give their votes, which day shal be the same throughout the United States." And these, sir, are the constitutional authorities for the passage of the bill now under consideration. There never was a time, nor will there ever be a time, when it will be more proper for Congress to interfere and assert its constitutional authority in this matter than at this time. of the elective franchise; for the overthrow of all others put together, would not so much endanger our liberties. It is the highest duty that every citizen owes to himself, to his country, to the memory of his ancestors, to their blood and treasure spilled and expended in the great revolution by which we were redeemed; and, above all, to those who are to come after him, to preserve this franchise in it pristine purity, and to transmit it unsullied to pos It would seem, with the knowledge which we terity. possess of the wholesale frauds and unvarnished My next object is to show that the elective fran-treason that were practised in 1838 and '40, that it is chise has been basely violated, and the ballot-box most corruptly abused. If I can do that, I will have shown good reasons why this bill should pass, or some other one that will prevent such abuse and such corruption hereafter. an imperious duty which we owe to our situation, to the country, and the oath we have taken, to pass some law which will arrest a repetition of such frauds. I would be excusable in the mere assertion of the frauds upon the ballot-box, and violation of I have stated that our constitutions and laws have the elective franchise, practised in the elections of defined the manner in which the elective franchise those years, so well are they known, and so firmly shall be used, as well as who shall be entitled to are they fixed in the convictions of this wide-spread its exercise; and the same rules prohibit its use in community; but I have promised proofs and exany other way than those prescribed, and by any posés, so I proceed to present some of them. other persons than those designated. For this pur- some of them, for I have neither time nor space to pose, election precincts are established in every to give even those I have more than a bird's-eye county in every State in the Union. By the wis-glance, nor have I had time or opportunity to collect dom of our law-makers, those precincts are small; the one-thousandth part. say they have also provided for the appointment of a I hold in my hand a book. It is the journal of an class of officers called judges of election, whose duty investigating committee raised and authorized by it is to know of themselves, or by information, all the legislature of Ohio to investigate a contest bepersons who are or are not entitled to the use of tween J. C. Wright, contestor, and G. W. Holmes, the elective franchise. The judges are sworn to re-contestee, (all of the county of Hamilton,) who were ceive no vote from the hand of any one not entitled candidates for the Ohio Senate at the annual election to a vote within the precinct, and to reject all votes of 1840-the former as rank a blue-light federal from persons living without the precinct, whether whig as ever justified the Hartford convention, or citizens of the State or the United States, or not. The worshipped a coon; the latter as pure and as firm object of those provisions and guards is to secure a locofoco anti-bank Jeffersonian democrat as ever the elective franchise from abuse. Our constitutions bore the name, or "skinned a koon;" both clever and laws have peculiarly guarded the States from fellows, and highly respectable citizens in every perinterference with each other in relation to the sonal and private sense. Holmes was the successful privilege or the abuse of the ballot-box; and candidate; Wright contested his seat; and this book all elections are declared void which are vitiated contains the evidence disclosed by the contest. It is by illegal votes-whether by illegal votes from the a large book; it contains four hundred and twenty hand of those who have no right to vote, or, having pages; and every page, from the title-page to the a right to vote, vote in the precinct, county, or State, last page, is crowded in close lines and small type, other than that designated as the proper place to with evidence of the basest frauds on the elective vote. It is now my purpose to show that the elective franchise. Well as the frauds of 1840 are underfranchise has been violated in all the particulars which stood, this book discloses frauds beyond suspicion, I have mentioned, but more especially by persons and almost beyond comprehension. Did I voting in States, counties, and precincts in which not owe it to my conscience, to my they had no right to vote, and in violation of ex- country, and and to to my office, and this conpress laws regulating elections, and defining the stitution, which I have bound myself, with upprivileges of elections; and it is to prevent a repeti-lifted hand, and in presence of my God, to suption of such violations hereafter, and in all time, that port,-for the honor of my country, and for the I have introduced this bill. It would seem that the character of our republican institutions at home and framers of the federal constitution had a presenti-abroad, I could wish this book, and all such evidence ment of the possibility of the abuse of the elective of frauds practised in that memorable 1840, were franchise, in the very manner and by the very means among the things that never were. But the evidence by which it has been violated: hence they reserved is here in books; it has a place in the knowledge the means to the federal Congress of preventing and recollection of the people in this country; and such an evil. it is matter of taunt and boast in other countries. So, our best plan is to use it, and expose it, to prevent a repetition of such frauds. Sir, I have evidence indisputable that not less than seven hundred "The times, places, and manner of holding elec- voters were imported into the single county of Hamtions for senators and representatives shall be pre-cratic ticket by a regular, organized system of swinilton, at the election of 1840, to defeat the demoscribed in each State by the legislature thereof; "but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or al-dling and pipelaying. A part of the evidence is ter such regulations, except as to the place of choos-contained in the journal to which I have referred; a ing senators. I hold in my hand the constitution of the United States. The fourth section of the first article reads thus: A part of article second, section first, reads thus: "The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall part in the acknowledgments of those who partici pated in the frauds, not only as workers and conductors of the iniquity, but as voters also; but a larger part in letters which I received from persons. residing in the interior of the State of Ohio, and 4 several other western States-letters received before the election, informing me that arrangements were making by the whigs to send voters by companies to defeat my election, and letters received after the election, informing me that companies had been sent, had voted, and boasted of having done their part to defeat "bully Duncan." I have said that I have neither time nor space to display but a small part of this mass of evidence. I can only present one of the most glaring iterms, and merely allude iterms, and merely allude to the balance. Pipelayers flocked from other district, and other States--some on foot, some on horseback, some on mules, by wagon-loads, by stageloads, and by steamboat-loads. My time will only permit me to notice the steamboat-loads. I will ask the clerk to read the following deposition. The clerk read: 57.-DEPOSITION OF JEFFERSON PEAK. In the matter of the contested election, where the seat of George W. Holmes, in the Senate of the State of Ohio, is contested by an elector of Hamilton county, the said George W. Holines appeared by his attorney, Thomas J. Henderson, at the clerk's office of the Gallatin circuit' court, in the town of Warsaw, county of Gallatin, State of Kentucky, on the second day of December, 1840, agreeably to the annexed notice, and adjourned over until to morrow morning, December 3, 1840, as endorsed on said notice. DECEMBER 3, 1840. Met pursuant to adjournment, when Jefferson Peak, a wit. ness, produced on the part of said George W. Holmes, who being duly cautioned and sworn, deposes and says: Question by Thos. J. Henderson, attorney for George W. Holmes. Please to state if you know of any person or persons taken to Cincinnati to vote at the State election held on the 13th of October last; and if you know any thing about it, state all you know in relation to them? Answer by Deponent.—I went on board the steamboat Mail, at this place, on the night previous to the State election in Ohio, for Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on business for Messrs. Peake and Roberds, of this place. On going aboard, I found the boat so touch crowded, that there was no possible chance for sleep, either on the floor, or in a state-room or berth. As there were so many persons on board, over and above places for sleep, including the floor, myself, with a number of others, were compelled to sit up all night, or nearly so. I did get to I down a short time before day by occupying another man's place on the floor, which he had just left. During the night on our way up, nearly all the conversation seemed to be in relation to the Ohio election, that was to take place on the next day; and a great portion of the passengers that I saw that night did not have the appearance that cabin passengers usually have, though I did not see anything like all the passengers were on board, as I got off of said boat about daylight, at Lawrenceburg; and a great portion of them were in bed when I went on board, as every place seemed to be crowded; and the greater portion of those I saw seemed to be more like ruffians than otherwise. And when the boat stop. ped at Lawrenceburg to put me out, they sent me ashore in the yawl, and I had to pass through the lower deck to get to the yawl, and there appeared to be a great many persons on deck as well as in the cabin. Calhoun, of Mississippi, and myself, were in conversa. The whole crowd then moved their stand to near the wheelhouse; and there, as before, appeared to proceed to settle with divers individuals. They seemed to come up from the deck of said boat into the cabin in crowds of from 10 to 15 in number; and after they got through settling, and a portion of them receiving their money, they would disperse and go below, and another crowd come up. They continued in this way, I think, until about one o'clock, p. m. of said day; during which time Í did not fully satisfy myself about the matter. I then went to the clerk of the boat, who was at that time a stranger to me; I asked him how many men were there on board that had been carried to Cincinnati to vote. He laughed, and remarked that he did not know.. I asked him who settled for their passage. He pointed out to me a man, rather an elderly looking man; I afterward found out his name to be William Stewart, from himself. I asked the clerk of the boat if he had a list of their names. He said yes; there lay a paper on his desk, I asked if that was the one. He said it was. I then took it in my hand, and then laid it down again, as I thought it would not be prudent to open it, as I had picked it up of my own accord. I then went to several of the men, and asked them a great many questions; where they lived. They all said (that I talked with, but two exceptions) that they were citizens of Louisville, Kentucky; the other two lived in Indiana, one in Jeffersonville, the other in Indianapolis. These men on board of the Pike (with but few exceptions) seemed to be a set of cutthroats and ruffians. One of them was pointed out to me by one of the head officers of the boat, who observed that, while he (the officer) was lathering his face, that fellow stole his razor. After remaining in Lawrenceburg a short time-probably And another one was pointed out to me by a whig passenger, one-and a half hour, I left for Cincinnati, Ohio, on board the who observed that he was sold under the vagrant act at St. steamboat Indiana, where we arrived about 10 o'clock on the Louis for six bits. I then called on an individual on board of morning of the day of the election in said State. During said boat, (Pike,) who belonged to the steamboat Mail, by which day, in passing through the city of Cincinnati, I saw the name of Robert Edmason, a nephew of mine, and askseveral advertisements sticking up in different places, purported him what he was doing on the Pike, and why he was ing to want hands to go on the Green river locks to work, to not on the steamboat Mail. He observed that he had staythe number of one or two hundred hands. This advertisemented at Cincinnati to vote, and was then going to his home, which stated that they wished all the hands that would conclude to is about six miles from Warsaw, in Kentucky. I asked him go, to be ready on the wharf on Wednesday morning, the 14th why he would vote in Ohio, or any where else, when he well of October, ready to go on board the mail boat, for which so much knew he was not old enough. He said he knew that. I asked per month will be given-the amount not recollected. On my him if he swore to his vote. He said he was too smart for that; arriving at the mail boat, General Pike, next morning, I saw he said when he was in Louisville that yonder man (pointing to an unusual number of persons on board said boat, General William Stewart) came to him on the wharf at Louisville and Pike; and also a large number on the wharf and wharf boat offered him and another man a dollar apiece per day, and pay opposite the said steamboat General Pike. I also saw a man I also saw a man their expenses to Cincinnati and back, if they would go and vote on the wharf, with a sheet of paper in one hand, which ap- the whig ticket. And after chatting some time with said Stewpeared to contain a number of names, and a number of bank | art, he (Edmason) said he would see him (Stewart) damned bills in the other, and seemed to be settling with a number of first, before he would vote for money; but that they both bemen on the wharf before the boat left, and the same man, with longed to the steamboat Mail, and were going to Cincinnati, and the aid of another, continued to settle and pay a number of men intended to vote the whig ticket. I asked Edmasen if he voted and boys, or youths, on board of said boat, after she left the the whig ticket, and he said he did. I then asked the said Edwharf. And after we had left the city of Cincinnati, and pro-mason to give me all the names that he knew that had voted. ceeded down stream, some】 sx or eight miles, Mr. E Fillegal votes; to which he refused, stating as his reason that, if he did that, they would take his life; and that he was afraid to, presence, write with his own hand, the said foregoing depo and did not wish to be brought into any scrapes about the elec-sition. tion; that they were a set of swindlers and cut throats, and woud steal the coat off a man's back. Some time after dinner, for the first time, I saw the man (Stewart) alone, who had been, through the day, sitting with the men. It was just before we arrived at Aurora, or Rising Sun, I think the former; and some of the persons on board had paint ed or marked on a beard the whig majority in Hamilton county and city of Cincinnati. I stepped up to him and remarked, that we soon would have a fine huzza; and in a few moments, the persons on the shore, at the before mentioned town, saw the result of the vote on the board, and raised a tremendous huzza, He remarked to me, at the same time, and said, is it not a great victory to beat such a scoundrel and villain as Duncan? I ob served, that I thought that the party had gone to greater lengths to beat Duncan than any one of the party. He said yes; for he was the greatest scoundrel in the world, as well as I recollect. I at that moment laid my hand on his shoulder and, observed, old fellow, if it had not have been for you, that we never would of beat them in the world. To which he replied, beat indeed! No indeed, said he, if it had not of been for the votes that I carried to Cincinnati, that Duncan would of beaten them to death. I asked him, how in the devil did you manage so as not to be found out? What ward did they vote in? He remarked, that he divided them out, and carried seven or eight at a time, and voted in different wards, and his friends helped him, and a portion of them voted in the third ward. I asked him if he carried as many as eighty or a hundred; and he remarked, that he car. ried more than either; and remarked more than once that he carried more than Pendleton's majority. And, I suppose, there was eighty or a hundred on board that day, and, probably, over that number. Given under our hands and seals this 3d day of December, A, But as I have said those frauds were not confined to Hamilton county, they were wide spread, and never can be but partially exposed. I hold in my hand an exposé of the frauds practised in Philadel phia, as corrupt and as alarming as those which I have partially exposed, as practised in Hamilton county. I also hold in my hand the Glentworth frauds as practised in New York, which can only be equalled in infamy by those which I have named. The limits of a speech will not permit any thing more than a mere synopsis of those frauds. I will ask the clerk to read some extracts exposing the more glaring abuses practised in Philadelphia. I will also ask the clerk to read some short extracts of the Glentworth frauds in New York. The clerk read them.* cal crime, and moral depravity involved in holding Mr. Speaker, I have nothing to say of the politi a seat on this floor, obtained by such means as those disclosed by these reports, only so far as I and my Stewart also informed that he was the man that beat Merry: it is said were returned to this House by this sysconstituents are concerned. The individuals who wether, in Jefferson county, Kentucky, who ran, at the August election, for a seat in the legislature of Kentucky. I asked him tem of fraud, were Charles Naylor of Philadelphia, how he managed. He told me that he took the men from the Edward Curtis, Moses Grinnell, Ogden Hoffman, city of Louisville, and carried them to Six Mile island, and there and James Monroe of New York; and N. G. Penkept them several days, and eat, drank, and slept with them, until Monday of the election, and then carried them over into dleton of Ohio. How many more have been returned Jefferson county, and there got them to vote, and in that way he I know not, nor is it my present purpose to inquire, beat Merry wether. He also stated that the whigs did not treat (except as to the member from Ohio.) Of them I leave him well at Cincinnati; for they did not give him but seventy.others to speak, with the single remark, that present five dollars to pay the men with. I asked him who gave him that. Ile said that the Tippecanoe club gave it to him, of Cin-honor gained by such frauds and treason will be future cinnati. And he remarked, that he had paid out ten dollars of infamy and contempt. But I repeat, that I have his own money, and that he could not pay them off until he got something to say of these frauds as connected with to Louisville. 'I asked him if they were a making any noise about their pay, and he said no; that he had just been below and those I have the honor to represent. The people treated them to a dollar's worth of drink. He also stated that he of the first congressional district of Ohio had no never eat until they eat. He also stated that they eat in the cab-representative in the 27th Congress of their choice. in, and part of them slept in the cabin and part on deck. told me that he knew how many men it would take, and they N. G. Pendleton, esq. of Cincinnati, bore the goverwere determined to have them. I noticed, at dinner, when the men came to the table, that it was easy to distinguish them from the rest of the passengers, or, that is, the most of them. Mr. Shephard of this place, the editor of the Warsaw Patriot, a decided whig paper, and as much so as any in the State, was on board, and I called on him to notice the men, and called his attention to a great many of the circumstances herein detailed. And I do further state, that I went to the house where Shep, hard stopped, with an officer, on this day, for the purpose of bringing said Shephard before the justice for the purpose of taking his deposition, but he could not be found.. nor's certificate, with the broad seal of Ohio; and by virtue of that certificate and broad seal he appeared and took his seat here: but he was no representative of the people of the district which the broad seal represented him to be. He was the representative of a minority of the people of the first congressional district of Ohio, and ruffians, thieves, and cut-throats of Kentucky, and of other States and counties without the district of his residence; and if Mr. PenThe said Stewart informed me that he would have no difficulty dleton held a seat here, knowing those facts, he in getting the money on his arrival at Louisville. I asked him if they did pay him well for his trouble. He said he did not held it in the guilt of treason and in the crime of charge anything, only his money back; that what he done he perjury. He may not have known them, though done free of charge. I asked him how many went up on the steam boat Mail; I think he told me between eighty and one hundred every body else in the world beside knew them. I asked him who had charge of those on the Mail, and he in Mr. Pendleton, in all the frauds, perjuries, briberies, formed me that Russell had; and I think he said Captain Rus-and treasons which characterized the elections of I asked him if they swore the men that he carried up to 1840, all over the Union, but more especially in the vote, and he told me nearly all of them. He told me that he Ohio first congressional district, may have been a told them, when they came on board the boat at Louisville, what they should have if they voted, and if they did not vote, political automaton, or mere man-machine, and, like they well knew what they would get. And further this depo. Balaam's ass, moved merely as he was kicked into passive action and obedience. If so, he must be discharged from any imputation of immorality or sell. nent saith not. JEFFERSON PEAK. Sworn to and subscribed before us, this 3d day of December, crime, and the charge placed to his stupidity. I 1840. undertake to say there was not one dollar short of fifty thousand expended in and out of Hamilton county, to secure the election of the whig candidate of that district; and no man who has a character for truth and veracity, and who wishes to maintain that character, and who is acquainted with the circumstan B. TILLER, J. P. G. C. JAS. F. BLANTON, J. P. G. C. Commonwealth of Kentucky, Gallatin county, set: The foregoing deposition of Jefferson Peak was this day taken, subscribed, and sworn to by the said Jefferson Peak, before the undersigned, two of the Commonwealth justices of the peace within and for the county of Gallatin, State of Kentucky, at the time and place, and for the purpose stated in the caption there. of, and the notice hereunto annexed. The said Jefferson Peak being duly sworn, and the question propounded, did, in our for want of room. "The Philadelphia and New York frauds are not inserted and are irresistible. Faith and belief are not controlled by the will, hence the maxim, "we are bound to believe." So it is with those who witnessed the election frauds of 1840, in Hamilton county, to secure the certificate of election to Mr. Pendleton. They are bound, irresistibly, to believe that he had some hand in them, and consequently guilty to the same extent of the moral and political crimes which I have attached to him, or any one holding a seat here under such circumstances. ces, will undertake to deny that assertion. That sions we draw from the evidence of things not seen, vast sum was expended in consummation of the frauds which you have seen and heard disclosed. Mr. Pendleton may not have advanced one dollar, nor one mill, of all that sum. Though one of the richest men in the city of Cincinnati, or the State of Ohio, himself, and more immediately interested than all others, he may not have advanced one dollar to secure his own election, which was secured by a system of swindling which no agency but money would have secured, and no sum less than that which I have named would have been sufficient; yet, I Let no one charge me with taking advantage of repeat, he may not have advanced one dollar for parliamentary privilege, or of the high mountains, such an infamous purpose, to secure such an infa-broad valleys, and wide rivers which seven hundred mous end. The liberality of his federal party miles distance interposes between me and Mr. Penfriends, in their zeal to overthrow the democratic dleton and his friends. I have taken no such adparty, and to defeat the democratic candidate, may vantage. I hold myself responsible in my individual have done all without his knowledge, and without capacity for all I say here or elsewhere, whether in his pecuniary assistance. That position is hard to a private or representative capacity; and moreover, believe. Mr. Pendleton was in the centre of all I repeatedly, and to assembled hundreds, and ashe cavalcades, coon conventions, and drunken orgies sembled thousands, in every part of Hamilton counwhich disgraced Hamilton county, demoralized so-ty, and within hearing of Mr. Pendleton's door, (if ciety, and debased the character of civilized man; and it is difficult to believe (and almost irreconcilably so) that he could have known nothing of the frauds and the means by which his election was to be secured. not in his presence, it was because he would not come to hear me,) made all the charges, and in as strong terms, and with similar language as I am now doing, both against Mr. Pendleton and his active partisans; and I shall continue to do so at home and elsewhere, so long as the crimes, frauds, briberies,treasons, and corruptions of 1840 shall stick to his and their skirts, and cover their entire carcasses. I fear no accountability; I speak nothing but the truth; I have the ability to maintain it. My constituents expect me to speak the truth, and the whole truth, and they know I will speak it so as to be understood. No speech or saying of mine shall ever lose force, if it have any, from want of strong language; I like to call things by their proper names. Mr. Pendleton is in a dilemma; he may hang to which horn he pleases, or on whichever his friends please to hang him. He must either stand charged with jackassical stupidity,, which, if true, rendered him unfit for a seat in this hall, as the representative of any party, or anybody, even the cut-throats, thieves, and ruffians of Kentucky; or, on the other hand, if he knew of, and participated in, the frauds by which he was elected, or gave countenance to them, or aided them by pecuniary means, he was unfit to hold a place here or elsewhere, except on Mr. Speaker, I was as much the legal and constithe gibbet, due to the traitor, or in a cell within the tutional representative of the people of the first congloomy walls of a penitentiary, due to perjury. Igressional district in the 27th Congress as I am of invent nothing; I have presented the evidence as it this. I was elected in 1840 by a majority of more came to me--as I received it from the highest tribu- than five hundred of the legal voters of that district, nal in our State. I draw no other conclusions than and yet the returns showed a majority against me every person, bound and governed by correct prin- of one hundred and sixty votes, such were ciples of morality and patriotism, must draw. For the numbers of imported voters--such the nummyself, I declare, in presence of my Maker and this ber of pipelayers, such the frauds. This assembly, to whom I am responsible here, and to statement may be called bold; if so, there is whom I must answer hereafter for every idle and not an intelligent and true democrat in Hamilton profane word spoken, that I know of no crime or county, but what will make or endorse it. I make crimes in my State which would consign me, hand- it as well from a conscientious belief, as a knowlcuffed and shackled, to the penitentiary and to eter-edge of its truth. This knowledge and belief, with nal infamy, in the commission of which I would me, is founded on facts that came under my own feel more degraded in the estimation of man, more knowledge and observation-on the facts which wounded in my own conscience, and more offensive this journal discloses, a small part of which has before God, than those by which I believe Mr. been read to you-on the fact that, prior to the day Pendleton held a seat in this hall. I mean the of election, several of the wards in the city of Cincrimes of bribery and treason by which his certifi- cinnati were polled; every whig and democratic cate was purchased, and the perjury which was com-voter having a right to vote was counted by a mitted in the oath which he took at the threshold of committee for that purpose; and in every ward his representative duties, to support the constitution, which was polled, the ballot-box showed the demowhich constitution he violated by taking his seat cratic vote to be almost precisely what the poll had here, and which he continued to violate every min-shown it; but in every ward the ballot-box showed ute-every moment-while he occupied it. Still, of an increase of whig votes, over that polled, from fifty all this, I repeat, Mr. Pendleton may have been in- to two hundred and fifty. In 1840, there were but few nocent. It is not for me to judge, nor do I feel at changes in Hamilton county: some who acted with liberty to judge. Human judgment, I suppose, is a the democratic party turned to the whig side; voluntary act, and the power under our control; or some who had acted with the whigs turned to the why should the Supreme Judge of the universe democratic side. I believe the majority of changes have ordered us to "judge not lest ye be judged." were in favor of the democracy. But little was Knowledge is founded on the evidence of things gained to either party by changes. But I ask your seen, and therefore is not to be controlled by either attention to another fact in support of this assertion, the mind or the will. Faith and belief are conclu-land that is this--that in the last congressional con test, the democratic majority was one thousand and and patriotism, and in the commission of treason, fourteen; and yet, owing to the absence of the ex-bribery, and perjury, they should be, and will be, citement necessary to bring out the democratic worn as a mark of disgrace and infamy. I leave voters, the aggregate democratic vote was near one Mr. Pendleton and his Kentucky cut-throat ruffian thousand less than it was in 1840, though in that and thieving constituents to decide the question. year the democracy were defeated one hundred and Mr. Speaker, it is a divine truth, and is resixty votes; all of which shows, most conclusively, garded as a maxim far and wide as civilized society, that the whig ticket in 1840 was carried by the im- that "evil should not be done that good may come of it." portation of foreign voters, to the number of more When the moral part of the community in 1840 rethan seven hundred, in violation of the constitution, monstrated against the means which were resorted the election laws, the people's rights, and the elec-to by the federal party to overthrow the democracy, tive franchise. And if there were no other frauds the universal answer was, that "the end justifies the disclosed in that shameful, reckless, and villanous mean." Now, sir, I wish to say something about campaign of 1840, those alone are sufficient to im- the means that were used, and the end effected by pose upon us the duty of passing this bill into a the means; and I think I will be able to show that law; but I repeat, that I have no time to expose the the end was worthy of the means, and the means wide-spread corruptions of that election, alike in worthy of the end, and that they were both worthy their tendencies fatal to the morals of society, as of each other. destructive to the free institutions of our country. This government has been in existene something I have been asked a thousand times, by letter and more than half a century under its present organiotherwise, by those who were made acquainted with zation. There are members in this House who are the frauds practised in Hamilton county, why I did seniors of this government. For forty years of its not appear here, and contest. Mr. Pendleton's seat. whole existence it has been under democratic adThere were two reasons, either of which was suffi- ministration; and although it has, for the balance cient in itself. First, I was too proud to do it. Sec-of the time, and at two different times, been frostbitter: ond, my constituents were too proud to permit me and withered by federal administration, yet its prog to do it. I was too proud to ask redress at the hands ress has been onward-onward. From the time of its of a whig House, whose hatred for me I knew only commencement, up to 1840 inclusive, it presented a to be commensurate with my hatred for them. I progress in civilization which can challenge the hisspeak politically. I was too proud to ask an inves-tory of nations, literature, philosophy, agriculture, tigation at the hands of a whig House, who I mechanics, and general science, and every improveknew possessed neither the magnanimity, generos-ment that characterizes civilized man, had advanced ity, or justice to do that which the most indisputa-with a rapidity of which the history of the world ble evidence should have demanded. I was too shows no example. The progress of commerce, proud to appear before a jury for the redress of a science, literature, and refinement, of the republics wrong and a violence, many of whom I knew were of Carthage, of Greece, and of Rome, has employed the very inventers and workers of that very organ-a thousand pens, and has been sung by ten thouized system of swindling by which that wrong and sand tongues, in description and praise. The same that violence were effected. I was too proud to ask progress and advancement of the European governany favor, or even justice, at the hands of my en-ments have exhausted eulogy, and almost conemres; and I was too proud to apply to a House for founded wonder; and yet the advancement of the the redress of a violence, knowing, as I did, that republic of the United States, in every characteristic more than one-half of its members held their seats of civilization, human happiness, and national greatby virtue of the same system of frauds by which Iness, has been more in half a century than theirs was deprived of mine. My constituents were too has been in five hundred years. The savage proud to permit me to ask for the redress of a vio- wilderness has been tamed, and the wild man has fled. lence which they had the power themselves to re- The widespread and dense wildernesses that once dress, and which violence they have redressed-made the earth groan with their native growth, have though that redress would have been much more been converted into highly cultivated farms, and now triumphant, could they have provoked Mr. Pendle-groan with the rich productions of the hand of in ton to have been the opposing candidate; but into dustry. The broad rivers which (many of them) that he was neither to be kicked nor coaxed, be- were agitated but by the winds and the bark canoe cause (as the rude democrats said) his vanity and of the savage, now bear on their bosoms thousands ambition had cost him too much already. The of steamboats, laden with the rich productions democrats say (and I have never heard a whig deny of happy freemen, and command the tempest and it) that he paid $20,000 for three letters of the al- defy the waves. The canvass of our commercial phabet, to the end that he might have a title prefixed ships whitens every ocean, every sea, and every bay. to his name. Well, I know no reason why a man The American flag is displayed in every civilized may not purchase a title in this country as well as port in the world. The face of our continent is in any other; and he may place that title at the head checkered with turnpikes, railroads, and canals; our or tail of his name, as his own fancy or his taste hills are made to yield their valuable timbers, and may dictate. But $20,000 is a big price to pay for our mountains to give up their rich minerals. Cities, two consonants and one vowel, which, in their or- great towns, beautiful and pleasant villages, dot the der, are to be placed H-O-N, to give them their face of the continent. Houses of worship, colleges most potent meaning; and that meaning may con- of science, seminaries of learning, and school-houses! vey honor or disgrace. Nor does the price augment of common education, temples of justice, as well as the honor, or diminish the disgrace. If he who pos-theatres of innocent amusement, adorn almost every sesses them procured them in an honorable way, or city, town, and village, on our continent. Peace, if they have been awarded as the price of intelli-plenty, and happiness, overspread the land, and gence, patriotism, and virtue, they are but the evi-cheerfulness beams from every countenance. Indence of merit due to him who wears them; but if dustry is respected, industry rewarded, and industrythey have been purchased at the expense of virtue protected. In this prosperous and glorious career |