33D CONG....2D SESS. with the lurid glare of a burning convent in Charlestown. If this picture be real, will the South be dragged into it? Is there a southern man who wants a place in it? If such there be, I pray God that the painter may do, in charity, what the painter of the sacrifice of Iphigenia did in skill, throw a mantle over the features of the victim. Mr. Chairman, I have discussed this new organization with as much impartiality as I could bring to bear upon it. I wish to wound no one; but I would save the South and the character of our people from danger and demoralization. Sir, socialism does not threaten us. Capital and labor are in no antagonism at the South; nor is our society shaken with the strife of classes. Sir, this Know-Nothing prescription, even for the North, as I understand it, scarcely has even the virtue of the nostrum of the quack. If your labor system is in danger, you can only protect it by abolishing immigration. If this is meant, I can understand and appreciate the policy, and the South will take her position. If your population is too crowded, the palladium of your republican liberty is land, land. Paper rights, or the elective franchise, are worth but little to a starving man. Sir, the pressure of population against the wall of subsistence will bring deadly peril to this Government, if it last so long. Sir, I am a Protestant in every feeling, pulsation, and sentiment, but I would proscribe the proscription of any religious creed. If there be persons bound by allegiance to a foreign Power, they are not worthy to occupy civil or political offices, and should be excluded. But I must have proof of this, not allegation merely. If the ballotbox is polluted, the laws of the States must cleanse and protect it. We ask no aid of other and foreign communities to purify and protect it for us. If we combine to defend our rights of suffrage, we will not ask or receive the interference of distant and alien communities. Sir, this Know-Nothing movement looks to the consolidation of this Government. Its advocates say they wish to preserve the Union. Sir, if this Union is consolidated, is it worth preserving? Consolidate it, and will not the fire of Republican liberty consume it? Consolidate the Union, and the Constitution will be but the silver upon the coffin lid, bright and glittering, but covering that which is rank, foul, and decomposing. Sir, those who would consolidate the Government in order to preserve it, are the harpies defending the feast which the harpies would fain devour. POLICY OF THE ADMINISTRATION-KNOW NOTHINGISM-SLAVERY. Policy of the Administration, &c.—Mr. Cox. According to the usages of party, the organization But, sir, we have introduced into the debates in In times like the present, when nearly every man in the nation is inspired with sentiments of national patriotism, and the social structure so well understood as to present the most harmonious unity of opinion among the people, there can be but little danger of convulsions which will upheave the social substrata, and overthrow the whole fabric. Gentlemen seem to think, however, Ho. OF REPS. desire to destroy this great conservative party, and share, unresisted, the emoluments and splendors of official station. It is my intention to examine a little into this declaration, and ascertain whether or not it is well founded, or whether it is but the hopeful boast of a party whose triumphs are about to result in miserable and overwhelming ruin. Sir, what are the evidences of the dissolution of the Whig party? It is true that the Democratic party succeeded in electing the present Chief Magistrate, in 1852. It is true that the Democratic party has a large majority in both branches of the National Legislature-and these facts, in a national point of view, prove the defeat of the Whig party, and place it in a minority. Whilst in a minority, that party, true to the elementary principles upon which it was founded, have not banded together as factionists, and resisted the action of the majority in power, with blind and desperate opposition. The members of that party have not coalesced on a principle of opposition to the powers that be; but, as true and loyal subjects to the Government, and faithful guardians of the public weal, have acted the part of patriotic freemen, and not of enthusiastic partisans. They have given calm and dispassionate consideration to every measure proposed by the majority, and in no instance attempted, by association or caucus, to influence the action of each other in the discharge of their public duties. The Administration has been left unembarrassed in the plenitude of its power, in every department of the Government, to pursue the course dictated by its wisdom, and prompted by its patriotism. And whilst thus free from factious, or even hostile or banded opposition, it has run a course of wrangling, distraction, and domestic strife. The Whigs have stood aloof from its domestic disturbances, and have never sought to augment its troubles, by adhering to any portion of its malcontents. This generous and magnanimous conduct on the part of the Whigs has been attributed to their imbecility, and their refusal to play the part of blind partisans or malevolent factionists, has been received as proof positive of the death and burial of their party. But, sir, let not gentlemen deceive themselves; nor, shall the country be deceived, if I can prevent it, by these erroneous conclusions and deceptive declarations. The time is approaching when the people will again be called upon to renew the charter of the present party, or to grant the control of public affairs to another body of men. Then the Whig party, not in the spirit of faction, but under the promptings of conservative patriotism, will rise in its strength, and arrest the hand that now holds the scepter, and consign it to men who will wield it for the public good. The union of the Whigs with the discontented Democrats, would now turn the scale of a social storm, which threatens the safety and of numbers and exhibit this Administration in a welfare of the Commonwealth. They may be pitiful minority. This union is dreaded as the right; but their power of prognosticating is supe- great future evil which may befall the party in rior to mine, and their sagacity extraordinary, if power, and daily efforts are made to prevent it, there are any other signs discoverable than the by attaching odious principles of the past to the threatenings of a discontented people with the whole Whig party, and implicating, at present, a manner in which the public trust has been dis- large section of it in schemes of unpopular and charged by those whom they have elevated to detestable machinations. political stations, and to whom they, for a time, confided the direction of public affairs. And if the storm should arise, and sweep from place every incumbent, and fill it with men in whom the people confide, I imagine no serious injury would be done to the principles of republican liberty, or the social structure. SPEECH OF HON. L. M. COX, they discover in the political horizon indications OF KENTUCKY, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The House being in the Committee of the Mr. COX said: Mr. CHAIRMAN: I have, during the short time I have served in this House, consumed very little time in speaking, and have contented my. self by giving a silent vote on such subjects as have come up for action; and now a slight departure from my former practice, I am sure, will not be considered improper by this committee. Sev ́eral reasons have induced me to pursue a silent course, each of which I deemed sufficient to justify me before my constituents. In the first place, my opinions upon most, if not all, subjects agitated in Congress were known to the people of my district, and I did not deem it necessary to reiterate them here. In the second place, I believe that debate in this, as in all other legislative assemblies, should be confined to the subject before the body, and that, in the discussion of subjects, the reasons in support and opposition of each particular measure, in this day of enlightened civilization, are all that good taste or duty requires. One other consideration has restrained me from making any observations upon most of the subjects of legislation. In the political complexion of this House I am in a very small minority. The first point which has attracted the notice of gentlemen, is the condition of the Whig party. It has been said here, repeatedly, that that great, and once united, party is dissolved and disbanded. This assertion has been made in Democratic newspapers throughout the land, and is now repeated here, probably, for the purpose of fixing such a momentous fact in the minds of the people, so that, in any future contest, the idea of rallying the fragmentary and fugitive bands of discomfited Whigs would be a forlorn hope too desperate for the enterprise and intrepidity of the boldest political leader. And, sir, if this oft-repeated assertion should go forth uncontradicted upon the wings of the lightning to every quarter of this widespread Republic, much would be gained in promoting the objects and purposes of those who Gentlemen have a peculiar desire to keep the southern wing of the Whig party pure, and hope by detaching it entirely from the North, to win another triumph before the people. The Whigs will take care of themselves; and I trust there is not one of them so blind and deluded as to attach his fortunes to the sinking struggles of a doomed Administration. They will never either unite with factionists or fanatics for the sake of momentary success. But, under the broad ægis of the Constitution, they will invite all conservative patriots to aid them in placing the Government in the hands of men of conservative, definite, and consistent principles, whose Administration shall give safety and permanency to the welfare of the whole Confederacy. It was said by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. KEITT] that measures may cease to be expedient, and men pass from the political stage, but that principles are immutable and eternal; and whilst he asserted the dissolution of the Whig party, and the desperate condition of the Democratic party, he maintained that a fundamental difference of construction of the Federal Constitution existed between the parties; and that, 33D CONG....2D SESS. in the reorganization of political forces, they would be based upon this difference, and thus prevent a coalescence. His idea is that the Democratic party is founded upon a strict construction of that instrument, and the Whig party upon a liberal construction. This is no doubt the difference between that gentleman and some gentlemen of the Whig party. But that the Democratic party can claim by its public acts such a distinction, is a proposition which would be more difficult to prove than to assert. Let us for a moment inquire into the existence, condition, and position of the Democratic party. Where can it be found? In the present Administration and its recommendations? In the acts of Congress approved by the President, or in the acts rejected and vetoed? Does it exist merely in the fact that the offices of the Government are filled by Democrats, or men professing to be of that faith? And if so, where is the embodiment at the White House, or in the Halls of Congress? If at the White House, what are the evidences that a strict construction of the Constitution is its characteristic feature? What acts or recommendations emanating from that source will sustain this idea? The Cabinet, I suppose, ought to be considered a part of the Executive branch of the Government, and, as a unit, we are to look upon the action of the Chief Magistrate and his advisers as representing the Democratic idea of strict construction. On the subject of roads, we find two members of the Cabinet, in the presence of the President, declaring in favor of the construction of a railroad from the Mississippi valley to the Pacific ocean. But in a short time a message is received from the President himself, discountenancing Government aid to such an undertaking, and leaving the impression that it should be left to private enterprise. So obscure, however, are the declarations, that, to this day, I believe, the precise position of his Excellency is not understood. On the subject of the public lands, the great national inheritance, we find the Executive of opinion that there is no constitutional power to divide the proceeds of their sale equally among the people of all the States, the legal beneficiaries. But, at the same time, he finds power to grant millions of acres to corporations without any direct compensation-relying, for reimbursement, upon the consequential advantages arising by improvements to the residue of the public lands by enhancing their value. Thus, you have no power directly to bestow the lands on the people. But indirectly you can increase their value to the people by directly giving large portions of them to corporations, by which speculators become enriched, and the lands left for the people increased in value, so they have to pay double price to make up the loss to themselves. Add to this the practice, approved by the President, of granting to the States in which the lands lie, millions of acres of swamp lands, on the mere pretext of improving the residue, and of every thirty-sixth section for purposes of education, and of other portions for founding universities and high schools, and you have the scheme of the land policy, not based upon a strict construction of the Constitution, but tending to secure the favor of the new States in political contests for power and place. Can this principle of strict construction be discovered in the tariff recommendations of the President? It is now, after the close of a year of excessive importation, and exportation of the specie of the nation to pay a foreign debt, when pecuniary distress is felt throughout the land, banks closed, and heavy failures indicating a disastrous withdrawal of the precious metals from the country, proposed to reduce the tariff, not on the strict construction principle, for that allows no discrimination for protection, but simply to the revenue standard for the wants of the Government; that is the aggregate revenue, not to exceed the wants of the Government. The principle of discrimination, however, is kept up, and the tariff proposed would certainly afford protection to some interests. The reduction is not, therefore, for the sake of attaining and confining the tariff to a revenue standard on each article, but merely to arrive at the exact amount of receipts needed for expenditure. And this is recommended under the circumstances in which the country is now placed. The reduction of the tariff may greatly increase the Policy of the Administration, &c.—Mr. Cox. importations; the drain of the precious metals will augment in volume; wages will be reduced in the manufacturing districts; banks suspend payments, and ruin and disaster cover the land, all for the sake of adjusting the sum to be received at the Treasury. There is no evidence of strict construction in this which will commend itself to the devotees of constitutional Government. No, sir, the country wants certainty and permanency in the course of public policy. It does not comport with the interests of a great nation, embracing every variety of soil, climate, and production, and all the varied pursuits of civilized industry, to change the laws affecting so deeply the vital interests of the country, to meet the fluctuations of receipts at the Treasury Board. And now, sir, above all others, is the time when there is danger to the country in tampering with the tariff. Perhaps the only evidence of strict construction which can be found in the action of the President is in his veto of the bill to improve rivers and harbors. That document is a labored effort to sustain the doctrine of strict construction; and yet it fails, by yielding some points, to make good the whole, and overthrows itself. Power is found to build light-houses, and erect beacons and buoys on the sea-board to guide the home-bound mariner, and enable him to enter safely with his cargo of merchandise. But no power can be discovered by which the thousands of lives and millions of treasure, which float upon the great rivers of the West, may be guided in the dense fogs, and enabled to pass over sand bars and snags in safety. At the last session of Congress a bill passed, and was approved by the President, making an appropriation of $120,000 to remove obstructions in Cape Fear river. This, it was said, was constitutional, because the Government had put the obstruction there. Thus, in order to get power,| the Government need not look to the charter from the States delegating it, but merely retrospect its own action; and, whenever any act has resulted injuriously, the power arises to legislate by means not named in the Constitution for remedy. To what subterfuges are men driven to maintain a doctrine which the interests of the people and the influence of sections compel them to violate. Ho. OF REPS. and even latitudinarian. Do you claim to be economists, and to retrench the expenses of Government? You have increased the salaries of a large portion of office-holders, and expended more money, than has ever been expended by an Administration, in time of peace, since the commencement of the Government. Upon what, then, do your claims rest, of being Democrats of the strict construction school? Upon nothing but the empty assertion. You have not administered the Government on this principle; and the people will require at your hands an account of your acts and doings, notwithstanding your words. Having said thus much about parties, it, perhaps, would be proper to say a few words as to my own opinions of the Constitution. I believe the Federal Government is a Government of delegated powers; and over the subjects delegated and the means necessary and proper to execute them, that it is supreme and exclusive. And when a controversy arises as to the constitutionality of a law, the Supreme Court was instituted to expound the Constitution; not politically, but so as to effect the rights of the people under the law. And when that tribunal decides the law, the only remedy is repeal-and resistance to its execution is revolution-a remedy unknown to the Constitution, and never to be resorted to until the Constitution itself loses its attraction, and the people have ceased to have virtue enough to apply the remedy of the ballot-box. With these views of the Constitution, I understand the Whig party to agree. And I trust they will rally, as constitutionalists, and preserve the people from the miserable uncertainty of temporary expedients, applied only to localities and particular exigencies. The gentleman from Mississippi, [Mr. BARRY,] and the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. KEITT,] have discovered, in the movements of the people, a dangerous conspiracy against the true spirit of the Constitution and the liberties of the people. Wonderful, indeed, that the people should plot their own destruction, and secretly determine to overthrow the fair fabric of freedom. A mysterious political association has arisen in the land, which has, in silence and without strife, triumphantly discomfited every political leader whom But, sir, there is one other act of the President they deemed unfitted for the station he filled or which cannot be claimed as emanating from notions sought; and this mighty agency at the ballot-box of strict construction of the Constitution. I allude has produced terror and consternation in the hearts to the triumphant war with Greytown. The of thousands of aspiring politicians. Their obframers of the Constitution had seen the wretch-jects are said to be proscriptive, unholy, and unedness to which a people could be reduced by being constitutional. If so, they ought to be put down. involved in the desolation and expense of war by But I have yet to see the proof of the charges the act of their rulers. They, therefore, declared brought against them; and, as they are Americans that Congress should have power to declare war, born, it seems to me they ought to have a fair trial, thereby prohibiting all other powers in the Gov-and be confronted with the witnesses against them. ernment from declaring or making war. For it would have been useless to say the President shall not declare war, and, at the same time, give him power to make war by acts. War can be begun without any declaration, and when the sword is drawn, and bathed in the blood of an adversary, the nation is at war and must be responsible for the consequences. Where, then, was the power found to demolish Greytown? It is said th were a "nest of pirates.' If so, why did we send a commercial agent to reside with them; and furthermore, why not capture them and execute them according to law? I am not attempting to justify the people of Greytown. They may have, and probably did, deserve their fate. But I want to know under what clause of the Constitution the power is found to enable the President to judge the case, pass sentence, and execute it himself? I will not dwell longer upon the Executive branch of the Government, but turn my attention for a moment to the legislative, and I could triumphantly ask any gentleman of the Democratic party to point out to me in the acts of this Congress the measures which prove a strict construction of the Constitution to be a cardinal tenet in the Democratic creed. You have passed a bill giving portions of the public lands to States, to enable them to provide for the insane, which the President vetoed. You have passed an act making large appropriations for the improvement of rivers and harbors, which the President vetoed. You passed a bill making appropriations for removing obstructions in the Cape Fear river, which the President approved and signed. If the President is a strict constructionist, his Democratic Congress is liberal, What have they done? Voted for the man of their choice in every election in which they have been called to select a public functionary. This they had an indisputable right to do. But they have met in secret conclave, and have declined to disclose their choice till the result disclosed him. Well, there is no obligation upon any man to make known his intentions as to how he intends to vote; nor is there any prohibition, in law or morals, which prevents men from secretly meeting and maturing their plans of political action. All this they have a right to do; and it is the constant practice of political parties, both in office and out of office. The great political success of the Democratic party, in an early day, as I understand, was owing to the introduction of clubs, similar to those which originated in Paris. They are not proved guilty by any overt act. But it is said they intend evil, and ought to be discounte nanced. Now, we cannot punish men for what we think they intend to do. Intention is not cognizable in a court of law or morals-at least until the intention is declared; and then a well adjusted system of law only provides for preventive, and not for retributive justice. The gentlemen, in their zeal for liberty, outstrip the objects of their condemnation in the race of proscription. For while they denounce the KnowNothings for proscribing Catholics and foreigners, whose principles are known, they proscribe the Know-Nothings, whose principles, they say, are not known. They condemn a native-born American for conspiracy against liberty, because, the native-born American concerts with his fellowcitizens to preserve his liberty. They do not so 33D CONG....2D SESS. much condemn his acts as his motives and objects. This thing of condemning men for intention is more dangerous to liberty than all the Native American orders in the land. In the day of monarchical tyranny in England, the law punished with drawing and quartering any person who imagined the death of the King. This law contains the very essence of the principles of the gentlemen's speeches against the Know-Nothings. They imagine the political death of officeholders, and must be condemned. One poor fellow was executed under that law for wishing a buck, horns and all, in the King's belly; and under the same spirit the whole native American tribe would dangle in the air, for wishing a similar fate either to his Excellency the President, or the Irish nation. Our fathers guarded us against such indefinite and tyrannical laws, and as if they foresaw that a time might arrive when constructive treasons would be useful to men, even in this country, they provided in the Constitution that "treason should only consist in levying war against the United States or adhering to her enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Now, if waging a political war against office-holders at the ballot-box is levying war against the United States, then, I presume, the Know-Nothings would be guilty of treason. I did not, however, intend to defend the KnowNothings; but to speak of abstract principles of right appertaining alike to every American citizen. I cannot subscribe to the doctrine that freemen are to be condemned because they choose to exercise their freedom in their own way. But it is said that the objects of the KnowNothings are to proscribe Catholics and foreign ers. Policy of the Administration, &c.-Mr. Cox. with the Abolitionists. Abolitionism is odious in But, I do not feel convinced that the Know- The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. KEITT] made another discovery. The progenitor of Know-Nothingism was the Hartford Convention, which assembled in 1814. This convention declared hostility to foreigners. He had stated before that the North had invited immigration, and now rudely turns against the foreigner. How many foreigners had the North got by her invitations up to 1814, when she turned againt them? How many were then her factory slaves? Her factories were not established, and very few foreigners were then in New England. Her factories commenced about the time of the close of the war. Before that she lived by commerce. Hence the distress she felt under the restrictions of commerce which preceded and accompanied the war. So the gentleman is mistaken in this conclusion, although he may find some proclamation of a New England Governor inviting foreigners from Canada. If the Know-Nothings propose to establish, by law or Constitution, a religious test as a qualification for office, I am not with them, for I would not make a man's faith, which is often the result of circumstances over which he has no control, either a qualification for, or exclusion from, public trust. But if the Know-Nothings only intend to vote for Protestants, in preference to Catholics, I see no reason to complain, as they have the right to do so; and it is a right which has been rigorously exercised by Whigs and Democrats towards each other for many years. I presume the Protestant who places his suffrage upon this ground, does so because he believes there is a political sentiment lurking in the Catholic faith, which is not in harmony with his notions of popular rights and free Government. It is not on the ground of a difference of religious faith that he rejects the Catholic, but on the ground that the Catholic entertains a politico-religious faith not in harmony with his sentiments, and which may be called into action if occasion should require. Now, this may be an error of Protestants, and no such sentiment or faith may be possessed by Catholics. If so, the Catholics must convince their Protestant brethren of the utter groundlessness of the charge, and there will be no longer any want of harmony in politics between native Catholics and Protestants. The next grave charge is that the Know-Nothings intend to proscribe foreigners. I do not understand that they wish to deprive them of a single right they possess; but that they will require a longer probation before they will share with them the priceless inheritance derived from their fathers. If the introduction of large numbers of laborers annually into the country tends to depress the wages of the native laborer, is it strange that he should desire to prevent their coming? If the elections in particular sections of the country are controlled by men unenlightened by the free principles of civil liberty, is it surprising that the native Americans should be discontented, and anxious to curb that influence? The foreigner has no right to participate in the privi-plied in our peaceful ports, and against proclaimed leges and franchises of the Government, until the authorities of the country confer it upon him, and if the people think proper to withhold that right until they are fully satisfied of his intelligence and loyalty, they do him no injustice. They only decline that which belongs to them. It is only a question of generosity. One that gives after twenty years is not so generous as one that would give in five, yet both are generous in giving such privileges at all. The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. KEITT] said this American party in the North was allied HO. OF REPS. his prospects of embroiling this nation in war. Many foreigners, then lately come to the country, united in this unlawful project, and became so pestiferous in a few years, as to lead to the enactment of the alien law. I say nothing in praise of that law, but I have stated the provoking causes which led to its enactment; not abstract hostility to foreigners, but efforts to prevent scheming foreigners from plunging us into a war which might have resulted in the destruction of our liberties. I can perceive a forcible reason why the North should be particularly anxious to prevent the introduction of foreigners. They compete directly with their native laborers; and by increasing the number asking employment, reduce the price of labor. It may be said, that if labor is reduced in price, articles of manufacture will be produced for less cost, and likewise be sold for less prices; and, to a small extent, this effect might be felt; but it would be very slight on the agricultural and consuming classes, and would produce misery and want among the operatives directly under its influence. I am not willing to sanction a policy which will reduce the amount of the laboring man's reward. In the southern States, where slave labor is chiefly employed, immigration, confined to the free States, may not materially affect the value of labor. Nor does the free native laborer of the North, in my judgment, compete with the slave labor of the South. The cottonproducing States feel, perhaps, more sensibly than any other section of the country, the effect of discriminating tariffs, and protection to manufacturing labor; and I would be unwilling to establish a policy which would depress the interests of that section. But the burdens of the Government must be borne; and, in adjusting them, reference should be had to every section and interest, so as to equalize them as nearly as possible. The western agricultural States are deeply interested in maintaining the price of American labor at a reasonable compensation; for, while the prices keep thousands engaged in manufactures, the productions of these States are required to feed them, thus sustaining the laborer, the mechanic, and agriculturist at the same time, by a system whose burdens are scarcely perceptible in the costs and expenses of domestic life. I will, before I sit down, allude to one other subject, which has, unhappily, been the subject of long and continual strife between the northern and southern sections of the Confederacy-the subject of slavery. I had hoped that, after the great struggle of last session, the people of all parts of the nation would acquiesce in the settlement of that question upon the principle of almost universal approbation, abstractly considered, that the States and Territories should hereafter be left to regulate this subject, without appeals to, or interference by, Congress. This is a practical mode of adjustment, and precludes the necessity of moral arguments on the abstract right of slavery, or constitutional disquisitions as to the power of Congress over the subject. The voice of the whole country, I hope, would say the By way of completing the relationship of KnowNothingism to every odious sentiment and measure in the history of the nation, the gentleman said it was the same in principle as the alien and sedition laws of the elder Adams's administration. I wondered that he did not connect it with Shay's Rebellion, the Whisky Insurrection, and the modern battle of Chepactul under the lead of the late Governor Dorr. Opposition to foreign-subject has been remanded to the people, there let ers, he said, was the principle of the alien law. No, sir, the gentleman has mistaken, I think, the history of the times. What induced the alien law? A foreign minister organized and established his secret clubs in this country, in which he concocted and was preparing his scheme of involving this, then infant republic, in the great vortex of European war. Not content with receiving the sympathy of his own fraternity of clubs, he thought proper to commence commissioning persons to cruise upon the high seas, against our friends, in vessels fitted out and sup neutrality by the Father of his Country. He was | it stay forever; and he that again revives the agitation in Congress, let him be anathema maranatha. These hopes have been somewhat shaken, but I still believe such will be the end of the controversy. I want to say to my northern Whig friends, that I have too much faith in their love of country, their desire to perpetuate this glorious Union of States, and preserve the inestimable blessings of civil freedom, to believe that they will countenance a further agitation of this subject. Let the past be buried in oblivion. Let us not waste our strength in vain and fruitless strife about questions affecting other sections of the Union in their domestic affairs. Let us, as we have reached a point where we can agree, if we will but sacrifice the heated recollections of a former struggle, drop forever a subject which has been the bane of all our councils, which has divided us and delivered us, bound hand and foot, to our political adversaries, and, as constitutionalists, move forward in the cause of peaceful conservatism, looking alone to the preservation of our liberties, and the advancement of the happiness of the whole people. SPEECH OF HON. T. H. BENTON, ily nine years; and as much worse as his father OF MISSOURI, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, On the physical geography of the country between the The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, on the Pacific railroad bill Mr. BENTON said: the same terms as contained in my substitute- Ho. OF REPS. that at some point or place in the valley of the Missouri river, not far from the great bend of that river, there will be found a focal point to which all the railways of the continent, east of the Rocky mountains, reaching westward toward the Pacific, will naturally converge, as to a common point of junction and intersection." Thus, it was Governor Stevens's survey which put this Canadian company on the scent of a North Pacific railway, by the head of Lake Superior, to Puget's Sound; and, as the Adminis the Administration put this company on that scent. All that is clear enough. We see where the impulsion comes from. But not quite so visible the source of the next proposition, which outlaws all the country for a road north of El Paso, in latitude thirty-two, clear out to the Puget Sound route, in (near) latitude forty-nine. They do not tell where they get that information, which nullifies seventeen degrees of latitude for a road, including the only latitudes on which people travel voluntarily, and over which some ten, twenty, fifty thousand people travel every year, with flocks and herds, and all sorts of vehicles, from a road wagon to a wheelbarrow. The source of this information is invisible; but it corresponds with official notions here, and also with the bill under consideration, as it stood when first reported, providing for one road south of thirty-seven and one north of forty-seven-leaving the ten intermediate degrees, and which cover all the voluntary traveling, to remain destitute of a Federal road. There is, however, consolation in the declaration that it is "believed "that there is favorable ground for a direct road to San Francisco after crossing the mountains on the Puget Sound line; and also in the prospect of finding a focal point at the north bend of the Missouri, in north latitude near fortynine, and west longitude one hundred and five from London; where all the railroads of the continent, east of the Rocky mountains, can have their conjunction and intersection. was when he undertook to help out the matter by selling Blackberry. I presume every member knows how that was: for I would be sorry to suppose that any one, possessed of the English language, had lived to man's estate without enjoying the luxury of reading the Vicar of Wake-tration sent this Governor on that survey, ergo field. For my part, I have been reading it since I was five years old, and with augmented enjoyment every time, and especially since they have got to putting pictures in it, and above all that picture of Moses selling the colt for a gross of green spectacles with silver rims and shagreen cases: a picture for which the United States sit Mr. CHAIRMAN: I have desired for some time every time Congress undertakes to make a bargain past to change the plan of making this road-to for the public. I eschew all such bargains, and withdraw it from legislative authority, where all private roads made at public expense; but am political and sectional interests must always inter-willing to have as many as any one pleases upon pose-and leave it to a company of business men, where business considerations could only prevail, for this is a case in which private interest and public interest would go hand in hand, that which would be best for one being best for the other; and so insuring the selection of a route which would be most national, because most suitable to the greatest number. With this view I have turned my attention to private enterprise, and have found solid men who are willing to take the preliminary steps now, preparatory to the final assumption of the work-Congress granting the necessary authority, and conferring the right of way through its territories, one mile wide on each side of the road. No military protection-no alternate sections-no gift of money-no aid but the right of way, and payment for transportation of mails, troops, and munitions, according to a plan not yet matured. Telegraphic lines to be established or permitted, and transportation to begin before the road is finished, by using stage coaches for the remainder, according to a plan which may be agreed upon. No exclusive privilege, except in two degrees on each side of the road, to keep off competition, leaving all the rest of the country open to other roads. The substitute bill which I propose contains the names of some of these citizens, and with whom other solid men will deem it a privilege to be associated-not that all will be expected to be millionaires, but only good for what they promise: for it is not intended that straw-men or wind-men shall get control of this undertaking. The consent of those in the bill will be necessary to the admission of every new associate; but after the act shall be accepted, books of subscription are to be opened in every State of the Union, and the stock divided into convenient shares, to suit short as well as long purses. Congress has ordered surveys of routes: they are not ready: but that is no impediment to the adoption of my substitute, which fixes no route; but leaves it to the company to choose their own: and no company, using their own money, will act upon any surveys but their own. Such a company will look before it leaps: and if it did not, it would not leap long. It will send out its own surveyors-practical engineers and road-makers-to report upon every mile of the way, and under every aspect of cost and feasibility. To such a company the Government surveys are not wanted, even if ready, and made properly, in winter as well as summer: and, in fact, they were not intended for a company, but for Congress-intended to enable Congress to fix the route itself-a consummation which it is now found to be impossible to attain. I would have preferred that Congress should have made the road, as a national work, on a scale commensurate to its grandeur, and let out the use of it to companies, who would fetch and carry on the best terms for the people and the Government. But that hope has vanished, and the organization of Kansas having opened up the country to settlement, and placed it under law, and carried it into conjunction with Utah and New Mexico, a private company has become the resource and the preference. I embrace it as such, utterly scouting all plans for making private roads at national expense-of paying for the use of roads built with our land and money-of bargaining with corporators or individuals for the use of what we give them a species of bargaining in which my I prefer the central route: the Administration eschews that route, and lays out its strength in favor of frontier routes, by Canada and Mexico. It sent a surveying party on the central, but only to go a part of the way, and turn round-leaving the essential section between the Little Salt Lake and the valley of the San Joaquin unexamined. Mr. Fremont supplied that omission last winter, exploring a new and direct route between those points, and through the Sierra Nevada-completing all that was wanting in that quarter. This new route cut off the elbow to the southwest made by the old Los Angeles trail, avoided the desert which it crossed, and left far to the south those excitable sand fields, in which no number of horses can leave a track-in which what is a hillock to-day is a hole in the ground to-morrow where, under a gentle breeze the sands creep like an army of insects-where the traveler who lies down to sleep during the night in a light wind, must rise and shake himself often to avoid being buried in the sand: and where, during a high wind, the air is filled with a driving tempest of silicious particles, very cutting to the skin and eyes, very suffocating to the throat, very dangerous to men who are not tall and swift-where men and animalв fly for their lives when they feel the wind rising, and where this Administration would carry the road. Fremont's new discovery avoided all that; but without conciliating our Administration. Frontier and foreign routes monopolize their affection, and engross their cares, involving, in my opinion, at least in one instance, a misapplication of the appropriation for the survey of routes. I allude to the Puget Sound route, skirting the British line all the way, going where nobody travels, where nobody lives, and where nobody can now want a road except the British fur company, and a certain chartered company, of which Mr. Robert J. Walker and Mr. James Duane Doty are the heads; and which route the debates in Congress show was not within the contemplation of the law when the appropriation was made. I nominated it a British road from the time the survey was ordered, but did not expect to have any other evidence of it than what the case itself afforded; but I now have other evidence, and produce it. Here it is! [holding up a document;] and I proceed to read from it, and first, of the title, which runs thus: "CANADA. 1st session, 5th Parliament, 18 Victoria, 1854Petition of the Hon. Augustus N. Morin, and others, praying for a charter by the name of the "Northern Pacific Railway Company," &c., &c. Ordered by the Legislative As. sembly to be printed, November 30, 1854, Presented by the Hon. Mr. Young. Quebec: Printed by Lovell & Lamoreux, Mountain street. Reprinted by Ira Berry, Portland, Maine." We proceed to another reading, at page 5-thus: "From this point eastward, along the southern shore of Lake Superior, to the Sault St. Mary, crossing the river at that point, and continuing along the northern shore of Lake Huron, till the valley of the Ottawa is reached, it is believed that an uninterrupted, practicable, and favorable route for a railway may be found; from the bend of the Missouri to Montreal; which is already connected by railway with the Atlantic ocean at Portland." Montreal! That is to be the eastern terminus of this American-British road, which is to run half way on one side of 490, and half way on the other and which is to have a branch to the Atlantic ocean at Portland, in Maine. Now, leaving out all other considerations, I would wish to know who is to have the use of this road in the case of war with Great Britain? Whether it is to be used in common, to carry on hostilities against each other, or whether each nation is to be confined to his own half, and neither be so naughty as to interrupt the other? That is a question for West Point to answer! Let us read on, same page: "We deem it quite unnecessary in this connection to enter into any argument showing the value or the necessity of such an undertaking as a railway to the Pacific. It is enough to justify us in a movement in this direction to know that similar efforts are now making at several points in other parts of the United States, for which charters have been granted, and considerable progress made to carry them into effect." That is the inducement to this Northern Pacific Atlantic railway. Other chartered companies, in other parts of the United States, making efforts in favor of similar roads, and considerable progress made in carrying them into effect. I know but one such chartered company, and that is twin sister to the British route, and as far to the south as the other is to the north; and of which Robert J. Walker, Samuel Jaudon, and Thomas Butler King are leading corporators. Nor do I know of any progress they have made, except in the ten million purchase of a tract for them by the United I give the whole title, but only a part of the States. Nor do I know of any progress they can contents, beginning at page 4-thus: "From information furnished, by the report of His Excellency Governor Stevens, we entertain no doubt, not only that a practicable route exists in this direction from the head of Lake Superior to Puget's Sound, and the mouth of the Columbia river; but that this is by far the best, if not the only possible, route for a railway to the Pacific, north of El Paso, near the thirty-second parallel of north latitude. It is also believed that, after crossing the Rocky mountain summit, a favorable and direct route may be found to San Francisco. Assuming the correctness of the foregoing propositions, it will be perceived, at a glance, make, unless they get hold of Texas land or United States land. Still the notice is kind, and shows that the British road has a fellow-feeling and a sympathy for the Santa Anna road. One other reading, and we finish: "That magnificent domain of the United States, drained by the head waters of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Red river of the north, lying north of the 44th parallel of latitude, would find in this route its easiest and most direct outlet to the Atlantic sea shore. From Fort Mandan, or from the Great Bend of the Missouri, to the Atlantie 33D CONG....2D SESS. ocean at Portland, the distance would be less by hundreds of miles, than by following the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to their common mouth at New Orleans. If the waters of these mighty rivers could be turned into Lake Superior, and be, at the same time, navigable for steamboats, so that the magnificent chain of inland seas which now finds outlet through the St. Lawrence, extended, unbroken, westward to the bases of the Rocky mountains, we might form some idea of the value and importance to all who dwell within the St. Lawrence basin, of the plan herein proposed. The extension of such a line of railway across the continent, over the route proposed, would, as we believe, confer upon Canada and the northern States of the Union, a degree of commercial and political importance beyond our present power to describe or even to conceive." Certainly this looks like annexing a slip of our Union to Canada, five degrees wide, for the political and commercial benefit of the aforesaid Canada and the northern States. Not only make a British road, but turn our great rivers into Queen Victoria's dominions-a thing more practical than speculative, as may be seen by observing the equilibrium of the British and American waters above the Falls of Saint Anthony, and at the turning point in the Great Bend of the Missouri. Certainly it would be a relief to the Missouri and Mississippi to be so turned, as they could rest one half the year in the torpidity of congelation; whereas, if they continue going to the Gulf of Mexico, they will have no such chance of rest, and must remain running all the time. whence this conception, so new and so striking? It smells of science-West Point science: but the Administration must stand father for it, as the diversion of the rivers is certainly a derivation from the road; and the road is a derivation from the Administration: ergo, the Administration is father, or, at all events, grandfather, to this proposed alienation of our rivers-pride and glory of the Great West. This is too bad. It was bad enough to sell the snag-boats, and render impossible any speedy removal of the snags, even under an act confined to great rivers-to those which are kings of floods; but to give them to the British, that is too bad! and we of the West must insist on keeping them, snags and all! and trust to swimming and luck to save lives when a hole is knocked in the bottom of the boat, and the boat itself descends to the bottom of the river. But a The Mexican route is the next great favorite of this Administration, and this they have purchased from Santa Anna for ten millions of Federal dollars, when Mr. Robert J. Walker publishes that he was purchasing the same from the same character, for six thousand five hundred dollars in money and half a million in Texas railroad stock. This route passes through Chihuahua and Sonora, and may well be called the Mexican road; and is intended to go to New San Diego, which is south of Old San Diego, in the southwest corner of California, and where crew of official speculators have laid off a town, and built government houses-by what authority I know not-and where, reaching the Pacific five hundred miles short of San Francisco, it is intended there shall be a virtual, if not an actual termination of the road, and San Francisco superseded by New San Diego as the commercial emporium of the American Pacific coast. If things have not miscarried, this road was to fall into the hands of the company, the leading member of which (Mr. Robert J. Walker) is also in the charter for the British road; and whose brotherin-law, (Mr. Emory, of the Topographical Corps,) is at the head of the survey department of these routes, and is out at present on the Mexican line, Pacific Railroad-Mr. Benton. fixing the boundary for the new route through I assume this Mexican route to be the favorite of the Administration, and that the surveys on the Central route, on the New Mexico route, and the Gila route, were only "tubs to the whale, to amuse the spouting fish, while they were preparing for the real game; and my reason for that assumption is this-that they bought it pending these surveys! which must stand for proof that they rejected the other routes, and meant to have this, cost what it might! and actually contracted for it at twenty millions of dollars, which the Senate reduced to ten-thus balancing the British road in the north, by a Mexican one in the south-forcing travel to go where no man goes voluntarily-and outlawing the whole intermediate country where alone all the traveling is. Mr. Chairman, in a speech on this subject at Sir, I make no comparison of routes. I am There are some things too light for reason, too I make no comparison of routes, but vindicate the one I prefer from erroneous imputations, and invite rigorous examination into its character. The belt of country, about four degrees wide, extending from Missouri to California, and of which the parallels thirty-eight and thirty-nine would be about the centre; this belt would be the region for the road; and of this region, its physical geography and adaptation to settlement, and to the construction of the road, it is my intention to speak; and to publish, as part of this speech, something of what I have spoken elsewhere, but do not now repeat, because unnecessary here; but essential to Ho. OF REPS. the full exposition of the subject in the prepared and published speech. I have paid some attention to this geography, induced by a local position and some turn for geographical inquiry; and, in a period of more than thirty years, have collected whatever information was to be obtained from the reading of books, the reports of travelers, and the conversation of hunters and traders; and all with a view to a practical application. I have studied the country with a view to results, and feel authorized to believe, from all that I have learned, that this vast region is capable of sustaining populous communities, and exalting them to wealth and power; that the line of great States which now stretch half way across our continent in the same latitudes Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missourimay be matched by an equal number of States, equally great, between Missouri and California; and that the country is perfectly adapted to the construction of a railroad, and all sorts of roads, traversable in all seasons. This is my opinion, and I proceed to verify it: and first, of the five States, their diagrams and relative positions; and then their capabilities. The present Territory of Kansas, extending seven hundred miles in length, upon two hundred in breadth, and containing above one hundred thousand square miles, would form two States of above fifty thousand square miles each. A section of the Rocky mountains, embracing the Three Parks, and the head waters of the South Platte, the Arkansas, Del Norte, and the eastern branches of the Great Colorado of the West, would form another State, larger, in the opinion of Frémont, than all the Swiss cantons put together; and presenting everything grand and beautiful that is to be found in Switzerland, without its drawback of avalanches and glaciers. The valley of the Upper Colorado, from the western base of the Rocky mountains to the eastern base of the Wahsatch and Anterria ranges, two hundred miles wide by two hundred long, and now a part of Utah, might form the fourth; and the remainder of Utah, from the Wahsatch to California, would form the fifth, of which the part this way covering the Santa Clara meadows, and Wahsatch and Anterria ranges, would be the brightest part. Here, then, are five diagrams of territory, sufficient in extent, as any map will show, to form five States of the first magnitude. That much is demonstrated: now for their capabilities to sustain populous communities, and their adaptation to the construction of a railroad. We begin with the Territory of Kansas, and find its length above three times its breadth, and naturally divisible into two States by a north and south line, half way to the mountains. The eastern half is beginning to be known from the reports of emigrants and explorers; but, to understand its whole interior, the general outline of the whole Territory must first be traced-in the mind's eye, or, upon a map. Maps are not convenient in so large an assemblage; so the mind's eye must be put in requisition, and made to follow the lines as indicated-thus: Beginning on the western boundary of Missouri, in the latitude of 370, and following that parallel west, to the eastern boundary of New Mexico; then a deflection of one degree north to the parallel of 380; and on that parallel to the summit of the Rocky mountains; then northwardly along that summit to the parallel of 400; then east with that parallel to the Missouri line; and south with that line to the beginning. This is the outline; now for the interior: and for the sake of distinctness, we will examine that by sections, conformable to the natural divisions of the country. 1. We commence with the Kansas river, on the north side of the Territory, and its four long forks-the Smoky hill, the Saline, Solomon's, and the Republican-of which the Smoky hill is the most considerable, and in the best place for the advantage of the Territory. All these forks flow in the right direction-from west to east-and are beautifully parallel to each other, without mount. ains or ridges between to interrupt their communications; and making, after their junction, near two hundred miles of steamboat navigation before their united waters reach the great Missouri river. All the land drained by these streams constitute the valley of Kansas-if the term valley can be |