33D CONG....2D Sess. Execution of United States Laws-Debate. and if he fails under the legislation of Congress to cause from the State to the Federal court. At a SENATE. provisions with other provisions of existing laws, Government, in the exercise of their duties in the Pursuing this course, or as the honorable Sen- We are told that the North does not deprecate Mr. President, what is the bill now pending? Since the foundation of the Federal Government it has been an admitted constitutional principle (though now denied by my honorable friend from Ohio [Mr. WADE]—I will still call him my friend, for I believe him sincere, though most misguided in his opinions.) Nay, sir, there is an express clause in the Constitution, requiring its exercise, that every question arising under the Federal legislation, arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, is embraced within the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts. From the origin of your Government you have provided that, in questions of land title, in questions of any kind where a right is set up under the law of Congress, or any treaty, and the State tribunals in the last resort the supreme courts of the States make decisions adverse to the right set up on the property claimed under the legislation of Congress, an appeal shall lie from that State tribunal to the Supreme Court of the United States. From the origin of the Government, where the citizen of one State sued the citizen of another State, in the State under circumstances entitling the defendant to Federal jurisdiction, there has been a law on the statute-books authorizing the removal of the effect than injuring our prosperity and depreciating when you full well knew that we owned slaves, The South will one day and I regret that my Mr. STUART. I should be very glad, before the vote is taken upon this bill, to compare its Mr. PETTIT. Mr. President, I voted against taking up this bill. I voted in committee for it. I entertained no doubt about its constitutionality, about its propriety, and about the importance of its passage; but at the late period of the session I did entertain a doubt as to the propriety of taking it up. I believed, when that motion was made, that it would consume all the time from that hour until the close of the session. It will be recollected that the enemies of this bill, every one, to a man, and some of its friends, have voted to limit the session twelve hours short of its constitutional duration. I voted against that, for I wished to But, sir, I have not risen to discuss the question at length, as there is a motion pending to postpone it until to-morrow; but mainly to say that I shall vote against that postponement. I am willing now, believing that it will consume the entire residue of this session, to lay the bill upon the table, much as I desire that it should become a law. I believe thoroughly that a fixed purpose exists not to allow it to become a law; but to spend the entire time of the session in its discussion, and I therefore say now, that if the motion to postpone until to-morrow be pressed with the intention to take it up again, I will first move to lay the subject on the table to end the discussion upon this occasion; but if the Senator will withdraw his motion, and we can go on with it now, I will sit one hour, two hours, ten hours, to hear the further discussion of it. If we are to take it up day after day, and spend an hour or two upon it, we shall see this session closed without any valuable business being done. If the Senator presses his motion to postpone until to-morrow, I intervene the motion to lay the bill upon the table. Mr. TOUCEY. I hope the Senator from Michigan will withdraw the motion, and allow the bill to be disposed of to-day. It is a bill which applies to all officers of this Government, in all cases, and there is opposition to the whole bill because of one law to which its opponents take exception. I do not propose to discuss it. I hope the Senator will withdraw his motion, and permit the subject to be disposed of to-day. I appeal to the friends of the measure not to consume time in its discussion, unless in what they believe to be indispensably necessary, so far as their own views may be concerned. The bill is a plain one. It is nothing but what has been done over and over. It is in conformity with the established law. There is in it nothing new; and as to its necessity, this debate shows that there is a necessity for it. Sir, it is my duty, as well as that of every other Senator, to look into the future. I regard the issue, as presented upon this bill, be tween those who will oppose the Constitution and the laws of this Government and those who will not. Sir, I am bound to declare the conviction that is fastened upon my mind, that if we are not prepared here to uphold the Constitution as it is, and the laws that are passed in pursuance of it, this Union cannot continue to exist. I think our peril was never greater than it is at this moment; and while I have a seat in this body, on all occasions, and under all circumstances, I shall feel it my duty to pursue the liberal and patriotic course of strengthening and upholding the constitutional powers of this Government as essential to the peace and happiness of the country; and, I may say, essential to the success of the experiment of the capacity of man to govern himself. I hope, sir, that we shall sit here to-night until we dispose of this bill, and if the postponement is to be pressed by the honorable Senator, I beg leave to call for the yeas and nays. Mr. COOPER. I desire to say a very few words upon this bill before the question is taken upon it; but I do not desire to do it while a motion to postpone is pending. If my honorable friend from Michigan intends to withdraw that motion, will wait until the bill is again regularly before 33D CONG....2D SESS. the Senate. I shall occupy but a very few moments of their time. Mr. STUART. If the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania will allow me, I would like to say a very few words, and I will make them very few. I agree with what has been said by the honorable Senator from Indiana. I thought the action of the Senate this morning in limiting the session, was, under the circumstances, unwise, but a very decided majority of the Senate thought otherwise, and of course I am bound to submit to that decision. I do not mean to intimate, even, a censure upon the course pursued; but, sir, we are within some eight or nine days of the close of the session; we have important appropriation bills unacted upon; we have them not moved to be taken up, except when certain public measures are before the Senate, and when those public measures are before the Senate the appropriation bills are moved and those important public measures are set aside. I have a very great desire that the measures that are in the Senate, before it for action, vitally affecting the commercial and agricultural interests of the country, should receive attention. That solicitude, on my part, does not arise on account of my preference for this bill, or my prejudice against it, for I have neither; but I only moved to postpone the consideration of the bill until tomorrow, in the hope that the Senate would come to the conclusion, by that time, that it was useless to expend the remainder of the session in its discussion. That is my opinion to-day; but it is evident that a very decided majority of the Senate think otherwise. They think that they can sit this question out; that they can make it a question of physical endurance. Sir, I am abundantly willing that they should try it. For myself, I do not intend to participate in it. I intend to remain here until a proper hour for adjournment, and then to abandon this question of physical endurance. I mean, as often as the opportunity shall arise during the remainder of the session, to urge upon the attention of the Senate the passage of these highly important bills. Sir, there is lying upon your table a bill which concerns the whole commercial interest of this country; it concerns the lives of millions of persons who are now emigrating to this country. It has been passed by the House of Representatives, and lies upon your table for action. There is another one which concerns a very large portion of the people of the border, and it lies upon your table now. There are others upon the Calendar. The appropriation bills are in a similar condition; and all I mean to do at this moment is simply, so far as any personal responsibility rests upon me, to wash my hands of the failure which any of those great measures may experience at the hands of Congress. If it should turn out that I am mistaken; if it should turn out that a majority of the Senate are right in consuming time, day after day, upon measures that are inferior in their consequence, and in their present importance, why, sir, no man will be more gratified than myself. I shall be happy, when twelve o'clock on the night of the 3d of March arrives, to see the whole Calendar disposed of, and disposed of properly. Sir, the Senator from Georgia, [Mr. DAWSON,] who had two hours assigned to him the other day for the consideration of important bills relating to this District, has not yet been able to get one of them acted on. So it has been with other cases. Mr. President, I beg to have it understood by the Senate, that all I desire, and all I wish, is simply to discharge my duty, as I think, and to rid myself of personal responsibility. I do not mean to intimate that the action of the Senate, or of any individual Senator, is in the least degree inexpedient or improper. Therefore, as a majority of the Senate evidently desire it, I withdraw the motion to postpone. Mr. COOPER. I do not rise to reply to any of the speeches that have been made in support of this measure, but only for the purpose of stating the reasons which induce me to vote against this bill. I have no pleasure in agitation, and I shall not deal in arguments calculated to excite sectional controversy or ill-blood. I have never done so. I prefer to see harmony prevailing between the different sections of the Union, and I would be glad to see the old accord restored which animated Execution of United States Laws-Debate. SENATE. of that State, I believe, have been mainly satisfactory everywhere. So it would be generally throughout the country. I think, therefore, that the bill conveys an unjust reflection on the integ such suspicion cast upon their integrity, and I know very well that it was not the intention of the Senator who is the author of this bill to cast such a suspicion upon them, but that such will be the effect of the measure is not to be doubted. our fathers in days long past. It was for this reason, sir, that more than a year ago I raised my voice against the passage of what was called the Nebraska bill. I thought I foresaw that, instead of ministering to peace, harmony, and brother-rity of the State tribunals. I do not wish to see hood amongst the people of this Union, it would serve a different purpose-that it would produce agitation, engender discord, and sunder those who ought to be bound together in the bonds of fellowship. Standing where I now stand, I then ventured to predict that the legislation of Congress on that subject would be met by countervailing legislation on the part of the States, and that we should find the Legislatures of the States enacting laws calculated to prevent the carrying into effect of acts of Congress passed for the purpose of pacification, and comprising at the time they were passed, a part of a general system of adjustment and pacification. That prediction has been verified. We have seen in Vermont, Michigan, Connecticut, and other States, the kind of legislation to which I have referred. I am not standing here either to condemn or to vindicate that legislation; it is no part of my business. But, sir, my opposition to the bill which is now pending, is not because I am unwilling to see all the provisions of the Constitution of the United States observed in my own State, in every other State. I have always, so far as it has been in my power, advocated and used such influence as I possessed to enforce the observance of the laws of Congress, and the provisions of the Constitution. And, sir, I am not to be held up as an enemy to the Constitution, as an enemy to the South, or as an enemy to any section of the country, because I choose to record my vote against the bill which is now pending. I do it because I believe that the bill is in itself improper, that it contains provisions which will operate as a hardship upon those on whom it is to act. Sir, have you looked carefully into the provisions of this bill, and considered their consequences upon suitors in the courts? The first and main provision of the bill is, that in any suit arising under a law of the United States, which may hereafter be brought, or which is now pending, against an officer of the United States, or any other person acting under the authority of the United States, the party defendant may, by filing a petition in the court in which the suit is pending, or may be brought, remove it to the circuit court of the United States, there to be disposed of. Now, will not this operate harshly in many cases? Does it not violate the rights of the citizens of the States in a most essential manner? Suppose some officer or agent in the arrest of a fugitive slave should commit a wanton aggression on some citizen, abuse his person, and that citizen seeking redress should institute a suit against the officer for the trespass committed on him before some State tribunal, has he not a right to be heard there, and to have the injury that has been inflicted on him redressed there? Surely, sir, there are few who will deny to the citizens of the States a right of such inestimable value. What will be the consequence of this bill in such a case? The citizen will be dragged to a distance in order that the question between him and his adversary may be tried before a distant tribunal, thus increasing the expense, and virtually to him a redress for the injury which he has suffered. This is one of the consequences which will flow from the passage of this bill. Another objection to it is, that it reflects unjustly upon the integrity of the State tribunals, and will be followed by no good result. Let me assure my southern friends that I know something of the state of feeling in the North, and I know that the passage of this bill will be attended by just such effects as attended the passage of the Nebraska act a year ago. Instead of subduing agitations, preventing feuds and controversies, it will stir up ill-blood, engender discord anew, and hasten the time adverted to so eloquently and feelingly by my friend from Louisiana, [Mr. BENJAMIN. Sir, in your State and in mine, and in a large majority of the States of the Union, is there any danger that the courts will not do justice? I will not say all, but in a very large majority of the States of the Union, is there any danger that the State tribunals will not do justice? In my own State this question is no longer a matter of controversy. It has been settled, and the judgment of the tribunals || These, sir, are the main reasons which induce me to record my vote against this bill, and having stated them, I have done my duty and shall leave the floor to whoever chooses to occupy it. Mr. BAYARD. Mr. President, it was not my intention to engage in this discussion, nor even to open my lips in reference to the subject, for I believed the measure could well vindicate itself in the common sense of the country; but after the remarks which have been made, I deem it proper to say a few words. As a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I approved of the bill as being within the terms of the Constitution. I believed the necessity for it had arisen in consequence of the action of several States of the Union, unless we were prepared to abandon the enforcement of the laws of the United States. I do not mean now to go into the discussion, except to make a reply to the closing suggestion of the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania; [Mr. COOPER,] which, if true, is really a strong objection to the bill. He supposes that the bill is objectionable on the ground that it is derogatory to, and evinces a want of confidence in, the State tribunals. The answer is an obvious one: It is not mandatory on a party that he shall be obliged to take advantage of the provisions of the bill, and remove the jurisdiction from one court to the other, when he is sued in a State court. It gives him the option to do so. It does not require him to do it. He may let his case go on and be tried in the State court, if he sees fit so to do. Now, in what respect is this more derogatory to the jurisdiction of the courts of the States, and the fair exercise of their jurisdiction, than the provision which exists in the Federal Constitution, and has existed in the laws from the origin of the Government, which enables a citizen of one State, when sued in the courts of another, to transfer it to a Federal tribunal? You might, under the same plea that it was derogatory to the character of the State judiciary, avoid the entire Federal jurisdiction. Sir, I cannot see the force of this objection of my honorable friend from Pennsylvania, and it seems to me to be really the only objection which has been made to the bill that has even plausibility. It is no reflection upon any State, because if the case be tried in the Federal court before the district judge, it must be tried before a citizen of the State; it must be tried as a civil suit is tried, before a jury of that State, whether tried in the Federal or State court. All that the bill secures is this: We have practical evidence before us that some of the States of this Confederacy have so far forgotten their allegiance to the Union as to pass laws with the intention of putting the laws of the Union at defiance. A high tribunal of at least one State has, (in defiance of the express opinion of nearly every Judge of the Supreme Court, and some of the ablest State tribunals of the country, even in those States which are most deeply infected with Abolition feelings,) determined to put the laws of the United States at defiance. Such being the case, this bill provides that, when men acting under the laws of the United States, or those who aid them, shall be found in such circumstances that they cannot be fairly tried in the courts of a State, they may remove the jurisdiction, not out of the State, but to the Federal tribunals of that State. There is nothing, therefore, reflecting upon the tribunals of any State whatever. The transfer of the forum is left to the option of the defendant. The jurisdiction of the State does not cease; the right to sue is not taken away; but if, under particular circumstances arising from the fact that either by the legislation of the State, or by the influence of popular passion on the judiciary, the defendant, who is sued for an act done under a law of the United States has no chance for justice in that State, then, and then alone, it will be necessary for him to remove the jurisdiction from the one court to the other. All 33D CONG....1ST SESS. the poor privilege asked, is that it shall go before a court composed of citizens of the same State, and be tried by a jury of the State, but freed from the local excitement which would otherwise impair the chance of justice in the decision of the cause. I submit, then, Mr. President, that this is nothing more than a law proposed to carry out effectually the provisions of other laws of the United States. Its necessity is shown by the fact, not that all-God forbid that even a majority of the States of this Union should descend so low-but that some of the States have determined by their laws that they will put at defiance the legislation of Congress, adjudicated to be constitutional; and that they will, by their legislation, provide that a man whose slave escapes from one State into another, though the Constitution of the United States guaranties the rights of property to him, shall not be permitted to claim his property without the peril, if his proof fails, of standing convicted of felony by the laws of the State where he may make the claim. Mr. WADE. Mr. President, it is not my purpose to enter into debate on this subject, for the bill has been so recently introduced that I confess it escaped my observation that any such bill was before us, until the Senator from Connecticut called it up. I believe it has not been reported more than two or three days, and among the multiplicity of business which challenged my attention, I had failed to see that there was any such proposition as this pending before us, or likely to come up for action during this session. I had begun to congratulate myself upon the idea that at least one session was to pass away without further agitation of this great subject. But, sir, in that I have been disappointed. I am not now prepared to say all that ought to be said. I am not prepared to go into a full discussion of this great subject, which is more interesting to the American people than any other that has, or probably ever will, come before them, for he is blind who does not see that this question overrides all others. Perhaps there are those who deprecate this state of things, and who wish this great subject were thrown into the background, and that had never made itself known here; but that is absolutely impossible. It is here, and we must meet it. I said before that I was no agitator. I believe you will all bear witness that, while I have had the honor of a seat here, I have, of all men, been the last to provoke a discussion on this question; but not because I was adverse to it if those equally interested with my constituents should see fit to bring it forward. Far otherwise; I regard it as my duty to come armed to the teeth with arguments to defend the views of my constituents on all occasions and under all circumstances. I have risen now more to answer some arguments that have been made since I took my seat before, than for the purpose of reopening the general discussion of the question. I have already said that I believe the bill to be most objectionable, that I believe it trenches on the rights of the States, that it is an implied insult to the integrity of the States and the courts of the States of this Union. I know it will be received in that spirit, whether it be so intended or not. I know that the law which it is the purpose of this bill to carry out was couched in terms most odious and objectionable. I fear, sir, [Mr. MASON in the chair,] and no man knows the fact better than yourself, that it was drawn up and penned in a vindictive spirit, in a desire to punish those whom you considered as making unreasonable objection to your institutions. I fear that was the fact. At any rate no bill on earth could be more calculated to stir a free people, who had any spirit left in them, than that bill which it is the purpose of this to carry out; and in order to carry it out, you now propose to take away from the State courts the power and the jurisdiction of protecting their own citizens. Sir, I have been charged here with being a nullifier. It has been said that I stand upon the floor of the Senate of the United States an advocate for disunion and nullification. Well, sir, I care but little how I am charged here. It sits easier upon no man's mind than upon mine. But how stands the fact? Have I invoked, in opposition to this detestable bill, any principle that has not been Execution of United States Laws-Debate. | indorsed by your so called Democratic Conventions? Was not the President whom you last elected nominated upon the very platform on which I oppose this bill? Did not your own convention which nominated him indorse without objection the resolutions of 1798, passed, sir, by your own State (and you, no doubt, are proud of it) in order to resist a law infinitely less objectionable than this. Sir, those who went before you in that old State of Virginia, invoked the principle of those resolutions in opposition to the infamous alien and sedition law. Do I claim any more than they did? The Senator from Illinois said I was the advocate of dissolution and nullification; but when I asked him whether he subscribed to the doctrine contained in those great resolutions, I must say that he ignominiously dodged the question. [Laughter.] Surely a Democrat, a man who stands ostensibly before the country on that ground, ought to be the last to rise here and charge a Senator with nullification because he appeals to the great resolutions of Virginia in vindication of the rights of his own State against an impending danger. The sophistry of that Senator shall not avail him. It will not do for the Senator from Illinois to get up here and rail against me, and those who act with me, as violating our oaths, trampling on the just laws of the Government, and opposing laws passed in accordance with the Constitution of the United States. Such statements evince a degree of sophistry unworthy of the intelligence of that gentleman. He knows he did not meet the case; nay, sir, he did not intend to meet the case which I put. I could not wring it from him to-day, whether he stood upon your resolutions of 1798 or upon some other doctrine. He told you that I was one of those who always stood up to ridicule the doctrine of those great resolutions, and, therefore, had no right to invoke them now in favor of the principles which I advocate. This was a miserable, sophistical, shrinking from the true question which I put to him. But the statement was not true, in fact. Where did I stand, except upon those very resolutions? I have looked for them in the brief period which I have had to prepare on this subject, but I have not been able to lay my hands upon them, though I should be glad to do so. They form part and parcel of your own Baltimore platform, and you ought to be acquainted with them, and no doubt you are. Now, let me ask any man if those resolutions do not sustain the doctrine which I have maintained here to-day? I never ridiculed them. I always believed it was necessary to invoke their principle in the last resort to defend the liberty of the citizen who was to pass his days in freedom, beneath the protection of the laws of his own State, and prevent the controlling and centralizing power of this great Government, and I believe in it to-day. It is not my habit to refer to such matters on every little bill that may come before us; but when great questions like this arise, upon which the very vitality of our republican institutions depend, it is a fit occasion for the exercise of the principle of those resolutions; and I shall fearlessly invoke it to my aid. What did the Virginia resolutions of 1798 set forth? You, no doubt, recollect, Mr. President, what it was that they sought to attain. You remember, or at any rate you know from history, what strange doctrines had been incorporated into judicial decisions, what false constructions of the Constitution had been made by that court which is now so much revered; for the alien and sedition law was upheld by that tribunal. Mr. Lyon, and some others, were pining away their lives in northern prisons by the judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States when these resolutions were passed for their overthrow, and for the revindication of the rights of the States, and the liberties of the citizen; and, sir, I invoke them now for the same purpose. I am no advocate for nullification; but in the nature of things, according to the true interpretation of our institutions, a State in the last resort, crowded to the wall by the General Government seeking by the strong arm of its power to take away the rights of the State, is to judge of whether she shall stand on her reserved rights. I differ with the Senator from Illinois on the question whether this be constitutional; but now I ask who SENATE. is to be, and who ought to be, the arbiter between the General Government and a State? He who contends that the Federal Government, in the last resort, under complaints like these, is to determine in her courts such questions, is an enemy to that freedom which was guaranteed to us by the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the greatest statesmen whoever adorned the annals of this country. Here, sir, I am denounced because 1 invoke this great principle to my aid, and to the aid of my State, when you seek to crowd her to the wall by a most objectionable and unconstitutional law, which deprives the citizen of his rights without trial by jury, denying him even that great writ of right, habeas corpus; for you so penned the law that you said, in substance, that no process issuing from any judge, court, or jurisdiction whatever, should interfere with your summary proceeding. What did you mean when you penned that law? Did you not intend to strike at the habeas corpus? Did you not do it in terms so plain as to avoid all doubt? I say itis unconstitutional, and my State will adjudge so whenever it comes to the point; and glory to Wisconsin, for her courts, in the last resort, have determined it to be so. There is one sovereign State which has asserted the great doctrine which your State, sir, (Mr. MASON in the chair) invoked in 1798 to free yourselves from the exercise of power that threatened to reduce you to slavery. Your great ancestors rose against it, and made the declaration of the platform on which I stand to-day, and on which you who are honest Democrats stand, and from which you will not shrink in the day of trial, unless you mean to indorse them at Baltimore and deny them at Washington. [Laughter.] Then I am not to be condemned as a nullifier, or as a disunionist, unless I fall with the great Democratic party upon the main plank in the last platform which they erected. Wisconsin has availed herself of those great principles that Virginia asserted in times of danger, and here now a northern man stands forth to be my censurer. Sir, I have said that I am condemned by a northern man. I wish it had been a southern man. I could have borne it from him with more patience. I can bear almost anything from that quarter; for I know southern men feel a strong interest on this subject, which excuses almost any degree of zeal which they may see fit to exercise. I can appreciate it and understand it well. But when a northern man comes forward with a proposition like this, and a northern man stands forth as its advocate, I confess that, as a son of the North, my face burns with an unusual glow, which I dare not name. The Senator from Illinois has undertaken to make a halting defense for the course he has taken on the subject of slavery. He plumes himself upon being the advocate of all pro-slavery movements in and out of Congress. I do not believe the free people of his great and glorious State believe that it is his proper business to be the especial advocate of what he may consider the rights of the South on this subject. They possibly think that the South is amply able to defend itself; but the Senator volunteers to be its advocate. Why is it? What is the reason for it? Have the people of Illinois forgotten that injunction of more than heavenly wisdom, that " Where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also." The Senator from Illinois has endeavored to break the force of the great northern sentiment which has broken out in condemnation of the measures of last winter, by ascribing it to all others than the true cause. It was my fortune to stand here on the dark and gloomy night when the nefarious Nebraska act was passed. Its passage was followed by the boom of your cannon as we left this place in the early hours of the morning. I recollect it well. I thought then your triumph must be short. You recollect that I told you I would take an appeal from you to the people. I told you I would go home and prosecute this great cause before the assembly of the people themselves, and not confide it to judges here in whom I had not the utmost confidence on such a question. I did go home to the State of Ohio, and I there prosecuted the appeal. I told the people what you had done. I told them of the measures which had been concocted here to extend the area of slavery, and send it, if you could, all over the 33D CONG....2D SESS. continent. For the consolation of the Senator from Illinois, let me tell him that he then had one advantage which he will never have again. It was then said, in and out of Congress, that the Nebraska bill was only a mere abstraction; that the South claimed nothing from it, because slavery would never go into the interior of this great continent in consequence of what you did. You yourselves denied it; and even some who advocated our side of the question were weak enough to suppose that slavery was not of a grasping nature, and would not go just as far as the law would permit it to go. I remember him [Mr. EVERETT] who made that soothing declaration; and I know that for making it, and for partially shrinking from the responsibilities which he ought boldly to have assumed, able as he was, and old statesman as he was, possessing ability hardly equaled in the country, he has been driven by the intelligent people of Massachusetts into private life, there to remain forever; and, sir, the verdict is most just. The Senator from Illinois, however, is entirely wrong in ascribing the overthrow which he and his measure have met, to Know-Nothingism or any other ism except the nefarious Nebraska bill. That is the cause, and it will be proved. I told you then that your tables literally groaned beneath the number of petitions sent in imploring you Democrats, who professed to have a regard for the public will, to stay your hand in time to save the country from the necessities which have since devolved upon it. I say that during the whole existence of this Government, there never has been a time when the people were moved with such deep feeling as on that occasion, when they implored their Senators from the North to stay their hands, and withhold them from the ignominy of the Nebraska bill. I said so then. I told you that a free people, who, by resolutions and petitions, had implored their representatives to stay their hands from the enactment of the most objectionable measure, would not fail to meet your disobedience with a signal and fatal overthrow, and would cause you to feel that you had made a poor use of your brief authority. It was impossible that it could be allowed to be done with impunity. The result has shown that all I claimed, yea, more than I claimed, has taken place, although you had the advantage of declaring that you were only the advocates of an abstract principle from which no practical evil could possibly result. And the people themselves believed, at the time, that it was impossible that the old Missouri compromise, time-honored as it was, which had received the sanction of every department of the Government, which had been slumbering in security for one third of a century, could be overthrown for the bare purpose of carrying slavery into the territory from which that compromise excluded it, particularly after they, who were the parties to the compromise, had received the price, and had in their pockets the full benefits of the bargain. In consequence of your action last winter, in breaking down that sacred compromise, men in the State of Ohio ceased to be either Whigs, Democrats, or Free-Soilers. The old parties crumbled to the dust, as though stricken with the palsy. Freemen became alarmed at your invasion of their rights. They saw that if these things were not nipped in the bud the whole continent was to be sold out, they themselves not excepted, to the grasp of slavery. The result was an overwhelming majority, in that State, in opposition to your Nebraska bill. Execution of United States Laws-Debate. || restored, and that was all they proclaimed. Not SENATE. yourselves that it was brought about by KnowNothingism, but I say it is no such thing; and if it was, it is all the same; and even Know-Nothingism, if it has the least sentiment of justice in it, will repudiate and denounce the legislation of last winter. I know not whether this be so; but if the Know-Nothings are just men, they will do it. Mr. DOUGLAS. That is Abolition ground. Mr. WADE. Well, sir, Abolition ground is very different from what it formerly was. I remember the day when, even in the free States, it was dangerous for a man to say what I have been saying here to-day. I can remember that men were mobbed in the free States for using language much more measured than I have pretended to use before you. I have seen members of the party resting under this odium now elevated to be Governors of States to be Representatives in Congress, to be filling all the offices of honor and How was it in Cincinnati, where there are perhaps as many foreigners as native American citi-profit of sundry sovereign States of this Union. zens? Those men who had belonged previously to the Democratic party, and that party had been perfectly invincible in all elections, carrying that city and county by majorities of thousands, and sometimes many thousands. How was the result there? Why, sir, if they hated foreigners less, they hated your Nebraska bill more; for the vote shows that the people of that city, irrespective of any issue of Know-Nothingiam, came up and vindicated the rights of freedom. Foreigners and those you call Native Americans, or KnowNothings, stood side by side, voting for the same candidates. Your overthrow was not more signal and complete in any portion of the State than in the city of Cincinnati, where foreigners most abound. The same remark is true of Cleveland, where they have for many years held the balance of power when they would wield it. Forgetting that they were foreigners, but recollecting well that they were freemen, and that their rights were in jeopardy, they voted with those you have called Know-Nothings to the discomfiture and overthrow of your party. Does not that prove to you that the bold and confident assertion you have made is entirely without foundation? No, sir; no transient or permanent principle or sentiment of Know-Nothingism was connected with that great issue, nor will it be henceforth. The result in Ohio was brought about by abhorence of a measure for extending slavery over a Territory which was made free by a sacred compact, and the freedom of which had been purchased, and the price was in your own pockets. But, Mr. President, can the gentleman draw consolation from what has followed? I have told you that during the last canvass you had this advantage over those who were opposing your nefarious measures; that it was impossible then to convince the free people of the North that you really did contemplate bringing that great country into the Union as slave country. You told them, then, that you were the advocates of popular sovereignty-that that was the basis on which you proceeded to pass that hateful act; you told us that your object was to vindicate the rights of the people in the Territories. You said they should be allowed to form just such institutions as they pleased-a right utterly denied by the whole administration of this Government from its foundation to this time, and even denied in your bill, except on this one question. Now, sir, how have you carried it out? How have you magnified this issue? How have you driven the free States almost to madness? And now you undertake, in The Senator from Illinois has said that Know- furtherance of your usurpations, to pass this bill. Nothingism brought about that result, that men, Do we not know-are we blind to the fact-that, however they differed on everything else, when on the borders of a slave State adjoining one of they got into secret councils, agreed that they the Territories over which the so called principle would punish the traitors who had inflicted this of popular sovereignty was extended, there have injury upon them. If that were true, nothing been meetings resolving that those who they dare would have been more natural than that the pre- to call Abolitionists should never be allowed to go dominant cause, which overrode everything else, into that Territory, and that they themselves should prevail. The fact, however, was not so. would go there with bowie-knives and pistols and Know-Nothingism scarcely had a local habitation put down all sentiment except their own? Do or a name within the State of Ohio when you you think the people will look with more compassed your Nebraska bill. What did the people placency now on your proceedings than they did do in consequence of that measure? They assem. when you had the advantage of saying that all bled in mass conventions at the capital of the you contended for was a mere abstraction, because State, and, merging every other question in a great slavery would never gain a foothold in Nebraska movement for the vindication of the rights of man and Kansas? I tell you, nay; but the verdict and their own rights against threatened aggres-rendered by the people last fall is to be a final sions, they determined that freedom should be I verdict; you never will repeal it. You may flatter And now, when the cause for such revolutions of public sentiment exists in a ten-fold degree more than ever before, is it philosophical to suppose that it will cease? When the danger is imminent and impending, that the interior of this great continent is to be subverted to the nefarious purposes of slavery, do you suppose the people of the North will retire from the position which they have taken? I think not, Mr. President. I have no fears of any such retrogression; it is impossible. You have driven the North against the wall; she has been forced, reluctantly, to take her stand there, but she will defend her rights. I know she has been charged with aggression by my friend from Louisiana, [Mr. BENJAMIN,] for, as he said of me, I will call him a friend; I have no reason to call him anything else, for I have received nothing but kindness and respect at his hands. He being a southern man, I am the last one to assail him for defending his institutions. I have no doubt that if my habits and education had been like his, our positions would have been reversed to-day. I can understand that very well, and make all allowances for it. But I will say to that friend, that he is mistaken when he says the North have been the aggressors. When he makes that assertion, he has mistaken and misread the history of his Government. I wish to ask the Senator to be more particular, and to specify wherein the North have been the aggressors upon this subject of slavery. I deny that they have ever been the aggressors; but, on the other hand, their patience has not been exceeded by the patience of some long-eared animals with which you do your drudgery. [Laughter.] You have goaded them almost to desperation. You have compelled them to rise; yea, sir, if they had the spirit of men in them, the ascendency which you now wield in the Halls of Congress would not be suffered to remain; but the whole question would have been quieted, because every man on this floor coming from a free State, believing in the traditions of his ancestors, the advocate of universal freedom, would, at least, have possessed the influence here which a man has in this great Republic because he is the advocate of abject slavery. Who, sir, does not know that we are not now regarded on this floor as equals, though we represent sovereign States? Look at the great State of Ohio. Do you permit her representatives on this floor to occupy a position upon any committee where they can have a voice, or a scintilla of judgment in moulding the policy of this country? No, sir; not at all. My colleague, [Mr. CHASE,] whom you will admit with me, is, in point of talent, in moral qualities, in everything that makes the true man and the republican, inferior to no one on this floor, where is he placed? What did you do with him when he first came here? You told him that he belonged to an unhealthy organization, and you banished him from all participation in the business of any committee. At the next session, thinking, perhaps, that you had taken a ground which was a little too strong, you banished him to the Committee on Claims. That, to be sure, is a useful committee; but it has no political influence whatever. On that one committee you put both the representatives of Ohio, although it is unusual to put two Senators from the same State on the same committee. You have so arranged your committees that no man can look at the list, no man can look at your 33D CONG....2D SESS. measures, and fail to see that you have so ordered it here, that those who have no more than one third of the votes of the Government shall mould every measure, and you suffer nothing to pass here except what is palatable to that one section. I do not accuse southern men of doing wrong in that. Undoubtedly they do very much as I would do myself. It is human nature, and I accuse you not. You are good fellows, so far as I am concerned, for you advocate what you consider your own rights, and your own principles; but, sir, what shall I say of those who permit you to bring ignominy and inferiority upon the representatives of the North? It is done, and every man sees it and feels it. This measure, if it has any vitality, is gotten up for the benefit of the South, and yet it is brought forward by a man from the North. How does this happen? Why are all the rest silent upon it? Why was it that the great and enormous measure of the Nebraska bill, repealing the Missouri compromise, was also brought in by a northern man? These things make an impression on my mind which is never produced by what falls from any of my southern friends in advocating their doctrines. But, sir, the Senator from Louisiana said that the North were the aggressors. Let me ask him if there is not a law in his State by which a man going there from other States, if his color, like mine, is a little darker than it ought to be, [laughter,] is seized upon and put in prison, though he may be the citizen of a free State, entitled, under the Constitution of the United States, to the same privileges and immunities as the citizens of any State? Mr. BENJAMIN. I will answer the Senator from Ohio, if he will permit me to do so. Mr. WADE. Certainly, sir. Mr. BENJAMIN. It is true that the free blacks coming to Louisiana are confined until the vessel in which they come goes out again, when they are sent out with it. I am told, however, that when they go to certain nohern States, they are met on the frontiers, and not allowed to come in at all. | Execution of United States Laws-Debate. but I am sure the honorable Senator from Ohio does not wish to state anything inconsistent with historical truth. Mr. WADE. Not if I know it. Mr. BUTLER. Now, with regard to Mr. Calhoun, whose name is frequently quoted as authority on these subjects, I will say, that I think he was opposed to the acquisition of territory from Mexico. He was certainly opposed to the Mexican war. I am not aware of anything in the history of the past to authorize the statement of the honorable Senator from Ohio, that Mr. Calhoun wrote to Mr. Pakenham in reference to the acquisition of any Mexican territory. And allow me to say to the honorable Senator from Ohio, (whatever may have been the aim, and I do not believe there was any such aim,) it is very certain that not one inch of the territory acquired from Mexico, so far as I know, has been occupied by a slave population, so that his own statement is refuted by the facts before him. Mr. WADE. I was speaking of the avowed object of the acquisition, not of its result. I think I have not misread that most extraordinary document to which I have alluded, nor the reply of Mr. Pakenham to it, nor the rejoinder of Mr. Calhoun. Mr. BUTLER. To be fair to the gentleman, I will state that I have no doubt his remark is referable to Texas, and not to Mexico. Mr. WADE. I think I said Texas. Mr. BUTLER. No, sir; you did not. Mr. WADE. Well, I said Mexican war, and the acquisition of Texas brought on that war. Mr. BROWN, (jocularly.) Now you have it right. Mr. WADE. I am glad to know that I have it right now. Mr. BUTLER. But it took about four trials to get it so. Mr. WADE. Mr. Calhoun asserted, when he made his apology to England, that the necessity of the acquisition was in order to get room for slavery. I am not mistaken about that. It was the avowed purpose for which you wanted that acquisition, with a full knowledge that it would give rise to war, and that it would be a just cause Mr. WADE. I do not think there is any law of war on the part of Mexico; and, in this way, to support that practice, if it prevails in the north-you made the free North pay an immense sum in ern States; but I do not think it does. Mr. PETTIT. The Senator will allow me to say that we have not only in Indiana a constitutional provision, but a law carrying out that provision, positively prohibiting any free black, or mulatto, from coming in and settling in the State. One word further: we have imposed a penalty for a violation of that law: we have not barbarously imposed that penalty on the black man, but on the white man who dares to harbor and dares to employ him. Mr. WADE. I will ask that Senator if he was an advocate of that law? Mr. PETTIT. I was. Mr. WADE. I supposed so; and I say it does not elevate its advocates in my estimation. Mr. PETTIT. I would like to enforce the law against the man who would violate it. Mr. WADE. I understand the gentleman, perfectly; but I say, in my judgment, it is a law most infamous and disgraceful to that free State. Mr. PETTIT. We choose to judge of the breed of dogs we want with us. SENATE. to-though I did not intend to take part in this discussion-I suppose justice at least requires me to interpose, and I hope the honorable Senator will allow me to do so. Mr. WADE. Certainly, sir. Mr. BUTLER. I venture to say that there is nothing in any of the legislative resolutions or anything connected with that fearful controversy of 1849 and 1850, at all looking to the fact that California was to be excluded because she was a free State. I do not know how the gentleman has got that idea into his head. We have always taken the ground in South Carolina and Georgia, (and I think that every other southern State has taken the ground,) that the people of each State have the right to do as they think proper upon that subject. What we did complain of was that California was brought in by a process unknown to the previous history of the country, and that was all. Mr. WADE. I understand it. Mr. BUTLER. Now, mind, Mr. President, what the honorable Senator has said on this floor, and he has said it on the responsibility of a Sena. tor. I repeat, that it may go forth to the public, he said Georgia and South Carolina passed resolutions that California should not come into this Union otherwise except as a elave State, or, in other words, that the door would be shut against her if she applied as a free State. Now, sir, is that the truth? Mr. WADE. Mr. President, of course we are taken here by surprise. I have had to rely upon my memory for all these transactions which are past, and I cannot now refer to the documents. I have no desire to do any injustice to either of those States, or to misrepresent a single point of that controversy. I certainly understood their position to be what I have stated. I did not, of course, mean to say that the objection was open, avowed, and manifest that the opposition was because California applied as a free State, but the opposition was made to her coming in when she knocked at your door for admission, and I have said that that was the real cause. Mr. DAWSON. I did not interrupt the Senator to correct him in relation to the State of Georgia, although I might properly have done so. I abstained from it, because the impression was made on my mind by the course of this discus order to get that acquisition, which Mr. Calhoun, Ohio was to create prejudice in one section of the Mr. BENJAMIN. California? Mr. WADE. Yes, sir, California I refer to; and recollect that Georgia and, I believe, some other southern States, but at all events Georgia and South Carolina resolved that it was a good cause for a dissolution of this Union, if that State came in free. Mr. BUTLER. It is not so. Mr. DOUGLAS. Never. 'Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; Georgia resolved it. Mr. DOUGLAS. I undertake to say that no State in this Union ever resolved that the admission of a new free State was a cause of disunion. The Senator can produce no authority, Mr. WADE. I think I can. Mr. DOUGLAS. I undertake to say he can. not, and the Senators from Georgia will tell him So. Mr. WADE. I only give my opinion of the law; but, sir, I was speaking of a certain law of Louisiana. It is of no consequence, at present, whether we have such a law as was alluded to; but it is a matter of consequence whether Louisi-record or otherwise, for any such statement. ana, which stands here the accuser of those who have laws in their own vindication, has herself a law by which she claims to deprive a citizen of another State of his constitutional rights. I say a Senator from that State ought not to stand forth as the accuser until he has washed his hands by wiping out such an odious law. But it is said that the North are the aggressors. When did we aggress? What did we do? I remember full well that you plunged us into the war with Mexico in order to get territory for slavery. You avowed that you did it for that purpose. Mr. Calhoun, in his letter to Mr. Pakenham, openly avowed the necessity of acquiring territory for that very purpose. Mr. BUTLER. I should not say anything, || Mr. WADE. I do not believe they will. Mr. DOUGLAS. Yes, sir; they will. Mr. DAWSON. I will. Mr. WADE. Will the Senator from Georgia tell me what they did resolve? Mr. DOUGLAS. That is a different question. I only said the statement of the Senator is without foundation, and is contradicted by the records and the history of the country. Mr. WADE. I think I cannot be mistaken in this Mr. BUTLER. As my State has been alluded no good that this discussion is to lead to. I can see nothing to result from it, except the creation of excitement in one section against the other. I do not intend to limit, by any act of mine, the extent of any observations which any Senators may desire to make. I will say, however, that Georgia never has, from her foundation to the present hour, assumed any other principle than that each State has the right to come into the Union with such institutions as she pleases, with or without slavery. No such issue as was stated by the Senator from Ohio has ever been presented in our public meetings or the Legislature of the State. It is undoubtedly true that there was some dissat isfaction with the manner in which California came into the Union, and in which it was made a State. The only objection was to the mode. Mr. WADE. Well, sir, of course I stand corrected by the remarks of gentlemen from those States, who ought to know the facts better than I do. I was barely relying on my recollection. I had not investigated the point. I never regarded that as so fearful a controversy as gentlemen magnify it to here. I was far distant from this Hall at that time; and the noise reached us, but we had no idea that the controversy was so fearful as gen. tlemen now represent. It arrested my attention sufficiently to look into the proceedings of Congress, and I think that some southern States did pass resolutions stating the grounds which would justify them in going out of the Union. This may be a misrecollection on my part, but it is cer tainly my memory. I undertake to state it only as a matter of recollection. But what was the object of the compromise made in 1850? Was it not said to be, by its advocates, to save the Union |