that no blame can attach to ihe
President for anything that he has done. A
quiet election was being held, and the voters of
the city going quietly to the polls and voting,
when a rowdy set out. ot the bastard Know No h-
ing party from Baltimore came breaking in upon
them, assisted by the Washington city Plug-Ug-
lies, attempted to carry or stop the election by
means of a row. and made deadly and brutal
assaults upon foreign-born citizens, and those
who acted with them. The military were called
out, blood was spilled, several of the beligereut
"Plu i Ugly" fraternity shot, and the riot quelled.
As a matter of course the cut zens of that city
were indignant at the "Plug Ugly" outrage, and
some one of them has expressed his indignation
in pretty strong terms, whereupon General Gar¬
denhire treats us to a long tirade about dragoon¬
ing and the Administration. If he h- sany sym¬
pathy with those armed rowdies from Baltimore,
he is welcome to all the capital he can ma&e out
of their chastisement in Washington city. Since
they were opposed to us. 1 suppose they are his
pnHMeal friends, and it is his business to look
after them.
warning to the i.and company.
1 will conclude, fellow-citizens, with a single
thought. It does seem singular' to ine, that
whenever, now-a-days, a Democrat, or an old
line Whig, or a loyal Know Nothing, happens to
take a stand against some measures advocated
by the gentleman of the opposition, they set up
a great cry about the persecution ot the wonder¬
ful Laird Company. It is needless to remind you
that said Land Company is of'en found crying
before it is hurt This noisy chattering about
their private interests, reminds me. every time I
think ot it, of some little animals I used
to see out on the plains. Naturalists have
a different name for them that I cannot now
recall, but we called tliem prairie dogs.—
Among other singular habits of these prairie
dogs, the]/ were very fond of building little
towns, Tney were all the time at it, and
seemed to enjoy it greatly ; and whenever an
elk or any other noble and majestic animal came
innocently grazing in the vicinity of one of their
little towns, and would happen to tread on a por¬
tion of it, they would al' come pouring out of
iheir houses and commence barking so vocifer¬
ously that the elk would be quite astonished at
the general row he had raised. But they had
another peculiarity If a rattlesnake would
come along, winding its way from the far north
to one of their little towns, they seemed quite
delighted to make him their guest, would permit
him to enter their houses with every mark of
pleasure, anu let him live upon their substance,
and even strangle and devour their youug without
let or hindrance
I w ould ask these gentlemen of the Land Com¬
pany to learn a lesson from the faults and follies
of that little animal. I ask them to beware of
snakes!
Voice is the crowd.—"Alias Northern Meth¬
odist!-." .
I had, fellow citizens, many other subjects on
which 1 wished to address you ; but it is glowing
late and I must desist. I probably sh. ll not ad¬
dress you again before the election. If you can
give me your suffrages on Ihe first Monday of
August next, in the Senate and elsewhere 1 shall
be your humble and obedient servant.
ADVANCE SHEETS
OF THE
SECOND EDITION
OF
THE POLITICAL TEXT-BOOK,
OR
ENCYCLOPEDIA,
FOR THE REFERENCE OF
THE POLITICIAN AND STATESMEN
OF THE
UNITED STATES.
BY M. W. CLUSKEY,
Postmaster House of Reps, of the U. S.
PHILADELPHIA:
JAMES B. SMITH & CO., NO. 610 CHESNUT STREET.
1 8 5 8.
POLITICAL WORK.
SECOND EDITION CLTJSKEY'S POLITICAL TEXT-BOOK, OR ENCYCLOPEDIA.
By M. W. CLUSKEY, "Washington, D. C.
IT CONTAINS, AMONG OTHER THINGS,
The various Party Platforms.
The American Ritual.
The Kansas Legislation of Congress.
Governors Geary, Stanton, and Walker's Inaugural
Addresses.
Senators Green, Douglas, aud Collamer's, and Messrs.
Stephens and others' Reports on Kansas.
The material portion of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
Lecompton, Topeka, and Leavenworth Constitutions.
The Crittenden, Montgomery, Senate, and English Bills.
The votes on the same in each House.
Indeed, everything essential ap^>ertair.ing to the
same, including President Pierce's Special Message-
The Dred Scott case.
The Constitution of the United States.
Articles of Confederation.
Washington's Farewell Address.
Ordinances of 1794 and 1787.
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1799 and '99.
Mr. Clay's Report in favor of a Distribution of the Public
Lands, and able documents against it, with a full history
of the same.
President Pierce's Veto of the Indigent Insane Land Bill.
The Address of Mr. Faulkner on the subject.
A history of Railroad Grants by Congress, with the votes
thereon.
President Pierce's Message vetoing the River and Harbor
bill.
The School Land Bill, and votes thereon,
The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.
Extracts from speeches for and against Slavery.
Extracts from speeches of noted Republicans and Abo¬
litionists.
Mr. Toombs's Boston Lecture on Slavery.
Messrs. Fremont and Buchanan's Letters of Acceptance.
Messrs. Buchanan and Williams's Letters on the Bargain
and Intrigue Charge.
Mr. Calhoun's Fort Hill Address.
President Jackson's Proclamation against Nullification.
The Maysville Road Veto.
A history of Party Conventions.
Report of Mr. Davis, of South Carolina, on the Political
Power of the Supreme Court.
I Mr. Buchanan's Minority Report on the same subject.
I Governor Wise and Mr. Caruthers's Letters against the
American Organization, and the Hon. A. H. Stuart's
Letters, signed " Madison," defending it.
Kenneth Rayner's Speech at Philadelphia, in November,
1850, and in North Carolina, in 1SS2.
A history of, with the votes on, the various Tariffs.
A history of the United States Bank and Abolition Peti¬
tions.
Mr. Fillmore's Albany Speech and Erie Gayle Letters.
History of the Annexation of Texas.
Opinions of public menon the Power of Congress over the
Territories.
The Nicholson Letter.
The Nashville Convention and Georgia Platforms.
Missouri Compromise, with every vote thereon sectionallj
classified.
The Compromise Measures of 1S50.
Clayton Compromise.
Wilmot Proviso.
With many other things too numerous to mention.
Every subject is fully treated, and every vote in Congress,
on any subject having a political signification, is given.
This hook will post up the public speaker fully on the Kansas and other questions.
It will be out by the 15th of June, 1858.
TERMS: Single copy, tliree dollars C1 uU of Six, fifteen dollars.
The above terms include the postage. Liberal deductions to the trade and a fair allowance to persons vho
interest themselves in obtaining subscribers. Address JAMES B. SMITH ic CO., No. 61U Chesnut street, Philadelphii,
From the Washington Union.
THE POLITICAL TEXT-BOOK OR ENCYCLOPEDIA.
We desire to call particular attention to the advertisement of Mr. M. W. Cluskey, in another column, of his new
Political Text-Book, now offered for sale. Mr. Cluskey kiudly placed upon our tab.e a copy of his work as soon as it
was issued from the press. We have had ample time to examine it, and several occasions to refer to it for informa¬
tion. We unhesitatingly pronounce it one ot the must convenient and useful books of reference that we have ever
met with.
It will he recollected that Mr. Cluskey prepared a book fur the last presidential campaign, which he called ti e
Electoral Uuml-Book, and which was used to great advantage in the canvass throughout the country. Indeed, the
great popularity and utility of his first work, and the constaut calls for it, even since the campaign has been ended,
have suggested the plan and the preparation of this second one. His last work is very complete. He has rearranged
the whole matter of his first work, thrown it into the encyclopedia form, added an immense amount of matter, made
a copious index to the work, by which any thing wanted may be found in a moment, with clear and ample explanatory
notes of his own, by which everything obscure is rendered plain and intelligible.
To tire politician, the editor, and all who desire information on the leading party measures and topics Of the time?,
this hook will be found of the greatest convenience and value. The author has performed his task with decided
judgment and ability, and we trust that he will meet with a corresponding remuneration for his labor.
The National Intelligencer published the above notice from the Union with a complimentary endorsement.
From the N. Y. Daily News.
CLUSKEY'S POLITICAL TEXT-BOOK OR ENCYCLOPEDIA.
It will prove the most important political vade mecum ever presented to the American public. The work is gotten
up in alphabetical order, and contains the substance, or the whole text, of every great question now agitating, or
which is likely for a long time to come to agitate, the ration.
Among matters now challenging consideration, it contains all the opinions of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott
case, and a synopsis of everything in our political history touching the slavery question. Banks, tariffs, and a lio:'.
of other important questions come in for their share of attention.
The reader will be astonished at the mass of matter it contains. It is a perfect compendium of American political
history, and, to all interested therein, presents as many attractions as the most fascinating woman docs to the lover o-
fiction. In short, it is a most important and instructive work.
ADYANCE SHEETS
OF THE
SECOND EDITION
OF
THE POLITICAL TEXT-BOOK.
The Senate Kansas Bill,
As it passed the Senate on the 23d of
March, 1858, and which was amended in
the House by Mr. Montgomery's substitute
therefor on the 1st of April, 1858.
That part in italics is what is called the
Green Pugh amendment.
For vote, see tabular statement.
Whereas, the people of the Territory of Kan¬
sas did, hy a convention of delegates, called
and assembled at Lecompton, on the 4th day
September, 1857, for that purpose, form for
themselves a constitution and State government,
which said constitution is republican, and said
convention having asked the admission of said
Territory into the Union as a State on an equal
footing with the original States—
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Eepresentatives of the United States of America
(in Congress assembled, That the State of Kan¬
sas shall be, and is hereby declared to be, one
of the United States of America, and admitted
into the Union on an equal footing with the
original States, in all respects whatever. And
the said State shall consist' of all the territory
included within the' following boundaries, to
;wit: beginning at a point on the western boun¬
dary of the State of Missouri, where the thirty-
> seventh parallel of latitude crosses the same ;
thence west on said parallel to the eastern
boundary of New Mexico; thence north on
said boundary to latitude thirty-eight; thence
following said boundary westward to the east¬
ern boundary of the Territory of Utah, on the
summit of the Eocky Mountains ; thence north-
' ward on said summit to the fortieth parallel of
'latitude; thence east on said parallel to the
western boundary of the State of Missouri;
thence south with the western boundary of said
iState to the place of beginning : Provided, that
nothing herein contained respecting the boun¬
dary of said State shall be construed to impair
the rights of person or property now pertaining
to the Indians in said Territory, so long as such
frights shall remain unextinguished by treaty
between the United States and such Indians, or
Mo include any territory which, by treaty with
"such Indian tribe, is not without the consent
sof such tribe to be included within the territo-
'rial limits of jurisdiction of any State or Terri¬
tory ; but all such territory shall be excepted
out of the boundaries, and constitute no part
of the State of Kansas, until said tribe shall
signify their assent to the President of the
United States to be included within said State,
or to affect the authority of the government of
the United States to make any regulations re¬
specting such Indians, their lands, property, or
other rights, by treaty, law, or otherwise,
which it would have been competent to make
if this act had not been passed.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the
State of Kansas is admitted into the Union
upon the express condition that said State shall
never interfere with the primary disposal of the
public lands, or with any regulations which
Congress may find necessary for securing the
title in said lands to the bona fide purchasers
and grantees thereof, or impose or levy any
tax, assessment, or imposition of any descrip¬
tion whatever upon them, or other property of
the United States, within the limits of said
State ; and that nothing in this ad shall he construed
to abridge or infringe any right of the people asserted
in the constitution of Kansas at all times to alter, re¬
form, or abolish their form of government in such
manner as they may think proper, Congress hereby
disdaiming any authority to interfere or declare the
construction of the constitution of any State, except to
see that it be republican iy form-, and not in conflict
with the Constitution of the United States; and nothing
in this act shall be construed as an assent by
Congress to all or to any of the proportions or
claims contained in the ordinance annexed to
the said constitution of the people of Kansas,
nor to deprive the said State of Kansas of the
same grants, if hereafter made, which were con¬
tained in the act of Congress, entitled ' 'An act
to authorize the people of the Territory of Min¬
nesota to form a constitution and State govern¬
ment, preparatory to admission into the Union
on an equal footing with the original States,''
approved February 26, 1857.
Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That un¬
til the next general census shall be taken, and;
an apportionment of representation made, the
State of Kansas shall be entitled to one Bepre-
sentative in the House of Eepresentatives of
the United States.
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That from
and after the admission of the State of Kansas
as hereinbefore provided, all the laws of the
United States which are not locally inapplica¬
ble, shall have the same force and effect within
422
THE POLITICAL TEXT LOOK.
that State as any other State of the Union; and
the said State is hereby constituted a judicial
district of the United States, within which a
district court, with the like power and jurisdic¬
tion as the district court of the United States
for the district of Iowa, shall be established.
The judge, attorney, and marshal of the United
States for the said district of Kansas shall re¬
side within the same, and shall he entitled to
the same compensation as the judge, attorney,
and marshal of the district of Iowa.
The Crittenden Montgomery Amend¬
ment.
- Mr. Crittenden offered his amendment
to the Senate Bill, in the Senate, on the
23d of March, 1858, and it was rejected.
(See tabular statement of vote )
Mr. Montgomery offerered his amend¬
ment to the Senate Bill, in the House, on
the 1st of April, 1858, and it was carried.
(See tabular statement of vote.)
All of the following in roman is in
both the Crittenden and Montgomery
amendment. All in small caps is in the
Crittenden, and not in the Montgomery
amendment. All in italics is in the Mont¬
gomery, and not in the Crittenden amend¬
ment:
That the State of Kansas he, and is hereby,
admitted into the Union on an equal footing
with the original States, in all respects what¬
ever ; but, inasmuch as it is greatly disputed
whether the constitution (with which Kansas
is now admitted) (framed at Lecompton, on the
seventh day of November last, and now pending
before Congress,) was fairly made, or expressed
the will of the people of Kansas, this admission
of her into the Union as a State is here declared
to be upon this fundamental condition prece¬
dent, namely, that the said constitutional in¬
strument shall he first submitted to a vote of
the people of Kansas, and assented to by them,
or a majority of the voters, at an election to he
held for the purpose ; and as soon as such assent
shall be given, and duly made known (by a
majority of the commissioners Iwein appointed,) to
the President of the United States, he shall an¬
nounce the same by proclamation ; and there¬
after, and without any further proceedings on
the part of Congress, the admission of the said
State of Kansas into the Union upon an equal
footing with the original States, in all respects
whatever, shall he complete and absolute. At
the said election the (vote) (voting) shall he by
ballot, and by endorsing on his ballot, as each
voter may please, "for the constitution," or
'' against the constitution.'' Should the said
constitution be rejected at the said election by
a majority of votes being cast against it, then,
and in that event, the inhabitants of said Ter¬
ritory are hereby authorized and empowered to
orm for themselvss a constitution and State
government by the name of the State of Kansas,
(preparatory to its admission into the union,)
according to the Federal Constitution, and to
that end may elect delegates to a convention
as hereinafter provided.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the
said State of Kansas shall have concurrent ju¬
risdiction on the Missouri and all other rivers
and waters bordering on the said State of Kan¬
sas, so far as the same shall form a common
boundary to said State, and any other State or
States now or hereafter to be formed or bounded
by the same ; and said rivers and waters, and
all the navigable waters of said State, shall be
common highways and forever free, as well to
the inhabitants of said State as to all other
citizens of the United States, without any tax,
duty, impost, or toll therefor.
Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That, for
the purpose of insuring, as far as possible, that
the elections authorized by this act may be fair
and free, the governor and secretary of the
Territory of Kansas, and the presiding officers
of the two branches of its legislature, namely,
the president of the council and speaker of the
house of representatives, are hereby constituted
a board of commissioners to carry into effect
the provisions of this act, and to use all the
means necessary and proper to that end. And
[any] three of them shall constitute a board;
and the board shall have power and authority,
in respect to each and all of the elections here¬
by authorized or provided for, to designate and
establish precincts for voting, or to adopt those
already established ; to cause polls to be opened
at such places as it may deem proper in the
respective counties and election precincts of
said Territory ; to appoint as judges of election,
at each of the several places of voting, three
discreet and respectable persons, any two of
whom shall be competent to act; to require the
sheriffs of the several counties, by themselves
or deputies, to attend the judges at each of the
places of voting, for the purpose of preserving
peace and good order ; or the said board may,
instead of said sheriffs and their deputies,
appoint at their discretion, and in such in¬
stances as they may choose, other fit persons
for the same purpose; and when the pur¬
pose of the election is to elect delegates to
a convention to form a constitution, as herein¬
before provided for, the number of delegates
shall be sixty, and they shall be apportioned
by said board among the several counties of
said Territory according to the number of
voters ; and in making this apportionment, the
board may join two or more counties together
to make an election or representative district,
where neither of the said counties has the re¬
quisite number of voters to entitle it to a dele¬
gate, or to join a smaller to a larger county,
having a surplus population, where it may
serve to equalize the representation. The
elections hereby authorized shall continue one
day only, and shall not "be continued later than
sundown on that day. The said board shall
appoint the day of election for each of the elec¬
tions hereby authorized, as the same may
become necessary. The said governor shall
CHITTENDEN -MONTGOMERY AMENDMENT.
423
announce, by proclamation, the day appointed
for any one of said elections ; and the day shall
he as early a one as is consistent with due notice
thereof to the people of said Territory, subject
to the provisions of this act. The said hoard
shall have full power to prescribe the time,
manner, and places of each of said elections,
and to direct the time and manner of the re¬
turns thereof, which returns shall be made to
the said board, wThose duty it shall be to an¬
nounce the result by proclamation, and to ap¬
point therein as early a day as practicable for
the delegates elected (where the election has
been for delegates) to assemble in convention at
the seat of government of said Territory. When
so assembled, the convention shall first deter¬
mine, by a vote, whether it is the wish of [the
people of] the proposed State to be admitted
into the Union at that time ; and if so, shall
proceed to form a constitution, and take all
necessary steps for the establishment of a State
government, in conformity with the Federal
Constitution, subject to the approval and ratifi¬
cation of the people of the proposed State. And
the said convention shall, accordingly, provide
for its submission to the vote of the people for
approval or rejection : [and if the majority of votes
shall be given for the constitution so framed as afore¬
said, the governor of the Territory shall, within twen¬
ty days after the result is known, notify the President
of the United States of the same. And, thereupon,
the President shall announce the same by proclamation,
and thereafter, and without any further proceedings
whatever on the phrt of Congress, the admission of the
said State of Kansas into the Union, upon an equal
footing with the original States, in all respects what¬
ever, shall be complete and absolute. ]
Sec. 4. And be it fur- And be it further
ther enacted, That in the enacted, That in the
elections hereby authorized, elections hereby au-
all white male inhabitants thorized, all white
of said Territory over the male inhabitants of
age of tiventy-one years, said Territory over
who are legal voters under the age of twenty-one
the laws of the Territory years, who have been
of Kansas, and none residents for three
others, shall be allowed to months before the
vote; and this shall be the election, and are citi-
only qualification required zens of the United
to entitle the voter to the States, and none
right of suffrage in said others, shall be al-
dections. And if any per- lowed to vote; and
son not so qualified shall this shall be the
vote or offer to vote, or if only qualification re-
any person shall vote more quired to entitle the
than once at either of said citizen to the right of
elections, or shall make or suffrage in said elec-
cause to be made any false, tion .
fictitious, or fraudulent re'
turns, or shall alter or
change any returns of
either of said elections,
such person shall., upon
conviction thereof ■ before
any court of competent ju¬
risdiction, be kept at hard
labor not less than six
months, and not more than
three years.
Sec. 5. And bo it further eriacted, That the
members of the aforesaid board of conimis-
sioners, and all persons appointed hy them to
carry into effect the provisions of tfiisaci, shall,
before entering upon their dutifes, take an oath
to perform faithfully the duties of their respec¬
tive offices ; and on failure thereof, they shall
be liable and subject to the same charges and
penalties as are provided in like cases under the
territorial laws.
Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That the
officers mentioned in the preceding section shall
receive for their services the same compensa¬
tion as is given for like services under the
territorial laws.
Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the
said State of Kafisas, when her admission as a
State becomes complete arid absolute, shall be
entitled to one member in the House of Repre¬
sentatives in the Congress of the United States,
till the next census be taken by the federal
government.
Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That the
following propositions be, and the same are
hereby, offered to the said people of Kansas,
for their free acceptance or rejection, which, if
accepted, shall be obligatory on the United
States and upon the said State of Kansas, to
wit: First. That sections numbered sixteen
and thirty-six in every township of public lands
in said State, and where either of said sections,
or any part thereof, has been sold or otherwise
been disposed of, other lands, equivalent there¬
to and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted
to said State for the use of schools. Second.
That seventy-two sections of land shall be set
apart and reserved for the use and support of a
State university, to be selected by the governor
of said State, subject to the approval of the
Commissioner of the General Land Office, and
to be appropriated and applied in such maimer
as the legislature of said State may prescribe
for the purpose aforesaid, but for no other pur¬
pose. Third. That ten entire sections of land,
to be selected by the governor of said State, in le¬
gal subdivisions, shall be granted to said State
for the purpose of completing the public build¬
ings, or for the erection of others at the seat of
government, under the direction of the legisla¬
ture thereof. Fourth. That all salt springs within
said State, not exceeding twelve in number,
with six sections of land adjoining, or as con¬
tiguous as may be to each, shall be granted to
said State for its use, the same to be selected
by the governor thereof within one year after
the admission of said State, and when so se¬
lected, to be used or disposed of on such terms,
conditions, and regulations as the legislature
shall direct: Provided, That no salt spring or
land, the right whereof is now vested in any
individual or individuals, or which may be
hereafter confirmed or adjudged to any indi¬
vidual or individuals, shall by this article be
granted to said State. Fifth. That five per
centum of the net proceeds of sales of all public
lands lying within said State, which shall be
sold by Congress after the admission of said
State into the Union, after deducting all the
expenses incident to the same, shall be paid to
424
THE POLITICAL TF,XT-P.f>( H{
said State, for the purpose of making public
roads and internal improvements, as the legis¬
lature shall direct: Provided, That the forego¬
ing propositions, hereinbefore offered, are on
the condition that the people of Kansas shall
provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without
the consent of the United States, that said State
shall never interfere with the primary disposal of
the soil within the same by the United States,
or with any regulations Congress may find ne¬
cessary for securing the title in said soil to
bona fide purchasers thereof; and that no tax
shall be imposed on lands belonging to the
United States, and that in no case shall non¬
resident proprietors be taxed higher than resi¬
dents. [Sixth. And that the said State shall never
tax the lands or the property of the United States in that
State: Provided, however, That nothing in this act of
admission shall be so construed as to ratify or accept
the ordinance attached to said constitution, framed at
Lecompton; but said ordinance is hereby rejected by
the United States.]
Report op the Joint Committee of Con¬
ference on the Disagreeing Votes
between the senate and house of
Representatives upon the Bill for
the Admission of Kansas.
For vote on same in each house, see tabu¬
lar statement of vote.
"Whereas the people of the Territory of Kan¬
sas did, by a convention of delegates assembled
at Lecompton, on the 7th day of November,
1857, for that purpose, form for themselves a
constitution and State government, which con¬
stitution is republican; and whereas, at the
same time and place, said convention did adopt
an ordinance, which said ordinance asserts that
Kansas, when admitted as a State, will have
an undoubted right to tax the lands within her
limits belonging to the United States, and pro¬
poses to relinquish said asserted right if certain
conditions set forth in said ordinance be accep¬
ted and agreed to by the Congress of the Uni¬
ted States; and whereas the said constitution
and ordinance have been presented to Cougress
by order of said convention, and admission of
said Territory into the Union thereon as a State
requested; and whereas said ordinance is not
acceptable to Congress, and it is desirable to
ascertain whether the people of Kansas concur
in the changes in said ordinance, hereinafter
stated, and desire admission into the Union as
a State as herein proposed: Therefore—
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Kepresentatives of the United States of America
in Congress assembled, That the State of Kan¬
sas be, and is hereby, admitted into the Union
on an equal footing with the original States in
all respects whatever, but upon this fundamental
condition precedent, namely: That the ques¬
tion of admission, with the following propo¬
sition in lieu of the ordinance framed at L
compton, be submitted to a vote of the peoi
of Kansas, and assented to by them, or a m;
jority of the voters voting at an election to be l
held for that purpose, namely: That the follow¬
ing propositions be, and the same are hereby,
offered to the people of Kansas for acceptance
or rejection, which, if accepted, sliail be obliga¬
tory on the United States, and upon the said
State of Kansas, to wit: First, that sections
numbers sixteen and thirty-six in every town¬
ship of public lands in said State, or, where
either of said sections or any part thereof has
been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands
equivalent thereto, and as contiguous as may
be, shall be granted to said State for the use of
schools. ' Second, that sevent} -two sections of
land shall be set apart and reserved for the
support ef a State univ< rsity, to be selected by
the governor of said State, subject to the ap¬
proval of the Commissioner of the General Land
Office, and to be appropriated and applied in
such manner as the legislature of said State
may prescribe for the purpose aforesaid, but for
no other purpose. Third, that ten entire sec¬
tions of land to be selected by the governor of
said State, in legal subdivisions, shall be grant¬
ed to said State for the purpose of completing
the public buildings, or for the erection of others
at the seat of government, under the direction
of the legislature thereof. Fourth, that all salt
springs within said State, not exceeding twelve
in number, with six sections of land adjoining
or as contiguous as may be to each, shall be
granted to said State for its use, the same to
be selected by the governor thereof, within one
year after the admission of said State, and when
so selected to be used or disposed of on such
terms, conditions, and regulations, as the legis¬
lature may direct: Provided, That no salt
spring or land, the right whereof is now vest¬
ed in any individual or individuals, or which
may hereafter be confirmed or adjudged to
any individual or individuals, shall, by this
article, be granted to said State. Fifth, the
five per centum of the net proceeds of the sales
of all public lands lying within said State,
which shall be sold by Congress after the admis¬
sion of said State into the Union, after deduct¬
ing all the expenses incident to the same, shall
be paid to said State for the purpose of making
public roads and internal improvements, as the
legislature shall direct: Provided, The foregoing
propositions herein offered are on the condition
that the State of Kansas shall never interfere
with the primary disposal of the lands of the
United States, or with any regulations which
Congress may find necessary for securing the
title in said soil to-bona fide purchasers thereof,
and that no tax shall be imposed on lands
belonging to the United States, and that in no
case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed
higher than residents. Sixth, and that said
State shall never tax the lands or property of
the United States in that State.
At the said election the voting shall be by
ballot, and by endorsing on his ballot, as each
voter may please, proposition accepted, or pro¬
position rejected. Should a majority of the
votes cast be for proposition accepted, the Pre-
dent of the United States, as soon as the fact
tuly made known to him, shall announce the
e by proclamation; and thereafter, and
KANSAS CONFERENCE BILL.
425
■without any further proceedings on the part of
Congress, the admission of the State of Kansas
into the Union upon an equal footing with the
original States, in all respects whatever, shall
he complete and absolute, and said State shall
be entitled to one member in the House of Re¬
presentatives in the Congress of the United
States, until the next census be taken by the
federal government. But should a majority of
the votes cast be for proposition rejected, it
shall be deemed _and held that the people of
Kansas do not desn^ admission into the Union
with said constitution under the conditions set
forth in said proposition-g and in that event
the people of said Territory are hereby author¬
ized and empowered to form for themselves a
constitution and State government, by the
name of the State cf Kansas, according to the
federal Constitution, and may elect delegates
for that purpose whenever, and not before, it
is ascertained, by a census, duly and legally
taken, that the population of said Territory
equals or exceeds the ratio of representation re¬
quired for a member of the House of Represen¬
tatives of the Congress of the United States;
and whenever thereafter such delegates shall
assemble in convention, they shall first deter¬
mine by a vote whether it is the wish of the
people of the proposed State to be admitted into
the Union at that time, and, if so, shall proceed
to form a constitution, and take all necessary
steps for the establishment of a State govern¬
ment in conformity with the federal Constitu¬
tion, subject to such limitations and restrictions
as to the mode and manner of its approval or
ratification by the people of the proposed State
as they may have prescribed by law, and shall
be entitled to admission into the Union as a
State under such constitution thus fairly and
legally made, with or without slavery, as said
constitution may prescribe.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That for
the purpose of insuring as far as possible that
the election authorized by this act may be fair
and free, the governor, United States district
attorney, and secretary of the Territory of
Kansas, and the presiding officers of the two
branches of its legislature, namely, the presi¬
dent of the council and the speaker of the
house of representatives, are hereby constituted
a board of commissioners to carry into effect
the provisions of this act, and to use all the
means necessary and proper to that end. Any
three of them shall constitute a board, and the
board shall have power and authority to de¬
signate and establish precincts for voting, or to
adopt those already established ; to cause the
polls to be opened at such places as it may
deem proper in the respective counties and
election precincts of said Territory ; to appoint,
as judges of election, at each of the several
places of voting, three'discreet and respectable
persons, any two of whom shall be competent
to act; to require the sheriffs of the several
counties, by themselves or deputies, to attend.
the judges "at each of the places of voting, for.
the purpose of preserving peace and good order .
or the said board may, instead of said sheri .
and their deputies, appoint, at their discretio'" f
and in such instances as they may choose, other
fit persons for the same purpose. The election
hereby authorized shall continue one day only,
and shall not be continued later than sundown
on that day. The said board shall appoint the
day for holding said election, and the said go¬
vernor shall announce the same by proclama¬
tion ; and the day shall be as early a one as is
consistent with due notice thereof to the peo¬
ple of said Territory, subject to the provisions
of this act. The said board have full power to
prescribe the time, manner, and places of said
election, and to direct the time and manner of
the returns thereof, which returns shall be
made to the said board, whose duty it shall be
to announce the result by proclamation ; and
the said governor shall certify the same to the
President of the United States without delay.
Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That, in
the election hereby authorized, all white male
inhabitants of said Territory, over the age of
twenty-one years, who possess the qualifications
which were required by the laws of said Terri¬
tory for a legal voter at the last general election
for members of the territorial legislature, and
none others, shall be allowed to vote ; and this
shall be the only qualification required to en¬
title the citizens to the right of suffrage in said
election ; and if any person not so qualified
shall vote, or offer to vote, or if any person
shall vote more than once at said election, or
shall make, or cause to be made, any false, fic¬
titious, or fraudulent returns, or shall alter or
change any returns of said election, such per¬
sons shall, upon conviction thereof before any
competent court of jurisdiction, be kept at hard
labor for not less than six months and not more
than three years.
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the
members of the aforesaid board of commis¬
sioners, and all persons appointed by them to
carry into effect the provisions of this act, shall,
before entering upon their duties, take an oath
to perform faithfully the duties of their respec¬
tive offices, and on failure thereof they shall be
liable and subject to the same charges and pen¬
alties as are provided in like cases under the
territorial laws.
Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That the
officers mentioned in the preceding section shall
receive for their services the same compensation
as is given for like services under the territorial
laws.
James S. Green,
R. M. T. Hunter,
Managers on the part of Senate.
Wm. H. English,
Alexander H. Stephens,
Managers on part of the House.
The undersigned, one of the managers on
the part of the Senate, does not agree to the
foregoing report.
i " W. II. Seward.
i "v.
; phe undersigned, one of the managers on
'-'ippart of the House, does not agree to the
I ingoing report.
Wm. A. Howard.
42G
THE POLITICAL fEXT-LlOOH.
STATEMENT OP VOTES IN THE SENATE.
senators' names.
Democrats in roman.
Republicans in italic.
Americans in small caps.
Asterisk (*) signifies Anti-
Lecompton.
Phillip Allen, R. I
M. W. Bates, Del
J. A. Bayard, Del
John Bell, Tenn
J. P. Benjamin, La
Asa Biggs, N. C
Wm. Bigler, Penn
J. D. Bright, Ind
*D. 0. Broderick, Cal
A. G. Brown, Miss
Simon Cameron, Penn
Zachariah Chandler, Mich...
Daniel Clark, N. H
C. C. Clay, jr., Ala
Jacob Collamer,\t
Jno. J. Crittenden, Ky
Jell. Davis, Miss
James Dixon, Conn
J. R. Doolittle, Wis
*S. A. Douglas, 111
Chas. Durkee., Wis
J. J. Evans, S. C
W. P. Fessenden, Me
G. N. Pitch, Ind
Bepj. Filzpatrick, Ala
Solomon Foot, Vt
L, F. S. Foster, Conn.
J. S. Green, Mo
W. M. Gwin, Cal
J.P.Hale, N. H
Hannibal Hamlin, Maine....
J. H. Hammond, S. C
e«»
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
~ a
js s
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
o ^
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay-
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
~ £ 8
ogg
I £.8?
yea
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
senators* names.
Democrats in roman.
Republicans in italic.
Americans in small caps.
Asterisk (*) signifies Anti-
Lecompton.
•r S
6 c
James Harlan, Iowa
J. F. Henderson, Texas..
Sam Houston, Texas
R. M. T. Hunter, Va
Alfred Iverson, Ga.»....
R W. Johnson, Ark
Andrew Johnson, Tenn..
Geo. IV. Jones, Iowa
Anthony Kennedy, Md..
Preston King, N. Y
S. R. Mallory, Fla
J. M. Mason, Va
J. A. Pearce, Md.
Trusten Polk, Mo
Geo. E. Pugh, Ohio
D. S. Reid, N. C
W. K. Sebastian, Ark....
W. H. Seward, N. Y
J. F. Simmons, R. I
Jno. Slidell, La
*C. E. Stuart, Mich
Chas. Sumner, Mass
J. B. Thompson, Ky.
J. R. Thomson, N. J
Robt. Toombs, Ga
Lyman Trumbull, III..,..
B. F. Wade, Ohio
Henry Wilson, Mass.....
IVm. Wright, N. J. .....
D. L. Yulee, Fla
yea
yea
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
31
23
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
24
34
STATEMENT OF VOTES IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
Ji S
o ^
a
o
a
X
c3
© .
rr>
5 s
© ^
© ©
*2 .2
© 'C
a ©
© .4
G
S
"cS
X
3
"©
ft *
©
a, 0
sr ©
u a3
0 2
© "o
U
si
c ©
is 22
a
Q, ©
h u
o|
members' names.
Democrats in ro¬
s£
a a
O O
a
IS
© .22.
x ©
tSja
93 s
O TS
G
G 2
0 £
s-t sS
■G
G
a
a
G
0
O ©
a|
<3 c
0 ©
.©
§ g
*3 fl
0®
x g
members' names.
Democrats in ro¬
d c
.2 0
d.g
B5
T5 -r*
man. Republi¬
IS
a £
S
£*3
© ©
as
bDw
a
0 °
©
man. Republi¬
ll
•£ s
d £
© 0
a ^
as
cans in italic.
J3 'g
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Jlbbott of Maine.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Burnett of Ky.
yea
nay
*Adrain of N. J.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
Burns of Ohio.
yea
nay
Ahl of Penn.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Burroughs of N. Y.
nay
yea
Anderson of Mo.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Campbell of Ohio.
nay
yea
JIndrews of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Caruthers of Mo.
Arnold of Conn.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
Case of Ind.
nay
yea
Atk ns of Tenn.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Caskie of Va.
yea
nay
Avery of Tenn.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Chaffee of Mass.
nay
yea
Barksdale of Miss.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
♦Chapman, Penn.
nay
yea
Bennett of N. Y.
nay
yea
«yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Clark, jr., of Conn.
nay
yea
Billinghurst, Wis.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
"Clark of N. Y.
yea
Bingham of Ohio.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Clark of Mo.
yea
nay
Bishop of Conn.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Clawson of N. J.
nay
yea
Blair, jr. of Mo.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Clay of Ky.
yea
nay
Bliss of Ohio.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Clemens of Va.
yea
nay
Bocock of Va.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Clingman of N. 0.
yea
nay
Bonham of S. 0.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
Cobb of Ala.
yea
nay
Bowie of Md.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
Cochran e,C.B. ,N.Y.
nay
yea
Boyce of S. C.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Cochrane, J., N. Y.
yea
nay
Branch of N. 0.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
*Cockerill of Ohio.
nay
yea
Brayton of R. I.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Colfax of Ind.
nay
yea
Bryan of Texas.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Comins of Mass-
nay
yea
Buffinton of Mass.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Corning of N. Y.
yea
nay
Burlingame, Mass.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Covode of Penn.
nay
yea
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nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
na>
yea
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nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea, nay
yea nay
nay
yea1 nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
'KANSAS VOTES.
427
members' names.
Democrats in ro-
man. Republi¬
cans in italic.
Americans in
small caps. As¬
terisk (*) signi¬
fies Anti-Le-
complon.
*Oox of Ohio.
Cragin of N. H.
Craig of Mo.
Craig of N. C.
Crawford of Ga.
Curry of Ala.
Curtis of Iowa.
Damrell of Mass.
Davidson of La.
Davis of Md.
"Davis of Ind.
Davis of Miss.
Davis of Mass.
Davis of Iowa.
Dawes of Mass.
Dean of Conn.
Dewart of Penn.
Dick of Penn.
Dimmick of Penn.
Dodd of N. Y.
Dowdell of Ala.
Durfee of R. I.
Edie of Penn.
Edmundson of Va.
Elliott of Ky
•English of Ind.
Eustis, jr., of La.
Farnsworth of 111.
Faulkner of Va.
Fenton of N. Y.
Florence of Penn.
•Foley of Ind.
Foster of Maine.
Garnett of Va.
Gartrell of Ga.
Giddings of Ohio.
Gillis of Penn.
Gilman of Maine.
Gilmer of N. V.
Gooch of Mass.
Goode of Va.
Goodwin of N. Y.
Granger of N. Y.
Greenwood of Ark.
Gregg of Ind.
♦Groesbeck, Ohio.
Grow of Penn.
* Hall of Ohio.
Hall of Mass.
Hat lan of Ohio.
Harris of Md.
* Harris of III.
* Haskin of N. Y.
Hatch of N. Y.
Hawkins of Fla.
•Hickman, Penn.
Hill, of Ga.
Hoard of N. Y.
Hopkins of Va.
Horton of Ohio.
Houston of Ala.
Howard of Mich.
Hughes of Ind.
Huyler of N. J.
Jackson of Ga.
Jenkins of Va.
Jewett of Ky.
Jones of Tenn.
Jones, J.G-, Penn.
•Jones, 0. of Penn,
Keitt of S. C.
Kellogg of 111.
Kelly of N. Y.
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nay
yea
nay-
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
Kehey of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Kilgare of Ind.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Knapp of Mass.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Kunkel of Md.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Kunkel of Penn.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Lamar of Miss.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Landy of Penn.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
•Lawrence, Ohio.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Leach of Mich.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Leidy of Penn.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Lciter of Ohio.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
Letcher, of Va.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Lovejoy of 111.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
•Jay
Maclay of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
*McKibbin of Cal.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
MeQueen of S. C.
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Marshall of Ky.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
•Marshall of III.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
Mason of Ky.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Matteson of N. Y.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Maynard of Tenn.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Miles of S- C.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Miller of Ohio.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Millson of Va.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
•••Montgomery, Pa.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
Moore of Ala.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Morgan of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Morrill of Vt.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
Morris of Penn.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
•Morris of 111.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Morse of Maine.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
Morse of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Mott of Ohio.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Murray of N. Y.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Niblack of Ind.
nay
yes
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Nichols of Ohio.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
Olin of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Orr,S. C.,(Speak'r)
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
Palmer of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Parker of N. Y.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
"•Pendleton of Ohio.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Pcttit of Ind.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Peyton of Ky.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Phelps of Mo.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Phillips of Penn.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
Pike of N. H.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Potter of Wis.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
Pottle of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Powell of Va.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Purviance of Penn.
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Quitman of Miss.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Ready of Tenn.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Reagan of Texas.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Reilly of Penn.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Ricadd of Md.
nay
y^a
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Ritchie of Peon.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
Rohbins of N. J.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Roberts of Penn.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Royce of Vt.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
Ruffin of N. C.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Russell of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Sandidge of La.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Savage of Tenn.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
Scales of N. 0.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Scott of Cal.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Searing of N. Y.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Seward of Ga.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
*Shaw of 111.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Shaw of N. C.
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
Sherman of Ohio.
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Sherman of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Shorter of Ala.
yea, nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Sickles of N. Y.
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nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
yeai
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nny
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
yea
nay
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yea
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yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
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yea
yea
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nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
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nay
yea
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yea
yea
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yea
nay
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yea
nay
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nay
nay
r.ay
yea
yea
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yea
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nay
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nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
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nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
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nay
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yea
yea
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yea
nay
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yea
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yea
yea
nay
nay
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nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
nay
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yea
nay
nay-
yea
nay
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay-
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
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jea
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yea
nay
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yea
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nay
nay
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yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
'nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
n'ay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
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nay-
nay
yea
yea
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
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yea
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nay
yea
nay
nay
>ea
yea
nay
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yea
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nay
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nay
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nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
428
THE POLITICAL
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Singleton of Miss.
yea
nay
nay! yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Waldron of Mich.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
*Smith of 111.
nay
yea
nay nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Walton of Yt.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Smith of Tenn.
yea
nay
nay( nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Ward of N. Y.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Smith of Va.
yea
nay
nay, yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Warren of Ark.
yea
nay
nay
nay
nay
nay
yea
Spinner of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Washburn of Wis.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
Stallworth of Ala.
yea
nay
nay yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Washburne of 111.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Stanton of Ohio.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Washburn, jr., Me.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yea
yea
Day
nay
Stephens of Ga.
yea
nay
nay nay
nay
nay
yea
yea
Watkins of Tenn.
yea
na>
nay
yea
naj
nay
yea
yea
Stevenson of Ky.
yea
nay
nay yea
nay
nay
yea
jea
White of Penn.
yea
na>
na>
nav
nav
naj
vea
yea
Stewart of Md.
yea
nay
nay yea
nay
nay
yea
Whiteley of Del.
yea
na}
naj
nay
naj
naj
yea
Stewart of Penn.
nay
yea
yea| nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Wilson of Ind.
naj
yea
yea
nav
yea
yea nay
nay
Talbot of Ky.
yea
nay
nay' yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Winslow of N. C.
yea
naj
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea yea
Tappan of N. H.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Wood of Me.
nay
yea
yea
nay
yen
yea
nay
Taylor of N. Y.
yea
nay
nayt nay
nay
nay
yea
Woodson of Mo.
jea
nay
nay
yea
nay
nay
jea
yea
Taylor of La.
yea
nay
nay yea
nay
nay
Wortendyke, N. J.
yea
na>
na>
nay
na>
nay
jTea
yea
Thayer of Mass.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
Wright of Ga.
yea
naj
nay
yea
nav
nay
jea
yea
Thompson of N. Y.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
M7right of Tenn.
yea
na)
nay
yea
naj
nay
jea
yea
Tompkins of Ohio.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Zollicoffer, Tenn
yea
naji
nay
yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
Trippe of Ga.
yea
yea
nay
nay, yea
nay
nay
yea
yea
■■■■—
- —
95
■
119
Underwood ofKy.
nay
nay nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Yeas
113
114
72
120
109
102
Wade of Ohio.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
Nays
114
111
137
160
112
111
108
103
Walbridge of Mich.
nay
yea
yea nay
yea
yea
nay
nay
1
Land Ordinance.
The following is the ordinance attached
to the Lecompton constitution :
Whereas, the government of the United
States is the proprietor, or will become so, of
all or most of the lands lying within the limits
of Kansas, as determined under the constitu¬
tion ; and whereas the State of Kansas will
possess the undoubted right to tax such lands
for the support of her State government, or for
other proper and legitimate purposes connected
with her existence qs a State : hi ow, therefore,
be it ordained by this convention, on behalf of
and by the authority ol the people of Kansas,
that the right aforesaid to tax such lands shall
be, and is hereby, forever relinquished, if the
conditions following shall be accepted and
agreed to by the Congress of the United States,
Section 1. That sections numbered 8, 16,
21, and 36, in every township in the State, or
in case either of said numbered sections are or
shall be otherwise disposed of, that other lands,
equal thereto in value and as contiguous as
may be, shall be grafted to the State to be
applied exclusively to the support of common
schools.
Sec. 2. That all salt springs, and gold, silver,
copper, lead or other valuable mines, together
with the lands necessary for their full occupa¬
tion and use, shall be granted to said State for
the use and benefit of said State ; and the same
shall be used or disposed of under such terms
and conditions and regulations as the legisla¬
ture of said State shall direct.
Sec. 3. That five per centum of the proceeds
of the sales of all public lands sold or held in
trust or otherwise lying within the said State,
whether sold before or after the admission of
the State into the LTnion, after deducting all
expenses incidental to the same, shall be paid
to the said State of Kansas for the purpose fol¬
lowing, to wit: two-fifths to be disbursed under
the direction of the legislature of the State for
the purpose of aiding the construction of rail¬
roads within said State, and the residue for the
support of common schools.
Sec. 4. That seventy-two sections, or two
entire townships, shall be designated by the
President of the United States, which shall be
reserved for the use of a seminary of learning,
and appropriated by the legislature of said State
solely to the use of said seminary.
Sec. 5. That each alternate section of land
now owned, or which may hereafter be acquired
by the United States, for twelve miles on each
side of a line of railroad to be established or
located from some point on the northern boun¬
dary of the State, leading southerly through
said State in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico,
and on each side of a line of railroad to be lo¬
cated and established from some point on the
Missouri river westwardly through said State
in the direction of the Pacific ocean, shall be
reserved and conveyed to said State of Kansas
for the purpose of aiding in the construction of
said railroad, and it shall be the duty of Con¬
gress of the United States, in conjunction with
the proper authorities of this State, to adopt
immediate measures for carrying the several
provisions herein contained into full effect.
35th Congress, )
1st Session. )
SENATE.
STATEMENTS
OF THE
RECEIPTS, EXPENDITURES, AND APPROPRIATIONS
OF THE
UNITED STATES,
FROM
MARCH 4, 1789, TO JUNE 30, 1857.
February 9, 1858.—Ordered, That five thousand copies be printed for the use of the
Senate.
WASHINGTON*
WILLIAM A. HARRIS, PRINTER.
1858.
2 RECEIPTS, EXPENDITURES, AND APPROPRIATIONS.
Statement of the receipts of the United States from
Years.
From March 4, 1789, to Dec. 31,1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796.
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802.
1803.
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811 .'
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820 .'.
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828 ;.
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836 :
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843 (to June 30)
1843-44
1844-45
1845-46
1846-47
1847-48
1848-49
1849-50
1850-51
1851-52
1852-53
1853-54
1854-55..
1855-56
1856-57
Custo
$4,399,473 09
3,443,070 85
4,255.306 56
4,801^065 28
5,588,461 26
6,567,987 94
7,549.649 65
7,106,061 93
6,610,449 31
9,080.932 73
10,75(^778 93
12,438.235 74
10,479.417 61
11,098,565 33
12,936,487 04
14,667,698 17
15.845,521 61
16,363,550 58
7,296,020 58
8,583,309 31
13,313,222 73
8.958,777 53
13,224,623 25
5,998,772 08
7.282,942 22
36,306,874 88
26,283,348 49
17,176,385 00
20.283,608 76
15,005,612 15
13,004,447 15
17,589,761 94
19,088,433 44
17.878.325 71
20,098,713 45
23,341,331 77
19,712,283 29
23,205,523 64
22,681.965 91
21,922,391 39
24,224,441 77
28,465,237 24
29,032,508 91
16,214,957 15
19,391,310 59
23,409,940 53
11,169,290 39
16,158,800 36
23,137,924 81
13,499,502 17
14,487,216 74
18,187,908 76
7.046,843 91
26,183,570 94
27,528,112 70
26,712,667 87
23.747.864 66
31,757,070 96
28,346,738 82
39,668,686 42
49,017,567 92
47.339.326 62
58.931.865 52
64,224,190 27
53,025.794 21
64,022,863 50
63,875,905 05
1,391,027,497 07
$208,942 81
337,705 70
274,089 62
337,755 36
475,289 60
575,491 45
644,357 95
779,136 44
809,396 55
1,048,033 43
621,898 89
215,179 69
50,941 29
21,747 15
20,101 45
13,051 40
8,210 73
4,044 39
7,430 63
2,295 95
4,903 06
4,755 04
1,662,984 82
4,678,059 07
5,124,708 31
2,678,100 77
955,270 20
229.593 63
106,260 53
69,027 63
67,665 71
34,242 17
34,663 37
25,771 35
21,569 93
19,885 68
17,451 54
14,502 74
12,160 62
6,933 51
11,630 65
2,759 00
4,196 09
10,459 48
370 00
5,493 84
2,467 27
2,553 32
1,682 25
3,261 36
495 00
103 25
1,777 34
3,517 12
2,897 26
375 00
375 00
22,278,043 39
$734,223 97
534,343 38
206,565 44
71,879 20
50,198 44
21,882 91
55,763 86
-34,732 56
19,159 21
7.517 31
12^ 448 68
7,666 66
859 22
3,805 52
2,219,497 36
2,162,673 41
4,253,635 09
1,834,187 04
264,333 36
83,650 78
31,586 82
29,349 05
20,961 56
10.357 71
6,201 96
2,330 85
6,638 76
2,626 90
2,218 81
11,335 05
16.980 59
10,506 01
6,791 13
394 12
19 80
4,263 33
728 79
1,687 70
12,744,737 56
RECEIPTS, EXPENDITURES, AND APPROPRIATIONS.
the 4th of March, 1789, to the 30th June, 1857.
3
Dividends and
sales of bank
stock and
bonus.
$8,028 00
38,500 00
303,472 00
160,000 00
1,240,000 00
385,220 00
79,920 00
71,040 00
71,040 00
88,800 00
1,327,560 00
202,426 30
525,000 00
675,000 00
1,000,000 00
105,000 00
297,500 00
350,000 00
350,000 00
367,500 00
402,500 00
420,000 00
455,000 00
490,000 00
490,000 00
490,000 00
659.000 00
6L0,285 00
586,649 50
569,280 82
328,674 67
1,375,965 44
4,542,102 22
1,774,513 80
672,769 38
56,912 53
5,000 00
4,340 39
34,834 70
8,955 00
260,243 51
1,021 34
31,466 78
21,915,521 38
Miscellaneous,
including indem¬
nities and
Chickasaw fund.
$19,440 10
9,918 65
10,390 37
23,799 48
5,917 97
16,506 14
30,379 29
18,692 81
45,187 56
74,712 10
266,149 15
177,905 86
115,518 18
112,575 53
19,039 80
10,004 19
34,935 69
21,802 35
23,638 51
84,476 84'
60,068 52
41,125 4T
236.571 00
119; 399 81
150,282 74
123,994 61
80,389 17
37,547 71
57,027 10
54,872 49
152,072 52
452,355 15
141.019 15
127; 603 60
129,982 25
94,288 52
1,315,621 83
65,106 34
112,561 95
73,172 64
583,563 03
99,276 16
334,796 67
128,412 32
696,279 13
2,209,891 32
5,562,190 80
2.517,252 42
1,265,068 91
874,662 28
331,285 37
383,895 44
286,235 99
1,075,419 70
328,201 78
289,950 13
186,467 91
577,775 99
676,424 13
2,064,308 21
924,922 60
463,228 06
853,313 02
1,105,352 74
827,731 40
1,116,190 81
1,259,920 88
31,768,070 34
Receipts, exclusive
of loans, treasury
notes, &c.
$4,418
3,669
4,652
5,431
6,114
8,377
8,688
7,900
7,546
10,848
12,935
14,995
li; 064
11.826
13,560
15,559
16,398
17,060
7,773
9,384
14,423
9,801
14,340
11,181
15,696
47,676
33,099
21,585
24,603
17.840
14,573
20,232
20,540
19,381
21,840
25,260
22,966
24,763
24.827
24,844
28,526
31,865
33,948
21,791
35,430
50,826
24,890
26,302
30,023
19,442
16,860
19,965
8,231
29,320
29,941
29,699
26,437
35,698
30,721
43,592
52,555
49,846
913 19
960 31
923 14
904 87
534 59
529 65
780 99
495 80
813 31
749 1 0
330 95
793 95
097 63
307 38
693 20
931 07
019 26
661 93
473 12
214 28
529 09
132 76
409 95
625 16
916 82
985 66
049 74
171 04
374 37
669 55
379 72
427 94
666 26
212 79
858 02
434 21
363 96
629 23
627 38
116 51
820 82
561 16
426 25
935 55
087 10
796 08
864 69
561 74
966 68
646 08
160 27
009 25
001 26
707 78
853 90
967 74
403 16
699 21
077 50
888 88
039 33
815 60
61,483,730 31
73,800,341 40
65,350,574 68
74,056.699 24
68,965^ 312 57
1,647,265,656 11
Loans and treasury
notes, &c.
$5,791,112 56
5,070,806 46
1,067,701 14
4,609,196 78
3,305,268 20
362,800 00
70,135 41
308,574 27
5,074,646 53
1,602,435 04
10,125 00
5,597 36
9,532 64
128,814 94
48,897 71
1,882 16
2,759,992 25
8,309 05
12,837,900 00
26,184,435 00
23,377,911 79
35,264,320 78
9,494,436 16
734,542 59
8,765 62
2,291 00
3,040.824 13
5,000;324 00
5,000,000 00
5,000,000 00
2,992,
12,716,
3,857.
5,589,
13,659,
14,808,
12,551,
1,877,
989 15
820 86
276 21
547 51
317 38
735 64
409 19
847 95
28,900,765 36
21,293,780 00
29,075,815 98
4,056,500 00
207,664 92
46,300 00
16,372 50
1,950 00
800 00
200 00
3,900 00
307,839,570 72
1,955,105,226 83
* $1,458,782 93 deducted from the aggregate receipts, as per account of the Treasurer No. 76,922.
4
A
i
Fron
De
1 792
1793,
1794
1795
1796,
1797
1798,
1799,
1800,
1801,
1802,
1803,
1804,
1805,
1806
1807,
1808,
1809
1810,
1811
1812,
1813,
1814,
18)5
1816
1817,
1818
1819,
1820,
1821,
1822,
1823,
1824,
1825
1826
1827,
1828
1829
1830,
1831,
1832,
1833,
1834,
1835,
1836,
1837,
1838.
1839
1840,
1841,
1842
1843
1843-
1844-
1845-
1846-
1847-
1848-
1849-
1850-
1851-
1852-
1853-
) 854-
1855-
1856-
PTS, EXPENDITURES, AND APPROPRIATIONS.
he expenditures of the United States from the ith March, 1769,
Foreign inter¬
course. includ¬
ing awards.
$757
134
45
$14
733
33
380
917
58
78
766
67
358
241
08
89
500
00
440
946
58
14b
403
51
361
633
36
912
685
12
447
139
05
184
859
64
483
233
70
669
788
54
504
605
17
457
428
74
592
905
76
271
374
11
748
688
45
395
288
18
549
288
31
295
676
73
596
981
11
550
925
93
526
583
12
1
110
834
77
624
795
63
1
186
655
57
585
849
79
2
798
028
77
684
230
53
1
760
421
30
655
524
65
577
826
34
691
167
80
304
992
83
712
465
13
166
306
04
703
994
03
81
367
48
644
467
27
264
904
47
826
271
55
347
703
29
780
545
45
209
941
01
927
424
23
177
179
97
852
247
16
290
892
04
1,208
125
77
364
620
40
994
556
17
281
995
97
1,109
559
79
420
429
90
1,142
180
41
284
113
94
1,248
310
05
253
370
04
1,112
292
64
207
110
75
1,158
131
58
164
879
51
1,058
911
65
292
118
56
i:336
266
24
5
140
099
83
11330
747
24
371
666
25
1,256
745
48
232
719
08
1,228
141
04
659
211
87
1,455
490
58
1
001
193
66
1,327
069
36
207
765
85
1,579
724
64
294
067
27
1,373
755
99
298
554
00
1,800
757
74
325
181
07
1,562
758
28
955
395
88
2,080
601
60
241
562
35
1,905
551
51
774
750
28
2,110
175
47
533
382
65
2,357
035
94
4
603
905
40
2,688
708
56
1
215
095
52
2,116
982
77
987
667
92
2,736
769
31
683
278
15
2,556
471
79
428
410
57
2,905
041
65
563
191
41
1,222
422
48
400
566
04
2,454
958
15
636
079
66
2,369
652
79
702
637
22
2,532
232
92
409
292
55
2,570
338
44
405
079
10
2,647
802
87
448
593
01
2,865
196
91
6
908
996
72
3,027
454
39
5
990
858
81
3,481
219
51
6,256
427
16
3,439
923
22
4
196
321
59
4,265
8S1
68
950
871
30
4,621
493
24
7
763
812
31
6.350
875
88
997
007
26
6,452
256
35
3,642
615
39
7,611
547
27
999
177
65
16,091
380 29
75
838
558 23
Miscellaneous.
$311,533 83
194,572 32
24,709 46
118,248 30
92,718 50
150,476 14
103,880 82
149,004 15
175,111 81
193,636 59
269,803 41
315,022 36
205,217 87
379,558 23
384,720 19
445,485 18
464,546 52
427,124 98
337,032 62
315,783 47
457,919 66
509,113 37
738,949 15
1,103,425 50
1,755,731 27
1,416,995 00
2,242,384 62
2,305,849 82
1,640,917 06
1,090,341 85
'903,718 15
644,985 15
671,063 78
678,942 74
1,046,131 40
lillO,713 23
826,123 67
1,219,368 40
1,566,679 66
1,363,624 13
1,392.336 11
2,451.202 64
3,198;091 77
2,082,565 00
1,549,396 74
2,749,721 60
2,932,428 93
3,256,860 68
2,621,340 20
2,575,351 50
3.505,999 09
3.307,391 55
1.579,724 48
2,554,146 05
2,839,470 97
3.769,758 42
3,910,190 81
2,554,455 37
3,111,140 61
7,025,450 16
8,146,577 33
9,867,926 64
12,246,33.5 03
13,461,450 13
16,738,442 29
15.260,475 94
18,946,189 91
181,985,584 31
Military service.
$632,804 03
1,100,702 09
1.130,249 08
2; 639,097 59
2,480,910 13
1,260,263 84
1,039,402 66
2,009,522 30
2,466,946 98
2,560,878 77
1,672,944 08
1,179,148 25
822,055 85
875,423 93
712,781 28
1,224,355 38
1,288,685 91
2.900.834 40
3,345,772 17
2,294,323 94
2,032,828 19
11,817,798 24
19,652,013 02
20.350.806 86
14^794,294 22
16,012,096 80
8,004,236 53
5,622,715 10
6,506,300 37
2,630,392 31
4,461,291 78
3,111,981 48
3,096,924 43
3,340,939 85
3,659,914 18
3,943.194 37
3,938,977 88
4,145,544 56
4,724,291 07
4,767,128 88
4.841.835 55
5,446,034 88
6,704,019 10
5,696,189 38
5,759,156 89
12,169,226 64
13,682,730 80
12,897,224 18
8,916,995 80
7,095,267 23
8,801,610 24
6,610,438 02
2,908,671 95
5,218,183 66
5,746,291 28
10,413.370 58
35,840,030 33
27,687,334 21
14,558,473 26
9,68C. 024 58
12,161,965 11
8,521.5U6 19
9,910,498 49
11,722,282 87
14,648,074 07
16,963,160 51
19,159,150 87
484,017,519 43
E.ECEIPTSj EXPENDITURES, AND APPROPRIATIONS, 5
to June 30,1857, and the balances of money in the treasury at the end of each year.
Naval establish¬
ment.
$570 00
53 02
61,408 97
410,562 03
274,784 04
382,631 89
1,381,347 76
2,858,081 84
3,448,716 03
2,111,424 00
'915,561 87
1,215.230 53
1,189;832'75
1,597,500 00
1,649,641 44
1,722,064 47
1,884,067 80
2,427,758 80
3,654,214 20
1,965,566 39
3,959,365 15
6,446,600 10
7,311,290 60
8,660,000 25
3,908,278 30
3,314,598 49
2,953,695 00
3,847,640 42
4,387,990 00
3,319,243 06
2,224,458 98
2,503,765 83
2.904,581 56
3;049,083 86
4,218,902 45
4,263,877 45
3,918,786 44
3,308.745 47
3,239; 428 63
3,856,183 07
3,956.370 29
3,901;356 75
3,956,266 42
3,864,939 06
5,807,718 23
6,646,914 53
6.131.580 53
6,182,294 25
6,113,896 89
6,001,076 97
8,397,242 95
3,727,711 53
6,498,199 11
6,297,177 89
6,455,013 92
7,900,635 76
9,408,476 02
9,786,705 92
7,904,724 66
8.880.581 38
8,918,842 10
11,067,789 53
10,790,096 82
13,327,095 11
14,074,834 64
12,651,694 61
307,396,792 31
Expenditures, ex¬
clusive of the
public debt.
$1,919,589 52
1,877,903 68
I,710,070 26
3,500,546 65
4,350,658 04
2,531,930 40
2,833,590 96
4,623,223 54
6,480,166 72
7.411,369 97
4,981,669 90
3,737,079 91
4,002,824 24
4,452,858 91
6,357,234 62
6,080,209 36
4,984,572 89
6,504,338 &5
7,414,672 14
5,311,082 28
5,592,604 86
17,829,498 70
28,082,396 92
30,127,686 38
26,953,571 00
23,373,432 58
15,454,609 92
13,808,673 78
16,300,273 44
13,134,530 57
10,723,479 07
9,827,643 51
9,784,154 59
15,330,144 71
II,490,459 94
13,062,316 27
12,653,095 65
13,296,041 45
12;660,490 62
13,229,533 33
13,864,067 90
16,516,388 77
22,713.755 11
18,425,417 25
17,514,950 28
30,868,164 04
37,243,214 24
33,849,718 08
26.496.948 73
24,139,920 11
26,196,840 29
24,361,336 59
11,256,508 60
20,650,108 01
21,895,369 61
26,418,459 59
53,801,569 37
45,227,454 77
39,933,542 61
37,165.990 09
44.049.949 48
40,389,954 56
44,078,156 35
51,142,138 42
56,312,097 72
60,333,836 45
65,032,559 76
1,313,648,648 91
Public debt.
$5,287,949 50
7,263,665 99
5,819,505 29
5,801,578 09
6,084,411 61
5,835,846 44
5,792,421 82
3,990,294 14
4,596,876 78
4,578,369 95
7,291,707 04
9,539,004 76
7,256,159 43
8,171,787 45
7,369,889 79
8,989,884 61
6,307,720 10
10,260,245 35
6,452,554 16
8,008,904 46
8.009,204 05
4,449,622 45
11,108,123 44
7,900,543 94
12,628,922 35
24,871,062 93
25,423,036 12
21,296,201 62
7,703,926 29
8,628,494 28
8,367,093 62
7,848,949 12
5,530,016 41
16,568.393 76
12,095,'344 78
11,041,082 19
10,003,668 39
12,163,438 07
12,383,867 78
11,355,748 22
16,174,378 22
17,840,309 29
1,543,543 38
6,176,565 19
58,191 28
21,822 91
5,605,720 27
11,117,987 42
4,086,613 70
5,600,689 74
8,575,539 94
861,596 55
12,991,902 84
8,595,039 10
1,213,823 31
6,719,282 37
15,427,688 42
16,452,880 13
7,438,728 17
4,426.154 83
6,322,654 27
10,498,905 39
24,330,980 66
9,852,678 24
12,392.505 12
6,242,027 61
594,643,724 92
$7,207,539 02
9,141,569 67
7,529,575 55
9,302,J24 74
10,435,069 65
8.367,776 84
8,626,012 78
8,613,517 68
11,077,043 50
11,989,739 92
12,273,376 94
13,276,084 67
11,258,983 67
12,624,646 36
13,727,124 41
15,070,093 97
11,292,292 99
16,764,584 20
13,867,226 30
13,319,986 74
13,601,808 91
22,279,121 15
39,190,520 36
38,028,230 32
39,582,493 35
48,244,495 51
40,877,646 04
35.104.875 40
24,004,199 73
21,763,024 85
19,090,572 69
17,676,592 63
15,314,171 00
31,898,538 47
23,585:804 72
24,1031398 46
22.656;764 04
25,459,479 52
25,044,358 40
24.585.281 55
30,038,446 12
34,356,698 06
24,257,298 49
24,601,982 44
17,573,141. 56
30,868,164 04
37,265,037 15
39,455,438 35
37,614,936 15
28,226,533 81
31,797,530 03
32.936.876 53
12,118,105 15
33,642,010 85
30,490,408 71
27.632.282 90
60,520,851 74
60.655,143 19
56,386,422 74
44,604,718 26
48,476,104 31
46,712,608 83
54,577,061 74
75,473,119 08
66,161,775 96
72.723,341 57
• 71,274,587 37
1,908,302,371 83
Balances in the
treasury at the
end of each year.
6
Sta
1
Frorr
17?
31,
1792
1793
1794,
1795
1796.
1797,
1798,
1799,
1800,
1801,
1802,
1803
1804,
1805,
1806.
1807,
1808,
1809.
1810,
1811,
1812.
1813,
1814.
1815.
1816,
1817,
1818,
1819,
1820,
1821,
1822,
1823,
1824
1825,
1826.
1827,
1828.
1829.
1830.
1831.
1832,
1833.
1834.
1835.
1836
1837.
1838.
1839.
1840.
1841.
1842.
1843,
1843-
1844-
1845-
1846-
1847-
1848-
1849-
1850-
3851-
1852-
1853-
1854-
1855-
185R-
1CEIPTS, EXPENDITURES, AND APPROPRIATIONS,
the appropriations made by law from the 4th of March, ]
Civil list.
Foreign inter¬
course, includ¬
ing awards.
Miscellaneous.
Military service.
Revolutionary
and other
pensions.
$946,841 00
400,458 14
440,660 95
443,031 13
417,362 07
507,228 07
540,747 91
664.408 96
568,190 75
805,051 69
692,824 05
650^272 80
537,339 64
643,617 52
707,335 73
681,004 11
653,535 24
678.409 59
699.607 98
715,972 08
708,565 22
785,924 87
954,050 73
1,213,359 42
1, 115,595 07
1,343,383 70
1,107,293 80
1,019,197 18
1,123,643 94
1,182,525 82
1,007,338 86
894,945 78
1,037,660 32
1.274.444 06
1,715.012 98
1,020,092 51
1,254,015 55
1,437,516 21
1,392,423 07
1.558.445 59
1,434,263 89
1,758,279 69
1,596,585 49
2.116,670 76
1,885,665 74
2,303,977 76
2,562,002 24
3,072,877 85
1,506,039 58
2,951,033 89
2,678.724 32
2,872,226 87
890,544 67
2,519,544 65
2,360,172 69
2,540,525 86
2,560,430 39
2,773,144 53
2,757,475 79
3,295,350 82
3,268,662 88
3,522,010 82
4,358,222 36
4,822,366 53
6,347,897 71
7,103,147 16
7,684,275 78
$100,000 00
90,000 00
40,000 00
1,040,000 00
40,000 00
481,991 00
640,905 66
528,650 00
496,200 00
279,000 00
564,364 00
3.138.365 76
4,139,946 82
382,874 73
2,431,963 38
216,910 00
2,188,050 00
194,550 00
243,050 00
255,300 69
228,392 67
266,000 00
256,900 00
207,741 67
247,250 00
368,946 65
296,333 32
457,336 00
328,750 00
299,833 32
317,500 00
226,525 00
136,000 00
5,282,000 00
329,858 37
333,132 33
1,468,284 00
65,520 46
195,811 33
269,748 49
302,186 34
338,381 89
1.003.366 60
291,128 98
782,310 21
473,939 48
4.861,023 37
l|106,272 70
990,576 95
658,849 74
455,624 47
524,390 82
387,635 28
999,699 85
371,646 78
530,950 00
407,145 60
442,438 74
9,237,901 39
4,150,729 00
7,215,027 42
3,634.387 29
, 990,838 25
.0,630,448 27
992,473 59
882,252 56
1,118,043 12
$449,344 88
175,324 70
56,113 76
169,010 79
78,861 86
213,619 03
147,104 39
122,899 61
161,466 31
312,823 77
238,845 13
393,331 95
363,579 09
375,954 14
590,765 10
547,007 25
587,326 23
434,025 42
408,679 09
650,514 23
604,825 37
666,548 59
1,184,617 50
1,332,076 32
2,104,272 21
1,851,715 30
1.742.314 40
2,471,353 03
1,540,318 25
1.386.448 42
570,373 44
759,170 06
776,207 37
728,889 18
1,103,025 61
1,515,703 77
630.428 85
1,390,585 26
2,133,538 39
1,436,201 06
1.456.449 43
2,946,392 70
3,196,771 48
2,206,215 30
1.547.315 18
3,085,691 65
4,600,680 46
2,635,269 55
2,218,428 70
3,243,649 40
2,901,543 49
3,550,369 61
1,442,839 05
2,750,018 46
2,763,433 05
4,111,606 03
3,657,527 02
2,794,052 35
3,595,853 12
7,122,970 04
10,491,095 55
10,479,636 15
13,042,383 10
12,726,940 15
19,899,042 04
13,907,470 34
20,442,860 66
$947,166 96
1,118,527 91
1,068,376 52
4,090,669 25
1,063,121 29
1,139,614 00
1,440,641 20
4,051,730 95
3,243,649 00
3,272,620 35
1,963,252 20
1,518,000 00
891,413 13
853,719 88
3,123,260 77
1,655,154 55
4,719,713 40
4,037,532 18
3,107,920 50
3,007,315 61
14,100,418 89
16,835,392 27
27,038,406 00
5,403,687 41
16,773,000 00
8,278,445 37
6,293,971 37
4,790,010 43
4,923,027 99
3.061,406 81
2,921,881 70
3,166,671 50
3,485,241 91
4.098.737 19
4,308,847 20
3,912,066 27
4,432,816 71
4,540,693 74
5,082,843 98
4,683,154 91
6,065,564 90
6,621,649 02
6,861,622 02
4,948,297 25
14,613,053 24
13,665,447 43
15,666,618 17
8,682,006 19
6,504,830 67
9,406.829 61
7,052,915 90
1,243,980 12
6,104,619 94
4,308,396 61
13,619,633 81
36,009,026 87
32,729,008 34
12,731,610 54
6.838,919 56
10,328,582 69
8,061,436 88
16,141,251 90
11,035,910 89
17,760,647 46
13,152,452 90
18,614,594 12
$280,443 32
87,463 60
82,245 32
80,239 55
85,357 04
114,259 00
96,350 00
102,067 07
93,400 00
93,000 00
93,000 00
93,000 00
93,000 00
98,000 00
98.000 00
98^ 000 00
98,000 00
98,000 00
98.000 00
98,000 00
98,000 00
98,000 00
98.000 00
98.000 00
98,000 00
270,000 00
200,300 00
710,000 00
2,415,939 85
3,208,302 71
243,324 00
1,959,699 00
1,873,815 00
1,604,890 81
1,268,452 26
1,432,290 00
1,573,240 00
396,095 00
809,497 00
1,280,742 06
1,304,494 05
1,517,257 84
4,237,674 76
3^561,463 00
2.126.267 87
2,396.637 90
3,096,081 71
2,682,440 88
3.499.268 42
1,934,557 37
1,968,024 25
1,416,707 95
946,781 80
1.723,941 88
2,349,561 52
2,143,228 64
2,062,038 77
1.546,384 31
'874,983 30
1,773,087 62
2,272.043 63
2,827,569 68
1,857,199 34
1,367,571 77
958,163 83
1,586,825 69
1,526,271 17
119,081,454 81
82,853,654 34
195,221,713 17
503,233,048 33
77,372,941 54
RECEIPTS, EXPENDITURES, AND APPROPRIATIONS. 7
30 th of June, 1857 ; showing, also, the sums carried to the surplus fund, and the
appropriations. *
Naval establish-
. ment.
Appropriations, ex¬
clusive of public
debt.
$33,327 50
2,000 00
768,888 82
5,000 00
487,000 00
2,024,712 00
3,823,789 89
2,482,953 49
3,042,352 95
242,294 00
1,144,797 46
I,667.498 45
1,550,000 00
1,692,141 44
2,429,564 47
1,131,567 80
2,916,902 50
1,664,640 69
1,870,274 05
4,304,669 60
9,510,788 55
8,174,910 87
5.258,686 25
4,234,793 77
3,814,598 49
3,508,695 00
3,427.306 95
4,042,990 00
2,709,243 06
3.141,881 52
2; 822,484 62
2,953,969 29
3,667,706 31
3,748,985 23
3,709,629 20
4,101,987 90
3,723,475 40
4,316,000 47
3,496,643 29
4,965,573 53
3,467,872 01
4,878,373 37
4,998,234 13
6,789.167 96
7,470, 057 60
5,076,336 26
5,890,430 96
5,801,679 40
7,562,752 70
6,741,683 21
3.672,300 97
6,079,456 51
6.051,700 98
9,091,388 40
7,711,773 64
9,295,054 34
9,845,249 07
9,701,345 22
9,571.646 67
7,853,042 18
10,099,156 71
13,694,353 37
II,458,610 65
15,701,968 49
14,117,434 55
320,835,794 16
$2,797,123 66
1,873,774 35
1,787,396 55
6,604,782 31
1,734,702 26
2,690,711 10
3,371,749 16
7,610.348 59
8,594;195 95
7,314,949 30
6,677,638 33
4,680,264 51
7,831, 163 01
4,175,857 97
6,466,184 09
6,592,748 57
7,797,955 49
7,525,441 21
8,636,746 75
6,710.973 19
6.729;322 92
20,492,349 71
29,078,974 05
38.602,719 28
14,500,715 94
25.145,164 42
15,759,460 38
14,996,715 08
14,109,459 80
15,497.553 26
8,435;466 61
10,508,017 81
10,190,113 81
15,830,635 95
12,892,544 72
13,255,413 09
13,216,650 86
12,642,408 61
13,491,131 89
14,976,471 80
13,588,681 39
18,397,751 82
22,695,782 65
20,968,992 49
18,347,014 36
39,371,825 53
39,756.698 75
35,30i;927 99
24,948,111 06
22,404,124 27
26,112,593 61
23,605,224 05
9,896,207 03
21,189,340 13
19,558.450 36
33,257,013 72
54,193,012 35
50,757,898 69
40,373,080 62
34,693,344 41
47,162,506 93
38,162,262 03
50,558,418 82
55,970,781 07
61,531,115 66
54,920.436 28
68,484,184 10
1,378,032,776 51
Public debt.
$6,194,476 49
7,372,871 89
7,489,427 18
7.427.903 92
7,521,159 45
5,123,241 35
4,669,686 59
4,366,499 45
4,632,265 94
4,639,672 56
6,794,519 48
7,378,627 48
5,854,957 11
8,122,989 77
7,369,889 79
8,989,884 61
8,021,319 86
8,546.645 59
6,452;554 16
8.008.904 46
8,009,204 05
8,000,000 00
8,000,000 00
8,000,000 00
16,767,593 60
24,760,655 93
20,853,661 70
21,296,306 03
10,000,000 00
10,000,000 00
10,000.000 00
10,000;000 00
10,000,000 00
10,000,000 00
10,000,000 00
10.000,000 00
10,000,000 00
10,000,000 00
12,334,170 27
11,355,748 22
16,174,378 22
18,078,938 85
10,000,000 00
96,019 09
5,603,503 19
11,129,940 07
4,045,802 05
5,698,360 74
8,477,868 94
861,607 47
13,040,152 83
8,588,157 62
1,217,823 31
6,715,282 37
15,429,197 21
16,453,272 39
7,437,366 41
4,451,841 87
6,319,185 53
10,500,259 55
24,357,010 29
9,846.859 50
13,706,246 50
5,319,089 52
597,902,400 46
Total.
$8,991,600 15
9,246,646 24
9,276,823 73
14,032,686 23
9,255,861 71
7,813,952 45
8,041,435 75
11,976,848 04
13,226,461 89
11,954,621 86
13,472,157 81
12,058,891 99
13,686,120 12
12,298,847 74
13,836,073 88
15,582,633 18
15,819,275 35
16,072,086 80
15.089,300 91
14,719,877 65
14,738,526 97
28,492,349 71
37.078.974 05
46,602,719 28
31,268,309 54
49,905,220 35
36,613,122 08
36,293,021 12
24,109,459 80
25,497,553 26
18,435,466 61
20,508,017 81
20,190,113 81
25,830,635 95
22,892,544 72
23,255,413 09
23,216,650 86
22,642,408 61
25,825,302 16
26,332,220 02
29,763,059 61
36,476,690 67
32,695,782 65
20,968,992 49
18,347,014 36
39,467,844 62
39,756,698 75
40,905,431 18
36,078,051 13
26,449,926 32
31,810; 954 35
32,083,092 99
10,757,814 50
34,229,492 96
28,146.607 98
34,474,837 03
60,908,294 72
66,187,095 90
56,826,353 01
42,130,710 82
51,614,348 80
44,481,447 56
61,058,678 37
80,327,791 36
71.377.975 16
68,626,682 78
73,803,273 62
1,975,935,176 97
Amount carried
to surplus fund.
$415,761 74
99,359 03
17,417 90
62,237 25
183,120 37
57,044 38
2,249,190 77
395,141 01
59,450 12
1,446,149 23
268,810 89
3,606,428 00
674,032 14
113,422 68
3,909,531 86
706,841 74
1,187.795 16
268;709 47
570,868 96
259,176 57
592,309 99
393,050 98
639,133 99
372,066 58
382,514 55
133,352 02
137,571 78
747,308 96
641,285 65
150,720 11
273,363 64
277,802 61
251,830 89
220,181 73
296,088 47
193,235 97
621,845 21
179,535 36
137,000 31
172,073 42
449,359 56
482,983 40
550,016 44
313,407 51
2,759,022 17
958,653 79
2,973,977 78
839,208 60
74,433 69
443,945 35
274,570 38
735,761 02
702,618 67
185,024 99
1,381,201 63
*178,291 61
138,286 15
118,120 30
1,892,532 30
121,164 56
1,107.317 53
310,959 85
672,437 49
41,026,056 26
* This sum is the amount carried to the surplus fund in the year ending June 30, 1850, after deducting
$152,249 94, erroneously carried in the year 1847, and returned by order of the First Comptroller of December
14, 1849.
8 RECEIPTS, EXPENDITURES, AND APPROPRIATIONS.
Extracts from the preceding statements.
The total amount of receipts into the treasury from March 4, 1789,
to June 30, 1857, was - - $1,955,105,226 83
The total expenditure for the same period was $1, 908, 302, 371 83
The balance in the treasury on the 30th day of
June, 1857, was .... 46,802,855 00
1,955,105,22683
The total amount of appropriations from March 4, 1789, to June 30,
1857, was $1, 975, 935,176 97
The total expenditure for the same period was $1, 908, 302, 371 83
The total amount carried to the surplus fund •
during the same period was 41, 026, 056 26
To which add the following sums, to wit:
This amount erroneously carried to the surplus
fund in the fiscal year ending June 30,1847,
and restored to the appropriations in the
year 1850, by order of the First Comptroller 152, 249 94
This amount of repayments when
there were no expenditures in
the year 1851 $21,621 05
This amount of repayments when
there were no expenditures in
the year 1852 14,179 45
35,800 50
The balance of appropriations on the 30th of
June, 1857, was 26,418,698 44
1,975,935,176 97
SPEECH
OF
HON. GRAHAM N. FITCH. OF INDIANA,
ON
THE CONSTITUTION OF KANSAS;
DELIVERED
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 22, 1857.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
185T.
THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE-KANSAS.
The Senate having resumed the consideration
the motion of Mr. Dsuglas, to refer so much
of the President's message as relates to affaire in
Kansas to the Committee on Territories—
Mr. FITCH saidi
Mr. President: Being indebted to the courtesy |
Of the Senator from Michigan for the door, I shah
ask the indulgence of the Senate during but a
brief occupancy of it, for I am anxious, as I know
those about me are,to listen to that Senator, and
to others who can be heard on this subject with
far more pleasure and profit than anything I can
say will afford.
Yesterday, sir, was the day fixed for the action
of the people of Kansas on that portion of the
constitution submitted to the popular vote. We
shall soon know the result, and congressional ac¬
tion in the premises will soon be required—assum¬
ing, that is, that the election took place, and that
no violence, no fraud interfered to prevent it or
control it. Whatever my views and opinions of
Che question of slavery, the unfortunate subject j
•of so much sectional controversy, may be, I am ;
unwilling that the character of the decision yes¬
terday had in Kansas on that subject shall pos¬
sibly be supposed to control whatever action I
may hereafter take on the question of admitting
that Territory into the Union as a State; and
hence I desire now to state the reasons which will
govern my action. I wish to state the reasons in
advance of any possible knowledge on our part
of the character of that decision, that the latter
may not be supposed to color the former.
My friend, the Senator from Illinois, [Mr.
Douglas,] who opened the debate, intimated a
somewhat novel opinion yesterday during the dis¬
cussion of this subject, namely: an opinion that
the President had descended from his, exalted
position to devote two columns, more or less, of
his annual message, to an assault on him, or at
least upon his views, reports, and opinions upon
this Kansas controversy.; and further, that any
allusion,even here by Senators in debate, was an
attack upon him, premeditated, and part,perhaps,
of a general design to read him out of the Demo¬
cratic party!
Mr. DOUGLAS. Did I say on the part of the
President?
Mr. FITCH. Oh, no.
Mr. DOUGLAS. I expressly exempted the
President from that combination.
Mr. FITCH. The Senator misunderstood me,
if he understood me as saying that he charged the
President with any design to read him out of the
party. As I shall necessarily refer t-o the Sena¬
tor's argument, at least in the course of my brieT
remarks, because the honorable Senator has so
mixed himselfup with Kansas affairs thatthe latter
cannot be discussed without reference to him and
his arguments and positions relative thereto, 1
wish to advertise him and the Senate in advance,
that whatever allusion I may make to him, is not
designed as an attack on him, or as evidence of any
want of respect for him. Nor, sir, must it be said
that I have or assert for myself any right or power
—-not ascintilla—to read him out of the party; nor
do I know or care where that power is, if it is pos¬
sessed anywhere, because I do not believe in the
thing. I grant you, sir, that a man may, by his
own voluntary acts, either by promoting discord
within a purty, or some other equally obnoxious
course, place himself beyond the pale of party
organization; but I scarce think the Democratic
party, as such, cares sufficiently for persons, be
they who they may, to put itself to the trouble of
reading or resolving them out of its organization^
The Senator's argument, in his opening speech,
was based upon the assumption that the Kansas
act, repealing the Missouri line, bestowed upon the
people of the Territories the right—ay, even im¬
posed upon them the necessity of acting in their
primary capacity on every legitimate subject of
State legislation, embraced in whatever constitu¬
tion they might send here, as preliminary to its
recognition by Congress. The fallacy, the "funda¬
mental error '—I think that is the term—of this
position ia manifest from the fact that the right
was not prohibited or questioned by the Missouri
line, or any other congressional enactment, except
4
upon the single question of slavery. The right was
elaimed, admitted, and has been exercised, from
the.organization of our Government, of the peo¬
ple,-to act either en masse in their primary capa¬
city, or through delegates, as they preferred, upon
all otherconstitutional subjects of legislation. The
repeal of the Missouri line was, therefore, for the
purpose, and for the purpose only, of placing that
one exceptional question upon the same footing
with all others, taking it from its exceptional
position and placing it under the rule. This is
rendered undeniable by the very language of the
repeal. It proceeds to say:
" That the Constitution, and all laws of the United States
which are not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force
and effect within the said Territory of Kansas as elsewhere
within the United States, except the eighth section of the
act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union,
approved March 6,1820, which, being inconsistent with the
principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in
the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation
of 1850, commonly called the compromise measures, is
hereby declared inoperative and void."
It need not be said at this day that " non-inter¬
vention" has been construed from the days of the
Nicholson letter to mean an acknowledgment of
the right of the people of the Territories to decide
the question of slavery for themselves, at least
when they framed their State constitution, and
to decide it untrammeled by any congressional
prohibition or interference. Following the com¬
promise of 1850—based upon that compromise—
the Kansas act proposed, its supporters proposed,
its author proposed, merely to carry out the spirit
and principles of the compromise by extending
them to Kansas and futureTerritories. Non-in¬
tervention, when first introduced as a term in pol¬
itics, was applied solely to the slavery question.
The compromise of 1850 was upon the slavery
question. The Missouri line was only a restric¬
tion on the subject of slavery. Its repeal in the
Kansas act was only upon the subject of slavery.
The whole controversy during the discussion,
alike on the compromise and the Kansas act, was
on that subject, and that only. The opponents,
both of the compromise of 1850 and of the Kan¬
sas act, endeavored to have that one question re¬
tained as an exception to the general rule, which
underlies our Government, permitting the citizens
of each State to control their own domestic affairs;
and they sought to have it thus retained as an
exceptional one, by endeavoring to induce Con¬
gress to prohibit to the people of the Territories,
or the States formed from those Territories, any
control whatever over that question.
Now, sir, we find an effort at this time to so
construe those measures as to make them apply
to all subjects of domestic legislation—an effort to
so construe them as to make it a condition prece¬
dent to the admission of any new State that every
proposition in its constitution shall have been sub¬
mitted to a popular vote after the constitution has
come from the hands of a regularly organized and
legal convention ! This is a construction incon¬
sistent with the circumstances which brought
those measures into existence. It is a construc¬
tion not contemplated by their supporters,among
whom, as a private citizen, I was early included.
It is a construction scarcely compatibly with their
phraseology. We are said to be a progressive
people. Is this new reading of these measures an
evidence only of our general progress, a part only
of our yearly accruing wisdom ? Or lurks there
behind it some policy of a personal bearing ?
Mr. President, I doubt not that every gentle¬
man is governed by the most honorable and pa¬
triotic motives in assuming whatever position he
may take on this question. I will attribute none
other to any man. But if there, unfortunately,
be men, high in the Democratic party, who desire
to avail themselves of the present phase of this
question to take a position outside of that party,
with the hope—by throwing fire-brands into its
midst, or by directing their artillery against it—to
destroy it, in return for some past grievance, real
or fancied, I would commend to such the lessons
fairly deducible from the result of every such at¬
tempt, from Burr's to Van Buren's. The Dem¬
ocratic is the great conservative party of the coun¬
try—the only national party. It is the only mere
political link in the chain which now binds the
States in one common country. It is so deemed
throughout the world; so known to its own mem¬
bers; so admitted even by the more candid and
conservative of its political opponents; and none
of these will hold that man guiltless, who aban¬
dons it upon a question haying in it so little of
practical importance as there is in this, and, by
seeking its destruction, thereby admits his not
unwillingness that a similar fate should be visited
on the Union, perhaps, to subserve his selfish
purpose.
The measures to which I have alluded—the
compromise of 1850 and the Kansas act—as I have
isaid, were designed to take one question, pre¬
viously, in part at least, an exceptional one, from
that position, and apply to it the same rule always
previously applied under our Government to all
other questions of domestic policy. They were
designed, in fact, to subject that one question to
the same control and the same usages to which
all others were subjected. They did not contem¬
plate either the enlargement or diminution of the
powers previously possessed on other questions;
neither an expansion nor contraction of those
powers. They left all other powers in statu quo,
to be exercised as they previously had been, only
placing this one among them. But now we find
an effort being made to so construe them as to
make them subversive of the past usages of the
Government; to make them limit the power pre¬
viously possessed by our people, by compelling
them to exercise it in one manner, and one only.
We find an effort now being made, in fact, to so
construe them as to deny to delegated authority
the right to form an organic law—a right hitherto
often exercised. This denial is explicitly made
by Governor Walker in his recent (I am sorry
to say somewhat egotistical) manifesto; one in
which he sustains his position by quoting from
himself only to support it. He makes this denial
explicitly. According to his opinion, the consti¬
tutions of more than one half the States of this
Union, and even the Constitution of the United
States itself, are unconstitutional; because in the
case of the former they have been formed by con¬
ventions called by acts of Territorial Legislatures;
and because in the latter, in common with the
former, they have become operative without any
previous action upon them by a popular vote.
Most fortunately for us, his opinion is not the
paramount law of the land; otherwise, a majority
of the most populous and wealthy States of the
5
Union would be resolved at once into a territorial
condition, and even the Old Thirteen would be '
compelled to fall back either upon their original
articles of confederation or their colonial charters.
It was not, to my knowledge, intimated by any
person anywhere, during the discussion of the
Kansas bill, that it was the intention to construe
that bill, as is now declared, so as to initiate an
innovation into the past usage of our Govern¬
ment, by requiring the submission of every dis¬
tinct proposition in a new State constitution to
the popular vote after such constitution has been
legally framed by an authorized convention, as a,
necessary condition precedent to the recognition i
Of that constitution here. The Missouri line was
a restriction upon the right of self-government,
upon the doctrine of popular sovereignty, inas¬
much as it denied to the people north of that line
any control whatever over the question of slavery.
The Kansas act repealed that line, and therefore
annulled the denial, placing that question in the
same category with others of a domestic charac¬
ter, subject to the same popular will, leaving that
will to be exercised as before, in whatever manner
it chose, either through delegates or by a direct
vote.
The recognition of popular sovereignty by the
repeal of the Missouri line, consisted in the fact
that it placed the question of slavery where all
others previously were. It did not provide, nor
did it contemplate, nor did its supporters imagine,
nor did its author intimate, that it contemplated
the submission of every bank proposition, every
internal improvementprojet, every school system,
every election qualification in a new constitution,
to the people, before the people by and for whom
it was formed should be admitted into the Union.
Any attempt at that time to so shape i ts language as
to place that construction on it, would have been
resisted—I can venture, for the truth of this asser¬
tion, to appeal to those about me who acted with
its author at the time of its introduction—not only
as an uncalled-for and unnecessary innovation
upon the past usage of the Government, butas in
conflict with that very popular sovereignty which
its author then so ably advocated, and for which
he now declaims, by denying to the people their
right to delegate their power and authority.
If the constitution of Kansas comes here, as
we are told it will, without previous submission
to the popular vote, I shall regret the fact as much
as any gentleman on this floor, or any citizen
throughout the Republic; but yet, if it comes here
undersuch circumstances, it will not be an isolated
exception to a general rule. Whence this new¬
born anxiety as to the manner in which that
particular constitution shall come before Con¬
gress? The rule, on the contrary, has been quite
the reverse; for, as the Senator from Missouri
[Mr. Green] so ably told us, a few days since,
a majority of the new States, Indiana, Ohio, and
Illinois, included, have been admitted with con¬
stitutions which had not previously received the
popular sanction, and no complaint followed,
either from the States or Congress. Such man¬
ner of submission has heretofore met the sanction
osf the Senator from Illinois himself. I do not
make this allusion to convict him of inconsist¬
ency, because I know not and care not whether
he has been inconsistent or not. As he well said,
yesterday, it has no bearing whatever on this
question; and if attempts to convict each other
of inconsistencies are to constitute the staple ar¬
gument on this question, I fancy very few of us
will escape unscathed. This manner of submis¬
sion has before met his sanction, both positive
and implied; positive, in his having voted for the
admission of States with constitutions similarly
formed and similarly presented; implied, in his
having, jointly with others, framed a permissory
act for Kansas, without providing for the sub¬
mission of the constitution it contemplated to the
people, before that constitution came here. If
that permissory act had passed both branches of
Congress, and become a law, the result would
have been precisely what it now is.
Emanating as it did, from a Democratic source
—the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs] and
the Senator from Illinois—it met the unqualified
opposition of the opposite, or Republican party.
That opposition would have been manifested m
Kansas precisely as has their opposition to every
other proposition not emanating from the Topeka
faction, precisely as has their opposition to the ter¬
ritorial law calling a convention, namely, by their
refusal to vote at the election of delegates to a con¬
vention . Such has been the policy and course of the
Topeka faction within Kansas, and their abettors
and sympathizers without. They have constantly
refused to recognize any law in Kansas, except it
was the work of the self-constituted law-makers
of their own faction. They have refused to obey
any law there, or hold it worthy of obedience,
except the will of that faction. Their refusal to
vote at the election of delegates, under the con¬
gressional permissory act, would have resulted
precisely as has their refusal to vote under the
territorial act. The same kind of constitution
would have been formed and presented here in
the same manner, without previous submission.
The manner then would have been chargeable to
Congress, especially the Democratic portion, and
particularly the authors of the bill. Now it is
chargeable to the people of theTerritory, through
their Territorial Legislature, and chargeable in
the present case, as it would have been in the
former, because of the omission to provide for its
submission. If the present constitution had come
here under the congressional permissory act, as it
would if that act had passed, in all probability, it
is scarcely to be believed that it would have met
the same reception it has now, from the same
source—that a demand would have been made by
the Senator from Illinois that it should previously
be submitted to the people; that he would have
been as prompt to condemn his own work as he
now is that of others.
It is objected to this constitution that it was
formed by a convention called into existence by
a Territorial Legislature—a body, which those
making the objection believe not possessed of
the right or authority to make the call. In my
estimation, this objection might have been well
taken in the earlier days of the Republic, but it is
too late to take it now, after the oft-repeated rec¬
ognition of this right by admitting new States,
whose constitutions have been similarly framed
and presented. Usage, it need not be said, be¬
comes, in legislative matters, law. Moreover, the
Kansas organic act itself refutes this objection,
giving, as it does, to the people of that Territory,
the right to " form and regulate their domestic in-
6
stitutionsin theirown way." Then, if they bad
not previously the right to call a convention by
and through the Territorial Legislature, either as
a necessary incident to the right to act through
delegates or representatives, or as bestowed on
them by the past usage of the Government in
admitting many States with constitutions framed
by conventions thus called into existence, that
act explicitly gives them the right.
The case of Arkansas has been cited here. It
hps very little bearing on this. No Kansas act,
no organic law, permitting the people of Arkansas
to " form and regulate their domestic institutions
in their own way" tvas enacted for that Territory.
Conscious that this objection has really little
valid foundation, some of those making it resort to
another, namely, that the Territorial Legislature,
which called this convention was, in their parlance,
a " bogus" one, an illegal one, and that, being
illegal, neither the convention it formed, nor the
constitution framed by that convention, can be
legal. The Senator from Illinois (aud i really feel
myself under the necessity of begging his pardon,
and that of the Senate, for such frequent reference
to him-, but it is unavoidable, as I have said,
because of his previous connection with Kansas
matters, and because his argument has been the
only one in the Senate on that side of the case, in
opposition to my views)—the Senator from Illi¬
nois does not agree with those who affirm the first
of these propositions; in other words, he asserts
the legality of the Territorial Legislature of Kan¬
sas, but he is understood to concur with the
Topeka men in affirming the two latter.
Now, sir, Congress (the Senator from Illinois
included) having repeatedly acknowledged the
legality of the Territorial Legislature, it is very
difficult to perceive by what process of special
pleading we are to avoid acknowledging the legal¬
ity of its acts if they do not conflict with the
Constitution of the United States or the Kansas
organic act. That many, and perhaps a majority
of the citizens of Kansas, did not vote either at
the election of representatives to the Territorial
Legislature, or delegates to the convention, may
be true. Where is your remedy? You cannot
compel men to vote. They can only be permitted
and invited to do so. If a part in any given com¬
munity, in order to subserve some particular po¬
litical purpose, to supply pabulum, it may be, for
some political party, to promote the purposes of
some partisan leader, neglect or reject the invita¬
tion, and will not vote, is the machinery of Gov¬
ernment hence to stop, and society to resolve
itself into anarchy ? Because some political party
or, perhaps, a sufficiency of them to change a
majority, will not vote, are those who will do so
to be deprived of any government ? Permit such
an absurdity, and you deprive New York of any
.State government during the period for which its
officers were recently elected.. Admit such an
absurdity, and you enable any faction to over¬
turn your Government by keeping away from the
polls, especially if they can substantiate a prob¬
ability that the majority and the laws would have
been different if they had voted.
Our Government is one of checks and balances;
and some of its checks apply even to the people
themselves. Among the objects of our Govern¬
ment, one is to protect the legal rights of the
minority against an illegal assumption or denial
of those rights by a majority. While the right
of the majority to rule is clearly recognized, it .
must rule in a legal manner. If a majority re¬
solve itself into a mob, and will neither vote nor
observe law or order, the minority who are law-
abiding, who form and obey government, cannot
be deprived of the benefits and protection of that
government by such majority. Ts mobocracy to
be substituted for democracy? The denial, by the
Topeka faction, of the legality of the Territorial
Legislature is a part of their plan to subserve a
particular purpose. They design thereby to force
upon Congress a retrospective recognition of the
Topeka constitution, with the officials created
under its pretended adoption. Hence their pro¬
claimed determination to receive no constitution,
not even that framed at Topeka, from the hands
of the late convention. Its acceptance now would
imply the necessity of a future election, and the
Robinsons and Lanes, and their sympathizers
here, are apprehensive they might not be as suc¬
cessful at those elections as they were at such
as were ordered and controlled by themselves.
Therefore they demand the recognition, and of
course the legalization of the Topeka constitution
of the past, with all its attendant anarchy, all its
attendant defiance of the legal territorial and con¬
stitutional authorities, and indeed with all its fac¬
tious treason. In furtherance of this demand they
take exceptions to certain portions of the present
constitution other than the slavery clause. To that
they do not deem it advisable to object, because
being submitted to the popular vote, they know
that it will be expected of them by the world out¬
side of that Territory, if they have the majority
they claim, that they show their majority by
rejecting that clause.
A comparison of the features to which they
object in the Lecompton constitution, with sim¬
ilar ones in that of Topeka, which they profess to
have adopted, is favorable to the former, showing
that their objections are merely factious. Among
these objections is, that twenty years'citizenship
is required as a qualification for Governor. Their
own—the Topeka constitution—permits a semi-
barbarous Indian to be Governor! There is "a
bank clause in both; and if there be any choice
where, as in matters of banks, all is evil, that
choice is clearly in favor of the Lecompton instru¬
ment, because the bank for which that provides
cannot go into operation without the previous
assent of the people. Both contain a clause pro¬
hibiting amendment for a certain number of years
in the future. I grant you it is a dead letter in
both, because the people will amend or change
their constitution in their own good time. In the
Topeka instrument this prohibition extends to
1865. The conduct of that Topeka faction, their
resistance to legal territorial and national au¬
thority, their incipient rebellion, are yet too fresh
in the minds of our people to permit a direct
proposition to be seriously entertained for one
moment, to legalize their acts; yet we are called
upon to do so indirectly; we are called upon tp
truckle to this treasonable faction, to humbly ask
it whether this or some other constitution will best
subserve its purposes. We are asked to ignore
the existence of any law-abiding citizens in Kan¬
sas to place such men in power and position.
The compromise of 1850 and the Kansas act of
1854 based upon it; both recognize in the people
7
of the Territories the same right and power pos¬
sessed by the people of the States* namely: the
right and power to govern themselves, subject
only to the Constitution of the United States and
the laws necessary toenforce it. The recognition
qf this right and power has resulted, in all exeept
■two of our present Territories, in the formation
of a legal and orderly government of the character
«ontemplated. The two exceptions are Utah and
Kansas. In the former, usurpation, defiance of
and opposition to the constitutional authorities of
the country have resulted; in the latter, anarchy
and faction,and a determination to yield obedience
to no law except the offspring of faction. The
■remedy in the former case is a plain one—it is
force. In the latter the only remedy must be the
recognition of the acts of such law-abiding citi¬
zens as have evinced a willingness to be governed
and to govern themselves by yielding obedience
to a constitutional and legal government. The in¬
terests, the welfare, indeed I may say the safety,
not only of the neighboring States and Territo¬
ries, but of the entire Confederacy, demand that
this Kansas controversy, a local one, should be
localized; that it should no longer be permitted to
form an irritating element of national politics, dis¬
turbing the peace and endangering the unity of
our Government, but should be limited to Kansas.
The experience of the past, and indeed of'this
moment, clearly shows that this can only be done
by admitting Kansas as a State. The people of
Kansas have no right to demand or expect the en -
■tire country to be continually agitated, its pros¬
perity interrupted, its unity endangered, because
they will not reconcile their contemptible feuds—
will not settle their factious quarrels. When ad¬
mitted as a State, then, and then only, its people
will, as they must, govern themselves. Then
faction in Kansas will have no apology for call¬
ing on its abetors and sympathizers without, or
upon Congress. Then no power outride of itself
.will have any pretext for interfering with its do¬
mestic feuds. Then, if one constitution be not
pleasing to a majority of its inhabitants, it can be
amended, or another substituted whenever that
majority so will, even if it be within a few days.
With all deference, to those, especially from
my own section, who differ with me on this sub¬
ject, I see no course for Congress to adopt in the
present emergency but to admit Kansas with
whatever constitution it may present here—as¬
suming always that the election of yesterday was
wot fraudulent, and was not interrupted by force
—after first satisfying ourselves as to the consti¬
tutional requirement, is it republican in form?
and next, did it emanate from a legal source ? was
it formed in a legal manner? These are the only
questions, in my judgment, that we have any
warrant for asking. It is not for us to inquire
how many votes were cast at the election of del¬
egates to the convention. It is not for us to ask
whether some portion or all of it was submitted
to the popular vote, unless indeed, as in the case
of the constitution of Wisconsin, the instrument
provided for its own submission; or unless, as in
the case of IVIinnesota, a previous act of Con¬
gress required such submission. In all other
than these two exceptional cases, such questions
are for the decision of the people alone. If they
ehoose to enact a law through their Territorial
Legislature, calling a constitutional convention,
in the absence of any congressional law on the sub¬
ject, they have a righj, to do so. If in enacting such
law they choose to permit or provide for a submis¬
sion of the entire constitution, or only a part of it
to a popular vote, or to have all of it withheld
from such submission, they have a right to do
either. They possess the right under their organio
law permitting them to form and regulate their
institutions in their own way," and they possess
it generally under our recognized doctrine of non¬
intervention, or popular sovereignty. If any do¬
mestic differences occur between themselves and
their servants, their representatives or delegates,
the same doctrine of non-intervention prohibits
us from interfering. Their domestic differences,
like their "domestic institutions," must be settled
by them in " their own way," so that the way
be legal. If a portion of the citizens choose to
refrain from voting, either for representatives to
their Legislature, or for delegates to their con¬
vention, or for or against whatever portion of
their constitution may be submitted, we have no
remedy. We cannot force them to vote. Those
who abstain from voting, whether they abstain
merely as peaceable citizens or for factious pur¬
poses, as has been the case with a vast number
in Kansas, permit others to vote for them, and
if the decision at the ballot box be adverse to
their views they permit that decision to be taken
by default. Congress, acting under the Consti¬
tution, and the doctrine of popular sovereignty,
recognizes their right to vote and their right " to
form and regulate their domestic institutions in
their own way;" but it is for them, and them
alone to say to what extent they will exercise the
right of voting, in what manner they will exer¬
cise it, or whether they will exercise it at all. It
is not for Congress to prescribe the manner and
extent, or to dictate a particular way, in which
they shall form their " domestic institutions,"
whether immediately through the ballot box, en
masse, or by delegating authority to act for them.
If they present a constitution here, republican in
form, emanating from legal authority, formed in
a legal manner, it is not for us to require that a
certain number of votes shall have been cast at
the election of the delegates who framed it; it is
not for us to require that a portion of it, or all of
it, shall have been submitted to a popular vote,
unless such submission be required by the instru¬
ment itself or by a previous act of Congress; it is
not for us to require that it shall contain a bank
clause or an anti-bank clause, a slavery clause or
an anti-slavery clause. These are all questions
for the decision of the party directly interested—
the people of Kansas. If these or similar require¬
ments are adhered to, and the constitution re¬
turned because it does not fulfill them, such action
on our part will be a denial of popular sover¬
eignty, a denial of their right to regulate their
domestic institutions in their own way, and a
demand that they shall form and regulate them
in that way, whatever it may be, prescribed for
them and dictated to them by Congress. It would
be, in fact, direct intervention with their domes¬
tic institutions, their internal affairs.
I should have greatly preferred, especially in
the present state of feeling in Kansas and through¬
out the country, that the entire constitution had
been submitted to the people. It would have been,
if the people would haye exercised the right guar-
8
antied to them. The fault is their own, not ours.
We cannot go behind their own legal actions—
recognized as legal heretofore by Congress and
the Executive. We are bound by that action in
my estimation. I say I should have greatly pre¬
ferred that the entire instrument had been submit¬
ted to the people; but, notwithstanding this pref¬
erence, the legal right of the convention, under
the law which called it into existence, to withhold
the constitution in part or altogether from submis¬
sion, is to my mind unquestionable. The con¬
vention is responsible to the people of Kansas
•alone for the exercise of that right.
We are told that if we recognize the present con¬
stitution, difficulties will ensue. Ibelieve it; and
so they will if we reject it. Indeed, I have heard
of no proposition connected with this matter which
has not its attendant difficulties. My own sincere
desire is to have that course adopted which will
be productive of the least evil to the greatest num¬
ber. Without committing myself for or against
any other proposition which may come up, and
which may be rendered necessary perhaps by
some exigency—ei ther a failure to hold an election
yesterday, or a forcible prevention of an election,
or interference with it—I shall only select at pres¬
ent between the two which are likely from the
present state of facts to come before us. One of
these is to recognize this constitution; the other, to
reject it.
The first of these propositions is recommended
by the President, the chief Executive officer of
the nation; the man but recently elected by an
overwhelming majority to preside over its desti¬
nies for four years; an old man, almost three score
and ten; one who has devoted the greater portion
of his long life to the service of his country, and
has been placed in almost every position in the gift
of its citizens, and discharged the duties of all to
their satisfaction; one who has no political future,
no schemes of personal ambition to subserve, who
is no candidate for a future nomination, but will
retire from the position he now holds with far more
pleasure than he entered upon its duties, desiring
only to leave behind him a fair fame and name,
and to so administer the Government as will best
promote its power, its honor, and its prosperity.
The other of these two propositions is supported
by the Senator from Illinois. I honor him. 1 have
ever admired him; yet, in some respects, he is the
antipodes of the President. Young, of a brilliant
intellect, of which all his countrymen might well
be proud, but ambitious, and a candidate past,
and perhaps future. I do not speak this in any
disparagement of him, for ambition, divested of
self—a desire to hold place without any selfish
motive inciting it; a desire to hold place merely
to leave the impress of his policy on the Govern¬
ment of his country and to enhance the pros¬
perity of its people—is an honorable feeling.
In justification for his so ill-timed hurrying this
debate upon the Senate, and upon the country,
the Senator from Illinois told us that the Presi¬
dent, in his message, had assailed him and his
previous course. He intimated further, that every
allusion to him here, in debate upon the affairs of
Kansas, was designed as a continuation of the
attack, and that there was some person, or some
power, using a suborned press and suborned let¬
ter-writers, to likewise assail him. In all this, he
sees more of himself than others do—fancies him¬
self the object of actions which have little reference
to him, and with which little thought of him was
associated. He did not name or locate this per¬
son, or this power, thus suborning the press, leav¬
ing full play for our imaginations. It may be soma
tangible person; it may be some myth, some fog,
some shadowy nothing, existing only in his im¬
agination; or it may be that this one of his allega¬
tions grew out of a recollection of a similar charge
once brought against himself—a charge to which
he then very promptly and properly took excep¬
tion, as I do to this general charge of his against
a somebody who is not designated. He was onee
charged—and it was not in a subdued whisper,
but trumpet-toned and hundred-tongued—with
at least no unwillingness, that a public journal,
thought to be controlled by him, and claiming to
be the mouth-piece of the national Democracy,
should throw overboard Mr. Buchanan, General
Cass, and other fathers of the party, as " old
fogies."
I have thus, sir, briefly stated the qualities of
the two gentlemen who recommended these oppo¬
site propositions. I have the most profound re¬
spect for them both. Locality, every considera¬
tion of self, if such could enter into my motives
of action in this matter, would induce me to go
with the Senator from Illinois. We are geograph¬
ically neighbors. I may almost say that his people
and my people are one. He has, perhaps, more
influence among my people than I have myself
These considerations, however, have nothing
whatever to do with my course, or my opinion
on this question. Between these two counselors,
thus recommending opposite propositions, I have
no hesitation as to whose advice to follow. Of
the two propositions, I look upon the one to re¬
ject this constitution as far the most mischievous,
because it will prolong this controversy as ah
element of that dangerous secfional agitation,
which threatens, and has threatened, the unity of
the Republic. Between the two, assuming that
one or the other must be acted on here, my choio#
will unhesitatingly be for the former.
Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President, I ask pardon
of the Senator from Michigan for occupying a
few moments of the time properly belonging to
him. I regret that, as the Senator from Indiana
spoke by the courtesy of the Senator from Mich¬
igan, he should have deemed it necessary to say
anything that demanded a reply from me at thi
expense of the Senator who is entitled to the floor.
I understand the Senator's argument to rest upon
the proposition, which he argues at some length,
that the object, the only object, of that portion
of the Kansas-Nebraska bill which repealed tha
Missouri restriction, was to place the slavery
question on the same footing with each and every
other local and domestic question, as had been
done from the beginning of the Government. I
do not misunderstand him on that point.
Mr. FITCH. No, sir.
Mr. DOUGLAS. I am glad to find that on tha
very basis of his argument he and I agree. It
was the object of repealing the Missouri compro¬
mise, to put the slavery question on the same foot¬
ing with each and every other domestic question
in the Territories and new States: that is, to leave
the people perfectly free to form and regulate all
their domestic institutions, slavery included, to
suit themselves. On this point, however, he dif-
9
fers with the President of the United States; for
the President tells us that the object was to make
•lavery an exception and submit that by itself,
hut not submit the other questions.
I was sorry to see the Senator taking issue with
the President of the United States upon a ques¬
tion of that kind, and, at the same time, arraign¬
ing me for having done the same thing. The
whole head and front of my offending consists in
the fact, that I dissented from that part of the
President's message which declared that the sla¬
very question was an exception, and argued to
prove that the object of the Kansas-Nebraska bill
was to exclude that exception and put the slavery
question on the same footing with every other
question which was local and not national, State
and not Federal. The Senator from Indiana now
agrees with me that the President was wrong in
that part of his message, and that I was right.
There is no avoiding this conclusion. He re¬
peated the proposition a dozen times in the course
of his speech. I am glad to find that he and I
agree thus far. I hope he will not consider that
he is outside the pale of a healthy organization;
that he is abandoning the President, and engaging
in an ambitious scheme to break down the Ad¬
ministration, because he differs with the Pres¬
ident on the same point that I do.
He says I have come out in favor of a general
rule, novel in the history of the Government, that,
hereafter, every constitution formed by a new
State coming into the Union must be submitted
to the people before it is sent here. The Senator
argues against the general rule as being a novel
andrevolutionaryprinciple, which ought not to be
fastened on the country at this day. Has he read
the President's message on that point? In the
message, the President of the United States tells
us that the example of the Minnesota bill, in re¬
quiring the constitution to be submitted to the
people, is a noble example; and should be fol¬
lowed in all cases hereafter to arise. The Sen¬
ator is arraigning the general rule of the President
in regard to the submission of constitutions to the
people for ratification. I stand with the President
m behalf of that general rule.
I am a little at a loss to see upon what ground
it is that the Senator utters vague inuendoes about
men putting themselves in a factious position
itowards the party, dividing and distracting its
councils to such an extent that they ought, to
be considered outside of the party. He differs
with the President on two points: I on one. The
President says the slavery question i3 treated by
the Kansas-Nebraska bill as an exception. The
Senator says that by that bill, and by the Cincin¬
nati platform, the slavery question is put on the
same footing with all other questions, v^ithout any
exception. On that point, as I have said, the Sen¬
ator from Indiana and myself agree, both dif¬
fering from the President. He differs from the
President in regard to the general rule that the
■constitution ought to be submitted to the people.
On that point I agree with the President. If to
differ from the President is faction, then the Sen¬
ator has just double the amount of faction in his
position that I have in mine.
Then what is the issue between the Senator
from Indiana and myself? Agreeing that the
abject of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was to place
the slavery question on an equal footing with all
other local and domestic institutions, and leave
.the people free to decide the whole, he takes the
ground that he will not submit those questions to
the people, and I take the ground that they should
be submitted to the people. That is the simple
point of difference. On that point the reasoning
of the President is with me, for he says, that by
the terms of the Nebraska bill, it was incumbent
upon the Democratic party to insist that the
slavery question should be submitted to the people
for their decision; and if the Senator from Indiana
be right in saying that by the Nebraska bill the
slavery question was put on the same footing
with all others, then if he agrees with the Presi¬
dent, he affirms that the whole constitution should
be submitted to the people for their ratification.
Thus we find the gentleman in conflict with the
President of the United States at all points, and
in conflict with the President upon the very rec¬
ommendations he makes in regard to the Terri¬
tories which are about to become States, to wit:
the general rule of submission. The Senator from
Indiana will not claim, like the Senator from Penn¬
sylvania, that he has "other sources of informa¬
tion" than the message. He will not claim that
there are sources of information which authorize
him to deny the propositions laid down in the
message. If he will, I should like to know who
is the friend, and who is the enemy, of the Pres¬
ident of the United States?
The Senator from Indiana cannot maintain his
position without rebelling against a large portion
of the message on the Kansas question. But I
hold that he has a right to differ from the Presi¬
dent. God forbid that I should ever surrender
my right to differ from a President of the United
States of my own choice! I have not become the
mere servile tool of any President, so that I am
bound to take every recommendation he makes,
without examining and ascertaining whether it
meets the approval of my judgment or not. I
know that the President would not respect me if
I should thus receive a dictum from any author¬
ity contrary to my judgment.
Again, yesterday, I tried to ascertain if there
was any one Senator on this floor who was pre¬
pared to yield obedience to the President's rec¬
ommendations in his message, without exception.
I instanced the Pacific railroad, the bankrupt law,
the tariff, and many other questions, and I could
not get a response from any one man who indorses
the whole, or is prepared to carry it out. All
other men are permitted to dissent but me! It is
factious in me to dissent! If I dissent, it disturbs
the harmony of the Democratic party ! I tell the
Senator that if he will stand faithful by the Cin¬
cinnati platform, which affirmed the right of the
people to decide all .their local and domestic insti¬
tutions for themselves, there will be harmony
between him and me; and if each member of the
party will stand by that platform, there will be
harmony in the whole party. Why not stand
there? Oh, it is factious! It is intimated, not
charged, that there is something fearful, some¬
thing terrible in this thing of a man daring to be
true and faithful to his principles, when other men
do not desire that he should be.
Allusions are made to men whose names are
known—to Burr and Van Buren—as if they came
from sources that would read me out of the Dem¬
ocratic party. I should like those who are ar-
10
raigning my course here, to compare records with
me in my devotion and service to the party for
the fourteen years that I have been in Congress.
The assumption is, that I will not bow the knee
to power, when that power itself does not recom¬
mend it, and the insinuation is that I am factious.
Sir, call it faction; call it what you please; I intend
to stand by the Nebraska bill, by the Cincinnati
platform, by the organization and principles of
the party; and I defy opposition from whatever
quarter it comes.
I predict that sixty days shall not go over my
head before I shall be in harmony with those who
are now most relied upon to crush me and the
principle of the Nebraska bill, by the admission of
the Lecompton constitution. I shall be mistaken
if, in sixty days, you come here unanimously
demanding the indorsement of the Lecompton
constitution, as a test of faith. The pro-slavery
clause stricken out may make popular sovereignty
look very different in gentlemen's eyes from what
it would if it were in. The pro-slavery clause
in, with the exception of the Senator from Indi¬
ana, the merits of that convention may look very
differently to some gentlemen from what they
would if it were out. With me it can make no
difference. I regard the result of that convention
as a trick, a fraud upon the rights of the people,
and come with slavery or without slavery, I am
opposed to the whole of it.
But we are told we must force the Lecompton
constitution down the throats of the people for
the sake of peace; for the sake of localizing the
quarrel. How is that to be done? Bypassing
an act of Congress forcing a constitution on the
people of Kansas against the will of that people
What next? When you find the stubborn, fac¬
tious majority resisting the government that you
haveimposcd on them, the President will be called
upon to use the Army and the Navy to put down
insurrection; and inasmuch as this Lecompton
faction is only composed of perhaps one tenth or
one twentieth of the whole people, and there is
not a man of them who dares stay there a day
without the United States army to protect him,
we should have a special message from the Pres¬
ident recommending an increase of the Army, and
the calling out of volunteers to march to Kansas
to put down the insurrection, and maintain the
government which you force on them at the point
of the bayonet. That is the mode in which you
are going to localize the Kansas quarrel—by call¬
ing troops from Virginia and from Wisconsin,
from Illinois and from South Carolina, from Mas¬
sachusetts and from Mississippi, and stationing
those volunteers around the city of Lecompton to
protect the Governor whom you impose upon that
people against their will! Then I suppose there
will be perfect peace and harmony among them
all. You will restore peace in that way, and
localize the Kansas difficulty! No, sir. The
moment you impose a constitution on that people
against their remonstrance and protest, you have
nationalized thisdifficulty,and pledged yourselves
to maintain that government at the point of the
bayonet, and with all the power at your com¬
mand. You have legalized civil war instead of
localizing the Kansas quarrel. These are my
convictions. I believe that such will he the con¬
sequences, if we proceed in this mad career of
forcing a constitution on a people against their
will. I hope I may be mistaken, and that such
consequences will not result; but, while such are
my convictions, I must be permitted to express
them. If my doing so brings down assaults on
me, from whatever quarter, high or low, from my
own section or an opposite section, I must repel
those assaults; but I do not choose to go into any
crimination or recrimination in regard to consist
ency on former phases of this question. I am
willing that my consistency shall be judged of
by the public. I think my course is pretty well
known, and I am willing that the people shall
judge of it. If the course of the Senator from
Indiana is equally well known, let the people
judge of it by that knowledge. If it is not as
well known, I have no desire, no disposition, to
hunt up old speeches and old records and old let¬
ters to show his inconsistency. Consistency has
very little to do with this question. The great
point is, is it right to force a constitution upon a
people against their will? Am I not right in my
opposition to that act of power and oppression^
I would rather argue that question than go into
any controversies with political friends or even
political opponents. I would prefer that they
should consider me so humble an individual that
my history of fifteen years is not necessary to be
discussed, inasmuch as during the whole fifteen
years, I have found them loud in praise of my
course as to the political iniquities which they
now propose to bring in judgment against me.
E[ut,sir, I ask no mercy in relation to this mat¬
ter. I will not provoke controversy with any¬
body. I shall not shrink from the avowal of my
opinions and the vindication of my character
whenever I choose to do it. I may not reply to
all. It may be an object to worry out my strength
by these constant attacks from day today. When¬
ever I find it failing I will reserve myself, and
then come back and take a raking fire at the whale
group. [Laughter.] But whenever I shall feel
inclined I will' repel the blow at the time it is
Mr. FITCH. Mr. President
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from
Michigan is entitled to the floor.
Mr. FITCH. I should not ask the indulgence
of the Senator from Michigan, but for the facl
that the Senator from Illinois, for reasons best
known to himself,attributed to me language which
I did not utter, and sentiments which I have not
expressed or entertained. I must, therefore, ap¬
peal to the courtesy of the Senator from Michigan
to allow me to answer.
Mr. STUART. Inasmuch as I commenced the
day by acts of courtesy, it would hardly be grace¬
ful now for me to refuse to extend the courtesy. ,
I yield to the Senator.
Mr. FITCH. At first, the Senator from Illi¬
nois assumed that his own and my argument were
based on the same idea—the idea that the slavery
question, from being an exceptional one, was, by
the compromises of 1850 and by the Kansas bill,
placed under the general rule, and subjected to
the popular will, in precisely the same manner
with other domestic questions. Whatever his
views now may be, he did not express that view
in his opening speech. Here it is, in the pamph¬
let form, as ordered by the Senator:
" Now, sir, what was the principle enunciated by tftp
authors and supporters of that hill, when it was brought ftrt-
ward ? Did we not come before the country, and say that
we repealed the Missouri restriction for the purpose of sub¬
stituting and carrying out., as a general rule, the great prin¬
ciple of self-government, which left the people of each State
and each Territory free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way ?"
" Repealed the Missouri restriction for the pur¬
pose Of substituting-" a something else—a new
"general rule;" self-government in lieu of the
rule of government previously enforced. Why,
sir, that paragraph implies that the Senator from
Illinois wrested the right of self-government from
som'e tyranny,and bestowed it on thepeople; that
he gave them a " general rule"—a power whi^h
they did not previously possess. Now he claims
merely to have taken one question from an ex¬
ceptional position and placed it under a " general
rule" previously in force. I grant that, subse¬
quently, in the course of his remarks, he spoke
of the slavery question as an exceptional one,
which his Kansas bill proposed to place upon the
same footing with the other domestic questions;
but not so in the opening remarks of his speech
—Its foundation. He tells me, I differ with the
President. I stop not to ask whether I differ with
him or the Senator from Illinois. Neither the
President nor any other gentleman is responsible
for my course, but myself. I would differ with
the one as soon as with the other, if I thought
his reasoning, or the conclusions at which he ar¬
rived, were not correct. I do not read the mes¬
sage as the Senator from Illinois reads it, and his
reading is not justified by its language. I nowhere
find the President saying that the slavery ques¬
tion was made an exceptional one by the Kansas
bill. He says, in substance, that it was the prom¬
inent question,the one which had been discussed,
the one which had been agitated; and, therefore,
that it was highly proper that it should be sub¬
mitted to the people as a distinct proposition.
The Senator from Illinois asserted—not in terms,
but that was the purport—that I denied the pro¬
priety of submitting a State constitution—inclu¬
ding that of Kansas—to the people. I distinctly
asserted my regret that it was not thus submitted;
but declared that, in my opinion, v/e had no right
to go behind the authority we had recognized as
legal, and demand its submission, when that au¬
thority had omitted to demand it. The Senator
from Illinois must confine himself to the record—
to what I have said—when he pretends to quote
me or my sentiments.
The Senator asks me, as he asked the Senator
from Pennsylvania yesterday, why these innu¬
endoes about faction and a division of the party.
He was the first Senator to introduce here what
he calls innuendoes and intimations upon that sub¬
ject. He was the first to allude to any possible
division of the party; the first to allude to any
faction in connection with this question. I merely
answered his allusion, and am not to be taken to
task for it.
I did not quote the message, as he says. I
scarcely made allusion to it, except as to the con-
elusions at which the President arrived. Has the
Senatorno other defense than attributing language
to me I did not utter—attributing sentiments to
me I did not express ? He says he agrees with
the President in some points, and differs with him
on others; and that I disagree with him on some,
and coincide with him in others. The difference
between the Senator and thyself is simply this:
he denies the President's conclusion, but pretends
to coincide with him in his reasoning; while I
concur both in his reasoning and conclusion.
Mr. DOUGLAS. What conclusion do yon
refer to ?
Mr. FITCH. The conclusion that the consti¬
tution of Kansas, if it comes before us , as it is sup¬
posed it will, from the convention direetly, with¬
out previous submission, will nevertheless be a
constitution which we can legally accept, and per¬
haps, under the circumstances, ought to accepti
The Cincinnati platform is lugged again and
again into this controversy by the Senator. I have
some little, but not much, faith in political plat¬
forms. You know, sir, how they are framed. A
committee is appointed to draft resolutions; they
bring them forward, and because they do not
happen to expressly conflict with the sentiments
of the wise gentlemen then and there assembled
for another purpose than to build a political plat¬
form to guide all posterity, namely, to nominate
candidates for President and Vice President, for¬
sooth they are to control Government and its
policy from thence henceforth forever. I have no
objection to the Cincinnati platform; on the con¬
trary,! believe it to be an admirable one. It recog¬
nizes, in almost the language of the Kansas bill,
the right of the people to regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way. The people of
Kansas have exercised that right in their own
way, a way deemed legal; a-way the President
deems legal. True, there is opposition to that way,
and some demand that their institutions shall be
regulated in another way, namely, by the sub¬
mission of the constitution, emanating from what
we deem a legal source, to the popular vote; when
the source from which it emanated was not com¬
pelled by the people in enacting the law, calling
that source into existence, to thus submit it. I
should be pleased to have it submitted; but it is
not my will, but the will of the people of Kansas,
legally expressed, which is to control the matter.
The people of Kansas frame their own laws
through a Legislature. I look at those laws, and
find one calling a convention to frame a consti¬
tution, without requiring its submission to the
people. The people, in fact, were willing to part
with control over it, and leave the whole matter in
the hands of the convention. I can only know
their will through their laws, and I know no
right, except it be an arbitrary one, authorizing
me or Congress to set aside or go behind their
laws.
The Senator takes exception to what he calls
insinuations. Mr. President, much of his first
speech was devoted to insinuation, and hence it
1 ill becomes him to charge insinuations to others,
when simply alluding to his own. It is well known
that he insinuated, in his opening remarks, that
improper influences were at work upon the affairs
of Kansas, either outside or within the Territory,
of which he possessed a knowledge, and yet he
would not give that knowledge to the Senate.
He insinuated, as is within the recollection of
I every gentleman who heard him, that some kind
of influence was at work, an improper and unau¬
thorized influence, to compel the slavery clause
to be struck out of the constitution. He insin¬
uated some sort of knowledge on his part that the
" returns"—emphasizing the word—would show
a great majority for striking out that clause,.as
12
though there was to be a second edition of the
Oxford frauds, though in an opposite direction;
and he had knowledge of this fact, but would
not communicate it. This was a mere insinu¬
ation. Upon what was it based ?
Now, again, he indulges in the same strain.
He insinuates that within sixty days those now
agreeing with the President in his views in rela¬
tion to this matter, particularly southern Sena¬
tors, will stand side by side with him, because the
slavery clause will, in all probability, be stricken
out.
Mr. DOUGLAS. I did not say northern or
southern.
Mr. FITCH. Then those who agree with the
President. This is an insinuation that gentle¬
men—he says he did not indicate southern gen¬
tlemen—who have avowed, in public and private,
their views and their determination to vote for
this constitution, if it comes here with a fair elec¬
tion yesterday, not interrupted by force, whether
the slavery clause be left in or voted out, leaving
that question for the decision of the people, will
change theirdetermination if that clause be stricken
out.
Mr. President, it was to avoid just such an in- (
sinuation in relation to myself, because I knew it
would come, that I determined, if an opportunity '
offered, to state the reasons for my action in ad¬
vance of any possible knowledge of the character
of the decision yesterday. I was determined that
neither that Senator, or others, should be able to
aay to me, you would have voted differently if
that clause were in, or differently if it were out.
Other insinuations are also made. One is that
Bome power or person, some vague shadowy
something, which he would not name or locate,
was suborning and buying editors and letter-writ¬
ers to assail him. I have not the money, if I had
the inclination, if it was intended in part for me.
•Another insinuation which I did not think
proper to answer, and an uncalled for one, was, if
I did not misunderstand his language yesterday,
that those who were opposed to him were, in a
great measure, governed by Executive patronage
and favor. I have nothing to ask of the Execu¬
tive, present or future, for myself, and scorn any
such imputation, come from where it may. When
imputations like that are thrown abroad to in¬
fluence and prejudice the people against their rep¬
resentatives here, it only indicates what kind of
motive can govern the man who makes them.
Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President, I have a word
to say in regard to what the gentleman designates
insinuation. It is true I did intimate by some
form of expression, (the precise form I cannot
now call to mind,) that I had not the most im¬
plicit faith in the returns that will come from
Kansas, as to the election held yesterday, and I
will tell you why I intimated that doubt. In the
first place, I saw that the convention took that
election out from under the existing laws of the
Territory, and placed it under the direction of
three commissioners to be appointed by the pres¬
ident of the convention, who should appoint the
judges, and they the clerks, and hold the election
without law. It is the first time in the history of
this Government, so far as I know, that a con¬
vention has ever taken the election from under the
existing laws of the land in the Territory. In the
other cases the president of the convention has
issued the writs of election to the sheriffs and the
other county officers who were authorized by law
to conduct, elections: and it was provided that they
should be conducted and returned according ftj
law. Here they expressly took it away from the
law, and thus gave an opportunity to the judges
and clerks to make as many false returns as they
pleased, without violating any law of the land. I
thought it was very extraordinary that a conven¬
tion desirous of a fair election and honest returns.
should have taken it out from under the law., thus
to give unfaithful clerks and judges an opportu¬
nity, if they chose, to make false and fraudulent
returns. That was the reason why I had my
doubts. v
I looked into the constitution of that convention
and I found my doubts strengthened by that exr
amination, fori found that the Oxford frauds wers
legalized in the constitution. I found that John¬
son county, which had only about four hundred
legal voters, was assigned four representatives and
two senators; while Shawnee county, with nine
hundred voters, was assigned two representatives
and one senator. The county having double tbs
number of legal voters had but half the represent¬
ation. I am informed that, when that fact was
called to the attention of the convention by Judge
Elmore, who represented Shawnee, and asked
why it was, the answer given was: " The gentle¬
man forgets that Oxford city is in Johnson coun¬
ty." The adding of the one thousand six hundred
fraudulent votes of Oxford city swelled the num¬
ber from four hundred to two thousand, and thus
enabled them to give four representatives and two
senators to Johnson county, based on thatfraudf,
when, without the fraud, it would not have been
entitled to more than one senator and one repre¬
sentative.
It appearing on the face of the constitution that
the Oxford fraud was thus legalized—it being as¬
certained that the fact of its being legalized was
called to the attention of the convention at the tim«
they did it—that Oxford fraud being alluded to as
a justification for doing it; and then it being known
that the members of the convention almost unan¬
imously denounced Governor Walker for having
set aside that fraud, furnished a presumption thai
there must have been a reason why they provided,
by that schedule, that the returns hereafter should
not be trammeled by any law which would au¬
thorize anybody to set aside frauds. With these
facts before me, I did entertain a doubt as ta
whether it was intended that there should be
honest returns; and I say now, frankly, I have
not the slightest idea that those returns will be
entitled to any credit whatever.
Mr. FITCH. Will the Senator allow me to
interrupt him, because I cannot ask the Senator
from Michigan to yield the floor again? The
Senator from Illinois says that he based his insin¬
uation that improper motives were at work, either
within or without Kansas, to insure the striking
out of the slavery clause yesterday, on a knowl¬
edge of the fact that fraudulent returns had been
previously made, and that the manner of election
for the constitution was unusual. I have before
me his language—the language of the insinuation.
The facts to which he now refers had been long
known to him. The Oxford fraud was long known
to him, for it was a matter of public notoriety for
weeks before Congress assembled. The manner
is
in which the election of yesterday would be con¬
ducted was known. The schedule of their con¬
stitution and the report that their election would
be conducted in that manner and by certain offi¬
cers created by the constitutional convention was
well known for weeks. But the knowledge which
was in his possession, and upon which he insin¬
uated improper motives were at work in Kansas
to secure the striking out of the slavery clause,
was something altogether different, if we are to
believe the honorable Senator's words at the time
of the delivery of his speech. He said:
"I think I have seen enough in the last three days to make
it certain that it will be returned out no matter how the vote
may stand."
Mr. DOUGLAS. I am much obliged to the
Senator for calling my attention, and that of the
Senate, to the express language. The facts which
I have detailed warranted me in the supposition
thatthere was an opportunity to return the slavery
clause in or return it out, just as should be thought
best, and that the convention intended to give that
opportunity by providing, in effect, that the laws
of the Territory, with their penalties, should not
be brought to bear on the offenders, if they did
perpetrate fraud. I thought I saw such a de¬
sign.
Now, what I alluded to having seen within the
last three days, was this: there were rumors cur¬
rent—I did not know whether true or false, and
I do not know now whether they are true or
false—that several gentlemen had started from
here to go by express to Kansas to use all their
power and influence to get the pro-slavery clause
stricken out, so that northern men could vote for
the constitution, whereas it was supposed they
could not if it was not stricken out.
Mr. FITCH. Does the Senator wish to be
understood as intimating that any northern Sen¬
ator sent such a message? If so, in the spirit of
his language to the Senator from Pennsylvania
[Mr. Bigler] yesterday, from what source does
he derive his knowledge? Who is his authority,
and who sent the message?
Mr. DOUGLAS. I made no insinuation that
any northern Senators or any southern Senators
had anything to do with it. I stated that the
rumors existed. I saw one gentleman, a warm
pro-slavery man, who was hurryingoff to Kansas
for the purpose of inducing them to strike out the
clause, in order that a vote of Congress should be
received in favor of the constitution. He did not
say that anybody sent him. I heard that others
had gone.
35th Congress,
1st Session.
SENATE.
( Rep. Com.
) No. 20.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
January 25, 1858.—Ordered to be printed.
February 9, 1858.—Ordered, That 1,500 additional copies be printed.
Mr. Mason made the following
REPORT.
[To accompany Bill S. 85.]
The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the message
of the President of the United States, dated the *Ith of January
instant, in answer to the resolution of the Senate calling for the
" correspondence, instructions, and orders to the United States naval
forces, on the coast of Central America, connected with the arrest of
Walker and his ass dates, at or near the port of San Juan de
Nicaragua," have had the same, with the documents accompanying,
under consideration, and now report:
It appears from these documents that the President of the United
States, having reason to believe that lawless men were engaged at
certain points in the United States in fitting out military expeditions
against some of the republics of Central America, in violation of the
laws of the country, caused the annexed circular to the civil authori¬
ties of the United States at the suspected points, to be issued by the
Secretary of State in the month of September last:
Navy Department, October 2, 1857.
Sir : I am directed by the President to transmit to you, for your
guidance, the accompanying circular, which he has caused to he issued
from the State Department to various civil officers.
You will regard the instructions contained in it as addressed to
yourself.
I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,
ISAAC TOUCEY.
Com. Frederick Chatard,
Commanding U. S. Sloop Saratoga, Aspinwall, N. G.
2
ARREST OF WALKER AND ASSOCIATES.
[A similar letter to tlie above was addressed to Commander Thatcher,
commanding the United States sloop Decatur, Panama, N. G., and to
the commandants of the navy yards at Portsmouth, N. H., New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Pensacola, and San Francisco.]
Department op State,
Washington, September 18, 1857.
Sir : From information received at this department there is reason
to believe that lawless persons1 are now engaged within the limits of
the United States in setting on foot and preparing the means for
military expeditions to he carried on against the territories of Mexico,
Nicaragua, and Costa Rica—republics with whom the United States
are at peace—in direct violation of the sixth section of the act of
Congress, approved April 20, 1818. And, under the eighth section
of the said act, it is made lawful for the President, or such person as
he shall empower, to employ the land and naval forces of the United
States, and the militia thereof, "for the purpose of preventing the
carrying on of any such expedition or enterprise from the territories
or jurisdiction of the United States." I am, therefore, directed by the
President to call your attention to the subject, and to urge you to use
all due diligence to avail yourself of all legitimate means at your
command to enforce these and all other provisions of the said act of
April 20, 1818, against those who may be found to be engaged in
setting on foot or preparing military expeditions against the territo¬
ries of Mexico, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, so manifestly prejudicial
to the national character, and so injurious to the national interest.
And you are also hereby instructed promptly to communicate to this
department the earliest information you may receive relative to such
expeditions.
I am, sir, your obedient servant, LEWIS CASS.
Which circular was afterwards communicated, as instructions, to
the officers commanding naval stations in the United States, and to
Commander Chatard, commanding the United States ship Saratoga,
at Aspinwall, New Granada.
Afterwards, on the 3d of October, 1857, the same circular was com¬
municated by the Secretary of the Navy to Flag-officer H. Paulding,
commanding the home squadron, then also at Aspinwall.
Subsequently, Lieutenant Almy, commanding the United States
steamer Fulton, then lying at Washington, being ordered to proceed,
with the steamer under his command, to the coast of Central America,
with a view to intercept any such unlawful military expedition, in
addition to the circular above cited, from the State Department, was
further instructed as follows :
THE NEUTRALITY LAWS.
3
,Navy Department, October 12, 1857.
Sir: In reply to your letter of the 7th instant, it is true that
American citizens have the right to travel and go to where they please,
when engaged in lawful pursuit, hut not to violate the laws of their
own or of apy other country. They have a right to expatriate and to
become citizens of any country which is willing to receive them, hut
not to make that right a mere cloak and cover for a warlike expedi¬
tion against it or its government. Your instructions do not authorize
you to act arbitrarily or upon mere suspicion. You will not seize an
American vessel, or bring her into port, or use the force under your
command to prevent her landing her passengers, upon mere suspicion.
You will be careful not to interfere with lawful commerce. But where
you find that an American vessel is manifestly engaged in carrying
on an expedition or enterprise from the territories or jurisdiction of
the United States against the territories of Mexico, Nicaragua or Oosta
Bjca, contrary to the 6th section of the act of Congress of April 20,
1818, already referred to, you will use the force under your command
to prevent it, and will not permit the men or arms engaged in it, or
destined for it, to be landed in any part of Mexico or Central America.
En route for Chiriqui, you will touch at Mobile and New Orleans,
and communicate with the United States district attorney at each of
those ports.
I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,
ISAAC TOUCEY.
Lieutenant John J. Almy,
Commanding U. 8. steamer Fulton, Washington, D. C.
It does not clearly appear whether the supplemental instructions of
October the 12th to Lieutenant Almy were communicated by him to
Captain Paulding and Commander Chatard or not, but inasmuch as
he reported to Captain Paulding as early as the 10th day of Novem¬
ber, on his way to Chiriqui in Costa Eica, it may be presumed they
were.
And again, on the 16th of November, 1857, Captain Sands, com¬
manding the United States steam frigate Susquehanna at Key West,
was ordered to proceed immediately with that frigate to San Juan de
Nicaragua, stopping at intermediate points on the coast, and to remain
there until further orders; and for his guidance in reference to unlaw¬
ful military expeditions, a copy of the same circular from the State
Department was communicated to him.
Such being the measures adopted by the President to prevent the
departure of any unlawful military expedition from the United States,
or to intercept them should they escape from our shores, it further ap¬
pears that, on the 25th of November last, William Walker, formerly
(if not then) a citizen of the United States, with about one hundred
and fifty-five armed followers, entered the harbor of San Juan de
Nicaragua, on board a steamer called the "Fashion," and immedi¬
ately landed with his men on a point of land, forming the northern
and eastern boundary of said harbor, called " Puta Arenas," a short
4
ARREST OP WALKER AND ASSOCIATES.
distance from the town of San Ju$n, which is on the opposite side of
the harhor. Point Arenas your committee understand to be a part of
the territory of the republic of Nicaragua, in Central America.
The manner of, and circumstances attending, the landing are de¬
tailed in the official report thereof, made by Commander Chatard to
Captain Paulding, as follows :
United States Ship Saratoga,
San Juan del Norte, November 27, 1857.
Sir : I have the honor to inform you that, on the 24th instant,
about 2 p. m., a steamer appeared off the harbor, and then stood off
to the eastward down the coast. She came into the harbor next
morning about 7 o'clock. Her conduct of the day before made me
suspect her, but my suspicions were entirely lulled when she was
standing into the harbor ; not more than fifteen or twenty men ap¬
peared on her deck. I expected her to anchor, but instead of that,
with a full head of steam, she ran right up for the wharf of Scott's
buildings. I, as well as the first lieutenant, thought it was a party
sent to open the transit route. I immediately sent a boat with a lieu¬
tenant to board her, and to see what she was and to examine her pa¬
pers. When he returned, he informed me that it was the steamer
Fashion, from Mobile—papers all right, proper clearance, cargo, &c.,
and a number of passengers marked on the bills. The passengers
proved to be Walker, with 150 men, who all landed immediately, be¬
fore my boat got to them. ******
He landed fifty men or more at the mouth of the Colorado, before he
came here ; they went up in boats to surprise Castillo, and to try and
take possession of the steamboats there.
It further appears from the documents that when the 11 Fashion "
arrived off San Juan, where the United States ship Saratoga was then
lying, the steamer, as reported by Commander Chatard, without en¬
tering the harbor, proceeded down the coast, and did not return until
the next day. It afterwards became known that the "Fashion"
continued on her course to the mouth of the river " Colorado," (tbe
southern outlet of the San Juan into the sea,) and there detached
about fifty men and officers, well armed, in boats, who proceeded up
that branch of the San Juan. Upon their debarkation the Fashion
returned, as stated, to the harbor of San Juan, and landed the resi¬
due of the force on board of her, with various provisions, stores and
munitions of war, at Punta Arenas.
Information of these proceedings being communicated to Captain
Paulding, on board the United States ship Wabash, then lying at
Aspinwall, in New Grranada, that officer at once proceeded with his
ship to San Juan, where he arrived on the 6th of December. He
found Walker with his party in camp at the place where he landed.
Having displayed a large naval and military force ready for action,
and sufficient to overcome any resistance that could be offered, Walker
and those with him gave up their arms and surrendered to Captain
Paulding on the 8th of December.
THE NEUTRALITY LAWS.
5
It is just to this officer that the reasons assigned by him for his
conduct in this regard, and his views of the circumstances attending
it, should he stated in his own language hy the following extracts from
his official reports to the Navy Department:
[Extract.]
Flag-Ship Wabash,
Off San Juan del Norte, December 11, 1857.
Sir : I arrived here on the 6th instant, and on the 8th, with a force
from the squadron that could not he resisted by General Walker, de¬
manded the surrender of his arms and the embarkation of himself
and followers from Point Arenas.
The officers and men of his organization, together with such stores
as could he received, are on hoard the £C Saratoga," and she will sail
this evening or to-morrow morning for Norfolk. I shall direct Capt.
Chatard to report to the department for instructions.
In the course I have pursued I have acted from my judgment, and
trust it may meet the approbation of the President.
Extract of a letter from Captain Paulding to the Secretary of the
Navy, dated Flag-Ship Wabash, off Aspinwall, December 15, 1857:
I could not regard Walker and his followers in any other light than
as outlaws who had escaped from the vigilance of the officers of the
government, and left our shores for the purpose of rapine and murder,
and I saw no other way to vindicate the law and redeem the honor of
our country than by disarming and sending them home.
In doing so, I am sensible of the responsibility that I have incurred,
and confidently look to the government for my justification.
Regarded in its true light, the case appears to me a clear one ; the
points few and strong.
Walker came to Point Arenas from the United States, having, in
violation of law, set on foot a military organization to make war upon
a people with whom we are at peace. He landed there with armed
men and munitions of war, in defiance of the guns of a ship-of-war
placed there to prevent his landing.
With nothing to show that he acted by authority, he formed a
camp, hoisted 1he Nicaraguan flag, called it the u Headquarters nf the
army of Nicaragua," and signed himself the commander-in-chief.
With this pretension, he claimed the right of a lawful general over
all persons and things within sight of his flag. Without right or
authority he landed fifty men at the mouth of the river Colorado,
seized the fort of Castillo, on the San Juan, captured steamers and the
goods of merchants in transit to the interior, killed men, and made
prisoners of the peaceful inhabitants, sending to the harbor of San
Juan del Norte some thirty or forty men, women and children, in the
steamer " Morgan."
In doing these things without the show of authority, they were
guilty of rapine and murder, and must be regarded as outlaws and
pirates. They can have no claim to be regarded in any other light.
6
ARREST OF WALKER AND ASSOCIATES.
Humanity, as well as law and justice and national honor, demanded
the dispersion of these lawless men.
The remnant of the miserable beings who surrendered at Rivas were
conveyed in this ship last summer to New York, and their sufferings
are yet fresh in the memory of all on board.
Besides the sufferings that would necessarily be inflicted upon an
innocent and unoffending people, these lawless followers of General
•Walker, misguided and deceived into a career of crime, would doubt¬
less have perished in Central America, or their mutilated and fester¬
ing bodies have been brought back to their friends at the expense of
their country.
For the above reasons, which appear to my mind quite sufficient, I
have disarmed and sent to the United States General William Walker
and his outlawed and piratical followers for trial, or for whatever
action the government, in its wisdom, may think proper to pursue.
The provisions, stores, and munitions found in Walker's camp and
on the point, claimed as belonging to his party, were afterwards con¬
veyed on board the United States ships. They consisted of provisions
and stores of various kinds, and in large quantities, with arms and
ammunition, and other military equipment, in amount apparently
suited to the number of his men and for a military incursion.
After the arrest, Walker was allowed, at his request, to find his own
way to the United States on his parol that he would deliver himself
up, with a note from Captain Paulding, to the marshal of the United
States at New York. This was done. The marshal conducted him
to Washington, where the Secretary of State declined to interfere, or
to require his further detention, and he was discharged accordingly.
The residue of the party captured with him were brought to Norfolk
in the Saratoga. The correspondence shows nothing further in rela¬
tion to those men ; but from other sources the committee learn that no
further detention of them was authorized by the Executive, and they
were allowed to leave the ship at their pleasure.
Having thus stated what are considered by the committee the mate¬
rial facts shown by the documents accompanying the message, so far
as necessary, to show the measures adopted by the Executive to enforce
the laws prohibiting "the setting on foot within the United States,
and the carrying on from the territories or jurisdiction of the United
States," any military expedition against nations with whom we are at
peace, and the facts attending the arrival of Walker and his party at
Nicaragua, their arrest within the territories of that republic by our
naval forces, and their being brought back to the United ^States, the
committee proceed next to review the policy connected therewith, and
the conclusions arrived at, as the same are set forth in the message of
the President.
The sixth and eighth sections of the act approved April 20, 1818,
entitled " An act in addition to the act for the punishment of certain
crimes against the United States," are referred to in the message and
in the circular of instructions from the Department of State as con¬
ferring power on the President, and making it his duty, by the use of
the public force, to prevent unlawful military expeditions, within the
meaning of the act, from being "set on foot" within the United
THE NEUTRALITY LAWS.
7
States, or from being u carried on" beyond tbe limits and jurisdiction
of the United States. These sections, for more convenient reference,
are here recited:
Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall, within
the territory or jurisdiction of the United States, begin or set on foot,
or provide or prepare the means for, any military expedition or enter¬
prise, to be carried on from thence against the territory or dominions
of apy foreign prince or State, or of any colony, district, or people with
whom the United States are at peace, every person so offending shall
be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall be fined not ex¬
ceeding three thousand dollars, and imprisonment not more than three
years.
Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That in every case in which a
vessel shall be fitted out and armed, or attempted to be fitted out and
armed, or in which the force of any vessel-of-war, cruiser, or other
armed vessel shall be increased or augmented, or in which any military
expedition or enterprise shall be begun or set on foot, contrary to the
provisions and prohibitions of this act; and in every case of the cap¬
ture of a ship or vessel within the jurisdiction or protection of the
United States, as before defined; and in every case in which any
process issuing out of any court of the United States shall be dis¬
obeyed or resisted by any person or persons having the custody of any
vessel-of-war, cruiser, or other armed vessel of any foreign prince or
State, or of any colony, district, or people, or any subjects or citizens
of any foreign prince or State, or of any colony, district, or people, in
every such case it shall be lawful for the President of the United
States, or such other person as he shall have empowered for that pur¬
pose, to employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United
States, or of the militia thereof, for the purpose of taking possession
of and detaining any such ship or vessel, with her prize or prizes, if
any, in order to the execution of the prohibitions and penalties of this
act, and to the restoring the prize or prizes in the cases in which
restoration shall have been adjudged, and also for the purpose of pre¬
venting the carrying on of any such expedition or enterprise from the
territories or jurisdiction of the United States against the territories
or dominions of any foreign prince or State, or of any colony, district,
or people with whom the United States are at peace.
The committee are of opinion that the last clause of section eight
fully warranted the instructions given to the civil and military au¬
thorities by the circular quoted, and those to Lieutenant Almy, to
prevent the landing of any unlawful military expedition from the
United States in any part of Central America, so far as it imported
the arrest of such expedition on the high seas, and beyond the terri¬
torial jurisdiction of the country ; and they are further of opinion that
under the obligation of fhe President to " take care that the laws be
faithfully executed," with the powers confided to him by this eighth
section, it was incumbent on him to order the naval forces to pursue
any such expedition which should leave the country, and intercept
and arrest them anywhere on the high seas.
The ship which carried Walker and his party from the country was
8
ARREST OF WALKER AND ASSOCIATES.
an American vessel, and cleared as sucli from the port of Mobile, in
Alabama, under the American flag; and it is a clear principal of law,
that the jurisdiction of the country to which the ship belongs attends
her on the high seas wherever she goes. In the matter of jurisdiction
she is considered on the high seas as part of the territory of the coun¬
try, and all on hoard are still within the jurisdiction of the United
States.
If the persons on hoard had, before leaving the country, committed
an offence against the laws of the United States, they were, whilst
under the flag of the country on the high seas, as amenable to its au¬
thority as they were whilst in the territory of the United States. It
was as fully competent to the law, to require their arrest on the high
seas, as within the territory.
A question seems to have been made, however, in the present case,
whether the law of April, 1818, does authorize or direct the executive
to use the public force to arrest a military expedition, (unlawful within
the meaning of the act,) on the high seas after it has left the country ?
If it does not, a law which has remained in all its substantial pro¬
visions on the statute book for more than sixty years, intended to
coerce on the part of our citizens, the observance of existing interna¬
tional relations, and thus to preserve the peace of the country, is so
imperfect in its provisions, as to secure immunity to those who may
offend against it, provided, by deception, or false and fraudulent prac¬
tices, they can elude the vigilance of the police of the country, and
thereby escape from its shores.
The 6th and 8th sections of the act above cited of 1818 are in the
greater part literal transcripts of sections 5th and 7th of the act of
like character of June 5, 1794, the only material alteration being, that
in the act of 1794 the offence is confined to setting on foot, or carrying
on from the country, a military expedition against ''the territory or
dominions of any foreign prince or State whilst in the act of 1818
the words are added, "or of any colony, district, or people" with
whom the United States are at peace—an enlargement, made to em¬
brace the case of such unlawful expeditions, in aid of the revolutionists
in Mexico and South America, then in arms against the Spanish do¬
minion in those countries.
In the 6th section of the present act [1818,] it is declared a high
misdemeanor "within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States
to begin, or set on foot, or prepare or provide the means for any military
expedition, or enterprise, to be carried on from thence against," &c.,
&c. The offence is thus clearly defined : the git of it being the intent
to carry on such expedition, &c .,from the "territory or jurisdiction"
of the United States. So long as it remained in the United States it
would be harmless ; but if begun, &c., with the intent to carry it on
beyond the limits of the United States, the offence would be complete,
though it should never have left the country.
But, as has been remarked, the law would have been singularly
defective, where the end to be attained was to prevent such expeditions
from leaving the country, if a successful escape to sea placed the
offender beyond the reach of the law. On shore, he could be arrested
by judicial process, calling in aid, if necessary, the 'posse ; but at sea,
THE NEUTRALITY LAWS.
9
he could only "be safely pursued by the naval power. And we find,
accordingly, in the 8th section, that where authority is given to the
President, or such person as he shall have empowered for the purpose,
to employ the land and naval forces of the United States, or the militia,
to take possession of and detain any ship or vessel found in violation
of the provisions of that act; or where any process issuing out of any
court of the United States shall he disobeyed, or resisted, when used
to carry into effect the provisions of that section, the like power (to
use the land and naval forces) is given, " also, for the purpose of pre¬
venting the carrying on of any such expedition, &c., from the terri¬
tories of the United States against the territories or dominions of any
foreign prince," &c.
In the opinion of the committee, the unlawful expedition is " car¬
ried on from the territories or jurisdiction of the United States," when
it is continued on the high seas, on its way to its destination, and after
it has left the country ; and this is what the President is authorized to
prevent, by the use of the naval force. The jurisdiction is clear, and
the mandate is, to prevent the expedition being "carried on"—a man¬
date only to be obeyed by arresting the ship, with those on board, and
bringing her back to answer the violated laws. The spirit of the act
shows that it was the intention of the law, by the largest use of the
whole public force of the United States, to put a stop to these unlaw¬
ful enterprises on the part of our citizens, whilst on land, and within
the ordinary jurisdiction of the country, by the army or (if the occa¬
sion required it) the militia ; or, if in the harbors, bays, or, rivers, the
naval force. No distinction is made by the terms of the act, desig¬
nating when the one arm is to be used or when the other ; the
character of each imports its appropriate use. But after it was car¬
ried from the "territories or jurisdiction," it was still to be prevented.
How ? By means, of course, adequate to the end. By seizure at sea
when carried on by sea.
In the present case, however, it appears that Walker and his fol¬
lowers had effected a landing on the shores of Central America, and
within the territory of a foreign State, before they were arrested by
Captain Paulding.
As a mere question of lawful authority, there can be no doubt that
no arrest is lawful, unless made within the ]urisdiction of the country ;
and as little, that this arrest was made without the jurisdiction. But
the committee entirely agree with the President, that, besides the
United States, (the conduct of whose officer is in question,) none can
take exception to the act, except the State whose jurisdiction was so
invaded. Any complaint from Nicaragua of this vioiation of her ter¬
ritory should be received with due respect, and, if required, due
amends should be made. But, as between the naval officer who made
the arrest and his own government, whilst the committee must con¬
demn the act as not within his instructions, and having no warrant
in law, still they find everything in the attendant circumstances to
show that he was actuated in what he did (using the language of the
President) by " pure and patriotic motives, and in the sincere convic¬
tion that he was promoting the interests and vindicating the honor of
his country."
10
ARREST OF WALKER AND ASSOCIATES.
Allowance, too, should perhaps he made, in reviewing this act, in
the anomalous condition of the place where the arrest was made, and
that the landing was with no hostile intent against Nicaragua.
Although constituting part of the territory of Nicaragua, yet it is
very certain that for any purpose of law or police the government of
that State was not present. The pretension set up by Walker himself,
after he landed, that he was there as " commander-in-chief of the
army of Nicaragua," the committee do not consider as worthy of
serious criticism. Whatever right or authority he may once have had,
or supposed himself to have had in the republic of Nicaragua, were
at an end more than twelve months before, when he surrendered what¬
ever authority he held and left the country.
The government de facto was at the time of his arrest in other hands,
and so recognized by this government through an accredited minister.
Whilst, therefore, the committee would visit with no severe rebuke
the act of Captain Paulding for the reasons assigned, the present is
deemed a fit occasion to express, on their part, the belief that our
public officers in any branch of service are best entitled to the thanks
and support of the country, who, whilst keeping the most jealous
guard over its interests and honor, are most careful to keep within the
pale of the laws.
The documents aceompanying the message show the most diligent
care on the part of the President and the administration faithfully to
execute the law of 1818 in. the sections quoted ; nor did the failure,
either to have arrested the expedition of Walker before its departure,
or to have intercepted it at sea, in the opinion of the committee, re¬
sult from any defect in the law or in the orders and instructions issued
under it.
From documents communicated by the Executive to the House of
Representatives, not embraced within the call of the Senate, the fol¬
lowing facts appear, and which the committee append for information :
The steamer "Fashion" cleared at Mobile for San Juan de Nica¬
ragua. Her manifest showed nothing on board but what the shipper
styled an " assorted cargo," consisting of provisions, groceries, house¬
hold goods, domestic cloths, farming utensils, &c.; and the written
instructions to her supercargo, from the shippers, (which were among
the vessel's papers, directed him " to offer the shipment in that mar¬
ket for cash, or to exchange it, or any part of it, for the products of
the country, at his discretion." And she was to take, in addition,
such passengers as might choose to visit Central America. After the
vessel left the port, and while at anchor about six miles below the
town, she was again visited by an officer of the customs, and search
instituted, with a view to discover whether there was anything to show
that she was engaged in an unlawful voyage. His report was, " that
everything on board agreed with the manifest deposited in the custom¬
house by the captain in clearing the vessel." No arms or munitions
of war were discovered, and the passengers (some 270 in number)
professed, in conversation, to be emigrants. It was not known to the
collector that Walker was on board when the vessel sailed.
As arms and ammunition, in large supply, were landed with the
THE NEUTRALITY LAWS,
11
cargo at the Point Arenas, it clearly appears that false manifests were
used to procure the clearance of the vessel; and it also appears that
false papers, in the nature of instructions to the supercargo, were ex¬
hibited to lull suspicion as to the true character of the voyage.
The first act on her arrival on the coast of Nicaragua, and before
the vessel came to land, was to detach a military expedition, fully
armed, in boats up the river Colorado, (one of the outlets of the San
Juan,) to seize a fortification inland, and to command that river; the
next, to land Walker and the residue of his party, with their arms
and equipment, at Punta Arenas, who immediately raised a flag and
invested himself with all the insignia of the camp.
These facts carry with them irresistibly the conclusions, first, that
the expedition escaped by false and deceptive practices at the custom¬
house ; and, second, that it was (in violation of the laws) a military
expedition begun and set on foot in the United States, to be carried on
from their territory and jurisdiction.
The claim frequently made, that citizens of the United States have
the full right of expatriation, (however seldom carried into practice,)
is one in no manner impaired, far less forbidden, by the existing laws.
Nor when the intent is bona fide merely to leave the country, is it a
subject of inquiry, under the law, where the person is going, or with
what view ; and yet it will ever be found, that those whose purpose
is to evade the real inhibitions of the law, always seek refuge or
immunity under the pretence of emigration.
The terms of the law are too clear to he either misread or mis¬
interpreted by innocent persons. They make it only unlawful uto
begin and set on foot, or provide or prepare the means of any military
expedition or enterprise, to be carried on from thence," &c.
To constitute the offence it must he shown:
1st. To be a military expedition that is designed ; or,
2d. The preparation or provision of the means for a military expe¬
dition ; and,
3d. That such military expedition is to be carried on from the
United States against a people or nation then at peace with the United
States.
Language cannot make it more plain, that any number of citizens
may leave the country, singly or in bands, for any purpose under the
sun, without being subject to question, provided only that they do not
go as a military expedition set on foot within the United States, with
intent to levy war against some foreign State.
It was by such evasions, as shown by the correspondence, that
Walker sought to elude the naval forces of the United States after his
landing at Punta Arenas. In his letter to Captain Paulding, of the
30th of November, dated at that place, he says:
'' I have the honor to inform you that I landed at this port on
Wednesday last from the steamer ' Fashion,' bearing the United States
flag, and sailing from the port of Mobile, Alabama. Accompanying
me were a number of officers belonging to the Nicaraguan service, and
some emigrants from the United States, who desired to become natu-
12
ARREST OF WALKER AND ASSOCIATES.
ralized citizens of this republic. The steamer was regularly cleared
at Mobile, for the port of San Juan de Nicaragua, and it was acknow¬
ledged that her voyage was a legal one. I need not add that the
President and government of the United States were fully advised of
my intention to return to Nicaragua."
Thus representing himself and officers only as in any manner con¬
nected with military life; whilst the rest of his party were termed
emigrants, who desired to become naturalized citizens of Nicaragua,
and claiming that the steamer which carried them there had been
"regularly cleared at Mobile," and "it was acknowledged that her
voyage was a legal one."
Compare these assertions with the false papers and deceptive prac¬
tices used at the custom-house to get the vessel cleared at Mobile, above
exhibited in the official letter of the collector of that port, and connect
them, too, with the fact disclosed by the first action of Walker, with
his " emigrants desirous of naturalization," viz : the armed expedition
detached in boats up the Colorado to seize an inland fort, and the
military camp immediately established on landing, as the "head¬
quarters of the army" (not emigrants) " of Nicaragua."
The law of 1794, equally with that of 1818, was founded in wise
policy, to preserve the peace of the country, and to maintain amity
and amicable relations with foreign States. It denounces its penalties
only against those, whether citizens or foreigners, who, while within
its jurisdiction, abuse the protection and hospitalities of the laws by
secret and unlawful practicings, to wage private war against nations
with whom we are at peace, and in most cases dishonoring the Ameri¬
can flag, used to shield them in transportation. Were such things
tolerated, it would be to commit the peace of the country to every
restless and turbulent adventurer who, unequal to, or disdainful of,
the sober toils of peace, could find food for his ambition only in the
license of the camp or in the rapine and ravages of war. It would
take the affairs of government (in our foreign intercourse at least)
from the hands of those to whom they are committed, by the Consti¬
tution and laws, and leave them under the control, or at the pleasure,
of unknown and irresponsible agencies.
The committee, on full consideration, do not see that any amend¬
ment is required to the law of 1818, so far as power is concerned to
arrest on the high seas. They find such power necessarily implied by
the terms of the 8th section. But, inasmuch as that law may be made
more efficient by some proper provisions for bringing offenders against
it to trial, who, after arrest beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the
United States, are brought back to the country, they report a bill for
that purpose.
They recommend, in addition, the adoption of the following reso¬
lutions :
1 Resolved, That no further provisions of law are necessary to confer
authority on the President to cause arrests and seizures to be made on
the high seas for offences committed against the act entitled "An act
in addition to the 1 Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the
THE NEUTRALITY LAWS.
13
United States,' and to repeal the acts therein mentioned," approved
April 20, 1818.
Resolved, That the place where William Walker and his followers
were arrested being without the jurisdiction of the United States, their
arrest was without warrant of law. But, in view of the circumstances
attending it, and its result, in taking away from the territory of a
State in amity with the United States American citizens who were
there with hostile intent, it may not call for further censure than, as
it might hereafter he drawn into precedent, if suffered to pass without
remark.
SPEECH
OP
HON. J. P. BENJAMIN, OF EA.,
DELIVERED IN SENATE U. S., FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1859.
Mr. BENJAMIN. The subject under debate,- Mr. President, involves
considerations so numerous, grows under investigation to such vast propor¬
tions, as to render it matter of exceeding difficulty to confine its discussion
within reasonable limits. Some of the topics which I would desire to
treat must be presented in general outline ; others must be reluctantly
abandoned ; none can be treated with a fullness of detail at all commensu¬
rate with their importance.
An intertropical island, whose external commerce reaches nearly eighty
millions of dollars, lies at our doors. In territorial extent equal to four or five
of our smaller States, with a population that would make it fifth in rank in
our Confederacy, with harbors unrivalled for capacity and security, it is
an object of absorbing interest to the American people. Its present con¬
dition and future destiny offer a legitimate field for the exercise of the best
statesmanship of the Republic.
The leading fact, which ought to be kept constantly in view by all who
would form just conceptions on this subject, is, that the wealth and pro¬
ductiveness of this island have been created, and their continuance can
only be secured, by a system of compulsory labor. If the experience of
mankind has solved a single industrial problem, we may fairly assume as
granted that tropical productions can be maintained, on a scale to meet the
requirements of civilized man, by compulsory labor alone. The fruits qf
the slave labor of the southern States, of the Spanish islands of Cuba and
Porto Rico, and of the Brazilian empire, immeasurably exceed in value
similar products'of the other States and countries of this hemisphere, of
like soil and climate, cultivated by free labor.
If we descend to particular examples, compare the Hayti of to-day with
the St. Domingo of colonial history. The colony, in 1790, exported more
sugar than all the British colonies combined, besides enormous quantities
•of coffee, cotton, indigo, and cocoa. With free labor, Hayti is no longer
mentioned in the commercial statistics of the world. If, however, this
be considered an unfair example ; if it be objected that the wealth and
prosperity of this once favored isle were utterly destroyed by the bloody
horrors of its revolution, take other and still more striking examples.
Place in contrast the annual addition to the wealth and comfort of man¬
kind afforded by the slave labor of Cuba with that furnished by the islands
in which England, France, and Holland have made their ruinous emanci¬
pation experiments. The former, alone, in spite of its wretched misgov-
ernment, of odious monopolies, of commercial restrictions, of all the draw¬
backs of the old, exploded colonial system, exceeds in wealth and popula¬
tion all the English, French, and Dutch West India colonies put together,
even if we add to them the terra firma colonies of Guiana. As this con¬
sideration control's largely the train of argument into which I desire to
enter, permit me to dwell on it a little more fully.
ON THB
For a long series of years after the English emancipation experiment,
the disastrous effects were attributed by its authors to every cause that hu¬
man ingenuity could suggest, except their own folly. They would open
their eyq|to no fact. It is no unprofitable study for the statesman to mark
the obstinate tenacity with which these theorists persistently refused to re¬
ceive the teachings of daily experience, till at last a generation has passed
away ; the truth has become patent to the world ;-and British statesmen
are now found who openly avow the necessity of encouraging the emigra¬
tion from their colonies of the white population, and leaving these once
flourishing settlements to the uncontrolled occupancy of the blacks.
In 1842, just four years after the final liberation of the slaves in the
colonies, the Earl of Derby, then as Lord Stanley, colonial secretary, who
was urging upon Spain the adoption of the same system for her own colo¬
nies, replied to her challenge to prove the advantages of freedom, by sta¬
ting, as " unquestionable facts, on which all men are agreed," namely:
"That since the emancipation, the negroes have been thriving and contented; that
they have raised their manner of living, and multiplied their comforts and enjoyments ;
that their offences against the laws have become more and more light and unfrequent;
that their morals have improved; that marriage has been more and more substituted for
concubinage; and that they are eager for education, rapidly advancing in knowledge,
and powerfully influenced by the ministers of religion."
In 1848, fourteen years after the original emancipation act, ten years
after the final liberation of the negroes, Sir Charles Grey, who was then
Governor of Jamaica, wrote to the home government :
"That under a system of perfectly fair dealing, and of real justice, they (the negroes)-
will come to be an admirable peasantry and yeomanry, able-bodied, industrious, and
hard working, frank and -well-disposed."
This ridiculous statement, absurd as it seems to us now, was met at that
time by the candid and judicious criticism afforded by the more frank ex¬
positions of the condition of the colonies made by other British govern¬
ors. Governor Barkly, who was the Governor of British Guiana, made
his report on the condition of that colony about the same time—I read it
from the British Parliamentary Papers. He says :
"I cannot pass by Mr. Walker's concluding observations as to the condition and
character of the laboring population, without dwelling for a moment upon the
cheerless picture which they exhibit as the sequel of ten years of liberty. I confess that
the tracts of land grown up in rank vegetation, instead of canes or coffee-bushes, the
broken-down bridges and impassable roads which I encounter in my daily rides, strike
me with far less apprehension for the future destiny of British Guiana, than the apparent
retrogression exhibited in these authentic annals of the emancipated peasantry."
He has just been alluding to the criminal excesses and outbreaks of the
negroes; to the murders of watchmen on the plantations; to the incendi¬
arism of the plantation buildings. He refers to the statistics of the jails,
showing they are becoming full of convicts for crimes like these. He
says:
"True, we ought to remember that less than fifteen years have elapsed since they were
slaves, subject to the most unfavorable influences; but how much better must it not have
been for themselves if that fact had been borne in mind then, instead of now !"
The statement annexed to this despatch was as follows:
"The increase of crime, more particularly perhaps remarkable in the countries of
Demerara and Essequibo, is a fact which, to a greater or lesser extent, is borne out by
the opinions of the stipendiary magistrates, although I do not think, looking at the mere
numerical proportion, that it is conclusively to be derived from such prison returns as
have come under my notice. For the most part the magistrates hesitate to assign any
specific cause for this unpleasant feature. I greatly fear it must be ascribed to the idle¬
ness of a large portion of the able-bodied peasantry for many months, induced by their
determination not to accept of reduced wages for the same amount of labor. For some
time, no doubt, they had the means of subsistence at their command, partly from savings
of previously earned wages, partly from other resources, such as fishing, shooting, the
3
produce of their provision grounds, &c.; but when these began to fail, the want of reg¬
ular occupation produced its usual effect upon minds so untutored; the plunder of plantain
walks and cane pieces was resorted to; and, at .length, whenever it was known or "sus¬
pected that money was to be had, its acquisition was resolved upon at all hazards.
Within the last few months, I believe, no fewer than four brutal murders of watchmen
upon plantations have occurred; robberies upon the highway, as well as attacks upon
dwelling-houses, bave been frequent, and assassinations have been not only attempted,
but, in broad-daylight, successfully perpetrated."
He says further, speaking of the emancipated population:
" Nor is the changeless sriking, it may be here remarked, in regard to their addiction.,
to costly clothing and expensive articles of food—matters which, once anxiously sought
after, are now regarded with comparative indifference; and this is a circumstance which,
affecting a very large body of consumers, is not without its influence upon the commer¬
cial transactions of the colony. Hence, probably, may arise the little effect produced
upon them by diminution of wages or restriction of employment. Instead of inducing
more strenuous exertions to reap the same amount of reward as before; they are rather
content to circumscribe their enjoyments, and, instead of striving to make progress in
habits of civilization, prefer to fall back upon a retrograde path. The fact of the con¬
tinued prevalence and undiminished influence of the practice of ' obeah' in this and other
colonies, will partially illustrate the slow progress of intellectual improvement amongst
them; and there seems to be a general impression that the rising generation are less docile
and more inclined to evil and reckless pursuits than their elders."
Earl Grey, in the same year, commenting on the general despatches re¬
ceived from the West India colonies, writes from London to the following
effect. His despatch is dated June 1, 1849:
'' I have read this despatch and its enclosures with feelings of great pain, and of much
anxiety for the future, since the picture you have presented to me of the present state of
society in Guiana, and of the actual condition and prospects of all classes of its inhab¬
itants is gloomy in the extreme; and yet, it bears too obviously the character of truth
for me to doubt its accuracy. It is, indeed, most melancholy to learn, that while the
difficulties of the planters have continued, since the abolition of slavery, to become more
and more severe, until now the ruin appears to be almost complete, and the depreciation
of property, once of such great value, has reached a point which has involved in the
deepest distress great numbers of persons, both in this country and in the colony, at
the same time the negroes, instead of having made a great advance in civilization, as
might have been hoped, during the fifteen years which have elapsed since their emanci¬
pation, have, on the contrary, rather retrograded than improved, and that they are now, as
a body, less amenable than they were when that great change took place, to the restraints
of religion and of law, less docile and tractable, and almost as ignorant, and as much
subject as ever to the degrading superstition which their fathers brought with them from
Africa."
That was ihe result of fifteen years of experiment. Still, however,
British emancipationists, Exeter Hall philanthropists, continued declaring
that this was a merejemporary passage from the one system to the other;
that this temporary state of things could not endure, and that the negroes
would soon improve. In 1850, the editor of a New York journal, hostile
to slavery, made a visit to Jamaica. I hold his work in my hand, giving
a picture of the condition of the island as he found it then—he an advocate
for the emancipation scheme. He says:
" It is difficult to exaggerate, and yet more difficult to define, the poverty and indus¬
trial prostration of Jamaica. The natural wealth and spontaneous productiveness of the
island are so great that no one can starve, and yet it seems as if the faculty of accumu¬
lation was suspended. All the productive power of the soil is running to waste; the
finest land in the world may be had at any price, and almost for the asking; labor re¬
ceives no compensation, and the product of labor does not seem to know the way to
market. Families accustomed to every wealth and luxury have witnessed the decline of
their incomes, until now, with undiminished estates, they find themselves wrestling with
poverty for the commonest necessaries of life. There are no public amusements here of
any kind, for amusements are purchased with the surplus wealth of the people, and here
there is no surplus. There was not a theatre, or a museum, or a circus, or any other place of
entertainment involving expense, open during my stay on the island. The corporation
of Kingston owns a building which has been used as a theatre, and in the suburbs of the
city is a plain once famous as a race-course; but of the first, rats and spiders are the only
tenants, and weeds and underwood have overgrown the other."—Bigelow1 s Jamaica, in
1850, page 53.
4
This is the testimony of a friend of the scheme, in 1850. But, sir, I
have nowhere seen the true condition of the island of Jamaica, under the
operation of the British system of free labor for the production of tropi¬
cal produces, better illustrated than in the official reports from the island
itself. It is scarcely credible that such a picture as I am about to read
should have been issued by a report of the central board of health, of
Jamaica, in the year 1852.
"Yards" * * * * " which, after a rain, send forth streams of the most horri¬
ble description ; numbers of dilapidated and falling houses, useless for all habitable pur¬
poses ; ruined walls and remnants of fences, together with unenclosed sites of pulled
down houses, covered with filth and brush, complete the scene of every old Jamaica
township, and the outskirts of the new."
" In villages, and on small settlements, the huts or dwellings of the laborers are com¬
posed chiefly of mud walls, sometimes of wattles, plastered with the same."
* * "in very few cases are they raised off the ground, nor are they floored in any
way." * * * * " Ventilation, or the admission of fresh air, is almost invariably
neglected."
" These small, dark, unventilated houses are frequently over-crowded, especially at
night; within the small space of a few square feet, perhaps on the bare ground, or may
be on a mattress or mat, or in some cases on a bed, with a whole family of eight or
nine persons of all ages, and of both sexes, huddled together, with the door and so-
called window closed ; all clad in the same clothes which they wore through the day,
with children sleeping on mattresses, often soaked and half rotted with urine and other
secretions. Should there accidentally be a hole or crevice, this is immediately closed
up by means of rags or something of that kind. The rush of odors on opening such a
place must be experienced to be understood.
'' As regards water for domestic purposes, it is very much to be feared that a large
portion of our poor population seldom think ot that. Their persons are never abluted,
save in crossing a river, or being exposed to a heavy shower of rain.
" Among the lower classes, the majority not being compelled by circumstances to be
field laborers, are too lazy to move; they frequently squat down all day in a sort of
sullen apathy; they eat, and drink, and sleep like the brute that perisheth ; but all the
more active impulses of their human nature appear to be as little excited as if they were
totally wanting."
" It is a well known fact, that all the towns and villages contain a large number of
persons who have no ostensible means of earning their livelihood; the way in which
they subsist is an enigma to themselves and others. Exposure to the night air is very
prevalent among the lower classes; under various excuses they meet in numbers,
frequently in the open air, or under temporary sheds, or at the performance of wakes
over the dead, and also at their revels at john-canoeing, as it is termed, about Christinas
time; on these or other occasions of the kind, they give full scope to animal enjoyment;
and at the pitch of the excitement of the prevailing passions, their gestures and acts
resemble more those of demons than of hnman beings."
English authors and statesmen, however, still continued to speak
encouragingly, to profess confidence in eventual results, until the testi¬
mony collected by the House of Commons' committee, in 1853, put an
end to all possibility of denial, and the ruin of the colony is finally
admitted to be complete and hopeless.
A single extract from the testimony must suffice. Captain Hamilton,
of the royal navy, in the course of his evidence had declared that the
island of Jamaica was a desert. Here follows his examination by the
members of the committee :
" Chairman. You made use of a phrase some time ago with respect to Jamaica hav¬
ing become a desert. Will you explain to what extent you apply that term ?
" Captain Hamilton. I mean that, in going to plantation establishments that had evi¬
dently been once splendid buildings, where there had been a great outlay of capital on
a grand scale, you §nd the roofs tumbling in, the places deserted, nobody in them,
grass growing in the rooms, and perhaps rats and snakes in those very rooms, and a
deserted, melancholy appearance, that certainly goes to one's heart to view.
" Chairman. Is that applicable to only one part, or is it the general character?
" Captain Hamilton. It is the general character.
" Mr. Bright. That is not the case in Jamaica, but in those particular locations?
" Captain Hamilton. No; the general character of Jamaica .is, that it gives you the
impression of a place going to decay. Speaking of the population of Jamaica, I do not
refer to the capitalist planters of old times, but to the present population of Jamaica,
and their locations and cultivations.
•5
" Mr. Bright. Do you think the term 1 desert' was quite applicable to the state of
things there ?
" Captain Hamilton. I should say peculiarly applicable without any exaggeration."
Now, Mr. President, the effect produced upon the British mfhd by evi¬
dences such as this, may be best gathered by an extract £rom the organ of
the ablest, perhaps, of living British statesmen. In the London Morning
Herald, of the 8th September, 1855, the admission is at length thus made
to the world :
"We have of late, as occasion served, directed the attention of our readers to the con¬
dition of the most valuable of our West India possessions, and have endeavored to trace
to, its true source, in a vicious and mistaken policy, the ruin which not only impends,
but has actually fallen, upon those islands, once the boast and glory of the British crown,
now the by-word of the commercial nations of the earth. Jamaica, by nature the rich¬
est of these dependencies, is reduced to a state of collapse, from which recovery seems to
be hopeless. Efforts have been made to stimulate once more her industry, to raise her
crushed proprietary, and to give them once again opportunity and hope. So far those
efforts have not been successful. In the recent advices, we can perceive no symptoms
of amendment; on the contrary, the downward tendency of affairs continues, as if, for
the unhappy Jamaicans, there is a ' lower deep ' yet yawning, which 'threatening, opens
to devour,' and from whose frightful vortex there seems to be no hope of escape." *
" Although the ruin of Jamaica has been more rapid and irresistible than any of the
other islands, desolation rests upon the entire archipelago, and sooner or later will in¬
volve them all."
And, Mr. President, so far from this state of things being now contested
in Great Britain, the same people who made this experiment, and whq, by
their folly and blindness, reduced these once flourishing colonies to such
a state of destitution and distress; the same people now, when it is too
late to remedy the evil, deliberately propose to withdraw the entire white
population from the island and to leave Jamaica in the possession of the
blacks—a second Hayti. Here is the Westminster Review for April,
1853. I call the attention of the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Doolittle)
to the extract I .am about to read; it chimes in perfectly with his
views. He will find here a congenial spirit; a spirit that is ready to
drive the white population from the cultivation of the entire tropics, and
leave them to the brutish blacks that now infest the islands that have
been abandoned to their sway. But, sir, when he has carried out his
scheme, I advise him to seek counsel from the British writer, and get,
as he recommends, American free negroes to go to teach British and Span¬
ish and Dutch free negroes industry and energy. Here is the Westminster
Review. It appeals to the free colored people of the United States, and
speaks to them as "brethren."
' 'It is not for us to mark out for them their course; and yet we cannot but think that by
no possible means could they so effectually aid the American slaves, as by teaching en¬
ergy and industry to the free British negro."
Again, proceeds the Review:
"By hastening forward, by their precept and example, that time when, from Jamaica
and her kindred isles, the voice of a negro community, prosperous, educated, civilized,
Christian, shall speak to republican despots and their victims, words which both will
hear, and which the former will not be able to disregard.
" And that this time will come, we hold to be no vain prophecy, foolish as to many
it may seem."
The writer appears to have had a prescient self-consciousness.
"We have faith in it, because we see it written in the page of history—-in the experi¬
ence of the Anglo-Saxon—that he cannot toil in these islands, or make a home of them, and
of the African that he can
I say then, Mr. President, that the evidences which I have thus hastily
collected, and of which innumerable other instances might be given, prove
the proposition with which I started-
Mr. DOOLITTLE. Will the Senator allow me a moment ?
Mr. BENJAMIN. With pleasure.
.6
Mr. DOOLITTLE. I do not desire at all to interrupt him in the course
of his remarks; but on some proper occasion before this question shall pass
from the consideration of the Senate, I will take occasion to express my
views, aad state wherein, and to what extent, the Senator understands
them, and how far he misunderstands the positions which I took.
Mr. BENJAMIN. I shall be very happy to be informed that I have
misunderstood the proposition of the Senator from Wisconsin; for as it is
stated in his substitute, now upon our table, for the bill before the Senate,
it struck me as a proposition so monstrous that I could hardly reconcile
myself to the evidence of my senses when I saw it proposed by an Amer¬
ican Senator. I repeat, then, Mr. President, that the population, wealth,
and prosperity of Cuba, are dependent solely on a supply of compulsory
labor, without which she must inevitably relapse into the condition of Hayti,
Jamaica, and the other West India colonies.
I now proceed to inquire from what sources an adequate supply of this
compulsory labor can be obtained. I know, sir, of but three possible
methods:
1. The actual increase of the slaves already there.
2. The introduction of persons bound to service under the name of ap¬
prentices, or coolies, or colonists.
3. The African slave-trade, which is the present method.
A hasty glance must suffice for each.
1. The continued supply of labor in Cuba by natural increase is impos¬
sible. It is a well authenticated fact that its whole laboring population is
exhausted in a single generation. Horrible as is the contemplation of
such a fact, the evidence in support of it is irresistible. None of the writers
on the population of Cuba fix the number of its Creole, id est, native ne¬
groes outside of Havana at more than ten per cent., whilst a recent au¬
thority on the island, perfectly competent to judge, fixes it at only five per
cent. We have, then, the fact that ninety to ninty-five per cent, of the
slaves engaged in agriculture are imported Africans.
Nor will this statement appear surprising, when we reflect on the fact that
the importations of slaves are almost exclusively males, not over one in
six or seven being females. The British reviewer, already quoted, thinks
that the average working-life of the imported slave is only seven years ;
but I prefer what is evidently more authentic—that is, the declaration of
the Captain General of Cuba himself. In an address to the people of
Cuba, urging on them a change of their system of labor, the Marquis of
Pezuela laid stress on the fact That the present wealth in slaves was but
transitory, inasmuch as it " perished in a single generation." The statis¬
tics in the report of my colleague, startling in the extreme, prove this
conclusion.
They show that whilst the number of blacks, slave and free, in the Uni¬
ted States, is now twelve-fold the number imported from Africa, there does
not now exist in the West India islands more than one-fourth of the num¬
ber actually imported into those colonies.
2. Is this problem of a supply of labor for tropical colonies capable of
solution by the introduction of apprentices, emigrants, coolies, or any other
of the modern expedients, devised in order to avoid a return to the slave
trade ? This question, too, must be answered in the negative ; and here
again I can but glance at the proof. The difficulty is to select from the
number. Out of four thousand five hundred coolies imported into Jamai¬
ca in 1846 and 1847, only one-half remained alive in 1851, and these
were wandering about half naked and half starved, living in wayside
ditches and dens in the towns, infecting the negroes with their idleness,
profligacy, and paganism.
t
The statistics contained in my colleague's report show twenty-eight
thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven coolies shipped for Cuba from
1847 to 23d March, 1858. Of these more than four thousand died on the
passage. Of those that arrive, I am assured by a recent traveller that the
annual deaths are at least ten per cent. ; to use his own words, "they are
considered as raw material to be worked up into sugar." If we reflect
that the, engagements are for ten years; that of their miserable pay of
four dollars per month, one-half is retained under the terms of their con¬
tract, to bepaidat the conclusion of their engagement—id e*t, at the end
of ten years—^Re truth of this horrible statement, that they are " worked
up as raw material," becomes apparent, and its motive equally obvious.
The cooly must not be alive at the end of ten years ; there would be due him
$240 ; and a new one, a fresh worker, could be bought for $100, instead
of the miserable Asiatic, worn out, decrepit, dying, valueless as " raw
material."
So much for the coolies. What of the African apprentices ?
This new form of slave trade was first devised by England. In 1851,
authority was sent from the colonial office to the Governor of Sierra Leone,
to send out colonists, as they were termed, to the West Indies. A con¬
tract was made with an English firm, Hythe, Hodge & Co., by the Brit¬
ish Government, for the exportation of a large number of these colonists.
Thirty-five to forty thousand were actually exported. How were they ob¬
tained ? The first thing heard of them was a proclamation by Governor
Roberts, of Liberia, stating that the contractors were buying up their
colonists at ten dollars a head, being nearly the same price that slaves
were bought for under the old regime of the slave trade. The same re¬
viewer already quoted fairly admits that the colonists were bought, and that
none could be obtained voluntarily :
Why not, then, import free immigrants from Africa? Poor, miserable heathen!
what a good thing it would be to convert them to Christianity, always supposing that
they did not first convert back the Creoles to Fetichism ; and then you might get any
number of them, and fill the labor market as full as you pleased ! There was only one
■objection to this plan, and that was, that though Africans might be bought to any amount,
yet, when free, they would not come."
So that scheme failed for the British West Indies. Great Britain was
absolutely shamed into abandoning it, after thirty-five or forty thousand
miserable Africans had been bought and sold into slavery under her flag,
all in the desperate effort to repair the results of her own madness and
folly.
But, sir, an example had 6een given by which France was not slow to
profit. Her colonies, too, are perishing, and crying out that, without com¬
pulsory labor, they must languish; and languishing, must die. So the
French, after bestowing freedom in their colonies on those who were born
slaves, are now making compensation for their error by enslaving men who
were born free. In spite of the outcry of the British press, slaves, by
tens of thousands, are now being poured annually, by the French Em¬
peror, into his colonies; the Regis contract is in full force; the unhappy
victims rise on their oppressors, and the journals of the day are filled with
accounts of captains and crews attacked by their cooly or African appren¬
tices. The Emperor, with high-handed violence, abuses the weakness of
Portugal because she interferes to prevent the slave trade in her own col¬
onies; and the last news from the French Antilles is, that in addition to
twelve thousand coolies and Africans imported into Martinique and Guad-
aloupe, for 1853, provision has recently been made for eighteen thousand
more of the ''raw material," to wit: seven thousand Africans under the
Regis contract, and eleven thousand coolies.
The contract of these unfortunate wretches is published in the papers of
8
the day; and is justly characterized, by an eminent New York journalist,*
as a receipt is killing the greatest number of laborers in the shortest time.
The wages are about nine cents a day for men, four for women, and two
for children up to the age of fourteen years; out of which they are to pay
for their own clothing, and the expenses of their own sickness; and a res¬
ervation of ten per cent, monthly is to be made for the expenses of return¬
ing them home at the end of the contract. To this complexion has come,
at last, the emancipation of slaves in the colonies! Compare it, oh! com¬
pare it, Senators, with the well-fed, well-lodged, well-clothed, and care¬
fully tended laborers of the South, and say, in the name of a common
humanity, which of these two systems is preferable? ^
I affirm, then, Mr. President, that this magnificent fabric, built up by
the slave labor of Cuba, must perish, or must, while Cuba is a Spanish
colony, be sustained by the slave trade; a trade branded as piracy by her
own laws, by ours, by those of Great Britain; forbidden to her by treaty
voluntarily made by Spain; forbidden by our treaty with England; and
which, by the treaties of the three nations, each is solemnly bound to pre¬
vent. The last refuge on earth for this trade is now found in the Island of
Cuba. The combined power of England and the United States is now ex¬
erted, at the cost of nearly six millions per annum, in the suppression of
this traffic. Its continuance has, on more than one occasion, brought us to
the very verge of hostilities with Great Britain for the protection of our
flag, and yet tens of thousands of slaves are annually imported into Cuba,
and the common voice of civilized nations sustains the charge that this is
done with the connivance of her colonial authorities, and to their immense
pecuniary advantage.
It is plain, then, Mr. President, that unless we are to agree that the supply
of labor shall be kept up by the continuation of the African slave trade, a
continuation now going oh, according to the language of Lord Clarendon
himself, by a " felonious violation " by Spain of her treaties with Eng¬
land; unless we agree that that felonious violation of the public law shall
still continue, there is but one resort: Cuba must perish, as San Domingo
and Jamaica have perished before her, or she must no longer remain Span¬
ish. If annexed to our country, the system" now prevalent under which
her entire agricultural population perishes in a generation, would, by the
force of interest and example, be exchanged for ours, under which the
southern laborers are more than doubled in the same lapse of time.
I have thus far spoken, sir, of the beneficial results to humanity arising
from the acquisition of Cuba, in the double aspect of the preservation of
the island from a lapse into the barbarism and savage state of the other
Antilles; and of regard for its miserable laboring population. What would
be its effects on the superior race—on the white natives of the island,-now
numbering nearly three quarters of a million?
In spite of pro forma petitions, recently forwarded from Havana, under
the orders of the Captain General, the ardent aspirations of the Cubans
for release from the grinding tyranny under which they languish, are too
well known for concealment. I will not appeal to a knowledge personal to
us all; I will not rely on the fact that, amongst the numerous Cubans with
whom I have had opportunity of conversing on the subject, I never yet
have found one—no, not one—who did not pant for the hour of freedom,
who was not ready to strike for his liberty if the remotest prospect of suc¬
cor could be held out to him. I will appeal to history, and leave its teach¬
ings to the appreciation of a candid world. My sketch must be rapid.
At the close of the last, and the commencement of the present century,
Cuba was prosperous and happy. * Subjected to a colonial system identi¬
cal with that then generally prevalent amongst civilized nations, if her
* New York Evening Day-Book.
commerce was restricted by the monopoly established in favor of the
mother country, her own internal administration was conducted by wise
rulers, guided by paternal interest in her welfare. She shared the politi¬
cal benefits conquered by the Spanish people, and when the constitution
of 1812 was established, Cuba reaped its advantages. When, on the
death of Ferdinand VII., Queen Christina threw herself into the arms of
the liberal party in order to insure the triumph of Queen Isabella over
the pretensions of Don Carlos, the Royal Statute was proclaimed in both
Spain and Cuba, and the latter was represented in the national Congress
and enjoyed the liberties accorded by that celebrated document to the
mother country. Under its provisions, the Junta de Fomento was estab¬
lished in Havana, with branches in all the principal cities of the island.
When, in 1836, the revolution of La Granja placed the party of the
Progresistas in power, subverted the Royal Statute and proclaimed the
old constitution of 1812, the Queen Mother, then Regent, in convoking
the Cortes included the deputies from Cuba in the call.
In the mean time, however, the example of the other Spanish-Ameri¬
can colonies, which had succceeded in establishing their independence,
had not been without its effects on Cuba. In 1825 the liberator, Bolivar,
offered to aid the patriots by an invasion of the island. Numerous
societies were formed under the title of the " Soles de Bolivar," and
everything was prepared for seconding the invasion, which might very
possibly have proved successful but for the intervention of our own Gov¬
ernment, which dissuaded the invasion. (See letters of Mr. Clay to the
ministers of Colombia and Mexico, Dec. 20, 1825.) The knowledge of
this effervescence of the public mind induced, on the part of the Spanish
Ring, one of the most extraordinary acts which ever emanated from a
despot. He gave the Captain General, by an ordinance of the 28th of
May, 1825, all the powers granted, to the governors of beseiged towns ; or,
in other words, declared the whole island under martial law, with full
power in the Captain General over the lives, fortunes, and liberties of the
people, and with the right of suspending all laws and royal decrees at his
pleasure.
This would appear scarcely credible ; but I desire to read a passage
from this ordinance of 1825 of the Spanish King. I find it fortunately
translated here in a little book called " Cuba and the Cubans which
I would recommend to the perusal of gentlemen who may desire some
additional facts in relation to the condition of the island :
" On the 28th of May, 1825, the royal ordinance addressed to the Captain General of
Cuba declares: ' It has pleased His Majesty, in conformity with the advice of his minis¬
ters, to authorize your Excellency, fully investing you with the whole extent of power
which by royal ordinances is granted to the Governors of besieged towns ; in consequence
thereof, his Majesty most amply and unrestrictedly authorizes your Excellency not only
to remove from the island such persons holding office from the Government or not,
whatever their occupation, work, class, or situation in life may be, whose residence
there you may believe to be prejudicial, or whose public or private conduct may appear
suspicious to you, employing in their stead faithful servants of his Majesty. Also to
suspend the execution of whatever royal orders or general decrees in all the different branches
of the administration, or in any part of them, as your Excellency may think conducive to
the royal service.' "
We are told that under this system of government the whites are con¬
tented. Why, sir, independent of the conspiracies of which I have
spoken, in 1823-24 and 1825, again in 1826 another conspiracy broke out,
and its chiefs were arrested, and Sanchez and Aguerro were executed at
Port-au-Prince ; and again, at a later day, the conspiracy called the con¬
spiracy of the Black Eagle broke out, and was again repressed, and
those engaged in it executed or exiled or imprisoned. The different con¬
spiracies that have existed of late years are familiar to us all : the various
expeditions of Lopez and his companions; and the last of which I have
10
any memory, or, at least, authentic detail, is that of 1851, when a few
Cuban patriots, worn-out, disappointed fugitives, still had courage to
meet together on the 4th of July, 1851, and declared the independence
of Cuba. Here is their declaration of independence. I am going to
refer to this, not so much for the purpose of showing this fact, not so
much for the purpose of calling attention to the signatures, including
names of this same family of Aguerro, that seems to have distinguished
itself in behalf of the liberties of its country, but because there is a list
of grievances in this declaration of independence to which I now flesire
to call the attention of the Senate, and which I will lay before it, asking
every man who hears it, if it be possible that human beings subjected to
grievances like these can be content, can be willing to kiss the rod which
smites them ?
They begin, sir, by stating the horrible cruelties that are exercised upon
them. It is in Spanish; I will read it as well as I can; it will be probably
somewhat imperfect in the translation.
They state that '' they supposed the world would refuse credence to the history of the
horrible iniquities which have been perpetrated in Cuba, and would consider, with rea¬
son, perhaps, that if there existed monsters capaple of committing them, it is not con¬
ceivable that there should exist men who for so long a time had submitted to them ; but
if those persons are few who reach the truth of particular facts, by reason of the means of
which the Government disposes to obscure and disfigure them, nobody can resist the evi¬
dence of acts that are public and official."
. Therefore, they go on to relate:
'' It was publicly, and with arms in his hands, that General Tacon despoiled the
Island of Cuba of the Constitution of Spain, proclaimed by all the powers of the mon¬
archy, and which these powers had ordered to be sworn to as the fundamental law of the
entire monarchy.
'' It was publicly, and by the act of the courts, that Cuba was declared to be deprived
of the rights which all Spaniards enjoyed, and which are naturally conceded to persons
the least civilized.
" It was publicly that the decree was issued which deprived the sons of Cuba of all
right of being chosen to occupy public offices, or of employment in the State.
"It was publicly that omni-modal faculties were granted to the Captains General of
Cuba, who may deny to those whom they desire to have punished or sentenced by the
tribunals, even the form of a trial before the courts. ' .
'' Publicly prominent, in the Island of Cuba, are still those military commissions which,
in other countries, the law permits only in extraordinary cases during a time of war, and
then only for offences against the State.
"Publicly has the Spanish press threatened Cuba with tearing from it the property in
its slaves, of converting the island into ruin and ashes, and of disenchaining against it
all the hordes of barbarous Africans which now exist within it.
" Public is the continual increase of the army and the creation of new mercenary
bodies, which, under pretext of public security, are only put upon us for the puoprse of
augmenting the burdens that lie upon Cuba, and of exercising with greater vexation
the system of subordination, and espionage over its inhabitants.
' 'Public are the obstacles and difficulties which are placed in the way of each individual
for moving, for exercising any industry ; nobody being sure that he will not be seized
and fined, by reason of some defect of authorization, or want of license, at every step
that he makes in the island.
"Public are the contributions which are exhausting the Island of Cuba, and the pro¬
jects of other contributions which are threatened, and which are to absorb all the pro¬
ducts of its riches, there remaining nothing to its miserable inhabitants but the pain,
of labor.
"Public are the exactions of all kinds which inferior officers impose on its inhabitants,
with the greatest disregard to the opinion of mankind."
I return, now, sir, to the year 1836, when the Cuban deputies were con¬
voked to the meeting of the constituent Cortes, at Madrid. The Cortes
assembled in 1837, but the Cuban deputies were not admitted to their
seats. Cuba was deprived of her representation; nor was this the only
outrage inflicted on her rights. It was decided that she should be gov¬
erned in the future by exceptional laws, and not by the laws common to
the rest of the monarchy. These special laws were never passed; but
the Royal ordinance has continued in force to the present hour, maintain¬
ing martial law, and Cuba has thus remained ever since a helpless victim,
11
subject to the despotic control of a single man, the extent of whose pow¬
ers can only be described by the word invented to express them, omni mo-
das, of all kinds.
Ever since this monstrous system has been adopted, Cuba has not been
blessed with one hour of peace. Constantly repeated have been her ef¬
forts to shake off the yoke under which they groan. But all in vain.
Twenty thousand bayonets on the land, and a powerful fleet off its coasts,
keep the dread watch of the tyrant, and suppress the first symptoms of
revolt. The whites have been disarmed, and four companies of colored
men have been added to each of the sixteen regiments of peninsular troops
stationed on the island; thus holding before the unfortunate inhabitants the
constant threat of a war of races, a renewal of the horrors of St. Domin¬
go. Their pride of race has been shocked by a Governor's decree author¬
izing marriages between the two races, except when one of the parties is
a noble.
The army is maintained faithful solely by a rigorous isolation, all com¬
munication between the inhabitants and troops being interdicted. No se¬
curity for life, person, or liberty, against the caprice of a despot ; no arms
for self-defence, the size of a walking-stick, even, being limited to dimen¬
sions small enough to pass through a ring furnished the policeman.
" The Cubans have not even the idea of a trial by jury. Cases are tried before the
Judges of royal appointment, the venal favorites of the Spanish Court, who are speedi¬
ly removed to make room for more hungry aspirants. The Captain General, himself a
mere soldier, presides by law over the Supreme Court of Justice. All offices, with the
exception of a few of the lowest order, are in the hands of Spaniards. The penalty for
carrying weapons of any description is six years' hard labor in the chain gangs of the
penal colonies of Africa. The Cuban cannot have company at home without a permit,
for which he must pay two dollars and a half, and he must be provided with a license,
at the same cost, if he is to absent himself from town or from his home in the country .
Neither can he change his domicile without notifying the police, obtaining a permit, and.
paying for the same. He cannot lodge any person, whether foreigner, or native, stran¬
ger, friend or relative, in his house, without previous notice to the police. Mayors of
cities are not elected by the people, but by the aldermen of the common councils, and
under the dictation of the Spanish Governors. These aldermen serve for life, and their
offices are either inherited, or purchased from the Crown at public auction, for prices va¬
rying according to the perquisites thereof. Thus, it happens that even they who should
be the immediate guardians of the people, often become speculators, who, far from ex¬
tending them protection, extort the full interest of the capital invested in the purchase of
their offices. No affidavit is required in Cuba, but a suspicion or a secret denunciation,
to tear a man from the bosom of his family, at any hour of the day or night, throw him
into a dungeon, there to linger for weeks or months, if it so please the authorities, and
then set him free with the bare acknowledgment of his innocence, or send him to trans¬
atlantic exile, if, though innocent, he still remains suspicious."
Such is the sad, the dreadful condition of the unfortunate islanders who
are represented by the official press as hastening to lay at the feet of the
Queen ardent professions of loyalty to her Government, and attachment
to her person. They have again and again made heavy sacrifices for free¬
dom—nay, at this very moment, and for years past, they maintain,
by secret contributions, for gratuitous circulation, public journals in the
United States, repeating their constant appeal to our sympathies.
The whole of the recent wrongs committed, Mr. President, in relation
to the arming of the blacks, and other similar outrages, were committed
under the instigation of Great Britain, and Lord Palmerston did not blush
to acknowledge his guilt in the face of the civilized world. I have here
his despatch, in which, in answer to the remonstrance of the inhabitants
of the island, communicated to him through the correspondence of the
Spanish Minister, he replied, to the effect, that it was true that the meas¬
ures he was recommending might not be suitable for the whites, but that
they were exceedingly beneficial to the blacks. An actual recommenda¬
tion to the Spsnish Government to trample the white native Cuban under
12
foot for the benefit of the Africans that had been imported in defiance of
the treaties with Great Britain herself. Here is Lord Palmerston's des¬
patch, of September 11, 1851, and it is capable of that signification
alone :
"With reference to that passage in M. Miraflores's note, in which he states that the
Spanish Government cannot understand how her Majesty's Government can seriously
recommend a measure which would prove very injurious to' the natives of Cuba, when
thfey also recommend that the Spanish Government should conciliate the affections of
those Cubans, I have to instruct your lordship to observe to M. de Miraflores, that the
slaves of Cuba form, a large portion, and by no means an unimportant one. of the population
of Cuba ; and that any steps taken to provide for their emancipation would therefore, as far
as the black population are concerned, be quite in unison with the recommendation made by
her Majesty's Government; that measures should be adopted for contenting the people
of Cuba, with a view to secure the connection between that island and the Spanish
Crown ; and it must be evident that, if the negro population of Cuba were rendered free,
that fact would create a most powerful element of resistance to any scheme for annexing Cuba
to the United States, where slavery still exists."
There it is, sir. It is the white population that is to be trampled under
the feet of the blacks, and such blacks as now exist in Jamaica ; it is this
white population, that is represented in the face of the Senate and the
country as desirous of continuing subjects of the rule under which they
now groan.
Sir, it is very easy to say, " if the people of Cuba desire emancipation
from this tyranny, why do they not rise in arms ?" And we are pointed
to our own condition when our forefathers resisted the tyranny of the
British Crown. How unfair to them ; how delusive the comparison ! We
were three million of men. We had the right of speech ; the liberty of
the press. We could assemble, combine, prepare. We could arm. We
had a right to buy arms, and to wear them. When Patrick Henry was
urging the Virginia Assembly to the declaration of American independ¬
ence, his cry was that three millions of men in arms could not be vanquished
by any power that our enemy could send against us. But how is the case
of the miserable Cubans ? Had we, as they have, a foreign army in our
midst—an army composed of soldiers whose fidelity to the mother country
is only secured by the system already mentioned, of strict isolation, of
absolute interdiction from any communication with the inhabitants of thfe
island—had we such a force as that amongst us, and backed by the bayo¬
nets of the black race threatening an exterminating war of races ? No,
sir; there is no fairness, no justice in the reproach.
I must waive, Mr. President, all discussion of the effects that the ac¬
quisition of this island would have on the industrial, agricultural, and com¬
mercial interests of our country, these points having been already treated
very satisfactorily by gentlemen who have already spoken.
I shall not even speak of its geographical position, commanding, as it
does, a commerce which, before all that are now within sound of my
voice shall have disappeared from the earth, will reach $1,500,000,000,
still I must call attention to the fact that it seems hitherto to have been ta¬
ken for granted that this country is exposed to no risk so long as this
island remains within the feeble grasp of Spain. I apprehend this is a
mistake, and a very grave mistake. It is a grave mistake for several
reasons : first, because those harbors, being the most capacious and the
best fortified in the Gulf, offer a secure rendezvous, in case of difficulties
with other foreign Powers, for collecting fleets and navies with which our
own unprotected coasts could be attacked ; secondly, because Spain is not
now an independent nation. *
I deny her independence in the true stense of the word. Spain has
bartered away her sovereignty in Cuba, effectually bartered it away to
Great Britain. She did not yield to motives of policy or of philanthropy
13
in abolishing the slave trade. There was a time when Spanish dignity was
not insulted by the offer to buy something from her, and her pride was not
touched when Great Britain paid her .£400,000 sterling for giving up the
slave trade. Again and again has the Spanish nation been twitted upon
the floor of the British Parliament with having cheated Great Britain, by
taking the money and then countenancing the traffic. It is under the con¬
trolling influence of Great Britain that Spanish pride has been so far humil¬
iated that a mixed commission sat in the Island of Cuba; that British sub¬
jects in the town of Havana try Spanish subjects in their own colonies for
breaches of the treaty, and that England had a hulk, a prison-ship belong¬
ing to herself, lying in the harbor of Havana, to enforce the edicts of
British judges over Spanish colonists; and yet we are told that this is an
independent nation, whose pride and dignity will revolt at the bare propo¬
sal for a cession of sovereignty over the island.
The safety of our country is further involved in the acquisition of Cuba,
or, at least, in her independence; because her harbors not only furnish
points of rendezvous for hostile fleets, but secure harbors of refuge in which
they could refit and repair, and prepare themselves for fresh attacks on
our unprotected coasts. It was those harbors that afforded refuge for the
British fleet after its descent on New Orleans; and in them did the French
fleet refit after its bombardment of the castle of San Juan d'Uloa. In the
event of a rupture with Great Britain, which many gentlemen around me
seem to suppose inevitable in no very distant future, Cuba would be, in
her possession, a tremendous point of vantage for attack; and little
would she reck of any opposition by Spain, to her use of it, for her own
purposes, in a moment of emergency. It is for this reason that the in¬
stincts of the American people have already taught them that we shall
ever be insecure against hostile attack until this important geographical
and military position is placed under our protection and control.
This being the relation borne to us by Cuba, the President has proposed
that Congress shall give expression to the national sentiment, by sanction¬
ing a proposition to Spain for the purchase of the island. Why should we
npt do it?
First, we are told that it is an offence to the dignity of Spain to make
the offer of purchase. To that, reply has been made so often and so vic¬
toriously, that it is hardly necessary to repeat it. We have only to say
that of all the colonies that Spain ever possessed on this continent, none
remain but the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, and, I believe, some small
islands adjacent, not worth naming; and that, of all she has lost, every¬
thing has been torn from her by violence, with the exception of Florida,
that we bought, and Louisiana, that France bought. If it was no offence
for France to purchase Louisiana, and no offence for us to purchase Florida,
it is a little too late to say that it is an offence to her dignity for us to pro¬
pose the purchase of Cuba. And, sir, I cannot understand the dignity
and sense of honor of a country that sells to the people of Great Britain,
for a sum of money, an agreement to abandon the slave trade, and, under
that treaty, gives to Great Britain power to hold courts in her own territory,
judging her own subjects; and then turns upon us, and, on the bare indi¬
cation of a desire to purchase, tells us that she considers herself insulted
by the proposition. I am afraid she will have to be insulted; I am afraid
the proposition will have to be made. This insult was offered to her dig¬
nity a good many years ago, in relation to this same island, first by Great
Britain and aft^*wards by us, and this is the first time we have ever heard
of her being insulted by the offer.
But, sir, we are told that England and France will object. If that be
true, it affords to my mind a controlling motive for persisting. I wish to
14
examine a little into this subject of the interference of England and
France ; and first, I desire the attention of the Senate to a fact which
has not yet been adverted to in this debate ; that, as far back as 1823,
Great Britain tried to buy Cuba from Spain, and made her offers of pur¬
chase, which were rejected ; that then, in 1825 and 1826, Great Britain
was at the bottom of the plot for declaring Cuba independent, by an insur¬
rection of the people, with'the aid of the Colombian and Mexican forces,
her .object being to get the control of the island under a protectorate,
which she thought she could establish without exciting our jealousy; and
that it was these views of Great Britain which induced the interference
of Mr. Clay with the Colombian and Mexican Ministers, and this
broke up the plot. July 10, 1823, Mr. Appleton, being then at Cadiz,
wrote to Mr. Adams, our Secretary' of State :
1' The contents of the letter, of which I herewith enclose a duplicate, are substantially
confirmed by all that has come to my knowledge since it was written. I shall say noth¬
ing of the official declaration of England; they are documents which must long since
have reached you. I have it, however, in my power to say, upon the best authority,
that the sentiments she now professes in relation to acquisition of territory at the ex¬
pense of Spain, have not always been entertained by her.
7 "Mr. Quadra, now Deputy of the Cortes, had, when Minister of Ultra-Marine in
1820, distant overtures made to him for the cession of the eastern side of Cuba to Eng¬
land. These overtures were treated with great coldness, and it is supposed have not
been repeated. This fact has been communicated to me in confidence by Mr. Gener, a
deputy from the Havana, who being a European by birth, has had more access to the
secrets of the Cabinet than his companions, and has lately received a distinguished
proof of the respect in which he is held in being called onto preside over the Cortes
during an epoch of particular difficulty.''
In 1827, Mr. Everett, then in Madrid, sent to Mr. Clay the following
despatch :
"Madrid, August 17, 1827.
"Sir : The enclosed copy of a confidential despatch addressed to the Minister of State
by the Conde de la Alcudia, Spanish Minister at London, was handed to me to-day by
a private friend, and may be depended on as authentic. As the communication was
made to me in the strictest confience, and as the document is in itself unsuitable for the
press, I take the liberty of transmitting it to you, for the President's information, in the
form of a private letter, and request that it may not be placed on the public files of the •
Department of State."
Here is the letter :
[Translation.]
The Spanish Minister at London to the Minister of State.
j London, June 1, 1827.
Most Excellent Sir : I deem it my duty to give you notice for the information of the
King, our Lord, that this ■ Government despatched a frigate some time ago to the
Canary islands, with commissioners on board, who were instructed to ascertain whether
any preparations were making there for an expedition to America; and also the state
of defence of those islands, and the disposition of the inhabitants. The result of these
inquiries was that the said islands were in a wholly defenceless situation, provided with
few troops, and those disaffected and ready for any innovation.
The frigate then proceeded to the Havana, where the commissioners found many per¬
sons disposed to revolt; but, in consequence of the large military force stationed, there,
and the strength of the fortifications, they considered it impossible to take possession of
the island without the co-operation of the authorities and the army. In consequence
of the information thus obtained, measures have been taken in both these islands to pre¬
pare the public opinion, by means of emissaries, in favor of England, to the end that
the inhabitants may be brought to declare themselves independent, and to solicit the
protection of the British. The latter are prepared to assist them, and will, in this way,
avoid any collision with the United States. The whole operation has been undertaken,
and is to be conducted in concert with the revolutionists resident here (at London) and
in the islands, who have designated a Spanish general, now at this placebo take com¬
mand of the Havana when the occasion shall require it.
The fluke of Wellington communicated to me the above information, which is also
confirmed by an intimation which he gave to Brigadier General Don Francisco
Armentecos, when this officer took leave of him to go to the Havana. The Duke then
15
advised him, if he should discover any symptoms of disaffection in the authorities, to
give immediate notice to the King, as it would be a grievous thing for his Majesty .to
lose the Havana.
I have thought it my duty to make these circumstances known to your excellency.
May God keep you many years.
EL CONDE DE LA ALCUDIA.
This is the same Great Britain that now, having failed in her own
attempt, generously proposes to the, American people an alliance of three
parties, France, England, and the United States, each of whom shall say,
as they are bound to do in her estimate under the law of nations, that not
one of them will ever acquire Cuba. Having failed herself, both by open
negotiation and secret manoeuvre, to obtain possession of the island, she
proposes to us magnanimously to renounce what she cannot get, provided
we will be equally generous ; for such, after all, was the real proposition
made in the despatch to which Mr. Everett made his celebrated answer ;
and when we respectfully declined her proposal, we were informed through
another despatch that she held herself at liberty to act as she pleased for
the future ; and the British Secretary actually proceeded, with a grave
face, to argue that England had equal interests with ourselves in the island
of Cuba, because, in a geographical line, Cuba was no nearer to the
United States than to the island of Jamaica—that delectable paradise of
her negro savages.
So much, sir, as regards any objections that may be made by England.
But France, we are told, will be offended; her sense of justice will be
shocked at our violation of national courtesy in desiring to acquire a neigh¬
boring isle. The reproach will come with a good grace, sir, from the
present Emperor of the French, who was so particularly regardful of public
law when at Bologne and at Strasburg he attempted to overthrow the con¬
stitutional Government of his own country, for the purpose of acquiring
that power which he has since shown was desired only for the gratification
of his own selfish ambition. We are to be called on to renounce all rights
of national growth in deference, forsooth, to France and England. We
alone are not to grow; and the reason is that we declare our purpose in
advance, which gives to these intermeddling Powers an opportunity of
raising an outcry; whereas, in the secrecy of their cabinets, projects of
invasion are entertained and executed before notice is given; and, when
reproached for their breaches of national law, the world is coolly informed,
in diplomatic jargon, that the outrage is un fait accompli.
Mr. President, I trust that, if the voice of England is raised on this
question, the first, the prompt, the peremptory answer to be given will be,
to ask her to give an account of her seizure of the Bay Islands, in defiance
of her treaty with us; to call for her title to control the Nicaragua transit;
and when she has made good, in the law of nations, that new title, invented
by Lord Clarendon, and which he calls "spontaneous settlement!" then,
and not till then, we shall be ready, on our part, to give her a reason why
we want " spontaneous settlement" in Cuba.
If, sir, on the other hand, the Emperor of France shall make objection,
let him be asked by what right he attempts to interfere with us in the pur¬
chase of territory from Spain, when we are only following the example of
his uncle, who did the same thing? Let him be asked what greater right
France had to buy Louisiana, than we have to buy Cuba? And, sir, let
both France and England be required to show by what principle of national
law territorial acquisition is forbidden, when peaceful and for a price; but
permissible, if effected by the exercise of violence, committed by the
strong against the weak? ,
Mr. President, there is one paramount principle affecting this whole
question of annexation, which our self-respect requires us to present
16
prominently before the world. It is, that in the expansion of our system
we Seek no conquest, subjugate no people, impose our laws on no un¬
willing subjects. When new territory is brought under our jurisdiction,
the inhabitants are admitted to all the rights of self-government. Let no
attempt be made to confuse this subject by the use of inappropriate terms.
It is the fallacy lurking under the use of the word " belongs," of which
despots make use. Cuba "belongs" to Spain. True. But in what
sense? New York "belongs" to the United States also; but in what
sense ?
Cuba is subject to Spanish sovereignty. Her people now owe allegiance
to Spain ; but the island does not belong to Spain as property belongs to
an individual. The Cubans are not the property of the Crown. Nay,
the soil of the island belongs to private proprietors. The right of Spain,
as a proprietary right, extends only to the public places on the island not
disposed of to private individuals, and to such revenues as she can law¬
fully and legitimately exact from her subjects. But, sir, from the date
of our independence, we have had fixed principles on the subject of the
true proprietorship of countries. The fundamental theory of our Govern¬
ment is, that the people of all countries are the true and only owners;
that governments are established for their benefit, and that whenever
governments become subversive of the true ends of their institution, it is
the right of the people to alter and abolish them. The island of Cuba
belongs, not to Queen Isabella, but to the people who inhabit it, and who
alone have the right to decide under what Government they choose to
live.
Now, Mr. President, bringing this discourse to a close, I desire to say,
in a few Avords, what my view is in relation to the policy of this country.
I would propose, as the President proposes, the purchase of the Island of
Cuba from the Government of Spain. If that be refused, if it be sup¬
posed that Spanish pride or Spanish dignity is involved in the proposition
to such an extent as to make it impossible for them to cede it, I would then
say to Spain : " If you will not cede the island to us, grant independence
to your subjects there, and we will pay you a reasonable equivalent for
the abandonment of your revenues, and make settlement hereafter with
the people of Cuba for our advances."
If this offer be again refused, then let us announce to Spainin advance,
that whenever opportunity shall occur, we are ready and resdjRe to offer
to the people of Cuba the same aid that England offered to the other
Spanish colonies; the same alliance, offensive and defensive, which
France so nobly tendered to us in the hour of our darkest peril. Tell her
that we shall repair the wrong by us done to the generation now passing
away in Cuba when we impeded their efforts for gaining their independ¬
ence, by affording to the present generation our aid, countenance, and
assistance. Tell her that, when the Cubans shall have conquered their
independence, theirs shall be the right of remaining a separate Republic,
if they so prefer; that we will cherish, aid and protect them from all for¬
eign interference, and will draw close the bonds of a mutual, social, and
commercial intercourse, that shall be of incalculable benefit to both. Tell
her, too, that if the people of the island, with their independence once
acquired, and republican institutions established, shall desire to unite
themselves with us, they shall be admitted to the equal benefits which our
system of government secures to each independent State that enters into its
charmed circle. She shall unite with us freely, the equal associate of
free States ; and when the union shall have been accomplished, the sword
of the nation shall smite down q'ny rude hand that shall attempt to sunder
•those whom the God of freedom has united.
SPEECH
of
HON. T. POLK, OF MISSOURI,
on th5
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY IT, ^859.
The Senate having tinder consideration the bill for the acquisition of Cuba-
Mr. POLK said:
. v • '
Mr. President! The bill before us proposes the acquisition of the Island
-of Cuba, by purchase, from Spain. The question is, ought the measure to
find favor with the American Senate? This depends, in my judgment,
on the following considerations:
1. Whether the island will be advantageous to us, promotive of our ma¬
terial interests and our national welfare, and at the same time not injuri¬
ous to the people of the island? .
2. Is purchase the proper method to be adopted for its acquisition!
3. Have we the ability to pay the purchase money?
4. Is the present a fitting juncture to propose the negotiation ?
Let us briefly examine these considerations.
1. Will the island be valuable to us ?
The shore of the Gulf of Mexico is an immense circle of4 irregular cir¬
cumference. Its continuity is broken by a segment exceedingly small
when compared with the length of its entire periphery. This Gulf is a
great sea, thrusting itself between North and South America, and dividing
the New World into two great continents—a northern and a southern one.
It is emphatically the great " Mediterranean sea "of the Western hemis¬
phere.
Two nations hold the dominion of its shores-—Mexico and the United
States. The larger part is held by the United States. Five of the States
of our Union are washed by its waves. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ala¬
bama, and Florida, in part encompass it. It lie?, as it were, in the very em¬
brace of our Confederacy.' And, from this fact alone, we ought to be per¬
mitted to claim it, as the Romans did the Adriatic, as mare nostrum—our
own sea.
The Waters from foil one half of the territory of the United States are
drained into it. Of the large number of rivers which fall into it, three
fourths of them find their mouths within our territory. And of these
rivers, all the important Ones flow through the territory of the United
States. One river alone— that " great Father of Waters," the Mississippi,
with its tributaries, pours into it, the waters of more than one-sixth part
Printed by Lemuel Towers.
2
of the North American continent. Rising far up in the regions of our ut¬
most northern boundary, it makes its taajestic way southwardly to the
gulf—broad, deep, and mighty, capable of bearing on its bosom the com¬
merce of the mightiest republican empire the world has ever seen; di¬
viding, near its centre, the great continental valley between the Allegha-
nies and the Stony Mountains^ pnd reaching with its branches to every
portion and extreme of that vast valley^a great Mediterranean Jivejr,
tributary to this mediterranean sea.
The river navigation within our own borders, communicating with
the Gulf of Mexico, is more than twenty-five thousands of miles in
length. -By the application of steam, this is all available to the uses of
commerce. Already there floats on it a steam tonnage as large, perhaps,
as that of all the world besides 5 and that, too, when a large proportion of
the river basins, fertilized, and drained by it, is unbroken forest 'ind prairie,
where the plow has never marked the soil. The Gulf of Mexico is, there¬
fore, our sea, because it receives our waters, as well as because it is em¬
braced by our coasts.
These rivers run, not from east to west, but from north to south. If
their course were in an easterly and westerly direction, they would traverse
' the same climate, and, consequently, on their banks there wopld he no va¬
riety of productions. But, on the contrary, flowing from north to south,
the longest of them pass through almost all the changes of climate, from
the frigid to the torrid zone; and, consequently, in their long and fertile
valleys, almost every species of animal and vegetable life abounds, Pro?
ceeding from the source to the mouth, there is a constant variety of plants,
and of necessity there is a constant and correspondent variety in the ani¬
mals on the hanks; different quadrupeds, different birds, and different
fishes, at each successive stage of the progress.
This variety of productions induces and necessitates the exchange of
commodities ; and that exchange constitutes commerce.
Trade must always follow the channels which nature has marked out
dor it. Facility and cheapness make this result inevitable. By consequence,
the productions of the vast valley of the'Mississippi, and also of the basins
of the other Gulf rivets, unsurpassed in extent and fertility, will find their
way to a market through the Guff. T\That the amount of these productions
is to he \vhen these valleys* in- all their immense length and breadth and
-teeming productiveness, shall be densely populated and fully cultivated, it
would perhaps be vain to guess, because impossible to compute. But-even
liow, in the Very first stages- of development, it rises to the- enormous sum
of about; three hundred millions off dollars every year. Even at the present
-moment, therefore, production and commerce also -make the Gulf mare
nostrum.
1 have said, Mr* president, that the form of our Gulf is that of an irreg¬
ular circle, hugely expanded, to he sure, hut stiff an immense circle. This
fact gives to it the greatest possible adaptation to commercial uses. It
thereby mbret cobipact. Its different ports and places are closer together#
It can he traversed from any one point to every other in straight lines, and
therefore in the shortest lines. And the shortest lines from port to port
"are by water. Hence ehips can traverse it in much less time, and gather
its commodities and make,its commercial exchanges at much less cost, than
cap he done upon any other, sea as large, on the facq of the globe. The
freedom and control of such a sea, situated as I have shown this to be, is
indispensable to our growth and greatness.
3
I remark further, upon the shape of this Gulf. Its encircling shore
is open but on one side—its southeastern. With this exception, it
is completely land-locked; in fact, it is a perfect "cwl de sac.,p But
across the mouth of the bag lies the Island of Cuba, stretching almost
from shore to shore of the opening. Its western end, at Cape San Anto¬
nio, reaches far towards the main land of Yucatan, which also advances
far to meet it at Cape Catoche. And the Keys of Florida approximate so
closely to the north shore of the island, that the booming of the morning,
gun from the Moro castle, may almost wake the slumbers of the Tortugas-
of Florida,
Thus there are but two portals opening from the Gulf to the Atlantic..
The situation of the first named, and the winds and currents which,, in a
great degree bar its passage to outward-bound ships, almost make it a,
closed channel. The open and faoile one which trade frequents, and1
through which commerce finds ap easy transit, is the northern one, be¬
tween the island shore and the projecting point of the peninsula, of Florida.
Through this, therefore, must pass, ill all time to come, the constantly in¬
creasing and the never ending productions and exports of the great river
basins of the Gulf, as well as the rich equivalents to be received in ex¬
change for them*
This channel is so narrow, that the commerce which floats on it, passes
along the northern shore of Cuba, within gun-shot of her fortifications.
A few heavy war steamers would effectually close it—hermetically seal it.
There lies Cuba, holding in her hand the scepter of the Gulf, and com¬
manding the mouth of the Mississippi—our Mississippi. Wheu I say our
Mississippi, I say it with emphasis and with feeling; because my own State,
a part of the upper Louisiana, lies about the center of the valley, and on the
right bank of the river. Suppose Cuba to be in tbe possession of a great
•naval Power, as England, or even France; and suppose such Power to use
her for the purpose of blockading the Gulf: what would become of our
commerce on that sea, and the surplus products of the sixteen States of the
Union, and the vast Territories yet to become States, which are dependent
on that sea? The stoppage of that commerce, and the loss of the pro¬
ductions that flow into that sea from these river basins, for a single season,
would cost us incalculably more than the highest price that has ever been
estimated for Cuba.
Suppose England firmly established in possession of that island; then
let hei; have naval stations at the Bahamas, and also in her possessions to
the north of us: what would be our condition ? Our whole Atlantic sea¬
board covered and darkened and blockaded by her ships-of-war; it needs
no description from me to be appreciated.
But this is not all. England, in possession of Cuba on the north, and at
the same time owning Jamaica and many of the Windward and Leeward
islands on the east, and on the main land holding British Guiana on the
south, and the Balize and the Mosquito coast on the west, She would
surround the Caribbean sea, and hold it, as it were, in the hollow of her
hand. , ,
Still further. Cuba, Mr. President, lies right across the track of our
great Isthmian transit routes between our Atlantic sea-board and our Pa¬
cific coast. So that, in the absence of a Pacific railroad across the conti¬
nent, for all purposes of trade and travel, Cuba lies geographically between
*>ur possessions on the Pacific and the States on the eastern side of the
Bocky Mountains. The gold of California all comes to us through her
4
ports. Thus Cuba, in the possession of an enemy, would not only he an
impediment to our development, but the destruction of our Gulf trade,
and of our communication with the Pacific, and also of incalculable
damage to our safety even.
That she should belong to the United States, therefore, is of the very
highest moment, alike to our growth, our commerce, and our security.
Possessed of her, we possess and command the Gulf; we control the tran¬
sit routes across the continent, and hold the commercial intercourse be¬
tween the Atlantic and Pacific in our grasp. Moreover, we stand in a
position to win the mastery over the Caribbean sea, and to subject the
productions of its tropical river basins to our uses, and its commerce to our
aggrandizement.
Cuba is the counterpart, as it were, of the valley of the Mississippi.
Her productions are the reciprocals of those of the United States. She
has sugar, coffee, tobacco, and tropical fruits, to exchange with us, for our
surplus of flour and breadstuff's, rice, potatoes, beef, pork, lard, and lumber,
Cuba, in this respect is, on the one hand necessary to the United States,
and on the other the United States is necessary to her. Hence, in spite
of most exorbitant imposts, both on exports as well as imports; in spite of
differential duties against the United States on all importations from this
country; in spite of heavy tonnage duties and port charges, a large com¬
merce is, notwithstanding all, still carried on between the island and this
country. More than one-third of all the exports from the island come to
this country, and more than one-fifth of all her imports are received from
the United States, although the unnatural step-mother does everything in
her power, and more than ever was imposed by any other parent country
upon her dependent colony, to compel her to receive her imports from
Spain. On every barrel of flour imported from the United States there is
a differential duty against the United States of $8 31 more than is im¬
posed upon the inferior flour imported from Spain. And there is a like
discrimination against this country, on all other commodities imported
from it into the island. So, also, the tonnage duty exacted from Ameri¬
can shipping, is $1 37£ per ton more than is levied upon Spanish. In
short, our competition with Spain for the trade with Cuba, is the most
unequal on the whole globe. Yet, still, we even now furnish the island
with food and raiment and houses and furniture and domestic utensils and
agricultural implements. Let Cuba be acquired, and all these restrictions
and abuses would at once and forever cease.
Now, suppose our commerce with the island unshackled and our trade
free, all imposts and duties abolished, to what incalculable totals would it
not swell ? Instead of only about six thousand barrels of flour annually,
as is now the case, the aggregate would doubtless reach one million two
hundred thousand—about one barrel for each inhabitant. Here would be
an increase of two hundred-fold upon a single article; and all other arti¬
cles of our export thither, would probably be augmented in the same ratio.
And many more articles would doubtless be added to the list, which have
never heretofore been known there. Thus, Cuba would be the best market
for our agricultural productions that the world could offer. And this mar¬
ket would be a domestic one, certain and unfailing. What an unprece¬
dented stimulus would thus be applied to our agricultural industry ! The
same would be true of our manufactures. The mills and work-shops of
our manufacturing States, would be pressed to their utmost capacity of
production. Our artisans and operatives would find constant and remu-
5
nerative employment, while mechanical skill and invention would he taxed
to their highest achievement.
But what would he the effect in the meantime upon Cuba ? This abun¬
dant and cheapened supply of all their wants, would engender necessarily,
a corresponding and commensurate increase of production, by the inhabi¬
tants of the island. More than all, American skill and enterprise would
be introdm ed there to raise the swelling tide. This increase would lessen
the prices and multiply to us the supplies of sugar, coffee, tropical fruits,
and West India goods, until every citizen would have them within his easy
reach, upon such terms as would diminish in proportion, our present annual
expenditure for these necessaries, to an unparalleled extent. On the other
hand, there would be a reciprocal advantage to the people of Cuba, in the
abundance and cheapness of the supplies furnished to them from the United
States. Proportionate to the augmentation of the interchange of com¬
modities between this country and Cuba, would he the advance and exten¬
sion of our navigation interests. Our mercantile marine, already the equal
of any of the maritime nations of the world, would then soon stand with¬
out a rival. Thus the purchase would be mutually of immense benefit
both to us and to Cuba. For myself my imagination can picture nothing
to be compared to it-
Let this Queen of the Antilles be adopted into the sisterhood of our con¬
federated States; let the flag of our Union float over Cuba, and we will
hold unchallengeable dominion over the Gulf of Mexico. That sea will
not only be mare nostrum, but, at our pleasure, a mare clausum. Its com¬
merce, its forts, and its defences, will be in our own hands.
We have aire a/I y the world-monopoly of the production of cotton; we
hold the British leviathan now with a cotton hook in his mouth. With
Cuba incorporated with us, we shall monopolize the world's supply of
sugar and molasses, as completely, as we now do, its supply of cotton.
The trade of the tropics, Mr. President, is that which most enriches its
fortunate possessor. Through California, we may out-compete our rivals
for the trade of the East Indies; and with Cuba, we may draw to our¬
selves tbe trade of the West Indies. In former ages, and before the dis¬
covery of the New World, the trade of the East Indies was the richest on
the earth, and made its possessor great and mighty. But in modern times
the tropical trade of the West Indies, has grown up to a rival importance.
With the monopoly of the trade of both the Indies—the East and West—
we shall stand in the advance of all competition.
The Island of Cuba, Mr. President, is well suited to accommodate a
commerce of gigantie proportions. Its coast is studded with a succession
of harbors unequaled in number and accommodations, in tbe same length
of shore-line, in any part of the globe, ample both for military and com¬
mercial uses. She has on her northern coast, thirty-seven harbors suitable
for commercial purposes, and thirteen on her southern. She has also not
less than thirteen harbors in which a line-of-battle ship may ride in safety,
and which are capacious enough to afford safe anchorage to a whole navy
of such ships. As a strategical point, this gem of the Antilles is not sur¬
passed by any other on the surface of tbe round earth.
Is this all that may be said of Cuba? No, sir; by no means. A climate
genial and salubrious; a landscape diversified and beautiful; its surface
green and blooming with tropical exuberance; a soil of unsurpassed rich¬
ness, abundantly fructified by teeming waters. The sun, in his course,
e
does not look down upon a fairer land, nor one more capable of adminis¬
tering to the wants and gratifying the luxuries of man. *
" Haud inexpertus loquor."
Cuba annexed, and ber territory would be incorporated into our national
domain, just as have been our acquisitions from France and Spain and
Mexico. Her productions and commerce would go to make up our na¬
tional wealth and greatness, in the same manner as have those of our His-
paho-Frenoh territory of Louisiana, and our Hispano-Mexican, of New
Mexico and California.
These facts, Mr. President, are all duly appreciated by Spain. She knows
well, how indispensably important Cuba is to this country. She has seen,
too, how, in the progress of years and of events, that importance has stead¬
ily and rapidly been increasing—increasing in the same ratio as our popu¬
lation has multiplied; increasing with the development of our resources;
with the growth of our manufactures; with the expansion of our agricul¬
ture ; with the enlargement of our ^national domain; with the achieve¬
ments of our policy and our arts; with the swelling tides of our commerce
in the Gulf of Mexico; and, most of all, since the settlements in California
and Oregon, and in the Territory of Washington, by the establishment of
our transit routes over the Central American Isthmus. The Senator from
New York (Mr. Seward) has told us that—
"Spain holds the island how more tenaciously—with a stronger and safer grasp
than that with which she has held it at any time within the last fifty years."
And the Senator from Yermont (Mr. Foot) qoncurs in the sentiment.
No tvonder, Mr. President; Spain has undoubtedly done all in her power
to tighten her hold on Cuba, just as she has seen her daily increasing im¬
portance to us. She forsees, too, that the developments of every year, in
the future, will still render Cuba more and more important to us; and she
will endeavor to hold her from us by a still firmer grasp. And the Sena¬
tor from New York has suggested that England and France will no doubt
combine to second her. How imperative, then, upon us is the duty—the
duty to act at once in this matter without hesitation.
2. Our second topic for consideration is : Is purchase the proper method
to be adopted for the acquisition of the island I
I, sir, think it is. I know Ure have a long catalogue of unsatisfied claims,
and of wrongs unatoned for, to press upon and enforce against old Spain;
nay, sir, that many of these have the additional aggravation of having
sprung out of outrages perpetrated in Cuba itself; that the hot pursuit of
them, at the time of their perpetration, might even have justified the
seizure of the island, as a mode of redress and indemnification. That
seizure, too, could have easily been made. We could have adopted, in re¬
gard to it, the language of Caesar to Metellus, on a memorable occasion :
"Darius est mihi hoc dicere, quam face re" But, sir, we allowed the mo*
nlent of instantaneous vindication to pass. We resorted to diplomacy in¬
stead of reprisal; and now we are left to the chances and delays of nego¬
tiation. Of course, no just mind would harbor the idea of a forcible
seizure, merely because the prize is desirable, and because we might be
able to do it successfully. Kobbery by the nation would be not less ab¬
horrent to justice, than it is when perpetrated by the individual citizen.
What other recourse is left to us, then, except to purchase ? That certainly
is fair, and it is peaceful. I think, too, it is honorable; honorable to our-
7
selves, it surely is, and not less so, in my opinion, to Spain. I know it has
been characterized as insulting to Spaiu. But, sir, X am unable to see what
disrespect there can be in making an offer to purchase, in a civil and cour¬
teous qranner.
I know Spain is proud ; and, perhaps, poor too-—poor as well as proud.
Is a proud man, or a proud nation, forbidden by honor to sell ? And is
the mere proposal to buy, to be considered an insult \ And suppose such
a man or nation should choose to consider the offer as a reminder of their
poverty, can such false construction change the character of the act ? On
the contrary, the very necessities that recommend a sale as prudent, ought
to invest the proposal to purchase, with the odor of kindness. But did
not Spain sell Louisiana to the First Consul of the French ? Bid not he
sell it to the United States \ Has she not even sold Florida to this very
country for a price ? If it was no insult to Spain in 1819, to offer to buy,
and actually to make a purchase of Florida from her, how can it now be
an insult to this same Spain for the same United States to propose to pur¬
chase Cuba from her ?
Nor do I forget, while on this point, the allegation that the people of
the island are opposed to annexation. After the masterly and unanswera¬
ble refutation of that assumption by yourself, sir, (Mr. Benjamin in the
chair,) a few days ago, I shall spend no time upon it. I shall pass it with
the mere remark, that the history of Cuba for the last four years, so well
known to our whole country, is a full and sufficient answer to this objec¬
tion. And, sir, notwithstanding the compulsory protests which have been
forced from Cuban municipalities by Spanish officials, and laid at the foot
of the Spanish throne, deprecating the sale of the island, for myself, I am
satisfied that the annexation of it to the United States, would be hailed by
the entire people with the most enthusiastic rejoicings. Sir, are the in¬
habitants of Cuba insensible to exactions and burdens and oppressions,
such as no people ever before groaned under ? Hhve they no desire for
relief—no aspiration for freedom ? Are they content to be ground down
by the heel of Spanish tyranny in all time to come, as they have been for
years past, subject to martial law, and treated as a besieging conqueror
does an invested and starving population ?
But, Mr. President, the honorable Senator from New York concedes
that Cuba must ultimately be annexed to the United States by the force
of a political gravitation, as irresistible and as certain as the physical. If
so, it must be, either by purchase, or by voluntary surrender, or by the
conquest of war. A voluntary surrender of the island to Us by Spain,
without any equivalent, is not expected by the Senator from New York.
I apprehend that that is a sentiment that none of us can entertain, or an
event that we can believe at all practical in the future, for the Senator
says, and truly says, that Spain holds Cuba with a firmer grasp now than
she has ever done for fifty years past, and is aided in doing so by the com¬
bined power of England and France.
Then there is only one of the other two modes left—purchase or con¬
quest.
If by purchase, it is evident at the first glance, that the price to be paid
will never be less than at the present moment. On the contrary, the proba¬
bilities are, that it will be constantly and greatly enhanced. If by war,
we all know that that mode will be infinitely more costly than any pur¬
chase can by any possibility be, to say nothing of the other direful evils
that must result from the conflict to Spain, and even to Cuba herself. Be-
8
sides, sir, our policy is not the conquests of war. It always has been, and
I trust always will be our policy to make our conquests of territory, as
well as of everything else, the conquests of peace.
3. The third inquiry is, are we able to pay the price ?
Who doubts the ability of this great nation? I ask emphatically, who
doubts it? In 1803, when in our national infancy, within the first fourteen
years after the establishment of our Government, we were able to purchase
Louisiana, a domain far more princely than the Island of Cuba, and about
equal, at that time, to all the other domain of the Government. Are we
less able to make the purchase now ? Since then, we have acquired Florida
from Spain, and immense tracts of country from Mexico—Louisiana, Florida,
New Mexico and California—all once the property of Spain. Have these
vast regions, sufficient m themselves for an empire, diminished our resour¬
ces ? On the contrary, I ought rather to ask to what boundless extent
have they not augmented them? Sir, however large may be the financial
demands of this measure, the ability of this country is far more than equal
to them; and Cuba is a prize not to be compared with them. Yet this
was one of the two points of objection made by the Senator from New
York, when this bill was reported to the Senate from the Committee on
Foreign Relations. It has been dwelt on since by other Senators, and has
been insisted on this morning.
But I call attention particularly to the grounds upon which it was
placed by the honorable Senator from New York. The Senator said, that
the bill presented two aspects, a financial and a political one. And he
objected to it, first, for its financial aspect. In order to ground this ob¬
jection, he made some most exaggerated assumptions. These assnmptions
are as follows:
First assumption. He assumed first, without any warrant, that the
President, under this bill, would pay the price of $250,000,000 to Spain
for the Island of Cuba. Because it would be possible for the President to
pay that sum, he assumes that it is certain that that sum will be paid.
And this is his only ground for nominating $250,000,000 as the price, and
setting that down as an item of the public debt, which he figures up to
" frighten us out of our propriety" on this question. I deny that it is any
authority at all for the Senator's position. That sum stands as a mere
naked assumption.
Second assumption. Next, he states that we were then proposing to
build a railroad to the Pacific; and, upon no other ground, he forthwith
assumes that we have an indebtedness upon us for this purpose, of
$125,000,000 more. But it has already been shown by the result, by the
action of the Senate, that we shall have no such indebtedness upon us.
Third assumption. In the third place, he assumed, that because the
President, in his annual message, recommended the throwing into the
States of Chihuahua and Sonora, troops enough to afford protection to our
citizens against Indian depredations and outrages, we, therefore, have
taken upon us an indebtedness of $100,000,000 more from this cause. In
the first place, even if the suggestion of the President should be carried
out, it would cost nothing like the sum assumed by the honorable Senator;
and in the next plaee, the suggestion is not likely to be carried out. It
has not even been proposed, to my knowledge, in either branch of Con¬
gress. The $100,000,000, therefore, on this score, stands as an assumption
merely.
9
Fourth assumption. In the fourth place, because the President suggests
the propriety of granting him authority to employ the Army and Navy to
resist the outrageous aggressions that are constantly being perpetrated upon
the citizens of the United States, not only in regard to their property, but
their persons, by the Spanish American States, he assumes that we are
onerated with an indebtedness of $100,000,000 more from this cause.
Now, sir, I, for one, am very willing to incur any amount of reasonable in¬
debtedness for the purpose of giving protection to our citizens in those
Central American States. I was very glad when the bill reported by the
Committee on Foreign Relations upon this subject, to which the Senator
from Kentucky, (Mr. Crittenden,) called the attention of the Senate in
his remarks a few days since, which bill proposed to give power only to
resist forcible aggressions upon the persons of our citizens, that you, sir,
(Mr. Benjamin in the chair,) offered as a substitute another bill, which
proposed to give immunity and security to the citizens of the United States
on the territory of those Central American Republics, against aggression
upon their property. Why, sir, we are told that when similar aggressions
are made upon the citizens of any other country in any of the ports on the
Gulf, as atTampico, for instance, if a British citizen is robbed, or if a
Frenchman is deprived of his goods, a British man-of-war, or a French
armed vessel lying in the harbor, the commander demands immediate
restitution, or the town will be battered down, and restitution is made;
but if an American citizen is robbed, the commander of an aimed vessel
of the United States that lies there, may say, that redress is demanded
and must be made, or else an appeal will be made to the authorities at
Washington; and it may be that years after, Congress may give authority
(as this Congress did at its last session in the case of Paraguay) to demand
redress, when it ought to have been given on the spot to the man who
was robbed. But we have done nothing, and I say that this assumption
is-just as groundless as any of the others to which I have referred. And
so his indebtedness of $500,000,000, conjured up by the honorable Senator,
rests upon no better basis than mere assumptions—assumptions not only
unwarranted by the facts, but contradicted by them. Hisobjection, there¬
fore, to the bill, because of the financial aspect it presents, must fail of
effect.
But the Senator from Vermont objects, because we have not got the
amount of money requisite now in the Treasury. Sir, if this objection be
valid, we shall never purchase Cuba; for we will never have the money
in the Treasury at any one time sufficient to do it. There has never been,
and never will be, any large sum of money being idle in the Treasury, so
long as this Government shall continue to be administered in the spirit and
sense of the Constitution.
Mr. President, I ought not to pass from this point without remarking,
that the argument in opposition to the bill seems to me to be completely
"felo de se." In one part of it, it is said, that we ought not to pass this
bill because it will entail upon us an immediate debt of $30,000,000, and
a prospective one of, perhaps, $200,000,000; or, as has been stated this
morning, of $250,000,000. In another part, it is said that it will be im¬
possible for us to make the purchase. Now, sir, if we caunot make the
purchhse, we cannot incur the debt.
The objections to the measure on account of its political aspect are:
first, it trusts the President with too large a sum of money. Sir, I am per¬
fectly willing to trust the President with the money. For one, I do not
id
distrust his honesty. I am sure that if the amount be used at all, it will
be well and lawfully used for; the, accomplishment of the very object for
which it shall be placed in his hands. I am just as ready po put the.
amount into his hands, to be paid for the purposes of the treaty, when-
ratified by Spain, and before it shall be ratified by the United States, as I
would be to put,it into his hands after the treaty shall be ratified by the
United States. We must trust him in either case.
Bfit, sir, the measure is not without precedent; the same thing wfa§
done in 1803, in the case of Mr. Jefferson, to enable him to purchase,
Louisiana. And in the language of the committee which reported 'thisj,
measure, (Annals of Congress,. 1803,) " a similar course was pursued tor,
the purpose of settling our difficulty with the Regency bf Algiers, by an
appropriation of $1,000,000, prior to the commencement of the negotia¬
tion." Next, the same thing was again done in the case of the purchase*
of Florida. By the act of the 13th of February, 180'6, which used pre¬
cisely the same language as the act of 26th bf February, 1803, $2,000,000
were placed in the hands of the President intented to be used, and so
understood at the time, for the purchase of- Florida; and this sum re¬
mained in the hands of the President until that purchase was eon-,
summated.. And again, the same thing was done in 1847, in the cafie of
President Polk, to enable him, by treaty, to acquire territory from Mexico."
The Louisiana and Florida cases were much stronger than the measure^
now proposed ; for although it was understood that the money in these,
cases was put into Mr. Jefferson's hands to purchase Louisiana, in the .first
instance, and Florida in the next, yet the purpose is not expressed in the
acts of Congress, but the money in both cases was intrusted to him, as a
part of the foreign intercourse fund, and without indicating the object to.
which it was to be applied. • " (
We propose, then, to acquire Cuba by this measure, rafter the samg
manner of procedure in which we acquired territory from Mexico, and. in
a way less liable to the objection urged by the Opposition, than that by'
which our patriotic predecessors purchased the immense domain of Loui¬
siana, and the province of Florida.
Our present patriotic President is just as worthy of being trusted in this
case as were Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Polk in the cases parallel to the pre¬
sent. Our predecessors trusted them, and I am just as willing to trust Mr.
Buchanan.
The Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Crittkndex) a few days since spoke
of the purchase of Louisiana as an exceptional case, and dwelt on the cir¬
cumstances of it. Sir, we have purchased territory from but three nations-
France, Spain, and Mexico. In each one of these cases, our Government
has taken exactly the same steps that are proposed to be taken by this
bill. I deny, therefore, that the Louisiana case was an exceptional one.
On the contrary, it was the first one of an unbroken series of cases, ex,-,
actly similar. In this bill we propose to follow a rule for the purchase of
Cuba which stands without a single exception in all our past history.
Again, it is objected to the political aspect of the measure, that Cuba
has a population of some twelve or fifteen hundred thousand, about bne
half of whom are whites; and of the other half, about two parts are slaves,
and one part free blacks; find it is said we ought to know beforehand
what is to be the status of the white population.; what the status of the
free-colored inhabitants; what*the status of the slaves; what are to be the
institutions of justice find religifin.
11
Mt. President, this is no objection to the particular mode of purchase
qow proposed. It is an objection against purchasing Cuba by treaty at
all. For, in any and every case of pbrcliase, the treaty must settle these
questions to just exactly the same extent, as it will, if the measure undey
discussion be adopted. The objection is just as strong, just the same in
all respects, against a treaty upon which no payment of money shall be
made in advance of its ratification by the Senate, as it is to the one con¬
templated by this bill.
. The Senator from New York also says: " To-day England and France
are not only allies, but they are united in the policy of maintaining Spain
In the enjoyment of the Islands of Cfiba and Porto Kico." Sir, if we wish
to purchase, and Spain is willing to sell, it is a matter that England and
France have nothing to do with. It is none of their business; and so far
as a threat is implied of their combined intervention, it has no terrois for
me. It will have no terrors for the people of the United States. On the
contrary, they will be for the acquisition for this very reason. If England
and France wish a war with this country upon that issue, they can have
it, and have it to their heart's content. Let them interfere in warlike pos¬
ture, and wre will fling defiance in their teeth. We will fight them with
the last dollar of our means, and to the last drop of our blood; and I will
say, in answer to the Senat'or from Kentucky, (Sir. Thompson,) who spoke
yesterday, the "first" drop of our blood. Thousands of them are ready
to spend the first drop and the last drop of their blood, if it be demanded
On that question.
Mr. President, the Senator from New York, with great skill, insinuates
as an objection to this bill, that it is unconstitutional. He says:
"When he (the President) has once obtained the Island of Cuba, and paid
$30,000,000 as an advance upon the consideration money of the purchase, the treaty
will be a contract executed, and Spain and the whole world would laugh with de¬
rision at the pretence that we could rescind the contract and repudiate the re¬
maining debt on the ground that we had then looked into our Constitution and had
found that we had violated it in passing the law by which we had authorized the
President to make the improvident bargain."
Now, sir, if to pass this bill would be to violate the very charter of out
liberties, that is objection enough to it. It ought to be at once rejected.
But, Mr. President, the honorable Senator will not maintain that propo¬
sition. Sir, it violates no provision of the Constitution. And, as I have
already said, it follows precedents already acted on, "but does not go so fa?
as Congress went in the purchase of Louisiana.
4. Our otjier point of inquiry is: Is the present a fitting juncture to pro¬
pose the negotiation.
If not, wThy not? Will Spain ever be more willing or more constrained
by her necessities to sell, than she is at the present moment? The Sena¬
tor from New York seemed to think, that she is less disposed and less ne¬
cessitated to sell now, than she has been for the last fifty years. Is not
the acquisition sufficiently desirable now, to both this country and to the
people of Cuba ? If the present is not an opportune juncture, when will
such an occasion arise ? The opponents of this bill will not assume the
position that we ought never to acquire Cuba under any circumstances, but
they say the present moment is premature. Has any one of them told lis
when the auspicious occasion will transpire ? Will any one tell us ? Sir,
the reasons that will lead to procrastination to-day, will lead to procrasti¬
nation for all time to come.
12
The Senator from New York seems to have settled down in the conclu¬
sion, that the time for opening negotiations for the purchase of Cuba has
not yet arrived, and yet it seems to him, he says, that " the island gravi¬
tates back again to the parent continent, from which it sprang." But
when and how this gravitation will effect the reannexation, the Senator
has not undertaken to tell us. He will not even venture to guess. I ask,
again, when will the right juncture come to pass?
Let us bear in mind, Mr. President, that the ripe apple requires to be
plucked from its native tree; and it must be plucked as soon as it is ripe.
If deferred beyond maturity, the rich fruit will have lost its value; the
golden opportunity will have passed away forever. This Cuban fruit, I
trust, is even now ripe for the gathering.
Mr. Seward. Will the honorable Senator excuse me for interrupting
him ?
Mr. Polk. Certainly.
Mr. Seward. I am unwilling to leave the Senator in doubt on that
subject. I cannot tell when the juncture will arrive; but I can tell him
when the juncture will not arrive; and that is when, instead of Spain pro¬
posing to the United States to cede Cuba, or being ready to accept the
proposition of the United States for Cuba in the ordinary course of negoti¬
ation, for a price to be submitted, and upon terms to be submitted by the
President of the-United States to Spain, with the advice and consent of
the Senate of the United States, and approved by them, for the payment
of an appropriation of $30,000,000, in advance, I imagine that at that time
there may be a favorable juncture for the proposition; but when it is
necessary to call upon the Congress of the United States for the $30,000,000,
to be paid out at all hazards, to obtain a treaty which the Senate of the
United States properly refuses to ratify, thus forfeiting the $30,000,000,
then I think the juncture has not arrived.
Now, I wish to ask the honorable Senator one question, which will de¬
serve his consideratian. How is it, what has happened, what has befallen
the President of the United States to bring about this strange result, that
he cannot carry on a proper negotiation for a lawful, reasonal just, and
feasible object, in the forms of the Constitution, and according to the cus¬
toms of our Government, until he obtains an indorsement from the Con¬
gress of the United States, with an appropriation of $30,000,000, to enable
him to begin with, beyond what it was before when the United States had
a President that would avow—
Mr. Polk. I did not give way for the Senator to make a speech. If
he is going on with the question, I will hear him with great pleasure.
Mr. Seward. I will conclude my speech by the question : when was
it before that the President of the United States would confess, in the face
of the whole , world, that he was desirous to make a proposition to a foreign
Power, and yet could not make it, unless the Congress of the United States
yould authorize and make an appropriation of money in advance ?
Mr. Polk. I will commence what I have to say as following the Sena¬
tors interruption, by answering the question he has just *now put. The
answer is, that I have given him three instances in which the Presidents of
the United States did not enter into negotiations for the purpose of making
the purchase, until Congress had made appropriations of money in advance.
The very first instance that has occurred in our history, the case of Mr,
Jefferson, which I gave him, was one in which the money was put into
Mr. Jefferson's handstand not specified in the hill to be for the purpose of
purchasing Louisiana, but as a part of the foreign intercourse fund. I say
further, in answer to the Senator, that the very same thing was done in,
the Florida case. So, also, in the case of the acquisition from Mexico.
There is not a single exception in all our acquisition of territory by
treaty.
Mr. Slidell. If my friend from Missouri will permit me, I will state,
that the money put into the hands of the President, in 1806, for the pur¬
chase of Florida, remained at the disposal of the Administration for sixteen
years, applicable to that purpose.
Mr. Polk. And of course, therefore, until the purchase of Florida was
consummated.
Now, Mr. President, the Senator from New York rose to explain to me
what his views were in answer to a question that J was putting. In the
course of his explanation, he said he should deem that a fitting juncture
had not arrived until Spain had offered to-'sell. I ask the Senator if he
Will say he will never go'for the acquisition of Cuba until Spain shall offer
to sell.
' Mr. Seward. The honorable Senator does not state the whole of my
proposition.
Mr. Polk. Mr. President, I did not state the whole of his propositions,
but I stated the whole of one of his propositions.
Mr. SiWARD. No, sir.
Mr. Polk. The Senator went on to make an addition of some half a
dozen more. He went on to make a speech in answer.
; Mr. Seward. Will the Senator state my proposition?
Mr. Polk. I asked the honorable Senator if he did not put that as one
of the events upon which only he would agree to the purchase of Cuba.
Mr. Seward. I am perfectly willing to answer the honorable Senator,
Provided he will allow me to answer his questions as to what I did state.
It was this: that a fitting,juncture had not arrived when neither would
Spain sell to the United States, nor could the President of the United
States, without being backed by an appropriation of $30,000,000, make a
proposition to the Court of Spain to buy it. That was my position.
" Mr. Polk. In answer to that, I have to say, that the Senator cannot
state that the juncture has not arrived in which Spain will sell. Sir, there
is a very great difference between the Spanish minister having said what
he did to the Cortes, and the response that the Spanish Cortes made to his
declaration on the one hand, and the sale of the island on the other. I
shall come to that as I proceed.
But, sir, the Senator from New York did not assume—and I want him
jfco assume it, if he means to do it, directly and categorically—that he is
opposed to the purchase of Cuba, under any circumstances. The Senator
from New Hampshire (Mr. Hale) did say he was opposed to it. He did
not speak of the time in the future at which this island should be brought
back to us by " gravitation." He did not speak of the political necessity
compelling the sale of the island at some future time; but, while the hon¬
orable Senator from New York, in his speech, opposed the bill, at the same
time it seemed to me-—I may do the Senator injustice, but, as I heard his
speech, and as I have read it since, it seemed to me—that he was very Un-
u
willing to assume any opposition to the acquisition; and wished that it
should be understood that he was in favor of the acquisition of Cuba; but
not just now. Hence, I was asking if this is not the juncture, when will
the juncture arrive ? If you are in favor of the acquisition of Cuba at allj
and you say this is not a proper time for it, I ask you to tell me when that
proper occasion will come to pass ?
Mr. Seward. Does the honorable Senator pause for an answer now ?
Mr. Polk. Yes, sir.
Mr. Seward. When the juncture shall come it will be a practical ques-
tion, and then I will answer it. Until then it is an abstraction; and I
expressly said in my speech, upon which he is commenting, that the ques*
tion of the purchase of Cuba is not now before the Senate or the country.
It is totally impracticable.
Mr. Polk. That is just what I said the honorable Senator's position
was. I have stated that he said this juncture is not now upon us; and
nqw what does the honorable Senator tell us ? He tells us that he will be
in favor of the acquisition of Cuba when the proper time arrives. That ia
the substance of his remark.
The only plausible ground that I have heard thus far brought as show¬
ing that this is not a fitting juncture; that the occasion is not one in which
it is probable that the purchase would be successful, is, that the Spanish
minister expressed a determination against it to the Spanish Cortes, and
that that body concurred with him in the expfession of that sentiment.
That is the only probable or plausible ground upon which the position has
been assumed in opposition to the bill by the Senators on the other side.
Upon what knowledge have they based the assumption, as I undertake to
say it is, and will show that it is, that this is not the proper juncture ? How
can that be known ? Has the attempt been made ? One thing is certain;
the purchase never will be accomplished until the offer shall be made.
Then why not make it, and make it now ? Is not the prize desirable enough
to justify it?
We have seen already, Mr. President, by the act of Congress referred to,
that there was put,into the hands of President Jefferson, in 1806, a large
amount of money, to erjable him to effect the purchase of Florida; and it
remained there until 1819. I apk, therefore, in this immediate connection,
how was it in the case of Florida ? Did not the Spanish Government show
great reluctance to part with Florida? But,sir, political necessity and the
force of circumstances, and above all the conviction that our Government
was resolved upon the measure, overcame the reluctance of Spanish pride.
The people of the province were desirous of annexation to the United
States. In 1810, West Florida erected herself into an independent State,
and applied for admission into our Union. The Unjted States took tempo¬
rary possession of the country, claiming title by virtue of her treaty
with France. Great Britain protested. Again, in 1818 the troops of the
United States, under General Jackson, took military possession of the entire
province—East as well as West Florida. Spain protested vehemently. But
Florida was necessary to the protection of our southern frontier, in a mili¬
tary point of view. It was necessary in order to give us access to the Gulf
of Mexico. It was necessary for the accommodation of our commerce, and
for the expansion of our territory,
Spain saw that there was a purpose, with earnestness and determination,
On the part of this Government to acquire Florida. Florida was purchased
15
by treaty, in 1819; and eveh after the treaty wag made, Spain was still re¬
luctant to give possession, and possession was not taken, I believe, until
1820, and not until a menacing procedure was taken on the part of the
Congress of the tTnited States, for the purpose of compelling Spairl to carry
out that treaty.
How similar in character were the facts and surroundings in the case of
Florida then to those of Cuba now—only in the multitude and strength of
them far less. But the negotiation for acquisition was successful in the
case of Florida; why shall it not also be successful in the case of Cuba!
Sir, I by no means concede that the effort to purchase Cuba will be
abortive. Let it be once understood by Spain that this Government is re¬
solved upon it, and that it has taken steps towards it wilh earnestness and
purpose, and, in my opinion, the work will be well-nigh accomplished. Of
this same opinion was one of the most sagacious men that ever held office
in Cuba—a man who thoroughly understood Cuban affairs; who thorough y
understood the political necessities of the island, and its relations both to
Spaiu and to this country. I allude to the Conde de Villanpuva. He said I
"So long as the affair is in tae hands of private filibusters, we can defend the
island; but when the American Government tabes the question in hand, we must
look for another solution."
Does not General O'Donnell, the Spanish Premier, who was, for a long
time, Captain General of the island, know the same thing? Sir, Spain
knows very well th^t she is fated ultimately to lose Cuba. All her conti¬
nental possessions in the New World, and all her islands, too, except bnly
Cuba and Porto Rico, bave passed forever from her grasp; and all of tbem,
except those now held by the United States, bave been wrested from her
by force. Can she expect to retain Cuba ? What has happened, in the
course of events, with all her other transatlantic possessions, witl also hap¬
pen, in the fulness of time, with Cuba. Why, sir, in Order to keep down
the inhabitants, and to prevent tbem from making the conquest of the isl¬
and for themselves, she is compelled tb garrison it continually with twenty-
five or thirty thousand troops, and to blockade its ports with her men-of-
war. Will she not prefer to sell it for a fair consideration, rather than to
yieid it up for nothing ? Let Spain be assured that the United States
want the island, and that its inhabitants want her to have it, and, more¬
over, that the former are willing to pay her the full value for it: will she
not see that it will be wise to sell it ? Will this not be " the coincidence of
opportunity and necessity," which, according to the Senator from New
York, must bring about the sale?
Moreover, let the Spanish ministry see, as the Senator from New York
sees, that Cuba gravitates to the United States as the ripened apple, yet
hanging on its native tree, gravitates to the earth ; and they will then also
see, in the language of the honorable Senator, that " political necessities
have determined that ultimate conclusion to which they must come."
And that conclusion, I add, is most clearly the sale of the island to the Uni¬
ted States. Sir, I make my thanks to the honorable Senator for what he
has said on this point. These are his words :
"I have always received as a political maxim the declarations made by our pre¬
decessors in regard to the acquisition of Cuba. Every rock and every grain of sand
in that island were drifted and washed out from American soil by the floods of the
Mississippi, and the other estuaries of the Gulf of Mexico. The island has seemed to
me, just as our predecessors have said, to gravitate back again to the parent conti¬
nent from which it sprang. I have supposed that political necessities would deter-
16
mine that ultimate conclusion ; and I know that to political necessities all actions of
government must bend, and all sentiments of nations must accommodate them-
Selves."
This, sir, is a full answer to all that has been said, or that can be said,
against the present bill, for the inopportuneness, or impolicy, or hopelessness
of the measure it proposes.
Sir, let one of those violent revolutionary storms comedown upon Spain,
to which we know she has been so often exposed in the recent past, and
her Crown and ministry, in order to save themselves, may be willing to
treat Cuba as the mariner in a gale does his cargo—throw overboard even
the most precious part of it, in order to save himself from shipwreck.
But, sir, whether the result be success or failure, in this case of Cuba, I
adopt the sentiment and the language of the report of the committee in the
case of the acquisition of Louisiana :
" If the purchase can be tnade, we ohght not to hesitate. If the attempt should
fail, we shall have discharged an important duty."
Mr. President, it Was once said by one of my illustrious predecessors
upon this floor, that the western limit of our Republic was never to extend
beyond the Rocky Mountains (I do not quote the language ;) that the god
Terminus had fixed our furthest western boundary upon the summits of
that mountain-range. But, sir, subsequent events, in the lapse of compar¬
atively only a few years, have proved the prediction to have been fallacious.
The swelling tide of our population and enterprise, impelled by the spirit
of Anglo-Saxon progress and adventure, has burst over the mountain bar¬
rier, spread itself over the golden sands of California, until it has met the
waves of the Pacific sea. And now the refluent tide is returning, by the
way of Central America and the Island of Cuba, to the Atlantic shore,
from which it started.
I am glad, sir, that in that eloquent apostrophe, in which the honorable
Senator from Virginia a few days ago expostulated with the young giant
of the West, as he most appropriately called him, he did not dissuade him
from the acquisition of Cuba by the use of all just and honest means. In
hi£ infancy he needed for his immediate growth the ancient Louisiana.
Under the auspices of Mr. Jefferson it was purchased for him. Twenty
years afterwards, that same sagacious, philosophical statesman saw that he
would soon need the Island of Cuba also. And now sir, in our day, when
he is in the vigor and prowess of his young manhood, that necessity is upon
us. This bill proposes to meet it; and I, for one, respond to it.
35th Congress, > SENATE. ( Rep. Com.
2c? Session. \ ) No. 351.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
January 24, 1859.—Ordered to be printed.
January 27, 1859.—Ordered, That 5,000 additional copies of the report, and the views of
the minority, be printed.
Mr. Slidell made the following
REPORT.
[To accompany Bill S. 497.]
The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom loas referred the bill
(S. 497) " making appropriations to facilitate the acquisition of the
island of Cuba, by negotiation," have had the same under considera¬
tion, and noio respectfully report:
It is not considered necessary by your committee to enlarge upon
the vast importance of the acquisition of the island of Cuba by the
United States. To do so would be as much a work of supererogation
as to demonstrate an elementary problem in mathematics, or one of
those axioms of ethics or philosophy which have been universally
received for ages. The ultimate acquisition of Cuba may be consid¬
ered a fixed purpose of the United States, a purpose resulting from
political and geographical necessities which have been recognized by
all parties and all administrations, and in regard to which the popular
voice has been expressed with a unanimity unsurpassed on any ques¬
tion of national policy that has heretofore engaged the public mind.
The purchase and annexation of Louisiana led, as a necessary
corollary, to that of Florida, and both point with unerring certainty
to the acquisition of Cuba. The sparse and feeble population of what
is now the great west called in 1800 for the free navigation of the
Mississippi, and the enforcement of the right of deposit at New Or¬
leans. In three years not only were these privileges secured, but
the whole of the magnificent domain of Louisiana was ours. Who
now doubts the wisdom of a measure which at the time was denounced
with a violence until then unparalleled in our political history ?
From the day we acquired Louisiana the attention of our ablest
statesmen was fixed on Cuba.. What the possession of the mouth ol
the Mississippi had been to the people of the west that of Cuba
became to the nation. To cast the eye upon the map was sufficient
to predict its destiny. A brief reference will show the importance
attached to the question by our leading statesmen, and the steadiness
and, perseverance with which they have endeavored to hasten the
"consummation of so vital a measure.
2
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
Mr. Jefferson in a letter to President Madison, of the 27th of
April, 1809, speaking of the policy that Napoleon would probably
pursue towards us, says:
"He ought to be satisfied with having forced her (Great Britain)
to revoke the orders on which he pretended to retaliate, and to be
particularly satisfied with us, by whose unyielding adherence to prin¬
ciple she has been forced into the revocation. He ought the more to
conciliate our good will, as we can be such an obstacle to the new
career opening on him in the Spanish colonies,. That he would give
us the Floridas to withhold intercourse with the residue of those colo¬
nies cannot be doubted. But that is no price, because they are ours
in the first moment of the first war, and until a war they are of no
particular necessity to us. But, although with difficulty, he will
consent to our receiving Cuba into our Union, to prevent our aid to
Mexico and the other provinces. That would be a price, and I
would immediately erect a column on the southernmost limit of Cuba
and inscribe on it a ne plus ultra as to us in that direction. We
should then have only to include the north in our confederacy, which
would be, of course, in the first war, and we should have such an
empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation; and
I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as
ours for extensive empire and self-government. * * *
"It will be objected to our receiving Cuba that no limit can then
be drawn to our future acquisitions. Cuba can be defended by us
without a navy, and this develops the principle which ought to limit
our views. Nothing should ever be accepted which would require a
navy to defend it."
Again, in writing to President Monroe on the 23d June, 1823, he
says: "For certainly her addition to our confederacy is exactly what
is wanting to advance our power as a nation to the point of its utmost
interest.'7
And in another letter to the same, on the 24th October, 1823, he
says:
"I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most
interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States.
The control which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over
the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it,
would fill up the measure of our political well being."
John Quincy Adams while Secretary of State under Mr. Monroe,
in a despatch to Mr. Nelson, our minister at Madrid, of the 28th April,
1823, says:
"In the war between France and Spain, now commencing, other
interests, peculiarly ours, will in all probability be deeply involved.
Whatever may be the issue of this war as between those two Euro¬
pean powers, it may be taken for granted that the dominion of Spain
upon the American continents, north and south, is irrecoverably gone.
But the islands of Cuba and Porto Pico still remain nominally and so
far really dependent upon her, that she yet possesses the power of
transferring her own dominion over them, together with the possession
of them, to others. These islands, from their local position and
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
3
natural appendages to the North American continent, and one of them,
Cuba, almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude of considera¬
tions, has become an object of transcendent importance to the com¬
mercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding position,
with reference to the Gulf of Mexico ,and the West India seas, the
character of its population, its situation midway between our south¬
ern coast and the island of St. Domingo, its safe and capacious harbor
of the Havana, fronting a long line of our shores destitute of the same
advantage, the nature of its productions and of its wants, furnishing
the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profit¬
able and mutually beneficial, give it an importance in the sum of our
national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be
compared and little inferior to that which binds the different members
of this Union together. Such, indeed, are, between the interests of that
island and of this country, the geographical, commercial, moral, and
political relations formed by nature, gathering in the process of time,
and even now verging to maturity, that, in looking forward to the
probable course of events, for the short period of half a century, it is
scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba
to our federal republic will be iudispensable to the continuance and
integrity of the Union itself. It is obvious, however, that for this
event we are not yet prepared. Numerous and formidable objections
to the extension of our territorial dominions beyond sea, present
themselves to the first contemplation of the subject: obstacles to the
system of policy by which alone that result can be compassed and
maintained, are to be foreseen and surmounted, both from at home
and abroad; but there are laws of political as well as of physical
gravitation; and if an apple, severed by the tempest from its native
tree, cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined
from its own unnatural connexion with Spain, and incapable of self-
support, can gravitate only towards the North American Union,
which, by the same law of nature, cannot cast her off from its bosom.
"The transfer of 'Cuba to Great Britain would be an event unpro-
pitious to the interests of this Union. This opinion is so generally
entertained, that even the groundless rumors that it was about to be
accomplished, which have spread abroad, and are still teeming, may
be traced to the deep and almost universal feeling of aversion to it,
and to the alarm which the mere probability of its occurrence has
stimulated. The question both of our right and of our power to
prevent it, if necessary by force, already obtrudes itself upon our
councils, and the administration is called upon, in the performance of'
its duties to the nation, at least to use all the means within its com¬
petency to guard against and forefend it."
On April 27, 1825, Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, in a despatch to
Mr. A. H. Everett, our minister at Madrid, instructing him to use
his exertions to induce Spain to make peace with her revolted colo¬
nies, says:
"The United States are satisfied with the present condition of
those islands (Cuba and Porto Rico) in the hands of Spain, and with
their ports open to our commerce, as they are now open. This gov-
4
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
eminent, desires no political change of that condition. The popula¬
tion itself of the islands is incompetent at present, from its compo¬
sition and its amount, to maintain self-government. The maritime
force of the neighboring republics of Mexico and Colombia is not
now, nor is it likely shortly to be, adequate to the protection of those
islands, if the conquest of them were effected. The United States
would entertain constant apprehensions of their passing from their
possession to that of some less friendly sovereignty; and of all
the European powers, this country prefers that Cuba and Porto
Rico should remain dependent on Spain. If the war should
continue between Spain and the new republics, and those islands
should become the object and the theatre of it, their fortunes have
such a connexion with the prosperity of the United States that they
could not be indifferent spectators; and the possible contingencies of
such a protracted war might bring upon the government of the
United States duties and obligations the performance of which, how¬
ever painful it should be, they might not be at liberty to decline.''
Mr. Van Buren, writing to Mr. Van Ness, our minister to Spain,
October 2, 1829, says:
"The government of the United States has always looked with
the deepest interest upon the fate of those islands, but particularly
of Cuba. Its geographical position, which places it almost in sight
of our southern shores, and, as it were, gives it the command of the
Gulf of Mexico and the West India seas, its safe and capacious
harbors, its rich productions, the exchange of which, for our surplus
agricultural products and manufactures, constitutes one of the most
extensive and valuable branches of our foreign trade, render it of
the utmost importance to the United States that no change should
take place in its condition which might injuriously affect our political
and commercial standing in that quarter. Other considerations, con¬
nected with a certain class of our population, make it the interest of
the southern section of the Union that no attempt should be made in
'that island to throw off the yoke of Spanish dependence, the first
effect of which would be the sudden emancipation of a numerous
slave population, the result of which could not but be very sensibly
felt upon the adjacent shores of the United States. On the other
hand, the wisdom which induced the Spanish government to relax in
its colonial system, and to adopt with regard to those islands a more
liberal policy which opened their ports to general commerce, has
been so far satisfactory in the view of the United States as, in addition
to other considerations, to induce this government to desire that their
possession should not be transferred from the Spanish crown to any
other power. In conformity with this desire, the ministers of the
United States at Madrid have, from time to time, been instructed
attentively to watch the course of events and the secret springs of
European diplomacy, which, from information received from various
quarters, this government had reason to suspect had been put in
motion to effect the tiansfer of the possession of Cuba to the power¬
ful allies of Spain.
11 You are authorised to say that the long established and well known
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
5
policy of the United States, which forbids their entangling themselves
in the concerns of other nations, and which permits their physical'
force to be used only for the defence of their political rights and the
protection of the persons and property of their citizens, equally
forbids their public agents to enter into positive engagements, the
performance of which would require the employment of means which
the people have retained in their own hands ; hut that this govern¬
ment has every reason to believe that the same influence which once
averted the blow ready to fall upon the Spanish islands would again
be found effectual on the recurrence of similar events ; and that the
high preponderance in American affairs of the United States as a
great naval power, the influence which they must at all times com¬
mand as a great commercial nation, in all questions involving the
interests of the general commerce of this hemisphere, would render
their consent an essential preliminary to the execution of any project
calculated so vitally to affect the general concerns of all the nations
in any degree engaged in the commerce of America. The knowledge
you possess of the public sentiment of this country in regard to Cuba
will enable you to speak with confidence and effect of the probable
consequences that might be expected from the communication of that
sentiment to Congress, in the event of any contemplated change in
the present political condition of that island. "
And again, on the 13th of October, 1830: "This government has
also been given to understand that, if Spain should persevere in the
assertion of a hopeless claim to dominion over her former colonies,
they will feel it to be their duty, as well as their interest, to attack
her colonial possessions in our vicinity, Cuba and Porto Rico. Your
general instructions are full upon the subject of the interest which
the United States take in the fate of those islands, and particularly
of the former; they inform you that we are content that Cuba should
remain as it now is, but could not consent to its transfer to any Euro¬
pean power. Motives of reasonable state policy render it more desir¬
able to us that it should remain subject to Spain rather than to either
of the South American States. Those motives will readily present
themselves to your mind; they are principally founded upon an appre¬
hension that, if possessed by the latter, it would, in the present state
of things, be in greater danger of becoming subject to some European
power than in its present condition. Although such are our own
wishes and true interests, the President does not see on what ground
he would be justified in interfering with any attempts which the
South American States might think it for their interest, in the prose¬
cution of a defensive war, to make upon the islands in question. If,
indeed, an attempt should be made to disturb them, by putting arms
in the hands of one portion of their population to destroy another,
and which in its influence would endanger the peace of a portion of
the United States, the case might be different. Against such an
attempt the United States (being informed that it was in contempla¬
tion) have already protested and warmly remonstrated, in their com¬
munications last summer with the government of Mexico; but the
information lately communicated to us in this regard was accompanied
6
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
by a solemn assurance that no such measures will, in any event, be re-¬
sorted to; and that the contest, if forced upon them, will be carried
on, on their part, with strict reference to the established rules of civil¬
ized warfare."
Mr. Buchanan, in his despatch to Mr. R. M. Saunders, of June 17,
1848, said: "With these considerations in view, the President
believes that the crisis has arrived when an effort should be made to
purchase the island of Cuba from Spain, and he has determined to
intrust you with the performance of this most delicate and important
duty. The attempt should be made, in the first instance, in a confi¬
dential conversation with the Spanish minister for foreign affairs; a
written offer might produce an absolute refusal in writing, which
would embarrass us hereafter in the acquisition of the island. Besides,
from the incessant changes in the Spanish cabinet and policy, our
desire to make the purchase might thus be made known in an official
form to foreign governments, and arouse their jealousy and active
opposition. Indeed, even if the present cabinet should think favor:
ably of the proposition, they might be greatly embarrassed by having
it placed on record; for in that event it would almost certainly, through
some channel, reach the opposition and become the subject of discus¬
sion in the Cortes. Such delicate negotiations, at least in their
incipient stages, ought always to be conducted in confidential conver¬
sation, and with the utmost secrecy and despatch."
"At your interview with the minister for foreign affairs you might
introduce the subject by referring to the present distracted condition of
Cuba, and the danger which exists that the population will make an
attempt to accomplish a revolution. This must be well known to the
Spanish government. In order to convince him of the good faith and
friendship towards Spain with which this government has acted, you
might read to him the first part of my despatch to General Campbell,
and the order issued-by the Secretary' of War to the commanding gen¬
eral in Mexico and to the officer having charge of the embarkation of
our troops at Vera Cruz. You may then touch delicately upon the
danger that Spain may lose Cuba by a revolution in the island, or that
it may be wrested from her by Great Britain, should a rupture take
place between the two countries arising out of the dismissal of Sir
Henry Bulwer, and be retained to pay the Spanish debt due to the
British bond-holders. You might assure him that, whilst this govern¬
ment is entirely satisfied that Cuba shall remain under the dominion
of Spain, we should in any event resist its acquisition by any other
nation. And, finally, you might inform him that, under all these
circumstances, the President had arrived at the conclusion that Spain
might be willing to transfer the island to the United States for a fair
and full consideration. You might cite as a precedent the cession of
Louisiana to this country by Napoleon, under somewhat similar cir¬
cumstances, when he was at the zenith of his power and glory. I
have merely presented these topics in their natural order, and you.
can fill up the outline from the information communicated in this-
despatch, as well as from your own knowledge of the subject. Should
the minister for foreign affairs lend a favorable ear to your proposi-
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
7
tion, then the question of the consideration to be paid would arise,
and you have been furnished with information in this despatch which
will enable you to discuss that question.
'' The President would be willing to stipulate for the payment of one
hundred millions of dollars. This, however, is the maximum price;
and if Spain should be willing to sell, you will use your best efforts
to purchase it at a rate as much below that sum as practicable. In
case you should be able to conclude a treaty, you may adopt as your
model, so far as the same may be applicable, the two conventions of
April 30, 1803, between France and the United States, for the sale
and purchase of Louisiana. The seventh and eighth articles of the
first of these conventions ought, if possible, to be omitted; still, if
this should be indispensable to the accomplishment of the object,
articles similar to them may be retained."
Mr. Everett, in his celebrated letter of December 1, 1852, to the
Compte de Sartiges, rejecting the joint proposition of the French and
British governments for a tripartite convention with the United States,
disclaiming, severally and collectively, all intention to obtain possession
of the island of Cuba, and respectively binding themselves to dis¬
countenance all attempts to that effect on the part of any power or
individuals whatever, said:
'' Spain, meantime, has retained of her extensive dominions in this
hemisphere but the two islands of Cuba and Porto Pico. A respect¬
ful sympathy with the fortunes of an ancient ally and a gallant people,
with whom the United States have ever maintained the most friendly
relations, would, if no other reason existed, make it our duty to leave
her in the undisturbed possession of this little remnant of her mighty
trans-Atlantic empire. The President desires to do so. No word or
deed of his will ever question her title or shake her possession. But
can it be expected to last very long? Can it resist this mighty cur¬
rent in the fortunes of the world ? Is it desirable that it should do
so? Can it be for the interest of Spain to cling to a possession that
can only be maintained by a garrison of twenty-five or thirty thousand
troops, a powerful naval force, and an annual expenditure for both arms
of the service of at least twelve millions of dollars? Cuba, at this
moment, costs more to Spain than the entire naval and military estab¬
lishment of the United States costs the federal government. So far from
being really injured by the loss of this island, there is no doubt that,
were it peacefully transferred to the United States, a prosperous com¬
merce between Cuba and Spain, resulting from ancient associations
and common language and tastes, would be far more productive than
the best contrived system of colonial taxation. Such, notoriously,
has been the result to G-reat Britain of the establishment of the
independence of the United States. The decline of Spain from the
position which she held in the time of Charles the Fifth is coeval with
the foundation of her colonial system; while within twenty-five years,
and since the loss of most of her colonies, she has entered upon a
course of rapid improvement unknown since the abdication of that
emperor."
8
acquisition of cuba.
Mr. Marcy, in his despatch of July 23, 1853, to Mr. Pierre Soule
says:
"Sir : There are circumstances in the affairs of Spain, having a con¬
nexion with this country, which give unusual importance at this time
to the mission to that government. The proximity of her remaining
possessions in this hemisphere—the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico—
to the United States, the present condition of the former, and the
rumors of contemplated changes in its internal affairs, complicate
our relations with Spain. The island of Cuba, on account of its mag¬
nitude, situation, fine climate, and rich productions, far superior in
all respects to any in the West India group, is a very desirable pos¬
session to Spain, and, for the same reasons, very difficult for her to
retain in its present state of dependence. The opinion generally
prevails among the European nations that the Spanish dominion over
it is insecure. This was clearly evinced by the alacrity with which
both England and France, on occasion of the late disturbances in Cuba,
volunteered their aid to sustain the Spanish rule over it, and by their
recent proposition to the United States for a tripartite convention to
guaranty its possession to Spain. Without an essential change in
her present policy, such a change as she will most likely be unwilling
to make, she cannot, it is confidently believed, long sustain, unaided,
her present connexion with that island.
"What will be its destiny after it shall cease to be a dependency of
Spain is a question with which some of the principal powers of
Europe have seen fit to concern themselves, and in which the United
States have a deep and direct interest.
"I had occasion recently, in preparing instructions for our minister
to London, to present the views of the President in relation to the
interference of G-reat Britain, as well as of France, in * * *
* * Cuban affairs. To spare myself the labor of again going
over the same ground, I herewith furnish you with an extract from
those instructions.
"The policy of the government of the United States in regard to
Cuba, in any contingency calling for our interposition, will depend, in
a great degree, upon the peculiar circumstances of the case, and can¬
not, therefore, now be presented with much precision beyond what is
indicated in the instructions before referred to. Nothing will be done,
on our part, to disturb its present connexion with Spain, unless the
character of that connexion should be so changed as to affect our
present or prospective security. While the United States would resist,
at every hazard, the transference of Cuba to any European nation,
they would exceedingly regret to see Spain resorting to any power for
assistance to uphold her rule over it. Such a dependence on foreign
aid would, in effect, invest the auxiliary with the character of a pro¬
tector, and give it a pretext to interfere in our affairs, and also gen¬
erally in those of the North American continent. In case of collision
with the United States, such protecting power would be in a condition
to make nearly the same use of that island to annoy us as it could do
if it were the absolute possessor of it.
"Our minister at Madrid, during the administration of President
Polk, was instructed to ascertain if Spain was disposed to transfer
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
9
Cuba to the United States for a liberal pecuniary consideration. I do
not understand, however, that it was at that time the policy of this
government to acquire that island unless its inhabitants were very
generally disposed to concur in the transfer. Under certain conditions
the United States might be willing to purchase it; but it is scarcely
expected that you will find Spain, should you attempt to ascertain her
views upon the subject, at all inclined to enter into such a negotiation.
There is reason to believe that she is under obligations to Great
Britain and France not to transfer this island to the United States.
Were there nothing else to justify this belief but the promptness with
which these two powers sent their naval forces to her aid in the late
Cuban disturbances, the proposition for a tripartite convention to
guaranty Cuba to Spain, and, wrhat is more significant than either
of the above facts, the sort of joint protest by England and France,
to which I adverted in my instructions lo Mr. Buchanan, against some
of the views presented in Mr. Everett's letter of the 2d of December
last to Mr. Sartiges, the French minister, would alone be satisfactory
proof of such an arrangement. Independent of any embarrassment
of this nature, there are many other reasons for believing that Spain
will pertinaciously hold on to Cuba, and that the separation, whenever
it takes place, will be the work of violence."
From these and other extracts that might he presented it is mani¬
fest that the ultimate acquisition of Cuba has long been regarded as
the fixed policy of the United States—necessary to the progressive
development of our system. All agree that the end is not only
desirable but inevitable. The only difference of opinion is as to the
time, mode, and conditions of obtaining it.
The law of our national existence is growth. We cannot, if we
would, disobey it. While we should do nothing to stimulate it
unnaturally, we should be careful not to impose upon ourselves a regi¬
men so strict as to prevent its healthful development. The tendency
of the age is the expansion of the great powers of the world. Eng¬
land, France, and Russia, all demonstrate the existence of this per¬
vading principle. Their growth, it is true, only operates by the
absorption, partial or total, of weaker powers—generally, of inferior
races. So long as this extension of territory is the result of geograph¬
ical position, a higher civilization, and greater aptitude for govern¬
ment, and is not pursued in a direction to endanger our safety or
impede our progress, we have neither the right nor the disposition
to find fault with it. Let England pursue her march of conquest and
annexation in India, France extend her dominions on the southern
shores of the Mediterranean, and advance her frontiers to the Rhine,
or Russia subjugate her barbarous neighbors in Asia ; we shall look
upon their progress, if not with favor, at least with indifference. We
claim on this hemisphere the same privilege that they exercise on the
other—
" Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim."
In this they are but obeying the laws of their organization. When
they cease to grow they will soon commence that period of decadence
which is the fate of all nations as of individual man.
The question of the annexation of Cuba to the United States, we
10
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
repeat, is a question but of time. The fruit that was not ripe when
John Quincy Adams penned his despatch to Mr. Forsyth, (it has not
yet been severed by violence from its native tree, as he anticipated,)
is now mature. Shall it be plucked by a friendly hand, prepared to
compensate its proprietor with a princely guerdon ? or shall it fall
decaying to the ground?
As Spain cannot long maintain her grasp on this distant colony,
there are but three possible alternatives in the future of Cuba : First,
possession by one of the great European powers. This we have
declared to be incompatible with our safety, and have announced to
the world that any attempt to consummate it will be resisted by all
the means in our power. When first we made this declaration we
were comparatively feeble. The struggle would have been fearful
and unequal; but we were prepared to make it at whatever hazard.
That declaration has often been repeated since. With a population
nearly tripled, our financial resources and our means, offensive and
defensive, increased in an infinitely larger proportion, we cannot
now shrink from an issue that all were then ready to meet.
The second alternative is the independence of the island. This
independence could only be nominal; it never could be maintained
in fact. It would eventually fall under some protectorate, open or
disguised. If under ours, annexation would soon follow as certainly
as the shadow follows the substance. An European protectorate could
not be tolerated. The closet philanthropists of England and France
would, as the price of their protection, insist upon introducing their
schemes of emancipation. Civil and servile war would soon follow,
and Cuba would present, as Hayti now does, no traces of its former
prosperity, but the ruins of its once noble mansions. Its uncontrolled
possession by either France or England would be less dangerous and
offensive to our southern States than a pretended independent black
empire or republic.
The third and last alternative is annexation to the United States.
How and when is this to be effected ? By conquest or negotiation ?
Conquest, even without the hostile interference of another European
power than Spain, would be expensive, but with such interference
would probably involve the whole civilized world in war, entail upon
us the interruption, if not the loss, of our foreign trade, and an ex¬
penditure far exceeding any sum which it has ever been contemplated
to offer for the purchase of Cuba. It would, besides, in all probability,,
lead to servile insurrection, and to the great injury or even total
destruction of the industry of the island. Purchase, then, by nego¬
tiation seems to be the only practicable course ; and, in the opinion of
the committee, that cannot be attempted with any reasonable prospect
of success, unless the President be furnished with the means which he
has suggested in his annual message, and which the bill proposes to-
give him.
Much has been said of the danger of confiding such powers to the
Executive, and from the fierceness with which the proposition has been
denounced, it might be supposed that it was without precedent. So
far is this from being the case, that we have three different acts upon
the statute-book, placing large sums of money, at the disposition of
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
11
the President for the purpose of aiding him in negotiations for the
acquisition of territory. The first is the act of February 26, 1803.
Although its object was well known, viz: to be used in negotiating
for the purchase of Louisiana, the act does not indicate it. It placed
two millions of dollars unreservedly at the disposition of the President,
for the purpose of defraying any "extraordinary expense which may
he incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign
nations." Second. The act of February 13, 1806, using precisely
the same phraseology, appropriates two millions of dollars, it being
understood that it was to be used in negotiating for the purchase of
Florida.
The act of 3d March, 184*7, " making further appropriation to bring
the existing war with Mexico to a speedy and honorable conclusion,"
has been adopted as the model on which the present bill is framed.
Its preamble states that " whereas, in the adjustment of so many com¬
plicated questions as now exist between the two countries, it may
possibly happen that an expenditure of money will be called for by
the stipulations of any treaty which may be entered into, therefore
the sum of three millions of dollars be, and the same is hereby, appro¬
priated, to enable the President to conclude a treaty of peace, limits,
and boundaries, with the republic of Mexico; to be used by him in the
event said treaty, when signed by the authorized agents of the two gov¬
ernments and duly ratified by Mexico, shall call for the expenditure of
the same, or any part thereof." The bill now reported, appropriates,
under the same conditions, thirty millions of dollars to make a treaty
with Spain for the purchase of the island of Cuba.
It will be perceived that this bill defines strictly the object to which
the amount appropriated shall be applied ; and in this respect allows
a much narrower range of discretion to the present executive than
the acts of 1803, and 1806, gave to Mr. Jefferson. In those cases the
object of the appropriation was as well known to the country and to
the world, as if it had been specifically stated. The knowledge of
that fact did not then in the slightest degree tend to defeat the
intended object, nor can it do so now. Under our form of government
we have no state secrets. With us, diplomacy has ceased to be envel¬
oped with the mysteries that of yore were considered inseparable from
its successful exercise. Directness in our policy, and frankness in its
avowal, are in conducting our foreign intercourse not less essential
to the maintenance of our national character and the permanent
interests of the republic than are the same qualities to social position
and the advancement of honest enterprise in private life.
Much has been said of the indelicacy of this mode of proceeding.
That the offer to purchase will offend the Spanish pride, be regarded
as an insult, and rejected with contempt. That instead of promoting
a consummation that all admit to be desirable, it will have the oppo¬
site tendency. If this were true it would be a conclusive argument
against the bill, but a brief consideration will show the fallacy of these
views. For many years our desire to purchase Cuba has been known
to the world. Seven years since President Fillmore communicated to
Congress the instructions to our ministers on that subject, with all
the correspondence connected with it. In that correspondence will
12
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
be found three letters from Mr. Saunders, detailing conversations held
with Narvaez and the minister of foreign relations, in which he noti¬
fied them of his authority to treat for the purchase of Cuba, and
while the reply was so decided as to preclude him from making any
direct proposition, yet no intimation was given that the suggestion
was offensive. And why should it be so ? We simply say to Spain,
you have a distant possession, held by a precarious tenure, which is
almost indispensable to us for the protection of our commerce, and
may, from its peculiar position, the character of its population, and
the mode in which it is governed, lead, at any time, to a rupture
which both nations would deprecate. This possession, rich though
it be in all the elements of wealth, yields to your treasury a net
revenue not amounting, on the average of a series of years, to the
hundredth part of the price we are prepared to give you for it. True,
you have heretofore refused to consider our proposition, but circum¬
stances are changing daily. What may not have suited you in 1848
may now be more acceptable. Should a war break out in Europe,
Spain can scarcely hope to escape being involved in it. The people
of Cuba naturally desire to have a voice in the government of the
island. They may seize the occasion to proclaim their independence,
and you may regret not having accepted the rich indemnity we offer.
But even these arguments will not be pressed upon unwilling ears.
Our minister will not broach the subject until he shall have good
reason to believe that it will be favorably entertained. Such an op¬
portunity may occur when least expected. Spain is the country of
coups-d'etat and pronunciamentos. The all-powerful minister of to¬
day may be a fugitive to-morrow. With the forms of a representative
government, it is, in fact, a despotism sustained by the bayonet. A
despotism tempered only by frequent, violent, and bloody revolutions.
Her financial condition is one of extreme embarrassment. A crisis
may arise when even the dynasty may be overthrown unless a large
sum of money can be raised forthwith. Spain will be in the position
of the needy possessor of land he cannot cultivate, having all the
pride of one to whom it has descended through a long line of ancestry,
but his necessities are stronger than his will; he must have money.
A thrifty neighbor whose domains it will round off is at hand to fur¬
nish it. He retains the old mansion, but sells what will relieve him
from immediate ruin.
The President, in his annual message, has told us that we should
not, if we could, acquire Cuba by any other means than honorable
negotiation, unless circumstances which he does not anticipate render
a departure from such a course justifiable, under the imperative and
overruling law of self preservation. He also tells us that he desires
to renew the negotiations, and it may become indispensable to success
that he should be intrusted with the means for making an advance to
the Spanish government immediately after the signing of the treaty,
without awaiting the ratification of it by the Senate. This, in point
of fact, is an appeal to Congress for an expression of its opinion on the
propriety of renewing the negotiation. Should we fail to give him
the means which may be indispensable to success, it may well be con-
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
sidered by the President as an intimation that we do not desire the
acquisition of the island.
It has been asserted that the people of Cuba do not desire a transfer
to the United States. If this were so it would present a very serious
objection to the measure. The evidence on which it is based is, that on
the receipt of the President's message, addresses were made by the
municipal authorities of Havana, and other towns, protesting their
devotion to the crown, and their hostility to the institutions of the
United States. Any one who has had an opportunity of observing the
persuasive influence of the bayonet in countries where it rules supreme
will know how much value to attach to such demonstrations of popu¬
lar sentiment. There can be no doubt that an immense majority of
the people of Cuba are not only in favor, but ardently desirous of
annexation to the United States. It would be strange indeed, if they
were not so; deprived of all influence even in the local affairs of the
island—unrepresented in the Cortes—governed by successive hordes of
hungry officials sent from the mother country to acquire fortunes to be
enjoyed at home, having no sympathy with the people among whom
they are mere sojourners, and upon whom they look down as inferiors;
liable to be arrested at any moment on the most trifling charges; tried
by military courts or submissive judges, removable at pleasure,
punished at the discretion of the captain general, they would be less
than men if they were contented with their yoke. But we have the
best authority, from the most reliable sources, for asserting that
nearly the entire native population of Cuba desires annexation.
Apprehensions have been expressed by some southern statesmen, of
perils resulting from the different elements composing the population,
and the supposed mixture of races. They are not justified by the
facts. The entire population, by the census of 1850, was 1,241,230,
of which 605,560 were whites, 205,510 free colored, snd 436,100 slaves.
Allowing the same annual percentage of increase for each class, as
shown by comparison with the previous census, the total population
now is about 1,586,000, of which 142,000 are whites, 263,000 free col¬
ored, and 581,000 slaves. There is good reason to suppose that the
slaves considerably exceed the estimated number, it having been, until
very recently, the interest of the proprietor to under state it. The
feeling of caste or race, is as marked in Cuba as in the United States.
The white Creole is as free from all taint of African blood as the de¬
scendant of the Gloth on the plains of Castile. There is a numerous
white peasantry, brave, robust, sober, and honest, not yet perhaps
prepared intelligently to discharge all the duties of the citizen of a
free republic, but who, from his organization physical and mental, is
capable of being elevated by culture to the same level with the edu¬
cated Cubans, who, as a class, are as refined, well-informed, and
fitted for self-government as men of any class of any nation can be
who have not inhaled with their breath the atmosphere of freedom.
Many of them accompanied by their lamilies are to be met with
every summer at our cities and watering places, observing and appre¬
ciating the working of our form of government and its marvelous
results; many seeking until the arrival of more auspicious days an
14
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
asylum from the oppression that has driven them from their homes ;
while hundreds of their youths in our schools and colleges are acquir¬
ing our language and fitting themselves hereafter, it is to be hoped,
at no distant day, to play a distinguished part in their own legislative
halls, or in the counsels of the nation.
These men, who are the great proprietors of the soil, are opposed
to the continuance of the African slave trade, which is carried on by
Spaniards from the peninsula, renegade Americans, and other adven¬
turers from every clime and country, tolerated and protected by the
authorities of Cuba of every grade.
Were there a sincere desire to arrest the slave trade, it could be
as effectually put down by Spain as it has been by Brazil. Cuba and
Porto Pico are now the only marts for this illegal traffic; and if the
British government had been as intent upon enforcing its treaty stip¬
ulations with Spain for its abolition as it has been in denouncing
abuses of our flag, which we cannot entirely prevent, this question
would long since have ceased to be a source of irritating discussion,
it may be of possible future difficulty. Those who desire to extirpate
the slave trade may find in their sympathy for the African a motive
to support this bill.
We have, since the conclusion of the Ashburton treaty in 1842,
kept up a squadron on the coast of Africa for the suppression of the
slave trade, and we are still bound to continue it. The annual cost
of this squadron is at least $800,000. The cost in seventeen years
amounts to $13,600,000, (thirteen millions six hundred thousand dol¬
lars ;) and this, too, with results absolutely insignificant. It appears,
from a report of a select committee of the British House of Commons,
made in March, 1850, that the number of slaves exported from Africa
had sunk down in 1842, (the very year in which the Ashburton treaty
was concluded,) to nearly 30,000. In 1843 it rose to 55,000. In
1846 it was 76,000 ; in 1847 it was 84,000, and was then in a state
of unusual activity. Sir Charles Hotham, one of the most distin¬
guished officers of the British navy, and who commanded on the coast
of Africa for several years, was examined by that select committee.
He said that the force under his command was in a high state of dis¬
cipline ; that his views were carried out by his officers to his entire
satisfaction ; that, so far from having succeeded in stopping the slave
trade, he had not even crippled it to the extent of giving it a per¬
manent check; that the slave trade had been regulated by the com¬
mercial demand for slaves, and had been little affected by the presence
of his squadron, and that experience had proven the system of re¬
pression by cruisers on the coast of Africa futile—this, too, when the
British squadron counted twenty-seven vessels, comprising several
steamers, carrying about three hundred guns and three thousand men.
The annual expense of the squadron is about $3,500,000, with auxil¬
iary establishments on the coast costing at least $1,500,000 more—a
total cost annually of five millions of dollars in pursuance of a system
which experience has proved to be futile.
In 1847 the Brazilian slave trade was in full activity. It has been
entirely suppressed for several years. The slaves now shipped from
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
15
the coast of Africa are exclusively for the Spanish islands. It is not
easy to estimate the number. From the best data, however, it is
supposed now to be from twenty-five to thirty thousand per year. It
would cease to exist the moment we acquire possession of the Island
of Cuba.
The importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited
in 1808. Since then, a period of more than fifty years, but one case
has occurred of its violation—that of the Wanderer, which has re¬
cently excited so much attention.
Another consequence which should equally enlist the sympathies
of philanthropists, excepting that class whose tears are only shed for
those of ebon hue,_ and who turn with indifference from the sufferings
of men of any other complexion, is the suppression of the infamous
Coolie traffic—a traffic; so much the more nefarious as the Chinese is
elevated above the African in the scale of creation; more civilized,
more intellectual, and therefore feeling more acutely the shackles of
the slave ship and the harsh discipline of the overseer. The num¬
ber of Chinese shipped for Cuba since the commencement of the
traffic up to March last, is 28,777; of whom 4,134 perished on the
passage. From that date up to the close of the year the number landed
.at Havana was 9,449. We blush to say that three-fourths of the
number were transported under the American and British flags—under
the flags of the two countries that have been the most zealous for the
.suppression of the African slave trade. The ratio of mortality on
the passage was 14| per cent., and a much larger proportion of these
wretched beings were landed in an enfeebled condition. Coming, too,
from a temperate climate, they are not capable of enduring the expo¬
sure to the tropical sun, in which the African delights to bask. When
their allotted time of service shall have been completed, the small
remnant of the survivors will furnish conclusive evidence of the bar¬
barity with which they are treated. The master feels no interest in
his temporary slave beyond that of extracting from him the greatest
possible amount of labor during the continuance of his servitude.
His death, or incapacity to labor at the end of his term, is to the
master a matter of as much indifference as is the fate of the operative
employed in his mill to the Manchester spinner.
Another effect of this measure, which should recommend it most
.strongly to the humanitarians, will be the better treatment and
increased happiness of the slaves now existing in the island that
would inevitably flow from it. As a general rule, the slave is well
.treated in proportion to his productiveness and convertible value;
as an expensive instrument is more carefully handled than one of
less cost. When the importation of slaves from abroad is arrested,
the home production affords the only means of supplying the in¬
creasing demand for labor. It may be assumed as an axiom of
political economy that the increase of population, if not the only
true test, is the most reliable of the average well-being of the
class to which it is applied. Tried by this test, the slave of the
United States affords a very high standard as compared even with
\the white population of our favored land. But when comparison
.16
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
is made with the statistics of African slavery in all European colo¬
nies, the results are startling. Since Las Casas, in his zeal lor the
protection of the Indian, originated the African slave trade, it is
estimated that the whole number transported to the new world
has been about 8,375,000. Of these, we, in our colonial condition,
and since, have only received about 375,000. By natural increase,
after deducting all who are free, we had, in 1850, 3,204,000 slaves of
the African race. These, allowing the same per centage of increase
for nine years, as the census returns show during the last decennial
period, would now number over 4,300,000 ; while, from the same data,
the free colored population would amount to 496,000. The British
West India colonies received about 1,700,000. The whole population
of those Islands, including Jamaica and Trinidad acquired from the
Spaniards, and British Guiana, black, white and mixed, is but
1,062,639. The Spanish and other West India Islands received about
3,000,000. This is very much more than their entire population to¬
day. The proportion may vary in some of the colonies, hut the general
result will be found everywhere the same. A very much less number
now existing of African descent, either pure or mixed, than have been
imported from Africa.
There is another aspect in which this proposition may be viewed
which is deserving of serious consideration. It is forcibly put in the
President's annual message that the multiplied aggressions upon the
persons and property of our citizens by the local authorities of Cuba
for many years past present, in the person of the captain-general, the
anomaly of absolute power to inflict injury without any corresponding
faculty to redress it. He can, almost in sight of our shores, confiscate,
without just cause, the property of an American citizen, or incarcerate
his person; but if applied to for redress, we are told that he cannot
act without consulting his royal mistress, at Madrid. There we are
informed that it is necessary to await the return of a report of the
case which is to be obtained from Cuba; and many years elapse before
it is ripe for decision. These delays in most instances amount to an
absolute denial of justice. And even when the obligation of indem¬
nity is admitted, the state of the treasury or a change of ministry is
pleaded as an excuse for withholding payment. This would long since
have justified us in resorting to measures of reprisal that would have
necessarily led to war and ultimately resulted in the conquest of the
island. Indeed such is the acute sense of those wrongs prevailing
among our people, that nothing but our rigid neutrality laws, which,
so long as they remain unrepealed or unmodified, a chief magistrate,
acting under the sanction of his official oath to see that the laws be
faithfully executed, is bound to enforce, has prevented the success
of organized individual enterprises that would long ere this have
revolutionized the island. It is in part, probably, for this cause
that the President has recommended the policy which this bill em¬
bodies, and the world cannot fail to recognize in its adoption by
Congress a determination to maintain him in his efforts to preserve
untarnished our national character for justice and fair dealing.
The effects of the acquisition of Cuba will be no less beneficial in its
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
17
commercial, than in its political and moral aspects The length of
the Island is about seven hundred and seventy miles, with an average
"breadth of about forty miles, comprising an area of 31,468 square
miles. The soil is fertile, climate genial, and its ports the finest in
the world. Havana is more familiarly known to us, for apart from
our extensive trade, which employs several hundred American ves¬
sels, thousands of our citizens have touched at that port in our steam¬
ers on their way to California or New Orleans. They have all carried
away with them vivid recollections of its magnificent harbor, and
have breathed ardent prayers that their next visit should be hailed by
the stars and stripes floating from the Moro. And yet Cuba can
boast of several other harbors equally safe and more extensive than
that of Havana.
In 1855 the importations, by official custom-house returns, were
$31,216,000, the exports $34,803,000. As duties are levied on exports
as well as imports, there can be no exaggeration in these returns, and
the real amount is undoubtedly considerably larger.
When we consider that more than two-thirds of the whole area of
the island is susceptible of culture, and that not a tenth part of it is
now cultivated, we may form some idea of the immense development
which would be given to its industry by a change from a system of
monopoly and despotism to free trade and free institutions. What¬
ever may be the enhanced cost of production, caused by the increased
value of labor, it will be nearly if not quite compensated by the
removal of export duties; and of those levied on articles produced in
the United States, which are now by unjust discrimination virtually
excluded from consumption. It is not. possible within the limits
which your committee have prescribed to themselves for this report
to cite more than a few of the most important. Of flour, on an ave¬
rage of three years, from 1848 to 1850, there were imported from the
United States 5,642 barrels, paying a duty of $10 81 per barrel.
From other countries, and it is believed exclusively from Spain,
228,002 barrels, paying a duty of $2 52 per barrel, a discrimination
against our flour of nearly two hundred per cent, on its present
average value in our markets. On lard, of which the importation
from the United States was 10,168,000 pounds, a duty is levied of $4
per quintal, while of olive oil 8,481,000 pounds were imported, which
is chiefly used as its substitute, paying a duty of 87 cents per quintal.
Of beef, dry and jerked, but 339,161 pounds were imported from
the United States paying a duty of $1 96 per quintal, while the
importation from other quarters, principally from Buenos Ayres, was
30,544,000 pounds paying a duty of $1 17, the difference being, in
fact, a protection of the Spanish flag which thus enjoys a monopoly
of this branch of trade. To-day, with its increased population and
wealth it is fair to presume that, were Cuba annexed to the United
States, with the stimulus afforded by low prices, her annual con¬
sumption of our flour would be 600,000 barrels; of our lard, 25,000,000
pounds; of our beef, 20,000,000, and of pork, the most solid and
nutritious food for the laborer 10,000,000 of pounds. The same ratio
of increase would be exhibited in our whole list of exports
Rep. No. 351 2
18
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
articles that now appear not at all or in very limited quantities would
force their way into general consumption. The Spanish flag, deprived
of the advantage of discriminating duties of tonnage and impost,
would soon abandon a competition which it could not sustain on equal
terms, and the whole carrying trade, foreign and domestic, vrould fall
into the hands of our enterprising merchants and ship owners, hut
chiefly those of the northern and middle States, while the farmer of
the west would have a new and constantly increasing market open to
him for the products of the soil. With all the disadvantages under
which we now labor, the American vessels entering the port ol
Havana alone last year numbered nine hundred and fifty-eight, with
a tonnage of four hundred and three thousand four hundred and
seventy-nine, (403,479.) To what figure will this be extended when
ours shall be the national flag of Cuba?
1 The cultivation of sugar is the chief basis of the wealth and pros¬
perity of Cuba. The average annual production, exclusive of what is
-consumed in the island, is about 400,000 tons; that of Louisiana
about 175,000 tons. The whole amount of cane sugar from which
Europe and the United States are supplied is estimated at 1,273,000
tons; of this, Cuba and Louisiana now furnish somewhat more than
45 per cent. Is it extravagant to predict that, with Cuba annexed, we
should in a few years have as complete control of this great staple—
which has long since ceased to be a luxury, and become almost a
necessity of life—as we now have of cotton ?
There is one other consideration, of minor importance when compared
with the vast political interests involved in the question of acquisition;
it is that of cost. Ten years past, as appears from the published
correspondence, our minister at Madrid was authorized to offer one
hundred millions of dollars as the extreme price for the purchase of
Cuba. If that was its value then, something may be added to it
now. Assuming it to be twenty-five millions more, the annual inter¬
est, without reference to the probable premium which would be
realized from a loan, bearing five per cent, interest, would be
($6,250,000) six million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Of the imposts of ($31,216,000) thirty-one millions two hun¬
dred and sixteen thousand dollars in 1856, your committee have
not .before them the means of ascertaining the proportion coming
from the United States. From the summary of Balanzas Generates
from 1848 to 1854, in the report of Commercial Relations, vol. 1, page
187, it may, however, be fairly assumed to be somewhat more than
one-fourth, or about eight millions of dollars. This proportion would
doubtless be largely increased. Admitting it to be ($16,216,000)
sixteen millions two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars, it would
leave a balance of ($15,000,000) fifteen millions of dollars on which
duties could be levied. Under our present tariff the average rate of
duties is about 18| per cent; But as the articles on our free list are of
very limited consumption in Cuba, the average there would be at
least 20 per cent. This would yield a revenue from customs of
($3,000,000) three millions of dollars. But under the stimulus of
free trade and free institutions, with the removal of many burdens
from the consumer, it would necejramJy,. ho^reatlv ami spP^;iy
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
19
augmented. It would be a moderate calculation to say that
in two years it would reach four millions of dollars ($4,000,000.)
On the other hand, it may be said that our expenditure would be
largely increased. Such is not the opinion of your committee. On
the contrary, it is believed that from the greater security of
our foreign relations, resulting from the settlement of this long
agitated and disturbing question, our naval expenditure might be
safely reduced, while no addition to our military establishment
would be required. It has already been shown that an annual
saving of eight hundred thousand dollars ($800,000) may be effected
by withdrawing the African squadron, when its services will no longer
be necessary. Thus our expenditure for the interest on the debt
incurred by the acquisition would be credited by four million eight hun¬
dred thousand dollars, ($4,800,000,) leaving an annual balance of but
one million four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars ($1,425,000)
to the debit of the purchase. Is this sum to be weighed in the bal¬
ance with the advantages, political and commercial, which Avould
result from it? Your committee think that it should not.
A few words on the wealth and resources of Cuba, and your com¬
mittee will close this report, which has swollen to dimensions not
incommensurate with the importance of the subject, but which, it
may be feared, will, under the pressure of other business during this
short session, be considered as unduly trespassing on the attention of
the Senate. The amount of taxes that can be levied upon any people,
without paralyzing their industry and arresting their material progress,
is the experimentum crucis of the fertility of the land they inhabit.
Tried by this test, Cuba will favorably compare with any country on
either side of the Atlantic.
Your committee have before them the last Cuban Budget, which
presents the actual receipts and expenditures for one year, with the
estimates for the same for the next six months. The income derived
from direct taxes, customs, monopolies, lotteries, &c., is sixteen mil¬
lion three hundred and three thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars,
($16,303,950.) The expenses are sixteen million two hundred and
ninety-nine thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars, ($16,299,663.)
This equilibrium of the Budget is accounted for by the fact that
the surplus revenue is remitted to Spain. It figures under the
head of '' Atenciones de la Peninsula," and amounts to ($1,404,059,)
one million four hundred and four thousand and fifty-nine dollars,
and is the only direct pecuniary advantage Spain derives from the
possession of Cuba, and even this sum very much exceeds the average
net revenue remitted from that island, all the expenses of the army
and navy employed at or near Cuba being paid by the island. The
disbursements are those of the general administration of the island,
those of Havana and other cities being provided for by special
imposts and taxes.
It may be moderately estimated that the personal exactions of
Spanish officials amount to five millions of dollars ($5,000,000) per
annum, thus increasing the expenses of the government of Cuba,
apart from those which, with us, would be considered as county or
20
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
municipal, to the enormous sum of twenty-one million three hundred
thousand dollars, ($21,300,000,) or about thirteen dollars and fifty
cents ($13 50) per head for the whole population of the island, free
and slave. Under this system of government and this excessive taxa¬
tion the population has, for a series of years, steadily increased at the
mean rate of three per cent, per annum, about equal to that of the
United States.
Since the reference of the bill to the committee, the President, in
response to a resolution of the Senate requesting him, if not incom¬
patible with the public interest, to communicate to the Senate any
and all correspondence between the government of the United States
and the government of her Catholic Majesty relating to any propo¬
sition for the purchase of the island of Cuba, which correspondence
has not been furnished to either House of Congress, informs us that
no such correspondence has taken place which has not already been
communicated to Congress. He takes occasion to repeat what he
said in his annual message, that it is highly important, if not indis¬
pensable to the success of any negotiation for the purchase, that the
measure should receive the previous sanction of Congress.
This emphatic reiteration of his previous recommendation throws
upon Congress the responsibility of failure if withheld. Indeed, the
inference is sufficiently clear that, without some expression of opinion
by Congress, the President will not feel justified in renewing negotia¬
tions.
The committee beg leave to append hereto various tables concerning
statistical details of matters treated of in this report.
All which is respectfully submitted.
No. 1.
Commerce of the Island of Cuba with foreign nations for the years 1852,
1853, and 1854, made up from the "general balances
[Frcrn Ex. Doc. No. 107, 1st session 34th Congress, Commercial Relations of the United States.]
Countries.
1852.
1853.
1854.
Imports.
Exports.
Imports.
Exports.
Imports.
Exports.
Spain
United States
England
France
Germany.
Belgium
Spanish America
$10,200,429
6,552.585
5,638^824
2,203,354
1,102,002
493,908
2,144,618
$3,882,634
12,076,408
5,486,677
1,513,368
1,690,165
321,260
801,160
$7,756,905
6,799,732
6,195,921
2,177,222
1,115,y40
998,511
1,677,476
$3,298,871
12,131,095
8,322,195
3,293,389
1,474,018
466,306
514,831
$9,057,428
7,867,680
6,610,909
2,558,198
1,420,639
635,866
2,145,370
16,245
194,390
538,824
$3,615,692
11 641,813
11,119,526
1,921,567
1,824,074
811,880
671,380
14,186
251,482
309,949
Holland
Denmark
243,386
657,554
297,152
864,366
483,218
15,489
241,458
380,586
88,876
485,422
47,'756
246,661
403,085
253,688
16,309
138,036
651,275
Sweden and Norway
27,783
14,076
' 24,' 082
310,865
23,694'
168,453
313,779
Italy..
32,309
483,486
69,022
377,011
Total
32,683,731
5,258
29,780,242
27,453,936
27,789,800
31,210,405
31,394,578
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
21
No. 2.
Statement of the aggregate of revenue and expenditure of the Island of
Cuba.
REVENUE.
Section 1.—Contributions and imports $3,026,833 69
Section 2.—Customs 9,807,878 87
Section 3.—Taxes and monopolies .... 1,069, 795 44
Section 4.—Lotteries -6,719,200 00
Section 5.—State property 119,285 94
Section 6.—Contingencies - 595,928 94
21,338,928 88
Deduct for sums paid as portions of the forfeitures under seizures 12,972 88
Actual total 21,325,956 00
EXPENDITURE.
Section 1.—Grace and justice $712,755 00
Section 2.—War. 5,866,538 36
Section 3.—Exchequer 7,645,145 43
0 .. . ( Ordinary expenses 2,386,634 16
1 ' "j Extraordinary expenses. 1,190,700 37
Section 5.—Executive department 2,115,833 12
Section 6.—Attentions (remittances) of the peninsula 1,404,059 00
Total 21,321,665 44
* From this sum should be deducted $5,022,000, which figures among the expenditures
of the exchequer under the government guaranty of prizes in the lotteries, and which is
included in the sum of $7, 645,145 43 set down as expended by that department. This
leaves a net revenue from that source of $1, 697,200, and a total net revenue of $16,105 96.
No. 3.
Comparative statement of the number of sea-going vessels entering the port of Havana for the years named.
to
to
1858.
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Total for 1858,
Total for 1857,
1856,
1855,
1854,
1853.
1852,
1851.
1850.
American.
Number.
101
79
781
102
102
69
54
48
60
78
69
95
958
909
883
889
903
813
750
856
634
Tonnage.
44,162
37,367
44,402
42,492
42,359
29,836
20,409
20,768
21,097
35,540
30,313
23,825
392,572
406,873
384,752
379,327
336,998
304,138
308,120
344,046
298,299
Spanish.
Number. Tonnage.
54
29
32
66
81
65
67
33
18
56
66
653
652
527
571
553
578
550
541
10,803
5,996
7,022
13,523
18,961
14,895
15,058
10,256
4,626
12,976
17,729
19,182
151,027
153,651
159,534
120,881
111,823
111,029
114,338
114,216
107,230
English.
Number. Tonnage.
161
152
131
116
122
136
143
191
164
6,256
9,976
4,884
9,347
5,940
5,184
4,181
5,324
5,443
7,500
4,052
6,090
74,127
64,110
59,013
49,963
59,556
58,324
55,427
58,308
65,136
French.
Other nations.
Aggregate of each
month.
Number.
Tonnage.
Number.
Tonnage.
Number.
Tonnage.
1
1,050
14
3,845
183
66,116
3
1,635
13
3,710
146
58,684
5
3,948
9
2,756
158
63,012
2
1,238
21
6,053
212
72,653
3
1,176
10
3,085
211
71,521
2
709
13
4,372
160
54,996
1
336
12
4,817
144
44,751
1
299
10
3,928
103
40,575
2
1,056
12
3,371
102
35,587
2
748
10
3,323
161
60,087
3
853
15
3,390
160
56,340
1
614
12
3,782
209
55,493
25
12,662
79
40,432
1,949
679,815
67
28,760
141
42,972
1,953
696,366
62
20,133
132
38,993
1,815
662,426
122
33,522
113
29,462
1,717
613,155
69
18,790
127
30,027
1,782
557,186
93
20,877
122
33,030
1,717
527,402
52
12,538
124
29,782
1,647
520,196
47
11,124
156
40,789
1,800
568,483
51
12,466
152
40,337
1,542
423,468
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
23
No. 4.
Table of the total production of sugar, consumption, (he.
Tons.
Cane sugar 2,05T, 653
Palm sugar 100,000
Beet-root sugar 164,822
Maple sugar 20,247
Total ' 2,342,722
But the quantity of sugar from which the United States, England,
Europe, and the Mediterranean is to be supplied reaches only
1,273,000 tons. Thus, for the 300,000,000 souls who are dependent
on it, it gives but about eight pounds per head, while the consump¬
tion in England is triple that quantity, and in the United States
twenty pounds per head. The use of sugar in the world is rapidly
increasing. In France it has doubled in thirty years. It has in¬
creased more than fifty per cent, in England in fifteen years. In the
Zollverein it has quadrupled. The following table will show the
imports and production of sugar in Great Britain, France, and the
United States, during many years :
Consumption of sugar in Great Britain, France, and United States.
Great
Britain.
United States.
Average
amount.
Foreign.
Louisiana.
Total.
Tons.
Tons.
Tons.
Tons.
Per cent.
203,200
65,601
38,000
103,606
49.52
193,823
69,474
39,200
108,674
45.42
204,016
28,854
64,360
93,214
42.30
206,000
83,801
44,400
128,206
41.82
242,831
88,336
45,000
133,336
40.40
261,932
44,974
83,028
128,002
41.85
290,275
98,410
71,040
169,450
34.95
309,424
104,214
107,000
211,214
29.40
299,041
103,121
99,180
202,301
31.00
310,391
84,813
110,600
194,413
32.22
329,715
190,193
102,000
292,193
32.32
360,720
228,772
118,273
347,045
28.00
380,488
232,213
160,967
393,180
30.72
475,095
227,982
224,662
452,644
384,234
236,942
173,317
410,259
397,448
272,631
115,713
388,344
367,476
388,501
36,933
425,434
Years.
1841..
1842.,
1843 ..
1844
1845 .,
1846 .,
1847 ..
1848.,
1849 .,
1850 .
1851 .,
1852 .,
1853.,
1854 .,
1855 .
1856 .
1857 .
Sugar duty paid in France.
Colonial. Foreign. Beet root. Total
Tons.
74,515
77.443
79,455
87,382
90,958
78,632
87,826
48,371
63,335
50,996
32,030
32,841
40,113
45,373
46,767
42,466
Tons.
12,042
8,210
9,695
10,269
11,542
15,185
9,626
9,540
18,979
23,862
14,882
15,044
18,943
49,822
16,456
25,689
Tons.
27,162
35,070
29,155
32,075
35,132
46,845
52,369
48,103
43,793
67,297
74,999
67,445
87,120
85,825
52,902
95,103
*132,000
Tons.
114,719
110,723
118,215
129,626
137,632
140,662
149,821
106,014
126,107
142,155
"hi,357'
135,005
144,981
148,097
158,326
200,155
* To close of February.
The production of beet-root sugar in France was for four years as
follows :
No. working. Kilos.
1854 303 77,848,208
1855 208 50,180,864
1856 275 91,003,098
1857 341 132,000,000
24
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
The figures for 1857 are only to March 1, and exceed by 54,000,000
kilogrammes the product of last year. The production in the Zoll-
verein in 1855 was as follows :
Cwt.
Prussia • 14,099,263
Anhalt 2,301,364,
Bavaria 247,126
Saxony 131,968t
Wurtemburg 603,256
Baden 988,825
Hesse 59,137
Huringen •. 122,965
Brunswick 634,496
G-iving a total of 19,188,402. The increase in the consumption is
immense. In 1841 the total for the three countries above named was
420,000 tons. This has increased to 800,000 tons, or a quantity nearly
doubled, and the supply has come from Louisiana and from beet roots;
the former failed considerably in the last two years, and, as a conse¬
quence, nearly convulsed the world. The value of sugar in the open,
market, then, seems to depend upon the precarious crop of Louisiana,
since, when that fails, the prices rise all over the world. — U. S.
Economist.
No. 5.
Table of number of Chinese shipped from China from 1847 to March
23, 1858.
The following table, derived from a reliable source, exhibits the
total number of vessels that have arrived at this port since 1847 with
Asiatics; their flags, tonnage, number of Asiatics shipped and landed,
number and per centage of deaths, &c., which, I think, will not be
deemed uninteresting:
Flags of vessels.
! Numbers.
!
1 Tonnage.
i
Asiatics, num¬
ber shipped.
Landed.
t
Deaths.
Per centage of
deaths.
American
13
13,545
6,744
5,929
815
12
British
29
21,275
10,791
9,205
1,586
14$
Dutch
8
5,003
2,773
2,463
310
11$
French
7
6,037
3,655
3,154
501
13$
Spanish
5
2,038
1,779
1,489
290
1H
2$
Portuguese
3
1,246
1,049
1,021
28
Peruvian
3
2,484
1,314
812
502
38$
Bremen
1
560
249
236
13
5$
Norwegian
1
470
221
179
42
19
Chilean
1
250
202
155
47
23$
Total.....
71
53,008
28,777
24,643
4,134
14$
ACQUISITION OP CUBA.
25
From the foregoing it will be seen that the loss of life on the total
number shipped actually amounts to 14| per cent.; and whilst the
number of deaths of those brought hither in Portuguese ships amounts
to only 2| per cent., the number brought in American ships amount
to 12 per cent., in British ships to 14| per cent,, and in French ships
to 13| per cent., whilst in Peruvian ships the number of deaths
amounts to 38$ per cent.
No. 6.
Population of the West Indies, as stated in Cotton's Atlas of the World,
volume 1.
Hayti—Haytien empire 572,030
Dominican republic .... 136,000
Cuba (slaves 330,425) 1,009,060 .
Porto Rico 447,014
French islands—Guadalupe and dependencies ........... 154,975
Martinique...... 121,478
French Guiana 22,110
St. Bartholomew 9,000
Danish islands—St. Thomas 13,666
Santa Cruz 23,729
St, John 2,228
39,623
Dutch islands—Cura9oa, &c ...... 28,497
Dutch Guiana. .... 61,080
British islands—Bahamas 27,519
Turk's island 4,428
Jamaica? 377,433
Caymans 1,760
Trinidad? 68,645
Tobago 13,208
Granada .......... 32,671
St. Yincent .... ....... 30,128
Barbadoes 135,939
St. Lucia 24,516
Dominica ....... 22,061
Montserrat ... ........ ...... 7,653
Antigua ....... 37,757
St. Christopher's 23,177
Nevis ...... ... 9,601
Barbuda .... ............ ........ 1,707
Anguilla ... 3,052
Yirgin islands 6,689
British Guiana .......— 127,695
963,639
Total 3,575,376
? Acquired from Spain.
Bep. No. 351 3
28
ACQUISITION OF CUBA.
VIEWS OF THE MINORITY.
Mr. Seward, on the part of the minority of the Committee on Foreign
Relations, to whom was referred the hiU (S. 497) " making appropria¬
tion to facilitate the acquisition of the island of Cuba by negotiation,"
submitted their vieivs, in the form of a substitute for the original hill,
as follows:
A BILL concerning the relations between the United States and Spain.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the
TJnited States, at the beginning of the next annual session of Con¬
gress, communicate to the Senate, if in his opinion not incompatible
with the public interests, the condition of the relations which shall
then be subsisting between the United States and Spain, and of any
negotiations that may then be pending for the cession of Cuba to the
United States, together with such statements of the condition of the
treasury, and also of the effective condition of the army and the navy
of the United States, as may enable Congress to judge whether at
that time it will be necessary to adopt any extraordinary measures to
maintain the rights and promote the interests of the United States
connected with or growing out of their relations to Spain.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the President, if in his dis¬
cretion he shall deem it necessary, in view of the condition of nego¬
tiations with her Catholic Majesty which shall be pending during the
next recess of Congress, may convene either the Senate or Congress
in extraordinary session by proclamation.
ADDRESS
OF
HON. JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE,
VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
PRECEDING
THE REMOVAL OF THE SENATE FROM THE OLD
TO THE NEW CHAMBER;
DELIVERED
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 4, 1859.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
1859.
ADDRESS.
The report of the special committee appointed to make
arrangements for the removal of the Senate from the old to
the new Chamber having been read and adopted—
The VICE PRESIDENT said:
Senators: I have been charged by the commit¬
tee to whom you confided the arrangements of this
day, with the duty of expressing some of the re¬
flections that naturally occur in taking final leave
of a Chamber which has so long been occupied
by the Senate. In the progress of our country
and the growth of the representation, this room
has become too contracted for the representatives
of the States now existing and soon to exist; and
accordingly you are about to exchange it for a
Hall affording accommodations adequate to the
present and the future. The occasion suggests
many interesting reminiscences; and it may be
agreeable, in the first place, to occupy a few min¬
utes with a short account of the various places at
which Congress has assembled, of the struggles
which preceded the permanent location of the seat
of Government, and of the circumstances under
which it was finally established on the banks of
the Potomac.
The Congress of the Revolution was sometimes
a fugitive, holding its sessions, as the chances of
war required, at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lan¬
caster, Annapolis, and Yorktown; During the
period between the conclusion of peace and the
commencement of the present Government, it
met at Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, and New
York.
After the idea of a permanent Union had been
executed in part by the adoption of the Articles
of Confederation, the question presented itself of
fixing a seat of Government, and this immediately
called forth intense interest and rivalry.
That the place should be central, having regard
to the population and territory of the Confederacy,
was the only point common to the contending
parties. Propositions of all kinds were offered,
debated, and rejected, sometimes with intemper¬
ate warmth. At length, on the 7th of October,
1783, the Congress being at Princeton, whither
they had been driven from Philadelphia, by the
insults of a body of armed men, it was resolved
that a building for the use of Congress be erected
near the falls of the Delaware. This was soon
after modified by requiring suitable buildings to
be also erected near the falls of the Potomac, that
the residence of Congress might alternate between
those places. But the question was not allowed
to rest, and at length, after frequent and warm
debates, it was resolved that the residence of Con¬
gress should continue at one place; and commis¬
sioners wiere appointed, with full power to lay
out a district for a Federal town near the falls of
the Delaware; and in the mean time Congress as¬
sembled alternately at Trenton and Annapolis;
but the representatives of other States were unre¬
mitting in exertions for their respective localities.
On the 23d of December, 1784, it was resolved
to remove to the city of New York, and to re¬
main there until the building on the Delaware
should be completed; and accordingly, on the 11th
of January, 1785, the Congress met at New York,
where tWy continued to hold their sessions until
the Confederation gave place to the Constitution.
The Commissioners to lay out a town on the
Delaware reported their proceedings to Congress;
4
but no further steps were taken to carry the res¬
olution into effect.
When the bonds of union were drawn closer by
the organization of the new Government under
the Constitution, on the 3d of March, 1789, the
subject was revived and discussed with greater
warmth than before. It was conceded on all sides
that the residence of Congress should continue at
one place, and the prospect of stability in the Gov¬
ernment invested the question with a deeper in¬
terest. Some members proposed New York, as
being " superior to any place they knew for the
orderly and decent behavior of its inhabitants."
To this it was answered that it was not desirable
that the political capital should be in a commer¬
cial metropolis. Others ridiculed the idea of build¬
ing palaces in the woods. Mr. Gerry, of Massa¬
chusetts, thought it highly unreasonable to fix the
seat of (government in such a position as to have
nine States of the thirteen to the northward of the
place; while the South Carolinians objected to
Philadelphia on account of the number of Qua¬
kers, who, they said, continually annoyed the
southern members with schemes of emancipation.
In the midst of these disputes, the House of
Representatives resolved, " that the permanent
seat of Government ought to be at some conve¬
nient place on the banks of the Susquehanna."
On the introduction of a bill to give effect to this
resolution, much feeling was exhibited,especially
by the southern members. Mr. Madison thought
if the proceeding of that day had been foreseen
by Virginia, that State might not have become a
party to the Constitution. The question was al¬
lowed by every member to be a matter of great
importance. Mr. Scott said the future tranquillity
and well-being of the United States depended as
much on this as on any question that ever had,
or could, come before Congress; and Mr. Fisher
Arpes remarked that every principle of pride and
honor and even of patriotism were engaged. For
a time, any agreement appeared to be impossible;
but the good genius of our system finally pre vailed,
and on the 28th of June, 1790, an act was passed
containing the following clause:
" That a district of territory on the river Potomac, at some
place between the mouths of the eastern branch anil the
Connogocheague, be, and the same is hereby, accepted, for
the permanent seat of the Government of the United States."
The same act provided that Congress, should j
hold its sessions at Philadelphia until the first j
Monday in November, 1800, when the Govern-1
ment should remove to the district selected on the :
I Potomac. Thus was settled a question which had
; produced much sectional feeling between the
i States. But all difficulties were not yet surmount-
j ed; for Congress, either from indifference, or the
want of money, failed to make adequate appro¬
priations for the erection of public buildings, and
the commissioners were often reduced to great
straits to maintain the progress of the work.
Finding it impossible to borrow money in Europe,
or to obtain it from Congress, Washington, in
December, 1796, made a personal appeal to the
Legislature of Maryland, which was responded to
by an advance of $100,&00; but in so deplorable
a condition was the credit of the Federal Govern¬
ment that the State required, as a guarantee of
payment, the pledge of the private credit of the
commissioners.
From the beginning Washington had advocated
the present seat of Government. Its establish¬
ment here was due, in a large measure, to his in¬
fluence; it was his wisdom and prudence that com¬
puted disputes and settled conflicting titles; and
it was chiefly through his personal influence that
the funds were provided to prepare the buildings
for the reception of the President and Congress.
The wings of the Capitol having been sufficient¬
ly prepared, the Government removed to this D is-
trict on the 17th of November, 1800; or as Mr.
Wolcott expressed it, left the comforts of Phila¬
delphia " to go to the Indian place with the long
name, in the woods on the Potomac." I will not
pause to describe the appearance, at that day, of
the place where the city was to be. Cotempo-
rary accounts represent it as desolate in the ex¬
treme, with its long, unopened avenues and
streets, its deep morasses, and its vast area cov¬
ered with trees instead of houses. It is enough
to say that Washington projected the whole plan
upon a scale of centuries, and that time enough
remains to fill the measure of his great conception.
The Senate continued to occupy the north wing,
and the House of Representatives the south wing
of the Capitol, until the 24th of August, 1814,
when the British army entered the city and burned
the public buildings. This occurred during the
recess, and the President immediately convened
the Congress. Both Plouses met in a brick build¬
ing known as Blodget's Hotel, which occupied a
part of the square now covered by the General
Post Office. But the accommodations in that
house being quite insufficient, a number of public-
spirited citizens erected a more commodious build*
5
ing, on Capitol Hill, and tendered it to Congress;
the offer was accepted, and both Houses continued
to occupy it until the wings of the new Capitol
were completed. This building yet stands on the
street opposite to the northeastern corner of the
Capitol Square, and has since been occasion¬
ally occupied by persons employed in different
branches of the public service.
On the 6th of December, 1819, the Senate as¬
sembled for the first time in this Chamber, which
has been the theater of their deliberations for
more than thirty-nine years.
And now the strifes and uncertainties of the
past are finished. We see around us on every
side the proofs of stability and improvement.
This Capitol is worthy of the Republic. Noble
public buildings meet the view on every hand.
Treasures of science and the arts begin to accu¬
mulate. As this flourishing city enlarges, it tes¬
tifies to the wisdom and forecast that dictated the
plan of it. Future generations will not be dis¬
turbed with questions concerning the center of
population, or of territory, since the steamboat,
the railroad, and the telegraph have made com¬
munication almost instantaneous. The spot is
sacred by a thousand memories, which are so
many pledges that the city of Washington,
founded by him and bearing his revered name,
with its beautiful site, bounded by picturesque
eminences, and the broad Potomac, and lying
within view of his home and his tomb, shall
remain forever the political capital of the United
States.
It would be interesting to note the gradual
changes which have occurred in the practical
working of the Government, since the adoption
of the Constitution; and it may be appropriate to
this occasion to remark one of the most striking
of them.
At the origin of the Government, the Senate
seemed to be regarded chiefly as an executive
council. The President often visited the Cham¬
ber and conferred personally with this body; most
; of its business was transacted with closed doors,
and it took comparatively little part in the legis¬
lative debates. The rising and vigorous intellects
of the country sought the arena of the House of
Representatives as the appropriate theater for the
display of their powers. Mr. Madison observed,
on some occasion, that being a young man, and
desiring to increase his reputation, he could not
afford to enter the Senate; and it will be remem¬
bered, that, so late as 1812, the great debates which
preceded the war and aroused the country to the
assertion of its rights, took place in the other
branch of Congress. To such an extent was the
idea of seclusion carried, that, when this Cham¬
ber was completed, no seats were prepared for
the accommodation of the public; and it was not
until many years afterwards that the semi-circu¬
lar gallery was erected which admits the people
to be witnesses of your proceedings. But now,
the Senate, besides its peculiar relations to the
executive department of the Government, assumes
its full share of duty as a coequal branch of the
Legislature; indeed, from the limited number of
its members, and for other obvious reasons, the
most important questions, especially of foreign
policy, are apt to pass first under discussion in
this body, and to be a member of it is justly re¬
garded as one of the highest honors which can be
conferred on an American statesman.
It is scarcely necessary to point out the causes
of this change, or to say that it is a,concession
both to the importance and the individuality of
the States, and to the free and open character of
the Government.
In connection with this easy but thorough trans¬
ition, it is worthy of remark that it has been ef¬
fected without a charge from any quarter that the
Senate.has transcended its constitutional sphere—
a tribute at once to the moderation of the Senate,
| and another proof to thoughtful men, of the com¬
prehensive wisdom with which the framers of the
Constitution secured essential principles without
inconveniently embarrassing the action of the
Government.
The progress of this popularmovement, in one
aspect of it, has been steady and marked. At
the origin of the Government no arrangements
in the Senate were made for spectators; in this
Chamber about one third of the space is allotted
to the public; and in the new apartment the gal¬
leries cover two thirds of its area. In all free
countries the admission of the people to witness
legislative proceedings is an essential element of
public confidence; and it is not to be anticipated
that this wholesome principle will ever be abused
by the substitution of partial and interested dem¬
onstrations for the expression of a matured and
enlightened public opinion. Yet it should never
be forgotten that not France, but the turbulent
spectators within the Hall, awed and controlled
the French Assembly. With this lesson and its
6
consequence before us, the time will never come
when the deliberations of the Senate shall be
swayed by the blandishments or the thunders of
the galleries. ^
It is impossible to disconnect from an occa¬
sion like this, a crowd of reflection on our past
history, and of speculations on the future. The
most meager account of the Senate involves a
summary of the progress of our country. From
year to year you have seen your representation
enlarge; time and again you have proudly wel¬
comed a new sister into the Confederacy; and the
occurrences of this day are a material and im¬
pressive proof of the growth and prosperity of
the United States. Three periods in the history
of the Senate mark, in striking contrast, three
epochs in the history of the Union.
On the 3d of March, 1789, when the Govern¬
ment was organized under the Constitution, the
Senate was composed of the representatives of
eleven States, containing three millions of people.
On the 6th of December, 1819, when the Sen¬
ate met for the first time in this room, it was
composed of the representatives of twenty-one
jStates, containing nine millions of people.
To-dayitis composed of the representatives of
thirty-two States, containing more than twenty-
eight millions of people, prosperous, happy, and
still devoted to constitutional liberty. Let these
great facts speak for themselves to all the world.
The career of the United States cannot be
measured by that of any other people of whom
history gives account; and the mind is almost
appalled at the contemplation of the prodigious
force which has marked their progress. Sixty-- "
nine years ago, thirteen States containing three
millions of inhabitants, burdened with debt, and
exhausted by the long war of independence, es¬
tablished for their common good a free Constitu¬
tion, on principles new to mankind, and began
their experiment with the good wishes of a few
doubting friends and the derision of the world.
Look at the result to-day; twenty-eight millions
of people, in every way happier than an equal
number in any other part of the globe ! the center
of population and political power descending the
western slopes of the Alleghany mountains, and
the original thirteen States forming but the eastern
margin on the map of our vast possessions. See
besides, Christianity, civilization, and the arts
given to a continent; the despised colonies grown
into a Power of the first class, representing and
protecting ideas that involve the progress of the I
human race; a commerce greater than that of any
other1 nation; free interchange between the States;
every variety of climate, soil, and production to
make a people powerful and happy—in a word,
behold present greatness, and, in the future, an
empire to which the ancient mistress of the world
in the height of her glory could not be compared.
Such is our country; ay, and more—far more
than my mind could conceive or my tongue could
utter. Is there an American who regrets the past ?
Is there one who will deride his country's laws,
pervert her Constitution, or alienate her people?
If there be such a man, let his memory descend
to posterity laden with the execrations of all
mankind.
So happy is the political and social condition
of the United States, and so accustomed am we
to the secure enjoyment of a freedom elsewhere
unknown, that we are apt to undervalue the treas¬
ures we possess, and to lose, in some degree, the
sense of obligation to our forefathers. But when
the strifes of faction shake the Government, and
even threaten it, we may pause with advantage
long enough to remember that we are reaping the
reward of other men's labors. This liberty we
inherit; this admirable Constitution, which has
survived peace and war, prosperity and adversity;
this double scheme of Government, State and
Federal, so peculiar and so little understood by
other Powers, yet which protects the earnings of
industry, and makes the largest personal freedom
compatible with public order; these great result?
were not acquired without wisdom and toil and
blood—the touching and heroic record is before
the world. But to all this we were born, and,like
heirs upon whom has been cast a great inherit¬
ance, have only the high duty to preserve, to ex¬
tend, and to adorn it. The grand productions of
the era in which the foundations of this Govern¬
ment were laid, reveal the deep sense its founders
had of their obligations to the whole family of
man. Let us never forget that the responsibili¬
ties imposed on this generation are by so much
the greater than those which rested on our revo¬
lutionary ancestors, as the population, extent,
and power of our country surpass the dawning
promise of its origin.
It would be a pleasing task to pursue many
trains qf thought, not wholly foreign to this oc¬
casion, but the temptation to enter the wide field
must be rigorously curbed; yet I may be pardoned,
perhaps, for one or two additional reflections.
The Senate is assembled for the last time in
7
this Chamber. Henceforth it will be converted to
other uses; yet it must remain forever connected
with great events, and sacred to the memories of
the departed orators and statesmen who here en¬
gaged in high debates, and shaped the policy of
their country. Hereafter the American and the
stranger, as they wander through the Capitol,
will turn with instinctive reverence to view the
spot on which so many and great materials have
accumulated for history. They will recall the
images of the great and the good, whose renown
is the common property of the Union; and chiefly,
perhaps, they will linger around the seats once
occupied by the mighty three, whose names and
fame, associated in life, death has not been able
to sever; illustrious men, who in their generation
sometimes divided, sometimes led, and sometimes
resisted public opinion—for they were of that
higher class of statesmen who seek the right and
follow their convictions.
There sat Calhoun, the Senator, inflexible, aus¬
tere, oppressed, but not overwhelmed by his deep
sense of the importance of his public functions;
seeking the truth, then fearlessly following it—a
man whose unsparing intellect compelled all his
emotions to harmonize with the deductions of his
rigorous logic, and whose noble countenance hab¬
itually wore the expression of one engaged in the
performance of high public duties.
This was Webster's seat. He, too, was every
inch a Senator. Conscious of his own vast pow¬
ers, lie reposed with confidence on himself; and
scorning the contrivances of smaller men, he stood
among his peers all the greater for the simple dig¬
nity of his senatorial demeanor. Type of his
northern home, he rises before the imagination, in
the grand and granite outline of his form and in¬
tellect, like a great New England rock, repelling
a New England wave. As a writer, his produc¬
tions will be cherished by statesmen and scholars
while the English tongue is spoken. As a sen¬
atorial orator, his great efforts are historically as¬
sociated with this Chamber, whose very air seems
yet to vibrate beneath the strokes of his deep tones
and his weighty words.
On the outer circle, sat Henry Clay, with his im¬
petuous and ardent nature untamed by age, and:
exhibiting in the Senate the same vehement pat¬
riotism and passionate eloquence that of yore elec¬
trified the House of Representatives and the coun¬
try. His extraordinary personal endowments, his
courage, all his noble qualities, invested him with
an individuality and a charm of character which,
in any age, would have made him a favorite of
history. He^loved his country above all earthly
objects. He loved liberty in all countries. Illus¬
trious man! — orator, patriot, philanthropist—
whose light, at its meridian, was seen and felt in
the remotest parts of the civilized world; and*
whose declining sun, as it hastened down the
west, threw back its level beams, in hues of mel¬
lowed splendor, to illuminate and to cheer the
land he loved and served so well.
All the States may point, with gratified pride,
to the services in the Senate of their patriotic sons.
Crowding the memory, come the names of Adams,
Hayne, Wright, Mason, Otis, Macon, Pinck-
ney, and the rest—I cannot number them—who,
in the record of their acts and utterances, appeal
to their successors to give the Union a destiny
not unworthy of the past. What models were
these, to awaken emulation or to plunge in de¬
spair ! Fortunate will be the American statesmen
who, in this age, or in succeeding times, shall
contribute to invest the new Hall to which we go,
with historic memories like those which cluster
here.
And now, Senators, we leave this memorable
Chamber, bearing with us, unimpaired, the Con¬
stitution we received from our forefathers. Let
us cherish it with grateful acknowledgments to
the Divine Power who controls the destinies of
empires and whose goodness we adore. The
structures reared by men yield to the corroding
tooth of time. These marble walls must molder
into ruin; but the principles of constitutional lib¬
erty, guarded by wisdom and virtue, unlike ma¬
terial elements, do not decay. Let us devoutly
trust that another Senate, in another age, shall bear
to a new and larger Chamber, this Constitution
vigorous and inviolate, and that the last genera¬
tion of posterity shall witness the deliberations of
the Representatives of American States still uni¬
ted, prosperous, and free.
SPEECH
of
HON. EOBEET TOOMBS, OF GEORGIA,
on the
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 9, 1859.
The Senate having resumed the consideration of the following resolution offered by
Mr. Bigler, of Pennsylvania:
Resolved, As the opinion of the Senate, that the creation of a large public debtin time of peace is incon¬
sistent with the true policy of the United States; and as the present revenues are insufficient to meet the
unavoidable expenses of the Government, Congress should proceed, without delay, to so readjust the
revenue laws as not only to meet the deficit in the current expenses, but to pay off the present debt sp far
as it may be liable to immediate cancellation.
Mr. TOOMBS, said:
Mr. President: The resolution just read at your table seemingly asserts a truism, but
it does not It uses convenient generalities to conceal, not to express a political truth.
Large and small aryelative terms—one hundred thousand dollars is a large sum when
applied to the obligations of ordinary men; it is a very small one when applied to those
of this Government. An individual is not considered largely in debt when his contracts
are below two-thirds of his annual income. The debt created during the last j'ear for the
support of Government does not exceed that proportion of our income. If the Senator from
Pennsylvania, (Mr. Bigler,) means only to say that the ordinary expenses of Government
should be supplied by its ordinary revenue, the proposition receives my assent, but the
converse of the proposition is equally true, that extraordinary expenses, or even ordinary
expenses, which, from transient causes, cannot be conveniently met by the ordinary
revenue, fall without the rule. It is not wise to change a revenue system to meet casual
or temporary deficiencies in the Treasury. This position is not only true, but of
great public importance when the public revenue rests on taxes, on consumption.
Our taxes are mainly levied by duties on commodities imported from abroad, which
are imposed according to their value at the place from whence they are imported.
Therefore, every thing that affects the price of the taxed commodities in the countries
from where we draw them, and whatever affects the amount of consumption by oun
own people necessarily increases or diminishes our revenue. Therefore, if we adhered,
strictly to the rule that annual expenditure should he met by annual taxes in all cases,,
we might have to remodel our tariff as often as we pass appropriation bills. This rule
Would be especially obnoxious to the protectionists who all clamour against changes, and:
lemand permanency in tariffs.
The second branch of the resolution under consideration, contains the gist of the whole
sontroversy, which it was the duty of the Senator to establish, before he could, rightfully,
>n his own principles, call upon the legislature to impose new burdens on the people.'
Je has wisely omitted the attempt, and was content to assume that R was self-evident'
ind incontrovertible. He assumes "that the present revenues are insufficient to meet the
laavoidable expenses of the Government;" and that, therefore, " Congress should pro-
eed without delay, to so adjust the revenue laws as not only to meet the deficit in the
urrent expenses, but to pay off the present debt so far as it may be liable to immediate
ancellation." I deny both his premises and conclusions. The Senator does not say that
he present revenues are insufficient to meet the necessary or proper or economical ex-
ienses of the Government, but that they will meet the unavoidable expenses. I waive
ny verbal criticism on the term "unavoidableand assume that he means necessary and
roper expenses of the Government, and proceed to show that the present tariff is adsr
Printed by Lemuel Towers.
2
quate, with the other sources of public revenue, to meet all just, necessary, or proper pub¬
lic expenditures, and is fully adequate to the extinguishment of the existing public debt,
as soon as the public interest or convenience require its payment.
The Executive Government asks for seventy-three millions of dollars for the service of
the next fiscal year. I consider such an expenditure neither wise, necessary, proper, or
" unavoidable;" but if it should be so held by the Senate, I shall show that the income of
the Government will meet it, if properly husbanded and applied to the public service
without a farther increase of the publie debt.
„ The objects of public expenditure are plainly set forth in the Constitution. I will sup¬
ply all the necessary and proper means for securing these objects ; these are safe land¬
marks, and within them I would liberally promote the utmost efficiency of every branch
of the publie service. We are not driven to economy from necessity; but we should
practice it on principle. It will preserve the purity of the Government, which is cer¬
tainly equal in importance to the money of the people.
On these principles is the expenditure of seventy-three millions of dollars during the
next fiscal year necessary and proper for the public service. I think not. Let us
test it first by the experience of the past, and then subject it to the scrutiny ofthe lights
of the present. According to the financial report of Mr. Guthrie for the years 1855-6,
page 12, "the average expenditures of the (then) last five years, excluding the public
debt and the $10,000,000 paid under the treaty with Mexico, but little exceeded |48,-
000,000;" and from these data he recommends the reduction of the duties on imports to
$50,000,000 per annum. It further appears from the same report, that the average of
the duties on imports for these five years (leaving out fractions) was but fifty-five mil-
. lions of dollars ; yet on that revenue from customs forty-five millions of the public debt
were paid in less than three years. (See Guthrie's report, pages 7 and 8.) And besides
these payments, and very extravagant appropriations for the next years 1857-8, there
"was a balance in the Treasury of about $17,000,000 on the 30th June, 1857. Thus it
appears, that with an average annual income from customs of less than the estimates
from the same source for the next year, ($56,00b,000,) for six years preceding the monetary
convulsion of 1857-8, the Government not only supported itself under an expenditure
up to that time wholly unknown in our annals in time of peace, but discharged above
$4:5,000,000 of the public debt, and brought a surplus into that year of over
$17,000,000. _ _ _ *
Now, sir, what is there in the present condition of the country that requires a larger
expenditure than these five years? They were not years of economy. The expenses
during these six years were many millions beyond any that went before them, except
during a foreign war. We are frequently told that the country has expanded, the popu¬
lation has increased, that money has diminished in value. The first answer is untrue in
fact, and the last two wholly inadequate and.unsatisfactory excuses for this profligate
expenditure. We have not obtained an aere of territory since the treaty of Hidalgo
Gaudalupe, in 1848, except a small slip, called Arazonia, which was paid for under the last
Administration. Then we have no more country, no more Indians, than we had five
years ago; besides these acquisitions, are none easier defended from the fact that our popu¬
lation has rapidly increased in California, Washington, and Oregon, on the Pacific coast;
making their defence less expensive, and emigration has pressed inroads towards the
Rocky Mountains, on this side, increasing in power and strength, and lessening the trans¬
portation of the necessary supplies of our troops.
The excuse of increase of population is equally untenable. This brings strength and
not weakness. We have no troops now, or if any, very few on this side of the Missis¬
sippi; and there the great increase of population has occurred." But this increase of
population, if allowed to be a just element in the increase of expenses, is but about three
per cent, per annum, and, therefore, would a<iount to but eighteen per cent, in the last
six years. An amount far below the proposed increase of expenses. And, besides in¬
creased population brings increased production and increased consumption, and, then-
fore, increased revenues under the same tariff. The argument of the increased value of
money is a still more barren pretext. By what rule do these appologists for profligate
public expenditures estimate the increase of the value of money within the last six
years? If you measure it by the price of a bushel of wheat, the most approved standard
among political economists, it will show a decline rather than a rise in value. The pries
of a bushel of wheat being now much below the average of the last six years. Do they
measure it by the value of a day's labor even paid in money ? The Senator from Penn¬
sylvania, and those who act with him, represent labor as distressingly low, and call for
protection for our labor against that of other countries. These two arguments cannot
stand together. It is not the- duty, neither is it in the power of Congress, to regulate
the wages of labor except as to those who are employed in the public service; and the
true basis for the payment of that labor is, to pay these employees the same wages which
rule in the labor market of the country for the same service and qualifications. The de,
$
parture from tliife salutary rule hag been the main cause of the great extravagance in the
Government, the extraordinary remuneration for every species of public service having
produced an alarming pressure for governmental employment. None of these reasons can
stand the test of an examination.
In 1857, Congress seeing that large exaetions -were made fvom the pockets of the peo-
pie, more than were necessary for the wants of the Government, passed the present tariff
law, with the avowed intention to reduce the revenue from customs to fifty millions of
dollars. The then Executive Government recommended the reduction to that extent,
and the present tariff was enacted by a more general assent of all interests, and all sec*
tions, and parties, in this country, than any such act has received for more than forty
years. The House of Representatives was largely in opposition, and passed it by a
vote of nearly two-thirds; the Senate were largely administration, and the measure re¬
ceived every vote in this body, I think, but eight. It owned no party, no sectional feel¬
ing—the Senators from Massachusetts and Carolina, long separated on revenue question^
united on it. It%wos not expected, until increased production increased our exports, to
bring above fifty millions of dollars. The Senate passed it with this understanding. The
House passed it with this understanding. The country accepted it with that under¬
standing. The Executive Government informed us that forty-eight millions from cus¬
toms was all sufficient for the legitimate wants of the Government. What new ne¬
cessity for enlarged expenses has the Senator from Pennsylvania presented us? None.
Our powers are the s^me, our duties are the same; we have profound peace; even In¬
dian and Mormon wars, wars so fatal to the Treasury, and to the Trsasury only, have
ceased. The Senator from Pennsylvania, in his elaborate speeeh of one hour and a half,
failed to bring to our attention a single reason or suggestion why the expenses of 1860
should exceed the average of the last five years preceding 1855-'6. He assumed that
we could not escape, he neither invented nor discovered a single reason for it but on,e.
That one was, that additional taxes were necessary to the State of Pennsylvania. He
represented her industry as prostrate, and demanding relief. He demands, in her
behalf, increased taxation to revive her industrial prostration, The statement of the
case shows, that there is more in it than meets the eye. He knows that increased duties
on imports taxes somebody—he believes it does not tax Pennsylvania—or if it does, that
she will receive incidental advantages from this taxation more than commensurate with
her part of the burden. The revenue of the first year of the present tariff did not
equal the expectation of its friends. It fell short above eight millions. The reasons
were very apparent. An extraordinary monetary revulsion reduced your imports above
178,000,000. I shall not now stop to inquire into the causes of this revulsion. We sim¬
ply in this connection have use for it as a fact. The tariff of 1857 did not produce or
agravate it in any degree. The causes, whatever they may have been, lay behind that
act. For the preseut year the Secretary of the Treasury estimates our receipts from
customs at $50,000,000. We have passed through more than seven months of the fiseal
year, and thus far his calculations are more than verified. He estimates the receipts for
the next year at fifty-six millions, six millions more than we supposed this tariff would
briDg when we enacted it. As I am called upon to supply deficiencies of Government,
I shall assume the estimates of receipts to be correct, Why, then, shall we retracO
our steps in relation to income. It is admitted that we shall get more than we ex¬
pected, Under the present act. It ean be for no other reason than that we are prepared
to part with our constitutional control over expenditures, and turn that branch of the
public service over to the Executive Departments. I am not prepared for thiB surrender
of1 my constitutional duties. I will surrender them to none but those who conferred
them upon me. I believe now as I did when I voted for the act of 1857—that $50,000,000
are more than sufficient to meet the just and proper wants of the Government in time
of peace—and I intend to stand by it to the end.
The expenditures for the next fiscal year, ending the 30th June, 1860, are estimated at
$^3,139,147 46, the receipts at $69,063,298 57, leaving a balance of $4,075,848 89-100,
evclusive of a deficiency in the Post Office Department for this year of $3,888,728. 'But
qf these expenses, estimated for the service of the next fiscal year, the Post Office De¬
partment besides this sum have been allowed the sum of $6,382,900; and including
this sum, we are called to charge the revenue of the next fiscal year with $10,221,628
for the deficiency of our postal service. I do not intend to vote for it I wish to bring
the Post Office Department back to its simple and useful business of carrying letters and
newspapers, instead of carrying ■" progress and civilization." The settled policy of the
Government for above fifty yearg was, to make the Post Office Department support itself.
I will not sustain so monstrous an abuse of the principles of true policy and just govern¬
ment as are practiced in our postal system. I wash my hands of the whole of it, and
before I get through I shall have occasion to comment on the postal statistics presented
by the Senator from Pennsylvania, and to show the value of figures, gotten up not to
vindicate truth, but to sustain a point. For the last year the Post Office Department thas
4:
absorbed nearly one fourth of the nett revenues from customs, and, at the same rate_ of
increase, will absorb the other three-fourths -within the next ten years. I do not think
this expense "unavoidable
The Secretary of the Treasury estimates that there will be a deficiency in the next
year, including the Post Office deficiency, of more than seven millions of dollars. But
in order to attain that result, he assumes that there will be no outstanding unexpected
balance of appropriation on the 30th of June, 1860. I do not concur with him in this
opinion. I think it erroneous. I find, upon examination of the outstanding appropria¬
tions for each year from 1791 to 1856, inclusive, that there has been such a balance every
year, as large as $1,784,000, in 1791, and averaging above $25,000,000 per annum for the
five years ending with 1856. The Secretary gives us no reasons for believing that this
uniform result for more than seventy years will not happen in 1^60. Indeed, it is next
to an impossibility that it should not happen. Continuing appropriations are not carried
to the surplus fund, and, therefore, may remain outstanding for an indefinite period.
There are a great variety of such in all of the appropriation acts, and on# may safely
calculate upon such outstanding balances equal to the present estimate^ deficiency. "We
have now large outstanding appropriations for custom houses, post offices, fortifications,
unascertained claims, and various other similar items, which cannot but be expended
during the next fiscal year, without an activity of expenditure inconsistent with the
present state of our financies. These balances may be greater or less, at the pleasure of
the Government.
Mr. SIMMONS. Do I understand the Senator to be commenting on the remarks of the
Senator from Pennsylvania, or the report of the Secretary of the Treasury.
Mr. TOOMBS. I am commenting on the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, and
endeavoring to show, by facts and figures, that upon his own basis the deficiency which
he estimates for 1860, will not exist. I am seeking for the truth, and endeavoring to
extract it from the facts before me. But I am seeking to assail nobody, and I can tell
the Senator from Rhode Island, that I have a very high regard for the ability and integ¬
rity of the gentleman who presides over the Treasury Department.
Mr. SIMMONS. I had not an opportunity of reading the speech of the Senator from
Pennsylvania, but I wanted to know where I could find the figures.
Mr. TOOMBS. I can show the Senator where he will find the figures I refer to. I
read them from a document printed last year, containing a statement of the receipts and
expenditures of the United States from March 4, 1789, to June 30, 1857, ordered to be
printed on the 5th of February, 1858. The tables are from the office of the present Sec¬
retary of the Treasury, and I have no doubt are accurate.
There is another source of public revenue altogether adequate to meet the estimated
deficiency, even if it should occur, and for the management of which, I think, the coun¬
try has just cause of complaint against whoever may be responsible for it. I mean the
public lands. For the last five years we must have paid more than three millions of dol¬
lars in the necessary expenses of bringing the public lands in the markets. I find the
expense for the last two years exceeds half a million per annum. "We have above sixty
millions of acres which have been surveyed and never offered for sale. Some of them
have been open for settlement six or eight years, yet have never been offered for public
salfe, The best of them, of course, are daily covered by preemptions, town sites, mill
sites, and all locations having extraordinary value are constantly seized upon by specu¬
lators by means of sham settlers. And yet the Government, while it urges the increase
of the public taxes, refuses to avail itself of this legitimate and proper source of public
revenue. The receipts for the present fiscal year but litrle exceed three millions of dol¬
lars. IWmight have been readily carried to aouble that sum by simply offering the lands
at public sale, and thereby compelling these persons to pay the Government what is
justly due it. Some of these lands having been open to settlement for the last ten years,
the policy of the Government has operated as a ten years' credit on preemptions.
This policy is not warranted by law, and is opposed to the settled policy of the Govern¬
ment for the last thirty years. We had to abandon the system of direct credits on the
sales of public lands more than thirty years ago. This indirect credit is liable to even
greater objections, has not been sanctioned by Congress, and daily adds new embarrass¬
ments to the proper administration of this public property.
Mr. SHIELDS. I presume the honorable Senator, in saying there had been no sales
made in the new States, means public sales, general sales.
Mr. TOOMBS. Certainly.
Mr. SHIELDS. That is true. The people of those States are opposed to those public
and general sales, because they put the lands into the hands of speculators and non-resi¬
dents ; but there have been sales going on yearly there, what we call private sales, pre¬
emption sales, and those sales have not brought much money into the Treasury, dnd
never will. The reason is, that the land warrants which have been issued by Congress
supply the place of the money, come in as substitutes for it, and even public sales will
bring no money into the Treasury as long as the land Warrants exist.
5
Mr. TOOMBS. That is a very great mistake, and I need simply refer to the facts to
show it. Before the last two years we got from five to ten million dollars from the pub-
lie lands, and had ten times as many land warrants as now. The facts are against the
Senator. We commenced this bad system, in my judgment, of throwing away the pub¬
lic lands in 1849 ; warrants were issued to the amount of seventy or eighty million acres;
and all of them have been absorbed but ten million; and yet, during that time the reve¬
nue from lands went as high as ten or twelve million, some years.
Mr. SHIELDS. Will the honorable Senator permit me to say a word ?
Mr. TOOMBS. Certainly.
Mr. SHIELDS. I do not wish to interrupt his remarks, but I merely want to defend
the Department. I know the honorable Senator does not mean to make an attack on the
Department, and I am delighted to see that he is exposing these things independent of
individual men. I am glad to find one Senator bold enough to rise here and put aside
favoritism. But, sir, on this single point I now venture this prediction, that if the Sec¬
retary of the Interior and the President bring all the public lands of the United States
into market and sell them to speculators, they would not bring $200,000 into the Treasury
for two years.
Mr. TOOMBS. I think the honorable Senator is very greatly mistaken. That is not
the idea of the Government, because in the estimates of 1860, with all the land war¬
rants out, they estimate $5,000,000 as the land receipts. We have seen the operation
of these land warrants for ten years. The reason why the lands have been kept back
is this: when public lands are offered for sale, the preemptioner must pay; until you
offer them for sale, he may live on them for twenty-five years, and never have to pay.
That is what the postponement means, and nothingelse. You might settle every quarter
section in Iowa or Minnesota or Wisconsin, and until the Government offered it for sale,
and thereby compelled the preemptioner to pay up, it would never bring a dollar into the
Treasury, unless the settlement was on lands open to private entry, at $1 25 an acre.
All the mone}', or nearly all, we got from the public lands last year was from those lands
which were subject to entry at $1 25; but as I said before, we have sixty or eighty
million of the best land, that have been surveyed and not brought into market. It
is true, the more settlers, the less they bring, because they take the advantageous po¬
sitions. They will take the town sites; they will take mill sites; they will take river
fronts; but at public sale there will be competition. Many years ago some lands at
public sale in Alabama brought from sixty to seventy dollars per acre at public sale;
some brought, in 1836, in Mississippi, from twenty to thirty dollars an acre. As to this cry
about speculators it means but little, the public lands are thrown open to public com¬
petition and all can buy who choose.
The objection in the new States is not to speculation, the man who settles and puts
his cabin on* a quarter section, and pays his $1 25 an acre, will sell it to you for ten
dollars. He likes that sort of speculation. I think the most desirable thing is to sell as
much land as you can to actual settlers; but it is the duty of the Government, when
they have charged the public Treasury with the expense of surveying sixty or eighty
million acres of land, and we need the money, to sell the land and get revenue from
that source. It is not done. We ought to sell at least the public lands which we
have ready for sale, before going to the pockets of the people for additional taxes.
The public lands were given to you by the States for the purpose of being sold in order
to lessen taxation; and as long as they belong to this Government, the legitimate
purpose, the absolute condition of the grant, is, that they shall go into the public
Treasury to the relief of all the States, the grantors included. That is the very language
of many of the grants of the different States, my own among the rest.
^ I know the Senator from Pensylvania, some how or other, threw out the idea that
"here was some sort of advantage that somebody got—probably the South—from the
public lands, and that Pennsylvania, some way or other, was deprived of her part.
There is nothing in that idea at all. So far as Georgia is concerned, we ceded Alabama
and Mississippi, and they have brought near $50,000,000 into the Treasury. I do not
consider that she did anything wrong in making the grant, nor do I regret it, I think it
was but justice to her confederates, and I approved her policy. I always thought the
principle Maryland maintained was right, and that the wild and vacant and unappro¬
priated land, which were won by the valor of the whole country, from its common
sovereign, ought to inure to the general benefit; and, therefore, I always approved the
Georgia grant, and approved the grant of Virginia. It ought to have been a common
fund, for the purpose of meeting the burdens of a common struggle; and, therefore, the
special appropriation of it to particular States, in my judgment, was not just, and hence
I heartily approved of the cession; but how Pennsylvania has ever been injured by
it, I cannot imagine.
Mr. BIGLER. Will the Senator from Georgia allow me a moment?
Mr. TOOMBS. Certainly.
6
Mr. BTGLER. I certainly did not state that Pennsylvania was injured directly. The
idea which I presented was this: that this property was the common property of all the
States at the time it was given to the States which I named for railroad purposes; that
it was a valuable donation from the common Treasury. VIf the lands had been converted
into money, that money would have gone into the Treasury, and answered to pay the
common expenses of the whole Government.
. Mr. TOOMBS. I did not know that the Senator had put it upon a thrice, yea, a ten-
times refuted idea. The grants that have been given for railroads in the United States,
and which have been so much complained of, did not cost Pennsylvania, or Georgia, or
any other State, a single dollar. You granted alternate sections of the public lauds along
the line of those railroads within a given distance, and raised the price of the reserved
sections to double the ordinary minimum ; and the actual remit has been that they have
brought it. I say, then, this policy has not cost Pennsylvania, or anybody else, a single
dollar ; and I think it was acting the part of the dog in the manger to oppose it. For
myself, I nave looked upon the public lands as a portion of the public property, not at all
distinguishable from the public money in our use of it for internal improvements; but,
when the General Government had large quantities of lands which she could not sell,
which nobody would settle upon, on account of the want of timber, and of water, and
of the means of transportation, it was wise policy to grant a portion of the lands to
hnild improvements which would make the remainder worth double the price at which
tfyey were held. It is what I would do with my own property; and to the extent of my
constitutional power, that is ray rule of dealing with the public property. I say Penn¬
sylvania did not lose a dime by these grants of land; but besides the general, she had a
special benefit from them. A great many of these roads have been built, and thereby
have caused a greatly increased demand for that sterling and staple article, iron, which
is now attracting so much general attention, especially in the good old State of Pennsyl¬
vania.
I say, sir, that if the public lands which have been recently surveyed—between sixty
and eighty million acres-—were thrown into the market, as they ought to have been be¬
fore, there would not now be a dollar of deficiency. Put your Post Office Department,
on its old basis; make it self-sustaining as was provided by our fathers, and as it was
ignorantty or deceitfully said would be the effect of the last reduction of postage; and
there would now be no deficiency. You haVe to make a deficiency in the Treasury by
had policy, by squandering the public means, in order to create an excuse for taxation.
That is the truth about it. It requires the most extravagant expenditures to work out,
at the end of 1860^ even with disastrous times, a deficiency of $4,000,000, in order to
present it to the American people, and say the necessity for increased taxation is inexo¬
rable, unavoidable; bend„your backs to new burdens. Sir, 111 none of it, not an ounce.
I have shown you, sir, that there is properly no deficiency, even upon the present
basis. I have shown you that, if there is an actual deficiency, you may meet it by a
single item alone, the public lands; or you may meet it by another single item, by ma¬
king the Post Office stand where it ought to do. Act properly with either of these sub¬
jects and your present means will suffice for your expenditures even on the present ex¬
travagant basis, and provide a fund for the redemption of the debt which you have
incurred under extraordinary circumstances.
But, sir, suppose I am wrong in these facts and deductions, and that in truth the
revenue is insufficient to meet expenditures on the present basis. Then my remedy is to
reduce the expenses down to the revenue. The remedy is certainly worth an inquiry.
But the Senator from Pennsylvania declines to enter into this inquiry, he can see relief
in nothing hut additional taxes. He represents his constituents as distressed, out of em¬
ployment, suffering under industrial prostration, and he comes here and begs for new
taxes; no, he does not beg for them, he demands them. He says, Pennsylvania is nobeg^
gar. I know it, sir, and if she were, I am quite sure she is too wise to beg for taxes, for
new burdens to be put upon her back, I do not believe it is her voice, but if it is I will
protect her in spite of herself, so far as my vote can do it.
I proceed then to show that seventy-three million of dollars are not necessary to be
expended during the fiscal year 1859-60. Indeed this great fact is admitted by every
Senator who has spoken upon the subject. The difficulties of retrenchment, not its pro¬
priety, are pleaded in defence of waste and extravagance. Some allege that the Executive
Departments are responsible for this waste and extravagance, others allege that the Leg¬
islature is responsible for them, when the truth is the fault lies with both, but mainly with
Congress. Our Constitution entrusts the national purse to our guardianship, vests us
with ample power for its safe keeping. It is the duty of the Executive Government to
watch over the proper application of the expenditures directed by law, and to sug¬
gest such alterations in the laws as may be necessary to protect the public interests.
YTe are sometimes told that the Executive Departments only expends what Congress
1
appropriates. So unmindful iu its duty has Congress been for many years past, that
it may be said, with as much truth, that Congress appropriates whatever the Execu¬
tive Departments demand. But neither proposition is wholly true. A very large pro¬
portion of the ordinary public expenditure is not and cannot be regulated by law, and
this is the door through which some of our greatest excesses have crept in. Abuse of
discretion is the rule in our ^Executive Departments; careful eeonemy is the exception.
Look at your Quarter-Masters' Department in your Army, and the expenditures in yards
in your Navy for the most striking proof of this truth. These are not regulated by law,
they are fast swallowing up the Treasury, and eating out the vitals of these two great
branches of the publie service. The postal serviee, from its nature is least capable of
being sebjected to legal control, and as I have already shown, it is swallowing up nearly
one-fourth of your net revenue. These are examples on a large scale, the same rule
runs through the minutest detail of the public expenditure, and admouish us that nothing
should be left to discretion which can be regulated by law, and that the price of econo¬
my is eternal vigilance over those to whom you are compelled to commit a discretion
over any part of the public expenditures.
"When we come to the legislative department, the great difficulty in the way of a pro¬
per economy is the want of individual responsibility of the legislator. The people do
not hold each member responsible for his own voles, he stands or falls with his party in
his district or State, and neither gains nor looses by his good or bad conduct in these
respects, and under our system a minority often holds a majority responsible for the very
abuses which they have foisted upon the country, by uniting with a fragment of the
majority. The people must hold every member responsible for his own acts before this
great evil can be corrected, it is in their hands, and they alone can apply the remedy.
Of late years the people have been so much absorbed with great sectional issues, that they
have given but little heed to the practical administration of .their affairs, and even great
culprits have not only escaped punishment, but even public indignation, by a clamorous
affectation of sectional zeal.
We have maintained an army and a navy from the beginning of the Government.
But it is important to inquire upon what principle they have been hitherto and ought
now to be maintained. Latterly we seem to have forgotten first principles. It is not
our poliey to maintain an army or navy on a basis having the least relation to similar
establishments of other nations; we do not expect Or desire to keep up these establish¬
ments on the basis of England, France, and other great European I'owers. In the
first place, our remoteness from Europe protects us from sudden invasion, and our
interests separate us from all complications with her complicated policy, and our in¬
stitutions wisely relieves us from any necessity for great military establishments for
domestic uses. The organs of despots abroad, and foolish or interested men at home,
frequently taunt us with the smallness of our military establishments in comparison
with those mighty engines of oppression maintained by the European Powers. But
the eamparison is their shame and our true glory. The peace establishment of England,
before the late Russian war was a little over one hundred thousand men in her army,
besides her large naval establishment. She kept regiments at home as a security for
order; she kept regiments in Ireland to maintain oppression and keep down just rebellion;
she kept regiments in Canada as additional seeurity for the loyalty of the colonies, regi¬
ments in India, to enable the honorable East India Company's tax gatherers to flog rupees
out of the bottoms of the feet of her loving Asiatic subjects; she kept them in Gibralta,
in other points in the Mediterranean, in the Persian Gulf, iu the East and West Indies,
to secure possessions of which her rapacity had robbed the rightful owners, or to main¬
tain the injustice whieli she has inflicted on her own subjects. She has also nearly two
hundred ships in commission, and she needs them; she is assailable oil over the earth.
There is not a continent on the earth, nor an island of the sea, nor a civilized nor a
savage people, who have not smarted under her insults and her injuries. She does not
hold so much as a fortification in the whole earth, outside of Great Britain, from which
the rightful owners will not wreneh tlfe flag of St. George, the moment an opportunity
offers. Do you suppose Spain would not re-take Gibralta if she could? Do you suppose
Persia would not retake Aden if she eould ? Do you suppose the Irish do not wish Iree-
dom? Do you suppose her policy in the West Indies ever had any other sanction than her
power? Do you suppose her hundred million of conquered subjects in India love their
ehains? No, sir, England has made the world her enemy, and she needs troops; and if
we compare her necessities and ours, our own military establishments are larger thau
hei's in proportion to our necessities. Besides these standing aggressions, within the last
three years England has been in open war with half the human race. She can never have
friends, position, and relations, until she changes her policy; she has but one policy, that is,
to increase her own power, the first by strengthening herself, secondly by weakening all
other powers of the earth. Her day of reckoning is at hand, I hope it will be in my time.
Neither have we the same necessity for armies as the continental Powers. The French Em-
$
f
perorkeeps up an army of fire hundred thousand men in peace; they are the supporto
his throne, and his defence against hostile dinasties and peoples at home and abroad. The
same may be said of all Europe. Possibly their armaments are not greater than their neces¬
sities. We stand on a different system; our Government has no other foundation, needs
no other support, but the consent of the governed. Our Constitution teaches us to rely on
the people, not on standing armies to defend us from danger both from within and from
without, upon our militia, not on mercenaries to maintain the honor and interests of th$ Re¬
public, both at home and abroad. The allegiance of our people is voluntary; as long as
your institutions are just, the body of society will be interested in their maintainance,
No Senator here pretends to ask for a single soldier to preserve peace or order in any
State of the Union. If, under some temporary excitement, any State of the Union chooses
to disregard the laws, we cannot afford to crush her by force; if she is faithless to her
high duty, it is safer to cut her off than to govern her by external force; but we have no
such alternative presented us, and I trust never will have. I have faith injustice as a
sovereign remedy for popular discontent under republican institutions, none in soldiers.
Therefore, I want no armies to keep peace at home or make war abroad, or to force our
Government upon reluctant peoples. We need only enough troops to protect our frontiers
against the casual depredations of savage Indian tribes; ships enough to protect our
commerce from pirates, from such sudden, irregular, lawless violence, as may be inflicted
on our commerce in different parts of the world. Our army is already too great, much
too great for the purpose here specified, and could be reduced with great public advant¬
age. For the five years preceding these, referred to in Mr. Guthrie's report, the expenses of
the military service did not much exceed nine millions per annum. And it was not until
1852-3 that these expenses ever reached ten million of dollars, except during war, or
before a reduction of the war establishment. When I came into Congress the army ex¬
penses ranged from four to six millions of dollars per annum. During the Mexican war,
of course, they were greatly increased, we called sixty or seventy thousand men into
the field for foreign war; but even during that war the whole expenses of the Govern¬
ment were but sixty millions of dollars. It is true you have sinca raised the compensa¬
tion of the army, but compensation is not the abuse complained of. You now spend in
the Quartermaster's Department above seven millions of dollars—an amount greater than
the whole expenses a few years ago. You also gave, several years ago, the discretion to
the Secretary of War to carry up your companies to ninety men when serving on the
frontiers, if such a measure should become necessary. The present Head of the Depart¬
ment has exercised tliat discretion unwisely, in my judgment, by calling out the last
man the, law permits, and thereby greatly increasing, not only the pay, but other expenses
rendered necessary by this act. This discretion ought to be repealed. Its repeal will
save you not less than three millions per annum. This is strong proof of the danger of
leaving to discretion that which should be regulated by law.
The Navy Department is ruunirg the same race of profuse expenditure without any
corresponding increase of efficiency. We have had no marked increase in the number
of our seamen for several years, and but little increase in ships; those which we have
built for the last three years, have been built by special appropriations. Your appropri¬
ations for simply improving navy-yards, not building or repairing ships, are estimated for
the next year at above $2,000,000; and it will not be less until you arrest it by with¬
holding the appropriations. You hare eight thousand seamen, and frequently keep as
many workmen in your yards to keep them afloat. You have eight navy-yards; six
located within a few hundred miles of each other on the Atlantic coast; and I am informed
that England has but two or three yards of construction in the whole of Great Britain
for her six hundred ships. Your own are so badly governed as to bring a reproach upon
the Administration ; its enemies say they arb used to controL elections. I know nothing
about the truth of it, but there may be something in it, at all events it is our duty to see
that those who manage them should not both spend our money and corrupt the ballot-
box. I would put the 6ting of disability into the temptation, by confining appropria¬
tions to the strict necessities of the service.
This money does not go to build a ship, or repair a ship. The $2,000,000 which you
spend in navy-yards, does not drive one nail into a public vessel; does not give Jack an
additional ration of grog. You have carried your naval expenses in ten years from five
or six million dollars to thirteen million dollars, with no more efficiency, and but few more
ships. The three or four milliom dollars which you spend ostensibly for the gradual in¬
crease of the Navy, does not build you a ship; for whenever you want a new one, you
come here for an appropriation. If you want a little bit of a sloop at a cost of $80,000,
there is a special recommendation for it. The President recommends it; the Secretary
of the Navy recommends it ; and my friend who now occupies the chair (Mr. Malloby)
is urgent about it. Notwithstanding the ten or twelve million dollars we give for the
Navy, we are asked to vote six or seven hundred thousand dollars for ten sloops next
year. I think this money is badly spent, even if spent for politics. If it is to be appro¬
priated even to that business, it ought to bring more results.
9
I recollect, Mr. President, that you and I had some controversy the last session in re¬
gard to naval matters. I stated that the French navy proper, cost 120,000,000 francs.
You asked for my authority, and stated it to be a much larger sum. I have now got the
official account, which I will take great pleasure in showing you on some occasion, which
proves that I was exactly right. That is all the French navy costs, with their four or
five hundred ships. She expends $24,000,000 on her navy, and we spend $18,000,000.
We are threatened by gentlemen with her four or five hundred steamers; and we are
ridiculed for our ten or twelve. Take the English navy, and the same result is apparent.
One gun, floated by the American navy, costs five times what a gun is floated for by
Great Britain, or France. We cannot stand that. Squandering our means in peace is
not the way to prepare for war. The true policy of preparing for war is to strengthen
the nation, to husband its resources, make your people rich and prosperous, and then
they can protect themselves. It is not by useless armaments squandering the public
money.
Mr MALLORY, (having left the chair.) Will the Senator from Georgia allow me to
interrupt him for a moment?
Mr. TOOMBS. Certainly.
Mr. MALLORY. I do not wish to interfere with the course of the Senator's remarks;
but, perhaps, it would bfe as agreeable to him to correct, as he goes on, any error that
he may fall into in relation to these matters.
Mr. TOOMBS. Certainly.
Mr. MALLORY. I think the Senator stated just now that we had eight navy-yards
and Great Britain had but two. Sir, the fact is that Great Britain has seven building
yards and constructing yards in her own immediate dominions, each of which is probably
five times more extensive than the largest one of ours. That is a very important matter.
Then, in relation to the expenditures of the French navy, the pay is about one fifth of
ours; and the pay of their mechanics perhaps less than one fifth; and in the British
navy the pay of the men is fifty per cent, less than with us; and so, throughout all of
her mechanical operations, the pay is about one third of what it is here. No comparison
can be instituted between the expenditures of our navy and that of Great Britain or
France, without taking these things into consideration.
Mr. TOOMBS. I do not intend to controvert that they get things done cheaper in
England and France than we do. I believe that when labor in New York city is worth
Bix shillings a day, the Government pays an able-bodied man $2 50.
Mr. MALLORY. In our navy-yards they give the same rate of wages, and no more,
that is paid in private yards. The current rate received in private yards at New York
is that given in the public yards. I believe, however, there is a limitation of time ob¬
served in the navy-yards, the ten-hour rule, which is not observed in the private yards.
That is the only difference I know of.
Mr. TOOMBS. The fact stands that in Europe they get their work done cheaper, and
yet they send here to have ships built. The British and French support their naval es¬
tablishments at a much less expense, comparatively, than we do, and yet we have one
great advantage. Not a mast, perhaps not a spar that the French navy uses is grown
on the soil of France. She has not a mast in all her vast dominions that I know of. They
are brought out of Georgia and the Senator's State, and other southern States.
Mr. MALLORY. I will say, in answer to that, it is the highest compliment which
could be paid to the mechanical skill and progress of our country. They do not send
here because they get their ships built cheaper, but because they get them built better;
for they have not built a ship in Europe equal to one of ours.
Mr. TOOMBS. I am not to be diverted'by the Senator's passion for praising the navy.
I have heard it too often. As for their ships not being good ships, I presume they ar«
equal to ours. If they are not so much the better for us; and we can take them
easier when we come to fight them; but I am afraid we shall be mistaken if we rely
on that. I would rather rely on the mettle of our men, than on the difference in our
ships.
Now I come to the Post Office Department. My honorable friend from Pennsylvania
yesterday gave us some tables, by which he attempted to show that the southern States
were greatly benefited by the existing post office arrangement. He gives us tables, to
show what the excess of postal expenditures over receipts in Georgia, for the last five,
years, has been; and upon the same basis, he says, they ought to have been so much in
Pennsylvania. He seems to look upon the Government of the United States as a great
beggar-house from which there ought to be a fair division of plunder. I have a plain
story that will put that Senator down very readily. I told him I would show him what
his tables were worth. I say there is not a State in the Union, whose expenditures for
carrying the mail last year, according to the report of the Postmaster General which I
have before me, did not exceed the receipts, except Masssachusetts, Rhode Island, New
York, and the District of Columbia: Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, because
10
they have but little territory over vrhich to pay for carrying the mail; New York and
Massachusetts because they received a large amount of foreign postage, for which we pay
England and other foreign countries and our own steam ships, over two millions of dollars
for earning which is not charged against them. Therefore, there is, in fact, not a
single State or Territory in the Union in which the post office is not a burden.
Who has brought about this state of things? When you reduced your postage to three
cents, it was said, "Let us imitate England; she has a penny postage, equal to two cents
of our Currency; three will give us money enough." My honorable friend from Vermont,
(Mr. Collameis,) told you that would not do; he brought his usual good sense to bear,
and told Congress it was a policy which would not keep the Department self sustaining;
but it was proved, apparently, by those who seek to put the expenses of their business
upon the people of the United States, that three cents would pay all the expense. I pro¬
tested against it, and voted against it, and never believed in it; and I do not think any¬
body believed in it, except some very simple people.
Mr. BIGLER. Will the honorable Senator allow me to say a word ?
Mr. TOOMBS. Certainly.
Mr. BIGLER. I am satisfied it is not the Senator's intention to misrepresent any state¬
ment which I made; but the effect of his argument will do so. I was perfectly aware
that the statement which I presented, in the view which the Senator takes, was not accu¬
rate. I stated distinctly, that I had thrown out of that account the expenses of the
General Department, and the expenses of the foreign mail service, and the Paidfic service;
so that the account embodied only the local service within the several States—the ex¬
penses for transmitting the mails and fot postmasters. In doing that, I stated, further,
that I acted on the communication of the Postmaster General, to which the honorable
Senator has just referred, who said that these general expenses belonged to the States
pro rata. I know that, when they are divided amongst the States, there is not one which
pays its expenses in full; but that does not in any way disturb the account which I pre¬
sented, which is for the local expenses within the several States.
Mr. TOOMBS. I have stated the Senator precisely as he represents himself; but he
left out important elements necessary to get at the case. The Senator did say that the
southern section of the United States was benefitted by it at the expense of the North.
If his argument did not mean that, it meant nothing.
Mr. BIGLER. I certainly said, and I meant, that the States to which I referred had
a large proportion of their postage paid out of the Treasury; but in what light did I
present it? Simply to meet the complaint which was made, that the manufacturing
States realize large incidental benefits from our revenue system. In making up the ae-
count, I threw out the foreign postage to which the honorable Senator has referred, as
far as I could get the information; and in getting it, I did not rely entirely on my own
judgment, I endeavored to make it accurate, and I hope it is so; for I should regret to
have made an incorrect statement.
Mr. TOOMBS. The Senator may perhaps better wait until I am through with my re¬
ply to his postal argument; he will find a good deal more to answer. My complaint of
his statement of his statistics was that they did not present all the facts, and were there¬
fore calculated rather to mislead than to enlighten us. He recapitulated the results of
five years post office debtor and credit with Pennsylvania. "Why did he not take the
present condition of the postal service in Pennsylvania? It told a different story, that is all.
He referred to a time when the post office was conducted somewhat after the old fashion
—to a time when men paid their own postage—to a time before the enterprising classes
had contrived to throw the expenses of their business upon the public treasury. But
since the post office had devoted itself to " progress and civilization " instead of carrying
letters and newspapers, Pennsylvania, like the rest of her sisters, "is sliort" in her ac¬
counts. The moment that the expenses of the Department were thrown upon the treas¬
ury, we began a race of deficiency ; all the States became deficient, and the " devil take
the hindmost" is now the cry all along the line. But the Senator takes consolation from
the fact that Pennsylvania is not so far behind as Virginia and Georgia. But there is
this difference : Virginia and Georgia, now and at the time of the adoption of this profli¬
gate policy, opposed it. Pennsylvania, then and now, supported it. We insist that the
man that writes and receives letters shall pay his own postage ; we say that it is unjust
that merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, and lottery men, who write great numbers of
letters, and whose business requires it, shall throw the cost of their business upon the publio
treasury—upon working men who do not, and perhaps cannot, write letters; we neither
seek nor desire that those among us whose business requires a large use of the post office
shall compel honest teil to share with them this part of their business. This is a depart¬
ure from the practice of our fathers ; they held that when the Government undertook the
carrying of people's letters and newspapers that these people should pay the cost of their
transportation—that they should not throw any portion of their expenses on other peo¬
ple's shoulders. Suppose my friend from Pennsylvania should propose to some honest
11
farmer in Pennsylvania, near his post office, to hire a box together, each to pay an equal
sum of postage, when his postage would be ninety-five per cent, to five per cent of his
honest friend, does he suppose that he has a constituent out of the madhouse who would not
treat the proposition with jndignation ? Yet this is precisely the principle upon which
our post office is now carried on. They who write letters and send or receive newspa¬
pers, and whose business requires them to do so, throw the expense of their business
upon honest toil, and then write and speak and send men to Congress to prate about pro¬
tection to these very laborers whom they are robbing under the forms of law. These
very skillfull, adroit, enterprising gentlemen contrive a system by which they levy pence
out of poverty to pay the legitimate expenses of their own business, and then have the
audacity to stand before me and claim to be the especial friends of labor! Sir, it is
mockery which should be exposed by all honest men. That this is the result of thepres-
ent postal system is demonstrable. It is not sectional, it affects the laborer in Maine and
Hew York as much as it does the laborer in Georgia. I stand here to resist the transfer
of the burdens of commerce, manufactures, and professions upon other pursuirs in Geor¬
gia, as well as in Pennsylvania or New York. The New York legislature sends us memo¬
rials to fasten this burden upon their labor. I "will not do it. The Senator from New
Hampshire stands up here to grind his own poor for the benfit of the rich. I will resist
him, and defend the rights of the humblest laborer in New Hampshire against this in¬
justice. That Senator says, with great plausibility, I do not intend to tax the poor men
in my State more than three cents for their letters. "Well, suppose three cents per letter
does not pay the cost of transportation, where is the rest of the cost to come from ? Out
of the public treasury, of course. Who pay that ? Government earns no money ; it only
spends the earnings of labor. Nearly all of our taxes are levied by duties on im¬
ports, which are taxes on consumption ; rich and poor pay according to their consump¬
tion of dutiable commodities. A laborer with an income of one thousand dollars per an¬
num, may consume as many dutiable goods as a capitalist with ten thousand a year. I
know many planters in my State who are but little affected by your revenue laws. They
live at home. They make their own shoes, and hats, and blankets ; their daughters spin
and weave their shirts, and pants, and coats, and their wives make them up; they buy
salt and iron, and care but little for the balance of your imports. But take a
working man, who makes no part of his own consumption, and sells his labor to
buy what he needs, and he may consume more dutiable goods, and thus pay more
revenue to the State, than one of those persons with an annual income of ten thousand
dollars. I have seen it stated in the newspapers that a very worthy gentleman in New
York pays a tax of eighty-five thousand dollars per annum to the city on assessed
property. His coachman probably does not pay one cent to the city, because he may
have no taxable property. But he probably has as voracious a stomach, and as broad a
back as his employer, and may have a much larger family to support, and therefore it is
possible that he may consume as many goods paying duty, and pay as much duty, as his
employer. It is next to impossible that Jjis employer could consume an amount of dutiable
goods in proportion to his wealth. To collect of this gentleman taxes on imports equal to
the tax on property which he pays the city of New York, he would be compelled to buy
near a half million of dutiable goods per annum. There are very narrow limits to in¬
dividual consumption, especially of the articles upon which the Federal Government levies
its revenue. Most of our people are able to buy and consume all they want <jf such com-i
modities. The difference between the consumption of the poor and the rich is not at all
proportioned to their means of purchasing, therefore their taxes are grossly unequal. In¬
deed indirect taxes, all taxes on consumption, are unjust and unequal taxes. They tell
terribly on labor. They have destroyed the labor of Europe/and they will destroy ours
if we keep up the system. They eat up the small gains of the poor—the substance of
the laborer, by tolling his daily earnings in the purchase of the necessaries of life, and
exempt the greater portion of the incomes of the rich from public burdens. By this sys¬
tem England has beggared her laborers who are daily fleeing to America, to Australia,
and to all parts of the earth to escape its direful effects. She has abandoned protection,
but levies her revenues mainly on the consumption of the necessaries of life, from the sweat
of the poor. Let us profit by her example. The revenues of the State should be levied
from its wealth and not from its poverty; therefore a tax on property should be substi¬
tuted for a tax on consumption as rapidly as other public considerations will allow of it.
Let not my friend from Peennsylvania then put heavier burdens on the poor to pay the
postage of the rich. By his own account they carry all, nay even more than they are
able to bear. Spare them this additional infliction, and go with me back to the better
days of the Republic, when letter writers paid for their own correspondence and news¬
paper takers paid their own postage, and the humble poor, who, perhaps, could neither
write nor read, were not burdened with the legitimate expenses of their more fortunate
neighbors. To make the man that writes no letters pay for those who do, whatever the
New York legislature may say about it, whatever the Senator from New Hampshire may
i2
Bay about it, is but taxing the poor, and it may be the unfortunate poor, for the benefit
of the rich. But the Postmaster General seems to think that we should no more ex¬
pect the Post Office Department to support itself than the Army or Navy. I would tell
him there is this difference: the public defence is indivisible. • We can only apportion the
expenses of these departments among the people justly by just taxation; if we could ap¬
portion these expenses according to the benefits received, it ought to be done. But it
lies at the foundation of civil society, that every part of it, every man in it, is bound with
his life and his property, the wnole.of it, to defend and preserve the State, and defend
every man in the State. But there is nothing in civil society that requires one man to
be taxed to carry another man's letters, more than there is to tax-him to carry to market
another man's corn, wheat, cotton, or potatoes. Not to see this distinction is a sufficient
solution of our present postal di Acuities.
I demand, therefore, that the Post Office shall support itself, or be cut off from the
Government. If New England, on account of her dense population and particular pur¬
suits can support her postal system art a less cost than we of the South can, let her have
the benefit of it. We do not wish or desire her money to pay for our letters. My
friend from "Virginia, (Mr. Hunter,) has presented a project which will meet all such
difficulties, and do justice to the whole country. We get an undue share of the wastage
of the Post Office Department. We have hitherto resisted, and now desire to surrender
it as unjust. Abolish your franking privilege, stop weighing down your mails with use¬
less unpaid trash, such as Globes and Patent Office Reports, raise postage to a remunera¬
ting point, and if you cannot then carry on the system as cheaply and efficiently as it can
be otherwise done, abandon the business, and leave the transportation of letters where the
transportation of all other commodities is left, with those who have an interest in the busi¬
ness. I know you will not do it well, and I would to-day if I could, sever the connection
between the Government and the postal business of the people. But it will take some time
for this plain truth to get itself acknowledged. I am content to watch and wait. In the
meantime labor must toil and sweat, and bear other burdens for the sake of soft words
from deceitful tongues. I suppose it would be hard for me to convince a day laborer at
one of the furnaces of Pennsylvania, who has nothing to carry to market, that it would
be to his interest to join me and pay one-half or two-thirds of the expense of carrying
my cotton to market, and I to pocket all the benefits of the operation; but that is ex¬
actly what his Representatives here are doing for him with regard to my letters every
day they abstain our present Post Office system. These are blind leaders of the blind,
or men who see, yet perceive not. Sir, I am a friend of labor, I honor it; I pity it; the
/world praises it, and robs it. I will give no vote to rob it of its just earnings. I will
not wring another drop of sweat from its face. You need not talk to me then about a
deficiency of ten millions of dollars in your Post Office Department for the next fiscal year.
I will not vote it, I will not provide for it, and, without that single item, we need no in¬
crease of taxes. Make those who use the Post Office pay for their own business, and you
have no need to levy a single shilling out of labo« for the next year. The Post Office De1-
partment pay above two million four hundred thousand dollars for carrying the mails
from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of the Continent. I remember a few years ago, that
Mr. Yanderbilt offered to Congress to do that service efficiently for two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars per annum. I doubt not it could be done to-day for a half million of
dollars. We receive but $272,747 06 from the whole of our Pacific postage; we, there¬
fore, sink near two millions and a quarter of dollars on the mail service on that coast
This annual loss is greater than the whole loss on postage from the Revolution to the ac¬
quisition of California froni the best data I can obtain. Is it not time that one's patience
should be exhausted ? Is it not time that the Post Master General should cease devel¬
oping " the agricultural and mineral resources of nearly one-half the Continent" by
means of four horse post coaches ? Is it not time that he should stop pioneering for
"civilization and progress?" I think so, I shall vote so. These things can be done
better by letting them alone. There is no sane man in America who would manage his
own business in this way. Any man who would thus manage his own affairs would have
them taken out of his hands in any well-regulated community and put into commission.
He would be, to use a polite term, what the Scotch call an innocent, fdvored by the gods,
and deserving the kind protection of all men. We must alter our system, bring down
this Department to the wants of the country to be tested by what those who use it are
willing to pay for it. I must pass other equally glaring excesses in other Departments of
the Government. I intended to look into your Indian affairs, your Light-house system,
your Custom-house, and Post Office building expenses, but I have not time, or strength;
I must reserve them for a future occasion. Your whole Indian relations ought to be
changed. The present head of the Interior Department manages that, and all the rest of
the public interests committed to him, with great industry, integrity, and ability; but
the system is wrong and demands reform. I must here leave the second point of the
controversy, and submit to the Senate and the country whether I have not shown that
"13
the present basis of Government expenditure is neither wise, prudent, necessary, or proper!
and ought to be altered. These views necessarily dispose of the whole question; but,
as the Senator only made this resolution a text for a tariff speech, I will follow him into
his remedy for imaginary necessities. The truth is, the honorable Senator is a good friend
of economy in the abstract; he votes well upon public expenditures, but he imagines
that Pennsylvania wants additional protection on iron; he does not wish to come up and
demand it as a wise and proper system of legislation, but assumes that it is a financial
necessity. He does think that additional protection on iron will benefit Pennsylvania.
I do not think so ; it may be a benefit to particular interests in Pennsylvania, but not to
her whole people. I do not believe the people of Pennsylvania have raised this clamor.
I think the iron mongers have raised it; they speak in the name of Pennsylvania to give
wsight to their appeals, but I am unwilling to believe the State of Pennsylvania demands
any such legislation, Why should it have arisen now? It is shown by the very able
report of the Secretary of the Treasury that there was less foreign iron imported last
year than there had been for many years before; that the production of iron had steadily
increased up to the pecuniary revulsion, until the product had reached the unprecedented
amount of one million of tons. It is true iron has fallen in Pennsylvania, and so it has
all over the world. Does the iron maker expect that Congress is to protect him from
wide-spread monetary convulsions ? If he does, his expectations are vain, for Providence
has wisely denied them the power to do such a thing.
I have disposed of the tariff of 1857, so far as it.affects the revenues of the Treasury;
I now propose to examine in its industrial effects. The act of 1857 is a tariff for
revenue, discriminating for protection. Whether this system be wise or unwise, it is
the principle upon which that act is founded; it is based upon the principle contended
for by Mr. Clay in 1814, though not carried to the extent to which he would Jiave car¬
ried it if he had succeeded to power. Then the principle of the bill is not obnoxious to
Pennsylvania; it is justly obnoxious on account of the extent to which the principle is
carried. Even as a protective measure, I think it transcends, in the present state of the
country, any reasonable bounds of protection, and if the revenues do require augmenta¬
tion, that such increase ought rather to be sought in the imposition of duties on some of
the free articles of that act than in any increase of the duty on the protected articles.
The duty on iron as laid at the custom-house is at least twenty-five per cent, ad valorem.
Is not one-fourth of the price of iron enough protection for it at this day ? Mr. Clay only
defended protection, even within the revenue principle, while our manufactories were in
theirinfaucy. When will the iron manufactory get grown ; what is the age of its majority ?
It has been protected with a duty from twenty-five to one hundred per cent, for above
forty years—from 1816 to this day. How long before it can stand alone ? If it be that,
after the lapse of forty years, it is unable to stand without protection, according to all
sound principles, even of the protective policy, it ought to be abandoned, and American
labor should no longer be wasted in the unprofitable pursuit. We have had time, con¬
tinuous protection, and experience for forty years; within this time the cost of producing
iron in the markets of the world has been reduced one-half; and if, under all these circum¬
stances, iron cannot be profitably made with the advantage of twenty-five per cent, duty,
we should no longer close to ourselves the markets of the world. It is an article of the
first necessity in nearly all of the industrial pursuits of the earth. It is especially so to
the greatest interest of this country, and of the whole world—that of agriculture. The
farmer relies on iron for the production and transportation of his commodities to market.
The farmers of the United States have no protection, and can have none; that interest
in the greater portion of our country is extremely depressed. Shall we put new bur¬
dens on it for the benefit of the irou manufacturer ? I say not. He already gives them
a quarter of every dollar he spends for his own implements of husbandry, and those wh©
transport his commodities to distant .markets of consumption, already pay one-fourth of
the cost of all iron necessary to lay their tracks for the support of the iron interest.
The business of the food growers is as much depressed as that of the iron makers, by
what right shall the latter tax them for their benefit ? Their pursuit is entitled to no more
favor; it is no more useful to the human race, no more necessary to the State ; they are
not by many, many millions so numerous; why, I ask again, shall they be thus favored?
They are more enterprising and clamorous, but I would advise them to beware how they
push for extraordinary benefits at this day; new and great interests have sprung up in
this country. Cheap transportation is the first necessity of the great West and the
South, now a majority of this country; their rough produce, corn, wheat, potatoes, beef,
and pork must find a market on the Atlantic, and in Europe; more than one thousand
millions of capital has already been invested in railroads to meet this ever-growing de¬
mand for cheap transportation. This is the power you have to dread; look to it. They
can combine as well as iron men; the present iron duty taxes them fifteen hundred dol¬
lars per mile on all the roads they build. They will not long submit to it. They are
now prepared to say to the iron masters, we have protected you for above forty years,
14
you have had time enough to learn your trade, we will tax ourselves and our customer^
the agriculturalists, no longer for your benefit, and I think they will be words of wisdom
^pd of truth. , ,
Mr. President, I have but a few words more to say on this subject, and they are words
of friendly warning to the protective interests which now seek to disturb the tariff of
1857. That act discriminates largely for protection. It relieved nearly all of the foreign
commodities necessary to domestic manufactures from duty, and even the exceptions were
retained for protection and not revenue purposes. It was a great concession to domestic
industry in violation of the principles of free trade. When it was adopted we found out
revenues redundant, and it became necessary to reduce taxes in order to prevent greit
and unnecessary and hurtful accumulations in the Treasury. We, who earnestly de-!
sired a reduction of revenue, found it necessary, in order to obtain it, to make large con¬
cessions to the manufacturing interest. In some respects the act of 1846 did work hard
upon them. Thirty per cent, duty was laid upon woollen manufactures, but the same
amount was also laid upon wool, thus greatly neutralizing the benefit of the duty to
the manufacturers. They asked that coarse wool at least should be free and woollen
manufactures left in the twenty-four per cent, schedule. The demand was granted, and
they went on their way rejoicing. The Senator from New York, the especial representa¬
tive (not of free trade, but of free soil and protection) was in the conference committee
which reported this act; it received his support and that of his friends generally; all
parties are fairly committed to its support, committed to it not only as a protective, hut
as a revenue measure; committed to it with the full understanding that it would notj,
produce above fifty millions of dollars on the importations of the then current year, and
that for any increase of that sum we could only look to the future increase of the pro¬
duction and consumption of the country. It was a national settlement, and carried with
it the implied pledge that the public expenses were to be kept down to that standard.
But now, sir, we are told by the Senator from Pennsylvania, that his State demands a
change of this measure, the Executive Government asks a change of this measure, apd
that, too, in the face of its entire success according to the estimates of the Treasury De¬
partment. Well, I know not the result; I have seen many strange things in politics in
my time ; I know not how many gentlemen are prepared to eat up their own words so
lately uttered. I am not prepared for it. I shall stand to it until it shall be found ne¬
cessary to reduce but not to raise it. It gives all the protection I shall ever assent to,
and if we should need more revenue, I am in favor of raising it from the free lists, and
not from the protected articles. The protective interest will find it to their advantage i
to stand by their bargain, to stand by their implied pledge to reduce the appropriations
to the economical wants of the Government. There is safety in it, as well as honor and
good faith.
The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Bigler) suggests a change in the mode
of levying the duty, at least on some articles he prefers specific to ad valorem duties.
I have always believed that whether your duties were high or low, that that specific
could be wisely substituted for ad valorem duties on a great many commodities; such"
has been the experience of all the great comrhercial nations. Thirteen years ago the
arguments now urged for specific duties were submitted by me against the universal
adoption of ad valorem duties in the act of 1846. I then argued that ad valorem duties
offered greater facilities for fraud on the customs; that their effect would be to make
your revenue, under the same rate, less stable and more fluctuating, inasmuch as it would
make it depend on the prices of the dutiable articles, as well as the quautity consumed,
and that its hecessary effect would be to raise the most revehue when the Treasury
would generally be the least pressed, and give most protection where none might bS
needed, and least when ttiost was needed. A slight examination of the sugar duties for
the last two years will strongly illustrate these positions: For the year 1856-57, we re¬
ceived from duties on sugar $12,478,871, equalling nearly one-fifth of the whole revenue
for that year. In the year 1857-'58'we received only $4,547,199, or less than one-ninth of
the revenue for that year.
But, sir, while I believe that on many commodities it would be wise to levy a speci¬
fic duty, whether it be large or small, instead of ad valorem, yet, the great majority of
those with whom I act and most generally agree on these subjects, prefer the ad valoreifi.
mode. But they agree with me that the public burdens shall not be increased; they
only differ from me as to the manner of imposing them, and as my great abiding ob¬
ject is to prevent an increase of public taxes, I shall yield to them the manner of impo^
ing them. The friends of specific duties generally, in this body, are the friends of in¬
creased protection, many of them care less for the manner of laying duties than for the
amount levied; some of them think specific duties a convenient mode, especially at this
time, of covering up increased protection.
The Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Bigler) says, that twelve dollars per ton is sug¬
gested on rails. The last accounts from Cardiff give the priee Of rails at £6 10s. per toft.
15
Twelve dollars a ton is about thirty-six per cent, ad valorem on present prices. The
Senator is not in favor of high, duties, but only suggests a specific rate which willvgive
thirty-six per cent, instead of twenty-five per cent, protection. He also suggesis fifteen
dollars on bar iron—it was woartli, by the last advices, £6 6s. This is only asking a lit¬
tle more than forty per cent, in lieu of twenty-five per cent.! All he wants are inciden¬
tal advantages from a revenue tariff, but he seems willing to take on any amount of bur¬
den only to get the "incident." I believe his colleague wants eighteen dollars on bar
iron.
Mr. CAMERON. Oh, no. I take no part in this. I am listening to the gentleman
with great pleqpure. It is a fight between members of the dominant party.
Mr. TOOMB3. I can tell the Senator we have passed the time for viewing this great
social question, through the disturbed medium of partizan prejudices. I am arguing
this question to American Senators, who, without reference to party, voted for the law
now under consideration, 'ihey have already discarded mere party objects in its adjust¬
ments. The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Bigi.icr,) for whom I have a very
high personal respect, advocates an unsound policy in my judgment. I propose to meet
to him, as far ns 1 am able, with arguments worthy of the Senate, and worthy of the
great public interests involved. The Senator and the Government had as well begiB to
look this great question full in the face. Such protection as the honorable Senator advo¬
cates cannot be had, except from the enemies of their principles, and it is extremely
doubtful whether such, a course as that can ac complish the result. The world does move.
Forty years ago the country was young, was poor, our manufactures were few and feeble,
we wanted capital, we wanted skill, we imposed our taxes in such manner as greatly pro¬
moted our manufacturing industry. "We nursed them, we built them up, whether wisely
or unwisely, the tact is accomplished; and they will go on increasing and prospering in
spite of croakeis, in spite of convulsions, and in spite of tariffs. All the great branches of
our national industry are on a firm basis; they are daily increasing and gathering strength;
they will be subject to fluctuations, to adverse times and prosperous times—that is the
law of human industry ; but the result of it all is still—progress. Small men tie them¬
selves on to the one or the other of these great interests, affect to be its peculiar friends
for their own advantage. We have education, skill, experience, capital, labor, food, and
raw materials lying all around, and millions of active, producing consumers, and free
government. > These are the imperishable elements of our material prosperity. Strike
down your custom's duties to-morrow, and you will not thereby extinguish your furnace
fires, nor shut up your factories or workshops, but they would survive it, and still
flourish, perhaps all the better, for standing oh industry rather than fluctuating legisla¬
tive enactments.
Another pretence for overthrowing the tariff of 1857 is that it failed to bring a
sufficient revenue in the year 1857-8. You havemistaken the remedy. Under theimports
of that year it is doubtful whether any tariff you ever laid would have met these expendi¬
tures. it is absolutely certain that neither the act of 1842 nor that of 1846 would have
produced a sufficiency of revenue for that purpose. I have applied with great care the
acts of 1842 and 1846 to the dutiable imports of 1857 and find that the act of 1848 would
have brought but $5^,982,796, leaving a deficiency for the year of over $20,000,000.
The same tables show that the act of 1842 would have provided but $60,679,794. This,
upon the assumption that the high duties of that act would not in any degree have less¬
ened imports, this would have left a deficiency of over ten millions of dollars. But fairly
estimating the reduction of imports which the very high duties of that act would have
necessarily produced, I do not doubt but the duties under it would not have exceeded
$40,000,000, being a deficit of over thirty millions in the treasury. This table conclu¬
sively shows that the highest protective tariff you ever placed on your statute book is
inadequate to your wants. I again repeat you have mistaken your remedy. You must
retrench. High duties can only assist our manufactures by shutting out foreign commod¬
ities and substituting domestic commodities of like kind in their stead. This will reduce
and not increase the revenue. The system if successful finally and with certainty must
drive us to direct taxation for the support of Government, feuch was the result in Eng¬
land ; she imposed internal taxes to compensate for protection. It is well to consider
on our present, basis of expenditure how far we are from that point. I therefore reject
increased taxes as a remedy for present evils. I have sh&wn that retrenchment is not
only possible without injury to the public service, but easy, necessary, and expedient.
The policy of the Democratic party is to bring down the expenses to the revenue. By
the misconduct of all parties, they have been carried beyond the just wants of the Gov¬
ernment Tt would be a public calamity instead of a public advantage to keep them
there. Let us then retrench, substitute economy for waste and extravagance, leave honest
toil to the enjoyment of its own fruits, and we will thus earn the blessings of labor and
the confidence of the country.
A
STATEMENT OF FACTS
IN REGARD TO THE OFFICIAL ACTS
OP THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
ON THE
SUBJECT OF SLAVERY.
SHOWING THE CAUSES OF THE DIVISION OF THAT CHURCH
IN 1814, WITH REMARKS UPON THE PRESENT RELATION
OF THE METHODIST CHURCHES, NORTH AND
SOUTH—TO THAT SUBJECT.
BY
KEY. D. R. M'ANALLY,
EDITOR ST. LOUIS CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.
[SECOND EDITION—REVISED AND ENLARGED.]
ST. LOUIS:
PUBLISHED AT THE METHODIST BOOK DEPOSITORY.
1856.
ADVERTISEMENT.
Four years ago, at the solicitation of friends, I published the first edition
of the following pamphlet. It was extensively circulated and believed to
have done good. Two years ago, the first having been exhausted, the Mis¬
souri Conference by a formal vole requested the publication of another edi¬
tion. The same request was also made by others in different parts of the
State and the Territory west of the State. Having much else to occupy my
attention the work was postponed from time to time until recently when the
call came up from so many quarters and especially from Kansas—and has
been pressed so urgently that a sense of duty forbid a longer delay, and now
I have been compelled to press into a very few days—a work to which I
would gladly have devoted as many weeks—had it been at all practicable.
There has been for years past—and that too from many of whom better
things might have been expected, a manifestation of a settled determination,
to promulge and reiterate statements in reference to Southern Methodists
altogether at variance with fact, and when believed calculated to do them
gross injustice. In many, perhaps most instances, this may charitably be
attributed to a want of better information, while perhaps those concerned
have had no favorable opportunity of learning the facts. In other cases it
must be attributed to wilful and consequently culpable ignorance—while it is
to be feared a few did it when they knew better. Pity for the deluded as
well as benovolence to the wicked will prompt all lovers of the truth to seek
to spread the truth—and there is no doubt but that there arc hundreds upon
hundreds really desirous to know the truth and do right, who would be greatly
benefited by a careful consideration of the facts presented in the following
pages.
Most gladly would I have taken a wider range, and presented many points
entirely left out, and dwelt more particularly upon others noticed, but for the
fact that it was deemed important in order to meet the emergency which has
called out this edition, that the subject be as much condensed and presented
iv
ADVERTISEMENT.
as concisely as possible. Instead of a pamphlet, a volume might have been
prepared without exhausting the subject.
The reader will please take notice that the action of the Conference of 1784
does not appear in the bound Minutes, published at New York, in three oc¬
tavo volumes—nor does it appear in the Journals of the General Conference,
published more recently at the same place. Why it was omitted in both, is
not for me to say. It is rather strange it should have been so—but so it is.
To find an account of the action in full, reference must be had to an edition
of the Minutes which appeared about the year 1813, in one volume, or to
Emory's History of the Discipline. The action is correcty reported on pages
10 and 11 of this pamphlet.
I am not particularly fond of either the mental or physical labor of writ¬
ing—but while it pleases God to spare me and give me ability to write—
however humble that ability may be, it may always be called in requisition to
defend the church to which I owe so much.
D. R. M'Anally.
St. Louis, May, 1856.
A
STATEMENT OF FACTS
IN REGARD TO THE OFFICIAL ACTS
OF THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
ON THE
SUBJECT OF SLAVERY.
CHAPTER I.
HISTORY OF THE CASE—FIRST OFFICIAL ACTION IN 1780—TWO PARTIES THEN AND
EVER AFTERWARDS—ACCOUNT OF THE ACTS OF THE CONFERENCES DOWN TO THE
CLOSE OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1840.
iNo one subject ever brought within the range of the legislative
operations of Methodism, since its first introduction into this country,
has produced so much agitation or done so much mischief as that of
slavery. And yet the difficulties have not grown out of the abstract
question of slavery, so much as the question, "what right has the
church, as such, to meddle with it; and if such right be possessed,
then in what way shall it be exercised ?'; On this question there have
always been two parties in the church. And notwithstanding the
earnest and oft-repeated efforts made by one party to make the im¬
pression on the public mind, that the " church has been uniform in
her testimony against the evil," it is easy to show, that not only have
there always been two parties in the church on this subject, but that
one of those parties, a very respectable minority, has always borne a
" uniform testimony " against both—the right of the church to do as
she often did, and the policy of exercising such a right had its exist¬
ence been conceded.
6
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
The writer-is led to review this subject, because, after all that has
been said and written in reference to it, there are those who still insist
that the course of the Methodist Episcopal Church hasbeen one and uni¬
form, and the Church, South, has departed from the " old land-marks,"—
" seceded,"—"is no part of the Methodist family," and in fact, " no
church at all." This cry is still heard in various parts of the West
and elsewhere, while appeal after appeal to the prepossessions, preju¬
dices, partialities and sympathies of the people, in order to "rebuild
the old church," to " re-establish Methodism," is made all over the
country; and in many places this is done no less to the detriment of
the peace of the church and the prosperity of the cause of God, than
to the shame of those engaged in the work. Whatever opinions
distant readers may entertain on the subject, or however stale they
may regard it; there exists throughout the State of Missouri, and
particularly in regions west of this State, a necessity for a full and
undisguised exhibition of the facts in the case—that the public gen¬
erally, and the Methodist-public particularly, may see things as they
were and are, and thus be enabled to estimate them accordingly. It
is neither designed nor desired to " stir up controversy " by the course
now proposed to be pursued—and yet, the writer will go forward
without the fear of successful contradiction, and make just such an
exhibition of facts as in his judgment the case demands.
To all familiar with the operations of the Methodist Church in this
country, it is well known that previously to 1773 there existed differ¬
ent societies of Methodists—" in connection with Mr. Wesley of Eng¬
land," which societies were ministered to by local or lay preachers,
without any special concert of action on their part until that year,
(1773,) when these preachers held their first Conference, and this
Conference was held about seven years after the organization of the
first Methodist society in this couutry, which was some time during
the year 1766. Erom that Conference until the organization of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, " rules and regulations " for the
government of the societies, were agreed upon and adopted by the
preachers at the sessions of the Conferences from year to year. And
so it continued until the meeting of the first General Conference—
which was in 1792, since which period the General Conference has
performed that duty. Now it is proposed to show plainly what the
Conferences have done, and thus present the reader a brief history of
the church's official connection with the subject of slavery.
When societies of Methodists were first organized in America, the
question of slavery was unknown in such organizations. Nothing
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
7
official was said about it one way or the other; but the societies were
organized in connection with Mr. Welsey; they adopting the rules
which he and his brother Charles had drawn up for the government
of the societies in England, and these rules made no mention at all of
that subject. To this fact the reader's attention is specially invited.
From the first organization of these societies, in 1766, we have no
official record of their proceedings until It73—when the preachers,
ten in number, held their first Conference, at which they formally
acknowledged themselves in connection with, and under the authority
of Mr. Wesley, and adopted the Discipline of the Methodists as con¬
tained in the minutes of Mr. Wesley's Conferences, as their rule of
conduct. With this understanding they continued to meet from year
to year, without any action upon, and so far as the record shows, any
allusion to the subject of slavery until 1780—seven years after the
holding of the first Conference, and fourteen years after the organization
of the first society. At this Conference the following questions and
answers were entered on the minutes:
" Question 16—Ought not this Conference to require those travel¬
ing preachers who hold slaves, to give promises to set them free ?"
" Answer—They ought."
" Ques. 17—Does this Conference acknowledge that slavery is con¬
trary to the laws of God, man and nature, and hurtful to society,
contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure religion, and doing
that which we would not others should do to us'and ours ? Do we
pass our disapprobation on all our friends who keep slaves and advise
their freedom ?"
" Ans.—Yes."
In reference to this, the candid reader will please observe a few
particulars.
1. It was the first legislation on the subject of slavery which had
been among the American Methodists, so far as we can now gather
from the records.
2. At this time there were slaveholders iu the traveling ministry,
in the local ministry, and in the membership. Now the question is,
if the Methodists had always borne their testimony against the " great
evil," how did it happen that these naughty slaveholders ever found
their way into the societies, the local and traveling ministry ? Why
was not the evil nipped in the bud ? To have kept them out from
the first, would have been an easy matter, and certainly more consis¬
tent than to admit them to the societies, and to the ministry both
local and traveling;—suffer them to remain there unmolested year
after year, until seven years after the first Conference, and fourteen
8
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
after the organization of the first society, and then suddenly pull
down upon them after the fashion shown in the above quotation.
3. Another particular is worthy of special notice; that is, that the
passage of the above rule, if such it can be called, was altogether a
one-sided business. The South had no voice in it. Lee, in his history
of the Methodists, says expressly of this Conference: " On the 24th
day of April, the eighth Conference met in Baltimore, where Northern
preachers only attended." In another place he says: " None of the
preachers south of Baltimore were present at the Conference."
Let it be particularly noted, that not only was this a one-sided
business, but the South protested against the measure, so that at the
very first agitation of the matter, two parties were found, which, as
we will presently see, continued till 1844, and still continue.
4. Let it be further remembered, that it was in the year 1180, the
very year that the above referred action was had by the Methodist
Conference—that slavery was abolished in Pennsylvania, after a vio¬
lent agitation of the subject throughout that State, and the North
generally.
Those Northern preachers who held the Conference of that year
were fresh from the midst of that excitement; and when this, together
with the then recent abolition movements of England, are taken into
the account, the reader will be at no loss to understand the move¬
ments of the Conference, made up as it was in a good degree of Eng¬
lish preachers who had but recently arrived in this country.
But mark the language used, as found in the minutes of the Con¬
ference of 1180: " Does this Conference acknowledge that slavery
is contrary to the laws of God, man and nature, and hurtful to soci¬
ety, contrary to the dictates of conscience," &c.
"Answer-—-Yes."
When did they acknowledge this ! In 1180. Had they been
satisfied that this was true from 1166, the time of the organization
of the first society, and especially from 1113, the date of the first
Conference ? If so, why in the name of common sense did they ad¬
mit, during the interval from 1166 to 1180, into the membership, and
into the local and traveling ministry, men who were slaveholders, and
as such guilty of acting contrary to the "laws of God, man and
nature."
How can their course be reconciled with the idea that they made
no distinction between slavery, in the abstract, and slaveholding, and
in denouncing the one they also denounced the other ? Unless they
made a difference between the system of slavery, and the fact of slave-
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
9
h elding, it will be difficult to reconcile their profession with their
practice. And that they did make such distinction is clear from the
course they subsequently pursued. If they had regarded the fact of
skveholding in the same light they did the system of slavery, every
principle of honest consistency would have compelled them to exclude
all slaveholders from the church. But this they did not do, either at
that or any subsequent period.
But this first legislative act, if it can be properly called such, was
oppsed by the Methodists in the South, not because they favored
the system of slavery, but because, it being a civil institution, did not
projserly come within the sphere of ecclesiastical legislation, especi¬
ally when such legislation could do no good, and would be almost cer¬
tain to do much evil. They were satisfied then, that an anti-slavehold-
.ing, or an abolition church could not be built up in the South, and
in tlis opinion both Dr. Coke and Bishop Asbury afterwards fully
concurred, as we will see more clearly by and by.
The Southern Methodists never were as a body, committed to the
perpetuation of slavery! They were not when they opposed the
action of the Conference of 1180, of 1184, of 1196, or of 1844, nor
are thy so committed at the 'present hour! Mark that!
"What they have contended for from the first, and what they still
conter.d for is, that slavery as it exists in this country, is not, and
never was a proper subject of church legislation—that the church as
such lad no business with it—and should let it alone—that slavehold¬
ers had been members of the christian church from the days of the.,
Apostles to the present—that slaveholding was not necessarily a sin, \
and that the church should not commit herself either to the perpetu¬
ation or extinction of slavery where it exists by statutory law—but
let it alone and devote herself to her legitimate work of saving souls.
At the Conference of 1181, the next after the one in which these
proceedings were had in reference to slavery, not one word was said
on the subject, so far as the minutes show—no, not one!
Tie same may be said of the Conference of 1182. But in 1183
we have an account of further action, but so far from its being of the
bold and positive character of that of 1180, it was more mild, and
referred only to local preachers. Here it is:
" Question 10—What shall be done with our local preachers, who
hold slaves contrary to the laws which authorize their freedom in any
of the United States ?
" Answer—We will try them another year. In the meantime, let
every assistant deal faithfully and plainly with every one, and report
to the next Conference. It may be necessary to suspend them."
10
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
The reader will scarce fail to perceive the difference between the
tone of the above extract, and that exhibited in the doings of 1180.
The excitement produced by the abolition movements in the North,
previously to, and during the year 1180, had, it seems, partially cooled
off, and now in place of those sweeping denunciations then made, ref
erence is had only to local preachers, who were to be tried " another
year," and then "it may be"—don't know certainly, but—■" it may be
necessary to suspend them !
But if they were guilty of moral wrong why " try them another
year ?" And why say, " it may be necessary to suspend them ?"
Does not this look like the Conference was receding from the bold
position assumed in 1180. Or rather does it not show that in 1180
they spoke of the system of slavery, without intending to intimate
that simple slaiehoiding was of itself sinful under any and all circum¬
stances ? This is believed to have been the fact, and on no oiher
supposition can we consistently account for the course they pursued.
We come now to the memorable Christmas Conference of 1184, at
which the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church took piace.
Here, as they were organizing a church, and not societies merely,
they took greater latitude, and fixed upon conditions of membership,
which in some respects were entirely different from those which had
previously existed, and under which the societies had been organized.
These conditions, together with the result of the experiment, we now
present, and to them ask the candid attention of the reader :
" Question 42—What method can we take to extirpate slavery ?"
" Answer—We are deeply conscious of the impropriety of making
new terms of communion for a religious society already established,
excepting on the most pressing occasion, and such we esteem the
practice of holding our fellow-creatures in slavery.
" We view it as. contrary to the golden law of God on which hung
all the law and the prophets, and the unalienable rights of mankind,
as well as every principle of the revolution, to hold in the deepest
abasement, in a more abject slavery than is, perhaps, to be found in
any part of the world except America, so many souls that are capa¬
ble of the image of God.
"We, therefore, think it our most bounden duty to take immedi¬
ately some effectual method to extirpate this abomination from among
us; and for that purpose we add the following to the rules of our
society, viz. :
"1. Every member of our society who has slaves in his possession,
shall, within twelve months after notice given to him by the assistant,
(which notice the assistants are required immediately and without any
delay, to give in their respective circuits) legally execute and record
an instrument, whereby he emancipates and sets free every slave in
A STATEMENT OP FACTS, ETC.
11
his possession, who is between the ages of forty and forty-five, imme¬
diately, or at farthest when they arrive at the age of forty-five.
" And every slave who is between the ages of twenty-five and forty,
immediately, or at farthest at the expiration of five years, from the
date of said instrument.
" And every slave who is between the ages of twenty and twenty-
five, immediately, or at farthest when they arrive at the age of thirty,
" And every slave under the age of twenty, as soon as they arrive
at the age of twenty-five, at farthest.
" And every infant born in slavery after the above-mentioned rules
are complied with, immediately on its birth.
" 2. Every assistant shall keep a journal, in which he shall regularly
minute down the names and ages of all the slaves belonging to all the
masters in his respective circuit, and also the date of every instru¬
ment executed and recorded for the manumission of the slaves, with
the name of the court, book, and folio, in which the said instruments
respectively shall have been recorded, which journal shall be handed
down in each circuit to the necessary assistants.
" 3. In consideration that these rules form a new term of commun¬
ion, every person concerned, who will not comply with them, shall
have liberty quietly to withdraw himself from our society within the
twelve months succeeding the notice given as aforesaid, otherwise the
assistant shall exclude him from the society.
" 4. No person so voluntarily withdrawn, or so excluded, shall ever
partake of the supper of the Lord with the Methodists, till he com¬
plies with the above regulations.
"5. No person holding slaves shall, in future, be admitted into
society, or to the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with these
rules concerning slavery."
"N. B. These rules are to affect the members of our society no
farther than as they are consistent with the laws of the States in
which they reside.
" And respecting our brethren in Yirginia that are concerned, and
after due consideration of their peculiar circumstances, we allow them
two years from the notice given, to consider the expedience of com¬
pliance or non-compliance with these rules."
This was strong enough, in all conscience, to suit the most fastidi¬
ous Abolitionist that could be found in any section of the country.
In reference to it, the reader's attention is specially asked to the fol¬
lowing particulars:
By whom was this done ? Under what circumstances was it done,
and what were the results ?
In reference to the first part of this question—"by whom were
these rules adopted ?—let it be remarked, that on the 3d of Novem¬
ber, 1184, Dr. Coke landed at New York, with authority from Mr.
Wesley to act as a superintendent of the Methodist societies in
12
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC,
America, and a recommendation from the same, for the organization
of a church with an episcopal form of government.
On Sunday, the 15th of the same month, he, for the first time, met
Mr. Asbury. The meeting took place at Barrett's Chapel in the
State of Delaware. Here, after consultation, they resolved to call a
Conference, to meet at Baltimore, on the 25th of the following month,
or about five weeks from the date of the appointment. This was all
the time given to notify and collect the preachers who were scattered
over the country from the eastern parts of the State of New York,
to the western borders of South Carolina, and from the eastern coasts
of Virginia to the mountains of East Tennessee. Considering the
distance, and the want of facilities for traveling at that day, this time
was certainly very short. Hence we are informed by Lee, in his his¬
tory, that but few preachers were present till near the close, when
nearly all the business had been dispatched. Mr. Asbury, in his
journal of that date, says, "We rode to Baltimore, where we met a
few preachers. *********
" We were in great haste, and did much business in a little time."
Sixty preachers were all that attended at any time during the Con¬
ference, lacking two of being two-thirds of the whole number. Now,
were these sixty, Northern or Southern men ? Recollecting that the
Conference was held in Baltimore, much nearer to the Northern than
to the Southern preachers—that opportunities for giving information
to those of the North were numerous and frequent, while the duty of
informing the whole of the Southern preachers was entrusted to one
man only; is it not fair to presume that the North was much more
fully represented than the South ? Could it reasonably have been
otherwise ? "I have heard it stated," says the late BishopBascom,
" by those who were present, thafy at the Christmas Conference of
It84, there was but a small number of preachers present, and scarcely
any from the South, until towards the close.
As has been already remarked, an Abolition feeling had previ¬
ously prevailed to a great extent both in England and throughout the
Northern portions of this country, and had formed an important item
in the political history of the times. Slavery had been tried in the
North, and found impracticable because unprofitable. It was then
sought to be abolished. Until found to be unprofitable, the 'philan¬
thropic people of the North seemed to have had as little repugnance
to slavery as their puritanical ancestors had to making a sort of cru¬
sading war upon the poor Indians;—taking them prisoners, and then
selling them as slaves in the Bahamas. But when unprofitable, it
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
13
was no longer to be tolerated. Of this general abolition feeling it is
altogether fair to presume that those iS orthern preachers who composed
so large a majority of the General Conference of 1184, possessed a
liberal share, especially as many of them were Englishmen, with Dr.
Coke at their head. Hence the stringent rules quoted above, and
which appeared in the discipline printed in 1185.
One other particular should, in this connection, be carefully noted.
From 1113 to 1119 but one Conference was held annually. But from
1119 to 1184 two were held in each year, for the greater conveni¬
ence of the preachers. Now mark what Lee in his history of the
Methodists says of the respective powers of these two Conferences.
The extract is taken from pp. 18, 19.
" As the Conference in the North was of the longest standing, and
withal composed of the oldest preachers, it was allowed greater priv¬
ileges than that in the South, especially in making rules and framing
regulations for the societies. Accordingly, when anything was agreed
to in the Virginia Conference, and afterwards disapproved of in the
Baltimore Conference, it was dropped. But if any rule was fixed
and determined on at the Baltimore Conference, the preachers in the
South were under the necessity of abiding by it. The Southern Con¬
ference was considered at that time as a convenience, and designed
to accommodate the preachers in that part of the work, and to do all
the business of a regular Conference, except that of making or alter¬
ing particular rules."
It is important to a correct understanding of this subject, that par¬
ticular attention be given to the above—that the truth sought to be
impressed upon the reader's mind be clearly apprehended—that is,
there have from the first been two parties, and whatever of church
legislation there has been in reference to it, the Methodists of the
South have maintained the same principles and pursued the same
course—but being in the minority had, until 1844, to abide the decis¬
ions of a majority less-'familiar with the difficulties attending the sub¬
ject than themselves/ In a word, to show that if Southern Method¬
ists could have ha» their way, the church, in hefr official capacity,
would never have meddled with the subject at all. J
With the foregoing facts before the reader, he dan be at no loss to
see by whom, and under what circumstances these rules were adopted.
But they were adopted only to be crushed beneath their own weight.
They were never enforced. At the Conference which commenced on
the first of the following June—while Dr. Coke was still in America,
and at which he was present—it was " recommended to all our breth¬
ren to suspend their execution," and under this recommendation they
14
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
were suffered quietly to sleep until 1196, when the subject was again
brought up, and the rules considerably modified and softened.
The clause in the general rules, commencing " the buying and sell¬
ing of men, women and children, &c.," is first found in the edition of
Discipline for 1189. How it came there is at this day hard to deter¬
mine, as there was no General Conference between 1184 and 1192-
The probabilities are, that it was put there in an informal way, the
Bishop presenting the subject to the Conferences and they agreeing
upon it, as was the case with all the rules adopted previously to 1184.*
Frofl^ 1196 to 1824 various alterations were made, all partaking,
gays Dr. Bangs, " of a similar character, intended to record the op¬
position of the church to the system, and to adopt such means to
mitigate its evils, and finally, if possible, to do it away, as wisdom
and prudence should dictate."
At the General Conference of 1808, the whole subject, so far as it
referred to the membership of the church was given over to the An¬
nual Conferences, and they allowed to make such regulations as in
their judgment might be deemed proper; but in 1820 this was stricken
out. From 1824 to 1844 there was no material alteration.
So much for the official act of the church on this vexed question;
and if the reader is at all in doubt as to the correctness of the state¬
ments here made, let him consult—" Lee's History of the Meth¬
odists," " Dr. Bangs' History of the Methodist Episcopal Church,''
" Emory's History of the Discipline," the " Minutes of the Confer¬
ences," and the " General Conference Journals," as published at the
Book Room.
From these historical facts, the intelligent reader will not be slow
to allow that there were from its first agitation two parties, and that
these parties held opposite opinions. The opinions of one party may
be gathered from the acts of the Conference of 1184. They were
opposed to the system of slavery and opposed to slaveholders being
received, or continued in the church, and consequently advocated an
utter "extirpation of the evil" from the pales of the church.
The other party were also opposed to the system of slavery—but
maintained that as slavery was a matter of law, and many persons
* Dr. Elliott in his work called '' The Great Secession," evidently labors to
make the impression that this was among the " General Rules " from the first.
This is a great mistake. The above is most likely the correct way of account¬
ing for its introduction into the Discipline.
A STATEMENT OP FACTS, ETC.
15
became slaveholders by mere process of law, and in many cases with¬
out their own knowledge, act or will, and such being the fact, they
were bound to hold their slaves until they could set them free; or if
this were impracticable—to continue to hold them and do the best
they could with and for them; and to treat these as sinners would be
unreasonable and unjust. Moreover, they contended that as slavery
was a civil institution, no legislation on the part of the church could
do any real good to either master or slave; but on the contrary,
would be likely to irritate the one and prevent all access on the part
of the preachers to the other—and the better plan was, to imitate
the example of Christ and his Apostles, by preaching the gospel to
all ranks and conditions of men, without any interference with the
civil institutions of the country; and leave that gospel to work its
own legitimate results on the hearts and lives of both master and
slave.
Which of these parties was in the right we shall presently see.
Speaking of the legislation of 1*184, Dr. Bangs says, " this grad¬
ual process could not be carried forward, without producing a greater
evil than it was intended to remove;" and adds, that the law " was
suspended in favor of those more prudent measures which the church
has ever since used, and is ready to use for the extirpation of slav¬
ery."
In another place he says, "they (the Methodists) found it neces¬
sary to relax in their measures against slaveholders, without, how¬
ever, attempting to justify the system itself."
Lee says, when speaking of these measures: "It was going too
far, and calculated to irritate the minds of our people, and not to
convince them." He further remarks, " Long experience has taught
us that the various rules that have been made on this subject, have
not been attended with that success which was expected.. We are
well assured they never were of any particular service to our socie¬
ties."
In another place he informs us: " Dr. Coke met with much oppo¬
sition in the South, owing to his imprudent manner of preaching
against slavery. No doubt," he continues, "the Doctor at the time
thought he was doing right, but afterward, when he printed his jour¬
nal in England, he acknowledged that he was wrong in preaching
publicly against slavery in Virginia, where the practice was tolerated
by law."
Drew, the biographer of Dr. Coke, says of him and his co-labor¬
ers: " on account of their attacks on slavery, they were in danger of
16
A STATEMENT OP PACTS, ETC.
being altogether hindered from prosecuting their ministry, and hence
were compelled to change their course."
Every attentive reader of Bishop Asbury's Journal must have no¬
ticed that in more than one place he laments that their own princi¬
ples and actions were closing their way of access to the slaves. The
fact, that the addresses of the Conferences and the petitions cireu"
lated by the preachers, praying the Legislatures to pass laws favor¬
ing emancipation, led. to the enactment in different States of more
stringent laws on the subject of slavery, and against emancipation,
is too well known to be now successfully contradicted. So that these
addresses and petitions really injured both the church from which
they came, and the slaves for whose benefit they were intended. This
becoming apparent—the rules on the subject of slavery were modi¬
fied from time to time as has been already noticed—until by com¬
mon consent of parties, they settled down upon what was found in
the tenth section of the Discipline at the time of the division of the
church. This section satisfied the considerate men of the North, be¬
cause it bore the testimony of the church against " the evil;" and it
satisfied the considerate men of the South, because by its own pro¬
visions it was but a dead letter in most of the slaveholding States;
and both parties were doubtless willing to concede all that duty would
allow, for the peace and good of the whole. Of course, reference is
here had to the church previously to the General Conference of L844.
It will be observed that every modification of the rules on slavery
from 1184 was made in obedience to the urgent necessities which
were imposed upon the Conferences. It was- every year becoming
more and more apparent that the whole subject must be let alone in
many of the States, or the church could not be sustained; and the
access of her ministers to thousands and millions of immortal souls
would be effectually closed. No church ever did or ever can long
exist in a country where slavery is protected by law, without sooner
or later admitting slaveholders to her communion. This is so in the
very necessity of the case. And to show that notwithstanding the
bold stand taken, and the vigorous efforts at first made on this sub¬
ject, a majority of the church ultimately came to this conclusion, the
writer begs leave to introduce two extracts. The first from the jour¬
nals of the General Conference of 1886 held at Cincinnati—which is
as follows:
" Whereas, Great excitement has prevailed in this country, on (the
subject of modern Abolitionism, which is reported to have been in¬
creased in this city recently by the unjustifiable conduct of two mem-
A STATEMENT OP PACTS, ETC.
bers of the General Conference, in lecturing upon, and in favor of
that agitating topic; and, whereas, such a course on the part of any
of its members is calculated to bring upon this body the suspicions
and distrust of the community, and misrepresent its sentiments in
regard to the point at issue; and, whereas, in this aspect of the case,
a due regard for its own character, as well as a just concern for the
interests of the church, confided to its care, demand a full, decided
and unequivocal expression of the views of the General Conference
in the premises, therefore:
" Resolved, By the delegates of the Annual Conferences in General
Conference assembled: 1st. That they disapprove in the most un¬
qualified sense the conduct of two members of the General Confer¬
ence, who are reported to have lectured in this city recently upon,
and in favor of modern abolitionism.
" Resolved, 2d. That they are decidedly opposed to modern aboli¬
tionism, and wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere
in the civil and political relation between master and slave as it exists
in the slaveholding States of this Union.
" Resolved, 3d. That the foregoing preamble and resolutions be pub¬
lished in our periodicals."
The first of these resolutions was adopted by a vote of one hund¬
red and twenty, to fourteen. And the second by a vote of one hundred
and thirty-seven, no one opposing.
Just think of it reader. This was done in 1836 at Cincinnati—
compare these declarations and the doctrines they set forth with the
more recent course of Northern Methodists.
The other extract is from the letter of the General Conference of
1840 to the British Conference. Speaking of slavery it says:
" Of these United States, (to the government and laws of which,
' according to the division of power made to them by the constitu¬
tion of the Union, and the constitutions of the several States,' we
owe, and delight to render, a sincere and patriotic loyalty,) there
are several which do not allow of slavery. There are others in which
it is allowed, and there are slaves; but the tendency of the laws, and
the minds of the majority of the people, are in favor of emancipa¬
tion. But there are others1 in which slavery exists so universally,
and is so closely interwoven with their civil institutions, that both do
the laws disallow of emancipation, and the great body of the people
(the source of laws with us) hold it to be treasonable to set forth
anything, by word or deed, tending that way. Each one of all these
States is independent of the rest and sovereign, with respect to its
internal government, (as much so as if there existed no confederation
among them for ends of common interest,) and therefore it is impos¬
sible to frame a rule on slavery proper for our people in all the States
alike. But our church is extended through all the States, and as
it would be wrong and unscriptural to enact a rule of discipline in
opposition to the constitution and laws of the State on this subject,
2
18
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ECT.
go also would it not be equitable or scriptural to confound the posi¬
tions of our ministers and people (so different as they are in different
States) with respect to the moral question which slavery involves.
" Under the administration of the venerated Dr. Coke, this plain
distinction was once overlooked, and it was attempted to urge eman¬
cipation in all the States; but the attempt proved almost ruinous, and
was soon abandoned by the doctor himself. While, therefore, the
church has encouraged emancipation in those States where the laws
permit it, and allowed the freed-man to enjoy freedom, we have re¬
frained, for conscience's sake from all intermeddling with' the subject
in those other States where the laws make it criminal. And such a
course we think agreeable to the scriptures, and indicated by St.
Paul's inspired instruction to servants in his First Epistle to the Co¬
rinthians, Chap, vii, verses 20, 21. For if servants were not to care
for the servitude when they might not be free, though if they might
be free they should use it rather ; so, neither should masters be con¬
demned for not setting them free when they might not do so, though
if they might they should do so rather. The question of the evil of
slavery, abstractedly considered, you will readily perceive, brethren,
is a very different matter from a principle or rule of church disci¬
pline to be executed contrary to, and in defiance of, the law of the
land. Methodism has always been (except perhaps in the single in¬
stance above) eminently loyal and promotive of good order; and so
we desire it may ever continue to be, both in Europe and America.
With this sentiment we conclude the subject, adding only the corrob¬
orating language of your noble Missionary Society, by the revered
and lamented Watson, in their instructions to missionaries, published
in the Report of 1833, as follows:
" ' As in the colonies in which you are called to labor a great pro¬
portion of the inhabitants are in a state of slavery, the committee
most strongly call to your remembrance what was so fully stated to
you when you were accepted as a missionary to the West Indies, that
your only business is to promote the moral and religious improvement
of the slaves to whom you may have access, without, in the least
degree, in public or private, interfering with their civil condition.' "
It is hoped that the reader will attentively mark the strong lan¬
guage and sound doctrine contained in the above extract. The letter
from which it is taken was approved, as expressing the views of the
General Conference, and of the majority of the Methodist Church in
1840—and it states distinctly that "it would be wrong and unscrip-
tural to enact a rule of discipline in opposition to the constitution
and laws of the States on this subject," and then says, " Methodism
has always been (except perhaps in the single instance above) emi¬
nently loyal and promotive of good order."
What was this " single instance" alluded to? Evidently that of
legislating in opposition to the " constitution and laws of the States,"
and the plain admission on the part of the Conference, was that " in
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
19
this single instance " Methodism was neither loyal nor promotive of
good order ! Make out of this anything else if you can.
"We have now pretty fairly before us, both the rules of the church
on the subject of slavery and the construction which she herself put
upon those rules—so far at least as they referred to the membership
of the church. How they were understood in reference to the minis¬
try, the following resolution recommended by the committee in the
famous Westmoreland case, and passed by the General Conference of
1840, will show:
" Resolved, By the delegates of the several Annual Conferences,
in General Conference assembled, that, under the provisional excep¬
tion of the general rule of the subject of slavery, the simple holding
of slaves, or mere ownership of slave property, in States or Territo¬
ries where the laws do not admit of emancipation, and permit the lib¬
erated slave to enjoy freedom, constitutes no legal barrier to the elec¬
tion or ordination of ministers to the various grades of office known
in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and cannot, there¬
fore, be considered as operating any forfeiture of right in view of
such election and ordination."
Header do not pass this extract hastily. It has an important
bearing upon the whole question, relative to the separation of the
church. The above resolution was passed by the General Conference
of 1840, only four years before the separation took place, and had
the doctrines, it sets forth, been carried out in 1844, there would
have been no separation. A palpable violation of the principles
enunciated above, was the occasion for the separation. This will be
fully apparent as we proceed in the investigation.
20
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
CHAPTER II.
ABOLITION EXCITEMENT IN THE CHURCH EBBED AND FLOWED WITH THE EXCITE¬
MENT ON THE SAME SUBJECT IN THE BRITISH ISLES—POLICY OF ENGLAND—THE
POSITION OF THE CHURCH ON THIS QUESTION WAS ALWAYS A BARRIER TO SUC¬
CESS IN THE SOUTH—STATISTICS—DOINGS OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF
1844—AND CONSEQUENCES.
In the preceding chapter we have seen how matters stood so far as
related to the official acts of the church at the close of the General
Conference of 1840.
It should be remembered, however, that for some ten years pre¬
viously to this time, the abolition spirit that manifested itself in 1184
had been steadily reviving—and what is not a little remarkable, it
commenced reviving, as in the former case, very soon after a similar
excitement had broken out in the British Isles, and emissaries had
come, or rather been sent from the latter, to this country, to lecture
us on these "horrid evils." Why benevolent persons in Scotland and
England should have been so much interested in favor of American
slaves, as to form societies and employ individuals to come to this
country and lecture us in reference to " the evil," may perhaps be made
a little more plain by the consideration of a few facts, gathered from
their public papers, at different periods since 1880.
Since that period it lias been avowed in different forms and at dif¬
ferent times, by leading political journals in England, that British
tropical production could not compete with American, because of the
advantages given to the latter by domestic slavery; and it has also
been more than hinted that American slavery must be undermined in
order to place the two countries on equal commercial footing. These
journals have repeatedly invoked attention to facts which in their
judgment established the correctness of the above opinion. Eor
instance, they urged that the cotton production of America, North
and South, amounted to some eight hundred millions of pounds an¬
nually—and this was set down as the product of slave labor; while
England, in all parts of her dominions, was scarce able to produce
one hundred and fifty millions. The annual production of American
sugar, it has been stated, exceeds that of England in the proportion
of ten to four—and this they attributed to the same cause.
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
21
At one time it was strenuously urged upon the attention of Eng¬
land that the advantages enjoyed by America, because of her large
amount of slave labor, must lead to a corresponding extension of
commerce, growth in manufactures, with increased national wealth
and strength. And it was plainly declared that England could not
look with indifference upon these things. Hence, more than one
member of Parliament has said that England must " require" and
" demand " immediate emancipation. And who that has been at all
familiar with the leading political journals of England, does not still
yemember the frequent intimations that some years past were made
to the people of the Northern States of this Union—in effect, that
it was their interest to unite with other countries in subverting the
existing productions of the South ? And how subvert them ? Ob¬
viously, by subverting the institution of slavery.
These allusions are made, merely to afford the reader some assis¬
tance in accounting for Thompson and others having been hired by
societies in Europe to lecture the people of this country on the " great
evils of slavery." These lecturers always found it convenient, how¬
ever, to confine their operations to those parts of the country where
slavery did not exist.
The truth is, it has for many years been the settled policy on the
part of many leading English journals and statesmen to put down
slavery in the United States—and he, who is so blind as that he can¬
not, or will not see it, is certainly not. to be envied for his sagacity.
Men may shut out light from their own eyes, but still it shines. They
may neglect or refuse to embrace truth, but still truth exists and has
its influence. This desire to subvert American slavery does not arise
so much from a sense of justice or a love of humanity as from motives
of interest. The commercial importance of the United States has
long excited the envy of the " Mother country." Her own efforts at
tropical production have not succeeded to her liking. She is still
dependent on this country for cotton—which she long hoped to be
able to produce in her own colonies—especially if American slavery
could be subverted—hence her various and varied efforts to put it
down. And the great abolition agitators of this country, whether
in church or State, have but echoed sentiments promulged by these
agitators abroad—have pushed forward a work commenced, and from
time to time revived, by these political hucksters who sought to ag¬
grandize their own country at the expense of this. And still as it
has been kept—little as has been said about it—Massachusetts did
22
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
not organize the first Emigrant Aid Society for the purpose of dissem¬
inating abolition principles.
" Let him that readeth understand."
A consideration of the general subject of slavery fcloes not come
within the design of the present writing. If it did, it would be no
very difficult matter to show, that whatever may be said of the form—
the fact of slavery exists to a much greater extent, and in a much
worse character, under the British, than under the American govern¬
ment. And this too could be shown by the testimony of British
periodicals, reports to Parliament, and speeches of British statesmen.
It might also be easily shown that slavery existed among all an¬
cient nations—Jews, Greeks, Romans, Africans, and all—and, as has
been remarked by Bancroft, the historian, "slavery and the slave
trade are older than the records of human society."
"They are," says the same writer, "found to have existed wher¬
ever the savage hunter began to assume the habits of pastoral and
agricultural life, and, with the exception of Australia, they have ex¬
tended to every portion of the globe." It could also be easily shown
that England has been as deeply involved in the African slave trade
as other nations—that the throne itself became a partner in the traffic
and shared the profits—and finally, that the late " coolie system," as
practised by that country, is but little if any better than the original
African slave trade—-while the coolies themselves are placed in a con¬
dition a thousand times worse than the Southern slaves of the United
States.
So far as it concerns this country, it is well known that slavery
was forced upon it during its colonial existence. And when all the
facts connected with its history are taken into the account, it is very
difficult to say whether the North or South is the more deeply in¬
volved. It is true that now, and for many years past, slavery has
been confined principally to the South. But it is also true that slaves
were bought by Northern capitalists, and when they were found to
be unsuited to those regions, were sold to the South—and now while
one enjoys the proceeds of the labor, the other enjoys the proceeds
of the sales.
The writer is opposed to the system, of slavery—and were the
question now to come up " shall slavery be introduced into these
United States ?" he, as soon, and as heartily as any man in the coun¬
try would vote No! But this is not the question. Slavery is here—
brought here without the consent of the present generation. It has
been entailed upon them—and the present writer in common with an
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
23
overwhelming majority of that branch of the church to which he be¬
longs, believes in the doctrines contained in the address of the Gen¬
eral Conference of 1840, as already quoted. And further, that "the
evil" cannot be suddenly removed without introducing, greater evils
than that of slavery. It is so interwoven with the very elements of
society—and stands in such peculiar relations to municipal law—that
it does not properly come within the legitimate range of ecclesiastical
legislation, and that such legislation will be much more likely to do
harm than to do good. And the experience of the past goes far
towards confirming the correctness of this opinion.
It is worthy of remark, just in this connection, that the Meth¬
odists in the South never asked their brethren in the non-slaveholding
States to approve slavery. They never desired that they should do
so. They did not ask it in 1180, in 1184, in 1196, in 1808, in 181ft",
or in 1844. Believing that their brethren acted conscientiously, they
were willing that they should oppose or even hate slavery—only asking
that themselves might not be thrown by ecclesiastical legislation in
positions antagonistic to the constitution and laws of the several
States in which they labored, or so entrammeled by the official acts
of the church as to prevent their having access to all classes and con¬
ditions of society. In a word, they only asked to be let alone in their
appropriate work of preaching the gospel, so far as in them lay, to
" every creature." And had this been alwrays the case they would
have been much more successful in winning souls to Christ from among
the Southern slaves than what they have; as has been evidenced by
the fact that since 1844—since all grounds of suspicion have been
removed—they have had access to hundreds and thousands from
whom they were previously excluded, because their owners, in the
expressive language of Bishop Asbury, were " afraid of our princi¬
ples." This is a fact not to be denied—and facts are worth more
than theories.
But that this subject may be more clearly and fully before the rea^
der, his attention is asked to the following exhibit—made out with
care from authentic sources :
In the general minutes of the several Conferences for the years
1844-5, the whole number of colored persons reported as members
of the church was 150,120. Of these 831 were connected with
the Liberia Mission Conference—leaving 149,283 in the church in
the United States. Of this number 119,320 belonged to the
church within the bounds of those Conferences which protested
against the action of the General Conference of 1844—and subse-
24
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
quently organized themselves into the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, leaving only 29,863 to the whole of the Northern Conferen¬
ces; and of this 29,863—21,154 belonged to the Baltimore and Phil¬
adelphia Conferences, leaving 2,109 to be distributed among no less
than twenty Annual Conferences! Of these twenty Conferences,
there were four, to-wit : Providence,, New Hampshire, New Eng¬
land, and Maine, which did not report a single colored member!
Here we have some indication of the love some of our Northern
brethren bore towards the poor negro!
But to make this still more plain, we compare these statistics of
colored church members, with the total colored population of some of
the States in which these Conferences lay. The Ohio Conference
reported in 1844 a colored membership of 523, and the North Ohio
_ Conference the same year reported 40—making only 563 in the two
Conferences; and yet, according to the census of 1840, there were
11,342 colored persons in the State. The Indiana and North-Indiana
Conferences of the same year reported jointly a colored membership
of 206; and 1,165 was the total of the colored population of that
State four years previously.
The Illinois Conference of the same year reported 11 colored mem¬
bers, and the census of 1840 report 3,598 as the total colored popu¬
lation.
Ten years previous to this—that is in 1834—the Ohio Conference
reported 502 colored members, the Indiana Conference 213, and the
Illinois Conference 12. So that in ten years the Ohio Conference, a
part of whose territory lay in the State of Virginia, had gained 61
colored members; Illinois had decreased one, and Indiana 61! And
this too while the colored population was gradually increasing. This
is about a fair specimen of the whole of the Annual Conferences in
the non-slaveholding States. Many of them had a much larger col¬
ored membership in 1830 than in 1844. Particular attention is asked
to this fact.
In 1834, and for years previously, every Annual Conference in the
connection reported more or less colored members—but in 1844 there
were four entire Conferences that did not report any. The reader
will not forget that from 1834 to 1844 were days of abolitionism in
the North.
We now note the state of the colored membership in some of the
Southern Conferences during the same periods. In 1834 the Mis¬
souri Conference reported a colored membership of 996; in 1844,
2,530. The Mississippi Conference in 1834 reported 2,622; and in
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC. 25
1844, 1,199. Georgia Conference in 1834 had 1,421; and 13,994
in 1844; and so of all the rest. From this it will be seen that while
during those ten years, the number of colored members was decreas¬
ing in the Northern Conferences, they were being more than doubled
in the Southern.
The reader can extend this examination as far as he pleases by
referring to the published minutes, and when he has done so, let him
ask himself who they are among Methodist preachers that have shown
themselves to be the friends of the colored race ? Whether those of
the North or they of the South ?
There is a difference between making abolition speeches, denounc¬
ing slavery as the "sum of all villainies," and slaveholders as "man-
stealers " and " murderers;" passing abolition resolutions in Confer¬
ence; and going to the cotton and rice plantations of the South,
passing days and weeks without scarce ever seeing a white face—
preaching to the negroes by hundreds and sometimes by thousands—
visiting their cabins, praying with them when sick or dying—cate¬
chising their children, and laboring day after day, and year after year
in a sickly climate—trying to win their souls to Christ and lead them
to heaven! Quite a difference!
Since the division of the church in 1844—call after call has been
made to the authorities of the church, South, for missionaries to be
sent to plantations where previously a Methodist preacher had never
labored, and where he never would have been but for the fact that
he was entirely freed from the suspicion of abolitionism.
But to return to the official doings of the church on the subject of
slavery.
The events of 1844 are still so fresh in the memories of those
familiar with the history of the church; and withal so generally
known, that a brief notice is all that is necessary.
One of the Bishops had, not by purchase, but, by the ordinary
process of the laws of the State in which he resided, become con¬
nected with slavery.* This was seriously objectionable to a large
* As to the particular manner by which Bishop Andrew became the legal
owner of slaves—the reader may be informed by the following communica¬
tion, which he sent to the Committee on Episcopacy, at the Conference of
1844. The committee had written him a note, asking information on this
subject, to which the Bishop sent the following reply—which reply was sub¬
sequently reported to the Conference by the committee, and the truth of the
28
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
" Whereas, A declaration has been presented to this General Con¬
ference, with the signatures of fifty-one delegates of the body, from
thirteen Annual Conferences in the slaveholding States, representing
that, for various reasons enumerated, the objects and purposes of the
christian ministry and church organization cannot be successfully
accomplished by them under the jurisdiction of this General Confer¬
ence as now constituted; and,
" Whereas, In the event of a separation, a contingency to which
the declaration asks attention as not improbable, we esteem it the
duty of this General Conference to meet the emergency with chris¬
tian kindness and the strictest equity; therefore,
"Resolved-, By the delegates of the several Annual Conferences in
General Conference assembled,
"1. That, should-the Annual Conferences in the slaveholding
States find it necessary to unite in a distinct ecclesiastical Connection,
the following rule shall be observed with regard to the northern boun¬
dary of such connection : All the societies, stations, and Conferen¬
ces, adhering to the church in the South, by a vote of a majority
of the members of said societies, stations and Conferences, shall
remain under the unmolested pastoral care of the Southern Church;
and the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church shall in no
wise attempt to organize churches or societies within the limits of
the Church South, nor shall they attempt to exercise any pastoral
oversight therein; it being understood that the ministry of the South
reciprocally observe the same rule in relation to stations, societies,
and Conferences adhering, by vote of a majority, to the Methodist
Episcopal Church, provided also, that this rule shall apply only to
societies, stations and Conferences bordering on the line of division,
and not to interior charges, which shall in all cases be left to the care
of that church within whose territory they are situated.
" 2. That ministers, local and traveling, of every grade and office
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, may, as they prefer, remain in
that church, or, without blame, attach themselves to the Church,
South."
The remainder of the report refers principally to the division of
the church property, and need not be introduced here.
It will be remarked that this report was adopted by a very large
majority of the whole Conference. The first resolution by a vote of
141 to 22—the second by a vote of 139 to II—and in this repor/
they expressly declared that it was " the duty of this General Con
ference to meet the emergency with christian kindness, and strictest
equity."
If the testimony of the delegates themselves may be taken as evi¬
dence in the case, this course, or one similar to it, was, under the cir¬
cumstances, indispensable. Both parties declared that they could
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
29
make no recession from the stand they had taken. The majority in¬
sisting that nothing less than what had been done in the case of Bishop
Andrew, would satisfy the North and save the church there; and the
minority insisting that too much had already been done for the peace
and safety of the church in the South.
Whoever attentively and impartially looks at all the facts in the>
case, will not be slow to admit that the cases which came before the
General Conference of 1844, were not the cause but only the occasion
of the division of the church. The cause had been in existence for
more than sixty years previously. The parties had been distinctly
marked on this subject from 1780, and the true cause of the ultimate
separation of the South from the North, is to be looked for in that
restless spirit of innovation which has characterised a large portion
of the North, since the days of the Puritans. That spirit to which.
Dr. Bobinson, the historian, refers, when lie says : " Prom the first
institution of the company of Massachusetts Bay, its members seem
to have been animated with a spirit of innovation, in civil policy as
well as religion, and by the habit of neglecting the established usages
of the one, they were prepared to deviate from the other." Or as a
more recent writer has remarked,—11 that restless spirit of insubor¬
dination which prevented their yielding a willing obedience to either
the laws of God or man, unless they made the one and interpreted
the other." ^
This was the true cause of the division of the church. This spirit
of more than sixty years growth, and in reference to which Bishop
Asbury was often heard to say he feared it would ultimately cause
division—it did its work at last. *
And wherever this spirit has prevailed or does prevail it works
mischief and mischief only. Whether it be found in church or State,
the result is the same. Blind to its own errors, deaf to the warnings
of truth, and the calls of justice and humanity—it goes furiously on
arousing the worst of passions, exciting the wildest fanaticism, and
producing in every place the most baneful results. Its influence has
been for evil to the slave as well as the free man. With great pro¬
priety might it be asked " what has abolitionism done for the slave ?"
It has curtailed many privileges which he previously enjoyed—it has
led to the enactment of more stringent laws in the slave States—and
hushed the voice of those who in slave States, previously to 1832,
were pleading for gradual emancipation.
Wherever the spirit of abolitionism is thoroughly imbibed—it seems
to open the way to any and all species and varieties of fanaticism,
30
A statement of facts, etc.
and everywhere has done evil and only ,evil. Yielding to the fanati¬
cal spirit thus engendered, men have denied the authority of the
sacred Scriptures, because this authority was against them—and like
a vessel loosed from its moorings and driven by fierce winds over
stormy seas—they have been driven by a host of the wildest and
most absurd vagaries—alike disgraceful to reason and common sense,
until their absurdities have excited the pity and contempt of all good
men.
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
31
CHAPTER III.
THE CHARACTER OF THE SEPARATION CONTEMPLATED BY THE CONFERENCE OF
1844—ITS POWERS IN THE PREMISES—NECESSITY FOR SEPARATION AND CONSTI¬
TUTIONALITY OF THE " PLAN."
In contemplating the action of the General Conference of 1844, as
presented in the former chapter, the reader will be naturally led to
enquire what kind of separation it was for which provisions were
then and there made ? Was it a separation on points of doctrine, of
discipline, or usage in the church ? A careful examination of the
protest of the minority will show that they did not object to the doc¬
trines ; they were satisfied with discipline, and had no complaint to
urge against the policy of the church; especially as it had been avowed
and explained at the General Conferences of 1836 and of 1840.
There was no disagreement between the parties as to points of doc¬
trine—nor yet in reference to the then existing discipline—all agreed
as to what it was, and there was a general agreement as to what it
meant.
It was, however, contended by the majority that the South essayed
to violate an established usage of the church in reference to the con¬
nection of slavery with the episcopacy. To this the South replied,
and replied truly : That no such policy as that contended for had
been pursued, or such usage established by the consent of the parties
interested. It being a well-established fact that Dr. Coke, the first
Bishop the church ever had, was at one time in form and in fact a
slaveholder—notwitstanding all his abolition predilections. And
though he was doubtless influenced by benevolent feelings and pure
motives, and held slaves but a very short time, yet he was a slave¬
holder for the time being—-made such by actual and deliberate pur¬
chase.
They replied further : That were it true that such had been the
policy and usage of the whole church, such usage could not, and did
not possess the force of law, particularly in view of the decisions of
the General Conference of 1836 and of 1840 in the cases already
quoted.
This answer being consonant with the facts, it follows, that there
was in reality no separation on the question of church usage. And
32
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
as bofcli parties still claim to hold the same doctrines—and both have
substantially the same discipline—and observe the same general usa¬
ges—it is clear that there was no separation in either of these re¬
spects. What then ? Why, a mere jurisdictional separation or
division—and a jurisdictional one only! This is all it claimed to be
at first, and all that can with any fairness be made of it. In the
"declaration" presented by the fifty-one delegates from slaveholding
States and Territories—it was not even intimated that the difficulty
referred to doctrines, discipline or usage; but simply, that such had
been the course pursued by the majority of that Conference that "the
objects and purposes of the christian ministry and church organiza¬
tion could not be successfully accomplished b}7 them—the protestors,
under the jurisdiction of that General Conference as then constitu¬
ted." Upon this declaration was based the whole of the subsequent
action of the Conference. The separation then was of a jurisdic¬
tional character only—and the majority claimed that they acted from
a necessity imposed upon them, not by the Discipline of the church,
but by the then existing state of public feeling in the non-slavehold-
ing Conferences, while the minority, or South, maintained that the
law of the church was their only protection—and as action had been
taken without the form, and contrary to the spirit of this law, the
state of public feeling in the slaveholding States imposed upon them
the duty of non-submission.
This will be admitted to be a fair statement of the case. And
now, to show what were the views and feelings of the General Con¬
ference at the time these things were going on, the writer asks atten¬
tion to a few extracts from the different speeches made while the sub¬
ject was under consideration.
On the 21,9th page of the " Debates in the Geheral Conference of
1844," the reader will find the following record, immediately after
the introduction of the plan of separation, in reference to which plan
the remarks were made :
"Dr. Elliott moved its adoption, and would explain his views on
the subject without attempting to approach debate. He had had the
opportunity of examining it, and had done so narrowly. He believed
it would insure the purposes designed, and would be for the best inter¬
est of the church. It was his firm opinion that this was a proper
course for them to pursue, in conformity with the Scriptures, and the
best analogies they could collect from the ancient churches, as well
as from the best organized modern churches. All history did not
furnish an example of so large a body of christians remaining in such
close and unbroken connection as the Methodist Episcopal Church.
It was now found necessary to separate this large body, for it was
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
33
becoming unwieldly. He referred to the churches at Antioch, Alex¬
andria, and Jerusalem, which, though they continued as one, were at
least as distinct as the Methodist Episcopal Church would be, if the
suggested separation took place. The Church of England was one
under the Bishops of Canterbury and York, connected and yet dis¬
tinct. In his own mind it had been for years perfectly clear that to
this conclusion they must eventually come. Were the question that
now unhappily agitated the body dead and buried, there would be good
reason for passing the resolutions contained in that report. As to
their representation in that General Conference, one out of twenty
was but a meager representation, and to go 011 as they had done, it
would soon be one out of thirty. And the body was now too large
to do business advantageously. The measure contemplated was not
schism, but separation for their mutual convenience and prosperity."
It is hoped the reader will attentively examine the foregoing ex¬
tract. Dr. Elliott then believed that the plan of separation "would
be for the best interest of the church." He had " examined it nar¬
rowly." There were other reasons besides those arising out of the
question then before them—why the resolutions contained in the re¬
port should be passed—and finally " the measure contemplated was
not schism, but separation for their mutual convenience and pros¬
perity." Dr. Olin said, "with regard to our Southern brethren, I
hold that if they concede that the holding of slaves is incompatible
with holding their ministry, they may as well go to the Rocky Moun¬
tains as to their own sunny plains. I know the difficulties of the
South. I know the excitement likely to prevail there. This may be
the last time we meet—I fear it—I fear it—I see no way of escape—
our difficulties are stupendous, if not insuperable."
Dr. Bangs said, from what had been told him by members from
the North and the South, "not a vestige of hope remained," that
is—that separation was unavoidable. He further declared his solemn
conviction, that " the Conference could not come to any general com¬
promise on the subject," and insisted that if they must separate, the
South should not be deprived of her just rights.
From these quotations, which are but specimens of a great num¬
ber that might be introduced, it may be seen that the ablest, most
experienced, talented and pious men of the Conference of 1844, both
North and South, looked upon separation as absolutely unavoidable.
And by a careful examination of the speeches made in reference to the
then pending question it will be seen :
1. That a large majority of that Conference were settled in their
convictions that the adoption of the plan of separation, or something
equivalent to it, was the only course left for them to pursue.
3
34
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
2. That inasmuch as the committee which drew up this plan, had
been instructed to make provisions for a constitutional division of the
church, and drew up the plan under these instructions, they (the
committee) and a large majority of the Conference regarded the pro¬
visions of the plan, as in perfect accordance with the constitutional
rights of that Conference. This may be learned from their speeches
as well as from their acts.
3. That the separation then provided for was not in any shape or
form regarded by them as a " schism" or " secession," or anything of
that kind, but a separation for " mutual convenience and prosperity.''
The prevailing sentiment was about this—" the question of .slavery
has been agitated among us for more than sixty years, and yet, at ho
time have we taken such action on the subject as entirely satisfied
both parties. Again and again has it come up, and again and again
has it seemed to have been disposed of; but experience has proven
that it was only disposed of to rise again in all its strength at another
time; and now such is the position of the parties, and such the gen¬
eral state of feeling on both sides, that to remain longer together is
impossible, so we meet the necessity as best we may, in preparing the
way for a peaceable separation." And it was distinctly stated by
leading men on both sides, that this/vas no "schism"—no "seces¬
sion," but that "we are one,"—"brethren beloved," &c., &c..
There seemed no difficulty on the minds of the wisest and most
experienced of that Conference as to the constitutionality of the meas¬
ure about to be adopted. A large majority voted for it, no doubt
with the distinct understanding that it was clearly within the range
of their legitimate powers; and that Conference was, to say the very
least of it, as competent to judge and decide that question as any
other, before or since. The truth is—this question of unconstitu¬
tionality seemed to have been rather an after-thought—a sort of spe¬
cial plea, put in to excuse or cover a very strange and erratic course,
pursued subsequently to the Conference of 1844.
As so much has been said in reference to the right of the Confer¬
ence of 1844 to do as it did, in providing for a jurisdictional divis¬
ion, it may be well to give that subject at least a passing notice.
The Methodist Church, as an organized body, is but an associa¬
tion of individuals, voluntarily united for specific purposes; and being
self-instituted, it is of right and necessity a self-regulated body. If
it had a right, at the first, to declare existence under one jurisdiction,
it had the right to declare existence under two or more. The latter
necessarily follows from the former. Or to be more plain : If the
A STATEMENT OP FACTS, ETC.
35
church had the right to form one Annual Conference, it had the right
to form any number that might be deemed necessary. If in 1184,
when the church was organized, they had a right to constitute one
General Conference, had they not also the right to constitute any
number which might have been deemed necessary ? And if this right
were ever possessed, when was it relinquished ? Sure there is no
part or parts of the discipline or history of the church, which informs
us that such relinquishment was ever made. If the right existed in
1184, it also existed in 1844; and if, at the first named period, they
had no right to declare existence under two or more jurisdictions,
they had no right to declare it under one. This must be admitted.
But it has been, and in many places still is, argued that the Con¬
ference of 1844 had no right to provide for the separation of the
church, because they were barred by constitutional restrictions. An
answer to this can only be given by. ascertaining what is the consti¬
tution under which the Conference acted, and what are its provisions?'
What then is, or was, the constitution of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in 1844 ?
It will readily be acknowledged, that whatever it was, it was con¬
tained in the book of discipline. But where ? Was it the whole or
only a part of the discipline ? If a part only, what part ? In the
six restrictive rules ? It is certainly strange that any sensible man
should ever have thought, much less argued this. . The history and
design of these rules is about as follows : From the firsts the duty
of legislating, so to speak, was by consent of. parties imposed upon
the traveling ministers. These ministers met annually from 1113 and
quadrennially from 1192. Previously to 1812, however, it was
deemed prudent to hold the General or Quadrennial Conference by
delegation. That is, in place of all the traveling elders meeting for
this purpose, to elect a certain number, to whom should be entrusted
the whole of the duties and business of the General Conference. And
when the whole body of ministers delegated to a portion of their
number the power to hold the General Conference, they thought pro¬
per to declare that the General Conference thus constituted " shall
have full power to make rules and regulations for our church, under
the following limitations and restrictions"—and here follow the six
restrictive rules, which have been so strangely claimed as the consti¬
tution of the church. These six rules are but restrictions on the do¬
ings of the General Conference, shoeing that while the whole body
of ministers had transferred, or rather delegated a portion of their
rights, there were still other rights which had not been delegated,
and with which the General Conference was not to meddle.
36,
A STATEMENT OF FACTSr ETC.
The constitution of a church or society is that which expresses the
objects of such church or society, together with the manner in which
those objects are to be accomplished; or in other words, " that which
defines the obligations under which the individual, and society or
church, have come with respect to each other." This being the case,
it will be found that the constitution of the Methodist Episcopal
Church consisted of a series of " declaratory acts, rules,Statutes and
regulations, together with construction, precedent and usage," found
in the discipline of said church, which discipline is in fact the consti¬
tution, and the only constitution. All that is essential either " to the
existence of the government, or to secure the ends of its institution,
are of constitutional force and validity, and by consequence parts of
the constitution." To illustrate this, it may be remarked that the
system of itinerancy by the ministers—the system of annual and quar¬
terly Conferences, and that of class-meetings, are absolutely necessary
to the very existence of the church, as at present constituted; and
yet none of these are protected or even referred to by the restrictive
rules. The same might be said of other parts of the general sys¬
tem of the church, parts too which must be acknowledged as fun¬
damental, and necessary to the accomplishment of the objects con¬
templated in the organization of the church.*
Now the question is, did the General Conference of 1844 violate
any of these constitutional principles ? And to this question it does
seem that with candid men there can be but one answer, and that is, they
did not. They had " full powers to make rules and regulations for
the church" under the aforesaid restrictions; and pray, which of
these restrictive rules was violated by the action of that Conference ?
Good reader, please turn to those rules as found in the Discipline, read
them carefully, and then ask yourself which of them it was that the
General Conference of 1844 violated, when they adopted the "Plan
of Separation?" Which was it?" Surely not the first, nor the
second, nor the fourth, nor the fifth, nor the sixth. The most zeal¬
ous advocates of this doctrine of unconstitutionality only insist that
* To show that the writer is by no means alone in this opinion it may bo
remarked that the title of the edition of the Discipline for 1786 read aa fol¬
lows;
" Tho General Minutes of the Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in America, forming the constitution of the said church."
What formed the constitution ? Why the General Minutes of the conferen¬
ces. What did these contain but a record of the " statutes, acts, rules," &c
as maintained above ?
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
the third rule was violated. What is that ? Why, simply, that the
General Conference shall not " destroy the plan of our general itin¬
erant superintendency." And did they do this ? Is not the plan of
general itinerant superintendency as fully and as fairly carried out in
the South as in the North ? Are the Bishops of the church any
more diocesan or local now than before the separation ? True, the
superitendency of the North has been withdrawn from the South,
just as some years ago it was withdrawn from Canada, without, in
any material sense, affecting its general plan in either case. If
the Conference of 1844 had no right to separate the South from
the North, they had no right to separate Lower Canada from the
Methodist Episcopal Church, as was done in 1820, or to separate the
Canada Annual Conference, as was done in 1828. If wrong in one
case they were wrong in all. Lower Canada, and subsequently the
Canada Annual Conference, were set off, mainly on the plea of dif¬
ference in the political institutions of the country; and with great
propriety and great force were the same reasons urged for setting off
the South in 1844—always remembering this important difference,
that in the former cases they were set off to become separate churches,
but in the latter it was the same church under a separate jurisdiction.
As this plea of unconstitutionality has been urged somewhat stren¬
uously by some of our Northern brethren, it may not be amiss to
place it by the side of some others of their declarations, that a speci¬
men of their consistency may give us some idea of the importance to
be attached to their arguments. In a speech before the Conference
of 1844, Mr. afterwards Bishop, and now ex-Bishop Hamline, said,
that the General Conference " is endowed with dominion and made
imperial," and added, "it is supreme—its supremacy is universal—it
has legislative, judicial and executive supremacy." Now, though the
South, all the while regarded this a vaunting assumption, it was
endorsed by the North, and the speech containing it has been pub¬
lished by them again and again, while soon after its delivery the
speaker was by them elected Bishop. How do these assertions look
by the side of this doctrine of unconstitutionality ? A body that is
declared to be supreme, and has universal supremacy, turns right round
and passes an unconstitutional act! An act which the constitution
forbids. An act that was wrong, and ought to be declared " null
and void," because it was wrong, and yet it was done by a body that
" is supreme," and its supremacy universal! 1" Of course that consti¬
tution which forbade the act, as well as the authority which pronounced
88
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
it wrong must have been more than supreme, and more than univer¬
sal! !
But "circumstances alter cases." When this declaration of the
supremacy of the General Conference was made and endorsed, an
effort was being made to put under disabilities, a Bishop who had
violated no law of the; church, but this plea of unconstitutionality
was put in after the plan of separation had been carried out, and the
book agents had been called, on to pay over to the South her funds
as per contract. So when an innocent man was to be degraded, the
General Conference was " supreme," but when a debt was to be paid,
this same " supreme " General Conference had done a very naughty,
unconstitutional act!!!
But if the General Conference had " full powers to make rules and
regulations for the church" with only six restrictions, and none of
> these at variance with the course pursued by the Conference of 1844,
what becomes of the plea of unconstitutionality ? A basis for such
a plea can nowhere be found in the Discipline or usages of the church.
It is hoped the reader will keep in mind the important fact, that
whether right or wrong, constitutional or unconstitutional, the divis¬
ion of the church was the result of influences which had been ope¬
rating from the very commencement of its history. In many of the
non-slaveholding States, the anti-slavery feeling was deep and uncom¬
promising. The people were sincere and conscientious in their oppo¬
sition* They claimed it both as their right and their duty to oppose
slavery, and whether they were or were not mistaken in their views
is not at present the question. The question is one of fact, and facts
show that such had, from the first, been the difference of opinions
and feelings on this subject; growing mainly out of differences in
political institutions—that difficulties had always existed and still
existed—without any prospects of removal, hence separation was re¬
sorted to as a means of preventing still further and increasing diffi¬
culties. And who, in view of all the facts and circumstances in the
case, will say that it was not a wise and judicious course ?
But aside from all difficulties which grew out of the subject of
slavery—if slavery had never existed in these United States or any¬
where else—if Bishop Andrew had never been born, there still existed
grave and weighty reasons for the division of the church. To satisfy
the mind of the candid reader on this subject—he is respectfully re¬
ferred to the remarks of Dr. Elliott, made in the Conference of 1844.
The number of ministers and members in connection with the Meth-
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
39
odist Church North and South is too great to be in one close connec¬
tion; too great to do business advantageously and expeditiously in
such connection, and more, perhaps, than were ever found volunta¬
rily connected with any branch of the christian church since the days
of the Apostles, and more, it may be safely affirmed than could rea¬
sonably be expected to remain voluntarily and harmoniously connect¬
ed, owing to the difference of feeling necessarily produced by differ¬
ence in political and social institutions. And if these were now all
together, the General Conference would either be so large as to be
unwieldly, or the ratio of representation reduced so low, as it would
be almost impossible for it to be a fair and full representation of the
entire ministry and membership.
But this thing of separations in churches by mutual consent and
for the mutual benefit of the parties, is no new thing in the history of
church organizations. It has been done again and again from the
days of the Apostles to the present. To go no further than the his¬
tory of Methodism. Who does not know that the Methodists of
America were separated from the Methodists of England on the
grounds of difference in political institutions ? Who does not know
that Lower Canada was separated from the Methodist Episcopal
Church in 1820, and the Canada Annual Conference in 1828, for
similar reasons. Eor like reasons was the South separated in 1844;
and had the plan of separation, which at the time of its adoption
was acceptable to both parties, been honestly and faithfully carried
out, as it no doubt would have been but for the pragmatical interfer¬
ence of a few individuals; the wisdom of the measure would have
been manifested in a greater peace, harmony, efficiency and prosper¬
ity of the whole church.
40
A STATEMENT OP PACTS, ETC.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHURCH SOUTH NOT A SECESSION—BUT A LEGITIMATE PART AND PARCEL OP
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH—PROOFS—THE CHARGE OF PKO-SLAVERYI8M
CONSIDERED.
As intimated in the preceding chapter, our Northern brethren first
concluded not to pay to the South that portion of church property
vested in the Book Concern which they in 1844 solemnly agreed to
do, then they argued, as already noticed, the unconstitutionality of
the plan of separation, urging that the General Conference had no
right to adopt such a plan; and then at their General Conference
at Pittsburgh in 1848 solemnly declared said plan to be "null and
void;" hence the reader will not think it strange that after all this
they should declare the Church South a " secession," and all its min¬
isters and members " seceders of the worst kind." This has been
their "rallying cry" for more than ten long years—and in many
places used as a sort of scare-crow to frighten the timed and drive
them back to the " old church" that they might again become "old-
fashioned Methodists." Who has not heard this pious whim in Mis¬
souri ? Who has not seen such in their papers and in their books ?
Dr. C. Elliott, of Cincinnati, has by order of the General Conference
of 1848, published a book, of near six hundred octavo pages " closely
printed, solid matter," double columns—one main design of which
was to show that the Church South was a secession, its members sece¬
ders, and that the Supreme Court of the United States did a very
naughty and foolish thing when by its decision and decree it recog¬
nized them in any other light.
The reason for all this is obvious. Allow the Church South to be
a legitimate part of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United
States, and the act of withholding her proportion of the church prop¬
erty until wrested by the strong arm of the law, could not be defend¬
ed. The grossness of the injustice would be too palpable. Here
began the series of errors into which our brethren unfortunately fell.
They wanted to hold on to the Book Concern—to do which with any
show of consistency after the South had organized under a plan them¬
selves adopted—they must assume the unconstitutionality of that
A STATEMENT OP FACT3, ETC.
41
plan. If the plan were unconstitutional it was of no binding force—•
if of no binding force, they ought not to be bound by it, and the South
ought not to have organized under it. Hence they, the South, are
" seceders," and we, the bona fide church, must, at a heavy annual
expense, send missionaries among them to re-convert and bring them
again to the " old church." There reader is the secret, and it is not
unworthy of remark that since the suit in the church property case
was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the
South received her lawful proportion, there has been much less ur¬
gency in this matter of sending missionaries into the bounds of the
Church South, while not a few have gone so far as to question the
propriety of doing it at all.
Still, as this " mad dog" cry of secession is yet repeated in many
places by those who cannot, or will not know better, it may be well
to give it something more than a mere passing notice.
"We have already seen* that the Methodists in the United States
were separated from the Wesleyans of England on the grounds of
difference in political institutions—that in 1820 the Methodists of
Lower Canada were separated from those in the United States for
the same reasons. So also was the Canada Conference set off in
1828—and so was the South in 1844. All this, was done by the
action of the majority, and in the three cases last mentioned it was
done by the majority of the several General Conferences before which
the subject was brought up. If then the South be a secession—so
were they of Lower Canada—and so was the Canada Conference—
and what is utterly inexplicable they are all seceders by the consent
and legislation of a majority of General Conference. A strange sort
of secession truly.
But that the South is not a secession in the sense so frequently,
and often so offensively urged is proven :
1. By the testimony of the General Conference of 1844.
The prominent men in that body, as already noticed, declared the
plan of separation did not contemplate any such thing as secession.
It " was not schism but separation for mutual convenience and pros¬
perity." No one spoke or seemed to think of secession—and under
this view eight-tenths of all the members of that body voted for the
" Plan."
2. Some of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North,
* Vide Chapter III.
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
I
presided in Southern Annual Conferences when the question of sep¬
aration was discussed, and delegates elected to the .. Louisville Con¬
vention—to which action these same Bishops gave their official sanc¬
tion. A fact worthy to be remembered, inasmuch as without the offi¬
cial sanction of the Presiding "Bishops, these Conference acts would
not have been valid. So if the South be seceders, these Northern
Bishops contributed to the secession and thus became particeps crim-
inis.
3. Some four hundred thousand or more, ministers and members of
the Methodist Episcopal Church—who, up to that period, had been
recognized as Methodists—good and true—believing the Plan of sep¬
aration to be what it purported—a Plan, not for secession or schism—
but for jurisdictional separation for " mutual convenience and pros¬
perity " proceeded to adopt and act under that " Plan " with a una¬
nimity almost, if not altogether unprecedented in the history of church
organizations. These, it is fair to presume, were as honest in their
feelings, and as capable of judging correctly as those who have since
denounced the Plan as unconstitutional, and branded as seceders
those who acted agreeably to its provisions. And let it be distinctly
understood, and well remembered, the Plan itself left it with the
South to decide as to whether a separate organization should or
should not take place.*
4. The Supreme Court of the United States—the highest judicial
tribunal in the country—composed of some of the ablest jurists in the
Union—had this subject under consideration in all its length and
breadth. This very point had been presented, and learnedly, and
elaborately argued—the Court had to examine it minutely—did so,
and rendered a decision by which her proportion of church property
was given to the South. In that decision speaking directly of the
division of the church the Court said :
" But we do not agree that this division was made without the
proper authority. On the contrary we entertain no doubt but that
the General Conference of 1844 was competent to make it; and that
each division of the church, under the separate organization, is just
as legitimate and can claim as high a sanction ecclesiastical and tem¬
poral as the Methodist Episcopal Church founded in the United
States. The same authority which founded the church in 1184 has
divided it, and established two separate and independent organiza¬
tions, occupying the place of the old one."
* See Plan," page 28.
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
43
Here is a decision on tlie subject by learned and competent men—
disinterested and sworn men—men high in authority, and high in the
estimation of their fellow-citizens. Header what think you of it ?
5. The five Northern Bishops, to-wit : Bishops Hedding, Waugh,
Morris, Janes and Hamline, in consultation at a meeting held in
July, 1845, regarded the "Plan of Separation" as of binding force,
and subsequently governed their acts accordingly. Would they have
done this had they doubted the constitutionality of the " Plan," or
looked upon the South as seceders ?
6. And lastly—Dr. C. Elliott who was one of the first to declare
the South as seceders, was also one of the first to declare they were
not.
In his speech before the General Conference of 1844, as already
quoted, he declared the measure proposed " was not schism, but separa¬
tion for mutual convenience and prosperity." He stated further,
" that the measure (separation) was necessary, he had been of that
opinion for years—and maintained that after separation the church
would be as much one as was the Church of England under the
Bishops of Canterbury and York—connected and yet distinct. But
in his book published in 1855, called the " History of the Great Se¬
cession," speaking of the separation he says :
" It cannot be considered, we believe, other than a violent seces¬
sion, originating without necessity or adequate cause, carried on by
wrong measures, pleaded for by raising fallacious issues, and when
completed, comprising several dangerous elements."
Header, there is Dr. Elliott versus Dr. Elliott. There are his views
on both sides—believe which you please—so far as he alone may be
concerned, but consider carefully all the facts and evidence in the
case, and if candid you will readily admit he was right in 1844, and
wrong in 1854.
It is by no means pleasant to hold up before the world any man,
and especially a minister of the gospel, in such a light—but the rea¬
son for doing so may be found in the fact that he was put forward to
do this work, and is often quoted to give authority and weight to
the charge of secession against the South.
The limits of a pamphlet will not allow of more than a tithe of
what might be said on this as well as other branches of this subject.
There is alas, too much reason to fear that all the " noise and confu¬
sion," made on this subject, has been mainly to divert public attention
from the very strange course pursued in reference to the property
question, together with that of organizing Conferences, and sending
44
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
missionaries into territory which by mutual agreement was to have
remained under the exclusive supervision of the Southern branch of
the church.
But without dwelling longer on this point—it may be proper to
devote at least a small space to another " mad dog " sort of cry,
which for years past has been repeated far and wide—in public and
in private through the papers ard from the pulpit, sent out in week¬
lies, stiched up in monthlies, and bound up in octavos—that the Meth¬
odist Church South is "pro-slavery," "founded on the grace of slav¬
ery," is set " for the defense, and committed to the perpetuation of
Slavery," &c., &c.
This has not been publicly charged to any considerable extent at
least in slaveholding States—but in free States—among anti-slavery
men and abolitionists it has been repeated again and again—exciting
their prejudices against the South, and stimulating their zeal in the
support of Northern missions in Southern territory.
Before proceeding to examine the grounds on which this charge
has been made, it may be well to ascertain what is meant by pro-
slavery.
Pro or for slavery simply means "in favor of slavery," and if by
charging the Church South with being pro-slavery it is meant that
she is for, or in favor of slavery until such time as in the Providence
of God it can be abolished in justice to the master and in mercy to
the slave, they are right and the charge is true. Slavery existed in
these United States anteriorly to the existence of the Methodist
Church. It is recognized by the Federal Constitution, and strongly
guarded and protected by the civil laws of those States in which it
is found—and what right has any church, or what disposition has
any good man to say it should terminate otherwise than just stated;
justly to the master and mercifully to the slave ? To terminate oth¬
erwise would be to terminate in wrong, in violence, and most likely
in bloodshed and cruelty. He, therefore, who is not pro-slavery in
the above sense is adverse to right, to justice, and to mercy. What
other position could Southern, or any other true, Methodists, chris¬
tians, philanthropists or patriots assume on this subject ? Could any
man who loves his country, or his fellow-men, or fears his God, be
anything else than _ pro-slavery in this sense ? All good men must
and will favor the continuance of slavery in this country until in the
providence of God it can be terminated in strict justice to the master
and mercy to the slave. In this sense the Church South is pro-slavery,
ever has been, and it is to be devotedly hoped ever will be.
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
45
Whether that time is now or w,lien it will come, if over, is not the
subject of the present inquiry.
But this is not what they would be understood to mean by the
term pro-slavery as charged against the South. If this were all, the
charge would be as forcible against thousands in the North, as agp.inst
any in the South; and but few would have the hardihood to deny it
in reference to themselves. They mean to be understood that the
Church South favors slavery per se, absolutely and unconditionally
This is what they mean, and herein they are guilty of a palpable vio¬
lation of the ninth commandment. Were it true the South favored
the system of slavery in the abstract, then if the question in its original
character were to come up they would sustain it, would approve of
the African slave-trade and all its concomitants. And who can be¬
lieve this? Before the Abolition of the African slave-trade it was
at Boston, New York and Philadelphia, vessels were fitted out to
engage in it. A few at Baltimore and scarce any from any point
South of that. This is too well known to be denied. When the
horrible slave-trade was to be abolished by law it was the South that
moved in the matter; but it was the North that staved it off several
years later than the time proposed by the South; and it is in the
North vessels are now fitted out to be employed in the African or the
more horrible coolie slave-trade. All this is matter of public record.
The truth is, the North from the first has been as deeply, or more
deeply involved in the matter of slavery than the South. They im¬
ported slaves, and their labor being unprofitable there, they were sold
South, the money used in building mercantile or manufacturing estab¬
lishments. The South has the slaves and the iS orth has the proceeds
of the sales of them. Thus the case stands between the two sec¬
tions of the country, while the charge that the Southern Methodists,
or the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, favors the abstract sys¬
tem of slavery, or is committed to its support, or perpetuation is un¬
founded, unwarranted false and unjust.
" But there are slaveholders in both her ministry and member¬
ship." So there are in the ministry and membership of the church
North, and if by this one is committed to the system of slavery so is
the other. Besides these things were as common in the South pre¬
viously to 1844 as since, proportioned to the whole number of min¬
isters and members. And now wherever the church North is ope¬
rating in slave territory, slaveholders are received into her commun¬
ion as readily as other people.
" But the church South construes the general rule in the Discip-
46
A STATEMENT OP FACTS, ETC.
line on the subject of slavery, in reference to the African slave-trade."
So did Dr. Fisk, Bishop Hedding, and others of the ablest and
best men with which the church was ever blessed construe the same
rule. If, therefore, this construction proves the South pro-slavery it
proves others pro-slavery also.
" Except this general rule, the Discipline of the church South has
nothing on the subject of slavery."
Is this relied on a,s proof of the charge under notice ? Does the
absence from the Discipline of all matter on the subject prove the
church to be pro-slavery in the sense urged—prove her committed to
the perpetration of the system of slavery ? If so would it not prove
the same against the Presbyterian, the Baptist, the Episcopal, and all
churches which did not take special pains to proclaim to the world
through their disciplines or confessions of faith, " we declare we are
as much as ever opposed to slavery ?" &c.
" But the South had a section on that subject in their Discipline
and erased it—this is the proof." There was a section on this sub¬
ject in the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which stood
without material alteration from 1824 to 1844, and remained in the
Discipline of the Church South until 1854, and was then left out.
Why ? Because,
1. By its own provisions it was a dead letter in nearly all of the
slave States.
2. Because it made an undue and an unwarrantable distinction be¬
tween lay and official members of the church. It allowed of slave-
holding among private members but forbade it among all official mem¬
bers, where the laws of the State would admit of emancipation, &c.
3. Because there had been a seeming inconsistency between the
declarations of that section and the practice of the church from the
very first. The section declared " we are as much as ever convinced
of the great evil," &c., and yet the church had gone on receiving
slaveholders into her communion just as though this "great evil"
were no very great evil after all.
4. Because this section had done no good, and in the South had
done and was still doing harm.
5. Because the South had never recognized the right of the church
to legislate on the subject in the manner she had undertaken to do,
and the history of that legislation had shown the correctness of the
opinion.
6. Because all the churcfi had any right to do in the premises was
fully included in other parts of the Discipline, and there was no more
A STATEMENT OP FACTS, ETC.
necessity for, or propriety in this specific rale than there was for a
specific rule against theft, robbery or murder—all were included in
more general moral rules.
These are some of the reasons why that section was stricken out.
To show the inconsistency of this charge thus founded, suppose one
would say of the church North, that it favored murder, or theft, or
adultery, and urge as a reason for such a charge that there were in
the Discipline no specific rules against these crimes. He would be
answered, and answered justly, that they were included in general
rules for the moral government of the church members, and with the
general rules there was no necessity for specific ones. So it is with
the church South in relation to slavery. All the morale of the ques¬
tion is embraced in the general rules, and with these there is no more
need of specific ones on this, than any other question involving moral
principle. All the moral wrong there could by any sort of possibility
be in American slavery, is prohibited by some one or other of the
general rules in the Discipline of the church South, and all experi¬
ence proves the more general a law is, so that the contemplated end
be attained, the better it is. If the general rule which forbids " do¬
ing to others as we would not they should do unto us," does not con¬
demn all that can be morally wrong in slavery, then it is not con¬
demned in the Bible—and what use for specific rules, especially when
they make an undue and unwarranted distinction between private
and official members of the church in reference to the same moral
act. If it be morally wrong in one, so it is in the other case.
In the moral code of the Bible, slavery is not singled out and made
the specific object of condemnation. What is said against it, is
couched in general principles—such as, "Whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so to them," " Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself," &c., &c. So, it should be in all ecclesiastical
legislation.
Almost every intelligent, candid man, who has had opportunity
and taken the pains to inform himself correctly on the subject, has
been ready to admit that the course of the Methodist Church in re¬
gard to her various rules on this subject, from 1184 to 1844, were
calculated to do little or no good, but much harm in the South, to
the cause of the church, and to the interest of both master and slave.
Dr. Coke tacitly admitted this, in reference to the stringent rules of
1184. And after his first effort to enforce these rules, when he had
a fair opportunity of testing their effects, not only agreed to their
suspension, but, in his subsequent visits to the South, he was, in his
48
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
public ministrations, silent on that subject, and his biographer, Drew,
strongly anti-slavery as he was, justified him in this silence. Mr.
Drew uses tho following language on that subject:
" By observing a degree of prudent silence, which permitted him
to preach the Gospel, those causes were called into operation which
must eventually establish more liberal principles, and finally emanci¬
pate the whole of the human race. It was in subservience to these
enlarged views, he acted in the silence which he now'observed. The
genuine conversion of a soul to God may be compared to the action
of a file, which must gradually divide the links of the chain, and
ultimately prove the meaus of obtaining freedom for every slave."—
Drew's Life of Coke, p. 184.
These " enlarged views" Dr. Coke had to gain by actual experi¬
ence in contact with the evils he deprecated; and such like experi¬
ence would have given more enlarged views to many others.
Bishop Asbury, Jesse Lee, and Dr. Bangs, the historians of the
church, make the same admissions in regard to the effect of those
rules.
Much as has been said in regard to the uniformity of the Church
in opposition to slavery, it cannot be disguised that this uniformity,
if such there has been, has not been a uniformity of manifestation.
At one time, the General Conference adopts stringent measures, and
then soon suspends them; then adopts others and less stringent rules,
and soon they are modified. Then the whole subject was referred to
the Annual Conferences severally; then again taken back by the
General Conference and further modifications made, until, finally, it
settled down to a simple declaration, "We declare we are as much
as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery," with the appendage
of a rule or two in reference to preachers and other official members
in the church, but nothing prohibiting slaveholding in the member¬
ship. The truth is, the church had unnecessarily and unfortunately
taken a stand on this subject which brought her in collision with the
civil authorities, and finding the position could not be sustained, she
backed out, little by little, until all that remained in the Discipline
amounted to little or nothing more than the mere declaration given.
In reference to the general subject, whoever examines it carefully
and critically will see good reasons why one of two courses should be
pursued by the Methodist and every other church. Either, first,
have no fellowship with slavery, or slaveholders—admit none of them
into the church, henceforth and forever,—or, second, have no spe¬
cific rule on the subject; and while it is admitted that a church can¬
not exist prosperously, if at all, in a country where slavery exists by
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
49
statutory law—without admitting some slaveholders to her commu¬
nion, let them be admitted under the general rules of the church, and
treated accordingly. If they act unnaturally or cruelly in their rela¬
tions to masters, they will thereby subject themselves to church cen¬
sure, and church discipline. One or the other of these courses, con¬
sistency seems to bind us to pursue. If slavery in all its aspects and
relations be a sin, why admit any slaveholder into a christian church ?
If there be circumstances under which it is not a sin—as almost all
admit—and many slave owners are good christian men and women,
what need is there, or was there for this spexial " testimony ?" Why
not admit men under, and judge them by the general rules ?
4
50
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
CHAPTER V.
CONCLUDING REMARKS AND SUNDRY REFLECTIONS.
Whoever carefully examines the subject referred to in the preced¬
ing pages, will not fail to notice among others the following particu¬
lars :
1. That there has been a diversity of sentiment among the preach¬
ers and prominent members of the Methodist Church, in regard to
the propriety of such rules as those just alluded to, from the organ¬
ization of the church to the present day. The parties were as dis¬
tinctly marked in 1184 as in 1844.
2. The South has always insisted that such rules were unnecessary,
impolitic, and dangerous to the peace and prosperity of the church,
and, in the South, they would never produce good, but much evil.
The emancipation of slaves .by Southern Methodists, was not be¬
cause of these rules, but because of the power of the Gospel in their
hearts and lives. Hence, Southern preachers have ever insisted on
being allowed to preach the Gospel without, being trammeled with
any rules which would bring them in collision with the civil authori¬
ties of the States where they might labor.
3. That at the first, these rules were adopted by a Conference
where the majority of the members were either Northern men, or
Englishmen, with Dr. Coke, fresh from the abolition excitement of
England, at their head; and by men, from the non-slaveholding
States, many of whom did not, and could not, fully understand the
peculiarities attending their brethren in the South, have these rules
been defended and maintained.
.4. That when it was attempted to enforce them in slave States,
the effort met with opposition, produced discord and confusion, excited
suspicions against the church and blocked the way of her ministers
to thousands of immortal beings whom they otherwise might have
greatly benefited by the preaching of the Gospel.
And whoever attentively observes the transactions of the present,
may notice among other things :
1. That when the more moderate anti-slavery men in the North
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
51
set themselves to oppose the teachings of their abolition brethren,
they resort to the same arguments in substance, which the South has
long used, and particularly those used with so much earnestness in
1886, 1840 and 1844.
2. That when Northern preachers are sent into slave territory, they
pursue substantially the same course in reference to slavery, which
the South does, and has done from the first. Of course this is said
of the more intelligent, and better class of these preachers.
8. That by their useless and continued agitation of this subject,
many Northern preachers have effectually barred their way of access
to thousands, and tens, and hundreds of thousands, for whom Christ
died, and to whom the Gospel should be preached.
4. The great mass of Southern preachers proclaim the doctrines
and adhere to the policy, and enforce the Discipline of the Methodist
Church proper, as truly and faithfully as they did previously to 1844—
while at the same time, by disavowing all connection with, and sym¬
pathy for, the ever restless innovating and insubordinate spirit of
abolitionism, they have gained, and are prepared to wield an influ¬
ence on the Southern people, masters and servants, which they previ¬
ously could not do.
In view of this whole subject, in all its bearings—under all its
attendant circumstances, and in all its relations, let it now be plainly
and candidly asked : What has leen lost by the separation ? What ?
Aye, what ? So far as it concerns the South, what in reference to
doctrines, to Discipline, to usages, to energy, to spirituality, to effi¬
ciency, or success ? What! Are there not the same doctrines—
the same Discipline—the same usages—and, to a considerable extent,
the very same" men in the Church South, now, that were in 1844 ? Is
there not, so far as human wisdom can judge, as much zeal—as much
talent—as much piety now as heretofore ? In a word, in wdiat does
the Methodist Church in the South differ now, from what it was pre¬
viously to 1844, so far as it regards all the peculiar characteristics
and essential features of Methodism, or Methodistic economy ? Why*
in just nothing at all. What then has she lost ? Nothing. Or. the
question of slavery she stands precisely where she has stood for seventy
years. No man, or set of men, if they have a proper regard for
truth, will dare to say that the Methodists of the South, as a church*
are now, or ever were, committed to the perpetuation of domestic
slavery. But they are, and ever have been, opposed to the disloyal
and unchristian practice of throwing themselves into positions antag¬
onistic to the constitutions and laws of the States in which they lived
52
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
and labored, especially when such antagonism would increase rather
than diminish the evils complained of. Neither Christ nor his apostles
were found railing against the laws of the countries where they preach¬
ed, because those laws tolerated slavery, nor did they rail against
slavery when they found it interwoven with the very elements of civil
society, and protected by statutory law; and in this, and every other
respect the Methodists of the South are content to follow their
example.
But if the South has lost nothing—has she gained anything by the
separation ? " Has she gained anything ?" The answer is—she has.
1. She has rid her ecclesiastical courts of the agitation of an in¬
tricate and exciting question, which, in this country, never did come
properly within the range of church legislation, and the agitation of
which often did harm—much harm—but seldom did any good.
2. By this, she has also rid herself of those grounds of suspicion,
which, in the different periods of her previous history, prevented her
ministers having access to hundreds and thousands whom they might
have greatly benefited' by the preaching of the gospel of Christ, and
since the separation of the South in 1844, since all grounds for sus¬
picion of hostility to civil institutions, in the form of abolitionism has
been removed, Southern preachers have been invited, and preached
to thousands of slaves from whom they were previously excluded]
and had they submitted to the high-handed measures adopted by that
Conference they would forthwith, and for good reasons have been
ejected from thousands to whom they had access previously. And
since the separation there has been a net increase in the colored mem¬
bership of the Church South, of largely over thirty thousand.
3. She has also given proof that the law of the church, and not the
law of expediency is, in her estimation, set for the protection of the
ministry, as well as the membership.
These constitute a part, but only a small part, of what the South
has gained. What the North has gained or lost, is, at present, left
for them to say.
There is another thought to which attention is respectfully asked.
The American Methodists were set off from the English in 1184.
Now, suppose that some four years after, say at the Conference of
1188, Mr. Wesley and the English preachers should have taken it in
their heads to declare the act of 1184 "unconstitutional," and there¬
fore "null and void," and then taken up missionary collections, and
appropriated the money so collected to sending men over to America
to re-convert these Methodists—what would have been thoughtof it ?
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
53
Suppose the Methodist Episcopal Church, four years after she had
set off Lower Canada, in 1820, had declared that act or law by
which they were so set off, " null and yoid," and then sent missiona¬
ries to re-convert them—what would have been thought of it ? Or
had she acted thus in reference to the Canada Annual Conference,
which she set off in 1828—what would, or ought to have been thought
of it ? Why, just what qught to be thought of the Methodist Epis¬
copal Church now, in the course she has thought proper to pursue
towards the South.
When the South and North found it impracticable, not to say im¬
possible, to remain longer together, they appointed a committee to
draw up a plan for the constitutional division of the church. This
committee consisted of nine members of General Conference—three
from the South, three from the North, and three from the Middle
Conferences; they reported a plan, it was adopted, and agreeably to
its provisions, the South proceeded to organize, which, when they
had done, behold the other party turns right round and declares the
plan unconstitutional, and therefore " null and void," and forthwith
makes arrangements to send missionaries into Southern territory to
" re-establish Methodism !"
Now, after this scheme of practically nullifying the plan of separa¬
tion has been tried for several years, after thousands of dollars have
been spent in sustaining and supporting men while carrying out these
nullification doctrines, let it be in all soberness and candor asked what
good has it done ? Yes—let us meet the question fairly and fully :
what good has been done by these infractions of the plan of separa¬
tion ? Has all the good been equivalent to one-tenth part of the
evil ? Has this course increased the piety of the church ? Has it
given her increased facilities for doing good, or added to her influ¬
ence or efficiency ? Has it brought glory to God, or secured the sal¬
vation of souls ? These questions are pertinent, and sooner or later
will have to be answered.
Suppose preachers from the South had organized societies in Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, or anywhere within the territory of the Northern
branch of the church, would such societies have been any better Meth¬
odists, or any the better christians for their connection with the
South ? No more are persons or societies in the South any the bet¬
ter for being connected with the Church North. And there are good
grounds to fear that in a majority of cases where the plan of separa¬
tion has been violated, it has been done more in the spirit of faction
than in the spirit of the gospel of Christ.
54
A STATEMENT OP FACTS, ETC.
But it is argued that there are " many persons" in the territory of
the Church South who prefer to have their connection with the North¬
ern branch of the church, and that they ought to be supplied ac¬
cordingly. How far this is correct, is not at present the subject of
enquiry, but if there be a "great many" such, is it not a little re¬
markable that they should be so utterly unable or unwilling to sup¬
port preachers among them ? In two whole Conferences, Missouri
and Arkansas, there are but very few appointments where the preach¬
ers are not, either in whole or in part, supported by the missionary
society. This argues badly for the plea of " a great many."
It does seem that if Methodists in any considerable numbers, on
either side of the line, were dissatisfied with their church relations,
they would, at least, furnish their houses of worship and support their
preachers. And good men may in all sober candor, and in the name
of our common Methodism, and in the name of our common Christi¬
anity, object to the church in general, and the missionary societies in
particular, being put under contribution to aid a few individuals in
carrying on a sort of crusading war against their Methodist breth¬
ren. This remark is made deliberately and fearlessly, and the reader
is at perfect liberty to apply it just where, and to whom he pleases.
How much better it would have beeD for the peace and prosperity
of the church, as well as for the reputation of the parties concerned,
had the plan of separation been faithfully carried out. Will any candid,
well-informed man d$ny this ? And how much better, even at this
late period, to respectively abide by its provisions than keep up the
Internal strife that has in too many places resulted from its viola¬
tions 1
The writer of this loves Methodism, anywhere—everywhere, but
with all the facts before him, in reference to this whole subject, it is
clear that at the time of its occurrence, the church could not do oth¬
erwise than separate—and in the separation the interest and conve¬
nience of both parties were consulted; and had the plan of separa¬
tion been carried out fairly, faithfully and fully, the interests and con¬
venience of both parties would have been promoted.
Although these remarks have already been extended beyond what
was at first anticipated, it may still be proper ere they close, to take
at least a glance at the present relation and condition of the parties
in regard to this "vexed question."
Among the Methodists of the South there is unanamity of senti¬
ment and feeling, and a uniformity in administration of Discipline—
consequently, there is peace and quietness. Being untrammeled by
A STATEMENT OF FACTS, ETC.
55
ranscriptural and unnecessary restraints, tlie preachers can go every¬
where, have access to all classes, and preach the gospel of the Bless¬
ed Redeemer to all. This they are constantly seeking to do. New
fields of labor are opened, entered, and occupied, while hundreds and
thousands of slaves, together with those to whom they legally belong,
are brought to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus—while in
the North, there is discord and confusion, strife and contention. Of
thirty-eight Annual Conferences embraced in that church, twenty-seven
have at their recent annual sessions adopted resolutions more or less
explicit, and taken measures which look directly to the changing of
their Discipline, so as effectually to rid the church of slaveholding
members. In other words—twenty-seven Conferences have, with
greater or less distinctness, avowed abolitionism—and eleven still claim
to be conservative. The Conferences are divided, their church papers
are divided, their preachers are divided, their members are divided—
and though the present writer lays no claim to the spirit of prophecy,
he ventures to predict, the restless innovating spirit of abolitionism
will never cease its efforts until these eleven Conferences, now claiming
to be conservative, are brought fully under abolition rule or cut off
from the main body. While these lines are being penned a contest is
going on at their General Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, which
in all probability will accomplish a work that will place thousands of
Methodists, preachers and people, in a condition very like to that in
which the South was placed by the majority of the General Confer¬
ence of 1844.
It does not come within the design of the present work, else it
might be both interesting and useful to show the wide and gratifying
difference between the negro race, as found in these United States,
and on his native soil. The difference between what he is, and what
he was, and point out the social, mental and moral cultivation he has
received even in his slavery. To show how the providence of God
brings glory to His name, and good to the world, out of what man
at first designed only, perhaps, to gratify his own cupidity. Without
any attempt or disposition to justify the system of slavery, it might
easily be shown that the enslavement of a portion of the African race
in these United States, has been so over-ruled by Divine Providence,
that already has it been a source of greater political, civil, social and
moral good to Africa, than all other causes combined. Let the curi¬
ous reader examine some authentic and detailed history of christian
missions—Jones' for example—and learn of the hundreds of lives
which have been sacrificed, and the thousands upon thousands of
56 A STATEMENT OP FACTS, ETC.
i *
means expended in fruitless efforts to christianize the Aborigines of
that country, and then think' of what has befen done through the
agency of the American Colonization Society. Let him learn how
the Jesuits with their indomitable perseverance labored fruitlessly for
more than one hundred and forty years; how, the meek, quiet, but
zealous Moravians toiled—how the Missionary Societies of London
and Edinburgh expended their treasures and sacrificed human life—
and then let him candidly ask what did they all, compared with what
has since been done in comparatively a few short years by the colony
at Liberia. A colony which is spreading the lights of civilization
and the benign influences of Christianity with almost unprecedented
rapidity. A colony that has grown to a christian republic—that an¬
nually receives its additions of hundreds from this country, who carry
back inestimable blessings they were not at all likely to have received
on their native soil. And if he be in truth a christian—let him re¬
member how prejudicial to the health, and fatal to the life of the
white man is the climate of all western and central Africa—where
roam, in deplorable ignorance and horrid barbarity, millions of human
beings—and then ask how are they to be evangelized but through the
agency of this colony—this republic of Africans, returned from tem¬
porary bondage in these United States. This colony has gone on
extending its influence over, and absorbing the natives by hundreds
and thousands, and will likely still go on and on, until millions and
tens of millions will have sat at Jesus' feet, who else, might, and most
likely would have remained for centuries after centuries enveloped in
f all their darkness, degradation, misery and death. How wonderfully
is an all-wise God overruling American slavery for the enlightenment
and redemption of down-trodden and degraded Africa, and how much
more christian-like to become co-workers with Him, in preparing the
minds and hearts of those who are still here, for the destiny that
seems to await them in the future, than spend the time and desecrate
the*puljjs>it in bitter denunciations of that which, if removed at, all can
, be removed only by mild and gradual means. But enough.