law which should be effective in carrying out the mandate of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive slaves.

We should demand that no state be denied admission into the Union, because her constitution tolerated slavery."

Is there anything asked for in all this which the friends of the compromise are not constantly insisting we now have? And yet the writer of this pamphlet falsely asserts that I have demanded a repeal of the compromise, and the substitution of other legislation in its place. No such thing is true. I have only asked that the friends of the compromise at the North should éxecute it as its southern friends say they understand it; and why shall southern men shrink from this demand if they are sincere in their declarations? They know perfectly well that their interpretation is repudiated by their northern allies, and therefore it is that they shrink from the test of making the demand.

Mississippi has declined making any demands, and of course my proposition falls to the ground. No one could suspect me of the extreme folly of urging these or any other demands, after the state had decided that she would do nothing.

present these extracts from the Ellwood Springs speech :

"I have great confidence that the government may be brought back to its original purity. I have great confidence that the government will again be administered in subordination to the Constitution; that we shall be restored to our equal position in the confederacy, and that our rights will again be respected as they were from 1787 to 1819. This being done, I shall be satisfied-nothing short of this will satisfy me. I can never consent to take a subordinate position. By no act or word of mine shall the South ever be reduced to a state of dependence on the North. I will cling to the Union, and utter its praise with my last breath, but it must be a Union of equals; it must be a Union in which my state and my section is equal in rights to any other section or state. I will not consent that the South shall become the Ireland of this country. Better, far, that we dissolve our political connection with the North than live connected with her as her slaves or vassals. The fathers of the republic counselled us to live together in peace and concord, but those venerable sages and patriots never counselled us to surrender our equal position in the Union. Let me say to you, in all sincerity, fellow-citizens, that I am no disunionist. If I know my own heart, I am more concerned about the means of preserving the Union, than I am about the means of destroying it. The danger is not that we shall dissolve the Union, by a bold and manly vindication of our rights; but rather that we shall, in abandoning our rights, abandon the Union also. So help me God, I believe the submissionists are the very worst enemies of the Union."

Why was all this passed over in silence?

I might show how, in many other instances, I have been treated with the same gross injustice which has marked those that I have now pointed out; but to pursue the subject farther would be tedious and unprofitable.

"There are my speeches, and there my votes, I stand by and defend them. You say for these my country will repudiate me. I demand a trial of the issue." This was my language in the first speech made by me after my return from Washington. I repeat it now. I said then, as I say now, that the charge laid against me that I was, or ever had been, for disunion, or secession, was and is FALSE and SLANDEROUS.

I stand by my votes as they were given, and by my speeches as they were made. I am not responsible for speeches made for me by others; nor will I consent to be tried on the motives which my enemies charge to have influenced my votes. It is easy to publish garbled extracts

from any man's speeches, and it is quite as easy to attribute to any man bad motives for his votes. I am not to be tried, thanks to a free government, in a STAR CHAMBER, before perjured judges, but at the ballot box, by a free people.

I am not surprised to find myself assailed with malignity, and least of all does it surprise me that these assaults come from Natchez. I was never a favorite with certain men in that city, and if it should ever fall out that they speak well of me, I shall indeed wonder what great sin I have committed against republican institutions.

When I heard that a large sum of money had been subscribed by my enemies, and that my defeat was one of the great ends to be obtained by it, I conjectured that the old Federalists were on their walk, and that a plentiful shower of slander and defamation might be expected. I have not been disappointed. These attacks will, no doubt, be kept up until after the election, and many of them will, necessarily, go unanswered. I cannot be everywhere in person, and I have not the means of publishing and circulating documents against this regular combination, controlling, as it does, its thousands and its tens of thousands of dollars.

It ought to be borne in mind how easy it is to misconstrue and misrepresent the acts and speeches of a public man. Taking into account the length of time that I have been in the public service, it is rather a matter of surprise with me that my enemies have found so little to carp

at.

The circumstances under which I have spoken or acted are, of course, very conveniently forgotten, and nothing is remembered but such words or acts as may be turned to my disadvantage. These are eagerly seized upon by my enemies, and held up to public gaze; and if the public indignation fails to rise, they then torture my words, and give them forced constructions, so as to make me say what, indeed, I never thought of saying. No man ever yet spoke so explicitly as to escape the misconceptions of the weak, or the misconstructions of the corrupt and designing. Not even the inspired writers have escaped this common fate. The Atheist proves, to his own satisfaction at least, that there is no God, and, taking the Bible for his text, he undertakes to prove that the Bible is a fiction. Volney, Voltaire, and Tom Paine, have each made his assault upon the divinity of the Saviour; each has had his proselytes; and each based his argument upon the words of inspired writers. These things being true, what folly it is for an ordinary man to hope for escape from false interpretations, misconstructions and misrepresentations! I know my own meaning better than any other man, and after sixteen years of public service, during all of which time I never practised a fraud or deception upon the public, I confront my enemies, and tell them they SLANDER me, when they charge that I am now, or ever have been, the SECRET or OPEN advocate of disunion or secession.

I am no more a secessionist, because I think a state has a right to secede, than are my enemies revolutionists, because they maintain the right of revolution.

In days gone by, I denounced the United States Bank, the protective tariff, and other acts of the general government, without incurring the charge of being a disunionist. I opposed and denounced the compromise, but I did not thereby make myself a disunionist. I thought, in the beginning, that it inflicted a positive injury upon the South, and I

think so now. This opinion is well settled, and is not likely to undergo any material change. I gave my advice freely, but never obtrusively, as to the course which I thought our state should pursue. That advice has not been taken. Mississippi has decided that submission to, or acquiescence in, the compromise measures, is her true policy. As a citizen, I bow to the judgment of my state. I wish her judgment had been otherwise; but from her decision I ask no appeal. Neither as a citizen nor as a representative, would I disturb or agitate this or any other question after it had been settled by the deliberate judgment of the people.

I never have, and I never will introduce the subject of slavery into Congress. When it has been introduced by others, I have defended the rights of my constituents, and, if re-elected, I will do so again.

In the approaching election, I ask the judgment of my constituents on my past course. I claim no exemption from the frailties common to all mankind. That I have erred is possible, but that the interests of my constituents have suffered from my neglect, or that I have intentionally done any act or said anything to dishonor them in the eyes of the world, or to bring discredit upon our common country, is not true. In all that I have said or done, my aim has been for the honor, the happiness, and the true glory of my state.

I opposed the compromise with all the power I possessed. I opposed the admission of California, the division of Texas, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and I voted against the Utah bill. I need scarcely say that I voted for the Fugitive Slave bill, and aided, as far as I could, in its passage. I opposed the compromise.

I thought, with Mr. Clay, that "it gave almost everything to the North, and to the South nothing but her honor."

I thought, with Mr. Webster, that the "South got what the North lost-and that was nothing at all."

I thought, with Mr. Brooks, that the "North carried everything be

fore her.'

I thought, with Mr. Clemens, that "there was no equity to redeem the outrage."

I thought, with Mr. Downs, that "it was no compromise at all." I thought, with Mr. Freeman, that "the North got the oyster and we got the shell."

I thought, at the last, what General Foote thought, at the first, that "it contained none of the features of a genuine compromise.'

And finally, and lastly, I voted against it, and spoke against it, BECAUSE it unsettled the balance of power between the two sections of the Union, inflicted an injury upon the South, and struck a blow at that political equality of the states and of the people, on which the Union is founded, and without a maintenance of which the Union cannot be preserved.

I spoke against it, and voted against it, in all its forms. I was against it as an Omnibus, and I was against it in its details. I fought it through from Alpha to Omega, and I would do so again. I denounced it before the people, and down to the last hour I continued to oppose it. The people have decided that the state shall acquiesce, and with me that decision is final. I struggled for what I thought was the true interest and honor of my constituents, and if for this they think me.

worthy of condemnation, I am ready for the sacrifice. For opposing the compromise, I have no apologies or excuses to offer; I did that which my conscience told me was right, and the only regret I feel is that my opposition was not more availing.

GALLATIN, September 15, 1851.

A. G. BROWN.

NOTE. As the district will, no doubt, be flooded with all manner of publications, and traversed by all sorts of speakers, I must again remind my friends that the Congressional Globe, containing a perfect record of all my votes, speeches, motions and resolutions, may be found in the clerk's offices of each county. It was placed there by me for inspection, and by it, as the official record, I am willing to be tried. When my enemies are found peddling newspapers and pamphlets, without names, giving accounts of my actings and sayings, I hope my friends will appeal to this record, and insist that I shall be tried by that, and not by the statements of my enemies. A. G. B.

SPEECH

DELIVERED AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS, NEAR PORT GIBSON, MISS.,
NOVEMBER 2, 1850.

MR. BROWN said :--FELLOW-CITIZENS: I shall speak to you to-day, not as Whigs, not as Democrats, but as citizens of a common country having a common interest and a common destiny.

The events of the last ten months have precipitated a crisis in our public affairs which many of the wisest and sagest among us have fondly hoped was yet distant many long years.

It is not my purpose to enter upon a critical review of the late most extraordinary conduct of the President and of Congress. I am not at liberty to suppose, that a people whose dearest rights have been the object of attack for ten months and more, have failed to keep themselves informed of the more prominent events as they have transpired. We ought, to-day, to inquire what is to be done in the future, rather than what has been done in the past.

I confess my inability to counsel a great people as to the best mode of proceeding in an emergency like the present. Instead of imparting advice to others, I feel myself greatly in need of instruction. But, I will not on this account refuse to contribute an expression of my own best reflections, when, as in this instance, I am called upon to do so.

To the end that you may clearly understand my conclusions, it will be necessary for me to present a brief summary of the events which have brought us to our present perilous condition. To go no further back than the last year, we shall find that in Mississippi, at least, the great body of the people were aroused to a sense of the impending danger. At a meeting assembled in the town of Jackson early in the last year, both Whigs and Democrats united in an address to the country, giving assurance that the time had come for action.

Gentlemen of high character, of great popularity, and merited influence, headed this meeting; a convention of the state was recommended, and every indication was given to the country that, in the judgment of

these gentlemen, the time had actually come for bold and decisive action. This movement was seconded in almost every county in the state; and wherever the people assembled, delegates were appointed to a general state convention; and in every instance, so far as I am informed, these delegates were chosen from the two great political parties, one-half Whigs and the other half Democrats. The contemplated convention assembled at Jackson, in October, and recommended a convention of the Southern States, to assemble at Nashville, at some future day, to be agreed upon among the states. The Mississippi movement was responded to with great unanimity in several of our sister states-in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. There seemed to be for a time, a very general and united sentiment in favor of the proposed convention at Nashville. The scheme was not without warm and influential friends in North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. The other slaveholding states, to wit, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, gave little or no indication of a disposition to favor it. Early in the autumn of 1849 some of the first friends of the southern movement began to falter; and, as time advanced, they continued to recede from their bold stand in defence of the South. The secret influences which were at work to produce these unhappy results, will be found, I apprehend, elsewhere than in the places now pointed out. We are now told by some, that they discovered a better state of feeling at the North toward the South. Others pretend to have been convinced that the movement was premature, and calculated to embarrass the action of Congress; whilst a much more numerous, and a much more dishonest class, pretend to have discovered that this convention was to be nothing less than an assemblage of conspirators, treasonably bent on the destruction of the Union.

Whilst all this was going on, the sagacious politician and the man of thought did not fail to see the true reasons for all this infidelity to a once cherished and favorite measure. The truth was, that ambitious and aspiring politicians had discovered that the southern movement was distasteful to General Taylor, General Cass, and other distinguished gentlemen, then high in the confidence of their respective party friends. The movements in California began to develope the true policy of General Taylor, and the "Nicholson Letter" had received a new reading from General Cass. It became apparent that the South must be sacrificed, or party leaders repudiated, and party ties obliterated, and politicians had begun to take sides accordingly, when Congress assembled in December. Up to this time, however, there remained enough of southern influence to keep a powerful phalanx of southern men closely allied for common defence. The effort to organize the House of Representatives, made it manifest, that the South meant something more than an idle bravado in the course she had taken. For almost an entire month, the first successful step in the election of a Speaker had not been taken; and at last, when Mr. Cobb was chosen, it was by a plurality, and not, as usual, by a majority of the votes given. At this time, there was manifested the most determined spirit in defence of the rights of the South. Still, the close observer could not fail to see that the insidious spirit of party was busy at work.

President Taylor transmitted his annual message to Congress, and General Cass treated us to another reading of the "Nicholson Letter."