MISSISSIPPI POLITICS.

SPEECH IN REPLY TO HIS COLLEAGUE, HON. JOHN D. FREEMAN, ON THE STATE OF PARTIES IN MISSISSIPPI. DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE

OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 30, 1852.

AVERSE as I am to the continuance of a controversy with my colleagues on the subject of Mississippi politics, I am not the less constrained to reply to a speech of my colleague, from the third district, which I find printed in the Globe of the 19th of this month. I am wholly at a loss to account for the ill temper which the speech exhibits. Surely there was nothing said by me to call forth such a reply. One of my colleagues [Mr. Wilcox], when the "HOMESTEAD BILL" was under debate, made a party speech, in which he represented, among other things, that my friends in Mississippi were attempting to "sneak back" into the Democratic party. It became my imperative duty to reply, and I did so. My colleague rejoined, and here I supposed the matter might very well have rested. But the gentleman [Mr. Freeman] returned from an excursion to New York, and without the least provocation from me, took up the cudgel, and proceeds to deliver himself of a speech full of acrimony; so full, indeed, that one as familiar as I am with the productions of his usually cool head, could hardly repress the conviction that a "torpid liver" must have influenced the calmer impulses of his mind.

If he entered the lists because he fancied that his friend had not successfully met my positions, I not only forgive him, but confess myself flattered by his consideration. "Thrice armed is he who hath his quarrel just;" and though my three colleagues should all assail me, armed, trebly armed as I am in the justice of my cause, I shall not despair of success against them all.

The gentleman tells us, in the opening paragraphs of his speech, that the pious philanthropists at the North have "decoyed, caught, and harbored some TWENTY-FIVE or THIRTY THOUSAND of our SLAVES, and that we never expect to see them again." Precious confession! If the compromise, fugitive slave bill and all, is going to be executed in good faith, as my colleague and his Union friends assured the people of Mississippi it would be, why should he thus abandon all hope of recovering these "twenty-five or thirty thousand" slaves? The truth is, that all my colleagues are very ready to lecture me for a want of faith, but neither of them has the least confidence in the efficacy of the compromise. The one [Mr. Freeman] has no expectation that we are to recover our twenty-five or thirty thousand slaves," and the other [Mr. Wilcox], less desponding, and yet evidently in doubt, concludes his speech with an earnest invocation to the North to do us justice. If the compromise were executed in good faith, we should get back our slaves. But, like my colleague, I "never expect to see them again." If the North has given us justice in the compromise, why this invocation to their sense of justice now? The honest truth is, that in our secret hearts we all

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know that justice has not been done us, and we have little hope that it will be in future. We have submitted to one wrong; will we submit to another? "We never expect to see our slaves again." All that we now do, is to invoke justice for the future.

My colleague, though he "never expects to see the slaves" that have been" decoyed, caught, and harbored" by the "pious philanthropists,' is yet full of hope, in the conclusion of his speech, that we are to have peace in future. I do not care to be impertinent, but I should like to know on what he bases the hope that "decoying, catching, and harboring" slaves is going to cease, and why it is that, despairing as he does of recovering the slaves already taken from our possession, he is yet confident that we shall recover those that are decoyed, caught, and harbored" hereafter? At his leisure, I shall be gratified to hear his answer. To my mind, we are as likely to recover those already "decoyed," as we are to recover those that are taken hereafter. I never expect to see the one or the other. The fugitive slave bill has not been executed; and if by its execution is meant an honest and faithful surrender of the slaves-such a surrender as is made of every other species of estrayed or stolen property-it never will be.

My colleague commenced his reply to me with an expression of his regret that he did not hear my speech. It certainly would have gratified ine had he given me his audience; but as he did not, I should have been satisfied had he done me the honor to read a printed copy of my speech. This I am sure he never could have done. I know my colleague is a sensible man, and I hope he is just, and I am well satisfied that no sensible and just man who had read my speech could ever have published such a reply as that which I find printed by order of my colleague.

If my colleague's speech had been delivered in the House, I should have thrown myself upon his indulgence, and asked a portion of his allotted hour to correct his errors, as one after another he fell into them. But as it suited him better to print his speech without delivering it, I am left to no other alternative than that of asking the indulgence of the committee whilst I make such responses to his several allegations as in my judgment they merit.

It was an ungenerous fling from my colleague to criticise my remarks as he did in the opening paragraph of his speech. He thinks that upon such a question as that of appropriating money to continue the work on the capitol, I might have said something of the pressing necessities of the mechanics and laborers on these works-of the character of the work, &c. Now, the plain English of this is, that I made a speech out of order, and that an act so unusual called for his special animadversion. I am sorry the gentleman did not see at an earlier day the necessity of sticking to the subject under debate. Three days before I spoke, our colleague from the second district [Mr. Wilcox] made a speech, to which the gentleman listened with infinite delight. The subject was "THE HOMESTEAD BILL" of the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson]. "Upon such a topic we may have supposed that our colleague would have said something of the pressing necessities" of the landless, the houseless, and the homeless. But, much to our surprise, he wandered off two thousand miles," to bring up and discuss before us the state of parties in Mississippi. The gentleman [Mr. Freeman] heard this speech. He enjoyed it. "He rolled it under his tongue as a sweet morsel." It

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was foreign to the subject under debate. It was out of order. It was in advance of any single remark from me on the subject of Mississippi politics. But it was from the political twin brother of my colleague, and therefore he had no word of rebuke to utter. But no sooner do I rise to "vindicate the truth of history" than my colleague rolls up his eyes in well-dissembled horror, and begins a pious lecture on the "pressing necessities of the mechanics and laborers whose work had been suspended." Why did not the gentleman thus rebuke our colleague from the second district, when first he lugged these foreign topics into the House of Representatives?

My colleague says, "the secret of the gentleman's [my] speech is to be found in the fact that the Union Democrats of Mississippi have called a state convention, and sent delegates to the Baltimore Convention." I am not aware of any secret purpose entertained by me in making that speech. It is upon its face my reply to a colleague, and no one can read it without seeing that it could only have been suggested by the speech to which it was a reply. Let me assure my colleague that what he calls "a state convention of the Union Democrats of Mississippi" has never given me a moment's uneasiness. I looked upon it more in sorrow than in anger. It was a poor abortion at best; and the only concern I ever felt in regard to it was, that it became the "slaughter-house" of a few pure-minded and upright Democrats.

The gentleman says I admitted "that the movement of my party was dead," and that "my party was dead." Now, sir, I made no such admissions; said nothing from which such an inference could have been drawn; and, if the gentleman shall ever take the trouble to read the speech to which he wrote a reply without having listened to its delivery, and without reading it after it was delivered, he will see how grossly he has misstated what it contains.

It

I said the "southern movement was dead;" and so it is; but I said explicitly that it was not the movement of my friends or of my party. was, I said, and as I now repeat, the movement of all parties in the South-Whigs and Democrats, Union men and State-Rights men. My party is not dead nor dying. It lives, and moves, and has a being; and so long as there is true Democracy in the South, it will continue to grow and flourish. It is the party of progress. It contains all that is sound in the creed of the ancient fathers, and all that is pure and original in that of the "Young Democracy." Its steps are guided by the lights of past ages, and its course is onward and upward, to that destiny which awaits the votaries of freedom in every land. It is, I repeat, neither dead nor dying. Its glory was eclipsed in the late contest in our state, as the glory of the National Democracy was eclipsed in 1840, and again in 1848. But these things must pass away, even as the clouds pass over the face of a summer sun. The gentleman and his party cannot blot out the glory of the TRUE Democracy. Impotent attempt! As well might they strive to eclipse the true glory of the sun with the light of a penny candle, as thus to throw discredit upon the National Democracy, by their eternal cry of Union, Union. Theirs is a feeble light at best. It burns dimly in Georgia and Mississippi, and throws a sickly glimmer over a part of Alabama. Everywhere else it is lost in the sun-like blaze of a National Democracy-a Democracy which is as broad as the continent, and as athletic as Hercules. The demo

cracy of my colleague and his Union allies is of a feeble nature. It is constantly going into spasms about the safety of the Union. Ours is of a different kind. It has no fears for the safety of the Union. The Union is strong, and can defend itself. If it should ever get into trouble, the National Democracy will be ready to give it a helping hand. I had rather rely upon one friend of the Union, who would stand by it in the hour of its peril, than a whole regiment of defenders who would go into hysterics every time some mad-cap cried "SECESSION !"

My colleague says, that after my return home in 1850, the compromise bills having passed, I made a "violent harangue" in which I said: "So help me God, I am for resistence; and my advice to you is that of Cromwell to his colleagues, 'Pray to God, and keep your powder dry.'' Here, again, my colleague blunders. I made no "violent harangue" after my return home. It is true I made a speech, but it was characterized by everything rather than violence. I had no reason, at that time, to suppose that the speech did not meet the approbation of my colleague. We were upon terms that would have justified him in communicating any disapprobation he may have felt; and his failure to do so left me under the impression that I had said nothing which shocked his confidence in my devotion to the Union and the Constitution.

It is true that I used the two expressions which my colleague attributes to me, but not in the connection in which he employs them. I said, after the compromise bills had passed, or after it became manifest that they would pass, "So help me God, I am for resistance." I used that expression here, on this floor. I may have employed it elsewhere. But is my colleague at all justified in concluding that I used the term resistance as synonymous with secession? Not at all, sir. When Jefferson, and Madison, and Randolph, and Nicholas, and Clay, resisted the alien and sedition laws, were they for secession? When Jackson resisted the bank charter, was he for secession? When the whole Democracy of the nation resisted the tariff of 1842, were they all seceders, traitors, and disunionists? I used the term as it had been used from time immemorial-as expressive of my strong disapprobation of the compromise bills, and of my determination to induce my constituents, if possible, to withhold from them the meed of their approbation, and to refuse, as far as practicable, to allow them to become precedents in the future legislation of the country. My constituents have never sanctioned the compromise. They have never said it met their approbation; and, in my judgment, they never will.

I used, in my speech at home, after my return from Congress, the Cromwellian expression which ever since has so much annoyed the peculiar guardians of the Union: "Pray to God, but keep your powder dry." And it was as if I had said, "Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst." The true meaning of this expression will be understood when I state, that on that occasion, as now, I said appearances, in my judgment, are delusive. We have suffered much at the hands of the North, and we have not seen the end. We are destined to suffer much more. Some gentlemen say we have a final, and lasting, and eternal settlement of the slavery question. I hope it may be so. But I am incredulous; I would not cease to watch on such an assurance; I would hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst. pray to God, but keep my powder dry."

"I would

The gentleman takes up the message and general policy of Governor Quitman, and attempts to hold the Democracy of Mississippi responsible for all he ever said and did. I will make this bargain with my colleague: If he will undertake to be responsible for all that Governor Foote has said and written, I will respond for the writings and sayings of Governor Quitman. Secession, disunion, revolution, southern rights, and similar terms, are as common along the path that General Foote made in the congressional record as mile-posts on a turnpike; and yet the gentleman passes over all these, and attacks Quitman's message. I leave others to decide whose "platter is clean on the outside," and whose is "filled with rottenness and dead men's bones." If my colleague's platter is clean without or within, it has, to my mind, a marvellous strange way of showing it.

The gentleman says that on the day the message of Governor Quitman appeared, "the Union Democrats then at the seat of government denounced it as treasonable to the nation, and they so denounce it

now."

The day that Governor Quitman's message was delivered, there was assembled at the seat of government (Jackson) a convention. It was not a Democratic convention; it was not a Union Democratic convention; it was a convention in which the Democrats stood to the Whigs as about one to five. This convention denounced the governor's message, it is true. But I never heard before that the voice of denunciation was that of the Union Democrats. I heard it at the time as the voice of the Union party, and then, as now, I recognised it as the growl of Whiggery.

But how came there to be a convention at the seat of government? Was it called to deliberate on the governor's message? Not at all. This could not be; for the convention was composed of persons (chiefly Whigs) from all parts of the state, and it had actually assembled and was in session at the very moment when the governor's message was delivered. For what purpose did it assemble? Not, certainly, to consider a message yet not made public, and the contents of which were as little known to the members of that body before they assembled as to the people of China. I judge of the purpose of its assemblage by what it did. It formed, created, and brought into being the Union party. Mark you, it was not the Union Democratic party. There was no "Democratic" about it. It was the Union party; and it was formed outside of, above, and beyond the Democratic party. It was an attempt to form a third party. It failed; and then the ringleaders threw an anchor to the windward. Then it was that, finding the National Whigs and National Democrats were laughing at them, my colleague and his Union friends hung out the " Democratic" banner. At first it was all Union; and when they found the Union would not save them, they called themselves Union Democrats.

One of my colleagues [Mr. Nabers] the other day asked, in the course of his speech, "What it was that constituted party? Was it numbers or principles ?" He said it was numbers, and as there were numbers in Mississippi who avowed themselves secessionists, he concluded there was a secession party there. My colleague's premises are badly laid, and his conclusions do not follow his premises. Numbers do not constitute party. It takes principles and numbers both to constitute party; and it takes something else-it takes the organization of