was simply an editorial article." It was a call made in the usual way and through the usual channel, and upon consultation with the oldest, longest tried, and most substantial members of the party residing at and near the seat of government. The call embraced the whole party, without reference to past differences; and it was responded to by the party generally in Mississippi. Soon after the appearance of this call, several members of the "Compromise Convention," then at Jackson, issued a call for a "Union Democratic Convention;" thus marking, in distinct terms, their resolution not to unite with the great body of the party. It is worthy of remark in this connection, that the gentlemen calling this convention used the term "Union Democratic Convention." And it was the first time within my recollection that this term ever was used in Mississippi to designate an organized party. I had heard of "Union Whigs" and "Union Democrats," but it applied to individuals only. When the party, the organization, was spoken of, it was called the "Union party." That is my recollection.

I repeat, sir, the DEMOCRATIC convention in our state which appointed delegates to the Baltimore Convention, was called as a Democratic convention, and not as a "so-called Democratic State-Rights convention." But why should my colleague have such a horror of "State-Rights?" Is he not a State-Rights man? He may think that an oppressed state has no right but the right of submission, or revolution, and that if she judges for herself of "infractions of the compact," and of the "mode and measure of redress," the federal government may reduce her and hold her as a conquered province. This may be his notion of state rights. But I recollect that in 1841 (and I appeal to the public newspapers in Mississippi for the correctness of my recollection) the gentleman ran on the "Democratic State-Rights ticket" for attorney-general in our state. He had no horror of state rights then. In that year the term "Democratic" meant the right of the people to rule, and "State Rights" meant the right of the state to reject the payment of an unjust demand for money. Our opponents said, I know, that Democratic State Rights meant repudiation. My colleague won his first laurels in this celebrated campaign. In 1851, ten years after, he hoisted the "Democratic StateRights banner" again. Democratic meant, as in 1841, the right of the people to rule, and state rights meant the right of a state, in the language of the Kentucky resolutions, "to judge of infractions of the federal compact, and of the mode and measure of redress." But the gentleman refused to fight under this banner, and he now denounces it as emblematic of treason, civil war, bloodshed, strife, and all the horrors known to man. I hope he will not get out of temper if we tell him that some of us think differently, and that we mean to enjoy our opinions.

The gentleman says the Union Democratic Convention of Mississippi appointed "seven delegates to the Baltimore Convention." That "the Union men of the South hold the presidential election in the palms of their hands." They demand thus and so, and if the convention does. not comply with these demands, "it had better never assemble." Wake snakes and come to judgment-the times are big with the fate of nations. "The Union party of the South holds the presidency in its hands," even as the Almighty holds the universe. It stamps its foot, and the earth trembles. It speaks, and the sun stands still, as at the

bidding of Joshua. Seriously, I hope "the seven men in buckram” from Mississippi do not contemplate upsetting the universe, even if the Baltimore Convention should refuse some of their demands.

I have treated these domestic squabbles at greater length than their importance may seem to justify. I have treated them fairly, I think, and I hope in good temper. I set out with a determination not to be provoked by the ungenerous assaults of my colleague, and I have kept that resolve steadily in view. I am now done.

The controversy between my colleagues and myself has not been of my seeking. Our constituents did not send us here to fight again the campaign battles of Mississippi. And if I had been left alone to pursue the inclinations of my own mind, I never should have introduced the subject of Mississippi politics on this floor. The subject is foreign to the business of legislation on which we have been sent, and ought never to have been introduced here. But when my colleagues combined, as I thought, to make up a record prejudicial to my party-friends, prejudicial "to the truth of history," and calculated to fix on the mind of the country and of after ages, a wrong impression as to the principles, objects, ends, and aims of my friends, I should have been false to those friends, false to the truth of history, false to the reader of these debates in after times, if I had not interposed.

They have made their showing-I have made mine; and I submit the issue to the impartial arbitrament of the country and of posterity, without one shadow of doubt that justice will be awarded to us all. I ask nothing more, and will be content with nothing less.

This discussion is not suited to my taste. It obstructs the legitimate business of legislation, and encumbers the Congressional record with matter that has no business there. Its present effect must be, if it has any effect, to weaken the Democracy and give strength to the Whigs. For all these reasons, and for many others, I am most anxious to get clear of it. If the future depends on my action, there will be no recurrence to the subject, here or elsewhere.

PUBLIC PRINTING.

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 13 AND 14, 1852, ON
THE SUBJECT OF THE PUBLIC PRINTING, AND AGAINST THE ACTION

OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE IN TAKING IT FROM THE CON-
TRACTOR AND DIVIDING IT BETWEEN THE "UNION"
AND THE "REPUBLIC" NEWSPAPERS.

MR. BROWN said: I do not intend to detain the House by anything like an elaborate speech upon the subject of the public printing. In the few remarks which I propose to submit, I shall endeavor to confine myself as nearly as possible to the subjects directly before us; nor should I have asked the indulgence of the House to say a word but for the agency which I have taken heretofore in this matter. When I heard that the Committee on Public Printing had done more than, by the explanation of the honorable chairman, I am now induced to think

they intended to do, I thought they had exceeded the authority given them by law, and that they had done that which this House ought not to sanction by its silence, much less by its express assent. With the explanation which the honorable chairman has given, I am satisfied the committee have intended to confine themselves to the letter of the law; but I am just as well satisfied that their action will lead to an abuse of the law. The Committee on Public Printing have a right, according to one construction of the statute of 1846, to take so much of the public printing from the present employee as he fails or refuses to execute. Under this authority we now learn from the chairman, that they propose to take from the public printer-what? The work which he has refused or failed to execute, and this alone? No, sir; for in the progress of his remarks the honorable chairman tells you that they have in their possession now a considerable quantity of work, which has never yet been submitted to the public printer. What brought the minds of the committee to the conclusion, that the printer would either fail or refuse to execute the work, when it had never been in his hands? Was it not straining a conclusion to determine that he had failed to execute, and would not execute, work which they had never intrusted to his care, never asked him to execute? The honorable chairman of the committee says that the public printer has failed to execute some of the work heretofore intrusted to his care. But does the conclusion necessarily follow, that he will continue to fail; or that, having failed in one kind of printing, he would fail in all others?

and

Was it ever expected that the public printer could execute the printing of this House instantly upon its delivery to him? Has there been any extraordinary delay in the delivery of this work? According to my recollection, the public printing is about as forward, about as near to completion, as it usually is at this season of the year. We have the first part of the President's message, bound and laid upon our tables, one copy for each member; and what matters it whether the extra copies shall be printed this month, the next month, or three months hence? When was the last part of the President's message and accompanying documents printed during the long session of the last Congress? According to my recollection, we were getting along towards the dogdays before it was laid upon our tables. Was the then venerable and highly-respected public printer [Mr. Ritchie] hauled over the coals for a failure to perform his duty? Was Mr. Ritchie-against whom I have no word of complaint to utter here-held up to the country as a defaulter in the discharge of his duties? Ah! some gentleman answers, in a low tone, Yes. It is well the tone is low. No gentleman ought to answer yes, in a loud voice. The House knows what was the action taken upon that subject two years ago. At the close of the session of 1850, there was found to be, in one House of Congress, a large majority not only indisposed to call Mr. Ritchie to an account for any failure to comply with his contract, but actually disposed and determined to give him some sixty or seventy thousand dollars of the public money as extra compensation. Mr. Ritchie was paid every dollar that he claimed under his contract, and his friends were anxious to give him a great deal more. I never understood that he did the work any better, or any more rapidly than the contract called for; and yet there was a large party in this House ready to vote him sixty thousand dollars, or more, over and above

what the contract called for; and it was only, according to my recollection, by parliamentary manoeuvring that the thing was prevented. You had two or three committees of conference upon the subject, and the subject was pressed upon our attention as no other subject was ever pressed upon us. And let me remind certain gentlemen, who are enforcing a very rigid observance of the law against Mr. Hamilton, that the journals show them to have been more than liberal towards Mr. Ritchie. Now, sir, I desire to know why it is, in this land of laws, in this land of equality, and before this Democratic House of Representatives, this kind of distinction is made between one employee and another? I know nothing of Mr. Boyd Hamilton; I have never seen him. If I were to meet him to-day, I should not know him from any other man in Christendom. I care not one single solitary farthing about him, but I do care for justice. I will not willingly make myself a party to a transaction so unjust as this. I will not say to one man, who wields a powerful party press, We will pay you the full amount of the bond, wink at your short-comings, and pay you sixty thousand dollars extra; and then to another, who has no press, no power, no influence, We will crush you, because you have not lived up to the very letter of the law.

Mr. GORMAN. I want the gentleman distinctly to avow whether he charges that as a motive operating upon the committee?

Mr. BROWN. I disavow any personal application; but this I will say: If the House of Representatives shall perpetrate such an act of gross injustice, it will merit, and will assuredly receive, the reprobation of every just man in the nation. We hear continually that the contract system has proved a failure. I do not think so. The contract system has had no fair trial. There has been, what seemed to me, a determination from the beginning to bring this system into disrepute--never to give it fair play. Powerful parties, holding the most influential positions, have engaged in this work. The system has operated against their interest, and they have labored to break it down. Its triumph is not complete, but it has not failed. Let us see how the system has worked so far. Your first contractors were Wendell and Van Benthuysen. Did they execute their contract? I understand they did. I am forced to that conclusion because there has been no suit entered upon their bond for a failure to execute their contract. Thus far the system worked well-at least it did not fail. You received the work and paid for it; and if it was not well done, it was because you did not require it to be well done. During the last Congress, the then venerable editor of the Union (Mr. Ritchie) had the contract. Did he execute it? I understand he did. It is my understanding that he executed it to the satisfaction of the Committee on Printing, and the satisfaction of Congress. I so understand, because no suit has been instituted upon his bond for a failure to execute the contract. You again received the work and paid for it, and we shall presently see that certain gentlemen proposed to do a great deal more. Surely there could have been no failure, when you not only received the work and paid for it, but wanted to give large extra compensation. Then Mr. A. Boyd Hamilton has the contract for this session. The only specifications, according to my present recollection, which the honorable chairman makes against him is, that a portion

of the paper is some twelve pounds in the ream lighter than the contract requires. This I find Mr. Hamilton accounts for in the printed paper lying upon our tables. He says, that for a brief season during the past winter, on account of the closing of navigation, he was unable to get a better article of paper. The cold weather having suspended steamboat and railroad operations, he could not procure transportation.

Mr. STANTON, of Kentucky. I wish to make a statement, and it is this I understand from the chairman of the Senate committee, or rather the late chairman of the Senate committee, that he has rejected nearly all the work sent to the Senate by the printer, and rejected it not solely for the reason that the paper was of an inferior article, but because the whole committee concurred in the idea that a great fraud had been practised upon the government if this paper should be received as the quality of paper which he has now furnished, it being one-fifth less in value, than what he was required to furnish.

But there is another defect in the paper, to which the chairman of the House committee, and of the Senate committee, I understand, objected; and it is this: that the sheets of paper upon which the printing is done, are too small; that they have too little margin; that when the pages are folded together, and the edges clipped or cut, it leaves too little margin, and that in the books in which plates are to be placed, the plates are frequently disfigured and destroyed in consequence of the smallness of the sheets.

Nor is this all. The printing which has been sent to us, is so imperfect in consequence of defects in the manner in which the press work is done, and defects in the quality of the ink that is used, that there are not half a dozen sheets in any one book that we have examined, that are perfect. They are full from the top line to the bottom of the page, with what printers call technically "monks" and "friars," that is, here a white place, and here a black blotch. So that the work, in every view in which it can be regarded, is inferior to what was agreed for under the

contract.

Mr. FLORENCE. Did the gentleman submit any of this work to the House? I understood the chairman of the Committee on Printing [Mr. Gorman] to say that there had been no documents except the President's message and accompanying documents, given to the public printer. His complaint was, that there had been no work done; but now the gentleman from Kentucky, a member of the Committee on Printing, rises in his place, and says that these have been condemned. Where are they? Mr. POLK. I will ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania, if there are not thirty or forty executive documents that have been furnished to the printer during the last three months, and that have not been printed yet?

Mr. FLORENCE. I do not know anything at all about that, for I am not a member of the Committee on Printing. I attend to the business of the committee to which I belong, and cannot answer the gentleman's question.

Mr. POLK. Then I say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania that he ought not to talk about things he knows nothing about.

Mr. FLORENCE. I rose for the purpose of being informed; and if the gentleman had had his ears open, he would have heard my question, and would not have made the remark he did.