SPEECH

DELIVERED AT HAZLEHURST, MISSISSIPPI, ON THE 11th OF SEPTEMBER, 1858.

FELLOW CITIZENS: I am profoundly grateful for this manifestation of your kindness. On many occasions I have confessed before you the depths to which my heart had been penetrated by your partiality. But the presence of this multitude, and the cordiality of its greeting, so overwhelms me, that I can neither attempt to express my gratitude nor describe the emotions which swell my bosom. If I have been a faithful exponent of your principles in the past, I offer you that as the best guarantee that I will be so in the future. It has been my good fortune to have retained your confidence for a long series of years, and to you, I think, I may appeal with safety, if I ever resorted to the arts of the demagogue, or failed to speak out my sentiments when called on.

To-day, having no favors to ask, and no responsibility to shun, I am more than ever resolved to speak plainly. It would be a libel on my past life to disguise my real sentiments; and besides now, more than at any other time, there is need for every patriot wearing his heart upon his sleeve.

You will naturally expect of me, just returned as I am, from the theatre of the late stirring scenes in Congress, some account of what was said and done, and some intimation of my opinions as to the bearing which present events are to have on the future of our country, and especially on your future. I shall proceed calmly to fulfil that expec

tation.

When Congress met in December, it was apparent to every one that the slavery question was to be the great issue of the session. True, we had settled it--we had compromised it-we had fixed its finalitywe had taken it out of Congress. But like an evil spirit it had come back upon us.

To say nothing of the compromises of 1850, and other kindred legislation before and since, Congress, in 1854, had passed the bill commonly called the Kansas act. In this act it was solemnly stipulated that Congress would, in future, abstain from all interference with domestic slavery in the states or territories; and it was as solemnly affirmed, that for ever thereafter the people were to be left perfectly free tc regulate that institution for themselves, and in their own way. This Kansas act was amazingly popular in the South at the time of its passage, and why, I certainly could never tell. With me it was never a favorite measure, and if I had been "left perfectly free" to do as I pleased, my vote would, in all probability, have been cast against it. One feature it had which strongly recommended it to my favor. It proposed the repeal of the Missouri restriction. That measure I had always regarded as unconstitutional. If my speeches, in the congressional canvass of 1839, had been preserved, they would have shown that I so regarded it then. In 1848, soon after my return to Congress in that year, and on the first opportunity, I thus characterized this restriction:

"It was a 'fungus and excrescence, a political monstrosity.' It was the first, greatest, and most fatal error in our legislation on the subject of slavery. It violated at once the rights of one-half the Union, and flagrantly outraged the Federal Constitution."

With these opinions long cherished, well settled, and firmly fixed in my own mind, I could not well vote against any bill which proposed a repeal of this odious measure; and yet, as my friends know, I was near voting against the Kansas bill. There was that in it which never met my approbation. There was that left out which ought to have been put in, if it was designed to work fairly and justly on the diversified interests of the whole country.

The feature which most commended it to the favor of other people only tended to make it the more obnoxious to me. I allude to what is commonly called the popular sovereignty feature. I have so often expressed my opinion of this doctrine of popular sovereignty, both in and out of Congress, that I shall not pause to do it here. I have always regarded it as a wicked cheat, or a mischievous humbug. If it only means that the people have the right to govern themselves in their own way, subordinate to the Constitution and written laws, then it is a cheat, for there is nothing new in that doctrine. The people have had that right ever since the Declaration of Independence. If it means that the people may govern themselves in their own way, in disregard of the Constitution, and in contempt of the written law, then it is a mischievous humbug. The people can have no such right. Believing at the time, that the enunciation of a new doctrine like this was fraught with mischief, I denounced it. I predicted that it would lead to open disregard of law, violation of the Constitution, and contempt of the legally constituted authorities of the country. You have seen an army sent to put down rebellion, run mad, in Utah; you have seen Kansas trample the federal authority under foot; you have seen the authority of the President defied, and the decision of the Supreme Court disregarded in almost every Northern State. And all for why? The people had been told that of this new doctrine, and in its name they acted. It was useless to tell them that popular sovereignty meant only that they might vote as they pleased, and through the proper channels, change their laws, and even abolish one constitution and substitute another in its stead, if they would go through the proper form-all that they could do before, and they knew it; therefore they rationally concluded that popular sovereignty meant something more. It never occurred to them that great men would teach, as new, a doctrine which was as old as the Declaration of Independence, and just as familiar to every school-boy as his A B C's. They, therefore, concluded that they had only to declare for or against any measure, and in any mode that suited them, and their will, so expressed, became the supreme law. Brigham Young, and his saintly followers, declared in favor of popular sovereignty-set up their own laws, and the acts of Congress and the Constitution vanished from Utah. Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, and their followers, declared against the fugitive slave law and the Dred Scott decision, and they fell. How could they stand? The popular sovereigns decreed against them. Jim Lane and his robber gang, in Kansas, set all law, order, and decency, at defiance, and in the name of popular sovereignty murdered the people, pillaged their houses, and drove their defenceless families into the wilder

ness, or without the limits of the territory. This is but a leaf from the history of this new doctrine, and it does not impress me favorably with its working. It inclines me to stand firmly where I stood at first, and declare now, as I declared then, that it is a wicked cheat, or a mischievous humbug.

It was in the pursuit of this idea of letting the people govern themselves in their own way, regardless of law, and the guarantees and the requirements of the Constitution, that the Topeka, Leavenworth, and other constitutions, were gotten up in Kansas, and thrust into Congress in antagonism to the Lecompton constitution. There was no pretence that every requirement of the law and the Constitution had not been complied with in the formation of the Lecompton Constitution. The law and the Constitution had been pursued to a punctilio. But it was said more people had participated in the formation of some other constitution than in that at Lecompton, and therefore "popular sovereignty" required us to reject the one that had the stamp of law and order upon it, and take the one offered by the multitude. For one I refused to do it. I reverence law and revere the Constitution, and I respect the will of the people when expressed in obedience to the one and the other. But I have no respect for the public will when it comes to me over laws prostrated and constitutions violated.

The point made against the Lecompton constitution was, that it had never been submitted to the people for their ratification or rejection. This complaint came from the enemies, not the friends of that constitution. Of all those who had part or lot in framing it, not one made complaint. They had the power and the right to support it, if they chose. They did not choose to do it, and with me their action was final. The enemies of the constitution insisted on its submission. They wanted another chance to kill it. I had early learned, from the horn-books of the law, that a child is not to be put to nurse with those who are interested in its death, and I therefore refused obedience to the demands of those who sought another opportunity to slaughter the Lecompton constitution. It amazed me that the friends par excellence of popular sovereignty should be the first to insist on the submission of this constitution. It was in vain that we showed them the people who made the constitution did not ask its submission. They only became the more clamorous. The truth was, it was a pro-slavery constitution. If it had been an anti-slavery constitution, like the constitution of California, it would have been accepted, no odds what irregularities had marked its formation. It is true, when I made this point in the debate, Senators Douglas and Stuart both denied that they were governed by any such consideration. No denial came from Senators Seward, Wilson, Wade, or any of their peculiar friends. The denial of senators upon their honor precluded then, as it precludes now, any question as to the motives which governed them. But I did not fail to note that both Douglas and Stuart voted for California-a free state-though in no single particular was there the slightest pretence that her constitution had been regularly formed.

And now, fellow-citizens, having mentioned the name of Douglas, allow me to digress so far as to say my sympathies are not with those who indulge in wholesale denunciation of him. He is more honest, more consistent, more the friend to the Constitution and the rights of the states, and a better Democrat than nine-tenths of those in the free

states who abuse him. He is a giant in intellect, a giant in will, a giant in eloquence, a giant in everything that makes up the characteristics of a great man, and I hope he may thrash Abolition Lincoln out of his boots.

I need not say that I differed with Douglas on the Kansas-Lecompton question. We met in debate-we discussed the question, I hope, like senators-we differed in the end, as we had differed in the beginning; but we parted as we had met, friends.

If I could get a man of my own faith, I would gladly take him. But God forbid that I should discard a great man like Douglas, who differs with me on one point, and take a small man like Lincoln, who agrees with me in nothing.

But to the question. After a long and tedious debate in both houses of Congress, it became apparent that it was impossible to admit Kansas as a state under the Lecompton constitution. We had, therefore, to abandon the contest, and give the enemy the only victory they had sought-the exclusion of pro-slavery Kansas-or we had to resort to some other expedient. Mr. Montgomery, a representative from Pennsylvania, and Mr. Crittenden, the venerable and distinguished senator from Kentucky, each brought forward a project. The time may come when their propositions, and especially Mr. Crittenden's, may have to be discussed before the people. For the present, it is sufficient to say they were both rejected, no friend of the Lecompton (pro-slavery) constitution, in either House of Congress, giving to either of them the slightest countenance or support, so far as I know or believe.

In this state of affairs the two Houses of Congress, through their respective committees, met for consultation. The result was the production of the "English conference bill," and of that I come now to speak. It figured conspicuously in the last act of the drama, and deserves a passing notice.

By this bill the friends of the Lecompton constitution proposed to admit Kansas as a state, and then leave the people of the territory free to decide for themselves whether they would accept the act of admission or not. There was some propriety in this, growing out of the fact that Congress had already determined to reject certain conditions proposed by Kansas in regard to the public lands and other important

interests.

And

I, for one, never believed that Congress had the right to take a territory by the ears and drag her into the Union nolens volens. while I would not listen to a proposition to remand the constitution tendered by the people of a territory asking admission, and require them to vote on it whether they desired to do so or not, I thought it proper in the case of Kansas to allow her people to decide for themselves whether they were in the Union as a state after we had rejected a portion of their proposition and materially altered other parts of it. If Kansas refused to accept the act of admission, and thus determined for herself that she was not in the Union, then it was stipulated in the "English conference bill" that she remain out until she had the requisite federal population to entitle her to one representative in Congress, that being, according to the existing ratio, 93,420. Against this bill the whole power that had defeated the original Senate bill arrayed itself, with the exception of some six or eight members of the

House of Representatives, and these gave the friends of the measure barely votes enough to carry it. For the bill every southern senator and representative voted, except Gen. Quitman, and Mr. Bonham of South Carolina. That Gen. Quitman voted against it was never a matter of serious regret to me, and certainly I never dreamed of reproaching him for it. If he could speak from the grave to-day, he would bear me willing testimony that I said to him more than once, if he was censured for his vote, I would stand by him and defend him. It was one of those points on which gentlemen entertaining similar views on most questions might well differ. Gen. Quitman differed with the great body of his southern friends, and following the dictates of his conscience, he voted against the bill. In that act, standing alone, or with but a single ally, against all his southern friends, he showed a moral heroism worthy of a Spartan. It was a heroism before which the sublime history written by him on the walls of Mexico might pale and hide its head. To oppose the enemies of one's country on the field of battle, requires courage, but to oppose one's friends united, on the floors of Congress, and on a vital question, requires heroism such as few men possess. Quitman was equal to the task.

And

It is not certain that Gen. Quitman was wrong. Kansas has refused the terms of admission, and already we hear it proposed to disregard the stipulation in respect to population, and admit her as a free state. It was this stipulation that commanded my vote; I know it commanded other votes. Many of us thought it best, all things considered, that Kansas should remain out of the Union for some time to come. though we went for her admission under the Lecompton constitutionif that failed, we felt quite willing to see her excluded until she had population enough to give her at least one member of Congress. We entered into that bargain. We enacted our agreement into a law; and, for one, I shall insist on carrying it out in good faith. When Kansas presents herself, with a census fairly taken, showing that she has the representative population required, I shall vote to admit her, and I shall not do it before.

I observe that the New York Herald, the Richmond Enquirer, and other kindred sheets, are urging the abandonment of the English bill, and the speedy admission of Kansas, as the only means of saving the Democratic party in 1860. If the Democratic party can only be saved by means like this, then the sooner it sinks the better. And I have this farther to say, that whenever the Democratic party consents to be led by such men as edit the New York Herald and Richmond Enquirer, it is time for the old guard to strike their colors.

We have had quite enough of sacrificing principle to expediency. I want no more of it, and I will have no more. For the National Democratic party I entertain profound respect. It is the last bulwark of the Union; when it falls the Union will fall with it. But if it requires another compromise, and another sacrifice of southern rights, to save it, it may go.

The original Kansas bill was never a favorite measure of mine, and the last one was still less to my notion. But I had seen the South give up California and content herself with but a feeble foothold in Utah and in New Mexico. I have seen men stricken down for insisting on the extreme measure of justice, and I did not feel quite