should leave his master's farm without leave, or in the night time, he should be punished by so many stripes, and if he committed such an offence he should receive so many stripes, and so on; as rigorous a code as ever existed in any southern State of this Union. Not only that, but after the State came into the Union, the State of Illinois reenacted that code, and continued it up to the time that slavery died out under the operation of the State constitution.

I dislike, sir, to have a controversy with my colleague about historical facts. I suppose the Senate of the United States has no particular interest in the early history of Illinois, but it has become obligatory on me to vindicate my statement to that extent.

Now, sir, a word about the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. I have had occasion to refer to that before in the Senate, and I am sorry to have to refer to it again.

My colleague arraigns me as chairman of the Committee on Territories against myself as a member of the Senate in 1854, upon the Nebraska Bill. He says that, as chairman of the committee, I reported that we did not see proper to depart from the example of 1850; that as the Mexican laws were not then repealed in terms, we did not propose in terms to repeal the Missouri restriction, butthere the senator stops, and there the essense of the report beginsbut, the report added, this committee proposes to carry out the principles embodied in the Compromise measures of 1850 in precise language, and then we go on to state what those principles were; and one was, that the people of a Territory should settle the question of slavery for themselves, and we reported a bill giving them that

power.

But inasmuch as the power to introduce slavery, notwithstanding the Mexican laws, was conferred on the Territorial legislatures under the compromise measures of 1850, the right to iutroduce it into Kansas, notwithstanding the Missouri restriction, was also proposed to be conferred without expressly repealing the restriction. The legal effect was precisely the same. Afterward some gentlemen said they would rather have the legal effect expressed in plain language.

I said, "If you want a repealing act, have it: it does not alter the legal effect." I said so at the time, as the debates show; and hence put in the express provision that the Missouri act was thereby repealed. It did not change the legal effect of the bill; but that variation of language has been the staple of a great many stump speeches, a great many miserable quibbles of county court lawyers, a great many attempts to prove inconsistency by small politicians in the country. Be it so. The people understand that thing. The object I had in view was to allow the people to do as they pleased. The first bill accomplished that; the amendment accomplished it. Whether that was the object of others or not, is another question. That was my object. The two bills, in my opinion, had the same legal effect; but I said if any one doubts it, I will make it plain.

Some said, 66 we doubt whether that gives the right." Then I made it plain, and brought it in in express terms, and he calls a change of language, without varying the legal effect, a change of policy. My colleague is welcome to make the most out of that. I have had that arraignment over and over again.

The senator has some doubt as to whether I am in good standing in my own party; whether I am a good representative of northwestern Democracy. I have nothing to say about that. I will allow the people to speak in their conventions on that subject. Whether I represent the Democracy of Illinois or not, I shall not say. The people understand all that. I can only say that I have been in the Democratic party all my life, and I know what our Democrats mean. My colleague indorsed and approved the compromise measures of 1850. He was a Democrat a few years ago. Even in 1856, he declared, I believe, that he could not vote for me, if nominated, but he would vote for Mr. Buchanan; but, after the nomination, he did not like the platform, and he went over. I have no objection to that; it is all right enough. I never intended to taunt him with inconsistency; but I do not think he is as safe and as authoritative an expounder of the Republican party as the senator from New York. The senator from New York says that a State that does not allow a negro to vote on an equality with a white man is a slave State. I read his speech here to-day. I suppose the senator from New York is a pretty good Republican. I thought he spoke with some authority for his party. I did not suppose those neo.phytes who had just come into the party were going to unsettle and unhorse the leader and embodiment of the party so quickly, and prescribe a platform that would rule out the senator from New York. I must be permitted, therefore, to take the authority of the leaders of the party in preference to those who are kept in the rank and file until they have served an apprenticeship. (Laughter.)

The senator from New York says it is slavery not to allow the negro to vote. Well, sir, I hold that that is political slavery. If you disfranchise a man, you make him a political slave. Deprive a white man of a voice in his government, and, politically, he is a slave. Hence the inequality you create is slavery to that extent. My colleague will not allow a negro to vote. He lives too far south in Illinois for that, decidedly. He has to expound the creed down in Egypt. They have other expositions up north. The creed is pretty black in the north end of the State; about the centre it is a pretty good mulatto, and it is almost white when you get down into Egypt. It assumes paler shades as you go south. The Democrats of Illinois have one creed, and we can proclaim it everywhere alike. The senator, my colleague, complains that I represent his party to be in favor of negro equality. No such thing, says he: "I tell my colleague to his teeth it is not so." There is something very fearful in the manner in which he said it! Senators know that he is a dangerous man who says things to a man's teeth, and I shall be very

cautious how I reply. But he says he does hold that by the law of God the negro and the white man are created equal; that is, he says, in a state of nature; and, therefore, he says he indorses that clause of the Declaration of Independence as including the negro as well as the white man. I do not think I misstate my colleague. He thinks that clause of the Declaration of Independence includes the negro as well as the white man. He declares, therefore, that the negro and the white man were created equal. What does that Declaration also say: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable ights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." f the negro and the white man are created equal, and that equality s an inalienable right, by what authority is my colleague and his party going to deprive the negro of that inalienable right which he got directly from God? He says the Republican party is not in favor of according to the negro an inalienable right which he received directly from his Maker. Oh, no; he tells me to my teeth that they are not in favor of that; they will not obey the laws of God at all. Their creed is to to take away inalienable rights. Well, I have found that out before, and that is just the reason I complain of them, that they are for taking away inalienable rights.

If they will cling to the doctrine that the Declaration of Independence conferred certain inalienable rights, among which, we are told, is equality between the white man and the negro, they are bound to make the human laws they establish conform to those Godgiven rights which are inalienable. If they believe the first proposition, as honest men, they are bound to carry the principle to its logical conclusion, and give the negro his equality and voice in the government; let him vote at elections, hold office, serve on juries, make him judge, governor, (" senator.") No, they cannot make him a senator, because the Supreme Court has decided that he is not a citizen. The Dred Scott decision is in the way. Perhaps that is the reason of the objection to the Dred Scott decision, that a negro cannot be a senator. I say, if you hold that the Almighty created the negro the equal of the white man, and that equality be an inalienable right, you are bound to confer the elective franchise and every other privilege of political equality on the negro. The senator from New York stands up to it like a man. His logic drove him there, and he had the honesty to avow the consequence of his own doctrine. That is to say, he did it before the Harper's Ferry raid. He did not say it quite as plainly to-day; for I will do the senator from New York the justice to say, that, in his speech to-day, I think he made the most successful effort, considered as an attempt to conceal what he meant. (Laughter.) He dealt in vague generalities; he dealt in disclaimers and general denials; and he covered it all up with a verbiage that would allow anybody to infer just what he pleased, but not to commit the senator to anything; and to let the

country know that there was no danger from the success of the Republican party; that they did not mean any harm; that if men, believing in the truth of their doctrines, did go and commit invasions, murders, robberies, and treason, all they had to do was to disavow the men who were fools enough to believe them, and they are not responsible for the consequences of their own action!

Now, Mr. President, I wish my colleague were equally as frank as the senator from New York. That senator is in favor of the equality of the negro with the white man, or else he would not say that the Almighty guaranteed to them an inalienable right of equality. My colleague dare not deny the inalienable rights of the negro, for if he did, the Abolitionists would quit him. He dare not avow it lest the old line Whigs should quit him; hence he is riding double on this question. I have no desire to conceal my opinions; and I repeat that I do not believe the negro race is any part of the governing element in this country, except as an element of representation in the manner expressly provided in the Constitution. This is a white man's government, made by white men for the benefit of white men, to be administered by white men and nobody else; and I should regret the day that we ever allowed the negroes to have a hand in its administration. Not that the negro is not entitled to any privileges at all; on the contrary, I hold that humanity requires us to allow the unfortunate negro to enjoy all the rights and privileges that he may safely exercise consistent with the good of society. We may, with safety, give them some privileges in Illinois that would not be safe in Mississippi; because we have but few, while that State has many. We will take care of our negroes, if Mississippi will take care of hers. Each has a right to decide for itself what shall be the relation of the negro to the white man within its own limits, and no other State has a right to interfere with its determination.

On that principle there is no "irrepressible conflict;" there is no conflict at all. If we will just take care of our own negroes, and mind our own business, we shall get along very well; and we ask our southern friends to do the same, and they seem pretty well disposed to do it. Therefore, I am in favor of just firing a broadside into our Republican friends over there, who will keep interfering with other people's business. That is the complaint I have of them. They keep holding up the negro for us to worship, and when they get the power, they will not give him the rights they claim for him; they will not give him his inalienable rights. New York has not given the negro those inalienable rights of suffrage yet. The senator from New York represents a slave State, according to his own speech; because New York does not allow the negro to vote on an equality with a white man. It is true, in New York they do allow a negro to vote, if he owns $250 worth of property, but not without. They suppose $250 just compensates for the difference between a rich negro and a poor white man. (Laughter.) They

allow the rich negro to vote, and do not allow the poor one; and the senator from New York thinks that is a system of slavery. It may be; let New York decide that; it is her business. I do not want to interfere with it. Just let us alone. We do not want negro suffrage. We say "non-interference;" hands off. If you like the association of the negroes at the polls, that is your business; if you want them to hold office, so that they do not come here, give offices to them, if you choose; if you want them for magistrates, that is your business; but you must not send them here; because we do not allow anybody but citizens to hold seats on this floor; and, thank God, the Dred Scott case has decided that a negro is not a citizen.