SENATE.] Negro Slavery in South America. [MARCH 2, 1826. to be treated on the footing of her other children. We a statesman. I am one of those who think that this world has been much injured by Parliamentary eloquence; by a This was a Congress-its object was the formation of a new Confederacy, and the name is endeared to every man of the good old thirteen States of America, and is deserv-measures, they every one failed; and his friend and adedly dear to them and to the shoots, the scions that have sprung from them-the other States; and what are the other States? They are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. This word Congress, sir, was deservedly dear to the American People: for out of it grew their Confederation and their Independence; and when the new Constitution was made, the framers of it were men well enough versed in human nature to know that words were things, and they called the new project the Congress of the United States of America. It is a Congress by force of the Constitution, but, to all intents and purposes, it is not a Congress according to the meaning of the word in the English language. What, then, is it? It is a convention, or legislature, like another proposed Congress for a confederacy. Suppose that, during the late war, every State in the Union had sent a deputation, as Mr. Jefferson had said-to "the Hartford Nation"-it would have been a Congress, such as we are now invited to. Suppose, now, under the Constitution, a convention, to be got up to Mr. Fox said, speaking of the history of James the Seamend the Constitution, according to its provisions in arti- cond and Charles the Second, that of all Governments in cle five, will it not be what the Constitution declares it to the world, restorations were the worst: he applied it to be a convention—a coming together of States for par- the restoration of the House of Stuart, not against the conticular purposes? Now, sir, in reference to that on which sent of the People-but by general acclamation, which my resolution bears: suppose that, during the last war, soon led to as general a vote of expulsion, of that misFrance, or any other neutral Power-France was not a guided, unteachable, bigot race. The House of Bourbon, neutral Power-any neutral Power, if such could have restored by foreign bayonets, forced upon France against been found-had sent deputies to our Congress at Hart- the wishes of a large majority of her People, was not then ford, for purposes certainly not of embarrassing, much less an example to which the illustrious historian could have reendangering, the Union, but of giving force and effect-ferred-a yet stronger proof of the truth and sagacity of such I understood to have been the avowed motive of that meeting to the war-could they have shown authority from their Governments for so doing? would they not have partaken of your belligerent nature and character? I go further, and say, that, in a Congress of States, it is a very strange sort of bargain that the Congress should be constituted by deputies from each of its States, and that we twenty-four States should be represented by deputies only from the aggregate body of States. If we are to go, let us go, the Representatives of all the States; let each of our States be represented as well as their States; and why not? This is the fact they, as a Spanish American Confederation, are one body politic; we, as a North American Confederacy, are another. Whoever heard of a Congress of Ministers from two Governments? No, sir, I should as soon expect to hear of a concert of two instruments; we might have a duet; but whoever heard of a Congress where there were only two parties? We have a treaty with Great Britain that makes special provision for an umpire to decide in certain cases of difference. Our umpire is dead-he does not sleep, he is dead-and his death will constitute to any man who can and will look before as well as after who is not engrossed with the present-and that with his own advancement-a consideration that will make him pause before he does any thing that might influence, directly or indirectly, the peace, the safety, the neutrality, of these United States, which, under the new circumstances in which the world is about to be placed, we shall find it no easy matter to preserve without any foreign entanglements. Mr. Fox was a statesman; he was not only an orator, confessedly the first debater that the world ever saw, but that wonderful man. There is, said Mr. R. another restoration of another illustrious house-I push the parallel no further-by what means it has been brought back upon us, I shall not now stop to inquire, though in my heart and conscience, I believe the sceptre having been clutched, this is the last four years of the Administration of the father, renewed in the person of the son. I am not afraid of the re-enactment of the sedition law-No, not at all. One of our diplomatists said, in Paris, I think, speaking of their Protean vexations of our commerce, that the mode only, not the measure, was changed-So it is here-For old federalism, we have ultra federalism-I do not speak in the future but in the plus quam perfectum, in the preterpluperfect tense. But, sir, I shall be told, perhaps, that there is only a nominal war between Spain and these belligerents that there is nothing else—a war of name--and that Spain is unable any longer to wag a finger-to use a familiar phrase-or any thing but her tongue in the contest.—If that be the condition of Spain, by what arguments can king-craft and priest-craft be prevailed on to renounce this nominal claim, which will, like some others, keep cold until the chapter of accidents may realize it. Did Philip the Second ever recognize the independence of the Dutch, the illustrious ancestors of my friend, [Mr. VAN BUREN] on my left, when that independence was more firmly established than his own? No, sir-Spain is made of sterner stuff. Truce after truce was patched up without any such recognition-and they were the united Provinces, and so remained till the French gave them the coup de grace by the true fraternal hug.-What, sir, was the con 125 OF DEBATES IN CONGRESS. ア this a MARCH 2, 1826.] Negro Slavery in South America. But, though that war was for a long time little else but a suspension of arms, from the inability of each to attack on the other's element-was it nominal-was it war like a peace, or even a peace like a war, as was said of Amiens?-Oh no-old England had nailed the colors to the mast; she had determined to go down rather than give up the ship-She wisely saw no safety for her in what might be called a peace; and it was a glorious determination: and it is that spirit-it is not thews, muscle-though I have the greatest respect for the authority of the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. RowAN)-it is not brawn, it is that spirit which gives life to every nation-that spirit which carries a man, however feeble, through conflicts with giants, compared to him in point of strength, honorably, triumphantly. Sir, I consider the late conflict between England and France-England against the congregated continent of Europe-to say nothing of any other make weights in the scale-confident against a world in armsas far surpassing, in sublimity of example, the tenaciousness of purpose of Rome during the second Punic war, as that surpasses any of our famous Indian wars and expeditions. It is a lesson of the constancy of the human mind, which ought never to be thrown away; and I have sometimes been inclined to believe that it has done that nation more good than-I know I make a dangerous admissionthan the debt accumulated by the war has done her harm. But when we look at her present condition under the operation of that system, I think we shall pause, as she might have done, before we take any measures that may lead to a suspension of specie payments, to the dissolution of all law, and of all morals; to that state of things which places the honest man not merely on a footing with the dishonest, but far below him. [SENATE. dition of the war between England and France a little ples of the man until you are shown the man of the prin while ago-one not having a ship at sea, except a few fri-ciples? But this and such like conceits are given over gates, which she employed in burning our ships in a and again in toasts and sentiments, until the People at last friendly way, so as to induce us to join in making a diver- come to believe that there is something in them besides a sion in aid of her crusade against Moscow-from which I clinch of words. What would be said to a proposition hope we shall take warning: for that attempt was not only just about as true and sensible as this principia non homiplausible, but promised success was quite practicable, nes, announced in these words: "Love, not women"compared with the crusade to which I have alluded-and worth just as much as your principles not men. There is England had not a man, at the time I speak of, after the another, which, taken from a different source, I shall battle of Jena, in arms on her side, on the continent of speak of as I trust I shall always feel, with reverence Europe-not one man; and there they stood, a complete-I mean faith without works, as the means of salvation. free, and faith without works, are in a certain sense, in non-conductor interposed between them, except the All these great positions, that all men are born equally United States, who received the blows of both! which they are hardly ever received by the multitude, true; but in another sense, in which they are almost invariably received by nineteen out of twenty, they are false and pernicious. I hope I am understood, sir. The principles to be sure are what make the man; but you must see the man, to be a judge of his principles; you must know the man; it is not his making a profession of faith, political or religious-you must know his conduct-thistles do not produce figs; so, sir, it is impossible that weak, wicked, or bad public councils can proceed from a man of good public principles: So is it as it regards works and faith: there is no question in the minds of nineteen out of twenty Christians, that it is the faith and not the works that they are to be indebted to-and they are in fact so far right; but then they forget that the works constitute the only competent evidence of faith; and that with a bad life there is no true faith; yet Christians go on tearing one another to pieces about these things, and yet may find, if they will but take the trouble to consider, that they have been all along beating the air and disputing about terms, except such as are strict predestinarians and such as believe in works of supererogationthat they can buy a place in heaven, and spare a little to a friend to help him in his purchase. In regard to this principle, that all are born free and equal, if there is an animal on earth to which it does not apply that is not born free, it is man-he is born in a state of the most abject want, and a state of perfect helplessness and ignorance, which is the foundation of the connubial tie. I have heard it la mented elsewhere, that the complainant was born to infancy; but that is only the common lot of all men, except employed in disputing, as Hudibras tells us they were in the first man; and I believe the schoolmen were as well But, sir, perhaps I may be told, that in case I do not his day, whether any signs of the Umbilicus were found I have heard it lamented by the same person accede to the proposition of the gentleman from South about Adam, as they have been in disputing this nice Carolina, the answer is very plain and triumphant to my distinction, without a difference in practice, of faith withresolution. That the principles of these South American out works. States are the principles that were of high authority on that he was born to indigence, but none of us bring any What nostrils) than we carry out of it-and as to ignorance, another great question-the Missouri question-are the thing more into the world (not even the breath of our principles of the declaration of Independence. more will you have, what more can you ask? What re- Locke says that we bring no innate ideas with us into the -which assume the impression, that may be given by edsource have you now left? Sir, my only objection is, world; it is true, but man is born with certain capacities that these principles, pushed to their extreme consequences that all men are born free and equal-I can ucation and circumstances; but the mathematician and never assent to, for the best of all reasons, because it is the astronomer, who of all men on earth are the most unnot true; and as I cannot agree to the intrinsic meaning safe, in affairs of government and common life-who of the word Congress, though sanctioned by the Consti- should say that all the soil in the world is equally rich, the tution of the United States, so neither can I agree to a first rate land in Kentucky and the Highlands of Scotfalsehood, and a most pernicious falsehood, even though land, because the superficial content of the acre is the I find it in the Declaration of Independence, which has same, would be just as right, as he who should maintain been set up, on the Missouri and other questions, as para- the absolute equality of man in virtue of his birth. mount to the Constitution. I say pernicious falsehood-ricketty and scrofulous little wretch that first sees the it must be, if true, self-evident: for it is incapable of de- light in a work-house, or in a brothel, and who feels the monstration; and there are thousands and tens of thous- effects of alcohol before the effects of vital air, is not ands of them that mislead the great vulgar as well as the equal in any respect to the ruddy offspring of the honest small. There are some in bald Latin, such as principia yeoman; nay, I will go further, and say that a prince, non homines-principles not men-that sounds quite an- provided he is no better born than blood royal will make tithetical and quaint, and is quite taking with some folks him, is not equal to the healthy son of a peasant. -but what are principles without men any more than men without principles and how can you tell the princi The We know that this Constitution is a Constitution of compromise, of compact, between States. It is a com SENATE.] Negro Slavery in South America. MARCH 2, 1826. pact between States, which acknowledges the rights of ever." But, said Mr. R. how is it with the professor? In the master over his negro slave, in terms to be sure, the next edition of his book, or in the refutation of his sowewhat squeamish as to words. I may be told that the adversary, all the mischief that he has done may be unword is not in the Constitution. I care not a farthing done and corrected. But when this same professor bewhether the word is in the Constitution or not; not only comes a statesman? If you want to know the effect of his the existence of negro slavery, but the slave trade itself, metaphysical madness, look to the history of the French for a limited time, was secured under the panoply of the Revolution, and the undoing of the country-look to the Constitution-and thousands were brought, under that history of such men as Condorcet and Brissot, and Miraguarantee, into the ports of Charleston and Savannah, and beau-men of good intentions, of learning, and geniussold as slaves, and their progeny will be slaves ad indefi- not that I count Mirabeau among the good men of that nitum, unless the States of Georgia and South Carolina Revolution: but Lafayette was one of them. What was shall, in their sovereign capacities, choose to decree the the consequence of this not stopping to parley with the contrary. Did South Carolina stickle for the trade in imprescriptible rights of man, in the abstract? It is that slaves, as she had a right to do, and with the aid of Con- they have now full leisure to meditate on the imprescripnecticut especially, carry her point until 1808; and were tible rights of their king in the concrete; that is the rethe Southern men so ineffably stupid as to take no secu-sult of devotedness to abstract politics of their manage rity for their slaves already here, or that might be brought ment-look at it in Hayti and every where-I would say, in ander the "first clause of the 9th section of the 1st ar- if I was not afraid of being considered as treating this ticle" of the Constitution, which was unalterable, even subject too lightly, which lies heavy on my heart-look by the mode prescribed by the Constitution in other at the famous academy of Lagado, and you will have a cases, until that time? And even if they had been so un- pretty fair specimen of a country governed by Mathemaguarded, what would the casus omissus prove but that, ticians and star-gazers, from light-houses in the sky. It is the Constitution being silent, Congress have no power mournful while it is ludicrous. I have seen men who over the subject? If these things are not recognized by could not write a book, or even make a speech-men the book, let me put a case, and it is a question for the who could not even spell this famous word Congresscourt below. Nothing too hard for them-Supposing that (they spelled it with a K) who had more practical sense an African should sue for his liberty-where? in the fed- and were more trust-worthy, as statesmen, or generals, eral court-why-is he a citizen? No-Is he an alien? than any mathematician, any naturalist, or any literati, No-Is he of a different State from his master? No under the sun. -Nothing of all this; but is it not "a case arising under the Constitution?" Will not the Supreme Court clutch it-can they refuse jurisdiction? Is there a man on that bench who for one instant-I am putting a supposititious case-a case being brought in the last resort to that tribunal-is there a judge there or any where else, who would, for one instant, listen to Counsel, who should rely upon the Declaration of Independence, or any other fanfaronade of abstractions, as paramount law-paramount to the Constitution itself. The language I have applied to it is strong, but who can be cold in such a cause? Sir, as a natural death is preferable to a death superinduced by the lavish use of chemical and mineral poisons-so, in my humble judgment, at least, a natural fool is preferable to a fool secundum artem-he is the least dangerous animal of the two-at least, not having been deeply cultivated, like other shallow soils, what little mother-wit is in him is not turned up by some new patent plow, and buried beneath the sand, never to give birth to vegetation more; whereas, the over-educated fool never dreams that, with all his learning and acquirements, he is but a greater fool than ever. We, of the cotton counIf, said Mr. R. I make use, in the heat of debate, of any try, sir, know that deep cultivation is fatal to shallow soils. improper expression, I beg pardon of the Senate. I have Some of these wise men have discovered that a whale is long thought that I could discern, even in that paper [the not a fish, but we have not, therefore, altered the phraseDeclaration of Independence] rather more of the profes-ology of the laws relating to the whale fishery, because sor of an university than the language of an old statesman; what I have discerned in other state papers I shall not now say. But I will now, with the liberty of the Senate, relieve them from my tedious talk, by reading an authority from this book [taking up a volume of Burke's works] which is pat to my purpose. It is on the subject of any man of sense suffering himself to be led away from the case before him, to travel out of the record of common sense, into the mazes of abstraction. "I never govern myself-no rational man ever did govern himself by abstractions and universals. I do not put abstract ideas wholly out of any question, because I well know that, under that name, I should dismiss principles; and that, without the guide and light of sound, well-understood principles, all reasoning in politics, as in every thing else, would be only a confused jumble of particufar facts and details, without the means of drawing out any sort of theoretical or practical conclusion. The statesman differs from the professor of an university-the latter has only the general view of society, the former, (the statesman,) has a number of circumstances to combine with those general ideas, and to take into his consideration. Circumstances are infinite, are infinitely combined -are variable and transient; he who does not take them into consideration, is not erroneous, but stark mad-dat operam ut cum ratione insaniat-he is metaphysically mad. A statesman, never losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and, judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment, he may ruin his country for one of our cognocenti has found out that a whale is no fish at all, and has not, as far as I know, told us what to call it; and the hardy seamen of Marblehead and Cape Ann, who have stood by us, and by whom I will stand, no wiser than the Congress, for all their schooling, will persist in talking of their good or bad fishing, and of their having taken so many fish. Sir, we have a military school, and we are to have a naval school-I should not like to see the experiment tried-but, sir, it would be a good subject for a bet, (not that a bet is a proper subject to be named here,) but it would be a good thing-I would take some rough Massachusetts or Nantucket, or Maine and Sagadahock, or a New Hampshire seaman-such a man as Isaac Hull, and pit him against any man coming from a naval academy. if we had an army of cadets, if they came across such a man as Jackson, or Morgan, or such self-taught men, their diagrams at West Point would stand them in little stead in time of action. We must at last come down from our stilts-we must agree to be what the fathers of the Constitution, the pater patriæ, made us to be, the good old United States, courting the arts of peace, minding our own business, and not interfering with that of others, or with alliances, holy or unholy, Greek or Barbarian; above all, not departing, under the idea of a foreign mission, of sending to England or France, or to the Congress of Verona, ministers to change our whole policy, and perhaps our very form of government-departing, fundamentally, from the principles of the Constitution. The manner in which any change is to be made in our articles of union and confederation, is already provided for in the Constitution isself-in article fifth. The Constitution has provided that, whenever these confederated States shall see cause to use them-means by which this instrument shall be changed, always saving, until 1808, the clause securing the slave trade and capitation tax from any alteration until that time. If we choose to go into common alliance with the South American States, or with the State of Hayti, or the States of Barbary-(Algiers, too, is a Republic)-we have a right to do it-the States, and the People of the States, are not in pupilage-they are sui juris-they have a right to become parties to the Holy Alliance to-morrow; but how? agreeably to the provisions of this little book, if they please-but they do not please; and, above all, they will not please-they will not please to have that change made, not according to the rules established by themselves, but by the sic volo, the sic jubeo, the stat pro ratione voluntas, of any man, however high in office, by the instrumentality, and under the color of fitting out a foreign mission for any Congress or Confederacy on the face of the earth. There is a regular Constitutional mode in which these things are properly to be done; there is a regular Constitutional mode by which, if you please, every Negro in the United States may be set free; because the Southern States have, each for herself, the right if they please; but they dont please; and they as little please to do it by a law of their own making, as to have it done by measures that tend to a fundamental change in the original compact between them as States; by going into joint stock companies with any other States whatever, except such as we may choose to create out of our own Territory-out of that which was part of the good old United States, or out of the territory which the United States have acquired by treaty with foreign Powers. [SENATE. bear that practice in town-that it cannot be safely fol- No one thinks it worth while to oppose them, for it would be labor lost-speeches are made, cheerings follow, and clapping and thundering applause-such as is seen in our theatres, and might well shake the nerves of such as are not used to it-such overweening praises are given. And these men are in the habit of imbibing so much and such refined as well as gross adulation, that they cannot live out of the atmosphere of London. The fine ladies of course have the vapors upon the abstraction of this stimu lus-this moral stimulus of the atmosphere of London is Sir, said Mr. R. if, in the course of the very tedious necessary to their existence. I can only suppose themand desultory remarks-more tedious even to me than these good men-subject to the inermities of our nature, they appear to have been to the Senate-which I have and falling under the temptation to which they are pecusubmitted, I may have let drop any unwary or unfounded liarly exposed. The theatre of their glory was the slave expression in reference to any individual, particularly any trade-now it is the abolition of slavery every where; at trans-Atlantic individual, I hope to be permitted to take every risk of consequences, to which they are stone-blind. the full benefit of all the qualifications which a man of If they would only be content to let the man alone-if they honor never fails voluntarily to give to any rash or harsh would not insist upon plastering him an inch thick with expression, dropped in heat of blood, however founded mercurial ointment, and I know not what active poisons in fact, and which he is particularly anxious always to without, and filling him to the throat with calomel and give to men who are emphatically men of peace. I must jalap, within, he will, may be, get well; or at best, he can be permitted to say, that there exists, in the nature of but die a natural death-probably an easy one. But, no man, ab oro, ab origine, of degraded and fallen man-for sir, the politico-religious Quack, like the Quack in medithe first-born was a murderer-a disposition to escape cine, and in every thing else, will hear of nothing but his from our own proper duties, to undertake the duties of nostrum-all is to be forced-nothing can be trusted to somebody or any body else. There exists a disposition, time, or to nature. The disease will run its course-it has not to do as our good old Catechism teaches us to do run its course in the Northern States; it is beginning to run to fulfil our duty in that station to which it has pleased its course in Maryland. The natural death of slavery is God to call us. No, sir; it is obsolete and worm-eaten the unprofitableness of its most expensive labor-it is also we must insist upon going to take upon ourselves the si- beginning in the meadow and grain country of Virginia--tuation and office of some one else, to which it has not among those people there-who have no staple that can pleased God to call us-of the Hindoos and the Otahei- pay for slave labor-especially amongst those who have none tan; of any body or any thing but our own proper busi- or very few slaves-these are the strenuous advocates of ness and families; and these very amiable-for such they all these principles-in Virginia-most of them of the best are these very pious men-for such I believe them to intentions-all of them mistaken. The moment the labor be-I don't mean all of that connexion-but I mean the of the slave ceases to be profitable to the master, or very men whom I particularly have named or indicated-are soon after it has reached that stage-if the slave will not led away by this self-delusion, aided by the influence of run away from the master, the master will run away from the moral atmosphere of London, which no man can the slave; and this is the history of the passage from slavebreathe with impunity-men of abstraction and visionaryry to freedom of the villainage of England. The freecharacter more especially. Let me be understood-the born Englishmen were once adscripti glebe, like the serfs physical atmosphere of London is of such a nature-the in Poland. Are not those of Russia and Poland going physical excitement is so great-the wonders, the stir, the bustle, the objects continually changing before the eyes -the pulse of life is so habitually stimulated-that the best bred physicians have agreed that the diseases which imperiously require depletion in the country, will not VOL. II-10 through this very operation at this very time, and from this very cause? And shall we be made to suffer shipwreck, we of the South I mean, in steering our bark through this Euripus, by the madness of our pilot and our own folly-steering between this Scylla and Charybdis (not SENATE.] Appropriations for the Support of Government. of the Bahama passage) but of the imprescriptible rights [ MARCH 3, 6, 1826. Mr. H. concluded by moving that the resolution be laid upon the table, which (Mr. RANDOLPH assenting) was ordered accordingly. question, or their safety endangered, that gentleman well knows, not only that we, said Mr. H. will be found acting cordially and zealously together, but that the whole South will be as one man. On this subject, however, Mr. H. said, he was at all times most reluctant to touch, and he certainly would not enter upon it on the present occasion. Nor would he at this time say a word in respect to another question to which the gentleman from Virginia had alluded, the relations which ought to exist between the new Republics and ourselves. The question now before the Senate was, whether we should postpone, for a few days, a resolution calling on the Executive for information relative to the principles and practice of these Republics. The simple and only object of the postponement was to ascertain whether the application would probably add any thing to the information we already possess on this subject. If, on further reflection and inquiry, the gentleman from Virgi I have said, sir, a great deal that I did not mean to say, nia, or any other gentleman, should have good reason to and have left unsaid a great deal that I did intend to say-believe that the Executive was in the possession of more and have said nothing as I wished to say it: this is one of information than the Senate possessed in this particular, the inseparable and insuperable difficulties of a man who he would not object to any call calculated to elicit that inspeaks without a note, as I have done, aggravated by cir- formation. But in that case he would suggest the propricumstances that I shall not intrude upon the Senate. Sir, ety of such a modification of the resolution as would point I never could speak or quarrel by the book-by the card, more specifically to its objects. The gentleman from as Touchstone tells us, was the fashion in his day. I have Virginia had, in acknowledging the friendly relations no gift at this special pleading-at the retort courteous and which existed between them, asked to be "saved from the countercheck quarrelsome, till things get to the point, his friends."-He would say to that gentleman, that while where nothing is left for it but to back out or fight. We he was proud of the relation in which he stood towards are asked, sir, by this new Executive Government of him, he trusted that on this, as on all future occasions, he ours-not in the very words, but it is a great deal like it would prove himself a friend by the part he should act toof the son of Climene-to give some token, some proof, wards that gentleman. that they possess legitimate claims to the confidence of the People-which they have modestly confessed they do not possess in the same degree as their predecessors. I will answer them in the words of the father of that son. Pignora certa petis-Do pignora certa timendo. But, s'r, the Phaeton is at the door, ambition burns to mount. Whether the Mississippi, like the Po, is to suffer a metamorphosis, not in its poplars-whether the blacks shall be turned into whites, or the whites into blacks, the slaves Mr. BELL, of New Hampshire, rose, and said, there into masters, or the masters into slaves, or the murdered were several very important subjects of an Executive and their murderers to change their color, like the mul- character before the Senate, and his impression was, that berry trees, belongs to men of greater sagacity than I am the public interest required that these subjects should to foretell. I am content to act the part of Cassandra, to have preference over the ordinary business of legislation. lift up my voice, whether it be heeded, or heard only to be He therefore moved that the Senate proceed to the condisregarded, until too late-I will cry out obsta principiis sideration of Executive business; which motion prevailed— Yes, sir, in this case, as in so many others-c'est ne que le Ayes 13, Noes 12; and the Senate remained with closed premier pas qui coute-the first step is all the difficulty-doors till past three o'clock; and then adjourned to Monday. that taken, then they may take for their motto-vestigia nulla retrorsum-there is no retreat-I tell these gentlemen there is no retreat-it is cut off-there is no retreat, even as tedious and painful as that conducted by Xenophon-There is no Anabasis forus-and if there was, where is our Xenophon? I do not feel The following amendments, proposed by the Commitlightly on this occasion-far otherwise-but the hea- tee of Finance, were agreed to, viz: seven thousand dolviest heart often vents itself in light expressions. There lars for the contingent expenses of the Senate, in addition is a mirth of sadness, as well as tears of joy. If I could to the sum heretofore appropriated; six thousand dollars talk lightly on this sad subject, I would remind gentlemen of instead of twelve, for the discharge of miscellaneous the reply given by a wiscacre, who was sent to search claims against the United States, not otherwise provided the vaults of the Parliament House at the time of the gun- for; and for compensation to Thomas H. Gillis, Chief Clerk powder plot, and who had searched and reported that he in the Office of the Fourth Auditor, (for extra services, had found fifty barrels of powder concealed under the fag-rendered between the demise of the late Auditor, and the gots and other fuel-that he had removed twenty-five, and appointment of his successor,) $950; and one or two slight hoped that the other twenty-five would do no harm. The amendments were added, on the motion of Mr. SMITH. step you are about to take is the match of that powder- Mr. COBB, of Georgia, said there was an appropriation whether it be twenty-five or fifty barrels is quite immate-made in this bill which he should wish to strike out; it was rial-it is enough to blow-not the first of the Stuarts for the salaries of the Commissioner and Arbitrators under but the last of another dynasty-sky high-sky high. the first article of the Treaty of Ghent. He should be very And the Senate then proceeded to the consideration of Executive business. FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 1826. MONDAY, MARch 6, 1826. On motion of Mr. SMITH, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill "making appropriations for the support of Government, for the year 1826." Mr. HAYNE again rose, in reply to Mr. RANDOLPH, glad if the Chairman of the Committee on Finance was and said, there certainly could be no difference of opinion able to give some information how it was that the business between that gentleman and himself, on any question of this commission was so much delayed; what is the comwhich should involve the peculiar interests of the South-mission doing, or how is it proceeding to act on the busiern States. Should any crisis unhappily arise, in which ness for which it was instituted; or is it at a stand? What the policy of that portion of the Union should be called in is the cause of this? At least, said Mr. C. let us have some |