new states, to endow colleges or universities, what lands were increased in value thereby ?-none within my knowledge. It may be that the existence of colleges and universities in the states encourages settlements, and that thereby a chance is held out that the lands will sell at a better price. And if this be the argument, I reply that the existence of an asylum for the insane is just as likely to induce settlements, and thus increase the value of the lands, as is the existence of a college to do the same thing. I have thus far omitted to speak of the bounty land grants to soldiers. in connection with this subject. Regarding that act as depending for its constitutionality on the same clause of the Constitution that justifies this, and as being in all respects more like this than any other, I have chosen to consider it separately. The bounties to soldiers were, and are, in every legal sense, gratuities, naked gifts. The soldiers entered the army on a contract to perform certain specified services for a specific sum of money. They have performed the services and received their pay, and most of them have been forty years out of the army. They had been paid off and discharged, thirty, forty, and fifty years ago. The government owed them nothing; and yet Congress gave them each a tract of land, forty, eighty, or one hundred and sixty acres. Was this done to increase the value of other lands? Was this justified on the ground of prudent proprietorship? Was this for the use and benefit of all the states? No, sir, no. It was done as an act of gratitude to the brave men who fought our battles. It was justified on the ground that we could dispose of the public lands as we pleased, and it was for the use and benefit of the old soldiers, and for no one else. If we could give fifty millions of acres on the score of gratitude, why may we not give ten millions on the score of charity? The grant to the soldiers met my warm approval, and had my cordial support. It was an act of justice, not of legal obligation. The act before us had my approval and support also. It, too, is one of justice, not to individuals, but to states. I defend its constitutionality on the same ground that I defended the first act, and its justice on the further ground, that it divides the land equally among the parties having a common interest, and for the praiseworthy purpose of protecting those who are unable to protect themselves. I here leave the message, and recur for a moment to the history of this bill in its passage through the two houses of Congress. It has twice passed the House, and twice the Senate. It first passed the Senate, February 12, 1851, by a vote of 36 yeas to 16 nays, and was sent to the House, where it was defeated by the rigid enforcement of the rules. Once the rules were suspended, yeas 105, nays 50, more than two-thirds; but the House proceeded to other business, and again, on a motion to suspend that rule, so as to allow the bill to pass, the yeas were 108, and the nays 70. It will thus be seen that in 1851 there was not only a majority of more than two to one in the Senate in favor of the bill, but a majority of about two to one in the House also. In 1852 the bill was again before the House, and passed by a vote of 98 yeas to 54 nays, almost two to one. This session it passed the Senate again, yeas 25, nays 12, and was sent to the House and there passed, yeas 81, nays 53. It will thus be seen that, before the Senate and before the House, both being Democratic by large majorities, this bill has uniformly commanded two-thirds of the votes in one house, and nearly two-thirds in the other. It so happened that the bill has not passed both Houses at the same session, or during the same Congress, until now, and, therefore, it was never before sent to the President for his approval. Among the Democrats who have voted on this bill at one time, or at another, I find the names of Borland, of Arkansas; Downs, of Louisiana; Norris, of New Hampshire; Rusk, of Texas; Shields, of Illinois; Soulé, of Louisiana; Sturgeon, of Pennsylvania, and others of the Senate; and in the House, Bissell, of Illinois; Cobb, of Alabama; Gilmore, of Pennsylvania; Ingersoll, of Connecticut; Peaslee, of New Hampshire; Polk, of Tennessee; Churchwell, of Tennessee; Dawson, of Pennsylvania; Florence, of Pennsylvania; Seymour, of Connecticut; Smith, of Alabama; Harris, of Alabama; Beale, of Virginia; and many others. I mention these things to show that if there was error in passing this bill, it was an error very common among Democrats. Nor can it be said that the constitutional question was not raised. It was raised in both Houses, and as fully discussed as senators and representatives chose to discuss it. I speak on this subject after a careful inspection of the record. Mr. Borland defended the constitutionality of the bill in the Senate, and he has been sent abroad. Messrs. Soulé, Peaslee, and others of its friends, have received the highest marks of the President's consideration and confidence. The President refers to two acts heretofore passed by Congress, which he admits furnish precedents for the passage of this bill. One of these is an act passed March 3, 1819, granting a township of land to the deaf and dumb, in Connecticut; and the other is an act passed April 5, 1826, making a like grant to the Kentucky asylum for the education of the same unfortunate class. It is worthy of remark that the lands thus granted were necessarily located outside of the states of Kentucky and Connecticut. And were in this, as in all other respects, granted, just as we propose to grant these lands, and for an object very similar to this, not, I think, so praiseworthy. The President admits that these are precedents, but adds, they should "serve rather as a warning than as an inducement to tread in the same path." I entertain the highest respect for the opinions of President Pierce; but he will excuse me if I say that precedents set by such men as James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Wm. H. Crawford, James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Wm. R. King, Edward Livingston, Levi Woodbury, Geo. McDuffie, and others, do not serve as warnings to me, unless it be the warning that the beacon gives to the mariner. Those great men were bright and shining lights; their example has illumined the path we are now treading. Mr. Monroe was president, and approved the act of 1819. Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Crawford were members of his cabinet, and all the others, as senators or representatives, voted for one or the other of the bills spoken of by the President. If, in following the lead of Democratic presidents, Democratic secretaries, ambassadors, and senators, who have attained to the highest honors in the republic, and enjoyed the highest places in the confidence of the people, I have been led into error, I hope my error will find an easy pardon at the hands of my constituents. I have now, Mr. President, performed an unpleasant duty. It would my course. have given me great pleasure to have found my vote sustained by the President; but I could neither abandon the vote I had given, nor the convictions which justified me in giving it, because the President refused to sustain what I had done. I have felt called upon to defend This I have done; how perfectly, is left to time and the public judgment to decide. It has been my studied purpose to avoid everything that by possibility could be construed into an attack upon the conduct of the President. If he is right, the Constitution has been happily saved from violation. If he is wrong, time will correct his error. But whether right or wrong, I have not a word to say against the purity of his motives. He had his convictions, and he has acted on them, and I am not the man to insinuate that he has been moved thereto by any other than the highest considerations of duty to the country, and devotion to the Constitution. ALIEN SUFFRAGE. SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAY 25, 1854, ON THE INTENDING to vote for the amendment of the senator from Maryland, "That every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years, who shall be an actual resident of said territory, and shall possess the qualifications hereinafter prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be eligible to any office within the said territory, but the qualifications 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" Now comes the part proposed to be stricken out : "and those who shall have declared on oath their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act: And provided further, That no officer, soldier, seaman, or marine, or other person in the army or navy of the United States, or attached to troops in the service of the United States, shall be allowed to vote or hold office in said territory by reason of being on service therein.” If the section passes as it stands, it is, beyond all question, that foreigners in the territory, and not being in the service of the United States, may vote, no difference what may have been their character abroad, or what their inducement to come here-however discreditable to the country from which they came, they have nothing to do but to make a bare declaration of their intention to become a citizen, and take an oath to support the Constitution, to entitle them to vote; while American citizens, who have been so from their birth, and whose characters are above reproach, if they are in the military service of their country in these territories, will, by the same act, be denied the right to vote. I ask senators to pause before they legislate to give foreigners rights which are denied to our own citizens upon American soil. How will this act operate practically, if you pass it in the words in which it now stands? The officers commanding your army, the soldiers who are serving under your banner, and who are placed upon your frontiers to defend your women and children from the tomahawk of the savage, will be denied the elective franchise, while the thousands and tens of thousands who are pouring upon our shores from every part of God's habitable globe, will be entitled to that sacred privilege. Why, sir, if Santa Anna should be expelled from Mexico to-morrow, as he may be, and should take up his residence in one of these territories, he may vote the day after he gets there, if this bill passes; and Winfield Scott, whose name is emblazoned on every page of his country's history, and whose impress is on every battle-field from the St. Lawrence to the city of Mexico, if he was there stationed at the order of the President, would not be allowed the same privilege. I ask honorable senators if it is not so, that by the proposed legislation we are about to say to the General-in-chief of the American army, you shall not vote in a territory conquered by your arms; and to the deserter from the enemy's camp, you may vote! Shall we do this? Shall we say to the venerable soldier who has served his country for forty years, who has fought more battles, and fought them better than any living man, shall we say to Winfield Scott, who, whatever may be his faults as a politician, deserves his country's gratitude, you shall not vote in Kansas or Nebraska; and then shall we say to the outcasts of the Old World, to the wanderers and vagabonds, to the prison-birds and spawn of infamy, you may vote? I hope not. Let no man charge that I am hostile to foreigners. We invite them to our shores, and I would receive them kindly and treat them generously; but when I am asked to stand up in the American Senate and give to foreigners the right of suffrage, and in the same breath deny it to American citizens, I say plainly I cannot do it. I have heard before of putting foreigners on equal footing with Americans, but this is the first time when I have been called upon to give them an advantage. And what is the reason assigned? Look at the bill. No officer or soldier of the army shall be allowed to vote in the territory by reason of his being on service there. It is sufficient for his exclusion from the polls that he bears his country's arms, that he encounters the dangers of the camp, and the perils of the battle-field. But a foreigner-what of him? He may spurn your arms, insult your flag, spit upon your laws; and then say he means to become a citizen, and swear to support your Constitution, and you let him vote. A thousand soldiers, with Scott or Wool at their head, may be ordered to Nebraska the day after this bill passes, and not one of them can vote. By reason of being on service in the territory they are excluded; while a thousand foreigners, just landed, may vote, and the next day abandon the territory for ever. For, mark you, they are to declare their intention to become citizens of the United States-not of Nebraska. Just think of Scott or Wool, at the head of a thousand Americans, guarding a thousand Irish or Dutch against Indian assaults while they vote, and then guarding them on their march out of the country, and hear Pat or Haunce blessing this land of liberty, where foreigners vote and Americans look on in silence! me. I am told, sir, by way of alarm on this subject, that if the bill is sent back to the House it will be lost. I have had no evidence of that; and if I had, I would not be so alarmed as to do that which my judgment does not sanction. I am here as an American senator, to vote upon my responsibility; and I must do it with the aid of such lights as are before Mr. President, we are to-day making up a record which will be looked to by coming generations. What do we every day? Why, sir, we go back to the records of the past, and inquire what those have done who went before us? Do we always examine into the reasons which influenced the votes? No, sir. Senators get up and say, on a question which they claim as a precedent, so many voted in the affirmative, and so many in the negative. When the present passes away, this vote will be recorded against you; and you will be told, that here, on the 25th day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, the American Senate, deliberately, upon a motion to strike out this provision, refused to do it by so many yeas to so many nays, thereby declaring to all the world, that foreigners may vote on a bare declaration of intention to become citizens of the United States and an oath to support the Constitution; while a citizen soldier may not, by reason of his being in his country's service, do the same thing. This is the precedent you are making to-day. The Chinese have a proverb, That curses, like chickens, come home to roost. I pray that this precedent may not come home to us, in after time, with the double power of a political curse. Sir, the interests, the rights, the honor of my constituents are to be put at hazard on this vote. I have already said our own citizens, if they are soldiers, will be denied the right to participate in the proceedings in these territories in any manner, shape, or form. If we have a thousand American citizens there, and they happen to be soldiers, they are to stand off and see their rights and interests committed to foreigners. These foreigners may have no interest in your country, may not have read its Constitution, and may be wholly incapable of feeling any attachment for our institutions. I call upon senators to reflect before they proceed further in this business. I tell you this record will be brought up in future time, just as the records of our ancestors are brought up now; and our descendants will be told that, because we did this today, they may do it in all time to come. I am not unbalanced by this appeal to our fears. The House of Representatives may not do its duty; but that does not prove that we must fail to do ours. I intend to do my duty, and if others fail to do theirs, let each member be responsible to his conscience, to his constituents, and to his God. Again, I have been told that a certain class of senators will now vote to strike out this provision, though they sustained it before, with the view of embarrassing the bill. I do not know what these gentlemen mean to do. I am not in their company or confidence. I have had no consultation with them; but they will show that on this, or on a former occasion, they failed of acting from conscientious convictions, if they give the vote suggested. When the motion was formerly made by the senator from Delaware [Mr. Clayton], they all voted against it; and if they go for it now, merely that they may embarrass the bill, their motives will be subjected to severe criticism. I do not believe they will; I know nothing about it; but, whatever they may do, I mean, as I said |