he pronounced upon her the other day, when he spoke of the high position which she occupied among the states of this Confederacy. But enough of this personal

matter.

"I think, if I did not misunderstand the honorable senator from South Carolina, that he is surprised at the temerity of the senator from New Hampshire in introducing this bill. Let me ask, What is this bill? What is this incendiary bill, that has elicited such a torrent of invective? Has it been manufactured by some "fanatical Abolitionist ?" Why, it is copied, almost word for word, from a aw on the statute-book, which has been in operation for years in the neighboring state of Maryland. It has no allusion, directly or indirectly, to the subject of slavery. Yet I am accused of throwing it in as a firebrand, and in order to make war upon the institutions of the South! How? In God's name, is it come to this, that in the American Senate, and in the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, the rights of property can not be named but the advo-` cates of slavery are in arms, and exclaim that war is made upon their institutions, because it is attempted to cast the protection of the law around the property of an American citizen who appeals to an American Senate! It has long been held by you that your peculiar institution is incompatible with the right of speech; but if it be also incompatible with the safeguards of the Constitution being thrown around property of American citizens, let the country know it! If that is to be the principle of your action, let it be proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of the land, that there is an institution so omnipotent, so almighty, that even the sacred rights of life and property must bow down before it!

"Do not let it be said that I have introduced this subject. I have simply asked that the plainest provisions of the common law, the clearest dictates of justice, shall be extended and exercised for the protection of the property of citizens of this district; and yet the honorable senator from South Carolina is shocked at my temerity!'

"Mr. Butler. Allow me to ask one question with perfect good temper. The senator is discussing the subject with some feeling; but I ask him whether he would vote for a bill, properly drawn, inflicting punishment on persons inveigling slaves from the District of Columbia?'

“Mr. Hale. ‘Certainly not; and why? Because I do not believe that slavery should exist here.'

“Mr. Calhoun (in his seat). ‘He wishes to arm the robbers, and disarm the people of the district.'

"Mr. Hale. The honorable senator is alarmed at my temerity-'

"Mr. Calhoun (in his seat). I did not use the word, but did not think it worth while to correct the senator.'

"Mr. Hale. The senator did not use that term?'

“Mr. Calhoun. 'No. I said brazen, or something like that.'

"Mr. Hale. The meaning was the same.. It was brazen, then, that I should introduce a bill for the protection of property in this district-a bill perfectly harmless, but which he has construed into an attack upon the institutions of the South. I ask the senator and the country wherein consists the temerity? I suppose it consists in the section of the country from which it comes. He says that we seem to think that the South has lost all feeling. Ah! there is the temerity. The bill comes from the wrong side of a certain parallel! Why, did the honorable senator from South Carolina imagine that we of the North, with our faces bowed down to the earth, and with our backs to the sun, had received the lash so long that we dared not look up? Did he suppose that we dared not ask that the protection of the law should be thrown around property in the district to which we come to legislate?

"I desire no war upon the institution of slavery, in the sense in which the senator understands the term. I will never be a party to any encroachments upon rights guarantied by the Constitution and the law-not at all. I wish no war but a war of reason-of persuasion-of argument; a war that should look to convincing the understanding, subduing the affections, and moving the sympathies of the heart. That is the only war in which I would engage. But it is said that the time has come-that the crisis has come, and that the South must meet it. In all candor and honesty, then, let me say, that there could not be a better platform on which to meet the question than that presented by the principles of this bill. There could not be a better occasion than this to appeal to the country. Let the tocsin sound. Let the word go forth. Let the free North be told that their craven representatives on the floor of the Senate are not at liberty even to claim the protection of the rights of property! The right of speech was sacrificed long ago. But now is it to be proclaimed that we can not even introduce a bill looking to the execution of the plainest provisions of the Constitution, and the clearest principles of justice for the protection of personal rights, because gentlemen choose to construe it into an attack upon that particular institution!

“I ask again, what is it that has produced this strife, called up these denunciations, excited all this invective which has been poured upon me, as if I were guilty of all the crimes in the Decalogue? I call upon the Senate and the country to take notice of it. I ask, On what do gentlemen of the South rely for the protection of any institutions on which they place any value? It will be answered, Upon the Constitution and the law. Well, then, if the safeguards of the Constitution are rendered inadequate to the protection of one species of property, how can it be supposed that there will be protection for any? It is because I desire to maintain, in all their strength and utility, the safeguards of the Constitution, that I have introduced this bill for the protection of property in this district. And here let me tell the senator from Alabama, that he will have my full co-operation in any measure to prevent kidnapping. I shall expect him to redeem his pledge. Again: I am shocked to hear the honorable senator from South Carolina denounce this bill as a measure calculated to repress those citizens from the expression of their just indignation.'

Mr. Calhoun. If the senator will allow me, I will explain. I said no such thing. But I will take this occasion to say, that I would just as soon argue with a maniac from Bedlam, as with the senator from New Hampshire, on this subject.' "[Several senators. Order-order.']

Mr. Calhoun. I do not intend to correct his statements. A man who says that the people of this district have no right in their slaves, and that it is no robbery to take their property from them, is not entitled to be regarded as in possession of his reason."

"Mr. Hale. It is an extremely novel mode of terminating a controversy by charitably throwing the mantle of maniacal irresponsibility over one's antagonist! But the honorable senator puts words into my mouth which I never used. I did not say that the owners had no property in their slaves. I said that the institution exists; but I have not given any opinion upon the point to which the senator has alluded. I have never said any thing from which the sentiment which he imputes to me could be inferred. It does not become me, I know, to measure arms with the honorable senator from South Carolina, more particularly since he has been so magnanimous as to give notice that he will not condescend to argue with me. But there is more than one man in this country who has, whether justly or unjustly, long since arrived at the conclusion, that if I am a maniac on the subject of slavery, I am not a monomaniac, for I am not alone in my madness. But, sir, I am not responsible, here or elsewhere, for the excitement that has followed the

introduction of this subject. I intended simply to give notice of a bill calculated to meet the exigency. The honorable senator from Florida calls upon me for proof of the necessity for this legislation, and says that no violence has been committed in this district. I don't know what he calls violence.'.

"Mr. Westcott. There has been no violence, except the running away with some negroes.'

"Mr. Hale. 'Well, I believe that some hundreds of individuals assembled in front of a printing-office in this city, and assailed the building with missiles, obliging the persons engaged in their usual employment to abandon their legal occupation. If that does not come up to the gentleman's definition of violence, I do not know what does. I was desirous of introducing this subject without an appeal to any matters which might be supposed to lie behind. I believe that these matters have nothing to do with the subject under consideration. But other gentlemen have chosen to give this subject a different direction. Now, in the bill which I have had the honor to introduce, the provisions are almost identical with the law which has been in existence in many of the states, and is now on the statute-book of Maryland. To its enactment here, exception has been taken; and I am quite willing that the country should know the grounds on which opposition is made. If the subject be painful, it has not been made so by me. As to the threats which have been made of bloodshed and assassination, I can only say that there have been sacrifices already, and there may be other victims, until the minds of all shall be awakened to the conviction that the Constitution was made as well for the preservation of the freedom of discussion as for the protection of the slaveowner.'

"Mr. Westcott. 'I should like to know of the senator from New Hampshire if he can say that any non-slaveholding state in this Union has passed a law by which, in case of the abduction of a slave by an abolition mob, the county or town is to be made responsible for the act?'

"Mr. Hale. I do not know, sir.'

“Mr. Westcott. It is time enough, then, when such a law is passed to protect the property of slave-owners, to talk of a law to indemnify for the destruction of property of abolition incendiaries.'

"Mr. Foote. "The senator seems to suppose that I wished to decoy him to the State of Mississippi. I have attempted no such thing. I have thought of no such thing. I have openly challenged him to present himself there, or any where, uttering such language and breathing such an incendiary spirit as he has manifested in this body, and I have said that just punishment would be inflicted upon him for his enormous criminality. I have said further, that, if necessary, I would aid in the infliction of the punishment. My opinion is, that enlightened men would sanction that punishment.

"But, says the senator, that would be assassination! I think not.. I am sure that the senator is an enemy to the Constitution of his country-an enemy of one of the institutions of his country, which is solemnly guarantied by the organic law of the land; and in so far, he is a lawless person. I am sure, if he would go to the State of Mississippi, or any other slave state of this Confederacy, and utter such language, he would justly be regarded as an incendiary in heart and in fact, and, as such, guilty of the attempt to involve the South in bloodshed, violence, and desolation; and if the arm of the law happened to be too short, or the spirit of the law to be slumberous, I have declared that the duty of the people, whose rights were thus put in danger, would be to inflict summary punishment upon the offender. But, says the senator, victims have been made, and there are other victims ready. I am sure that he could not persuade me that he would ever be a victim. I have never deplored the death of such victims, and I never shall de

plore it. Such officious intermeddling deserved its fate. I believe no good man, who is not a maniac, as the senator from New Hampshire is apprehended to be, can have any sympathy for those who lawlessly interfere with the rights of others. He, however, will never be a victim! He is one of those gusty declaimers—a windy speaker—a—'

"Mr. Crittenden. 'If the gentleman will allow me, I rise to a question of order. Gentlemen have evidently become excited, and I hear on all sides language that is not becoming. I call the gentleman to order for his personal reference to the senator from New Hampshire.'

"Mr. Foote. I only said, in reply to the remarks of the senator from New Hampshire

“Mr. Crittenden, 'I did not hear what the senator from New Hampshire said. but the allusion of the gentleman from Mississippi I consider to be contrary to the rules of the Senate.'

Mr. Foote. I am aware of that. But such a scene has never occurred in the Senate such a deadly assailment of the rights of the country.'

"Mr. Johnson, of Maryland. Has the chair decided?'

"Mr. Foote. 'Let my words be taken down.'

"The presiding officer. In the opinion of the chair, the gentleman from Mississippi is not in order.'

Mr. Foote. What portion of my remarks is not in order?'

"The presiding officer. The gentleman is aware that the question of order is not debatable.'

66

'Mr. Westcott. 'I ask whether the words objected to are not, according to the rule, to be reduced to writing?'

Mr. Foote. I pass it over. But the senator from New Hampshire has said, that if I would visit that state, I would be treated to an argument. Why, I would not argue with him! What right have they of New Hampshire to argue upon this point? It is not a matter with which they stand in the least connected. They have no rights of property of this description, and I rejoice to be able to say that a large portion of the intelligent and patriotic people of New Hampshire do not concur in the views expressed by the senator this morning. They take the ground that the people of the United States, the Constitution, and the Union, have guarantied the rights of the South, connected with this property, and that the people of New Hampshire have no right at all to meddle with the subject. Why, is it not a fact, that gentlemen, members of the body-among them, the dis tinguished senator from Massachusetts, whom I regret not to see in his placeare known to be more or less hostile to the institutions of domestic slavery, but have never entertained the doctrine that the Congress of the United States has any jurisdiction whatever over the subject? They have held that any attempt, directly or indirectly, to effect abolition or to encourage abolition, by congressional legislation, is at war with the spirit and letter of the Constitution.'

“Mr. Hale. Will the senator allow me to inquire if he can point out a single instance in which I have made any aggression upon the rights of property in the South?'

"Mr. Foote. That is the very thing I am about to show. When the senator from New Hampshire undertakes to assert that those Northern men who do not concur with him are "cravens," he uses language of false and scurrilous import. It is not the fact that his language will be re-echoed in any respectable neighborhood in New England. His sentiments will find no response or approval in any enlightened vicinage in New England; and, therefore, he has no right to say that those who are faithful to the principles of the Constitution, and fail to re-echo the fierce, fanatical, and factious declarations of the senator, are " cravens" in heart,

and deficient in any of the noble sentiments which characterize high-spirited Republicans.'

Mr. Hale. 'I did not use such language.'

"Mr. Foote. Did the senator not use the word "craven?" '

"Mr. Hale. If the senator will allow me, I will inform him that, when the senator from South Carolina remarked that he supposed it was thought that the South had lost all feeling, I replied by asking if it was supposed that the North had no sensibility; that we had bowed our faces to the earth, with our backs to the sun, and submitted to the lash so long that we dared not look up?'

"Mr. Foote. The declarations of the senator from New Hampshire just amount to this: that if he met me on the highway, and, addressing me gravely or humorously-for he is quite a humorous personage-should say, I design to take that horse which is now in your possession, and then announce that he wished to enter into an argument with me as to whether I should prefer that the animal should be stolen from the stable or taken from me on the road, how could I meet such a proposition? Why, I should say to him, either you are a maniac, or, if sane, you are a knave. And yet this very case is now before us. The senator from New Hampshire introduces a bill obviously intended to rob the people of the district of their slaves. I will read it, and show that such is the import of the bill. I do not know any thing about the paper to which reference has been made. It has been sent to me, as to other senators, during the winter; but I always refrain from opening it. The editor of it may be an intelligent man. I have heard that he is. He is certainly an Abolitionist. It may be that he has not in his paper openly avowed, as the senator from New Hampshire seems very plainly to indicate, that he has approved of this late attempt to steal the slaves from this district. But the publication of such a paper has tended to encourage such movements.' "Mr. Hale. When did I avow that I approved of this movement?' "Mr. Foote. I will show it from this bill. I challenge the senator to produce any such statute from the statute-book of any state of this Union.'

"Mr. Hale. I have said that the bill is in substance identical with one of the statutes of the State of Maryland. I have that statute before me, and will hand it to the senator.'

"Mr. Foote. How are we to understand the senator. He will not acknowledge that his object is to encourage such conduct, and he shuns the responsibility. When we charge upon him that he himself has breathed, in the course of his harangue of this morning, the same spirit which has characterized this act, he says, most mildly and quietly, "By no means; I have only attempted to introduce a bill corresponding substantially with the law on the statute-books of the states of this confederacy." And the senator supposes that all of us are perfectly demented, or do not know the nature of the case, the circumstances, or the motives which have actuated the senator. Will he undertake to assert that he would have ever heard of such a bill if these slaves had not been abducted from the district, in opposition to the consent of their owners, by the parties engaged in this marauding expedition? He can not deny it; and, therefore, I am authorized to come to the conclusion that he introduced the bill for the purpose of covering and protecting that act, and encouraging similar acts in future. What is the phraseology of the bill? (The honorable senator here read the bill.) Who doubts now that the object of the senator from New Hampshire was to secure the captain of vessels and others engaged in any attempts by violence to capture and steal the slaves of this district? No man can doubt it. Then, I ask, have I used language too harsh? and is it not a fact that the senator is endeavoring to evade a responsibility which he is not willing to acknowledge?'

"Mr. Hale here read an extract from the law of Maryland, passed in 1836, to