Page images
PDF
EPUB

PRACTICABLE

AMNESTY.

In the House of Representatives, Jan. 14, 1876.

MR. BLAINE

"RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA,

Mr. SPEAKER, the object of this side of the | cept poor Jefferson Davis! I have here a letHouse is not to become obstructive, is not to ter written to me without any request, and, so delay legislation by those means with which far as I know, without any expectation that In the last Congress we were made so familiar.it would be made public; but I am sure that We have no desire to filibuster, although the even if it be a private letter the gentleman civil-rights bill, which was designed to give writing it will pardon me for reading it. It is the rights of manhood to the colored mem- as follows: bers, was ordered to be reported regularly from a committee, and for seventeen consecutive Monday mornings filibustering cut off the chance to report it; and one of the chief parliamentary glories of my honorable friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. RANDALL] was that by extreme use of this power he prevented the consideration of that bill. We design no such process. We simply desire to have a vote upon the question whether Jefferson Davis shall be included in this general amnesty; and in addition to that, if my friend from Massachusetts, [Mr. BANKS, who smiles with that winsome smile to which I am always ready to respond, will allow me, he will observe that my amendment is better than his in another respect. I will read it in the original terms

in which I offered it :

"January 12, 1876. "MY DEAR SIR: I observe there is excitement in the House on the amnesty proposition. "In 1870 I was impeached and removed from office as Governor of this State solely because of a movement which I put on foot according to the Constitution and the law to suppress the bloody Ku-Klux This was done by the Democrats of this State, the allies and the echoes of Northern Democrats. I was also disqualified by the judgment of removal from holding office in this State. The Democratic legislature of this State and its late constitutional convention were appealed to in vain by my friends to remove this disability. The late convention, in which the Democrats had ty vote to remove my disabilities thus imone majority by fraud, refused by a strict parposed; and I am now the only man in North Carolina who cannot hold office.

"That all persons now under disabilities imposed by the fourteenth amendment to the posed by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, with the exception of Jefferson Davis, late President "I think these facts should be borne in mind of the so-called Confederate States, shall be when the Democrats in Congress clamor for relieved of such disabilities upon their ap-relief to the late insurgent leaders. Pardon pearing before any judge of the United States and taking and subscribing, in open court, the following oath, duly attested:"

Now the gentlemen's amendment makes it necessary that an oath be taken in any court in any State, a court of probate for instanceany small court. I think that this is a matter with which the United States is dealing. It is a governmental matter between the Government of the United States and some of its erring children. They are coming back to the United States to be reclothed and rehabilitated with the full rights and glories of American citizenship. I think that important transaction should be cognizable only in courts of the United States. In that respect I claim that my amendment is better than that of the gentleman from Massachusetts. As to the oath proposed in the two amendments, there is no difference between them, or if there is any difference it is merely verbal.

|

the liberty I have taken in referring to this
matter, and believe me, truly, your friend,
"W. W. HOLDEN.

"HON. JAMES G. BLAINE.”

And

Now, gentlemen, what have you to say to that? It is purely a political impeachment; not prosecution, but persecution; persecution of a man for opinion's sake. it is to-day within the design of the Democratic party to remove Governor Ames, of Mississippi, from his chair by impeachment, and to disqualify him from holding office. The legislation proposed here has this end, that two friends of the Union, one a Union man of North Carolina, and the other as gallant a Union soldier as ever tied sash around his body, are to be disfranchised and disabled men, and poor Jefferson Davis is to be let free to enjoy the Centennial at Philadelphia. [Laughter.] *

*

*

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Now I wish to make this proposition that I may bring my bill before the House by unanimous consent, and I will yield to any gentleman to mové an amendment to it. I will give to that side of the House all I have asked for this side. Now, if it be the case that gentlemen will refuse that proposition, then it is because they do not want any bill passed. I am for a practicable amnesty. I am for an amnesty that will go through.

I hold in my hand a letter which I endeavored to have this morning the poor privilege of reading, and which I could not get, but again under the rules of the House, always beneficent; and which I have no doubt will al ways be beneficent as administered by the honorable occupant of the chair, I have that privilege. This morning I received a letter which I commend to gentlemen from the South. With that fascinating eloquence which my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. BANKS] possesses, he called your attention to the great Mr. ROBBINS, of North Carolina. I object. value in this centennial year of having no man Mr. BLAINE. Now, Mr. Speaker, I will end in the length and breadth of the land under this matter, which I have within my power, the slightest political disabilities, and why ex-I withdraw the motion to reconsider.

MR. DAVIS, OF MASSACHUSETTS,

UPON THE

BILL REPORTED BY THE COMMITTEE OF FINANCE,

AND COMMONLY CALLED

THE SUB-TREASURY BILL.

Delivered in the Senate of the United States on the 28th of February and 1st of March, 1838.

WASHINGTON:

PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF NILES NATIONAL REGISTER.

SPEECH.

MR. DAVIS said, that finding no gentleman willing to take the floor, he would venture to occupy the attention of the senate, though he had hoped first to hear from the distinguished senators from Tennessee, (Mr. Grundy,) and Pennsylvania, (Mr. Buchanan,) who had recently announced their purpose of voting against the bill, in obedience to legislative instructions. They were instructed to oppose the measure, and a hearty opposition implied, especially in regard to those gentlemen, something more than recording a vote among the nays; they had yielded to instructions against their own sentiments, and he was anxious to see them employ their talents in argument, as well as to give their votes, agreeably to the opinions of their respective legislatures. If voting in opposition to the convictions of the mind is manifesting a becoming obedience, then enforcing that vote by argument, sustaining the opinions of those giving the instructions, though it may be opposed to all the convictions of the mind, is a higher proof of respect for instructions. He thought, indeed, that if Tennessee and Pennsylvania had a right to the votes-they had a higher right to have their sentiments, enforced by the learning and eloquence of the two senators; and he regretted to hear the member from Pennsylvania say his lips were sealed. He hoped that opinion would be revised, and we should yet hear an argument from him, for the State had a right to all his exertions in her behalf. If they yielded obedience, their obedience should be unqualified.

Mr. Davis then said he was about to enter into the debate with unaffected reluct ance, for the country had been long agitated, credit was prostrate, confidence greatly shaken, business suspended, bankruptcy had been stalking through the land, laborers thrown out of employ, and public distress and embarrassment had drawn to its aid the most searching and powerful minds in and out of this house. The subject had been greatly discussed; the principal topics had become very familiar, and it might justly be considered presumptuous in one, even of higher pretension and greater research than himself, to hope to engage the attention of the senate or of the country. He would attempt it though he could promise little that would be instructive.

The inquiry, said he, which fills every mind is, what is the cause of this extraordinary state of things?

Some have the hardihood in the press, and even here, to call it a panic, and to assert that it is manufactured, as if the public were feigning distress to make an exhibition of itself; and as if the government itself, which with all its resources, can scarcely move forward, was playing antics to amuse itself. Let those who live in ease and luxury, reposing themselves on couches, and feeding on taxes wrung from the people to fill the treasury, jest at the hunger and nakedness of those who have been thrown out of employment. They may delude themselves, but the time for this kind of imposition on others has passed away. If the voice of the people has not clearly been heard by such heartless beings, it will reach them in tones that will start them from their re

pose, unless they sleep the sleep of death. Those who ridicule public distress will soon cease their untimely jesting, for the people are coming to their own rescue.

Sir, dismay and despondency do pervade the country, and you cannot shut your eyes against a truth so palpable.

Divine providence has been propitious-the seasons have been returned upon us-the earth, though sometimes more prolific, has yielded a great abundance--industry and enterprize have been untiring-labor has, in its thousands of ways, filled the country with productions, as has been proved by the high price of wages; and yet, in the midst of apparent plenty, many are suffering with pinching want, and the country, with the flush of health upon the cheek, is sick at heart.

We have many singular proofs of an extraordinary state of things. We know the United States has turned out of its employment the laborers at several of the navy yards, and suspended the work upon some of the public ships, because we have seen in this chamber, morning after morning, the petitions of those laborers, praying to be restored to the occupations from which they have been suddenly dismissed, in this inclement season. Yes sir, the very defences of the country are suspended, the regular annual increase of the navy, provided for by law, is interrupted. The Departments wring, and twist, and turn, and shift, to maintain any thing like a decent credit. The revenues are collected in specie, and yet depreciated paper is paid out to creditors. From the Secretary's statement, in a late document, I understand that of $220,000, provided for the late quarterly payment of debenture certificates, pensions, and fishing bounties, at Boston, only $16,000 was in specie. Ten millions were authorized to be borrowed at the last session, and yet this giant with all its credit, its surplus revenue, and its vast resources, can scarcely struggle on even by dismissing the laborers from its employ. If the government is thus entangled in its own meshes, if it is thus paralised by the times, what must be the condition of individuals who have no power to resist the tempest which has swept over the country?

We may well then, inquire what is the cause of this state of things? Where rests the responsibility?

The Executive affirms that a deranged currency is the cause. The extra session was summoned on that account. The message assigns that as the reason, and proposes a remedy for it.

The people also affirm that it is a deranged currency. The currency is then the seat of the disease. In this all agree. But the Executive affirms that the people have deranged it by speculation, overtrading, and gambling, as gentlemen are pleased to term rash speculation.

The people reply that the whole responsibility rests on the administration. It found eight years ago a good currency; undertook to make it better; managed things in its own way, using the whole political power as it pleased, and this is the better fruits of its fatal experiments. It sowed the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind. If it had forborne to regulate, and had left things as it found them, the country would now be in a palmy state of prosperity.

As one of the people, I go with them in the issue they make; I hold the administration to its just responsibility; it must answer for its acts; it must not be allowed to escape from censure by shifting the reproach upon those who hold no power and have no means of winding toils round the country. Things were well; this no one denies; the administration undertook to make them better; they were in its hands, managed by it, and have come to what they are. The administration alone would seem to be responsible.

To understand the means which have been employed to derange the currency, I must, at the hazard of being tedious, recapitulate some of the leading events of the last nine years; for the policy which has produced the present crisis cannot be well understood without this retrospection.

In 1829 General Jackson was inaugurated; the bank of the United States then collected and disbursed the revenues of the country; they were placed in its custody by law, and could only be drawn out by law; it was an agent, therefore, not dependent

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »