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33D CONG....2D SESS.

As a Senator on this floor I do not speak of slavery within the States; but must leave them, I suppose, to hug the monster to their breasts, until, like the stolen fox which the Spartan boy concealed under his tunic to hide the theft, it shall eat and gnaw into their vitals. If all that modern discovery has revealed concerning it be true, and the institution is, as asserted, beneficent in its character, tending to civilization, purity, liberty, education, physical prosperity, and social advancement; or if, as I think, the reverse of all this is true, and its tendencies are toward barbarism, debauchery, despotism, ignorance, material decay, and social demoralization, we of Connecticut and the other free States do not desire to participate in either its blessings, or its curses, but to be exempted from any responsibility therefor. As citizens of the free States we ask especially that this District may be purified with a thorough lustration, so that the capital of the nation, which should reflect the national honor, shall cease to be trodden by a slave, and the national flag no longer protect slavery and the slave trade under its folds. We ask to be released from the infamy of the traffic in men, women, and children, which is often heralded through the city papers to take place almost under the shadow of the Capitol. Let this foul blot be wiped off from our national escutcheon. Let the city bearing the honored name of the Father of his Country be cleansed of the rank offense, and made a fit dwelling-place of the ark of our liberties. Let American citizens, when they visit the capital of their country, no longer have occasion to take up the indignant lamentation of the poet:

"Who can with patience for a moment sec,
This medley mass of pride and misery,
Of whips and charters, manacles and rights,
Of slaving blacks and democratic whites?
To think that man, thou just and righteous God!
Should stand before Thee with a tyrant's rod,
O'er creatures like himself-with souls from Thee,
And yet to boast of perfect liberty!"

We demand the abolition of slavery in the national District, not only as an act of justice to the enslaved and to the free States which have been treacherously implicated therein, but also as one of the reformatory measures necessary to the vindication of our national character before the world. Everywhere the cause of republican Government is sadly disparaged and stigmatized by our inconsistency and treachery. American liberty is understood abroad to mean the liberty to oppress, the liberty to enslave, the liberty to imbrute our fellow-men; and one foreign writer has even suggested that our national emblem should be made truly emblematic of our real character, by picturing the eagle with liberty on his wings, and with a negro chained and writhing in his talons, and his heart's blood dripping from his beak. American Democracy is looked upon as a huge, oneeyed, gigantic monster-a modern Polyphemussporting the cap of liberty on his head, and mouth. ing the peans of freedom on his tongue, while he stalks ruthlessly over men and treads them down as worms. He is sometimes depicted in foreign cities, according to the reports of American travelers, standing erect upon the human auction block, in the act of selling men, women, and children, to the highest bidders; again, with coat off and arms bare, whipping nude-backed women; and again, with rifle and hounds, chasing a flying fugitive slave over mountain and moor, whose only crime is, that, like Washington, he loves liberty too well.

Said Lafayette, a few years before his death: "While I am indulging in my views of American prospects and American liberty, it is mortifying to be told that in that very country a large portion of the people are slaves. It is a dark spot on the face of the nation." Says E. S. Abdy, in his book entitled "A Residence and Tour in the United States:"

"A view of the national sin of America, after admiring the natural grandeur of the country, is like discovering the object of worship in the old temples of Egypt, where, after the stranger had walked bewildered through vistas of superb architecture, he came at last to the filthy idol-a mouthing and obscene ape, playing its pranks on a throne of gold! And this is the thing to be worshiped in America; a mockery and disgrace of the human character enthroned in the West; a nation of slave-drivers masquerading it with the cap of liberty; a Christian people surpassing all the heathen tribes of the world in systematic wickedness; a free Republic practicing greater oppression than was ever heard of in the old king-scourged and priest-ridden despotisms of Europe."

Execution of United States Laws-Debate.

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Says an Edinburgh Reviewer, in an article on "Travelers in America:"

"Every American who loves his country should dedicate his whole life and every faculty of his soul to efface the foul blot of slavery from its character. If nations rank according to their wisdom and virtue, what right has the American, a scourger and murderer of slaves, to compare himself with the least and lowest of the European nations, much less with this great and humane country where the greatest lord dare not lay a finger on the meanest peasant? What is freedom where all are not free, where the greatest of God's blessings is limited, by impious caprice, to the color of the body? And these are the men who taunt the English with their corrupt Parliament, with their buying and selling votes! Let the world judge which is the more liable to censure-we who, in the midst of rottenuess have torn the manacles off slaves all over the world, or they, who, with their idle purity and useless perfection, have remained mute and careless, while groans have echoed and whips cracked around the very walls of their spotless Congress. We wish well to America; we rejoice in her prosperity, and are delighted to resist the absurd impertinence with which the character of her people is often treated in this country. But the existence of slavery there is an atrocious crime, with which no measures can be kept, for which her situation affords no sort of an apology, which makes liberty itself distrusted and the boast of it disgusting."

I have cited these passages not that they can
afford any satisfaction to national pride or patriot-
ism-they certainly afford me none-but because
they are truthful, and teach us in what estimation
we are held abroad on account of our slavehold-
ing. Every true American, every real patriot
must feel deeply for the honor of his country, and
lament the dark plague-spot which has brought
upon it the keen reproaches and scorn of an en-
lightened universe. Oh, sir, this fair temple of
freedom, with the demon of slavery as the presiding
divinity enthroned within; this magnificent altar
of liberty, with human victims for the sacrifice,
this asylum for the oppressed of all other lands,
and the cruel grave of the rights and liberties of
millions of our own land! Justice, humanity,||
liberty, patriotism, all implore us to banish sla-
very from the national capital, and everywhere to
absolve the Federal Government from its guilty
complicity with slavery. They call upon us to
denationalize it, and disabuse the national char-
acter of the horrible infamy which burns and
blackens upon its escutcheon, from the perversion
of the freest and best Government on earth, or-
dained for the protection of human rights, into a
tremendous engine for their destruction. Have
we become so callous, so reckless, so lost to a
proper self-regard, and “a decent respect for the
opinions of mankind,” as to madly persist in
trampling upon the great and vital principles of
our own Government, and in offering hecatombs
of men upon the altar of American liberty? Shall
we wait for the avenger of blood to teach us the
awful lesson affirmed by all history, that national
calamities and ruin are the sure and inevitable
consequences of national injustice and crime?

Mr. President, here I might pause; but it may
not be amiss to glance at the subsequent policy of
a Government which signalized its inauguration
by reestablishing slavery in the metropolis of the
nation, and expose its profligacy in pandering to
the vilest despotism beneath the sun. Although the
Constitution of the United States makes no dis-
tinction on account of complexion, and admits no
right or disqualification therefor, its administrators
have taken it upon themselves, in utter violation
of its letter and spirit, to proscribe all whiteless
persons, and legislate them out of the pale of its
protection. Never has a Government been guilty
of a more audacious usurpation of power, or a
grosser violation of constitutional prerogative.
Let us glance at the proscriptive crusade of the
Federal Government against a part of the people
of this country. Its first act in this direction, as
we have seen, after the adoption of the Constitu-
tion, was the enactment of the whole slave code,
in the Federal District.
and the reinstitution and perpetuation of slavery

In 1790, Congress passed an act of naturaliza-
tion, by which any alien, being a white person,
may be admitted to the rights of citizenship, thus
proscribing all aliens, however worthy, on whom,
or on whose ancestors, the sun may have shone a
little too vertically, and, at the same time receiving
any and all other persons, however immoral and
debased. Marvelous statesmanship, sir, thus to
open the door wide to ship-loads of white paupers
and criminals from the Old World, and bolt it fast
against colored foreigners, though ennobled by all
the virtues and excellencies that can adorn human

SENATE.

nature! In 1792 Congress passed an act to organize the militia of the United States, which provided for the enrollment of none but free, able-bodied, white citizens, although the fact was then fresh in the knowledge of Congress and the country that no class of soldiers had fought more heroically, or done more, proportionally, to achieve the liberties of the country in the revolutionary conflict, than the very class thus proscribed. And it should be added, in justice to them, thus cut off from the privilege of participating in the defense of their country-a privilege denied by no other Government on earth to its subjects that they came forward as volunteers in the second war with Great Britain, and, by their patriotic devotion and soldierly exploits, won from the lips of their commanders the highest meed of praise. Their patriotism and valor rose superior to the injustice and contumely of their persecutors.

In the year 1810, Congress again thrust at the dark-complexioned people of the country, by enacting that "no other than a free white person shall be employed in carrying the mails of the United States, either as a post-rider, or driver of a carriage." Any other person, of whatever character, may carry the mail: but a native American, of unsullied character and virtuous aims, unexceptionable for probity and trustworthiness, if his complexion chances to be a little dusky, is proscribed as unfit to drive the horses which draw the mail-bags of the country.

The Federal Government has disfranchised the colored men of the District of Columbia, and left them to be plundered of their money, under the specious name of taxes, in the disbursement of which they have no voice, and no direct benefitthus holding to their lips the same bitter chalice of oppression which our revolutionary fathers dashed from theirs with indignant scorn. Taxation without representation they could not endure-but this Government has inflicted the same intolerable wrong upon the colored man.

By the laws of this Government all colored persons are precluded from the advantages of some, if not all, the Territories of the United States, they being opened to none but "free white persons." A dark complexion is thought incompatible with a settlement in the wilds of the West.

Thus, sir, has the Federal Government warred upon a part of the people-it has pursued them to the utmost extremity; it has legislated them down, and frowned them down, and trampled them down, with an arbitrariness and cruelty well illus trated by the Procrustean bedstead of antiquity, on which men were laid and made to fit-those too short were stretched, and those too long were cut to its length. Wherein is the difference between this barbarity, and that of cutting and graduating human rights by the hue of the skin? They are alike arbitrary, unjust, and tyrannical. Men are no more responsible for their color than for their stature, and to make their rights depend on any such accident of birth, or climate, is the baldest despotism-as absurd as impious.

And yet the friends and abettors of this inhuman policy, with an air of great self-complacency, tell us that the colored people are an "inferior and degraded race." Then why not have the justice and magnaminity to remove their civil disabilities, and let them rise, and no longer exhibit toward them the dastardliness of an overgrown bully, who pounces upon the weak and defenseless? Their alleged inferiority should entitle them to the protection of their superiors rather than to their de struction. Ill does it become the cruel inflictors of all their wrongs to speak of their inferiority, ignorance, and debasement. Inferior, sir! Who has made them inferior? Ignorant! Who has doomed them to ignorance? Debased! Who has sunken them in debasement? They, be it understood, who have brought all the sanctions of law and custom to crush them; who have snatched from them the key of knowledge, and closed every avenue to their elevation and advancement. Put out the eyes of men, and then tell them scornfully that they are blind. Extinguish the Promethean fire in their souls, and then tell them tauntingly that they are darkened and debased. It is the crowning villany of tyrants that they visit their own crimes upon their victims, and thus seek to hide their own guilt under the wrongs which they inflict. Allege not the depressed condition of your

33D CONG....2D SESS.

colored brother, whom you have sold into Egypt, as an excuse for your cold-blooded treachery. As well might the hawk taunt the dove in his talons, because he does not fly away to the azure heavens, or the wolf upbraid the lamb in his clutches, because he does not skip and play. Rather does it become you to lay your hand on your mouth, and your mouth in the dust, and cry unclean! unclean! Sir, what would be thought of the father who should depress and degrade one part of his family, and permit another portion to trample upon the victims of his unnatural cruelty and injustice? He would be pronounced a miscreant, or a lunatic; and is not this equally true of the larger family of the State? What shall be said of that kind of statesmanship which treats one class of people with scorn and contumely, thus alienating their affections from the State, and filling their bosoms with hate and revenge; forcing upon them the maddening conviction that they are despised aliens and outcasts in their own country, with nothing to dread but peace, and something to hope from revolution? It is a dangerous and infatuated policy which, at some national crisis, might bring resultant disaster and ruin. The grand aim of all just Governments and all wise legislation is, not to depress, but to elevate; not degrade, but to ennoble; not to curse, but to bless every class and condition of people, and thus, while fulfilling their appropriate functions, conciliate the patriotic regards of all, and fortify the State with a circling rampart of true, devoted, loyal hearts. Well did Jefferson wax warm on this point, and exclaim:

"With what execration should the statesman be loaded who, permitting one half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies; destroys the morals of the one part, and the patriotism of the other. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God, and not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situations, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute that can take side with us in such a contest."

But, Mr. President, there is still another chapter in the history of the prostitution of the Federal Government to the purposes of slavery and slavery propagandism, to which I ask the attention of the Senate. By the act of 1807, Congress undertook to regulate the coastwise American slave trade, and directed in what vessels, and in what manner it should be carried on, thus abetting and protecting a traffic in the people of this country, which, if prosecuted on the coast of Africa, Congress has since declared to be piracy punishable with death. Can any political casuist tell us how it is that the Government of the United States should allow its own native-born people to be bought up and transported in vessels under its own authority and regulation, to be sold in the slave markets of the Republic; while at the same time, it prohibits the buying and shipping of native Africans under penalty of death? Or why it should hang a man as a pirate for trading in one African savage, and assume to regulate the trade in thousands of American Christians, as they are sometimes represented; thus withdrawing its protection from millions of its own native people, and lavishing it on a barbarous people in a distant land? If it be piracy to steal men from Africa, and sell them in the human shambles, how shall we characterize the stealing of Africo-Virginians, and transporting them under the regulation of United States laws, to be sold in the man-markets of the South and Southwest? We even hear the African slave trade palliated in a certain quarter, as a grand missionary enterprise, by which its poor benighted victims are translated out of their heathenish darkness into the marvelous light of the "Model Republic;" but no such plea can be urged in extenuation of the American slave trade, inasmuch as its victims are snatched from under the blazing light of the old slave-breeding States, and doomed to regions less blessed with the beams of the day-star. The trader's profit is the sole consideration, at the expense of the slave's interests and happiness.

In the city of New York a man now awaits the execution of the sentence of death, pronounced by a United States court, for buying and selling

Execution of United States Laws-Debate.

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Africans into slavery. Two citizens of Wiscon

SENATE.

Mr. GILLETTE. That is the Senator's ex

stated.

Mr. DAWSON. The increase being so great shows how well they have been taken care of, fed, and clothed.

Mr. GILLETTE. What does the honorable Senator from Georgia say in relation to the facts appertaining to the old States, which show a large decrease? What does that indicate?

Mr. DAWSON. Simply that they have been taken to the newer States where the land is better and cheaper, and there are better opportunities of living freely and liberally.

sin have been condemned to fine and imprison-planation, but it does not alter the facts I have ment, by a United States court, for the alleged crime of helping one American out of slavery. To steal a man from Africa and sell him into slavery is piracy, punishable with death; to assist this stolen man to escape from the pirate, or his successors, and regain possession of himself, is a crime to be expiated by a felon's cell and a fine of $1,000. To traffic in the people of Africa is piracy: to trade in the people of this country, even to the selling of white women for purposes of prostitution, why, sir, this is entirely innocent and right, according to law. Such are the fatuity and villany of human legislation, which courts, conspiring with tyrants against the authority of Heaven, attempt to baptize by the sacred name of law, and teach obedience to its murderous behests! The Government of the United States has virtually authorized and sanctioned this execrable commerce in the people of this country, by interfering to regulate the traffic which annually tears tens of thousands of persons from all that they hold dear on earth, and transports them, to be sold into a strange and weary land. Said Thomas Jefferson Randolph in a speech to the Legislature of Virginia, in 1832:

"It is a practice, an increasing practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honorable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his country bear to see this ancient dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie, where men are reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles? Is it better, is it not worse, than the [African] slave trade-that trade which enlisted the labor of the good and wise of every creed and every clime to abolish it? The trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, aspect, and manners, from the merchant who has brought him from the interior. The ties of father, mother, husband, and child, have all been rent in twain; before he receives him bis soul has become callous. But here, sir, individuals, whom the master has known from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gambols of childhood, who have been accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears from the mother's arms, and sells into a strange country, among a strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters. In my opinion it iş inuch worse."

us.

Said the Synod of Kentucky in 1825:

"Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are torn asunder and permitted to see each other no more. These acts are daily occurring in the midst of The shrieks and the agony, often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim, with a trumpet tongue, the iniquity of our system. There is not a neighborhood where these heart-rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts, whose mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that their hearts hold dear."

The Richmond Inquirer, Virginia, in 1847, held the following language:

"It is a melancholy fact that negroes have become the only reliable staple of the tobacco growing section of Virginia, the only reliable means of liquidating debts, foreign and domestic. They are sold here by hundreds, under the hammer of the auctioneer. The domestic cannot compete with the southwestern demand for them, for the plain reason the tobacco grower cannot make half of one per centum per annum on slave labor, while the cotton and sugar planters make, perhaps, from fifteen to twenty per centum. negroes are going by hundreds, yea, by thousands, to the Southwest."

Our

Although the census is cautiously silent, and furnishes no statistics relative to this branch of American commerce in Americans, we are able, by much labor, to glean from it certain data, from which we can form some estimate of the probable amount of human exports from the slave-breeding

Mr. BUTLER. My friend from Georgia ought to have answered that the process was very much like that in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and other States, where, when they had no further occasion for their slaves, they sold them, and sent them to other places. In some States, years ago, when they had no further use for slaves, they sold the mothers and kept the children.

Mr. GILLETTE. I will only say, in reply to the Senator from South Carolina, that there was in Connecticut a class of the real slaveholders who sold their slaves; but another and a much more numerous class who emancipated them. As for slave mothers, he knows more about them than I do. But, sir, to return to my argument.

In several slave-importing States other than those which I have already mentioned, the increase is much above the average ratio, thus showing a vast domestic slave trade which numbers many thousands annually. Supposing the natural increase in the four slave exporting States mentioned, to be thirty-three per cent., which cannot be too high, considering the mildness of their climate, the lightness of slave labor, and the leniency of slave treatment, compared with the climate, labor, and treatment endured by the same class in the rice, cotton, and sugar States, in some of which the consumption is reported to exceed the domestic increase, the number of slaves in the four States named should have amounted to.......1,050,699 Whereas the actual enumeration was but. 851,444

Thus making the number exported... 199,255 between the years 1840 and 1850, which, at $600 each, would amount to $119,535,000-the great consideration, after all that has been said to the contrary, for the perpetuation of slavery in those States.

In this connection, Mr. President, and in conclusion of this topic, I will read a short extract from the speech of the Hon. T. B. Macaulay, delivered in the British Parliament, on the "sugar, duties." The great name of its author must secure for it the attention of every Senator "who hath ears to hear:"

"Then a new distinction is set up. The United States, it is said, have slavery; but they have no slave trade. Í deny that assertion. I say that the sugar and cotton of the United States are the fruits, not only of slavery, but of the slave trade. And I say further, that, if there be on the surface of this earth a country which, before God and man, is more accountable than any other for the misery and degradation of the African race, that country is not Brazil, the produce of which the right honorable baronet excludes, but the United States, the produce of which he proposes to admit on more favorable terms than ever.

"I affirm, then, that there exists in the United States a slave trade not less odious or demoralizing, nay, I do in my conscience believe, more odious and more demoraliz

States, and the human imports into the slave-buy-in that which is carried on between Africa and Braing States, during the last decennary. We find the average increase of the whole slave population to have been 28.87 per centum.

But in Virginia

the ratio of increase was but 5.21 per centum; in Maryland 0.07; in North Carolina 17.58; in Delaware the decrease was 12.09.

What became of the slaves thus disappearing from these States? They were not swept away by pestilence or famine, but by the "soul-drivers," as they are technically called, into Georgia, where the increase was 35.85 per centum; into Missouri, where the increase was 50.10 per centum; into Florida, where it was 52.85 per centum; into Mississippi, where it was 58.74; and into Arkansas, where it was 136.26 per centum.

Mr. GEYER. Let me tell the Senator from Connecticut that the slaves brought into Missouri are not brought there for sale; we have a law forbidding that; but they are brought by emigrants from other States.

North Carolina and Virginia are to Louisiana and Alabama what Congo is to Rio Janeiro. The slave States of the Union are divided into two classes-the breeding States, where the human beasts of burden increase and multiply, and become strong for labor, and the sugar and cotton States, to which those beasts of burden are sent to be worked to death. To what an extent the traffic in man is carried on, we may learn by comparing the census of ginia are, as I have said, great breeding States. During 1830 with the census of 1840. North Carolina and Virthe ten years from 1830 to 1840 the slave population of North Carolina was almost stationary. The slave population of Virginia positively decreased. Yet, both in North Carolina and Virginia, propagation was, during those ten years, going on fast. The number of births among the slaves in those States exceeded by hundreds of thousands the number of the deaths. What, then, became of the surplus? Look to the returns from the southern States, and from the States whose produce the right honorable baronet proposes to admit with reduced duty or with no duty at all, and you will see. You will find that the increase in the breeding States was barely sufficient to meet the demand of the consuming States. In Louisiana, for example, where we know that the negro population is worn down by cruel toil, and would not, if left to itself, keep up its numbers, there were, in 1830, 107,000 slaves; in 1840, 170,000. In

33D CONG....2D SESS.

Alabama, the slave population during those ten years much more than doubled; it rose from 117,000 to 253,000. In Mississippi it actually tripled; it rose from 65,000 to 195,000. So much for the extent of this slave trade. And as to its nature, ask any Englishman who has ever traveled in the southern States. Jobbers go about from plantation to plantation, looking out for proprietors who are not easy in their circumstances, and who are likely to sell cheap. A black boy is picked up here, and a black girl there. The dearest ties of nature and of marriage are torn asunder as rudely as they were ever torn asunder by any slave captain on the coast of Guinea. A gang of three or four hundred negroes is made up; and then these wretches, handcuffed, fettered, guarded by armed men, are driven southward as you would drive, or, rather, as you would not drive, a herd of oxen to Smithfield, that they may undergo the deadly labor of the sugar mill near the mouth of the MisEissippi. A very few years of that labor in that climate suffice to send the stoutest African to his grave. But he can well be spared. While he is fast sinking into premature old age, negro boys in Virginia are growing up as fast into vigorous manhood, to supply the void which cruelty is making in Louisiana. God forbid that I should extenuate the horrors of the slave trade in any form. But I do think this its worst form. Bad enough it is that civilized men should sail to an uncivilized quarter of the world where slavery exists, should there buy wretched barbarians, and should carry them away to labor in a distant land; bad enough. But that a civilized man, a baptized man, a man proud of being a citizen of a free State, a man frequenting a Christian church, should breed slaves for exportation, and, if the whole horrible truth must be told, should even beget slaves for exportation*; should see children, sometimes his own children, gamboling around him from infancy; should watch their growth; should become familiar with their faces, and should then sell them for $400 or $500 a head, and send them to lead in a remote country a life which is a lingering death-a life about which the best thing that can be said is that it is sure to be short. This does, I own, excite a horror exceeding even the horror excited by that slave trade which is the curse of the African coast. And mark: I am not speaking of any rare case, of any instance of eccentric depravity. I am speaking of a trade as regular as the trade in pigs between Dublin and Liverpool, or as the trade in coals between the Tyne and the Thames."-(Pp. 344, 348.)

As additional proofs of the action of the Federal Government in behalf of slavery, I might speak further of its tolerance of slavery in the Territories where, by the Constitution, its jurisdiction is exclusive; of its unconstitutional and barbarous enactments for the rendition of fugitive slaves; of its persevering negotiations with foreign nations for the surrender of, or compensation for, fugitive slaves; of its invasion of Florida to capture absconding slaves; of its interference to prevent emancipation in Cuba; of its duplicity in its insincere attempts to suppress the African slavetrade; of its refusing to acknowledge the independence of Hayti, or receive an embassador from that Government; of its annexing Texas to extend and strengthen slavery, as avowed by the leading southern advocates of that measure; of its invasion of the right of petition; the liberty of the press, and the freedom of speech on the subject of slavery; of its admission into the Union of nine new slave States; of its wars of conquest for the acquisition of a vast area of territory, to be devoted to slavery; of its recent abrogation of the Missouri compromise; of its admitting the principle of property in man, by granting claims for lost slaves, as was done but two or three days since; and worse, and more revolting even, allowing claims for children of female slaves, that never were born, as was done in 1834 to certain citizens of Georgia, for depredations by Creek Indians, on the principle set forth in the report of the committee thereon, to wit, that "a much higher value is set on a female slave in consequence of an anticipation of increase a property in expectancy in the issue of such female slave." (Reports of committees, first session, Twenty-Third Congress, No. 140.) Thus, sir, the people of the free States were taxed many thousand dollars by the Government to pay for slave children which, happily for them, were never created, and lived only in the prolific imagination of the slaveholder, engendered there by his cupidity.

"To such base uses" has this Government come at last-thus has it been perverted, debauched, prostituted, by a domineering negroöcracy, now numbering three hundred and fifty thousand members, and bound together by a mo

*Soon after resuming my seat, upon this statement being called in question, I received a note from a stranger in the gallery, stating that "fourteen instances" of fathers selling their own children had fallen under his observation, several of which are known to members of Congress, and in two of which he himself was the purchaser. On subsequent inquiry, I have learned that the gentleman, who made the communication, is from a slave State, where he has held high judicial positions.

Execution of United States Laws-Debate.

nopoly of at least $1,500,000,000 in human flesh. By this slaveholding oligarchy this Government has always been controlled and wielded, for the support and extension of slavery which, the late John Q. Adams truly said in a speech to his constituents, shortly before his death, "constitutes the very axle around which the administration of your national Government revolves. All its measures of foreign and domestic policy are but radia- || tions from that center.

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Mr. President, the Constitution under which we are legislating knows no man by his color, creed, or clime. Based on the great principle of natural law, as enunciated in the national declaration-the exact equality of all men in natural rights-it reads: "We, the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution," thus emanating from all, and embracing all within its ample scope. The illustrious men who formed it, had not made the profound discovery that human rights depend on complexion, or any other physical peculiarity. They embarked in the revolutionary struggle with the motto emblazoned on their banner-all men are equal in rights; under its inspiration, they conquered, and came out of the contest declaring it to be "the boast and pride of America that the rights for which she had contended are the rights of human nature." Deeply imbued with these noble sentiments, they formed the Constitution, and so far from admitting therein the possibility that man can be made property, they not only discarded the odious term slave, but went so far as to substitute the term service instead of servitude, it being understood that the former implied the state of freedom, and the latter the condition of slavery.

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No matter what physical difference may exist among men; no matter whether an African, an Asiatic, a European, or an American sun may have shone upon them; no matter whether the human soul be enshrined in ebony, bronze or ivory, man's a man for a' that," equal in rights before God and the Constitution of the country. To deny this is to contradict the spontaneous utterance of human nature herself, and strike at the center column of the temple of liberty. For how can any man's liberties be secure after this fundamental principle is overthrown? That moment we are all at the mercy of the strongest, and might usurps the place of right. Perfect equality of rights, and equal liberty to exercise those rights -such is the organic law of the land; and though rejected and trampled now, it must and will prevail.

"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies amid her worshipers."

In conclusion, Mr. President, I can only deprecate the measure before the Senate, urged as necessary for the enforcement of the fugitive act, and designed to complete its supremacy over State authority. No effectual resistance can be made to its passage. The arm of the slave power is again uplifted, and another blow is about to fall upon the liberties of the States to crush them into Federal absolutism. I bow to what is inevitable by the fiat of a power that knows no forbearance, looking hopefully to a higher Power, to whom our fathers looked in the day of their calamity, and were signally delivered. I have no threats to fulminate, and but a word of admonition. I caution you not to drive the North to intenser exasperation. Her grievances are already greater than she can bear; do not throw another combustible upon the flame. Desist from your reckless crusade upon her rights; your aggressive war upon her liberties. Having crossed the Rubicon, I warn you to stop and count the cost, before pushing on to capture the last citadel of freedom.

Constituted as the Senate now is, there can be no reasonable hope of resisting any decree registered here by the dominant power. That power, strongly backed as it is by its northern minions, is absolute for evil. But, sir, as said the elder Adams on a memorable occasion, "great is Truth; great is Liberty; great is Humanity; and they must and will prevail." They who resist their march, whether Senators, Presidents, or Judges, will be scattered like chaff by the breath of the tempest. All the high and holy attributes of Omnipotence are pledged to "break the oppresor

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SENATE.

in pieces," and pluck the human spoils out of his teeth.

Great changes in public sentiment have occurred within the last twenty years, and greater changes are to come within the next ten years. The booming cannon which celebrated the fall of the Missouri compromise, just north of the Capitol, on the memorable, the "melancholy night" of my induction into this body, also heralded the resurrection of liberty from her inglorious sleep, and the overthrow of that colossal power that has so long darkened and cursed the land. In the lurid flash of those cannon it might have read the hand-writing of its doom upon these walls, and heard in their roar its echoing dirge. I thank God the dark night of servility and shame is passing away, and the day-dawn of a regenerated freedom and manliness is shining upon our mountains and hills. Animated, quickened, transported by its cheering rays, I catch and echo the words of one of freedom's own poets:

"Through all the long dark night of years,

The people's cry ascendeth,
And earth is wet with blood and tears,
But our meek sufferance endeth;
The few shall not forever sway,

The many moil in sorrow;

The powers of hell are strong to-day,
But Christ shall rise to-morrow.

Though hearts brood o'er the past, our eyes
With smiling futures glisten!
For lo! our day bursts up the skies;
Lean out your souls and listen!
The world rolls freedom's radiant way,
And ripens with her sorrow;

Keep heart! who bear the cross to-day,
Shall wear the crown to morrow."

of

Mr. BROWN. I now rise for the purpose asking permission to be allowed to have a change made in a vote which I gave this morning on a motion of the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. CHASE,] to strike out the words "under color thereof." I was mistaken in the question, and voted in favor of striking out. I intended to vote differently, and as it makes no difference in the result, I hope, by unanimous consent, I may be allowed to change my vote.

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. WELLER.) It cannot be done, except by unanimous consent.

Mr. CHASE. I object. I should not do so but for the fact that I asked the same favor the other day, and it was refused on the ground that it could not even be done by unanimous consent.

Mr. BROWN. Well, sir, it is a matter of no consequence.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. I do not mean, Mr. President, to enter into this debate. The truth is, I did not know that this bill was coming up, nor did I know the purport of the bill. There are, however, some things which have occurred here to-night to which I desire to allude.

We have heard two speeches from the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. WADE,] each about an hour or an hour and a half in length, deprecating the introduction of this question suddenly, asserting that it was sprung upon them; that they were not prepared for it; and that they were astonished that it was sprung on them. Now, we have sat here for one hour and a half listening to the elaborate essay which we have just heard, written out, every i dotted and every t crossed, which must have required days, if not weeks, in its preparation. What are we to think of the frankness, candor, or sincerity of that party who are fighting this measure? We are upbraided for hours with forcing the question on them suddenly, and we have just heard delivered an essay written out in advance, which no man in the Senate could have prepared in a week; and in that essay the Senator refers to this very measure, showing that he had his eye to it and had prepared himself for it. Now, gentlemen, if you can find it in your hearts to be honest for once, just tell us that you knew all about it, and were ready to come up and fight it. Just try and be honest for once. (Laughter.]

Another thing, Mr. President, to show you that this is a concocted scheme, and that it is perfectly understood by this little band, I will not say of traitors, because that would not be respectful, but if I were to say what I think I should say so. Mr. SEWARD. Speak it out.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. I believe it on my own personal responsibility. I do not say it senatorially, but personally I do. [Laughter.] I

33D CONG....2D SESS.

How

wish to say that there is a perfect understanding,
a secret understanding, between these men.
did the Senator who has just addressed us, [Mr.
GILLETTE,] who has all the urbanity of a gentle-
man-and I hope I shall deport myself to him as
such-happen to allude to the remark contained
in the address of the Senator from Ohio [Mr.
WADE] about the booming cannon and its lurid
flames, unless he knew precisely what that Sen-
ator was going to say? There is no mistake about ||
it. Just own like gentlemen that you knew all
about it. [Laughter.] Here, (pointing to Mr.
GILLLTTE,) how did you know that the Senator
from Ohio was going to say that, unless you con-
ferred with him about it, and how did you happen
to have an allusion to it in your speech written
out, covering about fifty pages of manuscript?

Mr. PETTIT. If the Senator from Tennessee will allow me, I should like to have him press this further question, whether it was not one of those gentlemen who had the subject referred to the Committee on the Judiciary for consideration.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. I will ask that question. I did not know anything about it before, but I put the question whether any one of them did that? Answer the question, gentlemen; come out like men, and answer it. [Laughter.] I put the question whether any of you did have this question referred to the Committee on the Judiclary, or not?

Mr. PETTIT. Silence gives consent.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. I am afraid there is a little cheating here. [Laughter.] Both the Senators from Ohio said that this subject had been precipitated upon them, but yet, we are now led to believe that one of them did have it referred to the Committee on the Judiciary; that they did know the bill was to be reported, because here is an elaborate speech, requiring a week to write it out, (I think it would have required a week for me to write it out,) in which he refers to remarks that were made by another Senator who preceded him. You are not playing fair; there is no mistake about it; you are dodging this question. [Laughter.)

But, sir, I wish to say a word on another point, which is more important. I do not mean to answer, I do not suppose I could answer, the essay of the gentleman from Connecticut; but there are one or two points in it to which I wish to advert. He has read to us extract after extract from foreign journals, foreign reviewers, and foreign witnesses, all for what? To throw dishonor and discredit upon his own country. He has read to us abuse, lower, meaner, more servile, falser than the low miserable abuse of Mrs. Trollope herself.

Mr. GILLETTE. Will the gentleman allow me to say a word?

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. Certainly.

Mr. GILLETTE. 1 stated distinctly that my object was to show the position which we occupied in the estimation of foreign nations, while I deeply regretted the fact that there was occasion for any such opinions abroad.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. Mr. President, God forbid that I should ever reach that point when sectional prejudice or influence will induce me to throw dishonor on my country! The Senator has reviled not only the slaveholders, but the slaves themselves; but, sir, if even the separation were to take place between me and my slaves, and my rights and my paternity were to be sacrificed, if to maintain them were at the expense of the pride, the character, and the honor of this country, God forbid that I should ever avail myself of it. If in assailing the fanaticism of the North, which I think worse than the treachery of Judas, I am driven to assail my own country, I will submit to that treachery. When the time comes that I shall so far forget my duty to my country as to revile her, I ask God to paralyze the tongue that does so. Sir, (addressing Mr. GILLETTE,) look upon that picture, (pointing to the portrait of Washington, which is suspended above the President's chair,) I fear you dare not look up to it; but when the time comes that I shall forget the presence of the Father of his Country, and revile that country for the purpose of ministering to the low, the mean, the sordid passions and prejudices of fanaticism, may the God who made me sacrifice me on an altar purer and better than that.

Execution of United States Laws-Debate.

Mr. GILLETTE. I look that picture full in the face, and I tell the Senator that the honored man whom it portrays uttered sentiments as hostile to slavery as any I have uttered this night on the floor of this Chamber. He deprecated it with all his heart, and declared, over and over again, that his vote should not be wanting to abolish it. That face, I see, darkly frowns upon the Senator himself for the atrocious sentiments which he is uttering.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. Ah! Mr. President, if the dead could rise, if that mighty form which is represented there could stand up here erect, in all its majesty, and he who was the master of hundreds of slaves, he who gave his whole life and services to his country, could stand here and hear his name invoked to vindicate the foulest treachery against the Constitution of his country, we should

Mr. COOPER. I call the Senator from Ten-
nessee to order.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator
from Pennsylvania will state his point of order.
Mr. COOPER. The language which the Sen-
ator from Tennessee uses is not in order.
The PRESIDing officeR. What is the
point of order?

Mr. COOPER. That he is addressing himself
to another Senator, denouncing him as a traitor.
Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. Not at all.

Mr. COOPER. You were denouncing his con-
duct as treacherous.

Mr. ADAMS. I insist that the Senator from
Pennsylvania shall address the Chair and not the
Senator from Tennessee.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator
from Tennessee will proceed.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. I understand I am in order. I do not mean to be disrespectful, but I will never stand in my place in this Chamber and hear the name of the Father of his Country invoked in support of a tirade of denunciations against the institutions of that country for whose benefit he gave his whole life and his whole services. Make all the questions of order on me you please; I will never submit to it. But, sir, I did not mean to say that much. I sat here and listened, I think, with Christian forbearance, to a tissue of the strangest misconception-if that term will suit gentlemen, but if I were to express myself plainly I should say misrepresentationsphantasies of the imagination, chimeras of the brain. He has told us of a woman hawked through the streets with a rope around her body. Nobody saw it done; there was no witness to testify to it. It may have been so. I do not know the facts, but I submit to the Senator whether that is the sort of argument which dignified and honorable Senators ought to use here. The honorable Senator stated in his address that this question had been precipitated upon him, and yet in that very address he quoted remarks made by the Senators who preceded him.

The Senator from Connecticut must suppose that gentlemen of the South are utterly abandoned to all ideas of self-respect. Does he think they can sit here, quietly and submit to hear such statements as are contained in a publication which he read from one of his foreign witnesses, to the effect that it was not unusual to see men separated from their wives, and children from their parents, and that under the operation of the slave trade between the States, even they were selling their own children in the market. Those are his words. I call upon that Senator to tell me, to tell the Senate, to tell the world where he ever knew a Southern man to put his own children in the market. Yet, sir, if we sit here and, after hearing charges of this kind preferred against us, open our mouths, we are said to be agitators, or are called to order. A fouler calumny against the South was never perpetrated. Name your man, wherever he lives, wherever he be; if there be such a man, and I will join you in the bitterest execrations and denunciations of such a wretch as you may feel it in your own heart to bestow on him. Yet, sir, you stand upon the floor of the American Senate and read charges of that sort against Southern men! Where is the man who will stand up and prove any such charge? I can take the whole speech and prove that more than half of it is as ridiculous and as false as that.

SENATE.

But I do not mean to answer the speech. I would not lower myself so much as to do so.

I listened to the Senator as patiently and as respectfully as I could, considering the circumstances, and I found that one half hour of his speech was devoted to prove the wrongs and injustice perpetrated by the white man upon the black man. He even quoted higher than any earthly authority to prove the gross injustice and iniquity of the servitude of which he spoke. Half an hour of his speech was devoted to prove equality between the black and the white man. Now, I ask that Senator if he is sincere in his declaration that the black man is entitled to equality with the white man, socially or politically? I put that question to the Senator.

Mr. GILLETTE. Mr. President, the Senator from Tennessee, unintentionally, I trust, quotes but a part of my language, and thus misrepresents me entirely. I endeavored to show the reason why the black man is not equal to the white man in this country to be, because the whole legislation of this Government, and of many of the States, has been wielded to crush him. 1 did say that, under the Constitution of the United States, all men are equal in natural rights, and have the same title to the enjoyment of those rights. That was my language, and not as the Senator quotes me as saying that all men in this country are equal.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. I did not say that; but I mean that this issue shall be met fairly. I put the question now to the Senator. Does he believe that a black man is entitled to an equality of rights, socially and politically, with the white man? That is a plain issue. I put the question directly to the honorable Senator, and respectfully; do you believe that the black man is entitled to an equality of rights with the white man, either socially or politically?

Mr. WILSON. Mr. President

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. I do not yield the floor to the Senator from Massachusetts. I am speaking to the Senator from Connecticut. I will take you one at a time.

Mr. GILLETTE. I thought that, I before expressed myself in such a manner, that every Senator could understand me. I do believe, and I have the highest authority for the belief, that all men are equal in natural rights, that they have the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, irrespective of color, or of any other physical peculiarity.

Mr. JONES, of Tennessee. That is not answering the question. Natural rights are one thing, and social and political rights are a wholly different thing. It is a natural right to breathe the air of the atmosphere, to drink water, to eat food. Every animal upon God Almighty's earth, the horse, the mule, the ass, all are entitled to those benefits. My question was not in relation to them. My question is this: While these gentlemen are waging a war against the institutions of the South, and contending for the equality of the rights of the black man with the white man; while they are inveighing against the cruelties which they say we perpetrate on our negroes; while they are maintaining all this philanthropy, I put a naked, an isolated, an abstract question: Do you believe in the equality of the two races? But, sir, I will vary the question, and put it in this form-are you willing that the black man shall participate equally with the white man, in all the social and political benefits of this country?

Mr. GILLETTE. Mr. President, I certainly am willing, yea, desirous, that all men, irrespective of color, should have the same rights and the enjoyment of the same privileges to work out the great problem of their existence; and to "participate equally" in that social equality to which the gentleman alludes. I do not know, however, by what right it is he questions me on a topic that I never brought into consideration in the remarks which I made. I do not see why he should take occasion thus to travel out of the record, and call me to my feet for that purpose. If I had brought the matter of social rights into consideration, there would have been some apology for the interrogatory which has been put to me. But I will answer the Senator on that point, by saying again, that I think "all men are entitled by their Creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and

33D CONG....2D SESS.

have the same right to all the privileges, immunities, and benefits of society, in every department, that I have, or that the honorable Senator himself has. Is that satisfactory?

Execution of United States Laws-Debate.

Mr. PETTIT. Mr. President, I was a mern-
ber of the committee who reported this bill; I took
the responsibility of assisting to order its report;
I am, therefore, in favor of the bill. I did not,
however, believe it was politic-not to say policy
to bring up the bill for discussion at so late a
period of the session. I supposed that it would
involve the whole cycle of the discussion in refer-
ence to the negro, and negro slavery; and espe-
cially the entire review of the Nebraska question,
or the Nebraska debate of last year. I do not
believe that any good will come from a continua-

ise of the Senate that they will now take a vote
and end it, I will say no more; or if I can have
the promise of the Senate that they will now lay
it upon the table for this session, I will agree to

say no more.

Mr. RUSK. I believe every friend of the bill
will promise to vote upon it immediately.
Mr. PETTIT. Can I get the enemies of the
bill to say that?

Mr. JONES, of Tenneseee. It is not satisfactory, and certainly cannot be to any Senator here. Sir, I like frankness; and I think, if you would allow the Senator from Ohio [Mr. WADE] to come up here and sit by me, he would answer better than that. I think he has nerve to say just what he pleases, and to do what he pleases, though he dares to do a great many things that are wrong. [Laughter.] These gentlemen will not answer the question of its discussion, and if I can have the promtion I put to them, because they are afraid of it. It only unveils their duplicity and hypocrisy when they attempt to answer it, because, the very moment they say the black man is on an equal footing with the white man, they strike a fatal blow at the prejudices of their own part of the country. Let me ask those Senators how they would be willing, how would the Senator from New York be willing to sit side by side with a colored man as his coequal in the Senate of the United States? How would you like to see a colored man sitting upon the Supreme bench of the United States to advocate the rights and to vindicate the honor of this country? How would you like to see them in your Legislatures? How would you like to dare go to that desk and vote to confirm the nomination of a colored man to a foreign court, as the Representative of this Government? Not one of you is so lost to self-respect as to be willing to do that; and yet you stand here uttering your lamentations against the wrongs of the black man, and talk about his rights, and also his equality.

But, sir, that is only one side of the question. How would you like to bring them into the social relations of life? How would you like to invite a black man to your table-to the social table, surrounded by gentlemen? How would you like to be found walking Pennsylvania avenue with a colored woman upon your arm? God forbid that I should be indelicate; but how would you like to see the daughter of one of your neighbors married to a colored man? How would you like to see your son take to his bosom a colored woman? Now, gentlemen, if you do not mean what you say, why do you not say what you mean? If you do not mean that the negro is equal to the white man, why consume the time of the United States, and the time of the Senate, in your lamentation over the wrongs of the colored man, when you deny an equality in all the relations of life? You scorn to associate with him. You scorn to make him your equal. You scorn, as you would the leprosy, a social contact with him. And yet here you are continually, from day to day, urging this question forward on the great principle that they are entitled to as many benefits as we are. When the Abolition party become honest on that subject, and practice what they preach, I shall have some respect for them; but as long as they preach one thing and practice another I am constrained to question their sincerity and their frankness. I have done with this question, sir; I did not mean to say this much.

Mr. CHASE. I think it is now pretty evident that I was right when I first objected to the introduction of this bill to-day. We have consumed a great deal of time on it which might have been appropriated to other business. It is now getting late in the evening, and I move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. SUMNER called for the yeas and nays, and they were ordered; and being taken, resulted -yeas 7, nays 30; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Brainerd, Chase, Fessenden, Gillette, Seward, Sumner, and Wade-7.

NAYS-Messrs. Adams, Badger, Bayard, Bell, Bright, Brown, Butler, Clay, Dawson, Dodge of Wisconsin, Douglas, Evans, Fitzpatrick, Geyer, Hunter, James, Jones of Iowa, Jones of Tennessee, Mallory, Mason, Morton, Pearce, Pettit, Rusk, Sebastian, Shields, Slidell, Thomson of New Jersey, Toucey, Weller, and Wright-30.

So the Senate refused to adjourn.

Mr. PETTIT. If the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, who has been recently elected, [Mr. WILSON,] desires the floor, as I understand from a friend that he does, I will yield it cheerfully to him.

Mr. WILSON. The Senator from Indiana may

go on..

Mr. RUSK. I am not responsible for them. Mr. PETTIT. Then I cannot take the gentleman's promise.

Mr. MASON. Will the Senator indulge me in one word?

Mr. PETTIT.

Certainly.

Mr. MASON. The whole Senate cannot but see that those who are in favor of the bill have, by participating in the discussion, given a character to the opposition which it does not deserve, and that they ought to say nothing more. I would, therefore, respectfully suggest that if those Senators who choose to oppose the bill protract the discussion, let them be permitted to do it without reply.||

Mr. PETTIT. That would have been a good suggestion to have been made two or three hours ago. I proposed the same thing. I insist that a Senator in favor of the bill should not make three or four speeches-that a Senator who had not participated in bringing it in should not insist on being heard three or four times. So far as that is concerned, it would have been good policy to have pursued then; and the Senator from Virginia might well have suggested it hours ago; but he saw fit not to make the suggestion to anybody but myself; therefore 1 cannot take his advice.

Mr. MASON. I hope the Senator will not suppose that I made the suggestion with any desire to interfere at all with him in pursuing the discussion. Certainly that was not my intention. I only made it because he himself suggested that he desired the debate should end.

Mr. PETTIT. That I would be very glad to do, but I know that another Abolition speech or two is to be made, and that will provoke three or four of our friends. Those who have already spoken three or four times will not be the last to take the floor. I cannot be mistaken in this; I am too conversant with the practice here to be mistaken in regard to it.

I propose, sir, then, to detain the Senate for a short time on this subject, and first upon the bill itself. Why this whole range of debate has been brought about, no man can tell, but to gratify a morbid and preconceived determination to redebate the whole question of negro slavery, the equality of the races, and every question that can, by any possibility, be appropriated by you to hang discussion upon. The bill simply proposes to provide that those charged with violating the United States laws shall be tried by the courts of the United States. That would seem to be, in itself, a simple proposition, and one that it is the right of every citizen to demand, and the duty of every Government-not only ours, but every other-to provide. England might as well impose duties and denounce penalties, and leave France or Germany to provide courts to enforce those penalties. The State of Ohio might as well denounce penalties and impose duties and obligations upon her citizens, and leave the municipality of Cincinnati or Cleveland to provide courts to inflict penalties for the non-performance of the duties so enjoined. You might as well say that you will organize a Government, with power to impose duties and obligations, and to denounce penalties for their non-performance, but that you will provide no judiciary, no judex, no power to inflict those penalties or enforce those obligations

at all.

SENATE.

This is all that need be said in reference to the propriety of the bill itself. You impose duties upon your marshals, your district attorneys, and your judges; you denounce penalties for the violation of your laws, yet you provide no court in which you can enforce those penalties, or in which those against whom you denounce them can show their innocence or non-liability to your law. No greater solecism could exist in Government, than the idea of leaving to foreign tribunals and foreign jurisprudence the enforcement of the law and the trial of those who make opposition to it.

You have compelled, by law, your citizens to perform duties; you have imposed upon them penalties for their non-performance, but you have not provided a court of your own, in which they may be heard and the penalties enforced, or themselves be screened from the penalties. I repeat that this is all the argument that can be legitimately urged upon this bill. There is not another. You owe it to your citizens, they have a right to demand it at your hands; that wherever you impose an obligation, wherever you inflict a penalty, you shall provide a court in which such contest may be decided.

But this debate has taken a wide range. I am not disposed to follow the Senator from Connec ticut [Mr. GILLETTE] in all his mazy dance upon the subject of negro slavery, and of beating women and children with ropes, or otherwise. To no man could such a scene be more disgusting than to myself. But there are other questions which have been brought to our consideration in this discus. sion. A question arose between the Senator from Ohio [Mr. WADE] and the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. DOUGLAS,] in reference to the elements that were brought into the recent elections, not only in the West, but in the North, in the free States. I take great pleasure in saying, so far as my judg ment and observation are concerned, that I fully indorse what the Senator from Illinois said in reference to the arguments, the policy, and the views of the Nebraska men, as they were called. The grounds that they assumed were none other than the right of the people, under our form of Government, to establish in the Territories, as well as in the States, their own domestic institutions. Further, sir, I join with that Senator in saying, that so far as my judgment and my conviction go, the question of Nebraska had nothing to do with the result of the election in Indiana. I now aver, and I believe solemnly as I believe that I exist, that it gave us strength in Indiana—that we got more national Whigs with us in the contest there upon that question, than we lost Democrats upon it; but that the real ground of defeat in Indiana-it is said, and it was supposed to be a defeat-was Know-Nothingism, a secret political organization for persecuting purposes.

Here, Mr. President, allow me to add, further, for my own justification, for I saw in a paper from Indiana to-day, resolutions that had an existence,

I

presume, as they are in a Democratic paper alleged to have been the handiwork of my colleague and my friend from Indiana, as being the expression of his views which they said they had taken from a New York paper. It is commended as an expression, by at least one of their Senators, of his views upon Know-Nothingism. I know that no one would be more ready than he to bear me testimony that I as cordially would indorse those resolutions, and go as far against such a political organization as my colleague; but I will not dilate upon it, nor upon its effects. Any policy of a political secret organization which seeks to elevate a man or strike down a man, has now and shall forever have my utter hatred and contempt.

Added to that was the excitement in reference to what is called the Maine liquor law, a law to prohibit either the manufacture or sale of spiritous liquors. Those questions were the ones which carried the election in our State. That the people of Indiana are to-day largely in favor of leaving to all other people the rights they claim for themselves, I entertain not a doubt.

Mr. President, another remark has been made which struck me as singular, and in regard to it I will trespass upon the attention of the Senate for a moment. I confess that whether in their closets I differ from my friends or not, in their public debates I do, and with none more than my friend from Virginia, [Mr. Mason,] upon the subject of

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