Robert W. Woodruff
Library
Gift of
Randall K. Burkett
EMORY UNIVERSITY
Special Collections & Archives
God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother.
THE
LIBRARY EDITION
OF THE
Hon. J. M. Ashley Soucenir.
As he Appeared in the Thirty-sixth Congress.
DUPLICATE COPY
OF THE
js°uvenir
from
The Afro-American League
OF TENNESSEE
to
HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY
OF OHIO.
" That flag means more to you and to me to-night than ever it did
before. = . . .
" It means that never again, on the land or on the sea, can it be a flag of
' stripes ' to any of God's children, however poor or however black."—p. 746.
" No more its flaming emblems wave
To bar from hope the trembling slave;
No more its radiant glories shine
To blast with woe one child of Thine."
Page 384.
Edited by BENJAMIN W. ARNETT,
One of the Bishops of the A. M. E. Church,
WILBERFORCE, OHIO.
PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE A. M. E.
631 Pine Street, Philadelphia.
1894.
CHURCH,
CONTENTS.
Page
Introduction 3
Report of Publication Committee 8
Correspondence with Afro-American League 9
Speech, at Cranesville Banquet 13
Answer at Charloeto Senator Stephen A. Douglas's Squatter Sov¬
ereignty Demagogism 22
Banner Presentation, German Township, Fulton Co 31
Address at the Wigwam in Toledo 38
First Speech in Congress 44
Second Speech in Congress 116
Letter protesting against the army being used to capture and return
fugitive slaves 165
Address at College Hall, Toledo 171
Speech for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia 213
Speech for the Organization of the Territory of Arizona 226
Letter of Congratulation on Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipa¬
tion, January 1, 1863 240
Speech at White's Hall, Toledo 248
Speech at Wood County Union Convention 257
Speech on Reconstruction 264
Speech when renominated for Congress 298
Letter to the Officers and Soldiers of the Union Army 305
Address at the Oliver House Banquet 309
Address at Napoleon, Ohio 315
History of the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery and the Thirteenth
Amendment 328
Speech on Reconstruction, with Senator Sumner's Resolutions 333
Copy of the First Reconstruction Bill 359
Speech on Reconstruction at San Francisco, Cal 370
Speech on Reconstruction at Sacramento, Cal 385
Congressional Speech on Impartial Suffrage and Reconstruction 392
Congressional Speech on Reconstruction 415
Remarks on Impeachment of the President 436
Congressional Speech on Amendment of the National Constitution— 459
Address on Renomination in 1868 505
Congressional Speech on the Amendment providing for the Modifica¬
tion of the Veto Power 519
Speech on Grant and Greeley 560
Centennial Oration 578
Page
Speech at Montpelier, 1856 601
Speech at Bowling Green, 1862 630
Speech at Gilead, 1865 634
Oration on the Death of Hon. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois 638
Oration on the Death of Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania 640
Oration on the Death ofD. R. Locke ("Nasby") 646
Oration at the Centennial of Daniel O'Connell 651
Eulogium on Daniel O'Connell 657
Letter and Rules on Co-operation and Profit-sharing 661
Address to the International Train Dispatchers' Convention 667
Address in the Congressional Campaign of 1890 675
Memorial Address at Wauseon 681
Address to Pioneers 685
Address before the Ohio Society of New "York on the Abolition of
Slavery in the District of Columbia and the Passage of the Thir¬
teenth Amendment 692
Address before Grand Army Posts in Toledo 714
Address on Lincoln before the Ohio Republican League at Toledo 747
Address before the Ohio Society of New York in favor of Nominat¬
ing and Electing the President andU. S. Senators by direct vote— 767
INTRODUCTION.
The name of Honorable James M. Ashley revives the
most exciting- events in the conflict between freedom and
slavery in the United States. It bring-s to mind that grand
uprising1 ag-ainst the extension of slavery, which opposed the
annexation of Texas, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise,
and the Missouri border ruffian raids into Kansas ; which
witnessed the capture by John Brown of Harper's Ferry, the
election of Abraham Lincoln, the war of the Union, the
assassination of Lincoln, the reactionary rebellion of Andrew
Johnson, and the battle for the enfranchisement and citizen¬
ship of the negro. In every phase of that conflict James M.
Ashley bore a conspicuous and honorable part. He was
among- the foremost of that brilliant g-alaxy of statesmen
who reconstructed the Union on a basis of liberty. He was,
so to speak, ever far out on the skirmish line, in the most ex¬
posed position. He was the subject of the most violent
attacks, and, thoug-h he went down in the contest, the cause
which he championed was larg-ely indebted for its triumph
to his courage and advocacy upon the floor of the House of
Representatives. His eloquence and power in debate were
clearly recognized and appreciated by his party, and he was,
therefore, often put forward to do a work which many of his
comrades felt reluctant to undertake.
With many others (the present writer included), Mr.
Ashley plead the cause of the slave with poetic fervor. His
speeches on the slavery question were enriched by splendid
quotations from Whittier's burning- verse.
In this he showed his appreciation of the profound in-
• sig-ht and sublime ethical conscience by which that humane
(3)
— 4 —
poet was guided in all he had to say-on this question, and in¬
deed on all others where human rights were concerned.
Honorable James M. Ashley early caught the living*
faith and prophetic spirit of Whittier. He felt and fully
understood the flagrant sin of slavery. This will appear
vividly to all who shall read the addresses and orations which
have been compiled by his negro friends and published in this
volume. It was given to Mr. Ashley prior to and after the
outbreak of the war of the rebellion, to point out the line of
policy to be pursued in forum and field, for the salvation of
the nation.
Conversant as I am with our anti-slavery literature for
over half a century, and with the speeches and orations of
our ablest anti-slavery leaders, I am warranted in saying
that, among them all, there are few, if any, more worthy of
preservation than are the prophetic speeches and orations
contained in this book.
Remembering that truth is many-sided, and that few
men, even with the best intentions, are able to see it except
from its single or narrow side, the abundant charity to be
found in Mr. Ashley's speeches becomes the more marked, and
attests the nobility of the man.
To Mr. Ashley, as to few other great legislators', it was
given to grasp with a firm understanding the problems in¬
volved in our great battle with slavey and in the reconstruc¬
tion of the government after the war. Like Sumner, Wilson,
Wade, and Thaddeus Stevens, he saw the necessit}T of arm¬
ing the negro with the panopty of the elective franchise.
He was foremost in the debate for this great measure, and
did not hesitate to risk the success of his own election, by
the prominent part he took in face of formidable opposition.
Nor was this opposition confined to the members of the oppo¬
site party. There were timid Republicans in those days, as
there have been since, and this timidity was shared bA~ his
State and the people of his district, as well as by mem¬
bers of Congress, and it is no marvel that his prominence in
furtherance of this measure of enfranchisement, caused his
defeat.
With the aid of the Tribune Almanac, I am able to give ■
the facts and figures in this case.
In 1867 Ohio astonished the country by voting" against
the granting of the ballot to her own colored citizens. No
wonder, then, that Mr. Ashley, who.championed the cause of
enfranchisement, incurred the concentrated enmity of all
those who hated the negro, and by their votes refused him
the right of the ballot.
The vote of Ohio, in 1867, stood 255,344 against grant¬
ing the ballot to the negro, and 216,987 in its favor.
The majority against the measure, on the vote actually
cast for and against, was 38,353. The number of those not
voting on the question was 12,276.
As the Constitution of the State of Ohio requires an
affirmative majority of all the votes cast at such an election,
the proposition to adopt this measure was defeated by a ma¬
jority of 50,629. At all elections for amending the Constitu¬
tion of that State, each blank ballot cast is counted against
the proposed amendment.
In Mr. Ashley's own district, of the votes cast for and
against giving the negro the ballot, a majority of 965 was
against it, and 1,057 electors voted blank; so that in his dis¬
trict, the constitutional majority against the amendment was
2,022. At the State election, on the same day, the Republi¬
can party elected Rutherford B. Hayes governor, by the
slender majority of 2,883, and the Republican State ticket
had, in Mr. Ashley's own district, a majority of 975.
These figures disclose the fact that there was a formi¬
dable faction in the Republican party in Ohio, and also in
Mr. Ashley's district, against granting the ballot to the
negro.
Notwithstanding this astonishing vote, Mr. Ashley
steadily battled in Congress and on the stump, as his speeches
in this volume testify, for granting the ballot to the negro,
and by an amendment to our national Constitution, as the
records of Congress show, he materially aided in securing in
all the States and Territories of the republic, the right of
the negro to vote, and because of his fidelity to the cause of
the negro, a fidelity maintained in despite of violent opposi¬
tion, the negroes of Tennessee have prepared this " sou¬
venir " volume, and have requested me to write this introduc"
tion to it.
— 6 —
A number of Mr. Ashlej^'s congressional speeches and
platform addresses in favor of negro suffrage, notably the
one delivered in 1865, in San Francisco, California, will be
found in this volume and read with interest. For ability
and broad statesmanship these speeches impress me as being",
beyond question, the master effort of his public life.
I do not believe that any intelligent man who reads
these speeches can point to one important proposition intro¬
duced or advocated by Mr. Ashley, in Congress or on the
stump, whether by bill or resolution, which is fundamen¬
tally wrong either in morals or politics; and if he cannot,
then all men must conclude that they are fundamentally
right.
Mr. Ashley's patriotic Centennial oration in 1876; his
splendid orations on O'Connell (the early and steadfast
friend of the negro) ; his touching and tender testimony at
the grave of his friend, David R. Locke ("Nasby"); his
address on Lincoln; his speech on Memorial Day at Yv auseon;
his noble tribute to Columbus, in his address to the early
pioneers; and especially the grand speech made by him at
Montpelier in 1856-—all stamp him as a remarkable platform
orator. But of higher significance is the fact, that in all of
his speeches, he puts the rights of humanity above every
other right and, as inseparably connected with the rights of
all races of men, he includes the rights of labor, and claims
that humanity and labor have rights which are above and
superior to the material interests of capital or governments!
Above tariffs and commerce, above financial interests
and so-called vested rights, he places the rights of man!
He makes his plea for the protection of the weak against
the combinations of capital, and with eloquence and power
lie denounces the spirit of caste and all special legislation for
the benefit of any one class at the expense of labor and the
rights of humanity. His address to the Train Dispatchers'
Association of America is a generous appeal for the rights of
labor, and his plea for the org-anization of all labor is
worthy of careful study and of adoption by all prudent and
thoughtful laboring men.
Conspicuous in the character and in the public life of
Mr. Ashley was his moral courage. He never lacked the
— 7 —
courage of his convictions. "What he believed, that he spoke
and acted. Words were never allowed by him to conceal his
thoughts and it was never his misfortune to be misunderstood.
In the language of Abraham Lincoln, "He followed the
right as God gave him the ability to see the right." Neither
ridicule nor denunciation, though both were employed against
him, could swerve him from his course.
He showed this quality in a remarkable degree while
dealing with Andrew Johnson, who, when President, under¬
took to array the executive against the leigslative department
of the government and to substitute his own will for the
policy of Congress. Johnson was no man with whom to
trifle. There was in him much more of the lion than of the
lamb. When his will was crossed he did not hesitate to use
the whole power of the presidential office to punish offenders.
He had little regard to consequences. His battle with Con¬
gress concerning reconstruction, was bold, fierce and bitter,
and was even a menace to the peace of the country.
It became necessary for Congress to assert its power and
curb this lion, and Mr. Ashley, as one of its members, dared
to lead Congress in this perilous duty. There is no power in
the American government, the employment of which is more
dangerous than is that of the power of impeachment. It is
emphatically a last resort, and when it is used by one party
against another, the whole fabric of government is imper¬
iled. And yet there are times when its employment is
essential to the salvation of government.
Such a crisis was precipitated by Andrew Johnson, and
though he escaped impeachment, the threat of this chastise¬
ment proved highly beneficial. I think in connection with
this controversy that Mr. Ashley rendered, in the part he
took, one of his best services to liberty and to the republic,
yet it has happened to him, as it has happened to many other
good men, to have his best work in the world least appre¬
ciated and commended by the world.
It is not necessary here to dwell upon the part which
Mr. Ashley has taken in the great conflict with wrong.
His speeches contained in this volume are his best com¬
mendation, and I leave them to speak for themselves.
Frederick Douglass.
Hon. Wm. Henderson Young,
President Afro-American League of Tennessee.
Dear Sir : The undersigned, on behalf of the Publication
Committee, beg- leave to report that they have carefully com¬
piled and caused to be published, the great anti-slavery
speeches, orations and papers of public interest contained in
this book.
We did this in pursuance of the plan adopted by the
committee having in charge the preparation and publication
of the "Souvenir," which the officers of the Afro-American
League of Tennessee directed to be prepared and presented
to Hon. James M. Ashley, of Ohio.
In discharging that agreeable duty, we have taken special
care to collect such matter as we believed to be of historic
interest to the public and especially to our race.
Our work has been a labor of love, and is herewith re¬
spectfully submitted.
names of committee.
Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett, Chairman, Wilberforce, O.
Bishop Benjamin F. Lee, Waco, Texas.
Rev. Charles S. Smith, Nashville, Tenn.
Pres't I. T. Montgomery, Grand Bayou, Miss.
Bishop W. J. Gaines, Atlanta, Ga.
Rev. J. C. Embry, Philadelphia, Pa.
Rev. A. H. Ross, Cynthiana, Ky.
Prof. B. W. Arnett, Jr., Little Rock, Ark.
'S'TA
P i d»SH
fiOH-fRED£RtCKDoUQLfiSS. kli.D,
ftgfega
i**™' m*i
Nashville, Tenn., March 8, 1892.
Hon. James M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio.
Dear Sir : The American negro has, time and again,
been charged with ingratitude toward his public benefactors
and an incapacity to appreciate the public acts of the states¬
men whose life-work has been directed toward securing him
the full enjoyment of American citizenship.
In view of these facts, and in view of the further fact
that your life has been an incessant warfare against the
invidious distinctions which have been embodied in the cus¬
toms and fundamental law of the American people ; but
which, happily for all, have been expunged from the or¬
ganic law of the land by the enactment of the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States : we,
the undersigned citizens and members of the Afro-American
League of Middle Tennessee, have determined, on behalf
of the Afro-American League of this country, to present
to you some kind of testimonial, in recognition of your
distinguished services to the cause of liberty, in the dark
days of slavery and reconstruction.
To the end that the passing generation may take new
hope for its progeny, in having recounted to it the triumphs
which your unselfish devotion in behalf of human liberty
aided in accomplishing; and that future generations may
have in their homes and schools a perennial fountain of
inspiration; and that other men with noble aspirations
may be encouraged to urge on "the harvest of the golden
year, when all men's good shall be each man's rule," we ask
that you grant us the privilege of publishing, in book form
of convenient size, the prophetic and now historic speeches
made by you in the Congress of the United States against
the crime of slavery, and to include with said speeches such
(9)
-10)-
of your orations and public addresses and articles from your
pen, of historic interest to us and to all lovers of human liberty.
We desire to present to you, your family and friends, a book
which shall be an acceptable and historic souvenir.
If our plan shall meet your approval, you will do us a
great favor if you and your friends will place at our com¬
mand such papers, orations and public addresses as may
have been preserved, which are not to be found in public
libraries, as their possession will materially facilitate our
work.
With great respect we await your early reply.
Wm. Henderson Young,
President.
Wm. A. Crosthwait,
Secretary.
S. A. McElwel.
J. H. Keeble.
M. Yann.
Felix Paskett.
L. Mason.
H. S. Howell.
M. Hopkins.
L. W. Crosthwait.
H. W. White.
J. N. Bryant.
D. N. Crosthwait.
We approve and endorse the above
T. Thomas Fortune,
Prest. National League.
W. H. Anderson,
Secretary.
Toledo, Ohio, March 19, 1892.
Gentlemen ' Your esteemed favor of the 8th inst. is
before me. I would not disguise the fact that your com¬
munication stirs my heart with pleasurable emotions. In¬
deed it is a source of unalloyed satisfaction to me to know
that the officers and members of the "Afro-American
League" of Tennessee remember me and my work in be¬
half of their race, at a time when they were held in cruel
bondage and could neither speak nor act as they can now, and
that they voluntarily propose to honor me in the manner in¬
dicated.
When the liberation of every slave beneath our flag was
officially decreed by Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proc¬
lamation, it became our bounden duty as a nation to confirm
and make perpetual that act of liberation, so that in the land
of Washington a slave would be as impossible as a king.
In common with many others I did no more than my
duty in that great historic battle. But I do not attempt to
conceal from any one that I am proud of my anti-slavery
record, and grateful for the evidence which your letter gives
me, of its recognition by the colored citizens of Tennessee.
If you compile, as proposed, from official or authenticated
sources, any utterances of mine, touching the enslavement of
men, I am confident that from whatever page you may
select, you will not find a word, act, or vote of mine, which
either you or any of my friends could wish to change or blot.
In consenting to your request, I am not without hope
that I may thus contribute, as you suggest, some word or
thought that may aid in the advancement of your race.
I regret, however, that I can supply you with but little
matter of personal or historic interest outside of the public
records. My library, and all my valuable official and private
papers, were destroyed some years ago bv fire, so that I
(11)
-12 —
cannot furnish, you with papers which, were to me personally
of great historic interest. But such addresses and papers as
I have been able to collect from friends, tog-ether with a halt
dozen or more public addresses made since I was in Congress,
I shall be ready to place in your hands whenever you or youi
authorized ag-ent may call for them.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully yours,
James M. Ashley.
To
Wm. Henderson Young, Esq.,
President.
"Wm. A. Crosthwait, Esq.,
Secretary.
and others,
Nashville, Tennessee.
Letter from Rev. J. C. Price, President of Livingston College, Salis¬
bury, N. C.
Wm. A. Crosthwait, Esq.
Dear Sir : Your letter and circular are received. I read with
interest and pleasure the pamphlets of the Hon. James M. Ashley*
•which you so kindly sent me. I heartily endorse the movement
that has in view a " testimonial" in recognition of Mr. Ashley's dis¬
tinguished services in the interest of human liberty and of the
equality of all men before the law. It seems to me not only a patri¬
otic but a grateful endeavor as well.
I am yours sincerely, J. C. Price.
ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT CRANES VILLE, OHIO,
JANUARY 27th, 1859.
enthusiastic meeting of the people of paueding and
deeian.ce counties.
On Friday of last week, says the Paulding- Eagle, Hon.
J. M. Ashley visited Cranesville, in this county, and stopped
with General Curtis. The citizens of Crane and Mark town¬
ships, Defiance county, turned out en masse to welcome him.
They came up feeling- they were to see a man who would
maintain their rig-hts and endeavor to redress their wrong-s.
General Curtis had prepared an excellent dinner, after partak¬
ing- of which, Esquire Hutchinson of Mark township was
called to the chair, and Lewis S. Gordon appointed secretary,
when the following- toast was read:
" Our Congressman-eeect—Gen. J. M. Ashley, of
Lucas,—entitled to our confidence by his services in defense of
our cause when there appeared no hope of success ; we wel¬
come him with pride as our guest, and pledg-e him that the
citizens of Paulding- county, who were first to invite him to
abetter from Hon. James Hill, Postmaster, Vicksburgr, Miss.
The first three addresses which appear in this book were deliv¬
ered, as the reader will observe, after Mr. Ashley's first election, and
prior to taking his seat in Congress, and two years before President
Lincoln's first election. Mr. Ashley was then a young1 man, and
had never been in public life. When the time and circumstances are
remembered under which these addresses were delivered, it will be
fi conceded that they are remarkable, as well for their patriotic
thought as for their breadth and depth, and for the clearness and
james hill, hopefulness of their prophecy. The address at Archibald is a plat¬
form in itself, and will stand for all time as an epitome of republican principles. The
address at Cliarloe is a masterly answer to the pro-slavery sophistry of Stephen A.
Doug-las, as delivered in a speech at Memphis, Tennessee, December 1, 1858. In this ad¬
dress Mr. Ashley put Doug-las's own words in the mouth of the Emperor of China
with a force and truthfulness that could not be successfully answered then, nor now.
James Hill.
(13)
— 14 —
the leadership, will be the last to desert him while he is faith¬
ful in the maintenance of the Union, and true to the princi¬
ples of freedom. Again we say, we welcome him here."
After which General Ashley made the following- address :
I will be more than compensated, Mr. President, for all my
past labors in the ranks of the Republican party, if, while
representing this district at Washington, I shall be able to re¬
tain the good opinion and unwavering friendship heretofore
shown me by the people of Paulding county. And if I am ever
false to principle, unfaithful to duty, or should cease to defend
and maintain a reverential regard for the union of these States,
may you forget the past and condemn me as an unworthy
and unprofitable servant.
I come to participate with you, ladies and gentlemen, in a
social gathering, and not to make a speech, but in person to
thank most cordially my fellow-citizens of this county for the
support given me at the recent election. I am indeed greatly
indebted to the true democracy of little Paulding* for the
past and present manifestations of their regard and confi¬
dence.
Over five years ago, and when comparatively a stranger
in the district, it was you who first united in requesting me
to become your standard-bearer ; you who first publicly ex¬
pressed sympathy with me in the efforts I (in common with,
others) was making to organize, without regard to past
party associations, the friends of freedom in this State and
district into a new and honest democratic party, representing
the principles of Washington and Jefferson. From that hour
to this, your friendship has been uniform and }*our support
most cordial, not only in conventions, but, when opportunity
offered, at the ballot-box. For this generous confidence I
feel deeply grateful, and hope so to discharge the duties of
the position }tou have aided in assigning me as to merit
its continuation.
The Democratic-Republican party of Ohio and in this
district have achieved a glorious triumph over the allies of
the slave barons. This triumph may rightfully be called a
triumph of truth over error, of right over wrong, of liberty
and political independence over despotism, and centralized
government, in the hands of the President ; a triumph of the
—15 —
friends of the Union over disunionists and political tricksters;
of the constitution as interpreted by our fathers, over the
sectional interpretation of the slave democracy and the Su¬
preme Court. It is indeed a glorious triumph, and one well
worthy of our congratulations. But let us remember that this
triumph, although achieved by our union and energy, and the
power of our principles, was not achieved alone for our benefit
as a party, nor for any one of us as individuals, but that it was
achieved for the benefit of the whole people against corrupt
presidential combinations and party despotism.
As citizens we are divided in political opinions, and must
of necessity act within different political organizations, and I
am pleased to learn that some of our friends who differ from us
are present this afternoon; it is proper that it should be so.
Jefferson said when speaking of the people, "We are all
Republicans and all Federalists," and so we are to-day, all citi¬
zens of the same country, having common hopes and a com¬
mon destin}^. If the constitution confers any blessing upon
us, it must, if the government be rightly administered, confer
its blessings upon all. If the constitution be violated and the
Union dissolved (which God forbid), a common ruin will come
alike upon the whole people, regardless of men or party. If,
however, the government be honestly administered under the
constitution as its framers administered it, and the sover¬
eignty of the people and the rights of the States be re¬
spected, this Union which, under the blessing of heaven, has
come down to us, will continue forever, and a Republic and
the Union of these States be one and inseparable. But let the
true principles which are the foundation of our government,
the sovereignty of the people, and the right of the States, be
violated, and presidential, senatorial or judicial usurpa¬
tion continue as it has begun, and there is no guarantee for
either a continuance of the Union or a Republic. To preserve
inviolate the constitution and the Union, to roll back the dark
tide of sectionalism and fanaticism which is insidiously ap¬
proaching us in the shape of a formidable political party or¬
ganized under the lead of a privileged class, and bearing the
sacred name of Democrat, is the purpose and mission of the
Republican party.
— 16 —
This wt cannot accomplish, at once, nor without great
labor and a union of the friends of freedom, but we can and
shall accomplish it, if we are true to the principles and doc¬
trines of the fathers of the revolution, as I believe we shall be.
If I thoug-ht it possible to fail, I should have no faith in the
success of any just appeals to the people. But we shall not
fail. I believe the rig-ht will }'et triumph, and that the in¬
herent power of our principles will make us invincible. Let
us then rally around our banner, the banner of "liberty
and union," bowing- to no presidential dictations or judicial
usurpations, acknowledging- no hig-her earthly power than the
constitution of our country, and the individual responsibility
and sovereignty of the citizens, and a triumph, a giorious tri¬
umph, awaits us. Yes, the future, the g-olden future, prom¬
ises to us the realization of all our hopes, the inauguration of
a true democracy in the land of Washing-ton, and the admin¬
istration of our national g-overnment as it was administered
by our fathers, so that in every State and in every Territory
in all our broad Union, there shall eventually come an end to
oppression and to slavery. Let us keep this faith or none.
If as a people we so act as to deserve this deliverance, we
shall g-et it, never doubt it. Since the organization of the
Republican party, I have contemplated with rapture, not only
this triumph, but the inauguration of the day long- looked
for which shall surely come, when not only in America and
in Europe, but in every land beneath the sun, despotism shall
cease, aristocracies and special privileges have an end, and
the people of every race and religion be fully and freely en¬
franchised. This faith grows strong-er with every contest,
and thougii our principles -and most g-enerous aspirations for
humanit}- have been ever}Twhere condemned and disparaged
with unbecoming- mendacit}T by our opponents, we must not be
deterred from the faithful defense of these principles, but re¬
member that as citizens, we have a hig-her duty to perform than
blind obedience to the behests of any party, and that these
malig-nant assaults have ever been the favorite weapons of the
enemies of rig-ht. During- the last canvass I was person¬
ally assailed by the opposition, with a rudeness and bitterness
which told too plainly the desperation of their cause in this
locality and the unsavory character of the men who are its
—17 —
recognized leaders. It is a source of much satisfaction to me
now, as I trust it is to jou and all my friends, to know that
in my late canvass I nowhere descended to personalities,
or appeals to the baser passions of men, or to the use of an
argument or remark that would not have been entirely in place
and proper in any legislative body.
I felt myself highly honored in being commissioned by you
to stand up and defend the principles of Jeffersonian democracy
when most bitterly assailed and insulted by its professed
friends. The strength and confidence which I felt in defend¬
ing them arose from no over-estimate of my own abilities, but
from a simple reliance upon the power of truth. Yes, upon
the rock of truth we rest our cause, and we have the promise
that neither adverse winds nor waves shall prevail against
it. "When truth was born angels rejoiced. God in his love
sent it down from heaven to earth for the guidance of man.
It is a principle that will never die ; humanity cannot meas¬
ure its omnipotent strength. It has often been crushed to
earth, but survives to-day in all its original power, and will
live to witness the death of all its foes. Neither earthly wis¬
dom nor worldly policy can stay its advance or prevent its
final triumph.
In the mighty political conflict which is approaching be¬
tween freedom and despotism in this country, it will gain a
victory such as has not been recorded since the organization
of governments by man, because it will be a victory for uni¬
versal liberty, encircled in a halo of righteousness and peace.
It may not be achieved this year or next, but it will come ; be
not deceived, it will surely come ; no earthly power can stay it.
That this great party of freedom to which we belong will
prove the salvation of our country, I firmly believe. Let us
see to it, then, that none but good and true men are chosen
by us as leaders, and that we preserve the organization free
from the corrupting influences of compromises.
You have all read of the numerous schemes proposed by
as many different political tricksters, all tending to a total
abandonment of the Republican organization as a distinct
national party. It was attempted b}T a large number of these
disorganizers during the late contest in Illinois, where they
made an effort to drive the Republican party in that State into
— 18 —
the support of Mr. Douglas. I know this to be true, for after
our election in this State I went to Illinois and labored until
the election for the success of the Republican cause. There
I learned to my surpiise that there were men here in Ohio, and
all over the Union, editors, leading- politicians, and members
of Congress, who, having- been entrusted by a Republican con¬
stituency, betrayed that trust far enoug-h to unite (some
openly and many secretly) in counseling- and urging- so
shameful an abandonment of our principles and organization
as the election of Mr. Douglas as senator, for the alleged
purpose of obtaining a temporary triumph over Mr. Buchanan.
Could the madness of folly have exceeded this ?
By this means Abraham Iyincoln, one of our best and truest
men, was defeated in Illinois, although we have a Republi¬
can majority in that State, and Mr. Douglas is again returned
to the Senate of the United States for six years. This may be
particularly gratifying to that class of professed Republicans
who aided in bringing about such a state of things, but it ap¬
pears to me one of the greatest misfortunes that ever befell a
free people.
Mr. Buchanan and his administration had been passed
upon and condemned ; he had no longer any power for evil;
he is a stench in the nostrils of all honest people, and in two
years more the country will be rid of him, and I trust of the
party which elected him, but Mr. Douglas is fastened upon
the country for six years, which probably could not have been
done but for the powerful outside influence to which I have
alluded. Suppose he does antagonize Mr. Buchanan's admin¬
istration, which I do not believe he will, on any material
issue, he will do it, if at all, only far enough, on the slavery
question, to deceive and mislead the Northern people, while
secretly he will be in league with every Southern scheme for
the propagation of slavery, as he openly declares that he
" does not care whether slavery is voted up or voted down."
These schemes for the disintegration of the Republican
party originated either with vain, weak, and ambitious men, ■
who hoped in the general disorganization thus effected to
rise to the surface and become leaders, or else with cun¬
ning and designing- traitors in our own ranks. It matters not,
however, from whom these overtures for a surrender come;
—19 —
if from those who have been entrusted with our confidence,
thej are spies in our camp and must be shot down. If from
those who were our most bitter revilers, and caused our defeat
in 1856, or those who profess to be in our ranks and entertain
propositions for a surrender,' they are unworthy of our confi¬
dence another hour. I trust that all these men may be ferreted
out, in every State, and the people demand a surrender of the
trust committed to them, no matter how hig-h the station, be¬
cause of their conspiracy, for the betrayal of a cause entrusted
to them to defend. Let us set our faces as flint ag-ainst
such men and such schemes. We in Ohio, who left the
old dominant party, having- possession of all the depart¬
ments of the National and State Government, did so be-
;ause of the departure of that party from every principle of
democracy ; and whenever the alternative is presented again to
the same democratic element in the Republican party, to aban¬
don the principles which it cherished, and held, when in the
Did organization, to be paramount to all others, it will reso¬
lutely adhere to and defend them ag-ainst any and every
scheme for their abandonment. Did you, my fellow-citizens,
who were nearly all members of the old Democratic party in
this county, leave that org-anization in mass, as you did, and
aid in the formation of the Republican party merely for the
sake of chang-e ? [No, No.] Or was it because you deter¬
mined to follow principles in preference to leaders? ["To
follow principles." ]
I knew you would thus respond. I may say further that
the men who could thus leave a dominant party for a princi¬
ple and join a party weak in numbers, strug-g-ling- ag-ainst a
party having- in its hands all the patronag-e of the National
Government, and the prestig-e of many victories, may be re¬
lied upon to withstand the blandishments of power, and to pre¬
fer defeat to the humiliation of a triumph secured by a
surrender of their cherished principles. To all true men one
such victory would be a greater humiliation than a score of de¬
feats. The live men in the Republican party, "The Old
Liberty Guard," who have given it its life and vitality, have
foug-ht too many battles, when their numbers were compara¬
tively insig-nificant and when there was no hope of success, to
think of abandoning- the Republican org-anization, now that
— 20 —
thousands of new recruits are daily joining- the army of free¬
dom and victory everywhere throughout the Free States
has crowned our appeals to the judgments and hearts of
the people.
The banner of liberty can wave gallantly only over well-
contested fields, where brave, earnest men, armed with the
panoply of truth, are battling- against slavery and its allies
for the liberty of the human race.
Then let us rally 'round our banner,
For none can better be ;
Shout out the good old watchword,
Death or victory.
Blow the blasts upon your bugles,
Call the battle roll anew,
If months had well nigh won the field,
What may not four years do ? "
You, my fellow-citizens, have aided most materially in
commissioning me to represent the principles of the Republi¬
can party in the councils of the nation, and to defend, so far as
the vote and watchfulness of a representative can, }Tour inter¬
ests and that of free labor everywhere, against the sectional
fanaticism and combined forces of the slave barons. I shall
go to the scene of my labors with a distrust in my own abili¬
ties, and a consciousness of the want of experience indispen¬
sable to success in legislative assemblies, but faith in the justice
of our cause, and the immutability of our principles, shall be
my shield of protection and defense. With them for my guide,
I have no fears but that the inexperience of the most unskil¬
ful may become formidable, and their humblest defender be
able to withstand the attacks of the strongest. But how¬
ever true our principles and certain of ultimate success, a repre¬
sentative needs and must have the cordial cooperation and sup¬
port of his constituents, or his efforts, be they ever so able and
well-directed, will be in a great degree powerless. That I shall
have this support from Paulding county, }Tour past and present
expressions of esteem and regard warrant me in believing.
In conclusion, let me say that this social gathering is most
agreeable and pleasant, and that I am amply repaid for the un-
— 21 —
avoidable disappointment we had on the 5th of October last.
Had it not been for that disappointment, this gathering
would not have been held, the meeting being intended, as I
understand by General Curtis and my friends here, to com¬
pensate, in part, for that disappointment.
May we all live to witness many such reunions, and may
each returning occasion of the kind find the cause of our re¬
joicing as ample as this afternoon, and the citizens of little
Paulding as true to freedom, as faithful to the principles of
right in any contest through which we may be called to pass,
as the gallant patriot and hero of the Revolution in honor of
whom your county was named.
ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT CHARLOE, OHIO.
On Monday, January 31, 1859, Hon, J. M. Ashley, of
Toledo, visited Paulding- county, and presented the Republi¬
cans of Brown township with a fine flag", it being" the
banner township of this county.
Earl}r on Monday morning" the people of Brown town¬
ship, and from other portions of the county, began to gather
at Charloe. They came with music—rich, soft and sweet—
and an enthusiasm which far exceeded our expectations, and
which told that the feeling in Paulding" is not of a spasmodic
nature.
At eleven o'clock Hon. Mr. Ashley presented to the Re¬
publicans of Brown the flag, in an appropriate speech setting"
forth the object of the gift, and requesting that they should
g"ive the flag to that township which shall hereafter give
the greatest increased Republican vote over that of last fall.
J. W. Ayres, on behalf of the citizens of Brown, made
some remarks which we were not able to report, after which
a, procession was formed, and the throng" marched to the
court-house, where Judge Shirley was called to the chair,
and after calling the house to order, J. O. Shannon read the
following sentiment:
" Gen. Ashley, op Toledo—Our Congressman-elect—
"We bid him welcome to the homes and hearts of the Republi¬
cans of Paulding. May his future efforts, in the councils of
the nation, be as successful and as worthy of our hearty ap¬
proval, as his past labors in defense of true democracy—ever
battling against that kind of popular sovereignty, that would
allow the majority to enslave the minority, because they were
weak and defenseless, so that when he returns to his home
we may say to him 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'"
(22)
— 23 —
The chairman then introduced Mr. Ashley, who made the
following- address :
Mr. President : I thank you, most heartily do I thank
you, for your words of encouragement and confidence, and I
trust that my acts and votes in the new and untried field of
labor, to which you have commissioned me, will be such that
on my return home I may find, to some extent at least, to have
justified your expectations. I can hardly hope, however,
with my inexperience, to be entitled to the full commenda¬
tion of the sentiments just read.
I need not say, ladies and gentlemen, that it affords me
much pleasure to meet and participate with you in the fes¬
tivities of this afternoon ; my presence at this season of the
year is a guarantee for that. When I was here in August
last and addressed you, you promised me that Brown town¬
ship would give the largest increased Republican vote of any
township in the county of Paulding, and you have nobly re¬
deemed that promise. For the support you then gave me,
and the compliment of this afternoon's entertainment, I am
deeply grateful, and shall spare no effort to earn a continu¬
ance of your confidence.
I indeed hardty know what to say, or how to say what I
would, in return for the many acts of personal regard you
have shown me.
I am a poor hand to make such a speech as is gen¬
erally expected on occasions of this kind, and as I have al¬
ready spoken before a meeting similar to this at Gen. Cur-
tis's, where some of you were present, I will now only
detain you long enough to refer briefly to such matters as
suggest themselves to me on the spur of the moment.
The Republican party, my fellow-citizens, in the late
contest in this district and State, and indeed all over the
Union, has given evidence of its life and vitality, and the
power of -its principles. The basis of its faith is the rights
of man. An investigation by the people of our claims to
their support is all we ask.
We need no tricker}', fraud, or falsehoods to commend
the doctrines of the Republican party to the enlightened un¬
derstanding of every independent citizen, and when once our
principles are clearly understood we shall be invincible. Let
— 24 —
none be discouraged or Aveary in well-doing*. Let all remem¬
ber that liberty is the birthright of the human race, that no
consistent believer in that greatest and best charter of human
freedom can do otherwise than acknowledge the justice oi
that principle which recognizes the natural right of every
human being, and claims that they are entitled to the pro¬
tection of life and liberty, by every law of man's enactment.
The Creator made all men of every race and country free,
and
" On this round earth, which God to Adam gave
For freedom, there breathes no fettered slave
That does not hope and long and pray to see
And taste the fruit that grows on freedom's tree."
And while this is true, I cannot believe that the Creator
intended to leave man to struggle on forever without attain¬
ing that freedom. He destines a calmer and brighter future
for the struggling millions of earth.
Conceived in the bosom of Everlasting Love, this princi¬
ple, "that God is no respecter of persons," was sent down to
us and authoritatively proclaimed to the world by the great
apostle of the new covenant, more than 1800 }7ears ago.
Neither you nor I can fix the day when this just principle
will become a law universally received by man ; but it will.
I have an abiding faith in its ultimate fulfilment, and shall
not cease to believe it because I cannot point to the hour
when the final triumph shall be witnessed. It is enough for
us to know our duty as men and to act it; to know that the
right will triumph, that truth cannot fail; that amid all the
sophistry of demagogues, of compromises with wrong and
popular sovereignty deceptions, there will come an hour, with
every man, when his conscience will refuse to submit to the
doctrines and commands of any party which tramples upon
the rights of man. Because the Democracy disregards the
natural rights of man we oppose it, and cannot assent to the
interpretation given by it to the so-called doctrine of popular
sovereignty, which surrenders the natural rights of man to
the unlicensed will of a majority, and by an enabling act of
Ccngress would make it lawful for every fifth man in a ter-
ritory, by combining-, to enslave the sixth, and keep him and
his posterity in bondage forever. I believe in, and have al¬
ways been an advocate of "true" popular sovereignty, "the
right of a majority to rule (not enslave); that the clearly
expressed will of a majority of the bona-fide electors of any
legally organized territory, on all proper subjects of human
legislation, should be the law of said territory."
But I cannot recognize that principle as Republican or
Democratic that would concede the right of the majority to
enslave the minority, merely because they were poor, or be¬
cause they were black, and without sufficient power to resist
the wrong. To do so, would be to establish, as the policy of
our government, the doctrine that might makes right. I
cannot consent that by any enabling act of Congress, for
which the whole people of the United Stages would be re¬
sponsible, the residents of any territory under our- national
jurisdiction, may, because they happen to be in the majority,
subjugate even a few of its inhabitants and hold them under
rules and regulations, or laws, if you choose to call them
such, the most barbarous the world ever saw, to labor against
their will, without compensation, and without hope for an
end of their or their children's servitude but in the grave.
The natural rights of the rich and the poor, the learned
and the ignorant, the strong and the feeble, of whatever
country, caste, or religious belief, should be held sacred and
inviolable by Republicans, because the right of a majority
to enslave but one man—no matter who that man is—presup¬
poses the right to enslave all, without regard to race or color,
who by fraud and force can be reduced to chattelhood.
This kind of popular sovereignty would not be very
agreeable to any of its present noisy advocates, if they or
their friends were the persons upon whom its blessings were
to operate. If any of them were reduced to slavery by a pop¬
ular vote of any nation on the globe, the most solemn pro¬
tests and appeals would be made by each victim to the mercy
of the enslavers, and to the God of heaven for deliverance ;
just such appeals as can now be heard daily at the whipping¬
post on every plantation in the South.
Suppose the Chinese nation, many of whose citizens we
are enslaving under the disguise of the apprenticeship sys-
— 26 —
tem, should by a popular vote in any of their territories de¬
cide, even unanimously, to enslave some of these popular
sovereignty doctors, if found in that empire ; and when those
who were thus enslaved should appeal, as they doubtless
would, to the head of that great empire for protection against
such an outrage upon the natural rights of man, what would
you think of the honor, or justice, or humanity of that ruler,
if he should answer them in the language of their own great
popular sovereignty champion, Douglas, only changing the
word "black" to "white man," and say, " I cannot help you;
individually I am very sorry for you, but it is a decree of
heaven, as the difference in your organization and ours, your
high foreheads and white skins clearly indicate that you are
to be servants and ' hewers of wood and drawers of water,*
and whether you are to be kept as slaves or not is left en¬
tirely with my people. I do not care whether slavery is
voted up or voted down in any particular district or ter¬
ritory of my kingdom; that is a matter which belongs ex¬
clusively to the people of the several localities, and if a ma¬
jority agree that they want you or any other race for slaves,
they will have them; and wherever in my empire the soil,
climate and productions make it the interest of my people to
use slave labor 'they will vote slavery up,' and wherever
climate, soil and productions preclude the possibility of
slave labor ' th.ey will vote it down;' the}r are left per¬
fectly free to form and regulate their own domestic in¬
stitutions in their own way, subject only to the supreme
constitution. This is not a question between the China¬
man and the white man, but between the white man and
the crocodile; and as between the white man and the
crocodile we go for the white man, but between the
Chinaman and the white mail, we go for the Chinaman.
'The Almighty has drawn a line tlirougdi my empire, on one
side c>f which the soil must be cultivated by slave labor, on
the other side by free labor. This slave line is not bounded
by 36 degrees and 30 minutes, but in the sugar fields and rice
plantations of the South, and
[The remainder of this sentence in the frreat popular sovereignty argument of
the emperor, like Senator Douglas's speech at Memphis, was unfortunate! v lost
amid the "noise and confusion" arising- from the applause of the admiring- China¬
men who surrounded the reporter, so that I am unable to g-ive it to you.]
— 27 —
The emperor, however, continued by saying1, " It is with
me and my people a mere principle of dollars and cents. If
it were not convenient and profitable to make slaves of you,
we would not want you."
But our popular sovereignty doctors would probably pro¬
test against the practical application of their doctrine, and
claim that pirates had stolen them, that they were born free
and above all were "white," and the Chinaman, to carry out the
Douglas popular sovereignty theory to the letter, could reply as
our Supreme Court and the slave democracy have done, by say¬
ing, "that all men were originally born free, and by pirates
were first stolen and sold into slavery, and it is agreed that
all who first steal men are pirates, and punishable by the laws
of nations with death ; yet the law regulating the receipt of
stolen goods and compelling their return to their original
owner does not apply in your case. When once sold you are
legally the property of the purchaser. This traffic has been
sanctioned by the usages of my people for more than two
hundred years, and our laws and constitution recognize the
right of man to property in man, and although you now
have no remedy but submission, yet, if we capture the pirates
who brought you here, we will try thein and punish them, as
our laws and treaties require, provided the juries in the locali¬
ties where we order the trials to take place find them guilt}'.
But my people having once invested their money in this kind
of property, it is guarded with peculiar care by the supreme
government, and you must remain in servitude. This is a fun¬
damental principle of our democracj^, ' to leave the people of
this country perfectly free' to regulate their local institutions
in their own way, and I learn with pleasure that it i$ the cor¬
ner-stone of the democracy in your countr}r, where some of
these same kind of pirates have recently landed several car¬
goes of free men, who were immediately sold to good and
kind masters, as they all unite in assuring the world, and
only from motives of humanity and for the purposes of chris-
tianization. You will find that my people are governed ex¬
actly by the same benevolent principles, and I trust that their
efforts under Providence will not be without good results in
reclaiming you and your children from the heathen super¬
stitions of your country. As to }tou being 'white,' the
— 28 —
court of last resort, the highest judicial tribunal known to
our laws, has decided ' that white men have no rights that
Chinamen are bound to respect,' so that your being- white
is only an argument against you, and would make no more dif¬
ference with my people, than it does with yours in America,
as I find on examining many of your countrymen's newspapers,
which contain advertisement after advertisement offering
' large rewards.for runaway slaves, dead or alive, and described
as branded on the cheek, breast, legs and arms with a hot
iron, in the shape of the initial letter of the owner's name, and
badly scarred on the back with whipping, and so white that
they would readily pass for white persons,' all of which
would be, I regret to say, lamentably too true. For as Bige-
low says, and says truly, in this country
' Slavery aint o' nary color,
'Taint the hide that makes it wus,
All it keers for in a feller,
's just to make him fill its pus.'"
This is a true and faithful exhibition of popular sover¬
eignty as advocated by the Douglas democracy, and is given
in almost the exact words of their great champion in the
foregoing Chinaman's argument, as a reference to Douglas's,
published speeches recently delivered at Memphis and New
Orleans will show. I need not ask you if you are ready to
abandon the principles and policy of the fathers, which are
also the principles of the Republican party, and adopt such
bogus democracy as this. I know you will not. You believe,
all of us believe, that a truly democratic government will see
to it that the poor and defenseless are protected against the
aggressions of the rich and powerful, and that all their
rights as individuals are carefully secured and guarded
against any such abuse of "popular sovereignty" as that ad¬
vocated by those who say that " they do not care whether your
rights or mine are voted up or voted down, or whether we are
slaves or free," and are willing to concede, and not onlj^ to
concede, but to put it in the power of those who desire it, and
to encourage them to enslave, if they can, all the defenseless
— 29 —
in. our territories, and to hold them in. servitude in defiance
of the principles of our national constitution.
Against such popular sovereignty I protest, you protest,
and honest men everywhere protest.
If this government was organized for any purpose, it was
to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our pos¬
terity, and not to enslave any man, nor to become the defend¬
ers of slavery. It was a maxim of Gen. Jackson, and in his
day a cardinal principle of democratic faith, that "the gov¬
ernment should be so administered as to secure the greatest
good to the greatest number, protecting all, and granting
special favors to none." This doctrine is now reversed, and
a privileged class, who enslave the defenseless, are not only
the special object and care of the g-overnment, but they con¬
trol the government as absolutely as if they were the only
citizens of the republic. To meet and resist the aggressions
of this privileged class, who, with the stolen garb of democ¬
racy, are striving to force slavery into all the States and
Territories of the Union, and reopen and legalize the African
slave trade, the Republican party was organized, and though
side and immaterial issues, and the so-called doctrine of pop¬
ular sovereignty, may deceive and mislead the people for a
time, these deceptions will all fail at last, and the cause of
humanity and right shall triumph.
And what ought to be said of those who, in a free land
like ours, privileged to do right if they will, yet permit them¬
selves to be coerced by unprincipled leaders, and sacrifice
their convictions of right and the better impulses of their
hearts, to the despotism and tyranny of party, merely because
it assumes to bear the sacred name of Democrat ?
That the Republican party triumphed, in the late contest,
in all the strongholds of the so-called Democracy, under the
adverse influence of an alluring name, immense patronage,
and all the resorts to frauds, falsehoods, and misrepresenta¬
tion, demonstrates to my satisfaction, the truth and power of
our principles.
Our success for the past two years is due in no small de¬
gree to the freedom-loving Germans. Let us not fail to ac¬
knowledge our indebtedness to them, and to thank them most
cordially for their invaluable aid, for without them we should
— 30 —
have been defeated. Not only in this congressional district,
but in States all over the country, this honest, sturdy, Saxon
element is everywhere uniting- with us, and if we are but true
to the cause of freedom they will remain with us. Had it not
been for the charg-e of Know-Nothingism, which was so persist-
endy and falsely made ag-ainst us, by the very party which
has to-day, and had then, nearly all the pro-Slavery Know-
Nothing• leaders secretly in its ranks, we should have number¬
ed with the Republican army in 1856 about the entire German
element in the United States. They will be with us in 1860.
They can be deceived with the name of democracy no
longer. In all our larg-e cities, in Chicag-o, St. Louis, Cin¬
cinnati, Milwaukee and Toledo, and indeed in nearly all the
States, we owe our success to the German vote. It was in¬
deed a glorious sight to see that solid old Saxon element
showing- its true independence, and uniting- with us, as they
did in Toledo, in rallying- around the banner of liberty. It is
a good omen for the future, and if we but remain true to
them and to ourselves, and without compromise stand by our
org-anization, and our g-allant and true leaders, who in four suc¬
cessive campaig-ns, in nearly all the free States, have safely
led us to battle and '.';o victory, there can be no such word as
fail. Every pulsation of the popular heart gives us the as¬
surance that the shout of the awakening- is at hand, that the
day for the triumph of our cause dawns upon us, that the
people in 1860 will arise in their majesty to hurl the present
corrupt, extravag-ant and sectional administration from
power, and place a tried and true statesman of the national
Republican party in the presidential chair.
ADDRESS
DELIVERED IN GERMAN TOWNSHIP, FULTON
COUNTY, OHIO.
On Tuesday last, November 1, 1859, a larg-e meeting- of
the Republicans of German township, Fulton Co., Ohio, was
held at Archbold village, at which a banner was presented
to the Republicans of that township in honor of their first
victory over the Democracy, achieved at the late election. The
banner was of white satin, upon which was the following-
inscription in g-old and colors :
"From the Republican Mothers and Daughters of Fulton
county to the Republicans of German township." "We
greet you as brothers."
"In commemoration of the glorious victory of 1859.*
On the reverse—top and sides—" Fraternity," "Liberty,"
"Equality." The filling- in—"Where Liberty dwells, there
is my Country." "Free Homes for Free People." "Lands
to the Landless." "Protection to Foreign-born Citizens
abroad."
After the presentation was made a resolution was passed
complimenting Hon. J. M. Ashley, eliciting- from him in
reply the following remarks, which we find in the Wauseon
Republican:
Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : It is
not my purpose to detain you long-, for I come not so much to
make a speech this afternoon as to be a listener, and to enjoy
a social hour with friends who are convened to celebrate an
event that should make g-lad the heart of every free man.
For your compliments, and the manner in which you have
been pleased to express your appreciation .of my humble ef¬
forts for the cause, I return }"ou my sincere thanks. And
permit me to express the hope that no act or vote of mine in
the new and untried field of labor to which you have com-
(31)
missioned me, and to which in a few days I must repair, will
ever cause any of my fellow-citizens to regret that their
suffrages were bestowed upon me.
The victory we have assembled to celebrate, my fellow-
citizens, is not a victory for any one man, or a number of
men, but a victory for principle, a victory for humanity,
for rig-ht, for truth, for justice. It is indeed a glorious
victory, the effects of which will soon be visible at the slave-
holding capital of the Republic, where Ohio will again be
represented in the Senate of the United States by a senator
true to freedom. This is a consummation over which we
may properly express our gratitude, and exchang-e congratu¬
lations, and to no township, of the same number of inhab¬
itants, in the State, are we more deeply indebted for our
triumph in Ohio this fall, than to German township in Fulton
county. And I express to jTou, but imperfectly, the joy the
Republicans of Lucas feel, especially the German Republi¬
cans of Toledo, at the redemption of German township from
the control of a spurious and false democracy. You fougfht
the battle well and gallantly, and the beautiful banner just
presented to you by the fair daughters of Fulton county, tells
you better than I can tell you, of the high esteem and regard
in which you are held by those who, with }Tou, are battling
earnestly for the rights of man and the liberty and enfran¬
chisement of the human race. I have faith that you will
take no step backward, that you will stand firmly by the
principles of freedom, and annually carry to the ballot-box
the time-honored Democratic-Republican principle emblaz¬
oned upon the folds of your banner.
To you, my German fellow-citizens, the Republican
party is under deep obligations for its past success. To you
it looks with confidence for aid in the great battle of 1860.
With gratitude we acknowledge its indebtedness to you,
not only here in German township, but all over the country.
Everywhere the freedom-loving Germans are joining our
ranks, and if, as a party, we are faithful to the constitution
and the Union, and true to the doctrines of human brother¬
hood, they will remain with us. Had it not been for the
charge of Know-Nothingism which has been so persistentlv
and falsely made ag-ainst us, by the very party which from the
— 33 —
first has had nearly all the pro-Slavery Know-Nothing-leaders
secretly in its ranks, almost every German elector in the United
States would have been with us to-day. As it is, they will be
with us in 1860, and, like brothers standing- shoulder to shoulder
on the Republican platform, will rally around the banner of
liberty, and our cause shall triumph. Let no friend of hu¬
manity doubt it, for the principles and doctrines of the Re¬
publican party are such as to commend them to the judg¬
ments and hearts of the friends of liberty and justice every¬
where, especially tc the poor of every nation, who are seeking-
homes in this land of ours. The Republican party is op¬
posed to the proscription of any man, whatever his nation¬
ality or religion ; opposed to a strong- centralized g-overnment
in the hands of an aristocratic privileg-ed class ; opposed to
fraud and corruption in the administration of the g-overn¬
ment, to an irresponsible g-overnment bank, to issuing- mil¬
lions of shinplasters for the purpose of carrying- on the gov¬
ernment in a time of profound peace, to borrowing- money
every year for the office-holders, and creating- a national
debt for posterity to pay; opposed to making- war upon weak
and defenseless neighboring- nations for the purpose of
robbing- them of their territories over which to extend the
blig-ht of human slavery; opposed to the fugitive slave bill,
to the reopening- of the African slave trade, or to permitting-
slavery to g-ointo and occupy our national territories to the ex¬
clusion of the laboring- white man ; opposed to selling- the public
lands to speculators, or permitting- them to g-o into the hands
of any person but actual settlers; opposed to an increase of
the rates of letter and newspaper postag-e; opposed, as
Washington was, to a larg-e standing- army in time of peace,
believing- it to be dang-erous to the liberties of a free peo¬
ple ; opposed to importing- from Europe anything- which we
can manufacture as well and as cheaply at home ; opposed
to g"oing- to Eng-land to buy rails for our great network of
western railroads, when we can make them as well and
better from the iron mountains of Pennsylvania, where
forg-es and furnaces, which are now idle and still, and im¬
mense beds of coal and iron ore and forests of timber, await
but the touch of the American artisan and American la-
3
— 34 —
borer to put down every bar of railroad iron we need at our
doors ; and finally opposed to the passage of all laws, either
by the legislatures of the several States, or by Congress,
granting privileges to the few which are denied to the many.
These are some of the points in which, as a party, we stand
in direct antagonism to the present national administration,
and to those who placed it in power. But the Republican
party is not, as has been charged by our opponents, merely
a party of negatives. It stands forth and boldly proclaims
to the world, not only its hostility to the wrongs and cor¬
ruptions of the slave democracy, but in the language of
General Jackson, declares that it is in favor of a "plain
and simple government, devoid op pomp, protecting
all and granting special favors to none," aild that its
first desire is to see the government so administered that
"Like the dews of heaven, its blessings shall fall upon the
rich and poor, the north and south alike." For this purpose
was the Republican party organized, and on this platform
it proposes to fight every battle ; it therefore favors from
necessity, as well as from choice, peace with all nations and
the full protection not only of the American-born citizen, but
of the rights of the naturalized citizen, both at home and
abroad ; favors the improvement of our great inland seas and
western rivers and harbors, to protect and build up our grow¬
ing commerce ; favors the readjustment of our revenue laws,
so that money enough shall be collected for the use of ail
economical administration of the government, without issu¬
ing" treasury notes or borrowing a dollar, and at the same
time adopt such a scale of duties as shall afford ample en¬
couragement to our manufacturing, commercial and farming
interests, thereby restoring confidence, and by a proper divi¬
sion of labor bringing activity to every forge and furnace that
is now lying idle and still in the coal and iron districts of
Pennsylvania, and renewing the hum of the spindle and shut¬
tle at every waterfall among the cotton and woolen factories
of New England ; thus creating a home demand for our bread¬
stuff and produce, and infusing- new life and new energ-v into
every department of industry ; keeping our gold and silver at
home, instead of sending it to Europe as now to buy our iron
when we have iron mountains at our doors, to buy cotton
— 35 —
goods when we supply the world with raw material, to buy
our cloth and woolen goods, when we can grow wool enough to
clothe half the world. It also favors the prohibition of slavery
in all the national territories, and more stringent laws to
suppress not only the African slave trade but the enslavement
of Chinese coolies, or any other race of men, under whatever
form of pretense the attempt may be made ; favors the repeal
of the infamous fugitive slave act, and leaves the rendition of
fugitives from Service and Justice where the constitution
leaves it, with the governors and legislatures of the several
States ; favors the withdrawal of the public lands from sale,
and dividing them into farms of 160 acres each for the free
use of actual occupants ; favors such an administration of the
government that in a time of profound peace they shall keep
their expenditures within the limits of the money raised from
the duties on imports, and not borrow or issue millions of
paper money, as this administration has done, to carry on the
government; favors cheap letter and newspaper postage so as
to encourage the frequent interchange of thought and intel¬
ligence among the people ; favors the election of all officers
(so far as practicable) by the people, and the withdrawal
from the President of the dangerous appointing power now in
his hands ; favors a small standing army and navy and a more
rigid economy in their management ; and last, though not
least, it is for a National Administration Favorable to
National Freedom. And this we shall have in 1860, if as a
party we are true to ourselves and our principles.
The battle just fought and won is but a skirmish on the
outposts. The great beittle is to come, when we are to meet
and dislodge from their fortresses a well-trained and well-dis¬
ciplined army, who have long been in possession of the gov¬
ernment, and who will fight desperately to maintain it. See
to it, my friends, that the little army in this township, which
so gloriously triumphed in October, shall have no traitor or
deserter from that banner and its principles in the coming-
contest. Long may this joyous occasion and the month of
October, 1S59, be remembered, as it should be remembered,
with gratitude to the Giver of every good ; for October is a
glorious month, and there ought alwa}Ts to be joy and thanks¬
giving at its annual return, joy for its fruits and golden grain.
— 36 —
It is the most beautiful, because the most mature month of
all the twelve, and has rightly been called the golden month.
It comes to us every year with its gorgeous robes of crimson
and gold, and flying colors of russet-tinted leaves and au¬
tumnal flowers to make glad the heart of man, and we who are
gathered here on this occasion, and all who sympathize with
us, have added to our joy the happiness which this October
brings to the people of Ohio, because of the verdict we have
just rendered at the ballot-box for freedom ; and not only in
Ohio and in this county and township, but all over the coun¬
try the month of October, 1859, will bring hope and encour¬
agement to those who are struggling for their rights, and
make it an ever-memorable year for its victories in favor of
the principles of our National Independence.
Froin Pennsylvania there comes greeting to us, the wel¬
come shoutings of her sturdy sons for the triumph they have
achieved over a faithless President from their own State.
From Iowa there comes back the echoing response of another
victory,and from Minnesota, the young "North Star State,"
there comes also the rejoicing of a free people for their first
undisputed Republican triumph. Ohio sends back the greet¬
ing of a full and complete victory, and gives to the friends of
freedom everywhere the assurance that she is well prepared
for the great battle of 1860. On her banner she has inscribed
the glorious motto of "Liberty, Union, Justice," and she
proposes to join her sister States in carrying it to the capital
of the Republic, believing that its triumphant entry into the
capital of the nation will give an impetus to freedom and
free principles wherever a slave toils beneath the lash of a
taskmaster or a tyrant tramples on the rights of a fellow-man.
" Right onward, oh, speed it. Wherever the blood
Of the wrong'd and the sinless is crying to God,
Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining,
Wherever the lash of the driver is twining,
Wherever from kindred torn rudely apart
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart,
Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind
In silence and darkness the God-given mind,
There, God speed it onward. Its truth will be felt—
The bonds shall be loosen'd—the iron shall melt.
' And you, bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true,
Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due,
Whose fathers of old sang- in concert with mine,
On the banks of Swatera, the song- of the Rhine ;
The pure German pilgrim, who first dared to brave
The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave,
Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South
One brow for the band—for the padlock one mouth ?
You, bow down to tyrants—you rivet the chain
Which your fathers smote off on the poor slave again ?
' No, Never ; one voice like the sound in the cloud,
When the roar of the storm waxes loud and more loud,
Wherever the foot of a freeman hath pressed,
From the Delaware marge to tke lakes of the West,
On the south-going breezes shall deepen and grow
Till the land that it sweeps o'er shall tremble below.
The voice of a People—uprisen—awake ;
Human rights for their watchword when freedom's at
stake,
Thrilling up from each valley, flung down from each
height,
Our Country and Liberty ; God for the Right."
ADDRESS
DELIVERED OCTOBER 14, 1860.
The following- is the address of Hon. J. M. Ashley, at
the Wig-warn in Toledo last nig-ht [October 14, 1860], on the
occasion of the Republican jollification over the recent vic¬
tories in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Fellow-Citizens : With pleasure I respond to your call,
and announce that the Republican cause has ag-ain tri¬
umphed in this county, in this congressional district, and in
the State. [Cheers.] It is fitting-and proper that so glorious
a victory should be commemorated by blazing- bonfires, torch¬
light processions and illuminations. On every political battle¬
field where free speech and a free press are tolerated, and our
opponents have been met, they are vanquished and we are
triumphant. [Applause.]
From the pine-clad hills of Maine to the home of the
g-allant Blair, on the banks of the Mississippi, in the free-soil
city of St. Louis, from the green hills of Vermont to the Ter¬
ritory of Nebraska, from the g-ood old Keystone State (God
bless her for her 30j000 majority), [Cheers for Pennsylvania]
from our neig-hbor Indiana, just redeemed from the rule of a
false democracy who fastened upon the country bog*us United
State Senators, and from all over our own broad and beloved
commonwealth, the shouting- of millions of freemen greet
us to-nig-ht with the welcome tiding-s of g-lorious victories
won. The revolution precipitated upon the country in 1854
by the madness of our opponents will be complete in Novem¬
ber, and we shall witness the realization of our longf-cherished
hopes—the inauguration of a true democracy in the land of
Washing-ton. We shall see the national g-overnment in
the hands of men pledg-ed to administer it as our fathers
administered it, so that in every State and Territory within
(38)
the limits of the Republic the rights of man shall be re¬
spected and protected by law. [Cheers.]
Since the organization of the Republican party I have
contemplated this promised day with rapture. To see it has
been my hope and prayer. That hope and prayer have buoyed
me up in the darkest hours, when disaster and defeat have
overwhelmed us, and when the battle seemed lost, as men es¬
timate results who do not comprehend the great truth that no
power can make oppression just, or eradicate from the heart
of man the love of liberty; that wrong cannot be made right
by the verdict of a majority, and that the legally constituted
authority of no government on earth may lawfully take away,
from any race, the rights with which their Creator invested
them. [Cheers.] They have made me firm and unfaltering
when many men have given up in despair, and when the
doubting, the spoils-hunters and the camp-followers have
found shelter (as some have here) in the ranks of the enemy ;
when we have been betrayed by pretended friends, and our
most generous efforts for humanity have been wilfully mis¬
represented, and the characters of our leaders defamed with
unbecoming mendacity by our opponents.
My faith has grown stronger and stronger with every
contest, for I have always believed that in the great battle of
life we gained new strength at every step by overcoming ob¬
stacles that beset our path. I believed that liberty could not
be crushed out in this age and country ; that truth and all the
moral forces of nature were ever working on the side of right,
and that disasters and defeats were necessary to test the con¬
stancy and courage of our men. And I now know, as I then
believed, that all the trials through which as men and as party
we have passed, have been for the best; for our ranks are more
than filled up with good men and true, to supply the desertions
of the weak and the venal, and to-night the voices of the
timid and the doubting are silenced by the triumphant shouts
of the new recruits, who, with us, are pushing on to victory.
[Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, when the conspirators who abrogated
the Missouri anti-slavery restriction, and rejected Kansas
because she knocked at the door for admission into the Union
as a free State, triumphed over the people in 1856, many good
— 40 —
men gave up. Senator Seward said the other day in Chicago,
that Horace Mann, one of the noblest and best of men, once
said to him, that he '' despaired of the cause of humanity after
the passage of the slavery laws of 1850," and I know from a
conversation I once had with Mr. Mann on that subject in
this city, when he was here lecturing before our Young Men's
Association, that that was the principal cause of his retiring
from public life, leaving Massachusetts and accepting the
Presidency of Antioch college, at Yellow Springs, in this
State. I confess that I heard this declaration from so great
a man with sorrow, but I never despaired, and trust I never
shall despair, of the cause of humanity either in America or
Europe. [Cheers.] Instead of despairing, I rejoiced rather
when the madness of the slave barons drove them to break
down the Missouri compromise, and to attempt to force slavery
not only up^n Kansas, but, by action of the government, and
a decree of the Supreme Court to make it national throughout
the Republic, because I believed that nothing would more
surely arouse the people to the dangers that threatened them.
Had I been your representative in Congress then, I would
not only have voted against these measures, but protested
against them also, as I did as a citizen at the time of their
enactment. I would not do wrong that good might come ;
but I believe that Providence now often permits bad men to
scourge a nation for good and wise purposes, as He permitted
Pharaoh of old to harden his heart so that he refused to let
the oppressed children of Israel go.
I believe that these crimes of the so-called Democratic
party were necessary, in order to arouse the American people
from their supineness and lethargy. But for those crimes
there would have been no Republican party in the United States
to-day.
Horace Mann, however, was not the only leading man
who has despaired of our cause. I could name more than a
score. Only last week, one of the best and truest men in this
district said to me: "Ashley, we have been working seven
years for this cause with so little success that I am becoming
disheartened, and if we fail to elect Lincoln I shall quit." I
replied that I regretted to hear him say so, and reminded him
of the 4,000 opposition majority we had to overcome in this
— 41 —
congressional district, that the National and State govern¬
ments, with all their patronage, and every county here in the
Northwest, were in the hands of our political opponents in
1853, when we first met together to organize a new party
with all those who, in the old Democratic and Whig and Free
Soil parties, would unite with us on a platform such as the
Republican party now stands upon. I reminded him of the
certainty of always having in every party, as in every church,
faithless and untrue men, and the misfortune of always hav¬
ing indiscreet friends also ; and I said to him, as I say to you
to-night, that I grow more hopeful with every contest, and
that as a party we are far stronger now than my most sanguine
hopes led me to believe we should be when, seven years ago,
we commenced the battle, for then I thought it would require
a struggle of ten or fifteen years before we should be as
strong as we are to-day.
I have always been guided in my political action by a
simple rule, a rule which has taught me to confide in the in¬
telligence of the people and their innate sense of justice.
This, with a firm reliance in the living energy of truth, has
given me courage when success seemed far off, and I have
worked on because it has cheered me when overwhelmed by dis¬
aster and defeat. Of what I have done to aid in organizing the
Republican party and to cause its success, not only in this
district and State, but elsewhere, I will not speak. I leave
that for others who will do it more impartially for me when
party passions shall have subsided and local rivalries shall
have been, as they will be, forgotten. I am and always have
been content to do my duty and to forget and forgive the er¬
rors and prejudices of the hour.
To my fellow-citizens, not only here, but all over the dis¬
trict, I feel grateful for their generous support, and the re¬
newed expression of their confidence as shown by the increased
majority they have given me, and I trust that no act or vote
of mine will ever cause any man to regret that his vote was
bestowed upon me.
I told you last year that the battle we were then fighting
was "but a skirmish on the outposts." The victories just
gained leave but few outposts in the free States in the hands
— 42 —
of the enemy. When they are taken, as they will be, the
citadel must surrender. [Cheers.]
And thoug-h we owe much for our past and present suc¬
cess to all classes, especially to our German and adopted citi¬
zens, to no org-anization are we more deeply indebted for our
present triumph, than to the Wide-awakes all over the land.
Their promptness, their fidelity to our cause, their fine mili¬
tary drill, their presence at all our meeting's, has lent g*ood
cheer and kindled an enthusiasm in the hearts of old and young-,
unlike any organization that has preceded it. Wherever I have
gone, I have met " around the blazing- camp-fires " of the Wide¬
awakes, and found fresh cause for rejoicing- and hope in the
fact that the. young- men, with their g-enerous and noble im¬
pulses, everywhere swelled our ranks; these with other
classes of citizens make an army for freedom which you see
is invincible. [Cheers.]
This victorious army, pledg'ed to the defense of constitu¬
tional liberty and to the bring-ing- back of the government to
the principles and policy of its founders, is advancing- with
firm and steady tread to take possession of the national
capital, and
"Beneath thy skies, November,
Thy skies of cold and rain,
Around our blazing- camp-fires
We'll close our ranks ag-ain.
For, God be praised, New England
Takes once more her ancient place;
Ag'ain the Pilgrim's banner
Leads the vanguard of the race.
Along- the Susquehanna,
A shout of triumph breaks—
The Keystone State is speaking-
From the Ocean to the L,akes.
The Northern hills are blazing-,
The Northern skies are bright,
— 43 —
And the fair young- West is turning-
Her forehead to the lig-ht.
Then, Brothers, close up nearer,
Press hard the hostile towers,
For another Balaklava
And the MalakhofE is ours."
SPEECH
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO.
Delivered in the) U. S. House of Representatives,
May 29, 1860.
The House being* in the Committee of the "Whole on the
State of the Union—
Mr. Ashley said :
Mr. Chairman : Respect for legislative, executive, and
judicial authority is a peculiar characteristic of the constit¬
uency I have the honor to represent. Indeed, respect for all
constitutional obligations, and for the laws passed in pursu¬
ance of the Constitution, as well as for all authoritative
judicial decisions, may with propriety be said to be a leading
trait in the character of the American people. Especially is
this respect habitual, with the great body of the people of the
free States.
Trained in the school of loyalty, taught to venerate the
teachings of the fathers, and guided in their daily walk and
in all their public and private intercourse with their fellow-
I<etter from Bishop H. M. Turner, D. D., LL. D., Atlanta, Ga.
This was Mr. Ashley's first speech in Congress. It was an exhaustive and able
appeal for the unconditional emancipation of the negro. In this speech and in the two
following- speeches his arraignment of the Supreme Court for the "Dred Scott"
and other pro-slavery decisions, has never been answered. In a majority of Mr.
Ashley's congressional and platform speeches will be found arguments for an ideal
republic, such as the great men who achieved our independence contemplated, when
they organized our National Government, and gave us a written Constitution. Uni¬
formly there is blended with his appeals, the historical with the philosophical. These
speeches are all characterized for their frankness and fidelity to the black man, and
for their fairness to the Southern people. Every reader will be fascinated with their
sincerity and clearness of thought, their marvelous political knowledge, and be
charmed with their simple dignity and unaffected eloquence. H. M. Turner.
(44)
— 45-
men, by the stern principles of that wise Christian morality
which has made New England at once the hope and glory of
our country, it could not be that the citizens educated within
her jurisdiction, and the States founded by her wisdom and
enterprise, should be otherwise than loyal to the Constitution
and the Union. Asking- for themselves nothing- that they
would not concede to the humblest, they make the community
of interests identical, and the loyalty of every inhabitant of
the State a necessity.
This grand consummation has been practically achieved
in eighteen States of the American Union. 'The system of
government adopted by them, in my judgment, is the best
system known to man. It is the best, because it rests upon
labor, and is created and controlled by the free and untram-
meled will of the laborer. It is the best, because experience
has demonstrated that it is the only foundation upon which
States and governments can safely and securely rest. In
such a government, the laborers must not only be free, but
they must be citizens ; having rights which the government
and all classes of citizens are bound to respect and defend—
the poorest and humblest inhabitant being equal, before the
law, with the richest and most p6werful; sharing in its
burdens, enjoying its protection, and feeling- individually
responsible for its good or bad management. This theory is
daily growing* stronger and stronger among all civilized
nations ; and the; world is beginning to understand that
injuring one class for the immediate benefit of another,
is ultimately injurious to that other; and that, to
secure prosperity to a community, all interests must be
consulted. This truly Republican idea of consulting- the
interests and obeying the wishes and wants of the people,
was recently acquiesced in, to an extent before unknown, by
the leading Powers of Europe, when they recognized the
right of the people of the Roman States to declare, by bal¬
lot, whether they desired separate Governments, or a united
Italy, with Victor Emanuel as their chief. The state of
society necessary to form such g-overnments, as we have in
eighteen States of this Union, can only be secured where an
untrammeled press and free speech are guaranteed, and
public schools and a free church are secured to every inhabitant
— 46 —
in the Commonwealth. These institutions the free States
have, to an extent unknown to any government or people on
earth; and to them, more than to any other cause, are these
States indebted for their unsurpassed development, and for
that prosperity and growth which have made them the won¬
der and admiration of the world. It is impossible that such a
people, living- under such governments, as are secured by the
laws and Constitutions of the free States, no matter what their
former nationality may have been, should be otherwise than
loyal citizens, or that they should be otherwise than the
firmest defenders of the principles which lie at the founda¬
tion of these States, and the jealous guardians of that Con¬
stitution and Union which our fathers ordained, to secure
and perpetuate these blessing's.
In fifteen States of the American Union, practically, the
reverse of all this is true. The exceptions are only in a few
of the border counties of slave States, adjoining- the free
States, and in three or four cities whose commercial inter¬
course is extensive in the North. In all these fifteen slave
States, a class is dominant which fills all the offices, and con¬
trols the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of
the g-overnment. They do not pretend to be loyal to the
national Constitution, or obedient to the laws passed in pur¬
suance thereof, but claim that their first and hig-hest alle¬
giance is due to their several State governments and their
institution of human slavery. They care nothing for the
Union, except so far as it subserves their purposes of build¬
ing up, and extending their peculiar institution, and per¬
petuating their own political power. They trample upon all
treaties, compacts, and compromises, if they stand in their
way to universal domination on this continent, and neither
respect nor obey any law or judicial decision that does not
sustain their imperious demands for special legislation and
protection.
Trained in the disunion school of Calhoun, they reject
not only the teachings of the fathers, but the doctrines of
that Christianity which enjoins upon all, whether as indi-
viduals, communities, or States, the duty of doing unto the
least and weakest as they would that others should do unto
them. Hence in all the slave States the constitutional rights
— 47 —
of an American citizen are not respected, the constitutional
guaranty for free speech and a free press is a mockery, free
schools and an enlightened Christianity an impossibility.
The laws to suppress the slave trade are openly disregarded,
and violence and mob law reign supreme. The laborers upon
whose toil these States exist are slaves, and have been
declared not to be citizens, though born upon the soil, but
simply persons, with no moral, social, or natural rights, that
the dominant race are bound to respect, if the mere ips£ dixit
of the Supreme Court is to be regarded as law. Their
obedience and subjugation are secured by enactments and
usages the most barbarous and tyrannical ever known to
man. A reign of terror secures the obedience and co-opera¬
tion of the poor whites ; and because of this submission,
they are claimed as loyal friends of the institution of slavery.
But their loyalty is, in fact, a humiliating submission to the
privileged class — a submission as abject in most of these
fifteen States, as is the submission of the most spirit-humbled
slave. The guaranties of the national Constitution, so far
as they affect the individual rights of an American citizen,
are denied alike to all men who are not of this privileged
class or their open allies ; and to be an American citizen
secures no protection from insult and outrage, unjust im¬
prisonment and terrible punishments, or even death. So
complete is this reign of terror, that no man can print, or
speak, or preach, or pray, unless he does it in the manner
prescribed by this privileged class. These two forms of
government and society are the antipodes of each other, and
cannot coexist and peacefully endure. There must, of neces¬
sity, be serious conflicts and constant struggles for the
ascendency; and, eventually, the one must give way to the
other. There is, then, an "irrepressible conflict," as the
distinguished Senator from New York has said, between the
two forces or forms of government and society ; and it will
continue until freedom or slavery shall have complete
dominion in every department of the government.
This privileged class, with Calhoun and his political
disciples, have had, with the exception of one or two short
intervals, almost complete possession of every department of
the national government for the past twenty years. Taking
— 48 —
advantage of the well-known loyalty of the people of the
free States to the Constitution and the Union, and their
habitual respect for all laws and decisions of the Judicial
department of the National and State Governments, they have,
by threatening- to dissolve the Union, and by appeals made
in the sacred name of Democracy, secured the co-operation
and aid of thousands of patriotic citizens in the free States
who are conscientiously opposed to the institution of slavery.
They have thus been enabled to obtain and keep possession
of every department of the government, and so to shape its
legislative, executive, and judicial action, as to foster, build
up, and extend, this monstrous wrong- of human slavery, and
make it a National instead of a State and local institution, if
the Dred Scott decision is to be taken and held, as the Presi¬
dent and his party declare it is, the correct interpretation of
the Constitution.
I propose, Mr. Chairman, to show the House and country
how one department of the g-overnment has been taken
possession of by this privileged class —I mean the Supreme
Judiciary. I propose to show that, while they have been
preaching- concessions and compromises to us, they have for
years been secretly and cautiously at work to obtain complete
control of this important, as well as most dang-erous, depart¬
ment of the National Government. That this department of
the g-overnment is dang-erous, I think the history of its
usurpations since its organization will show.
The opinions of some of the ablest men of the Revolu¬
tion—many of whom opposed the org*anization of this court
with the powers granted to it, and predicted with singular
foresigiit the dang-ers to which the rig-hts of citizens and
States would be exposed if it was established — have been
more than realized. It would have been well for the present
and future of our country if the admonitions of those who
opposed the org-anization of this department of the g-overn¬
ment with its immense power had been regarded with
more favor. It were well even now for our future peace if the
warnings of Jefferson, Mason, Henry, Franklin, Grayson,
and other distinguished men would be heeded. But, alas for
freedom! their admonitions and warnings have not only
been unheeded, but the scheme of a sectional and privileged
— 49 —
class, aided by Northern Representatives, has been accom¬
plished so far as to secure complete control of this depart¬
ment of the government; and they now demand of the party,
whose every movement they imperiously dictate, a chang-e
in their action and tone towards this Judicial department.
In compliance with this demand, we find that the party to¬
day, which for years so vehemently denounced the usurpa¬
tions of this court and opposed and disregarded its decisions,
have come to regard it (if the declaration of their Presidents
and Representatives and party conventions are to be credited)
as the most "august tribunal" in the world—a tribunal
whose opinions are infallible, from whose judgment there
is no appeal, and before whose decisions and political decrees,
citizens and parties, and even free States, are required to
bow. On failure to acquiesce in this claim of prerogative,
the Representatives of free States are denounced on this floor
by the leaders of this privileged class as traitors to the gov¬
ernment, and as perjurers, who have sworn to support a Con¬
stitution they intend to violate.
And here let me ask what there is in this tribunal, com¬
posed as it is of but nine men, that should entitle it, as a
political authority, to the veneration and unquestioned obedi¬
ence claimed for it by the present Administration party, any
more than the same number of Senators and Representa¬
tives that might with ease be selected as gentlemen possess¬
ing at least equal, if not superior, legal and natural abilities?
Is there anything in the character of these judges, in their
services to the country, in their learning or qualifications as
lawyers, that should entitle them to the appellation of an
" august tribunal?" Is it not a fact well known to everyone,
that so far from this court being composed of men of
superior abilities, or of the ablest lawyers in the country, a
majority of them were partisans, and that they were selected
because of their partisanship when placed upon the bench?
It is certainly a fact not unknown to the House and the coun¬
try, that men of greater legal abilities, whose nomination had
been submitted to the Senate for confirmation, have been re¬
jected. The Committee on the Judiciary (a majority of which
has been pro-slavery for the past twenty years), to which said
4
— 50 —
nominations are always referred, have, by some means
unknown to the public, succeeded in prevailing- on the acting-
President, whoever he may have been, to withdraw objec¬
tionable nominations, and substitute others more acceptable
for the purposes contemplated by them, while some of the
present partisans of this court were confirmed, instead of
those whose names were thus withdrawn or rejected. Before
I take my seat, I expect to show that a purpose was to be
accomplished by those who secured the rejection, on a direct
vote for confirmation in the Senate, of men of spotless
characters, of great learning-, and eminent judicial abilities,
or their defeat by the withdrawal of their names by the
President, at the dictation of this class interest. Debate
was soug*ht to be avoided on this delicate point, that their
ulterior purposes mig-ht thus remain undiscovered, even in
the secret archives of the United States Senate. Sir, if the
country could understand how a majority of these judges
were placed upon the bench, and the schemes resorted to by
this class interest to secure men to represent their views and
interests, the people would scorn their political decrees, and
treat their usurpations as they deserve.
Sir, I expect to show that no men whose nominations have
been submitted to the Senate for confirmation as judges of
this court were rejected for want of learning-, character, or
ability as lawyers, but solely because of their known or sup¬
posed unsoundness on the question of slavery; all men known
to entertain liberal views on that question were rejected, and
partisans destitute of eminence or fitness confirmed in
their stead, because of their known or supposed reliability in
sustaining- the claims of the slave barons in their judicial
decisions. Such is the extent to which this scheme has been
carried—-and, I regret to say, successfully carried — by the
carelessness, or incompetency, or criminal complicity, of
Northern Senators, some of whom have had Southern planta¬
tions well stocked with slaves, while claiming to represent a
free people. I say, but for the indifference or inability of
Northern Senators to defend and g-uard the interests of those
they were commissioned to represent, or their criminal com¬
plicity, this scheme never could have been accomplished as it
has been; for it required the votes of Northern Senators to
— 51 —
do it, and by their action or indifference this court, which in
former years stood so high in the estimation of the Ameri¬
can people, is now looked upon by the great body of citizens
with distrust, and regarded by many of the best men of the
nation as little else than a partisan political tribunal.
Mr. Chairman, it is no pleasant task for an American
Representative to declare on this floor, and to the country,
as I now do, and as candor compels me to do, that I have
lost all confidence in, and veneration for, this Supreme
Court; and I could wish that even before the expiration of
the next Presidential term I could see this Supreme Court
reorganized. I wish I could see all laws repealed creating
inferior United States District Courts, so that we might be
able to get rid of the whole batch of these United States
judicial officials as summarily as the Republican party under
Jefferson got rid of the swarm of district judges created by
what is familiarly known as the midnight judiciary act,
passed on the night of the 3d of March, 1801. For while we
cannot deprive these officials of their life tenures or titles by
removal, it is an established principle in the National as well
as in the State Governments—and che act under Jefferson to
which I have referred is one of the earliest precedents on record
establishing the right of the power that created and pre¬
scribed the duties of these courts — to repeal the law, and
thus legislate these judges and clerks out of office by the
power that breathed into them the breath of life. After a
full investigation of this subject, I believe the only practical
way, without a change in the Constitution, to reform the
gross abuses, not only of the Supreme Court, but of the
United States District Courts, is: First, to reorganize the
Supreme Court, and either create additional judges, or
redistrict the circuits in such a manner as to equalize the
business, and require the judges to be residents of the dis¬
tricts for which they were respectively appointed, or in which,
by law, they are required to attend courts; and, second, to
repeal the laws creating district courts and defining their
jurisdiction and duties ; thus legislating your Judge Kanes,
Magraths, and Joneses, out of office.
If new district courts are indispensable, let them be
carefully organized, and the judges be clothed with just as
— 52 —
little power and as limited a jurisdiction as possible. We
should make business and the wants of the country the only
basis for creating- districts ; and not create districts and
offices for broken-down politicians, as has been done to an
extent that would astonish the country, could it be known.
As an evidence of this fact, look at the State of Florida;
with less than half the population of my Congressional dis¬
trict, she has two United States District Courts, and, of course,
two judges ; Tennessee, three ; Missouri, two ; and soon to the
end of the list. Sir, unless a man has carefully examined
this subject, he cannot conceive, and even after an examina¬
tion will be reluctant to come to the conclusions which I
confess I have, to wit, that this Supreme Court is, as Jeffer¬
son declared it to be, "a subtile corps of sappers and
miners, constantly working under ground to undermine
its foundation." " they are construing our constitu¬
tion," he added, "from a coordination of a generai,
and special government to a general and supreme one
alone." I feel confident, that if the usurpations of this
court be not speedily checked, that the liberties of the peo¬
ple and the rights of the States will be endangered ; and the
danger is the more imminent, from the fact that a class
interest has secured absolute control of this court; and
having secured it, now demands that the party which it
also controls, shall proclaim through their Presidents, and
party conventions, and party press, the doctrine that the
political decisions of a majority of these nine men are in¬
fallible, and binding upon the party, without the right of
an appeal to the people. The extraordinary spectacle is
presented to the world, of a once great party, which cherished
and defended the rights of the masses, having been taken
possession of by an oligarchy, and the doctrine proclaimed
that there must be an uncontrolled absolute power in the
government somewhere, from which there can be no appeal;
and that power they claim to-day must be vested, not in
Congress, or in the people, or in the States, but in a majority
of the nine men, who constitute this Supreme Court.
Sir, the Republican theory is, that the government is
not the master, but the servant. Every department was
created by the people, not for the benefit of any class
— 53 —
interest, but for the safety and happiness of the whole, and
every department is subordinate tq their will. Government
is but a means to an end ; and whenever it ceases to answer
the purposes for which it was created, the people can alter
or abolish it.
Sir, neither the executive, nor judicial, nor law-making
power is supreme. The Constitution is above them; and the
people, who made the Constitution, and vested temporarily
the authority of enacting-, executing-, and adjudicating the
laws, are above and superior to all. This absolute power,
therefore, claimed for the Supreme Court by the Administra¬
tion party, must be resisted, because there cannot with safety
be any department of a republican government from which
an appeal to the people cannot be taken. If there is an abso¬
lute power in any government, above and superior to
the people, it is a despotism. In an oration delivered by John
Quincy Adams, July 4, 1831, and cited by Judge Story in a
note to section 208 of his Commentaries, he says, in referring
to this subject:
" It is not true, that there must reside in all governments
an absolute, uncontrollable, irresistible, and despotic power ;
nor is such power in any manner essential to sovereignty.
Uncontrollable power exists in no government on earth. The
sternest despotisms in any region, and in every age of the
world, are and have been under perpetual control. Unlimited
power belongs not to man ; and rotten will be the foundation
of every government leaning upon such a maxim for its sup¬
port. Least of all can it be predicated of a government pro¬
fessing to be founded upon an original compact. The pre¬
tense of an absolute, irresistible, despotic power, existing in
every government somewhere, is incompatible with the first
principles of natural right."
Sir, these well-considered reflections, made by one of the
wisest and best statesmen who since the days of Washington
have adorned and dignified the Presidential office, are well-
worthy of the serious consideration of the people at this
important crisis in the history of our country; when a great
party, which for years has had possession of the govern¬
ment, has declared through its present Chief Executive that
there is a power in the government to which every depart-
— 54—
ment must yield, and to wiiose opinions the 'members of all
political parties must give implicit obedience.
This anti-Democratic doctrine was broadly announced
by Mr. Buchanan in that most remarkable passage in his late
annual message to Congress, in which he said :
"I cordially congratulate you upon the final settlement,
by the Supreme Court of the United States, of the question
of slavery in the Territories," etc.
And, strange to say, this dangerous anti-Republican,
anti-Democratic doctrine, receives the support of the great
body of Representatives on this floor claiming to be Demo¬
crats.
Mr. Chairman, the efforts of Mr. Calhoun to enlist all
the Southern States in his disunion movement of 1832-3, under
color of opposition to the tariff act of 1828, having failed,
and the scheme exposed and effectually crushed out by the
boldness and decision of General Jackson, and this desperate
faction and their leader excluded from the Democratic party
during the administration of that old hero, other expedients
were resorted to by Mr. Calhoun to secure the accomplish¬
ment of his cherished purpose — namely, either a dissolution
of the Union and the organization of a Southern slavehold-
ing confederacy, or the recognition by the present govern¬
ment of his theory, that slavery is recognized by the Consti¬
tution, and that Congress had no power to abolish or exclude
it from the Territories or the District of Columbia.
After the election of Van Buren to the Presidency, Mr.
Calhoun and his followers were again received into a kind of
quasi fellowship with the Democratic party, and supported
the leading measures of that Administration. The express
ground upon which his support was given, was the alleged
fact that Mr. Van Buren was disposed to favor Mr. Calhoun's
theory that the Constitution of the United States recognized
property in man. Whether such were Mr. Van Buren's
views, or not, I am unable to say; but certain it is, that he
pledged himself in his inaugural address, unasked by the
Democratic party, to veto any law which Congress might
pass, abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia; and
before he had been one year in the Presidential office, he
— 55 —
acquired, for the first time in the history of the government,
the unenviable appellation of a "Northern man with
Southern principles."
Failing-, however, to secure the open endorsement by the
Democratic party of that day of the favorite theory of the
slave power, Mr. Calhoun hit upon the plan o.f getting1 pos¬
session of the Supreme Court, because it is a power the fur¬
thest removed from the people, is held in great esteem by
them, and such acts of aggression as Mr. Calhoun contem¬
plated, if committed by the Supreme Court, he knew would
be so quietly done as to excite no alarm, and pass almost
unnoticed.
In this scheme, as the history of the country will show,
Mr. Calhoun was successful.
Let us look at this point for a few moments.
The Supreme Court was organized by an act of Con¬
gress passed on the 24th of September, 1789, by which act
the court was made to consist of one Chief Justice and five
Associates.
By act of April 29, 1802, districts (each State being-
then called a district) were formed into circuits, as follows :
"The districts of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and
Rhode Island, shall constitute the first circuit.
"The districts of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont,
shall constitute the second circuit.
"The districts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania shall
constitute the third circuit.
'' The districts of Maryland and Delaware shall consti¬
tute the fourth circuit.
"The districts of Virginia and North Carolina shall
constitute the fifth circuit.
"The districts of South Carolina and Georgia shall con¬
stitute the sixth circuit."
It will be noticed that this law gave the North and
South each three judges and three circuits.
By the act of February 24, 1807, the Supreme Court was
made to consist of seven judges; and the seventh circuit
comprised the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio.
By act of 3d of March, 1837, two additional judges and
Southern circuits were created, and the district of Ohio
detached from the circuit of Kentucky and Tennessee, and
— 56 —
the seventh circuit made to consist of the States of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. In this act it was declared
that " the districts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri,
shall form and be called the eighth circuit;" and "the dis¬
tricts of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas,
shall form and be called the ninth circuit."
By the creation of the eighth and ninth circuits, the
South, with less than half the population, and not more than
one-fourth of the business in the Supreme Court, obtained a
majority of the judges. Since the organization of the eighth
and ninth circuits, the free States of Iowa, Wisconsin, Cali¬
fornia, Minnesota, and Oregon, have been admitted into the
Union; and although these States contain a population and
have an amount of judicial business equal at least to one-
third of those of the entire fifteen slave States, they have
not been erected into or attached to judicial circuits, and
have no representative on the bench of the Supreme Court.
The reason for refusing or neglecting to place these States
upon an equal footing with the new Southwestern States,
whose populations are far less, will be manifest, I trust,
before I get through.
"When Mr. Tyler, by the death of General Harrison,
became President, and betrayed the party which elected him,
by throwing himself into the arms of the disunion wing of
the Democratic party, and placing Mr. Calhoun in the office
of Secretary of State, for the purpose of acquiring Texas, a
point was gained by this faction, which they have not only
never lost, but having secured the control of the succeeding
administration of Mr. Polk, they have advanced with rapid
strides from a small and once powerless minority, as they
were when treated as General Jackson treated them, until
they have for years completely controlled the Democratic
organization, and changed its fundamental principles.
For the first time in the history of the government,
under Mr. Tyler's administration, the opinions of men
selected for the Supreme Court on the question of slavery
were made a test of their promotion to that exalted position.
No man who was known to entertain views hostile to the
interest and political opinions of the privileged class repre-
— 57 —
sented by Mr. Calhoun could be nominated, or, .if nominated,
confirmed to a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court. And
one of the present judges—Justice Nelson, of the State of
New York — was selected by President Tyler, with the ap¬
proval of Mr. Calhoun, because of his reputed fidelity to this
class interest. Having- secured by the death of President Har¬
rison the executive branch of the government, their next step
was to obtain the control of the Senate committees, especially
the Judiciary Committee, to which all nominations for the
Supreme Court are referred ; and, as a result of this policy, the
Judiciary Committee for the last twenty years has been com¬
pletely in the hands of this faction. The following1 Senators
were members of the Judiciary Committee at the time of which
I am speaking-: Ashley of Arkansas, chairman ; Breese of
Illinois, Berrien of Georgia, Westcott of Florida, and Web¬
ster of Massachusetts. They recommended the confirmation
of Robert C. Grier, of Philadelphia, and the rejection or
withdrawal by the President, if not of each of the following-
names, at least of such men as John M. Read, Edward King
and Georg-e W. Woodward, of Pennsylvania, who were
severally nominated, and rejected or withdrawn because of
their known opposition to slavery, and their belief that
Congress had the power, under the Constitution, and that it
was their duty, to abolish and prohibit slavery in all national
Territories.
During- Mr. Fillmore's administration, the Judiciary
Committee recommended the rejection, or postponement, or
withdrawal of the nomination of E. A. Bradford, of
Louisiana, one of the most distinguished lawyers of that
State, and also the indefinite postponement of the nomina¬
tion of William C. Micou, of the same State, on the same
day the nomination was sent to the senate. Mr. MicOU
was at that time a law partner of Senator Benjamin, of
Louisiana, and a distinguished member of the bar. This
was disposing of a man summarily. These nominations
were made by Mr. Fillmore, as was also the nomination of
Hon. George E. Badger, of North Carolina, whose confirma¬
tion was refused, and the consideration of it postponed on
the recommendation of this committee by a test vote of 26
— 58 —
to 25, simply, because he believed, with Henry Clay, that
Congress had the power to exclude slavery from the Terri¬
tories. So close was this vote, that the slave interest were
compelled to telegraph to Alabama for Senator Fitzpatrick
to come on and aid in his defeat by postponing- the con¬
sideration of the subject until the inauguration of Mr. Pierce,
who at that time was elected. After Mr. Pierce came into
office, he submitted the name of John A. Campbell, of Ala¬
bama, and he was confirmed. This committee were : Butler
of South Carolina, chairman ; Downs of Louisiana, Bradbury
of Maine, Geyer of Missouri, and Badg-er of North Carolina.
It will be observed that on this important committee but one
member was from the free States, and he a supporter of the
Administration.
How many of the best and most distinguished men have
been rejected during- the past twenty years, after having
been nominated for seats on the Supreme Bench, the public
have no means of determining-, as the official action of the
Senate is locked up in its secret archives, into which the
people are never permitted to look by the leaders of the Democ¬
racy, who fear being- called to an account for their base
betrayal of the interests and wishes of their constituents.
Many things have been said and done in the secret sessions
of the United States Senate, which, if made public at the
time, would have consig-ned the utterer to the shades of pri¬
vate life, and the party to a hopeless minority. This prac¬
tice of holding- secret sessions of the Senate is a feature in
our system of government for which I have no partiality,
and for which there is, in my judgment, no justification,
except, perhaps, when the country is eng-ag-ed in a foreign
war, or discussing- the proposed ratification of a treaty. No
business touching- or affecting- the interest of the country at
home should be done in secret, and kept from the people.
The following- are some of the names which I remember,
althoug-h there are doubtless more persons who have been
nominated for places on the Supreme Bench, and either
rejected or their names withdrawn : John C. Spencer, of
New York ; Reuben H. Walworth, for many years chancellor
of the State of New York ; Edward King-, Georg-e W. Wood-
— 59 —
ward, and John M. Read, of Pennsylvania; E. A. Bradford
and William C. Micou, of Louisiana; George E. Badger, of
North Carolina; and others, whose names I cannot now
recall.
And in the places of such distinguished jurists and most
worthy and learned citizens, we have to-day, as the result
and success of the Calhoun conspiracy, Nelson of New York,
Grier of Pennsylvania, Campbell of Alabama, Daniel* of
Virginia, and Clifford of Maine; some of whom certainly
would never have been thought of for a seat on the Supreme
Bench, but for, their loyalty and devotion to the interest and
wishes of the slave power. To the political opinions of a
court thus constituted, the people of the United States are
called upon by the President, and the so-called Democratic
party, to bow in submission; and are denounced as traitors
to the Constitution and the Union, unless they yield up their
political views, and embrace those of a majority of this
packed and irresponsible tribunal.
If the neglect to organize the five free States I have
named into circuits, and give them representatives on the
bench, and the unfair manner in which the present nine cir¬
cuits are constituted, in order, as must be apparent to every
one, to secure a majority of the Supreme Court judges to the
South, is not, of itself, sufficient to satisfy any impartial
mind of the covert designs of those who control and dictate
the policy of the Democratic party, a glance at the popula¬
tion of one or two of the judicial circuits, and the business
before the court, will satisfy the most skeptical that this
inequality is not the result of mere accident, but of a deliber¬
ate, well-laid, persistently-pursued scheme.
Take the population of the ninth circuit, composed of
the States of Arkansas and Mississippi, and compare it with
the seventh, Judge McLean's circuit, which comprises the
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. The ninth
circuit, Justice Daniel's, contains little, if any, over half a
million of white inhabitants ; while Justice McLean's contains
over six millions. The second circuit, Justice Nelson's, com¬
posed of the States of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont,
^Deceased since the delivery of this speech.
— 60 —
contains over five millions o.f freemen; while the fifth cir¬
cuit, Justice Campbell's, composed of the States of Louis¬
iana and Alabama, has but little over a million white inhabi¬
tants.
But, if the inequality of population is great in these
circuits, the inequality of labor and business disposed of by
each of the judges of these circuits is far greater. I have
taken the trouble, since I haye had the honor of a seat here,
to examine into this matter, and have obtained the following
accurate statement of the business of the five Southern circuits,
and the circuit of Judge McLean, from the 1st of January,
1856, to the 1st of January, 1857, to which I invite the special
attention of the House, as demonstrating, more forcibly than
any argument of mine, the deliberate purpose of the repre¬
sentatives of the so-called Democratic party to secure to this
Southern privileged class, who are but a small minority of
the people, the absolute control of this important and dan¬
gerous department of the government.
This statement will show the number of cases on the
docket in five of the Southern circuits, also Judge McLean's
circuit, on the 1st of January, 1856, and the number added
during the year 1856, the number tried and disposed of that
year, and the number remaining undisposed of, January
1, 1857.
— 61 —
CIRCUITS.
cn ~
o-ss
aj^
■3 ®
J! <?.
<u &
W VQ
O 00
For the fourth circuit, composed
of the States of Delaware,
Maryland, and Virginia, Chief
Justice Taney presiding1, the
returns show
For the fifth circuit, composed of
the States of Louisiana and
Alabama, Judge Campbell pre¬
siding, the returns show....
For the sixth circuit, composed
of the States of Georgia, South
Carolina, and North Carolina,
Judge Wayne presiding, the
returns show
For the eighth circuit, composed
of the States of Missouri, Ten¬
nessee, and Kentucky, Judge
Catron presiding, the returns
show
For the ninth circuit, composed
of the States of Arkansas and
Mississippi, Judge Daniel pre
siding, the returns show
Total for five Southern circuits
For the seventh (Judge McLean's)
circuit, composed of the States
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and
Michigan, the returns show
more business than all the five
Southern circuits
444
350
328
379
388
412
133
289
311
316
333
257
170
316
294
1,576
1,423
1,721
1,481
2,037
1,782
— 62 —
It will be seen by this statement that Judge McLean has
more business in his single circuit than all the five Southern
judges in their five Southern circuits. That the number of
cases docketed in the course of the year was greater; the
number disposed of greater ; and the number remaining undis¬
posed of on the 1st of January, 1857, was greater.
What justification, excuse, or apology, can the members
of the Democratic party in the North give for this shameful
neglect or betrayal of the interest of their constituents?
Let any impartial man look over this table, and answer
the question, " how ought these circuits to be constituted?"
and he will answer you, '' in proportion to the; amount of
business done) by each judge of the several, circuits." If
this just principle should be adopted, as it ought to be, and
will be some day adopted, and the average business of the
present five Southern circuits should constitute the basis for
creating new judicial circuits and judges of the Supreme
Court, the North would be entitled to at least fourteen or fif¬
teen more circuits and judges, without including the States
of Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, and Oregon,
which I have not included in the above calculations.
Why is it that this inequality is permitted to continue?
Why is it that the Representatives of the so-called Demo¬
cratic party from the North have not long ago moved to
equalize this department of the government, and obtain for
their constituents a representation on the bench equal to
their numbers, business, and wealth?
To say that all this is the result of accident, and the
unexpected increase of population in the North, is a mockery.
I tell you, as all reflecting and observing men who are not
partisans will tell you, that it is but one of the many
schemes to which the Democratic party, since its surrender to
the Calhoun faction, has lent the use of its great name and
influence to establish and make permanent and universal the
institution of human slavery in all the States and Territories
of this Republic.
Mr. Chairman, the time was, and that, too, within the
memory of many members on this floor, when slavery was
regarded and admitted by the great majority of the Ameri-
— 63 —
•can people, by men of all parties and all religious creeds, to
be a moral, social, and political evil, from which it was the
duty of the States to free themselves as speedily as possi¬
ble, and for the existence and continuance of which the
National Government should in no way be held responsible
before the world. Now all this is changed; and a great
party to-day, through its Representatives in this Hall, with
here and there an exception, claim that slavery is a moral,
a Christian, and desirable political institution, established by
the Great Supreme, for the happiness alike of the white and
black races. And not only this, but they claim that the
National Constitution, which our fathers declared they
ordained to secure the blessing's of liberty, carries, sustains,
and protects, of its own force, the right of the master to the
person and service of his slave on every foot of soil, and
wherever floats the national ensign, save only in States
where, by positive enactments, its existence is prohibited;
in other words, that slavery is a natural, legal, and
universal relation, and freedom unnatural, exceptional, and
local, and only made exceptional by the exercise of the arbi¬
trary will of the electors of theS tates, expressed in the form
of positive legislative inhibition. Even this pretended rig-ht,
unsustained as it was by any respectable number of men
from the organization of the government until the birth of
the Calhoun party, in 1844, has become the cardinal point in
the Democratic creed.
This desperate faction was unfortunately recognized and
negotiated with at that time, and its leaders succeeded in
making a secret treaty with the recognized chief of the
Democratic party, from the bad effects of which the party
never recovered. Since that time (1844), this mere faction —
a clique that twenty years ago could be easily numbered —
have been constantly gaining in power and strength, until at
lp.st they have been able to force from the party an authori¬
tative recognition of their doctrines. They have baptized
them in the name of Democracy; and from this time forward,
not only are the living principles of the old Democratic
party to be abandoned, but the doctrine is to be maintained
that the Dred Scott decision is the true interpretation of the
— 64 —
Constitution ; that the logical result of that decision prevents*
the people of any State from excluding- slavery.
On the 17th of November, 1857, the Washing-ton Union,
the organ of the Administration, and the special mouth¬
piece of the President, in speaking- of this subject, said :
'' The constitution declares that ' the} citizens op
each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and
immunities op citizens in the several states.' every
citizen of one State coming- into another State has therefore
a right to the protection of his person, and that property
which is recognized as such by the Constitution of the
United States, any law of a State to the contrary notwith¬
standing. So far from any State havin'g- a right to deprive
him of this property, it is its bounden duty to protect him in
its possession.
i'If these views are correct — and we believe it would
be difficult to invalidate them — it follows that all State laws,
whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit a citizen of
one State from settling in another, and bringing his slave
property with him, and most especially declaring- it for¬
feited, are direct violations of the original intention of a
g-overnment which, as before stated, is the protection of
person and property, and of the Constitution of the United
States, which recognizes property in slaves, and declares
that ' the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States,'
among- the most essential of which is the protection of per¬
son and property."
And, in my judgment, this will be the next ag-gressive
step made by the present Administration party upon the free
people of this country. Yes, sir; I firmly believe that we
are to have a second Dred Scott decision by the present
Supreme Court, which will fully sustain this monstrous claim
now openly set up by many of the leaders of this Calhoun
party, provided, always, that they are successful in the com¬
ing- Presidential election, and the Supreme Court can thereby
have the assurance it had when Mr. Buchanan was elected,
that its decrees will be enforced by the strong- arm of the
Executive department of the g-overnment, with the army and
navy and purse of the nation at its command. I infer this
both from the manner in which the members of this court
have been selected, and from the history of the first Dred
— 65 —
Scott case. The I/emmon case, as it is familiarly called, but
which I designate the second Dred Scott case, has been, as
gentlemen are aware, carried up on appeal by the authorities
of the State of Virginia from the Supreme Court of the
State of New York to the Supreme Court of the United
States, and presents a case exactly in point; and I doubt not
is prosecuted by Virginia for no other purpose than to obtain
another political decision from this court to sustain their
pro-slavery interpretations of the Constitution. If this is
not the case, why is the decision of the New York court to
be carried up for revision, as the State of Virginia did not
own the slave liberated by Judge Payne; and Mr. Lemmoa,
I believe, was paid the full value of these slaves by the cot¬
ton merchants of New York, soon after their liberation?
There can be but one motive for the action of Virginia
in the premises; and that is, to secure another pro-slavery
opinion from the Supreme Court, sustaining their interpreta¬
tion of the Constitution — an interpretation which even Mr.
Calhoun never openly claimed, but which his disciples, em¬
boldened by their success, now claim to be the true one —
namely, that slaveholders have the right, under the Consti¬
tution of the United States, to go, not only into all the
organized Territories, but into any or all the organized North¬
ern States, with their slaves, and there have them protected
by the National Government, in defiance of the local laws of
the State. It is my solemn, deliberate conviction, that this
clearly unconstitutional claim will be sustained by the
Supreme Court, if a President is elected this year by the pro-
slavery party of the country. And let me ask, gentlemen, if
such a decision is any more unlikely to happen than the first
Dred Scott decision? And does it not necessarily follow, if
the Dred Scott 'decision is correct, that the decision of the
Supreme Court of the State of New York, in the bemmon
case, is wrong?
Let us look at this point a moment. The Kansas-
Nebraska bills contained the germ from which both these
pro-slavery questions were dug up. Both bills declared —
"That it is the true intent and meaning of this act, not
to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude
5
— 66 —
it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to
form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United
States."
At the time the Kansas-Nebraska bills were under dis¬
cussion, no person was able to discover why the clause "not
to legislate) slavery into any territory or state, nor
To exclude it therefrom," was inserted in said acts ; and
their distinguished author, from that day to this, has never
enlightened the country on this point, although frequently
and urgently pressed to do so. The concluding- line of this
extraordinary section, "subject only to the Constitution
of the United States," was understood and denounced at
the time as a cunningly-devised scheme for getting- the politi"
cal question of the power of Congress over the subject of
slavery in the Territories before the Supreme Court, which
was now, for the first time in the history of the government,
regarded as a partisan tribunal, completely in the hands of
the pro-slavery party, who had selected a majority of the
judges for their well-known sympathy with the privileged
class and their fidelity to the interest of slavery.
The meaning- of the words, "not to legislate slavery
into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there¬
from," was soon comprehended after the Presidential elec¬
tion of 1856, from the authoritative interpretation given by
the President and his party to this apparently harmless
declaration, and the subsequent action of the Supreme Court
in the Dred Scott case. About a year after the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska act, the Dred Scott case is first heard
of by the people, and an unpleasant apprehension imme¬
diately took possession of the public mind. Arguments were
made by counsel in the winter of 1855 and 1856, but the
decision was reserved. The Presidential election was ap¬
proaching, and this "august tribunal" thought it prudent
to defer their decision, and not submit it to that higher,
better, and safer court of appeals, the people, so soon after
its delivery. They therefore reserved their opinions, and
ordered the case to be reargued ; and thus a year's time was
gained, which carried them over the Presidential election of
— 67 —
1856, and. enabled the court to know positively whether they
could rely upon the executive and legislative departments
of the government to sustain and enforce their contemplated
usurpation.
The Cincinnati convention in the mean time had been
held, and reconstructed the creed of the party, and nominated
Mr. Buchanan. In this platform, the Southern members of
the party, understanding what would be the probable action
of the court in the Dred Scott case, determined to aid the
court in their contemplated decision, by giving two interpre¬
tations to the Kansas-Nebraska act, while claiming, authori¬
tatively, to give but one. The manner in which they did
this, was by resolving that the people of Kansas might deter¬
mine for themselves whether they would have slavery or not,
"whenever the; number of inhabitants justified it."
This was a cunning play upon words, and intended to deceive
the people, by permitting one interpretation in the North and
quite a different one in the South, for the double purpose of
political effect during the Presidential campaign. After the
election, if successful, they were to make a new definition,
which was necessary, in order to harmonize the conflicting
views of the party leaders, and in order the more effectually
to aid in the pretended settlement of this "vexed question."
The public pledge of the party was everywhere cautiously
secured in advance, through all the appliances known to this
wonderful party organization, to abide by and sustain, as a
final settlement, the interpretation, whatever it might be,
that the Supreme Court would give to this plank in the Cin¬
cinnati platform.* With this arrangement, the slave barons
^Senator Benjamin, of Louisiana, in a late speech which I regard as one of the
ablest and most forcible yet made against the position and consistency of Mr.'Douglas,
frankly declared, on the floor of the Senate, that the above charges of a secret con¬
spiracy were true ; and though this fact was well known to many, it had never before
been admitted by any leading member of the Democratic party.
Mr. Benjamin said, substantially, that —
" Both wings of the Democracy agreed, in a caucus of the Senate, in 1854, that
' each should maintain its particular theory before the public — one side sustaining
'Squatter Sovereignty, and the other protection to slavery in the Terri-
4 tories, but pledging themselves to abide by the decision of the Supreme
' Court, whatever it might be."
This was the secret bargain which Mr. Benjamin charged Mr. Douglas with vio¬
lating, declaring that he (Douglas) had failed to keep good his pledge.
In this manner, the people of the free States were deceived into the support of Mr.
Buchanan, in 18S6. Let the freemen of the North see to it that they are not again
deceived by secret bargains in 1860.
— 68 —
felt safe and confident, after having- secured the election of
Mr. Buchanan, and as soon thereafter as they thought it
expedient, they openly, through the outgoing* and incoming
Executives, and in the Halls of this Capitol, claimed the
extreme Southern interpretation to be the true one.
The true interpretation having been thus authoritatively
established by the court, and declared to be, that "the peo¬
ple of the Territories should never have the power,
while in a Territorial condition, to abolish or exclude
slavery," the abandonment of the deceptive and alluring
catch-words of " popular sovereignty " became a necessity
with all who were members of the party, except a few who
were denominated "rebels," or the undisguised demagogues
who still remain with the party. Mr. Buchanan, in his in¬
augural, openly sustained Calhoun's theory on this question,
and, in the Silliman letter, declared that slavery, by virtue
of the Constitution, not only existed in all the Territories of
the Union, but that "it existed in Kansas as completely
as in Georgia or South Carolina;" and he adds, in his last
annual message, to complete the record, and sustain in ad¬
vance the well-known forthcoming decision of the Supreme
Court in this second Dred Scott case, to which I have alluded,
"that neither Congress nor the Territorial Legisla¬
ture, nor any Human Power, has any authority to annul
or impair this vested right," claiming that the Supreme
Court has finally established the right of every citizen to
"take i-iis slave property into the territories, and
have it protected there under the constitution." He
would thus irrevocably fix the status of all national Terri¬
tories as slave Territories, and deprive the people of the
power to alter or change it; and, as if to extinguish the last
vestige of "popular sovereignty," the President declares
that, if it " had been decided that either congress or a
Territorial Legislature possessed the power to impair
this right of property in slaves, the evil would have
been intolerable." He claims that the Supreme Court have
the power, and should protect this class interest against the
will of the people; and that Congress, if necessary, "must
strengthen their hands by further legislation." Com¬
ment on such a political record is unnecessary.
— 69 —
During- the Presidential contest of 1856, the Supreme
Court and slave barons held their "breath, and only breathed
freely again after the smoke of the battle had cleared away,
and they found that they had secured another four years'
lease of power by the election of Mr. Buchanan. That result
could only have .happened then, and can only be repeated
now, by the folly and division of their opponents, who were
then, and are to-day, a large majority of the people.
About the time of the inauguration of Mr. Buchanan,
the Dred Scott case was reargued, as ordered, and the court
were now prepared to take the course so long and cautiously
contemplated; when all the precedents of this tribunal, even
their own decisions, and the adjudications of such men as
Jay and Story and Marshall were to be overruled, and the
doctrine officially proclaimed to the world, "that the Constitu¬
tion of the United States recognized property in man."
In order that the nation might be prepared to submit to
almost any new aggression of the slave barons, the leaders of
this class interest, who always rule with an unrelenting
despotism, saw to it that the outgoing President of the
United States should prepare the party, and especially all the
hungry swarm of applicants for official favor under the incom¬
ing Administration, to defend, in advance, the decision of
the Supreme Court, whatever it might be.
In accordance with this cunningly-devised programme,
President Pierce, in his last annual message, claimed that
the people, in the election of Mr. Buchanan (although all
knew he was elected by a minority of the votes), endorsed
the Kansas-Nebraska act; and apprised them of the fact that
this Dred Scott decision, although not at that time officially
announced from the bench, had been agreed upon, and that
the court "had finally determined this point, to wit: that
Congress had no power to exclude slavery from States
or Territories, in every form in which the question
could arise." He thus advised, in advance, all the aspirants
and politicians of the country, who desired favors or promo¬
tion at the hands of the slave barons, under the incoming
administration of Mr. Buchanan, the course necessary for
them to pursue, in order the more effectually to secure a
recognition of their claims. The following extract from the
— 70 —
message referred to, though expressed ill ambiguous and
carefully selected language, applies to, and was intended to
apply to, the Dred Scott case. The use of the words, "in a
long series of decisions," was intended to mislead and
deceive the masses of the people, for the court had never
established any such doctrine as claimed by "a long series
of decisions," but had uniformly decided directly the reverse,
so far as regards the power of Congress to exclude slavery
from the Territories.
The manner in which the author of this part of the mes¬
sage (whom Colonel Benton alleges was Caleb Gushing, then
Attorney General) couples the terms "private rights,"
"navigation," "religion," and servitude," cannot fail to
attract the attention of the careful reader. "What rights of
"religion" were affected or secured by this decision, in either
States or Territories, has not transpired. The President
says :
"Thereupon this enactment [the Missouri compromise]
ceased to have binding virtue in any sense, whether as re¬
spects the North or the South [because the North would
not agree to extend it to the Pacific] , and so in effect it
was treated on the occasion of the admission of the State of
California, and the organization of the Territories of New
Mexico, Utah, and Washington.
"Such was the state of the question when the time
arrived for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and
Nebraska. In the progress of constitutional inquiry and
reflection, it had now at length come to be seen clearly that
Congress does not possess constitutional power to impose
restrictions of this character [the exclusion of slavery] upon
any present or future State of the Union. In a long series
of decisions, on the fullest argument, and after the most
deliberate consideration, the Supreme Court of the United
States had finally determined this point, in every form in
which the question could arise, whether as affecting pub¬
lic or private rights in the questions of public domain, of
religion, of navigation, and of servitude."
Colonel Benton characterizes, and very justly, that part
of the message from which the above extract is taken, as
follows :
"The last annual message of Mr. Pierce was the last
opportunity for this defensive pleading (declaring the Mis-
— 71 —
souri compromise unconstitutional, and sustaining- the court),
and being- the last, it was carefully seized on and vigorously
improved to the best advantage. The message was big- with
it. It was a larg-e plea and a bold one, and conspicuously
presented. In quantity, it filled eleven octavo pag-es (leav¬
ing- but seventeen for all the appropriate subjects which
belong- to that official paper); in boldness it inaugurated a
new era in our Presidential messag-es — the era of historical
falsification in these hig-h papers — heretofore considered the
sacred receptacle of veracious history ; in conspicuity, being-
thrust in front of the message, instead of being- releg-ated to
its fag--end, where such low matter should g-o, if, indeed,
allowed to enter a messag-e at all, which it never was before.
Veracious history must rebuke this first attempt to make the
Presidential annual message a vehicle of historical falsifica¬
tion; and the work is easily done, all the facts necessary to
the correction of the fallacious statements being- of record in
the debates and Journals of Congress, and other authentic
public evidence."
Mr. Buchanan, in his inaugural address, referred to the
forthcoming- decision in the Dred Scott case, and with appar¬
ently great reg-ard for this "august tribunal," which in
former years, and before it was regarded as partisan, he and
the whole Democratic party had denounced as an unsafe
depository of power, says :
"To their decision, in common with all g-ood citizens, I
shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be."
In reference to the differences of opinion that had arisen
as to the point of time when the people of a Territory should
have power to exclude slavery, he says :
"This is happily a matter of but little practical impor¬
tance. Besides, it is a judicial question"—when, or why, or
on whose authority, this became a judicial question, he does
not inform the country—•"which legitimately belongs to
the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is
now pending*, and will, it is understood, be speedily and
finally settled. To their decision, in common with all g-ood
citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be."
These declarations of the outgoing- and incoming- Presi¬
dents simply meant that the politicians and applicants for
official favor should not only endorse this decision themselves,
but that they should prepare the minds of the people, so far as
— 72 —
possible, but especially the Democratic party, for one of the
most startling decisions ever announced by any judicial
tribunal in the world; and so successfully did this well-laid plot
work, that partisans and place-hunters in many of the free
States succeeded in haying- the decision of this court endorsed
by their party conventions, with apparent enthusiasm, imme¬
diately after its delivery. If there had not been something-
unusual and alarming- at the bottom of this forthcoming-
decision of the Supreme Court, in a case which only involved
the title to an old superannuated black man, whose value was
not one hundred dollars in any slave market in the world,
and who, I believe, died within a year after this decision was
made, would there have been any such anxiety about this
case as was manifested by the slave barons? Can any gentle¬
man on the administration side of the House answer the
question? No, sir, he cannot; and it will not be attempted.
This court has decided cases, time and ag-ain, involving- the
title to millions of property, and yet no President and no
party conventions, or party press, ever in advance called
upon or appealed to the litigants, much less a party, or the
people at large, to submit to a forthcoming decision of this
tribunal.
After all this skilful preparation, comes the 1 ng-delayed
decision of the court, which substantially declared, that as
black men had no natural or political rights, and were not
citizens, that they could not maintain a suit for their free¬
dom, or have a hearing for any purpose in the courts of the
United States. Had the court stopped right here, and con¬
tented themselves simply with deciding all the points there
were in the case, as I understand it, there would have been no
such extraordinary effort on the part of the slave barons,
through the official influence and patronage of two Presi¬
dents, to induce the party and people of the Northern States
to submit to this decision. For though I regard the declara¬
tion of the court that a black man, the descendant of Afri¬
cans who were stolen from Africa and enslaved by pirates,
has no claims either to a hearing or protection to life and
liberty from this department of the government as mon¬
strous, and contrary to the spirit and genius of our institu¬
tions, which should protect and defend the rights of every
-73-
human being-, however humble, within our jurisdiction, jet I
say, if this had been all of the case, and the court had not
traveled out of the record in its attempt to get hold of, and
pass upon, political questions, which were not and could not
properly be before it, there would have been no anxiety or
alarm on the part of the slave barons as to the probable sub¬
mission of the great mass of the people to this decision,
especially of their Northern allies.
On this point, the late Colonel Benton, in his examina¬
tion of the Dred Scott case (page 5), justly remarks:
" The court, in repulsing jurisdiction of the original case,
and dismissing it for the want of the right to try it [after
dismissing it], found great difficulty in getting at its merits
— at the merits of the dismissed case itself; and certainly, still
greater difficulty in getting at the merits of two great politi¬
cal questions, which lie so far behind it. The court evidently
felt this difficulty, and worked sedulously to avoid it—sedu¬
lously at building a bridge long and slender, upon which a
majority of these judges crossed the wide and deep gulf
which separated the personal rights of Dred Scott and his
family from the political institutions and the political rights
of the whole body of the American people."
Mr. Justice Wayne, in constructing one of the spans of
this shaky and unsubstantial judicial bridge, on which a
majority of the court crossed the deep gulf referred to by
Colonel Benton, assigned as a reason for traveling out of the
record, and passing upon the constitutionality of the Mis¬
souri compromise, its necessity, in order to give peace to the
country. He said:
"The case involves private rights of great value, and
constitutional principles of the highest importance, about
which there had become such a difference of opinion, that
the peace and harmony of the country required the settle^
ment of them by judicial decision."
From whence the Supreme Court derived their authority
to settle political questions, in order, as Mr. Justice Wayne
says, to secure " peach and harmony" between contending
political parties, neither he, nor either of the judges concur¬
ring in this opinion, have seen proper to inform the public.
When the court thus traveled out of the record, and
assumed to pass upon the power of Congress and the Terri-
— 74 —
torial Legislatures to prohibit and exclude slavery in the
Territories of the nation, and declare, as it did in this case,
that neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature possessed
the power, notwithstanding the uniform practice of the
government for seventy years had been to exclude and pro¬
hibit slavery by Congressional enactment, there was fear,
and just cause for fear, on the part of the slave barons, the
President, and the court itself, that the people would not sub¬
mit to a decision that virtually changed their Constitution.
Hence the great anxiety of the privileged class — for whose
sole benefit this decision was made — to secure acquiescence
in the endorsement by the people of this usurpation of the
Supreme Court.
To secure this, the first necessary step was to compel the
President to proscribe all the leading men in the party, and
all applicants for office, who did not submit to, and accept
with alacrity, the decision of the court as "final." These
were required to join the government in the use of all the
power and patronage at its command, and the unscrupulous
use of all party appliances, to secure the most unqualified
endorsement of this decision by every State convention of
the party in the North, thus making a judicial decision a
party question; and, so far from settling the points assumed
to be adjudicated by the court, making the opinion of the
court itself a new and a test question of party fidelity,
"bringing the;court into the; political field," as Colonel
Benton has said, and making the new questions thus raised
"the: very watchwords of parties." For assuredly this is
a question which must become far more bitter and malignant
than the slavery question itself, when the people fully com¬
prehend the alarming power assumed by this irresponsible
department of the government to change or annul their Con¬
stitution at pleasure. I say irresponsible department; be¬
cause, holding their offices for life, and not amenable to the
people for their acts, they have no fear of removal, and do
not regard, as Mr. Jefferson has said, the power of impeach¬
ment even as a "scarecrow."
The important points which the Supreme Court assumed
to decide for the interest of the slave barons were : first, that
no slave, or the descendant of a slave, could maintain a suit
at law for any purpose in any of the courts of the United
States.
This decision was demanded and deemed necessary, in
order that the precedent might be settled favorable to this
class interest, while the pro-slavery party had possession of
the courts, so that thereafter no slave, or person held as
such, should be allowed to bring- suit for his or her freedom,
or sue out a writ of habeas corpus before any of said courts,
to compel the party holding- any such persons as slaves to
show by what authority said person or persons were dis¬
trained of their liberty, unless the court should first overrule
this decision.
The point thus g-ained by the slave barons was an impor¬
tant one, because it made it necessary thereafter for all per¬
sons suing for their freedom, to bring- their suits in the State
courts, where, the law-makers, the judges, and juries, being-
all slaveholders, there would be no question that the interests
and wishes of the privileged class would be omnipotent.
But little danger could be apprehended, with such laws as are
enacted by Southern States to guard and protect this class
interest, of any persons obtaining their freedom, though they
might be so white that they would readily pass for white per¬
sons, and though it might be well known to the claimant, as
well as judge and jury, that the person thus held was born
free. Hence the importance of this point to the slaveholder,
else such suits as I have alluded to might, and doubtless
would, become troublesome and inconvenient to the privileged
class, as there are a number of States whose Constitutions
and laws do not establish slavery as an institution, but simply
recognize the relation of master and slave without establish¬
ing the right.
2. That the Constitution, of its own inherent force,
extends to all Territories as soon as acquired. On this point,
I quote the testimony of Mr. Benton, because it is of great
value, as showing what views were entertained by all depart¬
ments of the government on this question up to the time this
decision was made. (I do not, however, desire to be under¬
stood as endorsing Mr. Benton's views in full on this point.)
76—
He says, in his Notification to the Reader, in his volume
examining- the Dred Scott case :
" Without going- further into that history, in this brief
postscriptum notification, and confining- himself to the pre¬
cise point in issue, the writer will say that the administra¬
tion of Mr. Monroe expressly, by unanimous decision, and
each House of Congress impliedly, and without division,
decided that no part of the Constitution and no act of Con¬
gress went to a Territory unless extended to it by act of Con¬
gress."
3. That the Constitution recognized slaves as property
as well as persons, and, because thus recog'nized, Congress
had no power to prohibit the introduction of, or to exclude
after it was introduced, this species of property from the
Territories ; and
4. "If (as the court say) Congress cannot exercise this
power (to exclude slavery from the Territories), it will hardly
be claimed that it can delegate the power to a Territorial
Legislature."
In this summary manner, and in these words, did the
Supreme Court, whose decisions Mr. Douglas pretends to
endorse, dispose o: hk boasted theory of popular sovereignty,
and thus were the deception and fraud practiced upon the
people of the North in 1856 unblushingly proclaimed.
The doctrine that the Constitution of the United States
recognizes slaves as property, and that Congress has not the
power to exclude it from the Territories, having been estab¬
lished, so far as the authority of the Supreme Court and the
uniied voice of a great parly can establish it, the next step
in the series of aggressions and usurpations contemplated by
this tribunal, and the class who created and control it, is to
declare that slavery cannot lawfully be excluded from any of
the States of the Union; that so long as one State in the
Union recognizes and sanctions slaveholding, whether by
her Constitution, her laws, or custom, slaveholding shall be
legal in all the Territories, and in every State, and neither
Congress nof State nor Territorial Legislatures shall have
the power to prohibit it. It is difficult to see how it can be
lawfully excluded from a Territory or State, or on what just
principle the purchase and importation of slaves is declared
— 77 —
piracy, if it "be true that the national Constitution recognizes
slaves as property; for article six of tlie Constitution of the
United States declares that
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States
which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties
made, or which shall "be made, under the authority of the
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the
judges In every State shall be bound thereby, anything- in
the laws and Constitution of any State to the contrary not¬
withstanding'."
Any legislative enactment, therefore, either by Terri¬
tories or States, excluding the master with his slaves; or, if
he enter a Territory or State, destroying his property by
depriving him of it without compensation, must be clearly
unconstitutional, as must also be the law which declares the
slave trade piracy; for, if slaves are property by virtue of a
constitutional provision, they are property, not only in the
Territories and in all the States — Ohio as well as Missouri
— but are also property in every part of the world wherever
the flag of the country protects the lives and property of her
citizens. The only exception that can possibly be made to
this rule, provided the premises claimed be admitted, would
be where our citizens, with their slave property, were tem¬
porarily residing in or passing through the territory of a
foreign nation whose laws prohibited slavery. In such a
country they probably could not hold them without express
treaty stipulations. But if a citizen of the United States,
under the protection of his country's flag, buys slaves in
Africa, or in any other country, they are as legally his as
though he purchased them in South Carolina, provided sla¬
very is not prohibited by. law in the country where the pur¬
chase is made. And there being no law in Africa to prohibit
slaveholding, but a usage recognizing it, the act of Congress
that prohibits citizens of the United States from purchasing
slaves there, or, if he purchase them, deprives him of his prop¬
erty without compensation, the moment he sets foot on the soil
of his own State with them, and, in addition, inflicts the terri¬
ble penalty of death upon him for having in his possession
persons who are recognized by the Constitution of his coun¬
try as property, is clearly unconstitutional.
— 78 —
The Supreme Court, however, did not dare, when decid¬
ing- the Dred Scott case, to declare, in so many words, that
the States of this Union could not exclude slavery and pro¬
hibit its existence within their jurisdiction. The supporters
of the slave power knew that the public mind of the North
was not prepared for such a declaration of their purposes.
They therefore preferred to take the safer course, and first
secure the endorsement and acquiescence of the people in the
Dred Scott decision, knowing- that the logical result of that
decision would legalize slavery in all the States and Terri¬
tories of the Republic, notwithstanding their State Constitu¬
tions and laws might prohibit it.
Judge Nelson, of the majority of the Supreme Court,
who concurred in the Dred Scott opinion, is the only judge
who approached near enough to this point to give any inti¬
mation of what would be his views in a case such as Virginia
has carried up from the Supreme Court of New York. In
stating his views, he admitted that the several States of the
Union had legislative power over all subjects, except in cases
where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the
United States. He adds :
"The law of the State is supreme over the subject of
slavery within its jurisdiction, except in cases where the
power is restrained by the Constitution."
And for this opinion he may be nominated at the Balti¬
more Convention on the 18th of next month. But if the Con¬
stitution of the United States recognizes slaves as property,
the State cannot legally exclude them, for the national Con¬
stitution "is the supreme law of the land," and provides, in
article four, section second, expressly that
"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the
privileges and immunities of the citizens in the several
States."
This provision secures beyond question the right of every
citizen of a State to pass through or reside in any State,
with any and all descriptions of property recognized by the
national Constitution, and all laws, enactments, and judicial
decisions, of every State, destroying or depriving a citizen
of any State of this right, is violative not only of the letter
— 79 —
but the spirit of the national Constitution, if slaves are
property by virtue of any provision of that instrument.
Hence I claim, and always have claimed, that either Jeffer¬
son and the Republican party are right on this question, or
Calhoun and his disciples are right. There can be but two
sides to the question.
But, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that the Constitution
of my country recognizes property in man. If I did, then,
sir, I never could, and I ijever would, have laid my hand upon
the Bible, and taken such an oath as I did when I became a
member of this House, to support such a Constitution; and
which, by becoming- a member of this body, I must either
violate or vote to sustain and protect the right of the master
to his slave property in all the Territories and m all the
States of the American Union, by the whole power of the
government — by the use of the army and navy and the purse
of the nation. For, if such are his vested rights under the
Constitution, I cheerfully concede it to be the duty of those
who administer the government to give him adequate protec¬
tion, to the full extent of their power and jurisdiction. I
would simply decline participating in such an Administra¬
tion; for I do not subscribe to the extraordinary statesmanship
of the author of the Kansas-Nebraska act, which concedes
the constitutional right of one man to property in tne person
of another; placing it exactly upon the same tenure of o her
property, and then admitting that he may be legally deprived
of that property, without compensation, by what he terms
the "unfriendly legislation " of a Territorial Legislature,
which even he does not pretend to claim can exercise sovereign
power.
Sir, if I could believe that our fathers who formed this
Union, which I have been taught to love, and this Constitu¬
tion, which I have been taught to cling to as the palladium
of our liberties — I say, if I could be made to believe that
they intended to declare or did covertly and insidiously declare
in any line or section of that Constitution that there could
be property in man, then I would cease to cherish or venerate
their memories, and, rather than hold a seat on this floor for
a single hour, and by holding a seat here be obliged by my
— 80 —
oath to sanction and support the institution of human sla¬
very, I would become an alien to such a government, and
refuse to be classed as a citizen with a people who, with the
light of centuries beaming* upon them, persisted in the crime
of upholding a Constitution which recognized property in
man.
But, Mr. Chairman, it is claimed that the question as to
whether the Constitution recognizes property in man or not,
is no longer an open question; that it is a question which can¬
not with safety be submitted for determination to the people,
or be intrusted to the individual opinions of their Represen,
tatives in Congress, nor to the officers in any of the co-ordi¬
nate departments of the government, except the Supreme
Court.
It is said that the question has been, as the President
informs us, "finally" and authoritatively settled for us by
that " august tribunal." Men of all parties, in office and
out of office, are called upon by the party through whose
instrumentality this decision was procured, to submit to and
endorse it; and the demand is made and insisted on, that, by
our votes and acts here, we shall conform the legislation of
the country to this political decision, without regard to what
may fiave been the action of the government or the opinions
entertained by the leading statesmen of the past and present
day upon this question. Thus, sir, if this theory is to be
acquiesced in by the country, all individual responsibility in
the government ceases; and I must swear, and every officer of
the government must swear, to support the Constitution, not
as I or .they may understand it, but as a majority of the nine
men who compose the Supreme Court understand and inter¬
pret it for us. And this, sir, is called Democracy in the }-ear
of grace 1860!
Sir, this kind of Democracy I repudiate, and appeal to
the common sense of every man, and the record of our
fathers, to prove that it is a spurious species of Democracy.
Sir, when I took an oath to support the Constitution, I
swore to support it as I understood it, and not as a majority
of the Supreme Court may understand it, or any other num¬
ber of men, individually or collectively. On this point I
-81 —
believe the Supreme Court has no more right to control the
action of members of Congress, than Congress has the right
to interfere with and dictate a decision in any case before
that tribunal for adjudication.
In Colonel Benton's introductory note to his examination
of the Dred Scott case, he uses the following language,which
I fully endorse:
" Congress holds its powers from the Constitution, where
every grant of authority is preceded by the words, ' shall
have power to,' and to the support of which the members are
sworn. The grant of power is in the Constitution, and the
oath is to the Constitution; and it is written, that its words,
always the same, may be always seen, and no excuse for dis¬
regarding them. The duty of the member, his allegiance,
his fealty, is to the Constitution; and in performance of this
duty, in the discharge of this allegiance, in the keeping of
this fealty, he must be governed by the words of the instru¬
ment, and by the dictates of his own conscience. The mem¬
ber may enlighten himself, and should, with counsels of
others; but as authority, as a rule of obligation, as a guide
to conduct, the Constitution and the oath alone can govern;
and were it otherwise, was Congress to look to judicial inter¬
pretation for its powers, it would soon cease to have any fixed
rules to go by; would soon have as many diverse interpreta¬
tions as different courts, and, like the Holy Scripture in the
hands of councils and commentators, would soon cease to be
what its framers made it.
"The power of the court is judicial — so declared in the
Constitution, and so held in theory, if not in practice. It is
limited to cases ' in law and equity;' and though sometimes
encroaching upon political subjects, it is without right, with¬
out authority, and without the means of enforcing its decis¬
ions. It can issue no mandamus to Congress or the people,
nor punish them for disregarding its decisions, or even attack¬
ing them. Far from being bound by their decisions, Congress
may proceed criminally against the judges for making them,
when deemed criminally wrong — one House impeach, and
the other try, as done in the famous case of Judge Chase.
"In assuming to decide these questions [constitutionality
of the Missouri compromise, etc.], it is believed the court
committed two great errors: first, in the assumption to try
such questions; secondly, in deciding them as they did.
And it is certain that the decisions are contrary to the uni¬
form action of all departments of the government — one of
them for thirty-six years, and the other for seventy years—
6
— 82 —
and in their effects upon each are equivalent to an alteration
of the Constitution, by inserting- new clauses in it, which
could not have been put in it at the time that instrument was
made, nor at any time since, nor now."
As long- ago as when a bill for the organization of the
Territory of Oregon was under consideration of the Senate
of the United States, an attempt was made to get this politi¬
cal question of the power of Congress over the subject of sla¬
very in the Territories in shape, so that at the proper time
(that is, when the court was so constituted as to suit the
slave barons) it could be carried up on an agreed case, and
decided as the Dred Scott case was decided.
Hon. John Bell, then a Senator of the United States
from Tennessee, opposed the bill, and declared "that the
court was the weakest of the three co-ordinate'
branches op the government — too weak to command
obedience, or to settee such questions; and he drew the
inference that a decision of it before a tribunal so fee¬
ble might break down the court, while it failed to
satisfy the public mind." The result of the action of the
Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case testifies how just and
wise were the conclusions of that distinguished Senator.
General Jackson, in his messag'e returning- the bill for the
recharter of the Bank of the United States, replies, in the
following- well-timed remarks, to the claim then set up, that
as the Supreme Court had decided the constitutionality of a
similar charter creating this same bank, it was the duty of
Congress and the Executive to acquiesce in that decision:
"If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole
ground of this act, it ought not to control the co-ordinate
authorities of this g-overnment. The Congress, the Executive,
and the Court, must, each for itself, be g-uided by its own opin¬
ion of the Constitution. Each public officer, who takes an
oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support
it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others.
It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of
the Senate, and of the President, to decide upon the constitu¬
tionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to
them for passage or approval, as it is of the supreme judges,
when it may be brought before them for judicial decision.
The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Con¬
gress than the opinion of Congress over the judges; and, on
— 83 —
that point, the President is independent of both. The au¬
thority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be per¬
mitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting
in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence
as the force of their reasoning- may deserve."
Such, sir, were the opinions of two of the most illus¬
trious Democratic statesmen of the past generation on this
question of the power of one department of the government
to bind or control by any decision of theirs the action of any
other co-ordinate department, or of any member thereof.
These opinions were entertained by nearly all the leading
statesmen until the slave barons obtained complete ascendency
in the government, and by no one was these opinions more
distinctly and fully maintained than by the present Chief
Magistrate, as will be seen by the following extract from a
speech delivered by him in the Senate of the United States,
on the 7th of July, 1841, which may be found in the tenth
volume of the Congressional Globe, No. 2, page 163:
"But even if the Judiciary had settled the question, I
should never hold myself bound by their decision whilst act¬
ing in a legislative character. Unlike the Senator from
Massachusetts [Mr. Bates], I shall never consent to place the
political rights and liberties of this people in the hands of
any judicial tribunal. It was, therefore, with the utmost
astonishment I heard the Senator declare, that he considered
the 'expositions of the Constitution by the Judiciary to be
equally binding upon us as the expositions of the moral law
by the Saviour of mankind, contained in the Gospel, were
upon Christians; and that these judicial expositions were of
equal authority with the text of the Constitution. This, sir,
is an infallibility which was never before claimed for any
human tribunal; an infallibility which would convert free¬
men into abject slaves; an infallibility which would have ren¬
dered the famous sedition law as sacred as the Constitution
itself, the Judiciary having decided this law to be constitu¬
tional; and which would thus have annihilated, throughout
the whole extent of this Union, the liberty of the press and
the freedom of speech. No, sir, no; it is not the genius of
our institutions to consider mortal men as infallible.
"No man holds in higher estimation than I do the
memory of Chief Justice Marshall; but I should never have
consented to make even him the final arbiter between the
government and people of this country on questions of con¬
stitutional liberty. The experience of all ages and countries
— 84 —
has demonstrated, that judges instinctively lean towards the
prerogatives of Government; and it is notorious that the
court, during- the whole period which he presided over it,
embracing .so many years of its existence, has inclined
towards the highest assertion of Federal power. That this
has been done honestly and conscientiously, I entertain not
a doubt."
Sir, if the political opinions of a majority of the Supreme
Court in this Dred Scott case are to assume the form of a
decree, and be " irrevocable," as is claimed by the President
in his annual message, and all future political decrees of this
tribunal are also to be " irrevocable; " and binding upon the
Democratic party, as is claimed by the leaders of this party,
and this monstrous assumption of the slave barons is to be
acquiesced in and sustained by the people, in the election of
another pro-slavery President, then indeed will the revolu¬
tion inaugurated by Mr. Calhoun, less than twenty-five years
ago, be complete. There will then no longer be either free
Territories or free States in the American Union, but every
State and every Territory, so far as the National Govern¬
ment can decree it, will be consecrated to the everlasting
curse of human bondage.
Now, sir, as to the propriety of intrusting this Judicial
department of the government with the powers claimed for
it by the present Administration party. On this point I pre¬
fer to quote from the speeches and writings of some of the
most distinguished men who aided in the formation of the
government.
John Randolph, of Roanoke, said:
'' To me it appears that the power which has the right
of passing, without appeal, on the validity of your laws, is
your sovereign." . . . "But are we not as deeply interested
in the true exposition of the Constitution as the judges can
be? With all due deference to their talents, iz not Congress
as capable of forming a correct opinion as tVey are? Are
not its members acting under a responsibility to public
opinion, v/hich can and will check their aberrations from
duty? Let a case, not an imaginary one, be stated: Con¬
gress violates the Constitution by fettering the press; the
judicial corrective is applied to; far from protecting the
liberty of the citizen, or the letter of the Constitution, you
find them outdoing the Legislature in zeal — pressing the
— 8o-
common law of England to their service where the sedition
law did not apply. Suppose your reliance had been alto¬
gether on this broken staff, and not on the elective principle;
your press might have been enchained till doomsday, your
citizens incarcerated for life; and where is your remedy?"
Joseph H. Nicholson, of Maryland, said:
"By what authority are the judges to be raised above
the law and above the Constitution? Where is the charter
which places the sovereignty of this country in their hands?
Give them the powers and the independence now contended
for, and they will require nothing more; for your government
becomes a despotism, and they become your rulers. They are
to decide upon the lives, the liberties, and the property of
your citizens; they have an absolute veto upon your laws, by
declaring them null and void at pleasure; they are to intro¬
duce at will the laws of a foreign country, differing essen¬
tially with us upon the great principles of government; and,
after being clothed with this arbitrary power, they are beyond
the control of the nation, as they are not to be affected by
any laws which the people by their representatives can pass.
If all this be true, if this doctrine be established in the
extent which is now contended for, the Constitution is not
worth the time we are now spending upon it. It is, as it has
been called by its enemies, mere parchment; for these judges,
thus rendered omnipotent, may overleap the Constitution,
and trample on }Tour laws; they may laugh the Legislature
to scorn, and set the nation at defiance.
"To me it is a matter of indifference by what name you
call them; I care not whether it be kings or judges. Arm
them with power, and the danger is the same. For myself,
I have no hesitation in declaring, that I would rather be sub¬
ject to the absolute sway of one tyrant than to that of thirty;
as I would prefer the mild despotism of China to the hated
aristocracy of Venice, where the vilest wretch was encour¬
aged as a secret informer, and the lion's mouth was ever
gaping for accusation."
Robert Williams, of North Carolina, said:
"If this doctrine is to extend to the length gentlemen
contend, then is the sovereignty of the g-overnment to be
swallowed up in the vortex of the Judiciary. Whatever the
other departments of th& government may do, they can undo.
You can pass a law, but they can annul it. Will not the
people be astonished to hear that their laws depend upon the
will of the judges, who are themselves independent of all
law?"
— 86 —
Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, on the same day
said:
"According1 to some gentlemen, we were to regard the
Judiciary more than the law, and both more than the Consti¬
tution. It was a misfortune the judges were not .equal in
infallibility to the God who made them. The truth was, if
the judge was a party man out of power, he would be a party
man in. The office would not change human nature."
Mr. Grayson, one of the best and ablest men in the old
Republican party in the days of Jefferson, said, in speaking
of the claim set up by the Federalists for the supreme power
and purity of this court, that—
" Such had been the argument in all countries where a
concession of power had been in agitation. But that power
ought to have such checks and balances as will prevent bad
men from abusing it. It ought to be granted on a supposi¬
tion that men will be bad, for it may eventually be so. With
respect to the Judiciary, my grand objection is, that it will
interfere with the State Judiciaries; there being no superin¬
tending central power to keep in order these two contending
jurisdictions. This is an objection which is unanswerable in
its nature. In England they have great courts, which have
great and interfering powers. But the controlling power
of Parliament, which is a central focus, corrects them. But
here each party is to shift for itself. There is no arbiter or
power to correct their interference. Recurrence can only be
had to the sword. The State Judiciary is the principal
defense we have. If its independence is to be destroyed, our
only defensive armor is taken front us. Something has been
said of the independence of the Federal Judg-es. I will only
observe that it is on as corrupt a basis as the; art of man
can plack it."
The Hon. James Barbour, United States Senator from
Virginia, made a report on the 5th of December, 1820, on the
petition of Matthew Lyon, asking for redress for wrongs suf¬
fered under the sedition act, which has been sustained by the
Supreme Court. He said:
" The committee entertain a high respect for the purity
and intelligence of the Judiciary. But it is a rational
respect, limited by a knowledge of the frailty of human
nature, and the theory of the Constitution, which declares
not only that judges may err in opinion, but also may com¬
mit crimes, and hence has provided a tribunal for the trial of
offenders.
— 87 —
"In times of violent party excitement, agitating- the
whole nation, to expect that judg'es will be entirely exempt
from its influence, arg-u.es a profound ignorance of mankind.
Although clothed with the ermine, they are still men, and
carry into the judg-ment seat the passions and motives com¬
mon to their kind. Their decisions on party questions reflect
their individual opinions, which frequently betray them
unconsciously into error. To balance the judgment of a
whole people by that of two or three men, no matter what
may be their official elevation, is to exalt the creature of the
Constitution above its creator, and to assail the foundation
of our political fabric, which is, that the decision of the peo¬
ple is infallible, from which there is no appeal but to
Heaven."
Thomas Jefferson was one of the most earnest and able
opponents of the doctrine that the court is supreme, and
above all the co-ordinate departments of the g-overnment. In
a letter to William T. Barry, dated Monticello, July 2. 1822,
he said:
"We already see the power installed for life, responsible
to no authority (for impeachment is not even a scarecrow^,
advancing1 with a noiseless and steady pace to the great ob¬
ject of consolidation. The foundations are already deeply
laid, by their decisions, for the annihilation of constitutional
State rigiits, and the removal of every check, every counter¬
poise, to the engulfing- power of which themselves are to
make a sovereign part. If ever this vast country is brought
under a singie g-overnment, it will be one of the most exten¬
sive corruption, indifferent, and incapable of a wholesome
care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be
borne, and you will have to choose between reformation and
revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or
the other is inevitable. Before the canker is become invet¬
erate, before its venom has reached so much of the body
politic as to g-et beyond control, remedy should be applied.
Let the future appointments of judg'es be for four or six
years, and renewable by the President and Senate. This will
bring- their conduct, at regular periods, under revision and
probation, and may keep them in equipoise between the
g-eneral and special g-overnments. We have erred in this
point by copying1 Engiand, where certainly it is a g-ood thing-
to have the judg'es independent of the King-. But we have
omitted to copy their caution, also, which makes a judge
removable on the address of both legislative houses. That
there should be public functionaries independent of the
— 88 —
nation, whatever may be their demerit, is a solecism, in a
republic, of the first order of absurdity and inconsistency."
I must, however, close this valuable and instructive testi¬
mony, which might be multiplied indefinitely, and conclude
by quoting- the characteristic answers given by Franklin in
the Federal Convention, when asked: "What means would
secure the best, purest, and ablest men for judges?"
Franklin arose and answered: "Immediate accountability
to the people." He was then asked: "What provisions
were best calculated to preserve these men pure and
able when placed in office?" To which Franklin at once
responded: "Limited tenures, short periods in office,
and immediate accountability to the people." This was
Democracy in the days of Jefferson, Franklin, and Jackson.
Contrast it with the Democracy of James Buchanan and the
so-called Democratic party of 1860, and tell me if the doc¬
trines of ancient Federalism and the teachings of the Ad¬
ministration party to-day are not identical? Yet because, as
individuals and as a party, we will not cease to venerate the
teaching and be guided by the advice of the Republicans of
the Revolution, but choose rather to carry out in the adminis¬
tration of the government their convictions, which are also
our own, v/e are denounced as faithless to the Constitution
and the Union, by a class interest, who, by diplomacy and
stealth, have obtained complete ascendency in the old Democ¬
racy; who, though clinging to the name, have changed its
mission and purpose from one of republicanism and liberty
to one of despotism and slavery.
Mr. Chairman, this class interest have for years been as
dominant in the government as they are to-day in the old Dem¬
ocratic party; and so accustomed have they become to dictat¬
ing to, and exacting obedience of, their Northern allies, that
they are not a little discomfited in finding that the members of
the Republican party are made of sterner stuff, and that all
Northern people are not such as Randolph described those to
be who defended the institution of human slavery.
Sir, I come not here as the representative of:a class in¬
terest, much less to be dictated to and told what my constitu¬
tional obligations are by the representatives of such an in¬
terest. I come as the representative of a free people, who
— 89 —
are as loyal to the Constitution and the Union as the same
number of citizens in any other State, or in any Congres¬
sional district of the Nation — a constituency who will
exact of any man whom they commission to represent them
upon this floor, not only fidelity to the Constitution and
Union, but, above all, fidelity to freedom—r, constituency
who will demand that no act or vote of their Representative
shall be circumscribed by the narrow bounds that limit the
geographical division of countries which make up his Con¬
gressional district; but that in every vote he gives hero he
will see to it that equal and exact justice is withheld from no
locality or State in the Union. With this view of my duty,
sir, and the obligations I assumed when the oath of office
was administered to me, I cannot, and will not, knowingly
give any vote that will impair or destroy the constitutional
rights of a single individual, nor of any State. Although I
am thus national, and represent a constituency who are
equally national and conservative in their views, yet I am
denounced, and the party to which I belong is denounced, as
hostile to the Union. Sir, I deny it. Never has there a
Republican uttered a disunion sentiment on this floor or else¬
where; and no Republican has either proposed or given a vote
for any measure, here or elsewhere, that would not have com¬
manded the cordial support of "Washington and Jefferson,
and the early fathers of the Republic. But we are also
denounced as a sectional party; and this charge of sectional¬
ism has been made, and so persistently made, by the Adminis¬
tration party, both North and South, that some people in the
country act as if they believed it; and by no one has this
change been made with more vehemence than by Mr. Doug¬
las himself.
In the Illinois campaign of 1858, this was the staple of
Mr. Douglas's speeches; and Mr. Lincoln, our present gallant
standard-bearer, in one of his masterly answers to Mr. Doug¬
las, after replying to and refuting the charge, made the fol¬
lowing remarkable prediction, which has been fully realized
by the action of the Charleston Convention:
" I ask his [Mr. Douglas's] attention, also, to the fact,
that by the rule of nationality, he is himself fast becoming
— 90 —
sectional. I ask his attention to the fact, that his speeches
would not go as current now, south of the Ohio River, as
they have formerly gone there. I ask his attention to the fact,
that he felicitates himself to-day, that all the Democrats of
the free States are agreeing- with him. If he has not thought
of this, I commend to his consideration the evidence of his
own declaration, on this day, of his becoming- sectional too.
I see it rapidly approaching-. Whatever may be the result
of this ephemeral contest between Judge Douglas and my¬
self, 1 see the day rapidly approaching- when his pill of sec¬
tionalism, which he has been thrusting- down the throats of
Republicans for years past, will be crowded down his own
throat."
But it has been claimed that we were a sectional party,
because we had no representative of the Republican party on
this floor from a slaveholding- State, while the Administra¬
tion party have a few allies from the free States. Let me
say, in all fairness, to Southern g-cntlemen, that if the
Northern Representatives on this floor, who support this
Administration, openly avowed the pro-slavery doctrines in
their own States which are daily uttered here by foifr-fifths
of their party, without rebuke from them, the places " which
now know them would know them no more forever." A
majority of those who are now upon this floor from the
North, claiming- affiliation with the so-called Democratic
party, obtained their places by as impassioned appeals to the
people in favor of free institutions and free States as were
ever made by Republicans, and by insisting- that they were
not only hostile to slavery extension, but that they were even
better friends of freedom than the most ultra members of the
Republican party. But let me add, further, that if the
Republicans, and those opposed to slavery in the free States,
were to forbid, by law and by mob violence, as successfully as
Southern States have done, the free exercise of the elective
franchise, and the discussion, either through the press or on
the stump, of the principles of the so-called Democratic party,
you would not have, to-day, an ally upon this floor, except,
perhaps, from one or two districts, in all the Northern
States. Only because of this toleration and respect for the
constitutional obligations which are binding alike upon every
State, are there any supporters of the Administration party
— 91 —
upon this floor-from the entire North. If the same system of
tyranny and terrorism prevailed against the minority in the
free States that in the Southern States is universal towards
us, no Chief Magistrate could again be elected, representing
the special interest of a sectional party, as was done in 1856,
It is only our toleration of the freedom of speech and of
the press that permits even the existence of a party to-day
among us, which in the name of Democracy, sends Repre¬
sentatives here who covertly support, apologize for, and
defend the most extravagant demands of the slave barons.
Yet the charge is made and repeated, again and again, upon
this floor, that we are not only a sectional party, but thevt we
disregard and trample upon the Constitution which we are
sworn to support. I ask gentlemen to make their charges
more specific, and not to deal so indiscriminately in gener¬
alities. I ask them to point out the proposed policy, or
any vote that has been given by the Representatives of the
Republican party, as a body, in this House or in any Congress
since the Republican party was organized, that is violative
of the constitutional rights of any section of the Union.
I know of no vote they have given, or of any proposition
they have made, that would not have commanded the
support of Washington and Franklin, of Jay and Jefferson,
of Adams and Madison; and I am content to follow in the
footsteps of such men, and accept their interpretation of the
Constitution, rather than the so-called interpretation of the
Supreme Court. Sir, indiscriminate, wholesale charges, such
as have been repeated with so much vehemence upon this
floor, come with a poor grace from the Representatives of
States that openly trample upon and disregard not only the
plainest provisions of the national Constitution, but the
obligations due from the citizens of one civilized country to
the citizens of another.
The Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and
of the press, and provides expressly that " the citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several States;" and are not these plain
provisions of the Constitution daily violated throughout the
entire South? Can a citizen of any State speak or publish
the sentiments of Washington and Jefferson and Henry upon
— 92 —
the question of slavery in the Southern States? Can he even
reside in or pass through those States, and be free from
danger or of personal violence at the hands of infuriated mobs?
The history of the country for the past few years gives a full
answer to the question. In many of the States, the severest
legislative enactments have been passed against the liberty
of speech and of the press; the United States mails are even
rifled and private correspondence subjected to a censorship
not tolerated in the monarchies of Europe. States that were
most violent in their hostility to the alien and sedition laws
have, by a strange combination of events, become the enactors
of sedition laws themselves, and mob violence has become so
common, that it is now regarded as the settled policy of the
dominant party in the South, wherever they have the numer¬
ical force thus to punish and overawe their political opponents.
But not only are the plainest provisions of the national
Constitution thus violated, and the comity due from one State
to another, and from the citizen of one State to the citizen of
another, disregarded, but laws are absolutely passed making
odious discriminations in favor of persons who are not
citizens of the United States. Thus, if a steamer of Massa¬
chusetts or New York sail into Charleston or New Orleans,
having on board colored persons, who are free, and, by the
laws, of the States named, are citizens, they are subject to
police regulations whose severity has no parallel in any
civilized nation on the face of the earth. This is where they
are citizens of one of the States of the Union, and have a
constitutional guaranty for protection. A special provision
is made, however, to exempt all colored persons who are
subjects of Great Britain and France, and perhaps other
foreign governments. Thus an odious and unconstitutional
distinction is deliberately made against our own citizens, and
in favor of the citizens of foreign nations. But, worse than
this, unconstitutional enactments are passed and enforced,
which consign free citizens of the Northern States, guilty
of no crime, to hopeless slavery. The laws of Congress,
made in conformity with our- treaty stipulations and the
enlightened sentiment of the civilized world, punishing the
African slave trade as piracy, are openly disregarded, and
the power of the National Government declared tc be impo-
— 93 —
tent; ana yet scarcely a speech is made upon this floor by
members from these States in which they do not proclaim
their devotion to law and order, the decision of courts, and
their fidelity to the Constitution and the Union, which simply
means obedience to such laws as they desire enacted, sub¬
mission to such decisions of courts as they can dictate, and
fidelity to the Constitution and the Union so long* only as
they are intrusted by the people with the administration of
the government and the interpretation of the Constitution.
When this ceases, as I trust and believe it will on the 4th of
March, 1861, their fidelity to law will cease, their love of the
Union will cease, and their new-born veneration for that
"august tribunal" of which we have heard so much of
late — the Supreme Court — will also cease ; and they will be,
ip their threats are to be put into execution, in open
rebellion against the government, and enemies of the
Constitution and the Union.
But, Mr. Chairman, it is also charged that because, as a
party we are opposed to the extension and nationalization of
slavery in the Republic, and condemn the inhuman laws
enacted for the maintenance and perpetuity of that institution,
we must of necessity favor the equality of the negro race with
our own, and desire to see them intermarry and become one
people. Sir, this cry of "negTo equality" is about all the
argument now left the Northern allies of the slave barons, to
be used in the free States in their appeals to their constitu¬
ents, when justifying- themselves for the support they
uniformly give the slave interest in Congress.
Now, sir, what are the facts on this point of negro
equality? First, the Republican party oppose the further
spread of slavery and the increase of political power in the
hands of slaveholders, because they believe the enslavement
of one human being by another, or of one race by another, to
be one of the greatest wrongs that man or government can
inflict. They do not desire to see this government in the
hands of men who will use it to favor and strengthen such a
policy. Second, they believe the enslavement of any race by
another, injures the race who enslaves, as well as their
victims ; and that the contact of any free people with slaves
demoralizes and degrades the tree people. In support of this
— 94 —
proposition, I appeal to tlie history of the world for six thou¬
sand years to sustain me. But if all the past were a blank ;
if all history were silent, and slavery was unknown to man
until the inauguration of this g-overnment, and all we know
about it and its blasting- and blig-hting- effects was what we
have learned, by sad experience, in the United States, I think,
even here, we would have just cause to desire not only its
exclusion from all new States and Territories, but its final
extinction on every foot of soil over which our national Con¬
stitution extends. This was the hope, the expectation and
the prayer, of the illustrious men who achieved our independ¬
ence and made our Constitution.
Sir, the charg-e of "negro equality" and "amalgama¬
tion " comes with a very bad grace from either the Northern
or Southern wing- of this pro-slavery party ; and, in order
that I may not be misquoted or misunderstood in what I pro¬
pose to offer on this point, let me say, rig-ht here, that while
I shall condemn in unmistakable terms the institution of
slavery as a social and political system, and the crime of
amalg-amation, which is inseparable from it, I exempt, with
pleasure, from any sweeping- denunciation which I may make,
thousands of g-ood and true men, who find themselves born
to this inheritance, and whose whole lives give assurance to
the world that their hearts are better than the system.
Intrust a class of men in any society or g-overnment with
absolute power over a servile race, and the bad men will not
only use it and abuse it, as I shall show, but, by their clamor¬
ous cry of dang-er to the State, will perpetrate and g-ive sanc¬
tion to outrag-es that g-ood and true men will be powerless to
prevent. It is not that Southern men and slaveholders are
worse than other men, but because they are no better, that it is
unsafe, if it were not in itself an indefensible wrong-, to
intrust them with absolute power over any part of the human
race.
And now, sir, what are the practical effects of slavery,
as exhibited in the working- out of this much-talked-of and
universally-denounced negro equality and amalg-amation of
the races? Has not slavery corrupted the blood, to say noth¬
ing of the morals, of millions in the South? If it has not,
whence spring-the octoroons, the quadroons, and the myriads
— 95 —
who are tinged with the blood of the dominant race, in every
Southern State? Sir, it is in the land of slavery you must
look for amalgamation, and that negro equality, which is in¬
separable from such amalgamation. But for a negro equality
all over the South that must be nameless here, there would
be no blue-eyed, light-haired octoroons, the children and
descendants of African slaves, in every Southern city, and in
every neighborhood, appealing to the liberal, as we see them
almost daily in this capital, asking for aid to purchase their
right to that which God gave not only them, but to all the
human race, the right to themselves. Sir, than Mormon
polygamy, about which even Southern Representatives pro¬
fess to be so shocked, this crime of Southern amalgamation is
worse ; for while the Mormon system is voluntary, and must
have the sanction of a public church ordinance, and the full
and unqualified assent of the first wife, and the children be
entitled to all the rights of protection and property which
are secured to the children of the first marriage, this South¬
ern system is an involuntary, forced, and revolting concubi¬
nage, from which there is no escape, if the victim desires it,
there being no law to punish the aggressor. And, sir, the
offspring of this criminal negro equality are slaves. If there
were laws to punish such crimes, the testimony of slaves
could not with safety be admitted; for if such were the case,
and the penalty attached should be, as it ought to be, the
liberation of all slave children whose fathers were white
men, together with their mothers, then Wilmot provisos
would be unnecessary, and further opposition to slavery
would be a useless occupation with the people of the North.
The institution would fall by the fascinating graces and
seductive power of these black dulcineas, by whose irresisti¬
ble charms the aristocracy and plebeians of the South alike
appear to be captivated.
Sir, it is only in the land of slavery where this crime is
tolerated. There it is unrestrained. There alone it is cher¬
ished; and if slavery continues, it must become universal,
blighting and corroding the life-blood of the nation, by eradi¬
cating from the heart of man all love for his own offspring,
and filling the land with slaves who are the children of the
dominant race. How frightful has been the progress and
— 96 —
increase of this desolating- and destroying- evil! Sir, do yon
suppose there is one Southern State, nay, one Congressional
district in all the slave States of this Union, in which slave-*
holders do not own and sell their own children? where they
do not see them toil daily beneath the lash of a taskmaster,
and see them driven in coffle gangs to the Southern market —
their sons to the shambles, and their daughters to the hells
of Southern cities? But it may, and probably will, be
claimed that these octoroons and quadroons are not the chil¬
dren of the masters, but they are the children of the poor
whites. I care not, Mr. Chairman, whose they may be; the
fact of their existence is evidence of the crime; and the fur¬
ther fact that the law-makers, who are always slaveholders
in all the Southern States, do not punish the crime by law,
as they would if they desired to restrain it, is certainly a cir¬
cumstance not very favorable to their own innocence.
Sir, go into any colored church in any Southern city, and
a majority of the audience will be of the mixed race, many
of them so white that it would require a close inspection to
detect that they were tinctured with negro blood.
Sir, how long do you suppose this mixed race will remain
in servitude without a struggle for their freedom? It is im¬
possible that it should be long-, for many of them to-day are
conceded to be smarter than their reputed fathers. If this
unrestrained Southern negro equality is to be not only con¬
tinued, but encouraged, a hundred years will not elapse — if
the importation of fresh Africans can be effectually stopped
— before the last unmixed African slave will have disappeared
before this bleaching- process of Southern amalgamation.
In forty years there will be over ten million slaves and free
colored people in the present slave States, if they continue to
increase in the same ratio that they have done for the past
sixty years. At a moderate estimate, five million will then
be of the mixed race, many of them so white, as advertise¬
ments for runaway slaves often inform us is the case now, that
" they would readity pass for white persons." In fifty or sixty
years more they will have increased, at the same ratio, to at
least twenty million, and the unmixed Africans can be easily
counted. In less than one hundred years from to-day, the
— 97 —
slave population will have increased to near thirty million,
numbering- about eighty to every slaveholder, and almost, if
not quite, half of these slaves will be so white that they can¬
not be distinguished from white persons. How long-, I again
ask, can such a servile population of thirty million be kept in
subjection by less than half a million masters?
Sir, if so great and good a man as Wesley could denounce
this institution to the Christian people of the world as "the
sum of all villainies," I, who have witnessed some of its bru¬
tality and felt its tyranny, may, without impropriety, pro¬
nounce it, as I now do, to be the sum of all barbarisms, for
whose continuance and further spread over the Territories of
the nation the people of the United States, both North and
South, will be held responsible in history and before God.
Sir, no lover of his country and the human race can con¬
template this picture without a shudder.
Notwithstanding all that has been said and written, and
all that is being said and written on this subject, to induce
the slave barons to pause and take a practical view of this
subject, they not only refuse, but rush madly on, disregard¬
ing alike the teachings of the fathers and the warnings of
history. And to-day they claim that slavery is a benefit to
the country, and a blessing to the slave and master, as well
as to the non-slaveholding whites.
Senator Hammond, the leader of the South Carolina oli¬
garchy, in speaking of the manner in which the poor whites
of that State obtained a subsistence, a year or two since, did
not draw quite so flattering a picture of their happy condition
as has been done by Southern members on this floor. Mr.
Hammond says:
'' They [the poor whites] obtain a precarious subsistence
by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, by plundering
fields or folds, and too often by what is in its effects far
worse — trading with slaves, and seducing them to plunder
for their benefit."
And yet we are told that this is a desirable condition of
society, and that slave and poor white alike are satisfied with
it. In speaking of this subject, one of the honorable mem-
— 98 —
bers from South Carolina, in a speech delivered before the
organization of the House, boasted not only of the happiness
of the people, but of the contentment and fidelity of the
slaves to their masters, as also of the loyalty of the poor
whites of the South to the institution of slavery; and stated
that, out of a large number who volunteered to go to Vir¬
ginia and aid Governor Wise during the John Brown troub¬
les, but five or six were slaveholders, and instanced this fact
as proof of their loyalty. If it be true that they are thus
loyal — and I do not intend to controvert the fact as stated —
why is it that this class of poor whites are not permitted to
read whatever they may prefer to read, as the slaveholders do
themselves?
I will say nothing about the penal enactments prohibit¬
ing, by fine, the lash, and imprisonment, any and all classes of
persons, white or colored, whether Christian or not, from
teaching their slaves to read or write; for such laws are in¬
separable from the system. It is well known that the loyalty
of the slaves can only be depended on while they are deprived
of the power of communicating with each other. But if the
poor whites are loyal, why are they also proscribed? Why
are they deprived of the pleasure and profit which they would
derive from reading that stanch old Democratic paper, the
New York Evening Post? or that invaluable paper, the New
York Tribune? or that first of all religious journals, the
New York Independent? Why is it that they are forbidden
to read such a book as Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the Octoroon,
or any paper, whether Republican or independent of party,
that is unfriendly to slavery, or even to receive and read pri¬
vate letters from the free States, unless first subjected to a
censorship by the privileged class? There can be but one
answer to these questions; and that is, a distrust on the part
of the ruling class of the fidelity of the poor whites, and fear
of their political power, should they unite, as they might do
at any time, and take possession of all the Southern State
Governments, and administer them for the benefit of the
whole people, instead of permitting them to be administered,
as they are to-day, exclusively for the benefit of a class
interest.
— 99 —
It appears, from the facts'" elicited during- the extraordi¬
nary discussion which was indulged in here by Southern
Representatives before the organization, that many of them
had read and examined with care, some two years ag-o, this
incendiary Helper book. Now, if they had the right to pos¬
sess and read such books and papers, why have not their con¬
stituents, the poor whites, the same right, by whose votes
most of these g-entlemen come here, for the poor whites consti¬
tute a majority of the electors in all the Southern States? Sir,
there are reasons, and g-ood reasons, why they should not, if
the policy of the privileged class is to be sustained and con¬
tinued. The poor whites of the South, in whose hands, if
united, resides the political power, must be kept divided, as
they are to-day; and in order to keep them successfully
divided, and fig-hting- their supposed enemy, the free negro,
and those who favor the prohibition of slavery in the Terri¬
tories, they must be kept in ig-norance. Hence, all that was
said, and [so vehemently said, in denunciation of Helper and
his book, was said, not because it was an appeal to the slaves
or free colored people to rise in rebellion, but because its
arguments and appeals were addressed to the poor whites of
the South by one of their own number. Mr. Pryor, of Vir¬
ginia, in speaking1 of the characteristics of Helper's book,
said:
"What is the characteristic feature of that work? Some
g-entlemen have stated that they have not read it. I have
read it, and read it some two years ag-o. These g-entlemen
who have signed it tell us that they never saw it. I have
read it, and know all about it; and let me tell you what the
characteristic distinction and feature of that work is; let me
inform the candidate for Speaker upon the other side of the
House [Mr. Sherman], who seems ig-norant of the produc¬
tion he endorses. It is not tnat the author proposes that the
North shall come down in an avalance of invasion, and de¬
stroy the tie that subsists between the slave and the master.
No, sir; that is familiar talk. Nor is it the literary execution
of the work; for I never read a book which is more feeble in
conception and inartistic in execution. It is unworthy of
respectable criticism." .
" But the peculiarity of that book was, that Mr. Helper,
for the first time in the history of this country, had invoked,
with all the power of passion, with all his limited resources
of rhetoric, the: non-slaveholders of the South to rise
-100-
in rebellion against the slaveholders. That was the
peculiar merit of his b.ook.
"Now, the candidate for Speaker upon the other side
[Mr. Sherman] told us yesterday explicitly, and cited his
political record as proof of it, that he would not urge the
Federal Government, nor the people of the North, to inter¬
fere with the relations of master and slave. I tell him now,
again, that that is not the characteristic of the book."
Here, sir, is disclosed the real point of danger to the rul¬
ing- class of the South—the fear of a rebellion on the part of the
poor whites whom they now claim as loyal subjects. A rebel¬
lion, sir. Can a people, from whom all political authority
emanates in a Republic, be classed as rebels, for desiring to
change, in a peaceful and constitutional manner, their law¬
makers? If not, from whose rule is it feared the poor whites
will rebel? Their own rule? No, sir; but a''rebellion against
the slaveholders, " says Mr. Pryor. This is the fear, this the
danger, the bare contemplation of which makes all slavedom
mad. This is the power before which they tremble; and well
they may, for despite their sedition laws and prisons and mobs,
the time is coming when God's truth cannot longer be shut out
from the minds and hearts of the non-slaveholders and poor
whites; and when that time comes, their power shall again
be felt, and their voices again be heard in these halls in de¬
fense of liberty, where now are only heard the voices of the
representatives of a class interest, defending and justifying
slavery.
Sir, I look upon the loyalty of the slave as a suspicious
kind of loyalty, where it is necessary not only to keep them
in ignorance, but subject to the most rigorous laws and in¬
human physical punishments, in order safely to hold them in
any kind of subjection. And I think the loyalty of the poor
white man equally uncertain, when there is no safety or
security that he will not combine against you, unless you
shut out from his mind and conscience all arguments in
favor of justice, and all appeals to his humanity. With this
kind of censorship, with this kind of domination, with this
kind of despotism, are the slaves and the poor whites of the
South alike made loyal. The poor whites of Poland and
Hungary are also called loyal by the Emperor of Austria.
—101 —
The poor whites of France are called loyal by the usurper of
the 2d of December. The poor whites of the South are
called loyal because of their obedience to the mandates of
the ruling- class; and they may be, and I believe they are, to¬
day, more loyal than the poor whites of the European despo¬
tisms to which I have referred. They hug- the chains that
drag them down, and volunteer with alacrity to sacrifice their
lives at the bidding- of this privileged class. The slave
interest intend to keep them loyal; and in order to be doubly
sure that they shall remain so, their school-books for what
few schools they have, their literature, their political jour¬
nals, their so-called religious periodicals and Christian teach¬
ers, are permitted to talk and preach and pray — if at all
about slavery — only in favor of its divinity and its blessing",
within the hearing- of the slaves and poor whites alike.
This is the kind of loyalty that can be found in despotisms
only; the kind of loyalty which you exact of your Northern
allies. It is the kind of loyalty, let me assure you, which
cannot flourish in the free States; and I do not believe it can
endure many years in the slave States.
An end will and must come to such despotism, peaceably
and constitutionally, I hope; but it will come. No human
hand can stay it. No government ever has existed perma¬
nently, or ever can remain stable, that tramples deliberately
and with impunity upon the rig-hts of humanity and the laws
of God. While I cannot adopt, to the fullest extent, the
declaration of the great Irish liberator " that no revolu¬
tion was worth one; drop of human blood " — because that
would be a condemnation of our own Revolution, and of all
just revolutions — yet I can say, with all my heart, that I
desire a revolution of peace; but, peaceable or bloody, I
believe, with Jefferson, that it will come. The millions of
the South who are crushed and groaning- beneath this
despotism—the poor whites, as well as the free and slave
colored, from the octoroon to the quadroon and the unmixed
black, if there should be any of the latter then remaining- — will
one day be compelled to strike hands and shake this despotism
off ; or the poor whites will first be disfranchised, then classed
socially, as they are to-day, to a great extent, with the
— 102 —
servile race, and at last they and their children will be melted
down in the slave population forever.
That this is the ultimate purpose of the ruling- class of
the South, may be fairly adduced from the fact, that they do
not hesitate to-day at enslaving- Indians, Mexicans, Chinamen,
and even whites of American birth and unmixed blood.
Governor Hammond, of South Carolina, does not scruple
publicly to denominate free white laborers as the "mud-sills
of society ;" and more than twenty years agfo asserted, on
the floor of Congress, "that the South had less trouble
with their slaves than the north had with her free
laborers, as the records of criminal justice and the
newspaper accounts of northern mobs fully showed."
Senator Mason, of Virginia, in speaking- of the free States,
calls them "servile States," because their laborers are free
men. I migiit quote from many leading- men and public
speakers in the South, if time would permit, to show that
these men have no moral or religious convictions ag-ainst
enslaving- any race, and that, having- no principles to deter
them from the commission of such a wrong-, all they want is
the power, and they would reduce, without hesitation, the
entire laboring- population, of whatever race or color, to
bondag-e.
Twenty-five years ag-o, this anti-Democratic doctrine,
justifying- the enslavement of the laboring- man, of whatever
race or color, was publicly proclaimed by many of the ruling-
men of the South, of both the old political parties. Benjamin
Watkins Leigh, a leading- "Whig- statesman of Virginia,
declared, in a speech in the Virginia Constitutional Conven¬
tion of 1829 (before the anti-slavery agitation had commenced
in the North), that —
" There must be some peasantry ; as the country fills up
there must be more — that is, men who tend the herds and dig-
the soil, who have neither real nor personal capital of their
own, and who earn their bread bj^ the sweat of their brows.
I ask g-entlemen to say whether they believe those who depend
on their labor for their daily subsistence can, or ever do, enter
into political affairs ? They never do, never will, never can."
No distinction of races or color i.s made here. But the
white laborers were especially referred to, as the arg-ument
— 103 —
was against extending- the rig-lit of suffrage to that class.
True, he did not then propose to reduce them to chattelhood,
but it is evident that he reg-arded them as belonging- to
the servile population, with no more rig-hts than negro slaves.
Mr. Pickens, of South Carolina, in a speech in this House,
in 1836, said :
"I lay down this proposition as universally true, that
there is not, and never was, a society organized under our
political system for a period long- enough to constitute an
era, where one class would not, practically and substantial^,
own another class, in some shape or form. Let not gen¬
tlemen from the North start at this truth. We are yet
a people in our infancy. Society has not yet been pressed
down to its classifications. Let us live through an era, and
we shall discover this great truth. All society settles down
into a classification of capitalists and laborers. The former
will own the latter."
The argument of Mr. Pickens is undoubtedly correct, if
this government, by special legislation, is to build up and
sustain an oligarchy of slaveholders, who own all their
laborers. The "pressing-down" process to which Mr.
Pickens refers has been going on at a frightful rate since the
delivery of this speech.
Governor McDuffie, of South Carolina, the bosom friend
of Calhoun, and one of the most distinguished Democrats of
that State, in a message to the Legislature, in 1836, said, in
speaking of the subject of slavery:
"No community has ever existed without it, and we may
confidently assert, never will. In the very nature of things,
there must be classes of persons to discharge all the different
offices of society, from the highest to the lowest. Some of
these offices are regarded as degrading, though they must
and will be performed. Hence those manifold forms of de¬
pendent servitude, which produce a sense of inferiority on
the part of the servants. Where these offices are per¬
formed by members of the political community, a danger¬
ous element is introduced into the body politic. Hence
the alarming tendency to violate the rights of property by
agrarian legislation, which is beginning to manifest itself in
the older States, where universal suffrage prevails, with¬
out domestic slavery; a tendency that will increase, in the
progress of society, with the increasing inequality of wealth.
No government is worthy of the name, that does not protect the
— 104 -
rights of property; and no enligntened people will long- sub¬
mit to such a mockery. Hence it is, that, in the older coun¬
tries, different political orders are established to effect this
indispensable object, and it will be fortunate for the non-
slaveholding States if they are not, in less than a quarter
of a century, driven to the adoption of a similar institution,
or to take refuge from robbery and anarchy under a military
despotism." . . . " In a word, the institution of slavery
supersedes the necessity of an order of nobility, and the
other appendages of a hereditary system of government. If
our slaves were emancipated, and admitted, bleached or
unbleached (i. c., white or colored), to an equal participa¬
tion in our political privileges, what a commentary should
we furnish upon the doctrines of the emancipationists, and
what a revolting spectacle of republican equality should we
exhibit to the mockery of the world! No rational man would
consent to live in such a state of society, if he could find a
refuge in any other. Domestic slavery, therefore, instead
of being a political evil, is the corner-stone of our repub¬
lican edifice."
In a work called " Sociology for the South; or the failure
of Free Society," published in 1854, by Mr. George Fitzhugh,
of Richmond, Virginia, may be found the following declara¬
tion in favor of white slavery:
" Slavery protects the weaker members of society, just as
do the relations of parents, guardian and husband, and is as
necessary, as natural, and almost as universal, as those rela¬
tions.
"Ten years ago, we became satisfied that slavery, black
or white, was right and necessary. We advocated this doc¬
trine in very many essays."
Some three years ago, the Richmond Enquirer, then and
now one of the leading organs of the so-called Democratic
party, in discussing and defending the right to enslave any
race, said:
'' While it is far more obvious that negroes should be
slaves than whites — for they are only fit to labor, and not to
direct — yet the principle of slavery is itself right, and
does not depend on difference of complexion."
In another article on this same subject, this Democratic
(?) paper declared:
"Freedom is not possible without slavery. Every
civil polity and every social system implies gradation of rank
— 105 -
and condition. In the: States ofthe South, an aristocracy
of white men is based on negro slavery; and the absence
of negro slavery would be supplied by white men."
In every slave State, I "believe, without exception, the
fate of all offspring" born of the servile race is made by statute
to depend on the condition of the mother. If she be a slave,
her children, though white, are also slaves. The laws and
judicial decisions of all the slave States on this point are uni¬
form. From this law of the slave master there is and can be
no escape, to the latest generation. Hence the advocates of
this system do not hesitate to defend the enslavement of all
weak and defenseless races, and even boldly to justify the
enslavement of white men.
This is the logical result of the American slave system.
If slavery should be confined by law to the unmixed African,
the slave master understands that in time, by the mere force
of Southern amalgamation, there would come an end to the
existence of this institution. To avoid this, the slave master
throws around his victim such safeguards in the shape of
legislative enactments as will effectually secure to himself,
as property, all children born of his female slaves, whether
they are white or colored.
If the deliberate intention of slave masters is not to
reduce to chattelhood all black and white persons whom they
can by such laws enslave, why are not these barbarous
statutes repealed, and laws passed making amalgamation a
crime, which shall punish not only the wrongdoer, be he
master or not, but which shall work the liberation of all chil¬
dren born of slave mothers who have a "visible admixture"
of white blood in their veins, and also the immediate uncon¬
ditional freedom of every such slave mother?
In 1839, Henry Clay delivered a speech in the Senate of
the United States, which may be found in the Appendix to
the Congressional Globe, page 358, in which he said:
" It is frequently asked, what is to become of the African
race, among us? Are they forever to remain in bondage?"
He thus answers his own question:
"Takingthe aggregates of the two races, the European
is constantly, though slowly, gaining upon the African
— 106 —
portion." ... "In the progress of time, some one hundred
and fifty or two hundred years hence, but few vestiges of the
black race will remain among- our posterity."
In one hundred or one hundred and fifty years, then,
according to Mr. Clay, the "black race" will have disap¬
peared before the bleaching- process of Southern amalgama¬
tion, and " our posterity"—the descendants of slave mothers
—though white, and having in their veins the best blood of
the dominant race, are not only'to remain slaves forever, but
all laboring men, without regard to color or birth, who can
be, are to be reduced to chattelhood. And this is to be the
final consummation of the barbarism of American slavery,
unless the purposes and policy of the slave barons are defeated
by the triumph of the Republican party.
And this doctrine of the right to enslave any race has
not been, and never will be, repudiated by the present
Democratic party in the South. Mr. Chairman, I ask the
honest portion of those who, in the free States, brought this
Administration party into power, how much longer they
intend, by their money and suffrages, to aid in keeping the
government of this country in the hands of an oligarchy who
in the sacred name of Democracy, preach and practice such
despotism as this? If the independent freemen of the nation
do not rally to the standard of Lincoln and Hamlin, and give
us deliverance this year, then I know not when it will come.
I have an abiding faith, however, that we shall triumph;
and that the day cannot be far distant when this deliverance,
by a popular revolution, must come, if the enslavement of
the poor whites of the South is to be averted. When it does
come, I pray Heaven that it may be a revolution of the ballot-
box instead of the cartridge-box — a revolution which, while
it brings deliverance to the slave, shall not blast the land
with universal ruin and the bloody horrors of a St. Domingo.
For among a homogeneous people, of one language, living
under a republican form of government, where a majority
may, if they choose, control, I think the true way, the surer
and better way, to secure the abolition of a great wrong, is
to appeal to the hearts and consciences of those who have
the constitutional power to act, and whose voice and votes
—107 —
will not be wanting1 to secure this result, whenever their
judgments are convinced.
"Wherever these constitutional rights cannot be enjoyed, a
revolution by force is not only indispensable, but a duty. For
the purpose of averting such a revolution, with all its attendant
horrors, the poor whites and non-slaveholders of the South ask
for the freedom of speech and the press, and the right to
the ballot. But this is denied them in almost every Southern
State; and not only denied them, but the persons of those
who ask it, and attempt to exercise it, are not safe from vio¬
lence and death. To this open and undisg-uised violation of
the national Constitution, for which Southern Representa¬
tives on this floor profess such veneration and reverence, may
be added the violation by this class of all covenants, com¬
pacts, and compromises, with the people of the North; and
those rig"hts which are more sacred and above all compromises
and Constitutions — the rig"hts of humanity— are everywhere
within their borders disregarded and trampled in the dust.
Sir, the representatives of this class interest, by the aid of
the machinery of a once great and glorious party, with the
immense patronage of the g-overnment in their hands, and by
inflammatory appeals to the passions and prejudices of the
people, have at last succeeded in lashing the popular mind in
nearly every Southern State into a furious fanaticism that
will not brook control; and Presidents and Cabinets, the Na¬
tional Legislature, and even the Supreme Judiciary, bow to
its terrible decrees. He who seeks place and power in the
ranks of this party to-day mnst ride upon the storm, and add
fuel to the conflagration alread}' kindled. To no exaction,
however monstrous, must he hesitate. Prostrate before it, he
must bow in humble submission to its despotic authority, and
recog-nize its wildest claims to universal domination. No
constitutional provision, however plain; no compromise, how¬
ever sacred; no law, however just; no judicial decision, how¬
ever venerable, must stand for a moment in its way. He
who would be a successful leader in the ranks of this party
to-day cannot, if he would, quiet this pro-slavery fanaticism,
or secure its submission to the just requirements of the Con¬
stitution. If he refuse blind and unqualified obedience to
every demand, however revolting-, political ostracism is his
fate. If he fail to keep pace with every new movement, no
matter what may have been his past services, he will expe¬
rience the doom which, without remorse, was meted out to
Douglas at Charleston; for, whatever may be the action of
the adjourned session of the rump Convention which is to
meet in Baltimore on the 18th of June, the well-informed
friends of Mr. Doug-las admit that politically he is a doomed
man; and they may as well admit that, from this time for¬
ward, every leading man in the party is forever doomed who
does not give up every aspiration for freedom, surrender un¬
reservedly his convictions to the behest of this privileged
class, and use all his power and influence to extend, and make
permanent and universal, the institution of human slavery.
Sir, from this hour the pro-slavery Democratic party is
dead. The disease of which it died was Calhounism. It
was attacked with this fatal malady in 1844, when James
K. Polk was forced upon an unwilling- people; and though
the rank and file of the Northern Democracy have been strug¬
gling- heroically from that day to this against the wiles of
its cunning enemy, their political leaders have been false; and
the org-anization, once so powerful, has at last yielded to
the violence of the attack at Charleston. The party of Cal¬
houn, which was spurned by Jackson and the Democracv of
his day, now stand with defiant foot upon its new-made
grave, and demand the surrender of every member of the old
Democratic party in the North to these Southern usurpers,
who, under an alluring* but piratical flag, whereon is em¬
blazoned the glorious name "Democracy," are fighting
against the rights of man and the liberty of the human
race.
From this spurious Democracy, this political intolerance,
and party despotism, the honest portion of the Northern
Democracy, which has been basely deceived and betrayed,
will be compelled to separate. No intelligent citizen, sin¬
cerely opposed to the extension and perpetuity of human
slavery in the Republic, can retain his manhood and long-er
sustain the disgraceful affiliation.
Sir, how is it possible for an intelligent, independent
citizen, who is in truth a Democrat, and opposed to all despo-
—109 —
tism, longer to remain with a party which not only tramples
upon and violates the Constitution, but which aids and en¬
courages the outrages inflicted all over the South upon inno¬
cent and defenseless persons for opinion's sake; outrages that
would not be tolerated in any despotism of Europe, even
when engaged in open hostilities? Witness the hangings,
the tar-and-featherings, the imprisonments, the infernal
indignities, to which the citizens of this country, guilty of
no crime and no wrong, are subjected at the hands of this
party in almost every Southern State. Even women, lone
and defenseless, are not exempt from indignities that ought
to and must forever disgrace the States and people who
would tolerate and sanction them. No trial, not even the
poor mockery of a trial, but the merest suspicion that the
person is unfriendly to one of the most infernal despotisms
that ever blighted the land or cursed the earth, is enough to
bring upon him tortures, outrages, and wrongs, that will
scarcely be credited by the Christian nations of the world.
Sir, such things could not be done under the despotism
of Austria, the most despicable and intolerant government
among civilized nations, without shaking the throne to its
foundation; and yet such outrages are committed in one-half
the States of the American Union by a great party, whose
leaders were once composed of able and eloquent defenders of
the rights of man. These outrages are endorsed and ap¬
proved by the party press and party leaders of the South,
while no word of condemnation or denunciation falls from
the lips of their Northern allies upon this floor, who must
speak, if they speak at all, with great deference in the pres¬
ence of their political rulers. For all these wrongs and out¬
rages there is no redress, and no probability of any redress,
until the inauguration of a Republican President. If such
outrages were committed by the citizens or government of
any foreign Power upon the persons of any of our citizens
who might be temporarily residing in or passing through
their country, no matter what might be the opinions they
entertained of the government or any of its institutions, so
that they committed no overt act, it would be cause, and just
cause, for war, if prompt redress were not given, and a
— 110-7-
guaranty against the commission of such outrages in the
future were not secured. But here at home, in our own coun¬
try, with a people who sprang from the same ancestry, with
the same language, and equal rights under a common Consti¬
tution, these outrages are committed, not only with impunity,
but are boasted of as feats of marvelous heroism.
Sir, do gentlemen expect the country to be blind and
dumb while such crimes are being committed upon American
citizens? If such is the expectation of Southern gentlemen,
let me beg them to undeceive themselves. Why, what would
you say, what would the world say, of our manhood, if such
a thing were possible as silence and submission under the
infliction of such monstrous wrongs? Sir, there will be no
such silence as is sought, there can be no such submission
as is desired and demanded; and let me ask how long you
suppose it will be, if these outrages are to continue, before
there will be a hundred John Browns invading your weak and
defenseless points at once; not John Browns with mercy to
their captives, and anxiety to save human life; not John
Browns controlled by a supposed religious duty; but John
Browns burning for revenge under the smart of outrages un¬
justly inflicted? Think you that such a system of terrorism
can continue without retaliation? Do you suppose that these
men whom you outrage will flee from your States into the
free North, and quietly sit down and submit to this kind of
treatment? What would be the first impluse of a Southern
man under such treatment? Would it not be for retaliation?
And if a hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand of you
were outraged and wronged in the brutal, barbarous, and
cowardly manner that Northern citizens, guilty of no crime,
have been, would it not follow, as certainly as daylight fol¬
lows the rising of the sun, that a majority of those who thus
suffered, and as many of their friends as they could collect,
would get together for the purpose of retaliation and revenge?
If we of the North were living in a magazine, as you of the
South are, which could be exploded at any moment a match
should be applied to it, would not the victims of such out¬
rages be inclined to apply the match, and let consequences
take care of themselves? J think the history of John Brown
-Ill—
«*nd his associates in Kansas and in Virginia ought to be a
lesson to you on this point.
Sir, if there was any such spot in any of the free States
of the North, not even excepting Egypt, in Illinois, where,
twenty years ago, violence reigned supreme, and as gallant
and brave and true a man as ever lived fell a victim to this
despotic pro-slavery fanaticism; and where, even now, the
representatives of the dominant party declare openly and
unblushingly their willingness to do the "dirty work" of
slave-hunters if demanded by the party—I say, if there was
any such spot, not even excepting- Egypt, that would tolerate
such crimes and outrages as have been inflicted upon free men
of the North, and not only tolerate them, but openly boast of
and glory in them, I do not hesitate to declare that the united
voice of the people of my district would be, that such a spot
needed a purification such as the earth received in the days
of Noah; and, if they had the power, they would submerge
it for at least a generation, not even providing- an ark to save
alive, for future exhibition, the representatives of such a
totally depraved race.
Sir, all these crimes to which I have alluded, all viola¬
tions of the National or State Constitutions, sacred compacts
and covenants, all disregard of solemn treaties and just laws,
have been the direct result of the existence of slavery in the
government. Without slavery, all would have been peace,
union, and concord. With it, and while it continues, all will
be discord, division and strife. And, for men claiming to
be not only Democrats, but Christians, with the history of
six thousand years to guide them, and the light of an ever¬
lasting Gospel to direct them, to stand up before the world
and claim that human slavery and the human auction-block
are good and desirable institutions in any country, tropical
or temperate, seems like blasphemy. For Southern Repre¬
sentatives on this floor to boast of the happy and contented
condition of their slaves at home, while declaring that they
will dissolve the Union and light up the country with the
torch of civil war if we repeal one of the most odious and
obnoxious laws ever enacted for the express purpose of keep¬
ing these happy and contented slaves at home, or of forcing
them back by all the power of the government, should they
— 112 —
escape, seems like self-contradiction. The assertion that
slaveholders are the only true friends of the slave wculd
appear to most men outside of slaveholding- States an assump¬
tion too transparent even for ridicule, especially when it is
remembered that the slave system must, of necessity, com¬
pletely eradicate all manhood from the nature of the slave.
The assertion that the Republican party are madmen and
fanatics, enemies to g'ood government, and law and order, is
the assumption of Francis Joseph of Austria and Napoleon
of France, and the despots of all ag-es and all countries.
Mr. Chairman, slavery, like other despotisms, cannot live
where it permits free speech and a free press. Hence its
sedition laws and unconstitutional enactments. It is only
because there is free speech and a free press, free schools and
a free church, in eig-hteen States of the American Union, that
slavery is dying- to-day; and because it is dying-, its apostles
are mad with the madness of destruction. "What the most
distinguished members of the Republican party could not do,
they are doing- for us. The speeches made during- the eig-ht
weeks we remained unorg-anized in this House have opened
the eyes of thousands who, until now, had been blinded to
the purposes of this power. They can be blinded no longer;
and they will join the friends of freedom in the coming- con¬
test, and aid in taking- possession of the g-overnment; and
when once fairly taken possession of, the supremacy of the
slave barons will be forever destroyed, slavery be assig-ned to
limits which it shall never pass, a Republican party be
organiasd in all the slave States, and the present noisy
advocates of slavery here and elsewhere will be reduced to
insignificance and silence,
Mr. Chairman, the causes that broug-ht the Republican
party into existence, and which give it its life and vitality
to-day, are as eternal as the principles of God's government;
and as certainly as truth and justice shall triumph over error
and wrong-, so shall the triumph of freedom in this country de¬
pend upon the fidelity of our party to its principles. Let no
friend of our cause be discouraged, here or elsewhere; for action
and reaction are reciprocal in the moral as in th2 natural world.
It cannot be that one class of mankind shall forever exercise
the same dominion pver another class of their fellow-men
— 113 —
that they do over the brute creation. The nation or com¬
munity which is guilty cannot escape without encountering
the retribution which the ways of an all-wise Providence
have ordained, and which will inevitably come upon the
wrong-doer. "God is not mocked; and His judgments
will, not sleep forever;" and so sure as justice is the
foundation of His government, so surely shall there come an
end to oppression and to slavery. I will keep this faith or
none. For, however strong1 and apparently all-powerful the
oppressor may be to-day, we should remember that there is
a Power above all human power, which proposes and dis¬
poses among the inhabitants of the earth as seemeth to Him
best; and to Him the oppressed may ever look for succor; for
as, in His greatness and excellence, He overthrew the hosts
of Pharaoh of old, who rose up against the children of Israel,
and with the blast of his nostrils blew the waters together,
so that the floods stood upright as a heap, and the depths
were congealed in the heart of the sea until the fugitives
passed over on dry land, and then sent forth His wrath upon
the face of the deep, so that the waters returned again unto
their places, and the sea covered the slaveholders who were
pursuing them, and horse and chariot and rider sunk as lead
in the mighty waters, so will He to-day, as in the past,
avenge the wrongs done the least and weakest of His children,
and bring destruction as a whirlwind upon the wrongdoer.
Thus hath it ever been, and thus shall it ever be. The
nation or people who do not rule in righteousness "shall
perish from the earth." All history proclaims that this is a
decree as enduring as time and as unchangeable as its author.
When the time for the exodus of this oppressed and wronged
race shall have come, as in the providence of God it surely
will come, then neither the power of your heretofore invin¬
cible army, your Congressional slave codes and fugitive slave
bills, your system of terrorism and mob laws, nor the pre¬
tended adjudications of your "august tribunal" will avail
you in that hour; but the weakest slave mother, with her
simple and cjublime faith uplifted in prayer to the Great
Supreme, may call down against you, as did the bondmen of
Egypt, a Power in whose presence your squadrons shall be
— 114 —
consumed as stubble, and from before whose face every
oppressor of the land shall flee, and the hearts of the judges
if your Supreme Court shall be turned to dust and ashes.
Sir, it is the purpose and mission of the Republican party
to avert, if possible, the impending- doom which hangs like
a black pall over the future of the Republic. It is their pur¬
pose, if possible, to prevent, first, the political slavery and
then the final subjugation of the poor whites to a despotism
which, in all ages and all countries, has been inseparable
from even a milder form of servitude than ours. Remember¬
ing that the result of slave systems has ever been the same;
that it has destroyed all the empires and republics which have
perished from the earth; and believing that it will destroy
this Republic of ours unless we provide and prepare the way
for its ultimate extinction, they have proposed to the people
of all sections and all former political parties a union — first,
to prevent the further spread of this evil, as our fathers did;
and secondly, to provide a way for the final freedom of all.
If some just and fair plan is not adopted to prevent the
further spread of this evil, and secure the liberation of every
slave, then indeed may we look back in vain through the
history of all the republics and nations that have flourished
and fallen, to find a people whose condition was not preferable
to the slaveholders of the Southern States; preferable in that
security to person and property which is indispensable to
peace and happiness. Sir, there is scarcely a government, to¬
day, in civilized Europe, whose citizens do not enjoy greater
security for their persons and their families than do the slave
holders of the South. Overtaxed and oppressed though they
may be and are, yet they enjoy a freedom from apprehension
which the slaveholder can never know — an apprehension
fearful and dark as the grave, and which all must dread who
sleep beneath the overshadowing wing of slavery. There is
and there can be no security from this terrible apprehension.
It is inseparable from the slave system. Night never closes
her mantle around the plantation home, that a shudder does
not creep through the heart of the master, and suspicion,
like an ever-watchful sentinel, sit upon his eyelids.
Sir, the policy of the Republican party is, by an ultimate
emancipation of this race to secure the liberty and happiness
— 115 —
of both master and slave, and remove forever the cause of
this cruel alarm and apprehension, and thus to bring- safety
and prosperity where now sectional jealousy and alienation,
desolation and fear, are supreme; to cause the white-winged
sail of commerce, whose mission is peace, to cover every
Southern river and fill every Southern harbor; to reclaim
her impoverished wastes, and make her desolate places the
home of peace and plenty. If this cannot be done, and
speedily done, and peacefully done, then indeed I fear the
day is not far distant when the genius of despair, like an
atmosphere, will pervade every habitation, and flap its dark
and desolating1 wings over your fairest heritage; when peace
shall flee from your borders, and the terrible cry of "to arms !
to arms ! " shall be heard from mountain to mountain," and by
the side of every river and in every valley; when the shrieks of
flying women and helpless children will be borne upon every
gale, and the avenging hand of Heaven shall be laid heavily
upon you, as it was of old upon the oppressors of the children
of Israel. Sir, I know of no way of escaping the like impend¬
ing doom, which has sealed the fate of all nations and people
who have preceded us that were guilty of this wrong, except
by dealing justly, loving mercy, and permitting this oppressed
people to go. When this is done, peace and concord, pros¬
perity and happiness, shall again return to bless us as a free
and united people; and it can only return when, throughout
the nation, on every foot of American soil, and everywhere
beneath the national ensign, the rights of humanity are fully
recognized and respected, and your law-makers, and your
General and State Governments shall again be directed by the
genius of universal emancipation.
SPEECH
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO.
Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives,
January 17, 1861.
a continental, republic, with no seave beneath its feag!
the majority must govern. it is treason to secede!
Mr. Chairman : For more than a quarter of a century,
the citizens of the free States of this Union, powerful in
numbers, indomitable in energy, superior in wealth and cul¬
ture, have submitted to the constitutionally expressed will of
the people, and a few thousand slave-owners of the South,
in the name of Democracy, have dictated and controlled
the policy of the National Government. The constitutionally
expressed will of the people is again declared, and the parties
which have been defeated are called upon to assent to the
adoption of the policy of the fathers in the inauguration of the
just sway of freedom in the National Government. But a
large majority of the leaders of one of the parties into which
the South is divided, not only refuse obedience to the legally
constituted authorities, but some four or five States, under
the guidance of these party leaders, have gone so far as to
declare their independence, and others are openly threaten¬
ing- rebellion, and the destruction of the government they
have so long- controlled.
Standing-, Mr. Chairman, upon the threshold of such
events, events the most important in our history since the era
of the Revolution, I feel the importance, the responsibility,
and the grandeur of the mission committed by the verdict of
a generous people to the party of which I am a member. And
I desire for a short time the attention of the House, while
discussing the exciting questions which it is alleged this
verdict of the people has precipitated upon the country.
(116)
— 117 —
Mr. Chairman, however much to be regretted, I am not in¬
sensible to the fact, that in a struggle to carry any important
measure through this House, tactics are often restored to rather
than argument, that votes are secured and changes are oftener
effected by party machinery and Executive influences, than
by appeals to the judgment and patriotism of members.
Nevertheless, I feel it to be my duty to speak and make
known, so far as I may in the limited time allowed me, the
views of those whom I have the honor to represent.
Mr. Chairman: Our present prosperity and happiness
as a nation, no less than our future peace, demands, in my
judgment, the preservation of the American Union as our
fathers intended it should be, with no star withdrawn from
the constellation; demands the maintenance of the National
Constitution inviolate, and the faithful execution of all laws
passed in pursuance of that Constitution, not only in every
State but in every Territory within the limits of the Repub¬
lic; demands an acquiescence in and support of the legally
constituted authorities chosen by the people against any and
all combinations of men who may attempt to subvert or destroy
the government, because they cannot longer control and
dictate its policy.
Mr. Chairman, the people of the United States will ask,
the nations of Europe will ask, what has been done in this
country to justify revolution and the attempted destruction
of the National Government? Where are the usurpations,
the acts of oppression, which have been committed either by
the National Government or any one or more of the Northern
State governments against any of the Southern States, or the
citizens of any Southern State, that will excuse, much less
justify, revolution? Certainly there are no acts of the Gen¬
eral Government, of which the Southern people may justly
complain. The President [Mr. Buchanan] says in his mes¬
sage, that during his term of office the laws have been faith¬
fully executed, and in order that the Southern slave barons
may be doubly assured that he has been looking after and
guarding their special interest, he declares that "the; fugi¬
tive slave: law has been carried into execution in every
contested case since the commencement of the present
administration."
— 118 —
Senator Douglas, in his letter to the merchants of New
Orleans, on the 13th of November last, says: " I have yet to
learn that the people of the South complain of the
acts now on the statute book upon the subject of
slavery, as applied to the states or territories or the
District of Columbia." Of no action of the National
Government up to this date, either in refusing- to pass such
laws as the slave barons have demanded or executing- them as
they have ordered, can the South justly complain; because
they have controlled until within a few days the Government,
and filled all its offices with men who have done their bidding-,
even to conspiring- with those who are attempting- to over¬
throw the government.
What, then, is the cause of this "crisis," as it is called?
I confess, Mr. Chairman, that I have seen no adequate
cause for it, and therefore voted ag-ainst the unusual course
adopted by the House in referring- that part of the President's
Message treating- of what is termed " our domestic affairs,"
to a special committee of thirty-three.
If there had been any serious alarm, whether with or
without cause, among the great body of sober thinking men
in the South; if they really believed that their so-called rights
were to be invaded because of Mr. Lincoln's election; I say
if there were those who were really alarmed, I was unwilling
to add to that alarm by adopting an unusual course in creat¬
ing an extraordinary committee, and thus give aid and
encouragement to the conspirators in stirring up political
animosities, for the sole purpose of precipitating the country
into a revolution, unless the North again surrendered as they
had uniformly: done before under such menaces, and on such
terms as it might please the conspirators graciously to dictate.
I believed that such a committee would not only do no good —
as the sequel has proven — but that by creating it we would
tacitly admit that there was some necessity for it. It ap¬
peared to me like pleading "guilty" to the indictment of
the President, which I could not do, knowing it to be false.
For these reasons I voted against raising this extraordinary
committee of thirty-three (33).
But I am told that we are in the midst of a "crisis," a
" revolutionary crisis," and such a one as we have never before
— 119 —
passed through; and I must yield to the minority, compromise
away the rights of millions of freemen, or the Union is forever
dismembered and destroyed. I admit, Mr. Chairman, that
the conspirators have been able, with the aid and connivance
of the traitors connected with the government, to get up a
formidable looking "crisis;" and I can assure you, sir, that
had the people of this country known what has been going
on here in this Capital for the past four years, in nearly every
department of the government, there would have been such
an expression by them at the ballot-boxes in condemnation of
the party in power, as would not only have silenced the allies
of the southern disunionists from the North, but have nipped
in the bud this "revolutionary crisis." But, Mr. Chairman,
we have passed through several "crises" before. It appears
to be a chronic disease in American politics. It must be con¬
ceded, however, that heretofore in their desperate efforts to
get up a " crisis," the conspirators have never set their stakes
quite so high, nor permitted the treason to appear so undis¬
guised. In 1820 and in 1832, in 1850, and again in 1854, we
had " crises " not dissimilar to the present one; and they were
gotten up to order by the same class of men who have suc¬
ceeded so well in getting up the present one. These are the
same men who, with calculating coolness, disrupted the
Charleston-Baltimore conventions, and divided the party
which, for nearly twenty-five years, they had implicitly
governed. They did not hesitate openly to declare that they
did so because the friends of Mr. Douglas in the free States
would not yield to their imperious demands. I have no doubt,
however, that a large majority of the Southern men, in their
conventions, never intended to go so far as they have since
gone. They expected the friends of Mr. Douglas to surrender,
as they now expect twenty-five millions of people to sur¬
render, to the demands of a few thousand men, who are ask¬
ing new guarantees for slavery.
But revolutions seldom go backward; and this one is fast
getting beyond the control of its authors. Undoubtedly, a
large majority of these men only intended to play the old and
oft-repeated game by which, heretofore, they had always
been successful; which has been, first, to create a panic in all
the slave States, by the most unfounded statements and in-
— 120 —
flammatorj appeals; and when the "crisis" had reached the
culminating- point, boldly threaten the disruption and
destruction of the government, unless new concessions were
made by the North; and the concession they were to demand
this time as a condition for remaining- in the Union was not
a new compromise that might be repealed, as they had repealed
the old Missouri Compromise; but a so-called compromise that
should, indeed, this time, be a "finality," by making- slavery
constitutional and perpetual.
This play, however, Mr. Chairman, has had its run. The
people of the free States have seen behind the curtain, and
begin to comprehend the manner in which these periodical
crises are gotten up. They have not forgotten the manufac¬
tured crisis of 1850 — nor forgiven the Northern men who
pretended that that sham was a reality. They have not
forgotten that many of their faithless representatives surren¬
dered the rights, and interest, and honor of the North, at the
bidding of a few slave-masters. And why, Mr. Chairman, did
these Northern Representatives then surrender? To save the
Union, they answer. Southern men threatened then as now
the dissolution of the Union and the destruction of the Gov¬
ernment, unless their demands were complied with. And to
save any trouble these accommodating Representatives, at
the bidding of a few Southern men, yielded.
Did that " finauty," as it was then called, settle the ques¬
tion Not at all. Hardly had these pretended Northern
patriots time to take a breathing spell (in the retirement
from the cares of public life, which the people immediately
permitted most of them to enjoy), before it was broken up by
the new and "final adjustment" of 1854. Upon what pre¬
text was this demand for a compromise, that should be
"final," made, in 1850? The pretext of equality in the
Territories. The freemen of California — as they had the
right to do — had made California a free State. This was a
mortal offense to the slave barons, because, by this action of
the miners of California the slave propagandists lost the
golden prize upon which they had set their hearts, and for
which they had involved this nation in an unconstitutional
war. And because of the action of the free laboring men of
California, in prohibiting slavery in that State, these men
— 121 —
Would not admit her into the Union, unless all the remaining
territory, wrested from Mexico, should be given up to slavery.
Sir, when the impartial historian comes to write the his¬
tory of the compromise schemes of 1850, and the war made
by the act of the Executive of this powerful Nation against
the weak Republic of Mexico, for the sole purpose of extend¬
ing- the institution of slavery over the free and virgin soil of
Utah, New Mexico and California — he will be compelled to
class these acts as among- the darkest crimes of which this
N'ation was ever g"uilty; and the compromisers from the free
States as morally guiltier than those who precipitated us into
that unjust war.
When the old "Whig- party authoritatively endorsed, in
their national convention, these compromise measures, its
death was inevitable. This old party, so formidable and
manly when the ally of freedom, immediately became weak,
sickly and powerless when it became the ally of slavery, and
died; died as the pro-slavery Democratic party has just died,
because also false to freedom, and as the Republican party
will die, and as it ought to die, if it ever agrees to engraft
into the Constitution a clause recognizing property in man.
If it should do this thing, nothing can or ought to save it.
Neither the talents of its most distinguished leaders, their
prospective promotion, or the distribution of the patronage
of the Federal Government. ' If all these combined could
have saved any party, the Whig party could have been saved.
But they could not. And as I now look back, over the long
list of names which once made that party illustrious in the
history of my country, I feel almost startled at the thought,
that men so great, so venerated by the people of the United
States, could, by the allurements and blandishments of the
slave barons, have been so far overcome as to betray the
cherished principles of their lives, and the hopes of the peo¬
ple who entrusted them with power. But such was the fate
of most of the leaders of the organization of which I am
speaking. One after another deserted until, at last, the eyes
of the Nation were fixed upon one whose unsurpassed ability
and great name had, in almost every crisis through which
the country had passed, been the hope and reliance of the
liberty-loving masses. And when, alas! he too fell, a black
— 122 —
pall, as of midnight darkness, spread over the political hori¬
zon, and many earnest and true men gave up in despair.
It may be, sir, that with others, I have placed too great
an estimate upon this extraordinary man, who has done so
much as a statesman and orator to give our country fame and
position among- the nations of the earth, who has done so
much for freedom and so much, alas! for slavery, whose fall
will ever be regretted by the good and great, and whose last
fatal step should be a perpetual warning to all who shall
come after him. Sir, it would seem as if by the rock-beaten
shore of his own beloved Massachusetts, in whose bosom he is
laid down to rest, there must come up forever from old ocean a
sorrowing response to the sad hearts of the people of Massa¬
chusetts for his fall. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the
preacher. The weakness and nothingness of human great¬
ness never in all the history of the past shone out more con¬
spicuously than when this great light went out, overshadowed
as it was by the dark cloud of slavery. From the hour he
abandoned the principles of freedom and the will of the peo¬
ple of Massachusetts, he felt that he was dying, and he hur¬
riedly bade adieu to this Capital, to the scenes of his wonder¬
ful triumphs and former glory, and to the dying organization
which had been at once his life and his death, and passing
away with it, both were entombed together, a.nd there the
party and he who was its brightest ornament and most dis¬
tinguished leader will ever remain — the party to be remem¬
bered in history only for its greatness and folly; its timidity
and its wrongs. Its greatness, in that it had as its leaders
the brightest intellects of the land and in its ranks the mass
of intelligence. Its folly, in that it subordinated human
rights to a financial policy calculated to benefit the few,
rather than guard the interest of the many. Its timidity, in
that it never could lead, but was ever on the defensive, plead¬
ing for ease and quiet. In its wrongs, in that it gave the
sanction of its organization to the most offensive demands of
the slave barons, when it endorsed the fatal compromise
of 1850.
Mr. Chairman, there was no more necessity for the politi¬
cal excitement which preceded the so-called compromises
of 1850 than there is to-day for President Buchanan to in-
— 123 —
flict upon this House and country another message on South¬
ern rights and Southern wrongs. That panic was all manu¬
factured, coolly and deliberately manufactured, just as the
owner of a steam mill would get up steam by putting fire
under the boiler.
Just so with this "crisis" to a great extent. Three-
fourths of it is the baldest pretense. There are only a few
leading men who at heart favor it, and those who do have
put a ball in motion which, unless soon checked, they will be
unable to control or even direct, and like the authors of the
French revolution, they will, in all human probability, be
among its first victims.
Already the sober thinking men of the Soutn are trem¬
bling, not only for their own personal safety and that of their
families, but for fear of a despotism which they cannot
tolerate, and a taxation which will eat out all their substance.
Already we get glimpses of what may be expected in the
future, especially if war should ensue. Forced contributions
must be levied; the citizens will be assessed and told they
must take so much of the revolutionary stock. If they re¬
fuse, they will be classed among the disaffected, then de¬
nounced as abolitionists in disguise, and subjected to the
mercy of a maddened mob. A tax of from fifteen to
twenty-five dollars per head annually for each slave, and
other property in proportion, will soon cool the mad enthu¬
siasm of the thoughtless.
How many men are there in South Carolina over twenty-
one years of age? Not more than fifty-five thousand. Of
this number less than ten thousand are planters — and not
more than twelve thousand in addition own their homesteads.
Almost two-thirds of the entire white population are tenants
at will of the planters. They are very poor, ignorant, and
destitute, and according to Senator Hammond, "obtain a
precarious subsistence by occasional jobs, by hunting, by
fishing, by plundering fields and folds, and too often by what
is in its effects far worse — trading with slaves, and seducing
them to plunder for their benefit."
With less than twenty-five thousand men who have any
property to be taxed, South Carolina proposed to make war
— 124 —
on. the United States. Has the world ever witnessed such
stupendous folly and madness?
From seven to ten millions of dollars annually will be
necessary if she is involved in war, to maintain her govern¬
ment and army. Where is this vast sum of money to come
from? From the other slave States, it may be answered,
but the other slave States will be in no better condition than
South Carolina, even if they should unite. The proportion¬
ate cost of maintaining- one or ten g-overnments, one or ten
armies, would be about the same.
Mr. Boyce, late a member of this House, answered these
questions, a few years ago, in an address to the people of
South Carolina, as follows:
" South Carolina cannot become a nation. God makes
nations — not man. You cannot extemporize a nation out of
South Carolina. It is simply impossible; we have not the
resources. We could exist by tolerance; and what that toler¬
ance would be, when we consider the present hostile spirit of
the age to the institution of slavery, all may readily imagine.
I trust we may never have to look upon the painful and
humiliating- spectacle. From the weakness of our National
Government a feeling of insecurity would arise, and capital
would take the alarm and leave us. But it may be said,
"Let capital go!" To this I reply, that capital is the life-
blood of a modern community; and, in losing it, you lose the
vitality of the State.
"Secession — separate nationality, with all its burdens
— is no remedy. It is no redress for the past, it is no secu¬
rity for the future. It is only a magnificent sacrifice of the
present, without in anywise g-aining- in the future. Such is
the intensity of my conviction on the subject, that if seces¬
sion should take place — of which I have no idea, for I can¬
not believe in such stupendous madness-—I shall consider
the institution of slavery as doomed, and that the great
God, in our blindness, has made us the instrument of its
destruction."
What Mr. Boyce then said, is as true to-day as when he
uttered it. South Carolina cannot long- maintain her present
position. With her commerce destroyed by blockade, as it
will be in case of war, all her available men in the army,
an immense police force, at great cost, to watch and prevent
if they can, an outbreak among the slaves, every branch of
business prostrated, and her cotton and rice fields turned into
— 125 —
desolate wastes, no people will long- submit to such, an in¬
tolerable condition. Already men of means are moving- or
sending- their families North. It is a step dictated by pru¬
dence. I should certainly do so were I a resident of the
South, and one of her largest slave owners. I would have
no fears that my family would be either mobbed, or insulted,
or ordered out of the country by some self-constituted vigi¬
lance committee, or that my property would be destroyed or
stolen and distributed among the rabble, because I happened
to be a resident of a Southern State. No judicious man
who is able, will hazard the risk, at such a time, of having-
his wife and family violated and massacred by the slaves, in
case of a servile insurrection. The madness of the leaders in
this attempted revolution, is driving- and will drive thousands
of families and millions of wealth into the North. The
bluster of 1832 drove some citizens of South Carolina, whom
I know, into Ohio, and I doubt not there were others who
settled in nearly all the free States.
When the leading conspirators come to put their hands
into the pockets of the' people, to take their last dollar, they
will rebel. If the citizens of South Carolina, and of the
Southern States, were oppressed by the National Govern¬
ment with burdens that honorable and patriotic men could
not bear, then I grant you they would, as would every brave
people, sacrifice life and property without stint, if there was
any hope of bettering- their condition. They have not, how¬
ever, and cannot point the people to a list of intolerable
grievances, such as will justify their attempted revolution.
The address issued to the Southern people, which was prepared
by order of the South Carolina convention, declares, that
"While constituting- a portion of the United States, it has
been the statesmanship of the South, which has guided the
nation in its mig-hty strides to power and expansion. In
the field, as in the Cabinet, it is they who have led it to its
renown and grandeur." For seventy-three years then, on
her own showing, Southern statesmen have controlled and
given direction to the National Government, under which
their section has grown from a million and a half to eight
millions, without including the slaves, and has advanced in
prosperity and wealth as no people ever did before. Is there
— 126 —
then, taking- her own statement as true, any justification for
the course South Carolina and other Southern States are
attempting-, and which nearly all are threatening-?
No wrong- or unconstitutional act has been committed or
is proposed to be committed by the General Government. Is
the mere election by the people, of a President who does not
favor the cherished policy of a few thousand slaveholders,
sufficient cause for destroying* the Union, and involving- the
nation in civil war? I need not answer this question; there
can be and there will be but one response by the patriotic
men of all parties. The judg-ments of all thinking- impartial
men in the entire nation, and in the civilized world, will con¬
demn the leaders who without cause, are attempting- the disso¬
lution of this Union, and the destruction of the best form of
government ever devised by man. To this crime is added
that of duplicity. During- the late campaign every Presiden¬
tial candidate for whom the South or North voted, distinctly
denied that they were in favor of disunion, but on the con¬
trary they all professed the most unqualified devotion to the
Union.
The people of the United States then voted, but little
over two months ag-o, unanimously in favor of maintaining
the Union. Why then should it be destroyed now? What
has been done since to justify such a gigantic crime? Catti
anyone give a satisfactory answer? Men who have brought
about the present excitement may attempt to satisfy them¬
selves, but they cannot justify their conduct to an intelligent
people.
But we are told, Mr. Chairman, that unless we vote for
such new guarantees to slavery as the South shall demand,
that all the Southern States are going out of the Union. It
is said that they intend to do this with the confident expec¬
tation of obtaining concessions from the North which they
could not obtain in the Union. That they expect to do this
by a reconstruction of the National Union on such terms as
they shall dictate. In this mad scheme they have the sym¬
pathy, encouragement and promise of aid from men in the free
States, calling themselves Democrats.
The basis of the new Union is to be the recognition of
slaves as property by constitutional provision, unalterable
— 127 —
except with, the consent of every slave State. And this is
called Democracy in the year of grace, 1861. Democracy in
the days of Jefferson, was for free States and free Territories.
Madison "would not admit into the: Constitution the)
idea that there) could be property in man." To-day
the doctrine that slavery is right and must be made per¬
petual, is the test of -what is called Democracy.
That such demands will ever be acceded to by the people
of the United States, I do not believe possible. But whatever
may be the course of others, be the consequences what they
may, by no act or vote of mine shall the. Constitution of my
country ever be so amended as to recognize property m man.
Mr. Chairman, ours is a complex system of government
uniting two governments within the same territorial turisdic-
tion. The State governments being- confined within their
own boundaries, the National Government extending- over
all States and Territories, and on the high. seas. Every
loyal citizen is subject to both these governments, and can in
no way withdraw his allegiance from either, except by ceas¬
ing- to be a citizen of the United States. If he is a citizen of
the United States he is also a citizen of the State where he
resides, and he cannot be a citizen of any State, and be re¬
leased by any action o* said State from his allegiance to the
National Government.
Both these governments, the State and National, derive
all the power they possess directly from the people. The gov¬
ernment of the United States is supreme to the extent of the
powers clearly delegated to it in the National Constitution.
The State governments are supreme within their limits, ex¬
cept in the exercise of power reserved by the people or pro¬
hibited to them by the Constitution of the United States.
There can be no misunderstanding as to what the reserved
powers are which are prohibited to the States. Article first,
section ten, of the Federal Constitution declares that
"No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or con¬
federation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money;
emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a
tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, or
Ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of con¬
tracts, or grant any title of nobility."
— 128 —
Clause: 2. " No State shall, without the consent of Con¬
gress, lay any imposts on duties, on imports or exports, ex¬
cept what may be absolutely necessary for executing* its in¬
spection laws; and the net produce of all duties and impost,
laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use
of the Treasury of the United States; and all such laws
shall be subject to the revision and control of Congress."
Clause, 3. " No State shall, without the consent of Con¬
gress, lay a duty on tonnag-e, keep troops or ships of war in
time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with
another State, or with a foreign power, or eng-age in war, un¬
less actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not
admit of delay."
These powers prohibited to the States were conferred by
the supreme Constitution on the National Government. The
hig-hest attributes of sovereignty are thus secured by this Con¬
stitution. Congress alone has power to make war and make
peace, to conclude treaties and to regnlate commerce with the
nations abroad and with the States of the Union at home.
Congress alone possesses the exclusive power to keep an
army and navy, to lay and collect duties on imports, coin
money and regulate its value, and to crown all, it is declared
— "that this Constitution and the laws of the United
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all
treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority
of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;
and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything
in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not¬
withstanding."
There is then, no necessity for a conflict of jurisdiction
between the General and State governments. To the extent
of the powers conferred by the Constitution on Congress, it
was intended that the National Government should act di¬
rectly upon the citizens of all the States and Territories and
execute its own laws and decrees by its own officers. To the
States are secured the regulation of their own municipal
affairs, with which Congress can in no way constitutionally
interfere.
The powers and duties of both governments are clearly
defined, and neither may of rigfht interfere with or attempt to
exercise the functions of the other. Where the citizens and
officers of these g-overnments discharg-e their duties properly,
— 129 —
there can be no collision. These systems of government are,
in my opinion, the best ever devised by man. The his¬
tory of this nation, for the past seventy-three years, is
the best evidence of its practicability. They have and
ever will work harmoniously, if honestly administered. The
people residing- in the thirteen colonies created this
National Government by making and adopting our present
Constitution. They did not make it and ratify it as nations
make and ratify treaties. They did not make it for a tempo¬
rary purpose, but to secure a "perpetual union." It was
made by the action and with the approval of the whole peo¬
ple residing in all the colonies, and was not made by the
citizens of independent sovereignties, as the secessionists
claim. Neither before nor after the Declaration of our
National Independence were any one of the old thirteen colo¬
nies free and independent states or nations; but they were
colonies of Great Britain, then they were colonies united as
one government, under the Articles of Confederation, in re¬
bellion against Great Britain, calling themselves the "United
States of America." The war of our Independence was fought
and our liberty secured by the Confederation, and not by
single colonies. Their joint independence was acknowledged
by Great Britain and the nations of Europe, and never as sep¬
arate sovereign independent States. The several States are
not even mentioned by name in any one of these treaties, so
far as I have examined. Our fathers intended, in every pos¬
sible manner, to impress upon the American mind the maxim
that our freedom and independence was secured by our Union;
and that, without this Union, we could not maintain our
liberty and independence.
From all the patriotic men of the Revolution there comes
to us the warning, to beware of the dangers of a dissolution
of the Union. In a letter, of the date of October 10th, 1787,
addressed by Randolph to the Speaker of the House of Dele¬
gates of Virginia, he said:
" Severe experience under the pressure of war, a ruinous
weakness manifested since the return of peace, and the con¬
templation of those dangers which darken the future pros¬
pect, have condemned the hope of grandeur and of safety
9
—130 —
under the auspices of the Confederation. . . . Among- the up¬
right and intelligent, few can read without emotion the future
fate of the States if severed from each other. Then shall we
learn the full weight of foreign intrigue. Then shall we hear
of partitions of the country. . . . But dreadful as the total
dissolution of the Union is to my mind, I entertain no less
horror at the thought of partial confederacies. In short, sir,
I am fatigued with summoning up to my imagination the
miseries which will harass the United States, if torn from
each other, and which will not end until they are superseded
by fresh mischiefs, under the yoke of a tyrant."
To the same effect are the declarations of Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and many others, whose opinions
might be quoted, did time permit.
At no period in our history, either before or since the
Revolution, has any one of the States been a separate sover¬
eign independent nation, with the recognized power to make
war and conclude treaties, or form or dissolve alliances with
any nation. The principle of national unity is the very life
and soul of our Constitution. Without it, our great national
charter is not worth the paper upon which it is written.
In a letter, addressed by the unanimous vote of the con¬
vention which framed the Constitution, to "his excellency
the President of Congress," it is declared that—
— "it is obviously impracticable in the Federal Govern¬
ment of these States to secure all rights of independent sover¬
eignty to each, and yet provide for the interests and safety
of all. ... In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept
steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest
interest of every true American, the consolidation op our
Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety,
perhaps our national existence."— [Elliott's Debates, vol.
1, P. 24.]
The thirteen colonies, as I have before said, were united
u«nder the Confederation at the time the present Constitution
was adopted, and the old Continental Congress, representing
the people in all the States, initiated the movements for the
new government, by calling together the convention of dele¬
gates which made this Constitution, declaring by resolutions
when they did so, that the convention was called "for the
sole and only purpose of making the Federal Government
adequate to the exigencies of government, and the preserva-
— 131 —
tion of the Union." And this constitutional convention, when
submitting- their joint labors to the judgment of their con¬
stituents, declared in the preamble to the Constitution, that,
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a
more; perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tran¬
quility, provide for the common defense, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and
our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for
the United States of America."
" Can it be conceived," says General Jackson,
-—"that an instrument made for the purpose of 'forming a
more perfect Union' than that of the Confederation could be so
constructed by the assembled wisdom of our country as to
substitute for that confederation a form of government de¬
pendent for its existence on the local interest, the party spirit
of a State or of a prevailing faction in a State?"
Mr. Patterson, of New Jersey, a distinguished member of
the convention which framed the Constitution, declared "that
no State under the Confederation had a right to with¬
draw from the Union without the consent of all." "The
Confederation," he says,
—"is in the nature of a compact, and can any State, unless
by the consent of the whole, either in politics or law, with¬
draw their powers? Let it be said by Pennsylvania and the
other large States that they, for the sake of peace, assented
to the Confederation; can she now resume her original right
without the consent of the donee?"
This modern doctrine of the right of a State to withdraw
from the Union at pleasure, is a "heresy" which was de¬
nounced by all the leading men of the Revolution. If one
State can withdraw from the Union at pleasure, may not a
majority of the States, with the same propriety, exclude one
or more States from the Union? Certainly they can. But
there is no such right under the Constitution, and the framers
of the Constitution carefully guarded against any such ab¬
surd theory.
"It is only," says Judge Story,
"in the event of a failure of every constitutional
resort, and an accumulation of usurpations and abuses
rendering passive obedience and non-resistance a greater
-132-
eviiv than resistance and revolution, that even Madison
claims for 'a single member of the Union' a right, as an
Extra and ultra constitutional right, to make the appeal
from the cancelled obligations of the constitutional compact
to original rights and the laws of self-preservation."—[1
Story on Con. 280.]
Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of Cohens vs. Vir¬
ginia (5 Wheaton, p. 92), said
" The people made the Constitution, and the people can
unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by
their will. But this supreme irresistible power to make and
unmake resides only in the whole body op the people; not
in any subdivision of them. The attempt of any of the
parts to exercise it is usurpation, and ought to be repelled by
those to whom the people have delegated this power of repel-
ling it. The acknowledged inability of the government,
then, to sustain itself against the public will, and, by force
or otherwise, to control the whole nation, is no sound argu¬
ment in support of its constitutional inability to preserve
itself against a section of the nation acting in opposition
to the general will."
Nowhere did the framers of the Constitution provide for
the dissolution of the Union. Neither did the people, in any
one of the colonies, when adopting the Constitution, reserve
to themselves the right to withdraw from the Union at pleas¬
ure, and thus destroy the government they were organizing
and the Union it created. The citizens in two or three of
the colonies, it is true, before ratifying the Constitution, did
discuss the propriety of reserving the right to withdraw from
the Union at pleasure, but no such right was conceded; and
from the necessity of the case, could not be admitted then,
any more than it can be now.
Alexander Hamilton, in a letter to James Madison, sug¬
gested the propriety of New York ratifying the Constitution
with "the reservation op a right to secede," if Certain
amendments to the Constitution, proposed by New York,
were not adopted within a given period. Mr. Madison re¬
plied, declaring explicitly, that the Constitution required an
"adoption in toto and forever." It has, he adds, "been
so adopted by the other States." But I will read the
whole paragraph:
— 133 —
"My opinion is, that a reservation of a rig-lit to with¬
draw, if amendments be not decided on under the form of the
Constitution, within a certain time, is a conditional ratifica¬
tion, that it does not make New York a member of the new
Union, and consequently she should not be received on that
plan. Compacts must be reciprocal; this principle in such
case would not be preserved. The Constitution requires an
adoption in ToTo and forever. It has been so adopted by
the other States. An adoption for a limited time would be
as defective as an adoption of some of the articles only. In
short, any condition whatever must vitiate the ratification.
. . . The idea of reserving- the rig-ht to withdraw was stated
at Richmond and considered as a conditional ratification,
which was itself abandoned—worse than a rejection."
At a later day (1830), Mr. Madison declared, in a letter
to Hon. Edward Everett, that—
"It [the Constitution] was formed not by th«e govern¬
ments of the component States, as the Federal Govern¬
ment for which it was substituted was formed; nor was it
formed by a majority of the people of the United States, as
a single community, in the manner of a consolidated govern¬
ment. It was formed by the States, that is, by the people in
each of the States, acting- in their hig-hest sovereig-n capacity,
and formed consequently by the same authority which formed
the State constitutions.
"Being- thus derived from the same source as the con¬
stitutions of the States, it has within each State the same
authority as the constitution of the State, and is as much a
constitution, in the strict sense of the term, within its pre¬
scribed sphere, as the constitutions of the States are in their
respective spheres, but with this obvious and essential differ¬
ence, that being- a compact among- States in their hig-hest
sovereig"n capacity, and constituting" the people thereof one
people for certain purposes, it can not be altered or an¬
nulled at the will of the states individually, as the
constitution of a State may be at its individual will."
Thus spoke Madison, the father of the Constitution.
I now make a quotation from Jefferson. In a letter writ¬
ten more than forty-five years ago, he said —
"In every free and deliberating- society, there must, from
the nature of man, be opposite parties and violent dissen¬
sions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must
prevail over the others for a long-er or a shorter time. Per¬
haps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch
and relate to the people the proceeding's of the other. But
— 134 —
ip, on a temporary superiority op the one party, the
other is to resort to a scission op the union, no federal
government can ever Exist. If to rid. ourselves of the
present rule of Massachusetts and Connecticut we break the
Union, will the evil stop there? Suppose the New England
States alone cut off, will our natures be changed? Are we
not men still to the south of that, and with all the passions
of men? Immediately we shall see a Virginia and a Penn¬
sylvania party arise in the residuary confederacy, and the pub¬
lic mind will be distracted by the same party spirit. What a
game, too, will one party have in their hands, by eternally
threatening the other, that unless they do so and so they
will join their northern neighbors. If we reduce our Union
to Virginia and North Carolina, immediately the conflict
will be established between the representatives of these two
States, and they will end by breaking into their simple units."
These and similar opinions of the leading men who put
the machinery of our government in motion, might be quoted,
if time permitted, almost indefinitely. In fact the whole his¬
tory of the times proves that the men who made the Consti¬
tution and favored its ratification, intended to make a govern¬
ment for the people in all the States which should be strong
enough to withstand all attacks, and which could not be
broken up or divided, except by the consent of the whole
people.
Mr. Chairman, article fourth, section fourth, of the
Constitution declares that the "United States shall guarantee
to every State in the Union a republican form of government."
This includes, of course, all the States in the Union when
the Constitution was adopted, and all new States which
should afterwards be admitted into the Union. These words
are not susceptible of double interpretation. They can have
but one meaning. They declare imperatively that the exec¬
utive, legislative, and judicial powers of the government,
acting under and by authority of the National Constitution,
shall see that every State in the Union has secured to it a
republican form of government. This provision of itself is
a clear denial of the claim set up here that every State is
sovereign and independent, and that the National Govern¬
ment is only a confederation clothed by these sovereign and
independent States with temporary authority, which can be
withdrawn at the pleasure, caprice, or whim of an accidental
—135 —
or absolute majority of the citizens of any State. General
Jackson declared in his celebrated proclamation "that to say
that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to
say that the United States are not a nation."
This claim of the right of any State to withdraw from
the Union at pleasure, is so absurd that it would seem un¬
worthy of serious consideration, were it not for the fact that
the doctrine is daily proclaimed here, with some show of
seriousness, and, I regret to say, by some northern men.
Mr. Chairman, the people of the United States in creat¬
ing-this National Government, intended to protect themselves
from every form of despotism. They intended to secure
themselves against the action of State governments, which
in an excitement like the present might attempt to establish
a despotic government, abolish liberty, and violate the
guaranteed rights of any portion of their citizens. And in
order thus to secure themselves, they provided in the National
Constitution for a redress of their grievances by appealing
from the unconstitutional action of such a State to the whole
people in all the States represented in one government. The
National Government, by this mandatory clause, becomes the
protector of the whole people in all the States against the
violation of their personal rights and liberties, even though
committed by legislative majorities; and the General Govern¬
ment is clothed with all necessary power and authority to
preserve inviolate the guarantees secured to all citizens by
the National Constitution. This was a wise and salutary pro¬
vision, enabling an oppressed minority in any locality to
secure the assistance and protection of the whole people
against every form of despotism.
As a nation, the law of self-preservation demands that
we permit no State or combination of States to break up and
destroy this government, and establish upon our borders anti¬
democratic, monarchical or military despotisms. As a gov¬
ernment, we can no more allow this to be done, than a State
c;„n allow one or more counties within its jurisdiction to dis¬
solve their connection at pleasure with the State government,
and establish a government hostile to the State. The fact
that the citizens of these counties might vote unanimously
for secession, would not justify the citizens in the remaining
— 136 —
counties of the State in permitting- the State thus to be dis¬
membered, any more than the government of the United
States could permit a State to be withdrawn, even though
the citizens of the seceding- State should vote unanimously in
favor of the proposition. Neither could we permit States in
the Union to change their governments, and adopt govern¬
ments anti-republican in form, much less to establish monar¬
chical or military despotisms in violation of the fundamental
provisions of the National Constitution.
Chief Justice Taney, in the case of Luther vs. Borden,
et al., 8th Howard, page 45, a case growing- out of the
Dorr rebellion in Rhode Island, and to which I may again
allude, declared that:
"Unquestionably, a military government, established as
the permanent government of a State, would not be a repub¬
lican government, and it would be the duty of Congress to
overthrow it.'1
If it be the duty of Congress, as Chief Justice Taney
declares, and as I believe, to overthrow a military govern¬
ment, established by the legal authorities of any State, it
cannot be denied that it is also the duty of Congress to over¬
throw and abolish any form of government in a State which
is in fact anti-republican and oppressive, no matter whether
established by the legally constituted authorities, or by usur¬
pation. The power of the National Government to prohibit
any State from establishing an anti-republican form of gov¬
ernment, is as clear and unquestioned as is its authority to
prohibit any State from setting the National Constitution at
defiance and assuming the power of an independent nation.
The mode and manner of procedure, in either case, is
committed entirely to the discretion of Congress, as pro¬
vided in section eighth, clause eighteen of the Constitution,
which authorizes Congress "To make; all laws which shall
be; necessary and proper to carry into execution the
foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this
Constitution in the government op the United States or
in any department or officer thereof."
In the Rhode Island case to which I have alluded, there
was, I believe, an admitted majority, of the people of the
State, who desired to change from the charter government of
— 137 —
Charles tlie Second, granted in 1663, under which the State
had always acted, to a constitutional government which
should extend the right of suffrage, and fairly adjust the ine¬
quality in the apportionment of representatives in the State
Legislature. The charter pointed out no mode of procedure
by which amendments could be made, and the charter party,
by the unfair apportionment and the property qualification
for electors, were able to keep possession of the government,
and on a pretense of want of power to propose any amend¬
ments to the charter, they repeatedly refused to initiate pro¬
ceedings on application of the people for a change of the
organic law from the old monarchical charter to a republi¬
can constitution.
The people failing to obtain a redress of their grievances
from the recognized authorities, proceeded to secure them in
a revolutionary manner. They formed associations, held
public meetings, prescribed rules for the election of a con¬
vention of delegates to form a State constitution; in accor¬
dance with which delegates were elected throughout the
State, who met, framed an excellent constitution and sub¬
mitted it to the people for adoption or rejection. A vote was
taken upon it at the time and in the manner prescribed by
the convention, and it was adopted and ratified by a large
majority of the people. Elections were subsequently held in
accordance with the provisions of this constitution, and
Thomas W. Dorr was duly elected governor, together with
a legislature and all State officers provided for in the consti¬
tution. This legislature convened and organized; Dorr was
inaugurated governor, and attempted to take possession of
the arsenals and public property of the State. The charter
government resisted the people's government, proclaimed
martial law by act of their legislature, and called on the
President of the United States for military aid to assist in
putting down the rebellion. As soon as Dorr and his party
learned that the president had decided to assist the charter
government, he fled from the State, and thus ended the so-
called Dorr rebellion and with it their government. Of
course I need hardly add what all know so well, that Dorr
was subsequently tried for treason, convicted, and sent to the
penitentiary for life. I do not speak of the justice or injus-
— 138 —
tice of tlie charter government, I only speak of the fact. I
have "been thus minute in this matter to show that if an ad¬
mitted minority of the citizens of any State may thus have
the assistance of the National Government against an ad¬
mitted majority who were seeking- in a peaceful, and as they
supposed, the only manner in which they could proceed to
secure their own rights, without inflicting or intending to
inflict injury or wrong on the minority, or establish a govern¬
ment hostile to the United States, how much more important
that a minority of the citizens in any State, who are loyal to
the Union, shall be protected in their constitutional rights,
even though a large majority, through the forms of law,
attempt to destroy their liberties, make war upon the Na¬
tional Government, and establish a despotic instead of a
republican form of government.
Mr. Chairman, I have introduced the subject matter of
the Rhode Island controversy here, for the double purpose of
showing the power conferred on the government of the United
States by the National Constitution, and the duty of the
government in contingencies that now seem likely to happen.
Suppose fivb or ten, or even all the slave States should, with
the sanction of a majority of their citizens, and under the
forms of law enacted by their present recognized authorities,
join South Carolina in her treasonable movements. What
would [be the duty of the General Government toward the
patriotic and loyal minority in these States? Undoubtedly
there can be but one answer to this question. It is their duty
to protect and secure them in the enjoyment of all their con¬
stitutional rights, and by force: if necessary. And though
the loyal citizens should be largely in the minority, if they
remain faithful to the Constitution and the Union, they may
and should disregard the action and usurpations of a ma¬
jority, refuse to recognize their treasonable proceedings,
either in declaring the States sovereign and independent,
changing the State constitutions, or by acts of their conven¬
tions absolving all citizens from their allegiance to the Na¬
tional Government. Those who remain loyal and refuse to
recognize such revolutionar}*- proceedings, may continue to
act under the old constitution and laws of the State, as if no
such treasonable action had taken place, elect their governor,
—139 —
State officers, and members of the Legislature and Congress,
at the time and in the manner prescribed by the laws existing
prior to the usurpation.
The Governors thus elected could call upon the Presi¬
dent of the United States for aid to suppress the rebellion,
and it would be his duty to grant it. There is no doubt but
what Congress would recognize such a government. The
legislature thus elected could choose United States Senators
to fill any vacancies that might exist either from the expira¬
tion of the terms of the present Senators, their resignation
or expulsion, because engaged in a conspiracy to overthrow
the present National Government. The Senators and Repre¬
sentatives in Congress thus elected by the loyal citizens of
any of the seceding States, would undoubtedly be admitted to
seats, each House, by the Constitution, being the sole judge
of the qualifications of its own members. In this manner
the National Government could fulfill and discharge its con¬
stitutional obligations by securing to each State a republi¬
can form of government, suppress rebellion, and protect the
lives, liberties and property of the loyal citizens. If it be
said, however, that the majority would vote down the
minority, or by force and mob law prevent such an expression
of their opinions at the ballot-box, or the revolutionists might
elect a Governor and Legislature, members of Congress and
Senators, with the understanding that they should not serve,
and that such a scheme as is proposed for the minority to act
upon is impracticable; then, I answer, that the duty of all
loyal citizens would be to assemble and petition Congress for
a redress of their grievances — the protection of their lives
and property, and the security of all their constitutional
rights, including a republican form of State government.
The National Government justly and proudly boasts of
having protected one poor and friendless foreigner, who had
only declared his intention to become an American citizen,
from the despotism of Austria, at the hazard of a bloody
and expensive war. If, then, there be but one of its own
citizens, born and bred on its own soil, who, despite the
threatened punishment of traitors in rebellion against the
United States, remains loyal to the Constitution and Union,
shall he not be protected in his life, liberty, and property by
— 140 —
the National Government? If the General Government have
not power to protect the rights of all loyal citizens, then the
government is a failure, and that provision of the National
Constitution which says: "The; United States shall
guarantee to every State in the Union a republican
form op government," is a dead letter, and worse than
useless.
But, Mr. Chairman, with a proper administration of the
National Government it will neither be a dead letter nor use¬
less, and the future history of this government will prove
how wisely, and with what sagacity and forethought our
fathers acted when they inserted this invaluable provision in
the Constitution, requiring the whole people to aid in sup¬
pressing rebellion, and securing the rights of all who either
by numbers or military usurpation might be overpowered in
any particular State or States.
Mr. Chairman, all governments must, from the very
nature of the case, use force to execute their Executive,
Legislative, and Judicial decrees, if resisted. This is a power
inseparable from all governments. If the city of New York,
to-day, by the unanimous voice of her citizens, were to de¬
clare herself a sovereign and independent city, and set up a
government of her own, put the authority of the National
and State governments at defiance, and collect and appro¬
priate all the revenue derived from duties on imports, thus
cutting off more than half the entire revenue of the National
Government, does any sane man suppose for a moment that
this government would tolerate it? By no means. If it be¬
came necessary to subdue her, the government would lay the
entire city in ruins. Martial law would be declared, a block¬
ade proclaimed— the property of all rebels confiscated, and
the leading traitors hanged or shot. The city of New York
contains nearly a million of inhabitants, almost, if not quite,
four times the number of whites in South Carolina, and, I
believe, more wealth than any one Southern State, unless it
be Virginia. The people living in the city of New York
have just the same right to declare 'themselves out of the
Union that the people of any one or more of the Southern
States have—no more, no less. And that right is the in¬
herent right of revolution. The government once involved
— 141 —
in war, in its efforts to enforce the laws and put down rebel¬
lion, could know no rule but success. A blockade, martial
law, tlie confiscation of all property, real and personal, of
the insurgents, the execution of all the leading- rebels and
the removal, by force ip necessary, op the cause that
produced the rebellion.
This is no new doctrine. John Quincy Adams, nearly
twenty years ago, in the House of Representatives, in speak¬
ing of the war power, said:
"When your country is actually in war, whether it be a
war of invasion or a war of insurrection, Congress has power
to carry on the war, and must carry it on according to the laws
of war; and by the laws of war an invaded country has all its
laws and municipal institutions swept by the board, and mar¬
tial law takes the place of them. This power in Congress
has, perhaps, never been called into exercise under the
present Constitution of the United States. But, when the
laws of war are in force, what, I ask, is one of those laws?
It is this: that when a country is invaded and two hostile
armies are set in martial array, the commanders of both
armies have power to emancipate all the slaves in the invaded
territory."
This course is generally indispensable with the insur¬
gents, in all revolutions, in order to "obtain indemnity for
the past, and security for The future." The Constitu¬
tion makes the President of the United States the Commander
in Chief of the Army and Navy, and he is required to see that
the laws are faithfully executed. He cannot evade this just
responsibility, if he would, unless he is a traitor. There is,
then, but one course left after all peaceful remedies fail, and
that is, to use all the power of the government to crush re¬
bellion and treason, if we would preserve the nation from
certain and utter ruin.
As to the powers and duties of the government, in case
of rebellion, I quote and endorse in full the declarations of
Henry Clay, made in a letter to Hon. Daniel Ullman and
others, of New York, dated October 3d, 1850. In speaking
of secession, he said:
" Suppose the standard should be raised of open resist¬
ance to the Union, the Constitution, and laws, what is to be
done? There can be but one possible answer. The power,
the authority, and the dignity of the government ought to be
— 142 —
maintained, and resistance put down at all hazard. The
duty of executing" the laws and suppressing insurrections is
without limitation or qualification; it is co-extensive with the
jurisdiction of the United States. No human government
can exist without the power of applying- force, and the actual
application of it in extreme cases. My belief is, that if it
should be applied to South Carolina, in the event of her
secession, she would be speedily reduced to obedience, and
the Union, instead of being- weakened, would acquire addi¬
tional strength."
And in a speech delivered in the United States Senate in
1850, he said:
"Now, Mr. President, I stand here in my place, meaning
to be unawed by any threats, whether they come from indi¬
viduals or from States. I should deplore as much as any
man, living or dead, that arms should be raised against the
authority of the Union, either by individuals or by States.
But, after all that has occurred, if any one State, or a portion
of the people of any one State, choose to place themselves in
military array against the government of the Union, I am
for trying the! strength of the government. I am
for ascertaining whether we have a government or not —
practical, efficient, capable of maintaining its authority, and
of upholding the powers and interests which belong to a gov¬
ernment. Nor, sir, am I to be alarmed or dissuaded from any
such course by intimations of the spilling of blood. If blood
is to be spilt, by whose fault is it? Upon the supposition,
I maintain it will be the fault of those who choose to raise
the standard of disunion, and endeavor to prostrate this gov¬
ernment; and, sir, when that is done, so long as it pleases
God to give me a voice to express my sentiments, or an arm,
weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and that
arm will be on the side of my country for the support of the
general authority, and for maintenance of the powers of this
Union."
Again, in reply to some remarks of the Senator from
South Carolina (Mr. Barnwell), Mr. Clay said:
"Mr. President, I said nothing with respect to the char¬
acter of Mr. Rhett (for I might as well name him). I know
him personally, and have some respect for him; but if he pro¬
nounced the sentiment attributed to him, of raising the stan¬
dard of disunion and of resistance to the common government,
whatever he has been, if he follows up that declaration by
corresponding overt acts, he is a traitor, and I hope will
meet with the fate of a traitor !" [Great applause in the
galleries.]
-143-
Of South Carolina, he said:
"I will tell her, and I will tell the Senator himself, that
there are as brave, as dauntless, as gallant men, and as devoted
patriots, in my opinion, in every other State in the Union, as
are to be found in South Carolina herself; and, if in any
unjust cause South Carolina, or any other State, should
hoist the flag- of disunion and rebellion, thousands, tens of
thousands, of Kentuckians would flock to the standard of
their country to dissipate and repress their rebellion. These
are my sentiments — make the most of them."— [ App. Cong.
Globe, 1 sess. 31 Cong. p. 1414.]
Our first duty, then, it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, is to
abolish all ports of entry which it may be inconvenient to
occupy; to proclaim a blockade of all ports in the rebellious
States; employ the navy in connection with privateers, who
shall be authorized to capture and hold as prizes all vessels
with their cargoes leaving* any port without a clearance from
an officer duly commissioned by the authorities of the United
States, as also all vessels which might attempt to enter any
of said ports without paying- the duties to an officer of the
General Government. A blockade, such as I speak of, would
be one of the most effective methods, without firing- a gun,
of opening* the eyes of the thoughtless and reckless men in
the South to the true condition into which they have so
madly precipitated themselves.
Their commerce, which consists almost entirely of ex¬
ports, would be utterly destroyed, so far as finding- outlets
throug-h the present channels of trade. And they would be
forced to find outlets, for they must export to live — and they
would be compelled to ship their cotton, rice, tobacco, etc., by
way of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, but princi¬
pally by way of Baltimore — which latter city would reap a
harvest and enjoy a trade and prosperity which she has never
known, furnishing-, as she would be compelled to do, shipping
and exchange for three-fourths of the immense commerce that
would thus be forced throug-h her gates, but which now finds
outlets through other channels.
This will be a matter at which it will be well enough for
business men to look in the cities named, especially m
Baltimore, if the National Government unfortunately should
be driven to the necessity of adopting the course I have mdi-
— 144 —
cated — a course which I trust and pray may never be neces¬
sary— but which, when necessary, I shall insist on being-
adopted.
Mr. Chairman. The President of the United States, in
his late annual message, charges upon the Northern people,
and this charge is made the ground of complaint by repre¬
sentatives from States now threatening rebellion, that the
free States of the Union are faithless to their constitutional
obligations; that they obstruct and resist the execution of
constitutional laws enacted by Congress, in which the South¬
ern States are deeply interested.
Sir, this unfounded and slanderous charge of the Presi¬
dent has done much to inflame the public mind in the South,
and I meet it right here, and most positively and unquali¬
fiedly deny it. Sir, there is not, there never has been, and I
do not believe there ever will be, a constitutional obligation
imposed upon the citizens of the free States that they will
not faithfully and honorably discharge. True, here and
there the laws of the National as well as the State govern¬
ments have been violated, but these are exceptions to the rule.
The laws of Congress and the decisions of the Supreme
Court are, you know, Mr. Chairman, uniformly obeyed by the
citizens of the entire North, and obeyed, too, even though
they may, in accordance with their highest convictions of
justice, regard some of them as infamous, as they undoubt¬
edly do. Still the people of the Northern States have sub¬
mitted to them and prefer still to yield obedience to them
until the people, in their majesty, shall demand, in a peace¬
ful and constitutional manner, their modification or repeal,
and also the reversal, in a like peaceful and constitutional
manner, of such decisions of the Supreme Court as they
believe to be not only in violation of the plainest provisions
of the Constitution, but also inhuman, barbarous and unjust.
All this the citizens of the free States have done and will
continue to do, rather than resort to revolution and blood¬
shed, and the overthrow and destruction of this government
and Union, freighted as it is with the hopes of millions, and
endeared to every patriot by the memories of the past and
the hopes of the future. The Northern States ever have and
will continue to abide by the obligations of the National
— 145 —
Constitution, whatever the South, may do. The citizens of
the free States have been taught to regard the Constitution
as the sheet anchor of their liberties, and they will not aban¬
don it, much less trample upon its just requirements.
But the "Personal Liberty bills," as they are called,
which some of the free States have felt themselves called
on to pass to prevent kidnapping-, are seized upon and used
by the " crises " manufacturers to inflame the Southern mind
against the North. Why has this matter never been thought
of before, and brought to our notice? Some of these laws
have been on the statute books of the free States for over
twenty years, and no complaint has been made until now.
Mr. Chairman. I can hardly find language with which
properly to characterize this miserable pretext. It is one of the
most flimsy shams ever resorted to by any set of men to hide
their real designs. Why, sir, it is so contemptible that even
South Carolina secessionists are too honorable to use it. In
their convention her leading men do not attempt to justify
their treason on such grounds, or because of the election of
Mr. Lincoln, or the non-execution of the fugitive slave act.
Indeed, on the seventh and eighth days of the sitting of the
secession convention, in the course of the debate on the
causes that induced South Carolina to take her present posi¬
tion, Mr. Packer said —
" It is no spasmodic effort that has come suddenly upon
us, but it has been gradually culminating for a long series of
years."
Mr. Inglis said: "Most of us have had this subject
under consideration for the last twenty years."
Mr. Keitt said: " I have been engaged in this movement
ever since I entered political life."
Mr. Rhett said: "It is nothing produced by Mr. Lin¬
coln's election, or the non-execution of the fugitive slave law.
It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty
years."
And before this, in their discussions, Messrs. Rhett,
Spratt, and others, declared their opinion that the fugitive
slave law is unconstitutional,. Judge Withers, in an able
speech, said it was unconstitutional.
10
—146 —
Mr. Keitt said: "I have great doubts myself about the
fugitive slave law. The Constitution was at first a compact
between the States; secondly, a treaty between sections. It
was something1 more than a compact between the States. I
believe, therefore, that this law ought to have been left to the
execution of the various States."
But, Mr. Chairman, what are the "Personal Liberty
bills " which some of the free States have passed? They are
simply laws to prevent the kidnapping of their own citizens.
They are just such laws in substance as may be found on the
statute books of most of the Southern States to prevent the
kidnapping of their free and slave people.
I have looked over these acts of the free States an this
subject, and find that they were not, as many suppose, passed
expressly to obstruct the execution of anv law of Congress.
Many of these laws were passed to conform, to the decision of
the Supreme Court in the case of Prigg vs. Pesmsvlvania,
which declared substantially that it was not the duty of a
State to pass laws for the arrest and rendition of fugitive
slaves, and that Congress alone had exclusive jurisdiction
over the subject.
The law of Vermont provides that all officers of the
United States and their deputies shall be exempt from the
provisions of their " liberty bill" while in the discharge of
their official duty. The proviso reads as follows:
"This act, however, shall not be construed to extend to
any citizen of the State acting as a Judge of the Circuit or
District Court of the United States, or as a Marshal or Deputy
Marshal of the district of Vermont, or to any person acting
under the command or authority of said courts or marshal."
Nineteen-twentieths of those who are prating about
Northern "Personal Liberty bills," know nothing about
them. Nevertheless, they do not hesitate boldly to declare
that they are unconstitutional.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not assume to speak for all the
Northern States; but I can say with great confidence (and 1
have no doubt but what other gentlemen will speak for their
States, and give the same pledge) that if the Legislature of
Ohio should at any time pass an unconstitutional law —
which is not all improbable, as their own local laws are
—147 —
frequently adjudged unconstitutional by the Supreme Court
of the State — I say, if such a law should at any time be
passed, whether conflicting-with the fugitive slave bill or any
other act of Congress, it will be repealed whenever the Su¬
preme Court declares it unconstitutional. Can the represen¬
tatives from the States who complain of these "Personal
Liberty bills " in fairness ask anything more? Are they will¬
ing, in turn, to give the North the same pledge of loyalty?
Most of the States now in rebellion against the government
have, and have had for many years, laws on their statute
books, the most inhuman, and, as we believe, unconstitutional
— laws which enslave our free people, who are guilty of no
crime, but are enslaved for life simply for coming into the
State. The authorities of some of the free States have sent
commissioners to one or more of these Southern States, to
test, in a legal and peaceful manner, the constitutionality of
such laws; but they have not only never been permitted to do so,
but gentlemen of distinction who have visited the Southern
States for that purpose, have been driven from the South by
mobs. There never has been, and I think I may safely say
there never will be, such an outrage committed by the citi¬
zens of any of the free States on a Southern man whom a
State might send North on such a mission. Any gentleman
whom the authorities of a Southern State may choose to
commission to a free State, or who may come of his own will
and pleasure, to test the constitutionality of any of our laws,
whether they be our "Personal Liberty bills," or any others,
will be received and treated as a gentleman. And the de¬
cision of our highest judicial tribunal, whether in accordance
with our views or not, will be strictly and in good faith
obeyed.
The Legislature of my State a few years ago passed a
law, known with us as the crowbar law, to tax banks the
same as other property — a law which they not only believed
to be just, but also constitutional. The banks resisted the
payment of the tax. Suits were commenced to test its con¬
stitutionality. The Supreme Court of Ohio sustained the law,
and declared it constitutional. It was carried to the Supreme
Court of the United States, and they pronounced the law un¬
constitutional. The Legislature, in compliance with that
— 148 —
decision, repealed the law, and appropriated money to refund
to the banks the taxes thus declared to have been illegally col¬
lected. I mention this act as one that came within my own
personal knowledge. I could name others, had I time, which
would show the law-abiding- and loyal character of the entire
Northern people. But it is not necessary. A majority of the
people of Ohio believed then and believe now that that law
was constitutional, and that the decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States was wrong; yet they obeyed its
mandates, because it was the court of last resort, and disobe¬
dience would be nullification.
Mr. Chairman, our calumniators in the North have de¬
ceived and are to-day deceiving the honest people of the South,
as to the character and purpose of the masses of men who
make up the Republican party. They are told that "the
North had got to be utterly lost to all sense of truth or false¬
hood, right or wrong; that everything good gave way before
senseless sympathy for black men to such a degree that to
steal property, incite to insurrection, rapine, and murder,
were every-day sights." Sir, a more shameless falsehood
never fell from the lips of man or devil. In the estimation
of all honorable men, a wilful falsifier is of all men the most
despicable, and the utterer of this base slander on his own State
and neighbors has at last found the depths of infamy. There
cannot be one fact adduced upon which to rest so monstrous a
charge. There is no evidence of this alleged hatred on the
part of the North. No Southern man or woman visiting the
North, either for business or pleasure, was ever beaten with
stripes, tarred and feathered, imprisoned, or murdered by any
cowardly mobs, or lynch-law courts, no matter what their
opinions might be on any subject, however obnoxious, or
however offensively they might have proclaimed them. I
wish as much could be said, and as truthfully, of every South¬
ern State.
Sir, I say to Southern gentlemen, and I say it with pride,
that a more law-abiding, peaceful, constitutional and union-
loving people cannot be found in any part of the country than
the great bod}* of those who make up the rank and file of the
Republican party. Indeed they are pre-eminentl}" distin¬
guished, wherever known, for the conscientious discharge of
— 149 —
every duty, public and private, for their sobriety and Chris¬
tian character, for their love of peace, for their unselfish
philanthropy and a love of the human race, which is circum¬
scribed by no narrow limits, but embraces in its cosmopolitan
liberality the people of every nation and every religious
creed.
If this be true, I am asked why we permit such slan¬
derers as the author of the extract just read to utter their
falsehoods throughout the North. I answer, because we are
not fearful of falsehood, where free speech and a free press is
left free to combat it before an intelligent people. Wherever
such slanders are uttered in the North they are harmless.
They ought to be and would be harmless with you in the
South, if you tolerated free speech and a free press. The
utterer of this slanderer is like the desperate gambler, who,
having- lost character, position, everything that a manly man
could desire, is playing the last card upon the political board,
with a recklessness befitting his desperate condition, hoping
almost against hope to be promoted, by the dying political
organization now in charge of the government, to a posi¬
tion once dignified and made honorable by a Jay, a Story,
and a Marshall. How infamous and wicked must an adminis¬
tration be where promotions to high and honorable positions
are more readily secured by such baseness than by an honor¬
able, manly, upright bearing.
John Randolph, of Virginia, once said, when rebuking
those whom he justly called doughfaces, "that he did not
envy the head or heart of that man who could rise here and
defend slavery on principle." I would, sir, that we had a
Randolph, a Jefferson, and a McDowell to speak here to-day,
for the South and to the South.
Mr. Chairman. It is a mistake, and our Southern breth¬
ren are deceived in supposing that opposition to slavery in
the free States is the result of political preaching or political
parties. It is a still greater mistake to suppose that this
opposition has become so formidable as it has because of
political demagogues seeking-office. This sentiment of oppo¬
sition to slavery has existed from the day the Pilgrims landed
on Plymouth rock, and ever will exist, not only with their
children but with the great body of the Christian world. It
— 150 —
has grown in spite of political preaching-, in spite of dema¬
gogues, and in spite of doughfaces, of whom the North has,
I am sorry to say, quite as many to-day as when Randolph
gave them a name so characteristic of their depravity.
In Canada, on our northern border, in England, and
France, and indeed throughout all Europe the hostility to
slavery is far greater and more unanimous than in any of the
free States of the American Union. And those who are its
most uncompromising opponents in the countries named can¬
not and never expect to obtain office or political promotion
because of their opposition to the system. The}'- are not
and never have been influenced by any such sordid considera¬
tions. Neither are the great body of the citizens of the free
States, who are and always have been opposed to slavery,
governed in their opposition by any such considerations. It
is a feeling of human nature which cannot be overcome, a
"prejudice," if you will, which cannot be "conquered" at
the bidding of any man or party.
Three-fourths of the civilized and Christian world look
upon the trade of man-stealing and man-selling as a piratical
commerce, to be prohibited and abolished wherever govern¬
ments have the power. And if there never had been any
United States Senators and Representatives in Congress made
elective by the people in the free States, and there were no
offices to be filled there by appointment of the President of
the United States, the hostility to this execrable commerce in
the free States would have been five-fold greater than it is.
And without the aid which the North has given to the slavery
interest, it would be powerless to-day. For the truth is, the
National Government in the hands of slaveholders, as it has
been three-fourths of the time since its organization, has
debauched and corrupted the public mind of the North, and
in the name of democracy, has been able to keep possession
of the government, while extending, strengthening, and
nationalizing slavery.
Mr. Chairman. Liberty is one of the grandest and most
God-like aspirations of the human heart; it is a sentiment
which cannot be eradicated by compromises or party plat¬
forms. No, nor by church creeds either. It is a feeling
— 151 —
implanted in the breast of every intelligent human soul by
the hand of the Creator, and bars and bolts and prisons can¬
not eradicate it. It is the morning* and evening prayer of every
slave, and the late Governor McDowell, of Virginia, never
uttered a more sublime truth than when he said:
"You may place the slave where you please; you may
dry up to your uttermost the fountains of his feelings, the
springs of his thoughts; you may close upon his mind every
avenue to knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial night;
you may yoke him to labor as an ox which liveth only to work,
and worketh only to live; you may put him under any process
which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase
and crush him as a rational being; you may do all this, and
the idea that he) was born free wii^i, survive it ai/e,. It
is allied to his hope of immortality; it is the eternal part of
his nature, which oppression cannot reach. It is a torch lit
up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be
extinguished by the hand of man."
Mr. Chairman. The people of the North hold these
sentiments to-day, as they ever have and as I trust they ever
will. What wonder, then, that when called upon to extend by
their vote this institution, so obnoxious to them and the
moral sense of the civilized world, that they should be found,
as a body, in opposition to it. The only wonder, sir, is that
there is any division in the free States on the subject. On
this question a large majority of the citizens of all parties
in the free States stand to-day where Washington and
Adams, Jefferson and Franklin, Hancock and Jay, stood in
the days of the revolution, and where Clay and the leading
men of all parties, political as well as religious, stood thirty
and forty years ago.
When Henry Clay was called upon in 1850 to vote to
legalize slavery in the National Territories, he indignantly
refused, and< declared, in language which will live as long as
any sentiment his great heart ever conceived, or his eloquent
lips ever uttered, "that no earthly power could induce him
to do it." I will quote the extract. In reply to Senator
Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, he said—
"I am extremely sorry to hear the Senator from Missis¬
sippi say that lie requires, first the extension of the Missouri
Compromise line to the Pacific, and, also, that he is not
-152-
satisfied with that, but requires, if I understood him cor¬
rectly, a positive provision for the admission of slavery south
of that line. And now, sir, coming- from a slave State, as 1
do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the sub¬
ject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for
a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it
had not before existed, either south or north of that line.
Coming-, as I do, from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliber¬
ate, and well matured determination that no power — no
earthly power — shall compel me to vote for the positive in¬
troduction of slavery either south or north- of that line.
While you reproach, and justly, our British ancestors for the
introduction of this institution upon the continent of North
America, I am, for one, unwilling- that the posterity of the
present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall
reproach us for doing what we reproach Great Britain for
doing- for us."
Need any of the men of to-day in this House hesitate or
fear to stand as firmly in opposition to the extension of sla¬
very as the great Kentucky statesman stood only ten years
ago?
To the same effect spoke the distinguished Senator from
the slave State of Delaware, the late John M. Clayton. In
a speech in the Senate of the United States, Aug-ust 3, 1848,
he said—
"Does any man expect that, from this time forth to the
end of the republic, the North will ever ag-ain consent to ex¬
tend slavery by aat of Congress into any free territory,
and thus increase that alleged inequality of representation in
the other House, arising- out of the enumeration of three-
fifths of slaves in the apportionment of its members, which
has ever been the foundation of their most bitter complaints?
Try that question when you may in that House, an over¬
whelming- majority will ever appear ag-ainst such an extension.
I have never voted for such an act of Congress, because, in
my deliberate opinion, it would be wrong-, and never could be
justified, except as a measure to be resorted to in an extreme
case, involving- the very existence of the Union.
"I am no advocate of slavery, or of its extension. Like
my friend from Maryland (Mr. Johnson), I hold no slaves,
and I fully concur in the opinion which he expressed a year
ago, 'that slavery is a moral, social, and political evil — to
be removed, however, only by those who are immediately
interested in it.' These are the deliberate opinions of thou¬
sands and tens of thousands in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware,
— 153 —
and Kentucky — all slaveholding States. . . . Opinions go
far beyond ours in the non-slaveholding States. They view
slavery as an eradicable curse, and will never consent, in any
event, to its extension, unless where the Constitution car¬
ries it.
"Sir, it is time the South understood her true position.
She can no longer control this question. He who supposes
that a threat of disunion will alarm the potent men of the
North labors under a great mistake. To them disunion has
tio terrors."
Mr. Chairman, every concession made by the majority
of any people in any government, to the minority, under
menaces and threats, but emboldens and makes that minority
more exacting and imperious in their demands. All past
compromises, as they were called — concessions, as they were
in fact — to the slave interest, prove the truth of this declar¬
ation. So domineering has this slave interest become, be¬
cause of these concessions, that they now threaten the utter
destruction of the government, unless every demand they
make is immediately complied with. Indeed, it has been
seriously intimated that Abraham Lincoln, who has been
selected by the people as their Chief Magistrate for the ensu¬
ing four years from the fourth of March next, will never be
inaugurated in this capital; that the city of "Washington will
be in the hands of traitors before that time, and the seat
of government of the proposed Democratic slave empire. In
answer to this, sir, I have just this to say : that in any event
— yes, sir, in any event — Mr. Lincoln will be inaugurated
President of the United States in this city, and that this
capital, with all its magnificent structures and its venerable
traditions, will remain the seat of government of this Repub¬
lic ; I mean, sir, that it will remain the seat of government
of those loyal States who. come what may, with patriotic
fidelity will remain true to the old Constitution, and faith¬
fully adhere to the principles upon which the government was
founded. The eighteen millions of freemen in the North will
never allow it to be otherwise. Should the conspirators, how¬
ever, ever succeed — which is hardly within the range of
human probability — in establishing their proposed slave
empire, Washington City will never be its capital. So long,
sir, as it shall remain a capital at all, the banner of liberty,
— 154 —
with its star^ and stripes, shall float from its dome, or none
-—the black banner of slavery and disunion, never!
Mr. Chairman, our duty, as the representatives of the
people, is to meet like men this off-recurring1 and exciting-
question which is again presented for our consideration.
Not selfishly, as maintaining-consistency; not hastily, through
fear; not in ang-er, or red-hot wrath; but calmly, firmly,
courteously, in view of the great responsibility resting- upon
each member, and the momentous consequences that may
follow the casting of a single vote. ,
Sir, I would not knowing-ly or willingly do or say one
word that would have a tendency to light up the torch of
civil and servile war, for I feel that the two will be insepa¬
rable— that the one cannot come without the other; and I
pray Heaven that such a calamity may not only be spared
my own kindred, but the people of every Southern State. I
am for peace; the great body of the citizens with whom it is
my pride and pleasure to act are for peace — they are men of
peace. And no langnag*e that I can command will more
forcibly express the sentiments of the entire constituency
whom I have the honor to represent than the following- lines
from our own Quaker poet, John G. Whittier. They were writ¬
ten a short time after the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry.
His execution was the occasion which called them forth. I
endorse every line and every thought, and apply them to-day
•—as he then applied them to Virginia— to all the Southern
States, so far as interfering- in any unlawful manner with
their local affairs.
"Perish with him the folly
That seeks throug-h evil g-ood,
Long live the; generous purpose
Unstained with human blood !
Not the raid of midnight terror,
But the thought which underlies ;
Not the outlaw's pride of daring-
But the Christian's sacrifice.
—155 —
44 Oh! never may yon blue-ridged hills
The northern rifle hear,
Nor see the light of blazing- homes
Flash on the negro's spear.
But let the free-winged angel Truth
Their guarded passes scale,
To teach that right is more than might
And justice more than mail!
" So vainly shall Virginia set
Her battle in array ;
In vain her trampling squadrons knead
The winter snow with clay.
She may strike the pouncing eagle
But she dare not harm the dove ;
And every gate she bars to Hate
Shall open wide to Love ! "
Mr. Chairman, we should have had peace if we had had
an Executive with firmness and courage, one who at a proper
time would have driven traitors from his Cabinet, and called
to his councils Union-loving and patriotic men, instead of
entering into secret negotiations with the conspirators.
Sir, one of the most melancholy spectacles this genera¬
tion has been called to witness, and, I ma}r add, one of the
most melancholy I hope they may ever live to witness, has
been the utter failure of James Buchanan to administer this
Government. Called to the Chief Magistracy by the voice of
a generous and confiding people, he found the nation in a state
of prosperity which it had never known, with an overflowing
Treasury, and a large majority of his political friends in both
houses of Congress. He is now to retire from the position to
which, in an evil hour, he was unfortunately elevated,
utterly disgraced. His party defeated, the Treasury bank¬
rupt, the business of the country prostrate, and the whole
nation convulsed by the action of a band of conspirators who,
if not with his complicity, with the complicity, at least, of a
majority of his late Cabinet, were attempting, and to-day are
determined, if possible, to destroy the Government, which he
and they had alike sworn to maintain and defend.
— 156 —
He has failed as no President has ever failed before him,
and failed only because destitute of that firmness and moral
integrity necessary (when surrounded as he has been by the
most unscrupulous) to discharge the plain and unmistakable
duties imposed upon him by the Constitution. His vacilla¬
tion and want of courage has driven the country from a state
of unexampled prosperity and peace to the very brink of ruin
and civil war, and we are to-day in a condition that no other
nation with such an executive head could be in for a single
hour without revolution. Our only hope is in the loyalty and
patriotism of the people. This, I trust, will enable us to
withstand the storm until the fourth of March, when the
Government will, I am sure, pass into other and better hands.
With the retirement of Mr. Buchanan, we have also the
destruction of the political organization of which, for so
many years, he has been a leader. This party, claiming to
be Democratic, has been one of the most wonderful organiza¬
tions known in the history of this or any other country hav¬
ing a popular form of government. Professing the broadest
liberalism, the greatest veneration for constitutional liberty,
and assuming to recognize to the fullest extent the binding
obligations of all compacts and compromises, as well as a
most sacred regard for the rights of all men, its leaders have
not scrupled to apologize for the vilest despotism, nor hesitated
to trample upon the Constitution as upon all compacts and
compromises, and every right of human nature. They have
not hesitated, until the break-up at Charleston and Baltimore,
at supporting any and every demand, however monstrous,
when made by the slave barons. In past years the resources
of this wonderful party seemed inexhaustible and its power
invincible No matter what its leader said or did, the party
was successful. It defied and in turn prostrated all parties
which contested its claims for power, and in its triumphal
march all opposition and combinations fell before it as by the
hand of magic. So blinded were the people by its fair
promises and captivating name. But to-day, thanks to a free
press and free speech, all this is changed, and its prestige is
gone, its glory has departed, its hold upon the heart of the
people is broken, and the sceptre of power is about to pass
— 157 —
from its hands into those of a young- and generous party, rep¬
resenting- the republican principles of Jefferson.
Mr. Chairman. There are thirty millions of people in
this country; of this number twenty-five millions, at least,
are opposed to the extension of slavery into any national
Territory, and would never vote at the ballot box to sanction
such a proposition, much less agree to give it additional
guarantees, and make it perpetual by an amendment to the
Constitution. This immense moral power, with all the civi¬
lized and Christian world to sympathize with it, wielded
peacefully and constitutionally against slavery, as I trust
it ever will be, cannot fail eventually to put it in the course
of ultimate extinction, and ere long the citizens of the slave
States, in their own way, will put away this evil and wrong
from among them. This is the faith and hope of the Repub¬
lican party, and, as I have said before, I will keep this faith
or none.
If, however, civil war is forced upon the nation for the
purpose of extending and making slavery perpetual, he must
indeed be blind who does not see that the system will go out
in blood. Twenty-five millions of people who not only have
no interest in slavery, but whose pecuniary interests are
against it, as well as their political and religious views, will
never submit to the dictation of a privileged class numbering
less than half a million. May God in his mercy avert the
catastrophe of civil and servile war. But if it must come, I
pray that the doom of slavery, which will be inevitable, may
not also prove the doom of the slave masters; that we may
not see re-enacted in any part of our country the bloody hor¬
rors of St. Domingo; for, as Jefferson said, "the Almighty
has no attributes that can take sides with the slave masters
in such a contest."
Mr. Chairman. If it were possible for the people of the
United States to permit the Union to be dissolved and allow
a Southern confederacy to be permanently established it would
be a confederated despotism more intolerant than any govern¬
ment of the nineteenth century. Those who have heretofore
been the boasted champions of what they have been pleased to
call democracy, do not hesitate now to declare, in case of the
establishment of a Southern confederacy that ever}rthing like
democracy is to be ignored. Popular government is a failure!
exclaim the leaders of this Southern revolution, who, until
now, have been loudest in declaiming- for the sovereignty of
the people. Popular government is a failure! respond the mad
disunion pro-slavery democracy. Popular government is a fail¬
ure! is echoed back by many of the so-called conservatives, who
a few months ago were clamorous for "the preservation of the
Union and the enforcement of the laws." Popular govern¬
ment is a failure! say the slave barons, who are attempting to
establish a slave empire, and who insist that a government
must be established which shall prohibit free speech and a
free press, for with them these are also a failure. Popular
government is a failure! shout this band of conspirators of all
former political parties and all religious creeds, who unite in
demanding that a strong military government1 shall be estab¬
lished, excluding all from a voice in its deliberations who have
not a pecuniary interest in maintaining the institution of
slavery.
They desire a government in which the slave masters
shall govern as the Bourbons in Europe claimed to have gov¬
erned, by the grace of God, and that the poor whites shall
submit. And, as I said in some remarks which I made upon
this subject at the last session, this despotism will have to be
resisted, "or the poor whites of the South will first be dis¬
franchised, then classed socially as they are to-day, to a great
extent, with the servile race, and at last they and their chil¬
dren will be melted down in the slave population forever."
The men who are seeking the destruction of this Union and
the establishment of such a government are the identical
men who for the past twenty-five years have dictated the
policy, controlled the political action of all their conventions,
and finally destroyed the old Democratic party in all the free
States. What wonder that the Northern wing of this old
party should have been repudiated by the people, when their
leaders surrendered to the demands of this slave interest, and
while professing democracy, abandoned the principles of
Jefferson and joined in an effort to make this a slave empire.
— 159 —
Thos. S. Grimke, of South Carolina, one of the noblest
and truest of men, in a speech of great power and eloquence,
while denouncing1 the nullification movement of Calhoun in
1833, referred to the certainty of slave insurrections, as also
the ultimate loss of liberty to the poor whites in case of civil
war, which he regarded as certain to follow an attempt to
enforce the doctrines of nullification. He said—
"These insurrections would be followed by depreciation
of property, not only in negroes, but of all kinds of wealth,
and at the same time the necessities of war would require an
amount of taxation that could be enforced only by a military
government, under which even the liberties of the whites
will soon perish."
If there is disunion and civil war, it will be no fault of
the Northern people. If there should be servile insurrections,
the people of the free States cannot be justly charg-ed with
inciting* it. It will be the fault of the very men who, in their
madness to sustain slavery, have inflamed not only the minds
of the whites, but of the slave population also.
A traveler returning- to France under the reig-n of Louis
XVI., after an absence of many years, was asked what
chang-es he found. "Nothing-," he answered, " save that the
people are now saying- in the streets what was formerly only
said at the dinner tables and in the drawing- rooms of the lead¬
ing men in Paris."
The traveler was right. "The idea of liberty had g-one
down to the people. Philosophy in a deep and thrilling-
voice had told the injured of their rig-hts as men; it had re¬
minded them of their many g-alling- wrong's. Habit still
made them suffer in silence, but the seeds of future vengeance
were sown." That vengeance was the French revolution.
The slaves in the South, waiting- upon their masters at
the dinner tables, at all political meetings, indeed every¬
where, hear the Republican party denounced and Mr. Lincoln
called their friend. They hear their masters declare that he
is to liberate them by force if necessary, and place them on a
social and political equality with the whites. The slave
catches up their thoug-hts; vague notions of freedom take
possession of him; he meditates upon it; he communicates it
from cabin to cabin, from plantation to plantation, and thus
— 160 —
are tlie seeds of insurrections sown by the slave masters, and
insurrections in time are sure to follow, whether the South is
in or out of the Union.
But, Mr. Chairman, I am asked how I propose to adjust
our present difficulties. I answer, by accommodating- our¬
selves to the logic of events; by yielding to that which is in¬
evitable, and obeying- the deliberately expressed will of the
nation. The people of the United States are not only tired,
but disgusted with these everlasting1 diplomatic tricks called
"compromises," patched up by slave barons and political
quacks on the one side, and commercial timidity and northern
ilunkeyism on the other. We have had enough of these
crafty tricks, which have decided nothing*; which, instead
of settling- the difficulty, have postponed but to ag-gravate it,
leaving-the ever-recurring- dispute to be ag-ain " settled " by
the next g-eneration. The difficulties that environ us to-day
are as well understood as they can be after another contest
of twenty-five years. The truth is, slavery is g-asping- for
breath; it is struggling- for a new lease of life; it demands
g-uarantees that shall make the lease perpetual, but if you
will not give that, it will "compromise" with less. But
whether you accede to its demands or not, the logic of events
tells me unmistakably that slavery must die. The judgment
of the civilized and Christian world decrees it. Emancipa¬
tion is the sentiment of all nations, and we cannot resist it if
we would, and ought not to do it if we could. What the
people of this country want, what they expect and demand
at our hands, is not new truces with slavery, but a permanent
settlement of this question in the only way it ever can be
settled to give peace and contentment to the country, and
that is, to settle it, wherever the national jurisdiction extends,
by the just rule of right and liberty.
Shall we meet and solve this problem like men, fairly-
honorably, and without dissimulation, and as the better
promptings of our hearts dictate; or shall we skulk and dodge
like the tricksters of an hour? Shall we meet the question
like statesmen, legislating for the generations to come as
well as our own, or shall we shift the responsibility, with all
— 161 —
its accumulated complications, upon those who must succeed
us?
Mr. Chairman, the people of the United States have been
earnestly struggling-, in one form or another, with this giant
evil of slavery for nearly half a century; and though often
betrayed by their leaders into what were called "com¬
promises," the faith of the masses has remained unshaken,
and they have continued hopeful. Though often defeated in
their political struggles for obtaining possession of the govern¬
ment, they have always been loyal, and never threatened or
attempted rebellion or revolution. This struggle between the
people on the one side, and a privileged class on the other,
has been such a struggle as the world has never witnessed,
because it has been conducted peacefully and lawfully. No
war, no desolated homes, no hatred, but a generous, noble,
self-sacrificing struggle, that must challenge the admiration
of the world, accomplished as it has been, by peaceful citizens,
in the mode and manner prescribed by the Constitution, b}-
the silent but all-potent power of the ballot. No man could
have been a disinterested witness to this grand struggle, and
beheld its first triumph' without feeling that " peace hath her
victories no less renowned than war." With the old watch¬
word of "Freedom and Peace," we have conquered, and to¬
day the liberty-loving men of all nations join in hailing with
pride the advancing chief, the chosen of the people. The
consequences of this peaceful victory no man can foresee.
The effect of its example on the nations will be incalculable,
even though we should have some trouble with those who
are seeking to destroy the Government because they cannot
longer administer it. It will reinstate us where we were in
the days of Washington, in the respect and affections of the
people of Europe, and the American Government, if true to the
ideas upon which the triumph of which I am speaking has been
achieved, will from this time forward hold the first position
among the powers of the earth, and as a nation and people,
we shall, as we ought, hold the first place in history for
many generations to come. If, however, we should fail, from
any cause, to carry out in good faith, this grand decree of the
people; if through fear deceptive compromises are forced
11
— 162 —
upon us, and the people are again betrayed under the pretense
of appeasing- those whose whole history gives us the as¬
surance that they will be satisfied with nothing short of hav¬
ing slavery recognized as property by constitutional provision,
those who aid in accomplishing this great wrong will deserve,
as they will receive, the condemnation of all liberty-loving
men.
But I am told that the. people demand that such con¬
cessions and compromises shall be granted. Sir, I deny it.
I have seen no evidence of it and do not believe it. I grant
you, sir, that there are some who demand it; the leaders of the
party which have just been driven from power by an indig¬
nant people, demand it, and are supported in their imperious
demands by almost the entire slave interest of the country;
but the great body of the people, the millions, not only do not
demand it, but I tell you, sir, that they will never tolerate it.
Sir, I should be loath to believe that those who, through so
many long and weary years, have struggled hopefully on
amid disasters and defeats, the desertions of pretended friends
and false leaders, could, in the hour of their triumph, advise
a surrender to the minority, and consent to abandon that
cause which alone made success in the late campaign possible.
I cannot believe that the people, under the menace of dis¬
union and revolution, will ever take a step backward, that
they will, in so cowardly a manner, give up every principle
for which they have been so heroically battling for years.
No, no; this grand array of millions which has withstood so
many defeats while battling for the right, will march on
and march on under the banner of "Peace," conquering and
to conquer. No earthly power can stay it. In its triumphal
progress it will know no barrier but justice, no restraint but
the just restraints of the Constitution. Missouri compromises
and all other compromise lines which you may establish in
your puny efforts to secure new guarantees to slavery, will
fade like the baseless fabric of a vision before its advancing
tread. This Government was not organized for the purpose
of making slavery universal and perpetual; but to "establish
justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, AND
— 163 —
SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR
POSTERITY."
This was the cherished purpose of the fathers when they
launched this great ship of state, the Constitution, upon the
yet troubled waters which were crimsoned with the blood of
the Revolution. They firmly believed that she would weather
every storm. In this faith they laid them down to rest, and
committed to those who should' come after them its direction
and government. Shall we, their sons, falter and desert her
now, when storms and tempests beat against her, or shall
we, like true mariners, stand firmly at the post of duty and
danger? Shall we, with the very dawn of the morning beam¬
ing upon us, give up all, and, without a struggle, let the
tempest and darkness close around her and engulf all in one
common ruin? or shall we cling- to the good old ship, and
put a new commander upon her deck, who will go back to
the old chart, put her head to the storm, and man her with
freemen instead of slaves?
Mr. Chairman, to a patriot and lover of his country
there would seem to be but one course. The voices of the
people echo but one cry, but one command, and that is:
"Save the good ship Constitution from her present peril!"
If we fail to do this we are not the men for the hour. If
need be, party ties must be severed and party divisions for¬
gotten; sectional animosities must cease, and a union of all
freedom-loving men secured tor the sake of liberty and the
Union. If while the coming dawn foreshadows the deliver¬
ance of all nations and the freedom of every race, we alone
are found destroying the most perfect form of government
ever given to man, in a struggle to make slavery perpetual,
of all men we will be the most guilty. Shall history record
this, the darkest of crimes, against our names? Shall our
children execrate our memories because we were traitors and
cowards, and, for an hour of promised peace and commercial
prosperity, consented to our own and their degradation and
the endless bondage of millions? Shall it be said that while
thrones throughout Europe are falling-, and long oppressed
races are everywhere claiming and asserting their God-given
rights; while Tl free press is proclaiming that this is the gol-
— 164 —
den age of justice that precedes the year of a universal jubilee,
when the people of all nations will be marching- to the joyful
sound of liberty and independence — shall it be said of us, I
say, that, under our direction, the Republic established by
Washing-ton, alone is relapsing- into despotism? At a time
when the sons of struggling- humanity are loosing- the bonds
which have bound them for ag-es, and, in obedience to the
Divine command, are "permitting- the oppressed to go free,"
shall the freemen of this country consent to rerivet the chains
of the slave, and thus aid those who are seeking permanently
to establish and extend this despotism throughout all the free
Territories of the nation?
While Italy, after a struggle of centuries, under the
guidance of her brave Garibaldi (who is to Italy to-day what
Washington was to us), is marching in unity to secure the
enjoyment of constitutional liberty, and Hungary and Ger¬
many are keeping step to the universal march of nations,
while Russia is emancipating her millions of slaves, and all
peoples, under every form of government, are advancing
toward the dawn of that civilization which liberty always
brings, shall the people of the United States, who have the
grandest government committed to their keeping which the
world has ever seen, alone be found struggling to make the
rule of slavery universal? Can an American representative
in such an hour as this, either from motives of personal
ambition or sordid pecuniary interest, consent to foster strife,
division, and discord, and without hesitancy or remorse give
his vote to drive back both citizens and government toward
the night of despotism and barbarism?
God grant, sir, that every representative may pause and
consider well the momentous consequences of every vote he
may be called upon to cast before giving it in favor of any
of the numerous compromise schemes and proposed constitu¬
tional amendments which are sought to be forced upon us,
and which, if adopted, will be but another step, so far as the
action of this body can decree it, toward making slavery con¬
stitutional and perpetual in this so-called land of liberty.
IMPORTANT LETTER FROM HON. J. M. ASHLEY.
Washington, May 24, 1861.
Editor Blade: I protested in my former letter, as I
again protest in this, and as I hope the Blade; and the peo¬
ple everywhere will protest, against our soldiers being- used
for the accursed purpose of slave-catching-, either in this tity
or elsewhere. They did not volunteer for that purpose, and
it is an assumption of power for which there is no authority.
No military officer has any legal or moral right to give such
commands or issue such proclamations.
I know of two soldiers in this city, who, when placed
on guard, gave notice to the officer in command that they
would not comply with such an order if issued; that they
would not only go to the guard-house and be court-martialed,
but would submit to any punishment before they would do a
thing- so infamous. I honor these truly brave men, as will
every one who reads this. They ought to be in command
instead of being- in the ranks. I regret to say, however, that
quite a number of fugitives have been captured and returned
by the troops in and about Washing-ton. So long- has the
North been accustomed to do the "dirty work" of the slave
barons that even now, when these men are in rebellion ag-ainst
the government, some of the northern volunteers become slave-
catchers at the bidding of these traitors with whom the
government is at war. The sardonic impudence, which en¬
ables these traitors to come into the military camps of the
nation, and order the soldiers of the Republic to aid them in
capturing and returning their fugitives to slavery, would be
truly refreshing were it not for the doughfaceism it still
betra}-s, and the disgrace and humiliation it must bring upon
us at home and abroad. A case of this kind occurred here
the other day. A slave escaped from Virginia, a State at
war with the government of the United States. This slave
is called property in Virginia and in all the States in rebellion
(165)
—166 —
against the government. If they are property, then instead
of it being the duty of the government (it never can be made
the duty of the soldier) to catch and return these slaves, it
is their duty, and the duty of every soldier, not only to pre¬
vent their claimants from capturing them, but it is their
duty to hold them just as they would any property, that can
be used by the rebels to destroy the lives and property of
citizens and the government. The rebels are using these
black men to build fortifications and to do a thousand things
for which we use only white men. They are made as useful
by the rebels as if they were soldiers. Why should we not
accept their services rather than turn them back to the
enemy, and at the end of the war liberate all the men with
their wives and children who not only refused to fight or aid
in any way in resisting the government, but absolutely ran
into our camps and demanded to work for the maintenance of
the government ?
But I am digressing from the relation of a fact into an
argument as to our duty.
That is so clear, I will not add another word. The
claimant of this slave followed him into this city and found
him. The slave, strange to say, attempted to get away from
his master and ran to the quarters of a Pennsylvania regi¬
ment, where he was brought up standing by the bayonets of
the soldiers, who detained him until his pretended master
came up. The poor slave could hardly believe what he saw,
and in a supplicating tone said, "Why, gentlemen, you are
not going to let this man take me off in this way, are you ? "
This brave (?) band of so-called national defenders did not
heed his appeal, but in violation of every principle of honor,
to say nothing of duty and the demands of humanity, they
detained him until the man claiming him brought a carriage
and secured him and took him back. This is a fact which I
know, alas, to be too true, and I blush for my county to say
that it is not the first one. In God's name are we to be
forever thus humiliated and disgraced ? I trust the united
voice of the nation will demand that no such infamous act
shall be repeated by any portion of the army, and that every
soldier who shall hereafter be guilty of such an act, shall be
167 —
drummed out of the service disgraced, and thus be declared
too infamous to associate with the soldiers of the republic.
If any one or two of these very soldiers had gone into
Virginia on that very day, and this slave master had had
them in his power, the chances are ten to one that he would
have had them hanged by his order, as a number of northern
men have been by slave masters.
If they did not share this fate, they would hardly have
escaped being tied up by his order to a whipping-post and
this very slave ordered to give them from ten to one hundred
lashes, just as the whim or caprice of the slave baron might
deem necessary to convert them from their supposed hatred
of slavery (because living in the North) to a love for it. For
it is well known that those who profess to love slavery and
do the bidding of slave masters are never hanged, burned,
whipped, robbed or driven out of the South. Those who do
not love slavery above kindred, country and God, as the
rebels love it, are subject to tortures, imprisonments, ban¬
ishments, or death. No man in the South need have any fears
if he will but fall down, and worship loud enough, the god of
slavery.
If he interpose any conditions or doubts, however, he is
worse than an unbeliever, and an unbelief in the divinity of
slavery is a greater crime in the eyes of the slave baron than
any offense, not even excepting murder, and they are
generally dealt with by the Christian process of tarring
and feathers, whipping and hanging. If this infamous
oligarchy thus treat men and women born on their own
soil, and guilty of no crime, what ought northern men to ex¬
pect who do not yield to every demand of these men, how¬
ever monstrous ? No northern man, however, need have any
trouble with the slave barons of the South, if he will only
consent to obey implicitly the demands they make upon him.
And if this nation would but submit to all the demands of
the southern oligarchy to-day, there need be no war, no loss
of life, and 110 expenditure of hundreds of millions.
Have you heard of any cowardly doughface lately de¬
manding that twenty-five millions of free men shall submit
to the mild and easy yoke of the three hundred thousand
slave barons of the South? Do you know of any who will
— Ib8 —
say now what tlie so-called "Peace Commissioners" said,
when they were in "Washington in secret session, bowing- like
slaves before the eyes of their masters and declaring- as some
of them did, "that they did not want any backbone, that
they intended to do whatever their southern brothers asked,
for they knew that they would only ask for that which was
honorable and right."
By the by, what has become of all northern compro¬
misers, who were members of the "Peace Congress?" I
hear nothing of them or from them. I certainly hope that
their extraordinary mental labors while here attempting to
secure a peace by an unconditional surrender, has not pro¬
duced a softening of the brain. Above all, I sincerely trust
that the war has not frightened them any worse than they
appeared to be frightened when closeted in secret, misrepre¬
senting and betraying the people by voting with such
traitors as John Tyler & Co. If they are as badly frightened
now as they claimed to be then, they have probably left the
country. If they have, I shall regret it very much, for we
shall need (now that it is so scarce) some such doughy ma¬
terial for future use.
These frightened old fossils voted with the southern
rebels, first to exclude the public from their deliberations and
then to exclude all reporters for the press, hoping thereby to
prevent the public from ever getting at the record of their
base and cowardly acts, only so far as they should consent
to make it up for their inspection.
Fortunately for the people and the future of the country,
there were earnest and competent men, members of that body,
who kept a faithful record of every word and act, and I am
happy to state that it will soon be given to the public. When
it is published I have no doubt but what we shall hear from
some of the "Peace Commissioners" in efforts to explain
certain votes and speeches. While I cannot help regretting
that bad and corrupt men have forced our country to a civil
war, I cannot but rejoice to know that the logic of events
has stripped bare the logic of northern doughfaced poli¬
ticians and proved how false were all their declarations.
More than a year ago, I declared in the House of Rep¬
resentatives, that in case of Mr. Lincoln's election the South
— 169 —
"would be m rebellion against the government and enemies
of the Constitution and the Union." I said further, that
which is now generally admitted by all parties, although
these words were then thought to be too strong, "that we
never should have peace until the present noisy advocates
of slavery here and elsewhere were reduced to insignificance
and silence, and everywhere beneath the national ensign
the rights of humanity were fully recognized and respected,
and our lawmakers and general and state governments
should again be directed by the genius of universal eman¬
cipation." I insisted last winter in all my letters to you and
others, that, compromise or no compromise, there would be
war, and that we might as well prepare for it first as last.
If I -have not understood this question from the first,
then I never have and never can understand any political
question, and I think my votes on all the cunningly devised
propositions of traitors and doughfaces, which, in the last
Congress were attempted to be forced upon the people, justify
me in saying this much of myself.
One of the most important of all political questions ever
presented for the consideration of any administration in this
country, is about to be forced upon this administration, and
I rejoice that it must come now. I have long contemplated
it, and find but one course of action practicable or honorable.
I allude to the disposition of the slaves, who, as our army
penetrates into the South, will desert from the camps and
plantations of the rebels and join our ranks. If we send
them back we strengthen the enemy. If we permit them to
come, we destroy the enemy. They are using these slaves
to erect fortifications to destroy our troops, using them to
raise grain, etc., to support their armies.
Shall the government use its military power to weaken
itself and strengthen its enemies? Would any nation en¬
gaged in a war with another nation thus act ? These ques¬
tions answer themselves. Then again, if the slaves are once
fairly convinced that the North, whom they have been taught
by their masters to believe were their friends, are as hostile
to them as their masters, we will have done just what these
southern traitors ask» If we take the only practical course,
— 170 —
the backbone of this rebellion is already broken, and the in¬
tegrity of the nation will be maintained.
On our part this is not a war for the conquest or subju¬
gation of the South, or the enslavement of any people, but a
war for their liberation rather — a war to relieve them of the
military despotism and mob law with which they are cursed,
a war for the preservation of the Union and our national ex¬
istence as a free government.
A cause so holy and so just cannot fail to enlist the sym¬
pathies of the people of all nations, and if the Administra¬
tion but discharges its duty, as I have faith it will, that
cause will triumph. Depend upon it, however, that the peo¬
ple of the United States will never consent to fig-lit against
the slave barons and at the same time fight to make slavery
perpetual. You cannot make a free people fig-lit for and
against a great crime at the same time. You cannot put
down this rebellion and at the same time build up and main¬
tain that which caused the rebellion. Every man concedes
that if there had been no slavery in the nation, there
Would have been no such rebellion as we have to-day. Every
man knows that if slavery is strengthened by any act of the
government, either by fighting to maintain it, or by com¬
promising to give it a new lease of life, just such rebellions
as we now have, are as certain to follow if the slave barons
are defeated by the people in another election. Who, then,
is willing and anxious to strengthen slavery to-day,:by fight¬
ing for it or giving to it new constitutional guarantees?
Where are the compromisers? If there are any, let us hear
from them, that we may know who and where they are —
that the people may write down opposite their names that
which shall properly characterize their weakness and
depravity.
I leave for Fortress Monroe to-morrow. If I can, I will
write you from there. J. M. A.
ADDRESS
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY.
Delivered at College Hall in the City of Toledo,
Tuesday Evening, Nov. 26, 1861.
CORRESPONDENCE.
Hon. J. M. Ashley—
Dear Sir: The under signed request you to address the
citizens of Toledo on the subject of the present rebellion, at
College Hall, at such time as suits your convenience, prior to
your leaving- for Washington.
Toledo, Nov. 19, 1861.
R. C. Lemmon, Charles Kent, W. W. Jones,
A. W. Gleason, M. R. Waite, F. A. Jones,
Valentine Braun, W. Baker, Peleg T. Clark,
D. A. Pease, James Myers, Dan. Segur,
Alex. Reed, Jonathan Wynn, and many others.
Horace Thatcher, Lyman Parcher,
Wm. Kraus, A. H. Hathaway,
Toledo, Nov. 21, 1861.
Gentlemen: In reply to your favor of the 19th inst.,
inviting me to address the people of this city on the subject
of the present rebellion, I will name Tuesday evening next,
Nov. 26. Respectfully,
J. M. Ashley.
To R. C. Lemmon, Esq., and others.
Letter from Hon. N. W. Cuney, Galveston, Texas.
After {riving Mr. Ashley's patriotic letter on page 1165, and his
speech on page 172 a careful perusal, i am free to say that in so
much as his utterances on the subject of the manumission of the
slaves of the South antedated Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, they had
much to do with influencing- the administration with a trend of
opinion, favorable to the consummation of what I consider the most
glorious and human act of any administration in our history.
Mr. Ashley's presentation of facts is cogent*and accurate, his
deductions logical, and the spirit of truth and fairness apparent from start to finish,
as all fairminded men will attest.
In my opinion there can be no question, with the intelligent reader, of how Mr.
Ashley stood over thirty years ago 011 the subject of slavery, and no one acquainted
with his public record of later years, will deny him his proper place in history and in
the hearts of the colored people. N. W. Ctjn-ey
(171)
-172-
The demand for this speech has been so great that the
first edition was soon exhausted, and a larger one is now
issued to supply the continued demand. The following- are
a few of the many commendatory notices taken from leading
Union papers:
"We have read this thrilling- speech with unmingled
satisfaction. Of all the expositions of the causes of the
rebellion, and the consequences which are to follow in its
train, this is by far the richest in fact, the clearest in state¬
ment, and the ablest and most demonstrative in arg-ument, of
anything that the rebellion has called forth. Nothing- but
its length precludes its publication in the Telegraph, and
want of time prevents a long-er notice this week.
"We thank the author for the copy of the address sent
to us, and we thank him again and again, in the name of all
loyal and rig-ht-minded men, for the true and manly senti¬
ments to which he has given a voice in fitting- words, that
will make it one of the few speeches which will outlive their
authors."—Meigs Co. (Ohio) Telegraph.
"The speech delivered by Hon. J. M. Ashley, at Col¬
lege Hall, Toledo, by request of a number of his con¬
stituents, on the Causes of the Rebellion, is one of the best
expositions that has yet appeared. It is convincing- in argu¬
ment, mild in tone, replete with historical facts, and should
be read by every man, especially by such as entertain any
doubt as to the origin and purposes of the Rebellion."—Ohio
State Journal.
"An able and valuable speech."—N. Y. Evening Post.
Letter from Bishop J. A. Handy, D. D., Washington, D. C.
No one could have listened to the address of the Hon. J. M.
Ashley, of Toledo, Ohio, Nov., 1861, without being- thrilled. No one
to-day can rise up from its reading without the conviction that it
exposes the causes which made the Rebellion possible. The duty of
the nation now is to see to it, that this great country shall be pre¬
served free, and that a government of the whole people, for the
whole people, by the whole people, shall not perish from the earth.
The dreadful results of dismemberment were averted, and the two
j. a. handy. doctrines presented to the people before the war, are settled. The
doctrine of the South was, that the Government of the United States is a federal
union of sovereign States. The doctrine of the] rest of the country was that it is a
national republic. While the war did not change the facts as to the doctrine held, it
settled the issue. Incidentally slavery went out, and the slave walked out of chattel-
hood up into manhood, a citizen—a member of the body politic—while all the States
entwined around one common centre, the national Constitution. J. A. Handy.
THE REBELLION —ITS CAUSES AND CON¬
SEQUENCES.
Mr. President and Gentlemen : In response to an in¬
vitation from a number of my fellow-citizens, I appear before
you to-night to present as briefly as I can my views of the
rebellion, its causes and consequences. And here let me say
that the observations which I propose to make, will be in the
main, but a recitation of historial facts. Facts are stubborn
thing's, and I prefer to use them in examining- the question
upon which I am to speak to-night, rather than to resort to
declamation. I do it as a duty, and to demonstrate to you
beyond all dispute that, the cause for which we were fighting-
is the cause of Justice, Union, and Constitutional Liberty. If
I could not do this I would ask no man to join the army, for I
■could not ask a man to enter the army to fight for injustice
and oppression.
this rebellion without parallel.
I need hardly say to you that we are in the midst of a
rebellion unlike any which has preceded it, in the history of
the world.
There have been many rebellions and revolutions since
the establishment of civilized governments, but this is the
first attempted revolution having- for its avowed object the
extension and perpetuity of human slavery. All rebellions
which have preceded this have been professedly to secure the
rig-hts and liberties of the people. Therefore of all rebellions
this is the most causeless and criminal.
The seeds of this rebellion were first sown as long- ago
as the year 1620, when a Dutch ship entered the mouth of
James River in the then infant colony of Virginia, and com¬
mitted the infamous crime of selling twenty black men as
slaves. The British Government fostered and protected by
law the seed then sown, and added yearly to it, more than an
hundredfold, by fresh importations up to the date of the
establishment of our independence.
(173 )
— 174 —
jefferson and the declaration of independence.
The leading- men of the Revolution saw, and, like true men,
acknowleged the inhumanity, the injustice and the crime of
slavery. Jefferson said, when speaking- of it, that "he
trembled for his country when he thought of the negro and
remembered that God was just." In the original draft of
the Declaration of Independence he charged as one of the
grievances of which we justly complained at the hands of the
mother country, that of forcing slavery upon us. These are
his precise words :
"He has waged a cruel war against human nature itself,
violating the most sacred rights of life and liberty in the
persons of a distant people, who never offended him, capti¬
vating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere,
or to incur a miserable death in transportation thither. This
piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the
warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain, determined
to keep open a market where men shall be bought and sold.
He has prostituted his. negative by suppressing every legis¬
lative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable com¬
merce, and that this assemblage of horrors might want no
fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting these very
people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty
of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on
whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes
committed against the liberties of one people with crimes
which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."
That this truthful count in the indictment against Great
Britain was stricken out of the Declaration of Independence
on demand of the slave barons, I regret, as all liberty-loving
men have regretted, but that it was stricken out, and at such
a time and under the circumstances, tells you better than I
can tell you, of the danger which imperils the life of a nation
that fosters and protects a privileged class.
feeling against slavery since the establishment of
independence.
Since the establishment of our independence, the exis¬
tence and growing strength of this slaveholding privileged
class, has been a source of anxious solicitude on the part of
— 175 —
leading- patriots and statesmen, not only in the North, but
also in the South. To the careful study and investigation
of the question which has caused the present rebellion I have
given all the early years of my life, and with most men who
have impartially examined it, I have been satisfied for many
years, that the day was speedily approaching-, when the
question was to be settled by the American people whether
slavery, to use the language of President Lincoln— " should
be put where the people would rest in the belief that it was
in the course of ultimate extinction," or the United States
become a slaveholding empire.
That I have been disappointed in some of my conclusions
touching- the final disposition of this question and the
ultimate action of the slave barons themselves, I am frank to
admit. Certainly ten or twelve years ago I did not suppose
it possible that the old Democratic party, to which I then
belonged, and which I venerated for its great leaders and
liberal principles, could ever be divided and defeated as it
has been, by the slave barons, and I felt confident until after
I took my seat in Congress for the first time, that whatever
disposition might be made of this question, it would at last
find a peaceful solution. Before the close of the 36th Con¬
gress, I chang-ed my mind and came reluctantly to the con¬
clusion, that .nothing- but the direct interposition of Provi¬
dence, could save us as a nation and a people from a bloody
civil and perhaps servile war. In the first speeth which I
made in that Congress, speaking of the slave baron conspir¬
ators, I said that —
'' Their professed devotion to law and order — the decis¬
ions of courts and their fidelity to the Constitution and the
Union simply meant that they would obey such laws as they
desired enacted, submit to such decisions of courts as they
could dictate, and be faithful to the Constitution and the
Union so long only as they were entrusted by the people with
the administration of the government and the interpretation
of the Constitution." And I added:
"When this ceases, as I trust and believe it will cease, on
the 4th of March, 1861, their fidelity to law will cease, their love
of the Union will cease, and their new-born veneration for
that ' august tribunal ' of which we have heard so much
of late—the Supreme Court—will also cease; and they will
—176 -
be, if their threats are put into execution, in open rebellion
ag-ainst the Government, and enemies of the Constitution and
the Union."
compromises unavailing.
No careful observer of events, could have failed to fore¬
see for the past few years, that both in the North and in the
South, public opinion has been gradually but surely under¬
going- such a chang-e on the subject of slavery, that sooner or
later the question would have to be met and fairly settled.
All compromises in the shape of the most humiliating- con¬
cessions made by the North to the South had failed to satisfy
the imperious demands of the slave barons, and I need hardly
add that the present rebellion and attempted revolution was
inevitable without absolute submission on the part of the
North. The chang-e of public opinion throug-hout the two
sections is in itself a revolution. On the part of the loyal
citizens it has been a revolution of peace and g-ood-will by the
mode pointed out and prescribed by the Constitution, a
revolution by means of the ballot-box. On the part of the
conspirators and rebels it has been from the first a revolution
of force and fraud, and now ends in an appeal to arms.
liberty and slavery the only questions involved.
It is, then, as I shall show you, a contest that has for
its motive power on one side liberty, and on the other slavery.
It presents a question to which there can be but two sides,
and he who is not for liberty and the Union is against them.
Politicians and even cabinet ministers may declare as they
have done and are doing-, that there is no connection between
slavery and this rebellion, but I tell you, and hope before I
take my seat to prove to those of you who do not now
acknowledg-e it, that slavery is the g-erm from which this
rebellion sprang- — the motive power and mainspring- of
its action— and that, but for slavery, there had been no such
rebellion in the United States to-day. Most of you understand
this, I trust, already — the leading-men of Europe understand
it, and I believe the time is close at hand, when compromising-
— 177 —
editors and politicians will be unable longer to deceive any
respectable number of the people.
slavery the cause op the rebellion as proved by
southern men.
For more than thirty years the slave barons of the South
have been plotting- treason and preparing1 for this rebellion.
In the convention which passed the ordinance of secession in
South Carolina, this was openly proclaimed, and the boast
repeatedly made that for thirty years they had been looking-
to the consummation of the treason they were then enacting,
t will read you two or three extracts from the speeches made
by their leading- men in that convention.
Mr. Rhett said: "It is nothing- produced by Mr. Lincoln's
election or the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. It is
a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years."
Mr. Parker said: "It is no spasmodic effort that h&s
come suddenly upon us, but it has been gradually culminating-
for a long- series of years."
Mr. English said: "Most of us have had this subject
under consideration for the past thirty years."
Mr. Keitt said: " I have been engaged in this movement
ever since I entered political life."
This testimony ought at least to be good as against the
conspirators and their Northern allies.
If their own statements are to be credited, from the day
General Jackson crushed the South Carolina nullification
rebellion of 1831-2 to the outbreak of the rebellion of 1861,
the slave barons of the rebel States have been conspiring to
destroy this government. To the truth of history I appeal
to make good their own declarations and to sustain this
charge.
calhoun's defection in 1836.
During* the second administration of General Jackson-
the hostility of Calhoun to that great and g-ood man, became
open and undisguised, and when Mr. Van Buren was nomi-
12
— 178—
nated for the Presidency in 1836, by the friends of General
Jackson, Mr. Calhoun and his friends, although claiming- to
be Democrats, opposed his election, and South Carolina under
his lead, voted for Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, then, and
for many years thereafter, a Whig- U. S. Senator from that
State. This defection of Calhoun and his friends alarmed
all the Northern Presidential aspirants and the whole race of
small politicians who always hang upon their skirts for the
sake of place and .power. This alarm must have become
almost a panic, for even Mr. Van Buren, who was triumph¬
antly elected in 1836 and desired a re-election, became quite
as anxious as Buchanan and that class of Northern Presi¬
dential candidates to conciliate Mr. Calhoun and the small
but powerful class of whom he was the chosen representative.
GENERAL JACKSON'S PROPHECY.
General Jackson said when he put down the nullifiers of
1832, that their next effort to break up the Union would be
on the slavery question. That prophetic prediction is now
a historical fact. The Northern Presidential aspirants of
both the old parties, and all the leading politicians, under¬
stood this matter well, and under the pretext of saving the
Union, they united in declaring that such concessions as the
South asked on the slavery question ought to be granted.
MR. VAN BUREN's CONCESSION, AND ITS EFFECT.
These concessions were agreed upon by politicians on
the plea of saving the Union, so when Mr. Van Buren was
inaugurated, he seized that occasion to give in his adhesion
to the demands of the slave baron conspirators, by declaring
that if Congress passed any law designed to interfere with
slavery in the District of Columbia, he would veto it. This
shameless pledge, unasked as it was by any Democratic con¬
vention, or, indeed, by any body of men, publicly, startled
the thinking men of the nation, who saw in it a bold and
unscrupulous bid for the united vote of the slave interest.
This movement was not without its desired effect, for Mr.
Calhoun returned nominally to the Democratic party, sup-
—179 —
ported Mr. VanBuren's administration, and South Carolina
voted for him in 1840, when he was defeated by General
Harrison.
the atherton " gag" on the right of petition.
The Atherton "gag*," as it was justly termed, a rule
known as the 21st rule, was adopted by the House of Repre¬
sentatives on demand of the slave barons. This rule refused
to allow any petitions from the people on the subject of slavery
to be received by their own representatives, and completed
the humiliation of the North during1 the administration of
Mr. VanBuren, and opened wide the g-ate which led to the
fatal road down which we have been traveling* as a nation
and people at a frig-htful pace ever since.
effect of the death of general, harrison.
The death of General Harrison in one short month after
his inauguration, and the accession of John Tyler, then Vice-
President, to the Presidency, afforded an opportunity which
was eag'erly embraced by the slave baron nullifiers, to take
possession of the Government and administer it for their ex¬
clusive benefit. That John Tyler proved a traitor to the
party which elected him, is recorded in history. That he
is a traitor to his country to-day, will be recorded in his¬
tory. This weak and unscrupulous man became the willing-
tool of the slave baron conspirators, and permitted them to
dictate and control the policy of his administration.
calhoun as secretary of state.
On the death of Abel P. Upshur, of Virginia, who suc¬
ceeded to the office of Secretary of State, after the resignation
of Mr. Webster, John C. Calhoun, the admitted chief and ablest
of the slave baron conspirators, was called by Mr. Tyler from
his seat in the Senate of the United States to take Mr.
Upshur's place. You who are familiar with political history,
will remember that when Mr. Calhoun went into that office,
he astonished and shocked the moral sense of the civilized
world, by declaring that he onlv accepted the position in
— 180 —
order tliat lie might with greater certaintj consummate the
grand scheme of the slave barons, to retain control of the
country bj the successive annexations of Texas, Cuba,
Mexico, and Central America, or to divide it in case of
failure. He did not hesitate to make public and defend his
scheme of annexing Texas to secure it to slavery. In his
dispatches to our Ministers in England and France he de¬
clared this to be the policy of our government. That Mr.
Calhoun was a bold and able man all admit, and he went at
his work with a directness of purpose that places in unen¬
viable contrast the dodging and cowardly conduct of North¬
ern statesmen, who, while professing to represent the inter¬
ests of free labor and the rights of man, did not hesitate to
sacrifice them without scruple at the bidding of the slave
barons.
WARNING OF JOHN QTTINCY ADAMS.
John Quincy Adams warned the nation oefore Mr.
Calhoun became Secretary of State of this scheme. But the
North was so absorbed in the pursuit of wealth and new en¬
terprises that it did not heed the warning of that able, pure
and far-sighted statesman, and by the votes of Northern men
claiming to represent free labor Texas was annexed with
slavery, and this part of Mr. Calhoun's scheme to strengthen
ami perpetuate the rule of a privileged class and increase
their influence in the Government was consummated on the
night of the 3d of March which closed the memorable ad¬
ministration of John Tyler.
CAMPAIGN OF 1844 AND DEFEAT OF HENRY CLAY.
By the management of Mr. Calhoun the question of the
annexation of Texas was made to enter largely into the cam¬
paign of 1844. It decided the fate of candidates in the
Baltimore convention of that year and defeated Henry Clay
because he yielded to the importunities of slave barons and
wrote the never-to-be-forgotten Alabama letter. Although
I had not then attained my majority, I attended the Demo¬
cratic convention which met in Baltimore in 1844 and wit¬
nessed the political movements by which the slave barons
— 181 —
triumphed in that convention. I did not then fully compre¬
hend how or why Mr. VanBurenwas there defeated, when
every Democratic State convention in the United State, with
but three or four exceptions (and those the smallest States),
had instructed its delegates to vote for the re-nomination of
VanBuren and Johnson, the old ticket defeated by Harrison
and Tyler in 1840. I never fully comprehended it until after
the Presidential election of 1848; then, after making the mat¬
ter a subject of diligent search and inquiry, I became satis¬
fied that the slave barons were the power behind the throne,
and that none but a spurious Democracy could sustain and
defend the rightfulness of human slavery.
In 1850 the country had forced upon it the so-called com¬
promises of that year. The action o f Southern conventions
and the position assumed by Southern statesmen and parties
in many of the States in 1851, and the action of the Demo¬
cratic and Whig national conventions of 1852, confirmed me
in my convictions, and I declined longer to act with the party
of my choice.
INTERESTING AND IMPORTANT HISTORICAL INCIDENT.
There is a historical incident of importance connected
with the canvass of the year 1844 to which I wish to call
your special attention as throwing some light on the present
movement. In order that we may understand the matter
clearly, I invite you to go back with me and look into the
Democratic national convention of 1844, and also the Tyler
convention, composed of government officials and slave-baron
conspirators. Both of these conventions assembled on the
same day in the city of Baltimore. The Democratic National
Contention was regularly called by the Democratic National
Committee. The Tyler Convention was called by the direc¬
tion of Mr. Calhoun. Although I then thought, as everybody
seemed to think, that the Tyler movement was a great farce
and a good joke, the sequel will prove that it was one of the
most important and wily moves of the conspirators. This
convention nominated John Tyler for President, and adjourned
without making any nomination for Vice-President. In the
regular Democratic convention there was a bitter contest
-182 —
over the adoption of the rules. Hon. R. M. Sanders, of North
Carolina, moved the adoption of the rule known as the two-
thirds rule. The honest Van Buren men opposed and the
conspirators and their allies supported the motion and finally
carried it. The convention was thus placed completely in
the power of the conspirators, although they were largely in
the minority.
You know'the history of that convention. Mr. Van
Buren had written a letter against the annexation of Texas,
and for that he was defeated in a convention where nearly
four-fifths of the delegates were instructed to vote for him.
Thus you see how formidable these conspirators were so long
ago as 1844. After three or four days balloting, in which
these men, with consummate tact, so divided their votes be¬
tween Cass, Buchanan, Woodbury and others, as to prevent a
nomination and to blind the country to their true purposes,
the convention at last yielded, utterly worn out, and the con¬
spirators succeeded by threats and promises in fairly driving
the convention, a majority of which had voted to nominate
Mr. Van Buren, into the nomination of James K. Polk, and
forcing it to adopt such a platform as they dictated.
This accomplished, the master spirit who moved the
main springs of both conventions, now set himself to work to
secure an endorsement from Polk of their pro-slavery schemes.
For this purpose a distinguished Southerner was dispatched
on a secret mission to Knoxville, Tennessee, to see Mr. Polk
and present him the alternative of adopting their policy or of
being defeated. He was told that unless he gave in his
adhesion to their schemes, an electoral ticket with John
Tyler at its head would be formed and voted for in all the
States, securing by the patronage of the government and the
influence of the conspirators, sufficient strength in each of
the close or pivotal States to hold the balance of power,
and by thus dividing the Democratic vote, Mr. Clay would
obtain a plurality and be elected. Mi*. Polk saw this
clearly and, as subsequent events proved, yielded to their
demands. On the return of the messenger to whom I have
referred, Mr. Tyler withdrew from the canvass, and the
whole power and patronage of his administration were openly
— 183—
used to secure the election of Mr. Polk, who, with all this
combination to favor him, was barely elected, and would
have been defeated without it.
I have thus shown you that the farce, as it was called, of
nominating- John Tyler was not so great a farce after all,
but that it was one of the shrewdest and most successful
moves ever made by a desperate minority on the political
chessboard in this country.
One of the first acts of Mr. Polk after his accession to
power, was to comply with the programme of the nullifiers,
who demanded a new org-an in place of the Globe, which
was edited by Francis P. Blair, the bosom friend of Jackson
and the enemy of the nullifiers. For this purpose the
Madisonian, the late Tyler organ, was purchased, its name
chang-ed to the Union, and Mr. Ritchie, the editor of the
Richmond Enquirer, then, as now, the org-an of the con¬
spirators, was selected as its editor-in-chief. Mr. Calhoun,
and all the nullifying- conspirators, who were driven from
the Democratic party by General Jackson, were now received
into full fellowship, and from that day to the meeting- of the
Charleston-Baltimore Convention, these men dictated and
controlled its policy.
CAUSES OF ALARM THAT WERE OVERLOOKED BY THE NORTH.
The cession to Great Britain of one-half of the territory
of Oreg-on, together with the beautiful island of Vancouver,
in violation of the Democratic platform of 1844, and the
public pledg-e of Mr. Polk who, with the entire party, declared
our title to the whole " clear and indisputable," the war with
Mexico, the acquisition of California, and the offer by th;3
g-overnment to Spain, of two hundred millions of dollars for
the island of Cuba, were acts which, separately, oug-ht to
have alarmed the country as to the ultimate designs of the
slave barons, but when taken in connection with all the acts
of the Polk administration, ought to have aroused every
patriot in the nation, as one man, to resent and prevent its
treasonable schemes.
—184 —
effect of the ejection of general, tayloe upon the south.
his death and the consequences.
The election of General Taylor in 1848 was a severe and
unexpected blow to the hopes of the nullifiers. That stern
old patriot could neither be intimidated nor persuaded to
favor their schemes, and the celebrated batch of compromises
known as the " Omnibus Bill," was defeated in the House of
Representatives by his influence. Unfortunately for the
country in this important crisis of our history, General
Taylor died and Mr. Fillmore became the acting- President.
Under his administration the compromise measures which
had just been defeated under General Taylor, were revived
and passed in separate bills. I need not now refer to the
means by which the passage of these odious and obnoxious
acts was obtained, nor to the motives which prompted
Northern men to give them their support — suffice it to say,
these acts bore their legitimate fruit, and justly destroyed
both the men and the parties that supported and indorsed
them.
first scheme to organize a southern confederacy.
On the 7th of May, 1849, at the city of Jackson, in the
State of Mississippi, a meeting of slave baron conspirators
was held upon the suggestion of Mr. Calhoun. The scheme
to form a Southern Confederacy there took form and shape
and the secession party was formally organized. The pro¬
gramme then laid down, the conspirators of 1860 - 61 have
attempted to carry out.
calhoun's death, jeff. davis his successor as ch-ief
conspirator.
Mr. Calhoun died about the close of the long session of
the ever-memorable compromise Congress. Immediately
after his death, Jefferson Davis and his confederates in the
Senate and House of Representatives met together in the
city of Washington and agreed upon a constitution for a
Southern Confederacy. That constitution was, in the main,
just such a constitution as the traitors have adopted at
— 185 —
Montgomery, Alabama, except that the constitution agreed
upon in 1850 specially provided for the acquisition of Cuba,
Mexjco and Central America, while the Montgomery consti¬
tution is silent on these points. At the meeting to which I
have alluded, Mr. Davis was selected by the conspirators as
the first President of the new Confederacy.
gen. quitman and others openly advocate secession.
I intend in a moment or two to quote largely from General
Quitman, of Miss.,* because, after the death of Mr. Calhoun,
he was regarded by me as the ablest and boldest man in the
South who was engaged in the then contemplated rebellion.
He was a politician of the strictest Southern rights school, a
defender of every filibustering conspiracy, a professed believer
in the doctrine of the divine right of the stronger to enslave
the weaker, and an open advocate of a Southern confederacy.
He was the intimate friend of Calhoun and the most active
and untiring of the secession leaders. It is now over two
years since his death, but the present and future policy of
the conspirators, so far as can be judged, is exactly what he
urged. Let me now read to you some important extracts
from a few of the many letters written and received by him,
more than ten years ago. These letters speak for themselves
and develop fully the policy of the conspirators. General
Quitman, on the 28th of September, 1850, only eighteen days
after the passage of the compromises of that year, thus writes
to ex-Governor McRae, of Mississippi, then a member of
Congress:
'' I have not acted without first looking at the ground
before me, and I take the privilege of communicating to you
in confidence, thus early, a hasty programme of our future
movements. First, then, I believe there is no effective
remedy for the evils before us but secession. , .
"My idea is, that the legislature should call a convention
of delegates, elected by the people, fully empowered to take
into consideration our federal relations, and to change or
annul them, to adopt one organic law to suit such new rela-
* The quotations here made from the writing's of leading- Southern consp^atcs
may be found 111 the " Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, MajOi. General
U. S. A., and Governor of the State of Mississippi, by J. F. H. Claiborne. Harper &
Brothers, publishers, 2 vols., 1860." Books which ought to be in the hands of every
Northern apologist for this pro-slavery rebellion.
— 186 —
tions as they might establish, to provide for making1 com¬
pacts with other States, and that in the meanwhile an effective
military system be established, and patrol duties most
rigidly enforced."
"In the meantime, every patriot should leave no point
untouched, where his influence can be exerted. Cheer on
the faithful, strengthen the weak, disarm the submis-
sionists; send a fiery cross through the land; and every
gallant son of Mississippi to the rescue."
You will see by this that while the North was being
humiliated and demoralized by shamelessly surrendering to
the demands of the slave barons, they were secretly plotting
the overthrow of the nation.
On the 29th of September of that year (only nineteen
days after the passage of the compromise measures which we
were told were to be the last, and that the South would never
again exact any additional guaranties for slavery), General
Quitman, in writing to Governor Seabrook, of South Carolina,
said:
" Without having fully digested a programme of measures
which I shall recommend to the Legislature, it may be of
service to you to know that I propose to call a regular con¬
vention, to take into consideration our federal relations,
with full powers to annul the federal compact, estab¬
lish relations with other states, and adapt our organic
law to such new relations."
"Having no hope of an effectual remedy for existing
and prospective evils but in separation from the Northern
States, my view of State action will look to ' secession.' "
On the 17th of December, 1850, Governor Seabrook, in
answering General Quitman, said:
" I candidly confess to you that I am advocating the
immediate action of the legislature in order to suggest the
first Monday in December next for the time, and Montgomery,
Alabama, as the place of meeting of Congress. I am
rejoiced that the House resolved to suggest to our Southern
States the propriety of meeting in Congress at Montgomery
on the 2d of January, 1852.
"For arming the State $350,000 has been put at the
disposal of the Governor.
" I shall be happy to know that the time and place of the
proposed Congress will be agreeable to Mississippi.
" If our movement be seconded by her, I have good reason
— 187 —
for the belief that Alabama, Florida and Arkansas will soon
follow the patriotic example."
General Quitman thus writes to Colonel John S. Preston
of South Carolina, on the 29th of March, 1850:
" The plan proposed by the address of the Central Com¬
mittee, which I have forwarded to you, is, that the Committee
demand redress for past ag-gressions and guaranties
against future assaults upon our rights; and in the meantime
to provide for meeting- our sympathizing- sister States in a
Southern Congress. The proposed redress is:
" 1st. A repeal of the law suppressing- the slave trade
in the District of Columbia.
"2nd. Opening- of the Territories to the admission of
slaves.
"3d. The permission of slavery in California, south of
36 deg\ 30 min."
"The g-uaranties to be amendments to the Constitution
explicitly protecting- slavery from hostile interference by
Congress or States, and to' restore equal taxation, direct
and indirect."
" In case the address and g-uaranties be refused, the State
to make formal propositions to her Southern sisters for a
separate confederacy, and to unite with any number of them
sufficient to secure national independence."
"I concur with you in the opinion that the political
equality of the slaveholding- States is incompatible with
the present confederation as construed and acted on by the
majority, and that the present Union and slavery cannot
co-exist."
Governor Means, of South Carolina, thus writes to Gen¬
eral Quitman on the 15th of May, 1851:
"There is now not the slig-htest doubt that the next
leg-islature will call the convention together at a period dur¬
ing- the ensuing- year, and when that convention meets the
State will secede. ... We are anxious for co-operation, and
also desire that some other State should take the lead,
but from recent developments we are satisfied that South
Carolina is the only State in which sufficient unanimity
exists to commence the movement. We will therefore lead
off, even if we are to stand alone."
Colonel Greg-g-, of South Carolina, in writing- to General
Quitman on the 15th of May, 1851, thus encourag-es the
— 188 —
secession party, who were straining- every nerve to elect
Jefferson Davis Governor of Mississippi on the direct issue of
secession:
"Let them (the secessionists) contend manfully for
success, and if beaten in the election they will form a minority
so powerful in moral influence, that when South Carolina
secedes, the first drop of blood that is shed will cause an
irresistible popular impulse in their favor, and the submis-
sionists will be crushed. Let the example be set in Missis¬
sippi, and it will be followed in Alabama and Georgia.
Imparting- and receiving- courage from each other's efforts,
the Southern rights men will be ready to carry everything
before them, in all the three States, the moment the FIRST
blow is struck in South Carolina."
General Quitman thus writes to Governor Means, of
South Carolina, on the 25th of May, 1851:
"Experience has fully demonstrated that united action
cannot be had; the frontier slave States are even now indi¬
cating a disposition to cling to the Union at all hazard of
their slave institution. They will not in my opinion unite
in an effective remedy, unless forced to choose between a
Northern and Southern confederacy."
On the 9th of June, 1851, Governor Seabrook, of South
Carolina, thus writes to General Quitman:
'' The course of the convention will depend somewhat on
our sister Southern States. If they affirm the right of seces¬
sion and the non-existence of a power to prevent a State
from exercising it. . . . Should South Carolina strike a
decisive blow, may she confidently rely on the undivided sup¬
port of her present friends in your State?"
And again on the 15th of July of the same year, Gover¬
nor Seabrook thus discourses to General Quitman:
" If this scheme fail, what then? Let the State proclaim
to the world that at a time to be designated, say six months,
she will withdraw from the Union. If Mississippi be not pre¬
pared to follow her example, a simple annunciation on her
part that any hostile attempt, direct or indirect, by Congress,
to prevent her (South Carolina) from exercising the rights of
an independent nation, or to keep her in the Confederacy,
would be considered by your Commonwealth a subversion of
the fundamental principles on which the States confederated,
and consequently a full release from her obligations in the
Union."
— 189 —
CONSPIRACY TO SECEDE OP IyONG STANDING.
You see by these quotations that this conspiracy is of
no recent date. Ten or fifteen years ag-o, General Quitman
conceived and confided to others the scheme which the rebels
of 1861 have attempted to enact, and I lay these facts before
you for your serious reflection, and to prove to you that the
destruction of our Constitution and Union has been seriously
contemplated for many years, and that, too, without refer¬
ence to any of the pretended grievances now complained of
by the South.
DISUNION CANDIDATES FIRST NOMINATED IN SOUTHERN STATES.
In 1851 open and avowed disunion candidates were
nominated and run for governors in the States of Georgia
and Mississippi, and one or two other Southern States. In
Mississippi, Jefferson Davis, who was then a Democratic
United States Senator from that State, resig-ned his seat in
the Senate, went home to Mississippi, and became the dis¬
union candidate for g-overnor, on an open and avowed dis¬
union platform. Senator Foote, also a Democratic Senator
from that State, resigned his seat and became the Union
candidate. Davis was defeated by a small vote, as were also
the open disunion candidates in all the States, except in the
State of South Carolina, which elects her g-overnor and
State officers by the legislature.
DEATH OF THE WHIG PARTY.
In 1852 General Pierce was elected President over
General Scott. In this contest the Whig- party breathed its
last, because false to the principles of freedom. The success
of the so-called Democratic party with Pierce as its chief
was almost as fatal. It lingered along- in a sickly condition
until 1860, when it, too, g-ave up the g-host.
JEFF. DAVIS SECRETARY OF WAR, AND HIS ACTS.
Jefferson Davis was selected by President Pierce for his
Secretary of War, althoug-h it was well known to Mr. Pierce,
and to the whole country, that Mr. Davis was an avowed
-390 —
secessionist, and had just been defeated for Governor of
Mississippi on that issue. Davis, by his position, was
enabled to advance the schemes of the conspirators by
appointments, by favoritism in the army, and by his counsels
in the Cabinet. And in 1856, had Fremont been elected,
Davis would have attempted to seize the government.
BUCHANAN AS PRESIDENT, AND HIS CABINET.
Unfortunately for the country, Buchanan was elected
President, and a majority of the Cabinet he called around
him were either avowed secessionists, or willing- instruments
in the hands of the conspirators. By this act of Mr.
Buchanan, the old Democratic party was completely demor¬
alized by the domination of the disunion element in its coun¬
sels, so that at the Charleston-Baltimore Convention, it was
disrupted and the organization divided and defeated.
DEATH STRUGGLE OP THE SLAVE BARONS TO CONTROL
LEGISLATION.
The long- and bitter contest for the Speakership of the
House of Representatives, at the opening of the 36th Con¬
gress, was the death struggle of the slave barons to keep
possession of the legislative department of the government
during the residue of Mr. Buchanan's term of office, so that
in case of defeat in the Presidential election of 1860, which
the conspirators had then resolved upon — unless they could
dictate the candidate at Charleston, they might by having
control of the House committees, as they had of the com¬
mittees in the Senate, be fully prepared for every movement
necessary to consummate their treason.
PLANS OF THE CONSPIRATORS LAST WINTER.
It is now conceded by those whom it is admitted ought
to know, that the conspirators discussed and agreed upon a
plan for a provisional government last winter at Washington;
that their plan was to seize the Capitol and public archives,
and prevent by force the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln at the
seat of government; and b}^ thus getting possession of the
— 191 —
National Capitol and inaugurating- Mr. Davis at Washing¬
ton, they hoped to secure an early recognition of their
government by some of the resident foreign ministers, many
of whom they believed then and still believe to be favorable
to their schemes.
SYMPATHY BETWEEN THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS AND SOUTHERN
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.
And here let me mention a fact worthy of note. The
foreign resident ministers at Washington are mostly from
the aristocratic and wealthy European families, and sympa¬
thize and associate with that class everywhere.
A majority of the Southern Senators and Representatives,
while professing to be democrats, are if possible more aristo¬
cratic than these foreign ministers. The result is, that their
social intercourse at Washington is almost exclusively with
Southern members, who do not hesitate openly to denounce
all Northern men as cowards, poltroons and money-getters,
who can be bought as cheap as their own slaves.
CHARACTER AND POSITION OF NORTHERN MEMBERS.
The great body of Northern Senators and Representa¬
tives are poor, and owing to the short time they remain or
expect to remain in Congress, they do not, with few excep¬
tions, care to form the acquaintance of foreign ministers.
So you see that our government at home has not only been
controlled, and our foreign policy cunningly shaped by
Southern men, but the minds of the resident foreign minis¬
ters have been prepared for this rebellion, and also for its suc¬
cess; and this is the secret of the ill-disguised sympathy of so
many resident foreign ministers with the rebels.
This infamous conspiracy was defeated by unlooked-for
dissensions in its own ranks, and by no sagacity, foresight
or precaution on the part of Mr. Buchanan or the represen¬
tatives of the people.
MAJOR ANDERSON AND THE REBELS —HIS REMOVAL TO
FORT SUMTER.
Fortunately for the cause of the Union, but unfortunately
for the conspirators, dissensions arose in the cabinet on the
-192 —
question of reinforcing- Fort Sumter. Major Anderson,
a loyal and patriotic citizen of Kentucky, with about seventy
men, forced this unexpected question upon the.President and
Cabinet. You all remember that Major Anderson was in
command at Fort Moultrie; that his position was such that
a land attack by the rebels could not be prevented. He had
no orders from his government to remove to Fort Sumter,
and could obtain no reinforcements, although he asked for
them. So he assumed the responsibility in the face of a
government which he must have regarded as false to its
highest duties, and whose commands he also knew he must
obey.
The conspirators in Charleston had approached Major
Anderson in every conceivable manner; they had feasted and
flattered him; but he could not be seduced from his allegiance.
He was watched by them, and could make no movement.
The public arms and property of the g-overnment in the city
of Charleston they would not permit him to touch, and he
saw that if any movement was made to save the honor of the
government, it would have to be done by strategy and on his
own responsibility — a responsibility which you and I most
heartily thank him for having assumed. [Applause.] He
was invited to dine with a number of the chief conspirators
on Christmas last, and accepted. After dinner, toasts and
speeches were the order of the evening. All the power of the
conspirators was exhausted to induce the Major to become a
traitor, but to no purpose. Report has it that he feigned
intoxication so well, that he was conveyed in a carriage to his
headquarters at Fort Moultrie. The rebel conspirators
returned to concoct new schemes to seduce this loyal and
patriotic soldier, and while they were thus conspiring, in the
darkness of night he quietly gave his orders, and a few small
boats are made ready; all the provisions and munitions they
can carry are put on board, and after spiking the cannon in
Fort Moultrie, he and his little band of brave spirits step on
board their boats, and with muffled oars pull off to Fort
Sumter, and when the conspirators awoke in the morning,
the National flag was seen floating from that supposed impreg¬
nable fortress. [Loud applause.] When the rebels saw this,
— 193 —
they were amazed, and swore more terribly than "our army
in Flanders." The telegraph soon brought this glorious
news to Washington, and I need not tell you how it made
glad the hearts of all true. Union men. Party was thought
of no longer. The rebels telegraphed to Mr. Buchanan and
demanded an order for Major Anderson's immediate return
from Fort Sumter to Fort Moultrie, and to our shame be it
told that many Northern men united with the rebels in
seconding their demands. Among this class of men none
was more offensively conspicuous than Senator Bright, of
Indiana.
secretary cass resigns.
On the simple proposition of reinforcing Major Anderson
and preserving the national honor, a division arose in the
cabinet — a majority voting with the President not to rein¬
force. You will agree with me, I know, when I say that
every man who so voted was either a rebel conspirator or a
tool in their hands. When this disgraceful decision was
made, General Cass, to his honor be it said, refused longer to
remain in the cabinet of a President who proved himself to
be either a traitor or a coward, and perhaps both. [Applause.]
cobb, floyd and thompson follow—dix, holt, stanton
and king appointed.
This unexpected resignation of Secretary Cass was soon
followed by the resignation of the traitor Cobb, and subse¬
quently by the resignation of Floyd and Thompson, owing
to the disclosures made by a confidential clerk of the theft
of the $800,000 of Indian bonds. Happily for the country,
Dix and Holt, Stanton and King, loyal and true Democrats,
were called to fill these unexpected vacancies in the cabinet,
and thus the scheme to seize Washington City and inaugu¬
rate their rebel government there was defeated, because the
patriot Holt was Secretary of War, and a majority of the
cabinet were now true to the Union. [Applause.]
13
— 194 —
ABANDONMENT OF THE PLAN OF LAST WINTER.
Being1 thus unexpectedly foiled, the conspirators aban¬
doned their design of seizing- Washington, and preventing"
the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln,* and resorted to every ex¬
pedient to deceive the country, and throw the people off their
guard as to their real intentions. For this purpose, the
most noisy and unscrupulous did not hesitate to declare in
the House and at the public hotels, that Mr. Lincoln was the
constitutionally elected President, and should be inaugurated
if it had to be done over their lifeless bodies.
JOHN C. BRECKENRIDGE THEN AND NOW.
Mr. Breckenridge also united with them in declaring"
publicly that he would not only count the electoral votes as
prescribed by law (you will remember that the secession
papers North and South declared that they would not be
counted), and proclaim Mr. Lincoln the constitutionally
elected President, but that he intended to take his seat in the
Senate of the United States, to which he had just been
elected by the loyal State of Kentucky, and swear to support
the Constitution and the Constitutional Government, and I
saw him with uplifted hand take that oath.
This deception blinded many of the Northern represen¬
tatives and people, who unitedly praised Mr. Breckenridge
for his patriotism and loyalty. How worthily it was be¬
stowed, let his subsequent conduct in the Senate and else¬
where, and his present position speak.
INAUGURATION OF MR. LINCOLN.
At last the 4th of March came, and Mr. Lincoln was
peacefully inaugurated on the eastern portico of the national
Capitol, in'the presence of thousands of loyal citizens and
friends,
THE CONSPIRATORS AND THE NEW PRESIDENT.
The conspirators now resorted to new stratagems to
deceive and mislead the g-overnment. They approached
Mr. Lincoln as Union men, professing- devotion to the Consti¬
tution and great anxiety for the success of his administra-
— 195 —
tion. But they all, with one voice, united in declaring- that
any attempt on the part of the government to send soldiers
to any part of the South to protect the national property,
would precipitate them all into a revolution. The President
was told that he must not attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter
— that he must not send troops to protect the Norfolk Navy
Yard with its millions of property, that troops must not be
sent to Harper's Ferry to guard the National Armory, and if
he did, the whole State of Virginia would be driven into a
revolution. For six long- and weary weeks these men de¬
ceived and prevented the government from doing- as I think
it would have done, but for them. I need not tell you how I
protested against the government listening to the counsels of
these men—much less heeding them. You know the result—
the Norfolk Navy Yard was lost, Harper's Ferry was lost, and
the very Capitol of the nation was imperiled.
the: cabinet and president—patriotism of the latter.
The cabinet under the advice of General Scott, voted to
withdraw Major Anderson from Fort Sumter and thus sur¬
render it to the rebels.
On the part of some of otir best military men, this
course was urged because the Buchanan administration had
permitted the fort to be so environed with armed batteries,
that it was said reinforcements could not be put into the
fort with less than 40,000 men. In this trying emergency,
everything now depended on the decision of the President,
and nobly did he meet the responsibility. You and I honor
him for his decision. He said : "Never by an order from
my hand, while I am president, shall the stars and
Stripes be struck to a rebel foe!" [Long applause.] This
impulsive and patriotic declaration of the President, in my
judgment saved the life of the nation, and whatever blunders
he may have committed, or shall hereafter commit, this brave
and noble act ought to excuse, and with me, shall excuse a
multitude of mistakes.
"star of the west" fired upon by the rebels.
When asked what he proposed to do, he answered, that
"'the world will expect us to provision our soldiers,
— 196 —
while in the; faithful discharge of their duty, and I
INTEND TO NOTIFY THE AUTHORITIES AT CHARLESTON THAT
the troops in Fort Sumter will be fully provisioned by
SENDING AN UNARMED VESSEL TO THE FORT." The vessel Was
despatched, and when within sight of the fort she was fired
upon from the rebel batteries, and compelled to put to sea.
sumter compelled to surrender.
Thus day after day all hope of a peaceable solution of
our difficulties was dispelled, and when all hope of reinfor¬
cing- the fort seemed to be given up and Major Anderson
only had one or two days' rations of salt pork for his hand¬
ful of men, at the expiration of which time the rebels knew
he must surrender, they opened their fire upon that patriotic
band, and compelled them to surrender. This act sealed the
doom of the traitors. The North, heretofore divided, was
now united, and every patriotic Union man gave up party
for country.
call for troops by the president and the response.
I need not detail to you the stirring- events which fol¬
lowed— the call of the President for 75,000 men, and the
alacrity with which hundreds of thousands of all parties
patriotically volunteered to defend the Constitution and the
Union. Until then, I did not know how full the nation was
of the old leaven of 1776. Until then. I had no idea of the
immense moral power of the bayonet.
extra session of congress.
The President called Congress together on the 4th of
July, and asked for 400,000 men and $400,000,000 of money
to put down the rebellion, and we gave him 500,000 men and
$500,000,000. How the citizens in the loyal States have
responded to the call of Congress and the President, you
know. Never, in all the history of the world, from the days
of Alexander and Caesar to Napoleon, has any nation of
eighteen millions of people been able to put an army of
500,000 men into the field, armed and equipped, as we have
done, in five months. This fact, of itself, is a guarantee of
our success if the government but does its duty.
— 197—
conduct of rebel members.
The conduct of Breckenridge, Brig-lit and others, in the
Senate, of Burnet and others in the House after the new
administration came into power, is proof positive that these
men were either in sympathy or complicity with the traitors
who were conspiring1 to destroy the government, at the very
moment they, with uplifted hand, were swearing1 to support
and defend it.
rebel testimony that slavery is the cause of the
rebellion.
I might quote by the hour from speeches of the leading-
rebels since the outbreak of this rebellion, to sustain the
position which I have so elaborately fortified by fact after
fact; but I am sure you will agree with me, that it is unneces¬
sary. I will only detain you long- enough on this point to
make two or three short quotations which I think it important
to submit in this connection. The first is from Alexander H.
Stephens, the Vice-President of the rebel government. Mr.
Stephens I suppose you all know to be one of the fairest and
most conservative men in the entire South, and a man of the
first order of talents. In speaking- of the principles on which
the Southern Confederacy was formed this summer, he said:
" That its foundations were laid — that its corner-stone
rested on the great truth that slavery, subordination to the
superior race — was the negro's natural condition; that the
confederacy was founded on these principles, and that this
stone, which was rejected by the first builders, had, in their
new edifice, become the chief stone of the corner."
The foundation stone upon which Washington and the
patriots of the Revolution built, is rejected by the leaders in
this rebellion, and if Mr. Stephens speaks truly, the founda¬
tion upon which the conspirators build, is slavery. Yet in
the face of such statements, and all the facts I have enumer¬
ated, politicians and newspaper editors attempt to deceive and
mislead the people by declaring- that slavery has nothing
whatever to do with this rebellion.
Senator Brown, of Mississippi, a colleague of Jefferson
Davis, openly declared that he not only demanded a Southern
— 198 —
Confederacy, but that he wanted " Cuba, Mexico, and Central
America for the planting- and spread of slavery, so that like
the relig-ion of our divine Master, it may spread to the
uttermost ends of the earth."
Mr. Clay, of Alabama, declared in a speech at Mont¬
gomery, last winter, that,
"A cordon of free States must never be permitted to
surround the God-given institution of slavery — the beautiful
tree must not be thus girdled that it may wither and die."
And the leading- organ of the conspirators for May of
this year, DeBow's Review, not only declares "that the
foundation of the new Confederacy had for its corner-stone,
slavery," but defends and justifies the enslavement everywhere
of the entire laboring- population, declaring- "that the
social condition op england and the world would be
infinitely better if the laboring classes were domestic
slaves."
northern politicians to blame for concealing facts
from the people.
Are these startling- facts new to you ? They are old
familiar acquaintances of mine, and I have repeated most of
them over and over again, many times in this Congressional
District. Do you ask in wonder, how such unholy combina¬
tions could be made against the very life of the Nation,
without exciting- the open hostility of every patriot and true
Union man in the Republic ? I answer that it has been and
is mainly, the fault of Northern politicians who have either
been ignorant of the existence of such treasonable movements,
or with a guilty knowledge have kept them from the people.
It is not, however, improbable that the great body of
Northern representatives have been entirely ignorant for the
past twenty years of these acts, although often acting1 and
voting- with the conspirators and in aid of their ulterior
designs. This could not well be otherwise as long- as the
two sections should adhere to their present policy, or rather
their want of policy in selecting- and continuing- their repre¬
sentatives at Washington. The South selects her best men,
-199 —
men of talents and ability, who are true to her interest, and
retains them as long- as they are faithful. They thus become
acquainted with the entire workings of the government.
The North sends with rare exceptions an entire new set of
men every two or four years. Many of these men are not
only without ability, but what is still more lamentable, men
who, under the pretext of party necessity, sacrifice the interest
of their own constituents. If rejected by the people at the
close of .one term for their treachery, a pro-slavery adminis¬
tration has always provided them with some compensation
for their services, and thus from year to year, the North has
been used and disgraced, simply because of the inefficiency
ok. want of fidelity of its representatives.
The South understands this matter better. She selects
men who are not only true, but able; and retains them in
position until they become familiar with the working's of
every department of the government, and in time they not
only become representative men, but absolutely control, as
they have done for years, the entire legislation of the country,
although their section is largely in the minority.
a change must be made.
The North will have to change this custom and adopt
such a one as prudence and common-sense dictates. States¬
men are not extemporized out of the ablest men in a day.
Our greatest generals worked their way up gradually from
the ranks, and our safest and best railroad men commenced at
the foot of the ladder. All American statesmen, worthy of
the name, have come up from the ranks of the people, and
the South has produced the largest number, simply because
she has pursued the policy of retaining her representatives
until by education and experience, they became statesmen.
Do you suppose that a Northern conspiracy against the
government could have been as successfully inaugurated and
put into execution as this Southern conspiracy has been —
that we could have held Northern conventions, elected North¬
ern State governors on the direct issue of dissolving the
Union or compelling the South to adopt such a National
Constitution as we might dictate, without the entire South
— 200 —
"being* familiar with every movement, and unitedly prepared
to resist it? In addition to all this, do you believe the South
would ever have been guilty of voting- for Northern men who
were her open and undisguised enemies? that they would
ever have placed them, as we have done, in the most honorable
and responsible positions in the government? I ask if you
believe it possible for the North with all her boasted knowl¬
edge, to have done all the South has done for the past twenty
years, without being- understood in every movement, not only
by every Southern representative, but by the entire Southern
population, which would have instructed their representa¬
tives to meet and defeat the issue upon the threshold, not
with compromise, but with open, manly, persistent opposition,
and exposure of the traitors eng-ag-ed in it?
But this secession movement has been openly advocated
for years, and its champions have been placed by Northern
votes and Northern Presidents not only in the cabinets but
in the most honorable and responsible positions of the gov¬
ernment. If able and true men pointed out the danger, as
did John Quincy Adams, their voices would be drowned by
the din of commerce and the cry of demagogues, who either
for the sake of party or office, or the promise of office, would
in proportion to their ignorance, denounce with increased
vehemence, all such statements as unqualifiedly false and
only made to injure their party. For the sake of party and
the hope of securing some petty office for two or four years,
ignorant and corrupt men have usurped in the name of the
people the management of political conventions, and the
great interests of the country have been made subordinate to
the ambitions of men whose whole lives gave assurances of
their unfitness for responsible positions.
Because of this state of things, the North, although
superior in point of wealth, population and intelligence
have been made the "hewers of wood and drawers of water"
for the South. Do you ask when this state of things shall
forever cease ? I answer that it will cease as this rebellion
will cease, whenever a united people earnestly wills it, and
not before.
— 201 —
THE NORTH INDICTED AT THE BAR OF PUBLIC OPINION.
That the overprudent, the timid and the indifferent, with
the trickster and demagogue, will join with cowardly
Hunkerism in condemning- the manner in which I am treating
this subject I do not doubt, and I do not object. In my
opinion, this is no time for honeyed phrases, and I have
therefore called things by their right names. This is a war
about slavery and you and I know it. The South declare that
our unconstitutional interference with slavery is the cause of
this rebellion. For this we are indicted at the bar of public
opinion and required to plead "guilty" or "not guilty."
Instead of responding promptly, and manfully, and truthfully,
"not guilty," all Hunkerdom holds its breath for fear of
offending its Southern brethren, and demands that we shall
plead to anything else rather than that with which we are
charged in the rebel indictment. Will any lawyer tell me
how we are to defend ourselves? What shall be our reply to
this charge? We may plead all our sins of omission and
commission, but that will not do. Silence on the only distinct
charge made in the indictment against us is an admission of
our guilt. It is all any rebel can ask. It is substantially say¬
ing to the world that the South is right and the North is
wrong. Therefore for one I plead "not guilty," and "put
myself upon the country." Suppose, instead of the charge
of improper interference with slavery, the North were charged
in the rebel indictment with unconstitutionally interfering
with the rights of the South on the question of the tariff, or
Pacific Railroad, or the question of representation, or any
one of the many questions which have divided political parties
in this country? Would prudent but timid friends be found
then, as now, uniting with the political trickster and the
demagogue in seconding the demand of Hunkerism that we
should not only not plead to that with which we were charged,
but that we should not even discuss or publicly allude to the
matter at issue? How can a statesman who is guided by
the principles of justice, or even by political expediency,
demand of any rational people anything so irrational or
idiotic as debate and answer to charges without any reference
to the subject matter of the charges?
— 202 —
If this rebellion had resulted from a conspiracy on the
part of the great body of railroad corporations, or banks, or
manufacturing interests, in the United States, because the
General or State Governments had refused to comply with
their demands, do you suppose there would have been any
such hesitation on the part of the government as to their
duty as there has been .towards the present rebels? The old
bank of the United States had a capital of only fifty millions
of dollars, and yet General Jackson thought its continued
existence dangerous to the liberties of the people, because he
knew it subsidized the public press, controlled party conven¬
tions, and, with its gold, corrupted statesmen and divided the
nation's chosen guardians and counselors. He thereupon
crushed it, and the nation applauded him. The number of
rebel slave barons in the United States does not exceed 250,000
men, all told. Of this number not more than 200,000 are
voters, and yet they claim that their capital in slaves is worth
two thousand millions of dollars. If fifty millions of dollars
in the hands of a bank were dangerous to the liberties of the
people, how much more dangerous are two thousand millions
of dollars in the hands of slave barons, who are enemies to
the g-overnment? For the protection of this property, as
they claim it to be, they have demanded special legislation
and constitutional guarantees which the people would not
grant, and because of the refusal, this small but powerful
class have made this war upon the government. Suppose the
great majority of the bankers of the United States (and the
bank stockholders are a more numerous class than the
rebel slave barons) were to combine and demand an amend¬
ment to the Constitution, granting- them perpetual char¬
ters, with the rig-lit to suspend specie payment whenever, in
their opinion, the interests of the banks demanded it, and
suppose the people should refuse to give them such a dan¬
gerous grant of power, and, because of this refusal, they
should unite in a conspiracy to destroy the government by
making- war upon it as the rebel slave barons are now doing-,
what would you, as practical men do, if They, instead of the
slave barons, were the rebels? I know what you would
demand, and it would be done — the leading conspirators
-—203—-
"would be arrested and their property confiscated to pay the
expenses of putting- down the rebellion, and thus make it im¬
possible for them to get up another such rebellion. I would
do the same with the railroad conspirators, who have more
wealth and more men interested with them than all the
slave baron rebels. I would do the same with any combina¬
tion of men under the same circumstances. The banking-,
railroad and manufacturing- interests of the United States
each separately controls more wealth than all the conspirators
now engaged in the rebellion, and their institutions are of
more importance to commerce, to civilization and good
government, than all the slave barons, whether loyal or
rebel; and yet, if any one or all of these interests were to
combine against the government, what would be their fate?
Would there be any division among us on the question of
conducting the war against them? Why, then, as practical
men, should we hesitate as to the course to be pursued
towards rebel slave barons?
The truth is, prejudice has blinded us, as a nation, so
that we will not see our duty, and this is the secret of our
inefficiency and our reverses. How many men are there
before me who would hesitate at confiscating the entire wealth
of all the corporations in the country—whether banks, rail¬
roads or manufactories — if they were combined and in rebel¬
lion against the government and they believed such action
was necessary to save the nation's life? If you would do
this, would you not also confiscate and deprive the present
slave baron conspirators of every slave they possessed, if
you believed it necessary for the preservation of the Consti¬
tution and the Union? I have no doubt of it.
the only question between radical and con¬
servative men.
The only question, then, is a difference of opinion as to
the time when this necessity begins. When, in the judgment
of each man individually, that time has come, we are unani¬
mous. At present some are convinced that the time is now—
others think differently—all, I doubt not, honestly. Instead,
therefore, of finding fault and denouncing each other for
-204 —
honest differences of opinion, would it not be better ror all to
maintain their opinions without criminating- each other and
without denouncing- the g-overnment, which is undoubtedly
honestly endeavoring- to do its duty? We are so constituted
that we must see differently. If twenty men were selected
from this audience to-nig-ht and a proposition was submitted
to them, which to each was entirely new, whether in philoso¬
phy or politics, you know that their opinions would not only
differ widely, but that some would be much quicker than
others in coming- to their conclusions. If, then, Union men
differ on the proper disposition of this slavery controversy,
let us agree to disagree, but stand firmly by the g-overnment.
Is not the man who forms an honest judgment and frankly
expresses it, entitled to the confidence of all true men, rather
than he who either forms no [opinions at all, or if he does,
fears to express them? In short, is not the man who, if
he blunders, does so on the side op humanity and justice,
better entitled to the respect and confidence of men
than the man who is heartlessly indifferent or craftily
silent?
recapitulation of proof.
I have demonstrated, I trust, to your satisfaction, by
facts which cannot be controverted, that slavery, and sla¬
very alone, is the cause of this rebellion. I have shown
you that every compromise and humiliating- concession made
by the North to the South but emboldened and made more
insulting- the demands of the conspirators. They demanded
at the Charleston and Baltimore conventions the uncondi¬
tional surrender of the Doug-las Democrats, and because this
was refused, broke up both. Their representatives pro¬
claimed last winter in both houses of congress, that if
the Northern representatives were to sign and seal a
bond on a blank sheet of paper, and authorize the con¬
spirators to fill up the terms and conditions of our sur¬
render, they would not accept it. They publicly declared
that if the people elected any other man for President than
the one dictated by themselves, they would secede and break
up the Union, thus refusing- long-er to adhere to the demo-
— 205 —
cratic principle that the majority shall govern. I have shown
you by their own public declarations, that the election of
Mr. Lincoln was not the cause, but only a pretext for this
rebellion; that for thirty years the traitors have been foment¬
ing- treason, and have been awaiting- a favorable opportunity
to inaugurate it. I have shown that but for the fatal folly
and wicked indifference of the North, this rebellion would
never have come upon us. That we have fed and fostered
the viper which is now at our throats, every candid, reflect¬
ing Northern man must admit. "When it was an infant, or
even when it was but half-grown, the nation might easily have
destroyed it, but now by our own fault and guilt it has grown
until it has become formidable and defiant. For years wc
nursed it most tenderly and gave it all the succor and food it
demanded. No:?, outraged justice demands either that we
shall destroy it, or be ourselves destroyed by it. There is a
law of compensation, a law which is above all human enact¬
ments, irrepealable because Divine, which proclaims that
" the nation or people who do not rule in righteousness
shall perish from the earth," and I believe we are now
passing through the trying ordeal which will either establish
us a nation of freemen, ruling in righteousness, or destroy us.
state sovereignty.
You have heard a great deal about " State Sovereignty"
and the "sacred soil of Virginia" and other States, and the
" right of secession." I will not now detain you with a dis¬
cussion on the abstract right of secession. Last winter I
examined this subject thoroughly in a speech which I made
in the House, and I have nothing- now to add to or take from
what I then said. The claim set up by these conspirators,
that a State is "sovereign" and owns the soil within its
geographical limits, is an assumption as arrogant as it is
ignorant. No State op the American Union is sovereign
or has any ownership op the soil, except that which the
Constitution and laws op the United States give her.
The National Constitution guarantees to each State a re¬
publican form of government, with a right to make its own
municipal laws, subject only to that Constitution.
— 206 —
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme
law of the land, anything1 in the laws or constitutions of
the States to the contrary, notwithstanding. The assumed
"right of secession" is an absurd and visionary dream of a
monomaniac. As well might a man say he would release
himself from any contract he had made, because he had
determined not to pay his honest debts. Such a doctrine
will do only for pirates. As well might Lucas County, Ohio,
set up that she is a "sovereign" county, and therefore has
the "right" to secede from both the National and State
Governments, and establish herself as an independent nation.
If this were true, our National Constitution would not be
worth the paper on which it is written.
absurd doctrine of mr. buchanan.
Absurd, however, as this doctrine is, it is not half so absurd
as the course pursued by Buchanan, who, while permitting
our national fortifications to be environed by rebel batteries,
formally announced in his last message to Congress that not
only was there no "right of secession " under the Constitu¬
tion, but that all attempts on the part of the national
Government to restrain or prevent a State from seced¬
ing were also unconstitutional.
what would have been the effects if this question had
been settled in the missouri controversy.
Had the nation heeded the warning voices of her purest
patriots and statesmen at the time of the Missouri controversy,
that State would never have been admitted into the Union
with slavery, and the so-called Missouri compromise would
never have been made. The deadly viper vould then have
received its death-blow, and the nation been delivered from
the rule of the slave barons. Slavery would not then have
been nationalized by Congressional protection. There would
have been no cruel, bloody and costly war in Florida for the
enslavement of negroes, half-breeds and Indians, who were
free when we purchased the territory from Spain, and whose
rights we guaranteed by the treaty of purchase and unblush-
— 207 —
ingly violated by that war. There" would have been no war
made upon the weak and distressed republic of Mexico for the
purpose of wresting-free territory from her, on which to plant
human-slavery. There would have been no ceding- of one-half
of Oregon to Great Britain to prevent the erection of free
States out of that territory. The compromises of 1850, the
Kansas-Nebraska acts of 1854, and the justly infamous
Lecompton Constitution of 1857, would never have disgraced
the records of our country. In short, the crimes and murders
in Kansas which have been committed, never could have been
committed — much less could this wicked rebellion have been
born.
a bold, earnest, vigorous policy demanded.
Our duty as a nation, in connection with this rebellion,
has seemed to me from the first so plain that I have been
not a little amazed at the apparent hesitancy and want of
policy on our part. You know I have claimed, and still claim,
that we cannot march into the South with our armies and suc¬
cessfully strike down the conspirators with one hand while
upholding the cause of the rebellion with the other.
From the first I have insisted on the adoption of a bold, earnest
and vigorous policy. I have insisted that all persons who
are not unqualifiedly for the government, whether in or out
of office, should be treated as its enemies — that every person
who was even suspected of disloyalty, should be dismissed from
the army and from every branch of the public service, and I
have classed, and shall continue to class, every man whether
at the North or South, who is for the government with
an "if" or a "but," as a traitor. [Applause.] Thus
far in this controversy we have acted with the tenderest
solicitude for the welfare of rebel slave barons. We have
sanctioned the taking of his horse, his cattle, his money and
his life, but seldom his man chattels. On this point we have
been inconsistent and vacillating, while the rebels have been
consistent and defiant. I know it is said by those who have
counseled' the policy or rather want of policy which we have
thus far pursued, that " the war will be the end of
slavery.," and that so far from having any objections, they
— 208 —
would be g"lad to see it. This may be true, but you and I
know that the overthrow of slavery will not only end the
war, but, beyond all doubt, save the Union and preserve con¬
stitutional liberty, by making- us what we oug-ht k> be, a
homogeneous people.
It is claimed by many that the people should not criticise
the acts of the g-overment at such a time as the present. I
dissent from this theory. If the people do not demand from
the g-overnment what they want, pray how is the government
to know the wishes and sentiments of the people which it
professes to represent? I have supported and voted far
every necessary measure asked by the Administration, and
shall continue to do so as long- as these demands seem to me
rig-lit. Of that I am to be the judge, and not another for
me. As I never have been, so I never shall be, the blind fol¬
lower either of men or parties. [Applause.] In the present
controversy I have made everything- subordinate to the one
great wish of my heart — the preservation of the Constitu¬
tion and the Union. Neither men nor party, the allurements
of power, nor the hope of future preferment have swayed or
shall sway me in the discharg-e of my duty. As I have done
since I have had the honor to represent you, so I shall con¬
tinue to vote and act on all questions as though there were,
as now there oug-ht to be, but one party in the country, and
that the party for the Constitution and the Union. In such
a contest as the present, men are nothing-; parties are but as
dust in the balance; but the Lfe of the nation is above all
price, and must be preserved.. I have, as all have, the
strongest motives for standing- firmly by the President, for
he is certainly an honest and earnest man, and these are
noble and indispensable qualifications. Believing- the Presi¬
dent to be thus earnest and honest, I can, as you can, afford
to overlook many of the blunders and mistakes which, of
necessity, he must commit in his present embarrassing- posi¬
tion. But while I say this, I will not consent to remain
silent and quietly permit any policy to be adopted which, in
my judgment, would be fatal to the success of that cause
which all true patriots have first at heart. The old adage
has it that " it will do no harm to watch even an honest
— 209 —
man," and all history proclaims that " eternal vigilance is
the price of liberty." [Applause.]
consequences of the rebellion.
The consequences of this rebellion are difficult of solution.
No man can tell when or how it will end, and any theory
relating- to it must be continually modified by constantly
changing- events. It requires no prophet, however, to foresee
that unless we change our policy we shall have the whole
outside world against us. We may have them for us by
simply doing- that which our own self-preservation demands.
It has been our policy as a nation for many years to recognize
r»e facto rebel g-overnments, if they gave evidence of their
ability to maintain a g*overnment. We cannot, then, justly
complain if foreig-n nations do the same with us. If England,
France and Spain, recog-nize the confederate government by
the 4th of March next, as the moneyed and commercial
classes of those countries are now demanding, what will be
the result? Of necessity, a violation of our blockade and
probably a foreig-n war. That there is a hostile feeling
towards us among the aristocratic classes of the countries
named, all understand. In addition, the commercial and
manufacturing- interests of Great Britain and France are
favorable to an early recog-nition of the rebel g-overnment
in order that free trade treaties may be secured, and they may
obtain the Southern cotton and sell in return their manu¬
factured fabrics. These two interests combined exercise a
wonderful control in those governments. Indeed, commerce
itself, which is a mig-hty power in the world, will soon de¬
mand that its interests shall no logger be obstructed by this
war. Here is this demand of the aristocracy (who hate our
g-overnment) and the manufacturing- and commercial classes
against the great mass of their people, who love liberty and
Republican institutions, and believe we are fighting to
maintain thpm. As soon, however, as the mass of the moral
and religious people of England and France shall be made to
believe that the North is fighting to maintain slavery as it
is, and the South are only fighting to secure additional
14
— 210 —
constitutional guarantees for the protection of slaver}*, they
will say it is a "distinction without a difference," and will
unite with the privileged classes in demanding- an early
recognition of the rebel government. And whenever their
people are thus united, the independence of the rebel States
will be acknowledged by their governments. Thus far in
this controversy we have done much to alienate all foreign
sympathy, and unless we change our policy we shall, in my
judgment, lose the support of all the liberty-loving people of
Europe. If this be lost, we surely can expect no support
from the aristocratic element. As a nation we are in a criti¬
cal condition, and it depends alone upon our own action
whether we are to draw to us the support of the moral and
Christian powers of the world, or permit them to become in¬
different or openly hostile.
effect of a foreign recognition of the rebels upon
the north.
As soon as the governments of England and Franee shall
have recognized the rebel confederacy, a powerful anti-war
and anti-tax party will spring up in the North in favor of
peace and the recognition of the independence of the traitors.
Thus, we shall be divided at home and at war with the great
military powers abroad, unless we yield. We have those
among us now who contend that we cannot put down this
rebellion. How many shall we then have who will openly
demand the separation of the States? They will say, "If
you could not put down this rebellion single-handed, how
can you expect to do it with England and France in the
balance against you? " They tell us now that if we withdraw
our armies from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri,
the secessionists will at once carry those States over to the
rebel government, and I am not sure but they would. How
certainly would it be the case if we were compelled to with¬
draw our armies to fight a foreign enemy. Let us look the
truth squarely in the face. We may have a united nation of
thirty millions of free men and the whole moral power of the
world to sustain us, if we but wiee it, or we may alienate
this power and be broken into fragments, never again to be
united.
— 211 —
UNION OF SKNTIMKNT AND EFFORT NFCESSARY.
"With these facts before us, what is our duty? You know
what I think. Let us then, forgetting all past differences,
unite earnestly in adopting- the only practical solution of this
question — that of striking- the enemy in his most vulnerable
point. [Applause.] In this grand battle let us cling- with
unfaltering- faith and hope to the flag- of our fathers, and
fight on and fight ever, without concealment of our purposes,
and without again compromising- with wrong, until we lift
the whole Union, " one and indivisible," above the ruin which
to-nig-ht environs it — and the nation, thus purified, invigo¬
rated, and strengthened by the stern ordeal of battle, shall
ag-ain shine out as the beacon light of liberty to the oppressed
of the world, with no spot to darken her fair escutcheon, but
shining- out as beautiful as the morning-, giving- light and
hope and joy to the struggling- millions of the earth.
[Applause.] To fig-ht for such a government an'd such
principles I have asked men all over my district to volunteer
in the liberating- ar-my of the Republic. Who would not feel
proud to belong- to such an army? Who does not feel thank¬
ful that Providence has cast his lot where he may be an actor
in such a contest? For —
"We are living-, we are dwelling-,
In a grand and awful time.
In an age on ages telling,
To be living is sublime.
Will ye play, then, will ye dally,
With your music and your wine?
Up! It is Jehovah's rally !
God's own arm hath need of thine Is*
Fellow-citizens, I have spoken to you to-night freely and
frankly. Much that I have said might have been omitted,
and my own convictions and opinions, had I chosen, could
have been entirely concealed. I have felt it be my duty,
however, as I did last spring, when I apprised you in my
letters of the formidable proportions of this rebellion, and
the danger that beset the life of the nation, to call your
— 212
attention to the facts upon which I then "based my opinions.
I leave these facts with you for your judgment. When you
have fully and impartially examined them, as I have, I will
have no fear of your verdict. In a day or two more I
go to Washing-ton, and I confess to you that I never went to
the discharge of a duty with more distrust in my own abili¬
ties nor with a more sincere desire for the aid and counsel of
friends and the guidance of Him "who doeth all things
well." Earnestly desiring above all things .the restoration
of peace, the Union and the Constitution, I shall continue to
urge a vigorous prosecution of the war, to resist all attempts
at compromise or surrender to the enemy by patching up a
peace, knowing full well, as I do, that no peace can be honor¬
able or enduring which is made over the prostrate form of
Justice. [Applause.] Confident that the nation or people
who do not rule in righteousness shall perish from the earth,
I believe every citizen has a sacred duty to perform, in this
trying hour of our country's peril, which is to aid by every
means in his power in restoring the government to the princi¬
ples and policy of its founders. I believe that the first and
highest duty of government is to secure every loyal inhabi¬
tant in his person, his liberty, and his property, "protecting
all and granting special favors to none." This is the sum
and substance of my political faith. It is an exceedingly
simple one, but is all the platform I ask, and I intend, with
God's blessing, to be faithful to it in the midst of this rebel¬
lion, the dissolution of parties and the desertion of men, so
that for my own honor and that of my children it shall never
be truthfully said or written of me that I was an apostate to
that faith, or that I abandoned the sacred cause of Liberty
for the sake of place and power. [Long continued ap¬
plause.]
SPEECH
OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO,
In the; House: of Representatives, April 11, '1862.
on the bill for the release of certain persons held
to service or labor in the district of columbia.
"INITIATE EMANCIPATION."
Mr. Ashley said:'
Mr. Chairman: I intend to vote for this bill as a
national duty, and not as the representative of a locality. I
shall vote for it without apology, and without disclaimer. I
have no excuses to offer here, or elsewhere, for doing- an act
which even-handed justice demands. From the first I have
been earnest and persistent in pressing- this question of
emancipation. It became my pleasing- duty, in obedience to
the request of the District Committee, to meet and confer
with the senator who had charg-e of this subject in the other
branch of the national legislature, and I may say, I trust,
Letter from Prof. J. P. Shorter, A. M., LL. D., Wilberforce, O.
On page 329 will be found a copy of the bill for the Abolition of
Slavery in the District of Columbia, as originally introduced by Mr.
Ashley, with a brief history of its amendment and final passage, so
4m,n*>as to compesnate loyal slave-owners. This speech and his masterly
effort on page 333 in favor of the Thirteenth Constitutional Amend-
ment, prohibiting slavery in the United States forever, will be read
with unflagging interest. As we look back, we are amazed when
| reading Mr. Ashley's unanswerable arguments, his denunciations
j. p. shorter, and prophecies. All can see that he had that clear vision, which is
only given to him whose heart is in the right place, and who is born to be " a leader of
hopes forlorn that must be led." And this is not strange nor miraculous, for, as the
poet has beautifully expressed it, "When the heart goes before like a lamp and il¬
lumines the pathway, many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness."
J. P. Shorter.
(213)
-214 —
without impropriety, that the Senate could not well have
confided it to a truer and more earnest friend of the measure.
After several meeting's and consultations with leading*
members of both Houses, and citizens of the District, we
agreed upon a bill, which was approved by each committee,
and ordered to be reported in both Houses. This was the
bill which I reported to the House on the 12th day of March
last. I deem it due to myself, in this connection, to say that
the bill then reported by me was not in all respects what I
could desire; and I need hardly add that some of the Senate
amendments are of a character to make it still more objec¬
tionable. But 1 am a practical man, and shall support this
bill as the best we can get at this time. I have been shown
a number of amendments which some of my friends on this
side of the House desire to offer, and which I would prefer
to the provisions which are proposed to be amended; but if
offered I shall vote against them, as their adoption would
greatly delay, if not endanger the passage of the bill at this
session, because their adoption would necessarily return the
bill to the Senate for their concurrence. I trust, therefore,
that all friends of emancipation will decide to accept the
Senate bill as it is, and .vote against all amendments, so that
the practical end aimed at by the earnest men of this House,
the immediate liberation of all slaves in this District, shall
at once be accomplished. The object to be attained, and not
its particular mode of attainment, is what we ought all to
have most at heart.
If I must tax the loyal people of the nation $1,000,000
before the slaves at the national capital can be ransomed, I
will do it. I would make a bridge of gold over which they
might pass to freedom, on the anniversary of the fall of
Sumter, if it could not be more justly accomplished. The
people of the United States must be relieved from all respon¬
sibility for the existence or longer continuance of human
slavery at the capital of the Republic. The only question
which I conceive I am called upon as a representative to
decide is, has Congress the power and is it our duty to pass
such a bill as the one before us?
Part of the sixteenth clause of the eighth section of the
first article of the Constitution reads thus:
— 215 —
"Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legis¬
lation in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceed¬
ing- ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States
and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of govern¬
ment of the United States."
Mr. Chairman, I need not go into a labored argument to
show that Congress has power to banish slavery from this
district. It is not necessary to be a constitutional lawyer to
comprehend the extent of the power here granted. The
meaning- is plain enough. The clause confers upon Congress
all the legislative power that can be exercised by both
National and State Governments combined. If Congress
cannot abolish slavery in this District, no power on earth can.
A few years ago, one of freedom's distinguished orators
startled the country by declaring- "that Congress had no
mors power to make a si,ave than to make a king." If,
then, there is, as I claim, no constitutional power in Congress
to reduce any man or race to slavery, it certainly will not be
claimed that Congress has the power to legalize such regula¬
tions as exist to-day, touching- persons held as slaves in this
district, by re-enacting- the slave laws of Maryland, and
thus doing- by indirection what no sane man claims authority
to do directly. I know it is claimed by some that if Congress
has power to abolish, it must necessarily have power to
establish slavery. I will not insult the intelligence of this
House by discussing- such a proposition. If Congress could
not constitutionally re-enact the slave laws of Maryland for
this District, then slavery could not exist even for a single
hour after the cession of the territory became complete.
But whether slavery constitutionally exists in this district or
not, that it does exist is a fact, and because it exists and has
existed by the sufferance and sanction of the National
Government, for which the entire people of the United States
are justly responsible, it is more than ever the imperative
duty of this Congress to abolish at once and forever so
unnatural and unjustifiable a wrong. And, sir, if it be
necessary to employ gold to do it, let gold be employed.
Gold —which has corrupted statesmen, perverted justice, and
enslaved men, can never be more righteously used than when
it contributes to re-establish justice and ransom slaves.
— 216 —
It is claimed by the opponents of emancipation that the
proper and natural condition of all colored races is that of
slavery to the white race; that the people of color, not only
in this district, but throughout the country, are unfit for
freedom; that they cannot take care of themselves, and must,
of necessity, if liberated, become a public charge. We are
asked with apparent horror, and an air of sincerity, "if we
intend to let this slave population loose among- the whites;"
and we are told if we do that, it will be destructive alike of
the interests of both races; that the prejudices against per¬
sons of color are so implacable they cannot live in peace, and
a war of races will be the inevitable result of freeing them
among the whites — evils far more to be dreaded than any
which can ensue from their continued enslavement. I have
no such apprehension. Experience teaches me that all such
fears are groundless. While I deny the doctrine that the
normal condition of any race is that of slavery, or that there
can be rightfully such a thing- as property in man, under any
government or constitution, I will not and cannot believe
that the restoration of any race to freedom will produce
antagonisms that shall culminate in a war between those
whose relationships are changed from that of gross injustice
and oppression to that of self-dependence and freedom. God
made of one blood all the nations that dwell together on the
face of the earth, and gave man " dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living
thing* that creepeth upon the earth;" but man over man,
never.
The distinction here made between persons and animals
is clear and marked. It is the distinction recognized in the
jurisprudence of all civilized and Christian nations; and
when a slave baron stands up here, and claims that his title
to his fellowman rests upon the same recognized rights that
give him a title to his horse, I see and feel the blighting
effects of slavery, and realize the justice of the remarks
which I submitted on this floor two years ago, when I said
that—
"I exempt, with pleasure, from any sweeping denuncia¬
tions which I may make, thousands of good and true men
— 217 —
who find themselves born to this inheritance, and whose
whole lives give assurance to the world that their hearts are
better than the system. Intrust a class of men in any
society or government with absolute power over a servile
race, and the bad men will not only use it and abuse it, as I
shall show, but, by their clamorous cry of danger to the
State, will perpetrate and give sanction to outrages that
good and true men will be powerless to prevent. It is not
that southern men and slaveholders are worse than other
men, but because they are no better, that it is unsafe, if it
were not in itself an indefensible wrong, to intrust them
with absolute power over any part of the human race."
Sir, the origin and authority for all the dominion man
of right possesses in this world comes direct from the Father
of all, and has been so recognized, not only by the great
English commentator, but by the law-givers of every civilized
nation on earth. There is no right outside of His authority,,
much less in violation of it.
The great epic poet of England writes—
" He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute ; that right we hold
By his donation ; but man over man
He made not lord ; such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free."
I ask the indulgence of the House while I read a few ex¬
tracts from the writings of the great men of the past, which
will suffice to show how slavery was regarded by them.
"Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice."
—Plato.
"Slavery is a system of outrage and robbery."—Soc¬
rates."
" By the grand laws of nature all men are born free, and
this law is universally binding upon all men."
" Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws."
"Whatever is just is also the true law ; nor can this true
law be abrogated by any written enactment."
"If there be such a power in the decrees and commands
of fools, that the nature of things is changed by their votes,
why do they not decree that what is bad and pernicious shall
be regarded as good and wholesome, or why, if the law can
make wrong right, can it not make bad good ? "
— 218 —
"Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees,
have made anything- rather than laws." — Cicero.
"The law which supports slavery and opposes liberty
must necessarily be condemned as cruel, for every feeling
of human nature advocates liberty. Slavery is introduced
by human wickedness ; but God advocates liberty by the
nature which he has implanted in the breast of every man."
—Fortescue.
"If neither captivity nor contract can, by the plain law
of nature and reason, reduce the parent to a state of slavery,
much less can they reduce the offspring-."
"The primary aim of society is to protect individuals in
the enjoyment of those absolute rig-hts which were vested in
them by the immutable laws of nature. Hence it follows that
the first and prime end of human laws is to maintain those
absolute rights of individuals."
"If any human law shall require us to commit crime, we
are bound to transgress that human law, or else we must
offend both the natural and divine."—Blackstone.
"What the Parliament doth shall be holden for naught
whenever it shall enact that which is contrary to the rig-hts
of nature."—Lord Coke.
"The essence of all law is justice. What is not justice
is not law, and what is not law oug-ht not to be obeyed."—
Hampden.
"No man is by nature the property of another. The
rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can
justly be taken away."—Dr. Johnson.
" If you have the rig-ht to make another man a slave, he
has the rig-ht to make you a slave."—Dr. Price.
"It is injustice to permit slavery to remain a single
hour."—Pitt.
" American slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun;
it constitutes the sum of all villainies."—John Wesley.
"Man cannot have property in man. Slavery is a
nuisance, to be put down, not compromised with, and to be
assailed without cessation and without mercy, by every
blow that can be leveled at the monster."
" Ireland and Irishmen should be foremost in seeking to
effect the emancipation of mankind."
" The Americans alleg-ed that they had not perpetrated
the crime (that of enslaving- the blacks), but inherited it
from Bngland. This, however, fact as it was, was still a
paltry apology for America, who asserting liberty for herself,
still used the brand and the lash against others."—Daniel
O'Connell.
"In regard to a regulation of slavery, my detestation
of its existence induces me to know no such thing as a regula-
— 219 —
tion of robbery or a restriction of murder. Personal freedom is
a right of which he who deprives a fellow-creature is criminal
in so depriving- him, and he who withholds is no less crimi¬
nal in withholding-. "•—Charles James Fox.
"I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of
America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was found¬
ing a land of slavery."—LaFayette.
"I never mean, unless some particular circumstances
should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase,
it being- among- my first wishes to see some plan adopted by
which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.
'6 But there is only one proper and effectual mode by which
it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority,
and this, as far as my suffrage will g-o, shall never be want¬
ing-."—Washington.
"The abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object
of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced
in their infant state."—Jefferson.
"It is wrong- to admit into the Constitution the idea that
there can be property in man."—Madison.
"We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very
vitals of the Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States
in which it has existed."—Monroe.
" Is it not amazing- that at a time when the rights of
humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a
country above all others fond of liberty, that in such an ag-e
and in such a country, we find men professing- a relig-ion the
most mild, humane, gentle and generous adopting- such a
principle as repug-nant to humanity as it is inconsistent with
the Bible, and destructive to liberty? "—Patrick Henry.
"Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man
from the North who rises here to defend slavery on principle."
—John Randolph.
" The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged
for among- old parchments or musty records. They are writ¬
ten as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature
by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or
obscured by mortal power."—Alexander Hamilton.
" Little can be added to what has been said and written
on the subject of slavery. I concur in the opinion that it
ought not to be introduced or permitted in any of the new
States, and that it ought to be gradually diminished and
finally abolished in all of them."—John Jay.
"It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very
sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of
virtue and vice ; for what can be more false and more heartless
than this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights
— 220 —
of humanity depend upon the color of the skin?"—John
Quincy Adams.
Thus, sir, spoke some few of the great men of the past, and
the just principles by them proclaimed control and direct to¬
day all the civilized governments of Europe. Shall the
American government be less just than monarchical govern¬
ments ? Shall we alone cling to slavery and the dead past,
while all Christian nations are keeping step to the march of
human progress, and the demands of a higher civilization ?
Let us hope not, and so act and vote as to secure a realization
of that hope.
I am for the liberation, not only of all slaves in this
District, but wherever national jurisdiction extends and the
national Constitution confers the power. I am for it, because
I believe it an act of justice to white as well as black, to
master as well as slave; and, if no other reason could be
given, I am for it because, in the language of the distin¬
guished Senator from Massachusetts, "they are men by
the grace oe God, and this is enough." Free institutions
will gain strength everywhere by a decree of emancipation
at the national capital, while slave institutions will every¬
where be weakened. Such a triumph for the cause of free¬
dom as the passage of this act to-day, will be welcomed with
gratitude not only by the ransomed slave, but with joy by
the people everywhere in the loyal portions of our country.
In Europe it will be hailed by the friends of liberty and prog¬
ress as the dawning of a new era in the United States, and
it will make the line of demarcation at home more distinct
between the supporters and opponents of the government.
I rejoice that I am about to be permitted to record my
vote in favor of this humane and beneficent measure. It is a
day which, in common with millions of my countrymen, I
have long hoped to see; and if I never give another vote in
this House or elsewhere, I shall not have lived in vain,
especially if I have hastened, even a single hour, the adoption
by Congress of this act of national justice and national
liberation. I shall have the satisfaction of leaving the endur¬
ing record of an action of which my children cannot but be
proud, and of which no true man in any Christian nation
could be ashamed.
-221 —
It is said, if the slaves in this District are at once eman¬
cipated, that society and domestic regulations will be greatly
deranged; that peace, order, security, industry and content¬
ment will vanish, and violence, disorder, robbery, idleness and
crime will increase; that such an act can do no possible good,
while it would be unjust and a great hardship to both master
and slave. Such is not my view of this act, nor such, sir, as
I read it, the history of emancipation in the British or Danish
West Indies. Such, I am sure, will not be the result in this
District. Why, sir, with all the disabilities imposed upon
the colored population of this District by congressional enact¬
ments, municipal regulations, and blind prejudices — and
they are sufficient to weigh down and destroy the worthy and
energetic, and encourage the vicious and indolent — with all
these disabilities, without a parallel in any nation on earth,
our colored population here will compare, advantageously to
themselves, with the colored population of any city in the
free States. They have amassed property beyond belief.
Their church property alone, as I am informed, will exceed
in value one hundred thousand dollars. They are taxed
for the support of schools from which their children are ex¬
cluded, and maintain separate schools of their own. They
have societies for the support of their sick and disabled, and
never permit one of their number to be buried at public ex¬
pense. In thirty years not one of their number has been con¬
victed of a capital offense. As a body, they are industrious,
frugal, orderly, trustworthy and religious. Instead of an
increase, I venture to predict, as one of the results of this great
measure, a decrease in disorder, theft, idleness and crime; and
as an earnest that this prediction is not made without some
foundation, let me read to you the preamble and resolution
adopted the other day at a meeting of the colored ministers
and leading members of the several colored churches in this
city:
"Whereas we have learned by the published proceedings
of Congress that there is a probability of the peaceful and
final abolishment of slavery in the District of Columbia:
Therefore,
"Be it resolved, That we recommend to the churches
and congregations we represent that they set apart Sunday,
— 222 —
the 13th day of April, 1862, in connection with the usual
religious services, as a day of special prayer to Almighty
God, that if thi-s great boon of freedom is vouchsafed to our
people, we may receive it in a becoming manner, and by our
orderly behavior, our devotion to our Christian duties, our
obedience to the laws, we may show how worthy we are to
enjoy it; and that He would be pleased, in His own way and
in His own time, to proclaim liberty throughout all the land,
unto all the inhabitants thereof."
Need I say to this House and the country that the men
who could draft and adopt such a preamble and resolution
will receive their freedom with heartfelt joy, and not with
riotous and offensive demonstrations? Before the President
can sign this bill, they will have assembled in all their
churches to receive with prayer and thanksgiving to the
Almighty this ransom at your hands, and .tears of gratitude
will obliterate from their hearts the memory of many and
grievous wrongs they have suffered from this government
and their masters, and mingling with the echoing shouts oil
the sea and on the land, their voices will unite in gladness
with the generous hearts who everywhere will join the grand
anthem, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and
good-will to men."
Mr. Chairman, the bill which we are about to pass could
not have passed but for this pro-slavery rebellion. The sa¬
gacity and wisdom of many of our statesmen, who in vain
warned the nation that slavery and freedom could not forever
live together peaceably, is being practically demonstrated.
Jefferson and Jay, Franklin and the Adamses, Garrison and
Calhoun, have all warned the people of the impossibility of
long-continued peace with slavery. Speaking of the prob¬
able occurrence of a rupture between the North and the South,
some ten or twelve years ago, in the United States Senate,
John C. Calhoun said:
" The war will last between the two sections while there
is a slave in the South. The conflict will never terminate.
The South, I fear, will not see it until it is too late. They
will become more feeble every year, while the North will
grow stronger and stronger."
No longer ago than in 1858, in a speech at Springfield,
Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, now president of the United
— 223 —
States, made this prophetic declaration, which is passing
into history:
"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I be¬
lieve the government cannot endure half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect
the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be
divided. It will become all one thing- or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread
of it, and place it where the public mind will rest in the
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its
advocates will push it forward until it shall alike become law¬
ful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as
South."
How truly prophetic! To a man who comprehends that
slavery, and slavery alone, is the cause of this rebellion, the
duty of the government is plain. Such a man understands
that there can be no permanent or lasting peace until the
people of the free States are no longer responsible for the
existence and continuance of slavery, either at the national
capital, or in any territory or place where Congress has con¬
stitutional power to abolish it. Hence I rejoice at the intro¬
duction and certain passage of this timely measure. Others,
I doubt not, will soon follow, and the people, North and
South, will gradually array themselves on the side of free¬
dom or on the side of slavery. There is, and there can be,
but this one all-absorbing question in our national politics
until it is disposed of, and that will continue to be agitated
until the people "rest in the belief that it is in the course of
ultimate extinction." Until that time there can be but two
great parties in this nation. The great mass of a free peo¬
ple, in a government such as ours, must of necessity be
divided into two, and into but two, leading political parties;
and in the present, as in all coming contests on the question
of slavery, we can have but two formidable parties struggling
for the ascendency and control of the government. The one,
no matter what its name or designation, will be the represen¬
tative of nationality and freedom; the other, that of privi¬
lege and slavery. As to other parties, representing, or pro¬
fessing to represent, the various shades of political opinions
existing in the country, they cannot long continue, but must,
as the Whig, American, and other parties have, in all the
— 224 —
States, fade away before the advancing- parties representing-
the cherished sentiments of a pro-slavery privileg-ed class on
the one hand, and the aspirations of the people for liberty on
the other.
Individuals, however distinguished and worthy in all
their relations in private life, who fail to co-operate earnestly
with either the one or the other of the leading- parties repre¬
senting justice and freedom, or privileg-e and slavery, will
continue to disappear, as they have done, from public life,
and new and bolder leaders will be chosen by the people; for
no generous and noble people will ever knowingly trust
timid and time-serving leaders, understanding full well, as
they do, that in such a contest as the party of privilege and slav¬
ery have forced upon this nation by their treason and rebellion,
there can be but two armies and two battle-fields and two
banners, that of the stars and stripes, representing liberty
and union, or that of the serpent and pelican, representing
slavery and disunion. There can be no question as to the
position which the people occupy. Let us, then, pro¬
crastinate no long-er the hour which they have so long- in vain
looked for. Let the news g-o forth on the wings of the wind
that the national capital is ransomed from slavery, and it
shall nerve the arms of your soldiers, and strengthen the
hold of the government in the hearts of the people.
Mr. Chairman, the strug-g-les and hopes of many long- and
weary years are centered in this eventful hour. The cry of
the oppressed, "how long, O Lord, how long?" is to be
answered to-day by the American Congress. A sublime act
of justice is now to be recorded where it will never be obliter¬
ated, and, so far as the action of the representatives of the
people can decree it, the fitting words of the President, spoken
in his recent special message, " initiate and emancipate,"
shall have a life coequal with the Republic. God has set his
seal upon these priceless words, and they, with the memory
of him who uttered them, shall live in the hearts of the people
forever. The golden morn, so long and so anxiously looked for
by the friends of freedom in the United States, has dawned.
A second national jubilee will henceforth be added to our
calendar. The brave words heretofore uttered in behalf of
*—225 —
humanity in this Hall, like "bread cast upon the waters,'*
are now "to return after many days" and find vindication of
their purposes in a decree of freedom. The command of God
to let the oppressed go free, is declared to be our duty, not
only by our patriotic President, but by both branches of our
national Congress; and let us hope that from this time hence¬
forth and forever, this nation is never again to be humil¬
iated and disgraced by being responsible for the existence and
continuance of human slavery. No longer within our national
jurisdiction, where Congress has constitutional power to pro¬
hibit it, shall slavery be tolerated. The nation is to-day
entering upon a policy which cannot be reversed; and justice
is vindicated, humanity recognized, and God obeyed. In the
words of Mrs. Howe's patriotic anthem:
*' He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call
retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment
seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, my feet 1
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on."
SPEECH
OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO,
In the; House; of Representatives, May 8, 1862.
on the government of the territory of arizona.
The bill (H. R. No. 357) to provide a temporary gov¬
ernment for the Territory of Arizona being- under considera¬
tion, Mr. Asheey addressed the House as follows:
Mr. Speaker. "When this bill came up, two or three
weeks since, for the consideration of the House, I stated in
my place that I did not desire to have it put upon its passage
then," if any member wished to discuss it. No gentleman
rising at that time, I demanded the previous question on the
third reading. I did so at the suggestion of a gentleman at
my side, a better parliamentarian than I profess to be-. And
when I declined to yield to my colleague on the committee
[ Mr. "Wheeler ], it was in consequence of a misunderstand¬
ing. I was told that if I yielded, as the morning hour would
expire in three minutes, I would lose control of the bill. I
Letter from Hon. B. K. Bruce, LL. D., Washington, D. C.
The records show that Mr. Ashley introduced the bill for the or¬
ganization of the Territory of Arizona. There was some opposition
to the bill, as his speech discloses. But Mr. Ashley was anxious
for the passage of the bill, for the reasons which he states, and also
because he desired Congress, in the face of a great war, to treat with
the contempt which it deserved, the pro-slavery declaration of the
e. k. bruce. Supreme! Court, touching the right of Congress to prohibit slavery
in national territories. This was practical legislation in favor of freedom. Mr. Ashley
aided during his congressional life in securing by law the prohibition of slavery in
the Territories ; the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and the passage
of the Thirteenth Amendment. This is a historic record which time cannot obscure
or change. ^• K* Bruce.
(226)
— 227 —
therefore declined to yield, not from a desire to cut off my
colleague, for I understood then, as I do now, that ordering
the main question on the third reading left debate open, but
prohibited amendments, which I desired to do. I think this
explanation due to the House and to my colleague on the
committee.
Mr. Speaker, the strange spectacle is presented to-day in
this House, of a people who have no protection from this
government asking it through their Representative, and, if
the motion to postpone prevails, of its being practically
refused, by the very men, who, of all others, are pledged to the
protection of the citizens who emigrate to the Territories of
the United States. For the first time, I believe, in the
history of our legislation, have the people of a Territory
asked that a portion of such Territory which, from physical
disabilities, they were not able to protect, should be taken off,
and organized into a separate government. I do not intend
to take up the time of the House in discussing our duty to
resident citizens who have gone there. Shame and disgrace
attach to a nation that is incapable, or which neglects or
refuses to protect its citizens. Citizens from my own State,
and of my own acquaintance, have gone into this Territory
with the positive assurances of the late Administration that
they would be protected, who have not only sacrificed all their
wealth invested there, but many of them have lost their lives.
For the first time in the history of our government have the
white settlers in the Territory been driven from their homes,
leaving their property, to the amount of millions, at the
mercy and control of savage Indians. I knew but little of that
Territory, except as I gathered it from friends who had gone
there, and from gentlemen who had called on me* to urge the
necessity of establishing a territorial government there.
Not on my motion, sir, was a bill first introduced here for the
organization of this Territory. On the 24th of December
last, the delegate who represents that people, who is sup¬
posed to know their wants quite as well as gentlemen resid¬
ing thousands of miles away, introduced a bill for that pur¬
pose. It was drawn up in the usual phraseology, and con¬
tained forty or fifty sections. But I preferred to have
a short bill, something like the old bills organizing govern-
— 228 —
ments under Jefferson's administration, such as the bill
organizing- Ohio. I therefore reported this bill, which has but
three sections, and contains the Jeffersonian proviso, without
•which I could not consent to the organization of this Terri¬
tory. I therefore declined to yield to my colleague [Mr. Cox]
to move to strike it out, for if it is organized by this Congress
it must be free.
I did not report this bill without having satisfied myself
that the people of this Territory had sufficient population to
entitle them to a territorial government. I will state, for the
information of the House, some facts in connection with the
history of the population of other Territories at the time of
their organization. The Territory of Indiana was organized
on the 7th of May, 1800, with a white population of 4,517.
The Territory of Mississippi was organized on the 10th day
of May, 1800, with a white population of 5,170. The Terri¬
tory of Michigan was organized on the 11th of January, 1805,
with a population of 4,818. The Territory of Illinois was
organized on the 11th of February, 1809, having been detached
from the Territory of Indiana, and it had a population of
11,501. The Territory of Minnesota was organized on the
3d day of March, 1849, with a population of 6,038. The
Territory of Washington was organized on the 2d of March,
1853, having been detached from the Territory of Oregon.
There is no statistical information giving the exact number
of inhabitants of that Territory at the time of its organiza¬
tion; but I have consulted the delegate from ;he Territory-
of "Washington, who was then and is now resident of that
Territory, who thinks that its population could not have ex¬
ceeded 2,000 or 2,500. At all events, after a territorial
organization of nearly ten years, its population at the census
in 1860 was only 11,578.
The Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, as gentlemen
are aware, were organized on the 30th of May, 1354, when
there was not a resident white inhabitant in either of
them, by authority of law. Those who were there were in¬
truders, in contravention of a law excluding every white man
from the Territory who was not connected with the Indian
agencies. The Territory of Nevada was organized on the
2d of March, 1861, when it had a population of 6,857. It
— 229 —
was detached from the Territory of Utah, over which there
was at that time a territorial" government, as there is to-day
a government of form merely over the people of Arizona,
who ask for this territorial government. The delegate from
Nevada informed me to-day that the recent census, taken
some six months only after the organization, shows a popu¬
lation of 17,000 souls, with two daily newspapers in the Terri¬
tory; proving that that organization which secures life and
property, and which gives civil protection, had brought these
people to the Territory, where, with the teeming wealth that
everybody knows exists there, they will have within a year a
population greater than that of the State of Oregon. On the
2d of March, 1861, the Territory of Dakota was organized
with a population of 4,839. The Territory of Arizona, as
proposed to be organized, has in that part of it alone which
is called Arizona county, 6,466 white inhabitants, 21 colored,
and 4,040 civilized Indians, who live in their homes and till
the soil. The Census Bureau have no official returns from
the remaining part of the country proposed to be included in
the limits of the new Territory.
Now, Mr. Speaker, this is the position of that Territory
to-day. It is said, and I suppose with some truth, that a
large portion of this population has been driven out. But my
information from the Territory and from General Heintzelman,
who called upon me, and who was there for a number of
3^ears, and built Fort Yuma, is, that those people are driven
into the State of Sonora, and that the moment the Indians
and the secessionists, who have control of the Territory,
retire, they will go back to their homes and resume their
claims on the mines. General Heintzelman said to me, in a
conversation I had with him about the importance and neces¬
sity of organizing a government for this Territory, that, had
it been organized five years ago, it would have contained to¬
day from fifty to seventy-five thousand population, who have
been in the Territory, and failed to remain there because of
the insecurity of person and property. That is the statement
of a man who was there as a military officer of the United
States.
Now, sir, let us see what has been the opinion of men
who have had this subject-matter under consideration before
— 230 —
it came into my hands. Let us see tlie importance attached
to the organization of this Territory by men who have been
regarded as statesmen. Senator Gwin, of California, intro¬
duced a bill for the organization of this Territory as early as
the 17th December, 1857. Senator Douglas, who was then
chairman of the Committee on Territories, reported back a
bill to the Senate, and recommended its passage. So long
agoj then, as 1857, it was thought to be not only the duty of
the government, but to be expedient and proper, by the
gentlemen having charge of this matter, that a territorial
government should be organized for that Territory. On the
4th of February, 1859, Senator Green, of Missouri, intro¬
duced a bill for the organization of Dakota and Arizona, he
being then a member of the Committee on Territories.
Jefferson Davis, a Senator at that time from the State of
Mississippi, introduced a bill for the organization of the
Territory of Arizuma, which was referred to the Committee
on Territories, and Mr. Green, then chairman of the com¬
mittee, reported back substantially this same bill, with the
recommendation that it pass.
This Territory has elected three delegates, at three
separate and distinct elections, and sent them here to claim
seats in this House, asking that the Territory be organized,
and the protection due from the government to the people
there be extended to them.
Now, I undertake to say here in my place, that if a terri¬
torial government had been organized in that Territory, and
proper protection extended, the mines which are undeveloped
in that region, and which are richer than those of Colorado,
would have called to it a larger population to-day than now
exists either in the Territory of Colorado or the Territory of
Nevada. But for the lack of proper protection it was in¬
capable of sustaining and defending itself against the horde
of Indians who make their inroads there, and the small band
of secessionists who have been able, by conspiring with
those Indians, to drive out the loyal Union men who here to¬
day ask your protection. These, sir, are facts which no
gentleman of this House, here or elsewhere, can gainsay.
Now, sir, I ask the attention of the House to this map
[unrolling a map of the proposed and surrounding Territories}
— 231—
which will show what an immense Territory this is, and the
boundary with which it is proposed to be organized. Here
is the Territory of New Mexico, nearly a thousand miles in
length from the eastern to the western boundary. It is pro¬
posed to constitute this Territory by running- a line from the
southwestern boundary of Colorado, as is shown by this line,
making- a Territory larger than Nevada, larg-er than Colorado,
larger than Utah, larger than the State of New York, and
larger than any other State in the Union except Texas.
Now, that territorial organization will secure the largest
proportion of emigration which now goes into California by
the great southern mail route. That is the testimony of
General Heintzelman; and from the location of Fort Yuma,
built by him, that and a fort at or near Calabagas, properly
garrisoned, will afford all the protection that will be needed
for the Territory and the government now proposed to be
organized.
Now, I do not propose, as I said in the outset, to take up
the time of the House in the discussion of the importance
and necessity of this measure. The honorable member from
New Mexico, in the able and eloquent speech to which the
House have just listened, has left no part of the ground
unexplained, which I intended to occupy when I yielded the
floor that it might be awarded to him, and I could not if 1
would add anything on the point he has so clearly presented,
and with which from a residence of many years in that
Territory he must be so familiar.
The band of secessionists now having control of. this
Territory must be driven out of it, and there is no way by
which this can be done so easily, and the Territory so effec¬
tually secured to the Union, as by giving it a territorial
organization; such an organization as is asked for by the
people who live there; such an organization as will afford it
local protection. Why, sir, I have been informed by a gentle¬
man in whose integrity I confide to the utmost, that for more
than three years no court has been held in that entire Terri¬
tory; that murders of our citizens have been perpetrated with
impunity, not only by savages, but by the very men who are
sow in rebellion against the government, and assume to
— 232 —
govern the Territory in the name of Jefferson Davis and the
so-called southern confederacy.
That this Territory must be wrested from its present
occupants, all admit. It is in the possession of a small but
desperate band of outlaws and marauders, who were driven
from Kansas and the other frontier States of the South and
West. They have been enabled by conspiring- with the
savages, to drive out and despoil all the Union citizens, many
of whom are to-day in the State of Sonora, Mexico, anxiously
awaiting- the time when the g-overnment shall again assert
its just authority over the Territory, and afford them that
protection to which they are entitled, in order that they may
return to their homes.
I hope that the members of this House will not allow the
appeal of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Wheeler], on
the score of economy, to prevent them from discharging
their solemn duty to our citizens. But I undertake to say
that, in an economical point of view alone, it is the cheapest,
best, and most effectual way of saving that Territory to us,
and of protecting our citizens.
Why, sir, no longer than a few days ago, when you were
discussing the tax bill, my friend from Indiana [Mr. Dunn]
offered an amendment that this government should send out
laborers to dig in the mines, to enable us to obtain the
precious metals required to aid in carrying on this govern¬
ment. I undertake to say that if this Territory is organized
at this time, in six months from its inauguration and the
suppression of the rebellion there will be a population there
larger than that of Nevada, because the mines are richer and
emigrants may reach there by water communication. And
I not only say there will be a population there larger than
Nevada, but that the wealth produced will repay, a hundred
fold, the expense whicli will be necessarily incurred, whether
we organize the Territory or not, in its recapture from the
men who now hold and occupy it. I ask you to look at the
Territory of Colorado, which is not as rich in minerals as
Arizona. A year or two ago there were scarcely a thousand
American citizens there. To-day there is a population of
forty-odd thousand, and in a year from this time Colorado wijl
have a population greater than that of the State of Oregon.
— 233 —
The same may be said of Nevada. And do you tell me, then,
that this Territory, which is admitted by all men who have
traveled over it, or who have resided in it, to surpass all the
other Territories in mineral wealth, will not have a larger
population in the same length of time from its organization,
when its population has run up to six or seven thousand under
all its disadvantages.
But in addition to this, I desire to say that there rests,
upon the majority of this House a solemn obligation to pass
this bill, and to pass it substantially as we have reported it;
to pass it prohibiting slavery in the Territory, as it is their
duty to dedicate all our National Territories to freedom. At
the request of the delegate from New Mexico, I have con¬
sented to amend the bill by striking out Washington and
inserting New Mexico, and to make one other amendment
striking out all that part of the bill which relates to other
Territories, and permit the prohibition of slavery to extend
only to the Territory now proposed to be organized. I have
done so because it has been represented to me by several
members on this side of the House, for whose opinions I have
great respect, that the general provision proposed on the sub¬
ject of slavery in other Territories should be made in another
bill. My colleague on the committee from Illinois [Mr.
Lovejoy] has in his charge, by direction of the committee,
the bill introduced into the House some time ago by Honor¬
able Mr. Arnold, of Illinois, and which contains substantially
the same provision touching the question of slavery in the
other Territories. I have, therefore, consented to have the
prohibition for other Territories omitted in the Arizona bill.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have given to the House the facts in
relation to this matter. How much wealth has been carried
into Arizona that is utterly and forever lost, unless this
House now organizes this Territory, I cannot say, but the
amount must be large. The citizens of Ohio alone have
more than a million of dollars invested there, and the citizens
of other States have invested large amounts.
Mr. Gurley. I wish to state to the House that I see a
gentleman in the gallery who has spent $50,000 of his own
money in opening mines in Arizona, who was driven away
— 234 —
by the Indians; and if the government would only afford him
and his associates, and others who may desire to go to that
Territory protection, they will in return give us millions
upon millions of dollars in silver. Gold has become so com¬
mon now that we do not care much about it. Legal tender is
as good as gold, and a little better, by our law. [Laughter.]
But this Territory is peculiarly rich in silver. As my col¬
league [Mr. Ashley] and as I have learned from my constit¬
uents who have gone there, I believe that $50,000,000 per
annum would in a short time, say a few years, be extracted
from the mines of that Territory in silver, if you will only
protect the miners, so that they need not be compelled to
work, holding the rifle in one hand, and the pick in the other,
as they have hitherto been compelled to do.
I wish to say that my attention has been called to this
subject from the fact that I have many constituents who have
been out there, and engaged in mining. Several prominent
gentlemen from Cincinnati have lost their lives in that Terri¬
tory. For myself, I have nary gold mine nor silver mine in
the Territory.
Mr. Ashley. Mr. Speaker, so far as I am concerned,
the amount of earthly treasure which I have laid up in this
world is very small; I trust that, in the other, it will be pro¬
portionately large. I, too, have no gold or silver mine in
Arizona. I have friends there, however, who have invested
large amounts in that Territory, and who will sacrifice all if
the present condition of affairs should continue. I have had
friends there whose lives have been sacrificed. I have con¬
ferred with gentlemen who have lived years in that Territory,
who state — and their statement is confirmed by General
Heintzelman — that whenever it is organized, from $50,000,000
to $75,000,000 may be exported annually in the precious
metals. But aside from that consideration, the citizens of
the United States who have gone there have the right to
protection.
As I was saying, when interrupted by my colleague, the
first and highest duty of this government is to protect its
citizens. Yet, sir, the strange spectacle is presented of oppo¬
sition to this bill by members on this side of the House, who,
— 235 —
with an inconsistency of principle wholly incomprehensible,
propose that its further consideration shall be postponed
until December next. Do not gentlemen know that if they
postpone this matter until December next, it will be late in
the summer or fall of next year before a government can be
organized which will secure for these people the protection
they now demand? It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that we fail
fully to comprehend the wants and necessities of this perilous
hour for the country. Men are so accustomed to run in
grooves that even revolutions fail to lift a majority of those
whom we have been accustomed to call leaders to the level
plane of passing events. History informs us that most of
those who have been regarded in times past as great states¬
men and military heroes have fallen victims to their inability
to rise to the level of the revolutionary plane. Unable to
meet and overcome the exigencies of the hour, they have
folded their arms, and, like Napoleon before Moscow, faltered,
hesitated, and were lost. Well and truly has the poet said
that—
44 Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side."
Mr. Speaker, I do not by any means believe that the
members of the House are indifferent to the great issues
involved in this rebellion; indeed I know of the anxiety and
solicitude of many of its most distinguished and patriotic
members. But I do think, sir, that we fail to appreciate in
all its terrible reality the importance and grandeur of the
era in which Providence has cast our lot. We fail to realize
that we are living in a time when the Republic of our
fathers, in which are centered the hopes and aspirations of
millions, is to be saved or lost. The march of events is so
swift and irresistible, that we become dizz}r in contemplating
it, and do not remember that we are forever and forever being
pressed forward. We seem to forget that we are to preserve
constitutional liberty and American civilization, or permit
them to go out in the night of barbarism and slavery. I
appeal to all those who have not forgotten when, recently,
— 236 —
tliis capital was beleaguered by the defiant hordes of treason,,
and who have not forgotten all of the exciting- and terrible
events which have transpired within the past year; I appeal
to all those who then saw, and still see, the dangers which
beset this government and its people, whether they are not
solicitous for the future.
Sir, I do not believe there is a member in this House,
unless he be an accomplice in the treason which is seeking
the nation's life, who is not anxious that victory shall crown
our arms, and that there shall be a speedy restoration of the
Union. But as a body, we hesitate and are divided in action.
Five long and weary months of this session have passed, in
which we should have had action, prompt, efficient action,
against the rebels, and ,yet we sit deliberating. We have
done but little aside from voting men and money to aid in the
speedy suppression of this rebellion. No concert or unity
of purpose has thus far marked our legislation. The nation,
in breathless suspense, is awaiting the moment when some
practical measure of relief shall be proposed and - adopted.
All the people ask is competent and efficient leadership, and
millions of money and myriads of men are at our disposal.
With impunity have traitors remained in our army, in our
navy, and in almost every department of the government.
We have done more, far more —I regret to say it — to encour¬
age treason than to terrify traitors, by our inaction and our
divisions.
Mr. Wickuffe. I do not know whether I understood
the gentleman in a remark which he has just made, and
therefore I rise to ask him a question. Are we to understand
him assaying that there are-traitors still remaining in the
army and navy, and in every department of the government?
Mr. Ashley. Yes, sir; I made that statement.
Mr. Wickuffe. In God's name, then, let us know who
they are.
Mr. Ashley. I give that as my opinion, based on facts
which are within the reach of every member of this House. I
believe that there still remain in all the departments of this
government men who, at heart, are traitors to it. I knosv
that to be the opinion of a majority of the members of the
— 237 —
select committee on the conduct of the war, and of the Potter
committee. The members of both these committees with
whom I have conversed are well satisfied that there are many
now in office under this government who sympathize with
those who are to-day seeking- the nation's life, and yet we
remain apparently indifferent and divided.
Sir, we spend weeks in discussing- a tax bill, which mig"ht
without much impropriety be called a bill to confiscate the
property of loyal citizens, while we refuse, persistently refuse,
to touch the property of rebels in arms against the govern¬
ment. We prefer to fall back upon musty precedents, and thus
attempt to divert the will of the nation from its purposes by
discussing- learned absurdities and constitutional technicali¬
ties, rather than g-rapple as practical men with the cause of
the rebellion. Treachery and treason stalk before us on all
sides and defy us. We are told, not only by traitors but by
some who profess to be our friends, that we have no constitu¬
tional power to confiscate the property of rebels in arms
against the government; that we have no constitutional
power to remove the cause and admitted support of the rebel¬
lion and thus make a like rebellion from the same cause for¬
ever impossible hereafter. Thus, amid this diversity of
opinion, we are divided in council and rendered powerless in
action, and are drifting- as a nation no one knows whither.
Instead of directing- the public mind, as statesmen should
do, by playing the politician we divide and distract it. Now,
sir —
The; Speaker. The gentleman must confine his remarks
to the subject under discussion. The motion is to postpone.
Mr. Ashley. In my judgment, in the remarks which I
am submitting, I am not out of order; and if the Chair had
waited to see the application which I propose to make of them,
he would not, I am sure, have decided me out of order.
However, if that be the decision of the Chair, I will not further
continue them.
The Speaker. The chair cannot see what relevancy
the confiscation of the property of rebels has to the pending
question.
Mr. Ashley. Papers and resolutions are often presented
at the Clerk's desk to be read for the action of the House,
— 238 —
and questions of order are not unfrequently raised upon them.
The Chair usually delays a decision until they are read, to
ascertain their contents and relevancy, and in this instance I
do not see why he should have departed from his usual course..
I certainly do not intend to make any remarks which are out
of order, and perhaps this allusion which I make to confisca¬
tion and our divisions on other subjects is not relevant; but I
propose to make, with your consent, an application of these
remarks, and you and the House may then judge whether
they are pertinent to the pending- proposition or not.
Now, Mr. Speaker, when interrupted, I was saying- that
we had failed utterly to do anything- effective in behalf of the
country at this session, if I except the act emancipating*
the slaves in this District, and the passage by this House of
the homestead bill and Pacific railroad. We not only have
permitted ourselves to be divided in council; we have not
only failed to grapple vigorously with the cause of this rebel¬
lion, as statesmen and practical men, but, by playing the
politician, we have divided the people at home. To-day we
yield to the supercilious demands and pocket the insult of a
foreign government, and to-morrow grow jubilant over a
victory which means nothing. To-day we declare the back¬
bone of this rebellion broken, and to-morrow a reverse de¬
stroys this faith, and we grow as skeptical as before; but
whether rejoicing in victory or mourning in defeat, we are
constantly assured by the friends and apologists of slavery
that we must not pass any law which will touch this question.
We are assured by gentlemen that if we are only patriotic —
if we are only patient, conciliatory and magnanimous —
our erring Southern brethren will soon return and sin no
more, which simply means, as I interpret it, that they will
return to the Union when we give them all that they ask, and
more than they ever asked before the rebellion. Thus, day
by day, week by week, and month by month, for a whole
year, has this panorama of victories and defeats been passing
in view before our eyes; and yet we remain undecided, and
"sit here deliberating in cold debate," without unity of
purpose or harmony of action. This bill imposes a just
punishment upon slavery, which has brought about this
— 239 —
rebellion. It puts it under the ban of the national govern¬
ment, and gives an earnest of our purpose, by declaring that
slavery and involuntary servitude shall cease in this Terri¬
tory forever.
Sir, the motion to postpone this bill practically secures
a direct vote upon it. The defeat of this motion, and the
prompt organization of this Territory, I regard as very im¬
portant. Its passage will secure not only the approbation of
the great majority of the loyal people of this country, but it
will secure the approbation of the liberal people of every
government in Europe. It will place the National Government
where every earnest man in this House desires it to be placed
— on the side of freedom.
Sir, this indifference, this division of sentiment, to which
I have felt it to be my duty to allude, sits like an incubus
upon many, and they seem powerless to dispel it. Many who
should be with us in action, as they profess to be in sentiment,
unfortunately are encouraging others to vote against this
bill, who otherwise would sustain it. If this bill fails — this
national proclamation, as it may properly be called, of free¬
dom— it will fail by the votes of its professed friends, upon
the pretext that it will cost the nation thirty or fourty thou¬
sand dollars annually. If it does fail, I ask every member
upon this side of the House, I ask every member in this Hall,
if we will not justly be charged with abandoning that cause
which sent a majority of Republicans into this Hall, and
which intrusted the present national Republican Administra¬
tion with the control of the government.
Sir, I trust the motion will fail, and that before this
House adjourns, or before the two days set apart for terri¬
torial business shall have passed, this bill, so far as the action
of the Representatives of the people can decree it, will have
become the law of the land. If the bill fails, and this great
opportunity be lost, and it should so happen at the next ses¬
sion that yott cannot pass it, certainly those who so vote
will incur a terrible responsibility, and of all men will be
most guilty.
Sir. I repeat that I hope the motion to postpone will fail.
MR. ASHLEY'S LETTER ON PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
FROM THE TOLEDO COMMERCIAL.
We publish this morning- a letter from Mr. Ashley to
his constituents, congratulating- them on the final triumph of
the great cause of human freedom, of which he has been for
many years the effective and untiring- advocate. The letter
will be found vig-orous and forcible in style, and pervaded by a
hopeful spirit.
Mr. Ashley presents an incontrovertible .arg-ument in
favor of the constitutionality of the President's proclamation,
which we trust our friends may read carefully. We call
special attention to the exposition of the political history of
our State during- the past two years, the results which fol¬
lowed, and the lesson which it teaches. Want of space
forbids, at this time, further notice.
Letter from Bishop Benjamin F. Lee, D. D., Waco, Texas.
As soon as Mr. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was
published, Mr. Ashley at once wrote the following1 happy
letter endorsing' and defending' the President's great act, and
congratulating his constituents on the certain triumph of the
army and the cause of tlie slave. The promptness with
which this letter was written, the forcible and vig'orous style
which pervades it, all tell that the head and heart of its
author was for our liberation. The joy Mr. Ashley ex¬
presses,the hopeful spirit in which he wrote, and the prophecy
he then made, we all know have been in alarg-e part fulfilled.
Benjamin F. Lee.
(240)
rX.\TA5i:\ F. LEE.
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND
THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM.
Washington City, D. C., January 1st, 1863.
Editor Commercial : The last of the hundred days' res¬
pite given to slavery expired with the dying- .year, and this
glorious morning ushers in a new epoch in our history.
The die is cast. To-day the Rubicon was crossed, and the
nation, thanks to the persistent demands of her earnest sons,
is at last irrevocably committed to the policy of universal
emancipation.
The proclamation of the President, which will reach you
on the wings of the lightning while I am writing, will meet
with a welcome response from all unconditionally loyal men,
and will sink deep into the hearts of the slaves who have long
prayed for the deliverance it will bring. The execution of
this decree of freedom may be impeded by faction and delayed
by adverse majorities here and there, but it cannot fail,
because it is the sentiment of the people, and the nation is
pledged to its fulfillment before the world. Its execution will
require time, fortitude, and patience. A comprehensive
statesmanship must guide, and the active co-operation of all
loyal men will be necessary to direct, in safety, the change of
a vast industrial system, and the sudden transition of four
millions from slavery to freedom.
Let us have faith that this grand purpose will be success¬
fully accomplished, and that from this day will date the
dawning of a new era in the United States in favor of free¬
dom and constitutional government. I may be over sanguine
in my hopes of the future, but it seems to me as if the hour
has struck when the Union contemplated by our fathers is
about to be realized. To me it appears that the present will
be a year ever memorable in the history of the republic and
the world, a year in which the enfranchised millions of the
16 (241)
— 242 —
United States can stretch forth their glad hands to the en¬
franchised millions of Russia, and thank God that the estab¬
lishment of justice in the administration of these two great
governments has made the chattelizing of men hereafter
within all their borders forever impossible, and paved the
way for breaking- the bondage of men among1 all the nations
of earth. The hue and cry that will be raised by the rebels
in the South and their sympathizers in the North will be that
this proclamation of the President is unconstitutional.
There are many men who will unblushingly denounce this
act as unconstitutional, who never read the Constitution, and
wh*o, if they should read it, could not understand it. This
pretended reverence for the Constitution comes with an ill
grace from the men and the party that have never scrupled
to disregard it, or to violate any compact, however sacred,
which stood in the way of the demands of the slaveholding
rebels.
Article 1st, section 8th, of the Constitution provide
that
"The Congress shall have power
"To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal,
and make rules concerning captures on land and water.
" To provide and maintain a navy.
"To make rules for the government and regulation of
the land and naval forces.
"To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the
laws of the Union,.suppress insurrection and repel invasions.
" To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining
the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be
employed in the service of the United States."
These express grants of power are ample for all purposes
of war. When Congress shall declare war or recognize the
existence of war, all rules applicable to a state of war at once
govern every movement of the army. These laws are well
established among the civilized nations of the world.
If a rebel must first be convicted by "due process op
law," in a court of law, then no war, either offensive or
defensive, can be carried on. Under such interpretation of
the Constitution not a gun could be fired, because it might
■ kill a rebel "without due process of law," and killing men
without judge or jury not being regarded as "due process
— 243 —
of law," within the meaning-of that term, as employed in the
Constitution, it follows, according- to rebel logic, that all war
on the part of the United States, against them, is unconsti¬
tutional. But these rebel sympathizers will hardly assume
now that they have a de facto government, that the govern¬
ment of the United States has no right to order the killing
of a rebel in battle, under the laws of war. They will con¬
cede that a rebel life may be taken constitutionally in battle,
that his property may be taken for the subsistence of the
army, that his horses, his cattle, anything but his slave, may
be justly and constitutionally taken. But the President and
his supporters are unscrupulously denounced as violators of
the Constitution, because of this proclamation. I need not
d&ny such an idiotic charge. In common with the loyal people
of the United States, I revere the Constitution of my country,
and hold it to be the supreme law of the land. I regard it as
the most sacred heritage of our fathers, a charter of
national liberty, which honestly interpreted, needs no amend¬
ment, and contains within itself every provision that under
all possible exigencies are necessary to preserve it, and
perpetuate the government and nation which it created. I
would not evade or violate this Constitution. The people
are in arms to maintain it, and they will maintain it.
Slavery, and every enemy of the Constitution, must fall, but
the Constitution and the Union must be preserved. I have
believed from the first, as my constituents well know, that
slavery must die before this rebellion could end. I have
believed from the first that the petty stratagems of so-called
statesmen, generals and doughface editors who feared, as
well as those who worshiped slavery, while they might post¬
pone, could not prevent it.
If it be true then, as even Honorable Robert J. Walker,
of Mississippi, now concedes, "that slavery must die in
order that the Constitution may live," he is an enemy of
the Constitution who will not aid the overthrow of that
power which is seeking the nation's life. Let it not be said
by any pro-slavery rebel sympathizer in the North, that we
cannot destroy slavery without destroying the Constitution.
That great charter of our liberties contains no provision, as
— 244 —
I interpret it, perpetually binding upon the nation the curse
of human slavery. It contains no provisions securing- im¬
munity to traitors. No enemy of the government has any
guaranteed rights under the Constitution, except those which
are secured to him by the laws of war. Instead of attempt¬
ing the destruction of slavery in violation of the Constitu¬
tion, or by evading any of its requirements, I believe it can
be destroyed, as can every enemy of the government, within
the Constitution, and by express provisions of the Constitu¬
tion. Whatever restrictions the Constitution may impose
upon loyal citizens, I am sure it nowhere contains a guaran¬
tee for traitors, either in person or property. By the express
provision of the Constitution, which I have quoted, the
President, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and
Navy of the United States, has authority under the war
power to issue his emancipation proclamation. On this
point the President thus speaks:
"Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United
States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority
and government of the United States, and as a fit and neces¬
sary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this
1st day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my
purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of
one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order,
and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the
people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against
the United States the following, to wit:
"And by virtue of the power and for the purpose afore¬
said, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves
within said designated States, and parts of States, are and
henceforward shall be free, and that the executive govern¬
ment of the United States, including the military and naval
authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom
of said persons.
"And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be
free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-
defense, and I recommend to them that, in all cases when
allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
— 245 —
"And I therefore declare and make known, that such per¬
sons, of suitable conditions, will be received into the armed
service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, sta¬
tions, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said
service.
"And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of
justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military neces¬
sity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the
gracious favor of Almighty God."
No man can read this proclamation of the President
without a thrill of patriotic pride, and they who possess the
consciousness, as I do, of having labored from the first to
secure the results which it ultimately promises, a perpetual
union of "these States, with harmonious institutions, based
upon freedom instead of slavery, will feel a satisfaction
which words are too feeble to express.
Let all remember that we should not have had this
glorious proclamation to-day had the earnest men of this
country remained silent and criminally indifferent to this
great movement, as did political fossils, compromisers, and
the men in the North who did not believe in God or man.
Such men joined hands with this class in almost every Re¬
publican county in our State, and did not scruple to apologize
for the rebels, and defend the rightfulness of human slavery.
This unnatural coalition, called a " Union for the sake of the
Union " party, made by pro-slavery men and timid men in and
out of the Republican party, was made for the most part for
the sake of the spoils of office in Republican States and
counties, where the opposition were in a hopeless minority.
They refused to do this in pro-slavery States and counties
where they had undoubted majorities.
But in Republican States and counties they were clamor¬
ous for the "Union for the sake of the Union" movement.
You will remember how boldly the most notorious pro-
slavery men, in every Republican county in our District,
rushed into the "Union for the sake of the Union" conven¬
tions, took the front seats without a scruple and demanded
the best offices without a blush. This coalition throughout
the State enabled the friends of slavery to break down the
Republican party, and inaugurate, in its stead, this so-called
— 246 —
''Union movement" upon the Crittenden platform, thus se¬
curing- the great States of Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania
and Illinois, in the late elections, to the political opponents of
Mr. Lincoln's administration. Wherever the Republican
organization was maintained in its integrity, the administra¬
tion was handsomely sustained. Witness our overwhelming-
triumphs in Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, Minnesota and
Kansas. I need not tell you how earnestly I labored to pre¬
vent this fatal step in Ohio. When I first learned that such
a movement was on foot in May or June, 1861, I went to
Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, and other places
of lesser note, and protested ag-ainst it.
After coming to Washington, at the extra session, I sub¬
mitted to the Republican members of Congress the draft of
a call for a State convention, which I had left with the State
Central Committee, and every member of Congress from
Ohio with but one exception, signed it, as a suggestion
embodying their views on the subject, and I sent that to the
State Committee at Columbus, but they disregarded all such
suggestions, and made the unfortunate call they did for our
State Convention, and, as was predicted, have succeeded in
aiding the opposition in this State to secure fourteen of the
nineteen members of the next Congress to the Vallandig"-
ham Democracy. With the State Government at Columbus
ostensibly in our possession, these tricksters and trimmers
have increased the majority against us in Franklin county
more than double. Are not our friends satisfied by this
time, that this "Union for the sake of the Union" appeal is
a political dodge on the part of the most transparent of
political adventurers? If they are not, let them try it again.
From the first, I have been and am now in favor of a union of
all earnest men, upon principle, to put down this rebellion,
but not such a union as was secured by a coalition with pro-
slavery men upon the Crittenden resolutions, for, as every
man knows, those resolutions were a cheat and a sham, and
I g"lory in the fact that I spat upon and repudiated them in
my last canvass. Let us return to our principles and re¬
organize the only true Union party, the Republican party,
the only party that has been true to freedom, the only party
— 247 —
that during all this terrible conflict has had no traitor or
rebel sympathizer in its ranks.
The battle is to be waged from this time henceforward,
not only against the rebels, but also against the cause and
support of the rebellion. There can be but two parties in
the North, the party of freedom and the party of slavery.
The party of freedom will be, as it ever has been, for the
Union, the party of slavery will be as it ever has been, for all
compromises demanded by their old political allies, the rebels.
In this great contest, then, there can be but two sides, and
he who is not for "Liberty and Union," must be against
"Liberty and Union." The battle may be long and rage
fiercely, but fr* >m this day dates our victory.
4'"Wake, watcher, see the mountain peaks
Already catch a golden ray,
Light on the far horizon speaks
The dawning of a glorious day."
" Hard-fought and long the strife may be,
The powers of wrong be slow to yield,
But right shall gain the victory,
And freedom hold the battle-field."
J. M. Ashley.
PATRIOTIC ADDRESS OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY,
at the great union war meeting of northwestern
ohio, at white's hall, toledo, march 18, 1863.
Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I regret
that more speakers from abroad are not present, to entertain
and instruct you. I hoped it would only be necessary for me
to approve in a few words this movement, and that we should
all have the pleasure of listening1 exclusively to distinguished
speakers from abroad. The saying- of Christ, when teaching*
in a synagogue of Galilee, that "a prophet is not with¬
out honor save in his own country, and among his own
kin and in His own house," is as apposite to this occasion,
as that on which it was first uttered. I spoke at the depot
to-day, and will therefore detain you but a short time now.
Mr. President, I need not say that this grand demon¬
stration of to-day and to-night, to indorse the sentiments
contained in the patriotic appeal of our brave brothers in
arms, meets the unqualified approval of my judgment and
my heart. [Applause.]
Letter from Prof. B. W. Arnett, Jr., A. B.
The reader ■will find that this short patriotic address is one of
Mr. Ashley's most appropriate and clever off hand speeches. It was
delivered at a meeting- called to endorse (as the reader will see) an
appeal from the Union soldiers, at the front, for concord at home,
and a united and uncompromising- party, so as to secure a more vig¬
orous prosecution of the war. The speech has in it the genuine
ring ; no man can mistake the purpose of the speaker. Mr. Ashley
saw at that early day the doom of slavery, and spoke only as a man
b. w. arnett, jr. can speak, who has a glimpse of the future and beholds the ap¬
proaching triumph, of ^the cause he loves. He proclaimed in this speech that
" Truth's enemy wins a defeat with victory." This is profound philosophy, and is the
kind of faith that comes only to great and heroic souls. B. W. Arnett, Jr.
— 249 —
I am not only willing' but anxious to unite politically
with all wlio will unconditionally sustain the government
in this hour of mingled peril and glory; with all who will
sustain it in all its measures, including the greatest and best;
with all who will in thus sustaining it, give our heroic
soldiers an honest support. I am for such a Union organiza¬
tion as shall know the political antecedents of no man who is
outspoken and unqualified for the preservation of the govern-,
ment, at every hazard. Our soldiers, who understand from
practical experience the wants and necessities of the hour,
have spoken to the nation with no unmeaning words. There
is not a loyal man within the limits of the Republic who has
heard their eloquent appeal, whose pulse has not beat quicker
and whose heart has not been stirring with patriotic pride.
Let every loyal citizen of whatever former party, who
has heard that noble appeal, give it his generous approval.
"Whatever may be the course of others, I am for the govern¬
ment unconditionally; for a vigorous prosecution of the war,
until our cause shall triumph.
Mr. President, it is not necessary for me to say to
our gallant soldiers that they shall have in the future, is
they have had in the past, my earnest support. They know
that, and to-night I say to you and to them, that they who
are periling life for home, kindred and country, have the
right to command me, and when they command I shall obey.
In whatever path they direct, touching the rebellion, I will
cheerfully go. Their voice shall be my voice, their aspira¬
tions my aspirations, their hopes my hopes; for I know
that their every hope, aspiration and prayer is for our
country and our whole country—for the preservation of that
Constitution which is our shield, our safety and our defense,
for the triumph of that dear old flag, without a star obliterated
or a stripe erased; that flag which to-day is the emblem of
our national greatness and national glory — dearer at this
hour to all patriot hearts than ever before, because of the
efforts made by traitors to destroy it. There is no true man
or woman within the limits of the republic who will not
swear that
•'No other flag shall ever float above our homes or graves."
— 250 —
Mr. President, had the voices of the nation's defend¬
ers been heara at the ballot-box last fall, as they ought to
have been, and as I urged that they should be, to our mem¬
bers of the legislature, no such disgrace would have come
upon Ohio as the election of fourteen members to the next
Congress, hostile to the war policy of the g-overnment; and
of a State ticket pledged, by the platform upon which it was
elected, to open and undisguised opposition to the constituted
authorities of the nation.
I am for a "Union Party," a party representing- the
living" present and not the dead past — a party of principle,
not of spoils — a party to be called, as it ought to have been
from the first, " The Free Union Party "— a party pledged
to a reconstruction of the Union on a basis as enduring- as
the everlasting hills, having for its corner-stones Liberty and
Justice. I am for such a political organisation and no other,
because any other will be a cheat and a sham. I know that,
despite the adroit sophisms and petty stratagems of the
timid, the scheming and unprincipled, we shall have such a
party; and I believe, as time advances, it will overwhelm and
destroy all others in its triumphal progress. But whether so
or not, I intend by the blessing of God, to fight slavery and
its allies to the bitter end. [Applause, long continued.] I
repeat, that, by the blessing- of God, I intend to fight slavery
and its allies to the bitter end, because I believe the twain
are the foes of our country and enemies of the human race.
[Applause.]
If it shall so be, that in this terrible and bitter contest the
cause of freedom must fail, which I do not believe, let the
enemies o the g-overnment rest assured that the opponents
of the twin monsters, slavery and rebellion, will g-o down,
if go down they must, with their faces to 5the foe, and the
stars and stripes streaming- over their heads,
" And leaving in battle no blot on their name,
Look proudly to Heaven, from the death-bed of fame."
Mr. President, the most important Congress which
ever assembled since the organization of our government,
— 251 —
has just closed its labors. I need not enter into a discussion
of the merits of the men or the measures of that body. Time
will develop the importance of those measures and posterity
will do them and their authors justice. "Whatever acts were
passed, were passed by men leg-ally and constitutionally
elected for the emergency—an emergency without any parallel
in our former history. Whatever mistakes that Congress
may have made, whatever it may have left undone which it
ought to have done, however short it may have come of our
own expectations, or the expectations of others, the record is
made up; no human hand can alter it. I intend to stand by
it, and by it I ask to be judged. One thing is certain — the
day of half-way measures is over; the time for compromising
with the South has forever passed, ancl our patriotic soldiers
have told you what I now gratefully repeat, that voluntary
submission to the rebels will not be tolerated. Nevermore
will there be any legislative sympathy with rebellion. All
patriotic men are beginning to see and feel the necessity of
this, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, every loyal citizen
is standing in readiness to respond to the appeal of our brave
soldiers, for the creation and support of a party which shall
have for its first and highest object, the vindication of the
government, the maintenance of the Union, the preserva¬
tion of constitutional liberty — a party that shall declare open
and undisguised hostility to all attempts at intervention or
mediation in our affairs by foreign governments. On such a
platform let all the free Union men unite, and present to the
world a party which, at home and abroad, shall know no law
but justice, which will ask "for nothing that is not
right, and submit to nothing that is wrong." Such a
party the politicians and demagogues will hate, but with an
intelligent, liberty-loving people it will be invincible. In
the triumph of such a party the honor of our country will re¬
main undimmed, and we will make a grander history for it
than ever was dreamed by enthusiastic poet or orator.
Mr. President, one of the greatest crises through
which the nation ever passed, was passed during the recent
session of Congress. Comparatively quiet, it was neverthe¬
less most dangerous. Less than three months ago, well-
— 252—
grounded fears, growing- out of tlie secret plottings of North¬
ern rebel sympathizers, were entertained of a rebellion in the
North. Traitors grew bold at the result of last fall's elec¬
tions, not only in but out of Congress, and secret meetings
were held all over the North, having1 for their object a
surrender of every patriotic principle to purchase an inglo¬
rious peace ffom the rebels. The infamy of this cowardly
proposition requires no notice from me in this loyal assem¬
blage; nevertheless, the government was seriously threat¬
ened. Secret emissaries were sent with dishonorable propo¬
sitions of peace to Jeff. Davis, who, arch traitor that he is,,
was more honorable than they, and saved the complications
they had woven, by indignantly spurning them from his
presence. During this dreary period, men looked into each
other's faces with fear and trembling — and, as was the case
in the French Revolution, began to distrust each other. The
turning-point at last came. When the secret clubs in New
York City proposed to inaugurate their revolution, by tak¬
ing from the banks of that city, by force, what money they
required; the rebuff our Northern enemies received from the
rebel government at Richmond; the voices of our soldiers
from the battlefield, and the kindly response of the friends
of freedom in Europe to the President's Proclamation of
Emancipation, headed by that champion of freedom, John
Bright, arrested them in their mad career of infamy and
treason, and some of their most reckless leaders sought the
earliest moment to repair their mischief and publicly atone
for what they had done; and to-day our noble ship, which
many began to fear had become unmanageable, and might
founder, after having passed through a raking fire and defied
the fury of the storm for nearly two years, is at last slowly
but surely righting herself, and begins to answer to the will
of the helmsman, Abraham Lincoln (God bless and preserve
him). [Long and continued applause.] Yes, his arm has
been strengthened, and his heart cheered by the manly appeal
of our patriotic soldiers, and once more our grand old ship
of state rides majestically and more than conqueror on the
tempestuous sea of treason and rebellion [applause], and our
government was never so strong at home or abroad as to-day,
— 253 —
and I know we shall triumph. [Applause.] I do not agree
with my friend, Mr. Bates, who has just taken his seat, that
our army on the Potomac will never be successful. I tell you
that, under God, when Joe Hooker moves upon the enemy he
will lead the army of the Potomac to victory. [Great cheer¬
ing-.] I reserve to myself the right to criticise, at a proper
time, the acts of all men, public or private, whether President,
Cabinet officers, Commanding- General, or demagogue stump
orators. [Applause.]
Mr. President, this country is yours and mine, what¬
ever has been or may be the supposed faults or shortcoming's
of its rulers. It is our country from ocean to ocean, and
from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. I yield alle¬
giance to the government of the United States, and to no
other. I owe no divided allegiance. The flag- of my fathers
is my flag1. I never have, and, by the blessing of heaven, I
never will acknowledge any other. [Applause.] I have been
laboring for the past two years, as I never labored before, to
perpetuate this government. I have, to the extent of my
ability, and with an earnestness of purpose which has per¬
mitted no divided allegiance, contributed by my counsels,
votes and all the means I could command, to defend that flag
and preserve it as a representative of our nationality, and an
emblem of our liberty. That I may have been mistaken in
some of my counsels and some of my votes, is more than
probable; but, however that may have been, you all know
that, throughout this struggle, I have been earnestly on the
side of the government and the old flag, and that the first
and dearest wish of my heart has been and still is to see that
banner, which to me is a representative, not only of our nation¬
ality, but of "Liberty and Union," also triumph on every
battle-field, and to see the Constitution of our fathers re¬
established in its just sway over every State and Territory
in the republic. [Applause.]
Mr. President, many say I have committed blunders.
Admit it, which I do not. I answer all such by quoting a
rule which is as applicable to-day and here, as it was eighteen
hundred years ago. "Let him who is without a fault
cast the first stone."
— 254 —
Apply this rule to all who have made mistakes in
reference to this rebellion, and how long- would I stand here
before the first stone would be cast? If all who have thought
and written about the matter have committed blunders, may
I, who am no more infallible than the rest of you, not be
pardoned for erring- on the side of Liberty and Justice? If I
have erred, my worst enemy will admit that so far as this
great battle of liberty is concerned,
"My faults have leaned to Virtue's side."
One thing- is certain, I have not erred against the gov¬
ernment and in favor of the rebels, or on the side of slavery.
I have not remained silent as a political trickster would have
done — nor stifled my convictions—nor played the demagogue,
nor have I ever told you that everything was right, when I
knew that almost everything was wrong, touching the
management of the war. Had I thus acted, the indifferent,
conservatives, and the shams, and even the rebel sympa¬
thizers among us, might have united in singing my praises,
complimenting that rascally virtue, which some call discre¬
tion, and commending my statesmanship. Indeed had I acted
against the government, only using the duplicity and false¬
hood necessary to prevent arrest as a traitor, many pretended
friends of the government would have found little fault with
my conduct.
The opposition to me has all arisen because I have been
untiring in pleading for such a change in the management of
the war as I believed was necessary to save the nation's life.
For this reason, I have demanded from the first, that our
soldiers should fight for Liberty and Union, instead of Sla¬
very and Compromise. [Applause.] I did not, however, re¬
lax one iota of vigilance and devotion to the government,
because in all things my views were not at once adopted by
the Administration, and I should not have relaxed, if they
had not been adopted up to this hour. I am and have been
for the government, despite the policy of the first eighteen
months of this rebellion, which in my heart I could not ap¬
prove. I shall continue to vote, as I have, for every man and
every dollar asked for by the President, and shall endeavor
— 255 —
to strengthen his hands, with whatever ability I possess,
until this causeless and wicked rebellion is crushed. Do not
be deceived. There will be no peace, there can be no peace,
until the government triumphs. Until then, this struggle
will go on. No human power can stay it, until the grand
idea of the .human race shall be realized, and Liberty and
Justice shall become the acknowledged corner-stones of our
political edifice. [Applause.] That which seemed so plain
and distinct to my hopeful vision, two years ago, is now being
seen by all ; that which was then to me the full-grown tree of
Liberty, and which in my joyous faith I hailed with an over¬
flowing heart that could not keep silent, it now needs no faith
to see. To-day it is plainly visible to all. True, some, who
all their lives have been blinded because they had no faith in
God or man, may yet see it only as we behold the coming
spring-time, in the melting of the ice, the running brooks,
the budding leaf and the opening flower; but all begin to
feel, and see, and know, that this is a war of ideas, a war
between Liberty and Slavery, between a government of
the people and an oligarchy, and that the spring-time of
liberty, impartial and universal, has not only dawned, but
is rapidly approaching the period of fruition. [Applause
and cheers.] Let us take fresh hope. Let us renew our
courage. This struggle will go on until Freedom conquers.
[Applause.] From every blood-stained battle-field, the voices
of the living and the dead come to us, bidding us be firm.
From every loyal man and woman in the North, the demand
is that this battle shall continue, and fathers, mothers, wives,
sisters and brothers, who have lost their dearest and bravest
on the field of conflict, are daily and nightly offering up
their earnest prayers that the God of nations will accept the
sacrifice they have made, and save and regenerate their
country.
That it will be saved and regenerated I have never
doubted. The battle may be long and rage fiercely, the
night be dark, the enemy win victories, and thousands of our
Northern homes be made cheerless and desolate, but there
shall be no compromise and no surrender. The very air
shall be burthened with the hopeful speech, and song,
— 256 —
and prayer of the patriot, and it shall go on until the right
shall triumph. And, as I now listen to-the patriotic appeal
of our soldiers, I seem to hear their united voices, clear,
strong- and melodious, ringing in my ears, the welcome cheer¬
ing words of the poet:
" It still goes on. The driving rain
May chill, but light will gleam again.
It still goes on* Truth's enemy
"Wins a defeat, with victory.
It still goes on. Cold winter's snow
Comes that the grass may greener grow ;
And Freedom's sun, whate'er befall,
Shines warm and bright behind it all."
[Long and continued applause.]
WOOD COUNTY UNION CONVENTION.
Eloquent Speech of Gen. Ashley at Bowling Green,
September, 1863.
As a report of the Wood County convention has already
been published, we give a synopsis of the prefatory part
of Mr. Ashley's speech, and a verbatim report of his con¬
cluding- remarks on that occasion.
Of these remarks, which deserve the perusal of every
patriot, it is sufficient to say that we have never witnessed
more intense interest than was manifested by the audience
during their utterance. After numerous preliminary remarks,
Mr. Ashley appealed to the people in favor of the President's
Emancipation Proclamation. He said "that proclamation
alone was worth one hundred thousand men." He showed
the influence it had on the popular mind in Europe, in the
offer of money by capitalists; in the expression of sym¬
pathy received by the President from 35,000 operators,
headed by that noble man, John Bright; in the endorsement
and approval of the emancipation proclamation by the lead¬
ing religious bodies of England, France and Germany.
Letter from Benjamin W. Arnett, D. D.
I have read this grand speech with unalloyed satisfaction. When
i remember the dark nights of sorrow through which our race was
then traveling-, and the discouraging' conditions under which it was
delivered, I am simply charmed with its eloquence and power, and
can form a just estimate of the man who made it. I am sure that
all men who read the speeches in this volume will agree with mei
that what Whittier years ago wrote of Governor Ritner of Pennsyl¬
vania, may now be appropriately quoted and] said of Mr. Ashley,
for all have come to know that during our great anti-slavery con¬
flict, he stood " Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, erect when multi¬
tudes bent to the storm ; When traitors to freedom and honor and God, are bowed to
an idol polluted with blood."
Not only the Afro-American, but all men who love liberty, will join in approving
the testimony which in this " souvenir" we now prepare for him. I can never forget
the impression made on my mind, as I sat in the gallery of the House of Representa¬
tives and witnessed the last great parliamentary battle between Freedom and Slavery.
It was on the 31st of January, 186S. The Hon. James M. Ashley .was leading the army
of heroes. After the lapse of twenty-eight years, I can vividly see his manly form and
hear his words, as he plead for the cause of universal freedom. The shouts of the
multitude, the songs of triumph, the cannon's roar, all are with me now, and the
merry bells of freedom are still ringing in my ears. As long as men admire the heroic
and brave, the hero of this great battle will be remembered, and his name will be
among the immortal of the ages. B. W. Arnett.
17 ( 257 )
B. W. ARNETT.
— 258 —
They thanked the President for this act in the name of God,
of humanity and of liberty. He showed that this single act
had changed the tone and sentiment of the masses in Europe
towards the North, and that we need not fear intervention as
we did one year ago. He stated that it had kindled the flame
of patriotism in the hearts of northern freemen, and that
the united response from our patriotic soldiers plainly showed
that they fully comprehended the true nature of the conflict,
and thanked the President for releasing- them from the. de¬
grading1 occupation of guarding the property of rebels, and
from upholding the infamy of slavery.
The policy of freedom thus inaugurated had united the
unconditional friends of freedom at home, in the army and
in Europe. He asked all who had differed, and all who now
differed with the policy of the President, on the question of
emancipation, to stand by the government to the last, urging
them to forget all partisan prejudices, and by unity of action
save our national existence, and accomplish the triumph of
free government. He said that for over eighteen months he
and the friends of freedom generally had stood by the gov¬
ernment and had voted all the men and all the money they
asked, although the administration had persistently refused
to adopt the policy of emancipation, and he should have
continued that support had their policy remained unchanged.
He said he was a passenger on the old ship, and he intended
to go down with her if she were lost, and therefore he stood
firmly and unwaveringly by her commander. Is it asking
too much of those who now differ with us on the policy of
the government in regard to emancipation, to render it the
same cordial support which we rendered, when the contrary
policy prevailed?
Mr. Ashley closed this speech with an appeal which we
give verbatim. He said:
Fellow Citizens:. The terrible conflict in which as a
nation we are engaged will be recorded in history as the most
eventful of the nineteenth century. It will constitute one
of those memorable epochs which come but once in centuries;
from which, if we -are successful, freedom will date its
grandest triumph. This war is indeed the battle of the
— 259 —
ages. The best hopes of mankind on earth are wrapped up
in the issue. Man's capacity for self-government is on trial
before the world, and we must conquer or the verdict will be
against democratic government and in favor of privilege
and despotism everywhere. [Applause.]
The conspirators and rebels are attempting the destruc¬
tion of our democratic government, because democracy,
"pure and undefiled," is opposed to privilege and slavery.
They desire the establishment of a government which shall
be administered exclusively by a privileged class, a slave-
holding aristocracy, in which capital shall own the laborer.
The issue is fairly made up, and we cannot ignore or
escape from it if we would. The question then, which every
loyal man is called upon to decide this day, is, shall our
nationality and the constitution of our fathers be preserved,
with freedom as the fundamental law of the republic, or
shall our nationality and the republic be destroyed and an
anti-democratic government be erected upon its ruins, with
slavery as its chief corner-stone? There can be but one re¬
sponse to this interrogatory by every patriotic Union man
before me; and I know that there will be but one response,
not only by you, but by the loyal heart of the nation. [Ap¬
plause.]
Fellow Citizens : The earnest, uncompromising anti-
slavery men of this country, though few in numbers, have
changed the policy of this government; whatever pro-slavery
politicians, or timid, vacillating, non-committal men may
say or think, I say to you, that the anti-slavery men of the
nation, with the gospel of liberty in their hearts, and the
sword of justice as their weapon, have, by the almighty
power and force of truth, educated the nation up to the
present standpoint, and thus caused the administration to
adopt their policy. I need hardly tell you that, since the
outbreak of the rebellion, the great heart of the nation,
under their teachings, has been slowly but surely tending
toward universal emancipation. Unquestionably a large ma¬
jority of the loyal men of the republic have, since the 1st
of January, sworn in their hearts, as I had long ago sworn
in mine, that, as slavery was the cause of this rebellion, it
— 260 —
shall die. [Applause.] All earnest men will agree with
the distinguished Secretary of the Treasury, that "this is
no time to split hairs of logic." What matters it to any
liberty-loving man how slavery die, so that it die, whether
by military power or congressional enactment? [Applause.]
All may, with propriety, call the Emancipation Proclama¬
tion of the President a war measure, for up to this hour
General Emancipation has been, by far, the most successful
of our generals. [Applause.] But it would be unjust and
unmanly to say that the Emancipation Proclamation was
nothing more than a war measure. I say to you it is more;
it is a measure of justice, and cannot be properly separated
from the measures which make up the entire policy of the
administration. [Applause.] The truth is, and I will not
disguise it, for favor or through fear, that if the President
and Congress have not done, as I say they have not, all that
they might properly and constitutionally have done to hurt
slavery, .they at least have knowingly done no act to help
slavery, and they could not have done so without being held
guilty before the world of an infamy which would have
blasted, and justly, their names and memories forever. [Ap¬
plause.] Every act of the President and Congress touching
the subject of slavery has been favorable to a policy, which,
if logically followed, will sooner or later result in universal
emancipation. [Applause.] The rebel chiefs understand
this, and the whole world, thanks to the President's procla¬
mation, now comprehends it. The public man who did not
so read and understand this issue from the first, has a far
better claim to wear the title given to the Bourbons of
France, than to be classed with the statesmen of this coun¬
try. [Applause.] Let any intelligent man ask himself what
has been and what now is the policy of the administration
on the slavery question, and he will know which way the
nation is moving; for, on this question, the administration
has never led, but followed, and that very tardily, the public
voice. [Applause.] Let the acts of the President and Con¬
gress answer as to what is to-day the policy of the govern¬
ment.
Congress passed and the President approved an act
— 261 —
emancipating- all slaves at the national capitol. [Applause.]
Congress passed and tlie President approved an act prohibit¬
ing slavery forever in all the territories of the republic.
[Applause.] Congress, at the request of the President,
offered to aid pecuniarily the border slave States if they
would liberate all slaves, and authorized the employment of
slaves in the military and naval service of the United States.
[Applause.] Robert Small and other slaves who have cap¬
tured prizes and come within our lines, have been treated by
the government as free men, and the usual proportion of the
prize money has been awarded them, and to-day the govern¬
ment is gladly accepting the services of all black men, north
or south, whether they have been free or slave, who will
enlist in the service of the United States. [Applause.]
A new treaty has been made with Great Britain, the
more effectually to suppress the trade in African slaves, and
the first slave pirate ever executed under our law was hanged
by order of President Lincoln. Congress passed, and the
President approved, an act prohibiting- the trade in Chinese
coolies, and Hayti and Liberia have been recognized as be¬
longing to the family of nations. [Applause.]
Where, I ask you as honest men, do all these acts logi¬
cally and unmistakably lead us as a nation? Let every intel¬
ligent man answer for himself. I tell you that the govern¬
ment i§ irrevocably committed to the policy of emancipation,
and no power on earth can turn it back. [Applause.] The
President's proclamation was then, in my opinion, not only a
military necessity, but an act of justice also, demanded by
the logic of events no less than by the prudent policy which a
wise statesmanship had inaugurated, as the leading- measure
of the administration for the preservation of the republic.
[Applause.]
On this point let the President speak. I read from his
proclamation:
"We say we are for the Union. The world will not for¬
get that we say this. We know how to save the Union.
The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we
here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving-
freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, honorable
alike in what we give and what we preserve. "We shall nobly
— 262 —
save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other
means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain,
peaceful, generous, just, a way which if followed the world
will approve, and God must forever bless." [Applause.]
Accepting- this view as the true and logical interpreta¬
tion of the issue involved in this terrible conflict through
which we are passing, let us consecrate ourselves anew to
the great work before us, pledging ourselves, before heaven
and the world, that come what may, intervention and foreign
war, disaster and defeat of our armies, and betrayal by
Northern traitors at home, we will never compromise or
surrender. [Applause.] If we are earnestly united, no
power on earth can conquer us, and we may rest assured that
the nation thus purified, strengthened and invigorated by the
baptism of fire and blood through which we are passing,
will come out of the conflict redeemed and regenerated, con¬
secrated to Liberty, by the genius of universal emancipa¬
tion. [Applause.]
Mr. Chairman: I admit, that at the beginning of our
anti-slavery battle, I did not expect to see slavery go out in a
baptism of fire and blood. I hoped, as peaceful and patriotic
men everywhere hoped, that the battle would be one of bal¬
lots instead of bullets. The slave baron conspirators, in
their madness, decreed that it should be otherwise.
Now, we all recognize "that he who takes the sword,
shall perish by the sword." And you and I know, that after
our long, dark night of national wrong and crime, "that the
sum of all villainies" must now also perish by the sword.
[Applause.]
With a joy which no human language can express, be¬
cause it reaches the sublime, and passeth all understanding,
the ransomed nation will soon be ready to join in one united
hallelujah, as from its soul it sings Mrs. Howe's Grand
National Anthem, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic":
"Mine eyes have seen the glor}^ of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath
are stored,
— 263 —
He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift
sword;
His truth is marching- on.
"I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling
camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and
damps;
I can read his righteous sentence bj the dim and flickering
lamps;
His day is marching on.
" I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel;
As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall
deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his
heel;
Since God is marching on.
"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call
retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet'
Our God is marching on.
"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on."
SPEECH
OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO,
In the House of Representatives, March 30th, 1864.
the liberation and restoration of the south.
Mr. Speaker: The hour has come in which Congress
must deal with the great crime of the nineteenth century.
The leading conspirators must be punished by punishments
commensurate with their terrible deeds. Every loyal citizen
of the United States will expect this of those to whom they
have at this time confided the destinies of the nation. They
will demand that this great crime be so dealt with, that the
government shall obtain " indemnity for the past and security
for the future." As one of the representatives of the loyal
people of Ohio, I demanded at the beginning of the rebellion,
and I demand now, that it shall be so dealt with, that a like
crime from the same cause shall in the future be impossible.
The proper disposition by Congress of the causes which
produced the rebellion, and all questions intimately connected
Letter from Bishop A. Grant, Atlanta, Ga.
This was Mr. Ashley's first speech in Congress on the perplexing
question of reconstruction. He declared in language that no one
can misunderstand, that neither Mr. Lincoln as President, nor any
General of the Army, was vested by the Constitution or the laws of
war, with authority to organize civil State governments in any of
the rebel States. He claimed that Congress alone was clothed by
the Constitution with this extraordinary power. He denied that any
President or General had any authority vested in them for such pur-
a. grant. pose. His criticisms of the President and General Banks for his
blundering and unfortunate proclamation in Louisiana were strong and vigorous, just
and manly, and will be read with interest and instruction now. In his letter on page
310, Mr. Sumner heartily endorses this great speech. A. Grant.
(264)
— 265 —
with it, have given me, as they doubtless have given every
loyal man, great anxiety.
The question before us is, how shall the States whose
governments have been usurped or overthrown, be re-estab¬
lished and their loyal citizens be re-invested with all the
rights, privileges and immunities of citizens of free States in
the American Union.
This is indeed a question of transcendent importance —
one with which the mere politician has as little fitness as
disposition to grapple. To meet, and properly dispose of it,
demands the highest order of statesmanship. The untried
problem of re-establishing loyal State governments over vast
districts of country, so long in rebellion, involves the gravest
responsibility, and presents questions of constitutional power
which have never before been discussed, as they must now be
discussed, by the National Congress.
I am free to confess that from the first my anxiety has
been, not so much how to conquer the rebels, as how to secure
an honorable and enduring peace after they were conquered.
This is a question, which, until its final settlement, will de¬
mand the serious consideration of the ablest statesmen in the
nation.
It may be an unwelcome question to many gentlemen in
this House. I doubt not that it is. I have reason to know
that it was an unwelcome question to many in the last Con¬
gress, but whether welcome or unwelcome, it cannot now be
disposed of or excluded from these halls as it was two years
ago by parliamentary strategy and congressional dodging.
The logic of events is forcing the nation onward with
such rapidity that we cannot, if we would, evade this ques¬
tion, and many gentlemen are now prepared to act, who were
opposed to all action two years ago. Thanks to our heroic
army, the rebellion is now so far suppressed, that the question
of reconstruction is forced upon and demands our immediate
consideration. All can now see that it ought not to have
been delayed so long, and I am sure all will agree that it
cannot longer be neglected, without great injustice to the
loyal people of the rebellious districts.
At the outbreak of the rebellion, practical men saw and
urged the importance and necessity of an act of Congress to
- 266 —
provide temporary governments of some kind, for the dis¬
tricts of country in rebellion; to authorize the loyal citizens
residing- therein, as soon as the rebellion was sufficiently
suppressed, to reorganize State governments, where they had
been usurped or overthrown, and to guarantee to them State
governments, republican in form, as prescribed by the
national Constitution. The bill from the select committee
now before the House, recognizes fully and clearly the
authority of Congress to pass all laws which are necessary
and proper to carry into practical effect that constitutional
guarantee. The authority to legislate on this subject, once
admitted-—whether under the war powers or peace powers of
Congress -— the only questions which can possibly divide the
unconditional Union men in Congress, or throughout the
country, will be as to matters of detail. It will be noticed
that the committee have sought to avoid the adoption of any
especial theory, in the bill which they have presented.
Whether the rebel usurpation has destroyed the constitutional
governments of the seceded States, or whether those State
governments are simply suspended or in abeyance by reason
of the abdication of their officers, or whether by the acts of
treason and rebellion on the part of their citizens and con¬
stituted authorities, the States thus in rebellion have com¬
mitted State suicide, the committee have thought best to
leave to the determination of each member for himself.
Hence, no report is submitted with this bill. For the same
reason, no report accompanied the bill submitted bjT me on
this subject two years ago, with the approval of a majority
of the Committee on Territories. The sovereignty of the
United States, and the power of Congress under the Consti¬
tution, to legislate for the districts of country in rebellion, is
ully recognized by this bill. All that I have ever contended
ffor touching the question of congressional power is here
admitted. Determining from the outbreak of the rebellion,
that slavery should die, I have sought only for such congres¬
sional action as would restore the rebel States to the Union,
with freedom as their fundamental law. For this purpose, I
then insisted and now insist, that until such time as the
loyal citizens, in each of the rebellious States, are numerous
enough to maintain a State government, and shall adopt a
— 267 —
Constitution prohibiting- slavery forever, they ought to be
treated and governed as citizens of the United States, resid¬
ing- within the national jurisdiction, on national territory,
without State governments. With me this has been from the
first the all-important point. Practically, this idea pervades
the entire bill before us. I care not whether the power to
govern the districts of country, declared by the President's
proclamation to be in rebellion, after they shall have been
subjug-ated, is derived from the war powers or the peace
powers of Congress. I believe either to be constitutional
and sufficient. I believe we may establish either temporary
military g-overnments, or temporary civil governments.
Certainly, Congress may, as the representative of the sover¬
eign power of the nation, pass such laws as in its opinion
may be necessary to secure the rights and liberties of the
loyal people in those States whose governments have been
destroyed by traitors. To this end Congress may, by author¬
ity of the national Constitution, prescribe such conditions
for the restoration of the States whose g-overnments have
"been usurped or overthrown, as will best secure the peace and
stability of the nation, and guarantee to such States repub¬
lican g-overnments. Believing- that this can be done in no
way so safely and so well as [by organizing and recognizing
new State g-overnments, as provided for by this bill, I am in
favor of its passage.
Mr. Speaker, in attempting a solution of the difficulties
which environ us on this question of reconstruction, I have
sought only for the adoption of such measures as would
secure the safe and speedy restoration to the Union of all
States in rebellion, on a basis that would command the
approval of the ablest statesmen of the country. I have had
and now have no theory that I will not yield to accomplish
this most desirable result. I believe it to be the imperative
duty of Congress to lay deep the foundation of our proposed
action on this subject. I believe it to be our duty to declare,
in the most solemn manner, that if hereafter any State shali
renounce its allegiance to the national Constitution and
appeal from the decision of the ballot-box to the arbitrament
of the sword, it shall be subjugated by the sword, and all its
prerogatives as a State be forfeited, until such time as Con-
— 268 —
gress provides for its reorganization, or until its loyal citizens
shall, in the exercise of their inherent rights of self-govern¬
ment, call a convention and adopt a new State Constitution,
republican in form, in conformity with and subject to the
Constitution of the United States, and be recognized or re-ad¬
mitted by Congress to exercise their proportionate part of the
governing power of the country.
Mr. Speaker, I can give my support to this bill and de¬
fend it, only on the assumption that there are no constitu¬
tional State governments in the rebel States. Are there any
such State governments? I hold that there are not. I hold
that a State may forfeit its right as part of the supreme gov¬
erning power of the republic. I think this proposition can¬
not be successfully controverted. A majority of the electors
of any State in this Union may, unquestionably, alter or abol¬
ish their written Constitution, and refuse to establish another
in its stead. If they may, as all concede, do this, then the
abolition of a State Constitution, in the manner prescribed by
the organic or statute law of the State, and the adoption of a
new Constitution, renouncing their allegiance to the United
States, would terminate their right, under the Constitution*
to exercise any part of the governing power of the nation.
If, then, a State of this Union may, by the actions of its citi¬
zens, forfeit its rights under the Constitution to exercise
part of the sovereign power of the nation, or in any way
cease to maintain such a State government as can be recog¬
nized by Congress under the Constitution, the assumption
that " a State once a State is always a State," is a fallacy as
pernicious as it is false.
I trust that no argument is needed at this late day to
refute the illogical and sophistical reasoning which was so
prevalent in this Hall and throughout the country during the
Congress immediately preceding the rebellion. It will be
remembered that it was then, and is now to some extent,
maintained that if any one or more States withdrew from
the Union by the action of a majority of its qualified elec¬
tors, " for reasons, the sufficiency of which, before God and
the great tribunal of human history, they alone should be
the judge," that their action in so doing in conformity with
the laws of their own State, destroyed the government of
— 269 —
the United States, and left each State free to act for itself as
an independent nation.
It was only those who were indoctrinated with the false
theory that the United States were a confederated govern¬
ment and not a nation, or who were blinded by the Calhoun
doctrine of State rights, who set up for answer to this shal¬
low assumption, the claim "that a State once a State is al¬
ways a State."
I lay it down as a proposition, which I do not believe can
be controverted, that the constitutional relations of a State to
"the national government may terminate, and the State cease,
as a political organization, to be a State invested by the Con¬
stitution with part of the sovereignty of the nation, in one of
the following modes:
1. By successful revolution and the establishment of an
independent government.
2. By the conquest of a foreign power.
3. By the treaty-making power, whereby one or more
States, or any part of a State, may be ceded to a foreign na¬
tion.
4. By acts of treason and rebellion on the part of the
CQnstituted authorities of a State sustained by a majority of
its citizens.
5. By the refusal of a majority of the electors in a State
to perform their duties as citizens, and by prohibiting the
minority from exercising the functions of a State government
tinder the Constitution.
Other modes might be named, and have doubtless sug¬
gested themselves to gentlemen who have examined the sub¬
ject. These, however, will suffice to illustrate the views I de¬
sire to present.
The first and second propositions will not be disputed.
All will concede that by successful revolution or by conquest
States may cease to be members of the Union.
There may be some who will deny that by the treaty-
making power, the government of the United States can
cede one or more States or any part of a State to a foreign
power. Those who claim that "a State once a State is
always .a State," will doubtless deny any proposition at war
-270 —
Avith this theory. The power, however, to acquire and to
cede territory, is an attribute of sovereignty fully recognized
"by the civilized governments of the world. John Quincy
Adams declared, in a speech delivered by him in the House
of Representatives, many years ago, that a State could con¬
stitutionally be ceded to a foreign power. If one State may
be ceded, then two or more States, or any part of a State,
may be ceded. In settling the disputed boundary between
Great Britain and the United States, Mr. Webster negotiated
a treaty ceding to Great Britain part of the State of Maine,
which the Senate of the United States ratified, and it became
and is to-day the law of the land. If that treaty had ceded
all the territory included within the limits of the State, save
one hundred acres, would the families occupying the remain¬
ing territory have the right to assume the government of the
State, and put the machinery of a State government in opera¬
tion, elect theirtselves to office, and send Senators and Repre¬
sentatives to Congress ? If " a State once a State is always
a State," this right would be unquestionable, and they would
assuredly be clothed with that power. It is said, if there be
but ten or even two loyal citizens in any State which by the
votes of a majority of its legal electors has, in the manijer
prescribed by law, abolished its State government, estab¬
lished a new and hostile government, and made war against
the United States to maintain it that the two or ten citizens
remaining loyal, or professing loyalty, are, by virtue thereof,
invested with the entire power of the State government, as it
existed before the rebellion; that, indeed, the old Constitution
survives the action of the majority which has abolished it and
adopted a new one; and that the two or ten loyal men may,
under it, elect and inaugurate officers from their own number,
and thus, while assuming that the acts of the majority are
null and void, hold within themselves and perpetuate the
existence and government of the State.
What wonder that we have had such blundering in Vir¬
ginia and Louisiana on this question of reconstruction, when
we have loyal men claiming to be statesmen in the Senate
and House of Representatives, misleading themselves and
the country with such an extraordinary proposition, as that
— 271 —
which assumes that " a State once a State is always a State,"
and that ten men may set up and maintain a State govern¬
ment in a State, which half a million of men have voted to
abolish.
But I desire, more particularly, to call the attention of
the House to the fourth proposition, that the constitutional
relations of a State to the National Government may be ter¬
minated, by the action of its constituted authorities, sus¬
tained by a majority of its citizens, in abolishing- their State
constitution, establishing- a new one, and making war upon
the supreme government, to maintain the new government
thus established. I claim, that a State, which is guilty of
such action, divests itself of all rightful authority to partici¬
pate in and be part of the government which it is seeking to
destroy, just as every citizen who commits treason, forfeits
his right to citizenship, property and life. The territory
constituting the State, is still within the national jurisdiction
and constitutes part of the national territory; its citizens,
though in rebellion, are still citizens of the United States,
and under the Constitution they owe a paramount allegiance
to the national government; but the State, having been con-,
verted by the treason of its rulers and citizens into an engine,
of war for the destruction of the nation, has justly and legally
forfeited all its rights as an organized political community,
invested with part of the sovereignty of the nation.
Whatever part of national sovereignty was by the Con¬
stitution and laws of the United States vested in such State,
lapsed by virtue of its treason and rebellion of its citizens,
and remains in the supreme government.
Gentlemen have asked, with an air of apparent gravity,
" When did these States cease to exist? Was it on the pas¬
sage of their secession ordinances? If not, at what precise
period of time did they cease to be States, and get out of the
Union?" I answer that the territory and people constituting
the State have not and cannot "get out of the Union," as
gentlemen are pleased to term it; that is, they cannot with
draw themselves and the territory of the State from the con¬
stitutional jurisdiction of the National Government, except
by successful revolution; but when a majority of the electors
of any State, in compliance with, the spirit and forms of
their organic or statute laws, change their State Consti¬
tutions and governments, and renounce their obedience to the
National Constitution, their State governments cease from
that very hour. Gentlemen must remember that this is not a
rebellion on the part of the majority, or indeed any part of
the people of the rebel States, against the constituted au¬
thorities and former recognized governments of those States,
but a rebellion on the part of the constituted authorities, and
a majority of the people of those States, against the govern¬
ment of the United States. If it were a rebellion of a
minority, or even of a majority of the people of those States,
against their old State government and constituted authori¬
ties, as well as a rebellion against the National Government,
the old State governments would remain, if their Constitu¬
tions had been abolished, and their constituted authorities
had remained loyal; but their State governments would be in
abeyance, while the rebel insurgents held possession of the
State. The constitutions and governments of all the rebel
States, however, having been changed or' abolished in the
manner prescribed in the organic or statute laws of said
States by the will of a constitutional majority of their
qualified electors, surely no lawyer will claim that a legal
State Constitution and government exists in any of those
States, such as can be recognized by Congress or any depart¬
ment of the National Government. "When such a change of
their constitutions and governments was effected, their con¬
stitutional relations to the National Government ceased.
They then ceased to be States of this Union as political
organizations, invested by the Constitution and laws of .the
United States with part of the governing power of the
republic, but the territory and people remain as before,
legally subject to the laws and Constitution of the United
States.
If this theory be not the true one, then all that the con¬
spirators in Congress from the rebel States needed to have
done and all they need do in case of another rebellion, is to
remain in the Senate and House, and insist that the States
which they represent, through waging war against the
-- 273 —
National Government to destroy it, are still States, endowed
with part of the sovereign power of the county, and that as
representatives from these States, they have the constitutional
right to retain their seats as part of the governing- power of
the country.
Sir, if the conspirators and rebel chiefs could have
known that a doctrine so fatal as this to our ver}T existence
as a nation, would have been seriously maintained by loyal
men in the midst of this great rebellion; if they could have
known that men claiming to be statesmen, would assert as a
principle that " a State once a State is always a State,"
and that the minority of its citizens had the constitutional
right to send full delegations of Senators and Representa¬
tives to Congress, though a majority, with the constituted
authorities of the State, were in rebellion against the Na¬
tional Government; if they could have been made to believe
that the Thirt}r-Seventh Congress would have insisted that
this minority in any of the rebel States, without an organized
civil government, recognized by Congress, had the right to
fill these Halls with their Representatives, on condition of
swearing fealty to the government, without regard to the
number of theii constituency, so that they ranged anywhere
from ten to one or two hundred professedly loyal voters for
each member 'of Congress: I say, if the conspirators and
rebel chiefs could have anticipated all this, they would doubt¬
less have materially changed their programme, and every
vacant chair in Congress would have been filled from the out¬
break of the rebellion to this hour, with the open or secret
enemies of the government, all laboring for its destruction.
Mr. Speaker, I know, and alas, we all know, too well,
that Southern statesmen, for the past thirty years, have had
good reason to be familiar with the stupidity of Northern
Representatives in Congress; but, sir, I venture the assertion
that no Southern man, in the maddest hour of his passionate
contempt for the North, ever conceived that Northern men
would be guilty of the stupidity of claiming to-day, that
South Carolina, or any other rebel State, has a State Govern¬
ment in existence, which entitles it under the National Con-
18
stitution to exercise part of the governing- power of this
nation. Gentlemen may insist as long- and pertinaciously as
they please, that States cannot dissolve their political rela¬
tions to the National Government, and that when they are
once States, they are always States. The fact that States,
with the approval of a majority of their citizens, have
abolished their State Constitutions, renounced their alle¬
giance to the National Constitution, and made war upon the
National Government to destroy it, is as notorious as the
fact that our armies are engaged in putting down the rebel¬
lion. I hold that no act of rebellion and levying war on the
part of the constituted authorities of a State, and no ordi¬
nance of secession passed by a State Legislature or a conven¬
tion in any State, with the approval of every elector in it,
can legally or constitutionally affect the rightful jurisdiction
of the National Government over the people and territory of
such State, but such ordinances of secession and acts of re¬
bellion and levying war on the part of the constituted au¬
thorities of said State, sustained by a majority of its citi¬
zens, destroys, as a matter of fact, the political organization
known and recognized as a State by the National Constitu¬
tion, and no State thus in rebellion can maintain constitu¬
tional relations to the National Government, until it is re¬
organized by the loyal people, subject to and in conformity
with the Constitution and laws of the United States. Be¬
fore they are thus reorganized, and until Congress recog¬
nizes them as States, and admits their Senators and Repre¬
sentatives, the governing power heretofore lodged in them as
political organizations, having, by their acts of treason and
rebellion,lapsed, remains in the people of the States which
are faithful to the National Constitution.
When I first advanced this theory in 1861, and again by
the bill introduced by me in March, 1862, professedly loyal
editors were not wanting in my own State, who were so
narrow-visioned as to charge me with endorsing the doctrine
of secession. Indeed, the Democratic minority of my own
committee submitted two reports to this House at the first
regular session of the last Congress, making substantially
the same charge. It might be both amusing and instructive
at this time to review those reports, did time permit. I ask,
gentlemen, if there can be any greater contrast between the
doctrine of secession and that which I then claimed and now
claim, as rightfully belonging- to the supreme sovereign
power of the nation. I held then, and hold now, that the
government of the United States has the constitutional right
to maintain its authority over every State, in defiance of
State secession and State rebellion. The object of the bill
introduced by me, more than two years ago, was to aid in en¬
forcing this right. That is the object of the bill now before
us. Gentlemen who can discover in this a recognition of the
right of secession are evidently remarkable logicians, and
should be known at once to the great masters, in order that
their names may be embalmed with those who "were not
born to die."
The leading ideas embodied in the bill reported by me
from the Committee on Territories, in the last Congress, and
at which many gentlemen on the other side professed to be
so greatly shocked, have all been adopted, as they know, as
part of the policy of the government. Even the liberation of
millions of slaves by proclamation has been accomplished,
and many of these liberated slaves have had the plantations
of their rebel masters given to them for homesteads in accord¬
ance with the policy indicated in*that bill, and yet the nation
" still lives."
The National Government not only lives,but it is powerful
enough to put down the rebellion and these rebel State gov¬
ernments. Having done this, Congress will doubtless find con¬
stitutional power to prescribe such conditions as shall keep
them in the Union, and maintain its supreme authority over
every citizen and every foot of the national territory, until
such time as the loyal citizens of each State shall reconstuct
new State governments, with republican Constitutions, and
they shall have been recognized by Congress.
I might fortify my position still further if it were neces¬
sary, by showing that both the executive and legislative
branches of the government have, by their repeated acts,
recognized the fact, that the old constitutional State govern¬
ments were destroyed or had been abolished in all the so-
— 276 —
called seceded States. There are many clever theories oil
this subject; one is that these State constitutions and gov¬
ernments still exist, notwithstanding- they have been abolished
by the action of their citizens and the new State governments
are at war with the National Government. This legal crotchet
possesses the minds of some gentlemen who insist that the
old constitutions and governments still remain, because the
action of the majority is illegal, and therefore null and void.
To this I interpose the stern fact that a majority of the legal
electors have abolished their State governments, and that
there are no governors, judges or legislators recognized by
the National Constitution in those States, that, therefore,
those States, as political organizations, are dead. Gentlemen
may parade before us the ghosts of these dead States, and
call them living and palpable, but they are no more States
with constitutions and laws which can be recognized by Con¬
gress, than the artificial ghosts which are used to illustrate
the drama are the ghosts of departed saints or sinners. The
State organization, with its governors, judges and legis¬
lators, and its written constitution, is gone. Philosophically
speaking, perhaps, as Mr. Brownson suggests in the January
number of his Quarterly, there must be, with every people
sufficiently numerous and intelligent to maintain a republican
government, an unwritten, before there can be a written con¬
stitution, and in this sense a constitution may be said to
to exist in every State. But all the rebel States have written
constitutions. They may not now faithfully reflect the un¬
written constitution of the people in the rebel States. We
shall see how that is when they come to act under the pro¬
visions of this bill, in reorganizing their State governments,
and making another written constitution. If the action of
the constituted authorities of the rebel States, sustained by
a majority of their electors, in abolishing their State consti¬
tutions and governments, has not changed the legal relations
of these States of the United States, then the National Gov¬
ernment has no legal cause of complaint against these States.
The fact is, however, despite all theories, that the constitu¬
tional relations of these States to the National Government
are changed, and there is not a day passes in which this
— 277 —
stern fact is not in some way acknowledged by every depart¬
ment and officer of the government.
I need not elaborate the fifth proposition. It will not be
denied that the majority of the legal electors of a State may
refuse to maintain a State government, that they may refuse
to send' Senators and Representatives to Congress, and may
prohibit the minority from exercising the functions of a State
government by abolishing the State Constitution; by refusing
themselves to establish, or permit others to establish, another
in its stead. The government of the United States cannot
compel the people of a State against their wishes to maintain
and perform the functions of a State government under the
Constitution. They cannot compel the people of a State to
send Senators and Representatives to the national Congress,
and the only alternative left to the Government of the
United States, when State Constitutions are abolished, or the
people refuse to maintain State governments, subject to the
Constitution and laws of the United States, is for Congress,
representing the supreme sovereignty of the nation, to pro¬
vide by law for the protection of the lives and property of its
citizens, and for governing the territory formerly within the
local jurisdiction of the State until such time as a constitu¬
tional State government can be formed and recognized by
Congress. And, here, sir, I dismiss this part of my subject.
Mr. Speaker, I do not claim that this bill is perfect.
Under the circumstances, however, I believe it is the best we
can get. I do not think it safe beyond question, to authorize
the organization of State governments, when only one-tenth
of the electors are loyal to the United States. I admit that
this provision was in the bill, introduced by me in the early
part of the present session. I incorporated it in the bill, to
make it harmonize with the President's suggestion, and not
because it had the sanction of my own judgment. As a
member of the committee charged with the subject of pro¬
viding for the reorganization of constitutional State govern¬
ments by the loyal citizens in the rebel States, I have sought
to secure the best bill I possibly could. It is not all I could
desire, but I do not intend to offer any amendments to it, but
if an amendment is offered, increasing the number of loyal
— 278 —
electors required to organize a State government, I shall feel
obliged to vote for it. I believe the democratic idea the
better one, that the majority and not the minority ought to
be invested with the organization and government of a State.
Certainly it is safer to entrust a State government to the
maintenance of a majority than to one-tenth claiming to
be loyal, while nine-tenths are openly disloyal.
In answer to many objections which have been urged by
distinguished gentlemen who have written me on the sub¬
ject of the ten per cent, basis, I will say, that the loyal one-
tenth are to represent all the inhabitants, loyal and disloyal,
in the State; that representation in Congress is not based upon
the number of electors or loyal citizens in any State, but
upon the whole number of inhabitants. Formerly in the
South, three-fifths of all the slaves were included in their
enumeration. Since the emancipation of the slaves, the
three-fifths representation clause in the Constitution is practi¬
cally abolished, and each emancipated slave will hereafter be
enumerated as an inhabitant. So that there is no injustice
to the North, in allowing the old representation in Congress
from the rebel States. That part of the population known
as the Two-fifths free and slave, not counted in the enumera¬
tion, will now be added, and two-fifths of four millions will
probably exceed the number of whites killed or driven from
the Southern States. If we should undertake to apportion
representatives in Congress from the several States upon the
number of loyal electors, we should find, I fear, a number
of districts in the North quite as disloyal as many in the
South.
I believe that the safety of the government, and justice
to loyal men, demand that we should put the entire authority
of reconstructing new State governments in the rebel States
into the hands of loyal men and none others. If it is deemed
safe to entrust ten per cent, of the number of electors in each
State in 1860, with this power and responsibility, so be it.
If we invest them with this powTer, the}r must represent at
the ballot-box, and in all the offices, State and National, the
entire population of those States, loyal and dislojTal, includ¬
ing all the colored inhabitants.
— 279 —
There are some other points in the bill, which I am pre¬
vented from noticing* for want of time.
Mr. Speaker, if we would avoid all possible complica¬
tions, and the danger of another conspiracy and rebellion,
let us provide, before this Congress adjourns, by law, for the
re-establishment of republican governments, by the loyal
citizens, in the rebel States. A subject of so much impor¬
tance must not be left to the caprice or whim of a military
commander.
Mr. Speaker, suppose the doctrine be adopted, that "a
State once a State is always a State," and that a small
minority claiming to be loyal, may at any time, and in any
part of the State, occupied by our forces, call a mass con¬
vention of those favorable to organizing- a new State govern¬
ment, and when the convention is assembled, it selects a
governor and State officers, and authorizes them to assume
the functions of a State government, either under the old
constitution, as was done in Virginia, or under a constitu¬
tion proclaimed by martial law, as was recently done in
Louisiana, and that the governor thus chosen proceeds to
issue his proclamation for the election of a legislature, and
members thereof, in pursuance of said proclamation, are
elected in some half dozen counties of the State, and convene
and organize as the legislature of the State, and frame a
law apportioning the State into congressional districts, and
elect two United States Senators, and appoint a day upon
which representatives are elected to Congress, and send their
electoral vote here for President and Vice-President next
winter, what action would this House take upon such a condi¬
tion of things? If five or six or more of the rebel States, in
which we have a military force, should by the action of a
few hundred men, thus organize and send their electoral vote
here, and claim, as they would, that it should be counted,
would this House consent to it? Suppose the electoral vote
thus sent here should change the result of the Presidential
election — and if counted elect a President in sympathy with
the rebels; or suppose there were three Presidential candi¬
dates before the people, and that the votes of these assumed
State organizations are so cast as to defeat an election by
— 280 —
the people, and make it necessary for the House to select thQ
President, do not gentlemen know that the excitement which
attends such a contingency would exceed in violence anything
ever witnessed in this country, and that it might terminate
in another rebellion? Are not gentlemen apprehensive that
the conspirators of the South, driven to desperation, may
undertake to accomplish their purpose by some such scheme
as this? And is not our present unguarded and loose manner
of reorganizing the rebel States well calculated to invite the
rebels to just such an effort as I have suggested. I frankly
confess that I am not entirely free from apprehension.
Gentlemen may reply that we have a majority of the States
as now represented in Congress, and that, therefore, there
can be no danger. To this I rejoin, that every State so re¬
organized will have its Senators and Representatives here
next winter, demanding admission, and if the executive
department of the government has "recognized them as the
true government of the State," there will be danger that a
majority of this House would vote to admit them as members
as they did in the last Congress. I desire, therefore, to
guard against any possible contingency of the kind now. If
we pass this bill, such a conspiracy cannot possibly succeed.
I think I may safely speak for a large majority on this
side of the House, when I declare that never by their
authority or consent will a single electoral vote from any
rebel State for President or Vice-President be counted in this
Hall until that State shall have reorganized a State govern¬
ment, republican in form, and it has been recognized by
Congress. In other words, before one of the so-called
seceded States can be permitted to reassume any part of the
governing power of the country, it must resume its constitu¬
tional relations to the National Government in conformity
with and subject to the Constitution of the United States.
The State governments which have been overthrown or
destroyed, must be replaced by new governments, organized
by the loyal people, and these new governments can only
become constitutional governments when thus organized
and recognized by Congress.
This is certainly a point about which there ought to be
no dispute among loyal men. I lay it down as a principle,
— 231 —
from which we ought not to depart, and which we cannot safely
yield, that this whole question of reconstruction, whether
under the war powers or the peace powers of the government,
is a question confided by the Constitution expressly on Con¬
gress, and not to the President or to any general charged
by him with the execution of military orders. I desire the
House and the country to understand that by silence we
sanction every assumption of doubtful constitutional power
by any department or officer of the government. The domi¬
nant party in Congress ought to remember that it is making
history, and will be held responsible in history for every
dangerous precedent established with its consent. It ought
not to be forgotten that every act of the executive and Con¬
gress becomes a precedent, to be revived hereafter if occasion
offers, by those who shall then be charged with the adminis¬
tration of the government. I may be deemed over-anxious
on this subject. But, sir, I know the power of example, and
I much prefer that the President and every officer appointed
by him shall do no act, unless clearly authorized by the Con¬
stitution, or by act of Congress.
I prefer that before any doubtful constitutional power is
exercised by the President or any officer of the government,
the question shall be submitted to Congress for its decision
and advice. I think we ought to demand the establishment
of this rule, and insist on its strict observance by the Presi¬
dent and every department of the government. However
ready we may be as partizans to apologize for or justify the
assumption of doubtful constitutional power by those endowed
by us with authority; as a representative, I am unwilling
that the President of my own choice, or any officer of his
appointment, should exercise any power which I would
condemn if exercised by a political opponent.
Mr. Speaker, I have the most unlimited confidence in the
President. His patriotism no man can doubt who knows
him as well as I do. That he does not intend to assume any
of the prerogatives of Congress, I know. He is the last man
in the world whom I would suspect of using unwarranted
power for personal or selfish ends. And precisely here is the
danger. We have no fear, because we who know him confide
implicitly in his honesty of purpose, ana believe that he
— 282 —
intends every act for the public good. But we ought not to
forget, Mr. Speaker, that the precedents, which every
department of this government are now making, may be used
hereafter by ambitious and bad men for very different pur¬
poses. The safe way is the better way. And that is for
every department of the government to keep strictly within
the limits prescribed for if by the Constitution and laws of
the United States. Many gentlemen seem to act as though
the President, during the continuance of the war, could
assume the entire war power of the government, and that
our functions as Representatives were suspended until the
close of the war, except to act as mere recording scribes.
I protest against such an assumption, and against that
silence which might be interpreted into an assent to it. It is
true that the President of the United States is made by the
Constitution, Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy>
and in that capacity, he may issue such orders to the officers
and men as he may deem proper to accomplish the military
object sought by Congress when declaring or recognizing
war, but legally he can issue such orders for no other
purpose. In addition to this, every order must be in strict
conformity with those rules and articles of war which have
been or may be enacted by Congress, or with the well-known
laws of war as recognized by civilized nations. The Presi¬
dent can make no new rule or article of war. That, sir, is a
prerogative which belongs to Congress alone. The idea
which I wish to impress upon the minds of gentlemen is this,
that Congress, by the express terms of the Constitution, is
invested with the war-making power of the nation. What¬
ever rules and articles of war it adopts must be enforced.
Whatever it declares shall not be done, as an act of war, can¬
not properly be done.
The President, in time of war, is authorized to do many
acts by virtue of the power vested in him by the Constitution
as Commander-in-chief, by the rules and articles of war
enacted by Congress, and by the laws of war recognized by
civilized nations, which he cannot do as a civil Chief
Magistrate. As a civil Chief Magistrate, he cannot confis¬
cate property or emancipate slaves by proclamation. But in
— 283 —
time of war, by the laws of war, as Commander-in-Chief, he
may confiscate enemies' property and emancipate all slaves.
He may govern the country which he conquers by martial
law, until Congress shall otherwise direct. But I have failed
to find any power conferred by the Constitution, or by the
rules and articles of war, or by the laws of war, authorizing-
the President to establish, without the direction of Congress,
civil State governments over conquered territory, or to re¬
organize new State governments, or to prescribe what kind
of constitutions the loyal citizens should adopt, before he
will recognize them as States restored to the Union.
I believe this entire power is vested by the Constitution
in Congress, and not in the President. Congress is not only the
war-making- but the law-making- power of the country. In
time of war and in time of peace, Congress must exercise the
sovereign power of the country, or there is no safety for the
future of this nation and for republican institutions.
Mr. Speaker, I do not object so much to some thing's
which have been done, or the objects sought to be accom¬
plished, as I do to the manner in which they have been done.
I do not intend, quietly, to permit the President or any head
of a department, or any g-eneral in charge of an army, to as¬
sume the legislative functions of the government. A great
question, such as the one before us, of the organization and
restoration of States to civil life and power, with free con¬
stitutions, cannot safely be entrusted to any power but Con¬
gress. And, sir, that is where the Constitution has placed it.
In addition to this, sir, I object to any effort at forestalling
the action of Congress by the military power. I object to
precipitating great civil questions of the magnitude and im¬
portance of this upon the people of the rebel States, before
the loyal resident citizens are prepared to meet them, and are
properly organized to insure success. I object to it, because,
whether the reconstructed State governments are satisfactory
or not to the unconditional Union men of those States or of
Congress, as the representatives of the nation we are placed
in a position where we must either refuse to recognize the
States so reorganized, and recognized by the military author¬
ities in command as the constitutional governments of such
— 284 —
States, or we must quietly submit to the assumption of
authority by the military power and by the executive depart¬
ment of the government, which belongs alone to Congress.
Suppose the convention in Louisiana organize a govern¬
ment obnoxious to a majority of the unconditional Union men
of that State, and either refuse to submit the constitution to
the loyal people for their approval or rejection, or if it be
submitted, it is submitted as the Kansas Lecompton consti¬
tution was submitted, and the openly disloyal and pro-
slavery conservative elements, claiming to be loyal, are per¬
mitted to vote for it, thus securing a majority in its favor.
If the general in command, and all the departments of the
government, except Congress, treat the officers of a State
government thus organized as the constitutional government,
what shall Congress do? Submit to it and admit their
Senators and Representatives, or reject them? I should like
to ask, gentlemen, if Congress should refuse to admit them
and refuse to recognize the new government as the constitu¬
tional government of the State, whether the electoral vote
of that State, if sent liere either under the old State organi¬
zation or under the new one, thus constituted and recognized,
would by the authority of this body be counted, and the gov¬
erning power of the country, to that extent, be placed in the
hands of a mere handful of men controlling a State govern¬
ment which we refuse to recognize? Suppose further, that
all the departments of the government but this House should
recognize the new organization, and that the Senate should
admit its Senators as they have done in the case of East
Virginia, while we refused admission to their members
elected to this House, would the electoral vote be counted if
sent here? Would this new government be the constitutional
government of the State until recognized by Congress—I
mean by the concurrent action of the Senate, House, and
President? Gentlemen who examine this subject cannot fail
to see the complications and difficulties in which we may be
involved unless some uniform policy regarding the reorgan¬
ization of States is adopted by Congress and strictly observed
by the executive department of the government.
[Here the hammer fell.]
— 285 —
Mr. Grinnell. I move that the gentleman have leave
to proceed.
Leave was granted.
Mr. Ashley. The President, in his late proclamation,
says:
"And I do further proclaim, declare and make known,
that whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Flor¬
ida, South Carolina and North Carolina, a number of persons
not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such
States at the Presidential election of the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty, having taken the oath
aforesaid, and not having- since violated it, and being quali-
ified voters under the election law of the State, existing im¬
mediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding
all others, shall re-establish a State government, which
shall be republican, and in no wise contravening said
oath, shall be recognized as the true government of the
State."
"Shall be recognized as the true government of the
State" by whom? The fair interpretation of the language
used is that the State, when organized in conformity with
the provisions of the proclamation, will be recognized by the
President. The country so understands the proclamation.
And yet I can speak authoritatively, when I say that the
President does not intend to do anything of the kind without
the concurrence of Congress. If the rebel States still retain
their political organizations under their old constitutions,
neither the President nor any general in command can by
proclamations or orders change those State constitutions. If
the old State constitutions and governments of the rebel
States are destroyed, then neither the President nor any gen¬
eral under him, can, with the military power, establish civil
State governments with such constitutions as they may dic¬
tate, without the consent of Congress.
The military power and the civil power must not be con¬
founded. Above all it must not be forgotten that Congress
alone is clothed with the war power and the civil legislative
power of the nation.
Mr. Speaker, suppose the Union men, by unwise divisions
and personal ambitions, are defeated in the coming Presiden¬
tial election, and by such division a President is elected by
— 286 —
the opposition. Would gentlemen on this side of the House
quietly sit here, and permit a pro-slavery President, with the
entire military power of the country, and one-tenth of the
local population of the rebel States, professing to be loyal, to
reorganize State governments, and recognize them as the
constitutional governments of these States, without the con¬
sent of Congress? No, sir. From an hundred men, now on
this floor, a protest would come in the name of an outraged
people, protesting against such an usurpation of the prerog¬
atives of Congress, and against such a flagrant violation of
the Constitution. Why would we all cry out with one voice,
if such a scheme for reorganizing the rebel States was in
process of enforcement by an opposition President? The
answer is easy. We would not submit to it, because we
would be certain that with such power in the hands of their
President, they would re-establish slavery and the old slave
State governments in every rebel State, and thus bring back
many of the traitors to the vacant seats here. Of course,
sir, we would all protest; and as I would protest then, so I
protest now, against the adoption of any policy by the
executive or military departments of the government on this
question of reconstruction, until it shall first have had the
sanction of Congress. Sir, I want no precedent established
by this administration, touching the exercise of doubtful con¬
stitutional power, which I would object to if adopted by an
opposing administration. Whatever power I claim for an
Executive of my own choice, I am willing to concede to
another who is not my choice.
Mr. Speaker, let us keep every department of the govern¬
ment strictly within its constitutional limits, and in the
future we shall not be driven to the disgraceful necessity of
apologizing for or repudiating our own acts, before we can
with any show of propriety or fairness arraign those who,
through following our precedents, are doing so for different
purposes.
Mr. Speaker, if a President may, because war exists,
civil or foreign, exercise any of the powers conferred by the
Constitution on Congress, whether relating to the civil or
military administration of the government, an ambitious
— 287 —
and unscrupulous President can find pretext enough for pre¬
cipitating- the nation into either a foreign or civil war, as
was done in the case of Mexico, and with the Mormons.
Then following such precedents as we are establishing by
our silence, the Executive could assume to exercise almost
every function of the government under the plea of neces¬
sity, and the right conferred by the admitted war powers of
the government. Suppose the pro-slavery States rights
party of this country should elect a President and a majority
of this House, this year, owing to causes such as I have sug¬
gested (which may Heaven forbid); and they should conspire,
as it is not at all unlikely they would, to reinstate the old
order of things, assume the confederate debt, re-enslave all
persons emancipated by the President's Proclamation or by
Congress, and restore all confiscated estates to their former
owners, would they long want a pretext for continuing this
war, or involving the country in another civil war, if there¬
by their President could assume unlimited power, and with
the army and ten per cent, of the voting population, without
regard to its loyalty, revive the old State Constitutions, and
obtain their recognition by the executive branch of govern¬
ment as the constitutional governments of these States,
without the consent of Congress?
I confess, sir, I believe there are thousands of men in the
North to-day, who stand ready at any opportune moment to
enter into just such a conspiracy. If gentlemen will recall
what has transpired in this country since the days of Tyler,
Calhoun and Texas annexation, especially during the adminis¬
trations of Polk, Pierce and Buchanan, they will not find it
difficult in my judgment to reach the conclusion that either
of these administrations, if in power in 1865, would cor¬
dially have entered into just such a conspiracy as I have
delineated. Do gentlemen say that this is impossible? I
answer, by repeating what I have said before to the people
of my own, and indeed of every district in which I have
spoken, that I fear an attempt will be made, if the pro-
slavery party of this country elect a President of their pecu¬
liar faith, to accomplish all I have depicted, and the con¬
federate rebel debt will be the lever power employed for that
— 288 —
unholy purpose. If they should succeed in an election, no
man need predict what they will not attempt. The country
has not yet forgotten how the Texas annexation scheme was
bought through Congress, by the leaders of this pro-slavery
rebellion. They had but ten millions of dollars in scrip to
operate with, worth from five to seven cents on the dollar;
annexation and assumption made them par. In this new
political and financial scheme, the conspirators will have
three or four thousand millions of dollars in confederate
bonds, with which to effectuate their purposes. Sir, when I
remember what infamous, God-defying acts, the American
Congress, under the lead of the present pro-slavery rebels,
has been guilty of, in days that are past, I shudder when I
contemplate the terrible ordeal through which the nation, in
its process of regeneration, must pass, after the close of the
war.
Mr. Speaker, I have already, in passing, referred to the
action of General Banks in Louisiana. Let me call the
attention of the House and the country to his unwarrantable
and indefensible assumption of civil authority in that State.
In the first place, against the protest, and in defiance of the
well-known wishes of the only organization known to the
country, or recognized by the unconditional Union men of
Louisiana, General Banks issues an order for an election on
the 22d of February last, of State officers, under the old
State organization and pro-slavery constitution. If the old
pro-slavery constitution and State government of Louisiana
are to be thus re-established and recognized in defiance of
the wishes of the loyal men of that State and without the
sanction of Congress, this House ought to understand it.
For myself I enter my protest against any such assumption
of civil authorit}7, by the military power. Let us look a little
farther into the matter. After ordering an election for State
officers under the old constitution, which, if acquiesced in
by Congress, will legally revive the old order of things in
that State, General Banks issues another order directing that
an election shall be held for delegates to a convention, for
the purpose of amending the constitution of the State so
— 289 —
that it may conform to something- — it is difficult to say
what. The following- is his order upon the subject:
"In order that the organic law of the State may be made
to conform to the will of the people, and harmonize with the
spirit of the age, as well as to maintain and preserve the
ancient landmarks of civil and religious liberty, an election
of delegates to a convention for the revision of the constitu¬
tion will be held on the first Monday of April, 1864."
Whence did General Banks derive authority to issue such,
an order? Certainly not from Congress, nor from the laws of
war, as recognized by civilized nations, nor from any rule or
article of war known to our military code. If the power to
issue the order is not derived from either of these sources,
then the action of General Banks is a most wanton and
defenseless assumption of military power, as well as an out¬
rage upon the only organized body of men known and ad¬
mitted by all to be free State men. As a military commander
in the service of the United States, he may g-overn a con¬
quered people by martial law until Congress or the people, in
the exercise of loyal, popular sovereignty, recognize a civil
g-overnment, subject to the Constitution of the United States,
without interference or coercion from him by the military
force under his command. But neither General Banks nor the
Commander-in-Chief, can, by martial law, proclaim a consti¬
tution for the civil government of any State. General
Banks, however, declares in this extraordinary proclamation?
that "the fundamental law of Louisiana is martial law."
If any gentleman can enlighten the House or the country
about this matter, he will entitle himself to the lasting- grati¬
tude of all loyal men. Will any gentleman tell me how
"martial law" can become "the fundamental law" of any
organized civil State government known to the Constitution
of the United States? I hold that neither General Banks,
nor any other general in command of a department, has
authority to order an election for State officers in any of the
rebel States, under any fundamental law, whether it be mar¬
tial law or civil law. Still less has he any show of power or
excuse for ordering an election of delegates to a constitu-
19
— 290 —
tional convention, if there is an existing fundamental law in
the State.
If the State officers who have been elected by General
Banks's orders assume the functions of civil government, they
will undoubtedly be recognized as officers under the old State
constitution of Louisiana, whatever General Banks may say
about martial law as the fundamental law of the State. If
they are not officers of the civil government of Louisiana
then the late election was a farce, for martial law does not
provide that the people, or any part of the people, over whom
it is operating, shall, themselves, select the officers to adminis¬
ter arid exercise it.
I undertake to say, that if these recently elected State
officers are installed into office and recognized by Congress,
such recognition will legally re-establish the old State con¬
stitution and slave code of Louisiana. In addition to this
the State government, thus established and recognized by
Congress, may legally refuse to submit to or recognize the
validity of any new State constitution adopted by the con¬
vention ordered by General Banks to be elected in April,
after the State officers elected under the old constitution are
inaugurated and invested with the civil government of the
State. They undoubtedly will refuse to recognize the action
of that convention, unless it be in conformity with their
wishes, because they can properly claim that the old State
constitution having been revived and recognized by their
election and inauguration, it provides the manner in which
it may be amended. In order to obtain an early recognition
of the assumed State organization under martial law, the
newly elected governor may, if he sees fit, order an election
for members of the State Legislature and Congress instanter,
and I shall not be surprised if we have Senators and Repre¬
sentatives applying here for admission from the government
thus organized by the military power, before we adjourn. If
such should be the case and they are admitted before the
action of the constitutional convention is submitted to the
loyal people for their approval, and the present State officers
accept and recognize that constitution if adopted by the
people as the constitution of the State, these officers may, if
— 291 —
they choose, legally disregard the action of that convention,
and remain under the old constitution. If they should do
this, what remedy would be left to us? If Congress should
recognize this assumed State government, before the consti¬
tutional convention now ordered by General Banks to be
elected should assemble, or before it had adopted and sub¬
mitted a constitution to the loyal electors of the State for
their approval, its whole power under the newly elected offi¬
cers could and might be used to defeat the wishes of the
free State men, and if desired by the present State officers
this would be a better way of accomplishing their purposes
than by refusing to accept the constitution formed by the
convention and adopted by the people. I have no doubt that
the officers of this assumed State government could, if they
were recognized by Congress, defeat the adoption of a free
State constitution of Louisiana if they desired to do so. I
do not say that they will attempt it, should Congress recog¬
nize them, for I do not know them. I only say that they
could easily do so, if they preferred the old constitution to
the new one.
Gentlemen will readily see the necessity of avoiding
such complications — and all must agree that the safer and
better way is to have new State constitutions adopted and
approved by the loyal people and Congress before elections
for State officers are ordered by any one, and before we
admit either Senators or Representatives in Congress from
any of the rebel States.
I hope we will have no such difficulty in Louisiana as I
have suggested. I have always had such a high apprecia¬
tion of the character and ability of General Banks, that I
regret very much that I have felt it to be my duty to say
what I have of his acts touching the reorganization of the
State. I cannot, however, shut my eyes to the fact that the
policy adopted by General Banks affords every inducement
for the secret enemies of the government, by uniting with
the conservative faction opposed to a free State, to bring
about just the condition of things I have described. I trust
we are not to have in Louisiana a repetition of the Mis¬
souri troubles.
— 292 —
If General Banks, instead of ordering- an election for
State officers under the old constitution of Louisiana, had
listened to the free State men and ordered an election of
deleg-ates to a convention to amend the old constitution of
Louisiana, or to make a new one for the State, the loyal men
of the nation might have tolerated such an unauthorized
assumption of power on his part. As it is, loyal men are
compelled to protest ag-ainst it, not only because of his exer¬
cise of power for which there is no law, and his disregard of
the wishes of the free State men, but because of the diffi¬
culties and complications which a repetition of such acts in
other States may bring- upon us. Here is what the free
State men of Louisiana say on this point:
"Resolved, that this Free State General Committee, not
relinquishing- its judg-ment that the only true path to recon¬
struction is a convention to form a new constitution before
any election for State officers; and not renouncing- its lawful
claim to have slavery abolished immediately, without the
dang-ers of any futile scheme of gradual emancipation; and
not yielding its assent to the idea that the election of seven
executive officers can, by proper use of terms, be styled the
civil g-overnment of Louisiana; but, nevertheless, recogniz¬
ing- the patriotic duty of endeavoring- to place in office men
whose opinions are in harmony with the wants of Louisiana
and the spirit of the ag-e, will take part in the elections."
The farce of an election was g"one throug-h with, and of
course the men representing- an org-anization whose loyalty
never was questioned, were defeated, and the candidate of
General Banks was elected. It could not well have been
otherwise. A military commander who announces that
''martial law is the fundamental law of the state," and
that all must vote, would not find it very difficult to elect any
one he mig-ht desig-nate, especially when the ag-greg-ate vote
did not exceed ten or eleven thousand, with three candidates
in the field. Hahn's whole vote in the State, as claimed by
his friends, is only 6,171, less than one-fourth of the vote of
my congressional district.
There are fifty-four parishes in the State, only twelve of
which are under our control.
Of the number who voted for Hahn, I have been credi¬
bly informed that over 1,000 were employed in the quarter-
— 293 —
master's department; about 550 are policemen in the city of
New Orleans; city laborers 1,100, and other city officers 100;
some 1,600 were soldiers claiming-to be citizens of Louisiana.
The acting- mayor of New Orleans was removed by General
Banks, and one appointed who could and would control the
votes and influence of the 550 policemen, city laborers and
city officers. With all the military power of the department
to support Hahn; with the votes of all the g-overnment
employees, the Louisiana soldiers and policemen, his ^entire
vote in the twelve parishes is but 6,171, and yet this insig¬
nificant vote is paraded before the country, and unblushingly
called the voice of the entire State of Louisiana, which, in
1860, g-ave a vote of over 50,000. Hahn had hardly as many
votes in the entire State as Mrs. General Beaureg-ard had
sympathizing- rebel mourners in attendance upon her funeral
in the city of New Orleans, in a day or two after this election.
I have said nothing-.of General Banks's orders and treat¬
ment of the freedmen of Louisiana. God knows I have no
desire to say a word that I oug-ht not to say, but I cannot re¬
main silent when such irreg-ularities are being- committed.
I am heartsick of this pandering- to rebels and slaveholders.
When General Butler was in command at New Orleans, no
recog-nized free State man complained of his masterly admin¬
istration. The rebels and slaveholders, however, made day
and nig-ht hideous with their howling-. And General Butler
was removed. Since General Banks has been in command,
there has not been a rebel or pro-slavery complaint, but frank
and manly protests come to us from well-known Union men,
who have been tried as by fire and whose loyalty was never
tainted by taking- an oath to support the rebel government
or by voluntarily defending- and justifying- it. This simple
fact tells its own story, and I need not add another word.
Mr. Speaker, let us see to it that there is no repetition
of these acts by any other general in an attempt to organize
a civil government for a rebel State, without the express
authority of Congress. Enact this bill as a law, and you
insure the liberation, regeneration and restoration of the
South. Refuse to pass it, and the loyal men of the South
are left to the mercy and caprice of military rulers. Professed
— 294 —
loyalists and open-throated rebels, who have been guilty of
every crime, will conspire together to crush the free State
men as they did in Missouri. The amnesty oath will be taken
by thousands who will at once strike hands with perjurers,
robbers, and murderers to destroy the men who have, from
the first, been faithful to the Constitution and the Union.
Mr. Speaker, the war ended, I feel confident that the
wily enemy will attempt to regain by diplomacy much that
he has lost by an appeal to arms. Therein, sir, as I appre¬
hend, lies our danger. The nation, anxious for peace, will
eagerly listen to the voice of the returning prodigal, until
like the song of the syren, it will, as of yore, lull many loyal
but too confiding men into a plausible but delusive security.
Cunningly devised schemes of adjustment, declared by their
authors to be " honorable to all parties," will be thrust upon
us, and every form of sophistry employed to conceal their de¬
formities, and extol their merits.
Let us meet these issues now, and meet them like men.
Let us define clearly and unmistakably the policy of the gov¬
ernment on all questions touching the reconstruction and res¬
toration of the rebel States to the Union, and thus render
forever impossible, all humiliating compromises.
The truly loyal men of the North and the South will
expect and demand this of us. They will demand that their
heroic sacrifices and sufferings shall not have been all in vain.
And, sir, such a people have the right to make.such a demand.
Their will must must be consulted — must be obeyed. I know
that obedience to it will make freedom and justice the
prominent elements of every newly organized State.
Mr. Speaker, I believe I may saiely say, that never in
the history of any nation has there been grander exhibitions
of patriotism and heroism, than have illustrated every battle¬
field of this terrible rebellion. Why, sir, when I go through
my own district and hear the simple and touching story told in
almost every household, about fathers and sons, husbands
and brothers, who have gone into the army that the republic
might live, I am proud of my country, and thank God that I
belong to such a heroic race.
Mr. Speaker, I have witnessed, when aiding to fill our
armies, many beautiful and imposing, though touching- and
— 295 —
heartrending scenes. It is the same story of devotion and
valor everywhere. The scene which I have in my mind's eye
has its counterpart everywhere throughout the North. The
picture is daguerreotyped upon the mind and soul of every
man whose heart has been in this struggle. In one of the
agricultural counties of my district, around the domestic
hearth, before a blazing fire, is gathered a family group.
They have just returned from a war meeting, and are en¬
gaged in serious and thoughtful discussion. The question
is, how many can be spared from home—how many can
volunteer to go and fight for their country? At length, amid
the contending struggles of patriotism, duty and affection,
it is settled. Two brothers make the stern resolve. Quietly
and methodically they prepare for their uncertain absence.
When that is done, they enter their names as volunteers, and
await, and that not long, the orders which summon them to
the field. The day of parting comes. At the railroad station
are gathered fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends to
bid these and other brave spirits farewell. The approaching
train is crowded with other volunteers who rend the air with
shouts as they catch a glimpse of the new recruits—shouts
which modify, perhaps, but cannot entirely repress the tears
and sobs of those who are now about to part, and, possibly,
forever. The last shake of the hand is given, the last kiss
imprinted upon manly brows, the last farewell uttered, the
train moves swiftly away, and this patriotic family, who have
given up their sons, turn to wend their steps to their now
less cheerful home. Let us accompany them, and strive to
realize their condition. Listen, as they gather around the
evening altar, to the prayer which from heart and lip ascends
to the God of nations and of men—a prayer that the country
may be saved, and that the precious lives of the beloved
ones who have gone to fight for it may be spared, and they,
in due time, restored to their family and home.
One phase in the scene we are contemplating is over.
Time has healed the poignancy of the sorrow which attended
the parting, and the household moves on in accustomed
routine. Weeks have elapsed. A flash along the wires
announces a battle in which the absent ones have partici-
— 296 —
pated: but, alas, it is too meagre to allay their anxiety..
Away for miles, over a bad and frozen road, haste a com¬
pany on horseback to get fuller details from the papers.
Behold with what trembling" anxiety the father glances
along- the column of killed and wounded to see if the name of
either of his sons is there. And when the dread intelligence
is found, go now to that bereaved family circle, and witness
the more than Roman fortitude with which it is accepted,
and tell me, in what former period of human history, the
world has afforded a more exalted exhibition of valor and
patriotism. Sir, these are common scenes.
Thousands of homes thus bereft have uttered no com¬
plaint, but have sent forth other sons to'bleed and die, per¬
haps, or perish by disease, in some future campaign of this
dreadful struggle. Nor has the voice of complaint yet
reached us from the battlefield---from the hospital, or from
the horrible dens of Libby Prison or Belle Island, tenfold
worse than either. Our fellow-citizens have only asked that
the war might be prosecuted with vigor, until the rebellion
was effectually broken, and a triumphant peace was achieved.
At such a time, amid such scenes, and in the presence of
such a people, how indefensible, how criminal, is all personal
and partisan strife. Sir, when I witness, as I must, wherever
I go, such scenes as I have so poorly delineated, my heart is
filled with the deepest sympathy and sorrow, and I involun¬
tarily ask myself what there is, that can ever compensate for
all this affliction, this endurance and this self-sacrifice.
There is but a single answer. Nothing-, absolutely nothing,
but the entire regeneration of the Republic, by making
" Liberty and Union one and inseparable." That the earn¬
est men of this great nation will accomplish this work, I
have never doubted. Tome it is the simple logic of the con¬
test. I have believed from the first that it must come,
because I have believed that Providence would bring* to
naught the councils of the wicked and the crafty. Indeed I
contemplate the future of this strug'gle with rapture. The
clouds which to the eyes of many have darkened our political
horizon, for three years have all had their silver lining-s for
me. No hour has been dark enough to cause me to feel one
throb or to utter one wail of despair. Mj hope has been
that justice would at last triumph, and the progress we are
making1 assures me that it will. I advocated from the first
the emancipation of all slaves, because I believed ideas were
more formidable than armies, justice more powerful than
prejudice, and truth a weapon mightier than the sword.
Thank God, that as a nation and people, after three years of
war and mourning we are beginning- to comprehend our duty,
and to feel in this life-struggle for national existence, that
" The laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor and oppressed,
And close as sin and suffering-joined
We march to Fate — abreast!"
I have believed that as a nation we should gTow stronger
and gain victories only as we become manly and just, and
that at last liberty would emerge triumphant from the con¬
flict, changing- constitutions, customs, and laws, to meet the
requirements of a higher and better civilization, and that
thus emerging, she would vivify by her magic touch every
desolate waste, and cause to bloom every spot consecrated by
the blood of her fallen sons. Anything short of this would
be hollow mockery; with it accomplished,
"Who will mourn that in these dark days
His lot is cast?
God's hand within the shadow lays,
The stones whereon His gates of praise
Shall rise at last.
Turn and o'erturn, O, outstretched Hand,
Nor stint, nor stay;
The years have never dropped their sand
On mortal issues vast and grand,
As ours to-day."
HON. J. M. ASHLEY
Renominated by Acclamation for Congress
by the republican congressional convention at toledo,
may 24th, 1864.
Hon. "William Sheffield, of Henry County, was president.
S. B. Price and J. C. Swan were secretaries.
The platform reported by the committee on resolutions
■was unanimously adopted.
The resolution endorsing- Mr. Ashley reads thus :
Resolved, That we cordially approve and endorse the
course pursued in Congress by our able and fearless Repre¬
sentative, Hon. James M. Ashley, whose zeal, fidelity and
patriotism entitle him to the profound respect and admira¬
tion of a constituency he has so ably and faithfully repre¬
sented.
The committee appeared with Mr. Ashley, and after
the applause had subsided he was introduced to the conven¬
tion by the president, and spoke as follows:
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention:
In the storm of personal and political conflict, I have a will of
iron. Surrounded as I am to-day, and in the midst of such a
scene, I am as a child whose heart is overflowing' to its bene¬
factor with thankfulness and gratitude. Unyielding1 as you
know I am when confronting- the wrong-, and confident in my
strength when defending- the unpopular cause of the poor
and the lowly ag-ainst the oppressions of the rich and the
powerful, I somehow feel unmanned, as the world has it, in
appearing- before you now. Though welcomed as I am by
cheers and these unmistakable manifestations of your ap¬
proval and respect, my lips are tremulous with the emotions
(298)
— 299 —
•of my heart and the thoughts which crowd upon me cannot
find fitting- utterance in words. I wish I could command
language that would truly daguerreotype upon your hearts
the emotions of my own, so that I might suitably acknowl¬
edge the honor of this nomination, and thank you for the
compliment of this generous and enthusiastic reception.
Gentlemen, if any one of you stood where I stand to-day,
and remembered as I must remember the terrible ordeal
through which I have passed, and then contemplate the
events of this hour, and look forward as I do with hope to
the coming verdict of the loyal people of this District in
October, you would feel, I am sure, an unutterable satisfac¬
tion in such a triumph.
I accept, gentlemen, with a gratitude which I shall carry
with me through life, the nomination you have just tendered
me, and thank you with a full heart for this most cordial
welcome. To me it is an earnest of your individual esteem
and confidence, and is the best assurance I can have that my
course in Congress is fully approved by the free Union men
of this District whom you represent.
I have just read the platform you have unanimously
adopted, and approve it fully, and without qualification.
Though not necessary, I repeat what I expressed in my
recently published letter to my honorable friend from Wood,
that, if this convention had nominated any other citizen than
myself, he should have received my cordial support both on
the stump and at the ballot-box. Indeed, I would have per¬
mitted no man to have given more time and labor to secure
his triumphant election than I would have given.
I hope every loyal man in the District is sufficiently im¬
pressed with the importance and necessity of united action
in the impending contest, National, State and District, and
that upon this point I need not add another word.
Gentlemen: You who have known me longest and best,
you who know something of my inner life, and with what
devotion I have consecrated the best years of that life to the
advocacy of emancipation, a principle which to-day makes
the salvation of the nation possible, and binds all loyal men
together in its support; you, who have known how, with
— 300 —
unfaltering- faith, I have maintained the great democratic
idea of man's equality before the law, and who know how I
have urged with a diligence which has never tired, and a
perseverance which has never faltered, the adoption of these
principles by the present administration, you, I say, who
know all this, and have faithfully stood by me, can sympa¬
thize with and appreciate something- of t'he exultation and
joy I feel at the approaching- triumph of such a cause.
Thank God, the long- weary night of three years is
almost g-one; the morning- light is breaking; the North is at
last in earnest, and in the inspiring and beautiful words of
our Quaker poet, we can all shout with exultant hearts:
"Now joy and thanks for evermore,
The weary night has well nigh passed;
The slumbers of the North are o'er—
The giant stands erect at last!"
[Loud applause.]
Mr. President, it is now ten years since a little band of
anti-slavery men in Northern Ohio met at Maumee City in
response to a call drawn up by me, for a general conference.
The theme of my speech then, was the same as now. I then
said, " that justice demanded the emancipation of every slave
within the limits of the republic, and that the true demo¬
cratic idea recognized liberty as the birthright of the human
race." This theme has constituted the major part of nearly
all my speeches from that day to this. With what fidelity I
have followed these democratic ideas you all know. In
whatever path they have logically led me, I have devoutly
gone, never hesitating, never faltering, never doubting. No
motive of personal or political ambition has swaj^ed me for
a moment to the right or to the left. Refusing to resort to
the tricks of the mere politician, or to assume the non¬
committal position of the demagogue, as I might have done,
either by remaining silent or professing to have no opinions
on this subject, I have never for an instant yielded to the das¬
tardly and intolerant pro-slavery spirit which pervaded the
whole nation at the outbreak of the war, but became firmer
— 301 —
and more defiant as the attacks of the enemy became more
malignant and unscrupulous. I have clung- to these ideas
because I believe principles should be followed before men,
and that truth was stronger than any party. From the first
these ideas have been the cardinal points of my political
faith, and they shall remain the main plank in my platform
until this great battle is ended in the complete triumph of
freedom by the liberation of the last slave in the United
States.
Mr. President, it is said, and I believe it to be true, that
all sacrifices made either by individuals or nations in main¬
taining great principles, bring with them their own compen¬
sations; and surely as good and bad acts have their rewards,
both here and hereafter, so surely shall the defender of the
right be compensated for all his trials. I have not been
unmindful of this great truth while battling for the anti-
slavery cause, and I have not forgotten that which history
has taught the world for more than two thousand years, that
wherever a man came pleading for an unpopular reform, even
though the cause he pleaded was admitted to be just, he has
always been treated and stoned as a prophet. I have ac¬
cepted the slanderous scourging to which I have been sub¬
jected, philosophically, because, confident that if true to the
great cause I have espoused, the very stones cast at me would
one day be made into my monument, and that my slanderers
would vilify me into a better fame.
In 1861, when I demanded emancipation in the name of
justice, because believing as a nation we could not call upon
a just God to aid us in this great struggle unless we did
justly, how many men were there in this District who were
eager to condemn, and did condemn me unsparingly, and yet
how many of these men are ready to applaud me now?
It has ever been thus the world over. Providence com¬
pels all men sooner or later, to testify to the "almighty
power and force of truth." Because grounded in this faith I
have never faltered. Without it, no man can withstand the
fury of his fellows. With it, no earthly power can shake
him from his purpose.
— 302 —
I do not believe any man can ever be truly great, or be¬
come a successful leader in any moral movement or noble
enterprise who does not recognize the creative agency and
directing- power of an all-wise Providence. In my opinion,
if our soldiers and statesmen had not been blessed with this
simple and sublime faith, in the dark days through which as
a nation we have passed, they could never have overcome the
difficulties and dangers which have beset us at almost every
step in the Cabinet and in Congress, and on the tented field.
However unworthy some may think me, and unworthy though
I may be, I nevertheless have believed, and now believe, that
under God, I have had my allotted duty to perform in this
great struggle for national life, and I have attempted to do
that duty as faithfully and devotedly as ever pilgrim who
sought the sacred shrine.
But for the men who maintained in the council chambers,
of the nation and on the battlefield, the great principles to
which I have referred, this nation would have been lost.
The time had come in our history when right made might,
and when freedom could take no step backwards without
sealing the doom of the republic. Believing this wit'h all
my heart, I have fought in the ranks with thousands of
others this great battle of freedom as I would fight for my
life, and thank God we have triumphed—triumphed, despite
hesitating cabinets, grave-digging generals, timid politi¬
cians and time-serving editors —triumphed because the anti-
slavery men of this nation, with the rank and file of our
heroic and brave army, comprehending the logic of the con¬
test, have after a desperate struggle made this, as it should
have been from the first, a war for liberty instead of a war
for slavery. All our efforts would have been vain and worse
than vain if our gallant soldiers had not espoused our princi¬
ples, and thus caused our army to become the liberating
army of the republic, fighting in the name of God of Jus¬
tice for the establishment of universal liberty. At last the
hour has come when as a nation we may truthfully and
reverently say—
— 303 —
" God of nations, Sovereign Lord,
In Thy dread name we draw the sword;
We lift the starry flag1 on high,
That fills with light our stormy sky.
"No more, its flaming- emblems wave
To bar from hope the trembling* slave;
No more its radiant glories shine
To blast with woe one child of Thine."
[Applause.]
All honor to the noble men of our victorious armies,,
who bear aloft and defend that glorious banner! The nation
can never compensate them for their trials and suffering's, but
history shall weave for them a more unfading- g-arland than
ever encircled the diadem of the Caesars. If we are but
faithful to ourselves and sustain the soldier by our united
action in the councils of the nation and at the ballot-box in
support of the regular Union nominations, National, State,
District and County, the soldier will maintain our country's
cause on the battlefield and crown his victories with a last¬
ing- and honorable peace, a peace that shall re-unite the
republic in homog-eneous unity with a free Constitution
and make it the freest, the mig-htiest and most glorious of
all the nations of earth.- When that golden hour shall come
and freedom and justice shall be established within all our
borders, then may the liberal statesmen of the new era of
the republic appeal to impartial history for a vindication of
their acts, and wait for
"Time to test
Of the free soul'd and the slavish,
Which fulfills life's mission best."
In this hope and with this faith, strengthened by your
generous endorsement of to-day, I consecrate anew all my
powers for the great work which the future has in store for
the True American statesman.
— 304 —
Thanking- you, gentlemen, again and again for the honor
of this nomination, permit me in conclusion to pledge you as
on former occasions, "that by the blessing of heaven, the
standard of liberty and Union which you have this day com¬
mitted to my care and defense shall never be deserted or dis¬
honored while in my keeping."
[At the conclusion of his speech the convention adjourned
with cheers for the nominee.]
TO THE OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS OF THE
UNION ARMY
FROM THE TENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.
Indebted to you for the position I shall occupy in the
Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States, I cannot permit
the occasion to pass without thanking- you with a full heart
for the very g-enerous support you g-ave me at the recent
election, and to acknowledge on behalf of the loyal men of
the District, and many even beyond the limits of the District
and State, the gratitude they feel at the unanimity with
which you vindicated the Union cause at the ballot-box, de¬
spite combinations the most unnatural and extraordinary
efforts from a quarter the most unexpected.
Private letters assure me that most of you who are in the
field under General Sherman voted while on the march, and
some of you while skirmishing- with the enemy.
Many on detached duty, guarding- exposed points or on
picket, doubtless thought the hours long- while waiting- the
coming- of their comrades who should relieve them from duty,
I,etter from Hon. J. C. Dancy, A. M., Wilmington, N. C.
From an examination of the Tribune Almanac I learn that Mr. Ashley's congres¬
sional district has always been a close one. In 1858 his majority was only 552, when he ran
over one hundred ahead of the State ticket. In 1860 his majority over General Steed-
man was 1,204. In 1864 General Rice was Mr. Ashley's competitor, and had a majority
over him on the home vote. The legislature had provided that the soldiers from the
State in the field should have the right to vote, and this letter discloses the fact that
the soldiers at the front elected Mr. Ashley. Recognizing- his indebtedness to them
for his election, lie addressed them a manly letter. We regard it as worthy of presen¬
tation, for its patriotic sentiments and because it marks an important historic fact.
J. C. Dancy.
20 C 305 )
— 306 —
in order that they too might vote, while hundreds who were
sick, maimed and weary in hospitals did not forget the day
with its opportunities and responsibilities, but watched anx¬
iously for the hour to come in which they also should be per¬
mitted to unite with their more fortunate brothers who were
in the field, in voting' to maintain the cause for which they
were suffering and sacrificing so much. Thus, on the second
Tuesday of October, from the banks of the James, the Appo¬
mattox and the Potomac, from Vicksburg up the Tennessee,
and over the mountains of Georgia to Atlanta, from Kentucky
to South Carolina, and in hospitals thousands of miles apart,
the Union soldiers of Ohio from the Tenth Congressional
District made up a verdict which cannot be forgotten. You
have thus proven to the world your constancy and devotion
to the Union, that you know how to fight the enemy at home
with ballots as well as fight the enemy in front with bullets.
The verdict which you then made up in favor of the Union
cause, and its recognized representatives, like your heroic
deeds on many a well-fought battlefield, will be recorded by
the iron pen of history, on monuments which will endure
forever.
I count it a greater honor to be elected by the votes of
the brave men who have faced, as you have, the enemy, and
vindicated their devotion to the Union, than to receive the
support of professed Union men, who under any pretext,
or for any cause, would form open or secret combinations
with the leaders of a party known to be hostile to the best
interests of the country, and at wa«r with the leading political
ideas which bind the Union party together, from Maine to
California.
The day after our State election I went to Michigan,
and then to the State of New York, to labor for the success
of our cause and its chosen representatives. While in the
western part of the latter State, a telegram was put into my
hand, just as I was going on the stand to speak, advising
me of the vote of the regiments in front of and near Atlanta,
and, although the result was not wholly unexpected — indeed,
I may say, was confidently anticipated by me — I cannot
with pen convey to you the deep emotions I felt when the
•— 307 —•
announcement came thus authoritatively, and my expecta¬
tions were more than realized. I would that I could clothe
in language the thoughts which then came over me, and
welled up from my heart to my lips in blessings on the head
of every soldier in hospital or on picket, on the march or in
camp, in battle or in prison.
Many of you supported me before you went into the
army. You have again entrusted me at a most important
crisis in our history, and I am all the more thankful for this
manifestation of your confidence, because I desire to complete
the congressional record which I have begun, on the great
questions that are yet to be passed upon by the nation. In
addition to this, I regard myself as charged by your recent
vote with your special interests. For your generous support
I can only promise fidelity to our cause, and in the future,
as in the past, continued devotion to your interests. Never
since the war broke out has an officer or soldier, or a soldier's
family, called on me in vain, if in my power to secure what
they asked. Whether in hospitals, in the field or in prison;
whether for promotion, and a recognition of meritorious
services, or to be relieved from trouble, I have ever been
ready and but too glad, when an opportunity offered which
would enable me to serve either officers or men, as hundreds
at home and in the army can testify. My highest ambition
has been and shall be to serve you and aid you in saving the
country. If I have, or shall contribute anything to that end,
either by my counsels or my votes, I will be amply rewarded.
But, whatever may betide, I must ever co-operate with, and,
if need be, fall with the heroic defenders of my country.
Whatever my future, be it prosperous or adverse, I shall
ever remember with pride and gratitude, the vote given me
by the Union soldiers from the Tenth Congressional Dis¬
trict of Ohio, during the great national struggle of 1864.
Unable to answer by pri-vate letter the numerous com¬
munications which I have received from officers and men, in
reference to my election, I adopt this mode of answering and
thanking you for the deep interest manifested, and to assure
you that I shall ever cherish, as among the most pleasing
recollections of my life, the fidelity with which you stood by
— 308 —
me, and the very flattering- manner in which many of you
have been pleased to refer to my congressional record, and in
which all have conveyed to me the renewed assurance of their
esteem and regard.
As the nation and the liberty-loving men of the world
cannot forget the wondrous deeds of heroism and daring
which have marked the triumph of the Union soldiers from
every State on every battlefield, in defense of the nation's
life, so shall all loyal men cherish their memories in grateful
remembrance for the additional victory they have enabled
us to achieve at the ballot-box in the re-election of Abraham
Lincoln and all Union candidates, whether for governors.
Congress or minor officers whom their votes have saved from
defeat by the opponents of the government at home.
May God bless all Union soldiers, and
"While our martyrs fall, our heroes bleed,
Keep us to every sweet remembrance true;
Till from this blood-red sunset springs, new born,
Our nation's second morn."
Truly your friend,
J. M. Ashley.
Toledo, Nov. 14,1864.
THE ASHLEY BANQUET AT THE OLIVER
HOUSE, NOVEMBER. 1864.
from the; toledo commercial
After the repast, Honorable "William Sheffield, of Na¬
poleon, president of the evening-, called the assemblage to
order, when congratulatory and complimentary letters were
read from Honorable Charles Sumner, Salmon P. Chase,
Governor Austin Blair of Michigan, Honorable Daniel S.
Dickinson of New York, and others.
The following are the letters from Governor Chase and
Senator Sumner:
from hon. salmon p. chase.
Cincinnati, November 14, 1864.
Dear Sir: It is with real regret that I find myself
unable to accept the invitation of the Union men of the
Tenth Congressional District, to meet them at the entertain¬
ment to be given to their able and faithful Representative,
General Ashley.
It has been my privilege for many years to rank him
among my true and faithful friends; but it is not alone, or
chiefly as a friend, that I rejoice in his re-election.
During his whole service in Congress, he has never
wavered or halted in his devotion to Union and Freedom.
His vote has never been separated from his duty. To him,
as chairman of the important Committee on Territories,
more than to any other man, do we owe the consecration of
all the new States to Liberty by irrepealable provisions of
fundamental law.
(309)
— 310 —
These, and such as these, are his titles to the confidence
and to the esteem and affection of his constituents. Let them
be assured that the loyal people of the country partake their
sentiments.
Very truly yours,
George R. Haynes, Esq. S. P. Chase.
from hon. charles sumner.
Boston, November 8, 1864.
Dear Sir: It will not be in my power to unite in the
banquet which you propose in honor of the re-election of your
most faithful Representativa.
I know Mr. Ashley well and honor him much. He has
been firm when others have hesitated, and from an early day
saw the secret of war, and I may add also, the secret of vic¬
tory.
In questions of statesmanship, which will soon supersede
all military questions, he has already given assurance of prac¬
tical wisdom. His various indefatigable labors and his elab¬
orate speech on "Reconstruction," shows that he sees well
what is to be done in order to place peace and liberty under
irresistible safeguards.
For myself, I have no hesitation in saying that, next to
the rebellion itself, I most deprecate premature State govern¬
ments in rebel States. Such governments will be a source of
sorrow and weakness incalculable. But I am sure that your
Representative will fail in no effort to prevent such a calam¬
ity.
There is also the amendment to the Constitution, prohib¬
iting slavery throughout the United States. Nobody has.
done more for it, practically, than your Representative.
Accept my thanks for the invitation with which you
have honored me, and believe me, dear sir,
Faithfully yours,
George R. Haynes, Esq. Charles Sumner.
Rounds of enthusiastic applause frequently interrupted
the reading of these and the other letters:.
— 311 —
After the reading1 of the letters was concluded, the fol¬
lowing- sentiment, proposed by Honorable Daniel S. Dickin¬
son in his letter, was again read:
"Honorable James M. Ashley, the soldier's honored and
favored Representative. New York unites with Ohio and the
District he so ably represents, in paying- tribute to his fidelity
and firmness in the cause of resisting- rebellion."
In response to calls from all parts of the hall, Mr.
Ashley spoke as follows:
Ladies and Gentlemen: We meet to-night to exchange
congratulations and rejoice over the triumphant re-election
of Abraham Lincoln, and all true representatives of the
Union cause.
I am deeply indebted to the kind friends who have pre¬
pared this agreeable entertainment, and made it possible for
me to meet at this social banquet to-night, so many of the
true Union men and women of my District. My friends, I
never was more at a loss than now for words with which to
express the joy I feel at our wonderful national triumph.
In the midst of this terrible civil war, a great moral
battle has been fought at the ballot-box, such as the world
has never witnessed. A victory has been achieved, the im¬
portance of which no man can over-estimate. On our part
the issues were fairly presented, ably discussed, and heroic¬
ally fought out. Never did men fight better than the men
who fought under our banner, and defended the ideas for
which we battled. Good men were everywhere in earnest;
bad men everywhere desperate. The stake for which we
fonght was national existence and the liberty of the human
race. In this sign we conquered. [Applause.]
Experience has taught us, since the rebellion, that a well-
organized party, with Truth for its weapon and Union bal¬
lots for its bullets, is as necessary for the ultimate triumph
of the nation's cause, as a well-disciplined army in the field,
equipped with all the death-dealing implements of war.
Without the triumph of the Union party at home, the Union
army could not exist in the field. Therefore, let every loyal
man unite to maintain the only party which is true to free-
— 312 —
dom, and pledged to maintain the army and preserve the
Union. [Applause.]
It is right and proper that we should rejoice over the
great victory which, as a nation, we have achieved by the
joint efforts of the Union soldiers in the liberating army and
the faithful Union men at home. "We can to-night truthfully
congratulate each other, on a victory which means some¬
thing; a victory which the world can understand; a victory
which proclaims with trumpet tongue "liberty throughout
all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof"; a vic¬
tory which sends forth the glad tidings which shall give
great joy to every slave in the United States, and to the
lovers of freedom in every land; a victory which declares to
the rebels and their Northern allies that the integrity of the
Union, the acknowledged supremacy of the national Consti¬
tution, and the abandonment of slavery, are our only condi¬
tions of peace. [Applause.]
As every one present responds with heart and lip to the
words which I now utter, so let their spirit and the inspira¬
tion which fires our hearts be caught up and sounded through¬
out the land, until they re-echo through every vaUey and
over mountain, and cause the whole people, soldiers and
citizens alike, to join in the grand anthem "Glory to God
in the Highest, on earth peace to good-willing men."
I say "peace to good-willing men" because I believe they
are the only men who can have, or who ought to have
"peace on earth," and because I believe that is the correct
rendering of the passage quoted. [Applause.]
Though I am, and from the first have been, for the war,
and war in earnest, I am for peace also; I long for peace; not
a peace which comes through knavish schemes, not a peace
made over the grave of Libert}-, nor yet a peace such as we
can at any moment secure by a cowardly surrender to the
demands of traitors and rebels; but
"For the peace which ring's out from the cannon's throat,
And the suasion of shot and shell,
Till rebellion's spirit is trampled down,
To the depths of its kindred hell.
— 313 —
"For the peace -which shall wash out the leprous stain
Of our slavery, foul and grim,
And shall sunder the fetters which creak and clank
On the downtrodden black man's limb."
[Applause.]
I do not rejoice, fellow-citizens, merely because we have
obtained a victory over our political opponents, or because,
despite trickery and fraud and base insensibility, I have been
individually successful in my late congressional canvass. I
rejoice rather because our triumph dates a new epoch in our
history as a nation, and perpetuates the liberties and nation¬
ality of a great people. [Applause.]
I know, that as the world g"oes, success is the god of to¬
day, but as all thoughtful men know, '' Truth is the god of
eternity." I would not give a fig for our success, and would
not rejoice over our victory, if I did not know it was obtained
by the triumph of Truth and Justice; for as it ever hath
been, so shall it ever be,
'"Truth's enemy wins a defeat with victory."
[Applause.]
In the triumph of the Republican Union party, Truth,
Justice, Liberty, Nationality, triumphed. The fiat has gone
forth; the verdict of the Union soldiers and Union electors at
the ballot-box is, that the nation shall live, and that slavery
shall die. [Applause.]
Who shall estimate the importance of this victory?
What thoughts or words shall I employ to impress its gran¬
deur upon you? By what standard shall we measure it, so as
to estimate its worth to us, and its value to the human race?
[Applause.]
A victory of such moral worth as this, Providence grants
to mankind but once in a century. What a grand, heroic
age in which to live. What a cause to battle for, and if need
be, to die for. Who does not thank God that he can be an
actor in such scenes?
— 314 —
As the force of no great truth is lost in traveling- down
the centuries, so shall the moral power of this great victory
vibrate through all coming' time, and amid "the music of
falling- chains " which ring's in the ravished ears of the world
to-nig"ht, downtrodden humanity shall take fresh courag'e,
and the true democratic idea take more firmly hold of the
hearts of men.
"When a deed is done for Freedom, throug-h the broad
earth's aching- breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling- on from East to
West,
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him
climb
To the awful verg-e of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of
Time."
[Applause.]
ADDRESS
OF MR. ASHLEY AT NAPOLEON, NOV. 24th, 1864.
FROM THE! TOLEDO COMMERCIAL.
"We lay before our readers the masterly address delivered
by Hon. J. M. Ashley, at Napoleon, on Friday last. We ask
for it an attentive perusal. It is a clear, able and manly
avowal, or rather — we might say — re-avowal of the princi¬
ples by which he has ever been guided. His position on the
great issues of the day— as it ever has been — is clearly and
unmistakably defined. There is no hesitation, no faltering-,
no equivocation. No man in the District, we care not ta
what party he belong-s, has ever been in doubt as to the
position of our honorable Representative. The words de¬
fining the stand he takes on any of the great questions of the
day are as plain and sharp-cut as the Eng-lish lang-uag-e can
furnish, and they are employed with an earnestness that none
can doubt, and "the wayfaring- man, though a fool, need not
err therein." He is the same now that he ever has been — the
fearless, uncompromising foe to every form of oppression —
the undaunted advocate of freedom to all men. It is not to
be supposed that a man of his position, who has steadily and
fearlessly pursued a course, not according to the dictates of
cold, calculating policy, but in accordance with his convictions,
of right and duty, should find his pathway clear of obstacles.
He who fearlessly pursues the path which duty points out will
be assailed. The path is not lined with flowers, and those
who suppose it to be will only meet with sore disappoint¬
ment. Our Representative has not been without his share of
opposition to contend with. Calumn}7, detraction, falsehood
and slander have assailed him with sleepless activity. His
(315)
— 316 —
persecutors have seemed to vie with each other in the relent¬
less vindictiveness with which they have pursued him.
Abashed by his candor in the declaration of the principles he
entertains, and unable to pick a flaw in his congressional
record, either in speech, or vote, or act, they have resorted to
that easier, but more detestable method of attack — that of
wholesale calumny and falsehood.
A secies of falsehoods have been persistently indulged in,
and circulated by his enemies through the District for more
than two years past. In the speech we present to-day, he
meets these base charges, and with the weapon of truth, he
exposes their utter absurdity, and administers to their
authors the scathing they so justly deserve.
We desire that every citizen in the District carefully and
impartially peruse this speech. His high reputation as a
man, and his public record as a statesman, are evidence
sufficient to warrant the confidence of his constituents. The
malicious detractions of a few personal enemies, on account
of some real or fancied grievances, cannot for one moment be
weighed in the balance against the high commendations be¬
stowed upon him b.y some of the best and most distinguished
men in the nation. The series of letters we published yester¬
day should silence the voice of detraction, still muttered
o'er by those who claim to belong1 to the Republican Union
party. The most prominent men of the country regard him
as an able and faithful Representative, one who has never
wavered nor hesitated in his devotion to the Union, one who
has ever been the earnest, determined champion of freedom,
and the inveterate, uncompromising1 foe to every form of
slavery and rebellion.
Hon. Salmon P. Chase says "his vote has never been
separated from his duty." Hon. Columbus Delano, intimately
acquainted with the local issues in this district, says that
Mr. Ashley "has under all circumstances, been true to the
cause of justice, humanity and liberty," and "has never
faltered in devotion and loyalty to the government." Hon.
Charles Sumner says, "he has been firm when others have
hesitated, and from an early day saw the secret of this war,
and I may add, also, the secret of victory." Hon. Daniel S.
— 317 —
Dickinson, of New York, likewise pays a tribute to his '' fidelity
and firmness in the cause of resisting- rebellion." Is the testi¬
mony of these distinguished champions of Union and free¬
dom. these able statesmen and loyal men of the country, to be
set aside, and the vituperation and calumnies of a few petty
factionists to be received and countenanced? Let the people
decide.
REUNION AND SUPPER AT NAPOLEON, FRIDAY, NOV. 25, 1864.
The Union men of Napoleon and vicinity had a very
pleasant interchange of congratulations over the recent politi¬
cal victories, on Friday afternoon and evening1.
The meeting- at the Court House was a grand success,
both as it reg-ards the numbers and the deep interest of the
audience, and the effective and eloquent speeches which were
delivered.
The meeting was called to order, and, on motion,
William Sheffield, Esq., was appointed to preside. In a
short but forcible speech, the chairman tendered his acknowl¬
edgments for the honor conferred, and stated the object for
which they had assembled, to be in honor of the triumph of
liberty, and of the friends of freedom, at the ballot-box.
He affirmed that in this epoch of our country's history,
principles had been developed which were of the highest
moment to the well-being and happiness of every citizen. It
was, therefore, important and highly proper, that all true men
should thus meet to celebrate the triumphs of principle and
of the rights of humanity, and to concert plans of action by
which their highest blessings may be realized. Although
the full tide of success had attended the efforts of our brave
soldiers on the battlefield, and al'so the political conflict at
the ballot-box, yet he deemed the important issues still at
stake as demanding the calm deliberation and united action
of all true patriots. He considered it important that every
man should possess, at heart, the highest motive to action —■
the love of country. Thus influenced, the partisan would
merge in the patriot, and his regard for human rights would
cause him to triumph over individual selfishness.
— 318 —
The President concluded by introducing- the Hon. J. M.
Ashley, who, on arising-, was received with great applause,
and addressed the audience as follows:
Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: We have
met to-day to celebrate a great national triumph — a
triumph unparalleled in the history of the republic. I do
not count it a political or partisan triumph, but a triumph of
the country. No poor words of mine can add to the joy you
all feel. I will not attempt this afternoon to tell you what I
understand this victory to mean, or to detain you with a
speech on its causes and consequences. I prefer to leave that
theme for the speeches this evening.
I did not expect when I stepped off the cars half an hour
ago to be called upon for a speech this afternoon. It is but
a few minutes since I was advised that the Court House was
filling- up and that I must go over; that many who were in
town could not remain for the meeting to-night, and that it
was your wish to see and hear me.
Ladies and gentlemen, I know by your kindly greeting
that I am in the midst of friends, and I need not add, tried
and true friends. I have no prepared speech for you. I
wish I had.
My invitation said you were to have a supper to-night,
and toasts and short responses at the table by those who were
called out. So I am rather taken by surprise; but when I
look over this audience and see the faces of the old men, the
solid men of Henry County, who have stood by me through
evil as well as good report for so many years, I feel thankful
that I am able to speak to you, and take so many of you by
the hand this afternoon.
As I will meet many of you again to-night around the
festal board, where we shall exchange congratulations on the
great triumph achieved by Union soldiers and citizens in the
election of Abraham Lincoln, and the success of the Union
cause, I may without impropriety, I trust, talk of some matters
which would hardly be in place at a mere dinner-table speech.
I embrace the opportunity, all the more readily, because a
friend is present who can report me, and do what I have not
time to do, write out and have published what I say, so that
— 319 —
my friends throughout the District may read around their
own firesides what I say to you to-day. I can thus talk almost
face to face with thousands of as warm and earnest friends as I
now have before me. [Applause.] Honored by a repetition
of your confidence oftener than any man who has preceded
me in Congress from this District, I am deeply sensible of
the obligations I am under to its true Union electors, and
especially to the Union soldiers in the field, and I am glad of
this opportunity to express to you and to them the gratitude
I feel for the generous indorsement given me at the recent
election. [Applause.]
THE) STATE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION.
Remembering the condition of affairs in this District two
years ago, and considering all the circumstances attending
our recent congressional canvass, the unnatural combinations
formed, the unexpected defection of some upon whose support
we confidently relied, and the extraordinary means resorted
to on the eve of the election to divide, defraud and defeat the
Republican Union party in the District, I feel complimented
by the large home vote which was given me. Under the
circumstances my home vote was as large in proportion to the
vote polled as I had a right to expect. [Applause.]
Nominated by acclamation at the hands of the regular
Republican Union convention for the District, a convention
the most imposing in point of numbers and by far the most
respectable for character and ability, of any congressional
convention which has ever assembled in the District, since I
have been a resident among you, I felt pained that any
respectable number of gentlemen calling themselves Union
men, should, after the nomination was made, have consented to
co-operate with the leaders of a party admitted to be opposed
to the prosecution of the war and hostile to the administra¬
tion of Abraham Lincoln in its civil and military policy,
and above all, that any professed Union men should have
consented to resort to the trickery, fraud and demagogism
which characterized the opposition to me in the late congres¬
sional canvass.
his anti-slavery position.
I may be pardoned if here among- friends I refer to some
matters of a local and personal character, matters which are
intimately connected with our past contests in this District.
When first a candidate to represent you in Congress, I
laid down the proposition in all speeches which I made "that
under a democratic form of government man could not legally
or rightly be made property." [Applause.]
I dissented from and denounced the declaration made by-
Henry Clay, when he said " that which the usage of two hund¬
red years ,had sanctioned and sanctified as property, was prop¬
erty." I declared that slavery was the crime of all crimes, and
"the sum of villainies;" that a government could as right¬
fully legalize murder, robbery and piracy as to legalize the
ownership and sale of men, and I uniformly added that I did not
want a single elector to vote for me who could not indorse this
proposition. [Applause.] I was very desirous of an elec¬
tion, as I always am when a candidate, but I preferred defeat
rather than to obtain a single vote, either by withholding
my opinions or professing- all things to all men. [Applause.]
You know the result; I was elected in the closest.Congres¬
sional District in the State by a larger vote than was
given for the regular Republican State ticket. [Ap¬
plause.]
In 1860, I was again elected by an increased majority,
after a very spirited canvass with General Steedman, in
which I repeated the same proposition, that man could r^t
legally be made property by any government. [Applause.]
At the outset of the war I declared ' 'that as slavery
was the cause op the rebellion, slavery lshould die."
[Applause.] Having taken this position at a time when the
reaction was everywhere against anti-slavery men, as you
remember it was, for the first year or eighteen months after
the war broke out, many Union men in the District were
unwilling to sustain me. That position, and the repudiation
by me of part of the platform adopted by the Union State
convention of that year, greatly strengthened the conserva¬
tive Union candidate for Congress in the triangular contest
which unfortunately we then had, and I was only elected by
— 321 —
a plurality of eleven hundred and eighty-two votes. [Ap¬
plause.] The main part of the Union State platform that
year, all will recollect, was made up of an extract from a
letter or speech of Honorable Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, and
the Crittenden resolution, which resolution all now under¬
stand was a cheat and a sham. This platform I said then
and repeat now, was most cowardly, and unworthy the Repub¬
lican Union party of the great State of Ohio, and I am sure
its adoption, -tog-ether with some of the candidates nomi¬
nated, caused our defeat in the State that year. [That's so.]
The Republican Union State convention in 1863 not only
gladly buried the disgusting- platform of '62 out of sight,
but I trust put it beyond the hope of resuscitation. [Ap¬
plause.] I was a delegate in that convention, and a member
of the committee on resolutions for this District, and aided
in putting- it into its grave, as I told the people of this Dis¬
trict it would be, and, althoug-h the platform then adopted
was not all that I desired or all that it oug-ht to have been, it
was not, as the platform in 1862 was, positively offensive to
the true anti-slavery men of the State. [Applause.]
The Republican Union State platform, and the National
Republican platform of 1864, were all that] any friend of
, freedom and republican government could ask. They declare
that " as slavery was the cause of the rebellion, slavery
should die." [Applause.] Thus, after a terrible struggle
have the positions taken by me on the slavery question at
the outbreak of the rebellion, been fully indorsed by the
great party of which I am an humble member, and ratified
by an overwhelming- majority of the American people at the
ballot-box. [Applause.]
Thoug-h assailed, in 1861-62, by men in our own party,
with a fury and mendacity which always go hand in hand
with ignorance and intolerance, for demanding the liberation
of every slave, and the employment of slaves as soldiers in
the army, no man claiming to be a Union man, can now be
found to condemn me, because time has demonstrated its
necessity and the Republican Union party approves, and the
nation decrees, emancipation. [Applause.] To be so repeat-
21
-322-
edly elected in a District so close and conservative as ours,
while everywhere avowing- and defending- my radical anti-
slavery opinions, is an honor of which I am, indeed, very
proud. [Applause.] As the workingmen and starving-
operatives of Manchester, England, said in their address to
the President, thanking him for his Emancipation Proclama¬
tion, " Despotism has not money enough to make us betray
Liberty," so I, a working-man, have said that " I would not
abandon the sacred cause of liberty for the sake of place and
power," and the workingmen, and the liberty-loving men of
our District, at home and in the army, have most generously
sustained me. [Applause.]
denunciation op the practice op defrauding electors.
If I have one peculiarity which stands out more promi¬
nently than another, it is, that I define clearly and sharply
my positions, and make my fight openly and squarely. I
glory in making- an open, manly fight, and I.have the high¬
est respect for an open and manly opponent. No elector
has ever been deceived as to where I stood on any of the
great questions of the day, and I have never even allowed
my name to be printed in an opposition ticket, without giving
the elector notice, by having- the ticket printed "Democratic
ticket, except for Congress," and then having- my name
printed from a cut on which was engraved a fac-simile of my
handwriting. So particular have I been in order to avoid
even the appearance of attempting to deceive any elector
into voting for me. [Applause.] Some of my friends find
fault with me because, in speaking, I uniformly say that I
do not want the vote of a single elector unless he indorses
the principles I advocate; and because I sometimes say half
jocosely that I can be elected without the votes of men who
are hostile to such principles, many seem to think or fear
that others may think that I will be understood as saying
" that I cannot be defeated." This is a mistake. I expect to
be defeated, and prefer to be defeated, if a majority do not
approve my principles. [Applause.] If they approve them,
I expect to be elected, not because of any power I may have,
— 323 —
or because I am the candidate, but because for tlie time being
I am representing- these ideas, that is all. [Applause.]
Any unscrupulous man can play the demagogue with
ease. The smallest or meanest of men are the only ones who
do it. In my opinion no man can be more infamous than he
who by fraud or falsehood deceives an honest elector. [Ap¬
plause.] You know the men who, during- our late congres¬
sional canvass, have deliberately and with cool calculation
and premeditation deceived many honest voters in this Dis¬
trict. Let every one, whether as principals or accessories,
guilty of this great crime, receive from every honorable man
that condemnation which his baseness deserves. [Applause.]
A ballot once cast cannot be recalled, and no man can
over-estimate in advance the importance and moral power of
a single vote. Yet men who know this, permit themselves to
be deceived so often that I sometimes think electors offer a
premium to demagogues. [Applause.] So alarmingly suc¬
cessful have demagogues become, that men claiming to be
Christian gentlemen, not only laugh at frauds committed at
caucuses and on electors, but permit themselves to become
parties to these frauds. [Applause.]
But I am charged with making bad and unpopular ap
pointments. Well, gentlemen, it may be true that, in some
localities, I have not made the best selections. I am rather
inclined to think that it is so, but I have in every instance
done what I thought at the time for the best. Could any
honest Union man, in such a crisis as this, justify himself
for voting against Abraham Lincoln, because he persisted in
the face of the opposition of almost every Union man in Con¬
gress, and in the country, in keeping McClellan, Fitz-John
Porter, Buel and others in the army, and men in some
of the departments of the government, who have turned out
traitors, defaulters and supporters of the Chicago platform?
Certainly not. [Applause.] Yet a number of men voted
against me, because of some of my appointments, who were
very earnest for Mr. Lincoln, yet I have never appointed a
traitor or rebel sympathizer, or a supporter of the Chicago
platform and its nominees. [Applause.] That I have made
mistakes, I admit, but in every instance I have done what the
— 324 —
leading- Republicans of each locality recommended and what
I thought for the best. If I had never had an appointment
to make in this District or from it, I am sure it would have
been better for me. [Applause.]
In the future, as in the past, I intend to be gov¬
erned in the appointments which I shall make by the advice
of the men who elect me, and not by personal or political
opponents. [Applause.]
In distributing patronage my motto has ever been and
ever shall be, "justice) to all, special favors friends
alone." [Applause.] As your Representative I have tried
to do my duty, and my whole duty. How well I have suc¬
ceeded you and posterity are to judge. That Ihave served
you in a most trying period in our history is true, and while
many men who, when I first entered Congress, stood high
before the country have fallen short of the requirements of
the hour, and been weighed in the balance and found want¬
ing, thanks to the constancy and firmness of such men as are
before me, I have been most generously sustained, and my
reputation as a citizen and Representative fully vindicated.
[Applause.]
No man claiming to be a loyal man has dared to assail
my congressional record, and whatever may be the verdict of
history on that record, I know and you know, that by no vote,
or act, or word of mine have the rebels or their Northern
allies been strengthened, or the arm of Abraham Lincoln or
of any loyal man been weakened. [Applause.]
No speech or vote, or word of mine has breathed a single
word of discouragement to soldier or citizen; but everywhere,
in season and out of season, my words and acts and votes have
been to encourage, strengthen and consolidate into one invin¬
cible army the truly loyal men of the nation. [Applause.]
And in view of these well-known facts, I feel that I have
been unjustly treated by many members of the Union party.
I go into our party caucuses and conventions pledged, as I
think every honorable man ought to regard himself, to the
support of the nominee of the convention. Many men who
opposed me two years ago and again this year, went into our
caucuses and conventions determined to support their candi-
— 325 —
date if they could get him nominated, and demand that I and
my friends should do so also; but the moment they found
themselves in the minority, they bolted and formed secret or
open alliances with the opposition. [That is true.]
I think that I and my friends have a right to complain of
such unfairness. If the convention which nominated me
had selected any other Union man, you all know that I would
have given him my earnest support, as would also my friends.
I-n addition to this, the editor of a professed Union paper in
our city, declared to his readers a few weeks ago that "I
was not the candidate of the Union party for this District."
Now, gentlemen, you know who nominated me. I know, as
you do, that every man who was a member of that large and
respectable convention was a true Union man. You know
also that there was no other Union Congressional convention
held in this District; that that convention nominated our
District candidate for presidential elector, and selected the
two delegates who represented the Republican Union men of
this District in the Baltimore convention which renominated
Abraham Lincoln, and yet this statement is unblushingly
published. This same paper charged me two years ago, and
again this fall, with being a disunionist, and classed me with
such men as George H. Pendleton. I ask any man before me
if I have ever given a vote in Congress or out of it, or writ¬
ten or spoken a single word, which would induce him to sus¬
pect that I was an enemy of the government, or in sympathy
with the political opinions of George H. Pendleton. The
man who could, with the unanimous action of the regular
Republican Union Congressional convention for this District
before him, and with my congressional record within his
reach, publish such declarations, would hesitate at no state-
Iment to accomplish his purposes. I appeal to the Union men
of this District, and to my congressional and public record,
to answer and condemn this slanderer. [Applause.]
And I here take leave of this subject. In the midst of
the general thanksgiving and rejoicing which surrounds us,
and which fills the hearts of all true Union men everywhere,
let us forget the acts and forgive the real or fancied wrongs
done us, by any who have aided us in electing Abraham
— 326 —
Lincoln. I want to forgive and forget the unjust thing's
which have been said of me by seme who are now Union men
and are laboring with me to save the republic. [Applause.]
I have only referred to these matters to set myself right
before the loyal men of the District, and especially with my
personal friends. [Applause.]
I am ready, willing and anxious to forgive any Union
man who has wronged me, and to ask the forgiveness of any
man whom in the excitement of a political contest I may
unintentionally have wronged. I have never intentionally
wronged any man. I have never purposely planted a thorn
in any man's pathway, or knowingly said an unjust word of
a political or personal opponent. [Applause.] You, and the
people of this Congressional District, have heard me on the
stump every year for ten years, and yet amid the excitement
incident to the personal conflicts through which I have gone,
110 man has ever heard me traduce the character of an oppo¬
nent or slander any man, nor have I ever said a single word
of a personal or political rival, that I would not have said of
him, had he been present. [Applause.]
As I would that others should do unto me, even so I
would do unto them. [Applause.]
A GREAT WORK YET BEFORE US.
Fellow-citizens, a great work is yet before us. There is
ample scope for the exercise of all our faculties. A generous
rivalry in support of the government and in maintaining its
armies, presents a field broad enough for the ambition of all.
Let us try to forget and forgive the errors of the past, and
remember only that our bleeding country demands the united
efforts of all her true sons. [Applause.] We all want peace.
Every home which this war has made desolate and draped in
mourning, is crying for peace. The wives and the mothers
of a million men are to-day praying for peace; not the
peace asked for by the coward and the traitor, but the peace
which comes through victory; the only peace which can be
honorable and enduring. We cannot have such a peace while
we are divided. [Applause.]
— 327 —
Oh, my countrymen, let me, I beseech you, as you love
your country, and have glorious hopes for its future, subordi¬
nate all personalities and all party strife to the higher,
holier and sublimer aspirations of patriotism and love of
justice.
If we do not stand 'together we shall fall. If we are
united we shall be invincible. Then
"One more sublime endeavor,
And behold the dawn of peace;
One more endeavor, and war forever
Throughout the land shall cease;
Forever and ever the vanquished power
Of slavery shall be slain,
And Freedom's stained and trampled flower
Shall blossom white again."
[The honorable gentleman concluded his eloquent speech
amidst the enthusiastic applause of the audience.]
IMPORTANT CORRESPONDENCE.
November 14th, 1892.
Hon. J. M. Ashxey, Toledo, Ohio.
Dear Sir: In looking- over the pamphlets and papers
which you sent us, we are disappointed not to find the text of
the 13th amendment, and the first draft of the bill for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, as originally
proposed in Congress by you.
James G. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress,'*
states that you introduced the first proposition for the entire
abolition of slavery in this country by amending the Consti¬
tution, but does not give the text.
We desire an exact copy of the original of both these
bills, if we can get them, so that we may point out wherein
Letter from Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett, D. D., Wilberforce, O.
On the next half dozen pages will be found a condensed history of greater importance
to the negro, and to the human race, than can elsewhere be found in any book we have
ever read. The story as presented is all the more fascinating1 because of the direct
and simple manner in which it is told. But for our letter, making a special request
for this history, it probably would never have been written. In answering our letter
on this page, and the letter of inquiry on page 359, we have learned that the first re¬
construction bill reported to the House was prepared by Mr. Ashley, and the bill for
the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, and also that the first propo¬
sition made in Congress for amending the Constitution, prohibiting slavery in the
United States, was introduced by him. The public records show that no man in our
history made a grander, or more successful battle, than did Mr. Ashley, for the libera¬
tion and practical uplifting of the negro. B. W. Arnett.
(328)
— 329 —
the amendment which is now a part of the national Constitu¬
tion. differs in the text, as we understand it does, from the
proposition as you originally made it. We know that the
law for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,
as it finally passed, was radically different from your original
bill. I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully yours, for God and the race,
Toledo, Ohio, December 22, 1892.
My Dear Sir: The text of the original bill introduced
by me in Congress, for the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia, was as follows:
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa¬
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled:
" That from and after the passage of this act, neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment
for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist in the District of Columbia; and thereafter it shall
not be lawful for any person in said District to own or to
hold a human being as a slave."
On my motion this short but comprehensive bill was
referred to the District of Columbia Committee, of which I
was a member, and of which Roscoe Conkling, of New York,
was chairman.
The exitement" and unpleasantness which the introduc¬
tion of this simple bill caused in the District of Columbia
Committee, amuses me now, but at that time the opposition
was offensive enough, and the conduct of some of the pro-
slavery members, fanatical almost to madness.
Evidently, my purpose could not be misunderstood. I
did not propose to recognize the right of man to property
in man.
— 330 —
It did not take long* to discover that no such bill as I had
proposed could be gotten through the District of Columbia
Committee, as it was then organized.
I had quietly determined that Congress should not
adjourn, if I could prevent it, until after we had—as Mr.
Lincoln expressed it— "initiated emancipation at the national
capital."
On the threshold, I was confronted with the certainty of
defeat, unless I consented to a radical modification of my
bill, which I reluctantly did, at the urgent request of Mr.
Lincoln, Secretary Chase, Senator Wade and others.
Finally a bill for the ' 'ransom" of all slaves held in the Dis¬
trict was prepared by Senator Morrell, of Maine, and myself,
with the co-operation of President Lincoln, Governor Chase
and others, and passed substantially as reported. An appro¬
priation of one million dollars was agreed upon to pay loyal
slave-owners, provided the amount paid should not exceed
three hundred dollars for each slave so emancipated.
In my address before the "Ohio Society of New York,"
you will learn why I consented to "ransom" the slaves by
compensating the slave-owners, as provided in the bill agreed
upon by the Senate and House Committees, which became a
law. I spoke in favor of and voted both in the Committee and
in the House, for the bill as reported, and as it passed. My
speech in the House maybe found in the "Appendix to Con¬
gressional Globe for the Second Session of the Thirty-
seventh Congress," pages 101-2.
The text of the Thirteenth Amendment, as it finally
passed Congress and became part of our national Constitution,
reads as follows:
article 13.
"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or
any place subject to their jurisdiction.
"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation."
The language of the original, as prepared and introduced
by me on the 14th day of December, 1863, was the same as the
— 331 —
above, except five words. On my motion, the amendment
which I proposed was referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary, of which I was not a member.
The phraseology of section one, at the end, was changed
in one word, and the words "their jurisdiction" used, instead
of " its jurisdiction," as I had it.
The granting clause in my original proposition read:
" Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce
this article, by law duly enacted."
A.s it finally passed, it reads as follows:
"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this
ARTICLE by APPROPRIATE LEGISLATION."
It will be observed, that the first section had one word
substituted for another, and that section two was materially
improved by striking out the four words in small capitals in my
proposition, and substituting two better words in their place,
at the end of the section.
The five words designated were the only changes made
in my original draft of the Thirteenth Amendment, as it now
appears in the constitution. In preparing my amendment, I
simply followed the suggestions contained in the Ordinance
of 1787. I did so, because that Ordinance was familiar to the
public, and the language had received a judicial interpreta¬
tion.
I used substantially the same language a year before, in
my original bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia.
There were some thirty such constitutional amendments,
proposing the abolition of slavery in the United States,
offered in the Senate and the House, by as many different
members, and so far as I remember, all of them, except Mr.
Sumner's, were substantially copies (as mine was) of the
language of the Ordinance of 1787. Each and all of said
proposed amendments, so introduced, either in the Senate or
House, were appropriately referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary.
Neither by speech, nor in writing, have I ever said a word
for publication, touching the inside history of the passage by
Congress either of the bill to " ransom" the slaves in the Dis-
O
— 332 —
trict of Columbia, or the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment
abolishing- slavery throughout the republic, except what I
said in an address before the " Ohio Society of New York," a
copy of which I sent your committee. And I must be excused
from saying more now. So many noble men were associated
with me in the passage of both these important measures,
and each did so much to secure their enactment into law,
that I have scrupulously refrained from claiming* any credit
for myself, or designating- any member as especially entitled
to more credit than another, for their passage by that Con¬
gress, fearing I might fail to accord the full credit to which
each were entitled.
Every friend of the right, will, I am sure, agree with me,
that each man who did his duty in that eventful hour, and
voted for these great national measures, is entitled in history
to generous recognition and equal commendation, without
questioning whether he came to their support first or last.
If any of the Representatives in that Congress, who voted
for the Thirteenth Amendment to the national Constitution
abolishing slavery, are entitled to more credit than another,
it seems to me that the thirteen men in the House, from the
then border slave States of Delaware, Maryland, West Vir¬
ginia, Kentucky and Missouri, are entitled to that honor.
As I now look back at their manly acts and votes in favor of
the constitutional abolition and prohibition of slavery every¬
where beneath our flag, their self-sacrificing heroism rises-
into the sublime.
Truly yours,
J. M. Ashley.
Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, D. D.,
Chairman Publication Committee.
SPEECH
OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO,
In the; House op Representatives, January 6, 1865.
on the constitutional amendment for the abolition"
of slavery.
amend the constitution — it is the way to unity and
peace.
Mr. Ashley said: I desire to call up this morning, pur¬
suant to notice previously given, the motion to reconsider the
vote by which the joint resolution proposing an amendment
of the Constitution in reference to slavery was rejected.
Mr. Holman: Does the gentleman call it up for action
to-day?
Mr. Ashley: No, sir; but for discussion, intending to
let that discussion run on until the House sees Jit to order the
main question to be put.
The Speaker: This being private bill day, it requires a
majority vote to set aside the consideration of private bills.
The consideration of private bills was set aside by a
majority vote, and the motion to reconsider was taken up.
Mr. Ashley: Mr. Speaker, "If slavery is not wrong,
nothing is wrong. " Thus simply and truthfully hath spoken
our worthy Chief Magistrate.
The proposition before us is, whether this universally
acknowledged wrong shall be continued or abolished. Shall
it receive the sanction of the American Congress by the
rejection of this proposition, or shall it be condemned as an
intolerable wrong by its adoption?
(333)
— 334 —
If slavenT had never been known in the United States,
and the proposition should be made in Congress to-day to
authorize the people of the several States to enslave any
portion of our own people or the people of any other country,
it would be universally denounced as an infamous and crimi¬
nal proposition, and its author would be execrated, and
justly, by all right-thinking* men, and held to be an enemy of
the human race.
1 do not believe such a proposition could secure a single
vote in this House; and yet we all know that a number of
gentlemen who could not be induced to enslave a single free
man, will nevertheless vote to keep millions of men in sla¬
very, who are by nature and the laws of God as much entitled
to their freedom as we are. I will not attempt to explain
this strange inconsistency, or make an arg-ument to show its
fallacy. I content myself with simply stating- the fact.
It would seem as if no man favorable to peace, concord,
and a restored Union, could hesitate for a moment as to how
he should vote on this proposition. Certainly, whatever of
strife, sectional bitterness, and personal animosity these halls
have witnessed since my appearance in Congress, or, indeed,
I may say, since the organization of parties in 1836, slavery
has usually been the sole cause. No observer of our history,
or of the political parties which have been organized and dis¬
banded, now hesitates to declare that slavery is the cause of
this terrible civil war. All who understand anything of our
troubles, either in this country or Europe, now know that
but for slavery there would have been no rebellion in this
country to-day.
In the very nature of things it was impossible for a
government organized as ours to endure half slave and
half free; and nothing- can be clearer to the reader of
history than that the men who made our Constitution
never expected nor desired the nation to remain half slave
and half free. Our fathers were men of ideas, and they
believed that with the adoption of the Constitution slavery
would cease to exist. Sir, while demanding1 liberty for them¬
selves, and proclaiming to the world the inalienable right of
all men to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they
— 335 —
were not guilty of the infamy of making- a Constitution
which, by any fair rules of construction, can be interpreted
into a denial of liberty, happiness and justice to an entire
race.
the nation can not endure half slave and half free.
That the founders of the Republic were sadly disap¬
pointed in their expectations that slavery would cease on the
adoption of the national Constitution is undoubtedly true.
Instead of disappearing-, as they confidently expected, circum¬
stances unforeseen by them so strengthened slavery that in
less than eighty years it became the dominant interest in the
nation, and in 1860 openly demanded the entire control of the
National Government. Because this demand was refused
by the free laboring- men of the North, the slave barons of
the South organized this the most wicked of all rebellions,
and for nearly four long- years have waged this terrible war
with the avowed purpose of destroying the best form of
government ever vouchsafed to man, in order to establish in
(its stead a government whose corner-stone should be human
slavery. This is the logic of the contest. It has at last so
fully developed itself that all the world, including its most
stupid editors, now understand it. The government of our
fathers must either be maintained, and slavery die, or slavery
must live and the government be destroyed. The conflict is
"irrepressible," and beyond compromise. The nation cannot
longer endure half slave and half free.
Had statesmen administered this government for the past
twenty years, instead of the trading politicians who have dis¬
graced it, first by apologizing for, then justifying, and at
last openly defending slavery as a right guaranteed by the
national Constitution, we should have had no such desolat¬
ing war as we have in this country to-day.
If the national Constitution had been rightfully inter¬
preted, and the government organized under it properly
administered, slavery could not have legally existed in
this country for a single hour, and practically but a few
years after the adoption of the Constitution. Only because
— 336 —
the fundamental principles of the government have been
persistently violated in its administration, and the Constitution
grossly perverted by the courts, is it necessary to-day to pass
the amendment now under consideration. I say this much
in vindication of the memory of the great and good men who,
when establishing this government, made a Constitution
which, to-day, is the best known among men.
denunciation of slavery.
As for myself, I do not believe any constitution can
legalize the enslavement of men. I do not believe any
government, democratic or despotic, can rightfully make
Ia single slave; and that which a government cannot right¬
fully do, it cannot rightfully or legally authorize or even
permit, its subject to do. I do not believe that there can be,
legally, such a thing as property in man. A majority in a
republic cannot rightfully enslave the minority, nor can the
accumulated decrees of courts or the musty precedents of
governments make oppression just. I do not, however, wish
to go into a discussion of the question of slavery as an abstract
question. It is a system so at war with human nature, so
revolting and brutal, and is, withal, so at variance with the
precepts of Christianity and every idea of justice, so abso¬
lutely indefensible in itself, that I will not uncover its hideous
blackness and thus harrow up my own and the feelings of
others by a description of its disgusting horrors, or an
attempted recital of its terrible barbarism and indescribable
villainy.
It is enough for me to know that slavery has forced this
terrible civil war upon us — a war which we could not have
avoided, if we would, without an unconditional surrender to
its degrading demands. It has thus attempted'to strike a
death-blow at the national life. It has shrouded the land in
mourning and filled it with widows and orphans. It has
publicly proclaimed itself the enemy of the Union and our
unity as a free people. Its barbarities have no parallel in
the world's history. The enormities committed by it upon cur
As he Appeared when the Thirteenth Amendment was Passed.
— 337 —
Union prisoners of war were never equaled in atrocity since
the creation of man.
For more than thirty years past there is no crime known
among" men which it has not committed under the sanction
of law. It has bound men and women in chains, even the
children of the slave-masters, and sold them in the public
shambles like beasts. Under the plea of Christianizing-
them, it has enslaved, beaten, maimed, and robbed millions
of men for whose salvation the Man of Sorrows died. It so
constituted its courts that the complaints and appeals of
these people could not be heard, by reason of the decision
" that black men had no rig-hts which white men were bound
to respect." It has for many years defied the g-overnment
and trampled upon.the national Constitution by kidnapping-,
imprisoning-, mobbing- and murdering- white citizens of the
United States guilty of no offense except protesting- ag-ainst
its terrible crimes. It has silenced every free pulpit within
its control, and debauched thousands which ought to have
been independent. It has denied the masses of poor white
children within its power the privileg-e of free schools, and
made free speech and a free press impossible within its do¬
main; while ig-norance, poverty, and vice are almost universal
wherever it dominates. Such is slavery, our mortal enemy,
and these are but a tithe of its crimes. No nation could
adopt a code of laws which would sanction such enormities,
and live. No man deserves the name of statesman who would
consent that such a monster should live in the republic for a
sing-le hour.
CAN SLAVERY BE ABOLISHED IN STATES BY CONSTITUTIONAL
AMENDMENT?
Mr. Speaker, if slavery is wrong- and criminal, as the
great body of enlig-htened and Christian men admit, it is cer¬
tainly our duty to abolish it, if we have the power. Have
we the power? The fifth article of the Constitution of the
United States reads as follows:
22
— 338—
"The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses
shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this
Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of
two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for
proposing- amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid
to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when
ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several
States, or by convention in three-fourths thereof, as one or the
other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress;
provided that no amendment which "may be made prior to the
year 1808 shall in any manner affect the first and fourth
clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no
State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suf¬
frage in the Senate."
The question which first presents itself in examining'
this provision of the Constitution is, what constitutes two-
thirds of both Houses? or, whatj in the eye of the Constitu¬
tion, is two-thirds of the House of Representatives? Is it
two-thirds of the entire number of members to which all the
States, including- the States in rebellion, would be entitled,
if they were all now represented, or is it two-thirds of the
members who have been elected and qualified?
This question would have entered largely into the dis¬
cussion of the subject now under consideration, had not your
predecessor, Mr. Speaker, decided, and this House sustained
him in declaring, that a majority of the members elected
and recognized by the House made a constitutional quorum.
It has. so far as the action of this body can dispose of
the question, been authoritatively settled, and settled, as I
think it should have been, by declaring that a majority of
the members elected and qualified constitutes a quo¬
rum, and that two-thirds of a quorum can constitutionally
pass this amendment. The question having- been thus dis¬
posed of, I do. not care to make an argument in support of a
proposition thus authoritatively settled.
My colleague from the First District (Mr. Pendleton), in
a speech which he made at the last session against the pas¬
sage of this amendment, raised the question as to the consti¬
tutional power of Congress to propose, and three-fourths of
the legislatures of the States to adopt, an amendment of
the character of the one now under consideration. Ite
— 339 —
claimed that, though Congress passed the proposed amend¬
ment by the requisite two-thirds, and three-fourths of the
legislatures of the several States adopted it, or, indeed all
the States save one, it would not legally become a part of the
national Constitution. These are his words:
"But neither three-fourths of the States, nor all the
States save one, can abolish slavery in that dissenting State,
because it lies within the domain reserved entirely to each
State for itself, and upon it the other States cannot enter."
Is this position defensible? If I read the Constitution
aright, and understand the force of language, the section
which I have just quoted is to-day free from all limitations
and conditions save two, one of which provides that the suf¬
frage of the several States in the Senate shall be equal, and
that no State shall lose this equality by any amendment of
the Constitution without its consent; the other relates to
taxation. These are the only conditions and limitations.
In my judgment, Congress may propose, and three-fourths
of the States may adopt, any amendment republican in its
character and consistent with the continued existence of the
nation, save in the two particulars just named.
If they cannot, then is the clause of the Constitution
■just quoted a dead letter, the States sovereign, the govern¬
ment a confederation, and the United States not a nation.
THE STATE SOVEREIGNTY HERESY EXPOSED.
The extent to which this question of State rights and
State sovereignty has aided this terrible rebellion, and
manacled and weakened the arm of the National Government
can hardly be estimated. Certainly, doctrines so at war with
the fundamental principles of the Constitution could not be
accepted and acted upon by any considerable number of our
citizens without eventually culminating in rebellion and
civil war.
This fatal heresy doubtless carried many men of charac¬
ter and culture into the rebellion who were sincerely attached
to the Union. If we may credit the recently published pri-
— 340 —
vate letters of Generai Lee, written in the spring- of 1861, to
his sister and friends, and never intended for publication, lie
was induced to unite his fortunes with the insurgents by the
so-called secession of Virginia, under the belief that his first
and highest allegiance was due to his State. Sir, I know
how hard it is for loyal men to credit this. To thinking1 men,
nothing- seems more absurd than the political heresy called
States rights, in the sense which makes each State sovereign
and the National Government the mere agent and creature of
the States. Why, sir, the unity of the people of the United
States antedates the Revolution. The original thirteen colo¬
nies were never in fact disunited. The man who had the
right of citizenship in Virginia had the same right in New
York. As one people they declared their independence, and
as one people, after a seven years' war, conquered it. But
the unity and citizenship of the people existed before the
Revolution, and before the national Constitution. In fact,
this unity gave birth to the Constitution. "Without this
unity and pre-existing nationalit}r— if I may st> express my¬
self— the Constitution would never have been formed. The
men who carried us through the revolutionary struggle never
intended, when establishing this government, to destroy that
unity or lose their national citizenship. Least of all did
they intend that we should become aliens to each other and
citizens of petty, independent, sovereign States. In order to
make fruitful the blessings which they had promised them¬
selves from independence, and to secure the unity and national
citizenship for which they periled life, fortune and honor,
they made the national Constitution. They had tried a con¬
federation. It did not secure them such a Union as they had
fought for, and they determined to "form a more perfect
Union." For this purpose they met in national convention,
and formed a national constitution. They then submitted it
to the electors of the States for their adoption or rejection.
They did not submit it to the States as States, nor to the
governments of the several States, but to the citizens of the
United States residing in all the States. This was the only
way in which they could have submitted it and been consist¬
ent with the declaration made in the preamble, which says
— 341 —
"that we, the people of the United States, in order to form
a more perfect Union, do ordain and establish this Constitu¬
tion," etc. The whole people were represented in this con¬
vention. Through their representatives they pledged each
other that whenever the people of nine States shall ratify
and approve the Constitution submitted to them, it should be
the Constitution of the nation.
In the light of these facts, to claim that our govern¬
ment is a confederation- and the States sovereign, is an
absurdity too transparent for serious argument. Not only is
the letter of the Constitution against such a doctrine, but
history also. Since the adoption of the national Constitution
twenty-two States have been admitted into the Union, and
clothed with part of the national sovereignty. The territory
out of which twenty-one of these States were formed was the
common territory of the nation. It has been acquired by
cession, conquest or purchase. The sovereignty of the
National Government over it was undisputed. The people
who settled .upon it were citizens of the United States.
These twenty-one States were organized by the concurrent
action of the citizens of the United States and the National
Government. "Without the consent of Congress they would
have remained Territories. What an absurdity to claim that
the citizens of the New England States, or of all the States,
or of any section of the Union, may settle upon the territory
of the United States, form State governments, with barely
inhabitants enough to secure one Representative in the
House under the apportionment, secure admission as a State,
and then assume to be a sovereign and master of the National
Government, with power to secede and unite with another and
hostile government at pleasure, and to treat all citizens of
the United States as alien enemies who do not think it their
duty to unite with them. This is the doctrine which deluded
many men into this rebellion, and which seems to delude
some men here with the idea that the national Constitution
cannot be amended so as to abolish slavery, even if all the
States in the Union demanded it save Delaware. Under this
theory of State sovereignty, States like Florida and Arkan¬
sas, erected on the national domain, may, as soon as they
— 342 —
secure admission into the Union, secede and embezzle all tlie
property of the nation, including- the public lands, and forts,
and arsenals, declare all citizens of the United States who do
not unite with them alien enemies, confiscate their property,
rob them of their liberty by impressing- them into their army
to fight against their own country and g-overnment, and if
they refuse, punish them by imprisonment and death. After
doing- this, if the authority to commit such wholesale rob¬
bery, impressments and murders is denied them .by the
National Government, they set up the claim that they are
sovereign and independent, and are only defending their
homes, their firesides and household g"ods, and we have men
all over the North who to-day defend this monstrous assump¬
tion.
Mr. Speaker, I presume no man, not even my colleague,
will deny that when the thirteen colonies or States assembled
by their representatives in convention to make the present
national Constitution, they might have abolished slavery at
once. Or, if the theory of the old parties is true, that a
republican government may authorize or permit the enslave¬
ment of men, which I deny, they could have provided for the
emancipation of all slaves in twent}r or fifty years, if they
had seen fit; and if the people of nine States had voted to
ratify such a constitution, slavery could not, after the period
named, have existed by State law and in defiance of the
national Constitution, either in one of the old thirteen States
ratifying it, or in any one of the States admitted into the
Union after its adoption. If it was competent for the men
who made the national Constitution to prohibit slavery at
the time, or to provide for its future - prohibition, why is it
not just as competent for us now? The framers of the Con¬
stitution provided for its amendment in the section which I
have already quoted. They provided that when an amend¬
ment was proposed and adopted in the manner and form
prescribed, it should become a part of the national Constitu¬
tion, and be as valid and binding as though originally a part
of that instrument.
Had the framers of the Constitution desired the protec¬
tion and continuance of slavery, they could easily have pro-
— 343 —
vided against ati amendment of the character of tlie one now
before us by guarding1 this interest as they did the right of
the States to an equal representation in the Senate. They
did not do it, because, as the history of the convention
abundantly proves, the great majority of the framers of the
Constitution desired the speedy abolition of slavery, and I
contend that, so far from the Constitution prohibiting- such
an amendment, it has expressly provided for it.
Mr. Speaker, there is not a single section or clause in
the national Constitution which clothes the political organ¬
izations which we call States with any of the attributes of a
sovereign power, but, on the other hand, prohibits in positive
and unmistakable language any State from doing any act
which a sovereign might do, without the consent of Congress.
The supreme power of the National Government is rigor¬
ously maintained throughout the Constitution, and it is most
emphatically ordained in article six, clause two, of the Con¬
stitution, as follows: ,
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States
which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties
made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the
Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in
the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith¬
standing."
Section eight, article one, enumerates seventeen dis¬
tinct sovereign powers of a national character conferred on
Congress by the Constitution, and, as if to leave no doubt on
the minds of any, this extraordinary enumeration of powers
is followed by this sweeping and significant provision :
'' To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper
for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all
other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of
the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."
If I understand this provision correctly, it means that
the framers of tho Constitution intended that the National
Government should be intrusted with the interpretation of the
Constitution, ncL only as to tho construction of the powers
delegated by it to Congress, but to all departments of the
National Government. They never intended that any State,
— 344 —
or any number of States, nor the officials of State govern¬
ments, should be competent in any capacity to judge of the
infractions of the national Constitution by any department
of the National Government, nor of the propriety of any law
passed by Congress. Any citizen has the undoubted right to
express his opinions, and criticise the action of the General
Government or of any department thereof; but neither is a
State, nor are the officials of a State, clothed with any
authority to decide as to the constitutionality of any law
passed by Congress, nor as to the propriety of any act done
by any department of the National Government.
It is past comprehension how any man with the Consti¬
tution before him, and the history of the convention which
formed the Constitution within his reach, together with the
repeated decisions of the Supreme Court against the assump¬
tion of the States rights pretensions, can be found at this
late day defending the State sovereignty dogmas, and claim¬
ing that the national Constitution cannot be so amended as to
prohibit slavery, even though all the States in the Union
save one give it their approval.
That provision of the national Constitution which im¬
poses upon Congress the duty of guaranteeing to the several
States of the Union a republican form of government, is one
which impresses me as forcibly as any other with the idea
of the utter indefensibility of the State sovereignty dogmas,
and of the supreme power intended by the framers of the
Constitution to be lodged in the National Government.
In this connection we ought not to overlook that pro¬
vision of the Constitution which secures nationality of citizen¬
ship. The Constitution guarantees that the citizens of each
State shall enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizens of
the several States. It is a universal franchise which cannot
be confined to States, but belongs to the citizens of the repub¬
lic. We are fighting to maintain this national franchise, and
prevent its passing under the control of a foreign power,
where this great privilege would be denied us, or so
changed as to destroy its value. The nationality of our
citizenship makes our army a unit, although from distant
States and makes them also invincible.
— 345 —
three-fourths of the states now represented tviay
amend the constitution.
It is objected that if we pass this proposition the requis¬
ite number of States cannot now be secured for its adop¬
tion. In answer to this objection, I have to say that Con¬
gress has not, in submitting- the proposed amendment,
limited the time in which the States shall adopt it; nor has
Congress attempted authoritatively to declare that it will re¬
quire the ratification of twenty-seven States to adopt this
amendment.
I hold that whenever three-fourths of the States now
represented in Congress give their consent to this proposition
it will legally become a part of the national Constitution,
unless other States, now without civil governments known to
the Constitution, establish governments such as Congress
shall recognize, and such States, together with the new
States, which may be admitted, shall be represented in Con¬
gress before three-fourths of the States now represented
adopt the proposed amendment; in which event the States
thus recognized or admitted must be added to the number of
States now represented in Congress, and the ratification of
three-fourths of the States thus recognized, and none others,,
is all that will be required to adopt this amendment.
I lay it down as a proposition which I do not believe can
be successfully controverted, that neither the Constitution of
the United States nor the constituted authorities under it can
know of the existence of a State in this Union, unless it has
a civil government organized in subordination to and work¬
ing in harmony with the national Constitution. This princi¬
ple has been fully recognized by all the co-ordinate branches
of the government since the outbreak of the rebellion. In
this house we have authoritatively declared that a majority
of the members elected and qualified are a quorum competent
to transact business. The Senate, at this session, have
adopted this rule also. Two-thirds of this quorum, then, if
this decision be correct, as I believe it is, may constitutionally
pass the proposition before us. If we ma}7 constitutionally
pass this amendment by a vote of two-thirds of a quorum of
— 346 —
this House and Senate as now constituted, three-fourths of
the States now represented in Congress may constitutionally
adopt it, provided they do so before any new States are
admitted, or before a rebel State government is organized and
recognised by the joint action of Congress and the Executive.
I believe this is the true theory of the Constitution. Cer¬
tainly it is the only theory consistent with the national exis¬
tence. If we adopt the theory that a State once a State is
always a State, we have no safety from factions and revolu¬
tions. Suppose that within the territorial jurisdiction known
on the map of the United States as South Carolina, there
should be no civil government organized in the next fifty
years such as Congress will recognize, do gentlemen claim
that at the expiration of that time the old State organization
would be still in existence, and that in order to secure the
adoption of a constitutional amendment, such a State ought
to be included in the number from which the constitutional
three-fourths of the States must be secured for the ratifica¬
tion of an amendment? If not, then, with what propriety
can it be claimed as necessary to-day? The constitutional
State government of South Carolina is as completely de¬
stroyed at this moment as though their Representatives had
not been in these halls, or their local government recognized
by Congress for the past fifty years. Certainly no thought¬
ful man who has carefully examined this subject will defend
the absurdity of the constitutional existence of political com¬
munities, which we call States, after their constitutional State
governments have been destroyed by the action of their own
citizens.
Speeches were made at the last session, and indeed at
every session of Congress since the rebellion, to prove that
the several acts of secession of the rebel States, being ille¬
gal, were therefore void, and that the State constitution in
those States not only remained, but that the government of
such States could at any time be put in motion without the
consent of Congress, whenever ten or more loyal men could
be found to assume the governorship and a few of the subor¬
dinate offices therein. Loyal citizens of the rebel States are
fast being cured of this fallacy. They have learned by expe-
— 347 —
rience that the government of the United States is supreme,
and the local governments in rebel States cannot be put
in motion without the consent of Congress. The mass of
men did not at first seem to recognize the fact that while acts
of secession were illegal and void as affecting the rights of
the National Government, its jurisdiction and sovereignty,
nevertheless it was such a crime that those committing it
forfeited all rights guaranteed them by the national Consti¬
tution under their State organization.
Mr. Speaker, can there be such a thing known to our
national Constitution as a State without a constitutional
government? In my opinion, sir, a State government, to be
constitutional, must be organized, and act in subordination
to the national Constitution, and in obedience to the laws of
Congress. The national Constitution requires the officers in
each State to swear to support it while discharging the
duties of any State office to which they may have bee»n elected
or appointed. If a State does not act in subordination to the
national Constitution, and its officers do not take an oath to
support it, and they send no Senators or Representatives to
Congress, there can be no constitutional State government in
such State. Add to this the crime of secession, rebellion,
and levying war, and the taking of an oath by the officers of
such State to support another, a hostile government, and I
claim it terminates of necessity, and of right ought to termi¬
nate the existence of a constitutional government in every
such State. In a constitutional point of view, if there is no
loyal State government such as I have described, but in its
stead a government unknown to the Constitution, established
by the action of its citizens, then, in fact, there is no consti¬
tutional State government, and, of course, no State known
to the Constitution. The States then in rebellion have no
constitutional governments. They have civil organizations,
however, hostile to the United States; organizations which
are recognized as dk facto rebel governments. When the
rebellion is suppressed there will be no constitutional State
governments, in fact, in one of the rebel States, and cer¬
tainly the rebel di3 facto governments cannot remain or be
recognized by us after the rebellion is put down. The peo-
— 348 —
pie residing- within the limits of these so-called States will
be under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, because, in
point of fact, they cannot be subject to the laws of a State
which has no State government known to the national Con¬
stitution.
I may be answered that it is the duty of Congress to guar¬
antee to each State a republican form of government, and that
this provision of the Constitution implies the continued exis¬
tence of the State, although its government may have been
overthrown by violence or by the deliberate acts of a majority
of its citizens. Grant it, for the sake of the argument; but
what will be the legal condition of such State if the minority
do not call upon Congress to secure them a republican gov¬
ernment? What will be its condition if Congress, in the ex¬
ercise of its constitutional power, attempts to secure such
State a republican government, and loyal citizens cannot be
found in sufficient numbers to maintain a State government?
Is not the condition of such State for the time being that of
a quasi Territory? Certainly, during the time it remains in
rebellion, and is unable to maintain a State government, it is
not a State. If so, then, for practical purposes, whether of
national administration or for the adoption of this amend¬
ment, States in rebellion, and without civil governments
which Congress can recognize, are not States within the
meaning of the Constitution, and cannot act upon this
amendment to the Constitution, or do any other act which a
loyal State of the Union may lawfully do.
In pursuing this argument, we must keep steadily in
view the fact that the United States are not a confederation,
but a nation; that the national Constitution is the supreme
law of the land; and that the government organized under it
is clothed with the sovereignty of the whole people. The
first and highest allegiance is due from the citizen to the
National Government; he is also subject to the laws consti¬
tutionally enacted by his own local State government. If
there be no local State government in existence, the citizen
is legally subject only to the laws of Congress. In the ab¬
sence of a constitutional State government in any portion of
the territory of the United States, where a State govern-
— 349 —
ment formerly existed, Congress has all the authority of a
State government within such territory. If, then, in the
rebellious States there are no constitutional civil governments,
are they States within the contemplation of the Constitution?
I again ask the question, can there be such a thing known to
our national Constitution as a State without a constitutional
government? If not, then the rebel States having no con¬
stitutionally organized civil governments, are not States
within the meaning of the Constitution, and the territory
and the citizens residing therein are subject to the jurisdic¬
tion of Congress, the same as citizens in any territory of the
United States.
an unanswerable proposition.
If the contrary theory is true, and a State once a State is
always a State, nothing can be clearer to my mind than that
the Constitution ought to be so amended at once as to make
it impossible for a minority of the States to destroy the gov¬
ernment, as they might do every four years, if the Electoral
College failed to elect a President and Vice-President of the
United States.
In the event of the Electoral College failing to elect,
the duty devolves on the House of Representatives, each
State having one vote. Two-thirds of all the States must be
present, and a majority of all the States is required to elect a
President. The same rule applies when a Vice-President is
to be elected by the Senate. These are the words of the Con¬
stitution:
" But, in choosing the President,' the votes shall be taken
by States, the representation from each State having one
vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or
members from two-thirds of the States."
Now, suppose that from any cause two of the States rep¬
resented here were not represented, and there were but twenty-
three States represented in this House, and there had been
no election in 1864 of a President by the Electoral College.
The election for President in that event would have devolved
on this House.
— 350 —
Would you, Mr. Speaker, have decided, when the ques¬
tion was raised, as it would have been, "Is there a constitu¬
tional quorum present?" that it required the presence of
members in the House from two-thirds of the States, includ¬
ing- the eleven rebel States; or, in other words, that twenty-
four States must be represented here, and that it would require
a majority of thirty-six States, or nineteen votes, to elect the
President? If you would have so decided, and the House
should have sustained that decision, and if but twenty-three
States were present, there would have been an end of the
government. If we could not proceed to elect a President
with the Representatives of twenty-three out of the twenty-
five loyal States, the g-overnment would have fallen to pieces
for want of an Executive. If the duty of electing- a President
had devolved on this House at this session, and but twenty-
three-States were present, the question would not only have
been raised as to what constituted a quorum, but the question
also as to whether we should receive and count the electoral
votes which, in the event of no election of President by the
Electoral College, would probably have been sent here from
several of the rebel States to embarrass, distract and divide
us. Sir, no loyal man can contemplate a contingency such as
I have suggested without a shudder. If the theory that a State
once a State is always a State, is to obtain in the national
administration, there is no safety or security for the g-overn¬
ment. I do not know, sir, how you would have decided such
a question if it had been raised under circumstances such as
I have sug-g-ested; but I have faith to believe that you would
have decided as I would have decided, that this House can¬
not know of the existence; of a state in this union
which has not a civil government organized in subor¬
dination to, and working in harmony with the national,
Constitution. Any other decision would have been fatal to
our national existence. Let us not set a bad precedent now
by declaring- that it will require the ratification of twenty-
seven States to secure the adoption of this constitutional
amendment.
Mr. Speaker, I find ample authority in the Constitution
for the National Government to protect itself ag-ainst any
-351-
action which a minority of the States might attempt by con¬
federating- against it. The Constitution clothes Congress
with the power "to declare the punishment of treason." It
clothes Congress with all power necessary to defend and pre¬
serve the government which it created. "Levying war
against the United States " is declared by the Constitution to
be treason. A State which, by its constituted authorities,
supported by a majority of its citizens, enters into any
"treaty, alliance or confederation," and makes war upon the
National Government, commits the crime of treason, and it is
competent for Congress to inflict any penalty it may deem
expedient. I want the National Government to inflict punish¬
ment so terrible upon the authors of this rebellion that in
all coming time there shall be no such rebellion again. I
want no precedent established which shall pave the way for
a minority of the States and a minority of the people to
destroy this government. I want the precedent established
that the States and people remaining loyal to the govern¬
ment, as distinguished from thoge who rebel against it, shall
be clothed with the sovereignty of the Nation. In this
way only can we come out of this contest safely, and "obtain
indemnity for the past and security for the future."
But I have already detained the House much longer and
said more on this point than I intended. I discussed this
question at greater length at the last session, and experience
has only confirmed me in the views then expressed. Gentle¬
men who have made speeches in this House, and editors who
have charged me and those agreeing with me on this ques¬
tion, with being practical disunionists, and with recognizing
the doctrines of secession, because holding that the lawful
governments in the rebel States were destroyed by their acts
of treason and rebellion, will not care, probably, after our
experience, to repeat such speeches and opinions, nor to have
them republished to enlighten their readers or their constit¬
uents.
THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OP THIS QUESTION.
There is another consideration which ought not to be
overlooked when weighing the practicability and expediency
— 352 —
of this measure, and that is its financial aspect. Doubtless
many gentlemen think this question has less connection with
our finances and the credit of the country than any other
before us. Not so. In my opinion, and I know I but utter
the opinions of many practical business men, the passage of
this amendment will give the government a credit, both at
home and abroad, which no victory of our arms, important
and invaluable as many of them have been, has yet given us.
Its passage will give a guarantee for peace, unity, stability,
prosperity, power. It will be a pledge that the labor of the
country shall hereafter be unfettered and free, and I need not
say that under the inspiration of free labor the productions
of the country will be tripled and quadrupled. It will be a
pledge to the industrious German, and to all the free labor¬
ing men of Europe who are seeking homes among us, that
they shall no longer be excluded, as they have been practi¬
cally, from a country whose climate is softer and fertility
greater than any on the continent.
I need not detain the House with an array of facts and
figures to demonstrate the great advantage of free over slave
labor. All thinking men have examined and comprehend
the priceless value <3f free labor. Pass this amendment, and
the free laboring men of the North and of Europe will flock
to the South, so that, in twenty-five years or less, there will
be four or five producing men in the rebel States where
there was one before the rebellion; add to this vast number
the four million emancipated slaves, and you have a free
labor force which, under the security thus given to capital,
and the inspiration thus given to labor, will make the land
to blossom like the rose, and by their energy, enterprise, and
power, the free laboring men of the South will obliterate, in
a few years, all trace of this terrible and desolating war,
and make it a country which for prosperity and wealth shall
acknowledge no superior, and a government which for sta¬
bility shall have no equal.
Suppose your Secretary of the Treasury goes into the
market to-morrow to borrow $500,000,000, payable in thirty
or forty years, what will be the first question asked by the
capitalist? Will it be as to the rate of interest you are will-
— 353 —
ing to give, or will it be rather as to your ability to pay the
principal? I take it that that would be the first inquiry. He
would ask you, "What will be the condition of your country
and government thirty or forty years hence?" If you could
answer him, as you might truthfully answer him were this
amendment adopted, "Sir, in thirty or forty years we shall
not be indebted, at home or abroad, a single dollar, and then
will we be the most powerful and populous, the most enter¬
prising and wealthy nation in the world." If you could tell
him this, and add, as you may, that in thirty or forty years
we will show the world a government whose sovereignty on
the North American continent will not be questioned from
ocean to ocean, and from the Isthmus of Panama to the ice¬
bound regions of the North; and tell him, also, that our sys¬
tem of free labor, guaranteed by the national Constitution to
all generations of men, with free schools and colleges, and a
free press, with churches no longer fettered with the mana¬
cles of the slave-master, with manufactures and commerce
exceeding in vastness anything which had ever been known,
and a nation of men unrivaled in culture, enterprise and
wealth, and more devotedly attached to their country than
the people of any other nation, because of the constitutional
guarantee of the government to protect the rights of all and
secure the liberty and equality of its people; if you could tell
him this, and that such a race of free men would make the
South and the entire nation what New England is to-day,
your Secretary could have all the money he wanted, and on
his own terms.
WHAT SAY THE UNION SOLDIERS ?
Mr. Speaker, what say the soldiers of the Union army to the
proposition before us? Shall not their voices be heard and their
wishes be respected by their representatives in the American
Congress? Sir, there are no men in the republic to whose
wishes and judgment I would more willingly defer on this ques¬
tion than to the brave men who are periling life and all for
country; to the men who have vanquished the enemy wher-
— 354 —
ever they have met them, saved the nation, and by their
heroism on the battlefield, and their fidelity to principle at
the ballot-box, made the passage of this amendment possible.
Almost every letter I receive from the brave men who are in
the army from my District contains the anxious inquiry,
"what of the constitutional amendment; will it pass?" And
I doubt not that the same question has been asked by the
constituents at home and soldiers in the field of four-fifths
of the Representatives upon this floor. What shall be our
official answer? Shall the glad news go forth to cheer alike
the soldier and the citizen and the friends of the govern¬
ment everywhere, that the deliberately expressed will of the
people is to be respected and enacted into law; that on this
great question there are no longer party divisions, but that
practically the representatives are as united as the people,
in demanding the passage of this constitutional amendment?
If this shall be our answer, a shout will go up from our brave
men in front of Richmond, at Savannah, and all along the
Union lines, and throughout the entire country, such as
never before arose from the hearts and lips of men on the
passage of any act by the American Congress.
a mbmorablK year.
Mr. Speaker, the year which has just closed has been a
year of anxiety and also a year of joy. The ordeal through
which as a nation we have passed, has been a terrible one.
I speak of the ordeal on the battlefield and at the ballot-box.
We have presented to the world a sublime spectacle. We
have tested our strength, and know the constancy and cour¬
age of our men. Such disinterestedness, such heroism and
devotion to country, the world has never witnessed. Conse¬
crated by a dispensation of fire and blood, the children of the
republic have grown to the full stature of manhood. Stand¬
ing here, in the nation's council halls, in the beginning of a
new year, on the threshold of a new era, and in the presence
of such events, let us comprehend the duty of true statesmen,
and while legislating for the present, leg-islate also for the
generations of men which are to succeed us. The eyes of the
— 355 —
■wise and good in all civilized nations are upon us. The men
who embrace and defend the democratic idea in Europe are
patiently and anxiously waiting- to have us authoritatively
proclaim to the world that liberty is the sign in which we
conquer; that henceforth freedom is to be the animating
principle of our government and the life of our Constitution.
DUTY OF THE) STATESMAN.
Mr. Speaker, while the Union soldier fights to vanquish
the enemies of the government, the duty of the true states¬
man is to provide that the enemy, once vanquished, shall
never again be permitted for the same cause to reorganize
and make war upon the nation. Pass this joint resolution,"
submitting to the people for their ratification or rejection
this proposed amendment to the national Constitution, and I
am sure the nation will adopt it with shouts of acclamation,
and when once adopted, }^ou know, sir, and I know, and the
enemies of this government know, that we shall have peace,
and that no such rebellion will ever be possible again. Pass
this amendment, and the gloomy shadow of slavery will
never again darken the fair fame of our country or tarnish
the glory of democratic institutions in the land of Washing¬
ton. Pass this amendment, and the brightest page in the
history of the Thirty-eighth Congress, now so near its close,
will be the one on which is recorded the names of the req¬
uisite number of members voting in its favor. Refuse to
pass it, and the saddest page in the history of the Thirty-
eighth Congress will be the one on which is recorded its de¬
feat. Sir, I feel as if no member of this House will ever live to
witness an hour more memorable in our history than the one
in which each for himself shall make a record on the ques¬
tion now before us. I implore gentlemen to forget party,
and remember that we are making a record, not only for
ourselves individually, but for the nation and the cause of
free government throughout the world. While members of
the Thirty-eighth Congress we cannot change the record
which each must now make, and those who do not return to
the next Congress can never reverse their votes of to-day, but
— 356 —
must forever stand recorded, if voting- against the amend¬
ment, among- those voting- to justify the rebellion and per¬
petuate its cause.
The g-enius of history, with iron pen, is waiting- to record
our verdict where it will remain forever for all the coming-
g-enerations of men to approve or condemn. God grant that
the verdict may be one over which the friends of liberty, im¬
partial and universal, in this country and Europe, and in
every land beneath the sun, may rejoice; a verdict which
shall declare that America is free; a verdict which shall add
another day of jubilee, and the brig-htest of all to our
national calendar. If this verdict is not given by the present
Congress, I know, and you all know, it will be g-iven by the
next Congress, and that, too, with alacrity. The decree has
g-one forth; the people have pronounced it; and now is the
g-olden hour in which we may all unite, if we will, and in¬
augurate a new era in our history. Let no man put forth
his puny hand to stay the certain approach of the hour in
which this act shall pass, or of the grand jubilee which shall
follow its enactment into law. Let no member of this House
attempt to postpone this great measure, with the hope of
being- able to circumvent, by some petty scheme of com¬
promise, the plainly written decree of Omnipotence. Let no
loyal man, in such an hour as this, record his vote ag-ainst
this just proposition, and thus vote to prolong- the rebellion
and perpetuate the despotism of American slavery in this
Republic.
The following- resolutions explain themselves. They
show how thoroug-hly Mr. Sumner and Mr. Ashley were in
accord on the great questions of that day.
.United States Senate. )
Saturday, February 4, 1865. j
Mr. Sumner introduced the following- resolutions:
the three fourths' vote of ratification.
Mr. Sumner: I send to the Chair' resolutions which I
ask to have read and printed. I shall call them up at a
future day.
— 357 —
The resolutions were read, as follows.
Concurrent resolutions declaring- the rule in ascertaining- the
three-fourths of the several States required in the ratifi¬
cation of a constitutional amendment:
Whereas Congress, by a vote of two-thirds of both
Houses, has proposed an amendment to the Constitution,
prohibiting slavery throug-hout the United States, which,
according- to the existing requirement of the Constitution,
will be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the Con¬
stitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths
of the several States; and whereas, in the present condition
of the country, with certain States in arms against the
National Government, it becomes necessary to determine what
number of States constitutes the three-fourths required by
the Constitution: Therefore,
Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives
concurring), That the rule followed in ascertaining- the two-
thirds of both Houses proposing- the amendment to the Con¬
stitution should be followed in ascertaining- the three-fourths
of the several States ratifying the amendment; that, as in
the first case, the two-thirds are founded on the simple fact
of representation in the two Houses, so in the second case,
the three-fourths must be founded on the simple fact of
representation in the government of the country and the
support thereof; and that any other rule establishes one basis
for the proposition of the amendment, and another for its
ratification, placing- one on a simple fact, and the other on a
claim of right, while it also recognizes the power of rebels
in arms to interpose a veto upon the National Government in
one of its highest functions.
Resolved, That all acts, executive and legislative, in pur¬
suance of the Constitution, and all treaties made under the
authority of the United States, are valid, to all intents and
purposes throughout the United States, although certain
States in rebellion fail to participate therein, and that the
same rule is equally applicable to an amendment of the Con¬
stitution.
Resolved, That the amendment of the Constitution, pro¬
hibiting- slavery throug-hout the United States, will be valid,
to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution,
whenever ratified by three-fourths of the States, de facto,
exercising the powers and prerogatives of the United States
under the Constitution thereof.
Resolved, That any other rule requiring* the participa¬
tion of the rebel States, while illogical and unreasonable, is
dangerous in its consequences, inasmuch as all recent presi-
-358 —
dential proclamations, including- tliat of emancipation, also
all the recent acts of Congress, including- those creating the
national debt and establishing' a national currency, and also
all recent treaties, including- the treaty with Great Britain for
the extinction of the slave trade, have been made, enacted, or
ratified, respectively, without any participation of the rebel
States.
Resolvkd, That any other rule must tend to postpone
the great day when the prohibition of slavery will be valid,
to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution of the
United States; but the rule herewith declared will assure the
immediate ratification of the prohibition, and the consumma¬
tion of the national desires.
The resolutions were ordered to be printed.
Letter from W. S. Scarborough, A. M., LL. D., Ph. D.,
Wilberforce, O.
In an Interview -which ■we find reported in the Toledo
Blade, Mr. Ashley says " that from my first meeting' with Whit-
tier in 1850, no one of all the great anti-slavery leaders esercised
a stronger or healthier influence on my life." Every reader of
this volume will recognize how thoroughly Whittier's philoso¬
phy and gentleness took firm hold of Mr. Ashley's head and
heart. Of all his early anti-slavery speeches before us, running
w. s. Scarborough, back to 1854, a majority are strengthened and embellished by
striking- quotations from Whittier. During the darkest hours of our country's history,
when many faltered and deserted our standard, Mr. Ashley stood erect and firm, never
failing, never faltering, and" like a prophet sent to free this world from every bond
and stain," he unfurled the true republican banner on which was writ: " Freedom,
THE BIRTHRIGHT OP THE HUMAN RACE." " THE NATION OF PEOPLE WHO DO NOT rule
in righteousness shall perish from thb earth." Were there no other reason for
stamping- the speeches in this book with moral power and intellectual force, the quo¬
tations made from Whittier, and the proclaiming of those maxims of freedom, would,
be enough. W. S. Scarborough.
COPY OF THE FIRST RECONSTRUCTION BILL,
Introduced in Congress by Mr. Ashley.
A LETTER OE historic VALUE.
The Publication Committee obtained from Mr. Ashley a
copy of his first reconstruction bill, and by special request,
the following- brief statement of the inside history of its
preparation.
The subjoined correspondence, with copy of the original
reconstruction bill, together with the recorded yea and nay
vote by which his first reconstruction bill was laid on the
table, will be of historic interest to the reader.
November 22, 1892.
Hon. J. M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio.
Dear Sir : It appears to us, that your speeches in Con¬
gress and in California, on the subject of reconstruction,
ought to be accompanied with a copy of at least one of the
bills introduced by you, for the reorganization of the South¬
ern States. If you can furnish us with a copy of one of the
reconstruction bills prepared by you, with the history of such
bill, so as to make the record more complete than we now
have it, we will be under renewed obligations.
1 have the honor to be,
Very respecfully yours, for God and the race,
(359)
— 360 —
Dkar Sir : My first bill for the government of the States
and districts in rebellion, was prepared in June, 1861, before
leaving- home, to attend the extra session of Congress, con¬
vened by President Lincoln, July 4th of that year. This
fact tells its own story. It will tell you, that I then had no
doubt of our ability to crush the rebellion at an early day.
I need not add, that it took us longer than I, at that time,
supposed.
In one of my reconstruction speeches in Congress which
I sent you, I give in brief the history of the first reconstruc¬
tion bill and its fate.
Immediately after the House was organized, in July,
1861, I invited the Republican members of the Committee on
Territories to meet me at my rooms in Washington, for con¬
sultation.
At that meeting I laid before them my bill for the re¬
organization and government of the rebel States.
I soon learned that not one of my Republican colleagues
on the committee were then prepared to say that they would
vote for my bill. Thereupon, I resolved to submit my pro¬
posed bill to Governor Chase (Secretary of the Treasury),
and to Senator Sumner, Henry Winter Davis, and other per¬
sonal friends, for their opinions. After securing their gen¬
eral approval to the central proposition embodied in the
bill, viz.: "That Congress had power under the Constitu¬
tion, to legislate for the government of States and districts in
rebellion," I went to work to convert one by one, the Re¬
publican members of my committee.
On the 23d of December, 1861, at the regular session, I
caused a resolution to be introduced in the House, which
passed, "instructing the Committee on Territories [of which
I was chairman] to inquire into the legality and expediency
of establishing territorial governments within the limits of
disloyal States or districts in rebellion, and to report by bill
or otherwise."
Not long after this, all the Republican members of my
committee save one (Mr. Wheeler of New York, Vice-Presi¬
dent under Ha3res), came to my support, and united with me
in reporting the bill, as it appears in the printed copy enclosed.
— 361 —
No such bill had ever before been presented to the Con¬
gress of the United States. No occasion had ever before
arisen for such a bill. In undertaking- to legislate for new
and unknown conditions, we had to blaze our way through a
wilderness of legal and political complications. Timid men
hesitated, and men who never move, or who when they do
move, walk only in beaten paths, were frightened. So
when by direction of a majority of the Committee on Terri¬
tories, my bill was reported to the House, on the twelfth of
March, 1862, it was on motion of Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, laid
on the table, some twenty Republicans voting against me, and
with the Democrats, to table it.
The minority of the Territorial Committee denounced
this bill in terms that, in the light of history, seem weak and
superficial.
The only statement made by them in their minority re¬
ports, which contained the shadow of what proved to be the
truth, was the declaration, "that the bill was intended to
emancipate at once, and forever, all slaves, and to seize all
public lands belonging to the rebel States, and lease or give
such lands, and forfeited or confiscated estates, to slaves so
emancipated." That was undoubtedly my purpose, and there
are to-day, thousands of thinking men, who now believe that
Congress was criminally guilty, because it failed to do this
act of prudence and justice.
Even here at home, I was charged by men who called
themselves Republicans, with recognizing and confirming by
my reconstruction bill, the secession of all the rebel States,
and much more of the same sort of shallow sophistry and
amazing logic.
In a day or two after my bill had been laid on the table,
Senator Colomore, of Vermont (who was opposed to my plan
of reconstruction), came to my seat in the House, and said,
"Ashley, where do you find a precedent for }'our bill, to estab¬
lish such governments as you propose, for the States in rebel¬
lion?" I answered him sharply and with some feeling, by say¬
ing: " Sir, we make precedents here," and added, "before we
get through with this rebellion, we will compel all loyal men
in Congress to vote for measures far more radical than my
bill;" and so we did.
— 362 —
But experience has taught us, that the reconstruction,
measures finally enacted by Congress, were not as safe, nor
as desirable, as my original bill, .which provided for putting-
the rebel States in territorial condition, until Congress
should provide by law for their reorganization, a copy of
which I now send you, so that you may publish it if you
like.
I was a member of the select Committee on "Reconstruc¬
tion," of which Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, was chair¬
man, and voted in that committee and in the House, for the re¬
construction bill as it finally passed. It was the best, and in
fact all the bill we could get that Committee to report. But
I thought then, and think now, that we fell short of our duty
to the black man.
Yours truly,
J. M. Ashley.
Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, D. D.,
Chairman Publication Committee.
United States House of Representatives, ]
Washington, D. C. >
Committee Room on Territories, March 8, 1862. j
The Committee on Territories, to whom was referred a
resolution passed by the House on the 23d of December, 1861,
instructing- them " to inquire into the legality and expediency
of establishing- territorial governments within the limits of
disloyal States or districts in rebellion, and report by bill or
otherwise," have had the same under careful consideration,
and submit the following bill providing for temporary civil
governments over the districts of country now in rebellion
against the United States, with the recommendation that it
do pass.
J. M. Ashley.
F. C. Beaman.
A. Scott Sloan.
Owen Lovejoy.
G. F. Bailey.
— 363 —
A Bill to Establish Temporary Provisional Governments
over the Districts of Country in Rebellion against
the United States.
March 12, 1862.—Read twice and laid on the table.
Whereas a conspiracy has been for many years in prog¬
ress and has resulted in insurrection and rebellion in that
part of the United States heretofore known and designated
as the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Texas, and Eastern Virginia; and whereas, by
the act of rebellion against the United States, as well as by
an attempted alliance with foreign powers to wage war
against said government, and granting letters of marque
and reprisal, the said States violated the national Constitu¬
tion, which is the supreme law of the land, and which
declares that no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance,
or confederation, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and
shall not without the consent of Congress lay any duty on
tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter
into any agreement or compact with another State or with a
foreign power; and whereas said acts of nullification, rebel¬
lion, and levying war against the United States, and their
alliance under a confederated government have terminated^
and of right'ought to terminate, the legal existence of said
State governments; and whereas the loyal citizens residing
in the aforesaid rebellious districts, on account of the over¬
throw of the State governments and the tribunals of justice,
both State and Federal, therein, as well as the loyal citizens
of other parts of the United States, are deprived of all ade¬
quate redress for injuries to their persons and property, and
of all civil remedies for the redress of grievances; and where¬
as the sovereignty of the United States over the district of
country now in rebellion is supreme by the express terms of
the Constitution; and whereas the establishment of a hostile
despotic government within any part of the territory of the
United States is incompatible with the stabilit}% safety, and
dignity of the Government of the United States and also
with the principles of constitutional liberty: Therefore,
— 364 —
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre¬
sentatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That the President be, and he is hereby author¬
ized and required to take possession of and to occupy the
insurrectionary States named, and to institute, establish,
and protect with the military and naval forces of the United
States, a temporary civil government, with such names, and
within such geographical boundaries as he may by proclama¬
tion designate; that said civil government shall be main¬
tained and continued in each of the districts thus named and
designated until such time as the loyal people residing
therein shall form new State governments, republican in
form, as prescribed by the Constitution of the United States,
and apply for and obtain admission into the Union as States*
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the tempo¬
rary governments hereby authorized for each of said dis¬
tricts shall consist of an executive, a legislative, and judicial
department. The executive power shall be vested in a
governor, whose powers and duties shall be the same as
those conferred by act of Congress upon the governor of the
Territory of Washington; and in addition he shall, during
the continuance of the rebellion, have power to do such acts
as may be necessary to secure the due enforcement of the
laws and decrees of the United States or of the provisional
government. The legislative power shall be vested in a coun¬
cil of not less than seven, nor more than thirteen, as the
President may determine. The judicial power shall be vested
in a superior court, and such inferior courts as the council
may establish. The superior court shall consist of three
judges, a majority of whom shall constitute the provisional
court of each district; and Congress shall have power at any
time to remove any one or all officers created by this act; and
the term of office of the governor and all other officers whose
creation and appointment are hereby authorized, shall con¬
tinue until otherwise directed by Congress; and each of the
officers designated by this act shall be appointed by the
President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the legisla¬
tive authority of said districts shall be vested in the governor
— 365 —
and legislative council, whose powers and duties shall extend
to all rightful subjects of legislation, not inconsistent with
the Constitution and laws of the United States and the pro¬
visions of this act; but no act shall be passed by said council
establishing, protecting, or recognizing the existence of sla¬
very, nor shall said temporary government, or anyjdepart-
ment thereof, give, sanction, or declare the right of one man
to property in another in either of said districts; and no law
or act of said governor or legislative council shall be valid
which is disapproved by Congress. The legislative council
shall assemble, after their first appointment, at such time
and place as the President may designate, and afterwards at
such time and place as the governor and legislative council
may fix by law; they shall select from one of their own
number a speaker, who shall be their presiding officer, and
"they may elect a clerk and sergeant-at-arms, who shall hold
their offices during the pleasure of the council, and the clerk
and sergeant-at-arms so appointed may be allowed such
assistants as in the opinion of the legislative council may be
necessary, and the compensation of said clerk and sergeant-
at-arms and their assistants shall be such as the legislative
council may by law prescribe, not to exceed four dollars per
day. If, from any cause, a vacancy occurs in any of the of¬
fices hereby authorized to be appointed by the President, the
governor or acting governor of the district shall forthwith
notify the President, and an appointment shall be made by
him to fill such vacancy immediately.
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, that the governor
and legislative council are hereby authorized to take posses¬
sion of all abandoned, forfeited, or confiscated estates within
the limits of said districts, in the name and on behalf of the
President and the Congress of the United States, and to
lease the realty thereof, on such terms and for such time,
not to exceed five years, as the governor and legislative
council may by law prescribe: Provided, that all leases
shall be to actual occupants, who are loyal, and have not
been in rebellion against the government of the United States:
And provided further, that all leases shall be for limited
quantities, not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres to any
— 366 —
person, it being- the intent and purpose of this act to estab¬
lish justice and promote the peace, safety and welfare of the
inhabitants by securing- all in the enjoyment of life, liberty,
and the fruits of their own labor.
Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, that it shall be
the duty of the governor and legislative council of each dis¬
trict to establish schools for the moral and intellectual culture
of all the inhabitants, to provide by law for the attendance
of all children over seven and under fourteen years of age,
not less than three months in each year; and to prescribe and
fix the number of hours, not to exceed twelve, which shall
constitute a day's work for field hands and laborers.
Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, that all public
lands in each of said districts, held by said recent States at
the time of their act of secession, shall be seized, occupied,
and held by the governor of the districts in which they may
be located, in the name of the President of the United States,
until otherwise disposed of by Congress. That all public
lands thus acquired and which may become vested in the
United States by confiscation or forfeiture by the provisions of
any law now in force, or which may hereafter be passed, shall
be held for the use of the soldiers, sailors, and marines, regular
and volunteer, who have been or may be called into the service
of the United States to crush the existing- rebellion, and who
shall be honorably discharged at the close of the war, and the
widows and minor children of such as may be killed in battle or
die in the service, or die of wounds received, or by diseases con¬
tracted in the service, and for the purpose of compensating
such loyal citizens of said recent States as may sustain
damages or losses by reason of the said revolt, or by the pro¬
visions of this act, to be distributed and apportioned as Con¬
gress may hereafter provide.
Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, that the superior
court hereby authorized shall hold such terms and at such
times and places as a majority of the judges may from time
to time determine, and they may appoint a clerk and establish
and modify rules of practice within each district, and shall
exercise such jurisdiction, and hear and determine all such
causes and matters within their respective districts as are by
— 367—
law cognizable by the circuit and district courts of the
United States or the territorial courts and also such as maj
by act of Congress or the provisional legislature of the dis¬
trict be made cognizable by the said court, and the final
judgments or decrees of said courts shall be subject to rever¬
sals, affirmation, or revision on appeals or writs of error by
the Supreme Court of the United States, in like manner and
under the same regulations as from the circuit court of the
United States, where the value in controversy to be ascer¬
tained by the oath or affirmation of either party or other
competent witnesses shall exceed one thousand dollars.
Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, that all loyal
persons, and all who may be admitted by the legislative
council to the privileges of electors in said districts, shall be
qualified to serve as grand or petit jurors of the county in
which they reside, and they shall, until the legislative coun¬
cil for each district otherwise direct, be selected in such
manner as the judges of said superior court respectively shall
prescribe: Provided, that no person who has heretofore
held office, or a commission, either civil or military, under
the government of the United States, or any one of the
States, or any lawyer or any person who has taken an oath
to support the Constitution of the United States, or any pro¬
fessed minister of the gospel who has been, now is, or may
hereafter be, in open rebellion against the National Govern¬
ment, or who, in any manner, has given or may give aid and
comfort to the enemies of the United States, shall act as
juror, or be entitled to the privileges of an elector, or be
eligible to any office under the General Government, or in
either of said districts.
Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, that there shall
be appointed within each district organized as aforesaid, a
secretary, a marshal, and a district attorney, who shall exer¬
cise the powers, discharge the duties, and receive the com¬
pensation for like offices created by act of Congress estab¬
lishing the territorial government of Washington; and the
governor of each of said districts shall receive for his ser¬
vices $2,500 per annum, each member of the couucil $1,000
and the judges $2,000 each per annum.
— 368 —
Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That the Presi¬
dent may, by proclamation, until Congress shall otherwise
direct, establish such ports of entry and delivery within the
districts of any provisional government authorized by this
act as he may deem necessary, and appoint collectors and all
other needed officers now for other ports in like manner
appointed; may also appoint or authorize the appointment of
such other officers as are usual in such ports; and all such
officers shall have the same powers and discharge such duties
as like officers in other ports of the United States. The col¬
lector for each port shall receive $1,500 per annum, but no
additional officer shall receive more than $1,000 per annum,
and all provisions of law relating" to other ports of entry in
the United States shall be applied, so far as practicable, to
the ports hereby authorized.
Sec. 11. And be it further enacted, That all acts
and parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act
be, and the same are hereby repealed.
Mr. Pendleton. I move to lay the bill upon the table.
Mr. Bingham, of Ohio. I demand the yeas and nays
upon that motion.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The question was taken; and it was decided in the affir¬
mative—yeas 65, nays 56; as follows:
Yeas—Messrs. Ancona, Joseph Bailey, Biddle, Francis
P. Blair, Jacob B. Blair, George H. Browne, William G.
Brown, Calvert, Casey, Clements, Cobb, Colfax, Corning,
Cravens, Crisfield, Crittenden, Delano, Diven, Dunlap, Dunn,
English, Fisher, Granger, Grider, Gurley, Haight, Harding,
Harrison, William Kellog, Killinger, Law, Lazear, Leary,
Lehman, McKnight, Mallory, May, Menzies, Morris, Nixon,
Noble, Noell, Norton, Pendleton, Perry, Timothy G. Phelps,
Porter, Alexander H. Rice, Richardson, Sheffield, Shella-
barger, Shiel, JohnB. Steele, Stratton, Benjamin F. Thomas,
Francis Thomas, Train, Wadsworth, Ward, Webster,
Wheeler, Whaley, Clinton A. White, Wickliff, and Wood
— 65.
Nays—Messrs. Aldrich, Arnold, Ashley, Baker, Baxter,
Beaman, Bingham, Samuel S. Blair, Blake, Buffinton, Camp-
— 369 —
bell, Chamberlin, Clark, Frederick A. Conkling, Roscoe
Conkling-, Cutler, Davis, Duell, Edgerton, Edwards, Eliot,
Fessenden, Franchot, Frank, Hale, Hooper, Horton, Hutchins,
Julian, Kelley, Francis W. Kellog-g, Lansing1, Loomis, Love-
joy, McPherson, Mitchell, Moorhead, Anson P. Morrill,
Justin S. Morrill, Pike, Pomeroy, John H. Rice, Riddle,
Edward H. Rollins, Sargent, Sedg-wick, Sloan, Stevens,
Trowbridg-e, VanValkenburg'h, Wall, Charles W. Walton, E.
P. Walton, Wilson, Windom, and Worcester—56.
So the bill was laid upon the table.
GENERAL ASHLEY'S SPEECH
At San Francisco, California, September 17th, 1865.
from the san francisco bulletin.
"We give in our columns to-day, the speech made by Gen¬
eral Ashley at Piatt's Hall, last night. In speaking- of this
terse, sound, practical common sense production of Mr.
Ashley's, we cannot do better than to give the language of
the Alta Californian, the most conservative newspaper of
the "West:
" 'The speech of General Ashley last evening, at Piatt's
Hall, was a great oration, splendid in its ability, and powerful
in its effect. The auditory were charmed with the eloquence,
and impressed with the nobleness of the man before them.
There was no tinsel, no trickery of speech, no flimsiness or
tawdriness of rhetoric. The applause was frequent, pro¬
longed and enthusiastic, and it represented no doubt the
general sentiment of the Union people of San Francisco —
that is the sentiment of admiration for such a speech. His
eminent position and his oratorical ability give attraction to
everything he may say, and render his remarks worthy of
attentive perusal.'"
mr. ashley on reconstruction.
In accordance with the announcement, the Hon. J. M.
Ashley, Congressman from Ohio, and Chairman of the Com¬
mittee on Territories in the House of Representatives, ad¬
dressed the citizens of San Francisco in Piatt's Hall last even¬
ing. A very large audience was present. Collector James
(370)
— 371 —
"was appointed Chairman, and Louis R. Lull, Secretary. Mr.
Ashley was introduced to the audience by Col. James with a
few complimentary remarks, in which he was given the credit
of having1 done more than any other man to carry through
Congress the constitutional amendment forever prohibiting
slavery in the United States. Among the many distinguished
persons who have visited our State of late, none was more
worthy of our regard and admiration than he. He would ad¬
dress us this evening upon questions of general and local in¬
terest, and whatever may be his views, we could be assured
that they came from a clear head and a ripe experience, and
would be deserving of our careful consideration.
On stepping to the desk, Mr. Ashley was received with
prolonged cheers by the audience, and after quiet was re¬
stored, he spoke as follows:
speech op mr. ashi^y.
Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen of San
Francisco : I thank my friend for his very flattering introduc¬
tion, and trust I shall not disappoint you. He has been
pleased to refer in complimentary terms to my political record,
to all of which I can only say that when the smoke of the bat¬
tle has cleared off, and the prejudices and passions of the
hour shall have passed, and the motives of men can be read
in the clear light of history, I hope my record will be one of
which neither my friends nor my children will have cause to
feel ashc^-d.
If in our great anti-slavery struggle, or during the war
for the preservation of the nation, it shall be found that I
contributed to the triumph of both, whether by clearing away
the underbrush or by occasionally felling some of the larger
timber, I shall be amply compensated for all such labor and
for the unmeasured abuse of which I have been the recipient.
But in this practical age it is not so much what a man has
done, as what he can do which interests the public in him.
On this point I think I may say with safety, that I am sure
the States and Territories west of the Missouri will receive
no detriment because of my visit.
— 372 —
Mr. President, one week ago yesterday afternoon, as I
passed from the Pacific through the Golden Gate into your
m agnificent harbor, and beheld for the first time your beau¬
tiful city, I felt as if one of the earliest dreams of my boy¬
hood had been realized, and that I had been fully compen¬
sated for the toil and hazard of an overland trip from the Mis¬
souri river by stage to Denver, Salt Lake and Montana,
thence down the Snake through Idaho to the Columbia River
many hundred miles on horseback and buckboard, thence
down the Columbia to Portland, Oregon, and across-to
Olympia and Puget Sound, and from Victoria by steamer here.
When a boy I had read the account given by Lewis and
Clark of their explorations, and I longed to see the great
plains, the wonderful rivers and still more wonderful moun¬
tains, which I find they have so faithfully described. In my
journey I passed over many points of interest made historic
by them and by Fremont, Stevens, Mullen, Lander and others,
but interesting and wonderful as many of these localities
were to me, none have impressed me more favorably than
your beautiful seven-hilled city of less than twenty years'
growth.
If a man who had never heard of San Francisco should
enter your harbor as I did, and see shipping from all parts of
the world so numerous as to make a perfect forest of masts,
and witness the bustle and activity of business, and be told
that your population exceeded 125,000 he would naturally con¬
clude that he was entering one of the oldest and most wealthy
cities on the continent. I cannot tell you how this sight
stirred my heart with national pride as I beheld in all that I
saw the results of American genius and American enterprise.
When the great railroad of the continent, forty miles
of which I am told is now ironed and which with such com¬
mendable zeal you are pushing forward so rapidly, shall have
been completed, and our eastern cities of the Atlantic are
united with your metropolis by iron bands, one of the
dreams of my early manhood will be realized. Thanks to
the energy with which you are pushing forward the Pacific
division, soon the shrill whistle of the iron horse will awaken
echoes through the canons and gorges 01 the mountains, as
it passes over and descends to the plains on the eastern slope
— 373 —
of the Sierra Nevadas. When this is accomplished it will be
a proud day for California, because to you will be due the
credit of having- demonstrated to the world the practicability
of this great enterprise, around which so many hopes, present
and prospective, cling.
Next in importance to this coast is the mining* interests
of California, and of the States and Territories west of the
Rocky Mountains. I have visited most of the mining- dis¬
tricts, and my observations have confirmed my judgment that
no policy could be more suicidal than to sell the mines. [Ap¬
plause.]
The speaker dwelt at some length upon the subject, and
repeated his conviction after a thorough examination of the
mining districts and frequent conversations with the miners —
many of whom had spent 16 years in developing this coast—
that no greater blunder and no greater wrong could be com¬
mitted by the government than to deprive them of the mines
by general sale. It would put a stop to prospecting, retard
the development of the mines, and he was satisfied would not
add $20,000,000 to the coffers of the government. The in¬
come tax accruing- from the present system of mining- would
bring a larger amount to the treasury in 10 years than the
entire proceeds of the sale of the mines. Capitalists would
combine, and both the miner and the government would be
defrauded. The result of the sale of our mines would be to
reduce them to the condition of the Mexican mines, which
certainly no one desired to see. [Applause.]
Taking leave of this subject the speaker proceeded as
follows:
And now, fellow-citizens, permit me to pass to the con¬
sideration of a subject which ought to interest every loyal
man in the nation.
The last rebel army has been defeated and disbanded.
The Union army has returned home in triumph beneath its torn
and blood-stained banners. In its march, the seared and
weather-beaten veterans shook the very earth beneath their
tread. I saw them, as they passed in their two days' review
through the National Capital, and you know that in every
citv and hamlet they were greeted with shouts and tears, and
— 374 —
received the homage and benediction of the nation. [Ap-
plause.]
At their country's call more than a million men volun¬
tarily left their quiet and peaceful homes to peril, and, if
need be, to yield up their lives to save the nation's life. To¬
day the remnant of this patriotic and heroic army are return¬
ing1 to their homes to assume again the peaceful and respon¬
sible duties of American citizens. This is a spectacle the
glory and grandeur of which dazzles the world with its
splendor, and is worthy to be written in the Book of Life by
the recording angel. [Applause.]
With the return of this army ends the struggle to main¬
tain our national existence by force of arms, and a struggle
unlike any in our history is to take its place. Who shall be
authorized to reorganize loyal State governments in the late
rebel States? Shall it be loyal men or disloyal men? Shall
educated treason be clothed with the power or uneducated
loyalty? Shall the men who for the past four years have
labored with might and main to destroy the government, and
whose hands are red with the blood of my loyal countrymen,
be entrusted with full power to govern not only themselves
and the loyal men of the South, but, by uniting with their
late Northern allies, govern us also?
These are practical questions, it seems to me — and
questions of transcendent importance to us as a free people.
If the loyal men of the nation would answer them as the
returned Union soldiers have answered them, I should have no
anxiety for the future. If one. question could be satisfac¬
torily answered, there would be no serious disagreement
among loyal men. That question is this —What, during the
war, has been, and what is now the legal status of the late
rebel States?
I hold, that, when the people of the thirteen colonies adopt¬
ed our present national Constitution, the old confederation was
abolished, and the United States became a nation; that the
national "Constitution is the supreme law of the land, any¬
thing in the constitutions, laws or judicial decisions of the
States to the contrary notwithstanding;" that the National
Government thus created is clothed with full powers for its
self-preservation; that the Government of the United States
— 375 —
is a government of the people and not a government of thirty-
six sovereign States; but a government of the people residing
in territorial subdivisions which we call States, and which
have State governments, organized in subordination to, and
in conformity with the national Constitution; that the people
who maintain such State governments, and they alone, are
constitutionally clothed with the power of governing the na¬
tion. [Applause.]
I hold that when the people of the States recently in
rebellion confederated together in violation of the national
Constitution, and organized and maintained by force of arms
a de facto hostile government, and the rebellion assumed
pr6portions formidable enough to claim and to have conceded
to it by the United States and by the great powers of Europe,
belligerent rights, from that hour constitutional State govern¬
ments in each of the States so confederated together ceased
to exist, and until State governments are organized in each of
said States in subordination to the national Constitution, and
are recognized by Congress, there can be no constitutional
State governments in such States. [Applause.]
I hold that whenever the people residing in any one or
more States neglect or refuse to maintain constitutional
State governments, whether it be by abolishing their State
constitutions and refusing to ordain new ones, or by con¬
federating together with other States, or with foreign
powers, to make war upon the nation, from that moment the
governing power, whether for national or State purposes,
which was lodged by the national Constitution and laws of
the United States in the people of such State or States, ter¬
minates, and remains in the people residing in the States
which maintain constitutional governments. In other words,
that the sovereignty of the nation cannot be destroyed or im¬
paired within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States,
by the action, or the refusal to act of any one or more States.
[Applause.]
I hold that the people of any State may alter or abolish
their State constitutions and governments whenever they see
fit to do so, and they may refuse to establish others, and that
there is no power in the National Government to compel the
majority of the people in any State to maintain a State
government or to elect Senators or Representatives to Con¬
gress, or to vote for Presidential electors. Nevertheless, the
sovereignty of the United States over the territory and peo¬
ple within such State or States remains unimpaired; the laws
of the United States are legally in full force, and the alle¬
giance of every citizen residing within the territorial limits
of the nation, whether in organized or unorganized States,
is due to the United States, whatever may be the action of
a majority of the people in any State. [Applause.]
Those who can see in these propositions a recognition of
the right of secession are remarkable logicians.
The speaker then spoke for nearly half an hour in de¬
fense of these propositions, and continued as follows:
If, in our efforts to reorganize loyal State governments
in the late rebel States, we permit the question of loyal suf¬
frage to remain an open question, widespread agitation is
inevitable, and I fear disaster and defeat, not only to the
Union cause in most of the rebel States, but in some of the
loyal States also. If however, all loyal men, without distinc¬
tion of race or color, are invited and permitted to vote for
delegates to the proposed constitutional conventions, which
are to be or ought to be held in each of the late rebel States,
and for the acceptance or rejection of any constitution which
may be framed by such conventions, whatever the result,
there can be no violent agitation or formidable division of
the Union party. [Applause.]
If the loyal whites and loyal blacks of the South, in
reorganizing loyal'State governments, see fit to limit the
right of the elective franchise to the blacks who can read
and write the English language and to all "who have been
in the military -or rival service of the United States,"
whether they can read and write or not, I think a majority of
the Union party would acquiesce -- certainly much of the
excitement which will follow if the colored soldiers are
excluded would be avoided. But if the loyal blacks, including
all the black soldiers, are to be excluded, and none but the
loyal whites and those professedly loyal, together with all
the pardoned and unrepentant rebels in these States, are to
vote for delegates to conventions to reorganize loyal State
governments, there will be dissatisfaction among the loyal
— 377 —
men of the nation, and justly; and for one I fear the conse¬
quences. [Applause.] If President Johnson should to¬
morrow issue instructions to his recently appointed pro¬
visional governors in the rebel States requiring1 them to in¬
vite and see that all loyal black men were not only permitted^
but protected, in voting' for delegates, and for or against
accepting1 any State constitution which might be framed by
such conventions, nineteen-twentieths of all the professed
Union men in the North now opposing- negro suffrage would
give in their adhesion to the plan, while all thenhangers-on
of the party would at once become vociferous in its favor.
[Applause.]
Every party, as every army, has its camp-followers. The
Republican and Union party, since it came into power, has
had its full share of them. We have thousands of men in
the Union party, who, on this negro suffrage question, are
skirmishing- along-, near enough to the main column of our
advancing- army to rush in and claim the benefit of a victory
if we obtain one, and yet close enough to the rear to beat a
hasty retreat if we should be defeated, to enable them to
join the enemy without any perceptible change of base. This
is political strategy. [Laughter and applause.]
I once asked a man in Washing-ton how it came that he
was retained in office for so many years, under so many dif¬
ferent administrations. "By Heavens!" he exclaimed with
an air of triumph, and much apparent satisfaction, "I would
like to see the people elect a President oftener than I can
change." Do you suppose any man ever will be elected
President who can issue proclamations faster than the flun¬
kies and camp-followers of his party will approve them? If
you do, I do not. [Laughter.]
You all remember how many editors and politicians were
indifferent to, or opposed the demand of the anti-slavery men.
for an emancipation policy, before it was adopted by Mr-
Lincoln. As soon, however, as the proclamation was issued,
there was a sudden and general conversion, and these very
men were the first to appear at every public meeting to give
in their adhesion, and to rush into every nominating conven¬
tion and take the front seats without a scruple, and demand
the best offices without a blush. [Laughter and applause.]
— 378 —
If Mr. Johnson should, to-day, issue such a proclamation
as the loyal suffrage men of the nation have asked him to
issue, and such a proclamation as I hope he will yet issue —
for I hold he is not committed against'it—I do not believe ten
men occupying- respectable positions in the Union party,
either as editors, or Senators and Representatives in Con¬
gress, could be found to oppose him in such a movement.
Mr. Lincoln once said to me, that he had more to fear
from a class of men who crawled in the back door, approved
whatever they supposed to be his policy while denouncing
and slandering the anti-slavery men, whom he knew and
admitted to be the most steadfast Union men, as well as his
most reliable friends. This same class of camp followers
were the first to rush in person to the presidential mansion,
and fawningly approve the new policy, the moment the
Emancipation Proclamation was issued. They flooded the
mails with their letters of commendation, and filled five
columns of their papers in laudation of the new policy, for
every one used by anti-slavery papers. So it would be now,
if the President would issue a proclamation to-morrow in
favor of loyal suffrage without regard to the race or color
of the voter. The opposition in the Union party would not
have force or courage enough to make a ripple on the face of
the smoothest water. [Applause.]
All I demand in the reorganization of State governments
in the rebel States, is justice—justice alike to loyal white
and loyal black—justice to the late rebels also—justice tem¬
pered with mercy, if you will, but, nevertheless, justice —
that justice which secures the personal rights of all, by plac¬
ing in their hands the ballot—the only sure weapon, in a
republic, of protection and defense to the poor man, whether
white or black. To me the ballot is the political stone "cut
out of the mountain without hands, which shall fill the
whole earth, break every joke and let the oppressed go free."
*'Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but
on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."
[Applause.]
And here I may be pardoned if I digress a few moments
and refer to some unfriendly criticisms which have been made
by Eastern papers upon extracts which purport to have been
— 379 —
copied from a speech, made by me on the evening: before I
left Ohio.
I have never seen the paper from home containing- the
speech referred to, and only since I reached your city have I
read what purported to be extracts from it, and the criticisms
made upon them. Perhaps I ought also to say that I did not
expect the few remarks which I made on that night, at a
private business meeting-, to appear in any publication, as a
speech. I supposed a notice of the meeting- would probably
appear, and that some reference, in g-eneral terms, might
perhaps be made editorially to what was said — nothing
more. If I had known that what I said about my interviews
with the President on the loyal suffrage question was to ap¬
pear as a speech, I would have asked the privilege of read¬
ing- and correcting- the manuscript or proof, if it needed cor¬
recting-— as speeches not unfrequently do, even when spoken
with studied deliberation and reduced to writing- by the best
reporters, to say nothing- of the occasional necessity of cor¬
recting- typographical blunders in the best reg-ulated printing-
establishments.
Part of what I have seen quoted is substantially correct.
I did say that "the President assured me that he was
anxious to secure to all men their rights, without regard to
color." I also said, and on this point I hope I may never have
cause to change my impresssions, "that from all the conver¬
sations I had with the President, I was satisfied that he de¬
sired so to administer the government as to reflect the wishes
and sentiments of the Union men of the nation."
What I said when speaking of the future action of the
anti-slavery men and danger of division, and the eventual
defeat of the Union party if the loyal suffrage policy was
not adopted, I believe to be true and so repeat it now.
I said substantially, "^that the anti-slavery men of the
Uaited States had destroyed the old Whig and Democratic
parties; that all along the political coast the wrecks of
Northern statesmen were lying thicker than the blockade run¬
ners from England; that, true to the principles of freedom
and philanthropy thoroughly implanted in their characters,
they would remember the terrible ordeal through which they
passed for more than thirty years, and be ever faithful to
— 380 —
their convictions; that as they had, during- many long,,
weary years of discouragements and apparent defeats, labored
with a fidelity that never tired, and a determination which
never faltered, to impress their anti-slavery ideas upon the
mind and heart of the nation, so for the next third of a
century, or longer, if necessary, they would consecrate them¬
selves to the great work of securing the complete enfranchise¬
ment of the men whom their labors had liberated from the
thraldom of slavery; [applause] that if statesmen and par¬
ties stood in the way of success, such statesmen would be
destroyed and such parties perish, and go into common graves,
as the pro-slavery statesmen of the North and the old Whig
and Democratic parties had gone before them, because false
to freedom." [Applause.]
I did not say this in a violent or threatening manner, as
I am reported to have done, but with sadness and apprehen¬
sion, rather.
I believe that by the adoption of the policy which I have
indicated, a division and conflict such as then appeared, and
now seems inevitable, might be avoided, and the political
homogeneity of the nation, and the oneness in principle and
purpose of the Republican party, be secured. [Applause.]
I knew that the adoption of this policy would make, as
the emancipation policy had made, the Republican party a
unit; and I believed, if it was not adopted, that the old war¬
worn veterans of the anti-slavery army would blow a blast
upon their bugles which would call around them a million of
men, who never followed presidents or parties for position or
plunder; that they would camp on, the battlefield,'as they
did during their thirty years of anti-slavery warfare, and
with the banner of impartial suffrage to all loyal men, white
and black, flying over their heads, that they would, sooner or
later, vanquish all opposition, by destroying men and parties,
and come off, as they had in their conflict with the rebels,
conquerors and more than conquerors. [Applause.]
I believed then, and believe now, that divisions among
Union men would bring certain defeat, and I am sure the
loyal men of this nation cannot be defeated without my going
down with them. In my anxiety to avoid this, I pointed to
the disasters of the past and warned as a friend, rather than
— 381 —
threatened as an enemy. The good book says, "Faithful are
the reproofs of a friend, but the kisses of enemies are deceitful."
I do not disguise the fact that I am anxious for the future of
the Republican party. I have labored too long- and earnestly
to secure its triumph to be indifferent to its future now. It
is only the camp-followers and plunderers who are indifferent
to political revolutions. Any change is better "for such men
than stability. Divisions and sudden political changes may
throw such men-to the surface — without these, they remain
mere camp-followers and the blind partisans of power.
It would not be necessary, if the persistent repetition of
a falsehood did not sometimes cause it to be accepted as true,
unless contradicted, for me to 'refer to a remark reported to
have been make by the President in reply to what I said,
when urging him to adopt in his reconstruction policy,
"universal loyal suffrage," or, in other words, negro suffrage.
It is said that he bade me, or those with me, "good morn¬
ing," with an intimation that he did not desire to have any¬
thing more from us on the question of negro suffrage. I do
not know how the story obtained currency, nor do I care, for
that matter. Certainly neither to me, nor to any gentlemen
with me, did the President, either by word or act ever express
displeasure at anything said during any of my interviews
with Jiim on the question of negro suffrage. My relations with
the President are of the most friendly character, and I ex¬
pect them to remain of that character while he continues to
represent the loyal men of the nation. I know him and his
Cabinet well. His Cabinet is made up of able, tried and true
men. [Applause.] A majority of them have held responsi¬
ble public positions during the past four years, and all have
rendered important services in aiding to carry the nation
safely through the terrible war just closed. They are en¬
titled to the nation's confidence and the nation's gratitude.
[Applause.] Their experience ought to render their services
invaluable. If the loyal men of the nation cannot trust the
President, with such a Cabinet co-operating with him, I do
not know whom they can trust. At all events, until Mr.
Johnson proves false to the party which elected him, I shall
support his administration. It does not seem to me possible,
in view of the fact that the slave barons always hated and
— 382 —
feared him — in view of the splendid record he has made
since the war, and the pledges he has made in public and
private, that he can now hesitate to follow the logic of events.
When I remember all that he has said, and the pledge which
he voluntarily made to the black men at Nashville, when he
promised them to be their Moses, to lead them out of the
house of bondage, I cannot believe that he will now turn back
to the worship of the Golden Calf, or that he will ever again
fall down before the Moloch of slavery.
That I shall differ, and that many of you will differ with
the President, his Cabinet and with Congress, on some of the
new questions which must necessarily arise, is more than
probable. I am not a believer in the infallibility of Presidents
or parties, and I expect to do some thinking for myself, as
these new questions arise. After a full and free discussion of
them, and when they shall have been passed upon by Con¬
gress and the co-ordinate departments of the government, it
will be time enough to talk of proscribing men in a party sense,
for opinion's sake, if they refuse to acquiesce. In the mean¬
time I propose, without impugning the motives of any Union
man, or disparaging those who differ with me, to do all I can
to have my views adopted by the administration. [Ap¬
plause.] I am free to say, however, that I am committed to
no theory or policy which I will not gladly abandon for a
better one; no preconceived notions on matters of expediency
that I will not yield with alacrity to accomplish that which
I have most at heart, the unity of the republic and the domi¬
nation in the government of the men who saved the nation's
life.
In party matters I have enough to do to fight the com¬
mon enemy, without making war upon Union men because
they may differ with me on some of the new and perplexing
questions which the war has forced upon us. While a mem¬
ber of the Republican party, I shall defend its settled
policy, support its regularly nominated candidates and
acquiesce in this fairly expressed will of the majority
. of the party on all political questions, if I can do so
conscientiously. If I cannot, I shall openly withdraw
from the organization. I have always labored for the
triumph of ideas rather than for the triumph of men, and I
— 383 —
hope that during- the residue of my public life, whether it be
long1 or short, I may continue as I began. In any event,
my friends may rest assured that I will never join the bush¬
whackers or camp-followers for the sake of place and power.
Whatever other faults I may have, fawning- at the foot of
power for place and plunder has never been, and I trust never
will be, one of them.
The speaker here reverted to the past and spoke of the
terrible conflict of the last four years, the panorama of which
often passed before his eyes; and when he thought of all the
delays, mistakes and blunders that had been made by the
government, the awful disasters to our armies, the keeping
in power of incompetent or traitorous generals; and notwith¬
standing all these discouragements, he heard the cry of a
consecrated people still coming up, rising and swelling over
the tumult and carnage, "We are coming, Father Abraham,
six hundred thousand more;" when he reflected upon those
untold sacrifices of a brave and loyal people, he did not wish
to see anything left undone to gain the object for which they
had suffered. [Applause.]
I trust, said he, we all realize the fact that in reorganiz¬
ing civil society in the late rebel States, a broad, liberal and
wise statesmanship is needed. I am for the most liberal
policy consistent with the safety and stability of the nation.
In laying the foundations of republican commonwealths, great
prudence ought to mark our every step. We should see to it
that every State is so organized as to secure the equality
before the law of every American citizen, so that the politi¬
cal communities thus organized shall be a source of strength
to the nation instead of a source of weakness. [Applause.]
I know that the brightest jewel in the diadem of the
conqueror is mercy; yet mercy without justice, mercy with¬
out discrimination, history and revelation alike teach us
gives no security to governments. [Applause.] I would
pardon many— perhaps too many. I would rather err on the
side of mercy, than err on the other side. I am so anxious
for a nation of men homogeneous in aim and purpose, that I
would go far to win back an erring brother to his former love
of the Union and Constitution of our fathers; to the love of
that old flag which is to-day the emblem of our national
— 384 —
power and national glory ; that flag1 which is to become the
flag" of an ocean-bound republic —the flag- of destiny and of
empire, before which all nations shall stand with uncovered
heads. Thanks to the God of nations and of men, in speak¬
ing- to-nig'ht of that flag-, as it floats on the land and on the
sea we can truthfully say :
" No more its flaming- emblems wave
To bar from hope the trembling- slave;
No more its radiant glories shine
To blast with woe one child of Thine."
[Applause.]
Recognizing- the new and responsible duties which the
war has imposed upon us as American citizens, let us g"o for¬
ward to the discharge of those duties in a forgiving- spirit
and with thankful hearts ; let us g"o ag-ain to the old altars,
and take with us our children and our erring- and repentant
brothers also, and swear before Him who liveth forever
and forever that come what may, divisions, dissensions, rebel¬
lions, interventions and foreig-n wars — that living- or dying-,
no other flag- shall ever float above our homes or gTaves.
[Prolong-ed applause.]*
*Col. James, who presided at this meeting-, was at the time collector of the Port
of San Francisco, to which position he had been appointed by President Lincoln. In
a short time President Johnson removed Col. James for the offense of presiding.
SPEECH
OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO,
Delivered at Sacramento, California, Friday Evening,
September 29, 1865.
Governor Low, who had served in Congress with Mr.
Ashley, introduced him in a few well-chosen complimentary
remarks, after which Mr. Ashley spoke as follows:
Ladies and Gentlemen of Sacramento: I am greatly
obliged to my friend, the governor, for his very flattering-
introduction and for his generous indorsement of my course
in Congress. To-morrow I set my face homeward. On the
map it looks like a distant journey, yet Ohio, you know, is
in the very heart of the republic. I cannot speak of that great
State without feeling- emotions of patriotic pride. When I
remember all that Ohio has done on the battlefield, in
the Cabinet and in the nation's council halls, to make her
name ever memorable in history, and to crown with g-lory
the struggle of the past four years, I feel that to be one of
her Representatives in Congress is an honor of which any
man should be proud, and I only wish I were a more worthy
representative of such a noble commonwealth. [Applause.]
I am told by some of your leading citizens that I am to
go over the main trunk of the Pacific Railroad as far as the
rails are laid, some forty miles. I trust when I again visit
California, as I hope to do, that I may find all your brightest
anticipations in connection with this great enterprise fully
realized. Wherever I have gone in your State my visit has
been made so pleasant that I regret it could not be prolonged
for ten days or two weeks more. But time and tide
Waiteth for no man, and the snows on mountains and plains
will not wait for me while wife and children are waiting and
25 ( 3S5)
— 386 —
anxiously waiting-. I go home to tell our people that all the
stories told of California are true, and that all have not been
told. From jour "Big- Trees," which are more wonderful
than the cedars of Lebanon, to your golden gateway of the
Pacific, a crimson-hued russet-tinted halo everywhere gilds
mountain, plain and tree, and I am charmed with a climate
which is softer, and landscapes more beautiful than any
which have greeted me in all my journeyings over half the
continent. With a commerce at San Francisco which now
rivals and bids fair to exceed all the great cities of the
Atlantic except New York and Philadelphia, and with an in¬
exhaustible supply of iron, copper, quicksilver and gold, and
agricultural wealth far exceeding my expectations, I am con¬
fident that with all these, and completion of the Pacific
Railroad, the future of California cannot be doubtful. [Ap¬
plause.]
Mr. Ashley then proceeded to the consideration of the
question of reconstruction, on which he had been invited to
speak. He said:
On reflection, I am prepared to repeat and to reaffirm the
propositions which I made in my speech at San Francisco-,
Let me read from the Bulletin of the 18th, which I hold in my
hand. [The reader will find these propositions on pages
374-5.]
After reading with deliberation the propositions which
he made in San Francisco, he said:
Mr. President, I desire also to add another proposition
in order, if possible, to prevent any misrepresentation of my
position.
I hold that no State can, either by legislative act, or by
a convention of the people, constitutionally pass an ordi¬
nance of secession, or ordain a new State constitution and
government hostile to the United States; that if such acts
of secession are passed and hostile State governments
organized they are illegal, and the citizens of the United
States residing within the limits of such State do not owe
allegiance to such government; but if a majority of the
qualified electors of a State unite with its constituted author¬
ities, and pass an ordinance of secession, or ordain a new
State government by abolishing their old State constitution
— 387 —
and adopting- a new one unknown to the national Constitution,
and attempt to maintain such unconstitutional government
by force, they do in fact destroy their constitutional State
government. [Applause.]
To me, these propositions are fundamentally right; they
embody, as I interpret the national Constitution, the founda¬
tion principles upon which the corner-stones of our national
political edifice were laid, and upon which it was built and
must stand. During- the past four eventful years, had we
recognized, as true, the doctrine that our national super¬
structure rested upon the Calhoun assumption of State
sovereignty with the right of nullification and secession, we
should have learned to our sorrow that we had builded upon
the sand, and that "when the rains descended, the floods
came, and the winds of the rebellion blew and beat upon it,"
that it must fall, as it would have fallen, if the nation had
hesitated to strike the hydra-headed monster of secession and
rebellion with shot and shell to its death, and thus bury as
they did in one common grave, the great rebellion with this
fallacious and false political heresy. [Applause.]
To the impartial consideration of these propositions,
said Mr. Ashley, I invite your careful attention and invoke
your considerate judgment.
[He then made an argument in favor of these propositions,
which we would like to see some able man of the opposition
answer.]
In closing this part of his speech he said, that President
Lincoln and all the departments of the National Government,
including Congress and the Supreme Court, have fully recog¬
nized and acted upon this theory. In fact the whole policy
of the government during the war, has been but a recogni¬
tion of the ideas which I have submitted in these proposi¬
tion.
Mr. Johnson, by appointing provisional governors for each
of the late rebel States, has admitted the fact that the constitu¬
tional State governments of these States are destroyed, and
that new constitutional State governments must be organized
and recognized by Congress, before the people of such States
can again be constitutionally clothed as political organiza-
— 388 —
tions with local self-government or with part of the govern¬
ing" power of the nation. [Applause.]
If constitutional State governments still exist in the late
rebel States, by what authority does the President appoint
provisional governors in such States, direct the holding of
State conventions to ordain new State constitutions and
governments, and prescribe who shall vote and be voted
for, and that in the new governments thus to be organized,
they must recognize the fact that slavery is abolished? [Ap¬
plause.]
If constitutional State governments have existed dur¬
ing the war in the late rebel States, and now exist, can the
President appoint provisional governors and order constitu¬
tional conventions to assemble in such States for the estab¬
lishment of new State governments such as he may think
proper, without regard to the provisions of their old State
constitutions which prescribe the mode and manner of call¬
ing conventions to alter or amend their constitutions? If
he can, wh}r can he not do the same thing in Ohio or Cali¬
fornia? [Applause.]
The truth is, that in the late rebel States there are no
constitutional State governments which Congress can recog¬
nize, while in California and Ohio there are constitutional
State governments which Congress does recognize. [Ap¬
plause.]
I repeat what I said at San Francisco—"that any one
who can see in these propositions and the argument which
I have made a recognition of the right of secession is a
remarkable logician."
It is illegal to commit murder, but if murder is com¬
mitted, do I recognize the right, because I concede the fact?
[Applause.]
If the people of one or more States destroy their consti-t
tutional State governments and establish others unknown tdl
the national Constitution, and enter into alliances with other
States and foreign powers — and make war upon the National
Government, do I recognize their right to do so, because I
concede that they have done so in fact? I deny the right —
all loyal men deny the right, but can I or can you deny the
fact?
— 389 —
[From the consideration of the above propositions, Mr. A.
passed to the discussion of a question new and interesting- to
the loyal men of the nation; he urged that great care should
be used in guarding- against any assumption of rebel debt by
the States lately in rebellion, and insisted that something
like the following proposition should be incorporated in the
several constitutions of the reorganized States:]
"All debts contracted, whether State, city or municipal,
by the constituted authorities prior to the Act of Secession,
shall be valid against this State under this constitution; but
no engagement entered into or debt contracted by the late
rebel, confederate or State authorities, or by any city,
county or municipality, within this State, in aid of the rebel¬
lion or to maintain State or local civil governments hostile to
the United States, Shall ever be paid by this State, or by any
city, county or municipality within this State." [Applause.]
Mr. A. said that many might think this precaution
unnecessary, but for his part, next to securing impartial suf¬
frage for the loyal men of the South, white and black, he
regarded the adoption of this proposition as most important,
to prevent the possibility of political combinations being
made for the purpose of forcing the repudiation of our war
debt or the assumption of the rebel debt, State and con¬
federate, by the United States. [Applause.]
In my judgment, Congress, with whom this whole ques¬
tion of reconstruction constitutionally rests, should require
as a condition to the admission of Senators and Representa¬
tives from the reorganized States the adoption in their new
constitutions of some proposition of this kind, and I am not
sure that it ought not to be put in the form of a covenant
between each State and the National Government, and made
forever irrevocable without the consent of the Congress of
the United States.
The nation ought to demand, and I believe will demand,
some such security for the future.
Nine-tenths of the rebel debt, State and confederate, is
probably held by the people of the late rebel States and in
Europe. Undoubtedly the late confederates would prefer to
have their debt paid, rather than help pay ours. In my
opinion if Congress does not provide against the possibility of
— 390 —
this question being- raised, the Southern politicians will make
a combination with their late Northern allies, who are now
almost to a man committed, either directly or indirectly, to
the scheme of repudiation, and insist upon the incorporation
of their war debt with ours or the repudiation of our war debt
also.
When the proposition is made, as it will be, unless we
now positively prohibit it, to assume the confederate debt,
and if not, to repudiate our own, the simple discussion of the
question will impair our national credit to the amount of
millions. I need not argue this point. It is self evident.
[Applause.]
Three-fourths of the legal indebtedness of the late
rebel States is probably held by Northern capitalists. I mean
the bonds issued prior to the rebellion.
Congress ought to see to it, that in the reorganization of
the late rebel States, they assume by positive constitu¬
tional provision the debt of the State prior to the rebellion,
and by a provision equally positive, that they forever prohibit
the payment of the rebel debt or any part thereof. This is
due to the Northern men who are the holders of the bonds
issued by these States before the rebellion. It is due like¬
wise to the loyal people of the South, that they be not taxed
to pay any part of the rebel debt. It is due also to the nation
as the only indemnity for the past which it can now obtain.
[Applause.]
If you own a thousand-dollar bond of the State of South
Carolina, issued before the rebellion, you may have some hope,
after her reorganization, of receiving- the interest due on that
bond, and perhaps at its maturity, the principal, provided
the State of South Carolina, after her reorganization and
recognition by Congress, does not assume her proportion of
the rebel confederate debt, and the debt contracted after
secession by her as a State, in aid of the rebellion or to
maintain her local and rebel State g-overnments.
If she is permitted to assume her proportion of the .con¬
federate debt, and the debt contracted by her rebel State
authorities, your bond for one thousand dollars would not be
worth the paper on which it is written, and so with all the
States recentl}r in rebellion.
— 391 —
The assumption of any part of the confederate debt by
the late rebel States would not only lessen their ability to pay
their legal indebtedness, but lessen also the ability of their
people to aid in the payment of the national debt, which can¬
not be repudiated without national dishonor. [Applause.]
Before I left "Washing-ton I heard more than one scheme
talked over for the incorporation of part of the confederate
debt with ours. This is the stepping-stone to repudiation,
and I warn the loyal men of the nation to be prepared for the
efforts which will be made to consummate this dangerous
scheme.
Many think there is no danger in this direction, but I tell
you that there is danger. In audacity anything may be ex¬
pected of the men who plunged this nation into the recent
terrible war. Their late Northern allies are equally des¬
perate, and there would be no security for national fidelity
and national honor, if these two factions unite and obtain
control of the National Government. [Applause, long con¬
tinued.]
SPEECH
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO,
In the; House of Representatives, May 29, 1866.
impartial, suffrage the only safe basis of reconstruc¬
tion.
The House having- under consideration the bill to restore
to the States lately in insurrection their full political rigfhts —
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, said:
Mr. Speaker. Unless the members of this Congress who
represent the loyal people of this country approach the prop¬
osition before us, providing for the restoration of the late
rebel States, in a proper spirit and with mutual concessions,
I fear we shall fail to accomplish the gr-eat work committed
to our hands. I desire to approach its consideration with
charity for all and malice toward none. I know that I ap¬
proach it in a forgiving- spirit and with a thankful heart.
With thankfulness, because the din of war has been hushed
and the national conflagration extinguished. In a forgiving
spirit, because I know how much there is to be forgiven if we
would reunite dissevered and broken ties, secure the perpet¬
ual unity of the nation, and bind up its millions of bleeding
and broken hearts.
In all the votes which I have given or may give on the
propositions for reconstruction, in all I have said or may say,
I shall keep steadily in view the one great desire of my heart,
which outweighs and overshadows all others, and before
which the petty schemes of parties and of men dwindle into
insignificance and appear to me criminal. That desire is to
see the States recently in rebellion restored to all the rights,
privileges and dignities of States of the American Union
at the earliest day consistent with the national safety, and
(392)
— 393 —
upon such terms as shall secure the power, unity, and glory
of the republic.
How can this most desirable result best be accomplished?
In answering- this interrogatory the first question which
presents itself to every reflecting mind is this: Has the gov¬
ernment of the United States as at present organized the
constitutional power to demand or exact from the people in
the late rebel States any conditions prior to the recognition
of their recently reorganized State governments and the
admission of their Senators and Representatives in Congress?
If so, is it expedient to exact of them the terms or conditions
proposed by the committee of fifteen, or such conditions of a
like character as may finally be agreed upon by the two
Houses of Congress, as conditions precedent to their resump¬
tion, as States, of all constitutional relations to the National
Government which were severed by their acts of rebellion
and war?
I claim that we have the power, and that it is not only our
right but our duty to demand such conditions as the majority
of the loyal representatives of this Congress may deem req¬
uisite for the safety and security of the nation. I believe
we have the constitutional power, because I believe the States,
represented in this Hall during the war and now are the gov¬
ernment. If I did not believe this I could not vote for any
of the propositions before the House or any proposition of
a like character.
From the first I have held that when the people of the
late rebel States abolished their constitutional State govern¬
ments and confederated together in violation of the national
Constitution and organized hostile State governments and a
national confederate government, and maintained those gov¬
ernments by force of arms until the rebellion became so
formidable as to claim the prerogatives of a national de facto
government, and to have had conceded to it by the United
States and the great powers of Europe belligerent rights,
that from that hour constitutional State governments ceased
in each of the States so confederated together, and until
governments are reorganized in each of them in subordina¬
tion to the national Constitution, and recognized by this
— 394 —
Congress, there can be no constitutional State governments
in such States.
Mk. Randall, of Pennsylvania. Will the gentleman
allow me to ask him who he intends shall form the State
governments — the people of the States, or who?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I propose that the loyal people
of each of the late rebel States shall reorganize their own
State governments and administer them under such rules and
restrictions as the Congress of the United States, represent¬
ing the loyal people of the nation, shall require.
Mr. Randall, of Pennsylvania. Then I understand the
gentleman to say that he is willing that the loyal people
shall form State governments, or shall continue their State
governments and protect and elect Congressmen as part of
their duty. Do I understand him aright?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Under such rules and restric¬
tions as this Congress shall require.
Mr. Randall, of Pennsylvania. That is an after-clap.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Now, Mr. Speaker, I hope I can
go on without any more of these interruptions. From the
outbreak of the rebellion I have sought to have all the de¬
partments of the government adopt and act upon this idea.
I have held that the sovereignty of the nation was in the
people who reside in the States which maintained constitu¬
tional State governments, recognizing the national Constitu¬
tion as the supreme law of the land, and the government
"which it created as the one to which all citizens owed a para¬
mount allegiance. I' have held that the sovereignty of the
nation could not be impaired or destroyed within the terri¬
torial jurisdiction of the United States by the action, or the
refusal to act, of any one or more States. In other words,
that the people in the States which maintained their consti¬
tutional relations to the National Government were the only
depositaries of the national sovereignty and the only con¬
stitutional governing power in the nation.
Holding these views, I insist that the people who main¬
tained constitutional State governments, who, during the
entire war, were represented here, and who are now repre¬
sented here, the people who maintained this National Gov¬
ernment and put down the rebellion, have a right under the
— 395 —
laws of war as conquerors to prescribe sucn conditions as in
the judgment of the majority of this Congress are necessary
for the national safety and the national security. This is
the right of the conqueror under every law, human and
divine. If this be not the true theory, then, indeed, is our
National Government a rope of sand.
Entertaining' these ideas, at the extra session of Con¬
gress in July, 1861, I prepared a bill embodying- them, but by
the advice of friends I did not present it until the regular
session in December. On the 12th of March following, by
the direction of the Committee on Territories, I reported to
this House " a bill to provide temporary provisional govern¬
ments for the districts of country in rebellion against the
United States." That bill, on the motion of my then col¬
league (Mr. Pendleton) was laid upon the table by a vote
of 65 to 56, a number of Republicans voting with the opposi¬
tion and a still larger number not voting at all.
At the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress, upon
consultation, it was thought best to have a committee on the
rebellious States, and the late Henry "Winter Davis offered a
resolution for the appointment of such a committee. The
committee was raised, and he was appointed its chairman.
After the committee was appointed, of which I was a
member, I again introduced the old bill, with such modifi¬
cations and additions as time had suggested. That bill
which was reported passed both Houses of Congress, but did
not receive the sanction of President Lincoln, and therefore
failed to become a law.
At the second session of the Thirty-eighth Congress I
again introduced the same bill with some modifications, and
by direction of the committee I reported it to this House.
After a number of efforts to modify it so as to secure a ma¬
jority vote, it was lost, and we were left at sea on this great
question of reconstruction. And to-day we are reaping the
fruits of our stupidity and folly. I allude to these facts to
show how steadily the national mind has been marching up
to this idea, that the men who remained loyal to this govern¬
ment, who maintained constitutional State governments, and
who during the war administered this government, are the
government.
— 396 —
Mr. "Wright. "Will the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Ashley) allow me to ask him a question?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I would rather the gentleman
would ask me his questions after I get through my argument.
Mr. Wright. I wish simply to ask the gentleman to
give us his definition of a loyal man.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If the gentleman will ask me
after I get through I will answer his question.
Mr. Wright. Very well; I will ask the gentleman then.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I was saying that I allude to
these facts for the purpose of showing how steadily the
national mind has been approaching this idea. And when
this joint committee on reconstruction, composed of the
ablest men in the nation, made their report the other day,
they recognized tne same idea, to w^it, that the constitutional
governments in all the rebel States were abolished; that dur¬
ing the war and now said States were not in constitutional rela¬
tions with the National Government. And the man, who¬
ever he may be, who stands up and says they are now in con¬
stitutional relations to the National Government utters that
which he knows to be untrue. The man that stands up and
says that during the entire war the rebel States were entitled
to be represented here in Congress, lays down a proposition
which would undermine and sap the very foundations of the
government. If these rebel States had the right to be repre¬
sented in Congress, and had been represented here during
this war, the nation would have been bound hand and foot,
and incapable of resistance.
This, then, being the idea adopted by the committee of
fifteen, I can support this bill. I know that the proposition
submitted by that committee falls far short of what I expected,
far short of what the loyal men in the South had a right
to expect, far short of what the men who sacrificed so much
to preserve this nation had a right to expect. But if I can
get nothing better I shall vote for their proposition, as I
have already voted for the proposed constitutional amend¬
ment which was sent to the Senate the other day, . . .
and I understand the Senate has practically agreed to
sustain the proposition on representation which was sent
them from this House a short time since. It will be noticed
— 397 —
that in prescribing1 the qualifications of electors, in one of the
amendments suggested by me, I omit the word "male" and
use the words "all citizens of the United States above the
age of twenty-one years." I did this purposely, as I am
unwilling to prohibit any State from enfranchising its women
if they desire to do so.
But, Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment which I desire
to offer to this bill— an amendment upon which I shall ask a
vote, and to which I desire the attention of the House.
House bill No. 543, as reported by the committee, requires
the adoption of the constitutional amendment proposed
before any State, no matter when it may be ratified, shall be
admitted here, thus putting it in the power of the Northern
States, if they desire to do so, to exclude States which in
good faith ratified this constitutional amendment and
amended their State constitutions and laws so as to comply
with all the conditions we make. I desire, then, to have the
bill reported by the committee so amended that whenever any
State lately in insurrection and rebellion shall have ratified
this amendment in good faith, and shall have modified its
constitution and laws in conformity therewith, that its Sena¬
tors and Representatives shall be admitted into Congress;
that is, that the loyal men of Tennessee and Arkansas now
elected shall be admitted; but that as to the other States,
they shall, before being represented in Congress, after the
adoption of this amendment and the modification of their
constitution and laws, elect, or re-elect, if you will, gover¬
nors and all other State officers, members of the legislature,
Senators of the United States, and members of this House.
Why do I ask for this provision? Because these govern¬
ments, set up by President Johnson, set up over the heads of
loyal men, have every one of them elected traitors to official
positions in those States, have elected traitors to this House,
have elected traitors to the Senate. I insist that this pro¬
vision shall be applied to them, so that when their constitu¬
tions and, their laws are modified in accordance with the
proposition which we lay down, the loyal men of those States
shall, under the amended constitution and laws, vote for the
officers which are to be recognized bjT the government of the
— 398 —
United States. I ask the clerk to read the amendment which
I propose to offer.
The clerk read as follows:
"That whenever any State lately in insurrection shall
have ratified, in good faith and irrevocably, the above recited
amendment, and shall have modified its constitution and laws
in conformity therewith, and after such ratification and
modification of its constitution and laws shall have elected a
governor and the State officers provided for in the constitu¬
tion of such State, including- the State legislature and Sena¬
tors and Representatives to the Congress of the United
States, under such limitations and restrictions as may be
imposed by the constitution and laws of such State when
amended as herein prescribed, the Senators and Representa¬
tives from such State, if thus elected and qualified, may, after
having taken the oaths of office required by law, be admitted
into Congress as such: Provided, That neither the State of
Tennessee nor Arkansas shall be required to re-elect a gover¬
nor and State officers or a State legislature or Senators or
Representatives to the Congress of the United States; but
whenever either of said States shall have ratified the above
recited amendment, and shall have modified their constitu¬
tions and laws in conformity therewith, their Senators and
Representatives now duly elected and qualified may be
admitted into Congress on taking the oaths of office required
by law."
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. It will be observed, Mr. Speaker,
that, by the adoption of this amendment, every State which
ratifies in good faith the proposed amendment to the Consti¬
tution and modifies its constitution and laws in conformity
therewith, and after such modification elects a governor and
members of the legislature and Senators and members of this
House, it shall have its Representatives admitted here. An
exception, however, is made in the case of Tennessee and
Arkansas, which now have loyal governors and other State
officers and loyal legislatures. Those States would not be
required, under this amendment, to re-elect their officers, but
the Senators and Representatives already elected, if they can
take the oath, would be admitted to seats in Congress, and
— 399 —
their State officers would be allowed to continue in their
present positions.
I think this modification a very necessary one. Let
gentlemen look over the South and see the character of the
men who have been elected as Senators. In almost every
instance, where they are not out and out open-throated rebels,
|Who ought to be incarcerated in prisons or exiled from the
country instead of approaching- this temple of liberty; in
almost every instance, I say, where there have been any con¬
cessions made to loyal men, the legislatures have elected
moderate men for the short term and the most malignant
rebels for the long term. In view of the fact that the loyal
men have had no voice in those reconstructed governments,
have had no voice in their legislation, have been dumb and
silent under the sway of these traitors who were placed in
power over them by the acting President, Andrew Johnson,
the loyal men of those States should have a fair opportunity
to select men who will truly represent them under the Con¬
stitution and laws when modified in accordance with the con¬
stitutional amendment proposed by Congress.
I also have an amendment which I intend to offer when
the other bill comes up, but will not take up time by reading
it now. . . .
Let us look, Mr. Speaker, at the condition in which
we find the country. I hold in my hand the propositions
reported by the committee of fifteen. I need not read them.
They have been carefully examined by every member. All
over the land, North and South, a cry is raised against the
report of that committee. I ask gentlemen if they can put
their hands on a single page of human history where, after
a rebellion has been put down of the character of the one we
had to deal with, they can find the conquerors making propo¬
sitions so mild, so conciliatory, and so merciful as these made
by the committee of fifteen—propositions as applicable to
the conquerors as the conquered. Yet we find men in this
Hall, men all over the South, men holding high positions in
the government before the rebellion, and high positions in
the rebel government, who have the effrontery to tell the
people of this country that they will not accept such condi¬
tions. If they will not and we permit them to dictate their
— 400 —
own terms, is not this a practical surrender on the part of
the conqueror to the conquered? Suppose our position had
"been reversed; suppose the anti-slavery men of this country
had gone into a rebellion as the South did, without a pretext,
without cause, when they had a majority in this and the
other branch of Congress, simply because a pro-slavery man
had been elected President. Suppose this to have been the
case, that State after State had seceded, had captured the
forts of the United States, and had made war on the Union
for four years, destroying- half a million of lives, as well as
running up a debt of over $3,000,000,000 for posterity to pay.
I say suppose this to have been the case, do you believe any
such propositions would have been made by those men when
they had conquered as have been made by this government,
nay, proposed by this very House? Do you suppose that
leading anti-slavery men, like Garrison, Phillips, Beecher,
Greeley, and Gerrit Smith, would have been sent for by a pro-
slavery executive to be counseled with and sent home as pro¬
visional governors to organize States over the heads of the
only loyal men in those States? Do you think there would
have been any such stupid performance if the North had
been in rebellion? No, sir, we would have been stripped
naked, as was said by Henry A. Wise the other evening at
Alexandria.
My friend from Iowa in front of me (Mr. Price) hands
me the paper containing the extract I am quoting from mem¬
ory, and I will read it:
"If I had triumphed," said Governor Wise, "I should
have favored stripping them naked. [Laughter.] Pardon!
They might have appealed for pardon, but I would have seen
them damned before I would have granted it. For myself,
the boot being on the other leg, I take no oaths; I ask no
pardons! [Prolonged cheers.] I give you that brigade —
the old, the lasting, the enduring Wise brigade. [Cheers
and applause.]"
Do you suppose if the rebellion in the North to which
I have referred had been put down, any traitor would have
been permitted to walk in Boston and utter such treason
against the government? No, sir; and yet we are denounced
in this Congress as a rump Congress, as Jacobins, as sangui-
— 401 —
nary men. Why? Because we ask, in restoring- the govern¬
ments of the Southern States, that our friends shall have a
fair share in the administration of their State governments,
and that the leading- traitors shall be punished.
Sir, under the administration, as matters are now going,
not a single, solitary traitor will be punished. Rebel soldiers
that were in prison have all been liberated, while the soldiers
of the grand Union Army who are in prison for the slightest
offenses remain, and you cannot get them pardoned out.
These are unpleasant facts, but I could not pass them and do
my duty without referring to them.
What do we ask? The loyal men of the nation ask that
in the restoration of the rebel States the men who were our
friends and allies during the rebellion—the loyal men— shall
be clothed with the power of the local and State governments
of the South. Is this asking too much? If this is not
accorded to us, if these men are to come back here, the loyal
oath to be repealed as is recommended, and no conditions
to be exacted; if these men are to come back here next year
and take possession of the government, so far from treason
being punished and made odious it will only prove to have
been a passport to favor and to power.
Sir, has it come to this? Can the unselfish heroism and
bravery, the devotion and sacrifices of our soldiers and the
loyal men and women of the nation so soon be for gotten?
Are the men who conducted this nation safely through the
most terrible war recorded in history to admit, now that the
rebellion is over, that they are incapable of administering
the government in time of peace? Are the men who fought
the opponents of this government on the battlefield and at
the ballot-box for the last four years, and everywhere van¬
quished them, now to stack their arms and surrender them¬
selves without condition to their prisoners? That will be
the state of affairs if the present reconstruction policy of the
administration succeeds. If in our work of reconstruction
we do not secure the rights of loyal men who were our
friends and allies in the late rebel States, we shall come short
of our duty and be guilty of a blunder which, in .such an
hour as this, is worse than a crime. Sir, I want the loyal
26
— 402 —
men of the nation, who saved it in its hour of peril, not only
to administer the National and State Governments, South as
well as North, but to say who shall vote for their law-makers
in those States consecrated by the blood of half a million men.
Our friends are mistaken, honestly mistaken I grant you,
but nevertheless mistaken, when they say there are no loyal
men in the South. Sir, I know the South better than that,
and I stand here to say that I do not believe at the time the
ordinances were passed in the eleven rebel States that more
than two States—South Carolina and Mississippi—and
possibly not more than one, would have voted by ballot at any
fairly conducted election for secession and rebellion. I grant
that after the rebellion was inaugurated a majority were car¬
ried into it, and that a majority in all those States, unless it
be in Tennessee and Arkansas, and perhaps even these, are
hostile at the present time to this g-overnment. But there
are large numbers of men in those States who are loyal to
the g-overnment, and I desire to strengthen their hands by
giving the black man the ballot. In that way only can we
strengthen these men and preserve the local State govern¬
ments. The unfortunate reconstruction "experiment" of
the administration has put the loyal men, black and white,
under the foot of the traitor in nearly all the late rebel States,
and they are powerless and compelled to submit, because the
government has bound them hand and foot and turned them
over to the tender mercies of their enemies and ours. Sir, it
is the cause of the loyal white and black men of the South
which I plead; it is their cause which this Congress is fight¬
ing1. What I demand, and what this Congress demands, is
that the loyal men of the South shall administer the local
and State governments of the South; that none shall hold the
offices, national and State, but loyal men. We have the
right to demand this.
Sir, if we would have loyal representatives here, we
must first secure a loyal constituency at their backs. It is
idle to talk of loyal representatives and disloyal constituents.
It is not worth while to deceive ourselves on this point, or
attempt to deceive others. The solution of this great ques¬
tion of restoration is the work of statesmen, not of dema¬
gogues. All over the land demagogues are clamorous, and
— 403 —
denounce Congress because they do not at once declare the
late rebel States restored to all their constitutional relations
to the National Government and at once admit their disloyal
representatives, who have the unblushing- hardihood to
approach and demand admission to this temple. Everywhere
demagogues and traitors unite in denouncing- the Congress
of the United States because they have given six months to
the consideration of this new and difficult problem of reor¬
ganizing- constitutional State governments in eleven rebel
States. Why, sir, we have spent six months on the tax bill,
a subject with which we are familiar, and which has been in
the hands of one of the ablest and most experienced com¬
mittees of this House, yet with all the aid of the Treasury
Department and the special commission authorized by the
last Congress we could not get through with the tax bill
until last evening-. This question of taxation is an old and
familiar one, and if we commit a blunder time will develop it
and legislation can correct it. But this question of recon¬
struction is a new and perplexing- question; a question which
oug"ht to command the best ability of the nation, because we
are to walk in new and unknown paths, paths which have
never been illuminated by the footprint of the statesmen
who have preceded us. If we commit a blunder it may be
fatal, at least for a g-eneration. This Congress is honestly
laboring- to secure an early restoration of these States, and
while I do not believe the propositions reported by the com¬
mittee are all the loyal men of the South had the right to
expect and demand at our hands, I shall vote for them if I
can get nothing- better.
But it is said that there are no loyal men in the South;
that all were swept into this rebellion, and we are coolly and
refreshingly told that the oath must be modified in order that
rebels may be appointed to office. Sir, this claim that there
are no loyal men in the South is a fallacy. I have lived in
the South for years, and I know that there is not a State in
which loyal men cannot be found to fill all the offices of the
State and National Government. If they have not, then I
would import them. I would do as I advised Mr. Lincoln to
do in 1861, when he had up the question of appointing- a
postmaster at Louisville. He happened one morning- when I
— 404 —
was in his room, and the case was up, to do me the honor
to ask me what I would do. There was a loyal man who had
been always faithful to our ideas an applicant for the place,
and also a new convert. I said, " If I had the appointing
power, and there were but one man in the State who had
voted for me or voted to maintain our ideas, I would appoint
him to the best office in the State in the gift of the Kxecutive,
and if he could not write his name I would appoiilt and pay
a clerk out of the secret service fund to sign his name for
him." You need not talk to me about there not being- loyal
men enough in the South to discharge the duties of all the
offices there. It is a fallacy. Many honest men of my own
personal acquaintance went into the rebellion believing it to
be right; and before the close of the war and since the close
of the war, have come out of it just as honest, and are satis¬
fied that it was wrong. 1
Sir, I do not believe, with all the political heresy which
has been taught at the South for the past thirty years, with
all the political iniquity which has been taught in the name
of religion and in the name of Christ in the South by men
professing to teach the gospel; I do not believe that all this,
with the war and all the terrible consequences which have
followed in its train, has been enough to obliterate from the
South an entire love for the old flag and the old Union.
I know that there are men in the South everywhere
capable of filling- all the offices. My judgment has been
strengthened on this point by many letters which I have
received during the war and since the war. A private soldier
in the Union Army wrote me a letter after Sherman had
passed through Georgia, in which the following beautiful
and touching incident was related: "At one of our military
posts where thousands came to receive rations from the
government which they were madly fighting to destroy, there
came one morning a tall, elderly lady of commanding- ap¬
pearance, and of evident culture and refinement, asking for
bread. When it was handed to her by a brave boy in blue
who stood proudly beneath the stars and stripes, she betrayed
emotions which she could not suppress, and the tears stole
down her cheeks as she said, ' Little did I think three years
ago, when decking my three sons for the war, that I would
— 405 —
ever come to this; then I had husband, sons, home, and all
that heart could wish; now I am homeless, childless, a widow,
and a beggar, asking- alms of the government which we
sought to destroy. But it is all right. It is the punishment
meted out by Providence for our sins, and I submit.'"
Sir, there are thousands of just such mothers as this in
every State in the South to-day, and there is not a loyal man
or woman in this nation who would not do all in their power
to alleviate their wants and bind up their bleeding and broken
hearts.
There is another beautiful incident which I must not
omit. Last summer, when the convention met in North
Carolina, in response to the acting- President's proclamation,
to reorganize a constitutional State g-overnment, Mr. Reade,
the president of that convention, on taking the chair, uttered
words which thrilled the continent. I have no language to
tell you, Mr. Speaker, how they touched my heart as I read
them on the shores of the Pacific. I know that every loj^al
man in this nation called down benedictions on his head.
These are his golden words:
"Fellow-citizens, we are going* home. Let painful recol¬
lections upon our late separation and pleasant memories of
our early union quicken our footsteps toward the old man¬
sion, that we may grasp hard again the hands of friendship*
which stand at the door; and, sheltered by the old home¬
stead which was built upon a rock, and has weathered the
storm, enjoy together the long, brig-ht future which awaits
us."
Sir, every loyal Representative in this Hall stands ready
with open hand to-day to welcome all who thus speak from
the heart; and, sir, whatever of local interest or of prejudice
or of passion may have carried an erring- brother into this
rebellion, if he but set his face toward the old homestead,
uttering such brave words as these, I will run to meet him
afar off, and for him the fatted calf shall be slain. But I do
not propose to start out laden down with pardons and with
the fatted calf smoking- hot from the oven and hunt up and
thrust both pardons and feast upon unrepentant, malignant,
and defiant rebels. Nor do I propose to stand before them,
hat in hand, and ask them on what terms they propose to
— 406 —
feturn to the old mansion. Sir, every rebel shall resume his
citizenship upon the terms and conditions prescribed by the
loyal men of this nation, or, so far as I am concerned, he shall
remain an alien forever.
Mr. Speaker, to me the only vital and living question
growing- out of this subject of reconstruction is whether the
loyal men of the South, whether all citizens of the United
States residing- in the South, shall have the right of the bal¬
lot. And when I say all loyal citizens I mean all, black as
well as white. I hold that every man born in the United
States is a citizen of the United States, and that every citizen,
native-born or naturalized, has the right to a voice in the
Government under which he lives. It is a natural right, a
divine right if you will, a right of which the government
cannot justly deprive any citizen except as a punishment for
crime. Sir, every American citizen of the age of twenty-
one years, not convicted of an infamous offense, has the right
to vote for or against those who are to make and administer the
laws under which he lives. That is the high prerogative of
every American citizen. Anything short of that is but a
mockery.
I want this Congress, before it shall adjourn, to insist
that every man who has been lo}Tal to the government in the
South, whatever his race or color, shall have the right to the
ballot. We now have the golden opportunity. If you do not
guaranty these precious rights of the citizen now, you leave
the great work before us unfinished; and I warn you that
agitation will follow your refusal to enact justice, and that
there shall be no repose until every citizen of the republic is
enfranchised and stands equal before the law. Shall we
falter, Mr. Speaker, in this sublime hour of victor}' which
God has given us, or shall we finish the work which He has
committed to our. hands by securing the complete enfranchise¬
ment of all citizens of the United States ?
The voice of every friend of this country in Kurope, as
it comes to us across the sea, cries out to us to enfranchise
the men who in the late struggle were our friends and our
allies. From Switzerland, the grand republic of the Old
World, there come to us words of counsel and wisdom which
we ought not to disregard. From every land beneath the
— 407 —
sun, where libert}r is loved and human hearts have been
touched by our heroic struggle, there comes to us a plea that
in reconstructing this government we shall first of all see to
it that justice is the basis upon which we build.
And better than all this, from the loyal men of the South,
both white and black, there comes up to us the prayer that
we will see to it that they have justice ; that we will not
falsify the pledges which the nation has made. Sir, do
gentlemen expect that we can make the pledges we have
made, and then turn these people over to the tender mercies
of their enemies and ours without calling down upon us the
execrations and denunciations of all right-thinking men? If
they do, they are mistaken. Shall we hear and answer these
words of counsel and wisdom and the prayer of our friends
and allies, or shall we turn for counsel and advice to our late
enemies?
We are as a nation either to go forward in the great work
of progress or go backward ; we cannot stand still. And I am
desirous to know whether this Congress is going to attempt
the work of staying the great anti-slavery revolution which
has swept over the country and obliterated all the pro-slavery
landmarks erected by parties and by men. Sir, I have faith
to believe that neither President nor Cabinet nor Congress
can long stay with their puny efforts the grand decree of the
nation. He who attempts it, be he President, Cabinet
minister, or statesman, will fall before its advancing power,
and his political grave will be marked by the skeletons of
those who for the past quarter of a century, having betrayed
liberty, were wrecked along the political coast and to-day lie
unburied and unhonored because there were none so base as
to do them reverence.
Sir, I know that our hour of triumph may be delayed ; but
I have faith to believe that we cannot be defeated. Let the
ballot be placed in the hands of every loyal man in the South,
and this nation is safe—safe from rebellion, safe from repu¬
diation, safe from a war of races, safe from the domination
of traitors in its councils. Sir, without the ballot in the
hands of every loyal man the nation is not safe. The ballot
is the only sure weapon of protection and defense for the poor
man, whether white or black. It is the sword and buckler
— 408—
and shield before which, all oppressions, aristocracies and
special privileges bow. Sir, Mr. Lincoln, in a letter written
to Governor Hahn, of Louisiana, pleading1 for the right of
the black man to vote, said most beautifully, and as I be¬
lieve, prophetically, that "in some trying time the vote of
the black man may serve to keep the jewel of liberty in the
family of freedom."
I believe this most fully ; and believing it, I would be
false to myself and false to my country if I did not demand
it. If I were a black man, with the chains just stricken from
my limbs, without a home to shelter me or mine, and you
should offer me the ballot, or a cabin and forty acres of cot¬
ton land, I would take the ballot, conscious that, with the
ballot in my hand, rightly used, all else should be added unto
me.
Sir, I would like to know whether there is one professed¬
ly loyal man in this nation who would rather confer the bal¬
lot upon a traitor to his country than upon a loyal black
man who has fought to save the republic. I should like to
hear such a man speak out here or elsewhere. Sir, however
much brazen-faced impudence there is in every public assem¬
bly, there is no man in this House so bold or so bad as to
make such a declaration.
Mr. Le Blond. With my colleague's permission, I wish
to ask him a question. I infer from his remarks that he is in
favor of negro suffrage. I wish to know w"hether he is in
favor of negro suffrage in the States.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Everywhere.
Mr. Le Blond. In the State of Ohio?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Everywhere.
Mr. Le Blond. Then I wish to ask the gentleman an¬
other question: does he claim that Congress has tlic power
to confer the right of suffrage upon negroes in the States?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Well, sir, I do not intend to put
myself on record against the right of Congress to do that. I
have no time now to argue the point with my colleague;
but I will say to him that when the time comes for the Ameri¬
can- Cong*ress to take action on the question, I will be ready
to speak. I will not say now whether I would vote for or
against such a proposition.
— 409 —
Mr. Le Blond. I wish to ask my colleague one mora
question: is he in favor of the report of the reconstruction
committee?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. "Well, sir, I am voting1 for it.
Mr. Le Blond. Is my colleague in favor of keeping the
States out until the conditions prescribed in that report are
complied with?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If my colleague had listened to
my remarks and to the amendment which I presented, he
would not have felt called upon to interrupt me to put this
inquiry.
Mr. Le Blond. I would like to inquire why the gentle¬
man yields the question of suffrage, as he does, in supporting:
the proposition of the committee.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Because I cannot get it. [Laug'h-
ter.] Is not that a fair answer?
Mr. Le Blond. That is honest.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Now, sir, let us look at this ques¬
tion for a moment from the standpoint of the black man.
And he who will not look at this question from the stand¬
point of the black man is unfit to sit in judgment on this
question. Let me ask gentlemen on the other side, with
whom I always deal fairly, suppose your ancestors had been in
bondage for two hundred years, and that this nation — this
nation of hypocrites and liars for more than eighty years —
had enslaved and degraded you as no people were ever de¬
graded before — making merchandise of your entire race,
while professing Christianity and a love for liberty. I say
suppose this to have been your condition when this war be¬
gun— a war inaugurated on the part of your masters to
establish a government which should perpetuate your bond¬
age — and after becoming satisfied that we could not conquer
your masters without your aid, \ve had invited you in the
hour of the nation's agony to join our army and help put
down the rebellion, promising you your freedom, and that you
had come two hundred thousand strong, and had stayed, if
you did not turn, the tide of battle, thereby giving us the
victory. I say suppose this to be the case, and after the
rebellion had been crushed and your masters were put down
by your aid, we had coolly and unblushingly turned 3'ou over
■— 410 —■
to the control of local State governments administered by
jour late masters. I ask, what kind of justice you would call
that?
Mr. Eldridge. I wish to inquire
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If you will answer that question
I will yield the floor.
Mr. Eldridge. Was that so from the beginning-?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. It was so with me. I do not
know what issue the gentleman had. So far as his votes
indicated, his position was on the other side.
Mr. Eldridge. Was that the position of Mr. Lincoln
and those who supported him from the beginning of the war?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I do not think it was at the be¬
ginning*.
Mr. Eldridge. Was it at the end of the war?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Yes, sir.
The Speaker. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Garfield. I move that my colleague's time be ex¬
tended.
Mr. Le Blond. He is entitled to credit, and deserves
extension.
There was no objection, and it was ordered accordingly.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want my friend
from Ohio, or any one on that side of the House, to tell me,
if after having- fought to save the nation under the promise
of freedom and the protection of his life and property, what
would be his feelings toward those who committed the great
crime of turning- him over to the control of his enemies and
ours? What would you say of such a g-overnment? What
would you say of the honor of its rulers? Sir, I know not
what other men would say, but if I were a black man I would
not submit. I would rather be the slave of one man who had
a pecuniary interest in my health and life than to be the
slave op a State whose government was controlled by
my late masters. It is a terrible thing- to be the slave of a
State whose g-overnment is administered in the spirit of caste.
Sir, if the members of this House could witness what I have
often seen, free men made the slave of the State, they would
know how intolerable is such a condition, and would not
sleep soundly if by their vote they permitted four million
— 411 —
people, who were our allies and friends in this late war, to
become the slaves of a State whose government was in the
hands of rebels.
Mr. Higby. They have re-enacted the same laws.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. These laws have been re-enacted
in some of the so-called reconstructed States, as my friend
from California remarks. Sir, I repeat, if this great injus¬
tice was done me I would not submit; and I tell you that these
four million people, soon to increase to many millions, will
not submit to such monstrous legislation. If I were a black
man I would rather go into rebellion and revolution than sub¬
mit to such an intolerable wrong-. I would take my children
and go daily with them to the altar and swear eternal hos¬
tility to those who thus betrayed me. I would consecrate
all the powers of mind and strength which I possessed to
brand those with infamy who had been so false to my people,
and to put them into history along" with those who, in every
generation, have disgraced the world as the betrayers of
mankind and enemies of the human race.
Sir, nothing can give such security to the poor man as
the ballot. The prejudice of caste is strong, but the ballot
will soon banish its baneful spirit. If in the days of Know-
Nothingism the Irishman had not had the protection which
the ballot alone could give him his condition would have
been intolerable. How much more intolerable the condition
of the black man without the ballot when completely under
the dominion of his late slave-master!
Mr. Eldridgk. Let me ask a question.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Not now. When Richmond
fell, when Lee surrendered, when the last rebel army sur¬
rendered, and the bells all over the North were ringing out
their peals of joy, who were the men that stood up first in
this Union and asked for mercy to a fallen foe? The men
who had a right to speak, Garrison, Phillips, Beecher,
Greeley, Bryant, and Gerrit Smith — the men of heart, of
intellect, and of soul. While they demanded justice for
black men and the loyal men of the South, they plead also
for mercy to a fallen foe.
When I came here last spring to see President Johnson,
he was talking about "making treason odious, and declaring
— 412 —
that traitors should take a back seat." I was more anxious
to secure justice to our friends and allies than to execute ven¬
geance on our late enemies. All we asked then and all we
ask now is justice—justice to our friends and mercy to a
fallen foe. All we ask now for white men and black men in
the South and in the North is justice; and I tell you, that by
the blessing- of God, we intend to have it. Be not deceived.
You cannot always postpone the demands of justice. As a
nation we have learned by sad experience that we cannot
trample upon it with impunity. Neither laws nor customs
nor despotism can silence its claim, because it is a "principle
implanted by the Creator in every human heart, and can
never be wholly eradicated by the selfishness or tyranny of
man. He who understands the simple teaching's of the
golden rule comprehends the application of justice alike by
governments and men.
It needs no learning or superior wisdom to interpret it.
The ignorant black, so recently a slave, and the most
scholarly white, alike understand it. Justice demands liberty
and equality before the law for all. It speaks in the heart
of every man, wherever born, with an inspiration like unto
that which spoke on the day of Pentecost with tongues of
fire. "Woe to the statesman or party or nation which tram¬
ples on this principle! Its complete recognition by our govern¬
ment will bring us national grandeur and national glory, and
secure unity, peace, prosperity, power. Its rejection will
tarnish the fair fame of our country, and bring discord, dis¬
sension, adversity, war.
Let the corner-stone of each reconstructed State be jus¬
tice and the cap-stone will be liberty. With liberty and jus¬
tice as the fundamental law of our national and State gov¬
ernments there can be no war of races, no secession, no rebel¬
lion. It is injustice and oppression which bring dissension
and war. The opposite will bring harmony and peace. He
who votes injustice to-day will be held accountable by the
people now, and in the great tribunal of human history will
be justly chargeable with all the oppression, wrongs, and
wars which must follow the enactment of injustice into law.
The law-maker who demands nothing for himself which he
will not concede to the humblest citizen is the only true
— 413 —
statesman. Make the community of interest one by guaran¬
tying the equal rights of all men before the law, and the
fidelity of every inhabitant of such a commonwealth becomes
a necessity not only from interest but from a love of justice.
Sir, this Congress is writing a new chapter in American
history. Let every man whose great privilege it is to record
his name where it will stand forever, so record it as to secure
the triumph of justice, and his name and memory shall have a
life coequal with the Republic.
Sir, he who has comprehended the logic of the terrible
conflict through which we have passed and studied with
profit the lessons which it has taught, will have learned the
point at which in our great march as a nation we have
reached, and know something of the course which in the
future it will travel.
Animated for many years by conflicting, sectional, hostile
forces, I have lived to see since my entrance into Congress
these antagonistic views so modified and melted into one that
to-day the condition is accepted by all patriotic, right-think¬
ing men, and the historian without confusion can make up
the record. If this war has taught us any one lesson more
clearly than another, it is that we are inseparably one people,
that this continent can never again become the abode of
human slavery, and that in all our future deliberations in
these Halls old antagonisms will cease to divide us, and our
hopes and aspirations become one, because our interests are
one.
Let this measure, or those which the Senate may perfect,
pass and go into the Constitution of the country; let the
propositions before us become the law of the land, and you
will have done something toward securing the triumph of
justice. Pass these acts, and justice as a flaming sword will
stand at the doors of the nation's council halls to guard its
sanctuary from the presence of traitors. Pass them, and he
who approaches this temple of liberty shall pause at the
threshold before entering and swear eternal fidelity to the
republic.
Let these propositions pass and the proposed amendment
of the Constitution become part of our fundamental law, and
a generation shall not pass away before witnessing the com-
— 414 —
plete enfranchisement of every freeman and the entire aboli¬
tion of all class legislation.
In this faith and with this hope, believing' that Provi¬
dence in the future as in the past will overrule all for our
g-ood and supply where we have failed, I am prepared to g-ive
my voice and my vote for whatever measure a majority of the
loyal members of the American Congress may adopt for the
restoration of the States lately in rebellion.
SPEECH
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO,
In the House of Representatives, January 26, 1867.
reconstruction.
The House having" under consideration House bill No. 543,
to restore to the States lately in insurrection their full
political rights —
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, said:
Mr. Speaker: I am opposed to the motion of my col¬
league to refer the bill now under consideration, with the
pending- amendments, to the joint Committee on Reconstruc¬
tion. I am also opposed to the motion which the g-entleman
from Pennsylvania g-ave notice of the other day, to lay these
bills on the table. I hope the motion to refer them, or lay
them on the table, will not be adopted. If either of these
motions should prevail it would operate practically as a
declaration on the part of the House that no action may be
expected during1 the remainder of this Congress upon the
great question of reconstruction. I accept the sug-g-estion of
the g-entleman from Pennsylvania, and now withdraw my
amendment to his substitute; and, so far as I can, I will sus¬
tain the motion which he proposes to make on Monday, that
the House consider these bills as in Committee of the Whole
under the five-minute rule, and try to perfect a bill so as to
be able to send it to the Senate within the next two or three
days.
Gentlemen at all familiar with the legislation of the
House, and the manner in which its business is now blocked
out, will comprehend at once that unless some speedy action
is had by the House, and the bill sent to the Senate, so that
(415)
— 416 —
they may have time to examine it, and to review the veto
message in case it shall come in, during- the life of this
Thirty-ninth Congress, there can be no act passed which will
bring relief to the loyal men of the South or carry out the
pledges which the Thirty-ninth Congress made to the coun¬
try and to the loyal men of the South, that loyal and consti¬
tutional State governments should be established there on the
reassembling of Congress.
As the gentleman from Pennsylvania has just remarked,
there are but twenty working-days practically left of this
session. The Thirty-ninth Congress went to the country in
opposition to the policy of the President, and to what we
were pleased to denominate his usurpations. The people in
generous confidence have sustained Congress and returned
to the Fortieth Congress by majorities unprecedented men
pledged to the abolition of the governments established by
the acting President of the United States, in violation of al'
law, and, as I claim, in clear violation of the Constitution.
A large majority on this side of the House were returned to
the next Congress under the express pledge that they would
not permit these rebel State governments to exist a single
hour after this Congress had been in session long enough to
declare them abolished. If this Congress fails to redeem
that pledge it will commit a blunder which, in such an hour
as this, is worse than a crime.
Mr. Conkwng. I ask the gentleman to state his objec¬
tion to having a subject like this, with regard to which a
number of bills have been brought forward, committed to a
committee which has now no work upon its hands and which
has a right to report at any time.
Mr. Ashxey, of Ohio. My answer to the gentleman
from New York is, that the Committee on Reconstruction
have held no meetings during this entire session up to this
hour. Several bills proposed by gentlemen have been re¬
ferred to that committee during this session upon which they
have taken no action. If the committee ever gets together
again, which I doubt, as it is a large committee composed of
both branches of Congress, I have but little hope of their
being able to agree. The chairman of the committee on the
part of the Senate, as is well known, is absorbed in his efforts
— 417 —
to perfect the financial measures of the country, and I fear
that if this bill goes to that committee it will go to its grave,
and that it will not during the life of the Thirty-ninth Con¬
gress see the light. If I were opposed to these bills I would
vote to send them to that committee as sending them to their
tomb. That is my answer to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. Conkxing. I do not know whether the gentleman
from Ohio would like my opinion as to whether that is a good
answer or not.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I have no objection to the gen¬
tleman giving his opinion.
Mr. Conexing. I think it is not very good considering
that it comes from such a distinguished source. There is no
difficulty in having prompt consideration of anything which
may be sent to the committee. It was created originally
solely to deal with this subject. It was at first broken into
four sub-committees that the work of gathering evidence
might be more advantageously and speedily carried on. It
became one committee, usually working together, only during
a few weeks immediately preceding the bringing forward of
its ultimate propositions. It would not be decorous for me
to praise the committee or the work it did; but I may say
with propriety that if it ever was a good committee, if it
ever should have been created and composed as it was, it is a
good committee now—better than it ever was before; better,
because more familiar with this subject, because its members
having now become acquainted with each other's views, and
having become accustomed to act with each other, and hav¬
ing studied the whole subject committed to them, can proceed
with much more hope of good results than ever before.
Having a right to report at any time, and being led on the
part of this House, by the distinguished gentleman from
Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], I see no reason why it cannot
consider and digest wisely and promptly whatever may be
referred to it and make report.
I did not intend to say one word about this, and do not
intend to rise again in regard to it. I beg now to say, how¬
ever, .that I hope the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bingham]
will not withdraw his motion to refer this whole subject to
27
— 418 —
the joint Committee on Reconstruction; on the contrary, I
trust the majority of this House will promptly refer all these
bills with all cognate propositions to that committee, and
give them at least one opportunity at this session to show
whether they can produce something for action or some
reason for not acting.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I have as much confidence in the
joint Committee on Reconstruction as any gentleman on this
floor; but the gentleman from New York [Mr. Conkling] will
remember that the propositions which they brought forward
near the close of the last session, simultaneously in both
branches, were propositions which demanded a two-thirds
vote of each branch of Congress, and did not require the signa¬
ture of the Executive. Had they required the signature of
the Executive, and been returned by him without his signa¬
ture, as any reconstruction bill undoubtedly will be, the time
to which Congress had limited its session would have expired
before we could have reconsidered and passed them over his
veto.
Upon this subject of reconstruction the great body of
this House have given much thought, and I believe we can
arrive quite as surely at a result here in the House, under the
five-minute rule of amendment and debate, as we can by re¬
ferring this subject to any committee.
Mr. Stevens. I will reply, in answer to what my col¬
league upon the joint Committee on Reconstruction [Mr.
Conkling] has said, that he seems not to be aware that we
are now considering a report from that very committee.
That committee made a report, and I have offered a sub¬
stitute for the bill which they reported. If the gentleman
thinks the report of that committee best then let him vote
against my substitute. But why send this subject back
again to the committee ? The gentleman knows as well as I
do how many different opinions there are in that committee ;
some of us believe in one thing, and some of us in another;
some of us are very critical and some of us are not. The idea
that we can consider anything in that committee, constituted
as it is, in less than a fortnight, it seems to me is wholly out
of the question; and as we have only about some twenty work¬
ing-days in which to mature this bill in both branches of Con-
— 419 —
gress, if we send this subject to that committee and let it take
its time to consider it, and then have it reported here and
considered again, I certainly need not say to gentlemen that
that would be an end of the matter, at least for this session.
I do not believe the gentleman from New York [Mr. Conkling]
desires to accomplish that result; though I believe some gen¬
tlemen do. I believe that will be its fate as inevitably as it
goes there.
Mr. Conkung. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley],
I trust, will allow me a remark in reply.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Certainly.
Mr. Conkxing. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr.
Stevens] inquires why this report, emanating originally from
the Committee on Reconstruction, should now be sent back.
Let me answer : the gentleman from Pennsylvania concurred
in that report; he had his full share in molding it and making
it precisely what it was. He supported it then ; now he
offers a substitute for it, Why ? Because the time which
has elapsed since then and the events which have transpired
have modified, he thinks, the exigencies of the case. Is not
that as applicable to the judgment of the committee as to his
own ? And if it be necessary for him now to offer, as he has
offered, a different series of provisions in order to express his
views, matured as they are by the intermediate experience, is
it not necessary, or if not necessary is it not proper, that it
should have the opportunity of acting for once in the light of
all the facts and circumstances as they are to-day ? By as
much as those circumstances involve the necessity of the
substitute emanating from the gentleman from Pennsylvania,
by so much in my judgment they invoke the renewed action
of this committee.
Mr. Stevens. The gentleman is aware, I suppose, that
two or perhaps three bills on this subject have been referred
during this session to that committee. Why has not the
committee acted on them ?
Mr. Conkling. Mr. Speaker, if I were the chairman of
the committee on the part of this House I should be able to
answer that question, because then I could tell why I had not
called the committee together. But as I am only a subordi¬
nate member of the committee, whose business it is to come
— 420 —
when I am called, and never to call others, I am entirely un¬
able to give the information for which the gentleman inquires.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if I could have any
assurance that this committee would be able to report
promptly a bill upon which this House could probably agree,
I would not hesitate a single moment to vote for the reference
of this measure to that committee, including- the several bills
before my own committee, because, as I said in the outset, I
have entire confidence in the gentlemen who constitute that
committee. But, believing that they will be unable to agree,
I shall vote against a recommitment.
One word more with regard to this matter. This House
has on two different occasions by resolutions instructed the
committee of which I am chairman — the Committee on
Territories — to report to the House bills on this subject.
Some half dozen bills have been prepared and sent to that
committee. And when the committee is called, unless the
House shall already have acted on some proposition looking
to the reorganization of loyal governments in the late rebel
States, we intend to report a bill and to insist upon a vote.
So far as I am concerned I do not intend that the Thirty-
ninth Congress shall adjourn without some effort to provide
governments which shall secure justice and equality to all
loyal men in the southern States.
Mr. Blaine. With the gentleman's permission I desire
to ask him, in regard to those bills now before his committee,
whether, when they were introduced here for reference, the
point of order was made upon them that they had no business
befc re tha+ committee, but belonged, under the rules of the
House, to tiie Reconstruction Committee.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. No, sir; one of those resolutions
was introduced before this House again galvanized into
life the Reconstruction Committee for the remainder of the
session.
Mr. Blaine. And all the bills that have been referred
to the gentleman's committee since then were referred in
direct violation of a rule of this House; and if the point of
order had been made upon them they would not have been
referred to that committee. I do not think that the gentle-
— 421 —
man's committee ought to take advantage of the neglect of
members to make the point of order.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If this House has, by unanimous
consent, since the adoption of the resolution reviving the
Reconstruction Committee, sent bills to the Committee on
Territories, it is no fault of the latter committee.
Mr. Blaine. Unanimous consent, in nine cases out of
ten, is only another name for negligence on the part of the
House. It was gross negligence in this case.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Very well, sir, that may be the
opinion of the gentleman; but so far as the House is concerned,
its action, before the Reconstruction Committee was recon¬
stituted for this sesssion, authorized the committee of which
I am chairman to report a bill, and we intend to do it.
Now, sir, I wish to examine briefly one or two of the
provisions of the amendment which I have offered to the bill
of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. Substantially this bill
will be reported by the Committee on Territories if no bill is
previously acted on by the House.
Mr. Finck. I desire to ask my colleague whether he
can tell the House and the country what the plan of con¬
gressional reconstruction is?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I hope to be able to do so before
I take my seat.
Mr. Finck. We shall be very glad, indeed, to learn it.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. At any rate, I shall show that a
majority of the Republican Union party by their votes in the
Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses are committed
to the plan of reconstruction now proposed.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Ray¬
mond] , in his speech on the day before yesterday, made an
objection to the amendment which I have offered because it
abolishes unqualifiedly the de facto State governments
established by the acting President in the late rebel States,
and claimed that in the interim between the organization of
the provisional committees provided for in the bill and the pas¬
sage of the act abolishing these governments anarchy would
reign supreme in those States, and he claimed that any
government is better than no government. Now, Sir, the
gentleman from New York was mistaken. It is true that
— 422 —
there would be no local civil government left in those States
if the bill should pass abolishing- the present governments;
but there is a provision directing- the President of the United
States to see that the laws of the United States are executed
in those States and the lives and property of our citizens
protected.
Mr. Bingham. What laws of the United States to
protect life and property?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. No law of the United States now
on the statute-books ; but the President is required by the
provisions of my bill to use therentire military and naval
force of the nation to protect the lives and property of the
citizen in those States during- the interim. So far as that
subject is concerned the lives and property of the people will
be just as safe as they were during- the interim between the
surrender of Lree and Johnston and the org-anization of the
present g-overnments.
AVith the whole force of the United States at the Presi¬
dent's disposal, he can if he will protect the lives and prop¬
erty of the "people quite as well as he did after the surrender
and until the establishment of the governments now existing
there.
Mr. Bingham. What provision is there in this act for
the protection of life and property?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The bill provides that the force
of the United States shall be at the disposal of our military
commanders in those States just as it was at the suppression
of the rebellion.
Mr. Bingham. What provision is there to punish any
acts of petit larcen}-?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. There is none. If any act of
petit larceny is committed in those States during the short
interim contemplated it will not materially damage the loyal
men who have been exiled or despoiled of all they possess.
If such acts are committed upon Union men under the present
governments there is no chance for redress under these
de facto rebel governments. So far as I am concerned, if
I were a southern loyalist, I would rather have no govern¬
ment at all than the infernal despotism which to-day crushes
the loyal men of the South.
— 423 —
Mr. Eldridge. Will the gentleman tell me what laws
of the United States he considers applicable to this country?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I have provided in this bill for
that.
Mr. Eldridge. I understand the g-entleman to say he
expected the people of these Territories to be protected by and
under the laws of the United States, enforced by the Presi¬
dent. Will the gentleman tell me what laws he purposes
shall be enforced?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. My colleague has just propounded
the same question, and I have just answered it.
Mr. Eldridge. I was not able to hear what occurred
between the gentlemen and his colleague.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The whole machinery of the bill
is to compel the President of the United States, with the
army and navy- and the whole force at his disposal, to see to
it that this ac* and all acts of the provisional governments
organized under it shall be enforced in those States.
The gentleman from New York [Mr. Raymond] made the
objection that there would be an interval of time when there
would be no government in these States. I reply again that
the interim would be no longer than that wluch occurred
after the suppression of the rebellion and the setting up of
the provisional governments now existing there, and the
time would not ordinarily be longer than sixty days.
As I intend to withdraw this bill, as requested by the
gentleman from P mnsylvania, I will not take up the time of
the House in discussing its provisions.
Mr. Bingham. Can that be done while my motion is
pending to refer?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Yes, sir, it can; but I yield to
the gentleman to make his point of order if he desires.
Mr. Bingham. But the gentleman has not withdrawn it.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If I have not, I withdraw it now.
Now, Mr. Speaker, in reply to some of the arguments
addressed to this House by gentlemen on the other side, I
want to say that the great body of Union men deny that dur¬
ing the entire war there has been any constitutional State
government in any one of the States in rebellion. Tennessee
Iius been readmitted, or its reorganized State government
— 424 —
"has been recognized by Congress since the war. The gentle¬
men who have served with me here during the entire war
recognize the fact that the great body of men constituting
the Republican-Union party have held that opinion since the
outbreak of the rebellion.
At the first regular session of the Thirty-seventh Con¬
gress I introduced a bill to establish temporary provisional
governments in the then eleven rebellious States. The Com¬
mittee on Territories authorized me to report such a bill,
and on the 12th of March, 1862, I did report such a bill to
this House, which was laid on the table by a small majority;
the great body of the Union members present and voting
voted against laying the bill on the table. At the commence¬
ment of the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress a
special committee was organized on the subject of reconstruc¬
tion, of which the late Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland,
was chairman, and of which I also was a member. They
proposed to this House, and the House and Senate passed, a
bill again recognizing the principle on which the Union-
Republican party have acted during the entire war, declaring
there were no constitutional State governments in those
States. These bills recognized the fact that the sovereignty
of the . nation was in the people residing in States which
maintained constitutional State governments, acting in practi¬
cal relations with the Government of the United States.
They held that Congress as the representative of the sov¬
ereignty of the nation had the right to legislate on all sub¬
jects in States where constitutional State governments had
been overthrown or destroyed. That bill passed both Houses,
but failed to become a law because Mr. Lincoln declined to
sign it, although he said he was acting and intended to fol¬
low practically the principles contained in the bill.
Mr. IvB Blond. Will my colleague yield for a question?
I understand him to say that from the outbreak of the diffi¬
culties to the present time this Congress entertained the
views he has just advanced. If that be so, I would like to know
how it came that the Congress passed in 1862 the Crittenden
resolution, which is in direct conflict with the theory the
gentleman has announced. I believe my colleague voted for
that resolution.
— 425 —
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The Crittenden resolution was
passed at the extra session of Congress in July, 1861, im¬
mediately after the battle of Bull Run. I voted for the first
proposition in the resolution, which declared that this war
had been inaugurated by the southern people who were then
in arms around the national capital. I did not vote for the
second proposition; I declined to do so, although the great
body of the party to which I belonged did vote for it.
Mr. Eldridge. You did not vote against it.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I did not vote at all. There were
only two votes in the negative on our side, if I remember
rightly, my then colleague, Mr. Riddle, of Ohio, and Mr>
Potter, of Wisconsin.
Mr. Dawes. And two on the other side.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. And two on the other side. But
that resolution did not commit this House nor the Republican
party to any settled policy in regard to the state of thing's
now existing1. If the rebellion had been suppressed at once,
if the people in rebellion had laid down their arms, then
every gentleman here and all who served with me in the
Thirty-seventh Congress know very well that they would
have been welcomed back to their former positions at once.
But the rebellion having been continued during the entire
four years, the local governments in those States having been
destroyed or their constitutional relations with the National
Government suspended, when the people residing in the
States which maintained constitutional State governments,
and who during these four years constituted the Government
of the United States and represented its sovereignty, crushed
the rebellion, they had a right under every law, human and
divine, to prescribe terms of restoration to the States lately
in rebellion ; and I tell gentlemen on the other side that the
men who crushed the rebellion intend to prescribe terms of
restoration to those States. I know gentlemen of the oppo¬
sition insist with great pertinacity on the abstract proposition
that there is no power in the people of a State to sever their
constitutional relations with this government; but, sir, there
stands the fact against this theory. I admit, and every gen¬
tleman on this side of the House admits, that the people in a
State have no constitutional power to destroy their State
— 426 —
governments or dissolve their constitutional relations with
the National Government; but that they have nevertheless
done so the history of the country for the past four years is
the best evidence.
Mr. Eldridge. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him
this question ? If what the rebels did previous to the passage
of the Crittenden resolution did not break their relations
with the United States, how could they have done it after¬
ward ?
Mr. Ash^ky, of Ohio. If the gentleman knows anything
of the history of the country he comprehends very well that a
majority of the people in the North, even as late as late as July,
1861, were unwilling to believe that such a formidable insurrec¬
tion and rebellion was before them, and that we were to
have a bloody war of four years after the disaster at Bull Run.
Mr. Eldridgei. Then will the gentleman allow me to
ask whether the United States have any power or authority
by which they can allow a State to . break its relationship
with the Union ?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I suppose there is no one in this
House who would claim or admit that the Government of the
United States has any constitutional power to authorize or
recognize the right of a majority of the people of a State to
dissolve their constitutional relations with the General Govern¬
ment. So far as I am concerned, and the great body of the men
with whom I act, we utterly deny it. But, sir, if the people
of a State do the act, what then? Who is there to prescribe
the terms and conditions upon which these States shall be re¬
stored when these acts are consummated ?
Sir, I hold, as my distinguished colleague [Mr. Bing¬
ham] holds, and as the great body of the Republican-Union
party hold, that the Government of the United States under
its present Constitution can only exist where constitutional
State governments are maintained, and that the sovereignty
of the people of this country reposes in the people who reside
in States which maintain constitutional State governments
in practical relations with the National Government, and
exists nowhere else. I hold that the people of a State may,
and all know that eleven States did, in violation of the Con¬
stitution, dissolve their practical relations with the National
— 427 —
Government. As an individual citizen may, in violation of
law, commit crime, so may a political community, in viola¬
tion of law, refuse or neglect to discharge their constitution¬
al obligations. If they do this thing, I hold that the States
which remain loyal must always represent the national sov¬
ereignty and have the right to dictate such terms as they
may see fit to revolting States, and to compel the people
of the States so violating the Constitution to accept those
terms, or to remain during the pleasure of the conqueror in
the condition in which we now find the late rebel States.
No, not in such condition, but in such condition as the Con¬
gress which represents the nation may dictate.
I have regretted to find, since this Congress came together,
so many gentlemen here doing all they could to inflame the
passions and prejudices of the great body of the people who
were recently in rebellion in the United States. I have re¬
gretted to find them forming alliances with rebels and justi¬
fying the President of the United States, who has become
the leader of a negative rebellion as hostile and as dangerous
to the .United States, and I fear fa? more so than an open
armed rebellion would be if he were at the head of it. I am
anxious, and the great body of those with whom I act are to¬
day most anxious, that the people who went into the rebel¬
lion (many of them honestly and thousands of them reluc¬
tantly) should be restored to their practical relations with this
government upon the mildest and most merciful and forgiv¬
ing terms which it is possible for us, a conquering people, to
impose upon them, looking to our own safety, the stability
of the National Government, and the rights of loyal citizens
in those States.
Mr. Finck. Will my colleague yield to me for a moment?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. For a question.
Mr. Finck. This is the very place for my question. What
are the terms you propose ? What is the congressional plan
for restoration ?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The gentleman will find an an¬
swer if he will read these bills ; he will have his answer
when this House has agreed upon some practical measure of
restoration, which I trust we shall do within ten days—
— 428 —
Mr. Finck. I ask the g-entleman which of these bills
presents a fair congressional plan of restoration ?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I hope the g-entleman will learn
that fact when the majority of this House comes to vote upon
these measures next Monday.
Mr. Finck. I suppose so.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. And he cannot learn before.
Mr. Finck. One more question, and I am done. I want
to know of my colleag-ue, whom I recognize as the leader of
that side of the House on this question, whether he admits
that his party have not yet come to an agreement upon their
plan of restoration ?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. So far as I know they have not.
The Union party practically committed themselves to a policy
of restoration, and they went so far as to admit the State of
Tennessee upon the proposed terms of that restoration policy.
I voted for the admission of Tennessee, and do not regret
having* voted for the admission of that truly loyal State.
If any other State recently in rebellion had come to this
House under the same conditions in which Tennessee.came,
ratifying- the amendment to the Constitution, and having-
adopted a State constitution securing- the control of the gov¬
ernment of the State to loyal men, I should, althoug-h it
mig-ht not have come up to all my requirements, have voted
for the admission of its members ; so anxious was I then, and
so anxious am I now, to see the States recently in rebellion
restored to their former position in the Union. But the great
body of the men recently in rebellion, under the lead of the
Executive, have rejected these mild terms, and it now rests
with Congress to say upon what terms they shall be admitted.
Mr. Hise. I desire to ask the g-entleman one question,
inasmuch as he asked me some questions while I was speak¬
ing- the other day
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I believe I did not ask the g-en¬
tleman from Kentucky [Mr. Hise] any questions at all. I
merely declared in my seat in a word or two that I dissented
from his views.
Mr. Hise. I desire to ask a question.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Very well ; I will allow the g-en¬
tleman to ask me a question.
— 429 —
Mr. Hise. The gentleman has said that there has not
been a definite plan adopted by a majority of this House. I
wish to ask the gentleman if he will go so far as to state that
the majority of this House concur Vvrith him in refusing- ad¬
mission into the Congress of the United States of representa¬
tives from these ten States now unless they agree to the con.
dition of branding all who have held either civil or military
office under the confederacy as traitors, and as such are to be
excluded from the right to hold office under the United States,
and regarding the whole body of the people of those States
who sympathized with or co-operated with those who en¬
deavored to establish the confederacy as disloyal, and thai
none are to be regarded as loyal except the negroes and inter¬
lopers there ?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. In all of the measures proposed by
this Congress the great body of the men who were in the con¬
federate army and supported the rebellion have been granted
entire forgiveness. In the propositions which were submitted
by Congress to the people only certain parties were excluded
from holding office. Now, I would like to ask the gentleman
[Mr. Hise] whether he is willing that men, who while mem¬
bers of this House, and of the Senate, and of the Government
of the United States and of the several States, plotted treason
against this Government, and went into a war and maintained
it for four years to destroy this Government, should now be
received here without conditions with his vote ?
Mr. Hise. I will answer that question. I am of the
opinion that all of the distinguished men, both civilians and
those who held commissions and authority in either army,
in the suppression of the rebellion, in putting down this se¬
cession, or opposition to the government, were citizens of
States in the Union. I deny the authoritj^of the Government
to demand as a condition-precedent to admission to represen¬
tation upon this floor a right to inquire into the conduct of,
to convict, and to condemn these men so as to denationalize
them or to deprive them of the right to hold office either un¬
der the National Government or under a State government.
I should oppose that as a usurpation of power.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The answer of the gentleman
amounts to this : that so far as he and the party he repre-
— 430 —
sents are concerned they would not object to Jeff. Davis or
any of the men whose hands are red with the blood of my
loyal countrymen, coming- into this Hall and taking- seats
along-side cf them as Representatives. But the g-entleman
g-oes further, and says this is a proposition to clothe the black
population with the franchise, and interlopers with the right
of the franchise in States. All I demand, all the loyal
men of the nation demand, in the reorganization of State
governments in the late rebel States, is that we protect the
rights of those who during- the war were our friends and
allies, and I claim we can only do that by securing every loyal
man the right of the ballot.
But, Mr. Speaker, my time is passing-, and I must return
to the point which I was about to notice when interrupted.
The g-entleman from Illinois [Mr. Ross], like many other
g-entlemen upon that side of the House who have spoken be¬
fore him, asked why we permitted Senators and Representa¬
tives from these States to remain in these Halls after the re¬
bellion, if we recognized the principle upon which we now
profess to act? Why, sir, the answer is obvious, and I am
surprised that any intellig-ent g-entleman should ask such a
question. When those men were elected they came here from
States recog-nized as constitutional States, in practical rela¬
tions with the National Government. A Senator of the
United States is elected for six years, and a member of the
House for two years. They came here and took their seats
because they had been constitutionally elected before their
States went into rebellion. Every g-entleman knows that
there is no authority under the Constitution which would
authorize the House or the Senate to exclude a member duly
elected and qualified, unless they committed some overt act
of treason or violated the rules prescribed for the g-overnment
of the House or Senate, and the g-entleman oug-ht to under¬
stand this matter quite as well as I do.
Mr. Chancer. I want to ask the gentleman one ques¬
tion.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Very well; I will hear it.
Mr. Chancer. It is this: if the loyal population of any
State should be found to consist of negroes alone, does the
gentleman mean to say that he would recognize that as a
— 431 —
State, its organization being1 based upon negro population
alone, excluding the white race?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The gentleman has asked me a
question which he knows very well
Mr. Chanler. You cannot answer it. [Laughter.]
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. It has no practical application so
far as it relates to any of the States recently in rebellion.
Mr. Chancer. You dare not answer it. Answer "yes"
or " no," and do not falter about it.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. When the gentleman talks about
my faltering and not daring to answer he assumes-what he
has no right to assume.
Mr. Chanler. Well, give us an answer.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. If the gentleman will take his
seat and remain quiet for a moment I will give him an an¬
swer. If there were a single State in the American Union in
which there was not a single white man and all were black
men, I would clothe its population with the right of the
franchise, and with every other right of an American citizen
under this Government. [Applause in the galleries.] Does
the gentleman regard this as an answer?
Now, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Ross]
and those who sustain him have asked the question repeated¬
ly with an air of assumed innocence why we do not admit
loyal Representatives from the recent rebel States upon this
floor and upon the floor of the Senate. Why, sir, I would not
vote to-day to admit Horace Greeley as a Representative in this
House from South Carolina, nor would I vote to admit any
other man, however loyal, as a Representative from that com¬
munity. Why? The gentlemen on the other side comprehend
this matter quite as well as I do. They know that no political
community under our form of government has the right to
representation on this floor or in the Senate of the United
States, unless it has a constitutional State government
organized and recognized by Congress as in practical relation
with the Government of the United States. The admission
of Representatives and Senators in Congress is a practical
recognition of the State government from which they come.
Mr. Hise. With the permission of the gentleman from
Ohio, I will say that I do not think he has met the interroga-
— 432 —
tion submitted by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Chan-
ler]. The gentleman from Ohio has said that if the popula¬
tion of a State were composed entirely of black men, no
white men residing- in the State, he would recognize those
black men as entitled to the right of suffrage and every other
right. But the question of the gentleman from New York,
as I understood it, was, whether the gentleman from Ohio
would recognize as entitled to representation a State where
suffrage was confined to the negroes, the white population
being excluded from the exercise of that right.
Me. Ashley, of Ohio. Well, Mr. Speaker, if the gentle¬
man is anxious for my views on this point, I will explain. I
am willing to forgive, though I can never forget the crimes
committed by those who attempted to destroy this Govern¬
ment. I am willing to walk backward and with the broad
mantle of charity cover the political nakedness of the men re¬
cently in rebellion. My anxiety for the restoration of the
Southern States is such that I am willing that all men, even
those who held subordinate civil positions and positions in
the army of the rebellion shall have the ballot, excluding
only the more important and leading men from holding-
office—those, for instance, who were above the grade of
colonel, and those who held positions under this Government
before the rebellion. Every bill ever introduced by me for
reorganizing* these States has proposed to extend the right
of the ballot to the great body of the white as well as the
black people. My friend from Kentucky says — and if I held
his opinions I would say—4'that the rule I have suggested
would exclude the very best men in the South." Undoubted¬
ly it would exclude those whom he and his friends regard as
the best men in the South. If my friend from Kentucky had
resided in South Carolina during- the war I suppose he would
never have been upon this floor. I respect him for standing
up here and maintaining his opinions, erroneous as I deem
them. I prefer an open, manly opponent to a pretended
friend. A large majority of those with whom I act are anx¬
ious for the restoration of loyal State governments in the
South. They are willing- to g-o so far as to extend forgive¬
ness to the great body of the people guilty of the great crime
of treason, and admit them to the ballot-box; but at the same
time they demand that every loyal man, every "interloper,"
as my friend from Kentucky terms the white Unionist, every
man, however dusky his skin, whose heart beat true to the
old flag- and the Union during- the entire war, shall be the
equal of any traitor, however white.
Mr. Hill. I desire to ask my friend from Ohio whether
his last expression is to be taken as indicating- his conversion
to the doctrine of "universal amnesty and universal suffrage?"
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. No, sir; I do not know that I have
ever been in favor of that doctorine. As a practical man,
however, I want to see the Union restored; and if the members
of the opposition would come to this question with the
earnestness of the men of New England and the men of the
"West, the work of restoration would have been accomplished
before now. Why, sir, the assumption, the brazen-faced as¬
sumption, of men who during the entire war were in open or
secret alliance with the rebels, coming- here now and joining-
hands with the apostate at the other end of the avenue, who
is the leader, the recognized leader, of a counter-revolu¬
tion — a neg-ative rebellion, as I said awhile ago — passes com¬
prehension.
Why, sir, suppose that in 1860 John C. Breckinridge had
been elected President of the United States; suppose the anti-
slavery men of the country had rebelled against his election,
and their cause for rebellion would have been far greater than
the cause which impelled the southern men into their rebellion;
and suppose that after four years of bloody war this anti-
slavery rebellion had been crushed and Mr. Breckinridge had
been again elected President and in an hour of weakness you
had taken an apostate abolitionist from the North for Vice-
President, to show your love of the North you had conquered,
to show them that you had no feeling- of hatred toward them,
and that in one" short month after the inaug-uration, by a
conspiracy of anti-slavery men in the North, Mr. Breckin¬
ridge had been assassinated as Mr. Lincoln was assassinated,
and the apostate abolitionist had come into the presidency as
Mr. Johnson came into it, and he had pardoned and appointed
throughout the North and the entire country the men who
had been chiefs of the rebellion, turned out the men who had
28
— 434 —
elected him, and appointed their unrelenting1 enemies, what
would have been your denunciations? Sir, I know the de¬
nunciations on this side of the House are mildness in com¬
parison with the terrible denunciations which would have
been hurled at this apostate and usurper by the men on that
side of the House. And they would not have stopped with
denunciations;, he would have been impeached and deposed
before to-day.
Sir, all I ask, and all the loyal men of this country ask
who have sacrified so much in blood and treasure in putting-
down the rebellion, is that in the restoration of these States
care shall be taken that the National Government shall not
again be imperiled by a counter-revoluion, in which the apos¬
tate President shall be the leader, aided by the late rebels
and their northern allies. Hence I am in favor of prompt
and vigorous action by this Congress. I hold that these gov¬
ernments set up by Mr. Johnson are illegal, and I want them
declared illegal and void before this Congress adjourns. I do
not care if for a period of sixty days or more or less, as alleged
by the gentleman 'from New York [Mr. Raymond], there
should be an interregnum in which there would be no local
civil governments in those States. If you had been loyal men
in New Orleans and Memphis during the late massacre you
would have welcomed any government instead of the govern¬
ments which planned and executed the murders there enacted.
I would rather have every man stand upon his own responsi¬
bility as a man than to have governments which exiled me
from my home, confiscated my property, or murdered me or
mine with impunity. In this city there are men to-day who
have been exiled from their homes, not able to return, because
of their fidelity to the flag of the Union, the Government of
the Union which they served during the war refusing them
protection in their homes.
What I want is not oaths; I have not much faith in oaths.
I would trust some men on a simple declaration, such as I
quoted in a speech on this subject at the last session, much
sooner than I would trust those who hesitate at no oath; such
a one, sir, as was made by a distinguished gentleman in North
Carolina, Mr. Read, who presided over their recent reconstruc¬
tion convention, and who had been himself a rebel. His dec-
— 435 —
laration was such, that when I read it in California I said in
my heart, there is a man I can take by the hand and welcome
back to the old family mansion. Bad men will take any oath
under the advice and lead of unscrupulous politicians. We have
witnessed its fatal working's in Maryland.
I want peace, I want unity, I want the Government re¬
stored, but I do not want the men who conquered the rebel¬
lion proscribed, and the governments of the rebel States car¬
ried on by the men who have been waging- bitter war against
us for the past four years. I utterly repudiate the assump¬
tion of the President that he can parole armies and then au¬
thorize these paroled prisoners of war to form constitutional
State goverments for the loyal men in the States recently in
rebellion. I know very well if gentlemen on the other side
had been in power in the case supposed by me a while ago
what they would have done. There would have been no let¬
up on their part. There would have been no such mercy as
we have shown ; no such mild terms of restoration submitted
as we have proposed. There would have been no such for¬
giveness. But they would have proscribed, and proscribed
to the bitter end. They would have maintained their party
organization in every rebel State against any and all attempts
to overthrow it by those who had so recently been their ene¬
mies and the enemy of the nation. I say we are ready to for¬
give the great body of the Southern people, we are anxious
to forgive them ; but we are determined, by the grace of God,
that these rebel State governments organized by Johnson
shall not be recognized, come what may; that disloyal Rep¬
resentatives shall not appear upon this floor, nor shall the
electoral votes of such States be counted in any presidential
election until constitutional governments have been organized
and recognized by the Congress of the United States.
IMPEACHMENT OF THE PRESIDENT.
Remarks by Hon. James M. Ashley, op Ohio, in thb
House of Representatives, March 7, 1867.
on the charges, resolutions and reports in favor of
impeachment.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise to perform a
painful, but, nevertheless, to me an imperative duty; a duty
which I think ought not longer to be postponed, and which
cannot, without criminality on our part, be neglected. I had
hoped, sir, that this duty would have devolved upon an older
and more experienced member of this House than myself.
Prior to our adjournment I asked a number of gentlemen to
offer the resolution which I introduced, but upon which I
failed to obtain a suspension of the rules.
Confident, sir, that the loyal people of this country de¬
mand at our hands the adoption of some such proposition as I
am about to submit, I am determined that no effort on my
part shall be wanting to see that their expectations are not
disappointed.
Mr. Finck. I rise to a point of order. I want to know
what the question is.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I will state it.
Mr. Finck. I have not heard it.
The Speaker. If the gentleman insists, the question
must be stated.
Mr. Finck. I do insist.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Then, sir, on my responsibility
as a Representative, in the presence of this House, and be¬
fore the American people, I charge Andrew Johnson, Vice-
President and acting President of the United States, with the
(436)
— 437 —
commission of acts which, in contemplation of the Constitu¬
tion, are high crimes and misdemeanors, for which, in my
judgment, he ought to be impeached. I therefore submit the
following—
Mr. Finck. I propose another question of order. Is
that a question of privilege ?
The Speaker. It is. In the Twenty-seventh Congress,
by the then Speaker, it was decided, on the point raised by
Horace Everett, of Vermont, that it was a question of privi¬
lege.
Mr. Eldridge. Is there not a special order for to-day ?
The Speaker. The unfinished business, which is the
regular order, cannot interfere with this proposition.
The Clerk read the proposition of Mr. Ashley, of Ohio,
which is as follows :
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I demand the previous question.
Mr. Spalding. I move it be laid on the table. Yeas,
30; nays, 105.
The question was then taken on the passage of the reso¬
lution, and decided in the affirmative. Yeas, 108; nays, 39.—
Congressional Globe, Jan. 7, 1868.
I do impeach Andrew Johnson, Vice-President and act¬
ing President of the United States, of high crimes and mis¬
demeanors.
I charge him with a usurpation of power and violation of
law :
In that he has corruptly used the appointing power:
In that he has corruptly used the pardoning power:
In that he has corruptly used the veto power:
In that he has corruptly disposed of public property of
the United States:
In that he has corruptly interfered in elections, and com¬
mitted acts which, in contemplation of the Constitution, are
high crimes and misdemeanors: Therefore,
Be it Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary
be, and they are hereby authorized to inquire into the official
conduct of Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the United
States, discharging the duties of the office of the President
of the United States, and to report to this House whether, in
their opinion, the said Andrew Johnson, while in said office,
has been guilty of acts which are designed or calculated to
overthrow, subvert, or corrupt the Government of the United
States, or any department or office thereof; and whether the
— 438 —
said Andrew Johnson has been guilty of any act, or has con¬
spired with others to do acts, which, in contemplation of the
Constitution, are high crimes and misdemeanors, requiring*
the interposition of the constitutional power of this House;
and that said committee have power to send for persons and
papers, and to administer the customary oath to witnesses.
impeachment of the president.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I rise to a question of privilege,
and present the following" resolution:
Whereas, The House of Representatives of the Thirty-
ninth Congress adopted, on the 7th of January, 1867, a resolu¬
tion authorizing an inquiry into certain charges preferred
against the President of the United States; and whereas the
Judiciary Committee, to whom said resolutions and charges
were referred, with authority to investigate the same, were
unable for want of time to complete said investigation before
the expiration of the Thirty-ninth Congress; and whereas in
the report submitted by said Judiciary Committee on the 2d
of March they declare that the evidence taken is of such a
character as to justify and demand a continuation of the
investigation by this Congress: Therefore
Be it Resolved by the House of Representatives,
That the Judiciary Committee, when appointed, be, and they
are hereby instructed to continue the investigation authorized
in said resolution of January 7, 1867, and that they have
power to send for persons and papers, and to administer the
customary oath to witnesses; and that the committee have
authority to sit during the sessions of the House and during
any recess which Congress may take.
Resolved, That the Speaker of the House be requested
to appoint the Committee on the Judiciary forthwith, and
that the committee so appointed be directed to take charge of
the testimony taken by the committee of the last Congress;
and that said committee have power to appoint a clerk at a
compensation not to exceed six dollars per day, and employ
the necessary stenographer.
Mr. Wilson, of Iowa. I desire to offer an amendment.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I will hear it.
Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, The amendment I desire to offer
is to add to the resolution the following:
Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Representa¬
tives be directed to pay out of the contingent fund of the
— 439 —
House, on the order of the Committee on the Judiciary, such
sum or sums of money as may be required to enable the said
committee to prosecute the investigations above directed, and
such other investigations as it may be ordered to make.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I accept that amendment as a
modification of my resolution.
Mr. Speaker, this resolution will bring- the House to a
vote on a question of transcendent importance. It brings us
face to face with a man whose usurpations have imperiled
the republic. We cannot escape the consideration of this
question if we would, and we ought not if we could. The
report of the Judiciary Committee of the last House made on
Saturday is a sufficient vindication of the action of that body
on the charges presented looking1 to the impeachment of the
President. It is a report which the moral sense of the nation
will approve. It is to be regretted that that committee were
not authorized at an earlier day to proceed with this investi¬
gation, so that they might have completed it and presented
the case to Congress. All true men who have examined this
matter impartially can but regret our inability to secure
earlier action.
But I think I may without hazard express the opinion
that there is no cause for discouragement; that the founda¬
tions have been so carefully laid that the machinations of the
conspirators and their chief, with all the immense power and
patronage in his hands, will be unable long to stay the doom
which awaits him. It is, sir, to go upon the record of this
House, and it will go into history, that the people of the
United States will never permit the President to usurp the
prerogatives of the law-making power; nor will they permit
him to defy the deliberately recorded verdict of the nation.
They will permit no man — certainly no man who came into
the Presidency through the door of assassination—
Mr. Nib^ack. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of
order. Is debate in order at this stage of proceeding?
The Speaker. Debate is in order.
Mr. Niblack. Is the resolution before the House?
The Speaker. It is before the House as a question of
privilege. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] will
proceed.
— 440 —
Mr. Speaker, I was saying-, when interrupted, that the
people of this country will never permit any man—certainly
no man who came into the Presidency through the door of
assassination—to use the vast powers with which the Execu¬
tive of this country is clothed in defiance of Cong-ress and the
people. That the acting1 President has done all this and
more will not be seriously denied. His usurpations of power
have been in clear violation of the Constitution, and many of
his acts tend directly to revolution. In fact the message to
which we were all compelled to listen on last Saturday, re¬
turning- with his objections the reconstruction bill, was but
an invitation to revolution and civil war. If any loyal man
had doubted before, he could doubt no long-er, that while this
man remains in the presidential office there can be no tran¬
quility in this country, no security for property, liberty, or
life to loyal citizens in the South, no such restoration of this
Government as the Union army and the Union citizens of
this nation have decreed, no safety for a single hour from
rebellion or revolution.
Sir, a man of Mr. Johnson's antecedents, of his mental and
moral character, coming- into the Presidency as he came into
it—and I say nothing now of the dark suspicions which crept
over the minds of men as to his complicity in the assassination
plot, nor of the fact that I cannot banish from my mind the
mysterious connection between death and treachery which
this case presents—I say, such a man, in view of all that has
happened,, coming- into the presidential office as he came into
it, ought to have walked with uncovered head, and very
humbly, before the loyal men of this nation and their Repre¬
sentatives in the American Congress.
Mr. Speaker, if this nation does not stamp with the broad
seal of its condemnation the usurpations and crimes and mis¬
demeanors of this man it will be but an invitation in the
future for a repetition of these usurpations, crimes and mis¬
demeanors.
Self-protection and a proper respect for the honor of the
nation demand that the Representatives of the people shall
declare, in a manner not to be misunderstood, that no man
hereafter elected President or Vice-President shall present
himself at his inauguration drunk; that no man discharging
-441-
the duties of the office of President of the United States shall
be permitted to turn the White House into a den of thieves
and pardon-brokers, nor shall he be permitted with impunity
to address in vulgar, seditious language a drunken, howling
mob from the steps of the Executive Mansion.
Sir, unless this committee take charge of this matter and
proceed with it, this Congress might as well lay down its
powers. If, however, nothing more should be done, I am sure
that, when the evidence which has been already taken is pub¬
lished, it will operate as a deliberate and solemn protest
against a repetition in the future of another drunken elec¬
tioneering tour such as last year mantled the cheek of this
nation with shame; that it will be a protest against the un¬
pardonable attacks which the acting Executive made upon
the national Congress, a protest against his usurpations and
crimes and misdemeanors.
Sir, his crime is not, as many suppose, the mere perfidy
of which he has been guilty to the men who in an evil hour
elected him Vice-President of the United States, black and in¬
famous as it is; his crime is the highest known in our country,
a crime against the Republic itself.
If the investigation go no further, it will establish be¬
yond question that the people of this country will not per¬
mit any man with impunity to be guilty of acts of which he
has been guilty; and if so, the investigation will not have
been in vain. Mr. Speaker, the United States is not the only
nation which has been disgraced by such an executive head.
Fortunately, however, for mankind, such men are born into
the world to curse the human race but once in centuries.
The nation cries out in its agony and calls upon the Congress
of the United States to deliver them from the shame and dis¬
grace which the acting President has brought upon them.
They demand that the loathing incubus which has blotted
our country's history with its foulest blot shall be removed.
In the name of loyalty betrayed, of law violated, of the Con¬
stitution trampled upon, the nation demands the impeach¬
ment and removal of Andrew Johnson.
The Speaker here intimated to Mr. Ashley that he was
proc' *ding beyond the license allowed in debate, and after
som' interruption he again proceeded, as follows:
— 442 —
Mr. Speaker, I know, on this question, that the timid
among1 the loyal hesitate, that the late rebels and their
northern allies are defiant, and that the camp-followers of the
President alternately threaten and supplicate, and that all
unite in prophesying- war and revolution, and in any event,
financial ruin to the country, if Congress shall undertake
to arraign and depose the President, as provided by the
Constitution. Sir, I hope this Congress will not hesitate
to do its duty because the timid in our own ranks hesitate,
or because of the threats of the President's satraps and
rebel allies, but that it will proceed with dignity and de¬
liberation to the discharge of the high and important duty
imposed upon it, uninfluenced by passion and unawedby fear.
If, as has been happily suggested by one of our able and true
men, the nation could stand the shock occaioned by the mur¬
der of a beloved President by the hand of an assassin, it surely
can stand the shock caused by the removal of one so detested
as the acting President, if done in pursuance of law.
And, sir, has he not done enough? Before he had been
one month in the Presidency he entered into a combination
with the enemies of the nation to usurp in their interest the
prerogatives of Congress, and sought to bind hand and foot
the loyal men of the South, who had aided us in putting down
the rebellion, by putting the governments of the South in
the hands of their mortal enemies and ours. This with me
is enough. When you add to this his other acts, wliich have
"become public history, the case for me is complete.
The duty of the President is to execute, not to make laws.
His oath requires him to see that the laws are faithfully ex¬
ecuted. That the President has neglected or refused to exe¬
cute many of the laws of Congress no man questions. That
he has failed to execute the civil rights bill, nay, that he has
not even attempted to execute it, the whole country knows.
On the other hand, he has not only failed to execute it, but
in most indecent and offensive language he has assailed and
denounced the law as unconstitutional.
Sir, in his failure to execute this just and most necessary
law the crime of the President becomes perfectly colossal.
Since the surrender of Lee and Johnston more than five thou¬
sand American citizens, guiltjr of no crime but love of country,
— 443 —
have been murdered by men who were lately in arms against
this country. Thousands more have been driven from their
homes into exile, while no effort has been made on the part
of the executive department of the Government to give them
the protection which the law demands and which justice and
humanity demand. So far as I know, in no single instance
has one murderer or rioter been arrested and punished for his
crimes, while loyal men who served in the Union army are
arrested and tried before rebel tribunals and punished with
unusual and severe punishments for doing- acts when in the
performance of military duty and obeying the orders of their
superior officers, and no effort is made by the executive de¬
partment of the Government to protect them. Sir, there
never was a nation on this earth g-uilty of the infamy of treat¬
ing its loyal citizens as the President of the United States
has treated the loyal men of the South.
I know how easy it is for the President and his co-con¬
spirators to deny his g'uilty knowledge. I know also how
difficult it is to prove by technical rules the g'uilt of a man oc¬
cupying his position, although the whole country may know
him to be guilty.
Why, sir, when the rebellion broke out in the winter and
spring of 1861, and for several months afterward, no man
could have been arrested, tried and convicted before a court
and jury in this District who was engaged in conspiracy
against tliis government, although no sane man ever doubted
their guilt. It is much more difficult in a case of this kind,
where the rebellion is not an open, armed rebellion, but a
negative rebellion. In this rebellion the President is the rec¬
ognized leader, and it is well known that he has co-operat¬
ing with him nearly all the late rebels of the South.
Mr. Chanler interrupted, but Mr. Ashley declined to
yield, and continued as follows:
I know, Mr. Speaker, how difficult it is by technical
rules to prove the guilty knowledge of men who re¬
fuse to execute the law while professing to do so.
It is well known that the civil rights bill has not only not
been enforced, but the vast military power at the disposal of
the President, instead of being- used to protect loyal men, has
— 444 —
been used either by his guilty knowledge or by his indiffer¬
ence to crush the loyal men of the South.
Mr. Eldridge. I wish to make an inquiry of the gen¬
tleman. I understood him to make a remark censuring- the
President because certain parties were not brought to
trial. I wish to ask him if he thinks the President is to
blame because Jefferson Davis has not been brought to trial ?
Mr. Ashxey, of Ohio. I am unable to answer that
question. I know that in those military departments under
his command where he does interfere he has used the military
power to crush the loyal men, instead of protecting them.
Mr. Eldridge. Will the gentleman give us one single
instance where the President has neglected his duty in regard
to the trial of any person ?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Yes, sir; in New Orleans, in
Memphis, and in every rebel State.
Mr. Eldridge. Could the President institute courts and
try these parties ?
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I do not claim that he can, but he
could give loyal men at least the same protection he has
given rebels. He never hesitates to interfere in favor of
rebels. I refer to the case of Mr. Watson, of Virginia, and
others ; but it is not necessary that I should go into this.
Mr. Speaker, I do not hesitate to say that, in view of all
the facts before us, if this investigation is not proceeded
with, and this man is not put on trial, the provision of the
Constitution providing for the impeachment of the President
is valueless. Sir, if this man is not impeached, if he is not
tried and deposed from the high place which he has disgraced,
then no man who may succeed him need ever fear trial and
conviction, no matter what his crime.
Sir, if this Congress will but do its duty, And meet
the just expectations of the loyal people op this coun¬
try by empowering its judiciary committee to proceed
with this investigation, and the committee do so with
that energy which attends the proceedings in an ordi¬
nary criminal case, I believe the impeachment and con¬
viction of the President is as inevitable as death.
Mr. Speaker, I should not have trespassed so long upon
the time of the House as I have but for interruptions. But I
-— 445 —
desire to make one suggestion which has just occurred to
me. It is this : that all persons, whether citizens or for¬
eigners, who have any documents in their possession which
would be evidence in this case, or who are in possession of
any facts tending to show technically the guilt of this man,
ought as a matter of duty to bring them to the knowledge of
the Committee on the Judiciary.
Any person in the possession of such facts or documents
refusing or neglecting to do so becomes an accessory in the
crime of this man, and will be held responsible before the
country and in the great tribunal of human history as a co¬
partner in his guilt.
Mr. Hodman, of Indiana, moved to lay the resolution on
the table — and the vote was yeas 32; nays 119. On the
adoption of the resolution there was no division.—Congres¬
sional Globe, March 16, 1867.
On Saturday, Februarj^ 24, Mr. Stephens, of Pennsyl¬
vania, from the Committee on Reconstruction, submitted the
following report and resolution:
The Committee on Reconstruction, to whom was referred,
on the 27th day of January last, the following resolution:
Resolved, That the Committee on Reconstruction be
authorized to inquire what combinations have been made or
attempted to be made to obstruct the due execution of the
laws; and to that end the committee have power to send for
persons and papers and to examine witnesses on oath, and
report to this House what action, if any, they may deem
necessary; and that said committee have leave to report at
any time.
And to whom was also referred, on the 21st of February,
instant, a communication from Honorable Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War, dated on said 21st day of February,
together with a copy of a letter from Andrew Johnson, Presi¬
dent of the United States, to the said Edwin M. Stanton, as
follows:
Executive Mansion, )
Washington, D. C., February 21, 1868. )
Sir: By virtue of the power and authority vested in me,
as President, by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, you are hereby removed from office as Secretary for
the Department of War, and }*our functions as such will
terminate upon the receipt of this communication.
— 446 —
You will transfer to Brevet Major General Lorenzo
Thomas, Adjutant General of the Army, who has this day
been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War
ad interim, all records, books, papers, and other public
property now in your custody and charge.
Respectfully yours,
Andrew Johnson.
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Washing-ton, D. C.
And to whom was also referred by the House of Repre¬
sentatives the following- resolution, namely:
"Resolved, That Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, be impeached for high crimes and misde¬
meanors;"
Have considered the several subjects referred to them,
and submit the following report:
That in addition to the papers referred to the Commit¬
tee, the committee find that the President, on the 21st day of
February, 1868, signed and issued a commission or letter of
authority to one Lorenzo Thomas, directing and authorizing
said Thomas to act as Secretary of War ad interim, and to
take possession of the books, records, and papers, and other
public property in the War Department, of which the follow¬
ing is a copy:
Executive Mansion, )
Washington, February 21, 1868. j
Sir: Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having been this day
removed from the office of Secretary for the Department of
Vfar, you are hereby authorized and empowered to act as
Secretary of War ad interim, and will immediately enter
upon the discharge of the duties pertaining to that office.
Mr. Stanton has been instructed to transfer to you all the
records, books, papers, and other public property now in his
custody and charge.
Respectfully yours,
Andrew Johnson.
To Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant
General op the United States Army, Washington,
District of Columbia.
Official copy respectfully furnished to Hon. Edwin M.
Stanton. L. Thomas,
Secretary of War ad interim.
Upon the evidence collected by the committee, which is
herewith presented, and in virtue of the powers with which
they have been invested by the House, they are of the opinion
that Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be
impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors. They there-
— 447 —
fore recommend to the House the adoption of the accompany¬
ing resolution.
Thaddeus Stevens,
George S. Boutweee,
John A. Bingham,
C. T. Hulburd,
John F. Farnsworth,
F. C. Beaman,
H. E. Paine.
Resolution providing* for the impeachment of Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States.
Resolved, That Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, be impeached for high crimes and misde¬
meanors in office.
Remarks op Hon. J. M. Asheey, in the House op Repre¬
sentatives February 22, 1868, on this Resolution.
The Speaker. The House will now resume the con¬
sideration of the resolution reported from the Committee on
Reconstruction, in reference to the impeachment of the
President of the United States, on which the gentleman
from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] is entitled to the floor.
Mr. Asheey, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, in approaching-
this subject I hope I do so in any other spirit than the
spirit of a partisan. In the few minutes I shall occupy the
time of the House, I desire to call attention first to the
statute which the President, in his removal of the Secretary
of War, has set at defiance, and second, to the provision of
the Constitution which he has also violated.
This act, sir, was passed and took effect on the 2d of
March, 1867.
The section reads thus:
"Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That every
removal, appointment, or employment, made, had, or exer¬
cised contrary to the provisions of this act, and the making-,
signing, sealing, countersigning-, or issuing of any commis¬
sion or letter of authority for or in respect to any such
appointment or employment, shall be deemed, and are hereby
declared to be, high misdemeanors, and, upon trial and con¬
viction thereof, every person guilty thereof shall be punished
by a fine not exceeding $10,000, or by imprisonment not ex-
— 448 —
ceeding five years, or both said punishments, in the discre¬
tion of the court: Provided, That the President shall have
power to make out and deliver, after the adjournment of the
Senate, commissions for all officers whose appointment shall
have been advised and consented to by the Senate."
This provision of law, passed by the Congress of the
United States over the veto of the President, he has deliberate¬
ly violated. On last Friday, in utter defiance of it, and as if to
challenge this House to resort to its constitutional powers, he
notified the Senate that he had, on the authority vested in him
by the Constitution, removed the Secretary of War. Now, sir,
while I regard this as one of the smallest of the many of¬
fenses of which this man has been guilty, yet it is clearly an
offense brought within a narrow compass—one which is
easily comprehended, and will satisfy that class of gentlemen
in the House, who hold that the President cannot be im¬
peached except for a violation of some statute law. His dis¬
missal of the Secretary of War and the appointment of Mr.
Thomas, on Friday, without the consent of the Senate,
brings him within that technical rule. Sir, I regret that this
House should not before to-day have put itself upon the
record in condemnation of this most indefensible assumption
that public officers, especially the Chief Magistrate, cannot
be impeached except for the violation of some statute law or
some clearly-defined provision of the Constitution. Sir, the
impeaching power in the Constitution, as defined by the hon¬
orable gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Woodward], I
accept as the only rational definition. It is, he told us a few
weeks ago—
" A popular power; a power destined for the protection
of the rights and liberties of the people against their rulers,
and one that ought to be liberally construed, and in proper
cases freely used."
To assume that the President can be impeached only for
" treason" or " bribery" is practically to assume that he
cannot be impeached. In Curtis' History of the Constitution
he thus refers to the impeaching power of Congress :
" Among the separate functions assigned by the Consti¬
tution to the two Houses of Congress are those of presenting
and trying impeachment. An impeachment, in the report of
— 449 —
the Committee of Detail, was treated as an ordinary judicial
proceeding*, and was placed within the jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court. That this was not in all respects a suitable
provision will appear from the following' considerations : al¬
though an impeachment may involve an inquiry whether a
crime ag-ainst any positive law has been committed, yet it is
not necessarily a trial for crime; nor is there any necessity in
the case of crimes committed by public officers for the institu¬
tion of any special proceeding- for the infliction of the punish¬
ment prescribed by the laws, since they, like all other persons
are amenable to the ordinary jurisdiction of the courts of
justice in respect of offenses against positive law. The pur¬
poses of an impeachment lie wholly beyond the penalties of a
statute or the customary law. The object of the proceeding-
is to ascertain whether cause exists for removing a public
officer from office. Such a cause may be found in the fact
that either in the discharg-e of his office or aside from its
functions he has violated a law or committed what is techni¬
cally denominated a crime. But a cause for removal from
office may exist where no offense against positive law
has been committed, as where an individual has from
immorality or imbecility or maladministration become
unfit to exercise the office."
But I cannot now pursue this point further.
Sir, if there were no law on the statute book, if there
were only the simple provisions of the Constitution, to which
I shall in a moment refer, I would hold that this House
mig-ht, under the authority vested in it, impeach the Presi¬
dent for the removal, without the consent of the Senate, of
an officer, when the Senate is in session. I refer now to the
clause vesting- the power of appointment in the President,
with the consent of the Senate :
" He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the
Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint em¬
bassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Su¬
preme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose
appointments are not herein otherwise provided, and which
shall be established by law; but the Congress may bylaw
vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they may
think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or
in the heads of departments,
2>
— 450 —
"The President shall have power to fill up all vacan¬
cies that may happen during- the recess of the Senate by
granting- commissions which shall expire at the end of their
next session."
Mr. Pruyn. With the consent of the g-entleman I wish
to ask him whether I correctly understood his position on the
question to which he has just referred (removal from office),
and state briefly my view of it. It was alluded to in the dis¬
cussion on Saturday evening-. When the g-entleman from
Illinois [Mr. Ingersoll] was on the floor, I made a remark,
which was immediately controverted by several members on
the other side, and particularly by the g-entleman from Ohio
[Mr. Schenck], with whom I understood the member from
Ohio now on the floor to concur. My statement was to this
effect: that from the time this question as to the removal
was discussed and decided by Congress at its first session in
1789 to the present day, the practice has been uniform that
the President, and the President only, had made removals
from office, and that without the concurrence of the Senate,
althoug-h that body mig-ht be in session. This necessarily
results from the nature of the power which under the Consti¬
tution, is inadvisable. I make this point now most dis¬
tinctly, as it is fundamental in this discussion, and has been
so treated from the outset.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I reg-ret exceeding*-
ly that my thirty minutes will not allow me to enter into a
colloquy with the g-entleman ; but I do not now call to mind
a single instance in which any President of the United States
has ever removed an officer confirmed by the Senate, without
the consent of the Senate if it was in session. And I go
further, and deny the power of the President, under the Con¬
stitution, to remove any officer, even during- the recess of the
Senate, without cause.
Sir, the power of appointment is vested in the President
by special grant, and not by implication. The President, I
know, claimed in a messag-e to the Senate on Friday last,
that by virtue of the power vested in him by the Constitu¬
tion, he had authority to dismiss from and appoint to office
without the consent of the Senate, If the power to dismiss
and appoint without the consent of the Senaie is possessed
— 451 —
"by the President, it must be an implied and not an express
grant of power. Gentlemen may examine the Constitution
and nowhere will they find such an express grant of power.
I deny, therefore, that it exists, that any authority to ap¬
point can be delegated to the Executive by implication. The
clause providing that the President shall "take care that
the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all
officers of the United States," does not confer the power to
appoint or dismiss ; nor does the fact that all executive power
is vested in the President clothe him with any implied power,
or power which may be necessary or proper to carry into
effect any power which is expressly granted to the Executive.
Sir, I can find in the Constitution no authority authorizing
the President to dismiss a faithful public officer without
cause.
"All power necessary and proper to carry into effect any
power vested in the President or in any department or officer
of the government is vested in the Congress of the United
States."
I desire to call the attention of the gentleman from New
York to that paragraph in the Constitution which clothes
Congress with the power—
"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper
for carrying into execution the foregoing powers"—
meaning those vested in Congress—
"and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the
Government of the United States, or in any department or
officer thereof."
Whatever power may be vested in the President by ex¬
press grant, he cannot assume to exercise a power merely
because it is appurtenant to another power, and necessary, in
his opinion, to carry out some provision of the Constitution.
The right to clothe any officer of this government with
power not specially delegated, is reserved to the Congress of
the United States as the law-making power of this nation.
Congress alone is clothed by the Constitution with authority
to confer by law whatever power they may deem proper
which is not specially delegated, either to the President, the
judiciary, or any department or officer of the government.
— 452 —
Sir, this power does not exist in the President, nor in any
department or officer of'tlie government. It exists only in
Congress by express provision of the Constitution.
The Constitution has lodged the law-making- power in
the Congress, in conjunction with the President, but some¬
times the law-making power without the concurrence of the
President. Then, sir, if there were no statute such as I have
read, I would hold that the President was amenable to the
high court of this nation for a deliberate and willful infrac¬
tion of the Constitution in the removal of Mr. Stanton.
Now, sir, I hold, as I said a moment ago, that this is one
of the smallest of the crimes of the President. That he has
clearly set at defiance the statute I have quoted will not be
denied. His act of Friday last reduces his offense to a nar¬
row compass. It is all official and upon paper. In the trial
of this case we need not wade through a thousand pages of
evidence which must be sifted in all cases to get a few grains
of wheat. Nor need we consume much time in the trial.
Here the offense is presented within a small compass and is
within the comprehension of all. But few, if anj-, witnesses
are needed. Sir, I am sure that when this trial shall take
place before the high court of the nation, if the evidence
taken before the Judiciary Committee of this House shall be
reproduced there, it would establish one or more of the crimes
of which this man has been charged, and the verdict of the
people of this country will be, that this charge is one of the
most excusable of the crimes of which he has been guilty. If
Mr. Johnson had been guilty of no impeachable offense until
his removal of Mr. Stanton, no one believes that a majority of
this House could be induced to vote for his impeachment now.
Sir, what has been the logic of the conflict between this
man and Congress? From the outset it has been his delib¬
erate purpose, so far as his acts can indicate a purpose, to
usurp to himself the law-making, the judicial, and the execu¬
tive powers of this Government. Starting out with loud pro¬
fessions of loyalty, he assumed first the entire authority of
providing for the reorganization of the States lately in rebel¬
lion, and in doing so he conferred the entire power upon that
class of citizens who were but a paroled army of Confederates,
to the exclusion of the great body of loyal citizens. To this
-—453—-
paroled army he confided the power of reorganizing- State gov¬
ernments, and returning- those States to their constitutional re¬
lations in the. Union. Then, sir, he made an alliance with
the late rebel leaders, and they became his champions.
He pardoned thousands of public enemies guilty ot the
blackest of crimes, and to many of them, in violation of law,
he gave official positions. He repeatedly authorized the
payment of money from the public treasury in violation of
law. He gave the property of the United States to the
amount of millions to unrepentant rebels. He connived at,
if he did not consent to, the massacres of Memphis and New
Orleans, and he is justly held responsible in history and be¬
fore God for the murder of thousands of Southern Union
men.
Now, sir, the logic of this contest, so far as his acts de¬
velop it, is simply that the Congress of the nation and all the
departments shall submit to his domination in the govern¬
ment, and no man can have watched the vain efforts of this
Congress to tie his hands by statutory enactments without
feeling a sense of shame. Every effort of Congress to secure
a restoration of the Union by the passage of reconstruction
acts, and supplementary reconstruction acts, has failed thus
far because of this man, who, with the immense patronage
which he has in his hands, and with an entire disregard of
Constitution, laws, and oaths, has been able to evade them
all, and eventually, if not removed, he will bring on a con¬
flict which can end only in civil war unless Congress surren¬
ders. Sir, his purpose has been, and it will continue to be,
unless he is arrested and brought to the bar of the Senate for
trial, to usurp the whole power of the government, and to
clothe the late rebel States with authority to cast their elec¬
toral votes in the pending Presidential election either for
himself or some candidate of his choice, and if, when the
electoral votes come to be counted, there were enough loyal
states voting for the candidate of his choice, whether it be
himself or some one else, to make up a majority with the ille¬
gal vote of the rebel States, he and his friends would insist
on their being counted, and if Congress refused he would
inaugurate a civil war, and at the same time the man whom
they would claim to have elected. Thus we should have
— 454 —
inaugurated in the capital of the republic two Presidents,
and probably two Congresses.
This, in my opinion, has been from the start the delib¬
erate purpose of this man, and I am amazed that gentlemen
on the other side should have felt it to be their duty to give
this man even a guasi support, and to apologize for his acts
for the sake of the feeble aid which he gives them politically
and the spoils of office which they have been able to secure
for their friends. Sir, I want gentlemen to remember that
by their defense of this man, whose violations of the Consti¬
tution and laws of the country is unquestioned, they go into
history as a party to his crimes.
"We attempted to tie this man's hands by putting a clause
in the Army bill, to which I wish for a moment to call your
attention. I refer to the second section of the Army Appro¬
priation bill, passed March 2, 1867, which the President
signed, but returned it with a protest. The section reads
thus :
" Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the head¬
quarters of the General of the Army of the United States
shall be at the City of "Washington, and all orders and in¬
structions relating to military operations issued by the Presi¬
dent or Secretary of War shall be issued through the General
of the Army, and in case of his inability, through the next
in rank. The General of the Army shall not be removed,
suspended, or relieved from command or assigned to duty
elsewhere than at said headquarters, except at his own re¬
quest, without the previous approval of the Senate; and any
orders or instructions relating to military operations issued
contrary to the requirements of this section shall be null and
void; and any officer who shall issue orders or instructions
contrary to the provisions of this section shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor in office ; and any officer of the army
who shall transmit, convey, or obey any orders or instructions
so issued contrary to the provisions of this section, knowing
that such orders were so issued, shall be liable to imprison¬
ment for not less than two nor more than twenty years, upon
conviction thereof in any court of competent jurisdiction."
This was designed to keep Grant, the General of the
Army, at his headquarters here, as a measure of precaution
against any attempt of the President to disperse Congress by
force, and to provide that every military order of the Presi-
— 455 —■
dent should go through the General-in-Chief, and meet his
approval before subordinates should obey it. We all know-
how this act has been violated both in letter and spirit.
Sickles, Pope, Ord, Sheridan, and almost every officer within
the President's reach have been removed from their com¬
mands, and he has attempted to humiliate them because of
their obedience to the law of the land, and their faithful exe¬
cution of the duties assigned them. Experience has demon¬
strated the fact that there has not been wisdom or sharpness
enough in this Congress to tie the hands of this man. And
at last there appears to be nothing left but to bring him to
trial either for the acts of Friday last, or to include with
them every other act of which he has been guilty since his
accession to power.
Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives is again to
be brought to a direct vote upon a question, the importance
of which cannot well be overestimated; a vote which shall
test the fidelity of every Representative to his constitutional
obligation. Again we are to be brought face to face with
the man who is recognized by every loyal citizen, and by
every rebel, as a public enemy; a man, who, if not before,
certainly since, his accession to power has been recognized as
the friend and the ally of the late conspirators against the
nation's life and against the nation's chosen chief; a man
who has proven himself a more faithful representative and a
more formidable ally of "the lost cause" than could any
general of the late rebel armies, had he been in his place.
Duplicity, usurpations of power, and violations of law have
marked the public and private career of this extraordinary
man from the time of his unfortunate accession to the presi¬
dential chair.
I may be pardoned if I repeat what I said on the 7th of
March last, when introducing into this House, by direction of
the caucus of the Republican members, a resolution to con¬
tinue this impeachment investigation:
"If any loyal man had doubted before, he could doubt
no longer, that while this man remains in the presidential
office there can be no tranquility in this country, no security
for property, liberty, and life to loyal citizens in the South,
no such restoration of this government as the Union army
— 456 —
and the Union citizens of this nation have decreed, no safety:
for a single hour from rebellion or revolution."
Sir, if this be true — and I challenge any gentleman to
controvert it — if this be true, dare we longer postpone, dare
we longer shrink from the exercise of that power with which
the Constitution has clothed us, to rescue the government
from the hands of the usurper, and thus proclaim to the
world that this is a government of law, and not an irrespon¬
sible despotism, beyond the control of law, and in the hands
of an ignorant, cunning, and unscrupulous man, who was
thrown to the surface by the waves of the late rebellion, and
elevated to the chief executive office of the nation, not by
the voluntary suffrages of a free people, but by the hands of
an assassin.
Mr. Speaker, time and truth evermore vindicate the
right. When this House, but two short months ago, voted
down this proposition, I said let the loyal men of the nation
keep heart and await the logic of events. I know that by
the vote which this House is to give to=day I shall be vindi¬
cated, as will be every man who has been from the first for
impeachment. But though I shall be thus vindicated, this is
not to me an hour of exultation and triumph, but of sadness,
rather. Far rather would I that every charge which I have
made against the acting President of the United States
should fall to the ground if untrae, than that I should be
sustained if wrong. Far rather would I that the dark sus¬
picions which have taken possession of the public mind
should be dispelled by unquestioned evidence than that they
should be true.
For my country's honor, and for the sake of human
nature itself, I could hope that it were otherwise than as I
believe. Rather would I that this man, after his accession to
the Presidency, had so conducted himself as to have com¬
manded the confidence and respect of the county; that he
had so administered the government as to bring the country,
torn and bleeding as it has been, back to the paths of peace,
and thus secured its unity and prosperity.
But he has failed in all this, and not only failed, but has
so conducted himself that from the evidence before me I am
compelled, upon my conscience and upon my judgment, to
— 457 —
declare that I believe him guilty of usurping1 powers not dele¬
gated to him and of violating- deliberately the Constitution
and the laws of the land.
In that he has conspired with the late public enemy and
attempted, by the usurpation of the legislative authority, to
organize State governments in the late insurgent States, and
to restore the late rebel leaders to all the rights and privi¬
leges which they forfeited by the rebellion.
In that he has corruptly, and in violation of law, used
the appointing power.
In that he has corruptly used the veto power.
In that he has corruptly used the pardoning power.
In that he has corruptly disposed of public property of
the United States.
In that he has corruptly interfered in elections, and com¬
mitted acts and conspired with others to commit acts which,
in contemplation of the Constitution, are high crimes and
misdemeanors.
Believing that Andrew Johnson is guilty of all this and
more, I feel that it is our dutjr, I think it to be a necessity of
our condition, for the safety of the nation and of our insti¬
tutions, that he should be impeached. I hold that it is neces¬
sary, if not for our safety to-day, at least to teach those who
shall come after him a lesson; a lesson which shall vindicate
ihe majesty of the law and test the practical working of our
matchless Constitution.
For these reasons, sir, and others which I might give if I
had time, I give my voice and my vote to arraign and put on
trial before the high court of the nation, Andrew Johnson,
acting President of the United States.
The resolution was adopted; yeas, 126; nays, 47, as fol¬
lows:
Yeas—Messrs. Allison, Ames, Anderson, Arneli, Delos
R. Ashley, James M. Ashley, Bailey, Baker, Baldwin, Banks,
Beaman, Beaty, Benton, Bingham, Blaine, Blair, Boutwell,
Broomall, Buckland, Butler, Cake, Churchill, Reader W.
Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Coburn, Cook, Cornell, Covode,
Cullum, Dawes, Dodge, Driggs, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot,
Farnsworth, Ferriss, Ferry, Fields, Gravely, Griswold,
Halsey, Harding, Higby, Hill, Hooper, Hopkins, Asahel W.
— 458 —
Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Hulburd, Hunter, Ingersoll,
Jenckes, Judd, Julian, Kelley, Kelsey,, Ketcfoom, Kitchen,
Laflin, George V Lawrence, William Lia-v/rcnce, Lincoln,
Loan, Logan, Loughridge, Lydch, Malloiry, IVIcrvin, Mc¬
Carthy, McClurg, Mercur, Miller, Moore, MoorJie^d9 Morrell
Mullins, Myers, Newcomb, Nunn, O'NgH, Orths Prino, Plants
Poland, Polsley, Price, Raum, Robertson, Sawyer, Schcuck,
Scofi: d, Selye, Shanks, Smith, Spalding*, &'aickwc;rther,
Aa.:on F Stevens, Thaddeus Stevens, Stokes, '.ila£l:.2, ri r.ylor,
Trowbridge, Twichell, Upson, VanAerman, Burt VanHorn,
Van Wyck, Ward, Cadwallader C. Washburn^ Elihu B.
Washburn, William B. Washburn, Welker, Thomao Williams,
James F. Wilson, John T. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson,
Windom, Woodbridge, and the Speaker—126.
Nays—Messrs. Adams, Archer, Axtell, Barnes, Barnu.m,
Beck, Boyer, Brooks, Burr, Cary, Chanler, Eldridge, Foj;,
Getz, Glossbrenner, Golladay, Grover, Haight, Holman,
Hotchkiss, Richard D. Hubbard, Humphrey, Johnson, Jones,
Kerr, Knott, Marshall, McCormick, McCullough, Morgan,
Morrissey, Mungen, Niblack, Nicholson, Phelps, Pruyn,
Randall, Ross, Sitgreaves, Stewart, Stone, Taber, Lawrence
S. Trimbel, Van Auken, Van Trump, Wood and Woodward
—47.
Not Voting—Messrs. Benjamin, Dixon, Donnelly, Ela,
Finney, Garfield, Hawkins, Koontz, Maynard, Pomerov,
Robinson, Shellabarger, Thomas, John Trimble, Robert T.
Van Horn, Henry D. Washburn and William Williams—17.
SPEECH
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO.
Delivered in the House of Representatives,
May 29, 1868.
amend the constitution—abolishment of the office of
vice-president—neither caucuses, conventions, elec¬
toral, colleges, nor the house of representatives
to intervene between the people and their choice
of a president.
The House being- in Committee of the Whole on the
State of the Union —
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, said:
Mr. Chairman: It is now ten years since I became a
member of this House. During- that time I have submitted
more than once propositions looking- to an amendment of the
national Constitution, substantially such as I now ask leave
to present. Heretofore, when introducing these propositions,
I have done so without argument, and they have slept the
sleep which knows no waking- in the committees to which,
under our rules, they must be referred.
I now ask the indulgence of the House while I submit to
gentlemen present and to the country some of the considera¬
tions which have induced me ag-ain to bring- this subject to
public notice.
The proposition which I now send to the Clerk's desk to
be read, provides that the President of the United States
shall be elected for but a single term of four years, and pro¬
poses the abolition of the office of Vice-President. If
(459)
— 460 —
adopted, it also secures the abolition of the present system of
appointing- presidential electors, as the legislatures of the
several States may provide, and makes it impossible for the
election of a President to devolve, as now, on the House of
Representatives, but provides that in case of death, resigna¬
tion, or removal of the President from office, that the two
Houses in joint convention shall elect to fill the vacancy, each
Senator and Representative having one vote. Its adoption
will relieve the people of the despotism of party caucuses
and party conventions, and thereafter commit the election of
President to a direct vote of the people by ballot. The Clerk
will please read.
The Clerk read as follows:
Joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution
of the United States.*
Resolved by the Senate and House op Representa¬
tives op the United States op America in Congress
assembled (two thirds of both Houses concurring), That
the following be proposed as an amendment to said Constitu¬
tion, which, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths
of the several States, shall be valid, to all intents and pur¬
poses, as part of said Constitution, to wit:
Amend section three of article one, by striking out
clauses four and five, which read:
" The Vice-President of the United States shall be Presi¬
dent of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be
equally divided.
"The Senate shall choose their other officers and also a
President pro tempore, in the absence or the Vice-President,
or when he shall exercise the office of President of the
United States."
And insert the following:
'' The Senate shall choose their own presiding and other
officers."
In article two, section four, strike out the words "Vice-
President."
Amend section one, article two, by striking out the
words " together with the Vice-President chosen for the same
term;" so that it will read:
The executive power shall be vested in the President of
the United States of America; he shall hold his office during
the term of four years, and be elected as follows.
♦Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, presented this proposed amendment to the
Senate, on the 6th of May, 1872, with two or three verbal changes. ,
— 461 —
In lieu of clauses two, three, four and six of article two
and of article twelve of the amendments insert the following-:
The qualified electors shall meet at the usual places of
holding- elections in their respective States on the first Mon¬
day in April, in the year of ouf Lord one thousand eight
hundred and seventy-two, and on the first Monday in April
every four years thereafter, under such rules and regulations
as the Congress may by law prescribe, and vote by ballot for
a citizen qualified under this Constitution to be President of
the United States, and the result of such election in each
State shall be certified, sealed, and forwarded to the seat of
government of the United States in such manner as the Con¬
gress may by law direct.
The Congress shall be in session on the third Monday in
May after such election, and on the Tuesday next succeeding1
the third Monday in May, if a quorum of each House shall
be present, and if not, immediately on the assemblage of such
quorum, the Senators and members of the House of Repre¬
sentatives shall meet in the Representative Chamber in joint
convention, and the President of the Senate, in presence of
the Senators and Representatives thus assembled, shall open
all the returns of said election and declare the result. The
person having the greatest number of votes for President
shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the
whole number of votes cast; if no person have such majority,
or if the person having such majority decline the office or die
before the counting of the vote, then the President of the
Senate shall so proclaim; whereupon the joint convention
shall order the proceedings to be officially published, stating-
particularly the number of votes given for each person for
President.
Another election shall thereupon take place on the second
Tuesday of October next succeeding, at which election the
duly qualified electors shall again meet at the usual places of
holding- elections in their respective States and vote for one
of the persons then living having the highest number of
votes, not exceeding five on the list voted for as President at
the preceding- election in April, and the result of such elec¬
tion in each State shall be certified, sealed, and forwarded to
the seat of the g-overnment of the United States as provided
by law.
On the third Tuesday in December after such second
election, or as soon thereafter as a quorum of each House
shall be present, the Senators and members of the House
of Representatives shall again meet in joint convention, and
the President of the Senate, in presence of the Senators
and Representatives thus assembled, shall open all the
returns of said election and declare the person having the
— 462 —
highest number of votes duly elected President for the ensu¬
ing- term.
No person thus elected to the office of President shall
thereafter be eligible to be re-elected.
In case of the removal of the President from office by
impeachment, or of his death, resignation, or inability to
discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same
shall devolve temporarily on the President of the Senate, if
there be one; if not, then on the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, if there be one; and if not, then the member
of the executive department senior in years shall act as Presi¬
dent. If there be no officer of an executive department, then
the Senator senior in years shall act until a successor is
chosen and qualified.
If Congress be in session at the time of the death, disa¬
bility, or removal of the President, the Senators and Repre¬
sentatives shall meet in joint convention under such rules
and regulations as the Congress may by law prescribe, and
proceed to elect by viva voce vote a President to fill such
vacancy. Each Senator and Representative having one vote,
a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a majority in each
House of the Senators and Representatives duly elected and
qualified, and a majority of all the votes given shall be neces¬
sary to the choice of a President. The person thus elected
as President shall discharge all the powers and duties of
said office until the inauguration of the President elected at!
the next regular election.
If the Congress be not in session then the acting Presi¬
dent shall forthwith issue a proclamation convening Congress
within sixty days after the death or disability of the Presi¬
dent.
On the assembling of a quorum in each House the Sena¬
tors and Representatives shall meet in joint convention and
elect a President as hereinbefore provided.
Amend article fourteen proposed by the Thirty-ninth
Congress by striking out section two and inserting the fol¬
lowing:
Skc. 2. Every citizen of the United States twenty-one
years of age and upward (except Indians not taxed and per¬
sons non compos) shall be an elector in any State or Territory
in which he may have resided one }7ear next preceding the
election at which he shall offer a vote. Each State shall pre¬
scribe uniform rules for the registration of all qualified elec¬
tors residing therein and complete the said enrollment at
least twenty days before each presidential election; they shall
provide by law against fraud at elections, and may disfran¬
chise any person for participation in rebellion against the
— 463 —
United States, or for the commission of an act which is
felony at common law.
Sec. 3. Representatives in Congress shall be appor¬
tioned among- the several States according- to the number of
inhabitants in each.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. On these several propositions I
intend to ask the judgment of the country and eventually a
vote upon them in this House.
shali, the office of vice-president be abolished?
The proposition to abolish the office of Vice-Pre'sident
will, I trust, commend itself to the considerate men of all
parties. The creation of the office was objected to by some
of the ablest men of the Revolution as "unnecessary and
dang-erous." Experience has confirmed the wisdom of their
opposition. The Vice-President is, as all know, a superfluous
officer, having- few duties to perform, and those mig-ht more
properly devolve upon a member of the Senate, selected
because of his fitness, as the duty of presiding- in the House
devolves upon a member of the House who is elected Speaker.
The ob-jection to the selection of a member of the Senate
as presiding officer would hold equally g-ood against selecting-
a member of the House of Representatives for its presiding-
officer. Indeed, the power conferred on the Speaker of the
House is far greater than is conferred on the Vice-President
or President pro tempore of the Senate.
In the House the Speaker appoints all the committees
and can participate in debate on the floor of the House. He
may also vote at any time he so elects. In the Senate the
regular standing- committees are selected by a party caucus,
and appointed or confirmed afterward in open Senate by a
vote of that body. The Vice-President is not permitted to
debate any proposition before the Senate, and can only vote
when there is an equal division, while the Speaker can vote
at any time if he desires to do so, but is not compelled to
vote except in case of a tie.
The country has been distracted and its peace imperiled
more than once because of the existence of the office of Vice-
President. The nation would have been spared the terrible
— 464 —
ordeal through which it passed in the contest between Jeffer¬
son and Burr in 1801 had there been no vice-presidential
office. Had there been no such office we would have been
spared the perfidy of a Tyler, the betrayal of a Fillmore, and
the baseness and infam}^ of a Johnson.
Party interest and part}' necessity, under our present
convention system, usually seeks to compensate the friends of
a defeated presidential candidate in any national convention
by conceding- to them the privilege of naming- the candidate
for the Vice-Presidency.
This is done in order to soften the sting- of defeat and to
bind the defeated party in the convention to the more certain
support of a ticket which a large minority, and sometimes
even a majority, of the party would refuse to support at the
election but for such compromises, aided by the despotism of
party caucuses and party conventions. Often the mere ques¬
tion of locality has more to do with the nomination of a
Vice-President than the question of his fitness.
The country rejoices with me in the fact that no such
narrow consideration controlled the action of the Republi¬
can convention at Chicago in selecting our honored Speaker
as the candidate of the party for Vice-President. Not to
locality is he indebted for that position, for locality was
against him, but rather to his long and faithful public ser¬
vices, his fidelity to Republican principles, and to his personal
worth is he indebted for the distinguished honor of being
associated on the same presidential ticket with the most
extraordinary man of this or any age.
While each of the candidates for President and Vice-
President professes to subscribe to the so-called platform of
principles adopted by the conventions which nominate them,
they nevertheless represent, as a rule, opposing factions in
the party, and often at heart antagonistic ideas, which are
only subordinated for the sake of party success. This was
the case with Harrison and Tyler, Taylor and Fillmore, Lin¬
coln and Johnson. "When each of these Vice-Presidents on
the death of the President-elect came into the presidential
office he attempted to build up a party which should secure
his re-election. For this purpose they did not scruple to
betray the great body of men who elected them to the office
— 465 —
of Vice-President, nor did they hesitate at the open and
shameless use of public patronage for that purpose. The
weakest and most dangerous part of our executive system for
the personal safety of the President is a defect in the Con¬
stitution itself. I find it in that clause of the Constitution
which provides that the Vice-President shall, on the death or
inability of the President, succeed to his office. The presi¬
dential office is thus undefended and invites temptation. The
life of but one man must often stand between the success of
unscrupulous ambition, the designs of mercenary cliques, or
the fear and hatred of conspirators.
Whether pro-slavery conspirators, representing party
cliques, caused the death of Harrison and Taylor I know not.
I am confident, however, that a widespread conspiracy,
representing the pro-slavery rebel faction in the nation, was
organized for the purpose of assassinating Mr. Lincoln, and
all know of its success. That the conspirators who plotted
the murder of Mr. Lincoln had a purpose to subserve, which
they supposed could not be accomplished while he remained
in the presidential office, will hardly be questioned.
Mr. Chairman, history will record the fact that the con¬
spiracy which resulted in the assassination of Mr. Lincoln
was the offspring of the rebellion, and may yet give political
success to a cause, which millions of rebels failed to secure af¬
ter a deadly war of four years. Had assassination dons mors
than it did it would have overreached itsel1*. By Spar¬
ing and using Andrew Johnson it gained a temporary tri¬
umph for those whom it represented.
"Whatever may have been, and whatever may now be, my
suspicions as to the complicity of Andrew Johnson in the
assassination plot, the schemes and hopes of the conspira¬
tors can easily be explained upon the hypothesis op his
innocence, and his entire ignorance op their bloody pur¬
poses. Let me present it from that standpoint.
The failure of the rebellion found a large number of
disappointed and desperate men in the late rebel States under
disability for treason and rebellion. If justice was meted out
to them they knew that the leaders ought to be arrested, tried,
and punished, and that if the law was administered their prop-
30
— 466 —
erty was subject to confiscation. The leaders expected, in any
event, to be politically disfranchised, if they escaped imprison¬
ment, banishment, or the confiscation of their property. Hav¬
ing- staked all on the hazard of a die and lost, their condition
was desperate, and to escape punishments, confiscations, or
political disfranchisement thousands of them would not hesi¬
tate at any desperate expedient which promised success.
The men who without cause had inaugurated fratricidal war,
who had murdered unarmed Union soldiers after their sur¬
render, who had deliberately starved to death thousands of
our heroic men at Andersonville, Salisbury, Belle Isle, and
Libby prison, and committed enormities upon the living* and
the dead which no human tongue can describe, would not
hesitate at taking1 the life of any one man by assassination,
however exalted his position, if thereby it secured them
exemption from the punishment due their crimes.
On surveying- the situation thej^ found that the Republi¬
can party had, by a blunder, which in such an hour was
worse than a crime, elected Andrew Johnson Vice-President of
the United States. I can imagine how carefully they examined
his antecedents, his personal and political history ; how they
weighed well his words, and made themselves familiar with
his public and private acts, his weaknesses and his ambition.
During this examination they undoubtedly learned his view
of the "situation " before he left Tennessee to be inaugurated
Vice-President. They heard of his declaration to Stanley
Mathews at Cincinnati while on his way to the capital, before
his inauguration, and to others afterward, as to The neces¬
sity of reorganizing the democratic party. They were
informed of what he had repeatedly said he would do about
reconstruction, "if he were President." They knew of his
condition when inaugurated Vice-President, and that to
them was an augury of success. Of his vanity, his unscru-
pulousness, his love of power, and his capacities as a dema¬
gogue they were fully advised. They satisfied themselves
that, with proper management, he could be used to shield
them from punishment, and, perchance, restore them to polit¬
ical power. From that moment the doom of Mr. Lincoln was
sealed. The pretense that Mr. Johnson was to HavE been
assassinated, was never believed by any but willing
— 467 —
dupes. The assassination of Mr. Johnson would have defeated
the hopes and purposes of the conspirators, and no one knew
this better than they.
After Mr. Johnson came into the presidential office, the
conspirators and their friends at once openly and unblush-
ingly surrounded him, flattered him, took possession of him,
and promised him a rc-election and a brilliant future. They
reminded him op his old political record, oe his denun¬
ciation oe abolitionists, oe his utterances to stanley
Mathews and others " as to the necessity oe reorganiz¬
ing the Democratic party," by a union with conservative
Republicans, leaving the '' anti-slavery element in the
Republican party to slufe off," as he repeatedly ex¬
pressed it. All this, I submit, could have happened and
Mr. Johnson be free from any criminally guilty knowledge of
the assassination, either before or after the act.
I only present this panoramic view, of what has trans¬
pired and is now history, to illustrate how weak and indefen¬
sible in this particular is the presidential office ; so that I may
appeal to the nation to fortify it against this danger, by re¬
moving1 the temptation now presented to conspirators and
assassins, and thus make the presidential office a citadel
ag-ainst which they may hurl themselves in vain.
Adopt this plan, and the occupant of the presidential
office is effectually guarded from all political conspiracies
which thrive by assassination. It also precludes the possi¬
bility of an interregnum in that office. In addition to the
President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, each of
the eight members of the Cabinet in turn, and after them the
entire Senate, stand ready to assume, temporarily, the duties
of the presidential office until Congress can elect a successor.
It would not be possible for any conspiracy to succeed which
contemplated the wholesale assassination of entire Cabinets
and Senates.
If, as I propose in this amendment, there had been no
Vice-President, and the Constitution had provided, as I sug¬
gest, that on the death, resignation, or removal of the Pres¬
ident the vacancy should be filled forthwith by the election
of any citizen of the United States eligible under the Consti¬
tution, each Senator and Representative having one vote, the
— 468 —
nation would never liave been cursed with, the Tyler, Fill¬
more or Johnson administrations, nor is it to be supposed
that Mr. Lincoln would have been assassinated, because it
would not have been possible to foretell who would have been
elected his successor. If this amendment had been part of
the Constitution the country would have been spared much
anxiety during- the late impeachment trial, and Senators who
constituted the court of impeachment would have been spared
much of the suspicion and criticism to which they were sub¬
ject. No man could then have known ill advance who would
have been the choice of the two Houses of Congress, in joint
convention, for acting- President to fill the vacancy. The
question of Mr. Johnson's successor would, therefore, never
have disturbed or embarrassed the proceeding's of the Senate
during1 the recent impeachment trial.
the: abolition of presidential electors and national
conventions.
Instead of the intervention of presidential electors, I
propose the election of President by a direct vote of the peo¬
ple by ballot, on the democratic principle, so fully recognized
in our theory of g-overnment, " that all political pow^r is in¬
herent in the people and of right belong'S to the people." I
hold that it is safer and better for the people to exercise this
power directly, without the intervention of nominating' con¬
ventions or presidential electors or any intermediate agency.
To withhold from the qualified electors of the nation the right
to vote directly for the choice of a President is a violation of
the democratic idea, an act at war with the fundamental
principles of our Government, and utterly indefensible.
The adoption of the proposition which I have made will
secure at once the abolition of the plan of electing1 a Presi¬
dent by indirection, in the selection of electors chosen as
now, by a plurality of the voftes in each State, thus enabling
the minority, when there are three or more candidates, by
concentrating- their votes on one electoral ticket, to secure
the election of their candidate. This plan will also becure
the early abolition of all national nominating- conventions.
— 469 —-
and eventually of all State and county conventions, thus
relieving- every voter from tlie despotism of party cliques and
party caucuses.
This provision is itself enough to commend the proposed
amendment to the favorable consideration of the great body
of the American people who have so long been controlled by
the despotism of party conventions.
As a rule, not one voter in ten is consulted under our
oresent caucus system as to his first choice of a candidate for
any office, and yet when nominations are made, no matter
whether fairly or by fraud, each voter is compelled to sup¬
port the nominee of his party or aid in the election of the
candidate of the opposite party.
For years I have been opposed to the present system of
nominating- all candidates for elective offices, including- that
of President of the United States. I have long held that all
nominations should be made directly by the people under the
authority and protection of law. In other words, that there
ought to be two elections for all officers, to be elected by the
people, unless at the first election one of the candidates
should receive a majority of all the votes cast, an event not
probable at any election, and certainly not for President nor
for Governor of a State or a Representative in Congress. If
any one should receive a majority of all the votes cast at the
first election he would be declared duly elected, and there
would be no second election to fill that office. If there were
no choice at the first election for President, I provide in the
proposed amendment that all candidates but the five, or pos¬
sibly it may be advisable to say all but the four highest
voted for at the first election, shall be dropped.
If I were making a State constitution or a law for the
election of any elective officer, I would provide that at the
second election all but the four, or possibly all but the three,
highest voted for at the first election for any office should be
dropped, and that at the second election, only the candidates
thus nominated should be voted for; that no other votes
should be counted; and if there were three candidates at the
final election, that a plurality of the votes cast, should elect as
now.
— 470 —
This plan, as all can see, would supersede the present
corrupt and unsatisfactory convention system, and enable
every elector to vote without caucus dictation at the first elec¬
tion for his firbt choice, and without fear of electing-the can¬
didate of the opposition because of scattering votes.
After the most careful and deliberate examination of the
question I am compelled to confess that the convention system
now in use by both the great political parties of the nation is
demoralizing- in its practical working's, unfair in its represen¬
tation of the great body of voters, and repugnant to the
principles of true democracy and republicanism.
I look upon the present convention system for the nomi¬
nation of a President as far more objectionable than the old
congressional caucus system which it superseded, and which I
would not restore if I could.
The theory is that the national conventions of both par¬
ties are composed of delegates fresh from the people, elected
by the people, and that they represent the people. All know-
that, practically, nothing can be further from the truth.
Hic-tory will confirm what I say, when I declare that a
majority of the national conventions of both parties which
have been held in the past, not only have not reflected the
wishes of the party for which they assumed to act in making
nominations, but that they have repeatedly and deliberately
disregarded their known wishes.
Instead of our national, State, or district conventions
being made up of delegates elected directly by the people,
they are made up of delegates selected by packed committees
in State conventions composed of delegates appointed on the
recommendation of like committees appointed by other dele¬
gates in county conventions, who, in the first instance, are
often nominated in township and ward caucuses, which are
packed by the leaders of cliques and controlled by political
machinery in the hands of a few, without regard to the
wishes or interests of the voters for whom they assume to act.
Thus the delegates in our national conventions are always
removed three, and usually four, degrees from the people.
Indeed, the people seldom have a voice in the election of the
first delegates from townships and wards, owing to the polit¬
ical machinery employed by the few who work it. If the
— 471 —
voice of the people is partially heard in the ward and town¬
ship caucuses, which is well nigh impossible under our pres¬
ent practice, at each successive remove from the people their
will is less regarded, until at last when it reaches our nation¬
al conventions no voice is heard but the clamor of the office-
seeker and the violent contentions of warring* factions. Es¬
pecially is this the case in the Democratic party when they
adopt the two-thirds rule. As to consultation and deliberation
at such conventions, that is impossible, nor is it now ex¬
pected.
Oftener than otherwise the delegates who attend these con¬
ventions vote for men of whom they know but little and of whose
political record they know absolutely nothing. Witness the
action of the Republican convention at Baltimore which nom¬
inated Andrew Johnson. The indecent scramble of the bul¬
let-headed politicians and demagogues for the honor of first
announcing the name of Andrew Johnson as a candidate be¬
fore that convention was one of the most disgusting exhibi¬
tions I ever witnessed.
A majority who attend such conventions are always
clamorous for prompt action and adjournment, never for
consultation. They are usually more anxious about the size
of their hotel bills than about the record of the candidate to
be nominated. Their object is gained when their names are
recorded as delegates to the convention and that they have
voted for the nomination of the successful man.
Benton, in his "Thirty Years' View," in speaking of
national conventions and comparing them with the congres¬
sional caucus system, uses the following language :
"But it [the convention system] quickly degenerated
and became obnoxious to all the objections to Congress
caucus nominations and many others besides. Members of
Congress' still attended them, either as delegates or as lobby
managers. Persons attended as delegates who had no con¬
stituency [as delegates, professing to be from Texas and
other States, appeared at the Chicago Republican convention
in I860]. Delegates attended upon equivocal appointment.
Double sets of delegates sometimes came from the State, and
either were admitted or repulsed, as suited the views of the
majority. Proxies were invented. Many delegates attended
with the sole view of establishing a claim for office, and voted
accordingly. The two-thirds rule was invented to enable the
— 472 —
minority to control the majority, and the whole proceeding
became anomalous and irresponsible and subversive of the
will of the people, leaving- them no more control over the
nomination than the subjects of king's have over the birth of
the child which is born to rule over them. King- caucus is as
potent as any other king- in this respect; for whoever gets
the nomination, no matter how effected, becomes the candi¬
date of the party, from the necessity of union against the
opposite party, and from the indisposition of the great States
to go into the House of Representatives to be balanced by
the small ones. This is the mode of making- Presidents,
practiced by both parties now. It is the virtual election!
And thus the election of the President and Vice-President of
the United States has passed, not only from the colleg-e of
electors, to which the Constitution confided it, and from the
people to whom the practice under the Constitution g-ave it,
and from the House of Representatives, which the Constitu¬
tion provided as ultimate arbiter, but has gone to an anom¬
alous, irresponsible body, unknown to law or Constitution,
unknown to the early ages of our Government, and of which
a larg-e proportion of the members composing- it, and a much
larg-er proportion of interlopers attending- it, have no other
view, either in attending- or in promoting- the nomination of
any particular man, than to get one elected who will enable
them to eat out of the public crib—who will give them a
key to the public crib."
I do not overdraw the picture, nor did the great Missouri
Senator.
The demoralization inseparable from such disgraceful
proceedings cannot be overstated. As Mr. Benton says, a ma¬
jority of the delegates who attend national conventions do so
for the purpose of establishing claims for office, and we all
know that they are usually candidates for an appointment at
the hands of the President whom their votes help to nominate.
"When there are three or more rival candidates for President
before a national convention, and a balance of power party
can be formed, they do not hesitate to demand as a condition
to the vote of their clique or State the promise of a Cabinet
appointment. This unblushing demand has been made as a
condition to the support of cliques and factions at more than
one convention and acceded to. In pursuance of such arrange¬
ments Cabinet ministers have been appointed, and were thus
enabled by their official position to provide offices for their
friends, who, as delegates, voted as required in convention.
— 473 —
Kntire delegations from States sometimes permit themselves
to be bartered and pledged for a candidate on condition that
one or more of their own number shall have a designated
official appointment, and sometimes even for the empty honor
of having- one of their number act as the presiding officer of
the convention; and this is called representing the people.
Thus, in our national conventions, where oftener than other¬
wise there are more than two candidates, the most unscrupu¬
lous are the most likely to succeed. A few leading men com¬
bining for Cabinet positions or foreign appointments can, by
concentrating their votes, secure a majority in the conven¬
tion, and thus nominate any candidate upon whom they
unite. If this has been and may be by combinations such as
I have described, it is certain to be repeated again under like
temptations.
The desire for place and power can, as it has done, bring
the most hostile political leaders together. " If we combine,"
they whisper to each other, "we shall conquer. If we divide,
we shall be conquered." With the cohesive power of self-
interest to urge them on they combine, and by the aid of par¬
ty conventions make nominations in the name of the people
to which the people are opposed, and thus live upon the Gov¬
ernment at their expense.
The Republican national convention for 1864, which re¬
nominated Mr. Lincoln, and the Republican convention which
meets at Chicago on the 20th of this month, formally to rat¬
ify the wishes of the people in placing General Grant in
nomination, are exceptions to this rule. The man of destiny
is made a candidate in spite of cliques and cabals. As no
combinations could have been made by party cliques formi¬
dable enough in 1864 to have defeated the nomination and
election of Mr. Lincoln, so none could be made this year of
sufficient magnitude to defeat the nomination and election of
General Grant. Such was the condition of the country in
1864, and such is its condition to-day, that the people with a
unanimity unprecedented commanded, and the political
schemers, making a virtue of necessity, 3-ielded, and were as
clamorous for Lincoln in 1864 as they are to-day for General
Grant.
— 474-
As a rule, however, national conventions do not, as I
liave shown, -nominate the first choice of either party.
Especially is this the case with the Democratic party. The
two-thirds rule makes their cliques more formidable, and the
schemers usually so manage as to get their favorite or secure
a compromise on some new man whom they know they can
use.
If the new President and all elective officers were nom¬
inated by law as I propose, no compromise on a new and un¬
known man could possibly be made by political managers.
It may, and probably will be, claimed by the friends of
the convention system, that the proposition securing- a nomi¬
nating election under the protection and security of law-
would not prevent the caucus nomination of candidate to be
voted for at the first election. There is unquestionably some
force in this suggestion. I am confident, however, that its
adoption would practically abolish the convention system.
The people may safely be entrusted with the management
of this whole matter. All they ask is the protection of law,
and they will soon dispose of party tricksters and convention
cliques. A nominating election, under the safeguards of
law, is their security. If cliques and conventions attempt to
dictate and control at the first or nominating election, their
defeat will be inevitable at the second or regular election.
It will thus be seen that the system has, in itself, the inherent
power of protection against caucuses, conventions, and
frauds.
Mr. Lawrence, of Ohio. I would like to ask my col¬
league if he has not attended conventions and been nomi¬
nated by conventions, and if he does not support all nomina¬
tions made by the Republican party.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I answer the question of my col¬
league in the affirmative. I have attended conventions and
expect to attend them as long as my party adheres to that
system. I have been nominated by conventions, and have
accepted those nominations, because I believed they were
honestly made, and because I believed they fairly represented
the wishes of the party. I would not accept a nomination
secured by bargain and sale, or by fraud and corruption. I
would not accept a nomination for any office if made by a
— 475 —
''balance of power" clique, with the understanding-, ex¬
pressed or implied, that in case of my election I should ap¬
point the leaders of such clique to office. I have been
nominated and elected five consecutive times by the Republi¬
can party of my district, and I never made, nor permitted to
be made, such a promise to a single man. I have always sup¬
ported the regular nominations made by my party, and expect
to do so until the system of nominating conventions is abol¬
ished, and some new and better system adopted.
THE INDEFENSIBLE MODE OF ELECTING OUR PRESIDENTS MAIN¬
TAINED IN THE INTERESTS OF SLAVERY.
But for the existence of slavery the present indefensible
anti-democratic system of electing the President by the ap¬
pointment of electors in such manner as the State legisla¬
tures may by law provide would long since have been changed,
and a system more in accord with the democratic spirit of the
age adopted.
That the present system of nominating and electing a
President is in antagonism with the principles of democratic
government will not be seriously questioned. It has more
than once defeated the popular choice for the nomination
and election of President. Since I became a voter a ma¬
jority of our Presidents have been elected by a minority of
the popular vote. Under the present system the incentive to
fraud in ballot-box stuffing, illegal voting, andlthe importa¬
tion of voters into the large and closely-contested States can¬
not be over-estimated. If an electoral ticket obtains by any
means, fair or foul, a plurality of one or more votes, it con¬
trols the entire electoral vote of the State, which may decide
the result of a presidential election, as in the case of the
vote of New York in 1844. This electoral machinery has,
and may again, defeat the popular will.
In 1824 Maryland gave Adams a larger popular vote than
either Jackson, Crawford, or Clay. But of the eleven elec¬
toral votes to which the State was then entitled, Jackson
received seven, Adams three, and Crawford one.
The electors in Mar37land were elected at that time by
districts, whereas they are now elected on a general ticket
— 476 —
for the State at large, as in all tlie States. Two districts in
Maryland (the third and fourth), elected at that election
two electors each, to act as senatorial electors.
In 1824 the electors of President and Vice-President were
appointed in the several States as follows:
In Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Kentucky, Ten¬
nessee, Illinois, and Missouri, by the people in districts.
Seven States.
In New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
Jerse}^, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi,
Alabama, and Ohio, by the people on general ticket. Ten
States.
In Vermont, New York, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana,
Louisiana, and South Carolina, by the legislatures. Seven
States.
In a few years all the States except South Carolina
adopted the general ticket system, so that the vote of the
States should not be divided, thus securing to the large States
the power to elect the President, and often by a mere plu¬
rality of the vote of the State.
At the election of which I am speaking Jackson had
ninety-nine electoral votes, Adams eighty-four, Crawford
forty-one, and Clay thirty-seven.
The Constitution requiring a majority of all the electoral
votes cast to elect a President, and there being no choice of
President by the electors, the election devolved on the House
of Representatives.
the states which represent a minority of the people in
the house of representatives may elect the
president.
Here, again, the machinery provided by the Constitution
for the election of a President by the House of Representa¬
tives makes it possible for a minority of the people residing
in small States to defeat the will of a majority of the voters
in the nation.
At the election in 1824 for electors of President Mr.
Adams had a majority of the electoral vote in but seven
States. When the election took place in the House of
— 477 —
Representatives, each State having- one vote, which, is cast as
a majority of the Representatives in the House from each.
State may determine, Mr. Adams had a majority in each,
of the Representatives from thirteen States. The vote
stood as follows:
Mr. Adams, having- a majority of all the votes cast, was
declared duly elected President for the ensuing- term.
It will be observed that Mr. Adams had not only fifteen
electoral votes less than Jackson in the Electoral College, but
that he had a majority of the electors chosen in only seven
States, whereas he obtained in the House of Representatives
when elected President the vote of thirteen States, three of
these being States which gave Jackson a majority op
their electoral, vote, namely, Alabama, Louisiana, and
Maryland; while three of the States which g-ave a majority
for Clay at the election voted for Adams in the House, namely,
Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio. North Carolina g-ave her
vote in the Electoral Colleg-e for Jackson, but in the House
of Representatives her vote was given to Crawford by
a vote of ten to three, in utter disreg-ard of the popular
vote of the people of the State as expressed at the ballot-box.
1 I present these facts to show how, under our present sys¬
tem, the voice of the people has been and may ag-ain be disre¬
garded. Nothing- could demonstrate more forcibly than this
simple statement the necessity for a chang-e in the manner of
electing- a President, if the will of the people as expressed at
the ballot-box is to determine every four years who shall dis¬
charge the powers and duties of the office of President of the
United States.
I also desire to call attention to the fact that the ma¬
chinery of electors, as provided by our present Constitution,
makes it possible for the will of the people to be defeated
after the appointment of electors. For instance, if a candi¬
date for the Presidency should have in the Electoral Colleg-e
but two or three majority of the electoral vote, and four or
five electors chosen by the majority in the different States
For Adams..
For Jackson.
For Crawford
13
7
4
— 473 —
should, either corruptly, ignorantly, negligently, or for any
cause, fail or refuse to attend at the place and on the day
designated by law for their meeting in each State, to vote for
the person designated on the ticket for President, or should
appear and vote for the opposing candidate, or vote blank,
the people who voted for such electors would be either mis¬
represented or unrepresented in the Electoral College, and
the candidate for whom a majority of electors was chosen to
vote would be legally defeated, although fairly elected.
This is not unlikely to happen at any election, unless each
State should provide by law for the contingency of absentees.
They could not provide a remedy for the betrayal of an
elector.
Of the presidential electors appointed for 1792, two in
Maryland and one in South Carolina failed to appear at the
time and place appointed for the meeting of electors, and did
not vote. For 1808 there was one in Kentucky. For 1812,
one in Ohio. For 1816, three in Maryland and one in Dela¬
ware. For 1820, one in Pennsylvania, one in Alabama, and
one in Tennessee. For 1824, one in Rhode Island. For
1832, three in Maryland. For 1864, one in Nevada. The
entire electoral vote for the State of Wisconsin was legally
lost to Fremont in 1856 by the accident of a snow-storm, and
would probably not have been counted if thereby the result
of the election could have been changed. There may have
been others which I have overlooked.
In 1797 Adams had seventy-one votes and Jefferson
sixty-nine, giving Adams but two majority. If three of the
electors who voted for Adams had failed to appear at the time
and place designated by law to vote for President, or had
refused to vote, or voted blank, Mr. Jefferson would have
been elected. It will thus be seen that of the number of electors
who have been appointed and three or four times failed to
vote for President, in one instance in our history such neglect
or refusal to act would have changed the result of an election
and defeated the legally expressed will of the people in the
selection of a President.
But I need not detain the House longer by presenting
reasons against a system so indefensible.
— 479 —
If the proposition which I have introduced should be
adopted and become a part of the Constitution, it will abolish
all the machinery of intermediate bodies, which now often
control or defeat the will of the people, whether it be national
conventions, electoral colleges, or the choice of a President
by the House of Representatives.
THE ELECTION OP A PRESIDENT BY THE HOUSE OP REPRESEN¬
TATIVES.
"We have had two elections in our history of a President
by the House of Representatives, and I trust the Constitution
may soon be so changed that we shall never have another.
Each State in such an election has one vote, and a ma¬
jority, as I have already said, of the Representatives in Con¬
gress from the States whose members are present and voting-
determine for which of the three persons returned to the House
the vote of the State shall be cast. At such an election the
Representatives in Congress elected by a minority of a people
may, and as a rule will, in such a contest elect a President.
Counting all the States, and we now have thirty-seven;
of these, under our present system ten may elect a President
if united. I will name them:
Votes.
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky ....
Massachusetts
Missouri
New York .. .
Virginia
Ohio
Pennsylvania.
Tennessee ...
16
13
11
12
11
33
10
21
26
10
Ten States
163
— 480 —
Votes.
Alabama 8
Arkansas 5
California 5
Connecticut 6
Delaware 3
Florida 3
Oregon 3
Georgia 9
Kansas 3
Louisiana 7
Maine 7
Maryland 7
Minnesota 4
Mississippi 7
Nevada 3
Nebraska 3
New Hampshire 5
New Jersey 7
Rhode Island 4
South Carolina 6
Texas 6
Vermont 5
"West Virginia 5
North Carolina 9
Wisconsin 8
Iowa 8
Michigan 8
Twenty-seven States 154
If at any time an election for President should devolve
on the House of Representatives, a majority of the Represen¬
tatives in Congress from nineteen of the thirty-seven States,
representing not more than one-fourth of the people and less
than one-third of the electoral vote, could by uniting elect
the President.
— 481 —
X,et me name the States :
, Votes.
Delaware 1
Florida 1
Kansas 1
• Nebraska 1
Nevada 1
Oregon 1
Minnesota 2
Rhode Island 2
Arkansas 3
California 3
New Hampshire 3
Vermont 3
West Virginia 3
Connecticut 4
South Carolina 4
Texas 4
Maryland 5
New Jersey 5
Mississippi 5
Nineteen States 52
Thirty-eight of the fifty-two members from the States
just named can control the vote of said States and elect the
President.
It will be observed that in the table from which I have
just read, we have six States, with but one vote each, while
seven others have but nineteen votes, and the six remaining
but twenty-seven. In all fifty-two votes. These nineteen
States have two Senators each, making in all thirty-eight
Senators, which, added to the fifty-two Representatives in
the House, makes ninety votes, and that number of electoral
votes.
In a few years, at most, six new States will be organized
out of our present Territories and admitted into the Union.
When admitted, they will be entitled under our present sys-
31
— 482 —
tem to cast three electoral votes each for President, making
eighteen votes, and in case the election of a President de¬
volves on the House of Representatives, they will each have
all the political power of New York or Ohio, with the cer¬
tainty that they cannot lose their vote in the House by an
equal division of their Representatives as the larger States
may ; thus increasing the inequality of political power which
now exists in the House when the election of a President de¬
volves upon it, to an extent which I fear the statesmen of the
country do not fully recognize. Admit six of the Territories,
and the number of States would be increased to forty-three,
and the electoral vote, if the States already named retain
their present number of votes, would be three hundred and
thirty-five.
Now, take Georgia, with her nine electoral votes, and
add to the ten States in the first table, and eleven States can
give one hundred, and seventy-two electoral votes, while the
remaining thirty-two States can give but one hundred and
sixty-three electoral votes. Thus eleven States out of forty-
three, if united, may, by a plurality of their voters, elect a
President; yet, if they are so divided that a majority of all
the electors are not chosen for one of the candidates, there is
no election, and the election devolves on the House of Repre¬
sentatives, when twenty-two States, representing only eighty-
nine electoral votes out of three hundred and thirty-five, or a
fraction more than one-fourth, and not one-fourth of the pop¬
ular vote, may elect a President.
Add the six new States, each with their three electoral
votes, to the six States now in the Union with but three votes
each, and we will have twelve States with one vote each in
the House, and but thirty-six electoral votes. When that
time comes — which will probably be within ten years at
most — we shall have, as I have shown, forty-three States, of
which twenty-two will be a majority, and this majority of
States can be controlled by thirty-five members ; eight votes
less than there are States in the Union. Thus it will be seen
that thirty-five men in the House, when composed op two
hundred and forty-nine members, will have the power
to elect a president should the election devolve on
the House op Representatives.
— 483 —
I need not add a word In condemnation of a sj^stem so ut¬
terly repugnant to all right-thinking- men. The fact that so
small a body of men will have it in their power to elect a
President, if the election can be carried into the House of
Representatives, will make it for the interest of desperate
political adventurers and place-hunters to combine and force
the election into the House. I would not have }-ou forget
that the Representatives who are to determine the choice of a
President when the election devolves on the House of Repre¬
sentatives are members of the Congress which expires on the
day the new President is to be inaugurated ; that the term
of all members not re-elected will cease on the 4th of March
after the election of the President, and that such members
will then be prepared to accept appointments under the new
Administration.
"With the States all restored, as we soon hope to see
them, there will be thirty-seven, as I have before said, and
the number of members in the House will be two hundred
and forty-three, one hundred and twenty-two of whom are a
majority. Yet thirty-eight members representing nine¬
teen States by voting together can constitutionally
elect the president when the election devolves on the
House.
These calculations are based upon the hypothesis that
every State will have a vote in such an election ; whereas it
will sometimes happen that the larger States will lose their
vote by an equal division in their delegation. This, of course,
cannot happen where a State has but one Representative.
"When there is but one majority in a delegation, any
member from such a State may change the result, or he may
refuse to vote, and thus deliberately, and for a purpose, cause
the vote of his State to be equally divided and lost, thus in¬
creasing the power of the few in the House who vote as a
unit.
The proposition which I make brings the Senate and
House of Representatives together in joint convention within
sixty days after the death, resignation or removal of the
President, and secures to each Senator and Representative
one vote.
— 484 —
An election of a President by a joint vote of the two
Houses of Congress can only happen under the plan which 1
have submitted, on the death, resignation or removal of the
incumbent; because the peottle will of necessity elect a Pres¬
ident at the second election without the intervention of any
body of men, thus taking1 away from the House of Represen¬
tatives this dangerous oower, now lodged by the Constitution
in the hands of less than one-third of its members, and secur¬
ing- it to the people.
Experience teaches that small bodies of men may be cor¬
rupted, the great body of the people never. Where there are
more than two presidential candidates, those representing1
political parties known to be in the minority in any State,
while acting1 separately, may unite and adopt a joint electoral
ticket, composed of men representing- their respective party
org-anizations, and thus obtain a plurality of the popular vote
in enough doubtful States to defeat an election by electors.
The election of the President would then devolve on the
House of Representatives, and one of the candidates of the
minority could there be elected, as I have shown, by less than
one-third of the Representatives in Congress, with a constit¬
uency numbering- less than one-fourth of the popular vote.
After an election, in which there was no choice by the
people, if they were permitted to vote the second time, they
would never permit an election of President to go to the
House of Representatives, as provided under our present Con¬
stitution. This is one of the important privileges which I
propose to secure directly to the people, so that in a country
extensive as ours the people may have an opportunity of vot¬
ing- for a second choice if they fail to secure their first choice.
In any light in which I am able to view the present mode
of electing a President, whether by the appointment of elec¬
tors or selecting him by the House of Representatives, it
seems to me to be violative of the democratic principle, and
dangerous to the peace and stability of the Government.
In conversing recently with one of the most distinguished
men of the nation 011 this subject he said that should an elec¬
tion such as I have described occur, and the choice devolve
on the House of Representatives, it would not dare to select
for President the candidate having the smallest vote ; that if
— 485 —
they did so it would end in revolution, and that until some
great agitation resulting- from such an outrage came upon
the country the people could not be aroused to the necessity of
providing against its probability.
However that may be, I feel it to be my duty to present
this subject to the consideration of this House and the coun¬
try, with the notice that while I remain a member of this
body I do not intend to rest until a judgment is rendered up¬
on it by Congress and the people.
Believing in the capacity of the people for self-govern¬
ment, I ask that all who are duly qualified shall vote directly
for President; that they be secured and protected in that
right, and be freed from the dictation and control of all inter¬
mediate and irresponsible bodies of men. Any substitute
for a popular vote makes it possible for intermediate bodies,
who are commissioned to act for the people, to betray them
or defeat their choice.
The system which now prevails of nominating and elect¬
ing our Presidents tends directly to corruption and fraud,
and to placing the government in the hands of a minority of
experienced and unscrupulous political intriguers.
Minorities cannot long administer a government such as
ours in this country by fraud and intrigue without inaugu¬
rating violence and bloodshed. The administration by the
slave oligarchy of this government for so many years by
fraud, intrigue, and force is a case in point.
The history of all republics which have risen and fallen
teaches us that liberty will perish if the people permit the
establishment of any substitute for popular elections.
It is the province of true statesmanship to supply a
remedy for the dangerous, unjust, and anti-democratic pro¬
vision of the Constitution which provides for the election of
our national Executive.
I have not provided for special elections by the people in
case of the death, disability, or removal of the President,
because I think the presidential term should commence and
end as now.
The business interests of the country cannot afford to go
through a presidential campaign oftener than once in four
years. If an election to fill a vacancy devolves on the Con-
— 486 —
gress, each Senator and Representative has one vote, which
is as equitable an apportionment according- to population as
can well be made, and the choice of an acting- President to
fill any vacancy which may happen will probably give as
much satisfaction in the mode proposed as any which could
be devised.
of the; executive and appointing power.
Mr. Chairman, in defining- the executive power the
framers of the Constitution declared that it should be in
a President, intending1 thereby to say that the executive
power of the nation should be vested in one person, to be
called a President, and that he should exercise the powers
and duties conferred in strict accordance with the grants and
limitations of the Constitution. Gradually but steadily the
executive power has strengthened itself and encroached upon
the legislative department, causing- the conflict through
which we have just passed.
The power of appointment committed to the President
under our Constitution has for years made him little else than
a king- for the time being-, except in name.
Insidious usurpations, long submitted to, but never con¬
templated by the Constitution, have so grown into custom
that to-day, without the tenure-of-office act, the vast power
in the hands of an ambitious, aspiring-, popular President
is dangerous to the peace and stability of the Union.
When it is remembered that there are nearly forty
thousand office-holders, whose salaries amount to millions,
and whose appointments, directly or indirectly, depend on the
word of the President, we will be able to comprehend some¬
thing of the overshadowing- power of the Executive.
We have all seen how dangerous a President may become
who is without character and without ability, even when
manacled with the civil tenure-of-office law.
Let the intelligent student read over our political history
for the past forty or fifty years, and he will be surprised to
find how large has been the number of Senators and Repre¬
sentatives who during- that time have openly or covertly be¬
trayed their constituents, and become the mere dependents of
— 487 —
the Executives who during- their official term filled the ptesi-
dential office.
I will not now speak of the baseness which has been so
open and unblushing- within the memory of us all. For the
sake of place and power a large number of public men, in the
past half century, have abandoned cherished convictions,
betrayed the people, and become the mere creatures of our
acting- Executives, so that to-day our political highway pre¬
sents an almost unbroken line of unburied political skeletons,
offensive to the sight and poisonous to our political atmos¬
phere. Sir, let any man read our political history for the
past forty or fifty years, and he will find that an executive
nod to a representative of the same political party has been
more potent, as a rule, than the will of his constituents. I
admit that this abasement was far more g-eneral than it is to¬
day, during1 the period in which the slave-masters of the
South dominated over the nation and northern doug-hfaces
did their bidding- with alacrity and without question.
Experience has demonstrated the fact that executive
blandishment and patronage have been used with marked suc¬
cess within the memory of us all. Senators and Representa¬
tives of all parties have alike yielded to its seductive power.
The men usually selected to do the bidding- of an Execu¬
tive in defiance of the wishes of their constituents are men
elected from congressional districts which never re-elect their
representatives, or re-elect them but once. Such districts, as
a rule, send men to Congress who are without State or
national reputations, and as a consequence a larg-e number of
such men are always ready in the name of party to do the
bidding- of an unscrupulous Executive, and accept for their
services, when repudiated by their constituents, a petty ap¬
pointment, which men of character, ability, and a political
future would spurn. So long- as Representatives to Congress
are elected for but one, or at most for but two terms, and be¬
cause they reside in this or that county of a district rather
than because of their fitness, ability, or fidelity to principles,
and so long as the President is clothed with such vast ap¬
pointing- power, and he is permitted to demand, as now, of
his appointees, an indorsement of "his policy," including- his
policy for a re-election, as a condition to their appointment or
— 488 —
continuance in office, so long- will constituencies be betrayed
and political adventurers be successful.
Practically, sir, the demand made, disguise it as we may,
of the great body of men who are nominated to important
positions by every Executive ambitious for a re-election is,
will you pledge yourself to support "my policy?"
THE ROTATION SYSTEM—ITS STUPIDITY.
In a number of congressional districts personally known
to me, the rotation system prevails so rigidly that they never
re-elect a gentleman to Congress, no matter how able or
faithful. Political aspirants with their personal friends
come together in what they are pleased to call conventions,
and negotiations are deliberately entered into and a pro¬
gramme agreed upon, which must remain undisturbed for
years and with which no national exigency or local want of
the people must interfere. In these convention conclaves the
people are without a voice or vote, and in the name of party
they are bound hand and foot. It is generally agreed that
the nominee for the first term, in such district, after a new
apportionment, shall be given to the county having the most
political influence, if their local politicians can agree, and
thereafter, if there is more than one county in the district,
that the candidate shall rotate until each county shall in turn
be served with a candidate. Experience has demonstrated
how indifferent a majority of such Representatives are to the
wishes and wants of their constituents.
Of the practical inefficiency of such Representatives I
need not speak. It is not possible for them to be otherwise
than inefficient. Let the constituencies who have so re¬
peatedly suffered under this stupid system, and been hu¬
miliated, disgraced, and betrayed, apologize to the nation for
sending such men into her council halls, by speedily chang¬
ing a system which is the nursery of the most insufferable
demagogues.
I have known men who ought never to have been in¬
trusted with official position anywhere, and who probably
never would have been but for this system, change their resi¬
dence from one county to another for the express purpose of
— 489 —
securing- a nomination to Congress, and succeed. Their
anxiety to serve the dear people would become so great that
they would anticipate by removing1 into a county entitled
under their agreement to the candidate at the next election.
Mr. Chairman, what is a congressional district? Legally
and for the time being- it is one political community, as much
as any county. It is org-anized by law as an entirety for the
election of a Representative to Congress. The system which
provides for the rotation of the member from one county to
another every two or four years was not adopted in the in¬
terest of the people, but in the interest of politicians.
I know many constituencies will pardon me if I sugg-est
to such as are pledg-ed by their party leaders to the policy of
electing a Representative from each county in a district, or to
electing- anew and inexperienced man every two or four years,
that they modify it so far, at least, as to select a g-entleman to
represent them because of his character, ability and well-
known fidelity to principles which they regard as fundamen¬
tal, and that they require the candidate, as a condition to his
renomination, that he " board round," when at home, in each
county, after the custom of our western schoolmasters in
early times, so that each county in such district shall have
secured to it, at least once every year or two, a Representa¬
tive in Congress who shall thus become a resident of every
county. This would be a vast improvement on the plan so
long adhered to in the North, which plan enabled the politi¬
cal adventurers who have so often held the balance of power
in all our great national struggles to^crawl into the national
Congress. As a class these were the men who, at the bid¬
ding of the slave barons, betrayed the nation into the
adoption of the Missouri compromise of 1820; and again,
when it was repealed, whoSe votes enacted the so-called com¬
promises of 1850 into law, including- the infamous fugitive-
slave act, the Kansas-Nebraska acts of 1854, and the Lecomp-
ton constitution of 1856; in short, the men who betrayed the
nation in every great struggle between liberty and slavery
for the past half century.
A larg-e proportion of the men who thus betrayed their
constituents, after being- repudiated at home, received petty
appointments from the President. This custom of compen-
— 490 —
sating1 the nation's betrayers, by their appointment to office,
has been sanctioned and sanctified by long- and successful
usage, so that an act of successful treachery against a confid¬
ing constituency opens the door for promotion at the presi¬
dential mansion. All can understand that so corrupt and
corrupting- a custom could only be maintained by having
reckless demag-ogues and small men without character rotated
in and out of Congress as fast as possible. The South favor¬
ed the "rotation principle " for the North, but were too wise
and wily to adopt it themselves. The result was that with
the immense patronage of the Government in the hands of a
President controlled by the slave barons, liberty was always
betrayed.
Had I time I might here present some interesting and
instructive facts, showing- how few men the North main¬
tained in Congress beyond a single term, or beyond four
years in the House for twenty-five years before the war, and
how the South continued her Representatives until her men
of ordinary abilities became so familiar with the public busi¬
ness of the country that they came to be leaders in Congress,
and by a careful organization of the committees, controlled
the legislation of the nation.
When I came into the Thirty-sixth Congress the two
Senators from Florida—a political community without the
voting- population of the congressional district which I have
the honor to represent — were each at the head of an important
committee ; one at the head of the-Navy, the other of the
Post-office ; and this was a fair sample of the manner in which
committees were organized both in the Senate and House for
many years before the war. The whole State of Florida did
not have as many letters go through its post-offices in a year
as go through one city in my district in a single week; nor
did its entire commercial interests reach in one year an
amount equal in value to the commerce of Toledo every ten
days; and yet these two men shaped, and in a great measure
controlled, the postal and naval legislation of the country.
Thus the representatives of a class interest, numbering- but a
few"!hundred thousand slave-owners, the most offensive and
infamous oligarchy in history, by the political machinery of
conventions took possession of the Government in the name
— 491 —
■of Democracy and filled its most honorable and responsible
offices from their own number. I am glad to be able to state
that thousands of good men all over the country are begin¬
ning' to see and feel the necessity of a radical change in this
matter. Of the many letters which I have received, and seen
when received by others, none is more to the point than one
shown me a few moments ago by my colleague [Mr. Law¬
rence] , an extract from which I will read. He says to my
colleague:
" Go on. You have borne the heat and burden of the
day. ' We do not want to trade horses while crossing the
stream.'
"We like your bold, manly course, and have learned to
appreciate it the more since we see so many going over to the
enemy. We want to make the example that it pays better to
remain with our colors than to sell out and desert."
dangerous power of the president in controlling CON¬
gressional nominations and elections.
At least one-third of all the congressional districts in the
nation may safely be classed, in ordinary party times, as
politically doubtful. Such districts are organized by the
•dominant party in every State legislature for the purpose of
securing, if possible, to their party, every Representative in
Congress from the State.
A majority of all doubtful or close districts have what is
known as a balance-of-power faction in each party, composed
for the most part of dissatisfied and disappointed men, with
political adventurers for leaders, who are always plotting for
office, especially for congressional nominations, on the prin¬
ciple of "rotation," and "that this or that man has had it
long enough; and that it is their turn now." If they cannot
secure a nomination from one party they do not hesitate to
ask a nomination from the opposite party. If they cannot
secure a nomination from either party they do not hesitate
TO "bolt" or to enter into any coalition which prom¬
ISES TO secure defeat to any man who stands in their
"WAY. In short, they will do any act which they believe will
compel one or both parties to a compromise in the selection
— 492 —
of its candidates, under the threat of defeat if compliance
with their demand is refused. These demands are usually
the petty offices at the disposal of the Representative from
the district, and a bargain as to which faction and county in
the district shall have the congressional candidate for the
next term.
In this way, with the aid of the plausible cry, '' rotation
in office," political apostates and adventurers and men with¬
out character, ability, or principle have so often in our his¬
tory crept into the council halls of the nation and misrepre¬
sented and betrayed the people.
In such districts as I have described, the question too
often asked by the best men of both parties is not who is the
most reliable and competent man to represent us in Congress,
but " who can the most certainly defeat the candidate of the
opposition." To accomplish this, men who never were'
Republicans have been selected as candidates and voted for
by Republicans since the organization of that great party,
and sometimes apostates, or men but recently members of the
opposite party, have been nominated by Republican conven¬
tions, as in the case of Andrew Johnson, not because they
ever advocated or honestly entertained Republican ideas, but
because political tricksters and schemers promised their sup¬
port, and induced the party to believe that success could thus
be secured at the election by the nomination of such candi¬
dates, and that defeat would be inevitable without it. As a
rule the men thus nominated are but political adventurers,
thrown to the surface like drift-wood in a flood, and, though
they soon sink with their own rottenness, while they are in
power they corrupt and debase the nation.
The insane desire for mere party success rather than the
triumph of ideas in the election of honorable and responsible
men of unquestioned fidelity has invited and encouraged, in
almost every congressional district in which the party ma¬
jority is uncertain, a score or more of "bolters," apostates,
and political trimmers to thrust themselves upon both the
great political parties as candidates for nomination to Con¬
gress. As a class these are the men who in the past thirty or
forty years have so often betrayed constituencies at the bid-
— 493 —
ding- of an unscrupulous, ambitious Executive, and received
their reward in some petty office.
When a State or congressional district accepts as its
representative a drunkard or a man without moral character
and destitute of political principles, it treads the path which
leads the nation on the highway to ruin. Far better that a
party be defeated than that it should elect a man morally
base enough to betray it. Far better defeat with men of
character representing its ideas than success with men who
represent neither moral nor political convictions. That a
system so vicious and corrupting should so long have continued
in any State or locality, even under the despotism of party
conventions, is one of the inexplicable mysteries of Ameri¬
can politics.
To the fact that the rotation system was in a measure
abolished by the Republican party, and faithful and expe¬
rienced men retained in Congress from a large number of
Northern States during the war and since, does the nation
owe in great part the successful legislation which carried it
triumphantly through the war and prepared it the better to
resist the usurpations and defeat in part the conspiracies of
the acting President and his co-conspirators and allies.
With new, untried, and inexperienced men every two or four
years such a result would have been impossible.
So long as the system which I have described of nomi¬
nating and electing Representatives to Congress is adhered to
— and I concede that the district system is infinitely better
than the general ticket system plan .which at one time pre¬
vailed in a number of States, where the entire congressional
delegation from a State was elected on one ticket — I say
that so long as the system now prevailing of selecting Rep¬
resentatives to Congress continues and the vast patronage of
the Government remains, as now, in the hands of the Execu¬
tive, so long will a new set of unknown and unfaithful men
be found in Congress to do the bidding of any Executive of
their party who is unscrupulous enough to employ the Gov¬
ernment patronage for that purpose.
Had Mr. Lincoln desired the defeat of the radical Repub¬
lican candidates for Congress in 1862 he could have secured
it in a majority of congressional districts in the nation. Had
— 494 —
Mr. Johnson been a man of character and ability he could in
1866, by ordinary management and a judicious use of the
public patronage, have secured in close districts the defeat of
all Republicans opposed to " his policy." Through his thir¬
ty or forty thousand appointees and his newspaper organs
professing Republicanism, and such Republicans as he then
had in Congress co-operating with him, he could have said,
in a way not to be misunderstood, that such a result would
be agreeable to him, and that a large number of leading Re¬
publicans, in Congress and out of it, concurred with him in
believing that the defeat of all radicals was necessary to the
complete success of the Republican party. And there were
a number of professed Republicans then in Congress stupid
enough or base enough to listen to such schemes and to say that
the President's purposes were "to fight out his differences
with the radicals in the Republican party;" that " in no event
would he go over to the enemy." Fortunately for the nation,
Mr. Johnson's open apostasy and base betrayal of the great
party which elected him ; his offensive and disgusting exhi¬
bition of himself throughout the country, and the want of
character in his so-called Republican adherents was all that
saved us from division and defeat at the elections in 1866 and
since.
Mr. Chairman, there are but few congressional districts
in which any President of character and good standing with
his party may not, by a free use of the vast patronage in his
hands, defeat, either for nomination or election, any candi¬
date of his party for • Congress who is obnoxious to him.
That such vast power ought not to be lodged in the hands of
any President will be conceded by all true friends of demo¬
cratic government.
As the nation grows in population and wealth this vast,
uncontrolled and uncontrollable power increases and becomes
more dangerous. Its corrupting influence reaches out and
subsidizes men in every county of the republic.
Sir, on behalf of all who cherish the democratic idear
I plead for the submission, by this Congress, of such an
amendment to the Constitution as shall, when adopted, give
security against the corruption and the danger which is in-
— 4V£> —
separable from the selfish, use of the vast appointing1 power
in the hands of any President desirous of a re-election.
Before the rebellion such Representatives in Congress as
I have described were always sufficiently numerous to pre¬
vent, by uniting with the opposition, the passage of any
important measure obnoxious to the President if he exercised
the veto power. Hence we see that a President of character
and ability may, with the vast patronage at his disposal and
a liberal use of the veto, defy, in ordinary party times, both
Congress and the nation for his entire term.
the remedy op impeachment but "a scarecrow."
As to the impeachment and removal of a President, that
will probably never be attempted again. The late melan¬
choly failure or refusal of the so-called high court to convict
and depose an admitted usurper and violator of law, who
was without a party and powerless to resist any order of that
tribunal, has practically settled that question for all time to
come. The nation must seek some other protection from the
usurpations of its Executives than the high court of impeach¬
ment. Jefferson said that the clause of the Constitution
providing for the impeachment of the President would prove
but "a scarecrow." To-day we all know that it is a dead
letter.
"We have all witnessed the resort which was had by artful
men to technical subterfuges and legal sophistries in order to
release the President from all accountability to the nation.
If Jefferson at the time of the adoption of the Constitu¬
tion could foresee and declare that '' impeachment would prove
but a scarecrow," we who have witnessed its practical work¬
ings may, I think, without incurring the charge of rashness,
proclaim it " a national farce."
In the light of what has so recently transpired I am more
profoundly impressed than ever with the great wisdom and
prophetic foresight of the real statesmen of the Revolution.
They comprehended the danger of executive power and the
impossibilit}7 of successful impeachment before the Senate.
In the Virginia convention Mr. George Mason, in speak¬
ing of this defect in the national Constitution, said;
— 496 —
"It has been wittily observed that the Constitution has
married the President and Senate —has made them man and
•wife. I believe the consequence that generally results from
marriage will happen here. They will be continually sup¬
porting" and aiding* each other. They will always consider
their interests as united. We know the advantage the few
have over the many. ThEY can with facility act in con¬
cert and on a uniform system; they may join schemes and
plot against the people without any chance of detec¬
tion. The Senate and President wtll form a combina¬
tion that cannot be prevented by the representatives.
The executive and legislative powers thus connected will
destroy all balances. This would have been prevented by a
constitutional council to aid the President m the discharge of
his office; vesting the Senate at the same time with the power
of impeaching them. Then we should have real responsi¬
bility. In its present form the guilty try themselves.
The President is tried by his counselors. He is not
removed from office during his trial. When he is arraigned
for treason he has the command of the Army and Navy, and
may surround the Senate with thirty thousand troops." . . .
"He may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by
himself. It may happen at some future day that he will
establish a monarchy or destroy the republic. If he
has the power of granting pardons before indictment
and conviction, may he not stop inquiry and prevent
detection?"
Mr. Madison answered Mr. Mason as follows:
" There is one security in this case to which gentlemen
may not have adverted. If the President be connected in
any suspicious manner with any persons, and there be grounds
to believe he will shelter himself, the House of Representa¬
tives can impeach him. They can remove him if found
guilty; they can suspend him when suspected, and the
power will devolve upon the vice-president. should
he be suspected also, he may likewise be suspended till
he be impeached and removed, and the legislature may
make a temporary appointment. this is a great se¬
curity."
I do not forget that Mr. Madison, after becoming Presi¬
dent, yielded to influences which have controlled other men
after obtaining power, and that he denied the authority of
Congress to suspend the President during trial. I prefer the
opinion of Madison when speaking in the Virginia conven¬
tion, to the opinion of Madison after he became President.
— 497 —
Mr. Monroe, who afterwards became President, declared that
the power conceded to the Executive under the Constitution
was dangerous to the liberties of the people. He said:
"The President ought to act under the strongest im¬
pulses of reward and punishment, which are the strongest
incentives to human action. There are two ways of secur¬
ing this point. He ought to depend on the people oe
America for his appointment and continuance in office.
He ought to be tried by dispassionate judges. His respon¬
sibility ought, further, to be direct and immediate."
. . . "To whom is he responsible? To the Senate, his
own council. If he makes a treaty bartering the interests
of his country, by whom is he to be tried? By the very per¬
sons who advised him to perpetrate the act. Is this any
security?"
Mr. Grayson, another distinguished member of the same
convention, during the debates from which I have just
quoted, said:
"Consider the means of importance he (the President)
will have by appointing officers. If he has a good under¬
standing with the Senate they will join to prevent a dis¬
covery of his misdeeds." . . . "As this government is
organized it would be dangerous to trust the president
with such powers. How will you punish him if he abuse his
power? Will you call him before the Senate? They are his
counselors and partners in crimes. Where are your checks?
We ought to be extremely cautious in this country. If ever
the Government be changed it will probably be into a
despotism."
Has not our recent experience justified all that was said
by the considerate statesmen from whom I have quoted, of
the danger of executive power and the impossibility of redress
by impeachment and trial before the Senate. These brief
speeches are so conclusive, when coupled with events which
have just transpired, that I do not hesitate to declare the
remedy by impeachment for executive crimes and misde¬
meanors "a national farce." From all that ha^ transpired
am I not justified in so proclaiming? What are the facts?
The great criminal of the nineteenth century was brought
to the bar of the nation's appointed court, and the issue
proved too much for the weakness of human nature. The
— 498 —
executive power asserts its defiance of laws and Constitution
and its supremacy over both, and the people are powerless in
the presence of the usurper. Weeks ago he is said to have
communicated the forthcoming- decision of the Senate and
named the very members thereof who were to vote for his
acquittal. The people with one accord had pronounced him
guilty, but the high court enter up a verdict of acquittal.
All this is done under the sanction of a judicial oath, and
the people are told that they must not go behind that to
question the judicial verdict of Senators. In answer to this
I need only reply that the vilest enormities ever inflicted on
mankind of which we have any record in history were com¬
mitted under the sanction and solemnities of a judicial oath.
If public rumor be true, the verdict acquitting the Presi¬
dent was not rendered because of law or evidence, but was
the result of a secret, deliberate and carefully organized com¬
bination, brought about by personal hatreds, individual am¬
bitions, presidential electioneering schemes in the interest of
office-holding and office-seeking cliques; and alas! all fear by
a more monstrous prostitution of the great trust committed
to each individual member of the court which shall be name¬
less here.
If such combinations, with the means which are said to
have been employed, may successfully prevent the removal of
a dangerous and guilty ! resident, by the great tribunal pro¬
vided by our fathers for the protection and security of the
republic, we may look for th~ early inauguration of a policy
which will speedily bring into entire subordination the legis¬
lative to the executive department of the Government.
From the judgment of this high tribunal, made under
the solemn obligations of a judicial oath, we intend to ap¬
peal to a higher and safer tribunal, the great tribunal of the
people, who, though not acting under the sanction of official
or judicial oaths, will render a verdict quite as honestly and
quite as free from partisan hatred — a verdict which shall, at
all events, be free from the taint of dishonor and corruption.
To me the only hope of the nation is in that power
which can make Presidents and Senators. To that incorrup¬
tible power we shall appeal from a verdict which is utterly
indefensible and a mockery of justice.
— 499 —
To the people we also intend to appeal for an amend¬
ment to their organic law which shall abolish the Vice-Pres*
idential office and provide against the re-election of any man
to the Presidency, as a means of obtaining- additional security
against the encroachments of the executive power. Pass
this amendment; secure a fair representation to the minority;
provide for a modification of the veto power by authorizing;
the President to return a bill with his objections, but provide
that on a reconsideration a majority of the members elected
and qualified in the Senate and in the House of Representa¬
tives shall be required to enact the bill into law over the veto,
instead of two-thirds of a quorum, as now, and the people
will have all the security necessary to protect them ag-ainst
hasty, partisan or unconstitutional legislation. Add to this
a civil tenure-of-office act which shall take away from Senators
and Representatives the authority which custom has secured
to those representing the administration party of designating
persons for appointment and lodge it with a board of exam¬
iners, as free to act as the examining board at West Point,
which board shall examine all applicants for appointment
and for promotion, and before whom all shall have a fair
hearing, with a copy of the charges and specifications prior
to their dismissal from office ; and we will do something
toward remedying the present unjust and indefensible system
of appointing persons to office in our civil service. Provide
with this a modification of the pardoning power, which
ought never to be lodged in the hands of any one man, and a
provision authorizing the House of Representatives, by a
two-thirds vote, to demand a change of any member of the
Cabinet, and the people will retain in their hands such con¬
trol of their public servants as will be a guarantee of their
fidelity and faithfulness. In this way the dangerous assump¬
tions of the Executive can be successfully provided against
and the rights and liberties of the people preserved. If some
such provision as I have suggested is not adopted, then the
declaration made by Franklin in the convention which
framed the Constitution, that —
u The executive power will be always increasing here as
elsewhere till it ends in monarchy,"
— 500 —
will, I fear, some day not far distant become a prophecy ful¬
filled.
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES NOT SELECTED BY CONVENTIONS BE¬
CAUSE OF FITNESS, CHARACTER, OR ABILITY.
Mr. Chairman, the considerations which so often prevail
in the nomination of Representatives to Congress in closely-
contested districts have too often prevailed with both parties
in the nomination of their presidential candidates. The
question asked by the leaders and active men in each party is
not, as it should be, " Who of all the public men of my party
is the best qualified, because of executive ability, character,
culture and fidelity to principles, to discharge the duties of
the presidential office with credit to himself and honor to the
nation both at home and abroad; who has the most honor¬
able record, the most blameless public and private life with
which to adorn and dignify the most exalted and honorable
political office on earth?" But the question asked is, '' "Where
can we find a candidate without a public record, a man of
whom our opponents can say nothing-, and of whom we may
say what we please, to satisfy the interests or prejudices of
any locality without fear of contradiction; a man who will the
most certainly secure the electoral vote of this or that State
which political prophets declare to be doubtful; States which
are conceded to hold the balance of power in the presidential
contest?" These are the questions asked.
It could not well be otherwise under such a political sys¬
tem than that untried, unfaithful and incompetent men, com¬
paratively unknown to the great body of people, should so
often have reached the presidential office. I need not cite
more than one instance in our history to show how success¬
fully the honest voters of a great State have been defrauded
and betrayed by the nomination of such men as I have de¬
scribed.
In 1844 the people of Pennsylvania were induced to vote
for James K. Polk and against Henry Clay, because the Dem¬
ocratic leaders in that State adopted and carried upon all
their banners the rallying watchwords, "Polk, Dallas and
the tariff of '42," watchwords which would have defeated
— 501 —
them if placed upon their banners in the South, or "West.
After the election the people whose votes had thus been ob¬
tained were openly and unblushingly betrayed by the repeal
of the tariff of 1842, which act received the casting- vote of
Vice-President Dallas, of Pennsylvania, and secured the ap¬
proval of President Polk.
The people who have been so often betrayed begin to
recog-nize the fact that treachery in politics has become a
trade, and that so long- as the convention and electoral sys¬
tem prevails they are powerless in the hands of its managers.
They know that, as a rule, so long- as the people submit
to this system, no man will be nominated by either party for
the Presidency who is their first choice, or for whom a major¬
ity of the electors of either party would voluntarily vote for
nomination at the ballot-box, if they could do so under the
protection of law.
Adopt the system which I propose and no third or fourth-
rate man would probably ever be nominated for President,
certainly no man could by any possibility be nominated
whose political opinions were unknown and with whose polit¬
ical record the people were not familiar. The Republican
party with such a system would never have been g-uilty of the
folly of nominating- Andrew Johnson — nor would the voters
in the Democratic party entertain for a moment the proposi¬
tion to nominate the Chief Justice as their candidate. Yet
Johnson was nominated by a Republican convention and
some of the Democratic manag-ers profess to favor the nom¬
ination of Mr. Chase in their convention.
All know that Johnson was the choice of a few tricksters
in the Baltimore convention, and not the choice of the Re¬
publican party. Mr. Chase would not be the first choice of
one Democrat in a thousand, yet men are plotting- for his
nomination in the Democratic convention, knowing- that if he
can be nominated the despotism of king- caucus would compel
the party to }rield him its support.
In order to obtain a sufficient number of votes to be in¬
cluded in the list of the five hig-hest or the three hig-hest
voted for at the first election, it would be necessary, under
the plan which I propose, to present to the voters of both
parties or all parties, men of well-known character, ability
— 502 —
and political integrity. Ko faction or minority in any party
could then form combinations and secure nominations by
fraud, nor could they defeat, as now, the nomination of any
man who was the choice of the majority; schemers could
not hold the "balance of power" in any State, and compel
the nomination of their candidate on pain of defeat at the
election. The voice of each party in the nation would speak
and be -heard as a unit, and there would be 110 desperate
efforts made, as now, by either party to secure a bare major¬
ity in large States by fraud and corruption, in order to secure
their electoral vote.
This proposition is so just that I hope it will commend
itself to the Congress of the nation, as I am confident it will
to the great body of the American people. Its adoption
will secure to the voters of the nation a system, plain, simple,
natural— a system free from complications and from the con¬
trol of minorities — one which permits no body of men or
party machinery to interpose between the people and the
ballot-box.
CITIZENSHIP SUFFRAGE
Mr. Chairman, if we adopt the proposition for the elec¬
tion of the President by a direct vote of the people, the neces¬
sity of securing the privileges of the ballot to every citiz&n
without distinction of race or color, whether native or foreign
born, will be conceded by all who desire the unity and stabil¬
ity of our Government.
While I hold that Congress has the power, under the
Constitution as it is, to clothe every citizen with the privilege
of the ballot, I am confident it will never be. secured to them
except by an amendment to the national Constitution.
I am ready now, as I have been for years, to vote for an
act of Congress securing the great privilege of the ballot to all
citizens without regard to race or color in every State and
Territory of the Republic.
I cannot, however, shut my eyes to the fact that such an
act of Congress passed so soon after the rejection by a num¬
ber of States of amendments to their constitutions proposing
to confer suffrage on colored citizens, would meet with such
— 503 —
determined and united opposition from the so-called Demo¬
cratic party and from some professed Republicans, that in
many localities it would end in violence and resistance to the
execution of the law.
I need not add that this resistance and violence would be
inaugurated by the very class who to-day would demand the
prompt and merciless execution of the infamous and brutal
fugitive-slave act, if slavery were not abolished
In the name of democracy and Christianity the enslave¬
ment of men has been sanctioned, and the most God-defying
laws executed with the basest alacrity; while those enact¬
ments which ennoble and dignify the human race and recog¬
nize the rights and privileges of men are condemned and re¬
sisted by its professed disciples.
I want citizenship and suffrage to be synonymous. To
put the question beyond the power of States to withhold it, I
propose the amendment to article fourteen, now submitted.
A large number of Republicans who concede that the
qualifications of an elector ought to be the same in every
State, and that it is more properly a national than a State
question, do not believe Congress has the power under our
present Constitution to enact a law conferring suffrage in the
States, nevertheless they are ready and willing to vote for
such an amendment to the Constitution as shall make citizen¬
ship and suffrage uniform throughout the nation.
For this purpose I have added to the proposed amendment
for the election of President a section on suffrage, to which I
invite special attention.
This is the third or fourth time I have brought forward
a proposition on suffrage substantially like the one just pre¬
sented to the House. I do so again because I believe the
question of citizenship suffrage a question which ought to
be met and settled now. Important and all-absorbing as
many questions are which now press themselves upon our
consideration, to me no question is so vitally important as
this. Tariffs, taxation and finance ought not to be permitted
to supersede a question affecting the peace and personal
security of every citizen, and, I may add, the peace and
security of the nation.
— 504 —
No party can be justified in withholding- the ballot from
any citizen of mature years, native or foreign born, except
such as are non compos or are guilty of infamous crimes; nor
can they justly confer this great privilege upon one class
of citizens to the exclusion of another class simply because
one is white and the other black.
True democracy pleads for the equal rights of all men
before the law. It demands the ballot for every man, because,
under a government such as ours, the ballot is the poor man's
weapon of protection and defense. It gives him dignity and
power; it recognizes his manhood and secures him justice; it
makes the government his agent instead of his master. We
all know from experience something of the educational in¬
fluence and self-protecting power of the ballot.
It quickens and expands the thoughts of men and enables
them the better to comprehend their own interests and the
higher and more important interests of the State. To secure
this self-educating, self-protecting power to all, I again press
upon your consideration this amendment. Its adoption will
make the national Constitution what it ought to be, the
shield of every citizen, so that no State may ever again
deprive him, without just cause, of this highest privilege of
American citizenship; so that hereafter, if a citizen remove
from one State into another, he shall not on that account be
deprived by State law of the ballot and be treated in his own
country as an alien.
Pass this amendment, and we shall conform our national
Constitution to our new condition as a nation. We will there¬
by place in the hands of each citizen a new power for its
preservation, so that we shall become, in fact, one people,
living under a common Constitution, which is the outgrowth
of civilization, experience, and necessity; a Constitution
which recognizes justice as the supreme law and reflects the
convictions and aspirations of a free and united people. To
this proposition, so long cherished and believed by me to be
for the best interests of my country, I invoke the considerate
judgment of all men and an impartial verdict at the bar of
public opinion.
HON. JAMBS M. ASHLEY UNANIMOUSLY RE-NOMI¬
NATED FOR CONGRESS
by the republican congressional convention of the
tenth district.
At Napoleon, August 19, 1868.
The Republican Congressional Convention for the Tenth
District met, pursuant to call, at Napoleon on the 19th inst.,
and organized by electing- Hon. E. S. Blakeslee of "Williams
County, President, and F. C. Cully, of Wood County, Secre¬
tary. Hon. J. M. Ashley was nominated by acclamation.
The Committee on Platform presented their report, which
was unanimously adopted. Among the resolutions were the
following:
Resolved, That in the Hon. J. M. Ashley, the 10th
Congressional District has a true, worthy and able Represen¬
tative, and we do hereby most cordially endorse his political
action as in harmony with true Republican principles.
Resolved, That we cordially r approve and recommend
the adoption of the constitutional amendment introduced into
Congress, on the 29th of May last, by our Representative,
Hon. J. M. Ashley, so far as it proposes the election of a
President by a direct vote of the people. That we also en¬
dorse his proposition to make citizenship and suffrage uni¬
form through all the States and Territories of the republic.
The Committee appointed to notify Mr. Ashley of his
nomination, returned and reported Mr. Ashley present to
speak for himself. Mr. Ashley was received with enthusias¬
tic applause, and addressed the convention as follows:
(505)
— 506 —
Mk. President and Gentlemen op the Convention:
With all my heart I thank you for this generous and cor¬
dial welcome.
I have no words at command with which to clothe the
thoughts struggling in my heart for utterance. I would that
I had command of language, that I might appropriately ex¬
press to you the emotions that well up from my heart to my
lips, so that you might realize how deeply and sensibly I feel
the value of your unwavering support. As in the past it
has strengthened me in the discharge of every public duty
and in all our political struggles, so in the future it will
nerve my arm in the battle for the right.
I appear before you in obedience to your summons, to
accept the nomination which you have just tendered me with
such unanimity and enthusiasm.
I take with pride the position which you have assigned
me, and beg you and the noble constituency whom you have
the honor to represent, to accept my grateful acknowledg¬
ments for these repeated and distinguished marks of their
respect, esteem, and confidence.
We are about to enter upon a campaign in the Tenth
District, the importance of which must not be underestimated.
I shall need and hope to have your hearty co-operation,
as well as that of every Republican and every friend of the
workingman in the District.
Our labor is not for the mere triumph of party, or the
election of individual men, but for the triumph of great
principles, upon the success of which we believe the future
peace and welfare of the the nation depends. These princi¬
ples are authoritatively announced for us in the national
Republican platform which you have endorsed. I subscribe
to them, most heartily, so far as they go, and only wish they
were clearer and stronger in favor of impartial suffrage.
Conflicting political opinions, which are fundamental,
are sooner or later crystallized into political creeds and at¬
tract co their support all who honestly subscribe to them.
Hence we have conflicting political organizations. In a free
government, such as ours, they are a necessity. A republi¬
can government could not long exist without them. All will
— 507 —
agree that it is the duty of every citizen to support with its
influence and his ballot, the party which best represents his
political convictions.
Which of the two great parties now appealing- to you for
your support best represents your views of local and national
policy? Which by its acts and its history is the best entitled
to your confidence and gratitude? As you do not judg-e men
by their professions and promises, but by their acts and the
company which they keep, so if you are honest with your¬
selves and just to your country, you will not judg-e parties by
their promises and professions, but rather by their acts and
the company which they keep.
[Here the audience was so great as to fill the court-house
to suffocation, whereupon an adjournment was had to the
open air, where, to an immense crowd, Mr. Ashley continued
as follows:]
Let me ask what acts the party calling- itself Democratic,
has done for the past quarter of a century, whether in power
or out of power, which entitle it to your gratitude and sup¬
port? What promise has it made which it has not broken?
What prediction has it made, which has not been falsified?
What company has it been keeping- which entitles it to your
love and confidence and to the confidence and love of the
Union soldier?
From the election of VanBuren in 1836 to the election of
Mr. Lincoln in 1860, with the exception of one month, this
party has had absolute control of the National Government
and of nearly all the State governments. Its name was at¬
tractive; its professions hig-h-sounding-; its promises alluring-.
In the name of democracy it assumed unwarranted power.
It declared ag-ainst granting-special privileg-es to the few at
the expense of the many, while it fostered and aided in
building1 up an aristocracy the most despotic and offensive ever
known among- men: an aristocracy of slave barons. While
professing- to defend the liberties and the rig-hts of mankind,
it enslaved millions of men without scruple and sold them
without remorse, like beasts in the shambles. When the free
labor of the country saw and felt the degrading- competition
of slave labor with their own, and demanded that it should
not be permitted to g-o into Territories then free, this part}'
— 508—
"became the ally of the monopolists who claimed to own the
laborer, and at the bidding- of these slave barons, aided in
degrading* free labor by maintaining- that this oligarchy of
slave barons had a right to take their slaves into any free
Territory of the nation in defiance of the people. While pro¬
fessing- a love for the Union superior to all other parties, it
announced doctrines which, if practically applied, could only
result in the destruction of the Union. While charging- all
anti-slavery men with being- disunionists, they openly support
the most notorious disunionists for the most responsible offices.
To every exacting- demand of these slave barons it compelled
the nation to yield a degrading- obedience. With alacrity it
voted aye whenever they demanded more terrritory for the
extension of slavery. To their demand for a fugitive-slave
law, the most infamous known in all history, it willingly
consented. To their demand that the free territories of Kan¬
sas and Nebraska, which by solemn covenant had been dedi¬
cated to free labor, should be opened up to slavery, it abjectly
said amen. And finally, when this slave baron aristocracy
became satisfied that the free labor of the country would no
long-er submit in the name of democracy to their imperious
'demands and unconstitutional usurpations, they defiantly
proclaimed that if the people should elect a President in
favor of free labor and unfriendly to this privileged class
and the pretensions of slavery, they would put into practical
operation their doctrine of State rig-hts, secede from the
Union and destroy the government.
Even this traitorous threat was approved and defended
by a majority of the Northern leaders of this party, includ¬
ing* James Buchanan, ex-President Pierce, Gov. Seymour,
Vallandigham, Pendleton and Pugh. Some of these men
joined the traitors in declaring that the United States had
no constitutional power to prevent secession, and declared
menacingly that if the Union men of the nation attempted
to march an army into the South to put down rebellion, or in
their own language, ''attempted to coerce a sovereign
sister State, we would have to march over their dead
bodies."
I heard this declaration more than once from their
acknowledged leaders.
— 509 —.
This is the record of our opponents for a quarter of a
century before the war, on the question of slavery, the rig-lit
of secession and the power of the nation to protect its own life
when assailed.
I hold that slavery is violative of every democratic prin¬
ciple, and that a slaveholder at heart could no more be a
Democrat, in truth, than the prince of darkness could become
an angel of light. I hold that the maintenance by this par¬
ty of the rightfulness of slavery and their support of the slave
barons, laid the foundation for our late civil war, and that
their defense of the doctrines of state rights and secession aided
and precipitated the rebellion and encouraged and strengthened
it after the war began.
Indeed, without this aid and co-operation of Northern
pro-slavery Democrats, the rebellion would have been impos¬
sible, or if possible, must of necessity have been of but short
duration.
During- the canvass of 1860, this party openly declared
that if the friends of free labor elected Mr. Lincoln, the slave
•oligarchy would not submit. After his election and before
his inauguration, part of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet and many
of the recognized leaders of his party, conspired with the
slave-holding traitors in an attempt to take possession of the
National Capitol and inaug-urate their rebel g-overnment, and
thus prevent the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln at Washing-ton.
Their conspiracies, fortunately, failed, and Mr. Lincoln was
inaugurated. The g-overnment, however, was almost in
ruins, as they intended it should be, before Mr. Lincoln could
assume power and protect it. They had armed the South and
disarmed the North. They had deliberately destroyed the
national credit — bankrupted the treasury, and laid the
foundation for foreign intervention.
Seven States had seceded and formed a National Confed¬
erate Government, with the co-operation, or at least without
the protest, of Mr. Buchanan's administration. This Confed¬
erate Government had organized armies, which, under the
command of its authorized leaders, was marching- upon the
Capitol of the Republic. You cannot have forgotten that all
this occurred before Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated on the 4th
of March, 1861. After this, many of the Northern leaders of
— 510 —
this party, both in and out of Congress, joined in the support
of Buchanan's declaration that " if there was no constitutional
rig-ht for secession, there: was clearly no constitutional
authority to prevent secession by force."
They proclaimed every measure adopted by Mr. Lincoln
and the loyal Congress to put down the rebellion "danger¬
ous usurpations." They declared that Mr. Lincoln's procla¬
mations were all void, and the emancipation of the slaves a
violation of "vested rights." Indeed, during- the entire
war, nothing- was regarded by them as constitutional which
promised to crush the rebellion. They prophesied national
bankruptcy, and everywhere published that the national debt
would never be paid. They declared the war a failure, and
did all they could to make it a failure, by discouraging- enlist¬
ments, and encouraging- desertions ; by conspiring- to resist
the g-overnment and aid the rebellion by a counter Northern
insurrection. They were even g-uilty of the humiliating- in¬
famy of asking- Lord Lyons, the British Minister, to co-oper¬
ate with them in securing- the intervention of the five great
powers of Europe in favor of the rebel cause. Thanks to the
heroism, endurance and fidelity of the Union soldiers and the
great party to which you and I belong-, the conspiracies of
these men all failed; their prophecies all proved false, and
the mightiest rebellion the world ever saw was crushed; the
constitutional authority of the nation maintained over every
foot of the national territory without compromise and without
dishonor, and but for the conduct of this party for three
years, and their co-operation with Andrew Johnson, every
Southern State would ere this have been restored to its
"practical relations in the Union," and the nation
placed beyond the dang-er of another rebellion. After the re¬
bellion was crushed and the rebel armies disbanded, these
men who before the war were the political disciples of the
rebel chiefs, and their open and secret allies during- the war,
now unblushingiy apologized for and defended the "lost
cause," declaring- that the rebels had committed no crime,
and had lost none of their rig-hts by secession and rebellion,
but were entitled without conditions, and on their own mo¬
tion, to return to the national Congress, with all the rig-hts,
privileg-es and dig-nities of loyal citizens and loyal States.
— 511 —
This wonderful party could never have survived its great
crimes and violated pledges, its betrayal of freedom, and its
hostility to free labor, but for its attractive and alluring-
name.
It has opposed every reform in the interest of liberty and
free labor for the past quarter of a century. It opposed the con¬
stitutional amendment abolishing1 slavery throughout the re¬
public, and sought to defeat the ratification of the Fourteenth
Amendment, recently adopted, which amendment secured the
equal rights of all citizens before the law and the equal pro¬
tection of the law to every stranger within our gates. It
opposed the restoration of the rebel States to the Union on
the basis of justice, and became the ally of our apostate
President, and with the aid of seven wise and incorruptible
judicial Republican Senators, saved him from the conviction
due for his indefensible crimes.
At last it openly joined hands in its great wigwam in
New York with a majority of the late rebel leaders, and has
presented for your suffrage Seymour and Blair, on a platform
hostile to peace and constitutional government.
In all their leaders said and did in that convention, you
will find no sentiment in favor of universal liberty, or im¬
partial suffrage—nor in platform or speech will you find a
word or line in condemnation of the rebellion and its horrible
crimes; but everywhere outspoken sympathy with the rebel
leaders and their agents, and outspoken hatred of the
nation's deliverer and peerless chieftain, General Grant.
This is in brief, a summary of the record, the prophesies
and the promises which the leaders of the so-called Demo¬
cratic party, who are now asking for your votes, have made
and the company they have kept and are now keeping.
If any man approves and endorses all this, and much
more than I have time to enumerate, let him vote for Seymour
and Blair, and the nominees of that party. If he does not,
let him vote for Grant and Colfax, and to maintain the great
party that saved the nation's life, secured the triumph of
free labor, and the liberty of millions.
Let me now ask you to look for a few moments at the
record of the Republican party; a record so grand and noble
that no poor words of mine can present it, as it is mdelibiv
— 512 —
impressed upon the minds and hearts of all who love liberty
and justice.
Its principles came down to earth more than eighteen
hundred years ago. Our fathers, when they established this
government, recognized and embodied its great principles in
our matchless Constitution. Prosperity came, and slavery,
which our fathers supposed would be powerless under the
new government, soon overshadowed and controlled it, and
for many years, in the name of democracy, made the love of
liberty a crime.
For nearly forty years a few of the grandest men in the
world's history, went forth like one of old crying in the
wilderness, to prepare the way for the national jubilee of our
redemption. Without official position, without money, with¬
out power, they went forth proclaiming the gospel of liberty
for all, and because each " came neither eating nor drink¬
ing" in the Democratic wigwam, they said, "he hath a
devil," and being unable to listen and withstand such dan¬
gerous heresies, they forthwith stoned and mobbed, and as¬
sailed with unsavory eggs these prophets of the new evan¬
gel, who, in the land of Washington, came pleading for the
liberty of the human race.
After a long ml weary struggle, in which the war
against slavery was waged with irresistible power, despite
mob law and mob violence and the fiendish spirit of hate and
prejudice, Abraham Lincoln was carried by its matchless
force into the presidential chair.
The slave barons' rebellion was then inaugurated and
crushed. The fundamental principles proclaimed by the
Republican party, became the corner-stone of our national
Constitution. Millions of men emancipated by Mr. Lincoln's
proclamation, had their freedom guaranteed and made secure
by an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery
forever, and after a long strug-gle they were enfranchised in
all the rebel States, so that n^ver again, on American soil,
shall a slave stand in chains beneath
"The starry-gemmed flag of the free."
The Fourteenth Amendment was also proposed and adopted,
and to-day it is part of our national Constitution. These two
— 513 —
amendments are worth the struggle of a century. By them
liberty and justice are established throughout all the borders
of the republic. All men are thus made equal before the
law, and cannot be denied, in any State, the equal protection
of the law. No traitor of the class enumerated can hold any
office of honor, trust, or profit until his disabilities are
removed by a two-thirds vote of each House of Congress.
The public debt, created to save the nation's life, and to pay
the pensions and bounties of soldiers and their widows and
orphans, shall not be questioned in any place.
What a sublime triumph! The rebellion crushed, and
liberty and equal justice for all made the fundamental law.
No broken promises; no violated faith; no alliance with
treason; no conspiracy with European monarchies in aid of
the rebel cause and against the life of the republic. This is
the record of the Republican party.
For all this we are indebted to the men who received
into their hearts the sublime doctrines of the Declaration of
Independence, and consecrated their lives to a vindication of
the great truths which it contains.
To the anti-slavery men and women of the United
States we owe our political redemption as a nation.
They who endured social and political ostracism, the
hatred of slave masters and the cowardly assaults of Northern
mobs, in defense of those who were manacled and dumb, and
could not ask for help, were the moral heroes of our great
anti-slavery revolution. To them and to many thousands
whose names will never be written on the pages of history,
but whose lives were as true, as unselfish and as consecrated
as any, 13 the nation indebted for its regenerated Constitution,
its vindication of the rights of human nature,' and its solemn
pledge for the future impartial administration of justice.
To me these are the men whose lives are the most
beautiful and the most valuable. I admire most of all that
man who, having adopted ideas which he believes to be right,
adheres to them through good and evil report, and conse¬
crates his life to their development. I do not ask whether he
agrees or disagrees with me on any other question. I only
— 514 —
care to know that lie follows with, fidelity his highest and best
convictions.
I hail any true man as a worthy co-worker in the inter¬
ests of mankind, who, with the same labor, can cause one
additional spear of grass to grow where but one grows now.
I welcome any man who, by any invention or contribution to
science or art, to literature, or to law, aids in elevating,
ennobling and bettering the condition of mankind.
The world is full of men whose pure and unselfish lives
ennoble and dignify the human race.
My exemplars are the men who in all ages have lived such
lives, whether religious reformers like Luther or "Wesley-, or
philosophers and statesmen like Hampden and Sydney, Locke
and Bacon, Cobden and Bright, and John Sl^art Mill, or like
our own Washington and Lincoln, Phillips and Garrison,
Chase and Sumner, Greeley and Gerrit Smith. To me the
only model statesman, is he who secures liberty and impartial
justice for all and protects the weak against the strong. He
is the statesman and the benefactor who aids in educating
the ignorant, and in lightening the cares of the toiling mil¬
lions. Since I became your representative I have attempted
to follow the pathway illumined by the footprints of such
men as I have named. How well I have succeeded you must
determine.
I welcome all men as co-laborers in the interests of
the liberty of mankind, whether agreeing with me or not,
who follow conscientiously their highest and best convic¬
tions, for "the: harvest is plenty but the laborers are
few."
He who consecrates his life to any great work in the in¬
terest of truth and justice, of science or mechanics, or anjT-
thing- which promises to benefit mankind, commands my
highest admiration. Only day before yesterday, from all
parts of Continental Europe there were gathered together in
Abyssinia, so recently the theatre of desolating war, a large
number of scholars and philosophers, to make astronom¬
ical observations in the interest of science, civilization and
peace.
As the world is interested in the event, and I hope is to be
benefited by the discoveries which the several corps of scien.
— 515 —
tific explorers now in that country may make, J allude to it
here, and use the fact, to illustrate what I mean, when I say
that I welcome and recognize all men, in whatever depart¬
ment of human labor, who follow their highest and best con¬
victions and consecrate their lives to the great work of better¬
ing the condition of mankind.
The gentlemen to whom I have referred visited Abyssinia
because there was to be a total eclipse of the sun in the far
East on the 17th of this month. The sun would be as far
from the earth as it ever is, while the moon was almost as
near. The sun would thus appear small, and the moon com¬
paratively large. These conditions make it favorable for
astronomical observations, and as the eclipse was expected
to be total in Abyssinia and remain unchanged for about
seven minutes, the men of science have gone thither.
Their theory is, that there is another and a younger
planet, nearer the sun than Mercury, which has never been
seen by mortal eye, and of whose movements they propose to
take observations. No telescope has ever yet penetrated this
space or revealed the mystery of the presence of this planet,
and yet there were hundreds of men gathered from all parts
of Europe day before yesterday, confident that their theory
would be confirmed. This to me is a sublime spectacle. Not
for the love of money, or power, or place were these men
gathered together, but for the love of science and the hope
of benefiting mankind. The men who in workshop, or field,
or garret, toil to develop any idea which promises to promote
the peace and happiness of the human race, are the men who
command my enthusiastic admiration.
These are the world's real heroes, to whom mankind owe
a debt of gratitude which they can never repay. These are the
kind of men for the most part who organized and consolidated
the great Republican party of America and led it to victory.
These are the men in whose presence the world should stand
with uncovered head.
There are thousands of men and women in this District
whose unselfish fidelity to the right, in all our great strug¬
gles, entitle them to be classed with the world's real heroes;
these are those whom I have sought more especially to repre-
— 516 —
sent; and tfyey are the men, I am proud to know, who have
upheld me in every battle.
In the presidential canvass upon which we are just en¬
tering-, this is the class of men upon whom the nation must
rely. Whatever may be our differences as to men, or on mi¬
nor questions of tariffs and taxation, we are all agreed as to
the imperative necessity of saving- the nation from the possi¬
bility of another rebellion. This can be done by the election
of General Grant, because all believe that his election will
give us peace. This, all men concede, will save us from a
reign of terror and violence. No existing- State government
will be subverted or overthrown. No loyal man, whether
white or black, will be disfranchised or deprived of his nat¬
ural or political rights, but the work of enfranchisement wi'H
go steadily and securely on until all-men who swear fidelity
to the Constitution shall be enfranchised and disenthralled.
I had intended, in what I said to-day, to render a short
account of my stewardship since I became your Representa¬
tive, but I have already detained you too long. There is one
matter, however, to which, in closing, I will refer to here
and at this time, so as to put to rest the silly inventions of
men who seem only to hope for political preferment by mis¬
representing and pulling others down.
If any man can point to a vote, or to a speech which I
have made in Congress in favor of or against the passage of
any law, to which he objects, I am ready to answer.
No man has ever been deceived, when voting for me, and
I do not intend that any man shall be deceived.
Upon the question of suffrage, I made a speech last year,
to which I wish to call your attention. You will find it in
the Congressional Globe of last December. I stand by the
propositions and declarations which I then made, because
they are the sentiments of my heart.
Agreeing with the great body of the Republican party
as to the practicability and necessity of impartial suffrage I
could never, by my vote, consent to the disfranchisement of
any person, competent for the ordinary duties of a citizen,
except as a punishment for crime.
I hold that every adult citizen of the United States, and
every adult citizen of a civilized nation who is naturalized
— 517 —
in the United States, and not disqualified because non com¬
pos, or by conviction for crime, ought to have a voice in the
affairs of his government. In this country our fathers pro¬
claimed the logic of the American revolution when they
declared the great fundamental truth, which was then, for
the first time, recognized among men, "that all governments
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Upon this impregnable truth I stand, as I have ever stood,
and plead for the enfranchisement of every citizen capaci¬
tated for the ordinary duties of life, whether native born or
naturalized, white or black. I demand that all shall have
the gj-.eat privilege and self-protecting power of the ballot
because they are American citizens. What I ask for myself
and mine I demand for the humblest among men. I have,
therefore, proposed that citizenship and suffrage should be
uniform throughout the nation, and this I am happy to know
you have authoritatively endorsed.
I hold that the government which does not secure equal
rights for all its citizens, without regard to race, nationality
or color, is not a just government, and is in no sense of the
word a democratic or republican government.
I say this much here and now on the question of suffrage,
because I have been falsely charged with attempting to dis¬
franchise American citizens, especially the Germans, who
have ever been my most earnest and consistent friends. I do
not now, nor have I ever advocated the establishment
op a standard for voting inconsistent with the idea op
impartial, suffrage.
I recognize, as the corner-stone of the republic, the com¬
mon sense and the love of justice of her toiling millions.
Their strong arms and brave hearts must ever be her shield
of protection and defense. As a nation, I know that our
future greatness, and grandeur, and glory, depend upon
them. By no act or vote of mine shall any natural right or
political privilege be taken away from any of these, whether
native or foreign born, either because they are poor, or be¬
cause they are ignorant, or because they are black, so long as
they recognize their allegiance to our Constitution, and live
in obedience to law, beneath the protecting folds of the ban¬
ner of the free.
— 518 —
w. j. gaines.
The speaker was frequently interrupted with applause
from the immense crowd he was addressing. The convention
dispersed at about 6 p. m.
Letter from Bishop "W. J. Gaines, D. D., Atlanta, Ga.
"We have never read a grander speech than the foregoing, made
on accepting- a political nomination. In thought and style, in cleai-
ness of statement, and in all that goes to make up a model and
manly political stump speech, this speech at Napoleon, in 1868, is not
surpassed in this collection. "I hold that'the government which does
not secure equal rights for its citizens, without regard to race, na¬
tionality or color, is not a just government, and is in no sense of the
word a democratic or republican government. I say this much here
and now on the question of suffrage, because I have been falsely
charged with attempting1 to disfranchise American citizens, especially the Germans,
who have ever been my most earnest and consistent friends. I do not, nor have I
ever advocated the establishmentof a standard for voting inconsistentwith
the idea op impartial suffrage." A careful reader of the orations and speeches
published in this volume, cannot fail to be impressed with [the dignity and character
of the man who made them. His unquestioned ability, his singleness of purpose,and his
transparent sincerity, shine out bright and clear on every page. In the fierce and pas¬
sionate battle between freedom and slavery, he early in life unselfishly espoused the
cause of our race, because, as he declared in some of the speeches in this book," he be¬
lieved that the true democratic idea recognized liberty as the birthright of the human
race." And this belief is so happily expressed and so generously stated in all he said
or wrote, when protesting against the enslavement of men,] that even now, it gives
force and power to what he then wrote and said. As our Methodist brethren say, he
simply believed, and so believing, was able to impress that belief on his hearers, and
now we do not doubt that the speeches which we have compiled will make a like im¬
pression on all who read this book. W. J. Gaines.
SPEECH
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO.
Delivered in the House of Representatives,
February 13th., 1869.
democratic representative government can only be
maintained by the subordination of the executive
and judicial to the legislative authority.
THE minority must have proportionable representation
IN state legislatures, and in the national congress.
The House being- in Committee of the Whole on the State
of the Union—
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, said:
Mr. Chairman: At the last session I proposed an amend¬
ment to the national Constitution which provided for the
abolition of the office of Vice-President, and for the nomina¬
tion and election of the President without the intervention of
caucuses, conventions, or presidential electors. In addition
to this there was a clause which provided that the election of
a President should never devolve, as now, on the House of
Representatives.
When submitting- that proposition I intended to do no
more than suggest the practicability of abolishing- the office
of Vice-President and to call the attention of the thoug-htful
men of the nation to the admitted defect in our present system
of electing- the President. I did not expect to secure, either
at that session or this, the favorable action of Congress on
(519)
— 520—
that proposition; nor do I now expect to secure favorable ac¬
tion on the propositions I am about to present. I know how
reluctantly the mass of mankind consent to reforms or chang-es
of any kind, especially in matters of government. I know
how accustomed they are to run in grooves, and how adverse
they are to agitators and to all ideas which disturb them or
jog- them out of their old and familiar paths; nor am I un¬
mindful of the fact that it would probably require years of
persistent labor to bring1 the people to approve the chang-es in
their org-anic law which I propose. John Stuart Mill, in
speaking- of g-overnmental reform, says that "there is a natural
prejudice ag-ainst everything- which professes much; that its
perfection stands in its way, and is the great obstacle to its
success." Admitting- the full force of this statement, and
realizing- how thankless is the self-imposed task which I am
about to undertake, I nevertheless feel it to be my duty, before
the expiration of my term of service, to offer for the consid¬
eration of the people, and especially for the consideration of
those who are soon to be charg-ed with the administration of
the Government, the propositions which I now make for
amending- the national Constitution. The clerk will please
read.
Mr. "Williams, of Indiana. I would like to ask the gen¬
tleman from Ohio why he offers these propositions now, if,
as he says, he has no hope of their passag-e during- this
Congress.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. The g-entleman from Indiana [Mr.
Williams] asks me why I introduce these propositions now if
I have no hope of their passag-e. After the amendment is
read, and before submitting- the observations which I propose
to make, I will answer him. Let the amendment providing
for the modification of the veto power be now read.
the) t.kto power.
The Clerk read as follows:
Strike out clauses two and three in section seven of the
Constitution and insert the following-:
Every bill which shall have passed the House of Repre*
— 521 —
sentatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be
presented to the President of the United States; if he ap~
prove, he shall sig-n it, but if not, he shall return it with his
objections to the house in which it originated, who shall en¬
ter the objections at larg*e on their journal and proceed to re¬
consider it. If, after such reconsideration, a majority of all
the members elected and qualified in that House shall agree
to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the President's
objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be
reconsidered, and if approved by a majority of all the mem¬
bers elected and qualified in that house it shall become a law.
But in all cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by
the yeas and nays, and the name of the person voting- for and
ag'ainst the bill shall be entered on the journal in each house
respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the Presi¬
dent within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have
been presented to hl"m the same shall be a law in like man¬
ner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by adjournment
prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. Every
order, resolution or vote to which the concurrence of the Sen¬
ate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except
on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the Pres¬
ident of the United States, and before the same shall take
effect shall be approved by him, or being" disapproved by him
shall be repassed by the Senate and House of Representatives
according" to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case
of a bill.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I will say to my friend from In¬
diana [Mr. "Williams] that I offer this amendment as I have
heretofore offered other propositions which at the time of
offering- them I did not expect to see pass. I have sometimes
offered propositions for which I had no intention of voting-,
in order to provoke a discussion of the question presented.
For this I have been roundly abused by many, while others
have called me the "suggesting- member." I offer the prop¬
ositions which I now submit and advocate them because con¬
vinced of their necessity. As the most disgraceful executive
administration which has ever cursed the country is about to
die and pass into history, I believe it an opportune moment in.
which to present and discuss such propositions as I now sub¬
mit, so that the people may be apprised of the dang*er which
threatens them in the future.
Mr. Williams, of Indiana. But you cannot g-et a vote on
them now.
— 522 —
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. I know that. Only a moment ago
I said that I did not offer them with any hope of seeing- them
passed by this Congress. That does not deter me, however,
from presenting and discussing them. I know that many
men would not present them unless assured of their favorable
reception by their party. I care nothing about that. During
my term of service here I have been more concerned to be
right than to have personal success, or to have the credit of
securing the passage of any particular measure. This is well
known to my associates here, and especially to gentlemen
who for the past ten years have been connected with the
public press. I have been more anxious that the work in
which I was engaged should be done, and well done, than I
have been about what would happen politically to myself. I
have always acted on the theory that politically he who would
save his own life should lose it. If in our reconstruction
measures the Republican party as a body had acted upon this
theory, and gone: to the root of the matter, and made our
Constitution conform to our new condition as a nation,
instead of enacting laws and submitting constitutional
amendments which were but patchwork, we should not
now be environed with the difficulties which surround
us. I submit these propositions because I believe they involve
practical questions of the highest importance, and because I
believe that to statesmen no question affecting the welfare of
the nation or the rights of its citizens can be of secondary
importance.
Mr. Chairman, I am a firm believer in the necessity of the
propositions which I make for the abolition of the kingly
prerogatives of the President by a modification of the veto pow¬
er ; and providing the manner of appointing and the manner in
which all appointees should be removed from office; for limit¬
ing the terms of service of judges of the Supreme Court, as also
their jurisdiction; for making them after their appointment
ineligible to any office under the National Government,
except, perhaps, foreign etnbassadorships, and [for retiring
them at the end of their term of service on such pay as Con¬
gress may deem to be just and proper. No less important, it
seems to me, is the question of appointing United States
Senators by a direct vote of the qualified electors of each
— 523 —
State by ballot, instead of electing them as now by the legis¬
latures of the several States; and last, though not least, the
necessity of securing to the minority an equitable voice in
the administration of the government. To these several
propositions I invite the considerate attention of all who
recognize the fact that the whole power of the government is
gradually but surely passing into the hands of the President
and the Supreme Court.
Mr. Chairman, it is claimed by the advocates of the veto
power that under our form of government the Executive
represents the whole people, and is the person in whose
hands the requisite power ought to be lodged to protect the
interests and rights of minorities, and to check hasty and in¬
considerate legislation. To this I answer that hasty and in¬
considerate legislation may be checked and a careful recon¬
sideration had of every bill which Congress may pass by the
return of such bill by the President, with his objections, and
its reconsideration and passage by a majority of all the Sena¬
tors and Representatives elected and qualified, as I propose
in the amendment which I have submitted.
It is a fallacy to suppose that the minority can have any
security from the use of the executive veto. The only way
in which such protection could be obtained for them would
"be for the majority in the two houses of Congress to concede
to the minority the President — a proposition which the ma¬
jority would not entertain for a moment. All know that, as
a rule, the party strong enough to elect its President will be
strong enough to elect a majority of Representatives of the
same political faith, so that there must always be added to
the numerical strength of the representative majority the co¬
operative will of a President of their own selection, armed
with the veto power, which under our system is secured to
the President, and by its use and the entire patronage of
the government, which, as all know, amounts to many hun¬
dred millions, he is practically a king during his official term.
If we can modify the executive veto and obtain an equi¬
table representation in Congress for the minority, the future
<of representative government in this country will be secured;
without it we cannot have such a negative on the acts of the
majority as will afford proper security to the rights of minor-
— 524 —
ities, and the legislative will of partisan majorities will by
degree* be concentrated in the hands of the Executive. The
experience of the past quarter of a century demonstrates the
fact that the whole power of the National Government is grad¬
ually but surely passing under the complete control of our
Presidents. The struggle of the great political parties for
place and power strengthens his authority, and makes his
will during his term of office the only law known to partisan
Representatives in Congress. Against this violation of the
representative principle and this dangerous innovation by our
Executives of the fundamental theory upon which our Gov¬
ernment was founded I am utterly opposed. All will admit
that the veto power conferred upon the Executive by the
present Constitution is a power at war with the democratic
idea. There are but few men who have given the subject
any consideration who will not concede that it is a dangerous
power to lodge in the hands of any man, and that it is a
power with which no man, however able or reputable, should
be intrusted in a republic. This power in the hands of
any man who is not absolutely infamous or an imbecile en¬
ables him, with the use of executive patronage, to defeat the
will of the nation so long as he remains in the presidential
office. No man has ever discharged the duties of the execu¬
tive office, nor is it probable that any man ever will, who is
so far above the representatives of the people either in wis¬
dom or patriotism as to justify the lodgment of such vast
power in his hands.
I am willing, if after discussion it be thought best to
have some check against haste and inconsiderate legislation,
that the President shall have a modified negative, such as I
propose, so that the representatives of the people may avail
themselves of any suggestions which a citizen so distin¬
guished as our Presidents ought to be, might make to Con¬
gress when returning a bill for their reconsideration. I am
unwilling, however, to intrust any man with power sufficient
to overrule the deliberately formed opinions of a majority of
all the men who have been elected and qualified as Senators
and Representatives in the Congress of the United States.
The veto power, as now conferred by the Constitution, makes
the will of the President equivalent to that of twelve Sena-
— 525 —
tors, when there are seventy-eig-ht members of that body, and
equivalent to thirty-eig-ht members of this House, when com¬
posed of two hundred and thirty-three members. Thus one
man, often a very ordinary man, is made by this anti¬
democratic provision of our Constitution the equal in legisla¬
tive power, and the theory is that he is equal In wisdom, to
fifty Senators and Representatives when the two houses to¬
gether have 311 members.
For instance, when the States are all represented in the
Senate there are seventy-eig-ht Senators; of this number forty
are a majority. If the President veto a bill it requires two-
thirds of the Senate to repass it, which, in a full Senate, with
seventy-eig-ht members, requires fifty-two votes. It will
thus be seen, that the veto power makes the President equal
in leg-islative power to twelve Senators. In the House, with
233 members present, it requires 117 votes to pass a bill. If
the President veto it it requires 156 votes to pass it over the veto,
which makes the veto power of the President equal to thirty-
eig-ht members of the House of Representatives and equiva¬
lent to fifty Senators and Representatives when both houses
number 311 members. Add to this monarchical prerogative
the overshadowing- authority which the appointing- power al¬
ways confers on an executive or king-, and you have at the
head of the Government, a man whose will is practically the
law of the land, as long- as he is able to maintain himself in
the presidential office.
The framers of the Constitution intended that there
should be three departments in this Government, the leg-isla¬
tive, executive and judicial, and that these departments
should be separate and distinct. That was their theory.
They held, as I hold, that no free g-overnment can long- en¬
dure which violates this fundamental theory. If this theory
be a correct one, then the Executive of this nation oug-ht not
to be clothed with any part of the law-making- power. It was
intended that our laws should be the embodied will of the
nation, as authoritatively expressed by Cong-ress. To execute
these laws was to be the duty of the Executive, and I hold
that this oug-ht to be his chief duty. To clothe the Executive
with the veto power is to make him part of the law-making-
power, which is a violation of the theory upon which the
— 526 —
government was organized. I shall never cease my war up¬
on this kingly prerogative. I believe itvto be utterly indefen¬
sible in a democratic republic. Secure the minority an equal
personal representation in the national Congress, as I pro¬
pose, and there can be no necessity for the veto and no pre¬
text for maintaining so despotic and dangerous a power in
the hands of any man.
Examine the yea and nay vote of this House for ten
years and }^ou will find that when a majority of all proposi¬
tions were voted upon about one-fifth of the members were
absent. If one-fifth of the members of both houses are ab¬
sent when propositions are voted upon, as a rule it will be
found that the larger number are of the majority party. In a
House of 233 members we will have, if about one-fifth are
absent, say 190 votes; of this number 96 are a majority. If
the President return a bill with his objections, my amend¬
ment requires the bill to secure 117 votes to again pass it,
whereas, under our present Constitution, a less number may
make two-thirds of a quorum and pass the bill over the veto.
One hundred and seventeen members make a quorum in a
full House composed of 233 members; a majority of this
quorum, or 59, may pass a bill. If it is vetoed, and only a
quorum are present, 78 members may pass the bill over the
veto, or 39 less than a majority of all the members of the
House. Practically then, the proposition which I make gives
the minority all the security they ought to have against
hasty and inconsiderate legislation where provision is made
that a bill to be repassed must have a majority of all the
members elected and qualified in each House. It requires
time and labor to bring the absent members here when ques¬
tions of great importance are pending. A bill, therefore,
which, on a rehearing, passes both houses by a majority of
all the members of each, notwithstanding the President's ob¬
jections, ought, in my opinion, to become a law.
From the organization of the government to this hour
no one question has employed so much of the time and atten¬
tion of the thoughtful statesmen of the nation as the danger
incident to the use and abuse of the executive power. When
our entire annual revenue from all sources did not exceed
825,000,000, and the number of officers and agents employed
by the government did not number one-fifth, what they do to¬
day, this subject engaged the attention for many years of the
ablest men in Congress. Clay, Berrien, Badger, Ewing,
White, Webster, and many other statesmen of national
reputations and conceded abilities all concurred in the neces¬
sity of modifying the executive veto and limiting the use of
executive patronage. To this last proposition Mr. Calhoun
gave much thought and labor, demonstrating its necessity by
able speeches and one of the most valuable reports ever sub¬
mitted on that subject to Congress. No man can read the
able reports made to Congress in 1835 and the discussion on
these two questions in both houses of Congress, both before
and since that time, without being deeply impressed with the
great wisdom and foresight of the men whom I have named.
Some estimate may be formed of the vast patronage now
at the disposal of the Executive by an inquiry into the amount
of revenue annually collected and disbursed, and the number
of officers and agents employed by the government in its col¬
lection and disbursement.
The Clerk will please read the tabular statement which I
send to the desk, showing the amount in millions and tenths
collected and expended by the government annually.
The Clerk read as follows:
Table showing the receipts and expenditures of the United
States Government in millions of dollars and tenths from
July 1, 1861, to June 30, 1868:
Fiscal year. Receipts. Expenditures. Balances.
1862 612.6 565.7 46.9 '
1863 936.3 899.8 36.5
1864 1430.0 1295.5 134.5
1865 1940.4 1906.4 33.9
1866 1304.8 1139.3 165.5
1867 1263.2 1093.1 170.1
1868 1200.9 1069.9 131.0
Total in seven years 8688.1 7969.7 718.4
Average per year.... 1241.1 1138.5 102.6
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. It will be seen by this table ihat
— 528 —
our average annual receipts for the past seven years were
over $1,241,000,000; that our annual expenditures were over
$1,138,000,000, and that there has been on an average during
all that time over $100,000,000 in the public treasury.
Mr. Chairman, if the ablest statesmen of the past genera¬
tion were alarmed for the safety of republican institutions, be¬
cause of the use which the Executive power could make of tlie
patronage of the government when its entire revenue did not
exceed $25,000,000, and its officers were less than one-fifth of
the present number, what would be their amazement could
they look upon these figures and realize the enormous in¬
crease of power and patronage now claimed for the Executive
and conceded to him by the leading men of the nation with¬
out a protest.
The Official Register for 1867 shows the number of
government officers and employees in civil service to be about
75,000. The cost of the civil and miscellaneous list for the
fiscal year 1867 was $49,600,000, and for 1868, $51,600,000.
The expenditures of the War and Navy Departments for 1867
were $126,300,000; for 1868, $149,000,000. The number of
non-commissioned officers and privates in the army for 1867
was 77,000, that of commissioned officers about 3,000. The
number of officers and men employed in the navy in 1867 was
over 11,000. So that in the civil and military and naval ser¬
vice of the government there are over 160,000 in the employ
of the government, all of whom are practically subject to the
order of the President and dependent for subsistence on the
public treasury-.
Startling as is this array, it does not include those who
furnish supplies for the army and navy and for the Indian
and other departments of the government, all of whom are
more or less dependent on the government for support. Ex¬
perience teaches us that this vast army of office-holders, em¬
ployees, agents, and dependents are influenced more or less by
the Executive will, and I am confident their power has never
been overestimated.
Add to these, the innumerable number of office expectants,
in every county, in every State and Territory, who are intent
on securing the offices and places now occupied b}r others,
and you may form some estimate of the many thousands in
— 529 —
the country now appealing- to the Executive for a recognition of
their claims. Of this great army a large majority stand ready
to declare that every act and utterance of the Executive is the
embodiment of wisdom and the perfection of statesmanship;
indeed, they will not hesitate to say that the most impercep¬
tible wink of the eye or nod of the head of his Excellency has
behind it a meaning as full of significance as any of his ut¬
terances. So utterly abased and subservient has the public
mind become because of the existence of this over-shadowing-
power that men are dumb in the presence of the Executive,
and dare not so much as express an opinion, much less criti¬
cise unfavorably his official acts. It is well known to ob¬
servers how devoid of all manhood men become under the
practical workings of this pernicious system, which centres
all power in the hands of the Executive.
Even the acting President, whose treason I regard as
baser than that of Davis, had an army of apologists and de¬
fenders in the Republican party. It is well known that there
were at one time in the Senate and House of the Thirty-
ninth Congress over sixty men elected by the Republican par¬
ty who stood ready to co-operate with Johnson in his work of
usurpation if there could be but the certainty of success.
How many of them were ready to go the whole length, as
he did, and abandon the great central idea of the Republican
party, will never be known. Nor will the nation ever know
how much it owes to its faithful representatives who defeated
this infamous conspiracy. There are members now within
the sound of my voice, who know where these men met in se¬
cret in this city, to confer with a President whose apostas}T
was known to all men, and whose treason was as clear as the
sun at noonday. No such meetings would ever have been
held, no such infamous proposition would have been for a
moment entertained by these men, but for the fact that the
President had the veto and appointing power. Before this
corrupting* power men intrusted and honored by the Republi¬
can party abased themselves, and for a time imperiled the
future of the republic.
34
— 530 —
ON THE PARDONING POWER.
Mr. Chairman, in order to prevent the abuse of the par¬
doning- power now conferred by the Constitution on the Ex¬
ecutive, section two of article two ought to be amended so as
read:
And he (the President) shall have power, with the ap¬
proval in writing- of a majority of his Cabinet council, to
grant reprieves and pardons for offenses committed ag-ainst
the United States after trial and conviction, except in cases
of impeachment; but he shall grant no general amnesty or
pardon td persons who are or who may have been engag-ed in
insurrection or rebellion ag-ainst the United States until he
shall have first obtained the advice and consent of the Con¬
gress.
I suggest this additional proposition, because I believe
that no one man in any government ought to be clothed with
unlimited power to grant pardons. It is a power liable to great
abuse in the hands of any man, however able or uprig-ht. In
the hands of a bad man it is a power which defeats the ends
of justice and gives immunity to crime. The acting" Presi¬
dent has been for four years a national dispenser of pardons.
I do not now refer to the unwarranted assumption of power
on the part of the acting- Executive in pardoning- all the re¬
sponsible and most guilty leaders of the late rebellion, nor to the
fact that it is publicly announced as by authority, that before
he retires from office, he will probably pardon the last of the
assassin conspirators who murdered Mr. Lincoln, and thus
placed him in the presidential office. It is enough to refer
to the fact that he has pardoned confessed criminals before
trial, and to the still more startling- fact that he has pardoned
over one hundred men, after trial and conviction, for the
crime of counterfeiting- the notes and other securities of the
United States.
I need not say to members of this House that counterfeit¬
ing- is one of the most indefensible of all crimes. Successful
counterfeiting- requires a large outlay of money, a hig-'n. order
of intellect and great skill in the preparation of everj^thing-
connected with it. It must be done deliberately and with
great secrecy. No immediate or pressing- want of the person
engaged in it, nor of any one depending- on him for support,
-531 —
can be the impelling- cause. No sudden impulse of passion;
no motive such as often prompts men to commit crime under
the pretext of retaliating- for some actual or fancied injury;
no cry of despair from wife and children "because of hunger
and cold, but almost every person eng-ag-ed in the commission
of this crime is a cultivated, deliberate, calculating- villain,
coolly weighing- his chances and premeditating- his every act.
I am unable to divine the motive which has prompted the
acting- Executive to set at large almost every one of this class
of criminals who during- the past four years have been dis¬
covered, tried, and convicted at great cost to the government.
The fact, I believe, is notorious and undisputed, and I can
only account for the apparent indifference of the public to
this shameless prostitution of authority, intended only for
beneficent purposes, on the hypothesis that they feel power¬
less in the presence of the defiant usurper of the White
House, who, having- been acquitted by the Senate of greater
crimes, may, without question and with impunity, commit
the lesser one of turning- hundreds of dang-erous criminals up¬
on the country to prey upon the ignorant and unsuspecting-
and ag-ain engage in depreciating- the credit of the nation by
counterfeiting- its securities. If the approval in writing- of a
majority of Mr. Johnson's Cabinet had been required as a
condition to the pardon of the counterfeiters whom he has re¬
leased, I am confident that but few, if any of them, would
have been set at large to prey again upon the country. At
all events I am unwilling to lodg-.e the power to pardon even
common criminals in the hands of any one man. In short, I
am against the one-man power in any form, in any depart¬
ment of the Government.
If the question were now submitted to me whether to con¬
tinue the executive office with the power now lodged in the
hands of the President, or abolish the office altog-ether, I
would vote to abolish it. For years I have believed that the
executive power was the rock on which as a nation we should
eventually be broken to pieces. It is the province of true
statesmanship to point out prospective danger and suggest
the remedy, rather than delay it until a usurper, such as we
now have at the head of the Government, forces a recognition
of the dang-er. The greater our confidence in General Grant
— 532 —
the more anxious we should be to adopt an adequate remedy
during- the life of his administration. "We oug-ht not to forg-et
that Johnson succeeded Lincoln, and that we may need pro¬
tection from the successor to General Grant.
there must be; organized opposition to executive usur¬
pation.
After the important questions growing- out of the late
rebellion are permanently settled, and the question of citizen¬
ship suffrage is disposed of by the adoption of the constitu¬
tional amendment now before us, I cannot affiliate with any
party which, as an organization, proposes to maintain
the kingly and dangerous prerogatives now conceded to
the President by custom and usage. If we are to continue
the presidential office at all, it must be simply as an executive,
and as no part of the law-making- power. The duty of the
President must be strictly limited to the execution of the
law. The veto power, the appointing- power, and the power
of removal at pleasure and without cause are all kingly pre¬
rogatives, and at war with the theory of a republican and
democratic g-overnment. As the national life is born of the
will of the people, so the legislative representation of that
will must be the national Congress. In all governments the
ultimate power must somewhere have a lodgment. In a re¬
public it is safest in the hands of the people's representatives.
The nearer this ultimate power is to the people the more
directly and easily it can be molded and controlled by them.
An absolute power in any government which is above
and superior to the people is a despotism. It is a fallacy to
assume that there must be lodg-ed in some department of the
government a despotic power such as the veto power. In
any light in which I am able to view this great question I
can see only dang-er in the constant encroachments and usur¬
pations of the executive and judicial departments of the
government, and safety and security for the people only by
the lodg-ment of the ultimate power of the nation in the
national Congress. To the danger inseparable from the
lodg*ment of such king-ly prerogatives in the hands of any
one man as are now conceded to the President may be added
— 533 —
the danger of our present system of making- nominations.'
The caucus and convention system and the manner of elect¬
ing1 the President and Vice-President by electors, or by the
House of Representatives when the electors fail to make a
choice, all tend to exclude the people from a direct voice in
the government of the nation, and enable a few to control
the government and administer it, not according to the will
of the people, but as decreed by nominating conventions and
by irresponsible bodies unknown to the Constitution. All
attempts to maintain the domination of the executive over
the legislative department of the government must be
defeated, and all efforts to clothe the Executive with new
prerogatives or an increase of his present overshadowing
power, must be met by prompt, vigorous, and organized re¬
sistance; and to this great work I shall in the future direct
whatever of political influence I may have.
the judicial, amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I now submit an amendment providing
for the better organization of the Supreme Court, which the
Clerk will please read.
The Clerk read as follows:
Strike out section 1 of article 3, and insert the following:
The judicial power of the United States shall be vested
in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Con¬
gress may from time to time ordain and establish. The
judges, both of the Supreme and district courts, shall hold
their offices for twenty years: Provided, That no judge
shall act as a member of the Supreme Court nor of any Dis¬
trict Court of the United States after he shall have reached
the age of seventy years. After their appointment and
qualification they shall be ineligible to any office under the
National Government. They shall at stated times receive for
their services a compensation which shall not be diminished
during their continuance in office. After the expiration of
the term of service of each judge of the Supreme or of any
District Court of the United States, the Congress shall, by
law, provide such annual compensation as they may deem
proper for each retiring judge during life, which compensa¬
tion shall not be diminished.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, next to the dan-
-534-
g-er inseparable from the use and abuse of executive power is
tt/j danger to be apprehended from judicial usurpation and
judicial corruption. The history of judicial usurpations in
the United States is a history running- over many years of
judicial "sapping- and mining-." The judicial power is all
the more dang-erous because ever silent and insidious. In all
ag-es and countries its most diabolical crimes have been com¬
mitted in the sacred name of justice and of law. Jefferson was
rig-lit when he declared that —
" The g-erm of dissolution of our g-overnment was in the
constitution of the Federal judiciary, an irresponsible body
(for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow), working- like
gravity by night and by day, gaining- a little to-day and a
little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless steps over the
field of jurisdiction." "The foundations are already deeply
laid by their decisions for the annihilation of constitutional
State rights, and the removal of every check, every counter¬
poise, to the engulfing power of which themselves are to
make a sovereign part." " An opinion is huddled up in con¬
clave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unani¬
mous and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid
associates by a crafty chief judge."
"It has proved that the power of declaring- what the
law is ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly, and without
alarm, the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open
force would not dare to attempt."
I have no time at this late hour to go into a history of
the usurpations of the Supreme and District Courts of the
United States. Such a history would present a long and
black catalogue of unjust and infamous decisions. The first
speech which I made in this House was devoted to an exposi¬
tion of its betrayal of human rights and its shameless affirma¬
tion of the right of slavery. I have nothing to retract of
what I then said of its indefensible subserviency to the slave
barons and to the baneful spirit of part}*; nor can I modify,
as I should be glad to do, what I then said of the undisguised
personal and political ambition for the Presidency of some if
not a majority of its members.
Years before the Dred Scott decision was delivered an
attempt was made to prepare the way for that usurpation, or
any other which might be deemed for the interest of slavery,
by a studied and labored effort on the part of the slave
— 535 —
barons and their northern allies to impress the country with
a greater veneration for that "august tribunal" known as
the Supreme Court than for any other department of the
government.
Its decisions were declared to be "finalities," from which
there was to be no appeal, and its immaculate wisdom and
purity were everywhere the theme of an enthusastic partisan
press and party leaders, who demanded that its decisions
should be received as unquestioned law. Statutes were enacted
which declared they were to be operative, provided they were
in subordination to the Constitution as interpreted by a ma¬
jority of this "august tribunal," composed of nine men, of
whom five were a majority. So persistently did political
demagogues press this point upon the country that the mem¬
bers of the Supreme Court began to act as if they were in
fact, an "august tribunal," endowed with a wisdom unknown
to the rest of mankind,and that they had an intuitive knowl¬
edge of the Constitution unknown to any other body of men.
Those who knew the court when the Dred Scott decision was
pronounced, will not hesitate to admit that whatever knowl¬
edge of the Constitution a majority of them had, was probably
"intuitive," and that their legal endowments were of a char¬
acter incomprehensible to the great body of intelligent men
who read that decision. So thoroughly did a majority of this
court believe in the infallibility of their assumed power, that
they consulted with and gave directions for the guidance of
their partisan friends, and were preparing to assume and to in¬
terpret without question, the Constitution, for both the execu¬
tive and legislative departments of the Government. Justice
"Wayne, of Georgia, than whom there was no purer or better
man on the bench in his day, believed, and so expressed him¬
self to his friends, "that if the Supreme Court could be
brought to make a unanimous decision in the Dred Scott case
[in favor of slavery, of course], that it would settle that
question for all time to come." This was the kind of im¬
maculate judicial wisdom, to v/hich the nation was called up¬
on to submit without question.
It is now well known to all, that the Dred Scott decision
was made on the demand of the slave barons. But for a
supposed party necessity, there never would have been a Dred
— 536 —
Scott case before tlie court. It required years of unscrupu¬
lous partisan labor, to pack the court with, men, who would
consent to degrade the judicial office, by making- such an atro¬
cious decision. After the case had been finally argued and
the court were ready to pronounce the required pro-slavery
judgment upon it, and had authorized Judg-e Nelson to pre¬
pare the opinion of the court, dismissing- the case on the only
point which the slave barons then desired to have passed up¬
on, namely, that Dred Scott being" the descendant of an Afri¬
can slave could not become a citizen of the United States, and
therefore could not bring- a suit in the courts of the United
States against a slave master, the court were brought to an
unlooked-for point in the case by the announcement of Judge
McLean that he should deliver a dissenting- opinion, and re¬
view at length the status of the slave under the Constitution,
thus going into the whole question of slavery.
It is conceded by all who are familiar with the inside
history of this case, that but for the fact that there were men
then upon the bench of the Supreme Court, as there are now,
with a mania for the Presidency, which can only be given up
at death, we should never have had the Dred Scott decision.
Judge McLean, whose purity of life and great ability no man
who knew him will question, had for years been an aspirant
for the Presidency. He saw an opportunity to make polit¬
ical capital out of a general review of the slavery question, from
a judicial standpoint, and when he announced his purpose to
his associates on the bench, he caused a panic among- them,
such as does not often overtake that " august tribunal." It
was on the eve of the presidential campaign for lS5h, and
the pro-slavery party could not afford to have such a bomb¬
shell thrown into their camp. The court, therefore, or a ma¬
jority of it, reserved the decision of the question, and or¬
dered the case to be rearg-ued in order to g'ain time and
to await the result of the presidential election. They did
this in order that they might know positively, whether the}'
could rely on the executive arm of the Government, to enforce
with the army and navy their contemplated usurpation.
The points to be made in Judg'e McLean's dissen ing-
opinion were well known to his partisan friends; and the
fact that he was to deliver such an opinion was publicly used
with a view to secure for him if possible, the Republican
nomination at Philadelphia for the Presidency. The opin¬
ions of the majority of the court were also known to the par¬
tisan friends of the court. After the presidential election,
the public mind was prepared for the forthcoming- decision
by skillful manipulations, such as were never employed before.
President Pierce in his last annual message apprised the
country of the fact that this Dred Scott decision had been
agreed upon, although at that time it had not been officially
announced from the bench, and that the court " had finally de¬
termined the pending question in every form in which it could
arise." Mr. Buchanan in his inaugural address referred to
the forthcoming Dred Scott decision in these words.
To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I
shall cheerfully submit, whatever it may be.
These declarations of the outgoing and the incoming
Chief Magistrates were demanded by the slave barons, so as
to strengthen the purpose of the court, and to give official
notice to all applicants for office under Mr. Buchanan, that
they must endorse one of the most startling and indefensible
decisions ever delivered by any judicial tribunal in the world,
before their claims for official positions could even have a
hearing before the Executive. So successful did the plotters
work, that the partisans of the court succeeded in many of
the free States in procuring an endorsement by their party
State conventions of this monstrous decision. Then the
office-seekers of the nation, with an alacrit}r and baseness
which no language can describe, bowed down in submission
before the slave barons, kissed the hands that smote them,
and accepted menial positions as a reward for their infamy.
All this because the Supreme Court had been molded into a
political tribunal, and had upon its bench political partisans
and aspirants for the Presidency. I wish the court were
altogether what it ought to be now. I regret as much as
any man that it is not. I need not dwell upon the painful
exhibitions which may be witnessed any day gentlemen will
take the trouble to go into the room of the Supreme Court.
Theie they will find men upon the bench, passing upon,
questions of the greatest magnitude, who are entirely unfit
— 538 -
for the discharge of such responsible and important duties as
are almost daily devolving- upon them.
It is painful for me to say this, and I do so only because I
believe it to be an imperative duty. It is proper that the peo¬
ple should know the facts, so they may demand of their
representatives a remedy for the admitted defect in our judi¬
cial system. I presume the members of the present court are
substantially like their predecessors, no better, and I hope no
worse.
It is well known that for some time before Judge
Mckean's death, his associates on the bench, at the request of
friends, relieved him from all responsible labor in the prepara¬
tion of opinions. Though sleeping- upon the bench during
the greater part of the time the court was in session, and
dying with age, he was almost daily voting upon and aiding
to decide questions of the gravest character, and even then
was not without hope of ultimately reaching the Presidency.
Mr. Chairman, it is a sad sight to see such a body as the
Supreme Court ought to be, with one-third of its members
sleeping upon the bench and dying with age, and one-
third or more crazed with the gutter op the presidency.
I need not say how utterly this condition of body and mind
unfits men for the proper discharge of the judicial office. If
there is one body of men more than another in this country
who ought to be financially removed from temptation, and
intellectually to be clear and unclouded, as well as free from
all partisan ambition, it is the members of the Supreme
Court.
Our experience with this branch of the government has
been a sad one, I will not attempt to go into a history of its
usurpations, its perversion of law, its criminal injustice, its
political chicanery. It would employ more than the entire
time allowed me, and then I could not present one-half of the
enormities of which it has been guilty. The people have
been compelled more than once to disregard and reverse its
infamous and unjust decisions, and they must be prepared to
do so again. They were not long in comprehending the ex¬
tent of the danger in the Dred Scott usurpation. They knew
that the power which had the conceded right to pass without
appeal on the constitutional^}- of the nation's laws would
— 539 —
soon become the nation's master. If this doctrine could
have obtained, the sovereignty of the nation would, sooner
or later, have been usurped by the national judiciary. Con¬
gress might have enacted laws, but the court would have
annulled them at pleasure. Thanks to the intelligence and
virtue of the people, it required but few yea'rs to reverse the
Dred Scott decision and break in pieces the ebony image of
slavery which this '' august tribunal " had set up, and demand¬
ed that the nation should worship. The people of this country
could not be made to cry out, great is the Diana of slavery;
immaculate and wise is this " august tribunal;" its interpre¬
tation of the Constitution shall be a "fmalit}r," "binding
upon the executive and legislative departments of the gov¬
ernment and all the officers and agents thereof."
This attempted usurpation on the part of the court
not only failed, but ig-nominiously failed, and the individual
members of the court were arraigned at the bar of public
opinion, and put into history with the men, who in all ages
have disgraced and dishonored the judicial office. If the
proposition which I have made, had from the organization
of the government been a part of the Constitution, every
man will concede that no such decision as the Dred Scott
decision would ever have been made. Let us, then, provide
for such a reorganization of the Supreme and District Courts
of the United States as experience teaches to be necessary.
Let us also restrict their jurisdiction to the fewest possible
questions consistent with the administration of the National
Government, and we may hope to see the organization of a
judicial tribunal which shall command the respect of all
Americans, and also the respect of intelligent men through¬
out the world.
THE MINORITY MUST HAVE! PROPORTIONAL PERSONAL, REPRE¬
SENTATION IN THE GOVERNMENT.
Mr. Chairman, the proposition which I now present is, in
my opinion, one of more importance to the future peace and
unity of this nation than any new proposition which has
^ver been suggested, involving as it does the whole question
of representative government, and presenting the question of
— 540—
the right of minorities to proportional representation in the
government equal to their numerical strength at each elec¬
tion. The Clerk will please read.
The Clerk read as follows:
artlcivk —.
In the election of Representatives to the Congress of
the United States, whenever more than one Representative
is to be elected from a State, Congress shall by law designate
the manner in which such additional Representatives shall be
chosen, and shall provide for securing to the qualified elec¬
tors in such State proportional personal representation in
Congress as near as may be.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, under our sys¬
tem constituencies are often compelled to intrust to repre¬
sentatives, especially to Senators, the settlement of questions
of vast importance which have arisen after their election.
Unless some system can be devised by which the opinions of
a constituency can be obtained on any new and important
question which may have arisen after an election of a Sen¬
ator or Representative, the people must continne to intrust,
as now, the settlement of such questions to men over whom
they can have no control until the next regular election.
The number of Senators and Representatives who have served
iij Congress since I came into public life, and have openly
and defiantly betrayed or misrepresented the constituencies
which elected them, is far greater than is generally supposed,
and until the time came to fill their places by a new election
such constituencies have been powerless in the presence of
their own chosen servants. It will be conceded by all that if
the voice of betrayed or misrepresented constituencies could
have been authoritatively heard, great questions which have
been passed upon within the memory of us all, would have been
disposed of otherwise than as they have been, and questions
which have not yet been acted upon, would be settled other¬
wise than as they will be.
If in the past quarter of a century, the voice of every con¬
stituency in the nation could have been authoritatively coV
lected, and their will obeyed, there would have been less of
-541-
compromising-, less of patchwork in legislation, less defiance
on the part of Senators and Representatives, and fewer be¬
trayals of constituencies, either by Presidents, Cabinet Min¬
isters or others. The people, however, are so wedded to our
present system of electing- Presidents and Senators and Rep¬
resentatives, that it is hardly probable that they can now
be moved to adopt a plan so advanced as that which de¬
mands the right of every constituency, at all times to
instruct or recall their public servants and substitute
others in their stead. It therefore becomes all the more
.important, that a system should be adopted which will secure
to every elector, the rig-lit to vote for such persons as in his
judgment will best represent his opinions on the leading1
questions of the day, and to whose judg-ment and fidelity he
is willing- to intrust the disposition of all new questions which
may arise, and on which, at the time of voting-, he can have
formed no opinions.
Mr. Chairman, in submitting- this proposition, the object
I have in view is to secure to every elector, no matter where
he may reside in a State, the rig-ht to vote for any citizen in
his State, whom he may prefer to represent him in
Congress, so that the free exercise of his individual judg-ment
shall not be restricted to the locality of his residence, or to
accepting- a candidate imposed upon him by local caucuses
and local conventions. Experience, I think, has demonstrated
the necessity of devising- some improvement in our electoral
system. We must adopt a system, not only for nominat¬
ing and electing the president by a direct vote of the
people by ballot, without the intervention of caucuses
and conventions and presidential electors, but we must
inaug-urate a system for electing- Senators and Representa¬
tives in Congress and for State Legislatures, which will se¬
cure a more equitable representation and g-ive greater protec¬
tion to the interests and rig-hts of minorities. The despotism
and injustice of the majority has been felt with fearful power
in this nation. For more than three-quarters of a century in
the name of Christianity and of liberty the majority have en¬
slaved millions of men. During all that time demagogues
clamored for the right of the majority to enact vil¬
lainy into law. Compromising- with slavery was then re-
— 542 —
garded as the highest statesmanship. The rig-ht of the mi"
nority to a voice in the Government or even to a hearing1 was
imperiously denied, and bars and bolts and dung-eons, mob
law and social and political ostracism was the lot of those
who in the land of Washing-ton came pleading for the liberty
of the human race. Experience warns us of the fatal conse¬
quences of such injustice and of all compromises with wrong
and of all temporary and superficial legislation. Put the
propositions which I have made into the Constitution, and
they will become the crowning1 glory of our fundamental law.
We shall thus abolish the king-ly prerogatives of the Presi¬
dent, and recognize the supremacy of the people by making-
it the imperative duty of the Government to see that the
rights of minorities are respected and protected. " The office
of government," says one of the ablest women of America,
"is to represent the rights of all, not the will of all."
True representation is the corner-stone of the republic;
without it democracy surrenders to the minority, and a ruling
minority in any government will always become an aristoc¬
racy. Democracy cannot be maintained by any people simply
by declaring for a government of the majority, unless it
recognizes the divine law, which commands all to "do unto
others as they would that others should do unto them." The
"golden rule" is the foundation-stone of true democracy,
and the nation which builds upon any other foundation,
though by the consent of the majority, builds upon the sand.
What I want to secure in the administration of the govern¬
ment is not the absolute domination of the majority, but to
have the enlightened "will of the majority constituted
guardian of the rights of all." My purpose is to so reor¬
ganize the Government that it shall recognize the
divine law of liberty and justice, and be administered
by the consent op all, in the interest op all, and with
representation for all. This cannot be done by concen¬
trating so much power in the hands of the President or in
the national judiciary; nor can it be done by refusing to
recognize the right of minorities to proportional represen¬
tation in the State legislatures and in the national Congress.
The system which I wish to see inaugurated is based upon the
fundamental idea that every legislative body should reflect
•— 543 —
the sentiments and convictions of the whole people which it
is chosen to represent. Adopt this plan, and every constit¬
uency sufficiently numerous in a State to entitle them to
more than one Representative in Congress or to any number
in a State legislature, can secure such Representatives.
Under our present system t«he minority in half the States
are often without a voice in the National Government. The
legislative power of Ohio to-day is in the hands of the
minority of the electors of that State. This could never
happen under the system which I hope some day to see
adopted, not only by the States, but by the National Govern¬
ment. The system so ably presented by Mr. Hare, of Great
Britain, commends itself to me because of its admirable sim¬
plicity and its absolute security to the interests and rights of
minorities. It would be mathematically impossible under that
system for the minority in any State to obtain control of its
legislature, or the minority of the nation to obtain a majority
in Congress, while at the same time it would secure to minori¬
ties a just representation in proportion to the number of votes
which they polled at each election.
I have not time to dwell, as I should be glad to do, at
greater length upon the inestimable value of this most ad¬
mirable system; a system which has the approval of John
Stuart Mill and many of the ablest statesmen of Europe and
America. With some modifications it could be adopted by
every State. But if custom and the ambition of local party
leaders render the adoption of Mr. Hare's plan impossible, I
am confident that a discussion of the question of minority
representation which it presents will result in an amendment
to our present indefensible system. For the sake of illustra¬
tion, let me state the manner in which the voters of Ohio
are clothed in unequal political power. I do not now speak
of the entire disfranchisement of minorities, which is done
in almost every State by gerrymandering, but the unequal
apportionment of States into senatorial and legislative dis¬
tricts, as in Maryland and Delaware.
In addition to this I refer to the great power which in
certain localities in many States is conferred upon one voter
and denied to another. For instance, in Hamilton county,
in my State, each elector votes for nine representatives and
— 544 —
three senators to the State legislature, making- twelve mem¬
bers of the State legislature for whom one elector votes on
one ticket.
In the county in which I reside, and indeed in a majority
of the counties in the State, they elect but one member of
the House and one senator in each district, so that each elec¬
tor outside of Hamilton county can vote for but one represen¬
tative and one senator to the State legislature, except in such
years as a few of the districts or counties have one additional
senator or representative, which we call "a float." Every
voter, therefore, in Hamilton county has a larg-e increase of
political power over a voter in Lucas in the choice of mem¬
bers of the State legislature. This inequality and injustice,
all will agree, oug"ht not to be maintained. The political
power of the State as represented by the number of votes
cast by each party can be fairly distributed and the minority
secured its proportional representation without an entire
abandonment of the district system to which custom and the
interests of local politicians so much attach us.
To illustrate, suppose we should alter our State consti¬
tution in Ohio so that the Senate should be composed of
forty-eig-ht members and the House of ninety-six members,
and that in making* the apportionment in the constitution as
it is now the State should be divided into eleven senatorial
and twenty-two representative districts, electing1 four sena¬
tors and four representatives in each district, each senatorial
district being" divided into two representative districts; and
that the remaining- four senators and eigiit representatives
should be elected as we now elect floats, except that they be
elected for the State at large. This would place every voter
in the State on an equal footing- as to the number of members
of the State legislature for whom he would be permitted to
vote.
If, after such an appointment the electors were permitted
— as I think they oug^ht to be — to adopt the cumulative and
alternate system of voting-, the minority if they numbered a
fraction above one-fourth of the voters in an}^ district could
secure one senator and representative, or if they numbered
a fraction above one-eig-hth of the voters in the State they
— 545 —
could secure one senator and two representatives for the State
at large.
If the electors in any district were dissatisfied, as they
often are with one or more of the candidates nominated by
their party, they ought to be permitted to cumulate and alter¬
nate their votes on any one or more candidates, either for the
State at large or in their own district, designating on their
ballots their first, second, third and fourth choice, so that
their votes should not be lost by a larger number being cast
for any one candidate than would elect him, or for a candi¬
date who would not receive enough to elect him. Under this
system each party would be compelled to present its best and
ablest men or suffer defeat. Each elector having the right of
alternate and cumulative voting, he could vote for any one or
more of the candidates, either for the State at large or in his
district, and would do so rather than vote for an objection¬
able and unworthy man of his party merely because he was
the caucus nominee, if in doing so he thereby increased the
vote of his favorite candidate.
Let me illustrate this point, so that I shall not be misun¬
derstood. I would provide that each elector should vote one
ballot. On'that ballot he should name his choice for State and
county officers as now. State and county officers being minis¬
terial and not legislative, and each voter being entitled to
vote for but one of such officers, the right of alternate and
cumulative voting cannot be provided for. Only where the
elector has the right to vote for two or more candidates for
the same office — like members of the legislature or Congress
— can the system of cumulative and alternative voting be ap¬
plied. For example, every State has but one governor, and
every county but one clerk of the court, and each elector
must vote for but one, if he votes at all. Hence this system
which I propose recognizes the supremacy of the legislative de¬
partment in the Government, and provides for the proportional
representation of the minority, so that that minority may have
a voice in prescribing by law the mode and manner in which
all ministerial officers of the Government shall discharge the
powers and duties of their respective offices. If any system
35
— 546 —
can be devised which will give more absolute power to the
people I am for it.
In voting1 under this system the ballots would be made
up substantially as follows:
Republican Statu Ticket.
For Governor,
For Judge Supreme Court,
For Secretary of State,
For Attorney General,
For Board Public Works,
For School Commissioner,
County Ticket.
For Auditor,
For County Clerk,
For Probate Judge,
For Sheriff,
For Commissioner,
— 547 —
Legislative Ticket.
For Senators—State at Large,
1. ,
2. ,
3. ,
4.
For Representatives—State at Large,
1. ,
2. ,
3.
4. ,
5.
6. ,
7. ,
8.
For Senators Tenth District, composed of the Counties of-
1. ,
2. ,
3.
4.
For Representatives Twentieth District, composed of the
Counties of ,
— 548 —
Congressional Ticket—For Representatives in Congress1
State at Large,
1.
2.
3.
For.Representatives in Congress, Fourth District, composed
of the Counties of———,
*
1.
2. ,
3. ,
4.
In electing* Representatives to Congress I have provided
:liat the same system should "be adopted which I have sug¬
gested for electing members of State legislatures. Every
State entitled to less than eight Representatives in Congress
should elect them on one ticket for the State at large. In
each State entitled to eight members and over, the number to
which they are entitled should be divided by four, and the
State apportioned into as many districts as there are products
of such division, the additional number of members to which
they are entitled, if there be any, to be elected for the State
at large, as General Logan is now elected by the State of
Illinois. Thus in Ohio we should have, until a new appor¬
tionment was made, four congressional districts, in each of
which four Representatives to Congress would be elect¬
ed and the remaining three members would be elected
by the State at large. Under this sj^stem every voter in
Ohio would vote for seven Representatives in Congress; or,
if he preferred to do so, he could, by alternative and cumula¬
tive voting, give his seven votes to any one candidate. Thus
a minority in Ohio, if they numbered a fraction above one-
seventh of the voters of a State, by uniting on one candidate,
— 549 —
could secure one Representative in Congress, and in no event
could they elect a greater number of Representatives than
they would be entitled to by the number of votes which they
were able to cast.
If it be suggested that the electors in States having but
one or two Representatives would not have equal political
power with electors in the larger States, I answer that they
are more than compensated by the two Senators which repre¬
sent a small population in the Senate. It requires no argu¬
ment to show that this system would do much to destroy the
baneful effects of party spirit; that it would check the use of
money at elections, and prevent the great frauds which are
yearly becoming more and more alarming. In addition to
this, it would tend to secure the services of the ablest men
in Congress and in State legislatures. The men who were
nominated and elected to the Senate and House for a State at
large, as a rule, would be the ablest men each party could
select in the State. So, also, of Representatives to Congress;
the people of the whole State having a right to vote for one,
or two, or three Representatives to Congress for the State at
large would be careful to select gentlemen of well-known abili¬
ty and fidelity. In this way able and faithful and experienced
men would be retained in public life, because local factions
and the local ambitions of aspirants could not be so success¬
fully used as now to defeat them. More would be expected
of a man who was nominated and elected to the legislature
for the State at large than of a local candidate from almost
any county, and so of a man nominated and elected by a State
at large as a Representative to the Congress of the nation.
This plan is so just and fair that it must sooner or later
commend itself to the great body of thinking men in the
country. Each voter should have the right to say on his bal¬
lot, "I desire to be represented by the candidate whose name
I have placed opposite No. 1. I therefore cast all my votes
for him. If he should obtain more than the quota of votes
necessary to elect him, or if he should fail to obtain a suffi¬
cient number, and thus cannot become my Representative, I
direct that my vote be transferred to the candidate which I
have designated as No. 2, he being my second choice;" and so
— 550 —
on, under the same conditions, to the number of candidates
for whom each elector is entitled to vote.
If the system of electing- the President and Vice-Presi¬
dent by the appointment of electoral colleges is to be main¬
tained, then they ought to be elected by districts and States
as I suggest in case of Congressmen, and not in single dis¬
tricts as proposed by the constitutional amendment which has
just passed the Senate and is now on our table. One of the
amendments which I have suggested to that amendment is in
my opinion far preferable, and yet I do not intend to vote for
it, even if adopted as an amendment to the Senate proposi¬
tion; I mean the amendment which I offered a day or two ago,
■which provides for the appointment of electors of President
and Vice-President by the legislatures to represent the will of
the voters as expressed by them at the g'eneral election. I
would be very g"lad, however, to have the opportunity of
voting for the proposition which I made at the last session
and again at this, which provides for the nomination and
election op the president by a direct vote op the people
by ballot. IP we are to have a president at all, I want
him elected directly by the qualified voters of the na¬
tion. I am opposed to the single district plan, because it
does not secure an equitable representation to the voters of
the nation. Under that system a minority of the whole peo¬
ple have elected a President and would be able to do so again.
It is true, as my friend [Mr. Williams, of Indiana] sug-g-ests,
that the minority have and may again elect the President un¬
der our present system. I prefer, however, to retain that
system, imperfect as all admit it to be, until we can adopt a
better one. The scene which transpired in this House on
"Wednesday, when counting the electoral vote, ought to be a
warning to the statesmen of the nation. It developed in a
practical manner the weak and dang-erous point in our system
of electing- the President. If the rejection of the vote of a
State by Congress should at any time happen to chang-e the
result of a presidential election the consequences would be
fearful.
Suppose, when counting the vote the other day, there
had been three or more candidates for President (as there have
been several times), and that each candidate had received a,
— 551 —
sufficient number of electoral votes to have defeated an elec¬
tion by the electoral college, and the friends of the defeated
candidates had united and thrown out the vote of one or
more States, so that it would defeat the person having- a ma¬
jority of all the certified votes returned, and thus have
defeated an election by the Electoral College and brought
the election into this House. Can any man contemplate such
a contingency without alarm? In a full House of 233 mem¬
bers, thirty-eight men from the small States, by uniting,
could elect the President, and, if they saw fit to do so, they
could select of the three candidates before the House the
person having the smallest number of electoral votes. Do
gentlemen suppose the people of the country would submit
to such injustice without a fearful struggle? Of course no
sane man pretends to defend a system which invites such
conspiracies, and which makes such scenes as we witnessed
last Wednesday possible when counting the electoral vote.
Let any Congress assume to throw out votes enough to
change the result of a presidential election, and they will
inaugurate revolution.
I am asked by gentlemen around me if I would sit here and
count the vote of a State if the certificate was a forgery, or if
the election in the State had been carried by force or fraud.
I answer certainly not. If compelled to vote, I must vote for
what I believe to be right and let consequences take care of
themselves; but if I voted to reject one or more States, and
their rejection changed the result of the election, I would be
voting for that which would inaugurate revolution. And I
will say, in passing, that no question of contest as to the
validity of the presidential election should ever be permitted
to come before Congress. If frauds are committed or force is
employed in any State, the question should be settled in the
District Courts of the United States for the district in which
the fraud or force was alleged to have been practiced. The
District Courts in each State are the courts before which such
questions should be determined. The question of the validity
of any election being thus adjudicated and passed upon by a
national judicial tribunal, in the State where the alleged
frauds were charged, Congress would have no other duty to
— 552 —
perform than to count the vote as returned, and officially pro¬
claim the result.
But, Mr. Chairman, all this is a digression into which I
have been drawn by the suggestions and questions of gentle¬
men around me. Let me now gfo back to the question of
representation which I was discussing-. I was speaking- of
the unfairness of the plan of electing- presidential electors in
a single congressional or electoral district. There is hardly
a State in the Union which elects four or more representa¬
tives to Congress in which the minority party could not, if
they had a majority in their State legislatures (as the Demo¬
cratic party have to-day in Ohio, and the Republican party
in New York), so gerrymander the State into electoral dis¬
tricts as to secure a majority of presidential electors in the
State to the candidate of their part}\ If electors should be
appointed as I propose Representatives in Congress shall be
elected, a proportional representation would be secured to the
minority in each State in exact proportion to the number of
votes cast by each party, and all motive for gerrymandering-
would be removed. If the sing-le district system should pre¬
vail, the Republican party, having- a majority in the legisla¬
ture of New York, could, and probably would, so district the
State as to secure a majority of the electors of President and
Vice-President to their party candidates, although the State
should g-o largely Democratic. The Democratic party in
Ohio could so district the State as to secure a majority of the
presidential electors to the candidate of their party, although
the State mig-ht be carried larg-ely by the Republican party.
Of course, such a plan is entirely indefensible. The fact
that Mr. Lincoln and General Grant received a larger number
of electoral votes than the Republican party carried congres¬
sional districts, including- the senatorial electors, is no argu¬
ment in favor of the district s}rstem. No system is defensible
which defeats the will of the majority, or which fails to se¬
cure to the electors of the entire nation proportional repre¬
sentation. No man who has given this subject proper reflec¬
tion will claim that the electors of the nation have ever had
their proportional representation in the Electoral College for
the choice of President and Vice-President from the organiza¬
tion of the Government to this hour. The Republican represen-
— 553 ■—
tation in this House for the past eig-ht years has been out of
all proportion to the vote cast for that party, as everybody
admits. In the Senate the inequality and injustice to the
minority has been far greater. In 1824 Jackson had a larg-er
popular vote than both Adams and Crawford combined, yet
they secured 26 more electoral votes than Jackson, which car¬
ried the election into the House of Representatives, where
Jackson was defeated. At that election Jackson had 99 votes,
Adams 84, and Crawford 41. Of course all remember that
Mr. Adams was elected by the House of Representatives.
In 1832 Jackson was elected over Clay, having" a majority
of the popular vote, as also a majority of the Electoral Col¬
lege. But if any one will divide the total vote by the num¬
ber of electors, he will find that Clay, who only secured 49
electors, oug-ht to have had 119, making- a difference of 70
votes, and double that number as between Jackson and Clay>
as the 70 were taken from Clay and given to Jackson. In
1852, the candidates were Pierce, Scott and Hale, and the
popular vote and the number of electors which each received
was as follows (this statement also shows the ratio for each,
elector chosen):
Pierce had 254 votes, Scott 42 votes and Hale none. The
injustice of this must be very apparent to every one. Divide
the whole vote, 3,126,378, by 296, the whole number of elec¬
tors, and the ratio necessary to elect one elector at that elec¬
tion was 10,562 votes, and yet the Pierce electors were elected
by a ratio not exceeding- 6,242, while the ratio for the Scott
electors was 32,846, or more than five times the number required
to elect the Pierce electors, while Hale, with 157,296 votes,
did not secure one electoral vote. If the vote had been equi-
PRESIDENTIAI, ELECTION. 1852.
Pierce
Scott.
Hale .
Popular Vote. Electors. Ratios.
...1,585,545 254 6,242
...1,383,537 42 32,846
. .. 157,296 — —
3,126,378 296
— 554 —
tably divided, as I propose, Pierce would have had 150 votes,
Scott 131, and Hale 15 votes. Pierce having- a majority of
the popular vote over both Scott and Hale would, of course,
liave a majority over both of the electoral votes, and would
have been the President. The inequality and injustice to the
electors in 1860 is so glaring- that I desire to call special at¬
tention to it:
PRESIDENTIAL, ELECTION, 1860.
Popular Vote. Electors. Ratios.
Lincoln 1,866,452 180 10,369
Doug-las 1,375,157 12 114,596
Breckinridge... 847,953 72 11,777
Bell 590,631 39 15,144
4,680,193 303
Mr. Lincoln did not receive a majority of the popular
vote, yet he had a large majority of the electoral vote. Doug¬
las had but 12 electoral votes, with 1,375,157 votes, while
Breckinridge and Bell together had 111 electoral votes, al¬
though their combined popular vote was less than 64,000
more than the popular vote for Douglas. Each of Douglas's
electors had 114,596 votes, while each of Mr. Lincoln's elec¬
tors had but 10,369 votes. If the electors had been appor¬
tioned according to the popular vote, Lincoln would have had
121 electors, Douglas 89, Breckinridge 55, and Bell 38.
At the election for 1864 the vote was for —
Popular Vote. Electors. Ratios.
Lincoln 2,223,035 213 10,436
McClellan 1,811,754 21 86,274
The mean ratio is 17,224 for an elector; Lincoln there¬
fore ought to have had but 129 electoral votes, and General
McClellan should have had 105 electoral votes.
ELECTION FOR PRESIDENT IN 1868.
Grant.. .
Seymour
3,016,353
2,706,631
Electors. Ratios.
214 14,090
80 33,832
— 555 —
The mean ratio at this election is 19,499. This would
liave given General Grant 155 electors, Seymour 139 electors.
With these facts before us, the injustice and danger of
our present system must be apparent to all. Under it the
minority have and may again elect the President. The same
inequality and injustice will be seen if the returns for the
election of members of this House are examined. If the elec¬
tors who voted for Grant and Seymour were equitably repre¬
sented in the next House, the Republican majority would be
far less than it will be. For these reasons I oppose the
proposition to elect the President by appointing presidential
electors in each State by single districts. If this system
should prevail the motive'for gerrymandering would increase,
and the legislatures of the several States might provide, as
■was done in Maryland, I believe, in 1824, when they provided
that the senatorial electors for that State should be elected
in the third and fourth congressional districts. The legisla¬
ture of Ohio, if Democratic as now, could provide that the
two senatorial electors should be elected in the two strongest
Democratic districts in the State; and the Republican legis¬
lature of New York could provide that her senatorial electors
should be elected in the congressional districts in which her
Senators actually resided. Any system which encourages the
perpetration of such frauds upon electors must be met with
prompt and unyielding opposition. If, as I have said, the
Electoral College system is to be maintained, then I feel war¬
ranted in saying that the statesmen of the country will prefer
the adoption of some plan which will secure to the
electors of each State an equitable representation in the
Electoral College. This cannot be done by electing them in
single districts, nor as now by the State at large.
It is not necessary for me to repeat what I have hereto¬
fore said in this House and elsewhere, that I am utterly op¬
posed to the present mode of electing the President, either by
electoral colleges or by the House of Representatives. The
honest and fair way is the one which is easiest and freest
from complications, and that is to nominate the several can.
didates for President under the safeguards and protection o!7
law, and elect by a direct vote of the qualified electors of the
entire nation by ballot.
— 556 —
Mr. Chairman, I desire to see Mr. Hare's system adopted
in this country, because I believe it to be the most philosoph¬
ical ever presented for securing- an equitable division of polit¬
ical power in a republican commonwealth. John Stuart Mill,,
in his work on representative government, says:
"Of all modes in which the national representation can
possibly be constituted, this one affords the best security for
the intellectual qualifications desirable in a representative.
At present, by universal admission, it is becoming- more and
more difficult for any one who has only talents and character
to gain admission to the House of Commons. The only per¬
sons who can get elected are those who possess local influence
or make their way by lavish expenditure.
"In no other way which it seems possible to suggest
would Parliament be so certain of containing- the very elitk
of the country. Not solely throug-h the votes of minorities
would this system raise the intellectual standard of the House
of Commons. Majorities would be compelled to look out for
members of much higher calibre. When the individuals com¬
posing- the majorities would no long-er be reduced to Hobson's
choice of either voting- for the person brought forward by the
local leaders or not voting-at all, when the nominee of the
leaders would have to encounter not only the candidate of the
minority, but of all the men of established reputations in the
country who were willing- to serve, it would be impossible
any long-er to foist upon the electors the first person who pre¬
sents himself with the catchwords of the party in his mouth,
and ,£3,000 or ;£4,000 in his pockets."
Mr. Chairman, nothing- has been more successfully used
in this country by small demagogues to defeat able represen¬
tative men than the clamor of the spoils-hunter for " available
candidates " and for "rotation in office." These men demand
party success at whatever cost of manhood or consistency.
With this cry, party discipline has been successfully invoked,
and constituencies have voted to place men in office who were
known by them to be intellectually and morally unfit for any
honorable public position.
Is the candidate "available? " asks the time-server. If so,
that is enough. No spoils-hunter is so indiscreet as to in~
quire about the character or ability of his candidate. Every
person of. experience knows that as a rule the " available
man" has no individuality, and that political availability is
everywhere a synonym for political mediocrity, and that
-557 —
nothing- so delights the heart of respectable conservatism as
stupid mediocrity.
Let any man make careful inquiry into the character of
all the men who for the past quarter of a century have been
members of this House, and he will find, to speak within
bounds, that more than one-third of the entire number have
been, as Mr. Benton says, "mere birds of passage," whose
■entrance here was often as great an astonishment to them¬
selves as it was to the statesmen of the nation. He will also
find that a large proportion of these "birds of passage " came
here by the force and power of party machinery and the co¬
operation of the Executive, who desired the presence of such
men that they might do his bidding-, after which, by common
consent they were to be " rotated out," and receive as a reward
for their fidelity to the " powers that be " some petty office; or
he will find that they were nominated and elected because
they were the representatives of money-bag's rather than the
representatives of ideas, or that they were political nonde¬
scripts, without intellectual ability enough to form or express
one distinct political idea, but with low cunning- enoug-h to
follow the programme prescribed for them by wily party
managers.
I am sure no man who has looked into our political his¬
tory will say that I overdraw the picture. Of course all
know that as a class these are the men who have always
deceived or betrayed constituencies; and yet in every con¬
gressional district in the United States where the party
majority is small and the district doubtful, stupidity with
money can win the day at the next election, against brains
with ideas. In Great Britain, at the late election, John Stuart
Mill, one of the ablest and most philosophical statesmen of
that country, was defeated by a mere popinjay, whose only
recommendation for a seat in Parliament was his money-
hags. Mill was known and respected in all parts of the civil¬
ized world, while the man who defeated him was not known
beyond the circle of the clique which nominated him, and
undoubtedly never would have been but for his money.
In this country money is being successfully employed
more and more every year to elect "political nondescripts"
to Congress. *The system I propose will, if adopted, secure
— 558 —
the election of the ablest men in the nation and banish the
baneful spirit of partisan bigotry.
Mr. Chairman, defective as our representative system is
admitted to be, and faithless as have been many of the
people's chosen servants, I can testify to the fact that,
though this is called a money-loving- and a money-worship¬
ping- ag-e, I have been associated here in the past ten years
with men in the administration of the government, who
believed in something- higher than the g-od of Mammon.
Since the war of the rebellion I have been associated
with a party a majority of whose members have been free
from all schemes of public plunder or peculation; a majority
of whom have also been as true as the needle to the pole in
their defense of human rights. Beset as they were on every
hand by apostasy and treason, by temptation and the allure¬
ments of power, they have kept the faith and made a record
which will grow bright with time.
A great battle has been fought and a complete victory
won for the establishment of a real republic. In this grand
battle soldier and civilian alike have participated, and are
entitled to equal honor. The one was a necessity to the
other. Without the unselfish heroism of the soldier, and the
fidelity of Abraham Lincoln, and his faithful co-workers in
the national Congress, defeat would have been inevitable.
During these memorable years I count it a great honor
to have been intimately associated with some of the grandest
men who ever represented any people. To their fidelity and
to the heroism of the soldier we owe our redemption as a
nation. To this same class of men we shall owe in the
future our progressive development as a people in moral
power and material grandeur. Much has been accomplished;
much also remains to be accomplished. The history of the
past is not without its encouragements. There is a place for
all, and labor for all. Let no effort be relaxed, and let no
man grow weary or turn back in despair. He who battles
unselfishly for the right, ever and always grows stronger and
stronger. To-day the nation begins to realize that the
divine command embodied in the "golden rule," and coming
to us down the centuries, is breathing its spirit into the
hearts of millions, quickening the faith and'strengthening
— 559 —
the heroic purpose of every noble man and woman. "With
this quickening- faith the old anti-slavery guard went forth
strong- in heart and brave in purpose, to battle for the rights
of mankind. In that great conflict they were as true as the
law of gravitation, and labored long and faithfully for the
reorganization of the government on the basis of complete
justice. Free from selfishness, without concealment, and
without compromise, inspired with this great purpose, they
patiently endured mob violence and the persecutions of mad¬
dened men. Though often assailed they assailed not again.
In their lives they were as beautiful as the morning, tolerant
as charity, and gentle as the spirit of peace. I can never
tire in my praises of these grand men and women. In our
anti-slavery triumph and national regeneration behold the
fruits of their labor, which transcend even the hopes and
expectations of enthusiastic poets and philosophers. To
them we owe a country redeemed, regenerated, and disen¬
thralled from the despotism of slavery, a country which to¬
day is presided over by the genius of universal liberty and
universal peace.
Letter from Hon. C. I<. Maxwell, Xenia, Ohio, U. S. Consul to San
Domingo.
Through this volume, in every one of Mr. Ashley's speeches,,
there is a philosophy as liberal as it is broad and sincere. Iu all he
says, there is a calm hopefulness and a quiet dignity, eloquent for
its simplicity. No effort is anywhere apparent at sensational ora¬
tory, but there is always a clearness and strength of statement
■which commands attention and carries conviction. His appeals for
c. l. maxwell, the rights of labor are earnest and hopeful, and appear in many
speeches in this volume. Every one who reads them will learn how persistently Mr.
Ashley has for years been pleading for the rights of all races of men, and for the up¬
lifting of the human race. In one of his poetic quotations, he says, that " In the
Majesty of Nature, he would teach the Majesty of Man." C. L. Maxwell.
HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY
on
Greeley and Grant.
the greeley campaign of 1872.
The Liberal Republicans of Toledo held a large meeting-
last nig-ht at White's Hall, to ratify the nomination of Horace
Greeley, their foremost anti-slavery leader.
At an early hour, the hall was filled to overflowing' with
enthusiastic old-time Republicans.
William E. Parmelee, one of the early abolitionists, was
made chairman.
After a few pertinent remarks he introduced the orator
of the occasion, who was received with hearty and prolong-ed
cheers, and spoke as follows.
address of hon. j. m. ashley.
Fellow-Citizens: A remembrance of the many cordial
greeting's which I have received in the past, when standing1
before you on this platform, and the enthusiastic and cordial
welcome which you have extended to me to-nig-ht, fills my
heart with emotions which I will not undertake to express.
I can only say that I thank you most sincerely for this gener¬
ous and flattering- welcome. [Applause.]
If, in what I shall say to you to-nig-ht, in discussing- the
questions of the hour, I shall deal with them dispassionately,
I hope I shall not disappoint you.
Twenty years ago, this coming- fall, I left the party of
my choice and voluntarily went into the minority, casting-my
first presidential vote in this city for Hale and Julian, the
— 560 - -
— 561 —
Abolition candidates of that year, for President and Vice-
President of tiie United States. I need not say to you that I
then knew, as everybody knew, that the gentlemen for whom
I cast my vote could not be elected. I intended that my vote
should be counted with other votes as a silent, but earnest
protest against the crime of slavery and the attempted sub¬
ordination of the National Government to the imperious de¬
mand of the slave barons. [Loud cheers.] At that time the
old Democratic party to which I belonged had possession of
the National and more than three-fourths of all the State
Governments, including Ohio, and every county in this Con¬
gressional District. In going into that apparently hopeless
minority I simply followed my highest convictions of duty,
not stopping to count the cost to me politically or personally.
I was content then, as I am now, to leave the consequences
to Him who has promised to overturn and overturn until every
wrong shall be put under His feet. [Loud applause.]
It was then said, by those who believed themselves to be
my best friends, that I had very foolishly thrown away the
brightest political prospect of any young man in Ohio. I had
been schooled in the old Democratic party, and substantially
agreed with it on all political questions of statesmanship, ex¬
cept that of state-rights and slavery. I believed then, as I do
now, that a large proportion of the people of the Northern
States were as true to freedom as I was, but I believed, as
they did not, that the national Democratic organization had
proven untrue to the fundamental idea of a true democracy;
that it had been taken possession of by the slave barons, who
had perverted it and made it the foe of the laboring man and
the enemy of the human race. [Cheers.] Believing this
with all my heart, I could not stay with it. The allurements
of office, and the brilliant vista which ambition pictured, did
not blind me, and I could not be induced to be either indiffer¬
ent or silent. [Applause.]
THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY.
For twenty years, as you all know, I fought this great
crime of the centuries with a vigilance which never tired
36
— 562 —
and a perseverance that never faltered until victory perched
upon our banner. That victory having- been won, as history
has recorded, I say, as you can, all honor to the memory of
the true and great-hearted men who never failed in that
matchless struggle, whether they were in the halls of Congress
or on the tented field; all honor to them, wherever at the
present hour their interests or convictions may carry them,
they shall ever have my grateful remembrance. In this great
battle which is now upon us, many of the men with whom we
were then associated will necessarily be divided, but neither am¬
bition nor disappointment ought ever to be permitted to make
us unmindful of the great victories which, by their joint ef¬
forts with ours, have been achieved in the past.
With this hope I am prepared to go into the minority
again, if so be when the votes are counted out we are once
more in a minority. As I gave twenty years of my life to
battle with the capital and oppression that owned its laborers,
so am I prepared to give twenty years of my maturer man¬
hood to battling for the rights of the working-man, convinced
that in so doing- I am maintaining" the true democratic idea of
government against centralization and military despotism.
[Loud applause.]
THE) GRKAT ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN.
Gentlemen, you will see by these preliminary remarks
that I have not come here to-night to ask you to abandon any
one of the great ideas for which we have fought, nor have I
come here to retract any of the principles for which I have
battled, but rather to ask you to join hands in making- our fight
for the success of these principles on the Cincinnati platform.
[Applause.]
Now, gentlemen, I desire, first, to call your attention to
the two parties which are in the field and to the two plat¬
forms announcing their ideas. And I ask every man here
who has been a Republican as long as have, and would
like to ask and require of those who have been Republicans
as long as I have, and who have voted unflinchingly as long as I
have, to at least deal honorably with their brethren who now
differ with them in opinion. I ask }-ou, gentlemen, to take
— 5b3 —
these two platforms, and in a thoughtful mood analyze them,
and tell me as honest men, divested of party spirit, which of
the two commends itself to you and most deserves your votes.
As independent thinkers I venture to say that four-fifths of
you will determine that the Cincinnati platform is far in ad¬
vance of any platform previously adopted by any party
in this country ! [Cheers.]
I take it that nine-tenths of the thinking1 men of the
land, when they come to give these two platforms their honest,
thoughtful consideration, will say that of the two, this Cin¬
cinnati platform best represents the old ideas of the Republi¬
can party.
LOOK ON THIS PICTURE AND ON THIS I
Then as to the men! And here I am compelled to depart
from the course which I have always followed in discussing
political questions, to wit: to omit all mention of names. I
am compelled to be more personal, as there are two Republi¬
can candidates, and I must present to you the points in the
character of one candidate at least — if I say nothing of the
other — so that you may form some judgment as to the rela¬
tive merits of the men and the ideas which underlie this con¬
flict.
Among the silly campaign charges brought against us,
is that every man who is supporting Greeley is a sorehead
and a disappointed man. [Laughter.] Now it would have
been a very easy thing for me not to have been a sorehead, if
I had chosen to accept the positions tendered me by President
Grant. But as I had made up my mind to oppose his re¬
election, I could not honorably accept office at his hands. I
said this to him kindly but frankly during the last interview
I had with him at the "White House. And this interview, I
may say, was on his own invitation, through Secretary
Delano. I do not believe that General Grant is a corrupt or
bad meaning man, as many of our blind partisans charge,
but I do believe that the corrupt rings, which now dominate
and control his administration, must be driven from power —
and I do not believe that General Grant can or will do it, sc
long as he is President.
-564 —
The whisky ring1, the post-office ring-, the Indian ring-,
the Washing-ton City *ing, and last though not least, the
army ring-, make a formidable combination of plunderers,
which General Grant seems powerless to resist.
These rings have made open or secret war upon all the
old anti-slavery guard, from Sumner and Greeley down.
I have often, when speaking- to Sumner and others of
General Grant's administration, quoted, more than half ap¬
provingly, the declaration of Henry Clay against Jackson
when in his wrath he exclaimed, "War, pestilence and fam¬
ine, in preference to a military chieftain for the Presidency."
[Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, you will bear me witness, I know,
that I have never failed either in Congress or out of it, to
denounce and to vote against all measures which I regarded
as dangerous to the country, or unjust to the black man!
And I have never hesitated to antagonize men, however able,
whatever their official positions, if I believed them wrong, or
intending wrong. [Applause.]
When I introduced the resolutions for the impeachment
of Andrew Johnson, I did it as a public dut3r. Personally,
I had no cause of quarrel with Mr. Johnson, as his bullet-
headed claqueurs and the chickadee statesmen have ig-
norantly assumed, and with brazen tongue, charged. What
I then did, was done without undertaking to count the cost
to myself personally, or to determine what its effect might be
upon me politically. You who know me, understand that I
have never been governed in my public acts or utterances, by
that rascally virtue, called "discretion." [Applause.] The
record I then made will stand, and I do not believe that the
loyal men of the nation will ever be ashamed of my actions
in connection with the impeachment struggle. [Applause.]
When General Grant surrounded himself with unworthy
and objectionable men, who both openly and secretly made
war upon Sumner and Chase, Greeley and Trumbull, Schurz
and Julian, and nearly all the old anti-slavery guard, and
permitted his administration to be dominated in all its depart¬
ments by ring rule, they were forced, and the old anti-slavery
— 565 —■
guard all over the country, in self-defense, were forced to
protest, and oppose his re-election. [Applause.] We may
not be able to defeat General Grant in this contest, and prob¬
ably shall not. But it is none the less our duty to protest,
and to protest in earnest, by voting-for Greeley. [Applause.]
And I am glad to be able to tell you to-night, that in this
"Liberal Republican" movement, we have protesting- with
us, nearly all the old anti-slavery guard. [Applause.]
We have not only such men as our friend on my right,
who is presiding over this great meeting, but we have with
us such recognized and manly leaders as Chief Justice Chase
and Senators Sumner, of Massachusetts, Doolittle, of Wis¬
consin, Trumbull, of Illinois, and Carl Schurz, of Missouri,
who never bowed the knee to the Moloch of slavery. [Ap¬
plause.] We also have with us, Whitelaw Reid, of the
" New York Tribune," Chauncey M. Depew, Governor Fen-
ton, Frederick A. Conkling,and many other able and eminent
Republicans in the great State of New York. Then, there is
Julian, of Indiana, Abolition candidate for Vice-President on
the ticket with John P. Hale, in 1852, and for whom I then
voted; and so on, in all the Northern States, you will find that
the old anti-slavery g-uard are, as if by intuition, with us, for
that safe, wise, clear-headed, great-hearted, matchless anti-
slavery leader, Horace Greeley! [Great applause.] And
here let me ask, why should an old anti-slavery man vote for
General Grant, and against Horace Greeley? All his life
Greeley has been one of the ablest and truest leaders, in our
great anti-slavery struggle, never hesitating, never doubting,
never faltering; a forerunner, as it were, like John the Baptist
in the wilderness; a man of pure life, unselfish purpose, a
faithful friend and manly enemy; a man without guile and
without hypocrisy. [Applause.]
General Grant, during all his early life, was a pro-slavery
Democrat.
In talking to me one day, soon after his election in 1868,
he told me, that in 1856 he voted for that recognized Northern
representative of the slave barons, James Buchanan, and of
course against John C. Fremont, the Republican candidate for
President. He did not say, in so man}r words, that he regretted
that vote, but I inferred from what he did say, and the way
-— 566 —
lie said it, that lie did regret it, and we all hope that he has
always regretted it since. [Applause.]
In 1860, I am credibly informed that he voted against
Abraham Lincoln and for Stephen A. Doug-las, and it is
openly stated by well-known Illinois Republicans in Wash¬
ington, that not until after General Grant was nominated for
President by the Republican party did he vote the Republican
ticket, or support the Republican party, or its representative
men, except it was reported that he favored Mr. Lincoln's elec¬
tion in 1864, in preference to McClellan. And I have no doubt
that is true.
Fellow-citizens, this presidential canvass is unlike any
in our history. Greele}*, who was nominated at Cincin¬
nati by the old Abolitionists, and in fact by a new party,
which in their national convention, they called the "Liberal
Republican Party," has been nominated as you know, by the
regular national Democratic convention at Baltimore, and
thus Greeley, who never was a Democrat, is made the Demo¬
cratic candidate, and General Grant, who was all his life a
regular Bourbon Democrat, and never a Republican, until af¬
ter he was nominated by that party for President, is a can¬
didate of the machine Republicans. From a philosophical
standpoint, and as I look at the situation, this unprecedented
condition of national affairs, is not bad for the nation, nor
for the people, however undesirable it may be for the machine
politician, or for the office-holder and office-seeker. [Ap¬
plause.]
The old anti-slavery g'uard believe that the negro, in all
his rig-hts and interests, will be in far safer hands if Greeley
is elected President, than he would be under General Grant.
If I thought otherwise, I would not vote for Mr. Greeley,
much as I admire him. [Applause.] And when I tell you,
that from my first introduction to him, before I was twenty
years old, to this hour, he has been my loj^al, steadfast friend,
you will not wonder at my confidence in him, nor at my active
enthusiastic support of him now. [Applause.] I would vote
for him if I knew that he would not receive a single electoral
vote. I intend to do just as I did in 1852, when I protested
ag*ainst the slave barons, by voting- for Hale and Julian. My
— 567 —
vote this year will be a protest against ring- rule and military
domination. [Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, however highly I may have esteemed
General Grant as a military man, I did not desire to see him
made Chief Magistrate of this nation four years ago, nor do
I now. I did not want him nominated in 1868, and was only
compelled by circumstances to vote for him then. The ma¬
jority of the men in this Liberal Republican movement are
not only not soreheads, but are men who never asked for nor
held office under this Administration, either by election or
appointment. [Cheers.]
I aver, further, that the majority of the men in power
who are now denouncing us, from the highest down to the
lowest tide-waiter, were the most unscrupulous pro-slavery
men in the nation, some of them even stabbing us in the
dark, until the triumph of the anti-slavery cause made their
attacks useless. [Loud cheers.]
WHO ARK THE: SOREHEADS?
I claim, gentlemen, that we come to you and present you
with a platform, framed and upheld by as disinterested a set
of men as can be called together for the discussion of national
affairs. Why, sir, if no man were permitted to speak whom
the Executive of the nation had assailed or stricken down,
then, all that the Executive would be called upon to do,
would be to assail and strike down a man in order that he should
be made dumb. So should Sumner be dumb; so should Trum¬
bull and Schurz, ex-Governor Cox and every independent
thinker in the land. Why, sir, the cabals and rings charge
every man that goes out of their ranks and fights the battle
on his own hook, with being a sorehead. I have no doubt that
Pharaoh said Moses was a miserable sorehead when he under¬
took to lead the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage.
[Laughter.] So with all the grand men that have battled
for ideas all along down the whole line.
The men in power are disturbed by it, and they say,
"What does that fellow want now?" [Laughter.] When
— 568 —
a man attempts to organize a Greeley club, the charge is al
once made that he is seeking- some office, and the worst of it
is, that in partisan newspapers the best and purest men are
basely assailed, and the most unprincipled men are often
lauded the highest.
MORTON, THE? MANY-SIDED.
Let me look at some objections made to Mr. Greeley.
And first, the charge made by Senator Morton at Indianapolis
the other day, in a speech of which I have, I am sorry to say,
only a synopsis, that if Greeley is elected, financial ruin and
all kinds of disaster will come upon the country. What Mr.
Morton thinks and says may not be of any very great weight,
and if I had his political history, I am certain I would not be up¬
on this stand to-night. He is a man who held back during
the struggles of the anti-slavery party, and denounced us in
the vilest manner. He defended Johnson till he saw we were
going to bring him to the bar of the United States, and then
he became one of his bitterest accusers! He was the man
who at first advocated Pendleton's greenback theor}% and
abandoned it as soon as he saw the wave was receding and
would leave him on the strand! This is the man who comes
unblushingly forward before the citizens of Indianapolis and
says if Greeley is elected the country will come to financial
ruin.
Let us show a little common-sense in this matter. Let
us see of those who have been President for the last twenty
years how many have been remarkable for financial ability.
Can you tell me, if you were a member of any great commer¬
cial corporation, if you would invite any one of them to be
head of it?
GREELEY AND GREENBACKS.
What does the present head of the government know
about finances? [Laughter.] The assumption that he
knows anything about it is preposterous.
Let us look at what Greeley has said. He has said no
more about a return to specie payment than has Chief Justice
— 559 —
Chase — and you will all admit that he has some financial
brains. Mr. Chase said, "that the way to resume specie pay¬
ment was to resume;" Mr. Greeley said the same thing- in his
paper, by which he meant that all means should be em¬
ployed, consistent with the law and the safety of the finan¬
cial relations of the country, which would lead to that result.
It is an easy matter for me, or any man, to say that the right
way to do such a thing- is to do it; but when you come to
doing- it, there may be some mechanical or physical difficulty
to be encountered, which only discussion and mature judg¬
ment may enable us to overcome. The duty of every officer
of the government is to execute the laws.
Neither the Executive of the nation (unless he entirely
disregards law) nor the Secretary of the Treasury can do
aught in the matter of administering the financial affairs of
the country, except in strict accordance with the law. So if
Mr. Greeley goes into the White House, and selects a new
Secretary of the Treasury, the financial ripple will not make
a half-cent difference, except in favor of the people. [Ap¬
plause.]
BOUTWEU, AND BULLION.
Now I undertake to say that the policy pursued by the
present Secretary of the Treasury is disastrous to the best
interests of our country; it is disastrous to the West; and
Greeley has insisted from the first, that this disastrous
policy should not be pursued. What is that policy? To
keep locked up in the Treasury $112,000,000 in gold, when
every man understands, who knows anything about finance,
that the country can go along safely with $40,000,000 in the
Treasury. I have repeatedly said to Governor Boutwell,
Secretary of the Treasury, that I could sleep very soundly
as Treasurer, if I had locked up $112*, 000,000 of gold all the
time, and knew that under no possibility could I be called on
for half of it. Not only Chief Justice Chase, with whom I
have talked repeatedly, but Mr. Greeley, and every man who
has given the subject careful thought, knows that there are
$70,000,000 which could be safely used in taking up the
— 570 —
bonds, on which we pay interest, and burn them. [Ap¬
plause.]
In taking- up that $70,000,000 of six per cent, bonds, you
would save over $4,000,000 a year in interest and not only so,
but in distributing- the money over the country it is worth six
per cent., and the people would g-ain $4,000,000 more, to say
nothing- of the immense advantages which these $70,000,000
would be annually to commerce and to the people. This taking
up the bonds and burning- them, instead of greenbacks, on
which no interest is paid, and thus reducing- the price of grain,
leather, etc., would be very gratifying- to me if I was a bond¬
holder and indifferent to the rights of others. Greeley de¬
mands that the policy of the government shall be so far modi¬
fied as to take in the bonds on which we pay interest, and thus
reduce the necessity of buying- gold every year to pay the
interest. If Horace Greeley goes into the White House, he
will see to it that no such vast amount of the people's treas¬
ure is locked up there as is now in the vaults, to the detri¬
ment of commerce, to the injury of business, and from which
the West is suffering, as a consequence. [Applause.]
GREEI/EY, PEACE AND PROSPERITY.
What objection is there to Horace Greeley? Why, these
men say that Greeley is g-oing- to be elected by the Democrats!
[Laughter and cheers.] And, therefore, all the anti-slavery
men are compelled to be Democrats in order to have him
elected. I saw a letter the other day from an old Quaker lady,
in reply to one written to her about the Cincinnati movement,
and telling- her that the charge was made of coalition and sell¬
ing- out on the part of the Liberal Republicans, and she wrote
back to this effect: "The charge of selling out and coalition is
preposterous; the old issues which kept the Democratic party
alive are dead, and new issues must be adopted. If they take
our ideas, I am not ashamed to take their name." [Applause.]
Now, gentlemen, I do not fear the Democrats, and if
Greeley can unite all the people of this country who have
been in antagonism to each other, and the}r can go upon that
Cincinnati platform and strike hands, it will be one of the
grandest moral revolutions that this nation, or the world,
— 571 —
has ever witnessed! [Cheers.] And that is to be the result.
Therefore, I say to you, that nothing- could happen in this
country more calculated to give it quiet and peace, order, se¬
curity and prosperity, than for those who have been in an¬
tagonism to these great ideas, to come up and adopt them,
and elect a man to the Presidency of the United States who,
for thirty years, has marched to the tune of liberty and the
rights of man! [Cheers.]
grant's shortcomings and usurpations.
Now, g-entlemen, for a moment let us see what we shall
gain. There will no long-er be that centralization of power
which you now see in the hands of the National Executive,
the Executive becoming-, as it were, the law-making- as well
as the appointing- power. If Greeley g-oes into the presiden¬
tial office, he goes there pledged not to use the veto power
he g-oes there pledg-ed not to use the appointing- power for
personal ends. And, g-entlemen, we shall have civil service,
reform; we shall have that kind of reform which is demo¬
cratic in truth and in fact, that the Executive shall no long-er
be any part of the law-making- power. This Government of
ours is to-day in its executive department a g-overnment
of materialization and force. Under this administration they
believe that force and office can do anj^thing-, and therefore,
they do not hesitate to stalk into the Senate of the United
States, and dismiss Charles Sumner from its highest and
most important committee, the oldest, and most honored and
distinguished Senator, and put in his place a man whose
name I need not mention. [Applause.] So of all their
movements.
the; military vs. the democratic idea.
Mr. Chairman. The spirit of war, and the spirt of demo¬
cratic institutions, must forever remain in antag-onism. Force,
when skillfully directed by a sing-le military chief, gives suc¬
cess in war. In peace reason must rule. In the councils of
the people, under a true democracy, free discussion, manl}-
criticism, and a strict adherence to the Constitution, are the
— 572 —
truest safeguards for the preservation of a democratic gov¬
ernment. Discipline and unquestioned obedience on the
part of the soldier, gives strength and efficiency to armies,
but when this nation yields its civil administration to the
spirit of war, it surrenders the lawful rights of its citizens
and imperils constitutional liberty. Whenever the military
power shall have complete dominion of this country, its au¬
thority will become absolute, and the Chief Executive of the
nation will be a dictator. [Applause.]
OUR INDIAN NO-POLICY.
The Indian policy on which the Grant Administration
seems disposed to plume itself is also a failure. According
to its own reports the expenditures are over seven millions of
dollars annually, whereas, in Buchanan's time, it was only a
little over two millions, and this, too, in face of the fact that
the Indians have been constantly decreasing in numbers and
strength. While we have been spending these vast sums of
money, we have failed to secure safety to life and property, and
large numbers of our people have been cruelly massacred since
the inauguration of this stupid policy, which assumes to treat
savages as civilized men, and recognizes their right to make
treaties, to make war, and to hold our citizens as prisoners of
war on our own territory. [Cheers.]
In addition to this expenditure, large sums really ex¬
pended upon the Indians are charged to the War Department,
the amount of which I have no means of estimating. Our
troops are moved over the plains, marched and counter¬
marched to distant points, where transportation for every
scrap of supplies for man and beast costs from ten to twenty-
five cents per pound, and all of which goes into the item of ex¬
penditures for the arm}r, and can not be ascertained as a sepa¬
rate item, which ought to be put down to the so-called Indian
policy.
HOW THE BRITISH UON WEEPS.
'"\;".k about the efficiency of the present Administration,
indeed! Look at our foreign policy, and say if it is not so
•— 573 —
muddled, that no man who was not muddled could have landed
us in such a labyrinth of stupidity. Think of the humiliation
to which we have been subjected! The organs of the Ad¬
ministration have treated us to some caricatures in which
Secretary Fish looks big* and stands on the tail of the British
lion, and the poor lion is shedding" tears in its humiliation
and distress. Now, it would be vastly more true to history
if Grant and Fish were down and the lion, having- ceased
weeping-, had its paw u'pon them. [Loud laug-hter and cheers.]
In most of the caricatures that I have seen of late there is
about as much truth as in this one.
So long- as we shall adhere to the present two-term policy
instead of adopting- the one-term—so long- as the President
is eligible to re-election—just so long- shall we witness such
a convention as assembled at Philadelphia, and just so long-
will such men be nominated for the hig-hest offices in the gift
of a free people. [Cheers.] Gentlemen, look over the acts
of this Administration, commencing- with the appointment
of the first Cabinet, and you will see abundant reason why
this great Republican party to which you and I belong- has
"been divided and broken.
GRANT AND HIS CABINET.
In an unfortunate hour, to prevent our opponents from
taking- this man, who never belong-ed to our party, we took
Grant and elected him; and one of his first acts was the selec¬
tion of a Cabinet that was a surprise and an offense to the
American people. With an exception or two he has con¬
tinued in the same course until he has surrounded himself
with men who have been a trouble and a disgrace to the
nation. Not one of the Cabinet ministers — save the Secre¬
tary of the Interior, and his affairs have not been examined
into — but has been convicted of a violation of the law.
[Cries of "That's so."] And the paltry excuse which they
give for violating- the law is that they thought it was for the
best interests of the country that the law should be violated.
[Great laughter.] That was the excuse which Secretary
Boutwell gave when he negotiated our bonds in Europe, and
spent more money than he was authorized to spend by law.
— 574 —
That was the excuse Secretary Robeson gave when he took
ninety-three thousand dollars out of the Treasury, which he
was not authorized to take, and so much more than Congress,
by special resolution, provided. So with the Post-office De¬
partment and so with the War Department. But, g-entlemen,
this is inevitable when men without character, without
ability, without antecedents, are called in to administer the
affairs of the nation. Under such a regime rings will be
formed, incapacity dictate, and corruption rule the hour.
[Cheers.]
time; for a change.
Now, gentlemen, we propose to change all this by put¬
ting* a man at the head whose integrity has never been ques¬
tioned. A man who as a poor boy went to New York, and
had the brains, the ability and character to build up a paper
that is worth a million of dollars to-day. A man, too, who
has had the good luck or sense to call around him other men
of character and ability, and that which a man does in his
private life you may, as a rule, expect he will adhere to when
he is called upon to perform public and official acts. May we
not therefore expect that if Greeley comes to the presidential
chair he will call around him men who will be of like quality
with himself, men of culture and experience, and that he will
scrupulously eschew your mousing- politicians whose notions
of public duty are confined to their own aggrandizement,
unless they are cowardly as well as base, in which case they
form a ring. [Loud laug-hter and cheers.]
A Cabinet officer lately said to me, " If Greeley is elected
he will be compelled to select some rebel for his Cabinet." I
replied, "If he does he will select a rebel of brains whom he
will not be compelled to kick out in six weeks." [Laug-hter.]
If he does select one who has been a rebel, it will be
because he has brains for the position, and such an act would
show a disposition to strike hands over the past —to forget
the past — and over the memories of the fallen dead to pledge
ourselves to the future weal and glory of our common coun¬
try. [L,oud cheers.] And do we not want peace, and union,
and forgiveness of the past? [Applause.] I repeat what I
— 575 —
said in Congress, in 1865, that we would gladly welcome the
returning- prodigal, and kill the fatted calf, if he would only
return to the Union, and swear fidelity to the flag-.
Greeley the; man of the; people;.
Is not this the feeling- that inspires the great body of the
people? This is the spirit which, throughout all this coun¬
try, demands that Mr. Greeley should be elected. Has he not
always been on the side of the poor man, and on the side of
the oppressed, trying to lift them up to better possibilities?
The people feel that if we elect Horace Greeley we shall have
an era of g-ood feeling- in this nation, which we shall not, and
can not have under an Administration that is indifferent to
every sentiment of justice and right.
the unhappy south.
When you look over the South to-day, and witness the
terrible condition of her people, you see how they were im¬
poverished, not only by our armies, but you see how they are
robbed by a swarm of carpet-bag- thieves, retained by the Ad¬
ministration, or who have at least been permitted to sail un-i
der the banner of the Administration, until almost every;
State, except Mississippi [which had a Southern man for gov¬
ernor], has been impoverished and bankrupted by these men..
So, also, in the custom-houses in New Orleans and New
York; indeed, all over the country you find this same irre¬
sponsible class of men called into the service of the Govern¬
ment, to administer its affairs and to maintain and stand by
the Government.
If you and I had been Southern men should we have sub-!
mitted to be treated as they have been? Take South Caroli¬
na, for instance. Without a call from the governor, without
a call from the legislature, in a State where they have a color¬
ed majority of from twenty to thirty thousand, the President,,
at somebody's beck, issues a proclamation proclaiming- mar¬
tial law and suspending- the writ of habeas corpus, and so
eager was he to issue this proclamation that he included sev¬
eral counties in which no disorder existed. Thus was the
— 576 —
"bayonet put to the throat of these people, who could be car-,
ried off from their families at night, or at any time, and
thrust into prison, where no process of any court could reach
them, and where they could be dealt with only by the
army, and not by the law, which should be their protec¬
tion and support. The idea of a free Government like this,
with an executive at its head reaching- out into every local¬
ity, undertaking- to control it, when a majority of the people
belong- to its own party and can control it as well, if they
choose!
thu colored race.
Now a word to the black man. No man can put his
hand upon a word ever dropped, or written by me, or a
vote ever given by me, that was not for him; if he Can
let him speak, and let the blatant demagogues who fought
against his rights, and struck him in the back when I was
fighting for him, hold their peace.
I appeal to every black man, not only here, but every¬
where in America. This ticket that has been nominated is
composed of old anti-slavery men, who were g-uardians of
that thought at a time when it required pluck and faith and
fidelity to be so. "Where is the black man who would be
afraid to follow the benign face and benevolent heart of Hor¬
ace Greeley? "Where is the man who would hesitate to follow
that gallant Kentuckian who, when I was a boy, was as
strong- an anti-slavery man as Cassius M. Clay? Where is
the man who would be afraid to follow the distinguished and
able Senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, the fore¬
most man of this people? [Applause.] Of the grand army
of men who compose this Liberal Republican movement, you
find four-fifths of all the men who, in the early struggle in
forming the Republican party, constituted its advance guard,
while the camp-followers and thieves, who came in afterward
and took possession of it, were fighting us till victory was
achieved. [Cheers.]
conclusion.
And now, gentlemen, I would say that in coming to this
— 577 —
conclusion, I have not done so without careful thought and
long* and anxious study. It is not an easy matter for a man
with the strong- personal attachments that I have, to sever his
political connection from a majority of those with whom he
has been acting- for twenty of the most eventful years of his
life; but I do it from the highest convictions of duty, and
though I went out alone, I should be compelled to go, as I did
in '52. But I thank Heaven that instead of having the small
number, as then, we have had a kind of Pentecost all over
the land.
Recently I was in Illinois, and there, as in Ohio, I saw
men come up and stretch hands towards each other who had
been parted for years. [Cheers.] They are going to bury
the past; they are going to forget and forgive the past, and
to say that in the future, come what may, intervention, for¬
eign war, never again shall fraternal blood be shed in our land;
never again shall the dark shadows of civil war overhang
our homes; but this country shall be one in sentiment, one in
fraternal faith, one in nationality, one in promise of unlim¬
ited grandeur; that we shall stand shoulder to shoulder, and
swear by Him who liveth forever that come what may, no
other flag shall ever float above our homes or graves. [Great
cheering.]
The organization of a campaign Greeley Club and the
appointment of officers terminated the proceeding's.
37
CENTENNIAL ORATION.
Wood County Centennial Celebration, July 4, 1876.
At a meeting- of the "Wood County Board of Agriculture,
held in Tontogany on Friday, February 18, 1876, it was
resolved to adopt the sug-gestion of the Ohio State Board of
Agriculture in relation to holding a centennial celebration on
the county fair grounds, at Tontogany, on the 4th of July
next, and the* following preamble and resolutions were unani¬
mously adopted:
Whereas, The Centennial authorities at Philadelphia
have recommended the celebration of the coming 4th day of
July in each organized county in the United States, and that
a competent person be selected to prepare an historical
address to be delivered on that occasion, etc.
E. Tuller, President.
W. H. Wood, Secretary.
Honorable James M. Ashley was selected, and the fol¬
lowing is his oration:
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-citizens,
all:
On this, the one-hundredth birthday of our national
independence, we meet to commemorate the heroism and
matchless deeds of those who lived, struggled and died that a
free and beneficent g-overnment might be established, and
liberty have a secure resting-place on earth. We meet to call
up the memory of the great and the good, whose hearts con¬
ceived and whose brains molded the ideal republic of the
world, a symmetrical, beautiful temple of human wisdom,
and of human brotherhood, within whose sacred rortals,
— 57S—
— 579 —
every race, and kindred, and tongue, and people, may at
last, enjoy life and liberty, security and peace. [Applause.]
northwest ohio.
I cannot repeat to you tlie names of all the heroes of the
Revolution, nor need I attempt to recount to you the toils,
the privations and the sacrifices, of the noble men by whom
this Government was founded. It is a story familiar to you
all. Neither need I speak of our second war of indepen¬
dence, nor do more than refer to the fact that we whose
homes are in Northwestern Ohio, and in the adjacent terri¬
tory of Michigan and Indiana, live in a locality made classic
by the splendid military achievements of the early frontier
settlers, under the leadership of Anthony Wayne in 1794 and
of General Harrison, Colonel Dick Johnson and the gallant
Croghan in fighting the British and their Indian allies in
1813 and '14. At that time all this beautiful region of coun¬
try was a vast wilderness, and the spot on which we are
celebrating to-day, was then an unbroken solitude, undis¬
turbed as yet by the hardy pioneer, the stillness of the
prairie and forest being broken only by the howl of the
wolf, and the terrific yell of the wild man. [Applause.]
our national, growth.
As a nation, our material growth, in the first century of
our existence, is unparalleled in history. Beginning with
thirteen States, we to-day number thirty-eight, and our
territorial jurisdiction spans the continent from ocean to
ocean, and extends from the tropics to the frozen regions.
Within one hundred years, the mightiest republic the
world ever saw has grown to manhood, and numbers at least
40,000,000 of freemen who are at peace with themselves and
with all the world. Over this vast expanse of territory the
benign power of the best government ever devised by man, is
fully recognized, and a nation comprising a sisterhood of
commonwealths, is presided over by a National Government,
organized for the special protection and defense of all. It
is impossible to overestimate the blessings of such a govern-
— 580 —
rnent and the value of the public and private institutions
which are the legitimate outgrowth of it. It is only a com¬
parison with other nations that the priceless value of our
inheritance becomes apparent.
Only when we compare our condition, material and
social, with that of other nations, can we begin to estimate its
value. Nowhere else can be found such a combination of
soil and climate; nowhere productions so abundant for the
same labor; nowhere human industry so richly rewarded;
nowhere such liberty and independence for the citizens. He
who, having been born beneath that flag, does not love
his country and government, is an unnatural monster, who is
unfit to live, and unfit to die, and ought to be cast out to
join Victor Hugo's "Wandering Jew," or to become a com¬
panion of the " Man without a country." [Applause.]
our fatal blunders.
Wonderful as were our military triumphs m the war of
the Revolution, in the war of 1812, and in the Mexican war,
our material achievements have eclipsed them all. Only ia
our political administration, have we fallen short of the ideal
grandeur of which the young republic gave bright promise.
Notwithstanding the earnest warnings of Washington and
Jefferson, of Franklin, Payne and others, the fatal blunders
in our civil administration finally culminated in the late ter¬
rible war.
Fellow-citizens: The judgment of history has already
been pronounced, touching the war of the rebellion, and I
need only refer here and now to the verdict which the world
has so generally accepted; that slavery was the cause, and
that the North was right and the South was wrong. We
all know now that but for slavery no such rebellion would
have been possible. But for the mad effort of the minority
to make might right, by substituting the cartridge-box for the
ballot-box, and the bayonet for the will of the majority as
constitutionally and honestly expressed in the election of
Abraham Lincoln, there could have been no war of the rebel¬
lion. At this distance from the scenes of that great conflict, we
can see when and where we blundered, and see also clearly
— 581 —
enough the great mistakes which we made all through our
national history. We now see that had unselfish and able
statesmen enacted our laws and administered our government,
instead of mere politicians, who began by apologizing for
slavery, and ended by unblushingly justifying it as a divine
institution, slavery by the mere force of the Constitution
would have peaceably ceased to exist on the North American,
continent. After the organization of the National Govern¬
ment, slavery could not long have endured with an honest and
unperverted interpretation of that great charter of human
liberty. Only because the national Constitution was grossly
misinterpreted by courts and by all national and State officials
who were personally and pecuniarily interested in holding
slaves as property, would it have been possible to pervert the
Government from the fundamental purpose of its founders,
to one justifying and affirming the legality and rightfulness
of human slavery. Time, which exposes the weak points in
every man's life, exposes also the weak points in a nation's
life. It is now easy enough to see that slavery was our fatal
sin. Around the neck of the new-born nation, the men of
policy permitted to be forged the chains of human slavery,
and thus inoculated it with a virus which in time was sure to
have eaten out all national life unless entirely extirpated.
[Applause.]
A FATAL COMPROMISE.
In laying the foundation of this Government we had
Egypt, Greece and Rome and all history for our guidance,
yet how little did we profit by their fate and their warning!
Jefferson and other clear-brained statesmen of the Revolution
with prophetic vision saw and declared that slavery was the
tempter in our political paradise, and sought to teach us that
freedom and slavery could not be chained together and be
made to walk forever, hand in hand, on this continent in
peace. All thoughtful men knew that if as a nation we sowed
to the wind we should reap the whirlwind; they knew that if
we stultified the national conscience and sold our birthright,
we should ultimately pay the penalty, and yet the lust of am¬
bition and the selfish greed of gain combined, and for a long
— 582 —
time made slavery the nation's master. Hoping- that the day
of retribution might somehow be avoided and the nation es¬
cape the penalty fixed by the higher law, they consented for
the promise of temporary peace to all the exacting and mon¬
strous demands of the slave barons; and thus handed us over
as a nation to the impartial judgment of history, and to the
avenging hand of justice to be scourged by fire and sword as
we were in the late war of the rebellion. [Applause.]
From the day the Government was established to the be¬
ginning- of the war, compromise succeeded compromise and
surrender followed surrender, until the serpent of slavery had
at last coiled itself around the very vitals of the nation, and
the time had come when our "policy" statesmen could no
longer yield to the "tempter" with a new compromise, and
the nation escape the consequences, by some new scheme of
evasion, devised to circumvent the plainly written decrees of
Omnipotence, and so at last we came to realize that as our
fathers had " sown to the wind we must reap the whirlwind."
This is the history of men and of nations in all the cen¬
turies. If as a nation or as individuals we postpone from day
to day and from year to year the correction of abuses and the
rectification of errors; if we stifle conscience, and compromise
with wrong; if we are false to truth and evade our present
duty, hoping for a more convenient time in which to dis¬
charge that duty, that time will never come, until we are
overtaken by the avenger, justice, and all the world are be¬
wildered with amazement at our criminal folly, as they were
when the war of the rebellion burst with such fury upon us.
[Applause.]
THE LESSON TAUGHT.
But our great struggle shall not have been in vain if out
of the sorrow and suffering which the war broug'ht upon the
North and South alike, we shall all come to learn, that in the
cause of injustice and oppression, " they who take the sword
shall perish by the sword," and the additional lesson, that in
this nation, so long as speech is free, and the press is free,
and the ballot is free, " no revolution is worth the shedding'
of one drop of human blood," but that a rebellion of force
— 583 —
against the honestly expressed will of a majorit}- at the ballot-
box as provided for in the Constitution—is treason against
the democratic idea of government and a crime ag-ainst the
human race. [Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, do not imagine because I thus speak of
the late war of the rebellion that I propose on such an occa¬
sion as this to open afresh the terrible wounds which are now
being' so gratefully healed. I refer to it only to show our
blunders which are now historic, and as a lesson and a warn¬
ing, and also to show before I shall have concluded, that the
class legislation in favor of human slavery was the beginning
and strength in America of all monopoly legislation, and
grants by the Government of special privileges to the few at
the expense of the many. [Applause.]
OUR FIRST DUTY.
To-day I feel that our first duty is, to make our peace
an enduring peace. To do that the reconciliation between
North and South must be open and magnanimous and with¬
out any mental reservation or evasion in us whatever. In
this centennial year let us remember that " Justice and mercy
are the eternal habitations," and that we want no war cries to
disturb the national pacification; we want no taunts to the
vanquished; we want no shouts of victory over fellow-citizens;
we want no inscription on our flag of stars to be flaunted in the
faces of our brethren as a reminder of defeat. The great
Senator from Massachusetts was early inspired with the true
spirit when he declared that "Victory over fellow-citizens
should be known only in the rights it secures and assures."
Neither on our flags nor on pictures at the national capitol, do
we want to recall our victories over the members of our now
reunited family. What we want is unquestioned reconcilia.
tion, concord in fact as well as in name; forgiveness and gen¬
erosity and not animosity and hate. The rule that is best
for the family is best for the state. Friendship does not
grow by force, nor confidence by acts of distrust. The Bible
sa}'s that "He who would have friends must first show him¬
self friendly." We must learn that this is as true of nations
as of individuals. Good-will comes with good-will, friend-
— 584 —
skip for friendship, and hate for hate. I know of no better
way to maintain our free institutions unimpaired and pre¬
serve our territorial integrity forever, than by recognizing-
the fact that behind our Constitution and beyond the compact
of written law, there is the necessity of union in sentiment
and sympathy between the North and the South, if we would
have this nation great and permanent, and prosperous and
free. [Applause.]
Acting- upon this sentiment, so soon as the war was over
I joined with Sumner, and Chase, and Greeley, and nearly all
the leading abolitionists of the North, in demanding amnesty
and conciliation for the South. I was for "killing the fatted
calf," and welcoming back to the old mansion every errmg
brother, and for rehabilitating at the earliest moment consist¬
ent with national safety, every sister commonwealth with all
the rights, dignities and privileges which had been forfeited
by mad rebellion. I felt it to be a necessity that we do this
if we did not want an Ireland or a Poland in America. [Ap¬
plause.] But if it was a necessity I felt that it was right,also.
By doing it we elevated our free republic to new heights of
moral grandeur, and thus taught the world, that while we
could conquer the most formidable rebellion of all the ages,
we could also in the hour of victory restrain and control our¬
selves. If this wise rule of statesmanship can be inaugurat¬
ed and continued for one administration we shall have a com¬
pletely restored Union, with the rights of all persons sacred¬
ly secured, and our national name untarnished by a single act
of vindictive punishment, so that above the din of battle and
above the shouts of victors will shine out forever in history
this glorious conquest, a conquest in which during the very
hour of our triumph we go forth with the words of the im¬
mortal Lincoln upon our lips, and exclaim in our welcome,
"With charity for all and malice toward none." [Applause.]
These broad and liberal views would, ere this, have been ac¬
cepted by the North and the South but for a class of men who
insist on maintaining peace by force. Need I say that if the
ring masters, the selfish party managers and' ignorant parti¬
sans did not dominate so generally in each party, there would
be less injustice and less corruption in the administration of
the Government? So long as "rings" control all nomina'
— 585 —
tions, you know that just so long- we shall have blind parti¬
sans, ignorant pretenders, and sharp schemers in charge of
the Government. So offensive has this ring- system of man¬
agement become, and so general the disgust at its working,
that on an average not one voter in ten, especially in cities,
attends his party caucus. The rings therefore manage with
but little opposition. Hundreds of good-meaning citizens do
not even vote, while a still larger number will have nothing
to do with men whom they call politicians, regarding all as
schemers, tricksters and dishonest. [Applause.]
MEN WANTED.
Fellow-citizens, it is a great misfortune for the na¬
tion that this feeling is so general, and that so many have
come to think that the mere fact of a man giving his time and
attention to political questions, is dishonorable and disrep¬
utable. Political men we must have; men tried and trained
in statesmanship are to-day one of our greatest needs; cul¬
tured men, pure men, practical men; men whose lives, public
and private, will stand the test of any crucible, and from
whose presence thieves and knaves will shrink as vice will flee
from the presence of virtue. In this centennial year, we
ought to be able to join with one heart and one mind in the
aspirations of the poet who exclaims:
God give us men! a time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy,
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue,
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking;
For, while the ringleaders with thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps.
[Applause.]
— 586 —
ONLY THE CAPABLE FOR POSITIONS OF TRUST.
And here may I not ask you why a man cannot be as
pure, as heroic, and unselfish in political life as in any of the
learned professions? Why should there not be arts that are
as honest in politics as in law, or medicine, or in college pro¬
fessorships, or even in the pulpit? A true statesman never
despises the honest arts of politics. Those who affect a dis¬
like of honorable political men, and sneer at politicians, are
either very innocent and thoughtless persons or weak and
silly demagogues. Would any sane person select for his
lawyer, in a critical case, which if lost, would sweep away
all he possessed, a man who had never looked into a law
book? Would he select for his physician a man who knew
nothing of anatomy or medicine? Would he vote to call a
minister to take charge of his church who could not read the
Bible? Would he intrust the education of his child to an ig¬
norant pretender? To ask these questions is to answer them.
Who would put an unknown and untried man in charge of a
steamer or a train of cars freighted with human life? Who
so reckless or so blind as to wish to put a man in charge of
the ship of state, even in a time of peace and dull routine,
who was ignorant of the arts of statesmanship? I do not
hesitate to say that to call such a man to pilot the ship of
state, whether in a calm or in a storm, would be an act of
indefensible folly; and as you would not voluntarily, if left
to your individual judgment, intrust the Chief Executive
office of the nation to an ignorant, incompetent or corrupt
man, so you would not deliberately fill any less responsible
position in the Government with a man unfitted by character
or education for the trust. Why then is this outrage on
decency and on the public honor, repeated year after year in
every State and county? Why have thousands of good men
everywhere, voted to put men into the most honorable and
important offices, whom they would not intrust with any
matter of business, however unimportant, for themselves? Is
it not, fellow-citizens, because they are slaves to the caucus
and convention system, or because they are blinded by parti¬
san zeal? Has not our experience taught us that the nation
ought to be so educated on this subject, that it would smite
— 587 —
the ring- politician and the ignorant or corrupt official as it
would brand an infamous malefactor? A man who accepts a
public trust for which he is in no way qualified by natural
ability, or education, inflicts a wrong- upon a community
which may be more detrimental to the public welfare than
the commission of a revolting-crime. If he is ignorant or cor¬
rupt he may do acts more dangerous to the safety and sta¬
bility of the state, than any one individual criminal can com¬
mit, however bold or bad. The criminal act of one man in
private life can affect but one, or at most but a few citizens,
while the criminal is always in danger of arrest, conviction
and punishment. But the acts of an incompetent or dis¬
honest official may often affect disastrously, and for many
years, whole communities, and yet, as a rule, such a criminal
cannot be punished except by dismissal from office at the end
of his term, and even this cannot always be done, so long- as
the caucus and convention system remains to dictate for
whom the members of each party shall vote. Therefore I
believe such a public sentiment ought to be created, that any
man who either thrusts himself forward, or who permits his
friends to present him for nomination to an important public
trust, for which he has no qualifications, either natural or
acquired, should be everywhere branded by public sentiment
as more dang-erous and dishonorable than a public malefactor.
[Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, our greatest achievement in political
reform during the century just closed, and the one which to
me overshadows all others in its benign influence upon gov¬
ernment and people, is the overthrow of slavery and the aboli¬
tion of the privileged class which it created. Fortunately
this act will ultimately advance) the interest and bene¬
fit the South more largely than the North. It is of in¬
estimable value to the people of the entire Union, but its
economical and moral worth is underestimated even here and
now. We have not all yet learned that a "privileged class,"
created or maintained by act of government, is a three¬
fold wrong, in that it endangers the stability of tl-ie
state, violates the democratic idea, and encroaches up¬
on the rights of labor. A moment's reflection would
teach that one privileged class soon begets another; and nat-
— 588 —
urally enough, during the continuance of slavey, men said
if the government can authorize a few thousand persons to
own and appropriate to themselves the labor of four millions
of men, why may it not grant special privileges to us, so that
by securing- a monopoly or with organized wealth protected
by law, we can also live upon the half-paid labor of the toiler.
And so the governments, national, state and municipal, be¬
ginning- with "class" legislation, have gone on making* new
grants of power and authorizing- the most gigantic monopo¬
lies, until to-day the national, state and municipal govern¬
ments of the entire Union, are administered specially in the
interests of corporations, " ring's," political partisans and per¬
sonal favorites; and these governments are in turn manipulated
and controlled by the very organized power which they have
created. Turn which way you will, in all this broad land
to-day, and you will find that organized wealth with its.
special grants of power is master of government and people-
[Applause.]
This formidable power favors from interest and of neces¬
sity, a consolidated government and an administration
of force. It controls the National and State Executives
when elected, and nominates their successors; it fills Con¬
gress and State legislatures with its paid agents and Cabinets
and Courts with its retained attorneys. It works in secret,
and by the aid of a subsidized and venal press, strikes down
all public men who oppose its grasping power and schemes
of plunder. It manages in turn by bribery and corruption, a
majority of the caucuses and conventions of each party, and
nominates the candidates for whom the elector is forced to
vote or subject himself to ostracism by his party and thus the
people whose interest and purpose is to fight these monopo¬
lies, are oftener than otherwise co-operating with them, and
in the name of party and at the dictation of " King caucus,'*
vote for and elect the retained agents or attorneys of these
very monopolies. I need hardly add that the tendency to
foster all kinds of monopolies, strengthen privilege and con¬
solidate the National Government into an overshadowing
central power, in which the Executive shall be supreme, was
never so strong nor so dangerous as now, since the govern¬
ment was organized. You all know that monopoly in the shape
- 589 —
of class legislation, or special grants of power to the few, has
preyed like a hungry vulture upon the labor of every age,
that it has eaten out the substance of every people and de¬
stroys the life of every free government, and that it will eat
out our life and destroy our free institutions unless the sys¬
tem is squarely confronted and made subordinate to the in¬
terest of the people by the restraining power of the Govern¬
ment. [Applause.]
CORRUPTION.
The growth and corruption of cities, the increased power
of corporate wealth and the continued monopoly of land, in
my opinion is seriously endangering our democratic theory of
government, and menacing the solution of the labor problem
in this country as never before.
As a necessity of self-preservation the laborers and toil¬
ers of all countries are considering and adopting methods of
industrial organization, and co-operation. This is a healthy
and encouraging sign. [Applause.]
I have given more thought to this industrial question
than any other social problem, and watched with interest and
sympathy every movement favorable to co-operation and the
organization of labor, not only in this country, but in Europe,
and I am constrained to admit that in Germany they are far
in advance of us in the practical working of their unions and
co-operative associations. But our labor unions, and co-op¬
erative societies, the "self-assurance associations," the
Patrons of Husbandry and Grange organization, have each
in them much to commend them to the hearty approval of all
thoughtful men, who see and comprehend the formidable
power which day by day and year by year, increases in
strength, and on every hand imperils the rights and interests of
labor. To you, who are members of the agricultural society
of the county, and on whose invitation I am here to-day, and
to all who make up the farming and laboring population be¬
fore me, I may with propriety speak of the rights of labor
and the interests of agriculture.
Agriculture is the natural employment of man. " In the
sweat of thy face," spake the voice in the garden. The oc-
— 590 —
cupation which feeds the human race,and gives vitality to all
commerce and to all other industrial pursuits, ought to be es-
steemed the most honorable among men. Human life and
human progress draw their sustenance from it. When the
agriculturist fails, all other industries languish. Our farm¬
ing population outnumber all other classes combined. If
united, their vote would be a majority in nearly every State.
I see a harbinger or prophecy of better things in the various
movements of the farmers for co-operation and organization.
If they can also draw into a common union with themselves
the working-men of the country,whose interests are identical
with their own, they will be invincible, and, under the lead¬
ership of sober, intelligent, faithful men, they can accomplish
whatever may be their deliberate and well-settled purpose.
Demagogues may mislead; unwise methods may for a time
hinder; blind zeal may postpone, but an honest and persistent
endeavor will, in the end, enable them to triumph. [Ap¬
plause.]
DANGEROUS TENDENCIES.
Of late the unmistakable tendency of many public men is
to favor capital and pervert the National Government from
the purpose of its founders, into a government representing
an aristocracy of wealth, instead of maintaining a real dem¬
ocracy and fostering economy and republican simplicity in an
honest civil service. If we would preserve our government
free and pure we must see that every department—national,
state and municipal—is administed as a wise and prudent man
would manage his personal affairs. We must see to it that
the people administer it instead of rings or privileged classes.
We must no longer act upon the assumption that the govern¬
ment will maintain and perpetuate itself. We must abandon
the insane delusion that a dishonest man or an ignorant pre¬
tender may safely be entrusted with the duties of an honor¬
able and responsible public office. In short, we must see to
it that candidates for all positions are qualified by natural
ability, or by special training, to fit them for the office for
which they may be candidates.
In order that the dangerous tendencies of which I have
— 591 —
spoken may be arrested, there ought to be a free and untram-
meled movement of the people to rescue the government
from the greed of spoilsmen and from the grip of the corpor¬
ate agencies which modern legislation Las created. [Ap¬
plause.]
our remedy.
Organization, free discussion, then intelligent action at
the ballot-box, must be our weapons of protection and defense.
In addition to this our Constitution ought to be so amended
as to restrain the executive, legislative and judicial functions
of the government, and more clearly define their delegated
powers. If three-fifths of all the functions now claimed by
law and custom, and Constitution for our national, state and
municipal governments were denied them in our organic law,
and all special legislation prohibited by express provision of
the Constitution, as also all authority to incur an indebted¬
ness — bonded or otherwise — in any one year for any pur¬
pose (except defensive war) beyond a limited percentage up¬
on commerce and value of taxable property in any state or
county or municipality, we might congratulate ourselves up¬
on having a government approaching more nearly the demo¬
cratic idea. Denying, as I do, the moral right of an acci¬
dental majority, either in our National Congress or State
Legislatures or county and municipal government, to mort¬
gage the toil and labor of future generations to enrich or
benefit the present, I can confidently appeal to all who hear
me, to unite in demanding of their respective parties such
promises of reform in this respect as will give assurance of
better things in the future. For if indebtedness without
limit can be incurred and special legislation is to continue,
with all the assumed and conceded functions of government,
the time is not far distant in which this will be a happy coun¬
try only to those: whose who have large incomes, and a
country of sorrow for all who labor. [Applause.]
national reforms suggested.
In addition to the constitutional limitations already sug-
— 592 —
gested, the new century upon which we are about to enter
will demand new and important reforms in every department
of the public service. We must have a better administration
in all the executive, legislative and judicial departments of
national, state and municipal governments.
And first and most important op all, wu must nomin-
nate and elect the president by a direct vote of the)
people by ballot, without the intervention of caucuses,
conventions, presidential electors, or the house of
Representatives. [Applause.]
Second—The veto power of the President must be modi¬
fied so that the Executive shall form no part of the law-mak¬
ing- power, and a majority of all the Senators and Representa¬
tives elected to Congress, and at the time qualified, shall
have authority to pass a bill over the Executive veto. This
modification of the veto would give the President an oppor¬
tunity to secure a reconsideration of any bill hastily passed
by Congress, and thus secure all the check which it is safe or
prudent to give an Executive, as a restraint upon improper
or inconsiderate legislation.
Third—We must have an honest civil service reform,
but this cannot be had, so long as caucuses and conventions
dictate for whom the people shall vote for President and all
officials to be elected in the National or State Governments.
Fourth — We must have reform in the mode and manner
of conducting all popular elections so as to secure more per¬
fectly the purity of the ballot-box, but so long as the caucus
system (where ballot-box stuffing was invented) is maintained,
such reforms are impossible.
Fifth — We must have reform in National and State leg¬
islation, but this cannot be obtained without constitutional
restraints, substantially such as I have named, together with
the right of the minority to an equitable representation in
all law-making bodies.
Fifth — We must have reform in the government of all
cities, so as to defeat ring management and ring plunderers,
but this cannot be without radical changes in our municipal
codes.
Seventh — We want and we must have local self-govern¬
ment for local purposes, in every State or municipality, free
— 593 —
from the intermeddling- of the National Government, either
through its civil or military departments, recognizing- only
the authority of the courts for revision, and that of the Ex-
utive for repelling- or suppressing- force as provided in the
Constitution.
When these reforms are secured, as I am hopeful they
will be, early in this new century, we shall have a govern¬
ment free from the obvious and glaring- defects of the present;
a government embodying- more nearly than any other known
in history, the perfection of the democratic idea—a govern¬
ment that shall make liberty, equity and peace a living* fact.
[Applause.]
THE) DUTY OF EVERY CITIZEN.
If democracy is to come during- this century in its full¬
ness and completeness, as the fathers of the Constitution con¬
templated it would come ere this, we must have these re¬
forms, for the nation cannot endure forever the corruption
and conspiracies of corporate wealth, and the monopolies of
the present. If we would faithfully follow in the pathway
which the men of the Revolution "blazed out"throug-h our
political wilderness for us, we cannot afford to fold our arms
with indifference, and say that the government may take care
of itself. Nor should any citizen attempt to escape his fair
share of the responsibility, but all must dedicate themselves
to the noble task of vindicating- the memory and purposes of
the men who made the Constitution and soug"ht to establish
the truest and best government on earth, a real ideal demo¬
cratic republic. [Applause.]
WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN.
While the century just closed has g-iven our country
many extraordinary men, men who have been recog-nized
leaders and benefactors of the human race, there are two
names which stand out with clearer distinctness than all the
rest and around which there will be forever a brighter halo,
names that will live as long- as human liberty is prized and
38
— 594 —
human history is preserved. No other nation can present
within a century two such illustrious names as "Washington
and Lincoln. One was the child of fortune and privilege,
the other the child of poverty and toil. One is recognized
by all the world as the Father of his Country, the other will
yet be recognized by all as its Savior. One led us triumphantly
through the stormy struggle of our Revolution to independ¬
ence, the other brought us safely through the dark and
troubled night of our Civil Strife to the haven of union,
liberty and peace. [Applause.] Never before in human
history did two men employ their great opportunities with
more unselfish heroism or consecrate their lives to a higher
or nobler purpose. If the true greatness of a nation con¬
sists in the noble types of manhood which it produces,
America may, without undue boasting-, present the names of
"Wasliing-ton and Lincoln as types of men pre-eminently en¬
titled to mention among- those who honor and adorn the
world's history. To honor such men and the cause they
served, and to commend their example to the present and
future generations, patriotic rejoicing- and public demonstra¬
tions, corresponding- to our own, are taking- place to-day, not
only in all parts of our own country, but wherever around
the globe an American citizen may be wandering- and two or
three can be g-athered together beneath our radiant flag- of
stripes and stars. [Applause.] But naturally enough to¬
day the great heart of the nation, all who are at home and
all who are abroad, turn to Philadelphia and to old Independ¬
ence Hall, where more than a million of her children from
all parts of the republic, from Virginia and the Carolinas,
from Massachusetts and New England, from the golden
shores of the Pacific and from every State and Territory,
with uncovered head are now gathered around the old home¬
stead to offer up with reverence and gratitude their thanks¬
giving for the restored Union, and to exchange pledges of
fidelity for its enduring unity, prosperity and peace. [Ap¬
plause.] Of the material grandeur of the nations which
have risen and fallen much might be said had I the time and
you the patience. Their material and martial glory, which
for a time dazzled the world with its splendor, might to-day
be contrasted with the true glory of America.
— 595 —
Greece and Rome, in succession mistress on the land and
on the sea, each rich, powerful and luxurious, into whose laps
the Orient poured its exhaustless treasures and built their
palaces and monuments which even now, while crumbling- to
decay, tell the story of their greatness and grandeur more
eloquently than human words when clothed in the golden
thoughts of a master. But each in turn neglected or reject¬
ed the highest and best interest of the state. They made
monopoly and privilege the rule, and disregarded the rights
and liberties of the citizen by degrading and enslaving their
working-men. They thus exalted the material above the
ideal, and attempted to make "might" more than "right,"
and in so doing built up a materialistic civilization which
finally wrought their decay and death. How closely we as a
nation followed in the paths which they had trodden in wrong
and in blood, you and I, alas! know, to our shame and sorrow.
[Applause.]
our republic's future;.
With us, as with all nations, history has been repeating
itself, and so we have learned that only
" Through weary march and blinding tears,
And passion heats and battle's din,
The hoped-for boon, for coming years.
So long delayed, is ushered in."
And now, as we enter upon the new century, charged
with new obligations and higher responsibilities, let us each
for himself, resolve to consecrate some portion of his life to
the noble work of preserving the unity and perpetuity and
glory of his country. With heart and soul let everyone write
upon the tablets of his memory the aspiration and the invo¬
cation of Whittier's immortal Centennial Hymn, and make its
peaceful, patriotic prayer, his living and his dying faith:
"Oh, make Thou us through centuries long,
In peace secure, injustice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
— 596 —
The safeguards of Thy righteous law,
And cast in some diviner mold,
Let the new cycle shame the old! "
And thus shall the new century of the Republic tran¬
scend in glory and grandeur the splendid achievements of the
past. [Long- continued applause.]
Letter from Rev. T. W. Stringer, D. D., Vicksburg-, Miss.
When reading- Mr. Ashley's speeches, it is easy to determine
from whence he drew his poetic inspiration. In writing- of Whittier,
Mr. Ashley says, "that he touched my heart and quickened my life as
no other man ever did," and then adds, " Whittier, as I saw him, ap¬
proached nearer my conception of the Divine Teacher of Galilee than
any man I ever knew." This is hig-h praise to g-ive in behalf of any
man. and tells us why he quotes Whittier in his speeches oftener
than all others. That there should be profound thoug-ht and a
wealth of simple pathos in any man's orations or stump speeches,
t. w. stringer, who walked in the moral and political sunshine and shadow . of
Whittier's pure life, is but natural. Mr. Ashley's speeches all bear internal testimony,
that like Whittier and the men who made up the advance g-uard of the abolition army,
his aspirations were, " to break up thesurfdom of the world." For pure Americanism,
for broad and liberal statesmanship and historic accuracy, we are confident the
speeches and orations in this book will stand the test of time, and prove a valuable
text-book for students who seek ideal manhood in moral and political philosophy.
T. W. Stringer.
CORRESPONDENCE.
Vicksburg, Miss., December 9, 1892
Hon. J. M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio.
Dear Sir: Reference is made in some of the speeches
already stereotyped, to resolutions adopted and addresses
delivered by you on the Slavery Question, of an earlier date
than we find in the papers and speeches now before us.
As our purpose is to make a complete historical compila¬
tion of your early and more important anti-slavery campaign
and congressional speeches, we request you to have sent to
us, as soon as possible, such addresses as you may be able to
find, of a date prior to those we now have in type.
We also request copy of pamphlet containing- your plan
of "Co-operation and Profit-Sharing-," of which we have
read something- in railroad papers. Please send with it such
of your papers and addresses as may have been published, on
the relation of Capital and Labor.
Our people are greatly interested in that and kindred
questions, and your views on that subject would^be eagerly
read by them.
Trusting- that you may find it convenient to comply with
our request, I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully yours, for God and the Race,
(597)
— 598—
Toledo, Ohio, December 19, 1892.
My Dear Sir: In answer to your favor of the 9th inst.,
I have to say: That after the destruction of all my books
and papers by fire, I gathered up from friends a number of
my early anti-slavery campaign speeches, intending- to use the
facts in them, should I write a book, as I then proposed
doing, on "The rise and fall of the slave barons."
I abandoned the idea of writing that book for the reason
that a second fire destroyed nearly all the papers then col¬
lected, together with the notes I had prepared, and damaged
by water (as you will see on examining them) the greater
portion of the remaining papers and newspaper clippings,
Which I now send you. I did not send these with the first in¬
stallment of pamphlets and papers, because I did not want to
trouble }~ou with the task of assorting them. Personally, I
had no time to put them in shape for the printer, nor did I
think them of importance enough to reprint and preserve.
If, however, you find anything in them which you may
regard as worthy of preservation, do so, and consign the re¬
mainder to the waste-basket, as do I not now propose to use
them myself.
These speeches and fragments of speeches, are all old-
fashioned anti-slavery appeals, such as in those days were
everywhere made by our anti-slavery leaders against the
crime of slavery. The speeches now sent you were made
during the Freemont and Lincoln campaigns in New York,
Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and as you will ob¬
serve, they are educational speeches, and deal with historic
facts and the opinions of eminent men. They were intended
to answer the vulgar and blind partisan charges made against
us, and for the purpose of making proselytes to the Republi¬
can faith.
I also send you as requested a pamphlet, which contains
my plan of "Co-operation and Profit-Sharing," and an ad¬
dress prepared by me on the invitation of the Train Dis¬
patchers' Association of America, which was read at their
International Convention in Toledo, June 10, 1891.
I also enclose two other papers of mine on the same
subject. You will see by reading these papers, that for many
years I have favored the organization and co-operation of alj
— 599 —
kinds and conditions of working-men. But I never have and
am certain that I never shall, favor such combinations as make
war upon any class of wage-earners, who, for any reason, do
not see fit to voluntarily become members of any of our
present labor organizations. I favor a co-operation that
shall not be secret and oath-bound, or be dominated by one or
more selfish leaders, but an organization that shall be open
and manly, and just enough to recognize the brotherhood of
the human race. I favor this broad and liberal co-operation
of labor, because I recognize the fact that the law of our life
provides, as it is written: " In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat thy bread, till thou return unto the ground." From
the beginning this has been the law governing the conditions
of human life, and so far as I can seo, that condition must
continue for all, unto the end. Those who eat the bread of
idleness, are the only exception to this law. Of necessity,
therefore, everyone who eats the bread of idleness becomes a
burden to honest industry, and are either imbeciles, drones,
parasites or criminals, of whose existence government must
take cognizance, and so guard and restrain them as to protect
society individually and collectively from the danger and
crime inseparable from the existence of the classes named.
I therefore want to see all labor so organized that there
shall be fewer criminals, and fewer men who eat the bread of
idleness, so that capital will everywhere be glad to co-operate
with, and to secure the aid of all manly wage-workers of abil¬
ity and character, and be ready to divide with all such work¬
ers an equitable proportion of the net profits produced by the
skil,!, and toil, of each.
In this age of labor-saving inventions and industrial
machinery, with steam and electricity for motive power, near¬
ly all of which is owned by associated capital, it becomes a
necessity for the wage-workers of the world to co-operate
with capital on a stipulated agreement for a portion of the
net profits, and thus secure beyond question an equitable di¬
vision of the wealth produced by the united efforts of labor
and capital.
As I see it, " co-operation and arbitration " is the sign in
which the wage-worker of the world is certain ultimately to
win.
— 600 —
In any business requiring-the joint labor of ten or more
men, the result outlined can with certainty be secured, and
with mathematical accuracy, to every worker without his in¬
vesting- a dollar of cash capital. He can do this by joinings
others in organizing1 the business in which he desires to en¬
gage, on the plan of profit-sharing which I propose in the
pamphlet I now send you.
The adoption of any of the recognized plans of profit-
sharing will make strikes inexcusable and practically im¬
possible among intelligent, honest men.
With intelligent co-operation on the lines indicated, to¬
gether with the use of reliable savings banks and the aid
which properly organized building and loan associations can
give, there is no danger in this country of any sober, indus¬
trious wage-worker becoming poorer, while everywhere a
prudent man may with reasonable certainty earn and own
his own home. Let every colored man live within his in¬
come, and in a short time he can own his own home.
In all my speeches, beginning with our early anti-slavery
struggle, you will find that I uniformly made my appeals for
the rights of all labor, black and white, and demanded for
each an equitable share in the property which his toil created.
You will also find that all the speeches of our early anti-slavery
leaders were logical and unanswerable appeals for the rights
of labor, without regard to nativity, nationality or race.
Yours truly,
J. M. Ashley.
Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, D. D.,
Chairman Publication Committee.
EXTRACTS.
Closing Portion op Stump Speech Delivered in the Grove
near Montpeuer, "Williams County, Ohio,
September, 1856, by James M. Ashley.
And now, fellow-citizens, I know you will agree that
I have said all that need be said at this time, in condemna¬
tion of the Kansas-Nebraska infamy and its authors, and in
denunciation of the efforts of the slave baron conspirators to
nationalize slavery, and to make it constitutional and per¬
petual in the land of Washing-ton.
Nor need I say more than I have said, in behalf of the
election of General Fremont, our candidate for President, or
for the re-election of our worthy candidate for Congress, Hon.
Richard Mott. And I have said all that is necessary in de¬
fense of Governor Chase and his administration.
But for the fact that each of the g-entlemen named have
been so coarsely and offensively assailed during- the canvass
all over the State, and especially in this congressional dis-
Letter xrom Hon. Charles S. Morris, New York Cit3*.
This is by far the boldest and ablest of all the anti-slavery stump speeches of the
Fremont campaign which we have read. It was delivered when M r. Ashley was not yet
thirty years old. At the time of its delivery, the pro-slavery hatred of the negro in the
North raged with fanatical madness. Slave pirate-ships were then fitted out in the
city of New York, and under our flag- plied their man-slavery trade with comparative
safety, and sometimes landed their carg-oes of human chattels, direct from Africa, at
our Southern ports in broad daylight, in defiance of law and g-overnment.
To deliver such a speech, at such a time, required a high order of both moral and
physical courage.
AVe have never read an argument, so clear and strong-, ag-ainst the right of Con¬
gress to pass a fugitive slave law. Charles S. Morris.
(601)
— 602 —
trict, by the opposition newspapers and stump speakers, I
should not be warranted in taking- up your time and mine to¬
day, in answering- them, as I have felt constrained to do.
[At this point, some one in the audience shouted out,
"You have not explained the corrupt barg-ain and sale by
which Chase was elected to the United States Senate over
Tom Ewing-. Suppose you try your hand at that."]
Mr. Ashley stopped, and turning- to the Chairman of the
meeting-, said, "Do you wish me to answer such questions?"
The Chairman nodding- assent, said, "As we have nothing-
to withhold or conceal, I think the people would be g-lad to
have you answer."
. "Well, Mr. Chairman," continued Mr. Ashley, "if you
and this audience desire me to answer the challeng-e just made,
or to answer any other questions, even though they are not
pertinent to this campaig-n (as the one in hand is not) I shall
do so. As our Chairman has very properly remarked, ' we
have nothing- to withhold or conceal.'
Mr. Chairman, without reserve and without qualification
I deny that there was a corrupt barg-ain and sale when Mr.
Chase was elected to the Senate of the United States. [Ap¬
plause.] I was present in Columbus and participated in the
conferences which were held by the anti-slavery Democrats
and the Free-soilers prior to the election of Mr. Chase, and I
can say to you that so far from there. having- been a corrupt
bargain between the Democrats and the Free-soilers, that it
was one of the fairest and most honorable political agree¬
ments ever made in this State or in any State. [Applause.]
You all remember that the "Free-soilers" held the bal¬
ance of power. It is no secret that these Free-soilers were
willing to make an alliance with the Whig's and elect Hon.
Joshua R. Giddings, an anti-slavery Whig-, or with the Dem¬
ocrats and elect Mr. Chase.
Dr. Townsend, of Lorain, and Mr. Morse, of Ashtabula,
held the balance of power. One of these g-entlemen was a
" Whig--Free-Soiler " and resided in Mr. Gidding-s's district,
and the other a " Democratic-Free-Soiler" from Lorain
County, and each stood ready to vote for any reliable anti-
slavery man of character and ability, who could be elected
Senator, whether he was of Whig- or Democratic antecedents.
— 603 —
The "Whigs would not vote for Mr. Giddings, and the
Democrats agreed to vote for Mr. Chase, who was a well-
known anti-slavery Democrat. And that was all there was of
that so-called " bargain and sale." [Applause.]
The Democrats did the same thing in Massachusetts, and
elected Charles Sumner, an anti-slavery Democrat, to the
United States Senate, and John P. Hale, of New Hampshire,
and other well-known anti-slavery Democrats in other States.
I know all about the so-called " bargain and sale which
was made at the time Mr. Chase was elected Senator, and I
declare to you that it was as manly and unselfish a political
agreement as was ever entered into by the leaders of any
party. And I am glad to be able to say, that the agreement
then made was honorably and in good faith carried out by th£
Democrats. [Applause.] At that time, I was in full fellow¬
ship with the Democratic party, and it was then well known
that I was an anti-slavery Democrat, and as hostile to slavery
as I am now. And there were, in those days, thousands of
Democrats of my way of thinking. A majority of the Demo¬
cratic party in Ohio, and in all the free States, wete out¬
spoken anti-slavery men, as witness the platforms adopted by
all the regular Democratic State conventions in every Northern
State, except Iowa, denouncing slavery as a crime, and
demanding, as we did here in Ohio, that the evil be "eradi¬
cated."
But for Democratic votes, the Wilmot Proviso, which
prohibits slavery in all our national Territories, could not have
been passed by the lower house of the Congress of the United
States. [Applause.]
And but for the passage of the infamous compromise
measure of 1850, into which the North was betrayed by her
faithless representatives of both parties, I believe that the
Democratic party of the free States would to-day have been
the great anti-slavery Jeffersonian party of this country, as
it ought to have been, and in my opinion would have been,
but for our betrayal at the hands of professed Democrats.
The humiliation of both the old parties to-day is awfui. and
their abasement appalling. But to go back to the Chase
election.
The Free-soilers agreed to vote with, and secure to the
— 604 —
Democrats, substantially, all the offices which the legislature
under the old Constitution was authorized to appoint or
ele-ct, on the single condition that the Democrats would vote
with the Free-soilers for the repeal of the infamous black
laws of this State. [Applause.] Perhaps the person who
interrupted me, would like to have those villainous statutes
which were then repealed, ag-ain re-enacted into laws. But
whether he would or not, I brand him, or any man who makes
the charge of corrupt barg-ain and sale in connection with
the election of Mr. Chase to the United States Senate, as
either an ignorant or vicious calumniator.
I put this plaster on the foul lips of every such calumnia¬
tor, confident that when removed, it will take the skin off
with it. [Laughter and applause.]
Fellow-citizens, }Tou know that I am not a candidate for
any office, and I do not propose to be a candidate for some
years to come, if ever. I certainly shall not be a candidate
until I am older and have more experience than I have to-day.
In view of the fact that I am not a candidate, and not
likely to be, I should perhaps be justified, if I passed by in
silent contempt, the unscrupulous and persistent assaults,
which have been made upon me personally, wherever I have
spoken in the district. Indeed, I should have passed them
by without a word, but for what occurred yesterday and to¬
day. A number of vicious and ignorant brag'garts, who with
an assumption of knowledge which they have not, and a
cheek as brazen as that of a professed saint when assuming*
the livery of heaven, have here on the ground to-day, in my
hearing and in languag-e most foul, charged our candidates
and all our leading- public men with being- disunionists, and
men who as often as they took an oath to support the Constitu¬
tion committed the crime of perjury.
I have also been charged since I came upon the ground,,
with being* a " disunionist, an abolitionist, an ag'ent of the
underground railroad and an amalgamationist, who loved the
black race better than I did my own race, and that if I had
the power, I would liberate at once and without compensa¬
tion to the slave barons, all the slaves of the South and turn
them loose, so that they might come up here into Ohio, if
they pleased, and into other Northern States, and compete with
— 605 —
and displace all white men who labor." And to this kind of
loud-mouthed blustering, there has been added a deluge of
that coarse and vulgar vituperation which is born of ignorance
and hate, and a brutality so gross and devilish as to excuse, if
not to justify, a belief in the doctrine of total depravity. [Ap¬
plause.]
I will be pardoned, therefore, if when stating the position
of our candidates, I also state clearly and distinctly my own
position.
First, then, as to our candidate for President. General
Fremont is a man who might properly be classed with the
most conservative Republicans. He states frankly, that he
does not propose to interfere with slavery in the States where
it now exists, but simply pledges himself to resist its spread
into new Territories, nothing more, nothing less. [Applause.]
Mr. Mott, as you all know, is a Quaker, and his religion
makes it imperative that he be an anti-slavery man, and with¬
out concealment and without compromise to stand firmly in
opposition to slavery the world over. [Applause.]
As for myself, I am free to say to you and to all who care
to know my opinions, that I am opposed to the enslavement'
in any country on God's green earth, of any man or any race of
men, however friendless or poor, whatever their race or color,
-and I do not admit that the Constitution of my country recog¬
nizes property in man. [Applause.]
When John Wesley denounced slavery " as the sum of all
villainies," it was to me a living truth, uttered in as few and
fitting words as a clergyman could employ, and I who am but
a layman, brand it as the blackest of crimes and denounce it
as the most revolting infamy that ever afflicted mankind or
cursed the earth. [Applause.] It has filled the world with
injustice and indescribable suffering and sorrow, and its crimes
are now moving all unperverted human hearts to a united
and determined effort for its destruction and the banishment
from our country of this execrable commerce in the bodies
and souls of men. [Applause.]
Often and often when a boy in Kentucky, it has moved
my heart to rebel against it; and when involuntarily forced
to witness its frightful punishments and shocking brutality,
there has come lip from my heart to my lips the pathetic
— 606 —
couplet of Burns, and in my helplessness I have cried out,
" O Lord, how true it is that
' Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.' "
[Applause.]
During my speech at Hicksville, over in Defiance County,
yesterday, when presenting- an abstract proposition of inter¬
est, as I believed, to all Americans (and to the negro if he is-
a man), a cross-roads statesman impudently cried out, "I see
wool in that fellow's teeth," although up to that moment I
had not uttered one word about the negro.
The northern sleuth-hound of the slave baron was on the
watch, and true to his blind partisanship and brutal instincts
gave the recognized yelp. [Applause.] So here to-day, the
babbling cross-roads statesman is on guard, ready blindly to
defend the supposed interests of the slave barons of the South
who are his political masters. [Applause.] And I affirm,
and do so slowly and deliberately so that there shall be no mis¬
understanding what I say or mean, that all such men, whether
they know it or not, are allies of the conspirators whose crimes
against humanity and our democratic government are at this
very hour laying broad and deep the conditions which are cer¬
tain to ultimate in a revolution of fire and blood that must
end, either in the destruction of this Union and Government,
or in the abolition of the institution of slavery which the
slave barons are to-day madly attempting to fasten upon the
nation for all time. [Applause.] Morally and logically)
there is no escape from this result. As I see it, submission
to the slave barons or revolution is as inevitable as death. I
pray that it may be a peaceful revolution, with ballots instead
of bullets. [Applause.]
Let us not deceive ourselves, nor attempt to deceive others.
"God is not mocked, and his judgment will not sleep for¬
ever." [Applause.]
I often wonder how your northern-born men can show
such hostility to the black man. Singularly enough, I find
here in the North, as in the South, that the hatred of the
" Slavery aint o' nary color,
'Taint the hide that makes it wus,
All it kers for in a feller,
'S just to make him fill its pus."
Northern mercenaries, especially Northern slave owners
(of whom there are more in our great cities than we know),
do not act differently.
Not long ago, a merchant of Bangor, in the State of
Maine, walked into church one Sunday morning with his
wife and daughter, and a big six-foot negro, as black as the
ace of spades, whom he deferentially passed into his pew and
seated next to his wife. A sanctimonious Bourbon in the
seat behind him was greatly shocked at this defilement of the
church, and reaching over whispered to his neighbor and
said, " How dare you bring a damned nigger into this church
and seat him in your pew next to your wife ? " His friend,
turning to him, quietly whispered in his ear, and said, "He
is not a nigger, he is a Haytian and worth six millions." As
soon as this negro-hating Christian could recover from the
surprise of this unexpected announcement, he whispered back
to his neighbor and said, " After the services are over please
introduce me." [Laughter and applause.] So you see, that
in the North and South alike, circumstances alter cases.
[Laughter.]
The flunky Bourbons in this country would do just as
their brother Bourbon in Maine did. [Laughter and ap¬
plause.] So long as any man or woman can be held as a
slave, even though just imported from Africa, they are not
offensive to che closest contact, and to the most intimate re¬
lations, as is evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of half-
breeds and octoroons in the South. [Applause.] And then,
nearly all the slave barons were, themselves, nursed and cared
for while children by black slave mothers. While slaves, the
odor arising from any negro — on the hottest day in August
—is to the delicate nostrils of the slave baron like the perfume
from the attar of roses; but if these same black persons are
free, that moment the odor arising from them congests the
— 607 —
negTO is not that he is black or of mixed blood, but because he
is a slave. It is the hatred born of the spirit of caste, and not
the hatred of color. Wherever the negro is free and is edu¬
cated and owns property, you will find him respected and
treated with consideration by the slave barons of the South,
and by Northern men as well; especially is this so in the South,
if the black man is himself the owner of slaves.
When a boy, I knew two free negro planters in Louisiana
who owned a number of slaves. One of them, I was informed
owned over a hundred, some of whom would easily pass for
white men as readily, certainly, as some of the Bourbon leaders
whom I know in this county. [Laug'hter.] When these
black planters came to New Orleans they were greeted by the
wholesale merchants, with whom they dealt, as cordially as
if they had been white men. A well-filled decanter of old
Kentucky bourbon (with a show of tansy in it) was as in¬
variably set out for them as for the white planters, and there
was no pretext of being- shocked because they were black.
One of these negro planters was said to be the owner of a man
who was known to all the surrounding1 planters to be a pure
white man, without a drop of negro or mixed blood in his
veins; yet no white slave baron interfered to question this
black planter's rig-ht to hold this white man as a slave, for
the simple reason that the raising- of such a question mig-ht
bring- up in court, where the common law prevailed,the ticklish
and technical leg-al question, as to the "title " by which other
human being's of all colors and shades were held as slaves in
the State.
An examination of the trials in cases where white per¬
sons, throug-h friends, had broug-ht suit in the courts of
Southern States,to obtain their freedom from slavery, and the
judicial decisions reported,will disclose the startling- fact that
many white persons, without a taint of mixed blood, have
been seized by the slave trading- land-pirates and branded and
sold into slavery, and that when once in the hands of the
slave barons, they resisted in courts and everywhere their
surrender, even when knowing- them to be white and free-
born. So you see, that as Hosea Big-elow has it
— 609 —
sensitive olfactories of every slave baron, and paralyzes his
palpitating heart. [Laughter and applause.]
Mr. Chairman, when any one quotes the Bible, as it has
been quoted to me here to-day, in an attempt to excuse, or
justify, the enslavement and chattelizing of men, for whose
salvation the Man of Sorrows died, I simply recognize and
treat such a man as I would a person who was insane or a
convicted malefactor. [Applause.]
The clergyman, who, in Boston, announced "that he
would send his own mother back into slavery if she were an
escaped fugitive, and the Constitution required it," is a fit¬
ting representative of that class of pious parvenues, who thus
quote the Bible, and "steal the livery of heaven to serv.e the
devil in." [Applause.]
With shame I am compelled in this year of grace 1856 to
confess that this bastard clergyman has his disciples in Ohio.
Can you conceive, fellow-citizens, of a blacker villainy, or one
more brutal and vile, than the sending of one's own mother
back into slavery, law or no law, Constitution or no Consti¬
tution? ["Wecan't."] And yet I have seen with my own eyes,
the well-known half-brothers and half-sisters of slaveholding
families, sold on the auction block to the highest bidders by
professedly Christian men. [" Shame !"] Do you wonder that
the hearts and consciences of the best men and women of our
country are outraged and shocked at such infernal crimes?
[" No."] The only wonder to me is, that the nation does not
rise in overwhelming force and abolish such diabolical vil¬
lainy, and properly punish the monsters who are guilty of
such fearful wrongs. [Applause.] And there are other
crimes inseparable from any form of slavery, quite as brutal¬
izing and revolting as the selling of half-brothers and half-
sisters; but I will not now attempt to describe them. It is
enough for you and me to know that such frightful crimes are
but part and parcel of a system which demands the enactment
of such inhuman laws, touching the ownership and govern¬
ment of slaves, as you will find in the statute-books of all the
Southern States. Let me read from a book which I hold in
my hand, a few paragraphs (and not by any means the most
offensive). These paragraphs are from some of the so-called
39
— 610 —
State laws and judicial decisions of slave States. They will
give you a partial conception at least of the venality and
brutality of slavery, and I hope a clearer insight into its
moral degradation. Such laws and their interested judicial
interpretation, by judges who themselves are slave owners,
present, as I see it, a compilation of villainy enacted into law,
without a parallel in the history of any civilized people.
Listen to this, ani you will not wonder at what Jefferson
said, when he declared "tliat he trembled for his country
when he thought of the negro, and remembered that God was
just." [Applause.]
Let me read what the slave barons have enacted into
law.
"Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, represented and
adjudged in law, to be chattels personal, in the hands of
their owners or possessors, and their executors, administra¬
tors and assigns, to all intents, constructions and purposes
whatsoever."—Laws of South Carolina, 2d Brev. Digest 229,
Prince's Digest 446.
"Slaves cannot make a contract, cannot own or hold
property, cannot even contract a marriage."—Prince's Di¬
gest, page 28.
'' The cardinal principle of slavery is, that the slave is
not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things, as
an article of property, a chattel personal, and these facts
obtained as undoubted lav/, in all these States."—Stroud,
page 23.
"It is plain, that the dominion of the master is as un¬
limited as that which is tolerated by the laws of any civilized
country, in relation to brute animals and quadrupeds."—
Stroud, page 24.
" In case the personal property of a ward shall consist
in specific articles, such as slaves, working beasts, plate,
books, and so forth, the Court may at any time pass an order
of sale."—Laws of Maryland.
And, as if this diabolical villainy, in the form of law,
were not enough, there was added to it, on demand of the
slave barons, enactment after enactment, in all the slave
States (and I blush to own it, here in Ohio and in a number
of the so-called free States), which denied to the negro, or to
— 611 —
any persons with negro blood in their veins, the right to
testify in any court of justice against the most brutal and
degraded white man — even if he had committed the most
revolting- offenses ag-ainst life or property, or the sanctity of
their wives and daughters.
We had just such barbarous enactments on our statute-
books, here in Ohio, placed there on demand of the slave
barons. These laws were very properly called the "black
laws" of Ohio, and these accursed laws mig-ht have been on
our statute-books to-day, but for the demand of the old anti-
slavery guard for their repeal, and the honorable agreement,
of which I have spoken, that which the manly Free-soilers
made with the anti-slavery Democrats, at the time Chase was
elected Senator, and thus secured their repeal and removed
forever this foul blot from the name and fair fame of our
State. [Applause.] And I do not believe that there lives
within our fair borders to-day, a creature, claiming- to be a
man, however brutal and brazen, who would dare to rise in
the legislature and propose to re-enact into law, the villainous
black statutes which we then repealed. [Applause.] Even
the cross-roads statesmen, whom I encountered yesterday and
to-day, would not have the unblushing- effrontery to do such
an infamous act—- althoug-h they have had the hardihood to
say to me, that they would aid in hunting- down and captur¬
ing an escaping- slave. [Applause.]
The land-slave pirate knew, that he could not safely nor
successfully carry on his infamous kidnapping- trade of steal¬
ing free persons and selling them into slavery, if the persons
he was kidnapping were permitted to testify, even before a
slave baron's court and a jury 011 which, as a rule, there
would be secured one or more silent partners of the kidnapper.
For this reason the land-slave pirate had such so-called
laws as I have described enacted in all the slave States and in a
majority of the free States, and in both Northern and Southern
States he had these infamous laws supplemented with others,
such as would facilitate and render more secure his execrable
traffic in the bodies and souls of men. Thus they had laws
passed in all the slave States, which invited every unhung
villain, to arrest any person of so-called African descent whom
he might decoy within the jurisdiction of the right kind of a
— 612 —
court and county officials, where lie could have the free per¬
sons so seized, thrown into jail without a hearing-, under the
pretext that the person thus arrested was an escaped slave.
After he was safely landed in prison, he would be advertised
as the law directed as "a runaway slave taken up," as you
advertise stray cattle in here Ohio, in which advertisement the
owner of said person would be " officially notified " to come
forward within the time named in the advertisement, claim
such person, pro've property, pay charges and take him away.
This advertisement was often no more than a written notice
posted upon the prison door, because in many counties of the
Southern States there are no newspapers published.
In this notice the so-called "owner" and the public
would be bluntly informed that the person so taken up on
suspicion, would be sold into slavery for life to pay his "jail
fees."
Mr. Chairman, the theory on which this blackest of
crimes is sought to be justified is, that the person so arrested
is the slave, or ought to be the slave of some one, and if not,
that it is dangerous to slavery as an institution, to permit
such a free person to be at large. The example would be bad,
and might result in other slaves escaping. He is, therefore,
taken up as you would take up a stray horse, with this differ¬
ence, that the horse is not sent to the county jail, while in all
the slave States the human being is. After he is kept in jail
the length of time prescribed by law, he is publicly sold into
slavery for life — and his posterity after him — to pay his in¬
voluntary indebtedness to the State in the shape of "jail
fees " charged for keeping him. ["Horrible! Infamous!"] A
majority of the persons thus sold, so far as my observation
went, were free persons (and I have seen a number of such
cases), and they were sold, as a rule, to the very land-slave
pirates who caused their arrest. In this way, thousands of
persons, born beneath our flag and as free as you or I, have
been seized and sold into slavery for life, and to-day are toil¬
ing for slave barons in the rice- and cotton-fields of the South;
and if you or anyone for you, or for them, should go down
there with the conclusive proof of the freedom of any such
person held as a slave, under color of a sheriff's title such as
I have described, and attempt by legal process in any court to
— 613 —
have them released, you, or those you sent down there on
such a mission of justice, would be fortunate if you got away
with your lives. [Cries of " Horrible! Infamous!"]
True, as your hearts involuntarily cry out, the crime of
enslaving- men is "horrible and infamous," for slavery is the
spirit of piracy, the spirit of avarice and the spirit of despot¬
ism combined. It is a heartless and soulless trinity, and
"the sum of all villainies," as declared by the great and good
Wesley. [Applause.]
During the Revolution and in the early days of the re¬
public, a majority of all the great men of the South, who
battled on the field and in the forum for our independence,
especially the great men of Virginia, Maryland and North
Carolina, were outspoken in their opposition to the institu¬
tion of slavery. [Applause.] And yet, within a few years,
this monster wrong, this crime of the centuries, has fastened
its fangs into our national life, and strengthened and grown,
until it has demoralized and debauched a large part of the
entire nation, north and south. [Applause.] In truth, we
have reached such a depth of moral degradation, that the
Chief Executive and our highest judicial tribunals, state and
national, are known to be the open apologists and defenders of
this revolting villain}^. [Applause.] In the eyes of all civ¬
ilized peoples, we are, to-day, regarded as a nation of liars
and hypocrites, professing devotion to the principles of liberty
and justice, while pirating on the land and on the sea for
men, women and children, with the avowed purpose of reduc¬
ing to slavery all the weak and defenseless who can labor,
whether Africans, South Sea Islanders, Chinese Coolies, In¬
dians or white men. [Applause.]
Mr. Chairman, I must not forget to state that by the
laws and judicial decisions of all the slave States, the child
follows the condition of the mother. It would have been
fatal to the legal ownership of half-brothers and sisters, and
ultimately to the institution of slavery, if the law had pro¬
vided that the child of a slave 'mother should follow the
condition of the father. With such a law, in a hundred
years or less (as the amalgamation of the races now going on
in the South shows), there would result universal emancipa¬
tion. [Applause.] Let me read one more paragraph:
— 614- —
"Two hundred years have sanctioned and sanctified negro
slaves as property. The moment the incontestable fact is
admitted that negro slaves are property, the law governing
movable property attaches itself to them, and secures to the
owner the right of carrying- them from one State to another,
where they are recognized as property."
Can two hundred years, or any number of years, " sanc¬
tion and sanctify " oppression and wrong, so as to make
oppression just, and wrong- rig-ht? [Applause.]
This monstrous and indefensible proposition was deliber¬
ately affirmed, in the lang-uag-e just quoted, by a no less
person than Henry Clay, of Kentucky, in a speech delivered
by him in the Senate of the United States, February 7, 1839.
If then, a slave is property and a chattel, and not a man,
he cannot make a contract, and so cannot at law be in default
for service. If, as a chattel, he can be leg-ally in default for
any service required, then the slave baron may legally go
into court and sue his mule for services, whenever his mule
balks and kicks, or runs away and refuses to render the "ser¬
vice" which his owner claims. [Laug-hter and applause.]
The confounding of the word "person" as used in the
Constitution, with the word " slave," which is not once used
in the Constitution, has from the first g-iven the slave barons
much trouble. And but for the fact that national and State
judg-es, claiming- to own "persons" as property, were care-
full}T and craftily selected by the slave barons for all officials,
and especially for all judicial positions—State and national
— no such perverted and dishonest construction of our
national Constitution would have been possible. [Applause.]
On the contrary, I affirm, that if our national Constitution,
together with the preamble and the debates in the-great con¬
vention which framed it, including- the Declaration of Inde¬
pendence, had at any time, within the first half-century of
our national life, been submitted for judicial interpretation
to a commission, impartially selected from the most eminent
jurists and lawyers in the world, say one or two each from
France, Germany, Australia, Ital}- and Switzerland (omitting*
England if you will), no such perverted and rascally inter¬
pretation as we have had from our courts, affirming- the right
— 615 —
of property in man, could have been g-iven by such a court, or
judicial commission. [Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, having- deliberately perverted and judi¬
cially misinterpreted our national Constitution, thesl^ve bar¬
ons next proceed to debauch and degrade the Christian church
by perverting1 and misinterpreting- the Bible, so as to make
the church the bulwark of American slavery, and the Bible
its most formidable citadel.
The sight of a slave pirate captain on a ship in mid ocean
crowded with slaves just captured in Africa, calling-his pirate
crew together on his quarter deck Sunday morning, and read¬
ing and expounding the Bible to them, and proclaiming- (be¬
tween drinks) that slavery was a divine institution, would be
a spectacle less revolting than that of the Boston clergyman,
of whom I have spoken, and not a whit more revolting- than
many of the acts which may be witnessed every day of the
year in all the Southern States. [Applause.] But I deny that
the Bible anywhere authorizes or justifies the crime of Amer¬
ican slavery. Whatever injustice and oppression may have,
been, and perhaps was authorized, or tolerated, under the
Mosaic dispensation, it was, as I read and understand the
Bible, abolished and prohibited under the dispensation and
teaching of Christ. But if the Mosaic code is still in force,
then I demand that "cities of refuge" shall be established
all over this broad land of ours, as numerous and as near each
other, as the cities described in the books of Numbers and
Deuteronomy, and that when an escaped slave reaches any of
such cities, he shall not be given up to anyone who may claim
to own him as he must now be given up here in Ohio, or in any
free State, if we obey the infamous fugitive-slave law; a law
which I never have obeyed, and by God's help I never shall.
[Applause.] And then, if you will turn to Leviticus, you
will find, in every fiftieth 3rear, under the Mosaic code, that
there was a }rear of jubilee, in which year every slave was
free. [Applause.] If the Mosaic code is to be maintained,
then I demand that we have a year of jubilee in this country
now. [Applause.] "We have never had a year of jubilee
since the first slaves were landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in
1620, more than two hundred years ago, in which time we
should have had four distinct half-century years of jubilee, if
— 616 —
the Mosaic code is to hold. [Applause.] I need hardly tell
you, fellow-citizens, that if I had the power, we would have a
general jubilee in this year of grace 1856. [Applause.] The
gentlemen on my right, who 'good-naturedly interrupts me,
says, there is no danger of such a jubilee in- this country
during his or my lifetime." That is more than probable, I
must admit, but it is not impossible, and it is no less his duty
and mine to work for it, though it may not be probable. [Ap¬
plause.] I am an optimist, and a more hopeful man than my
friend. I believe that the right is certain to triumph, and I
hope to live to see the day when my country shall be free
from the blighting curse of human bondage. I know not how
nor when the time will come, but I have an abiding faith, that
somehow, sometime, the end will be. The God-defying judg¬
ments of our Supreme Court must be reversed, and the declar¬
ation of the grand men, who founded this Government, that
"the national Constitution did not recognize property in
man," must be made universal law. [Applause.] If this can
be done in no other way, it will become our duty to amend
our national Constitution and all our State constitutions, so
as to secure to every living human soul within our gates,
their right to life, liberty and property, and it must also be
amended so as to secure to all States, representatives in Con¬
gress, and in State legislatures — in proportion to the votes
cast in each, to the end that all the people, white and color¬
ed, shall be fairly represented in State legislative assemblies
and in the national Congress. [Applause.] If this proposi¬
tion is now a recognized duty, touching an amendment to our
national Constitution, it must also become a duty touching
an amendment to the State constitution of Ohio, and all State
constitutions, South as well as North. [Applause.] The
time has gone by, when the Government of the nation, or
that of any State, can, without protest, be dominated over by
the minority, and be administedby organized force and fraud,
in the interest of a privileged class. [Applause and cries of
"that's so."[
For nearly half a century, less than three hundred
thousand slave barons have ruled this nation morally and
politically, including a majority of the Northern States, with
a rod of iron. They have rode, and to-day are riding over
— 617 —
us politically, and, as it were, on horseback — booted and
spurred — and appropriately armed, as the recognized cham¬
pions of the barbarism #which they so fittingly represent.
Before the advancing- march of these slave barons, with
bloodhounds and shot-g-un, the g-reat body of Northern pub¬
lic men, claiming- to be statesmen, the pulpit and the press,
lawyers and judges, merchants and political camp-followers
—including all office-holders and office-seekers—have bowed
down, and are to-day bowing- down, with their hands on
their mouths and their mouths in the dust, with an abase¬
ment as servile as that of a vanquished, spiritless people, to
their conquerors. [Applause.] This domination of the
slave baron is to-day so demoralizing- and so servile, that I
fear we are doomed to see, in this year of grace 1856, the
election to the Presidency of that prince of all Northern
Janus-faced politicians, James Buchanan.
[At this point Mr. Ashley was again interrupted and
asked, " why he did not, as a delegate to the Philadelphia con¬
vention, vote for the nomination of Judge McLean, if lie
had any doubt of Fremont's election." In reply, Mr. Ashley
said:] I answer you frankly, that I do not believe in nomi¬
nating a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States
for the Presidency, nor do I believe in nominating the judge
of any court of record—national or State — for a political
office. I know Judge McLean personally, and regard him as
among our ablest and purest public men, but I did not want
him nominated by the Republican party for President. [Ap¬
plause.] Had Robert Rantoul, of Massachusetts, been liv¬
ing, I should have voted for his nomination as soon as
Mr. Chase's name was withdrawn. As it was, after it became
clear that Governor Chase could not be nominated, I voted for
the nomination of General Fremont, because I felt confident
that he would best unite all the elements of opposition to
Buchanan. [Applause.] Here Mr. Ashley was again ques¬
tioned and asked, " Is not Fillmore abetter representative of
the South than Buchanan?" Mr. Ashley sai£: I answer
you without reservation or qualification, that he is not.
Mr. Fillmore is nothing- but a "decoy duck," and is simply
being used by the slave barons to catch Northern doughface
suckers and political eunuchs. [Applause.] His abasement
— 618—
and self-stultification became so complete, when, as the act¬
ing- President, he approved the fugitive-slave bill, that the
slave barons know he can no longer be of service to them,
except as a " decoy duck," and they are now working- him for
all he is worth, just as they used and worked Daniel Webster
without scruple and without a blush. [Applause.] From
the day he delivered his 7th of March speech, the slave
barons did not pretend to use Webster even as a "decoy
duck," but simply treated him as a "dead duck," and as he
deserved to be treated for his betrayal of Massachusetts and
the North. [Applause.] No, sir, do not deceive yourself,
the slave barons know their men; they know that Mr.
Buchanan is the safest, most compliant, and most available
Northern man for their purposes. .They tested him as
United States Senator, as chief of the conspirators who
signed the Ostend Manifesto, when he was minister to Eng--
land, and ag-ain when he was Secretary of State. In no posi¬
tion ever held by him did he once disappoint, on the slavery
question, .his exacting-masters. [Applause.] All his life he
has been a suave, putty-man, ready and willing- to be molded
and stamped with the brand of the slave barons. [Applause.]
Shame and sorrow must come to us as a people, and over¬
whelm us with disgrace and dishonor as a nation, if such
men as he are charg-ed with the administration of our
Government. [Applause.] Let no man be deceived. We
cannot escape forever the doom that awaits us, if, as a nation,
we deliberately continue in our present guilt and infamy.
[Applause.] But, thank God, I know that we shall not con¬
tinue in our present g-uilty, downward course. I have an
abiding- faith that the hour of our deliverance is nearer than
the world knows, or dreams. With God on our side, I have
often said, that one is a majority. [Applause.] And you and
I know that to-day we have millions of true and brave men on
our side, such as old Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, who
officially refused to deliver up a fug-itive slave, and of whom
Whittier sung- in words that will never die:
"Thank God for the token, one lip is still free,
One spirit untrammeled, unbending- one knee,
Lrike the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm,
— 619 —
Erect, when multitudes bend to the storm;
When traitors to freedom and honor and God
Are bowed at an idol polluted with blood;
When the recreant North has forgotten her trust,
And the lip of her honor lies low in the dust,
Thank God, that one man from the' shackles has broken,
Thank God, that one man as a freeman has spoken!
O'er thy crags, Allegheny, a blast has been blown,
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, a murmur has gone
To the land of the South, of the charter and chain —
Of liberty sweetened with slavery's pain;
Where the cant of democracy dwells on the lips
Of the forgers of fetters and wielders of whips!
Where ' chivalric ' honor means really no more
Than scourging of women, and robbing the poor!
Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high,
And the words which he utters, are,
' Worship, or die !'"
[Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, I do not class all men who are the owners
of slaves, as "slave barons,"or pro-slavery conspirators, hos¬
tile to democratic government. Many men hold slaves who
got them by inheritance, and circumstances beyond their con¬
trol compelled them to remain slave owners.
I personally know a number of slaveholders who are bet¬
ter men than you would suppose possible under the slave sys-
tem which environs them. Their acts told me, more forcibly
than their words, that their hearts were not in accord with
the accursed system under which, by birth, education and
surrounding conditions, they were compelled to live. Such
men would always give their worthy and trusted slaves a half
day to themselves on Saturday, and sometimes all of Satur¬
day, with the right to own and hold such personal property
as they might earn during their holidays. Such men would
permit their slaves to have their marriage solemnized by a
regularly ordained clergyman of any church they might se¬
lect. Of course such men could not be induced to purchase
newly imported African slaves from a slave dealer, nor pur¬
chase a person whom they had reason to suspect was a free
— 620 —
man, who had been kidnapped, either in a free or in a slave
State, as has often been done by slave dealers. Such a slave
master would no more be guilty of buying and holding as a
slave, a free white man, or Chinaman, or black man, than he
would think of buying and holding a stolen horse. So I say,that
such slavemasters are better than the American slave system,
under which thousands of men, white men, mulattoes, China-
mec and foreigners, as free born as you or I, are to-day held
as chattel slaves, and there is, practically, no escape for them
or their children but in the grave. [" Horrible! Infamous!"]
But the men whom I have just described, are no more believ¬
ers in slavery than was Thomas Jefferson and thousands of
Southern men, who were born to this dangerous and degrad¬
ing inheritance. [Applause.] Such slave masters frequently
permitted their slaves to buy their freedom and that of their
wives and children. I have known personally of a half dozen
instances of that kind.
Now let me give you a clear view of a fellow who is a
" slave baron" at heart, and I regret to be compelled to say
that I have known of more than one such "slave baron." I
have known an instance where slaves bargained for their
freedom with masters who at heart were " slave barons," and
after the price had been nearly all paid, the poor negro with¬
out notice was seized and sold South, from his family and all
the home he had.
Under the American slave system, the law declares, as I
have read you, that a slave cannot own property, cannot make
a contract, cannot even enter into a contract of marriage.
He, therefore, can be seized and sold at any time, like a brute
beast, and there is no escape in any slave State from this terri¬
ble condition. [" That's so."]
When about eleven years of age, 1 was greatly shocked
and my feelings outraged by this occurrence. Two slaves
belonging to two different owners, each made a bargain with
his master to purchase his freedom. One was to pay a thou¬
sand dollars, and be free as soon as he paid it, with no limit as
to time. The other was to pay eight hundred dollars, if paid
withm five years. If the time went beyond five years, the
price was to be eight hundred and fifty dollars. Many of the
neighbors knew of these agreemeLts. EJach o! these slaves
-621-
worked in season and out of season to earn the money for his
ransom. As fast as each got a few dollars ahead, they paid
it over to their master, trusting- to him to keep the account
honestly. In something- over three years' time, one had paid
his master nearly nine hundred dollars, and the other over
five hundred dollars, when, without notice, and without an
attempt on the part of the masters to conceal the perfidy and
the infamy of their acts, both slaves were sold, and uncere¬
moniously seized by the slave trader, manacled and chained
in a coffle-g'ang- and driven off South and were never more
seen or heard of by their families or friends, so far as I know.
[Cries of "Shocking! Shameful!"] Do you wonder that I
was outraged at this indescribable villainy? [Cries of "No,
we do not."] And I am g-lad to be able to tell you that there
were many honest, pure-minded men and women in that
neighborhood, some of whom were slaveholders, who looked
upon this dishonoring-, God-defying- act, as simply infamous.
[Applause.]
This horrid occurrence so worked upon me, that I have
never forgotten it, and my heart has never ceased to rebel
ag-ainst a system which tolerates and makes possible such di¬
abolical crimes. [Applause.]
Before I was twenty years of ag-e, I had drawn up a plan
to aid slaves to purchase their freedom, and to provide by
statute law ag-ainst a repetition of such villainy as I have de¬
scribed. [Applause.]
There are a number in the audience who have heard me
more than once explain the plan, and my boyish hopes in con¬
nection with it, and how those hopes were defeated and blast¬
ed. So I will not repeat it now. [Someone spoke up and
said, "There are many here who never heard it, and who we
know would like to hear it,"]
"Well," said Mi. Ashley, "the afternoon is slipping
away and I have not the time. It will give me pleasure to
tell you about it, ihe next time 1 am with you for a speech.
[Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, in what I have said, I have sought to
make my purpose so plain, that he who runs may read, I am
determined that no honest man shall misunderstand my ap¬
peal. I therefore repeat, that I am unutterably opposed o
— 622 —
the ownership of labor by capital, either as chattel-slaves, or
as apprentices for a term of years, as Chinamen are now be¬
ing- apprenticed in Cuba and in this country, ostensibly for
seven years, but in reality for life.
I do not agree that capital shall own labor, North or
South, nor in any country on God's green earth. [Applause.]
I do not care whether that capital is in the hands of one man
or in the hands of many men combined. Neither the state,
nor a corporation (which is an artificial person, and often a
soulless one at that, created by the authority of the state),
must be recognized as having- the rig-lit to deprive any per¬
son, however poor, whether white or black, of his life, or lib¬
erty, or property, except in punishment for crime, of which
he must be duly convicted in open court by a jury of his peers.
[Applause.] This protection I demand for myself and mine,
and that which I demand for myself, I demand for the hum¬
blest of God's poor, of whatever kindred, tongue or people.
I demand for every human soul within our gates, whether
black or white, or of mixed blood, the equal protection of the
law, and that everywhere beneath or flag-, on the land or on
the sea, that they be protected in their rig-lit to life and lib¬
erty, and the secure possession of the fruits of their own
labor. In short, I demand that all of God's children shall
have an even chance in the race of life. [Applause.] You
will, I know, agree with me, that it is the duty of a civilized
state to protect the weak and defenseless against the agres¬
sions of the selfish and the powerful, to protect them against
the heartlessness of greed and the brutality born of the in¬
fernal spirit of caste. [Applause.] Whatever the pretext or
excuse, I am opposed to all forms of ownership of men,
whether by the state, by corporations,or by individuals. The
ownership of men, as chattels, by the state, would be the
most brutal and degrading form of slavery which the devilish
ingenuity of man could invent. If I must be a slave, I would
prefer to be the slave of one man, rather than a slave of a
soulless corporation, or the slave of a state. But I protest in
the name of that liberty which is the birthright of the human
race,against the enslavement by individuals, by corporations,
or by the state, of any of God's children, however poor or de¬
fenseless, whether white or black. [Applause.]
— 623 —
Fellow-citizens, you will readily understand, from what
I have said, that I do not believe slavery can leg-ally exist in
this country, a singie hour, under an honest interpretation of
our national Constitution.
I differ with my friends Garrison and Phillips, on this
point, and do not admit that our national Constitution is a
" covenant with hell and a league with death." [Applause.]
On the contrary, I hold that if our national Constitution was
properly interpreted, that a slave could not breathe any¬
where, on the land or on the sea, beneath our starry flag-.
[Applause and " that's true."]
I was asked to-day by a defender of slavery, whether if
I were a judg-e, I would obey the command (as he expressed
it) of the Constitution, and return a fugitive slave, if one
was brought before me, by his owner or claimant. I intended
in what I have already said to have answered this question,
but I am again asked, by my friend on my right, to answer
specifically, and I reply now, as I replied then, that I would
not; that were I a judge, I should interpret tha Constitution
for myself and not as others might interpret it for me. You
know General Jackson said that he interpreted the Constitu¬
tion for himself, as his oath required he should do, and that
he did not recognize the right of any man, or body of men, to
interpret it for him. This ought to be good law for my
questioner, who is doubtless a professed disciple of "Old
Hickory." [Applause.] In a case such as has been pre¬
sented, I should follow in the footsteps of General Jackson,
and interpret the Constitution as I understand it. I should
hold, that under our national constitution, neither
the Congress of the United States, nor the legislature
op any State, had the power to make a slave any more
Than to make a king. [Applause.] If, therefore, any per¬
son should present himself before a court, in which I was
acting- as judg-e, and claim a human being- as his property, I
should require him (as a just and uprig-ht judg-e of Vermont
is said to have done), as a condition to making- his claim
g-ood, that he produce a bill of sale from the Almig-hty, and
if he could not do this, and produce a bill of sale with a
g-enuine sig-nature, I should cause him to be arrested as a
kidnapper, and send him to the penitentiary for the full term
— 624 —
provided by law for kidnapping-. [Applause and laughter.]
If I am clear about any clause in the Constitution, it is the
clause which is always quoted to justify the fugitive slave
law. I deny that the Constitution anywhere, either in letter
or spirit, confers on Congress the authority to pass a fugitive
slave law of any kind. On the contrary, I claim, that an in¬
telligent, honest reading of the Constitution, and the debates
in the convention which framed it, will convince any fair-
minded man', that Clause Three (3) of Article Four (4) of the
Constitution, does not confer on Congress the power to pass
any law for the return of fugitive slaves, and certainly no
grant of power to Congress can be found in that instrument
for the passage of such an act, as the infamous fugitive-
slave law of 1850. [Applause.]
Let me read the clause relied upon by the slave barons
and their Northern lackeys, for a justification of the present
fugitive-slave law. Clause Three (3) of Article Four (4),
Section Two, reads as follows:
Clause III. "No person, held to service or labor in one
State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall,
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharg¬
ed from such service or labor, but shall- be delivered up on
claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This clause and each clause in Article Four (4), Sections
One and Two, are simply a compact stipulation and manda¬
tory on the States, and confers no authority whatever, direct
or indirect, on Congress. [Applause.] When }-ou go home
read the Constitution and see if I am not rig'ht. Wherever
power so important as this, is conferred by the Constitution
on Congress, it is conferred, and intended to be conferred, by
express grant, and in clear and unambiguous language, and
not by implication. Turn to Section Eight (8) and read from
Clause One (1) to Clause Eighteen (18), and }'ou will find
that all the grants of power to Congress are given in direct and
unmistakable language. It reads, " The Congress shall have
power, etc.," and Article Ten (10) of the Amendments distinct¬
ly provides that " The powers not delegated to the Congress of
the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to
the States, are reserved to the States respectivel}', or the peo¬
ple." [Applause.] In no section of the Constitution is there a
— 625 —
grant of power to Congress to enact laws for capturing- and
returning- persons held by the laws of any State to service or
labor, either for a term of years or for life — nor is there any
authority g-iven for the capture and return of criminals es¬
caping- from one State into another.
The slave code of every slave State, denies that slaves
are " persons," and describes them as chattels personal, or
as property. The words used in Clause Three (3) of Section
Four (4) of the Constitution describes "persons held to service
or labor," and in Clause Three (3) of Article One (1), Sec¬
tion Two (2), as "bound to service for a term of years," but
nowhere describes them as slaves. The phrase, "held to ser¬
vice or labor," and "bound to service for a term of years,"
are leg^al technical phrases, and can only be applied to per¬
sons who are bound or held by a contract, which they them¬
selves, or their lawful g-uardians, may have leg-ally executed
"for a term of years," and cannot possibly mean slaves,
because no person, black or white, or of mixed blood,
can leg'al-ly sell himself into slavery or make a contract, bind¬
ing on himself for life, with a provision that his posterity
shall be slaves and chattels forever. [Applause.] Nor can
a g-uardian lawfully sell a minor into slavery.
The interpretation put upon this clause of the Constitu¬
tion by the slave barons, is a forced interpretation, and an
outrage on the meaning- of langnag-e, and on all known rules
of law. When this clause was under consideration in the
convention, a proposition was made to insert a distinct pro¬
vision for reclaiming- fugitive slaves. It was promptly op¬
posed by the ablest men in the convention, and abandoned
without a vote, and the clause concerning- " persons," from
whom service or labor may be due, was adopted unanimously
and without debate. So you see, that the refusal of the con¬
vention to provide for the rendition of fugitive slaves, by na¬
tional authority, is a historical fact. [Applause.] As the
text of the Constitution which I have quoted, and the debates
in the convention clearly indicate, the power to pass a fugi¬
tive-slave law was not conferred on Congress, and I am con¬
fident that no such power was intended to be conferred. All
that can be fairly claimed for that clause, is that it is a com-
40 «
— 626 —
pact stipulation and simply mandatory, on the States. [Ap¬
plause.] With the same parity of reasoning-, it migiit be
claimed, on the authority of Clause Two (2) of Section Two
(2), Article Four (4), that Congress had the power to pass a
law for the capture and return of criminals escaping from one
State into another. If this claim were made, and Congress
should pass such an act as the fugitive-slave law, including-
the denial of trial by jury, and the suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus, what a howl we should hear from the apostles
of States' rigiits, and strict construction of the Constitution.
[Applause.] And yet, Congress has precisely the same au¬
thority, under the grants of power in the Constitution, over
escaping" criminals, that it has over persons escaping- from
service or labor due under the laws of any State. [Applause.]
Mr. Madison, who by common consent, has by all parties
been called the " father of the Constitution," repeatedly de¬
clared during- the sitting- of the convention, " that it would be
wrong- to recognize in the Constitution, the idea that there could
be property in man." In view of this well-known fact, is it
to be supposed that the intellectual giants in that convention,
those men of brain and high patriotic purposes, intended to
give, or thought they were surreptitiously giving-, to the new
government which they were creating*, the power to keep up
a perpetual slave hunt throughout the republic, for fugitives
guilty of no crime but that of escaping- from the most infer¬
nal despotism on earth? [Applause.] Is it conceivable that
they intended to make all citizens of the republic slave
hounds, and that the first and most important function of the
free government, which they were establishing-, was to be
the catching and returning- of fugitive slaves? [Applause.]
Did they intend that this free g-overnment which they were
org-anizing, should be dismembered and destroyed, as the
slave barons and their northern allies now threaten to do, the
moment the National Government failed to obey the insolent
and infamous demands which they are to-day making- upon
us, that we capture and return to them, at public expense,
all their escaping human chattels? [Applause.] Are we to
believe, that a majority of the members of that memorable
convention, who had just passed throug-h the fire and blood
of the Revolution—a revolution conceived and achieved to
— 627 —
establish the God-given rig-hts of personal liberty—would
have been so false to their principles and professions, as to
induce them to voluntarily grant to Congress the power to
force them and their posterity forever, to eng-ag'e in an ever¬
lasting* slave hunt, for the benefit of a few slave barons?
[Applause.] Thank God, that not one jot or tittle of evi¬
dence can be found to sustain a chang-e so monstrous and so
infamous. [Applause.] But I am told by men who claim
to be constitutional lawyers, and by cross-roads statesmen,
who accept the acts of Congress and the adjudication of
courts as "finalities," that Congress has passed fugitive-
slave laws, and that the hig'hest court in the nation has
affirmed their constitutionality. "With shame and humilia¬
tion, I admit that Congress has passed such laws—laws
which the prince of darkness could not make blacker— and I
admit that the Supreme Court has affirmed their constitu¬
tionality. From this gross interpretation of the Constitu¬
tion, I appeal to the hearts and conscience of the people,
who can make and unmake courts and releg-ate to private life
all so called law-givers who deceive and betray. [Applause.]
An enlig-htened and patriotic people are certain at no distant
day to abolish the infamy of slavery and consig-n its cham¬
pions and apologists to the loathing- and contempt which
awaits them in history. [Applause.]
If the overthrow of slavery and of the slave barons can
be accomplished in no other way, it must be done by an
amendment to our national and all our State constitutions,
and eventually, as I have heretofore said, we must gx> further
than this, and amend our national Constitution, so as to pro¬
vide for the election of the President and United States
Senators by a direct vote of the people, and the election of
Representatives to Congress, in such manner as to secure to
the minority of the voters, in each State, their proportion of
members in Congress, from every State entitled under any
apportionment to three or more Representatives. [Ap¬
plause.] And I hope to live long" enougii to see this demo¬
cratic proposition become a national issue, and I am sure you
will agree with me, that it is now a national duty to inaugu¬
rate such a movement. [Applause.]
Horace Mann once said to me, that he despaired of the
— 628 —
republic, when the so-called compromise measures of 1850
were passed by Congress. I answered him, that I did not de¬
spair, nor did I propose to surrender, and I tell }tou as I told
him, that though our political sky is stormy and dark, I have
an abiding faith, strong and clear, and I believe that I shall
live to see the day when liberty and justice shall everywhere
triumph in this fair land of ours. It cannot be that this
long, dark night of shame and crime will endure forever.
[Applause.] At any rate, I intend, by God's blessing, to
keep this faith or none. [Applause.]
Fellow-citizens, as the great Roman Senator invari¬
ably closed every speech he made, either in the Senate
or to his army, whether on questions of administration of
finance or of war, with the declaration, "But Carthage must
be destroj^ed," so I, for the hundredth time or more, close my
speech to-day with the declaration, that come what may
"American slavery must be destroyed." [Applause and
cries of "Go on."]
But, fellow-citizens, I find that I have spoken over two
hours and detained you much longer than I intended. ["Go
on, go on," came in chorus from many voices.] I would be
glad to do so, if I were not posted to speak to-night in West
Unity. Of course I must not disappoint our friends over
there, and you see, if I go there to-night I shall be compelled
to stop now. I thank you for the compliment implied in your
request to "go on," no less than for the approving and gen¬
erous applause you have given me during my speech.
In closing, let me ask that every earnest man and woman
before me, shall each for themselves put on the simple but
invincible armor of Truth, and with the sword of the Lord
of Gideon, that you go forth conquering and to conquer.
Not with the sword of Moloch, and the banner of sedition
and blood, but under the spotless banner of the Prince of
Peace. In the inspirational language of our beloved Quaker
Poet,
" Not mine sedition's trumpet-blast
And threatening word;
I read the lessons of the past,
— 629 —
That firm endurance wins at last,
More than the sword.
"O, clear-eyed Faith, and Patience, thou
So calm and strong'!
Lend strength to weakness; teach us how
The sleepless eyes of God look through
This night of wrong."
["Amen! Amen!" and applause.]
lietter from Bishop B. W. Arnett, Chairman of Committee.
When we began the task assigned, us, we decided to beg-in with the speeches and
addresses delivered by Mr. Ashley after his first election to Congress, in 1858. But in
reading a number of his campaign speeches made in 1853-54 (before the Republican
party was organized), and in 1855-57, when Salmon P. Chase was elected governor of
Ohio, we determined to add to the matter already stereotyped, at least one of his old-
time abolition stump speeches, and selected the one made at Montpelier, Ohio, in 1856,
because we happen to be personally cognizant of the historical facts stated, about the
election of Mr. Chase to the United States Senate, and the repeal of the black laws of
Ohio. We are confident that the reader will tnauk us for including with this collec¬
tion this masterly old-fashioned stump speech and the extracts from the Bowling
Green and Mt. Gilead speeches following.
B. W. Arnett.
Extracts
From Speech made by Hon. J. M. Ashley at Bowling
Green, Wood County, Ohio, during the
Congressional Campaign of 1862.
Mr. Chairman: I have been asked to-day, as I have been
asked before, why I did not reply to the deluge of slanders
with which my personal and political opponents assail me in
this canvass. I answer you frankly, that I do not, because I
know by observation and reading- that against the politically
vicious and brutal, neither character nor integrity nor ability
can successfully cope in any political campaign. As a rule
the unscrupulous political maligner has the first and the last
word, and men of self-respect cannot descend to a personal
discussion with them. [Applause.] In my political cam¬
paigns I have attempted to follow the simple and practical
maxim laid down by Washington, who, when questioned by
his friends (as I have been questioned here to-day) as to why
he did not answer his slanderers, said, "that to persevere
in one's duty and be silent, is the best answer to calum¬
ny." And a higher authority has commanded those "who
are reviled, to revile not again." [Applause.]
By my public and private acts, whether official or unof¬
ficial, I demand to be judged. My official acts and public ut¬
terances are matters of record, and cannot be altered or fal¬
sified except by fraud and forgery, and fraud and forgery can¬
not long be successful.
As the most reckless of my maligners have not, thus far,
(630)
— 631 —
assailed the integrity of my private life, I can afford to say
to each and all of them as "Uncle Toby" said to the fly,
which had for a long- time exasperated and annoyed him.
When he caught it, he walked deliberately to the open window
and permitted it to escape, with the benevolent and philo¬
sophical remark, ' 'Go, poor thing1. There is room enough in
the world for both thee and me." [Laughter and applause.]
" Instead of entering into a controversy with the political
plotters and conspirators who are assailing me, and have de¬
liberately misrepresented end misinterpreted my official acts
and public utterances, I have on more occasions than one
said as I now say, that I prefer to treat all such reckless ma-
ligners with silent contempt and to walk backward, as I now
do, with averted gaze [walks backward, with head turned],
and with the broad mantle of charity cover their moral and
political nakedness. [Applause.] I have lived long enough
to learn that those who walk in the sunshine of fame must
ever and always be followed by the shadow of envy. But life
is all too short, and its mission too grand, for me to waste my
time and strength in answering the slanders of the campaign
maligner. I have therefore determined to so live, as to write
my friendships on the granite, and my enmities in the sand.
[Applause.]
Mr. Chairman, again I affirm, as I have often affirmed
when addressing the Republicans of this District, that sla¬
very is not only the foe of the human race, but that it is
especially the foe of every working-man in all civilized lands;
and I appeal to the working-men of America, to strike hands
and aid us in crushing this slave barons' rebellion, and thus aid
in preserving our national unity and in cecuring national free¬
dom. Strike hands against disunion and for a war which,
when successful, will bring unity and peace, a union which
shall be free in fact as well as in name. Strike for the right
of every man, whether white or black, to own himself and
the fruits of his own labor, so that in all our broad domain,
there shall not be a single slave. Strike for co-operation
and against monopolies; for a free ballot for all, black as well
as white, and equitable representation in Congress and in all
— bSZ —
legislative assemblies, State or municipal; strike also against
the one-man power in our Government.
Have faith in the future and in each other. Be assured
that behind this slave barons' conspiracy, if successful, there
is being- prepared fetters for all working-men, and monster
monopolies will then be organized which will reduce all
laboring-men, practically, to the condition of chattel slaves.
Be not deceived; slave labor degrades and cheapens the labor
of every free man, and I do not hesitate to declare that from
this hour, henceforth and forever, there can be no enduring
peace so lor. ^ as slavery dominates in the national or in any
of our State governments.
The power in our hands for its destruction will be invin¬
cible, whenever as a unit, the working-men of America de¬
cree that it shall die. The gilded curtain which has so long
dazzled but to conceal the great crime of the slave barons'
rebellion, will be rent in twain by the breath of the enfran¬
chised working-men of America, whenever they will it. If
you but listen with me, you will hear, as I now hear, the
measured and triumphant tread of an organized army of
independent working-men, who with a freeman's ballot in
their hands are marching with music and banners to battle
and to victory. [Applause.]
And when that hour of victory for true democratic gov¬
ernment shall come, as it is certain to come, what a change
there will be in our national life, when contrasted with the
dark conditions which overshadowed the republic when, as a
boy, I first visited the national capital. Then, on all sides,
the clanking fetters of the slave greeted one's ears. Now,
the songs of liberty and hope everywhere cheer you with
their welcome.
"When first I saw her banner wave
Above the nation's council-hall,
'I heard beneath its marble wall
The clanking fetters of the slave.
" In the foul market-place I stood,
And saw the Christian mother sold,
— 633 —
And childhood with its locks of gold,
Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.
"The flag- that floated from the dome
Flapped menace in the morning- air;
I stood a periled stranger, where
The human broker made his home.
" For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword,
And Law their three-fold sanction g"ave,
And to the quarry of the slave
Went hawking1 with our symbol bird.
"On the oppressor's side was power;
And yet I knew that every wrong,
However old, however strong,
But waited God's avenging hour:
" I knew that truth would crush the lie —
Somehow, sometime, the end would be;
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
The triumph with my mortal eye.
" But now I see it! In the sun
A free flag floats from yonder dome,
And at the nation's hearth and home
The justice long delayed is done.
" Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer,
The message of deliverance comes;
But heralded by roll of drums
On waves of battle-troubled air!
" Not as we hoped; but what are we?
Above our broken dreams and plans
God lays, with wiser hands than man's
The corner-stones of liberty."
["Amen" and "Amen" and applause.]
EXTRACT FROM SPEECH
Made; in 1865 by Hon. J. M. Ashley, at Gilead, Wood
County, Ohio.
Mr. Chairman: It is claimed by the unconditional Union
men of the nation, and conceded by all thoughtful citizens,
that the constitutional power of the National Government is
ample for its protection and defense. But I go a step further
and claim that under the Constitution, Congress alone has
the power to determine what shall be the future relations of
all who have been in rebellion against the Government, and
also what shall be the future relations of the slaves whom it
made free when Abraham Lincoln, by his Emancipation
Proclamation, invited them to enlist in its armies and aid in
putting down the slave barons' rebellion.
If this proposition be not true, then, indeed, as a nation
are we powerless and defenseless in the future against organ¬
ized conspiracy and internal public enemies. True, we have
crushed the rebellion, and the clash of arms no longer resounds
within hearing of the national capital, but our hour of vic¬
tory is also our hour of humiliation and defeat, if the
moment a truce is proclaimed by the generals in command of
the contending armies, the vanquished may assume in
defiance of the Congress of the United States all the political
power and authority which they had in each of the rebel
States, and in the legislative halls of Congress, prior to the
rebellion. If this amazing claim should be conceded by us,
then, indeed, will the joy of the loyal white and black men of
the South be turned to sorrow and mourning! If we are
(*>34)
-— 635 —
guilty of the folly and criminality of surrendering- them to
the tender mercy of their enemies and ours, we will be of all
men most guilty. [Applause.] Can it be that after having
emancipated four millions of human beings so that no person
can hereafter hold and treat any man as a chattel slave, we
are powerless to prevent his late master from making him
the slave of the State? Heaven forbid. [Applause.]
Mr. Chairman, there comes a period in the lifetime of
every man of individuality and strong convictions, when ideas
take complete possession of his heart and brain, which, if
conscientiously followed, will carry him far beyond the con¬
servative line of prudence, and enable him, despite prejudice
and hate, the selfish interests of men, and the formidable
barriers of human law, to contribute something to the in¬
auguration of needed .reforms, and changes in society and
governments. Such men are ever present in all nations, with
the "higher law" written in their hearts. They come to us
with an inspiration which causes them to live simple and pure
lives, and to labor for others with an unselfish devotion which
the world does not understand, and which none can appreci¬
ate who do not know something of the inner life of the lead¬
ers of men, who follow their own thoughts, with the sublime
faith of a child. These are the men who intuitively know
what is really right and best for the human race; men whose
great thoughts and inspirations cannot be suppressed by the
social or political regulations of society and governments, nor
by unjust provisions of constitutions or the penal enactments
of statute-books. That which they believe to be true they are
ever ready to maintain, though they suffered the penalty of
the law which killeth. [Applause.]
The musty precedents of governments, the regulations of
society, the penal demands of law, may punish by fines and im¬
prisonment or social ostracism, but the law of the Great Su¬
preme breathes into the soul of such a man, a power which
makes his thoughts outlive them all, and causes the develop¬
ment of a more perfect and better state of society and govern¬
ment. [Applause.]
Such were the anti-slavery men and women of America,
— 636 —
the latchet of whose shoes the mass of men ol their day were
not worthy to unloose. They came to us with the gospel of
liberty in their hearts, and oppression fled before them. Like
heroes divinely commissioned, when any one of them "blew
a blast upon his bugle-horn 'twas worth a thousand men!"
You can now all look back and know that each blew a blast
which aided in destroying- the oppressor and liberating- the
oppressed, so that to-day, within all our borders, the sun does
not rise nor set upon a single slave. [Applause.]
All this has come to us because a chosen few dared to
put God's law above all human law, and to give the best
thought of their lives to the accomplishment of a great and
holy purpose. You all know that I have been a humble and
devoted follower and active co-worker with these grand men
and women, whom we all affectionately call the "old guard."
During our great anti-slavery battle I have not been a
"camp-follower," as many of you can testify. [Applause.]
In the coming battle for the enfranchisement of the black
man, I need not tell you that I shall not rest until he is
clothed by constitutional provision, with an American citi¬
zen's cleanest and purest weapon — the ballot. [Applause.]
As the ballot is the most formidable weapon of protection
and defense for you and for me, I demand that the same
weapon shall be secured to every black man, and that he be
protected in his right to use it as freely and peaceably as we
use it here in Ohio. [Applause.]
In doing this, we shall quit ourselves like men, and the
gates of fortune shall open wide for us, as a nation. In
doing right for the helpless, we shall gain strength ourselves.
Self-exertion evermore gives fresh hope and a faith that en¬
dures and with patience waits. Then let us
"Seek for strength in self-exertion;
Work, and still have faith to wait;
Close the crooked gates to fortune;
Make the road to honor straight.
"Follow out true cultivation;
Widen education's plan,
— 637 —
From the Majesty of Nature,
Teach the Majesty of Man.
" Feed the plant, whose fruit is wisdom;
Cleanse from crime, the common sod;
So that from the throne of heaven
It may bear the glance of God."
[Applause.]
Letter from Rev. S. T. Mitchell, President of Wilberforce University.
The foregoing- speech, made at Montpelier in 1856, and the ex¬
tracts following- from speeches made in Wood County in 1863 and '65,
reflect with clearness and power the advanced anti-slavery opinions
held by Mr. Ashley at the date of their .delivery, and make his anti-
slavery record so complete that we have found "no word or thought
which we could wish to change or blot." Observation teaches us
that there are but few young men with character and ability strong-
enough to answer calumny by silence, and be able to live on a plane so high as to re¬
buke and answer, by acts, not words, all political falsehoods; and still fewer men,
young or old, who in the midst of detraction, can declare as he did in the foregoing
extract made from his speech at Bowling Green in 1862, that he had determined to so
live as to silence the maligner and to quote his own language, " to write my friend¬
ships on the granite, and my enmities in the sand." We have never read anything1
grander in any speech. S. T. Mitchell.
s. t. mitchell.
ADDRESS
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO.
Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives
March 31, 1864.
on the death oe hon. owen lovejoy, of illinois.
Mr. Ashley. Mr. Speaker, on Friday night last the
immortal spirit of Owen Lovejoy passed from earth. This
sad message, borne on the lightning's wing, carried sorrow
to the hearts of millions. In his death the nation has lost
one of its ablest, most accomplished and eloquent sons, the
slave a faithful friend,' and true democracy a cherished de¬
fender.
I was not at his bedside and cannot tell you how he died.
The world knows how he lived; and such a life I am sure
could only have a fitting close in a Christian death. Let us
learn by his heroic example that
"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
Mr. Speaker, the death of our friend was not wholly un¬
expected by me. For more than two years, at our committee
meetings, I have witnessed with anxiety, month by month
and week by week, the fire of his eye grow dim and the vital¬
ity of his organization gradually yield to the approaching
destroyer. Though not full of years, he was crowned with
(638)
— 639 —
honors, and descended to the tomb with the benediction of a na¬
tion upon his head. He lived to see the seed he had sown ripen
into grain, ready for the harvest. He saw the dawning-of the
morn so long* and so anxiously .looked for by the friends of free¬
dom in the United States; but he was not permitted to remain
with us to join in the general song of joy which awaits the tri¬
umph that ere long shall regenerate the nation. That Provi¬
dence which cannot err,has, for wise purposes, called our friend
and brother to his reward.
While we sorrow for our loss and sympathize with his
bereaved family in their deep affliction, we can truthfully
and with exultation say:
" The great work laid upon his manly years
Is done, and well done. If we drop our tears,
Who loved him as few men were ever loved,
We mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan
With him whose life stands rounded and approved
In the full growth and stature of a man."
ADDRESS
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY, OF OHIO.
Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives,
December 17, 1868.
on the death op hon. thaddeus stevens of pennsyl¬
vania.
Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, in the death of
Thaddeus Stevens this House has lost one of its recognized
leaders, and the nation one of her most distinguished sons.
In his departure we shall miss another of the uncompromis¬
ing- heroes of our anti-slavery revolution.
Elijah and Owen Lovejoy are entombed, the one at Alton
and the other at Princeton, Illinois. Adams and Pierpont sleep
beneath the soil of their native Massachusetts; Theodore
Parker at Florence, in Italy; William Eeggett at NewRochelle,
New York; Nathaniel P„ Rogers by his native Merrimac;
Gamaliel Bailey within the shadow of the national Capitol;
Giddings and Morris and Lewis in Ohio; James G. Birney in
New Jersey; David Wilmot and James Mott in Pennsylvania;
John Brown at North Elba, New York; and there are others
whose lives were as heroic and beautiful and unselfish, whose
names I need not recall. To these must be added more than
three hundred thousand, the fallen heroes and martyrs of our
liberating army, who sleep on every national battle-field,
from the heights of Gettysburg to the banks of the Rio
(640)
— 641 —
Grande. Pre-eminent among- all this invincible army of
heroes, prophets, and martyrs, is Abraham Lincoln,
"The generous, merciful, and just."
With this grand army of unselfish patriots, his contem¬
poraries and co-laborers, we have laid down to rest all that is
mortal of our friend in the bosom of his beloved Pennsyl¬
vania.
The benediction of millions followed him to his tomb,
and to-day in the free home of every black man, and of all
men who love liberty, there is sincere sorrow and mourning.
Never again in these council halls will he deliberate with
the people's representatives, nor awaken the nation from its
lethargy by his genius and wonderful power.
The honorable gentleman whom his constituents have
elected to succeed him on this floor, and those who have pre¬
ceded me, have spoken so fully of his early life, his heroic
struggles, and his personal history, that I need not a,dd a
single word.
Through some of the most eventful years in our history
I have been intimately associated with him on this floor.
During all that time, which included the darkest hours in the
nation's life—hours which tested the constancy and courage
of men—he bore himself with such unquestioned fidelity to
the cause of human freedom, as to command even the respect
of political opponents and the cordial indorsement of all liber¬
ty-loving men.
As we engage in the memorial services of this hour, and
bear him again in our hearts from this Capitol and the scenes
of his struggles and wonderful triumphs, let the nation stand
with uncovered head and its bells peal forth the solemn sound
of an anthem more appropriate than any words of mine:
" Toll, toll, toll,
All mortal life must end.
Toll, toll, toll,
Weep for the nation's friend.
Oh, the land he loved will miss him,
41
— 642 —
Miss him in its hour of need,
Mourns the nation for the nation,
Till its tear-drops inward bleed.
Let bands of mourning1 drape the homestead,
And the sacred house of prayer;
Let the mourning- folds lay black and heavy
On true bosoms everywhere.
" Toll, toll, toll,
Never again — no more —
Comes back to earth the life that goes
Hence to the Eden shore.
Let him rest,— it is not often
That his soul hath known repose.
Let him rest,— they rest but seldom
Whose successes challenge foes.
He was weary, worn with watching,
His life crown of power hath pressed
Oft on temples sadly aching- —
He was weary; let him rest.
Toll, bells at the Capitol,
Bells of the land, toll,
Sob out your grief with brazen lungs,
Toll, toll, toll.
Mr. Speaker, though death come never so often, he casts
at the portals of the tomb shadows ever new and mysterious,
and ever and always hath for the living his admonitions and
his lessons. '
By the side of the grave we all realize that there are
voices whispering to us out of the shadowy silence beyond the
river.
In such an hour we see with the natural eye " as through
a glass darkly," but we have the promise that if faithful we
shall see " face to face." As there is no race of men without
the idea of a God and a future life, so in the presence of death
it is natural for all to pause and think of the life beyond.
What is to be the destiny of our friend in "that undis¬
covered country from whose bourn no traveler returns," it is
— 643 —
wisely not given us to know. Let us hope that he has gone
up into the presence of the God of nations and of men, bear¬
ing in his hands some of the broken fetters which have
fallen from the limbs of our four million emancipated bonds¬
men. These shall testify of his fidelity to justice and to his
love of the human race.
In that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall
be revealed, I trust it may be said to him by the Father of
all, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." And that this
will be said, I may without presumption hope, for whatever
may be the theories of men, whatever our hope for ourselves
or for others in the life which never dies, let us trust that
better than all our faiths, and more comprehensive than
our grandest conceptions, an all-wise Creator has ordained a
plan as broad as the universe, and as just as it is infinite,
which will compensate in the future life every soul which
has struggled and suffered for mankind in this.
Mr. Speaker, there are moments in the experiences of all
when we cannot convey to other hearts the emotions of our
own. To me such a moment is the present. So many
reminiscences are crowding upon me, and so many wonderful
scenes in which our departed friend was an actor are passing
as a panorama before me, that I feel how short I should come
of doing them or him justice were I to dwell upon them. No
man who loves his country and has passed through those
scenes in these halls can ever forget them. When I first
entered this House, ten years ago, Mr. Stevens was one of
the first to take me by the hand and welcome me. From that
day until the day of his death he was my friend, and often
my adviser and counselor. However often I may have dif¬
fered with him, as I often did, there was one question about
which we never differed: the question of the necessity of the
immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery. Of the
practicability and justice of destroying slavery he never
doubted. I am thankful that he was spared to witness the
end of that indescribable villainy. I rejoice to know that as
the gates of the eternal world opened up before him he was
permitted to look back upon the land he loved and nowhere
behold the footprints of a single slave. Because of his
— 644 —
unwavering- fidelity to the poor bondsmen, who, in the pres¬
ence of a nation of oppressors, were manacled and powerless
and dumb, I came to venerate him; and because I venerated
him while living, I come to-day to cast a garland upon his
tomb. In this selfish world there is nothing- which so strongly
enlists my sympathies and so much commands my admiration
as a heroic and unselfish life spent in the interests of man¬
kind. To me it is the most touching and beautiful of all
human struggles.
In espousing the cause of the slave more than forty
years ago, Mr. Stevens voluntarily accepted social and polit¬
ical ostracism, and patiently endured the persecutions of ig¬
norant and maddened men, for whose highest interest he was
laboring. He did this without fee or hope of political re¬
ward, simply because he believed it to be right; and because
he was right we shall some day see the children of the men
who stoned him, gladly join hands with the liberated slave,
in bearing back the stones, in the shape of blocks of whitest
marble, with which to build his monument.
I do not assume to write his epitaph. In a speech deliv¬
ered in this House January 13th, 1865, he said — I read from
volume fifty-four of the Globe, page 266:
" I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus:
* Here lies one who never rose to any eminence, and who
only courted the low ambition to have it said, that he had
striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly,
the downtrodden of every race and language and color.' "
The grand blows which he struck in his great battle for
liberty and justice will long survive him and leave their im¬
press upon all lands, strengthening the purpose of the toiling
and struggling millions of earth. His successful life-battle
should teach us the value and self-sustaining power of a life
consecrated to the best interests of his country and his fel¬
low-men.
In this impressive hour, while reviewing his heroic and
unselfish acts, let us renew our vows of fidelity to the great
principles which he so long, so ably and so faithfully main¬
tained. Let us, here and now, pledge our lives anew to the
cause of human liberty and human progress, resolving that
no obstacle nor selfish interest shall cause us to falter, so
— 645 —
that when we descend to the tomb, the benedictions of man¬
kind shall bless us, as they novf bless him for whom we
mourn, and it shall be said of us as it is now said of him:
"He hath not lived in vain."
After a long and stormy battle, with a record which the
friends of freedom will ever cherish, full of years and crowned
with honors, he —
"Has gone from this strange world of ours,
No more to gather its thorns with its flowers;
No more to linger where sunbeams must fade;
Where, on all beauty, Death's fingers are laid.
Weary with mingling life's bitter and sweet;
Weary with parting and never to meet;
Weary with sowing and never to reap;
Weary with labor and welcoming sleep,
In Christ may he rest, from sorrow and sin
Happy, where earth's conflicts enter not in."
HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY'S ORATION
On the death of D. R. Locke.
a fitting and touching tribute to his memory.
from the toledo blade.
There was deep silence when the speaker, in tones rev¬
erent and low, commenced his oration at the bier of the man
who had for many years been his personal and political
friend.
He said: My friends, we have come tog-ether to-day to
testify our respect for the living-, and discharge our last ten¬
der duty to the dead.
When the shadow of a great sorrow falls upon us, we
naturally turn from the darkness which surrounds us, to catch
a g-limpse of the coming- of the first rays of morning- light.
So by the side of every new-made grave, our hearts gladly
welcome the thoug'ht of another and better life beyond.
Without assuming" to have a knowledge of the hereafter,
we come reverently to lay our friend down to rest, and we do
not question that, " after life's fitful fever he sleeps well."
The last time I looked upon the face of our friend, I was
impressed with the belief that his life's work was finished;
that his last battle had been foug"ht, and, I doubt not, that as
soon as he became conscious of this fact, he desired to depart
and be at rest.
It is as natural to die as to live, and because this is true,
I do not look upon death as the arch enem}r of man, but rather
as his friend.
When, therefore, a friend pays the last debt of nature, I
( 646 )
— 647 —
would not clothe myself in sackcloth and rebel against the
divine law which has set a limit to human habitation, and
said to each and all: " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thcu
return."
No thoughtful man of mature years desires to live in this
world of struggles and disappointments, forever. Certainly
I should regard it as a mercy, if the finger of death could be
laid upon each one of us the very day our life's work was done,
or whenever we became helpless and hopeless, or our suffer¬
ings and sorrows outweighed the pleasures and joys of life.
If Mr. Locke could never again have entered upon the
active duties of life, it was a blessing that the merciful finger
of death was laid upon him, and he called to that "bourn
from which no traveler returns," where we all hope sorrow,
disease and death can never come.
I have no wish to magnify the virtues of my friend, nor
at the expense of truth to excuse his errors. The living
ought to be able to learn by the faults, not less than by the
virtues of public men, and when I add that he was human
and like all men "prone to err as the sparks are to fly up¬
ward," I have said all that truth and duty bid me say.
Those who did not know Mr. Locke could not understand
him. This is the fate of every man of genius, and because
he was not thoroughly understood, his words and acts were
often sharply criticised and sometimes unsparingly con¬
demned. That he was a man of great ability and force of
character, all concede; and his intimates know that he was
always true to his convictions and faithful to his friends. It
is true that he did not believe in, and could not subscribe to,
any of the formulated religious dogmas of our popular
churches.
He often said tome: "I cannot believe in such creeds,
and shall therefore neither accept nor affirm any." And then
he would quote from the "Sermon on the Mount:" " If ye
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
chlidren, how much more shall your Father which is in
Heaven give good things to them that ask him." With this
faith, or no faith; this religion or no religion, "he wrapped
the drapery of his couch about him and lay down to pleasant
dreams," sincerely believing that the Power which created
-648 —
him was both able and willing-to take care of him. "And
that God's greatness flows round our incompleteness, around
our restlessness, His rest."
Mr. Locke was a tireless worker. He could not be a
drone, nor eat the bread of idleness. "Industry," with him>
was one of the cardinal virtues.
I need not add a single word to what has been so well
and appropriately said touching- Mr. Locke's literary and
journalistic career.
When, in after years, the history of Ohio and Toledo
shall be written, Mr. Locke's ability and claims to remem¬
brance and distinction will have the fullest and amplest
recognition.
His greatest work was in behalf of the nation's unity and
integrity during- the war of the rebellion. Through the
"Nasby" letters he spoke every week to millions of men.
These letters strengthened the arms of soldier and statesman
alike, and everywhere inspired with hope, zeal and courage
the nation's defenders. The humor and satire of these letters
were never equaled. Their satire was as keen as a Damascus
blade, and their humor as broad as the continent. They
shamed the " doughfaced " statesman and " doughfaced"
churchman into a recognition of the humanity of the negro,
and did more than to-day can be estimated, to break down the
unreasoning- prejudice against the black man, and consolidate
the sentiment and judg-ment of the nation in favor of the
emancipation and enfranchisement of the slave.
These letters were read by Lincoln, Sumner, Chase and
Stanton, and all the leading- statesmen with whom I was in¬
timate, with a delight and pleasure which one incident will
fully illustrate:
One morning-1 called early at the White House and was
seated in the President's room, before he came in. As he
walked along- his private hallway, I heard him as I supposed
talking- to himself. He started a little on seeing- me, not ex¬
pecting- to find anyone in his work room at that early hour; and
at once said, with a glow on his face: " I was just repeating
a passage from one of your friend Nasby's letters," and re¬
peated the paragraph which had so impressed itself on his
mind. He then added, " I want you to invite Nasby to come
— 649 —
to Washington and make me a visit; and you may say to liim
that I would be willing- to resign the Presidency if I could
write such letters." Such was the esteem in which Mr. Locke
was held by all men of ability and genius.
Mr. Locke was also a voluminous and able writer on
many subjects, and a pronounced partisan. He believed in
party government rather than individual government, and
therefore labored unweariedly for the success of the Repub¬
lican party.
Next to his Nasby letters, I regard his "Pulverize the
rum-power " articles as the ablest papers from his pen. These
articles undoubtedly struck the hardest and most effective
blows which have been delivered in recent years against the
liquor traffic, and have been so recognized by the ablest men
who are battling for the carxc of temperance.
That Mr. Locke was a many-sided man, all who knew
him personally well understood. There was a strange blend¬
ing of hope and doubt, of humor and sadness, of love and
hate, in his character. The humorist and man of business,
however, was but a part of the sum total of his being.
Some years ago I met him on Broadway, New York, and
he invited me to join him. While seated at a table he drew
from his pocket and read me the hymn which is to be sung
here to-day, '' Come unto me." I was charmed with its beauty
and touched with its sentiment and spirit, and oaid: "David,
read that to me .again," which he did, and in that hour I
comprehended more clearly the breadth and depth of his
poetic and religious nature. And it must be, that from this
religious nature, sprung the great moral force which he so
heroically wielded in battling for the right.
"We live in deeds, not years,
The battle of our life is brief,
The alarm, the struggle, the relief,
Then sleep we side by side."
Such, in brief, is an imperfect outline of Mr. Locke's life
as I have known him publicly as a co-worker, and socially as
a friend, for more than a quarter of a century.
— 650 —
And now, as we lay away his earthly body in the grave
of eternal silence, we reverently and hopefully, oh Father of
lig-ht and life, commit into Thy care and keeping all that is
immortal of our loyal, steadfast friend.
When Governor Ashley related the incident and the
occasion of the writing- of the hymn, "Come Unto Me," by
Mr. Locke, the voice of the speaker failed him. His eyes
filled with tears, and his lips quivered with emotion. "When
he had finished speaking- there was scarcely a dry eye within
the sound of his voice.
Letter from Bishop B. W. Arnett.
When selecting the speeches in this volume, and arranging them for publication,
especially when reading- the foregoing tender and affectionate tributes to Lovejoy and
Stephens, and to his personal friend, David R. Locke, the members of our committee
repeatedly asked themselves, " What is Mr. Ashley's religious faith ?" Unable to de¬
termine, one of our number was requested to write and ask him the question direct.
The reply was characteristic for its frankness, and it would have given us pleasure to
publish it (as we have three of his letters), had it not been marked "Personal and
private." From a mutual friend, to whom we wrote for the information wanted, we
learned that " Mr. Ashley never held to a written creed, and that he is not a member
of any church organization." But he writes, " All of Mr. Ashley's acts and speeches
breathe the religion of humanity, and tell me more certainly than words, that he has
a faith, even though he does not adopt^and conform to any special form of worship.
Years ago I knew him quite well, and occasionally talked with him on religious sub¬
jects, and I betray no confidence when I tell you that he has always been a liberal
giver to charitable and church work, and those who know him intimately will tell you,
as I do, that his mind is so organized, and his faith so simple, that both his head and
heart refuse to be limited to what he calls'the incompleteness of a written creed.'
More than once he said to me, 'that, of dogmas old or new, there was in his mind no
trace of such forms left,' and ' that he had outgrown the sectarian exclusiveness of his
early religious training.' 'The best of creeds,'he would say, 'are but man-made, and
that he had never been able to give his consent to any religious dogma as a finality,
nor conform his life to the narrowness of a written creed.'" As I read the man, he is
in respect to his religious faith not unlike Whittier and Sumner, Lincoln and Greeley,
and men of their peculiar type of mind. B. W. Arnett.
GOVERNOR ASHLEY ON O'CONNELL.
His Centennial Oration that was Delivered not Where
it was Promised, but at the Opera House, where
it was Welcomed with Generous Applause.
Toledo, Ohio, August, 1875.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I come not
to-night with a set speech, nor a speech such as I would like
to make in response to the invitation which brings me here;
but I come to testify in the fewest and most appropriate
words I can command, my admiration for the heroic life and
public and private worth of him who for nearly hal>f a cen¬
tury was Ireland's great leader, statesman and patriot. I
need not tell you after what has been so happily and so elo¬
quently said about Ireland and her great leaders, and what I
know will be said by those who are to follow me, that I feel
conscious I ought not to detain you long with such a speech
as I will probably make, and I promise you that I will not.
Mr. President: Daniel O'Connell was indeed an Irish¬
man, and right loyally may Ireland claim him as her favorite
son, and in her heart of hearts cherish his memory with filial
affection. But O'Connell was also a citizen of the world, in
the same sense that Washington was a citizen of the world.
To my mind, however, the great Irish Liberator was more
like the great liberator of America than any other historic
American. In his wit and wisdom, in his patience and love
of justice, and in his sympathy for mankind, O'Connell was
so much like Lincoln that all who have studied the characters
of the two men, know that had Lincoln resided in Ireland
and O'Connell in this country during the great battle of
each, that the one would have been as heartilvfor the libera-
(651)
— 652 —
tion of Ireland as the other would have been for tlie emanci¬
pation of the slaves in America. [Applause.]
Am I not therefore warranted, and are not all men who
love liberty warranted, in claiming citizenship with O'Connell,
and may I njt on behalf of over four millions of slaves, so
recently made free, claim him as one of the noblest and most
faithful of their early champions? I know that all who have
read O'Connell's unanswerable appeal against slavery will
say I may. So likewise may the oppressed and wronged of
every race claim him as their friend and brother.
In every land beneath the sun,
" Wherever from kindred torn rudely apart,
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of heart,"
there might the humblest reach the great heart of O'Connell,
and they always found his hand outstretched with offerings
of sympathy and succor. [Applause.]
So grand, broad and noble a man as O'Connell cannot be
denied recognition as a citizen of the world, and so, as an
American, I claim an interest in him equally with you, my
brother Irishman, and with you come here to-night to join iti
appropriately commemorating his centennial. [Applause.]
The liberal men of all lands and of every race and creed
were drawn to O'Connell because of his democratic ideas and
broad, liberal catholic spirit I well remember how my young
heart went out to him when I first read his fiery and eloquent
denunciation of American slavery, nor can I forget how my
esteem for him grew into admiration when I came to know
that he had the pluck to defy the slaveholders of the world,
and that he had caused to be painted over the entrance of his
home the words, "No slaveholder admitted here." After
that I did not carc to know of what race he was nor to what
country he belonged, nor what religious faith he professed,
or whether indeed he professed any, except that which I
know he had, the religion of humanity. From that day to
this I have never ceased to number him among the citizens of
the world, and I regard him as one of the noblest, grandest
and best of men. [Applause.]
But of all the great utterances of O'Connell no one
— 653 —
of them has caused me to pause so often and think dis-
passionatelj7, as that wonderful speech in which he declared
that " No revolution was worth the shedding- of one drop of
human blood."
Naturally enough, I belonged to the party called "young
Ireland," whose leaders were O'Brien, Meaher and their en¬
thusiastic compatriots. I deplored their divisions and sor¬
rowed over their failure and fate, and I went back to O'Con-
nell to remain in hearty accord with him until his death.
[Applause.] Yet I confess that I have never been able to reach
or maintain myself on a plane so far beyond the influence of
"force" as that which declares, " that no revolution is worth
the shedding of one drop of human blood." While I admit
that I am as perplexed with that utterance now, as I was then,
I find that I have gradually come to the conclusion that for.
Ireland in that exigency of her struggle, it was master lead¬
ership, and wise statesmanship. [Applause.] That O'Con-
nell was the directing spirit of Ireland for forty j^ears is now
unquestioned; that he fought his great battle with a hope
that could not be shaken and a faith that never doubted we
now know; that his leadership sometimes rose to genius and
to prophecy, we now comprehend. That he was an ideal,
sanguine, progressive man is also true; and we have come to
know that those are the men who move the world. In study¬
ing the lives of the great leaders of humanity, we have
learned that true progress comes only to men and nations
blessed with hopeful temperaments and an ideal faith. For
such, beyond the shadowy present shines the golden, hopeful
future; with this faith we can see the ideal true man, and
conceive of the ideal just government. Without it there can
be no progress, no heroism, no civilization. Such a faith
points us ever upward and onward, making more beautiful
and spiritual this human life; such a faith was Daniel O'Con-
nell's; such is the faith of every true leader. Mr. President,
I need not recount to you and to this audience the story of
O'Connell's life; his early struggles, his wonderful triumphs
and untimely death. All this has been presented to you bet-
ter than I could do it. I may, however, without trespassing
too long upon your time, pause for a moment to contemplate
him as a revolutionary leader and compare him with some of
— 654 —
the revolutionary leaders of France. O'Connell believed that in
order to have stable government the people must be educated
up to the point of self-government; that the safest and most
enduring- revolution, was evolution; that justice was stronger
than bayonets; that right was more than might; that to be
permanent, a revolution in Ireland must be a revolution of
peace rather than a revolution of force; that an appeal to the
heart and conscience of mankind was far better than a reliance
on force or fraud or cunning. Hence the foundation upon which
he builded was equity, which is above justice. With this
sublime moral force, which is grander than all other forces
combined, he began his agitation and continued it to the end.
With perfect consistency and good faith he proclaimed to Ire¬
land and to the world a doctrine so divine in its conception,
that all mankind paused to listen while he spoke. When
O'Connell declared that "no revolution was worth the shed¬
ding of one drop of human blood," he poured a broadside into
the camp of the enemies of liberty more fatal to despotism
everywhere and more fatal to the enemies of Ireland than any
battle that she had fought for seven hundred years. It was
impossible not to be thoughtful after such an utterance at
such a time by such a man. [Applause.]
A great general is a leader of armies, but a leader of men
is such because he is a leader of ideas. Such a man O'Con¬
nell is now admitted to have been by all thinking men. The
leaders in the French revolution of '93 believed in fate and
not in God. They estimated men simply as "waves of the
ocean" in their force and fury. O'Connell recognized truth,
justice and equity as the triune basis upon which mankind
might safely unite in a democratic federation of the nations
of the world. Robespierre, Danton, Maret, permitted no ap¬
peal to truth, justice or equity. To all opposition their
decree was " death." They erected the guillotine and called
it "a virgin amazon," which, they said, "exterminated but
never gave birth." O'Connell proclaimed that above the jus¬
tice of revolutions were the sacred rights of humanity. This
divine sentiment, wherever accepted by mankind, banishes
all vengeance and hate, and sends gleams of hope and mercy
like rays from a lambent flame penetrating the darkness of a
cavern, to eradicate the outrages of civil war, and the indul-
gence in cruel retaliations and assassinations so often insep¬
arable from it. [Applause.]
Mr. President, it was O'Connell's surprising1 eloquence
and splendid leadership that awoke Ireland from a slumber
so fatal to her. He organized her patriotic millions on a
moral battlefield such as the world has neVer seen; nor
should I omit to state that when these grand armies came
together to listen to the voice of the great agitator, number¬
ing at one time over a million souls, there was not a drunken
man among them; there was no breach of the peace — there
was simply a gathering of moral forces such as had never be¬
fore in the history of mankind been gathered together to ap¬
peal in the name of justice and peace for their God-given
rights. The energy which O'Connell displayed, the activity
which he directed, the fiery temperaments which he restrained,
the patriotism which he kindled, let us hope, still unites in
purpose and glows and burns not only in the hearts of his
countrymen but in the hearts of all men everywhere who hate
oppression and love liberty. [Applause.]
The work he did, the power he wielded, and the influence
he left behind him, have pronounced his fame and crowned
his memory with the benedictions of his countrymen and
mankind; may we not hope that God will' ultimately bless a
land and a people that could produce such a matchless hero?
[Applause.]
And now, Mr. President, what shall I say of Old Ire¬
land, the land of poetry and song, of genius and patriotism
— Ireland, for so many years crushed and bleeding, but,
thank God, not yet enslaved! Though she be now sitting
within the shadow, deepened by the shadows of her material
ruin, her poets and prophets have, through the open archways
of thought, caught glimpses of that light which always pre¬
cedes the dawn of the coming morn, and have prophesied her
deliverance and sung her songs of triumph. By the side of
her beautiful rivers, from her mountains and her valleys and
her rockbound coast, there comes a sound of perpetual lamen¬
tation, like the low sighing of the vesper winds through the
groves of Gethsemane, as when Christ, with weary feet and
heavy heart, walked through its consecrated shades. As I
hear it to-night, it is an aspirational and sublime lament,
— 656 —
which must ultimately reach and touch all hearts. It is the
soul of Ireland from her sorrow and sackcloth supplicating1
Heaven for justice. Oh, God of the oppressed and disinherited,
a.long-suffering and heroic people, joined by the great-hearted
among- mankind of every race,kindred and tongue, are to-night,
with uplifted- voice, appealing- to Thee for the redemption
and liberation of Ireland. And though Ireland, under the
wise leadership of O'Connell, has learned to labor and to wait,
yet her people at home, as we here to-night, are crying out
half impatiently, "How long-! O Lord, how long-!" But,
whatever may betide, let us keep heart and keep faith, remem¬
bering- that as it is with men, so it is with nations, and
'' Whoever bears the cross to-day, shall wear the crown to¬
morrow."
Above all, let us not permit, as did the children of Israel,
our murmuring-discontent to break into open rebellion ag-ainst
Him who holds all nations in the hollow of His hand—
"—For what are we?
Above our broken dreams and plans,
God lays, with wiser hands than man's,
The corner-stones of liberty."
[Long and hearty applause.]
Letter from Prof. Henry Y. Arnett, B. S., Columbia, S. C.
Mr. Ashley made no claim to be classed with learned and finished orators. But
his direct and manly appeals in behalf of an oppressed and cruelly wronged race, en¬
abled liim, when these speeches and orations were delivered, to make clear his pur¬
pose and to carry convictions to the hearts of his hearers. The lessons which his
speeches and heroic life impress upon the writer, is that character and sincerity, unsel¬
fishness and truthfulness, are the true statesman's most desirable weapons. More
fitting- and appropriate than any thought I can write, for this foot note, are the lines
of the poet, which Mr. Ashley in his address on Lincoln, at page 765, quoted and ap¬
plied to the great Emancipator. I now quote and apply them to him; for of a truth,
we all know, how heroically and steadfastly during the darkest nights of our pilgrim¬
age as a race, and when the crimes of this nation against us were merciless, he
"Faithful stood with prophet finger,
Pointing toward the blest to be
When beneath the spread of heaven,
Every creature shall be free."
"Fearless when the lips of evil
Breathed their blackness on his name,
Trusting in a nobler life time,
For a spotless after fame."
Henry Y. Arnett.
ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN TOLEDO.
From the Bctckkye Grangkr, March, 1876.
The late St. Patrick celebration in Toledo was largely
attended by natives of the Emerald Isle who reside in this
place ; they were accompanied by the Perrysburg Silver Band.
The occasion was one of much interest, and closed in the
evening- with a public meeting- in St. Patrick's Hall. Among
the speakers was the Hon. J. M. Ashley, who delivered the
following- eulog-ium on the life and service of the "Great
Commoner."
The next toast was " Daniel O'Connell," to which Gover¬
nor Ashley responded as follows:
Mr. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: Before
responding- to the toast just read, I want to thank your com¬
mittee for the very welcome invitation which brings me here
to-nig-ht. When I came home nig-ht before last and found it
awaiting- me, I resolved that whatever else might happen, I
would not repeat the "bull" which I committed at the
O'Connell Centennial of last year, by unwittingly delivering
a speech to the wrong- audience. I made up my mind that
whatever " bull" I might commit, it should not be by going
to the "Opera House" instead of St. Patrick's Hall.
Mr. Chairman, it is fitting- and proper that the sons and
daug-hters of Erin, wherever dwelling- around the globe,
should come together, as you have come together to-night, to
aid in commemorating and perpetuating the good name and
fair fame of Ireland's grand heroes. You who have given
three hundred and sixty-four days of the }rear to personal and
material pursuits, can hardly do less than give one day for
42 (657)
— 658 —
old Ireland. I know there are those who say, that for foreign -
born citizens to commemorate any day as you are now com¬
memorating' this, is but to promote strife and discord, and to
indulge in sentimental speech which can do no good, and may
do much harm. But if I read the past aright, it is to this
love of sentiment in the human heart, that every land is in¬
debted for the heroism and patriotism of its sons. To this
sentiment the world owes its bravest deeds and martyrs'
crowns. It was this sentiment which moved the great heart
of O'Connell and made him consecrate his life to the cause of
Ireland, and to the cause of liberty in every land, not forget¬
ting the four million slaves in America. It was this sen¬
timent of love for their adopted country which caused thou¬
sands of Irishmen, from Montgomery to Thomas Francis
Meagher, to offer up their lives on the field of battle to defend
and perpetuate American liberty. When this sentiment dis¬
appears from among men, patriotism will die in every land
beneath the sun. As Father Hannin said to me a moment
ago, "A man who does not love his own country, cannot love
his adopted country," and I may add, nor any country.
"When the emotions which in all times have moved the
noblest and purest aspirations of mankind, move them no
more — the mother will forget to love the child she bore, and
both mother and child will forget to love the land of their
birth. Thank God this can never be, with any race or kin¬
dred or tongue, and because it can never be, the sons and
daughters of Ireland are here to-night with many a glad and
tender memory to consecrate anew this hour with fresh re¬
solves of fidelity to motherland. To enjoy and profit by the
reflection which the utterance of patriotic sentiment gives, I
accepted with pleasure your invitation to come here to-night.
All the higher and better emotions which the love of country
brings, are stirred afresh within me as I witness the glowing
enthusiasm of those around me, who in their heart of hearts
love Ireland and her historic heroes. Heaven forbid that
any Irishman in America should ever forget the land of his
birth; let him rather turn to her with deeper devotion, as he
beholds her sitting in sorrow and sackcloth, waiting for an¬
other great leader, who like O'Connell shall sound the resur-
— 659 —
rection trumpet, and teach, the world that she is not dead but
living-.
Mr. Chairman, the history of Ireland presents one con¬
tinued succession of brilliant and wonderful men. Swift
and Grattan, Plunkett and Curran, Burrows and Burke,
Emmet and O'Connell, and a host of others familiar to
you all, and whom I need not name; but pre-eminent and
above them all, as a leader, educator and statesman, stands
the name of Daniel O'Connell. No other name in Irish his¬
tory has made so hopeful the Irish heart, nor so lighted up
the political firmament of Ireland with democratic ideas.
O'Connell found the Irish people broken, bleeding-, dis¬
heartened, divided, and lifted them from their darkness and
despair, until they could see the hopeful light of the coming1
morn. He united the discordant and warring factions and
made them one; he educated the people up to a just compre¬
hension of their power and dignity and responsibility. In
short he created a public opinion, which breathed new life
into the cause of Ireland. By his long-continued and able agi¬
tation, he secured for Ireland religious toleration, a free press
and schools, and a representation in Parliament. With these
weapons properly wielded the future of Ireland cannot be
doubted. With these weapons she need no longer "suppli¬
cate," for soon she will have power to dictate her own terms,
and the wonder of all this is—that O'Connell accomplished
what he did as the apostle of peace. To the irrepressible
Irish race he declared, that "no revolution was worth the
shedding of one drop of human blood." He believed that
every reform achieved by accident or by force, may be lost by
accident or force; that only those reforms take root and grow
which are born of reflection and planted with judgment, and
are afterwards watered by discussion and education. He
believed that it was best and safest to engraft the reforms
desired into the national conscience, before attempting to
enact them into national law — that only such reforms as
were based upon the consent of a free and enlightened people
could stand the test of time. His panacea was an educated
people with a free ballot; and a government that should be¬
long to no one person or family or dynasty, but belong to all
her own children.
— 660 —
To me, these ideas of O'Connell embody the perfection
of human statesmanship. Search all the past history of
Ireland and you will find no record so clear and broad and
bright as his. Carlisle says that "he is God's own appointed
King whose single word melts all wills into his." What
praise can exceed this? God grant that Ireland may again be
blessed with a leader and a hero whose prudence and match¬
less eloquence shall equal O'Connell's, and such a hero and
leader I believe she is soon again to have; a hero who, when
he comes, shall complete the great work which O'Connell,
dying, left unfinished, and thus prove himself to be the Christ
of Ireland's political redemption, so that Ireland from that
time onward shall stand forth erect and disenthralled, ad¬
ministering her own local government on the basis of liberty,
federation and peace, as we do here in Ohio.
"And thou, O Ireland, green and fair,
Across the waters wild,
Stretch forth strong arms of loving care,
And guard thy favorite child."
CO-OPERATION AND PROFIT-SHARING!
Copy of Circular addressed to the Stockholders op
The Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Michigan
Railway Company.
Gentlemen: After careful deliberation, I have deter¬
mined, with the approval of the Board of Directors, to submit
to the stockholders of this Company, at the annual meeting-
appointed for Wednesday, April 20,1887 (for their acceptance
or rejection), the following- propositions touching- " profit
sharing-," in addition to the reg-ular wag-es paid by this Com¬
pany to each of its officers (except its President), and all its
employees.
The direct allotment to the laborer, of a share in the prof¬
its produced by his labor, is a method of distribution as old
as human history; a method older than the " wag-e system,"
and one for which we have the approving-judgment of many
of the ablest thinkers, both in this country and in Europe.
I propose for the benefit of all who now are, or who here¬
after may be, interested in the prosperity of this Company,
Letter from B. T. Tanner, D. D., one of the Bishops of the A. M. E. Church.
I was never more impressed with the justice of "profit [sharing-" than in a conver¬
sation I had a few years since with a resident stockholder of one of the street railways
of our city, Philadelphia, Pa. Said he, " A few years ago the shares of this road were
valued and sold at $15 ; now they are worth and sold at more than $100 a share." The
words had scarcely fallen from hjs lips when we beg"an to think of the absolute injustice
of the method which gave every cent of this silent growth tojthe capitalist; not allowing
one penny of it to go to the laborer—to the driver and to the conductor, to whom its in.
crease could in part be credited as justly as to the capitalist. When the shares were
at their minimum value, they received their $1.50 or $3 per day as did the capitalist re¬
ceive his 6 or 10 per cent, as the case may be. But in the course of years, when by the
joint labor of the driver and the conductor, blended with the money of the capitalist,the
value of the shares increased almost tenfold, what do we see? "We see capital appro¬
priating to itself that which should be common to both. This, we say, is manifestly
unjust, and sooner or later^this method of conducting business must be changed, and
give place to a method more in harmony -with what is right. These drivers and con¬
ductors were not the men they were when they first entered the employ of this company.
They were older and weaker, and less prepared to continue the hard struggle for life.
Had they been allowed to share in the silent growth of the value of the property they
were laboring to create tliey would have been infinitely better prepared to enter upon
the winter of old age. Governor Ashley touches the heart and interest of the toiling
millions in the right place, in this and other addresses on this subject.
B. T. Tanner.
(661)
especially its officials and employees, to blend with the pres¬
ent wage system the more ancient and equitable one of " profit
sharing-."
I submit this proposition for the approval of the stock¬
holders, because I believe that the two systems, if properly
united and practically administered, will be a decided im¬
provement upon the present wage system, and advantageous
alike to employer and employed.
For many years I have favored substantially the plan of
co-operative labor and "profit sharing-," which I now pro¬
pose for adoption by this Company. In my opinion we have
reached a period in the. history of the " Ann Arbor " Com¬
pany which justifies me in submitting- the propositions here¬
inafter made to the stockholders, for their ratification or re¬
jection.
And as I do not claim that the method of distribution
proposed is beyond improvement, I cordially invite such
amendments as may suggest themselves to any of the stock¬
holders or employees who may receive a printed copy of these
proposed rules and reg-ulations.
rule: first.
The Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway
Company hereby stipulates and agrees to pay to each of its
officers (except its President) and to all its employees a divi¬
dend, as provided in the terms and conditions following:
All officials and employees of said Company who shall
have been continuously in its service for five (5) years or
more, shall in addition to the regular wages paid to each, re¬
ceive an amount which shall equal the proportion hereinafter
named of such dividends on its capital stock as may be de¬
clared by the Board of Directors of this Company in any year.
rule second.
The basis on which a proportion of the dividends earned
by this Company are to be paid to each officer and employee
shall be as follows:
— 663 —
The Board of Directors, when declaring- a dividend, shall
add to the total amount of capital stock outstanding-, the
gross sum paid by the Company, in salaries and wages, for
the preceding- year, to all its employees and officials (except
its President) who shall have been continuously in its ser¬
vice for the five (5) years next preceding- the declaration of
such dividends, and each of such officers and employees shall
be entitled to receive in any year in which a dividend shall
be declared, a dividend on an amount equal to his salary for
the year preceding-, as if he were the owner of a number of
shares of the capital stock of the Company to a like amount,
at their par value.
rule third.
Every officer and employee who shall have been in the
service of the Company continuously for twenty (20) years or
more, and voluntarily retires from its service with an honor¬
able discharge, shall be entitled to receive, and have delivered
to him, a certificate of the full paid-up capital stock of the
Company, which shall equal in amount at its par value, the
total sum paid him as wag-es for the last year he was in the
service of the Company.
rule fourth.
If any officer or employee of the Company as aforesaid,
shall be so disabled, while in the line of active duty, as to be
unable to resume his place for a period of six months or more,
he shall be entitled to receive a certificate of the full paid-up
capital stock of the Company, which shall equal in amount,
at its par value, the gross sum paid him for the year imme¬
diately preceding- his said disability. And if any officer or
emplo}Tee shall lose his life while in the line of active duty,
his wife, if he has one, and if not, his leg-al representatives,
shall be entitled to receive a certificate of the full paid-up
capital stock of the Company which shall equal in amount at
its par value, five (5) times the gross sum paid him for the
year next preceding- his death. Provided, however, that this
— 664-
rule shall not apply in cases where a claim for damages is
made in the courts.
rule; fifth.
These rules and regulations touching- the mode and man¬
ner of paying- dividends and stock allotments to the officers
and employees of the Company, shall not be amended or abro¬
gated except at a regular annual meeting of the stockholders
of this Company, and then only after due notice has been
given to the stockholders, thirty days prior to the said regular
annual meeting, that a proposition will be made at said meet¬
ing to amend or abrogate said rules and regulations, which
notice shall be published by the Secretary, with a printed
statement of the change or changes proposed.
rule sixth.
The President and Board of Directors shall have the
power and authority necessary to carry into effect the fore¬
going plan of profit sharing and stock allotment.
the; plan explained.
It is not my purpose in this plan of allotment and
" profit sharing" to make a gift to the officers and employees
of the Company, without value received. It is not intended
to take from the dividends due the shareholders, and arbi¬
trarily add to the wages of the employees without an equiva¬
lent. The bonus which it is proposed to pay to each officer
and employee is to be paid out of the additional earnings and
savings of the Company, which savings and earnings it is
believed will be materially increased by the activity, economy
and fidelity of officials and employees alike, and by a watch¬
fulness which must result in decreasing accidents, and in
securing a better understanding of the responsibilities and
duties of each, as also a more perfect co-operation between
all who are in the service of the Company.
It will be observed that in this plan for paying dividends,
— 665 —
the officers and employees run no risk of pecuniary loss.
They do not own the stock and cannot be held for damages,
but each will receive a dividend when earned by the Com¬
pany, as if he were the owner of the stock. The wages of
each is guaranteed and paid by the Company, and must be
paid, even when the Company is losing money. It will be
seen by this simple statement that Capital must run the risk
of all losses, and pay all wages and daily expenses, whether
earned by the Company or not.
In the practical administration of great corporate trusts,
especially in the case of a Railroad Company, one soon learns
as he cannot learn elsewhere, how absolutely inseparable are
the true interests of Capital and Labor.
This plan of allotment is proposed in the confident belief
that it will largely increase the net earnings of the Company,
and promote zeal, economy and general efficiency; that it will
also prove itself to be a valuable educator, and teach the
necessity of sobriety and fidelity; and that mutual confidence
and good-will is better for all than contentions and strikes.
If this plan of allotment and paying dividends is ap¬
proved by the stockholders and is fairly tested, it is expected
that the entire dividend paid by the Company in any one year
to its officers and employees, will be more than earned by
savings from loss and waste. And when each officer and em¬
ployee is properly educated, he will understand that when¬
ever he permits or causes a useless waste, or by negligence or
disobedience of orders an accident results, that he always
brings upon himself and his associate employees, a loss pro¬
portionately corresponding- to that suffered by the Company.
The education and discipline which the plan of "profit
sharing" and stock allotment above proposed must of neces¬
sity introduce, will, it is believed, be of great economic value
in securing to the Company the kind and character of men
who will desire to remain with it. Naturally enough, the
sober, industrious and competent men (especially those with
families) will seek and remain in the employ of a Company
which recognizes the plan of "profit sharing" as herein pro¬
posed, and naturally enough every temperate, prudent man
who saves his money, will prefer the same class of men for
his associates, and the Compan3r can rely on such men to aid
— 666 —
it in securing- and keeping- only the best and most trustworthy
men in its service.
As a rule, the temperate saving- man is a better workman
and more reliable than one who is intemperate and improvi¬
dent. Successful economy on the part of an employee, brings
stability and contentment. Every intelligent, competent
railroad manager estimates such a man at his actual worth,
and desires to increase his wages in proportion to the amount
which he saves or earns for the Company, and nothing- can be
more gratifying- to such a manag-er than to see his workmen
securing- homes of their own, and laying- up something- for a
rainy day.
I propose to make four (4) periods of five (5) years each
(or 20 years) as the maximum period of service; and require a
period of five (5) years' continuous service as a condition to
securing- a proportion of the profits earned by the Company.
And it is also proposed for the consideration of the Board of
Directors, whether, in the near future, it may not be desirable
and equitable to grant in addition to the dividends and stock
allotment provided, an increase in the wag-es paid each officer
and employee who may have remained in the service of the
Company for two or more periods of five (5) years each, and
especially for the fourth (4) period, which completes the
twenty (20) years' continuous service, at which time it is sug¬
gested stipulation ought to be made, that any of such em¬
ployees could then voluntarily retire or be retired by the Com¬
pany, each person so retired or voluntarily retiring- to receive
from the Company the amount of paid-up capital stock, as
hereinbefore provided.
In addition to the "plan" of profit sharing- as herein
proposed and an increase in compensation for a continuous
service of ten years or more as recommended, it is sug-g-ested
that in lieu of any claim ag-ainst the Company for damages
because of accidents, that a fund for accident and life insur¬
ance be provided at an early day, in such manner as shall
seem to the Board of Directors just and equitable, and pro¬
viding- also that all promotions so far as practicable shall be
made from among the officials and employees long-est in the
service of the Company. J. M. Ashley, President.
Tolkdo, Ohio, January 24, 1887.
THE FEDERATION OF RAILROAD WORKERS
And all Wage-workers— Gov. Ashley's Address, June
10th, 1891, to the International Train Dispatchers'
Convention, on Co-operation and Strikes.
from the toledo blape.
Governor Ashley and his position on labor organizations
and labor questions, with particular reference to railroads, is
clearly set forth in an address read to the train dispatchers,
who met in international convention in Toledo, June 10th,
1891.
address.
Dear Sir: It would have been a welcome task to me
could I have accepted the invitation, with which you
honored me, to address your association at its contemplated
annual convention in Toledo on the 10th inst. You ask me
to favor 3rour association with my views upon the problem of
railway employees' organizations, so that you can read the
same to your delegates assembled in convention.
The opinions which I hold touching organizations of
working-men and the relations of capital and labor, are the
logical outgrowth of my early fight against the right of cap¬
ital to legal ownership in man. An intelligent discussion of
slave ownership involved of necessity the question of the prop¬
er relation between labor and capital. Naturally enough, he
who denied the right of slave barons to the ownership of
their laborers as chattels, would deny the right of capital to
enslave labor by any law or custom, which the hatred of race
(b67)
-— 668 —
and spirit of caste, or the avarice or selfishness of unscrupu¬
lous men might invent.
I believe that co-operation and profit-sharing1 will ulti¬
mately prove to be the most practical, and by far the best solu¬
tion of the labor problem.
This idea has, within a few years, commended itself to
the considerate judgment of many of the ablest men in Europe
and in this country. The plan for profit-sharing- which I pre¬
pared and which the Ann Arbor company adopted is, in my
opinion, applicable to all kinds of industries in which it may
be necessary to employ ten or ten thousand men.
It is, as I see it, especially adapted to railroading- in all
its departments, and can be used in all business co-partner¬
ships or public corporations of whatsoever kind, and even in
farming-.
When laboring- men shall have been properly educated,
co-operation and profit-sharing- will, in my opinion, as cer¬
tainly take the place of the present wag-e system as the wage
system succeeded slavery and serfdom. I send you by this
mail, under separate cover, a copy of one of my annual re¬
ports.
In the appendix you will find the plan which I favor, to¬
g-ether with a brief explanation of its practicability. An ex¬
amination of this plan will disclose the fact that it is just,
alike to employed and employer, and in any event, is safe for
all employees.
Intelligent men comprehend that the first duty of all rail¬
road men, employer and employed, is to stand together. The
interest of one is beyond question the interest of all.
"Whatever destroys the property or damages the business
of a railroad company, tends to decrease the wages of em¬
ployees, or both. The parasites who camp along the line of
every railroad, and without visible means, subsist by plunder
and disreputable practices, are in large part the result of con¬
ditions produced by railroad men in their unwise and indefen¬
sible conflict with each other, especially in the strikes, which
incompetent and unworthy leaders have so recklessly ordered,
to end only in defeat and disaster. No thoughtful man will
ever attempt to justify or to excuse three-fourths of all the
strikes which, in the past twenty years or more, railroad men
— 669 —
liave reluctantly been forced into by men utterly incompetent
to lead or direct a movement so far-reaching- in its con¬
sequences as a strike on any ordinary line of railroad.
When to the delay, and sometimes to the entire suspen¬
sion of the legitimate business of a community depending- on
such a line of railroad, there is added the wanton and mali¬
cious destruction of property belonging- to the railroad com¬
pany, a point has been reached which demands the united ac¬
tion of all honorable railroad men, for the suppression and
exclusion of men g-uilty of such nefarious acts from the ranks
of reputable railroad employees.
The accumulated property of the world belong-s, not
wholly to its individual owners, but in part to the citizens of
the world. He who wantonly or deliberately destroys the
property which leg-ally belong-s to him, because his own labor,
or the labor of his ancestors had produced it, is g-uilty of an
offense punishable by the laws of all civilized states.
He who destroys the property of another, because of
some misunderstanding- or disagreement, commits a crime
which should exclude him from the companionship or recog--
nition of all manly men.
I have never met more than two or three railroad man¬
agers who were not ready and anxious to promote the inter¬
ests of their employees, and these two or three men were un¬
fitted by nature and training- for such responsible positions.
A larg-e majority of railroad manag-ers of my acquaint¬
ance are broad and liberal-minded men, who came up from the
ranks of railroaders, and are in hearty sympathy with the
aspirations of the rank and file, not only because they are by
nature manly oen, but because they themselves have been of
the rank and file and know by their own experience and ob¬
servation what the wants and hopes of each are.
I, therefore, repeat that the first duty of all railroad men,
employer and employed, is to stand tog-ether and unitedly
repel the unjust and dishonest attacks made upon railroad
men and railroad property.
All men who have given the subject any reflection know
that org-anized capital, with steam and electricity, has so
chang-ed the commercial and business forces of the world that
to-day five men, by using- this new power, can do the work
— 670 —
which, thirty or forty years ago required one hundred men.
This fact, now generally recognized, has prompted many of the
thinking men who are in sympathy with the wage-workers,
both in this country and in Europe, to urge disorganized
labor to organize, not to exclude other men from work, nor to
do any criminal act, but for the purpose of securing the rights
and bettering the conditions of all workers and ultimately to
obtain a business co-partnership with capital, not only in
railroading, but in all industries, on a basis just and equi¬
table to both capital and labor.
You ask me what plan of organization men should adopt
to secure this end. That is the problem of problems, and the
man who solves it will be entitled to the recognition and
gratitude of all wage-workers the world over, as also of all
classes and conditions of men, because, whatever plan may
ultimately be adopted by railroad men, it must, in order to be
satisfactory and enduring, commend itself to the great body
of wage-workers in all departments of human industry.
I therefore earnestly desire that the intelligent railroad
men of this country should adopt some such plan of co-opera¬
tion and profit-sharing as I have suggested, to the end that
it may be by them formally presented to all railroad owners
and managers for their official action. Such a presentation,
on the part of practical railroad men, would secure an able
and prompt discussion of the principle involved, and I confi¬
dently believe in its final adoption with such modifications and
additions as men of brains and experience may approve.
To this end, and to secure such an organization as the
importance and magnitude of their interest demands, I favor
the federation of all railroad workers in State organizations,
with the entire body in all States and Territories represented
in one national organization, in which every department of
railroad workers shall have a proportional representation ac¬
cording to number of members residing in each State and Ter¬
ritory.
Believing that in this world the best that any mortal has
is that which every mortal shares, I hold that the interest of
each is the interest of all.
If this proposition be admitted, then a national federation
of railroad men, and subordinate federations for each State
— G71 —
and Territory, should be organized, into which, all reputable
railroad workers should be welcome, who voluntarily desire
to affiliate with such an organization by subscribing- to its
constitution.
The constitution of this national federation, after defin¬
ing- clearly the purposes of the organization and the powers
and duties of all State and Territorial organizations affiliat¬
ing" with it, should especially provide the machinery by which
all questions touching" the relation of railroad workers to
railroad companies will be heard and determined. In each
duly organized State and Territorial and subordinate associa¬
tion, every member whose name properly appears on the roll
should have the right secured to him to vote by ballot on all
questions submitted to the organization by authority of the
national or of any State or Territorial federation; and espe¬
cially in his local assembly should the right of the ballot be
secured to him on the demand of one-tenth of the members
present at any meeting.
In this country every duly qualified elector has a right to
vote by ballot for the representatives of his choice, whether
that official be the President of the United States, a State of¬
ficial or private citizen; why, then, should not every railroad
worker have secured to him the right to vote by ballot in his
local federation on every question affecting his individual in¬
terest, or that of the general interest of the organization?
As no railroad man would be permitted to vote in any local
council who was not a member in good standing, so only
those who are members and voters would be eligible to any
official position as a representative to either the State or na¬
tional assemblies.
Experience must have taught every thoughtful railroad
man that all officials and delegates to represent them in any
deliberative body, ought, after due notice of the time and place
of such election, to be elected by ballot, and not by a howling
mob, under the management of unscrupulous and unworthy
leaders.
At such elections the minority should alwa}Ts have secur¬
ed to them the right of representation In proportion to the
ballots cast by them; no more, no less.
Provisions should be made in the national constitution of
— 672 —
such a federation for obtaining-the deliberate opinion of every
member in each State and Territory on all important ques¬
tions submitted for official action. To do this practically,
special provision must be made to secure proportional repre¬
sentation from all local, district and State assemblies, to the
minority as well as the majority, when sending- delegates to
district or State, or to the national assembly.
The concurrent vote of not less than two-thirds, and
sometimes three-fourths of the representatives in district,
State or national assemblies should be required to adopt any
new or untried proposition, such for instance as the adoption
of my plan of co-operative profit sharing-.
If a proposition, touching- any subject worthy the consid¬
eration of either district or State federations or the national
assembly, cannot, after open debate command a two-thirds
vote or even three-fourths vote of men whose personal inter¬
ests are all in favor of a just disposition of this subject, its
defects must be of a character to render its attempted enforce¬
ment by a mere numerical majority very questionable.
Every individual wag-e-worker, who voluntarily combines
in such an org-anization, does so not only to protect and pro¬
mote his own interests, but to secure the rig-hts and interests
of all workers. He cannot afford, and will not willing-ly put
himself under subjection to an org-anization, in which he
practically has no voice. That he will have no voice in such
an org-anization unless he has secured to him the rig-ht to
vote by ballot, experience has amply demonstrated.
And I affirm that unless a concurrent vote of not less
than two-thirds, representing- the minority, as well as the ma¬
jority of the org-anization, can be secured to each member on
all questions touching- individual freedom, he is in dang-er of
being- subjected to a despotic power, which mig-ht deprive
liim of the liberty of disposing- of his own labor, and so hedge
him about, as to make the bettering- of his condition in life
impossible.
It will hardly be claimed that a minority of the org-ani¬
zation should be clothed with the power of administering- it.
The point to be reached is to collect, with something-like
mathematical precision, the deliberate and unbiased judg1-
ment of every railroad worker, on ever}- proposition in which
— 673—
all who are members of the organization are interested, di¬
rectly or indirectly. I therefore would provide in the national
and State constitution that no separate or local organization
of railroad workers, such, for instance as the "Association of
Train Dispatchers," should have the power on their own mo¬
tion and without the affirmative vote of two-thirds of all the
workers or employees on any road, who were members of the
organization, to declare a strike or do any act hostile to the
interest of the majority of the employees of such railroads.
I would require the question to be first submitted by the of¬
ficers of the State organization to all subordinate affiliated
councils in the State or along the line of railroad so affected
by the proposed strike. Such a constitutional provision
should secure deliberation and a vote by ballot to all railroad
workers who were members of the federation and on the pay
roll of the company on which it was proposed to order a strike.
All such ballots should be printed, simply yes or no, and a
proposition of that character oug'ht to require a vote of not
less than two-thirds in its favor to authorize the officers of
any State federation to order a strike. If it be objected that
a vote of two-thirds is too large and that only a majority of
those present and voting ought to be sufficient, even though
a minority of the total federations interested—the answer is,
that, as a rule, there is always doubt about the practicabil¬
ity or necessity for the passage in the national Congress or
in State legislatures or in any city government of any act or
law, such as declaring war or amending the Constitution, or
even creating a city bonded debt, for posterity to pay. Pru¬
dence requires that such acts should be done by all civil gov¬
ernments only after careful deliberation, public discussion,
and not less than two-thirds, and sometimes a three-fourths
vote of the assemblies charged with the duty of such legisla¬
tion.
We cannot amend our national Constitution unless Con¬
gress,by a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and House,
concur in submitting a plain and definite proposition, and
then it requires an affirmative vote of three-fourths of the
States to ratify it to make it a part of the Constitution.
In some States a proposition to amend the constitution
43
— 674 —
must have passed both houses of the State legislature by a
two-thirds vote two years in succession, and then be sub¬
mitted to the electors of such State for their acceptance or
rejection by a direct vote, yes or no. No intelligent man can
afford to be less careful when providing1 for the protection of
his individual rights.
A recognition of this conservative principle in all organ¬
izations of wage-workers and especially in a federation of
railroad men, such as I have suggested, is an absolute neces¬
sity, as a condition to permanence and success.
It is not possible to make an organization live and suc¬
ceed by trickery and fraud.
Temporary success may be and sometimes has been secured
by trickery and fraud, but in the long- run injustice and crime
are doomed to defeat, and when crime goes down there
always go with it the men guilty of doing the wrong acts
which gave them temporary triumph.
On all well-ordered railroads the importance and respon¬
sibility of the train dispatcher's department is fully recogniz¬
ed, and it ought not to be forgotten by any wage-worker that
in all departments of human industry " responsibility " car¬
ries with it corresponding opportunities. From the ranks of
the Train Dispatchers' Association are certain to come in the
future, as in the past, many of our able railroad managers
and prominent officials.
The whole world admires a just and manly man. It
therefore requires no seer or prophet to predict that in every
conflict with exacting and unjust managers such an organi¬
zation of railroad workers as I have outlined, administered
with prudence and dignity, will always win.
If you acquit yourselves like men, and with fraternal
duty consecrate your daily toil, you cannot be defeated. On
such a platform you have but to
" Stand firm, and all the world shall see
Your light shine out o'er land and sea."
J. M. Ashley.
C. E. Case, Esq.,
Secretary Train Dispatchers' Association of America.
EXTRACTS
From Governor Ashxey's First Address in the Congres¬
sional Campaign op 1890.
Hon. C. A. King- introduced Governor Ashley in a short
speech. He said that the Republican Congressional conven¬
tion, on the 10th of October, had chosen a candidate for Con¬
gress. That candidate had been notified and had accepted.
He desired simply to present to the audience Governor
Ashley.
Applause ag-ain followed when the Governor stepped for¬
ward and beg-an to speak. He said:
Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-
Citizens all: Your cordial reception and old-fashioned
greeting1 is like a Highland welcome; and I accept it in the
spirit in which it is given and thank you for it with all my
heart.
In accepting- the unsolicited nomination which the Re¬
publican Congressional convention of this district tendered
me on the 10th instant, I feel that it is due to both you and
myself at the outset to state frankly that I accept the nomi-
(675)
— 676 —
nation, not^because I personally desire a seat in the Congress
of the United States, with all its responsibilities and thank¬
less labor, but because I believe it to be a duty, and because
I sincerely believe there are formidable forces at work, which,
if unchecked, must drift the nation and party into conditions
of peril and disaster. [Applause.]
To avert these, will, in my opinion, require not only the
united efforts of the Republican party, but the hearty co-op¬
eration of the able men of all sections and parties.
It will be my duty to present to you, in the few addresses
which I shall be able to make during- the short canvass on
which we are entering, such facts and such arguments touch¬
ing the situation of the country, and the tendencies of which
I speak as may, peradventure, contribute something to arouse
thinking men to the gravity of the impending conflict before
us, that they may be induced to call a halt and ask them¬
selves the question, " Whither, as a nation, are we drifting?"
The older citizens of Toledo and Northern Ohio are fa¬
miliar with my manner of speech, and all know that I am in¬
capable of concealment or evasion. In every political can¬
vass I ever made, whether a candidate or not, I stated the
issue with such plainness that no one could misunderstand or
honestly misinterpret me. [Applause.]
I have always held that a public speaker should speak with
frankness, simplicity and directness. That, first of all, he
should so impress his individuality upon his audience as to
make every thought he expressed glow with a sincerity
which should stamp itself, not only on the hearts and minds
of his hearers, but even on the coldest printed page, that he
should so far forget his surroundings as to lose all conscious¬
ness of self, and with quiet earnestness for his oniy rhetoric,
make his appeal as one who sees the truth, and whose hps can
utter that only which he sees and believes. [Applause,]
I should like to come before vou when I shali have more
time to discuss the great political questions at issue, but
from the hour we reached Sandusky one delay followed an*
other, and u would be doing you great injustice to keep you
longefo I will not at this late hour undertake to speak as 1
had intended, prior to my detention at Sandusky. I have ac¬
cepted the nomination and I stand on the platform. I may
— 677 —
say my business is to defend the platform on which I stand.
I shall confine myself to the discussion of national issues,
and shall not allow myself to be diverted from them by any
side issue on which I shall have no vote in Congress. My
duty to the other counties in the district, and my duty to the
Republicans, should be to hold a steady hand.
[Someone on the left here cried out, "How do you stand
on the gas question?" Turning* towards his questioner the
Governor made no hesitation, but replied: " I intend to stand
for Toledo, and as I have no vote in Congress on the gas
question, I will say -nothing1 about it." The applause follow¬
ing was spontaneous.]
I stand for Toledo [the Governor continued], and have been
struggling- for thirty-nine years to build her up. I have at
heart as much as any man, her interest and prosperity.
Moreover, we may differ in the method by which we are to
get that prosperity, and as long* as I don't have to vote upon
it in Congress, I shall not undertake to reconcile the differ¬
ence. If a man should ask me what is my religion, I should
probably tell taim that it was none of his business. If I was
a candidate for bishop or pope, I should recognize the justice
of that question and answer it. If I was a candidate for the
city council of Toledo, I should recognize the justice of
questions on local interest. I do not intend to evade any
question that can be of possible importance in this campaign.
I should not ignore them for the sake of the fight I propose
to make in this district. When I was-first elected as a repre¬
sentative in Congress I was a very young man. I made up
my mind that I would go slow and safe.
I may have made mistakes, but whatever I did, are mat¬
ters o'f record. The slanderous hearsayers cannot put their
fingers on a single vote to which they object or you object.
They cannot point to a single public or private speech express¬
ing a sentiment to which you would object. All I ask of you
is to turn to the records, as to any slanders that may have
been circulated twenty years ago. I don't care enough for an
election to make a single dodge. If anybody asked me how
I built the Ann Arbor road, I should probably tell him that
it was none of his business. I got gray in doing it. While
I was building it I had to borrow money, and agreed that
— 678-
my lips should be sealed politically, and I would keep out of
politics. But the money is paid, and I am free to talk poli¬
tics now.
Now, gentlemen, on all the bills before the last Congress
the Republican party was in the main right. Among* them was
the tariff bill. I voted for the old tariff bill, and I should have
voted for this one had I been in the present Congress. [Great
applause.] There may be provisions in it for which I would
not have voted in Committee of the Whole, but if a bill
has 70 or 80 per cent, of my ideas in it and I can't get 90, it
will receive my support, and I'll take 80 percent. No interest
of the city shall escape my attention. I am the only man
who ever made a speech in Congress, booming- Toledo.
[Laughter.] I don't think Toledo lost anything, gentlemen,
whenever material interests were at stake when I was there.
I may be ahead of my party now, as I was in the old anti-slavery
da}Ts, but the man who is ahead of his column, and falling
with his face to the foe, is a great deal better soldier than
any man who is skulking in the rear, and dropping out at
the first opportunity. [Applause.]
I have, as most of you know, just returned from a pleas¬
ant sojourn on the continent. While there I was not idle,
and saw much that was both interesting and instructive.
Even the old ruins taught impressive lessons0
The crumbling castles and prisons, and monasteries, all
told of a despotism and grandeur, built on the unrequited
toil and suffering and sorrow of the million, to gratify the
pride and selfishness, the vanity and ambition of the few.
The press, the schools and colleges, with the co-opera¬
tion of commerce and steam and electricity, have abolished
the old barbarism and changed, let us hope for the better, the
old order of things. But the immense standing armies of
Europe are eating up the substance of the nations, and
stamping with an iron hand, submission and endurance on
the character of the people. This could not be otherwise
with a standing army of 3,000,000 men, equipped with all the
modern weapons of destructive warfare and drilled to obey
the orders of their commanders-in-chief. Each of the so-
called "great powers" can, on short notice, transport from
300,000 to 1,000,000 men, by steam, on land and water to any
— 679 —
objective point within their dominions, and hurl them against
an invading- army or use them to crush any internal insurrec¬
tion or rebellion. So formidable are these great armies, and
so thoroughly do they crush out all freedom of thought and
action that they practically reduce all classes and conditions
of men to enforced and abject silence, and everywhere an
American recognizes the fact that even modern Europe is
old, and that her people are sullenly obeying the bugle call,
and keeping lock-step to the music of fife and drum. [Ap¬
plause.]
Wherever, on the continent, I cast my eyes, I saw that
even the young were old in manner and speech, and their
faces wore a subdued and anxious look, as if life was a serious
struggle with them. In our country you will find even the
old young, and a vivacity in all, which is born of the fresh¬
ness and hope of youth. With our people you see the
elastic step and stately tread of vigorous manhood, a condition
which is the natural outgrowth of personal liberty and per¬
sonal independence.
No intelligent foreign observer who visits our shores can
fail to note the marked difference in the characteristics of a
people who live under a government of force: and those who
live under a government of consent. [Applause.]
What wonder then that on Tuesday last, as I steamed
up the magnificent harbor of New York and my eyes caught
sight of the colossal statue of "Liberty Enlightening the
World," and I saw floating in the breeze on every hand that
banner of matchless beauty, which symbolizes the dignify
and sovereignty of my country, that there should have welled
up, as there did, from my heart to my lips, in glad .acclaim,
the words of our national hymn:
"My country, 'tis of thee.
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing."
[Applause.]
Mr. Chairman: There are before me to-night those who
will live to see the population of our country number 100,000-
— 680 —
000 or more—a population of manly, self-reliant, indepen¬
dent men, because trained in the school of freedom. A pop¬
ulation having- a common language, a common interest and a
common destiny; into whose care and keeping- there has been
committed the most priceless political heritage ever vouch¬
safed to man on earth; and throug-hout all our broad domain,
from hamlet to city, on river and lake, from the summit of
every wind-beaten mountain, and in the quiet homes of every
sheltered valley, from the fragrant shade of the sweet mag¬
nolia blossom to where our chill north winds sig-h through
the stately pines; everywhere, from center to circumference
and from ocean to ocean there shall g-o up from all hearts and
all lips but one aspiration and that for the unity and glory
and g-randeur of the republic; there shall be recorded but one
oath, that of fidelity to the Constitution and loyalty to the
flag-, and all national song-s shall be song-s of thanksgiving
and songs of triumph. And everywhere beneath the nation's
ensig-n there shall be heard but one malediction and but one
invocation, disaster, defeat and death to him who de¬
serts or dishonors or betrays that flag-, and life and health
and joy to him who dwells in peace beneath its radiant folds.
[Continuous applause. And the band struck up "America,"
as the vast audience beg-an to leave the building-.]
MEMORIAL ADDRESS
at Wauseon, May, 1892.
Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-
citizens all: I need not tell you that your generous greeting
quickens my pulse-beats and stirs my heart with pleasurable
emotions. You can all see, without my telling you, how glad
I am to be with you to-day. I do not wish to disguise the
satisfaction I feel at receiving from you such an old-time
welcome.
This occasion recalls to my mind other meetings of a like
character here in Fulton County, and many faces once well
known among you; as also, the fragrant memory of scores of
grand men and women who in the days agone, were my unself¬
ish steadfast friends.
Many of those now hidden from our earthly sight were
moral heroes, worthy of our remembrance and of honorable
mention, not only here, but everywhere. In my heart of
hearts, there is alwa}^ a memorial tribute ready to be offered
up to the memory of such noble friends as have passed from
here to the realms beyond the stars.
Mr. President: Every memorial service, however simple,
recognizes a sacrifice or attests a martyr. Every memorial
monument, erected by voluntary contributions (as was this
one), is intended to perpetuate the memor}^ and the heroism
of those who fell either on the field or in the forum battling
for the right. Every flower placed on the grave of a dead
hero, or festooned in wreaths on a monument, as on the one
before us, testifies to the present and to future generations,
how we honored the men who fell and the cause for which
they yielded up their lives.
In a few short years the last surviving soldier who par¬
ticipated in the great conflict, which we are to-day com-
(681)
— 682 —
memorating, will have passed with the benedictions of a
grateful people, to the higher and better life beyond.
As the coming- generations of men shall pause, as pause
they will, before this and other like monuments, the question
which each for himself will ask, must be: For what did
these men voluntarily offer themselves up as a sacrifice?
Was the cause for which they fought and fell, a just cause?
Did it represent a principle worth fighting for, and if need
be worth d}Ting for? If the answer which comes shall be
such as the truthful historian must chronicle, when the pas¬
sions and mad acts which made the great rebellion possible
shall have been softened or forgotten, the answer must be,
"that they did not die in vain." The answer must be
4'that in their triumph the God-given right of every human
soul to life and liberty was affirmed, and the unity and power
and glory of the republic confirmed."
When the rebel armies surrendered, not all which might
have been, nor all that ought to have been demanded, as
security for the future, was ever seriously discussed. As
there was no thought of exacting- any pecuniae compensa¬
tion for our suffering's and sacrifice, there ought to have
been prescribed such terms of surrender as would have made
another causeless rebellion in the future practically impossi¬
ble. I said then, and say now, that our stipulations for their
surrender oug-ht to have been made clear and strong- and been
engrafted into our national Constitution, because if made
part of our national Constitution, they could not be unjust,
as the conditions thus prescribed would of necessity operate
on the North and on the South alike. But, in our desire for
peace, in our anxiety for the return of our erring- brothers to
the old mansion, we did not make the terms of surrender nor
the stipulations as to the future as clear nor as far-reaching
as was the duty of practical statesmen.
The terms of surrender were in fact, as all will remem¬
ber, so ambiguous and shadowy that man}- of our most emi¬
nent and trusted statesmen denounced the terms, " as a sur¬
render on our part to the enemy."
That we ought to have made the terms of surrender
— 683 —
broad and liberal, and as free from malice, and as charitable as
they were, all concede; but we ought to have made the terms
cover questions which all thoughtful men knew must soon
confront us, and which are now confronting- us.
This amiable weakness and childlike trustfulness, how¬
ever, is not unnatural nor confined to this generation. In
1812 we went to war with Great Britain on a question known
as the "right of search." After we had practically defeated
the British on both the sea and land, we appointed commis¬
sioners to make a treaty of peace. As our distinguished
commissioners met the British officials day after day, and
looked into each other's faces, they not only did not discuss
the question which had caused the war, but when the treaty
was signed not a single stipulation or word could be found in
it about the " right of search."
We did better at the close of our great rebellion, than
the peace commissioners whom we sent to Great Britain in
1814. We knew that slavery was the cause of the war, and
all intelligent, honest men frankly said, "As slavery has
been the cause of the war, slavery must die," and it did die.
The Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, and
the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, made it impossi¬
ble forever thereafter, for a slave to breathe on any spot of
God's green earth, beneath the radiant folds of our flag of
stripes and stars.
But we passed over and did not provide for the settlement
of important questions which were then confronting us, and
which are to-day confronting us, questions which have
menaced our peace and unity more than once, and which will
continue to menace it until they are honorably adjusted by
the concurrent non-partisan action of all sections and all
parties. If the questions to which I refer are not met and
satisfactorily adjusted by an amendment to our national
Constitution, substantially as I suggested in an address
before the Ohio Society of New York, a conflict is certain to
overtake us, which will culminate in a civil war more disas¬
trous than the war of the rebellion, because it will be a parti¬
san instead of a sectional war.
This partisan war, I fear, will grow out of partisan con¬
flicts incident to the mode and manner of nominating and
— 684 —
electing- our Presidents, and Senators and Representatives in
Congress, unless we provide ag-ainst it by such amendments
to our national Constitution as shall make such conflicts
impossible.
I/etter from Chairman of the Committee, Bishop B. "W. Arnett.
The reader of this volume will learn, that both before and after the war of the re,
bellion, Mr. Ashley spoke as one of God's own interpreters, and made plain our duty
as a nation. Stern and earnest in his denunciations of the great'crime of slavery, yet
with patience and tenderness he showed us the Divine in humanity, and spoke with
the firmness and forbearance of one who dwelt in the courts of the Lord. Just anc}
generous, a clear and independent thinker, he sought to plant the seed of thought in
others rather than publish and claim them for himself. He never had any of that
narrow selfishness which files a "caveat" on every thoug-ht that came to him. Search
the records, and nowhere, by speech or pen, can a word be found from him claiming
special.or exclusive credit for introducing-his bill for the abolition of slavery in thq
District of Columbia, nor for having- introduced the first proposition for amending the
national Constitution prohibiting- slavery in the United States, and by his tireless an4
prudent labors, securing- its passage by Congress, in the words of the Thirteenth
Amendment. He left that task to his contemporaries and to the future historian,
Charles Sumner, Chief Justice Chase, James G. Blaine and other men of eminence
have publicly recognized and testified to his ability and successful parliamentary
work for the abolition of slavery. In publishing this "souvenir," the negro has built
him a fitting- monument ; but not out of the stones cast at him in the dark days of
slavery by the enemies of our race, but a monument which contains some of his best
and most effective appeals for our liberation and enfranchisement. "When compiling
this volume, we were not without hope, that in this form Mr. Ashley's speeches an4
orations may prove to be for him a more enduring- monument than marble or granite,
B. "W. Arnett.
MAUMEE VALLEY PIONEER ASSOCIATION CELE¬
BRATION.
Address of Governor Ashley to the Men and Women
Who Came Early to this Part of Ohio.
from the toledo blade.
Liberty Center, O., Aug1. 19.—At the reunion of the
Maumee Pioneer Association in Young's grove, this aftern'oon,
after the election of officers, mention of which was made in
yesterday's Blade, Chairman Young- introduced the speaker
of the day, Hon. J. M. Ashley, of Toledo. Gov. Ashley de¬
livered the following- address, which was listened to with
great interest and appreciation by the large gathering of
pioneers:
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the So¬
ciety: When honored by your unexpected invitation to ad¬
dress your society to-day, I accepted with pleasure.
Of course, you know, as I do, that the invitation did not
come to me because I was a pioneer, or the son of a pioneer.
I came into the Maumee Valley long after the pioneers,
whose deeds you annually meet to commemorate, had passed
to another, and let us hope, a more peaceful life, after having
laid broad and deep the foundation of our present substantial
homes of peace and plenty.
I assume, therefore, that your invitation came to me by
the partiality of old friends, who again wanted to see and
hear me.
The desire on my part to see and enjoy the day with you,
is evidenced by my presence.
I regret that I have not had time to prepare a paper
( G85 )
— 686 —
suitable for the occasion, and worthy of preservation by your
society, but I could not do as I wished, and must ask your in¬
dulgence during1 the short time I shall detain you.
The observations I am about to make must be such as
shall suggest themselves while I am on my feet.
I see you have with you here to-day that modern wonder,
the ubiquitous newspaper reporter, so if I say anything worth
recording you may be certain he will faithfully record it for
his paper. If, peradventure, I should make a mistake in
word, or a slip in speech, let us hope that like " Uncle To¬
by's" recording angel, he will drop a tear on that part of his
report, and blot it out.
Mr. President, there are pioneers who conceive, and plan
and project, and there are pioneers who organize and com¬
mand and execute.
The first we call "theoretical" pioneers, the second
" practical" pioneers.
In temperament and activity, I may be properly be classed
with both the pioneers who 44 project" and the pioneers who
44 execute."
Without a knowledge that other men in other lands had
conceived substantially the same idea, I had, before attaining
my majority, thought out for myself and affirmed, 44 that la¬
bor was equitably entitled to a fair proportion of the wealth
which it created." Naturally enough, if this proposition be
admitted, it follows of necessity, that the laborer must first
own himself before he can own and hold any part of the prop¬
erty which his toil has produced.
Having thus early adopted and publicly affirmed this
pioneer proposition, I entered with vigor and earnestness up¬
on a crusade against the right of any man to own or hold an¬
other as a slave; which crusade ended on my part only with
the abolition of slavery in the nation, and the adoption of
the thirteenth Amendment to our national Constitution, pro¬
hibiting that crime forever.
My official connection with that sublime act of justice
has secured for me a fitting place in history, and, with my
record on that question, I know every friend of freedom
is content.
After the overthrow of slavery and the adoption of the
— 687 —
Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to our
national Constitution, I entered upon another pioneer cru¬
sade, or campaign of reform, one which seeks to secure
to the qualified electors of the nation the right to nominate
and elect the President of the United States, and Senators
and Representatives in Congress by a direct vote of the peo¬
ple by ballot, and to substitute for our present wage-system
a plan of co-operation .with capital and profit-sharing for la¬
bor, which, if adopted and practically administered, will se¬
cure to the toiler in all departments of human industry a just
and fair proportion of the wealth which labor creates.
If some such plan as I propose had been applied in their
every-day life, by our early pioneers, their hardships would
have been lessened, their security for life and property would
have been greater, and their enjoyment correspondingly in¬
creased.
It was only a short time ago that we used to carry our
grist to the water-mill of the riverside, and grumble then as
now at the amount of toll taken by the miller. To-day that
miller is superseded by one who turns out 3,000 barrels of
flour every twenty-four hours. And so with our wagons; in¬
stead of being made by the builder in his little shop at the
cross-roads, they are now made in the great factories at the
rate of one every thirty minutes. We used to think that no¬
body would ever have ingenuity enough to make horse-shoe
nails by machinery, but to-day they are furnished to the
blacksmith far cheaper, smoother and stronger, than he could
ever make them. Our mothers used to spin and weave our
blue-jeans for us, but to-day we wear much better and cheaper
clothes purchased of the tailors and storekeepers.
What has brought about this revolution? I answer, a
monster. The monster of iron, steam and electricity. A mon¬
ster which if not properly controlled will, in time, be powerful
enough to crush all toilers. I have had some experience in
practical affairs and I say to you that this monster if ap¬
proached in the right way can not only be controlled, but can
be made to serve our ends. It must not be permitted to get the
upper hand. We must harness this iron monster of steam and
electricity and teach it to do our bidding. My remedy for the
— 688 —
danger that besets us is, arbitration and co-operation. [Ap¬
plause.]
This beautiful Maumee valley has never been appreciated
by our people. I have traveled the world over and I say to
you that we have no reason to be ashamed of our home val¬
ley. Mrs. Sherwood, in a poem soon to be printed, has de¬
scribed much better than I can the beautiful Maumee. I will
read you the last two stanzas:
" O river of the purpling- vine,
O river of the corn and wine,
O river where the golden peach
Hangs luscious on the pebbled beach,
Where glide the galleys of the seas
In laughter-laden argosies,
O river, consecrate to truth
In proud Ohio's royal youth,
Thy deeds are dear to poesy,
Maumee, Maumee.
" O fair Miami of the lakes,
For thee, majestic music wakes.
The splendor of thy wide estate,
To liberty is consecrate;
To kindlier creeds and statelier laws,
To manlier deeds and holier cause;
From primal man's barbaric state,
To truth transfigured and elate;
To human freedom's high decree,
Maumee, Maumee."
[Applause.]
Mr. President: As I look back and see moving westward
the great historic human panorama of the ages, beginning
with Columbus on the sea, and continuing on this continent
for four hundred 3-ears, I am lost in wonder and admiration.
— 689 —
This triumphal movement of the human race, on the sea
and on the land, from the discovery of America by Columbus
to this hour, has had no parallel in human history.
You are all familiar with the drama of the early discov¬
erers of America, as on their ships they scanned for months
with anxious gaze the sea and sky, while plowing- the un¬
known ocean; and you are still more familiar with the drama
of the early explorers of this continent, as with covered
wagons and Indian canoes, they pioneered their way, by
river and lake, through unbroken forests and over formidable
mountains, encountering on every hand suffering, privation
and death.
The exodus of the children of Israel out of the land of
Egypt, under the masterly leadership of Moses, has for cen¬
turies been held up to mankind as a lesson and a warning,
and from the time of that marvelous deliverance has been the
theme of poets and prophets, and yet the exodus of the chil¬
dren of men, under Columbus, out of their European land of
bondage to this continent, representing as it did, all civilized
races, has transcended in glory and grandeur, and in its far-
reaching and beneficent results to the human race, the exodus
of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. [Applause.]
The spirit which moved and directed Columbus was im¬
planted in the breasts of all our early ocean and continental
pioneers.
From Massachusetts Bay to the capes of Florida, we first
find the Spanish and Portuguese and the French. After¬
wards the French pushed their way up the St. Lawrence
through Canada, and across the lakes up the Miami of Lake
Erie; over the classic ground on which we stand to-day, down
the Wabash and Ohio, to the Mississippi and the Gulf.
Then came the sturdy English stock, to stick and stay.
They came from New England and New York to Ohio and
the Northwest, and following close after them came the great
exploring expeditions of Lewis and Clark, which crossed the
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in 1802-3.
Prior to this, the advanced guard of Scotch-Irish from
Pennsylvania had followed the Monongahela and descended
the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans.
44
— 690 —
And the pioneers from Maryland and Virginia had fought
their way through mountains, to Kentucky and Tennessee,
and possessed and held that country.
Thousands of caravans of covered wag-ons, with women
and children, spread over a territory on a line which reached
north and south four hundred miles or more, and moving, as
I see them, like the waves of the ocean, substantially abreast,
crossed the Alleghenies, descended rivers and penetrated un¬
broken forests,'meeting- danger and death, as often, if not
oftener, than did the early pioneers of the ocean.
The faith and fortitude, the courag-e and endurance of
the men and women who pioneered their way across the con¬
tinent, equaled, if it did not eclipse, that of the early ocean
pioneers. [Applause.]
The same impelling- motive animated both.
The overland pioneers could nowhere plant their flags in
safety, nor rest in peace, until they had silenced in death the
wild-man's terrific yell.
More caravans were wiped out in blood by the red man
than were lost by the early ocean pioneers at sea, and yet
great armies on both the land and sea came on and on, never
hesitating, never faltering.
The pluck and heroism of the ocean and continental
pioneers, presents a sublime spectacle, the contemplation of
which, fills every manly heart with patriotic -emotions.
There were thousands of men at the head of west-bound
expeditions, as brave and dauntless and hopeful as Columbus;
men who could command and successfully fight great battles;
men whose steady advance could not be stayed by danger,
nor their purpose defeated by obstacles, however formidable.
Fortunate are we to be the descendants of such a sturdy,
heroic race of men, and to be the possessors of the priceless
political and material inheritance which they created and be¬
queathed. [Applause.]
You have all read the story of Columbus, and many of
you have read more than one account, as described by poets
and historians, of the manner in which he handled and di¬
rected the terrified and half-mutincus officers and men on his
ships, that long, dark nig-ht before he sighted land in the
new world.
— 691 —
Many an overland pioneer with his convoy of prairie
schooners had a like experience, and acquitted himself as gal¬
lantly. [Applause.]
As his trusted flag-ship plowed the stormy ocean, that
long- dark night, Columbus, pale and worn, paced her sea-
washed deck with faith unshaken; always answering his re¬
bellious officers and crew, when they demanded that he turn
back, with the single but firm command, Sail on. Sail on.
Sail on. And on."
At last, in the early gray of the morning his eye caught
sight of a speck, and when, with the aid of his glass, he as¬
sured himself that it was land he saw, his great heart and
pent-up spirit broke forth in joyous triumph, with the only
words his lips could utter, "Alight. Alight. Alight. A
light." And you and I know, that to us as Americans, out of
that light, there grew a star-lit flag unfurled. To the human
race, " It grew to be, Time's burst of dawn." [Applause.]
ADDRESS
OF HON. JAMES M. ASHLEY
before; the; " ohio society op new york,"
At its Fifth Annual, Banquet, Wednesday Evening,
February 19, 1890.
New York, February 20, 1890.
My Dear Governor Ashley :
At the banquet of the Ohio Society of New York last
evening-, the President of the Society was, by unanimous
vote, directed to ask you to furnish to the Society for publi¬
cation a copy of j^our admirable paper on the passag-e through
the House of Representatives of the United States of the
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In performance
of this duty, I beg leave to present to you their request.
Let me add, personally, that this formal expression was
supplemented individually by every one of those present with
whom it was my fortune to converse. I am sure that I speak
for all present in expressing- my individual appreciation of
the greatness and historic value of that action of which you
were so largely the inspiration, and in which you were the
foremost actor.
Yours, very truly,
Wager Swayne.
Hon. J. M. Ashley.
(692)
— 693 —
New York, February 21, 1890.
Gen. Wager S wayne,
President Ohio Society of New York
195 Broadway.
My Dear Sir :
Herewith, please find copy of my address as delivered be¬
fore your Society, at the fifth annual banquet, on the 19th
inst.
It gives me pleasure to comply with a request in which
is conveyed so complimentary an approval by the Society and
yourself of the address.
I only regret that I did not have time to speak more in
detail of the personality of the immortal twenty-four who
voted with us, and thus made possible the passage of the
Thirteenth Amendment.
Truly yours,
J. M. Ashley.
Mr. President and Gentlemen oe the Ohio Society
op New York : The official acts of the great actors in the
conflict of civilisation with the barbarism of slavery, are
faithfully recorded in the nation's archives, and open to the
inspection and compilation of the coming historian.
You will not expect me to-night to do more than briefly
notice some few of these men, with whom it was my good
fortune to be associated during the time Congress had under
consideration the propositions to abolish slavery at the nation¬
al capital and the Thirteenth Amendment.
When the story of our great anti-slavery conflict shall
have been written, it will make one of the most ideal chap¬
ters in our matchless history. That chapter will tell the
coming generations of men the story of the immortal victory
achieved by the American people for democratic government
and an undivided Union ; a victory whose far-reaching con¬
sequences no man can even now foresee.
In the fullness of time, to every nation and people great
— 694 —
leaders are born, and some one or more of these earnest lead¬
ers, by the utterance of a simple moral truth in a brief
couplet or in a single epigrammatic sentence, have often in
the world's history changed the opinions of thousands.
Especially true was this of the written appeals and
public addresses of the great anti-slavery leaders in this
country for more than a quarter of a century before the re¬
bellion. He was indeed a dull and insensible man who dur¬
ing our anti-slavery crusade did not grow eloquent and be¬
come aggressive when writing or speaking of slavery as the
great crime of his age and country. To me, as a boy, the
men who made up this vanguard of anti-slavery leaders al¬
ways appeared to be exceptionally great men, men who
walked the earth with unfaltering faith and a firm tread,
with heads erect, so that their prophetic eyes caught the
dawn of Freedom's coming morn. They were brave, strong,
self-reliant men, whose words and acts all testified that their
great hearts " burned to break the fetters of the world."
These men had no thought of witnessing during their life¬
time the triumph of the cause which they had so unselfishly
espoused ; they were tireless and invincible, workers. The
alluring promise of success nowhere held out to them hope
of political reward. To an unpopular cause they gave all
they had of time, money and brains, not doubting that those
who should come after them would be able to command and
so to direct the moral forces of the nation as ultimately to
enact justice into law by "proclaiming liberty throughout
all the land to all the inhabitants thereof." Under this ban¬
ner they went forth, conquering and to conquer, and in all
their impassioned appeals they "sounded forth the bugle
that never called retreat."
To have voluntarily enlisted and fought with this liber¬
ating army until our starry banner was planted in triumph
on the last citadel of American slavery, is an honor of which
the humblest citizen and his children , may justly be proud, an
honor which will grow brighter in all the coming years of
the republic.
I was so young when I enlisted in this liberating army
that I cannot fix the date.
At the home of a neighbor, a Virginian by birth, and until
-— 695 —
the close of his manly life a resident of Kentucky, I heard,
with wondering- emotions, the first song in which a slave
was represented as appealing- to his captors for his freedom.
I was but nine years old, but that song with -its story
touched my heart, and, though I never saw it in print, I
never forgot it. The verse of this song- that arrested my at¬
tention, and remained fixed in.my memory, is as clear to me
TO-night as it was more than half a century ago.
It was the plaintive appeal of an escaped slave, in simple
rhyme, such as slaves often sang to tunes with which all are
familiar who have heard the old-fashioned plantation melo¬
dies.
In that appeal to his captors
"He showed the stripes his master g*ave,
The branded scars—the sightless eye,
The common badges of a slave,
And said he would be free or die."
I did not know until then that the slave master had the
right to whip, brand and maim his slave. It was at the
home of this venerable anti-slavery man (who made the
world better for his having-lived in it), that I first learned this
fact, and it was at his house that I first heard repeated many
of the fiery utterances of Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky.
After showing- an appreciation of these anti-slavery senti¬
ments, I was frequently lifted on a chair or table by our old
anti-slavery neighbor and taught to declaim from the
speeches of Cassius M. Cla}r and others. I was so fascinated
by a paragraph from a speech made by Governor McDowell,
of Virginia, that it alwa}rs gave me pleasure to speak it, as
I often did, with such earnestness as to secure me as honest
applause in that quiet anti-slavery household as any I ever
commanded 011 the platform in after years.
I never forgot that appeal of Governor McDowell, and
often used it after I grew to manhood, and quoted it in one
of my early speeches in Congress, as I again quote it here :
"You may place the slave where you please, 3-ou maj"
dry up to your uttermost the fountain of his feelings, the
— oyo —
spring's of his thought, you may close upon his mind every
avenue to knowledge, and cloud it over with artificial night,
you may yoke him to labor as an ox—which liveth only to
work, and worketh only to live ; you may put him under any
process which without destroying his value as a slave, will
debase and crush him as a rational being—you may do all
this ; and yet, the idea that he was born free will survive it
all. It is allied to his hope of immortality—it is the eternal
part of his nature which oppression cannot reach. It is a
torch lit up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never
meant to be extinguished by the hand of man."
I speak of these seemingly unimportant incidents of my
boyhood to confirm what I said in opening, touching the in¬
fluence which one brave, truthful man can exercise over thou¬
sands, and to illustrate the tremendous power a single thought
may often have over the acts and lives of reader and hearer.
From my ninth to my thirteenth year my father was
preaching on a circuit in the border counties of Kentucky
and West Virginia, and afterwards in Southeastern Ohio.
During our residence in Kentucky and West Virginia I did
not know a single abolitionist except the family which I have
described, and not until I was in my seventeenth year did I
meet and become acquainted with Cassius M. Clay and John
G. Fee. Some time afterwards I met James G. Burney, who
became the abolition candidate for President in 1844.
The leaders of the church to which my father belonged,
and, indeed, the leaders in all Southern churches in those
days, publicly affirmed "that slavery per se could exist
without sin," a doctrine which I regarded then, as I do now,
as a perversion of the teachings of Christ. It has always
been a source of satisfaction to me that my mother, who was
a conservative woman, never gave in her adhesion to this
rascally defense of "the sum of villainies."
At that time, in all the border counties of Kentucky,
slavery existed in a milder form than in any other part of the
Southwest, and the slave owners whom I knew were much
better men than one would in this day believe possible under
any slave system.
And yet the system in its practical working was so mon¬
strous that before I had grown to manhood I had publicly
pronounced against it, and, as many before me know, I
-697-
fought it with an energy which never tired, and a faith
which never faltered.
While entertaining- the anti-slavery opinions of Jefferson
and the men of 1776, and everywhere proclaiming- them
without concealment, I was elected to Congress in 1858, when
in my thirty-fourth year, and for the first time took my seat
in a deliberative body in the Thirty-sixth Congress, during*
the administration of Mr. Buchanan.
At that time the pro-slavery conspirators were preparing*
for armed rebellion, and for the desperate attempt, which
they soon made, to establish a slave empire on the ruins of
the republic.
There I met many anti-slavery leaders of age and expe¬
rience, to whose ranks I was eagerly welcomed.
I entered upon the straight and narrow path that led to
victory. I faltered but once. That was on the vote on the
Crittenden Resolution in July, 1861. The vote was 117 yeas ;
noes, 2—Mr. Potter of "Wisconsin and Mr. Riddle of Ohio
voting No.
I had been appealed to by almost every public man of my
acquaintance in Washington and by my personal and political
friends to vote for the resolution, and not assume the respon¬
sibility of separating myself at such a time and on so im¬
portant a matter from my party. When my name was called
I shook my head, as was then the custom ; my name was
called the second time, and I again shook my head, the blush
of shame tingling* my face, as it has every time I have
thought of that act or looked at the record since and read,
" Not voting, J. M. Ashley." I never felt the sense of shame
so keenly before nor since ; and turning to Mr. Corwin, my
venerable colleague, as the vote was announced, I said, with
emotion, "Governor, that is the most cowardly act of my
life, and no power on earth shall again make me repeat it."
"Why, General," he exclaimed, with evident warmth, "I
voted for it." I saw that I had, in the excitement of the
moment, offended him, and I made haste to assure him that
I intended nothing of the sort, as all would have done who
had offended so lovable, companionable and just a man as
Governor Corwin. I promptly extended my hand and said,
"Yes, Governor, but you do not see things as I do." I need
— 698 —
hardly add that after this I did not again refuse to vote on any
question, nor did I, during- my entire service, give a single
vote that to-night I would change.
Great occasions produce great men. The State of Ohio
furnished her full quota for the crisis of 1861 :
Joshua R. Giddings, the leader of the "old guard, one
blast upon whose bugle horn was worth a thousand men."
Salmon P. Chase, Senator, Governor, Cabinet Minister
and Chief Justice, who ranked next to Lincoln in leadership.
Thomas Ewing, profound statesman, great lawyer, and,
Cabinet Minister under General Harrison in 1841.
Edwin M. Stanton, the great War Secretary, earnest,
fearless, tireless.
Judge McLean, the ideal Judge, representing on the
bench the coming civilization, the writer of the dissenting
opinion in the Dred Scott case.
Judge Swayne, judicial, conscientious, a great worker
and the early friend and confidant of Lincoln.
Benjamin F. Wade, bluff, positive, ready to meet the
enemy in the field or forum.
John Sherman, keen, politic, far-sighted and successful.
In the House—Thomas Corwin, Delano, Bingham, Law¬
rence, Hutchins, Spaulding, Schellaberger, Schenck, Hayes
and Garfield.
Our War Governors, Dennison, Todd and Brough, un-
equaled as organizers and in administrative power.
On the Democratic side there were Senator Thurman
and Representatives Vallandigham, Pendleton, Cox and
Morgan, with many able men in private life, who were active
in demanding our "authority and precedents" for all we
proposed, and much that we did for which we had no " prec¬
edent. 'M
In the army Ohio eclipsed the world. That wonderful
triumvirate of commanders, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan,
were without models and without equals. And then we had
McPherson, Garfield, Steedman, Swayne, Cox and Buckland,
and hundreds besides, who, on the field and in the forum,
made the name of Ohio everywhere synonymous with great
deeds and heroic acts.
— 699 —
In such a cause, with such leaders, success was foreor¬
dained.
When the official records of Congress during- the adminis¬
tration of Mr. Buchanan are examined by the historian of
the future, and the so-called compromise proposition of the
Union-saving- committee of thirty-three (of which Charles
Francis Adams of Massachusetts was chairman) is compared
with the Thirteenth Amendment, which three years later
became part of our national Constitution, it will be difficult
for him to find reasons for the extraordinary revolution in
public opinion which these two proposed amendments to our
national Constitution present. And here I wish I could walk
backward with averted g-aze, and with the broad mantle of
charity cover the political nakedness of our own beloved
State, which, by the vote of its Legislature, committed the
indefensible folly of ratifying- the pro-slavery amendment
proposed by the committee of thirty-three, and thus officially
consented to its becoming- part of our national Constitution.
To me the propositions of the so-called " Peace Con¬
gress, over which ex-President John Tyler, of Virginia, pre¬
sided, were preposterous and offensive, and the " pledge" of
the "Crittenden Resolution" a delusion and a snare, cun¬
ningly designed to paralyze and manacle us.
Every sane man who to-day reads the numerous proposed
constitutional amendments with which Congress at that time
was deluged, will recognize the fact that they were all stu¬
diously and deliberately prepared for the avowed purpose of
protecting- slavery by new and more exacting- g-uarantees.
This celebrated Compromise Committee of thirty-three
reported and recommended an amendment which practically
made slavery perpetual.
It was in these words :
" Article 12th. No amendments shall be made to the
Constitution which shall authorize or g-ive Congress the
power to abolish or interfere within any State with the do¬
mestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to
labor or service by the laws of such State."
Imagine, if you can, what the other propositions were,
if this was the most favorable which the Compromise Com¬
mittee of thirty-three could obtain for us.
— 700 —
Two days before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, this abase¬
ment was made to the slave barons by a two-thirds vote of
both Houses of the Congress of the United States, and the
act was approved by President Buchanan.
I do not believe a more shameless exhibition on the part
of a civilized people can be found in history.
Prior to this proposed surrender to the slave barons, a
number of the Southern States had passed ordinances of se¬
cession, and defiantly organized a g-overnment, with Jefferson
Davis as President.
That such humiliating concessions were as defenseless
then as they would be now, and as offensive to the civiliza¬
tion of the nineteenth century, will not be questioned.
The nation had not then learned that the strength of a
statesman lies in his fidelity to justice—not in his concessions
to injustice.
Our official records, for nearly half a century before the
Rebellion, presented one unbroken series of fruitless compro¬
mises with the slave barons, until in their pride and arro-
g-ance they believed themselves able to direct successfully any
revolution and ride with safety any storm.
At last we came to know that all our concessions were
regarded by them as irrevocable ; that nothing but new con¬
cessions would be accepted by them, and that they would
only consent to remain in the Union on the express condition
that we should bind ourselves for all time to record their pro-
slavery decrees in every department of the national and State
g-overnments.
The rebels witnessed our efforts at an adjustment with
shouts of derision and defiance, and said, "Now we have
the Yankees on a down grade, and on the run."
They learned afterwards to their sorrow that, however
true this might have been under the leadership of Buchanan,
it was no longer true under the leadership of Lincoln. Yet,
alas ! it is true, that immediately after the election of Mr.
Lincoln and before his inauguarion, many men who had
been active anti-slavery men quailed before the approaching
storm, which their own brave appeals for liberty had aided
in producing.
They comprehended what civil war, with all its attend-
— 701 —
ant horrors, meant to a civilized people, and shrank from its
terrible consequences, and as the acts of their representatives
proved, they were willing to do everything" in their power to
avoid it. These timid anti-slavery men were representatives
of the wealth, the manufacturing- industry, the commerce,
the peaceful farm-life of the North and West, and the best
civilization of the age. They were for peace ; they believed
in an appeal to the conscience and heart of the nation, at the
ballot-box, and in loyally submitting- to the verdict when
rendered. They never would have appealed from the ballot-
box to the cartridge-box. The great heart of the North was
still, and for a time held its breath, while re-echoing" with
hope the sentiment of their beloved Quaker Poet, when, just
before the Rebellion, he uttered this sublime prayer :
"Perish with him the thoug"ht,
That seeks, throug"h evil, good;
Long" live the generous purpose
Unstained by human blood."
While I did not adopt, without qualification, the mem¬
orable utterances of Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish leader,
when he declared "that no revolution was worth the shed¬
ding" of one drop of human blood," I everywhere proclaimed
"that in this country, so long1 as the press was free and
speech was free, and the ballot was free, no revolution was
worth the shedding" of one drop of human blood."
The speeches, appeals and acts of the leaders of the two
sections were entirely characteristic.
The Southern leaders, instead of quailing* before the
storm which their passionate appeals had raised, defiantly
mounted and rode the storm, fit types of the barbarism which
they championed.
When the North, with the loyal men of the border States,
fully comprehended the fact tjiat there could be no peace nor
Union unless the Rebellion was suppressed by force, and
slavery, which made the Rebellion possible, was abolished,
they buckled on their armor and went forth to conquer.
During" the first session of Congress, after Mr. Lincoln
— 702 —
became President, I introduced a bill for the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia. It contained but one
short section, and simply enacted "that slavery, or involun¬
tary servitude, should cease in the District of Columbia from
and after the passage of this act." I sent it to the Commit¬
tee on the District of Columbia, of which I was a member,
and Roscoe Conkling-, of New York, was chairman. When
the bill was read in the District Committee, it was by com¬
mon consent referred to me, as a sub-committee of one. The
excitement and indignation which that bill caused in the
District Committee, and the undisguised disgust entertained
for me personally by the pro-slavery members of the commit¬
tee, would be amusing now, but it was a matter of serious
moment then.
I felt certain that a majority of that committee did not
intend to let me report that bill or any other of like character
to the House for a vote. As soon as it was known that I had
the matter in charge, by direction of the District Committee
Mr. Chase sent for me, and discussed the proposition which
I had introduced, and suggested instead, a bill which should
compensate the "loyal slave owners" by paj'ing them a
" ransom," which should not exceed three hundred dollars a
head for each slave, and enforced his argument by adding
that Mr. Lincoln was seriously considering the practica¬
bility of compensating the border States if they would take
the initiative and emancipate their slaves, and he added, "I
want you to see the President, and if possible prepare a bill
which will command the necessary votes of both Houses of
Congress and the active support of the Administration."
I saw the President next day and went over the ground
with him, substantially as I had with Mr. Chase, and finally
agreed that I would ask for the appointment of a Senator on
the part of the Senate District Committee to unite with me
to frame a bill, which the Senate and House committees
would report favorably, and which should have the President's
approval, and the support of as«many of the Resresentatives
from the border States as we could induce to vote to "initiate
emancipation," as Mr. Lincoln expressed it.
Fortunately for the success of the compensation policy,
the Senate District Committee designated as that sub-com-
— 703—
mittee-man, Lot M. Morrell, of Maine, to confer with, me and
prepare such a bill as Mr. Lincoln and Chase had outlined.
After several meeting's a bill was finally agreed upon
which appropriated one million dollars to pay loyal owners
for their slaves at a price not to exceed $300 each.
This bill had the approval of Mr. Lincoln and Chase and
other anti-slavery leaders, before it was submitted to the
District Committees for their action and recommendation to
each House of Congress.
Personally, I did not agree with Mr. Lincoln in his
border State policy, but was unwilling- to set up my judg--
ment against his, especially when he was supported by such
men as Chase, Fessenden, Trumbull, and a larg-e majority of
Union men in both Houses of Congress. I therefore yielded
my private opinions on a matter of policy, for reasons which
I then gave and will presently quote, and because I was
determined that that Congress should not adjourn until
slavery had been abolished at the national capital.
I did not want to appropriate a million of dollars from
the national Treasury to pay the slave owners of the District
of Columbia for their slaves, because I was opposed to offi¬
cially recognizing property in man, and for the additional
reason that I was confident that before the close of the wai;
slavery would be abolished without compensation. And I
believed then, and believe now, that at least two-thirds of all
the so-called "loyal slave owners " in the District of Columbia
who applied for and accepted compensation for their slaves,
would at that time have welcomed Jefferson Davis and his
government in Washington with every demonstration of joy.
On the 12th of March, 1862, by direction of the Com¬
mittee for the District of Columbia, I reported the bill to the
House as it had been agreed upon by Mr. Morrell and my¬
self, with the approval of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Chase and
others.
On the 11th of April, 1862, the bill, as amended by the
Senate, passed the House by a vote of 92 for to 38 ag-ainst,
and at once received the signature of the President.
In the speech which I delivered that day I said: " I do
not believe that Congress has any more power to make a
slave than to make a king-," and added, "If then there is,
— 704 —
as I claim, no power in Congress to reduce any man or race
to slavery, it certainly will not be claimed that Congress has
power to legalize such regulations as exist to-day touching
persons held as slaves in this District by re-enacting-the slave
laws of Maryland, and thus do by indirection what no sane
man claims authority to do directly. . . . If I must tax the loyal
people of the nation a million of dollars before the slaves at
the national capital can be ransomed I will do it. I will
make a bridge of gold over which they may pass to freedom
-on the anniversary of the fall of Sumter, if it cannot be more
justly accomplished."
As the'nation had been guilty of riveting- the chains of
all the slaves in the District, and Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Chase,
and so large a majority of the friends of the Union desired
the passage of this act, believing- that it would aid them in
holding the border s^ave States, I yielded my own opinions,
and voted to pay the loyal owners of the District for their
slaves and thus aided Mr. Lincoln in initiating- emancipation
by compensation. But events were stronger than men or
measures, and this was the first and last of compensation.
On the 14th of December, 1863,1 introduced a proposition
to amend the Constitution, abolishing- slavery in all the
States and Territories of the nation, which, on my motion,
was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. In a speech
■during that session of Congress urging the submission of such
an amendment, I said: "I advocated from the first the
emancipation of all slaves, because I believed ideas more
formidable than armies, justice more powerful than prejudice,
and truth a weapon mightier than the sword."
The fall of Vicksburg- and the great victory of Gettys¬
burg had solidified the Union men North and South, and
assured them of ultimate success.
The crushing defeat of Hood at Nashville by Thomas,
the investment of Richmond by Grant, and Sherman's trium¬
phant march from the mountains to the sea, was an announce¬
ment to the world that all armed opposition to the govern¬
ment was approaching its end.
It now only remained, that the statesmen who had
provided for and organized our great armies should crown
their matchless victories with unfading glory, by engrafting
into our national Constitution a provision which should make
peace and union inseparable by removing" forever the cause of
the war, and making- slavery everywhere impossible beneath
the flag- of the republic.
On the 15th of June, 1864, the House voted on the pro¬
posed constitutional amendment, and it was defeated by a
vote of 94 for it and 64 ag-ainst it. I thereupon changed my
vote before the announcement was made, as I had the right
to do under the rules, and my vote was recorded with the
opposition in order that I mig-ht enter a motion for recon¬
sideration.
In the Globk, as the vote stands recorded, it is 93 for to
65 ag-ainst. This vote disappointed, but it did not discourag-e
me. Had every member been present and voted, it would
have required 122 votes to pass the amendment, whereas we
could muster but 94, or 28 less than required.
As I now look back, and review with calmer emotions
than I did then the great battle we were' fig-hting-, I compre¬
hend more fully the power of that simple and sublime faith
which inspired all the living- heroes in that historic hour.
In his "Twenty Years of Congress" Mr. Blaine has
given me credit, in full measure, for introducing-and pressing-
the first proposition made in the House of Representatives
for the abolition of slavery in the United States by an amend¬
ment of the national Constitution, and for effective parlia¬
mentary work in securing- its passag-e. Personally, I never
reg-arded the work which I then did as entitling-me to special
recognition. It was to me a duty, and because I so felt, I
have never publicly written or spoken about my connection
with it, and should not have done so before you to-night but
for the pressing- invitation of our President, who acts as if
he reg-arded it as part of his duty, while charged with the
care of this Society, to bring- every modest Ohio man to the
front.
There was at that time so many noble and unselfish men
in the House of Representatives entitled to recognition for
effective work in behalf of the Thirteenth Amendment, that
I have preferred not to sing-le out any one member as entitled
to more credit than another. I certainly did not expect any
45
— 706 —
such complimentary recognition as Mr. Blaine has so gener¬
ously given me.
Educated in the political school of Jefferson, I was abso¬
lutely amazed at the solid Democratic vote ag-ainst the amend¬
ment on the 15th of June. To me it looked as if the g-olden
hour had come, when the Democratic party could, without
apology, and without regret, emancipate itself from the fatal
dog-mas of Calhoun, and reaffirm the doctrines of Jefferson.
It had always seemed to me that the great men in the Demo¬
cratic party had shown a broader spirit in favor of human
liberty than their political opponents, and until the domina¬
tion of Mr. Calhoun and his States-rig-hts disciples, this was
undoubtedly true. On the death of General Harrison in
1841, and after John Tyler became the acting1 President, I
date the org-anized conspiracy of the slave barons, which
culminated in the Rebellion.
A man of singleness of purpose and disinterestedness,
possesses a wonderful power, which is soon recognized by his
associates in the Congress of the United States. The lead¬
ing- men in both Senate and House, and in nearly all the exec¬
utive departments, knew that my only ambition was to
accomplish the task with which (as Mr. Blaine expresses it)
I was " by common consent, specially charged." The only
reward I expected, and the only reward I ever had, or shall
ever have, is the satisfaction of knowing- that I did my whole
duty, nothing- more, nothing- less. I at once g-ave special
care to the study of the characters and antecedents of thirty-
six of the members who did not vote for the amendment on
the 15th of June, and made up my mind that if we could
force the issue of the Thirteenth Amendment into the pend¬
ing- presidential contest, and Mr. Lincoln should be elected
in November, that the requisite number of liberal Democrats
and border State Union men who had voted ag-ainst and
defeated the amendment in June mig-ht be prevailed upon to
vote with us after Mr. Lincoln had been re-elected on that
issue. In this faith, and with this hope, I at once beg-an a
s}-stematic study of the characters of the men whose co¬
operation and votes must be secured as a condition to success.
During this six months' experience I learned something-
of the tremendous power of the sing-le man when making*
— 707 —
earnest appeals to his colleagues. One source of ever present
embarrassment to me was the fact that I had but little expe¬
rience in legislation, and that nearly every one of my col¬
leagues to whom I was addressing- myself was my senior in
years. In this great work I had the earnest support of the
Administration, the great majority of the Republican party,
and many earnest men in public and private life.
On the 28th of June, 1864, Mr. Holman, of Indiana, rose
in the House, and said " that he desired to know whether
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ashley) who entered the mo¬
tion to reconsider the vote by which the House rejected the
bill proposing an amendment to the Constitution abolishing
slavery throughout all the States and Territories of the
United States, proposed to call that motion up during the
present session." In reply, I said that I did not propose to
call that motion up during the present session ; " but as the
record had been made up, we would go to the country on the
issue thus presented." And I added: "When the verdict of
the people shall have been rendered next November, I trust
this Congress will return determined to engraft that verdict
into the national Constitution." I thereupon gave notice
that I would call up the proposition at the earliest possible
moment after our meeting in December next (see Globe,
June 28th, 1864).
Immediately after giving this notice, I went to work to
secure its passage, and it may not be uninteresting if I out¬
line to you the way I conducted that campaign.
The question thus presented became one of the leading
issues of the presidential campaign of 1S64.
The Administration—the Republican party—and many
men who were not partisans, now gave the measure their
warm support.
Knowing that Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and
Frank P. Blair, of Missouri, would vote for the amendment
whenever their votes would secure its passag'e, I went to them
to learn who of the border-State members were men of broad
and liberal views, and strong and self-reliant enough to fol¬
low their convictions, even to political death, provided they
could know that their votes would pass the measure.
The following is the list of the names of the border-
— 708 —
State men, as made up within two weeks after the defeat of
the amendment, in June, 1864 : James S. Rollins, Henry S.
Blow, Benjamin F. Loan, ex-Gov. King-, S. H. Boyd, Frank
P. Blair and Joseph W. McClurg of Missouri ; Green Clay
Smith, George H. Yeaman, Brutus J. Clay and Lucius Ander¬
son of Kentucky; John A. J. Cresswell, Gov. Francis
Thomas, E. H. Webster and Henry Winter Davis of Mary¬
land ; Kellian V. Whaley, Jacob P. Blair and William G.
Brown of West Virginia, and N. B. Smithers of Delaware.
Of the 19 thus selected 13 voted for the amendment, and
marched to their political death.
After conferring- with Reuben E. Fenton and Aug-ustus
Frank of New York, I made up the following- list of liberal
Northern Democrats, whose votes I hoped to secure for the
amendment :
Moses F. Odell, Homer A. Nelson, John A. Griswold,
Anson Herrick, John B. Steele, Charles F. Winfield, William
Radford and John Ganson, of New York ; S. S. Cox, Warren
P. Noble, Wells A. Hutchins, John F. McKenney and Fran¬
cis C. LeBlond of Ohio ; Archibald McAllister and Alex. H.
Coffroth of Pennsylvania ; James E. English of Connecticut,
and Aug-ustus C. Baldwin of Michig-an.
Of the 17 Northern Democrats thus selected, .eleven
voted for the amendment, two were absent, and one who had
promised me to vote for it and prepared a speech in its favor,
finally voted against. Of the 36 members originall}* selected
as men naturally inclined to favor the amendment, and strong-
enough to meet and repel the fierce partisan attack which
were certain to be made upon them, 24 voted for it, two were
absent, and but ten voted against it.
Every honorable effort was made by the Administration
to secure the passage of this amendment.
At my request Tuesday, January 31, 1865, was the day
fixed for the vote to be taken on the amendment.
A faithful record of the final act of the 38th Congress
on this question will be found on pages 523 to 531 of the
Congressional, GivObe.
The Speaker stated the question, and announced "That
the gentleman from Ohio was entitled to the floor," which
— 709 —
under the rules gave me one hour in. which to close the
debate.
Never before, and certain I am that never again, will I
be seized with so strong" a desire to give utterance to the
thoughts and emotions which throbbed my heart and brain.
I knew that the hour was at hand when the world would
witness the complete triumph of a cause, which at the begin¬
ning" of my political life I had not hoped to live long* enough
to see, and that on that day, before our session closed, an act,
as just as it was merciful to oppressor and oppressed, was to
be enacted into law, and soon thereafter became a part of our
national Constitution forever.
The hour and the occasion was an immortal one in the
nation's history, and memorable to each actor who voted for
the amendment.
Kvery available foot of space, both in the galleries and
on the floor of the House, was crowded at an early hour, and
many hundreds could not get within hearing. Never before,
nor afterwards, did I see so brilliant and distinguished a
gathering in that hall, nor one where the feeling was more
intense. The Judges of the Supreme Court, the members of
the Cabinet, the Vice-President and Senators, most of the
foreign Ministers and all the distinguished visitors who
could secure seats, with their wives, daughters and friends,
were present to witness the sublimest event in our national
life.
You will readily understand that this was an occasion to
inspire any man of my temperament with a strong desire to
speak, and yet it was beyond question my duty to yield all
my time to gentlemen of the opposition, who had promised
to vote for the amendment, and desired to have recorded in
the official organ of the House the reasons for the vote which
they were about to give.
The first gentleman to whom I yielded was the Hon.
Archibald McAllister of Pennsylvania, an old-fashioned
Democrat of the Jackson school. He was not a speaker, and
the brief "statement," as he called it, which he sent to the
Clerk's desk to be read for him as he stood on the floor, with
every eye in that great hall fixed on his tall form, is so charac¬
teristic, and withal expresses so tersely the reasons which
-710-
impelled him and thousands of other loyal and conservative
men to demand the immediate abolition of slavery, that I
quote what he said entire.
I will read it to you, and repeat what he said, as nearly
as I can, with the same intonation of voice and manner as he
read it to me in my committee-room that morning-, a few
minutes before the House convened.
He said "That it was due to his constituents that they
should know why he changed his vote, and that he could not
make a speech, that he was so nervous that he dare not even
trust himself to read what he had written, and asked me if I
would yield him the floor long- enoug-h to allow him to send
to the Clerk's desk, and have read what he desired to say to
his constituents." I never was more anxious to yield the
floor to any man than I was to him, and answered, "Cer¬
tainly, I will be glad to yield you all the time you ask." He
then read me this short, and now historic speech, and I said
to him then, as I say to you now, that it was, under all the
circumstances, the best and most eloquent speech delivered
in the House of Representatives in favor of the Thirteenth
Amendment. This is the speech, and the way he read it to
me :
"When this subject was before this House on a former
occasion, I voted against the measure. I have been in favor
of exhausting- all means of conciliation to restore the Union
as our fathers made it. I am for the whole Uniqn and utterly
opposed to secession, or dissolution in any shape. The result
of all the peace missions, and especially that of Mr. Blair,
has satisfied me that nothing- short of the recognition of
their independence will satisfy the Southern Confederacy.
It must therefore be destroyed, and in voting- for the present
measure, I cast my vote against the corner-stone of the
Southern Confederacy, and declare eternal war against the
enemies of my country."
As soon as he had finished reading- it, I grasped his hand
with enthusiasm, and heartily congratulated him, and said,
" Mr. McAllister, that is a better and more telling" speech by
far than any which has been made for the amendment, and
I believe that it will be quoted hereafter more than any
speech made in Congress in its favor."
When the Clerk of the House finished reading- this brief
— 711 —
speech, of this plain, blunt man, it called forth general ap¬
plause on the floor and in the galleries, and when I after¬
wards read it to Mr. Lincoln, Chase and others, they were
then as pronounced in its endorsement as I am now.
To the end that there should be no pretext for "fili¬
bustering- " (as I knew the amendment might be defeated in
that way), I determined from the start to so conduct the
debate that every gentleman opposed to the amendment who
cared to be heard should have ample time and opportunity.
After the previous question had been seconded, and all
debate ordered closed, there could be but two roll-calls (if
there were no filibustering) before the final vote.
The first roll-call was on a motion made by the opposi¬
tion, to lay my motion to reconsider on the table. Such a
motion is generally regarded as a test vote.
Hundreds of tally sheets had been distributed on the
floor and in the galleries, many being in the hands of ladies.
Before the result of the first roll-call was announced, it was
known all over the House that the vote was two less than
the necessary two-thirds, and both Mr. Stevens of Penn¬
sylvania and Mr. Washburn of Illinois excitedly exclaimed:
"General, we are defeated." "No, gentlemen, we are not,"
was my prompt answer. The second vote was on my motion
to reconsider, which would bring the House, at the next roll-
call, to a direct vote on the passage of the amendment.
The excitement was now the most intense I ever wit¬
nessed; the oldest members, with the Speaker and the re¬
porters in the galleries, believed that we were defeated.
When the result of the second vote was announced, we
lacked one vote of two-thirds, whereupon many threw down
their tally sheets and admitted defeat. I now arose and
stood, while the roll was being called on the final vote and
said to those around me, that we would have not less than
four (4), and I believed seven (7) majority over the necessary
two-thirds.
As the roll was completed, the Speaker directed that his
name be called as a member of the House, and when he voted
he announced to an astonished assemblage, "that the yeas
were 119, and the nays 56, and that the bill had received the
two-thirds majority required by the Constitution." It was a
moment or two before the House or the galleries recovered
from their surprise and recognized the fact that we had
triumphed. "When they did, a shout went up from the floor
and galleries, and the vast audience rose to their feet, many
members jumping- on their desks, with shouts and waving- of
hats and handkerchiefs, and g-ave vent to their feelings by
every demonstration of joy. It was a scene such as I had
never before witnessed, and can never be witnessed again.
Mr. Ingersoll, of Illinois, said: "Mr. Speaker, in honor
of this sublime and immortal event, I move that this House
do now adjourn," which motion was carried.
When this vote was taken, the House had but 183 mem¬
bers, 94 of whom were Republicans, 64 Democrats, and 25
border-State Union men.
If the vote is analyzed, it will be seen that of the 119
votes recorded for the amendment 13 were by men from the
border States, and eleven (11) were by Democrats from the
free States. If but 3 out of the 24, who voted with us, had
voted against the amendment, it would have failed. If but
four (4) of the eight members who were absent had appeared
and voted against it, it would have been lost. Had all the
Northern Democrats who supported the amendment voted
against, it would have been defeated by 26 votes. Had all
the border-State men who voted for it voted against, it
would have failed by 32 votes.
If the border-State men and Northern Democrats who
voted for the amendment had voted against, it would have
failed by 65 votes.
Mr. Lincoln was especially delighted at the vote which
the amendment received from the border slave States, and
frequently congratulated me on that result.
Bancroft, the historian, has drawn with a graphic pen
the characters of many of the able and illustrious men of the
Revolution which achieved our independence. In writing of
George Mason, of Virginia, he said: "His sincerity made
him wise and bold, modest and unchanging, with a scorn for
anything mean and cowardly, as illustrated in his unselfish
attachment to human freedom." And these identical quali¬
ties of head and heart were pre-eminently conspicuous in all
Members of the Senate and House of Representatives
who voted for the Thirteenth Amendment.
— 713 —
the border statesmen who voted for the Thirteenth Amend¬
ment.
It would be difficult in any ag-e or country to find grand¬
er or more unselfish and patriotic men than Henry Winter
Davis and Governor Francis Thomas of Maryland, or James
S. Rollins, Frank P. Blair and Governor King- of Missouri, or
Georg'e H. Yeaman of Kentucky, or N. P. Smithers of Dela¬
ware, and not less worthy of mention for their unchanging*
fidelity to principle are all the Northern Democrats who voted
for the amendment, prominent among- whom I may name
Governor English, of Connecticut ; Judg^e Homer A. Nelson
and Moses S. Odell, of New York ; Archibald McAllister, of
Pennsylvania ; Wells A. Hutchins, of Ohio, and A. C. Bald¬
win, of Michig-an.
Of the twenty-four border-State and Northern men who
made up this majority which enabled us to win this victory,
all had defied their party discipline, and had deliberately and
with unfaltering- faith marched to their political death.
These are the men whom our future historians will lionor>
and to whom this nation owes a debt of eternal gratitude.
But seven of this twenty-four are now living-, the others
have gone to
"Join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead, who live ag-ain
In minds made better by their presence ; live
In pulses stirred to g-enerosity,
In deeds of daring- rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self."
ADDRESS
OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY,
At Memorial Hall, Toledo, Ohio, June 2, 1890.
reminiscences op the great rebellion—calhoun, seward
and lincoln.
Memorial Hall, Toledo, O., June 2,1890.
General James M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio.
Dear Sir: The undersigned, on behalf of the Toledo
Branch Society of the Army of the Potomac and the Veteran
Association of Battery H, 1st O. V., Light Artillery, do
hereby most heartily thank you for your able, instructive and
eloquent address this evening delivered at Memorial Hall,
and earnestly solicit a copy of the same, with your consent
that it be published in the public journals and in such more
permanent and enduring form as may be deemed best.
Hoping for and awaiting your favorable reply, we are
Your obedient servants,
J. C. Lee, L. F. Lyttle,
Chas. M. Montgomery, N. Houghton,
D. P. Chamberlin,
For the Toledo Branch Society of the Army of the Potomac.
Wm. Corlett, J. L. Pray,
Wm. E. Parmelee, John H. Merrell,
W. g. Pierce,
For the Veteran Association of Battery H, 1st O. V. Light
Artillery
(714)
— 715 —
Toledo, Ohio, June 3, 1890. .
Gentlemen: It gives me pleasure to comply with, the
wishes of the societies which you represent.
Herewith please find copy of my address as requested.
It is proper to state that the major portion of the address,
touching- the relation of Calhoun, Seward, and Lincoln to the
War of the Rebellion, was put in type and the historic quota¬
tions verified before its delivery.
The extemporary part of the address was so faithfully
reported that but few corrections, as you see, were required.
Truly yours,
J. M. Ashley.
To General John C. Lee,
William Corlett and others,
Committee.
Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen : I need
not tell you how welcome your cordial greeting is to me to¬
night. You can all see that. In again meeting so many of
my old friends face to face, I remember with pride the greet¬
ings which I have received on like occasions, when making-
public addresses here at home. And as I stand here and
recognition follows recognition, my pulse beats are quicker,
and I am glad that I accepted the invitation of }rour com¬
mittee. At first I felt that I could not take the time, and I
certainly should not have done so but for the worthy object
which your committee represented to me you had in hand.
The surroundings in this hall; the beautiful display of flags
—with the quartet singing, and the thoughts and emotions
of the hour, stir my heart to its very depths, and carries me
back to the historic scenes and heroic acts of 1861, and I
feel that I am again but thirty-six years old. In my mind's
eye there is-now passing before me panorama after panorama,
the like of which the world had never seen, and of which
many before me formed a part. And though more than a
quarter of a century has elapsed, I can see to-night, as I
then saw, the advancing, resistless power, which glowed in
— 716 —
face and eye and step, as the volunteer soldiers of tlie repub¬
lic, in the faith and hope and strength of youth, marched
forth to victory or death.
Four years later, I saw, as I now see, passing in review be¬
fore the acting- President, his Cabinet and Generals, at the
national capital, the survivors of that invincible army, with
war-worn faces and torn and tattered banners, returning
victorious to their homes amid the acclamations of a grate¬
ful people, and as long as I live (and listen as now) I shall
hear the measured and triumphal tread of their immortal
feet. [Applause.]
But I fear to trust myself as of old, on an occasion like
this ; and I have put in cold type what I propose to say to you
to-night, except such anecdotes as I may interject.
Mr. President: The annals are yet largely unwritten of
the men who, prior to and during the War of the Rebellion,
molded and directed public opinion ; raised, organized and
equipped armies for the defense of the nation's life and led
them to victory. But the facts will soon be eagerly gleaned
from the records of the past, and woven into some of the
most thrilling and instructive chapters of our national
history.
So also must the unwritten history of the master con¬
spirators in the slaveholders' rebellion be compiled and writ¬
ten by impartial and conscientious historians who " shall a
round, unvarnished tale deliver, nor set down aught in
malice."
As one of the actors in the national Congress, from the
beginning to the end of that unprovoked rebellion, it is to¬
night my duty, in addressing }tou, to speak dispassionately
of men and facts from my personal recollection, refreshed by
such official and other authenticated records as I can com¬
mand.
Within the limits of such an address, I can only present
to you in brief such facts as are within my memory, or can
be verified from accepted sources, touching the opinions and
movements of public men, parties and churches, which paved
the way for and made possible the rebellion of 1861.
Had not mjr library, which I had for many years been
collecting, with all my private and political papers (includ-
ing many letters both from leading" abolitionists ana seces¬
sionists) been destroyed by fire in 1871, I should have given
you some original reading- to-night.
Beginning- active systematic work as an abolitionist when
but eighteen, I spared neither time nor labor to learn and
thoroug-hly understand the position and tendency of every
public man of note or prominence in the South, and also the
exact status of as many of the men of intellect in that sec¬
tion who were not in public life, as could be induced to an¬
swer my letters, especially clergyman.
Like most boys, I was a worshiper of great men, partic¬
ularly military men ; and before I was fifteen I made a pil¬
grimage to the " Hermitag-e" to see the idol of my heart,
General Jackson.
Before that, I had seen at Fleming- Spring-s (a fashion¬
able Kentucky resort in those days), Colonel Richard M.
Johnson, Vice President; General Leslie Coombs, Henry Clay,
Cassius M. Clay and Mr. Corwin of Ohio ; all of whom I
then regarded as among the greatest men in the world.
In February, 1841, I went to Washington to witness the
inauguration of General Harrison on the 4th of March, and
especially to see Mount Vernon and the tomb of Washington.
When I visited the gallery of the House of Representatives,
the first man I asked to have pointed out to me was ex-Presi¬
dent John Quincy Adams, " the old man eloquent," as he was
called. I then looked upon Mr. Adams as one of the most
extraordinary men in this country, and especially admired the
way in which he handled the " slave barons."
The fact that he was the only ex-President who had ever
served as a member of Congress added to my esteem for his
character, and this admiration remains as strong and fresh
to-day as it was then.
You will all remember that he was stricken down in the
House, and fell with his face to the foe, fighting the slave
conspirators, when he was over eighty j^ears old.
While in Washington, and before the inauguration of
General Harrison, Colonel Johnson, the outgoing Vice-Presi¬
dent (who was a friend of my father), introduced me to Pres¬
ident Van Buren at the White House. I then regarded my
presentation to Mr. Van Buren as the most important event
- 718 —
of my life. I was also delighted to be introduced to John M.
Botts and Henry A. Wise, leading- Virginia Whigs, and to
R. M. T. Hunter, a leading Democrat, each of whom were
members of the House, and were regarded by their friends at
that time as remarkable men.
Four years later I attended the Democratic National
Convention at Baltimore in May, 184A (although not a voter),
and through the friendship of ex-Vice-President Johnson had
a seat on the floor of the convention with the Kentucky dele¬
gation ; I then favored the nomination of Van Buren and
Johnson, the anti-Calhoun ticket, which had been defeated in
1840.
Before the Baltimore convention assembled, I visited
Washington, to study the situation. (Imagine a boy of
twenty studying the situation.) Mr. George M. Bibb, of
Kentuck}^, at that time Secretary of the Treasur}^ introduced
me to President John Tyler, who was openly a candidate for
the Democratic nomination at Baltimore.
Mr. Bibb also introduced me to the great nullifier, John
C. Calhoun, then Mr. Tyler's Secretary of State.
After the convention at Baltimore had nominated James
K. Polk of Tennessee for President, and George M. Dallas of
Penns}*lvania for Vice-President, I returned to Washington,
and while there called on Mr. Calhoun twice to look at and
study the man. Personally Mr. Calhoun was to me the most
pleasing man I have ever met, and the memory of my inter¬
views, and the letters which I afterwards received from him,
will always be a source of pleasure. I was an ardent ad¬
mirer of General Jackson, and knew that the old General
hated the great nullifier, and had expressed a wish to hang
him ; but notwithstanding this fact, each time I talked with
Mr. Calhoun he charmed me by the frankness and freedom
of his manner, and the dignity and courtesy of his bearing.
If I could have accepted his pro-slavery and his States'-
rights opinions, I should certainly at that time have followed
his leadership as enthusiastically as thousands of young
Southern men of that day followed him faithfully, and ad¬
hered to his political heresies and fatal dogmas until death,
or the defeat of the Rebellion, buried them in a common
grave forever. I afterwards came to know that Mr. Calhoun
— 719 —
had been the master conspirator in defeating- the nomination
of Mr. Van Buren at Baltimore, and that, as Secretary ol
State, he officially committed the President-elect (James K.
Polk), one day before his inauguration, to the unjust and in¬
defensible war with Mexico.
I state these facts about myself that you may know how,
through correspondence and personal acquaintance, I was
enabled in 1861 to clearly comprehend the power and purpose
of the conspirators, and the dang-er which menaced the
Nation's life.
For thirty years or more prior to the Rebellion, the slave
conspirators worked like 4' sappers and miners" in their
preparation for it. They were tireless, cunning- and un¬
scrupulous in all they proposed or did. If I should now un¬
dertake to present in their historic order but one in ten of
their so-called " peace and compromise propositions," it
would require all the time which I propose to g-ive to my ad¬
dress.
One of their earliest, boldest and most objectionable acts
was to deny the right of any citizen to 44 petition Cong-ress
on the subject of slavery." The presentation of such pe¬
titions by John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Mr. Gid-
dings of Ohio and Mr. Slade of Vermont was the pretext for
a majority of the " slave barons" in the House to threaten
to withdraw unless the North "accepted in g-ood faith as a
peace offering- and compromise" the adoption of a " gag-
rule" which they at once formulated, and, with the aid of
Northern allies, they had adopted.
From the hour of the adoption of the " g-ag-rule" until
the War of the Rebellion, the "slave-barons" were practi¬
cally the nation's political masters.
On the 24th of November, 1832, Calhoun and his co-con¬
spirators in South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession,
using- the tariff as a pretext, and then and there an organ¬
ized scheme of a slave empire took form and shape. General
Jackson's proclamation against nullification, and his message
to Congress, were patriotic and able State papers. The his¬
tory of that formidable conspiracy ought to be impressed on
every child of the republic, to the end that General Jackson's
noble and manly bearing- might the better be contrasted with
— 720 —
President Buchanan's weak and humiliating- surrender to the
demands made by the rebel conspirators of 1860 and 1861.
In 1836 Calhoun inaugurated the Texas annexation
scheme, and attempted to force it into the presidential elec¬
tion of that year.
In his "Thirty Years' View," Senator Benton,* when
speaking1 of this Texas annexation plot, declared that "the
Calhoun conspirators had organized and revived the nullifica¬
tion and disunion plot of 1832, and revived it under circum¬
stances more dangerous than ever, since coupled with a pop¬
ular question which gave the plotters the honest sympathies
of the patriotic millions."
"I have often," he added, "intimated it before, but now
proclaim it. Disunion is at the bottom of this long concealed
Texas machination. Intrigue and speculation co-operate,
and I denounce it to the American people."
"Under the pretext of getting- Texas into the Union,
the scheme is to get the South out of it. A separate con¬
federacy, stretching- from the Atlantic to the Californias, is
the cherished vision of disappointed ambition [pointing to
Calhoun], and for this consummation every circumstance has
been carefully and artfully contrived." •
This speech by Senator Benton was made before our
unjust war with Mexico, and of course before the acquisition
of California and Mexican territory, or the completion of the
Texas annexation plot, and shows how clearly the great
Senator understood the conspirators.
In that same speech he declares " that he intends to save
himself for the day when the battle for the disunion of these
States is to be fought; not in words, but with iron, and for
the hearts of traitors, who will appear in arms against their
country."
These were prophetic words of warning, uttered by one
of our greatest Senators ; but they were unheeded.
Mr. John Tyler, who had been elected Vice-President as
a Whig with General Harrison in 1840, became the acting
President on the death of the President in 1841, one month
after his inauguration.
* See Senaton Benton's speeches in the United States Senate prior to the Mexican
War.
— 721 —
At first secretly, and then openl}*, Tyler abandoned the
Whig1 party which elected him, and identified himself with
the Calhoun nullification wing" of the Democratic party.
As Benton, in his " Thirty Years' View" states it: "The
Texas annexation scheme now became an intrigue on the part
of some for the Presidency, and a plot to dissolve the Union
on the part of others, and a Texas scrip and land speculation
scheme with many," and he openly denounced it.*
Prior to making- an official move for the consummation of
the Texas annexation plot, it became necessary to get Mr.
Webster, who was Secretary of State, out of Tyler's Cabinet,
and the conspirators were equal to the task. Mr. Webster
was without much trouble bowed out of the Cabinet, and
Mr. L<egare of South Carolina selected for his place.
In a short time Mr. Leg-are died and Mr. Upshur of Vir¬
ginia, an ardent disciple of Calhoun, and a personal friend,
was made Mr. Legar-e's successor as Secretary of State.
Within a few months Mr. Upshur was killed by the ex¬
plosion of a big gun on board the Princeton, and Mr.
Calhoun was made his successor. The Texas annexation and
secession plot now took form and shape under the direction
of the original conspirator.
One of the earliest and most extraordinary official acts of
Mr. Calhoun, after assuming the office of Secretary of State,
was to write and publish the first and most elaborate official
State paper ever issued by this Government in favor of the
maintenance and propagation of slavery. Mr. Benton says
"that Mr. Calhoun did not permit this document to be pub¬
lished until all hope for the success of his intrigue for the
Democratic nomination at Baltimore in 1844 had been aban¬
doned and a conspiracy to form a separate republic consisting
of Texas and some Southern States had become the object"
of Calhoun and -his followers, f
In a short time after the defeat of Mr. Van Buren for
renomination at Baltimore in 1844 by the selection of Polk, a
mass convention was held in South Carolina, at which reso¬
lutions were adopted "in favor of a convention of all the
*See Benton's Thirty Years' View, Vol. II., chapter on Texas Annexation.
tSee Benton's " Thirty Years' View."
46
— 722 —
slaveholding- States, to demand the prompt annexation of
Texas, with or without war," and if refused by the
North, on such terms as the Calhoun conspirators dictated,
11 the Southern States should proceed peacefully and calm¬
ly to dissolve the Union and annex Texas to the Southern
Confederacy."
Conventions of a like character were also held in a num¬
ber of Southern States immediately after the South Carolina
manifesto was issued, at which Southern conventions, reso¬
lutions such as I have just quoted were enthusiastically
adopted.
Two days before the inauguration of Polk, the Texas
annexation plot, with its scrip and land-jobbing' scheme,
was practically consummated by Mr. Calhoun, as Secretary
of State, and the unjust war with Mexico followed as the
conspirators intended.
President Polk could have defeated the Calhoun-Texas
annexation programme had he been a man of ability and
honestly ag-ainst the plot. But, as he was a weak and vain
man, the conspirators easily captured him, and the war,
boldly inaugurated for slave conquest and domination, ended
in the acquisition of California and one-third of Mexico.
When Mexico, a sister republic, lay prostrate, weak and
bleeding- at the feet of the United States, and her officials
were forced to execute an unjust treaty, relinquishing all
claim to any part of Texas, and also cede to us California
and what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Nevada,
and all the territory north of the southern boundary as now
designated on our maps, except the Gadsden purchase (about
one-third of her entire territorial area), her Peace Commis¬
sioner soug"ht to have a clause inserted in the treaty which
should provide " that the United States should engage
not to permit the establishment of slavery in any
part of the territory thus ceded."
In a communication of September 4, 1847, from Mr. Trist,
our Minister to Mexico, to Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State,
he writes that the Mexican Commissioner said to him : " If it
were proposed to the people of the United States to part with
a portion of their territory in order that the Inquisition
should be established there, it would excite no stronger feel-
ing of abhorrence than those awakened in Mexico by the
prospect of the introduction of human slavery in any terri¬
tory parted with by her."*
Mr. Trist, when communicating the above proposition to
this Government in his letter to Mr. Buchanan, said that he
answered the Mexican Commissioner as follows :
" The bare mention of such a treaty is impossible. No
American President would dark present such a treaty to the
Senate. I assured him that if it were in their power to offer
me the whole territory described in our project, increased
ten-fold in value and in addition covered a foot
thick with pure gold, on the single condition that
slavery should be excluded therefrom, I could not
entertain the offer for a moment, nor even think of
communicating it to washington."
Now, gentlemen, you see the kind of men we had to fight.
The historian will find no difficulty in determining why
the slave barons confided so implicitly in Mr. Buchanan
when President. His conduct while Senator and Secretary
of State, and Minister to Great Britain was a guarantee of
his subservient co-operation.
As I now look back upon that cold-blooded crime, and
see a small, weak, struggling sister republic, not claiming
to rank with us in wealth, culture or civilization, crushed
beneath the iron heel of power, without the shadow of a pre¬
text—not only without a pretext, but in the face of an official
falsehood, pleading that the territory and people which she
is forced to cede to us shall not be cursed with human slavery,
I feel the blush of shame tingle my cheek.
You all know how the slave conspirators treated this
manly and pathetic appeal of the Mexican Commissioner.
And what must the honest American historian say of this ap¬
palling and indescribable crime ?
The annexation of Texas was now an accomplished fact;
the ten millions or more of worthless " Texas scrip" (as it was
called) then afloat, most of which was in the hands of the
conspirators, now became valuable, and the land "certifi¬
cates" at once commanded a ready market. The slave barons
thus triumphed politically and financially at the expense of
* Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power.
— 724 —
more than two hundred millions (the cost of the war) from
the public Treasury, the loss of over twenty thousand lives
of American soldiers, and the sacrifice of our national honor.
The discussion which followed the proposition to pro¬
hibit slavery by law in all the territory acquired from Mexi¬
co, again shook the nation politically from centre to circum¬
ference, during- which Mr. Calhoun, for the first time in our
history, in an elaborate speech, "denied that Congress
had the power under the constitution to prohibit
slavery in the territories op the united states ac¬
quired by the common blood and treasure oe the na¬
tion." You will note that Mr. Calhoun now denies, for the
first time, a power which had been exercised under Jefferson
and all the earlier Presidents without question down to that
day.
Again the slave barons threatened to dissolve the Union,
unless their imperious demands were complied with, and, as
a result, a series of so-called compromise measures were
patched up, by which California was admitted as a free
State, the Territories left open to slavery south of 36 deg.
30 min., and a new and more exacting fugitive-slave law was
passed, than which there never was, in the history of any
civilized people, a more infamous enactment.
In 1846, the Supreme Court, which had been deliberately
packed by the slave barons, decided, in the Van Zandt case,
that the Constitution and laws of the United States recog¬
nized property in man, and the United States Marshal for the
District of Columbia soon after advertised two colored women
for sale, and after selling them at public auction deposited
the money in the Treasury of the United States at Washing¬
ton.* The Dred Scott decision soon followed, and the repub¬
lic of Washington and Jefferson was thus practically trans¬
formed into a slave despotism.
In the Presidential election of 1852 both the Whig and
Democratic parties resolved, in their platforms, to abide by,
and maintain in perpetuity, the compromise measures of 1850,
including the fugitive-slave law ; and pledged themselves to
-Wilson's Rise and Pall of tlie Slave Power
— 725 —
discountenance all discussion of the slavery question in Con¬
gress or out of it.
Many well-meaning- but weak men in the North imagined
that this was to be the last and final demand of the slave
barons. They were doomed to disappointment.
In 1854 a new crisis was precipitated upon a long-suffer¬
ing and confiding country. It will be observed that whenever
a " crisis" was needed, the conspirators always had one ready
at hand.
The slave barons now demanded as a condition of re¬
maining in the Union, that the "Missouri Compromise"
should be repealed, to the end that they could take their
slaves into Kansas, and thus make a slave State out of a
Territory which by their own votes had been dedicated to
freedom, as a compromise to get Missouri into the Union as
a slave State.
To this insulting demand a majority of the old Whig
party in the North, and many members of the Democratic
party, entered strong and vigorous protests.
During this disgraceful controversy nearly all the Whig
members of Congress, both Senators and Representatives
from the slave States, held a secret caucus in Washing¬
ton without conferring with, or notifying, their Northern
political associates, at which secret caucus a majority of the
Southern Whigs attending it decided to support the repeal of
the Missouri compromise, as proposed by Douglas.
This caucus, and the secret action of the Southern
Whigs, terminated the very existence of the old Whig party.
All will remember that Mr. Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska bill
became law, and that the Republican party was then born.
As a people we had now reached a point in our moral descent
and political abasement from which nothing but a baptism
of fire and blood could have redeemed and held us together
as a free people, and saved us from the decay and death that
had been the fate of all the slaveholding empires of the
world.
The "slave barons" were everywhere rampant and de¬
fiant, the National Government subservient and obedient,
and the Southern churches either silent, apologetic or open
defenders.
— 726 —
I have thus traced the steps by which, in the land of
Washington and Jefferson, the government which they es¬
tablished became a despotism completely dominated in all its
parts by an imperious, slaveholding oligarch}^.
As a historical fact, we find that our democratic repub¬
lic had been completely transformed, except in name, and
was then being- administered in the interest of an insolent
and unscrupulous privileged class.
The national Constitution, which prohibited the importa¬
tion of slaves after the year 1808, and the laws and treaties of
the United States which made the slave trade on the high
seas "piracy," were trampled in scorn under their feet.
While the slave conspirators in political life were mold¬
ing and directing parties, and through them administering
the National Government, and on their own motion making
war and conquering new territory for slavery, at the expense
of the blood and treasure of the nation, the slave barons were
co-operating commercially, by defiantly and actively engaging
in the African slave trade, which was by law and treaties
with all civilized nations declared piracy, and the result on
conviction, death. In the year 1858, the year in which I
was first elected to Congress from this district, the flag of
the United States actually covered more pirate ships engaged
in the African slave trade than the flags of all the other civil¬
ized nations of the world combined. DeBow's Southern
Review states in 1857 "that forty slavers were annually
fitted out in the ports of New York and the East, and that
the traffic yielded their owners an annual net profit of seven¬
teen million dollars."
In November, 1853, the Southern Standard said : "We
can not onl}r preserve domestic servitude, but can defy the
power of the world. With firmness and judgment we can
open up the African slave immigration again, and people
this noble region of the tropics.'
The New York Evening Post published a list of names
of 85 vessels, fitted out in the port of New York between the
1st of February, 1859, and the 15th of July, 1860, for the
African slave trade.
The New York 1/eader, at that time a Tammany
paper, asserted " that on an average two vessels each week
— 727 —
cleared out of our harbor bound for Africa and a huaan
cargo."
The New York World declared that "from thirty to
sixty thousand slaves a year, under the American flag-, are
taken from Africa, by vessels, sailing- from the single port
of New York."
I remember when a yacht called the Wanderer ran
into a harbor near Brunswick, Georgia, in broad daylight, in
December, 1858, and landed a human cargo of some three
hundred or more slaves direct from Africa. This fact was
duly chronicled at the time by the Southern newspapers, and
some of the blacks were dressed up in flaming toggery, and
driven in carriages through the public streets, as a menace
and defiance to the National Government.
If the " slave barons" could have held possession of, and
administered the National Government for another four years,
as they had for the ten preceding years, there is no question
but that a majority of the Southern States would have passed
laws authorizing incorporated companies, and individual citi¬
zens of their respective States, to import direct from Africa,
China, or elsewhere, such persons as might be apprenticed
to said corporations or citizens, for a term of service not to
exceed twenty-one years. That such a scheme was dis¬
cussed in 1857 and 1858 I know, and that it had the approval
of many slave barons and many more who hoped to become
"slave barons," if such laws should be enacted by their States,
I also know. Of course it was not intended nor expected that
one in a thousand of such apprentices would live long enough
(even if they lived fifty years) to see the end of their serv¬
itude.
The statutes of nearly all the Southern States provided
for the arrest and sale into perpetual slavery of free negroes
for petty offenses, which oftener than otherwise were not
offenses in fact, under which laws, the kidnapping and sale of
free men, from the Northern as well as the Southern States,
were encouraged and protected.
And the Southern law reports and advertisements of run¬
away slaves furnish ample testimony that "slavery wasn't
of nary color," as Hosea Bigelow put it.
I have seen a number of persons, held as slaves, who
— 728 —
were beyond all question pure white, without a drop of Afri¬
can or mixed blood in their veins, and have seen hundreds,
such as"the newspapers describe as "runaways," and "so
white, that they would readily pass for white persons."
Slaves of this description were often the children of the slave-
master.
I knew many Southern men, and served with some of
them in Congress, who openly proclaimed that " the natural
and normal condition of capital and labor was that in which
capital owned the labor as slaves."
In 1858 and 1859 the domination in the National Govern¬
ment of the slave barons and kidnappers at home and of the
African slave pirates on the high seas was complete.
On every ocean our flag1 practically g*ave the slave pirates
immunity from search or seizure. At home, no one of the
thousands who were notoriously engag-ed in this infernal
traffic had ever been convicted, while hundreds of well-known
Christian citizens, both men and women, who had obeyed
the Divine command to give a cup of cold water or crust of
bread to an escaped bondman, fleeing- to Canada, were ar¬
rested, convicted and punished by long-, cruel and unjust im¬
prisonment.
It is conceded that not less than half a million slaves
were imported direct from Africa and sold in this country af¬
ter the slave trade had been declared " piracy" by law, and
by treaty with all civilized nations, and yet but one slave
pirate was ever convicted and hang-ed in the United States.
His name was Captain Nathaniel Gordon, and he was ex¬
ecuted in New York City, February 28, 1862.
I declined to sign a petition for his pardon, and told Mr.
Lincoln it was about time somebody was hung- for slave piracy.
the defeat of douglas.
The deliberate and successfully-executed plot of the con¬
spirators to defeat Mr. Douglas for President in 1860 gave
ample proof of their consolidated power and indicated unmis¬
takably their ultimate purpose. Their last and crowning
political move was the one, in which they had convened in
"Washington, what they called a "Peace Congress."
— 729 —
"When I tell you that ex-President John Tyler, the mere
creature of the Texas annexation conspirators of 1845, was
selected for its President, you can without much effort get at
the intellectual and political status of nine out of ten of the
men, who fussed and fumed and amazed the country by the
stupidity and folly of their so-called "peace propositions."
When the future historian comes to summarize the facts
of which I have spoken, he will write: "Politically, from
1843 to 1861, this was the rottenest so-called civilized govern¬
ment on earth ; morally it was a lazar-house full of dead
men's bones ; financially it was bankrupt, and the conspira¬
tors for its overthrow, through the Secretary of the Treasury,
were borrowing money at 12 per cent." And he will add, to
the glory of our volunteer army, of which you formed a part,
that "the madness of secession and the baseness of slave
baron conspiracies at home, and slave piracy under our flag
on the high seas, was then stamped out, and made impossible
forever."
In the midst of this moral and political abasement and
national degradation of which I have spoken, Abraham Lin¬
coln was called by his countrymen to the office of President.
Congress convened in extra session on his proclamation.
All the laws necessary for the organization of an army were
enacted. Full power was given him in his discretion to or¬
der and direct the army ; and for four }~ears, which I need not
undertake to summarize to-night, he so administered the
government as at every step to command the profound admi¬
ration not only of the great men of this country, but of the
great men of the world.
I did not want Mr. Lincoln to invite either Mr. Seward
or Mr. Chase to seats in his Cabinet. I was anxious to have
them both in the Senate, as I looked on them as great Sena¬
tors. And then, I did not feel certain that Mr. Chase (who
up to that time had given no evidence of financial ability)
would make a successful Secretary of the Treasury ; while as
a Senator I was certain he would stand with the foremost, as
he had done, during his first term in that body. The legisla¬
ture of Ohio had just elected him for six years, and in view
of the approaching storm, I felt confident he would make no
personal or party mistake in the Senate, while he might fail
— 730 —
as Secretary of the Treasury. It was generally rumored,
early in January, that Mr. Seward was to be Secretary of
State, and when I met Mr. Lincoln soon after he reached
Washington, and this announcement was confirmed by him,
I simply said : " Mr. President, I cannot tell you how much
I regret it." He expressed some surprise, and wanted to
know my objections. I answered that it was too late now to
talk about it, but that my objections were the same as those
I had against Mr. Seward's nomination at Chicago, and
that the unsatisfactory speech which he had just made in the
Senate, was an additional objection.
I suggested but one name for his Cabinet, and that was
Edwin M. Stanton, of Ohio, for Secretary of "War (then a
member of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet). I had known Mr.
Stanton quite intimately from my boyhood, and recognized
his great ability and tireless energy. In addition to this, I
had repeatedly called at Mr. Stanton's house to confer with
him after he became a member of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet,
and found him to be heart and soul against the conspirators;
that he fully understood their movements, and was ready and
anxious to defeat their plots.
One night after a protracted interview he walked to the
door with me, and as he bade me good-night, grasped my
hand and said : "Stand firm ; you men have committed no
blunder jTet." When I repeated these words to Mr. Lin¬
coln, and related in substance other interviews of a like
character, and told him something of Mr. Stanton's early life
in Ohio, I saw that I had made an impression on Mr. Lincoln
quite favorable to him.
But when the Cabinet was announced, I was about as
disappointed as any man in Washington, because there was
but one man in it for whom I would have voted, as a first
choice, and for him only because he was from a border slave
State, and that man was Mr. Bates of Missouri, for Attorney
General.
Of course I was delighted when later on, Mr. Lincoln
made Mr. Stanton Secretary of War.
All the objections I then had to Mr. Seward, as Secretary
of State, and many more, soon became patent to the ordinary
observer.
— 731 —
I had never regarded Mr. Seward as a practical man, nor
a safe party leader, except for a party in the minority. His
speech of January 12, 1861, in the Senate, after it was known
he had be,en selected by Mr. Lincoln for Secretary of State,
and his official blunders after he became Secretary, tell the
story of his utter inability to safely and successfully lead a
great party, charged with the administration of a government
such as ours, during the dark days from 1861 to 1865.
He who now reads that speech of Mr. Seward, in the
light of history, will fully comprehend that his leadership
was like the blind leading the blind.
That speech was prepared by Mr. Seward with more
than his usual care, as it should have been, before its delivery
in the Senate by the man soon to become Prime Minister.
After it had been written and put in type, it was reviewed
and recast, and conned over and over again, not only by Mr.
Seward, but by more than one friend of ability and position,
and every word or line that made it mean anything defi¬
nite was stricken out, and every word or suggestion was de¬
liberately added, that could possibly make it more foggy or
nebulous.
The day of its delivery in the Senate was a solemn and
memorable one, not only in Washington, but throughout the
country. The great heart of the nation was still and heavy
with apprehension. Every loyal citizen expected and longed
to have pointed out to him the way to preserve the national
unity and national life without dishonor. " Never in our his¬
tory has there been such an occasion for a statesman, and
never before was there such a failure.
Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, then an old man (and by
far the ablest man with whom I served in Congress), walked
over with me from the House to the Senate Chamber. We
both had seats in the aisle, a little in front of Mr. Seward's
desk, and could hear him distinctly. I need not say that we
listened, as did every one in that vast audience and in the
entire nation, for one word or thought that would stir our
hearts or give us hope. But no such word or suggestion
came m that speech from the man who was so soon to be
charged with the most delicate and responsible office in Mr.
Lincoln's Cabinet.
— 732 —
I have more than once seen both the Senate and House
in mourning-, but never did I see so sad an audience quit the
Senate Chamber as on that day.
While walking- back with Mr. Stevens towards the
House, I said : " Mr. Stevens, what do you say to all that ?''
His answer was short, sharp and characteristic. He said :
" I have listened to every word, and by the living God, I
have heard nothing-." After going with Mr. Stevens to his
committee-room, I immediately returned to the Senate to get
the opinion of the Senators with whom I was intimate.
Taking Mr. Wade by the hand, I said : " Well, Mr. Senator,
what have you to say ?" And he answered: "If we follow
such leadership we will be in the wilderness longer than the
children of Israel under Moses." Mr. Sumner said: "I
knew what was coming, but confess that I am sad." Zac.
Chandler did not wait for my question, but as I approached
him, raised his hands and exclaimed : " Great God ! how are
the mighty fallen !"
And this was the judgment of a majority of our friends,
in both the Senate and House, with whom at that time I ex¬
changed opinions about the speech. It was reluctantly ad¬
mitted that it meant a backdown to the conspirators.
And this, alas ! was the best, and all, the new Prime
Minister had to offer us. Instead of pointing out the path
of duty and safety as a statesman should have done, he led
us into the wilderness, enveloped in a cloud of words and
metaphors, and there left us.
I was anxious from the day of the delivery of that speech
until the Republican Senators, with but one dissenting vote,
requested Mr. Lincoln to dismiss Mr. Seward from his Cabi¬
net. And though the President did not comply with that re¬
quest of the Republican Senators, as I then thought and now
think he should have done, I felt confident that we should
from that time on have less of Mr. Seward's amazing as¬
sumption, that (when in his hand) " the pen is mightier
than the sword." Mr. Lincoln's position and leadership was
unquestioned from this date.
seward.
Immediately after entering upon his duties as Secretary
— 733-—
of State, Mr. Seward assumed to direct all departments of
the Government, substantially as if he were a British Prime
Minister and Mr. Lincoln but the nominal Executive.
Without consulting- either the President, the Secretary
of War, or the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Seward undertook,
secretly and on his own responsibility, to direct the move¬
ments of military and naval officers as if he were in fact
President. He caused the rebel authorities in Charleston to
be notified by telegraph that the " Administration had given
a confidential order to reinforce Fort Sumter," to which Mr.
Seward was opposed, as a matter of policy, and therefore se¬
cretly resolved to defeat it. The next day he notified Judge
Campbell, a notorious secessionist, then on the Supreme
Bench, that "faith as to Fort Sumter has been kept, wait
and see." No one claims that Mr. Seward did this as a dis¬
loyal man, but . as a theorist, who honestly believed that in
his hand "the pen was mig-i^ier than the sword." Mr.
Seward was, in theory, a centralist, rather than a disunionist,
and yet he was absolutely without any fixed or clearly defined
policy when the Rebellion broke out. He simply drifted on
an unknown sea. His efforts at delay resulted in desperate
expedients, and led him to send out secret agents to obstruct,
mislead and delay all military and naval movements, for fear
that actual war would falsify his prophetic utterances and
defeat his negotiations.
Over and over ag-ain he had declared that " within ninety
days there would be peace," that " harmony and reconciliation
would come within ninety days."
How peace and harmony were to be secured he never
clearly made known. He simply predicted it.
In his speech of January 12th in the Senate he proposed
to meet "exaction with concession," and "violence with
peaceably submitting- to the doctrine of coercion, and quietly
evacuating- all the forts, and abandoning all -the public
property in the rebel States, except where authority
could be exercised without waging war."
He and General Scott had made up their minds "to let
the wayward sisters depart in peace."
By pursuing this policy, he hoped in some mj-sterious
— 734 —
way ultimately to bring- each seceded State back into the
Union.
In that speech he said: "I am willing- to vote for an
amendment to the Constitution declaring- that it shall not,
by any future amendment, be so altered as to confer on Con¬
gress power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any
State."
I say nothing- of Mr. Seward s damaging- dispatches to
Mr. Adams, our Minister to Great Britain, nor of his blun¬
ders with other powers; I simply state that it was among- our
great misfortunes that he was called into the Cabinet. In
the Senate he would have been both useful and harmless.
I saw Mr. Lincoln early the next morning- after the
Senatorial Committee called on him to ask for Mr. Seward's
removal.
It was a characteristic interview. The President asked
me "what I would do if I were in his place." This was a
way in which he often put questions to men. I answered
him " that what he would do or what I would do was not a
fair way to put it," "but that if I was in his place and held
his opinions, I would accept the resignations of Mr. Seward
and Mr. Chase instanter; and at once appoint Mr. Collamer
of Vermont, Secretary of State, and Mr. Fessenden of Maine,
Secretary of the Treasury."
The suggestion pleased Mr. Lincoln very much, espe¬
cially the naming- of Mr. Collamer for Secretary of State.
Mr. Collamer had been in General Harrison's Cabinet in
1841, and was recognized as an able lawyer, as well as the
most conservative Republican Senator in the Senate. Mr.
Collamer had acted as chairman of the Senatorial Committee
which had called on the President to demand Mr. Seward's
dismissal from the Cabinet, and Mr. Lincoln saw at once that
such an appointment would strike the extreme conservative
wing- of the Republican party very favorably, and he was all
the more pleased with the sug-g-estion because it came from
so pronounced a radical as I was, and a recognized friend of
Chase. He said two or three times: "Why, Ashley, Colla¬
mer would make a first-class Secretary;" and added, "and
how it would surprise the Senate !"
— 735 —
GENERAL SCOTT.
The day the first advance of our army marched across
the long- bridge at Washing-ton will always be a memorable
one to me. I had never before seen such a military display.
I went directly to the "White House to see the President, but
found that he had gone over to General Scott's office; I fol¬
lowed and described with enthusiasm the marching- of our
soldiers, singing- "Old John Brown," and said: "Mr. Presi¬
dent, if our armies fight under the inspiration of that song-,
the gates of hell cannot prevail ag-ainst us." General Scott
(who was a Virginian) astonished me by saying- "that he
regretted to strike his mother." I replied with much warmth
"that he who struck that flag [pointing to it] struck my
mother and deserved death," and unceremoniously walked
out, indignant at such an utterance from the commanding
general of our armies. This incident tells the story of our
national demoralization. General Scott, the commander of
our armies, had at that time, unknown to Mr. Lincoln or the
public, reached the amazing conclusion that it was best to
"let the wayward sisters depart in peace."
General Scott soon afterwards (under the manipulation
of Seward) recommended the surrender of Fort Sumter and
Fort Pickens. As the President, with the approval of the
Cabinet, had before this ordered reinforcements and provisions
to Fort Sumter, this sudden and unlooked-for change on the
part of General Scott shook the faith of the President in him,
and he immediately began the search for a younger and more
reliable commander.
THE ARMY.
I do not care to introduce or dwell on the disasters of the
Army of the Potomac, until General Grant assumed com¬
mand, nor will I attempt to criticise its defeated generals. I
not a military man, and therefore not competent for such
a task.
That Generals McDowell, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker
— 736 —
and Pope did tlie best they could, no one now questions.
That they did not do better was the nation's misfortune.
The rank and file of our army both North and South
were made up of as good material as the world ever saw. In
some respects the Southern soldier for a time had the advan¬
tage. First, every slave-master was born and trained to
command; he became self-reliant and confident from youth
up; he was an accomplished horseman, accustomed to out¬
door life and the use of firearms. These qualities, with a
fiery temperament and splendid physical organization, made
him the most formidable soldier in the world; and when you
add to this the fact that he was fighting- on his own chosen
ground, surrounded by friends, and with natural positions
for defense, you have a soldier of whom any general might
well be proud. The Northwestern soldier had many of these
admirable qualities, especially did he have the advantage
which an out-door and frontier life gives in educating men to
be self-reliant and accustomed to the use of horses and fire¬
arms.
The soldiers from the East did not have the out-door
life of their Western comrades, and it required a year or more
of active training in the field to make them equal in this re¬
gard to Western men. But when the Eastern and Western
soldiers were united under General Grant, the Army of the
Potomac proved itself to be the equal of the soldiers in the
Southern army, and from the day General Grant took com¬
mand of that army no more was heard about the inefficiency
or want of valor of the Army of the Potomac.
And I might say here, in order to estimate men's char¬
acters, some little incident in their lives will often tell you
the kind of men they are. That is especially true in civil
life. You go into a congress of three hundred men and you
will see the timid men coming together, you will see the
reckless men together, and you will see the profound
men together. And so in the army; you will find all the
fighting men gravitate together, as if they understood and
had confidence in each other.
When General Grant, on the evening of the first day's
battle at Shiloh (which had been a defeat), was told by his
quartermaster that if again defeated to-morrow he would not
— 737—
have transportation enoug-li to carry the troops (65,000 in
number) across the river, the General inquired:
" How many can you handle ? "
"Ten thousand," the quartermaster answered.
"Well," said the General, quietly, " if we are defeated
you will be able to carry all that are left.
This incident admirably illustrates General Grant's
determination of character. He simply determined to win or
be annihilated.
While talking- about soldiers, my mind recurs to Thomas,
the grandest figure to me of all the war. You will remember
what he said to General Steedman when he ordered him to
make a charge. Steedman started at once to execute his
order, but impulsively turning back, said: "General, where
shall I find you after the charge ? "
"Right here, sir;" pointing to the spot on which he
stood.
That told the story of General Thomas's character. It
is also beautifully told in one of Mrs. Sherwood's war poems.
Sheridan, when he came East, was assigned by Grant to
Meade's command. Meade told Sheridan to go out with his
cavalry and reconnoiter, but to be very careful about Stuart,
as he was a troublesome fellow. Sheridan's blood was up in
a minute, and he said with some strong words, that he could
knock hell out of him, if he could get at him. General
Meade, who was a very quiet man, when he saw Grant said:
"Well, General, that man Sheridan that you sent me is
rather insubordinate."
The General says: " How is that ? what did he do ? "
General Meade repeated what Sheridan had said.
" Did Sheridan say that ? " inquired Grant.
"Yes, sir; he did," rejoined Meade, with emphasis.
"Why didn't you tell him to go and do it?" was all
Grant said.
Meade went back, took the hint, gave the order to
Sheridan, and Stuart never troubled him afterwards.
I went down to the Army of the Potomac with a letter
from Mr. Lincoln to Grant. I had become quite anxious for
fear the Sixth rebel corps stationed at Petersburg might be
47
-— 738 —
detached, and attack Sherman's rear, when he was marching
from Atlanta to the sea. I kept talking- to the President
about it until he sent me down to Grant's headquarters, and
I stayed there ten days. The night before I started back I
looked at the map on the table, and said to the General: "I
wish you would show me the situation; I want to tell the best
story I can to the President to-morrow; I am going up to¬
night." I had .been complaining about the dead cattle and
dead mules and horses, and wanted the camp cleared up for
fear of a pestilence. The General gave me satisfactory
answers, and pointed out the situation on the map, and said
to me:
" For every three men of ours dead, five of theirs; for
every three of our cattle dead, five of theirs."
Picking up some paper on the table and crushing it in
his hand, he saj^s:
" Tell the President I have got them like that! "
It made the cold chills run over me. But as I neared
"Washington, and caught sight of the flag floating from the
dome, it kept welling up in me, " Tell the President I have
got them like that!" It told the character of the man.
When I repeated what he said to the President and others,
they all felt exactly as I did. But after all it cheered us,
and we all involuntarily exclaimed, " I have got them like
that !"
And right here I might say that we of Northwestern
Ohio never think of the army without thinking of the old
Fourteenth, the bravest of the brave, and of General Steed-
man, its gallant commander. But I want to say that the
hundred-day men deserve honorable mention. The patriotic
impulse that carried the hundred-day men into the army and
to the Army of the Potomac, with Colonel Phillips at their
head, and Lieutenant-Colonel Faskins and Richard Waite
among the captains, and John J. Barker among the lieuten¬
ants, was as patriotic as that which carried the three-year
men to the nation's rescue.
I remember well their march through the streets of
Washington, and the speech of Mr. Iyincoln to them from the
steps of the White House, and my address to them at the
front.
— 739 —
These men were a part of the Army of the Potomac, and
although they were there but one hundred days, those one
hundred days were eventful days to us and to them, and
they have a right equally with the veterans to the inheritance
which comes from victories bravely won. Especially is
honor due to the men who so gallantly marched to battle
when they were exempt by age from military duty.
LINCOLN.
It will not be claimed, even by partisan friends, that any
one of our greatest statesmen or generals were faultless and
committed no blunders.
Young-and inexperienced as I was, I felt confident that I
knew as much about the secret purposes of the conspirators
and their plots as many of our oldest leaders ; but I knew
also that if so great a Senator as Mr. Benton of Missouri,
who had served in the Senate for thirty years from a slave
State, could not command the attention of the country when
specially and publicly calling- attention to the designs of the
slave conspirators, a young and unknown abolitionist from a
free State like myself, could not hope to do so.
I therefore deferred to such men as Seward, Sumner and
Fessenden in the Senate, and Stevens, Washburn, Grow and
others in the House, and also to such men as Chase and
Stanton in the Cabinet, and to Greeley, Wendell Phillips
and others in private life.
Before the Rebellion broke out I came to know that
Seward was a " dreamer," who always lived high up in the
clouds ; that Sumner with all his ability was pre-eminently
a man of "books," and that Chase practically did not know
men, and might be associated in the Senate for years with
the chief conspirators, and be entirely ignorant of their
movements or their plots.
As I now look back and review, more calmly than I
could then, the words and acts of our greatest men, Lincoln
stands forth pre-eminent among them all.
Without experience, and confronted by trials and respon¬
sibilities greater than any President who had preceded him,
— 740 —
he proved equal to every emergency, and never failed in the
most trying- and difficult hour.
Surrounded on every hand by traitors, and often misin¬
formed by real but mistaken friends and betrayed by pre¬
tenders, he faced a million rebels in arms, and never quailed
nor faltered ; he, more than all others, secured the loyal co¬
operation of the border slave States ; he was the one great
leader of the Republican party, and more, of all men of what¬
ever party who hoped for the triumph of the Union, and he
occupied this position because he was fitted by nature for the
great task imposed upon him. His leadership was gentle
but firm, cautious yet persistent. He was the one man of all
the men I knew in those days of trial and danger, best fitted
for the place he filled so well. As tender as a woman to
suffering and sorrow, he stood forth during the entire rebel¬
lion, a colossus among men.
" Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm,
Erect when multitudes bent to the storm."
No man can depict the humiliations and catastrophies
which this nation escaped by having Abraham Lincoln for
President in 1861 instead of William H. Seward.
Back of Lincoln and Congress stood the rank and file of
the army, to whom the greatest credit is due. And back of
the army, there was a patriotic sentiment for national unity
and national glory, which represented the moral force of an
overwhelming majority of the nation. This sentiment molded
and directed Lincoln and her statesmen, and inspired her
generals and the army with the necessity of union and the
hope of victory.
Without this united moral force Congress would not
have acted, the President would have been powerless, and the
republic of Washington and Jefferson would have been di¬
vided, dismembered and destroyed, and on its ruins two or
more discordant and hostile governments erected, which
would have been a perpetual menace to each other and to the
peace of the world.
true; statesmanship.
We have now reached a time (so far have we advanced
in a single generation) where we can form a proper estimate
of the statesmen who ruled this nation from 1836 to 1860.
Even the ordinary observer of to-day, no longer recognizes
their pretensions to statesmanship. Plain, practical common-
sense Americans who believe in a " government of the peo¬
ple, by the people, for the people," will in the future declare,
as they do now, that true statesmanship does not e:nact in¬
justice; into law — that that is not a democratic or repub¬
lican government, which affirms the legal right to property
in man, or which authorizes or permits the enslavement of
men by fraud or force. At a time when the moral sentiment
of mankind the world over, was practically a unit against the
enslavement of any race, and when the imperial governments
of Russia and Brazil were emancipating their slaves, and all
the great nations of the world were joining hands to attempt
the civilization of the dark continent of Africa, to the end
that they might make slave piracy impossible, the so-called
statesmen of this country were conspiring to destroy the
freest and best government on earth, and making war on
their own kindred in order that they might establish one:
or more) petty governments whose corner-stone should be
human slavery.
The folly and crimes of the secession leaders and their
allies of the North can never be repeated again; even the
memory of them will soon have
" Gone glimmering through the gleam of things that were—
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour."
Never again shall there be witnessed in the land of
Washington and Lincoln, the blasphemy of religious teachers
preaching that saint and sinner alike must see to it "that
servants obey their masters in all things because acceptable
in the sight of the Lord," and that when escaping, it was the
duty of the public to provide for returning slaves to their
— 742 —
slave-masters at the nation's expense, and, crowning* all, bj
boldly affirming1 the divinity of slavery.
The conspirators and their apologists may write thou¬
sands of volumes in defense of their dogma of secession and
state rights, and fill them with long-drawn-out logic and
quotations from the Bible and from pretended Christian
teachers affirming- the divinity of slavery; they may build
monuments of marble, brass or iron to their lost cause and
its dead leaders, and do what they may to justify or excuse
their blunders and their crimes, and yetjthe time is coming,
and now is, in which no sane man will read their writings
except to learn from their own pens the height and depth of
their amazing folly. And a generation of men shall not
have passed away before all who stand in front of their monu¬
ments, will be asking themselves whether the leaders of the
"Whiskey rebellion, the schemers of the Hartford Convention
plot, or Aaron Burr and his conspirators are not better entitled
to commemoration, in brass or iron, than the leaders of the
slaveholders' rebellion.
I have not spoken personally of any of the leaders of the
rebellion, because they were all the followers and satellites
of Calhoun, from Jefferson Davis down to Senator Wigfall
of Texas, who was dubbed by his fellow-conspirators "one
of the most eloquent fools on the continent."
To me there are inseparably connected with the history
of the rebellion three men in civil life, who stand out more
prominently than their associates — Calhoun, the great con¬
spirator ; Seward, the dreamer ; and Lincoln, the statesman.
Calhoun, able, ambitious, logical and persistent, and as un¬
yielding as death; Seward, the philosophical dreamer,
political prophet and presidential aspirant, the coiner of
beautiful and high-sounding phrases, with no practical
ability for a crisis, such as the rebellion of 1861. When the
hour of action and trial came, he suggested, in his speech of
January 12th, "that we meet prejudice with conciliation,
exaction with concessions, violence with the right hand of
fellowship," and surrender to the rebels all the public
property of the nation in their States, "except where the
authority of the united states coued be exercised
without war." To crown all, he offered to vote for an
-743-
amendment to the Constitution which, would preserve slaver}'
forever, and thus make the " irrepressible conflict" perpetual,
so long- as a single State elected to maintain the institution
of slavery in its borders.
The world recognizes when it reads Mr. Lincoln's state¬
ment of the " irrepressible conflict," that he was the practical,
just and far-seeing- statesman. •
In his great speech at Springfield, Illinois, in 18S8, he
said :
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe
that this government cannot endure permanently half slave
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I
do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease
to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread
of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike law¬
ful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as
South."
This great speech made Mr. Lincoln President. After
his inauguration, he followed logically and with fidelity the
doctrine announced in that speech.
And when he declared in his inaugural address, that his
oath and duty alike "required him to see that the laws were
impartially and honestly executed; and added: "The
power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and
possess the property, and enforce the laws of the gov¬
ernment," a practical and patriotic people knew what that
declaration meant. They knew that Mr. Lincoln intended
"that the house should not be divided nor fall," but
that the Union should be maintained forever — and be all
one thing—all free. And to the accomplishment of that
great work he consecrated his life.
Mr. Seward would not only have been dismissed from
office by any other government, but would have been arrested
for usurpation of power — and for holding secret and un¬
authorized communication with the public enemy. And I
do not believe that any President who had preceded Mr.
Lincoln would have continued Mr. Seward in his Cabinet for
a single day, after the formal and unanimous request of the
"Republican members of the Senate, for his removal.
— 744 —
It was Mr. Lincoln's hopefulness and faith in man that
made him so long-suffering- in his dealing's with Seward,
Chase and McClellan, and hundreds of others, myself in¬
cluded.
I think he was in that respect one of the most wonderful
of men. I can remember two instances, one of which was
with reference to myself; the other, Senator Schurz. Schurz
was in the army, and was restless, as nervous men usually are,
and fired a letter of sixteen pages over the head of his
commander to Mr. Lincoln, an act which, as a military
matter, was not to be tolerated. Afterward he thought better
of it, and wrote Mr. Lincoln an apology for having commit¬
ted this breach of military discipline. The President wrote
him and kindly said: "Never mind; come and see me."
When Schurz came and met him, he began to apologize.
'' Never mind, Schurz," said Mr. Lincoln. '' I guess before
we get through talking, you won't think I am so bad a man
as some people say I am."
Kindness, of course, captivated Mr. Schurz, just as it
had other men.
I went up to see him at one time about McClellan — got
there early in the morning. He hadn't got into his room.
"When he came in he expressed some surprise at seeing me
there so early. He hesitated a moment and said:
"Well, General, what are you doing here so early ?"
" I came here to see you."
"What can I do for you ? "
"Nothing, sir." I closed my lips as firmly as I could,
and emphasized sharply what I said.
"You have come up to see about McClellan ? "
"Yes, sir."
" Well," said he, " that reminds me of a story."
I was determined to have a solid talk with him. So I
said, rising to my feet: "Mr. President, I beg your pardon,
but I didn't come this morning to hear a stor}T."
He looked at me and said, with such a sad face: " Ashley,
I have great confidence in you, and great respect for you, and
I know how sincere you are. But if I couldn't tell these
stories, I would die. Now you sit down ! " So he ordered a
cup of coffee and we discussed the situation.
— 745 —
That was the peculiar manner of the man.
I saw him one day grant a pardon for a soldier sentenced
to be shot. The mother of the soldier and some women of
his household were in the room. When he did it, of course
there was a scene. Tears came to the eyes of many. The
President said: "Well, I have made one family happy, but I
don't know about the discipline of the army ! "
That act was characteristic of the man, and because of
his tenderness and love of justice, he held tog-ether the dis¬
cordant elements — held together the border States; and I
think carried us to victory better than any man, certainly
better than any public man of whom I have any knowledge.
I don't know of any man in this country that I would rather
have had for President, considering it now, after all is over
for a quarter of a century, than Abraham Lincoln.
That the historian of the future will accord the highest
order of statesmanship to Abraham Lincoln and soldierly
qualities to the Union Army of 1861-65, I do not doubt.
A practical world will judge public men by what they
accomplish, not by what they profess. Soldier and states¬
man alike must be judged by this simple standard.
From this point of view the historian will show that
Mr. Lincoln found the Government disrupted and bankrupt,
with a hostile government organized by conspirators 011 its
supposed ruins. He will show that Mr. Lincoln and a Union
Congress proceeded at once to secure its political unity and
territorial integrity; that they raised, organized and
equipped armies and crushed the rebellion; that they
amended the national Constitution prohibiting slavery for¬
ever; that they were both merciful and forgiving as con¬
querors never were before; that all laws and constitutional
amendments were impartial in their character, and operated
on the North and South alike. He will show that under
their State governments, as reorganized by them, the South
has prospered and increased in wealth as never before; that
the census of 1890 confirmed all we hoped and promised when
we declared that her increase in cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice,
iron and manufactures would more than double in value
between 1860 and 1890, and that her plantation and city
property would be increased in value threefold; and that a
— 746 —
National Government, with amnesty and impartial suffrage,
found a complete vindication, both at home and abroad.
And knowing- this, as each Union soldier and Union citizen
who took part in the great drama of 1861 "folds the drapery
of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams,"
he will know that his sacrifices have not been in vain.
There are men before me to-night who bore aloft and
followed that flag at Shi,loh and Stone River, at Murfrees-
boro, Missionary Ridge and Nashville, and from Chicka-
mauga to Chattanooga and to the top of Lookout Mountain,
and from Atlanta through Georgia on to Washington, as
they carried it in triumph back to their homes prior to plac¬
ing it here within the shrine of Memorial Hall. And because
it has been riddled by shot and shell and has been baptized
with the blood of the living and the dead, it is all the more
sacred to us.
Mr. President, that flag means more to you and to me
to-night than ever it did before.
To us, as Americans, and to every civilized people be¬
neath the sun, it symbolizes the unity and strength of the
greatest and freest commonwealth on earth. It means in¬
vincible power and enlightened progress. It means hope
and happiness to all the coming generations of men enti¬
tled to its protection. It means that never again, on the land
or on the sea, can it be a flag of " stripes " to any of God's
children, however poor or however black. It means the
sovereignty of an indissoluble Union — and a prophecy of the
coming continental republic.
ADDRESS
OF HON. J. M. ASHLEY,
At the Fourth Annual Banquet of the Ohio Republican
League, held at Memorial, Hall, Toledo, Ohio,
February 12, 1891.
Toastmaster : Gen. Wm. H. Gibson, Tiffin, Ohio.
First Toast:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
"How humble, yet how hopeful he could be;
How in good fortune and in ill the same;
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame."
Tom Taylor in " London Punch."
Response by
Hon. J. M. Ashley, Toledo, Ohio.
Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : At Alton,
Illinois, in October, 1858, I first met Abraham Lincoln. It
was on the day he closed the historic joint debate of that
year, with Stephen A. Douglas.
My anxiety to see and hear the man whose great speech
at Springfield in June had electrified the entire country was
so intense that immediately after our election in Ohio I ran
down over the Wabash, and saw and heard Mr. Lincoln and
Mr. Douglas in their closing debate at Alton.
I returned home at once, so as to be present and celebrate
my first election to Congress.
(747)
— 748 —
I had accepted an invitation from the Republican Com¬
mittee of Illinois to accompany Governor Chase and speak at
several points in that State and remain until the close of the
campaign in November.
The plan for the Illinois campaign was discussed and
agreed upon at the Tremont House in Chicago. Here we
met John Wentworth, Elihu B. Washburn, Owen Lovejoy
and Joseph Medill (then as now, editor of the Chicago
Tribune) and many others.
This was a memorable meeting1, and from the date of
that campaign, Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency
in 1860 became a probability.
I gave this meeting an enthusiastic account of the debate
at Alton, and when I stated that although the election
for members of the legislature might not result in the choice
of Mr. Lincoln as Senator, yet his speeches had made it
impossible for Mr. Douglas to be elected President, and that
a great leader had arisen, I commanded the attention of eager
listeners.
Mr. Lincoln came to Ohio in the fall of 1859 to take part
in the gubernatorial campaign, and delivered memorable
speeches at Columbus and Cincinnati. Under the leadership
of Judge Swayne a distinct Lincoln party arose in Ohio,
which in a few months became a great factor in Mr. Lincoln's
nomination for the Presidency in 1860.
northern pro-slavery champions.
From 1844 until 1861 the slave barons were so entrenched
in the government that they demanded as a condition to the
political recognition of any Northern leader that they
publicly commit themselves by deeds as well as words to their
service. They demanded that all Northern aspirants to the
Presidency should, in addition to their general subserviency,
give undoubted evidence of their fidelity and fitness for so
exalted a position, by causing to be captured and returned to
the South, any fugitive slaves who might be found in the
cities of their residence.
Whereupon, the partisans of Fillmore (then the acting
President), who after approving the fugitive-slave bill was in-
— 749 -
trigfuinof for the Whig- presidential nomination in 1852,
caused the officials of Fillmore's own appointment, to seize at
his home in Buffalo, and return a fugitive slave in order that
the slave barons might know that their recently enacted
slave-catching- law, could be executed in the city of Fillmore's
residence, and so executed, that they could be eye-witnesses
to the subserviency of their allies, who everywhere in that day
abounded throug-hout the North. The manner in which that
disgraceful act was performed at Buffalo was so shocking-in its
brutality, that after Fillmore's retirement from the Presi¬
dency, he drifted into obscurity and died unwept and un-
lamented.
Webster's friends in Boston joined with alacrity in send¬
ing- Sims back to slavery, hoping- by this shameful act of
abasement, to commend their great political idol to the slave
barons for President. He did not get a single vote from them
in the nominating convention, and soon afterwards retired
to his home in Marshfield and saw, as did Belshazzar of old,
the handwriting- on the wall. Wherever he turned his eyes
there appeared the sentence of doom, as out of the darkness
came the hand with index fing-er pointing, to the words,
" The 7th of March."
Mr. Webster died a disappointed and humiliated man,
with the personal knowledge that the slave barons could be
as exacting and false to him, as to one of their own bondmen.
The pulpit was but little, if any, behind in its base sub¬
serviency. A fire-bell at night could not empty a fashion¬
able church in Boston or New York quicker than it would
then have been emptied, if its parson had honestly prayed or
preached for the liberation of the slave. So debasing and
brutal was this infernal spirit, that the Rev. Dr. Dewej-, of
Boston, publicly declared "that if the Constitution required
it, he would send his own mother back into slavery." And
yet, this self-righteous worshiper of Mammon and the Consti¬
tution claimed to be an American citizen and a descendant of
the Puritans!
After such a statement of our moral condition as a nation,
you will not be surprised when I tell you that this reverend
individual was but an exag-gerated type of a whole genera¬
tion of vipers, who, in 1861, rolled up their eyes in holy hor-
— 750 —
ror and demanded peace at any price and our absolute sub¬
mission to the terms of the slave barons; everywhere crying-
out: "Give us the Constitution as it is, and the Union as it
was." And many so-called statesmen in the North lifted up
their voices in chorus and wept and said — Amen.
MR. LINCOLN AS HE APPEARED ON THE) PLAINS OF ILLINOIS.
I present you this dark and sad picture, in order that I
may show you more distinctly, the colossal form and plain
but manly face of Abraham Lincoln. Behold him, as at the
tomb of the martyred Lovejoy and on the plains of Illinois,
he emerges unheralded from the shadow of this national
degradation and national dishonor, and with the words of
truth and soberness on his lips, proclaims: " A house divided
against itself cannot stand." "I believe this government
cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free." That
was the keynote which touched the hearts and anointed the
eyes of millions. It was in that dark hour the fitly spoken
word, and like an eternal ray of light it illuminated the dim
and shadowy future.
THE) LINCOLN-DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATES.
In this spirit, and on this elevated moral plane, Mr. Lin¬
coln met Mr. Douglas and conducted his great campaign in
Illinois, and successfully drove him from every controverted
position. Subsequently, in his desperation, Mr. Douglas
declared "that he did not care whether slavery was voted up
or voted down."
Mr. Lincoln did care, the great heart of the nation cared,
every honest man in the world cared whether slavery was
voted up or down. And when I heard Mr. Lincoln proclaim
at Alton " that it was a question between right and wrong,"
his face glowed as if tinged with a halo, and to me he looked
the prophet of hope and joy, when with dignity and empha¬
sis he said: " That is the real issue. That is the issue that
will continue in this country when these poor tongues of
Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal
— 751 —
struggle between these two principles, right and wrong,
throughout the world. They are the two principles that
have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will
ever continue to struggle, until the common right of human¬
ity shall ultimately triumph."
The tongues of these two great men have been silent for a
quarter of a century. The one who did care "whether
slavery was voted up or voted down" will live in the grateful
remembrance of his countrymen and mankind; while he who
declared "that he did not care" will only be remembered as
the man whom Abraham Lincoln defeated for President.
RESULT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN 1860.
Two years after his defeat for Senator, Mr. Lincoln was
nominated and elected President, receiving 180 electoral votes
and Judge Douglas but 12 electoral votes. Breckenridge of
Kentucky received 72 votes, and Bell of Tennessee 39 votes.
If Mr. Lincoln had not received a majority of all the
electoral votes cast, the choice of a President would, as pro¬
vided by that indefensible and anti-democratic provision of
our Constitution, have devolved on the House of Representa¬
tives, each State having one vote (except where the Con¬
gressional delegation was equally divided), in which event
its vote would be lost. The choice of a President at that
time by the House would have been limited to either Lincoln,
Breckenridge or Bell. The conspirators put Breckenridge
electoral tickets in the Northern States with the deliberate
purpose of excluding Douglas from the three highest, and
thus keeping him out of the contest in the House.
An election by the House of Representatives of a Presi¬
dent for 1860-1861 was part of the original programme of
the conspirators when they deliberately divided the Demo¬
cratic party at Charleston and Baltimore and determined to
defeat Douglas. Nothing is more certain, had that election
gone into the House of Representatives, than that Mr. Lin¬
coln would not have been chosen President, as the Republi¬
cans could not have commanded the votes of a sufficient num¬
ber of States to elect him.
— 752 —
With Mr. Buchanan in the President's office, to obey the
orders of the conspirators until they had accomplished their
purpose, the result would have been a so-called compromise
and the election of Breckinridge.
In the light of all that has happened, no mortal man can
even now presage what would have been the ultimate result,
had Breckinridge at that time been clothed with the power
of the presidential office.
That this country would have become a consolidated
slave empire during the administration of Breckinridge is
more than probable. The pro-slavery amendment to our
national Constitution, which was submitted by the Northern
compromisers of the Thirty-sixth Congress (and ratified by the
vote of Ohio), would have been engrafted into the national
Constitution, and slavery thus entrenched could not have
been abolished except by the consent of every State, thus
practically making slavery constitutional and perpetual,
with no remedy for its abolition but armed revolution.
Fortunately for the future of the republic, Mr. Lincoln's
election defeated this deeply laid plot of the pro-slavery con¬
spirators, and their subsequent mad rebellion and war on the
Union enabled him and the national Congress to abolish
slavery and make the nation all free; instead of all
slave.
From the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration until the
tragic close of his eventful life, no one who did not know and
often see him, can portray the tremendous mental and physi¬
cal strain under which he labored, nor can human tongue
describe the innumerable petty annoyances to which he was
subjected, nor the intrigues and conspiracies which he en¬
countered and mastered.
mr. lincoln and the radical wing of the republican
party.
While Mr. Lincoln was, beyond all question, as deeply
impressed with the necessity of saving the Union as any one
of the great men with whom I served, there were often radi¬
cal differences of opinion as to the best means to be adopted
— 753 —
to that end. This was in large part the result of early
political training", and political affiliation of the men who
were leaders in the Republican party.
The advanced or radical wing- of the Republican party
was made up largely of men who had been the recognized
leaders of the anti-slavery wing- of the Democratic party.
Such men as Rantoul, Sumner and Boutwell, of Massachusetts;
Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine; Hale, of New Hampshire; David
Wilmot, of Pennsylvania; General Dix and Governor Fenton,
of New York; Chase and others in Ohio; Julian, of Indiana;
Trumbull, of Illinois; Doolittle, of Wisconsin; Bingham and
Beaman, of Michigan; Frank P. Blair and Gratz Brown, of
Missouri, and many others whom I need not name.
These men were all trained in the school of Jefferson,
and our personal and political affiliations had been with the
anti-slavery wing- of the Democratic party.
Mr. Lincoln had been trained in the old Whig party, and
Henry Clay, its great compromising chief, was his early politi¬
cal leader, and he voted for General Scott for President in
1852, notwithstanding the platform on the subject of slavery.
I voted that year for Hale and Julian, because of the offensive
Democratic platform, which was no more objectionable than
that of the Whigs.
I have not read either of those platforms since 1852, but
if young students of political history will go into any library
and read them they will be found practically duplicates, and
so subservient to the slave barons, as to make the cheek of
every true American blush with shame to-day.
When Mr. Lincoln came into the Presidency he had not
advanced as far beyond the old party platforms as Sumner
and Chase, Hale and Wilmot, and the men who had crossed
the Rubicon and voted for Hale and Julian in 1S52. But
within two years he was abreast of them, and before the close
of his life they recognized him as their leader.
What wonder, then, that at the outset our differences
with Mr. Lincoln should have been marked and pronounced
on some of the most important questions which confronted
us ? m
We were disappointed, to begin with, in the make-up
48
— 754 —
of his Cabinet. I wanted Fessenden of Maine, or Collamer
of Vermont, for Secretary of State, Governor Morgan of New
York or Zack Chandler of Michigan, for Secretary of the
Treasury, Edwin M. Stanton of Ohio, for Secretary of War,
Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, for Secretary of the Navy,
George W. Summers of West Virginia, for Secretary of the
Interior, James Speed of Kentucky, Postmaster-General,
and Edmund Bates of Missouri, for Attorney General.
These men were all old line Whigs, except Mr. Stanton,
and not one of the border slave States had voted for Mr. Lin¬
coln. I proposed, as a matter of expediency, to strengthen
the Union sentiment in the border slave States by loading
their conservative Union Whig leaders with the honors and
patronage of the government. And then, I did not think it
expedient to take Seward or Chase or Cameron out of the
Senate.
Instead of 75,000 men for three months, I wanted the call
issued for 500,000 men for the war. Instead of committing
ourselves in any way on the question of slavery and the status
of slaves, we thought that the proclamation should simply
promise that all persons who were loyal to the government
and gave it their support should receive the protection of the
government. I wanted the war to be conducted strictly
according to the laws of war, and the army to be moved not
in conformity with party platforms or the decree of any court,
which might be presided over by some timid or disloyal
judge. Ll wanted the writ of habeas corpus suspended wher¬
ever, within the jurisdiction of the United States, the local
police authorities could not enforce the law, and the public
safety required it. In short, I wanted the war conducted as
if we were in earnest, and determined to preserve the Union
at whatever cost; and I believed then, as we all believe now,
that the only way at that time to secure an enduring peace
was to destroy the slave power and make such a rebellion
forever impossible in the future.
The entire radical wing of the party were opposed to the
authority which Mr. Lincoln assumed to reorganize the rebel
State governments. Our discussions on this subject were
often set and sharp. We finally told him that if he
attempted to carry out his programme without the consent
— 755 —
or approval of Congress, that the House of Representatives
would refuse to count the electoral votes even if they should
be cast for him by Tennessee and Louisiana, and we did so
refuse to permit their votes to be counted.
And yet, through all these earnest discussions, sometimes
waxing- warm, as they of necessity did, there never was any
estrangement between us, nor an unkind act to be recalled or
regretted.
mr. Lincoln's mental constitution.
There was in Mr. Lincoln's mental constitution a mar¬
velous blending of sunshine and shadow, of earnestness and
innocent fun, of profound thought and delightful humor, of
hopeful prophecy and inexorable logic.
In estimating the mental and moral qualities of any man
of mark, it is due to him, not less than to ourselves, that we
form a rational judgment by a careful analysis of all the
peculiar traits and moods which go so largely to make up the
life and character of every such man.
This analysis I made for myself when Mr. Lincoln was
President, and while I shall express freely and frankly my
deliberately formed opinion of Mr. Lincoln's character, I will
be warranted in presenting a few of his striking utterances
and well-authenticated acts, so that you may form an inde¬
pendent opinion for yourselves.
Before such an assembly and on an occasion like this, I
may properly relate two or three occurrences which will illus¬
trate the masterly manner in which he managed all kind?,
and conditions of men.
the) way mr. lincoln managed mr. greeley.
During the war the number of volunteer peace negotia¬
tors who made pilgrimages to "Washington, and occupied the
time of Mr. Lincoln and members of Congress, were legion.
This brigade of budding Talleyrands was made up largely
of peace cranks, Confederate sympathizers, gentlemen ambi¬
tious of distinguishing themselves by playing the role of
— 756 —
mediators, and all sorts and conditions of political schemers,
who kept the President and all public men in Washington
who would listen to them, awake at night, as they poured into
their unwilling ears their visionary schemes.
It was a time for fighting and supplying the sinews of
war to our armies, and not for the game of diplomacy, except
so far as such diplomacy tended to support armies in the
field and maintain peace abroad, until treason was destroyed
at home.
We were particularly anxious that no act should be done
by the President which, by any possibility, could be distorted
by European nations into a recognition of the Confederate
Government.
Mr. Greeley was one of those who had worried the
President by insisting on opening negotiations with the Con¬
federate Commissioners at Niagara Falls, with the view of
securing an early peace.
The world and Mr. Greeley were alike surprised one
morning by the public announcement that the President had
authorized Mr. Greeley to proceed to Niagara Falls and see
what he could do as an apostle of peace. This was a "com¬
mission" which Mr. Greeley did not expect and had not
sought. But, after all he had said and written, he could not
very well decline it. Everybody was up in arms against in¬
trusting any one with such a mission, and of all other men
the guileless philosopher of the Tribune. Of course, I was
among the first at the White House to protest. Mr.
Lincoln explained to me why he did it, and added, "Don't
you worry; nothing will come of it," and there did not.
Mr. Greeley accomplished nothing, and was supremely dis¬
gusted with himself for what he had said and done in the
matter of peace negotiations at Niagara Falls, and never
again troubled the President in that direction.
This humorous stroke of diplomacy 011 the part of
Mr. Lincoln nipped in the bud the ambitious schemes of
scores of would-be negotiators, and gave him and all public
men at Washington comparative peace from their impor¬
tunities.
julian's story of lovejoy and stanton.
Mr. Lincoln's manner of dealing- with men of fiery
temperaments is well illustrated ill a story told by Hon.
George W. Julian, of Indiana, in a magazine article some
four or five years ago. Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, at the head
of some self-appointed committee, had called on the Presi¬
dent, and after explaining the scheme which they had in
hand, looking- to an increase in the efficiency of the Western
soldiers, procured an order from Mr. Lincoln on the Secretary
of War for its execution. Lovejoy and his committee
repaired at once to the War Department, and after explaining
the matter, Mr. Stanton peremptorily refused to comply
with it. "But," said the impulsive Lovejoy, "we have the
President's order here with us, sir." " Did Lincoln give you
an order of that kind?" roared the irate Secretary. • "He
did, sir," answered Lovejoy. "Then he is a damned fool,"
said the fiery Stanton. " Do you mean to say that the Presi¬
dent is a damned fool ?" asked the bewildered Lovejoy.
"Yes," again roared the Secretary, "if he gave you such
an order as that."1 The amazed Congressman and his com¬
mittee immediately returned to the White House and reported
in full the result of their visit.
"Did Stanton say I was a damned fool?" asked the
President, and Lovejoy and his committee joined in affirming
that he did. After a moment or two, the President said,
"Well, gentlemen, if Stanton said I was a damned fool,
there must be something wrong about this, for Stanton is
nearly always right. I must see the Secretary about it before
anything can be done." Only a great man could have so
borne himself.
nasby quoted on ashley.
On no one subject did we disagree with Mr. Lincoln so
radically as that of reconstruction. It was a subject ever
present with me, from the day I laid before my committee the
first reconstruction bill which I prepared and had ready for
presentation on the meeting of the extra session of Congress,
in July, 1861.
— 758 —
I assumed from the first that we should put down the
rebellion, and that the question of questions would be the
reorganization of constitutional governments in the seceded
States, as a condition to their representation in Congress.
Had Mr. Lincoln lived, I believe he would eventually
have adopted the Views held by a majority of the Republicans
in Congress.
After an unusually long and warm discussion one morn¬
ing on this subject, I rose to go, quite dissatisfied with the
result of my interview and exhibiting a little more feeling
than I ought, when the President called out, and said:
" Ashley, that was a great speech you made out in Ohio the
other day." I turned, and, I fear with some irritation in both
manner and voice, said: "I have made no speech anywhere,
Mr. President, and have not been out of Washington." He
laughed and said: "Well, I see Nasby says that in conse¬
quence of one speech made by Jim Ashley, four hundred
thousand niggers moved into Wood County last week, and it
must have taken a great speech to do that." Of course I
joined in the laugh, and then Mr. Lincoln, in his kindly
manner, said: "Come up soon, Ashley, and we will take up
reconstruction again."
By the gentlest of methods, this great leader held to¬
gether all the discordant elements in the Republican party,
both in Congress and the country.
JUDGE HODMAN'S TESTIMONY.
I could relate from personal knowledge incidents which,
would illustrate his unaffected simplicit}- and tenderness.
But instead of telling one of my own I will relate one that
is fresher to me, and may be to you. I read it on the cars
while on my way home. It was told only a day or two ago
by Judge Holman, of Indiana, long a leading Democratic
member of Congress, and one of the best men with whom I
served. This is his testimony:
"I can see how Lincoln erred on the side of humanity.
His nature was essentially humane. That was the charm of
his character. But he was an able man, too. You ask me
if I have not seen a good many men like Lincoln in southern
— 759 —
Indiana and Illinois. I at first thought I should say yes,
that I knew four or five, but not one of these, though he may
have had a superficial resemblance to Lincoln, had anything
of Lincoln's reality. He was such a plain person that people
often misconceived him and thought him to be artful. He
was polite, but his plainness was also a genuine endowment.
I recall when I .went to see him about a boy, the son of a post¬
master, who had opened a letter, and in it was some money and
he took the money. His parents were overwhelmed with shame
and sorrow, for the boy had never done any thing1 wrong-before.
Judge Sweet of our State sent by me to Mr. Lincoln an ap¬
peal for the boy's pardon. It seems that under the war pres¬
sure they had been in the habit in that post-office of opening
the mails to see what the rebels on the Kentucky shore were
about. The boy had seen them open the letters of other peo¬
ple, and the example had infected him, and this letter having
some money in it he took the money from fright or from some
other reason. I went to Mr. Lincoln, and he said: 'Sweet
is an awful rebel, but Sweet is an honest man if there ever
was one. I know his handwriting. He is a bad rebel, but
he won't tell a lie. If Sweet says that this boy ought to be
pardoned, I reckon it will have to be so.' So he pardoned
the boy. Now, a man from my part of the world could under¬
stand that to be natural and not artful. Lincoln was able,
shrewd, but above all tender."
THE WADE AND DAVIS MANIFESTO.
The first time I called at the White House, after Senator
"Wade and Henry Winter Davis issued their celebrated mani¬
festo, against Mr. Lincoln, the President, as he advanced to
take my hand, said: " Ashley, I am glad to see by the papers
that you refused to sign the Wade and Davis manifesto."
"Yes, Mr. President," I answered, "I could not do that,"
and added, for
" Close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast."
It was a picture as we thus stood, my Hps quivering with
emotion, while tears stood in the eyes of both.
On many occasions during the darkest hours of our
great conflict, men who were in accord were often in such
close touch with each other, that each could feel the pulse-
beat of the other's heart.
— 760 —
This incident tells its own story. Mr. Lincoln regarded
both Mr. Wade and Mr. Davis as able and honest men, and
he knew they were my warm personal friends. He also knew
that nothing- but a sense of public duty could have separated
me from them. No one regretted their mistake more than I
did; and, knowing my close relations to them, Mr. Lincoln
did not hesitate to speak to me of their mistake in the
kindest spirit.
the: emancipation proclamation.
Eighteen hundred and sixty-two was like 1890, an off
year for Republicans, After my election in 1862, I was_
invited by telegraph to come to Washing-ton. When I called
on the President, he congratulated me on my triumph, and
said: "How did you do it?" I answered, "It was your
emancipation proclamation, Mr. President, that did it." In
a few moments he said, "Well, how do you like the procla¬
mation?" I answered that I liked it as far as it went, and
added, "but, Mr. President, if I had been Commander-in-
Chief, I should not have given the enemy one hundred days'
notice of my purpose to strike him, at the expiration of that
time, in his most vulnerable point, nor would I have offered
any apology for doing- so great and noble an act." He
laughed and enjoyed my hit, and after a moment's pause
said, "Ashley, that's a centre shot."
mr. lincoln at hampton roads.
No one event during the entire War of the Rebellion
alarmed us so much as the meeting at Hampton Roads, be¬
tween Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and Judge
Campbell, formerly of our United States Supreme Court, and
the President and Mr. Seward.
The night I learned that "Blair's scheme," as it was
called, was about to be attempted, I went to the White House
and protested ag-ainst it. When it became known that Mr.
Seward had actually gone down to Hampton Roads alone,
every loyal man in Washington was white with indignation,
— 761 —
and the demand was made that the President should go
down at once unless Mr. Seward was recalled. Mr. Lincoln
went down,"and again nothing was done. Mr. Lincoln suc¬
cessfully handled the wily Confederate Commissioners at this
meeting — put them thoroughly in the wrong, and so de¬
feated their last desperate effort to extricate themselves from
the fate that all men of judgment then knew to be inevitable,
if the Union m«n of the nation but did their duty.
Before Mr. Lincoln started for Hampton Roads he said
to a friend of mine "that nothing would come of it," and
when he returned to Washington we knew that the end of
the Confederacy was near, and that the Union was to remain
unbroken.
Constitutionally cautious, and by political training a
conservative, Mr. Lincoln nevertheless kept abreast of pub¬
lic opinion, and in his last annual message to Congress an¬
nounced with a clearness of statement which could not be
misinterpreted, and with an impressiveness befitting the
dignity of his great office, that —
"In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to
national authority on the part of the insurgents as the only
indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the
government, I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery.
I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that while I remain
in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or
modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to
slavery any person who is free by the terms of that procla¬
mation or by any of the acts of Congress.
"If the people should, by whatever mode or means,
make it an executive duty tore-enslave such persons, another,
and not I, must be the instrument to perform it."
GREAT EVENTS DEVELOP GREAT MEN.
Seldom in the history of mankind have great men pro¬
duced great events. It is great events which develop great
men. But for the rebellion our matchless generals, Grant
and Thomas, Sherman and Sheridan, would have been un¬
known in history as great soldiers, and not one nor all of
them could have produced such a rebellion. But for that
attempted revolution, scores of men in civil life who will
— 762 —
appear in history as among- our leading- statesmen, would in
all probability have been unknown in the councils of the
republic; they would have passed their lives in domestic or
business pursuits, had not the opportunity been given them
of service in the great conflict for saving the nation's life.
And Mr. Lincoln himself had not that kind of leadership,
which could conspire and plot and surround himself with
followers to inaugurate a revolution. He was pre-eminently
fitted by nature to be the representative of law and order, to
group and bind together all citizens of the republic who
were desirous of peace and union, and to preserve liberty and
constitutional government. As an historical figure he was,
in fact, a product of the great anti-slavery revolution of
which he became the recognized leader. But for the slave
barons' rebellion it might never have been his lot
''The applause of listening senates to command;
The threats of pain and ruin to despise;
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read his history in a nation's eyes."
MR. LINCOLN AS EXECUTIVE, DIPLOMAT AND MILITARY COM¬
MANDER.
Mr. President: It was my privilege in boyhood and
early manhood to meet and to know a number of the able
statesmen of this country who were in power prior to the
"War of the Rebellion.
During my service in Congress I came to know more inti¬
mately the men who were in public life during the Presidency
of Mr. Lincoln, and I often compared them with the idols of
my boyhood. I need not tell you that I am better able now
to judge character than I was then, and to compare them
with Mr. Lincoln.
As an executive, charged v/ith the care and responsi¬
bility of a great government during the War of the Rebel¬
lion, and with the organization and direction of great
armies, he was, as I estimate men, an abler and safer Presi¬
dent than Webster or Clay, or Chase or Seward would have
— 763 —
been under like conditions and surrounded bj like environ¬
ments.
As a diplomat, lie was the superior of Talleyrand, for
•without duplicity or falsehood he molded, and conquered
with truth as his weapon and candor for his defensive armor.
As a military strategist and commander, he was the
equal, if not the superior, of his great generals.
As a man he was merciful and just and absolutely with¬
out pride or arrogance ; and to crown all, there was an atmos¬
phere surrounding- his daily life, which made friendships that
last beyond the grave.
" He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again."
jackson on horseback and lincoln on foot.
During the last half of the first century of the republic
two men filled the presidential office whose personality stands
out pre-eminently conspicuous above those who immediately
preceded or followed them in that office. Every one who
hears me will know to whom I refer before I can pronounce
the names of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln.
Both Southern born, they were unquestionably the two
most striking figures of their day and generation. And yet
how unlike.
As I read history, Andrew Jackson was the first of our
Presidents who appeared booted and spurred and on horse¬
back; and though his term of office was in a time of profound
peace, he ruled his country and his party with an iron hand
and the autocratic will of a crowned king.
Abraham Lincoln came into the Presidency on the eve
of the greatest rebellion in history, and though Commander-
in-Chief of the mightiest army then in the world, and practi¬
cally clothed with unlimited power, he did not magnify him¬
self nor attempt to rule with military rigor either his coun¬
try or his party.
On the contrary, he sought to know the will of his coun¬
trymen with no thought of part}'or self. He sought to know
their will so that he might administer the government as the
— 764 —
general judgment of the nation should indicate, but, never¬
theless, in accord with the promptings of his own great
heart, which demanded that it should be administered in
justice and mercy, "with charity for all and malice towards
none."
The thought that dominated him was his earnest desire
to conform his acts to the considerate judgment of all loyal
men, and thus be able the better to discharge the duties of
his great office, preserve the government unimpaired, and
secure its perpetual unity and peace by enacting into consti¬
tutional law, the legitimate results of the war.
For a moment let there pass in review before your mind's
eye the picture of Andrew Jackson as President entering
Richmond after the close of the great rebellion (especially if
Calhoun had been at the head of the defeated Confederate
government), and then recall the manner in which every one
knows that Abraham Lincoln entered it.
There can be no doubt that Jackson would have entered
it duly heralded and on horseback, amid the booming of can¬
non, the waving of banners, and surrounded by his victorious
army, marching to the music of fife and drum.
Those who have read of Jackson's imperious will and
fiery temper know, that the conquered would have been made
to feel and remember the iron hand and iron will of the con¬
queror.
You all remember how Mr. Lincoln entered Richmond,
on foot, unheralded and practically unattended. He thus
entered the capital of the late Confederate government to
teach the South and the nation a needed lesson — the lesson
of mercy and forgiveness.
If he could, he would have entered Richmond bearing
aloft the nation's banner "unstained by human blood." As
he walked up the silent and deserted streets of Richmond the
colored people were the only ones to meet him, and they gave
their great deliverer a timid, quiet and undemonstrative wel¬
come by standing on each side of the streets through which
he passed with uncovered heads. During his walk of nearly
two miles the colored children, after a time, drew nearer to
him, and at last a little girl came so close that he took the
child by the hand and spoke kindly to it, obeying the injunc-
— 7b5 —
tion of that simple and sublime utterance, which, touches all
human hearts: "Suffer little children to come unto me and
forbid them not."
As I look back and recall many of the wonderful acts of
this wonderful man, this was, to me, one among- the most
impressive and touching-, and to-nig-ht presents to my mind
a picture of moral grandeur, such as the world never before
looked upon, a scene such as the future can only witness
when like causes reproduce such an occasion — and such a
man.
"Ah, if in coming- times
Some g-iant evil arise,
And honor falter and pale,
His were a name to conjure with!
God send his like ag-ain!"
As the colossal fig-ure of Lincoln casts its shadow down
the centuries, it will be a g-uide to all coming- g-enerations
of Americans, inspiring-, as it did, with courag-e and hope
all loyal men during- the darkest hours of the great strug-g-le
for our national life, when he —
"Faithful stood with prophet fing-er
Pointing- toward the blessed to be,
"When beneath the spread of Heaven
Every creature shall be free.
^'Fearless when the lips of evil
Breathed their blackness on his name,
Trusting- in a noble life time
For a spotless after fame."
And his contemporaries, while they live, and his country¬
men for all time, will cherish the thoug-ht, that neither time
nor distance, nor thing's present, nor things to come, can dim
the halo which surrounds and g-lorifies the unselfish and
manly life of Abraham Lincoln.
Letter from Hon. Isaiah T. Montgomery, Mound Bayou, Miss.
The art of government is one of the first necessities of
mankind, and the pages of history testify to the rise and fall
of empires, which facts attest their imperfection in the science
of government.
And though American civilization has reached an exalted
plane of development, our frequent periods of turmoil and
evident strain in the administration of State and National
Governments, should serve as a timely warning to be heeded,
ere our great republic shall become involved in the common
ruin that has befallen so many of its predecessors.
All democratic governments should be subject to the con-
isaiah t. Montgomery, trol of the human intellect.
It ought not to be expected that the founders of this republic should have at¬
tained perfection, especially when we consider the imperfect lights before them, and
the common distrust then prevailing in the most enlightened minds, as to the capacity
of the untrained masses of men for the safe depository of individual sovereignty.
The subject of improving and perfecting our system of free democratic govern¬
ment, so lucidly treated by the author of this address, is suificient to arrest the atten¬
tion of every patriot, and command the earnest thought of every statesman, irrespec¬
tive of party affiliations.
Experience in the affairs of our Government, whether State or National, has clearly
demonstrated the tremendous power of party machine managers, backed by party or¬
ganizations, whose chief aim is the control of the patronage and emoluments of gov¬
ernment. That it forces upon the people a continual and often unsuccessful struggle
to preserve the purity of their institutions, is well known. A continuation of these con¬
ditions, which are becoming more steadily intensified by the rapid increase of popula¬
tion, ought to be sufficient to suggest to all thinking minds, the conclusion that we are
rapidly approaching a point beyond which our present system will prove inadequate to
bear the strain.
We are already witnessing efforts to purify the body politic, in the discussion of
the propositions to nominate and to elect U. S. Senators by a direct vote of the people,
of lengthening the presidential term to six years, and providing that the incumbent
shall be nominated and elected by a direct vote, and be ineligible to a re-election.
There is also a continual dread of a clash between State and National authorities, and
a consequent jealousy on the part of the States, of any enlargement of the powers of
the National Government.
Within the States there is a growing distrust of the convention system, and in
many instances recourse is being had to primary elections. The new constitution of
this State (Mississippi) makes it encumbent upon the legislature to enact such laws as
will insure fairness in conducting this class of elections.
It seems to me that the system proposed in this address ought to prove particularly
acceptable, because it clearly enlarges the powers of the people, appealing directly to
their intelligence and patriotism for pure government, and guaranteeing absolute uni¬
formity in the action of the States pertaining to national elections, without necessitat¬
ing national supervision.
The feature that proposes to equalize the powers of electors and secure to minori¬
ties the right or privilege of representation, is the sr>te qua non of free democratic
government; being vastly superior to the cumbersome methods now in vogue, through
which an unchallenged majorit3-, in order to strengthen its lease of power, sometimes
stoops to deeds of tyranny as violative of the principles of justice as the baleful edicts
of a crowned autocrat.
Governor Ashley's plan contemplates direct and untrammeled action by the indi¬
vidual voter, and the creation of a carefully selected body of citizens in each Stat® to
act for them during any interim. This plan ought to commend itself to a people who
have been prepared by a century and a quarter of varied experience, for the highest
enjoyment of free government. Isaiah T. Montgomery.
ADDRESS
BY HON. J. M. ASHLEY,
Before the Ohio Society of New York, Monday Even¬
ing, November 9th, 1891.
THE IMPENDING POLITICAL EPOCH.
''The world advances, and in time outgrows
The laws that in our fathers' days were best."
—James Russell Lowell.
"As the fatal dogma of secession, was buried in a com¬
mon grave with the great rebellion, it is fitting- and proper
that the national Constitution should be so amended, as to
conform to the new and broader conditions of our national
life."
—From page 805 of Address.
Ohio Society of New York, 236 Fifth Avenue.
New York, Nov. 10, 1891.
Hon. J. M. Ashley,
150 Broadway, N. Y.
My Dear Governor Ashley : The paper which you
read last evening- before the Ohio Society of New York touch¬
ing- upon existing- defects in the Federal Constitution, the
dangers they involve, and the remedies at hand, aroused
in those who heard it a strong- sense of its interest and value.
A resolution thanking- you for it and soliciting a copy of it
for publication was unanimously passed. Sharing as I do
this feeling of the Society, it is a personal pleasure to me to
(767)
— 768 —
transmit to you their request, and to join personally with
them in soliciting- compliance.
Very truly yours,
Wager Swayne.
New York, November 11th, 1891.
My Dear Genl. : It gives me pleasure to comply with
the request of the Ohio Society of New York.
Herewith I hand you a copy of my address for publica¬
tion, and thank the Society for its complimentary approval.
My acknowledgements are also due for the very agree¬
able manner in which you have been pleased to convey their
wishes, and for the personal expression of your interest in
the address.
Truly yours,
J. M. Ashley.
To Genl. Wager Swayne,
President of the
" Ohio Society of New York."
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Ohio Society
op New York: The favor with which this society received
my address at its annual banquet last year, and the letters of
generous commendation received by me from eminent men,
thanking me for that contribution to our anti-slavery history,
was so unexpected and gratifying that I am now glad I then
acceded to the request of our worth}- President and delivered it.
But for his friendly determination that I should make
such an address, it would not have been prepared.
I can but hope that what I am to say before you to-night,
may receive a like cordial reception.
To you, and through you to the considerate judgment of
all who may read what I shall say, I propose to submit some
observations upon impending national questions, in connec¬
tion with our increase of population, as disclosed by our
census reports for one hundred years of progress; questions
which, if I forecast aright, are certain at an early day to con¬
front us, and to demand practical solution.
— 769 —
If the appeal I am about to make against our present
political system, shall cause you and those whom you can
reach, to read and to give a deliberate judgment on the facts
which I may present, I shall have accomplished my object.
As there have been in the past, so in the future there are
certain to be epochs in our national history, so marked, that
he who runs may read. Our transition from a confederation
to a nation, including the Revolutionary War, the War of
1812, the Mexican War and the War of the Rebellion, and
the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing
slavery, are great and important epochs of the past.
In the near future, the impending epoch will mark a
more complete recognition than we have yet witnessed, of
the democratic idea in government, by amendments to our
national Constitution, which will make it conform more fully
than it now does to the imperative demands of a great repub¬
lican commonwealth. James Russell Lowell says, that
'' He who would win the name of truly great
Must understand his own age and the next,
And make the present ready to fulfill
Its prophecy, and with the future merge
Gently and peacefully, as wave with wave.
The world advances, and in time outgrows
The laws that in our fathers' days were best."
The Constitution of our fathers, acceptable as it was a
hundred years ago to a majority of the then population of
three millions, could not be adopted without material amend¬
ment by any national constitutional convention which might
now be chosen by the votes representing our sixty-three mil¬
lions of people.
If, then, it be true that with all our veneration for the
Constitution of Washington, it would not to-day be accepted
as it is and without material change, if submitted as a new
Constitution to the people of the United States for their
ratification or rejection, its defects must, indeed, be marked
and radical.
But it is not at all strange that in a hundred years we
49
— 770 —
should, as a nation, have outgrown our Revolutionary Con¬
stitution.
Since the organization of the National Government, the
constitutions of all the original thirteen States have been
changed, and some of them two or three times. This is also
true of the constitutions of a majority of all the States ad¬
mitted into the Union since the adoption of the national Con¬
stitution.
So long as slavery dominated the nation, amendments to
our national Constitution, such as we are soon to see pro¬
posed and adopted, would have been impossible.
The abolition of slavery has brought with it new duties
and new responsibilities — duties and responsibilities which
the nation cannot escape.
With the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments, millions of former slaves became
citizens, with all the rights and privileges of citizenship.
These former slaves and their posterity must forever
remain our countrymen and fellow-citizens, with rights co¬
equal with our own.
In the year 1940, only fifty years, the Afro-American
population of this country (including Indians and all races
not properly classed as whites) will, as I estimate it, reach
the number of 13,750,000 or more, and out-number the whites
in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Missis¬
sippi, Alabama and Louisiana. That the colored man is cer¬
tain proportionately to hold his own in North Carolina, Ten¬
nessee and Southern Arkansas, is probable, and perhaps he
will hold his own in the southeastern half of the Indian
Territory and adjoining the Gulf along the eastern portion
of Texas and for some distance up the Rio Grande.
The census reports indicate that he will not increase
north of 36 degrees 30 minutes in so great a ratio as the
whites, nor in the old border slave States of Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and
Northern Arkansas. On an accompanying map, I have
marked by a black belt the States and parts of States, and
the eastern portion of the Indian Territory and Texas, in
which the Afro-American will in all probability dominate
— V V1 —
"before the year 1940, and certainly before the close of the
second century of the republic.
In order that -these estimates may be readily examined
and verified by students of statistics, I have included in the
appendix to my address, a table giving- the incompleted
census report, as published to date, of our white and colored
population for one hundred years, and an estimate for the
second hundred years.
As I estimate our total population in 1900, with the in¬
sufficient data before me, it will hav$ reached eighty-two
millions or more, in 1940 one hundred and sixty-one millions
or more, and in 1990 we shall number some three hundred
and ninety millions; at which time there will be not less than
twenty-three millions of Afro-Americans.
Confronted with these estimates and with the facts which
I shall present, I feel warranted in claiming your attention
for an hour or more to-night on impending questions as I see
them, and hope by the co-operation of the "Ohio Society of
New York" to obtain a more general hearing by thinking
men, than might otherwise be given me.
THE LESSON OF OUR CENSUS REPORTS.
Our census reports are invaluable, no less in aiding us to
forecast the work of our practical every-day business life,
than in the solution of impending political and philosophi¬
cal problems.
To me, the first hundred years of our census reports
teach that the impending questions, national and State,
which in the immediate future will confront us and demand
solution, are the equitable distribution of political power;
the guarantee to every qualified elector of a secret ballot,
and an absolute equality of individual power for that ballot;
the nomination and election of the President and all public
officials, who are to be chosen by popular vote by a direct
ballot, without the dictation of conventions or the interven¬
tion of an intermediate body such as our present "College of
Electors " for electing the President.
Foremost among these, is the question of
the equitable or proportional distribution op politi¬
cal power,
national, State and city. It is a question of such transcen¬
dent importance, that it must at an early day command the
thoughtful attention of the ablest statesmen in this country.
In a democratic republic, it is of necessity a fundamental
question, and underlies all others.
As I view it, it is more important than tariffs, the free
coinage of silver, or any question of ordinary legislation
connected with the administration of the government.
As in the past, the ablest and wisest of men have differed
in opinion on questions of finance and on the practicability
of current matters of administration, so in the future they
are certain to differ. But on the question of an equitable
distribution of political power, national, State and munic¬
ipal, so that every citizen shall be clothed at the ballot-box
with equal political authority and in all legislative assemblies
be represented in proportion to the number of votes cast in
the nation and in his State, there ought to be no divided
opinion among intelligent men who are in favor of demo¬
cratic government.
In the war for the Union, the people of this country pro¬
nounced unmistakably for a national as contradistinguished
from a confederated government, for a government which
shall be a democratic republic in fact as well as in name,
a government which ought to be administered b}T a concurrent
majority of the nation, instead of a mere numerical majority
in States, which is often a minority of the whole people.
Under our present happy-go-lucky method of conducting
national elections, the minority of the whole people have on
more than one occasion seized and held the government for
years.
You will agree with me that any device, or trick, by
which the minority seize and hold the government, national,
State or city, is an indefensible political crime.
In his " Disquisitions on Government" Mr. Calhoun has,
with great clearness and marked ability, pointed out the
danger incident to entrusting the numerical majority with
absolute political power. Had his argument for the rights
of minorities, and for what he terms "the necessity of con¬
current majorities" been made on behalf of individual elec¬
tors and manhood suffrage, instead of claiming it for organ¬
ized political communities which he called sovereign States,
he would have commanded the general approval of all
friends of democratic government both in this country and in
Europe.
It will be conceded, without argument, that one of the
first duties of a representative government is to guard and
protect the right of suffrage.
Only when the elector has guaranteed to him a free bal¬
lot and an honest count, can the political judgment of a great
commonwealth, or of a State or city, be collected.
The more perfectly this judgment of the elector is col¬
lected, the more certain is the end accomplished for which
representative government is established.
To collect the opinions of the greatest number in the
nation, or in any State or subdivision of a State, is not
enough; the opinions of the minority must be collected as
well, and as far as possible the sense of the entire community
as a whole. To do this practical^, special care must be taken
that the minority shall always have its proportional repre¬
sentation in every legislative assembly according to the
number of votes cast by the minority at any election for
representatives, either in Congress or in State legislatures, or
city governments, and under no combination of circumstances
to permit the minority, through gerrymandering schemes, or
other trick or device, to seize control of the government.
The numerical majority must of necessity control and
administer all democratic representative governments, but
such governments, to be just and equitable, must have checks,
such as the negative power which an intelligent minority can
effectually use before the bar of public opinion, to resist con¬
verting the government of a mere numerical majority into
one of despotic powers. Obviously enough all representative
government becomes better and approximates nearer a per¬
fect government, the nearer it becomes a government of the
concurrent majority. ,
If every interest in the nation, or State, or municipality
— 774 —
within a State, is represented in tlie legislative assemblies
in proportion to the number of votes cast bj each party or
association, the combining of this minority interest will
greatly increase its power for self-protection, and correspond¬
ingly decrease the power of the numerical majority to rule
with a rod of iron. It is not enough to provide constitutional
limitations to the power of the numerical majority for the pro¬
tection of the minority, unless the minority are clothed with
the power of self-protection, so that they can enforce an obser¬
vance of these rights by personal representation, open discus¬
sion and the public use of parliamentary rules. The numeri¬
cal majority being in possession of the government, will
always favor a liberal interpretation of the power granted in
any constitution or charter, and on one pretext or another,
evade or disregard the restrictions intended to limit them,
unless the minority are clothed with the power of self-pro¬
tection, which can only be had by proportional representation
and the power which intelligent debate and publicity always
secures.
On the threshold of my remarks, it is proper that I should
state the nature of the amendments I would propose to our
national Constitution, and to the objectionable features of
our national system of elections.
Briefly, these comprise the nomination and election
of the President of the United States, and Senators and Rep¬
resentatives in Congress, by a direct vote of the people, by
ballot; the creation of an independent body of officials in
every State, to be elected by the voters of each, whose
powers and duties shall be to conduct all national elections
within their respective States, and fill all vacancies that
may from time to time occur for the incompleted terms in
the office of President, Senators or Representatives in Con¬
gress.
The changes contemplated also include the abolition of
the office of Vice-President, and the abolition of all nom¬
inating conventions.
the abolition of the convention system.
From the time of its adoption many of the ablest states-
H'K- r*
/ / D
men in this country were opposed to the convention system,
although they were compelled to submit to its authority.
They opposed it because they comprehended that it was
an organized machine, which offered a standing premium
on political fraud and corruption. They saw that it would
breed a class of self-appointed leaders who would live on
office and plunder; that the general tendency would be to
nominate men for important positions whom no prudent
private citizen would for a moment think of selecting for
a public trust. And they opposed it because it is a sj-stem
unknown to the Constitution and was never contemplated by
its framers. Within fifty years it has grown to be a monster
political despotism, and in both parties is to-day the absolute
master of the people, in all cities of the first and second class,
and in all State and national nominating conventions.
From the birth of the first national convention to the
adjournment of the last, not one-tenth of the voters of the
country of either of the great political parties have been
represented in what are known as the " primaries," that is,
in the ward or township caucuses, where each party begins
the work of selecting its delegates for all national, State and
district conventions.
At all county and city conventions for the appointment
of delegates to district and State conventions, the number of
voters actually represented is still less than one-tenth.
In national conventions the delegates, thus chosen by
district and State conventions, practically represent onlj-
cliques and cabals, and even they are often powerless in the
hands of the managers of the "machine," and instead of
being a deliberative body, every national convention becomes
an irresponsible mob, which, under the manipulation of in¬
triguers, absolutely dictates for whom the people shall vote
at every election for President, and from this dictation there
is no escape and no appeal except to bolt the "regular
nominee" of your party, which practically means political
excommunication and often personal ostracism. A national
convention made up and organized thus name the President
as certainly as if they alone were the voters, and as if the
entire body of the people were disfranchised and voiceless.
— 776 —
This condition of things also obtains largely in all party
conventions, State and district, city and county.
If this statement is even approximately true, certainly
the first and most desirable reform to be attempted in this
county, ought to be the abolition of all such nominating-
conventions as now enable a small and active minority, of
one-tenth or less, to rule; and dictate to the remaining nine-
tenths or more.
For securing to every voter an equal voice in the National
Government, and for a more equitable distribution of political
power, the following plan could be made to approximate
mathematically to the total voting population of the nation,
if it were not for the existence of large and small States, and
the inequality of representation of each State in the Senate
of the United States.
So long as there are States which contain a population
of but a few thousand, or States without sufficient popula¬
tion for coequal commonwealths; and so long as the present
inequality of representation in the Senate of the United
States is maintained, the amendments here proposed provide
for the fairest and .most equitable distribution of political
power in the National Government, which I have been able
to devise.
For State governments, whether large or small, and for
all city or municipal governments within States, it is ap¬
proximately perfect. It provides a system which cannot be
successfully manipulated against the people by party bosses
or intriguing leaders, whether national, State or cit}7, and is
adapted to the wants-and growth of our democratic institu¬
tions. Let me briefly illustrate the manner of its working
in the nomination and election of Representatives in Con¬
gress.
Ohio is entitled to twenty-one members of Congress by
the new apportionment for 1891.
Under the plan proposed there would be four Congres¬
sional districts in that State, in each of which there would be
five Representatives in Congress to be elected on one ballot,
and there would also be one member to be elected for the
State at large.
It will be observed that this distribution of political
— 777 —
power, under the new apportionment, secures to each elector
in Ohio the right to vote for six Representatives in Con¬
gress, and no more than six, and that under no apportion¬
ment which can be made after any census, can the voters
in Ohio, or in any State, vote for more than seven Repre¬
sentatives. But if any elector so elects he can run his pen
or pencil across the name or names of any one or more of
the candidates on this ballot, for whom he does not desire
to vote, and cumulate his vote for any one or more of the
candidates authorized to be voted for in the State and dis¬
trict in which he resides. Each elector would thus have
secured to him absolute freedom of choice from among
the candidates placed in nomination by his own party, as
provided by law, and also from those nominated by any
party with votes enough to select a ticket, and it would
"be as impossible for any voter, or for the judges of any
election, to commit fraud in preparing and depositing such
a ballot, or in its being counted, as it would be were the
voter filling up a bank check to be paid by a cashier for
one or six thousand dollars. And in no event, under this
plan, can the minority of the total vote cast in any State
secure a majority of its delegation in Congress by the in¬
defensible distribution of political power known as gerry¬
mandering. In fact, this plan renders the trickery and
injustice of gerrymandering impossible.
The simplicity and practicability of this plan, which is ap¬
plicable alike for national, State and city governments,
must commend itself to all students of political reform.
New York, under the new apportionment, is entitled to
thirty-four Representatives in Congress. The plan proposed
would give the State eight Congressional districts of four
members each, and two for the State at large, so that each
elector in New York would be entitled to vote for six Repre¬
sentatives in Congress. Thus each voter in Ohio would
vote for the same number of Representatives as a voter in
New York, or if he so elected he could cumulate his vote,
and cast the six votes to which he is entitled for any one or
more of the candidates nominated by any part}'.
Of the manner in which nominations are to be made I
shall speak further on.
— 778 —
It will be conceded that political power is unequally and
unjustly distributed, wherever in any State the minority
obtains or elects a larg-er number of Representatives in Con¬
gress or in the State legislature by the trickery of gerry¬
mandering-, or by any other dishonest device, nor is there any
defense for a system which authorizes an elector in a popu¬
lous county in the State to vote for a greater number of
Representatives to the State legislature than an elector who
resides in a less populous county.
An elector in our State, who resides in Hamilton County,
is authorized to vote for ten members of the legislature, and
in Cuyahoga for eight or nine, while an elector in Fulton
and in a majority of all the counties in the State, can vote
but for one member. It must be clear to the average man
that the elector who votes for ten members of the State
legislature on one ballot is clothed with much greater politi¬
cal power than an elector who votes for but one. In addition
to this injustice, it is well known that these ten members for
Hamilton County may, in the future as they have been in
the past, be elected by a mere plurality of the votes cast in
that county, and not by a majority, When this happens the
entire representation from Hamilton County in the State
legislature is secured by a minority of the votes cast in that
county, and oftener than otherwise such an election changes
the political complexion of the legislature, and gives to the
minority of the voters in the State, control of the legislative
department of the State government. So long as the caucus
and convention system obtains, and the inequality between
electors in the populous and less populous counties of the
State is continued, with the present indefensible distribution
of political power to the larger and smaller counties, just so
long will desperate political cliques alternately dominate
in such counties and in the State; and the government for
cities and for State institutions be attempted by "commis¬
sions," appointed by the party in power.
It would be difficult to conceive of a more offensive ex¬
hibition than that which all last winter was enacted in the
State of Connecticut for the want of an honest distribution
of political power.
Under this plan, substantial!}' as outlined, I am confident
— 779 —
that any man of mature years and fair executive abilitv,
with a small committee of five or seven business men (but
never a committee of one hundred) could dislodge and defeat
all organized political combinations such as now rule New
York and Cincinnati.
Nothing- is more certain if the voters can be guaranteed
the right to make their own nominations, than that this re¬
sult can be successfully accomplished with half the labor and
less than half the money uselessly thrown away, every year or
two, by spasmodic efforts on the part of exasperated and
worthy citizens.
It might, and probably would, require two sharply con¬
tested battles before the voters could accustom themselves to
the new mode of nominating and electing their officials.
But the second battle in most cases, and the third battle cer¬
tainly in a majority of cases, would end in the complete rout
of all cliques and self-appointed leaders, who now live at the
public crib in both cities and States by the organized power
secured to them by the political "machine." If such rings
and combines as we have in the cities of New York and Cin¬
cinnati can be successfully dislodged as proposed, it may be
safely predicted that they could and would be dislodged and
defeated in every State and in all cities.
That the plan proposed will enable the people to accom¬
plish this I am fully persuaded, provided always that a ma¬
jority of the people vote to elect their own nominations, not
otherwise. This plan is for the government of majorities.
It is opposed to a government by commission, and to all
schemes for clothing the minority with the administration of
government, national, State or city.
Let me illustrate briefly the working of the plan if put
in operation by the States of Ohio and New York and in the
cities of New York and Cincinnati.
In the States and cities named, or indeed in all States
and cities where democratic government and home rule is
demanded, the State constitutions and city charters would em¬
body the principles of the proposed amendment of the
national Constitution, and provide in like manner for the
nomination and election of governors and ma} ors and all offi¬
cials to be chosen by the people, whether State or cit^. Txie
— 780 —
plan for the nomination and election of members of the
legislature, or the law-making- departments of city govern¬
ment, would thus be uniform for all States and cities. This
can be done in every State and in all cities with mathematical
accuracy.
Affirming the practicability and necessity of two repre¬
sentative law-making bodies in national, State and city
governments, I would provide that in all cases Senators shall
be elected by districts in every State, and members of the
board of aldermen in all cities in districts of not less than
three nor more than five members each, and that the number
of Senators and members of all aldermanic boards should
invariably be composed of one-third the number of members
to be elected in districts to the lower House in both States and
cities.
Thus in Ohio, I would provide, were I a member of a
constitutional convention or a member of the legislature, that
the State constitution should be so amended that there shall
be ninety members of the lower house, to be elected in districts
of five members each, and not less than three members of the
lower house in addition, for the State at large. To deter¬
mine the territorial boundaries of the 18 representative dis¬
tricts, I would divide the total vote of the State for governor
by 90, which will give the number of voters to be allotted to
each district.
As the Senate, to be elected by districts, would in every
case be composed of one-tliird the number of representatives
(that is, 30 Senators), there would be six senatorial districts,
in each of which five Senators would be elected, and in addi¬
tion not less than three Senators for the State at large. This
would make a House of 93 members and a Senate of 33, and
always secure an odd number in each house.
In New York, I would allot 120 members to the lower
house, and have them elected in 24 districts of five members
each, and not less than three members of the House in addi¬
tion for the State at large.
In a House of 120 members elected by districts, the Senate
would be composed of one-third that number, or 40 Senators,
to be elected in eight senatorial districts of five Senators
each, and three Senators in addition to be elected by the State
— 781 —
at large. The territorial apportionment for the districts in
which members of the House are to be chosen would be
determined by dividing- the total vote of the State for gover¬
nor by 120, and I would provide that in both State and city
apportionments three representative districts of the lower
house of contiguous territory, should always make a sena¬
torial or aldermanic district.
For all State and municipal or city governments this
plan secures the absolute equitable distribution of political
power, on a mathematical basis, in all apportionments for
members of representative bodies, and guarantees to all
organized groups of electors, numbering not less than one-
eighth of the total vote cast at any election, in any State or
city, equality of political power, by providing that no elector
in State or city shall vote for a greater number of candidates
than another elector, but that each elector shall have au¬
thority to cumulate his vote, so as to secure to any group of
electors numbering one-eighth and a fraction of the total
vote, a representation in ail State and city legislative assem¬
blies, that shall correspond approximately with the total
number of votes cast at any election for Representatives in
State legislatures, or in the law-making branch of any city
government.
It will be conceded that this plan, even without the pro¬
vision for selecting all candidates by ballot as provided at
nominating elections, would be a vast improvement on the
present manner of electing our President, United States
Senators and Representatives in Congress, and all State
and city officials. By embodying in the plan the provision
for making such nominations by the people, the system
becomes impregnable in the hands of intelligent voters.
But the tremendous power which this plan would secure to
all able and honestly conducted newspapers cannot at present
be estimated. That it would give them a power they have
never had will be readily understood by any one now con¬
nected with the press who gives this matter proper consid¬
eration.
The democratic idea in government demands, and the
plan which I here submit recognizes, that in all States and
cities each elector shall have secured to him secret ballot,
— 782 —
and the rig-lit to vote on one ballot for not less than three
State Senators for the State at large, and for not less than
three members of the lower house of the legislative assembly
for the State at large, and in senatorial districts for five
Senators in each, and in representative districts for five
members each to the lower house.
This secures an absolutely equitable distribution of polit¬
ical power, and also political equality to every voter in the
State, as each elector could only vote for the same number
of Senators, and for the same number of Representatives in
the lower house.
But if he desired he could cumulate his vote and dis¬
pose of his votes for Senator and his votes for members of
the legislature as he might elect, by deliberately erasing
with pen or pencil the name or names of the persons nomin¬
ated for Senators or Representatives, for whom he did not
desire to vote, and designate opposite the name or names of
his favorite candidates the number of votes which he wished
transferred to them.
In the appendix to my address will be found the form for
all ballots, national, State and city.
The plan is so simple, and so free from the possibility of
fraud or misinterpretation, that I am confident it will recom¬
mend itself to the considerate judgment of all thoughtful
men engaged in the work of representative and ballot reform.
That this plan when adopted will prove an invaluable
educator will not be questioned.
Those who recognize the capacity of the people for self-
government will approve some such plan, while those who
doubt or deny that the people are sufficiently intelligent to
be intrusted with the power of self-government will oppose
and condemn every proposed reform which promises to destroy
the political machine, and break the political manacles with
which intriguers and conventions now environ the voter in
all parties, national and State.
It will be seen that this plan clothes with absolutely inde¬
pendent political power all electors, and that they are thus
enabled to vote at every election, free from the arbitrary
dictation of political caucuses and conventions, and of all
self-appointed political leaders.
— 783 —
Affirming the fundamental proposition, upon which this
plan is founded, that a great continental commonwealth can
only be permanently maintained in peace and unity, by a
government in which the whole people of all the States, the
minority no less than the majority, are personally represented
in its national legislative assembly, in proportion to the
total number of its qualified voters, I gladly avail myself of
the opportunity which this Society has given me, to lay
before it my contribution to the suggestions, which, in the
near future, must be submitted and discussed by the people
before any such change as I contemplate can be made.
THE) PLAN DEMOCRATIC-
An examination of this plan will disclose that it is equi¬
table, comprehensive and democratic ; that it is applicable
alike in all governments, whether States, cities or munici¬
palities, in which a democratic representative government
is possible.
It recognizes the complete sovereignty of the people, and
secures responsible local self-government. It throws around
the ballot-box every safeguard necessary for the security
of the voter and the purity of elections, and arms each voter
with a weapon which, if he but use it, will on all occasions
give him complete protection against secret or open combina¬
tions of political intriguers. " It makes impossible the suc¬
cessful use of the political machinery of our present caucus
and convention S3rstem, or machinery such as has long been
in use by Tammany Hall in this city, and by like organiza¬
tions of both parties in other cities.
It destroys absolutely the power of political bossism,
and enables the people to defeat all such combinations as
now dictate to voters as imperiously as if they were convicts
in a State prison, keeping lock-step, while marching to the
polls, and obeying the order of the managers of the political
"machine." That the present convention system of each
party should have so firmly fastened itself upon the people
of this country, is an amazing fact in our history. Under
this system, the recognized bar-room statesmen in this city,
or indeed in any city, can, and usually do, select and have
— 784 —
appointed to all State, district and city conventions a larger
number of deleg-ates than can be secured bj any editor of
even the ablest party organ. As a rule, and for the express
purpose of binding- in advance such editors to support the
nominees, whoever they may be, they are put on delegations
to all important conventions; special care being taken that
they shall be sandwiched between a sufficient number of
" reliable statesmen " to render them powerless against the
machine," either in such conventions or out of them.
It has long been a recognized common law rule in
politics that every delegate taking part in any convention
is in honor bound to defend the platform adopted, however
objectionable, and support the candidates nominated, even
though their nominations were secured by trickery or fraud.
In this way many editors are yearly marched into con¬
ventions and practically manacled, and compelled by party
usage, and party necessit}', to support the nominee, how¬
ever unworthy, and defend the platform, however offensive,
adopted by any convention in which they may have thus ap¬
peared as delegates, bound hand and foot.
The plan which I propose will change all this, and prac¬
tically lodge the power where it ought to be, with the peo¬
ple, represented by the public press. By public discussion
secret intriguers can be defeated more certainly than in any
other way, and all editors can appeal to their readers to
second their efforts to secure desirable candidates at all
nominating elections. If a majority of the voters in any
party unite with them at such nominating elections, it will
be found that almost invariably reputable and worthy men
have been selected as candidates. Editors of character and
ability will thus always be able, under this plan, to com¬
mand a favorable hearing with a hundred voters to every ten
that can be induced to go to a caucus and vote for the nom¬
ination of any candidate presented by the most active and
successful among our leading "practical statesmen." Daily
5a all cities, morning or evening, in the quiet of their homes,
every editor under this plan can reach an appeal to his
readers and ask them to cut out the ticket printed in his
paper, and go to the polls and vote it, with the statement
that in his opinion by a proper effort, the candidate or candi-
— 785 —
dates named can be nominated. I shall not attempt to esti¬
mate the power which this plan will secure to an able and
independent press.
The usual results in our present national conventions
are that the. delegates from the so-called "pivotal States''
dictate to each party all nominations for President. After
a sufficient number of ballots have been taken to weary a
majority of the rank and file in any convention, and the
weak points of the several contestants have been disclosed,
the programmes of the contending- chiefs are then deter¬
mined and ,the ablest boss manipulator of the "machine"
generally wins. As he goes to the convention to win, he
does not stand on the order of employing- the means neces¬
sary to that end.
The moment the lay deleg-ates discover the "situation"
they become wild in their zeal to be heard, and the most un¬
blushing- and reckless frantically jump upon seats and desks
with yells that always amaze the uninitiated, each of them
demanding- recognition by the chairman in order that he may
have the honor of leading- off and being the first in the mad
scramble to have the vote of his State duly recorded for the
candidate who is slated to win, or to declare in a ringing
speech that his deleg-ation has instructed him to announce
that his State has decided to change its vote from their
favorite son" to the candidate who is to be successful.
This movement, though an old dodge, is often so skill¬
fully played that it stampedes the delegates and gives success
to the secretly prearranged programme of the machine
managers.
The candidate of the machine is thus oftener than other¬
wise nominated without the slightest regard to his ability or
qualifications for the duties of the presidential office, and
when officially declared the nominee, the entire party is forced
to support him, even though it be conceded that his nomina¬
tion has been secured by trickery and fraud.
In the interval between the hours when the nomination
is made and the final adjournment of the convention, other
important matters are being transacted. Papers are duly pre¬
pared and signed by delegates for each other, reciting the in-
50
— 786 —
valuable party services of delegates from this State and that
who voted right, and especially the "claims" of delegates
from ''pivotal States," and before the convention has fairly
adjourned, the delegates who made the nomination possible
are "booked" for official recognition under the new
administration, if the candidate should be elected.
The political demoralization from this condition of things
cannot be even approximately estimated. The adoption of
my plan for nominating all candidates by a direct vote of all
electors by ballot, will, beyond question, secure the early
abolition of all national nominating conventions, and even¬
tually of all State, county and city conventions, thus eman¬
cipating the voters of all parties from the despotism of party
cliques and party conventions.
In thus superseding the present caucus and convention
system, each elector will be secured in a right he never had
before, the right to vote directly for his first choice for any
candidate from President down, without the fear of indirectly
aiding in the election of an objectionable candidate, because
the first election in every instance is simply a nominating
election.
I have provided that at all nominating elections each
group of electors, or each party, shall prepare its own bal¬
lot, and also that each individual voter may prepare his own
ballot, either printed or written, as he may elect and as the
law shall prescribe.
After the nominations are made, Congress is specially
directed to provide bylaw that the "College of Deputies"
in each State shall cause all the official ballots to be prepared
and properly distributed, substantially as in the " Australian
s}Tstem," which has been adopted by several of our States.
abolish the office of vice-president.
To me, there is no provision of our national Constitu¬
tion so objectionable as that which creates the office of the
Vice-President, and in case of the resignation, disability or
death of the President, clothes that functionary with the
chief executive office. Objection was made to the creation
— 787 —
of the office of Vice-President by some of the clearest
thinkers in the convention which framed the Constitution,
some of whom declared that "the office was unnecessary and
dangerous."
The wisdom of their opposition has been confirmed more
than once in our history.
As all know, the Vice-President is a superfluous officer,
and as experience has shown, more ornamental than useful.
He is simply a figure-head, and since the birth of the conven¬
tion system not an attractive one at that. But as the " heir-
apparent " he is always a possibility. Around every Vice-
President all factions and cranks in his party involuntarily
gather. Yfhether he wishes it or not, all disappointed appli¬
cants for office, and all conspirators are drawn towards him
as by the law of gravitation. That our revolutionary fathers
should have preserved this shadowy relic of monarchy in our
Constitution by creating an "heir-apparent" is one of the
unexplained facts in our history. And then, our "heir-ap¬
parent " is unlike that of any other provided for, in any gov¬
ernment on earth, in that he has no ties of affection or con¬
sanguinity or gratitude. The President is never the father
of the Vice-President nor his benefactor, but often his
personal and political rival.
This provision of the Constitution simply invites every
Vice-President to be a Richard III., or a conspirator ready
and waiting the promotion, which assassins can always
secure for him, by creating* a vacancy in the office of Presi¬
dent, as was done in the " removal" of Lincoln and Garfield.
Night and morning, at banquets and funerals, every¬
where and on all occasions, the Constitution perpetually
whispers in the ear of every unscrupulous and ambitious
Vice-President, "that between him and the highest and
most honorable office on earth there is but the life of a single
man."
Instead of such an officer as the Vice-President, the
provision originally suggested in the first draft made by the
committee in the convention of 1789 ought to have been made
part of the Constitution. That provision simply provided
that "The Senate shall choose its own presiding and other
officers."
— 788 —
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is always a
member of that body, and must be selected by its members.
The Speaker appoints all committees of the House, and can,
if he so elects, vote on all questions before the House and also
take part in debate, while the Vice-President cannot appoint
the Senate committees, nor vote, except in case of a tie, nor
can he participate in debate on the floor of the Senate. His
very existence and presence is a menace and a peril to any
man in the office of President.
The peace of our country has been imperiled during- our
history more than once, because of the existence of the office
of Vice-President. V^e would have escaped the ordeai
through which the nation passed in 1801, when Jefferson and
Burr were candidates, if there had been no vice-presidential
office. And here I may appropriately quote from a speech
which I made in Congress on this subject in 1868, when I
said " that had there been no such office as Vice-President,
we should have been spared the perfidy of a Tyler, the be¬
trayal of a Fillmore and the baseness and infamy of a John¬
son."
After drawing- a picture of the conspiracy which ulti-
mated in Mr. Lincoln's assassination, I said in the same
speech, that "I present this panoramic view of what is now
history to illustrate how weak and indefensible in this par¬
ticular is the presidential office, so that I may appeal to the
nation to fortify it against this danger by removing- the
temptation now presented to conspirators and assassins, and
thus make the presidential office a citadel against which they
may hurl themselves in vain."
"Adopt this plan and the occupant of the presidential
office will be effectually guarded from all political conspira¬
cies which thrive by assassination. It also precludes the
possibility of an interregnum in that office." (Congres¬
sional Globk, 2d Session, 40th Congress, Part 3, page 2714.)
In all national conventions, the average candidate for
Vice-President is practically a "pawn" on the political
chessboard in the hands of the managers of the "machine,"
and is disposed of as absolutely as the skilled chess-player
moves and disposes of his "pawn" in any sharp game of
chess.
— 789 —
More than once, in the history of the Democratic, Whig-
and Republican parties, has the vice-presidential "pawn"
been used by the " machine " managers to defeat the nomi¬
nation of candidates for President, who would have been
nominated but for the intriguers, who successfully played
the vice-presidential "pawn" to defeat the first choice of
he party, and to nominate candidates who were not even the
second or third choice of the party for President.
From the first national convention to the last, not one of
all the men nominated by either party for Vice-President,
could have been nominated for President by the convention
which nominated him for Vice-President. Yet the Consti¬
tution makes every Vice-President the "heir-apparent."
Had the plan which I propose for filling- a vacancy in
the presidential office been part of our national Constitution,
when either one or all of our four Presidents passed away,
and thus made that office vacant, nothing1 is more certain
than that not one of the men who was then Vice-President
could have been selected to fill out the unexpired term of that
President.
Let me ask you to look in upon such a gathering- of the
national "College of Deputies," as it would appear, on the
plan proposed, when in session at Washing-ton for the pur¬
pose of selecting- a President to fill out the unexpired term
of any President.
And first, look at the members of such an assembly indi¬
vidually. That such a body of men would be made up of the
fairest and most trustworthy citizens of each State, is as¬
sured by the requirement which prescribes that the youngest
member shall not be less than 30 years of ag-e, and that he
shall have been seven years a resident of the State from
which he is chosen, and that he shall be nominated and
elected by the duly qualified electors of each State. Selected
in conformity with this plan, no better guarantee could be
given as to their character and fidelity.
Under the apportionment of 1891 for Representatives in
Congress, there would be 444 members of such a College of
Deputies when convened in session at Washington, repre¬
senting the majority and minority of the whole people in
each State, as equitably as can be secured with the present
— 790 —
distribution of political power in our large and small States.
No intelligent man familiar with our history can for a
moment believe that such a body of men, when called upon
to rise each in his place and vote viva voce for a citizen to
fill out the unexpired term of any deceased President, that
they would have been guilty of the folly or crime of select¬
ing- John Tyler to fill the vacancy caused by the death of
General Harrison, or Millard Fillmore to fill the vacancy
caused by the death of General Taylor, nor would it have
been possible for such a body to have filled the vacancy
caused by the assassination of Mr. Lincoln by the selection
of Andrew Johnson, or Chester A. Arthur to fill that of
General Garfield. If it be true that such a body of men
would not have selected any one of the four Vice-Presidents,
who as the "heir-apparent" became President on the death
of his chief, and if, as I believe, not one of the men named
could by any combination have been nominated for President
by the convention which nominated him for Vice-President,
have I not presented considerations which will justify the
people of this country in demanding* the early abolition of
the office of Vice-President?
THE DECENTRALIZATION OF POLITICAL POWER.
With the adoption of this proposed amendment all con¬
flict of authority between the national and State govern¬
ments will cease, because the powers and duties of each will
have been definitely and clearly defined, so that all States
now in the Union, and all States which in the future may be
admitted, can have no cause for controversy.
Each State and all municipal governments within any
State will be fully protected in its dignity and freedom from
intervention on the part of the officials of the National Gov¬
ernment, and may regulate its own internal affairs in its
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United
States.
After the adoption of this amendment, Congress could
not clothe the President nor any official of the National Gov¬
ernment (as it may now do) with authority to interfere in
any national election in any State, nor would it then be pos-
— 791 —
sible for Congress to enact such a law as the so-called
" Force Bill."
In all elections for President and Senators and Repre-
senatives in Congress, the people of each State have, by this
plan, direct and absolute control by personal vote, free from
the intervention of the political machinery of State govern¬
ments.
Nor does this plan interfere in any way with the elec¬
toral or administrative machinery of State governments, or
municipal governments in States; nor does it abridge the
liberty or the privileges of the citizen of any State; on the
contrary, it enlarges his liberty and secures to him rights of
which he never before was possessed except in name. It
preserves the rights of the States and secures inviolable the
sovereignty of the people.
As the courts of the United States deal directly with the
•citizens of the several States without serious conflict from
the State courts, so this amendment, and all laws which the
Congress may enact by its authority, deal directly with the
people and charge the citizens residing in the several States
with the selection by ballot of their own officials to conduct
all national elections in their respective States.
Under this plan you cannot lodge in the hands of any
administration at Washington the control of the national
electoral machinery in the States. To the College of Depu¬
ties in each State, and to no other officials, is given the au¬
thority to secure an honest registration to the electors in
each State, and a free and fair election of President and
Senators and Representatives in Congress. Instead of an in¬
crease of centralized power at Washington, to which I am
opposed, this plan secures a marked decentralization of
power, by placing it permanently and exclusively in the care
and keeping of the citizens of each State.
In all elections for President and Senators and Repre¬
sentatives in Congress, the entire machinery for conducting
such elections is lodged in the hands of officials nominated
and elected by ballot directly by the qualified voters in each
State, and these officials thus elected by the people of the
several States can no more be induced to commit fraud or
crime or be dictated to or controlled by officials at Washing-
— 792 —
ton tlian a judg-e, or a duly impaneled jury in any Circuit or
District Court of the United States in any State, nor can
they be tampered with and corrupted by any administration
at Washington.
Whatever power may originally have been "reserved to
the States or to the people " in our present Constitution is by
this plan secured to the people direct, without interference
on the part either of the national or State governments.
Instead of conferring additional power on the govern¬
ment at Washington touching national elections, this plan
materially decreases the power conferred on congress
by our present Constitution, and provides that all power
and authority in respect to the conduct of elections in the
several States for President and Senators and Representa¬
tives in Congress shall be confided to the people direct, and
in such manner that neither the officials of the National Gov¬
ernment nor of a State government can in any way interfere
with the authorities or the duties of the College of Deputies
chosen by the people in each State.
It takes from a State no power properly belonging to it,
but it takes from the State legislatures the power to elect
United States Senators as now, and demolishes the power of
the machine boss and the cross-roads statesman in every
legislature, and makes it impossible for him to wield the
power he now uses to compel the members of all State legis¬
latures to go into the caucuses for the nomination of United
States Senators, where with one-third or less of the mem¬
bers of any State legislature he dictates who shall be the
Senator from such State, as is now the case in nearly every
State in the Union. It also deprives the legislature of the
power of disfranchising the people, and sometimes a ma¬
jority of the people of a State, of their proportionate repre¬
sentation in Congress by unjust and indefensible acts of
gerrymandering the State into Congressional districts.
The power thus taken from Congress and from State
legislatures is conferred directly on the people of each State
in connection with all national elections, and secures a per¬
fect decentralization of power, and does not permit
either the Senate or House of Representatives, as under our
present Constitution, to be the judge of the qualifications of
— 793 —
its own members; under which, rule, either House of Congress
can always find a partisan pretext for turning- a member out
who has been elected, and seat a member who has not been
elected, as has often been done, and will be done so long- as
the present authority is vested in each House.
This constitutional amendment prescribes The qualifi¬
cations of Senators and members of the House, and con¬
fers on the people at the ballot-box the right to determine who
the Senators and members from their State shall be, and
from this decision there can be no appeal to either House of
Congress. All contests must be heard and determined in the
District Court of the United States for the State and district
in which any contest may arise.
This plan secures full and free scope for the deliberate
expression of the national will, not only in the nomination
and election of the President, but in the selection of Sena¬
tors and Representatives in Congress and members of the Col¬
lege of Deputies.
In States entitled to more than one Representative in
Congress, each group of electors, if their number be equal
to one-third, or more or less as the case may be, can by
cumulating their vote always have a voice in the administra¬
tion of the government and thus be able to check and often
to defeat schemes which are pernicious or undesirable. By
securing to the people of every State proportional represen¬
tation, the convictions and conscience of the majority and
minority in each State, and in the Nation, will always be
represented in each State and at Washington, so that ill-
considered or partisan movements, and sometimes the tem¬
porary madness of public opinion, may by prudent criticism
and practical discussion be modified or rejected.
The "pivotal States," as they are called, that is, large
States like New York, whose vote more than once has decided
the election of a President, is one of the most corrupting
and dangerous powers in our system. The incentive to ille¬
gal voting and ballot-box stuffing-, and to the importation of
voters from adjoining States into such States as New York,
is but one of the dangers inseparable from the election of
thirty-six presidential electors on one ballot for the State at
large.
— 794 —
Under the present electoral machinery, a minority of
the popular vote and a minority of the electoral vote secured
the President at the time John Quincy Adams was chosen by
the House of Representatives in 1825. No plan of national
government is defensible which makes it possible for a mi¬
nority of the voters at the polls and a minority of the Elec¬
toral College to succeed in electing- the President, as was
done in 1825 when Mr. Adams was chosen.
When some such amendment as I here propose shall have
been adopted, no third- or fourth-rate man will thereafter be
nominated for President. Certainly no man unknown to the
people, nor any man whose political opinions were objection¬
able could possibly be nominated, after each elector is au¬
thorized to vote direct by ballot for his first choice. In order
to get votes enough at any nominating election to be included
in the list of the four highest candidates, he must of neces¬
sity be a man of national reputation, with a character for
political integrity and executive ability.
The average elector has a proper estimate of the dignity
and importance which belongs to the presidential office, and
the voters of all parties, when naming their first choice for
President, would naturally turn to their ablest representative
men. In no event could a mere faction or a minority in any
party, by the use of the " machine," form combinations and
defeat as they have done, and can now do, the nomination of
any man who was the choice of the majority. Schemers and
intriguers would be powerless without the "convention
machine," and could not by secret combinations hold the
" balance of power" in any large States like New York and
Ohio, and dictate the nomination of their candidate on pain
of defeating the part}-. Under my plan, the voice of all
electors in each party would be heard, and desperate efforts
could not be successfully made, such as we have more than
once witnessed in New York, to obtain, no matter by what
means, a bare plurality of the vote in the State, so as to
secure the entire electoral vote of the State and thus elect
the President.
— 795 —
objections to the election of a president by a college
of electors and by the house of representa¬
tives under our present constitution.
Section One of Article Two of our Constitution prescribes
the manner in which electors of President and Vice-Presi¬
dent shall be appointed by the several States as follows:
"Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legis¬
lature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the
whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the
State may be entitled in the Congress."
It will be observed that the Constitution thus confers on
the legislature of each State, without qualification and be¬
yond the possibility of doubt, absolute authority to appoint in
such manner as a majority of any legislature may direct, the
number of electors of President and Vice-President to which
the State is entitled under any apportionment. The words,
"in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct,"are
as clear and distinct as the English language can make
them. It must therefore be conceded that a majority in the
legislature of any State, even though they represent a mi¬
nority of the total vote of the State, may appoint all the
electors, or they may confer the power of appointment on an}'
one or more persons (as the legislature of South Carolina did
at one time confer the power to appoint the electors of
President and Vice-President for that State on its governor),
or they may direct that electors for President and Vice-Pres¬
ident shall be chosen by the voters of the State, either in
congressional district or by the State at large, or in any sub¬
division of the State, as they may elect, and from such de¬
termination of the legislature there can be no escape.
The enactment by the last legislature of Michigan of a
law changing the manner of appointing* the electors cf Pres¬
ident and Vice-President for that State ought to be a lesson
and a warning.
It is well known that Michigan is a State in which one
party, when united, is uniformly in a majority. Factional
— 796 —
divisions and incompetent leadership on the part of the
majority enabled the minority last }'ear to seize control of
the State government, including- the legislature. Where-
upon.the legislature proceeded (as under the clause of the Con¬
stitution above quoted they had the legal authority to do) to
repeal the law, which from the organization of the State had
provided that a majority of the voters in the State should
select on one ballot for the State at large, all the electors of
President and Vice-President; and enacted a law which
directs that said electors shall be chosen in districts — dis¬
tricts which said legislature deliberately gerrymandered, so
as to secure to the minority of the voters in the State a
majority of the fourteen presidential electors to which the
State is entitled in the Electoral College of 1892.
If the legislatures of other States, in which the minority
of the voters of either party may have secured by any com¬
bination a majority of its legislature, should follow the
example of Michigan (which is not improbable), and repeal
the law which now authorizes the people to choose presi¬
dential electors in such States, and assume to appoint au,
the electors to which their State is entitled, or a majority of
them, such action would disclose one of the weakest and
most dangerous defects of our present system for the choice
of a President.
The accidental control of the legislature by a minority
of the voters of any party of one or more " pivotal States"
would thus enable the minority to determine the choice of a
President next year. And it is among the possibilities that
the act of the Michigan legislature in dividing the electoral
vote of that State, may defeat the will of a large majority of
the people of Michigan and of the nation in their choice of
a President in 1892- The new apportionment increases the
vote in the Electoral College to 444, of which number 223 are
a majority. If the Democratic candidate in 1892 should
carry all the States which voted for Mr. Cleveland in 1884,
he would have 225 electoral votes and be elected. If he
should lose West Virginia, and secure six or eight votes from
Michigan, because of the appointment of the electors in
that State by districts, he would still be elected.
It will be granted without argument, that if a minority
— 797 —
party in any State which, by accident or because of the in¬
difference of the majority, has secured control of its legis¬
lature, may in its partisan zeal repeal the law providing- for
the choice of presidential electors by the people of such
State, and by any device secure to its party the appointment
of the entire number of presidential electors to which the
State is by law entitled, or a majority of them, that our
Constitution cannot be too speedily amended in this par¬
ticular.
Should a majority of the voters in Michig-an, or in anj-
State, attempt to appoint (as has been sugg-ested) electors of
President and Vice-President for 1892, under the law long- in
use, but which may have been repealed by any State legisla¬
ture, such action would probably ultimate in two or more
sets of electoral certificates being- sent from such States to
Washing-ton, and result in a contest in Congress such as we
had in 1876-77; and mig-ht end in the selection of the
President by the House of Representatives.
Another objectionable feature of our electoral system is
that which permits each member of a Colleg-e of Electors
to vote a secret ballot for Lany person he may wish for
President; and then, the officers of any pivotal State may
corruptly certify to the election of presidential electors who
have not been elected by the people of such State; and Con¬
gress may refuse to go back of the returns from any State, so
certified by its corrupt or partisan officials.
That we have reached a point in our history when the
nation must give serious consideration to the impending
dang-er which thus confronts us will not be questioned.
The majority of the American people mig-ht refuse to
submit to a repetition of such injustice and wrong-.
Another Electoral Commission might inaugurate a parti¬
san conflict that would end in revolution.
The adoption of the proposed constitutional amendment
herewith submitted, will at once put an end to all such dan¬
gerous possibilities. When there are no longer "pivotal
States," there will be no such desperate efforts as we now
witness at each presidential election to carry such States by
improper and dangerous methods.
A whole people cannot be corrupted, and manifestly it
— 798 —
would be impossible, when the nation voted as a unit, to
secure a majority of the total vote by trickery and fraud.
During- the next ten years, if an election of a President
should devolve on the House of Representatives, composed of
356 members, as it is under the present apportionment, fifty-
five (55) members from twenty-three States can, by uniting",
elect the President. It will be seen that under our present
Constitution less than one-sixth of the members of the
House, representing- less than one-sixth of the population
of the nation, can elect the President.
The following twenty-three States would make a ma¬
jority of forty-four States:
1. Delaware
2. Idaho
3. Montana
4. Nevada
5. North Dakota..
6. Wyoming
7. Florida
8. Colorado
9. New Hampshire
10. Oregon
11. Rhode Island. ..
12. South Dakota...
13. Vermont
No. of
Votes.
14. Washington.. .
15. Connecticut .. .
16. Maine
17. West Virginia.
18. Arkansas
19. Louisiana
20. Maryland
21. Nebraska
22. South Carolina
23. Mississippi. .. .
Total V ote.. .
Of these seventy-two votes, fifty-five may cast the vote
of the above-named twenty-three States (each State having
one vote), and thus fifty-five members, in a House of 356,
can elect the President.
It will not be questioned that it would be difficult to de¬
vise a more anti-democratic provision than that which our
present Constitution provides for the election of a Presi¬
dent by the House of Representatives.
— 799 —
The slave barons forced this anti-democratic provision
in the Constitution, and political progress was thus retarded
a century.
That less than one-sixth of the members of the House
of Representatives can, by uniting-, select as President the
person having- the smallest popular vote and the smallest
number of electoral votes of the three candidates returned
to the House, is a fact which forms one of the political anom¬
alies in our history.
Why a practical people, such as ours, should for a hun¬
dred years have submitted to a system so anti-democratic and
repug-nant to all fair-minded, intelligent men, is something-
I am unable to explain.
"When an election for President devolves on that bod}*,
ONE-Third, and sometimes one-half of its members who vote
to make the President, are men who have not been elected to
the new Congress.
As their terms expire on the 4th of March immediately
after such an election for President, a majority of such retir¬
ing members are usually in condition and ready to accept ap¬
pointments from the man whom they have just voted to make
President.
i*arge and smal.i, states.
During- my early reading- of the Constitution, I often re¬
gretted that a clause had not been added to Article V., pro¬
viding- that at some time after its adoption, say in fifty or
even in a hundred years, Senators of the United States should
be apportioned among- the several States as Representatives
are allotted to each, in proportion to the population of each.
You will remember that Section 3 of Article I. provides
that each State shall have two Senators, and that Article
V. .contains this extraordinary provision: "And no State,
without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in
the Senate." These two provisions and the clause in Article
II., which provides that "each State shall have one vote,''
when the choice of a President devolves on the House of
Representatives, are quite as objectionable to me now, as
when I first began the study of the Constitution, for the
— 800 —
reason, that thej are a positive denial of the representative
principle, and a flagrant violation of the democratic idea in
government.
I would not vote to-day for the admission of a new State
out of any State, or for the admission of a Territory as a
State, unless I could be satisfied that its population would,
within a reasonable time, entitle it to not less than four (4)
Representatives in Congress, under any apportionment which
would result by dividing- the population of the nation by 356,
the number of members of the House fixed by law under the
present census.
So long as any State, without reg-ard to population, is
clothed with the political power of Two Senators, a State
with less than four members is simply a "rotten borough."
Until the Senate is remodeled, and Senators of the United
States are apportioned among-the several States on the basis
of population, or, better yet, on the basis of the votes cast at
each election for President, the admission of rotton borough
States ought to be resisted by all who believe in a democratic
government, and an equitable representation of all the people
in the national Congress.
I regret to say that within a year we have witnessed the
remarkable spectacle of six new States being dragged into
the Union, with unexampled haste, whose combined popula¬
tion is not more than enoug-h to make one commonwealth,
and three of them will probably never have a population
sufficient to entitle them to more than one Representative in
Congress. And this was done with the example of Nevada
before us as a warning-.
Every student of political science must look with amaze¬
ment oil the reckless distribution of political power which we
have witnessed in the recent admission of these six new
States.
Nevada contains to-day a territorial area of 109,740
square miles, and is larger by seventy-four square miles in
territorial area than all the six New Eng-land States with
New York added.
"When this barren waste of sand and desert was admitted
as a State in 1864, the claim was made by its embrj-o states¬
men that it then contained a population of one hundred
— 801 —
thousand op more, and that with its fabulous and inexhaust¬
ible mineral and pastoral wealth and its large territorial
area, nothing- could prevent it becoming- the " Empire State"
west of the Missouri River and east of California.
Whatever may have been its population in 1864, its popu¬
lation after twenty-seven years in the wonderful development
promised by its romancing officials is now reported by the
census just taken at the astonishing number 40,019. In
round numbers call the population of this marvelous "Em¬
pire State" 40,000, and that of New York six millions, and
we are face to face with the fact that each voter on this
109,740 square miles of sand and sage-brush has more than
four times the political power of a voter in New York in
the House of Representatives, and one hundred and fifty
times the power of a voter in New York in the Senate of the
United States, and yet Senators from the States of New
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, voted not only to
perpetuate this inequality of political power, but to increase
it, by making precedents for future Congresses to follow.
Instead of creating " rotton borough" States, the states¬
men or party which shall devise a popular movement for
merging two or more such undesirable States into one State,
so that such reorganized State shall contain a population
sufficient for a respectable commonwealth, will be entitled to
the thanks and gratitude of the nation.
There are now seventeen States in the Union whose com¬
bined population is less than that of the State of New
York.
These seventeen States, as all know, have thirty-four
Senators to represent them in the Senate of the United
States, New York but two.
In case the election of a President devolves on the House
of Representatives, these seventeen States have each one
vote, while New York has but one vote, provided her
Representatives in the House are not equally divided, in
which event her vote is lost.
I voted against the admission of West Virginia during
the war, for the reason that I was unwilling to increase the
political power of any State, in the Senate, by consenting to
51
— 802 —
divide States of the third or fourth class into- two or more
States.
Before her dismemberment, old Virginia had less than
half the population of Pennsylvania, and the population of
West Virginia when admitted was but one-seventh that of
Ohio. I voted against it, for the additional reason that, as
I interpreted Section 3 of Article IV. of the Constitution,
its dismemberment was a clear violation of that instrument
in both its letter and its spirit.
And then I had a sentiment which impelled me to vote
against the dismemberment of the old State. However unspar¬
ingly I may have condemned, as I did, her indefensible acts
of secession and war on the Union, I could not forget that
she was the mother of States and statesmen. I could not
forget the heroic deeds and great acts of her Revolutionarj^
history, and especially that one great act, which as time
rolls on, rises higher and higher in moral grandeur — I mean
her cession to the nation of all that territory which to-day
comprises the five great States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
Illinois and Wisconsin. And then, I remembered with grati¬
tude the fact that she enriched that priceless gift, by uniting
with her sister States in passing the ordinance of 1787, which
prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude forever in all
that vast territor}^. I thought then, and think now, that
that one sublime act ought to have saved the old common¬
wealth of commonwealths from the humiliation of such a
spoliation and dismemberment. But this was one of the mad
and unstatesmanlike acts of the war, and grievously has the
party which did it, expiated it.
thk nomination of candidates.
At all nominating elections for President, or for Sena¬
tors and Representatives in Congress, and for members of
the College of Deputies, the voters in each State are secured
in the right to vote direct by ballot for the nomination of
candidates for each of the officers to be elected, and from the
four highest on the list for each office, voted for at such
election, each party or group of electors must select its candi'
dates to be voted for at the final election in November.
— 803 —
In voting- for the nomination of a President, or for
United States Senator or for a Representative in Congress
for States entitled to but one member, each elector can give
but one vote for each candidate. Only when there are two
or more candidates to be nominated for Representatives in
Congress and three or more members of the College of
Deputies for a State, can an elector cumulate his vote at any
nominating- election.
All electors and each organized party or group of elec¬
tors, must, under this plan, prepare their own ballots and
vote directly, as provided by law, to nominate their first
choice. That they can do this, free from the dictation of
party conventions, party bosses, or " managing-statesmen,"
will be clear enough to any man of ordinary intelligence.
There are certain to be four candidates on the list voted
for, at each nominating- election, who will have received a
sufficient number of votes to be included with the four candi¬
dates to be nominated; that is, there will always be four
candidates with a plurality over their competitors, Un¬
less there be two or more candidates who may have received
an equae number of votes at any nominating- election
(which will seldom happen). In case a tie vote should occur
in any State or district, the Colleg-e of Deputies for the State
will be required by law to determine by eot or otherwise,
which of the candidates having- an equal number of[votes
shall have his name printed on the official ballot and be
eligible to be voted for at the reg-ular election in November.
In Ohio, by the apportionment provided for under the
new census, there would be one candidate for Congress to be
nominated for the State at large. In order that there shall
be not less than four candidates for each office, to represent
not less than four parties, or four groups of electors, it is
provided that from the four names highest on the list voted
for at each nominating- election in August, the electors of
each party shall select their candidates for the reg-ular elec¬
tion in November. By providing- that the number of candi¬
dates from which the electors may select shall be four for
each office to be filled at any reg-ular election, each of the
great parties will uniformly and without question name its
favorite candidates, and smaller groups of electors or new
•— 804 —
parties can by this plan always secure their own candidates,
provided they poll a sufficient number of votes, by cumulat¬
ing1 them, to place their candidate among- the four hig-hest
on the list voted for at any nominating1 election.
Bach of the old parties would, after conference and pub¬
lic discussion through its party papers, be certain to concen¬
trate its vote, so as to put its own candidates at the head of
the list, at all nominating- elections.
The Prohibitionist, the National Alliance, and other
party organizations, would, as a rule, be able to unite and
cumulate their vote so as to secure one, if not two, of the
four candidates. If, however, the}' failed to do this in any
State or district, then and in that event they can select from
the list of the four highest which may have been voted for,
at each nominating* election, and from no others, one or
more of such candidates as they may prefer. In this wa}T
each minority part}*, or group of electors, could make up a
ticket, as any party would be compelled to do, in order that
the "Colleg-e of Deputies" for each State might prepare and
have printed and distributed the official ballots containing
the names of all candidates duly nominated as prescribed by
law, as only official ballots would be received at any regular
election in November.
In the State of Ohio there would be one candidate for
Congress to be elected for the State at larg-e, and four candi¬
dates from which to select. Each of the great parties would
be compelled to make up its ticket from one of the four
hig-hest candidates on the list voted for, in the State at large,
at any nominating- election in Aug-ust. And any group of
electors, whether Prohibitionists or National Alliance, or
any party with a public org-anization, could make up a ticket
from the list nominated, and require the "Colleg-e of Depu¬
ties " in each State to print the name or names of the candi¬
dates designated by such party, or group of electors, on an
official ballot to be voted for by them ; and, besides, each indi¬
vidual elector would be authorized to erase any name on his
official ballot, and use a "paster" or write the name of any
one of the duly nominated candidates in the place of the
name of any candidate whose name he mig*ht decide to erase.
In Congressional districts of five, there would be four
— 805 —
candidates nominated for each member of Congress to be
elected, or twenty candidates for each district of five mem¬
bers.
The old parties would of course always have their own
candidates, that is five candidates each, or one-half the number
of the twenty highest on the list. The next hig-hest on the
list would probably represent the National Alliance and the
Prohibitionists, and perhaps in some States other groups of
electors. They could select their tickets from the ten that
did not represent the two dominant parties, or if they were
a group of "high-kickers" or fighting independents, they
could select one from each of the candidates nominated, and
thus have one or more candidates from each party, as they
might elect.
It will be seen that this plan, while preserving intact the
two old parties, provides for securing- to the minority, or to
any new party, or to individual citizens, all the rights that
legitimately belong1 to an independent voter in a democratic
republic.
In all States and in all cities this plan can be applied
with mathematical accuracy, and with such unquestioned
fairness to the majority and to the minority that one is
often amazed that it has not long- ag*o been adopted, and made
part of our national Constitution, and also been engrafted in
our State constitutions and put in force in the administration
of all cities of the first and second class in every State.
disunion impossible; with such a constitution.
As the fatal dog-ma of secession, was buried in a common
grave with the great rebellion, it is fitting and proper that
the national Constitution should be so amended, as to conform
to the new and broader conditions of our national life.
If this proposed amendment, which cannot be misinter¬
preted nor misunderstood, had formed part of our national
Constitution prior to the War of the Rebellion, that colossal
and indefensible crime would have been impossible.
Make this plain democratic provision part of our national
Constitution, and we shall thus take security of the future,
that no such rebellion can happen again.
— 806 —
Adopt this amendment, and a crisis, such as that which
happily ended in the expedient of the Electoral Commission
of 1877, will never confront us thereafter.
Adopt it, and the House of Representatives will never
again be the theatre of intrigue for the election of a Presi¬
dent.
Adopt it, and the menace of a solid South, and of pivotal
States in the North, will nevermore be known in our history.
And all citizens of the United States in each State will
have the right, which ought to be secured to them in a
democratic republic, of nominating and electing their Presi¬
dent by a direct vote of the duly qualified electors by ballot,
without the intervention of national nominating conventions,
State legislatures, a College of Electors or the House of
Representatives.
Adopt the amendments providing for the nomination and
election of Senators of the United States, and Representatives
in Congress, and no State or district in a State will have
cause to blush for the character or ability of her representa¬
tives in either House of the Congress at Washington.
Before the colossal political power which such a consti¬
tution will secure, and such a government represent, we may
well pause and ask ourselves, "What of the future ? " With
a population such as I estimate within fifty years of one
hundred and sixty-one millions or more, speaking the same
language and having a common interest and a common
destiny, represented by an indissoluble Union, whose sov¬
ereignty resides in the whole people as a unit, and not in
territorial subdivisions called "sovereign States," we shall
present to the world, as I see it, the freest, the strongest and
the best form of democratic representative government on
earth.
So thoroughly am I impressed with the magnitude of
this subject, and, after years of reflection, so thoroughly
does it command the approval of my judgment, that, had I
the time, it would be an easy and welcome task to extend this
address into a volume. What I now present has been written
in odd hours, as time and the cares of an exacting business
permitted.
In submitting thus briefly, these observations for dis-
— 807 —
cussion by the Ohio Society of New York, I feel that I but
discharge the duty of a citizen, by contributing- something
to a subject on which many of the most thoughtful men in
this country are now thinking, to the end that I may aid in
calling public attention to the changes which now confront
us — changes which I believe demand the serious considera¬
tion of the foremost citizens of all parties and all sections.
To those of my faith and sanguine temperament this
impending change represents the life and hope and onward
march of the nation, and is the natural outgrowth of that
unrest which in the history of mankind always precedes great
reforms.
To me, it is the Spirit of Progress born of the aspira¬
tions of a great people for an indissoluble Union and a demo¬
cratic continental commonwealth.
As I watch, this spirit points the way to a higher and
broader conception of one's rights and duties as a citizen-
In its inspiring presence our prophets and leaders are thrilled
with an enthusiasm which glows in face and speech, as they
direct the advancing columns of those who are marching in
the pathway of progress. And all who march abreast and
battle with them, shall feel that
"Each epoch hath its work to do,
Its thought to think, its wrong to right,
Its leaders and its prophets too —
Its beacon lamp to trim and light."
APPENDIX.
Containing the history and text of the proposed constitu¬
tional amendment, with suggestions for the form of all offi¬
cial ballots — national, State and city, together with census
statistics for the first one hundred years of the republic.
Also map showing the States and parts of States in
which the Afro-American will outnumber the whites after
the year 1940.
— 808 —
HISTORY OF THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT.
*
It may not be uninteresting if I give a brief history of
this constitutional amendment, and the reasons which led
me to prepare it nearly a quarter of a century ago.
In 1841, when a boy, I visited Washington to see Gen.
Wm. Henry Harrison inaugurated President. Before return¬
ing home, President Harrison died, and I saw John Tyler,
the first Vice-President in our history, inaugurated President^
as provided in the Constitution.
In less than three months after Mr. Tyler entered upon
the duties of the presidential office, it began to be quietly
whispered about among the Democrats of Kentucky and
Southern Ohio, that Tyler (who had been elected Vice-
President on the ticket with Gen. Harrison by the Whig
party) " had come over to our side."
Within a year it was generally suspected that Tyler had
formed some kind of a secret alliance with the Calhoun wing
of the Democratic party, and this proved to be true, as is
evidenced by the history of his administration.
I was a looker-on in the Democratic National Conven¬
tion which met at Baltimore in 1844. By the favor of Col.
Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, ex-Vice-President, I had
a seat on the floor of that Convention with the Kentucky
delegation.
More than two-thirds of all the delegates elected to that
convention had been, when appointed, instructed to vote for
the renomination of the old ticket, which had been defeated
by Harrison and Tyler in 1840.
By intrigue, betrayal of trust, and deliberate violation
of instructions on the part of delegates to that convention,
Mr. Van Buren was defeated, and James K. Polk, of Ten¬
nessee, was nominated and elected President, defeating-
Henry Clay.
Afterwards, I saw the Electoral College for Ohio meet at
Columbus and go through the mummery of voting b}^ ballot
for President and Vice-President.
The members of the college then appointed one of their
— 809 —
own number to carry one of the three certificates of the
result of that election by the electors in Ohio to Washing¬
ton.
To me, it seemed like a solemn farce, and as if each
member of the College was cog-nizant of the fact.
These events impressed me deeply and so unfavorably
that I never thereafter affirmed (as I had been taught to do)
" that our national Constitution was the perfection of
human wisdom " ; on the contrary, the more I studied it, the
clearer did its defects and objectionable provisions appear to
me.
But the fact must not be forg-otten that the fathers of
the Constitution were environed on every hand, and that
only by yielding- as they did, to the slave-holding- interests,
and also to the selfish demands of some of the States, was
the org-anization of a National Government in 1789 possible.
If, when the national Constitution was under discussion
in 1789, its authors had been confronted with the simple
proposition of framing- a democratic representative govern¬
ment and securing- to the people of all the States an equit¬
able distribution of political power, there is no question that
more than one of the unphilosophical provisions embodied
in our present Constitution would never have found a place
in it.
Instead of occupying themselves in discussing practical
democratic questions, as many of the members of the Con¬
vention of 1789 were pre-eminently qualified to do, the time
and skill of the ablest men in that remarkable body were
larg-ely taken up in devising- plans to defeat the petty
schemes of narrow and selfish men, and to secure harmony of
views among- some of its impracticable members and adjust
the supposed conflicting- interests of the larger and smaller
States.
The practical problem before them was not the best form
of an ideal democratic republic, with an equitable distribution
of political power, but the org-anization of a national
g-overnment that would be accepted and ratified by each of
the thirteen States. As all know, the Constitution as finally
adopted could only have been formed by concession and com¬
promise, and all compromise is, of necessity, patchwork.
— 810 —
From the day I witnessed the inauguration of Vice-
President John Tyler as President, and the defeat of Mr.
VanBuren in the nominating- convention in Baltimore in
1844, I have been opposed to the caucus and convention sys¬
tem, national, State and city; as also the machinery by which
the President is now elected, and in favor of the abolition of
the office of Vice-President.
Instead of electing a President as now provided by law
and the Constitution, and by the convention system to which
custom and usage has given the force of law, I propose that
there shall be no Vice-President and that the nomination and
election of a President shall be by a direct vote by ballot of
the qualified electors in all the States; without the interven¬
tion of national conventions, a College of Electors, or the
House of Representatives.
The amendment as now presented (except one or two
immaterial changes) was prepared by me during the time
the patchwork known as the Fourteenth Amendment was
under consideration, as it now appears in the Constitution.
In my original draft, but three members of Congress
were apportioned to each congressional district in States
entitled to six members or more. In the draft now submitted,
not less than four nor more than five members are allotted to
each congressional district in States entitled to eight mem¬
bers or more.
As a practical solution of the difficulties which environ
us, and for securing an equitable distribution of political
power, national, State and municipal, the plan has steadily
grown upon me for twenty years or more, and I am confident
that substantially as herein outlined it will at no distant day
be approved by a majority of all parties in this country.
When first prepared, I submitted it (as was my custom
with any important work which I attempted, while in Con¬
gress) to my personal friend, Mr. Beaman, of Michigan, for
his legal criticism and suggestion. After his approval, it
was printed and submitted to Governor Chase and to Sumner,
Wade and Howard of the Senate, and to Thaddeus Stevens
and Henry Winter Davis of the House.
Their general judgment was, that while the reconstruc¬
tion measures were before us and the controversy with the
— 811 —
acting- President (Andrew Johnson) was occupying- the atten¬
tion of Congress, the country was not prepared for changes
so far-reaching- as I proposed, and they advised me to confine
my amendment to the nomination and election of the Presi¬
dent by a direct vote of the people, and to abolishing" the
office of Vice-President (to which they all, at that time,
heartily assented), and to secure a modification of the veto
power. Instead of a College of Deputies, such as I proposed,
for the choice of a President in case of a vacancy in that
office, they suggested that the power should be conferred on
the Senate and House in joint convention, each Senator and
Representative having- one vote. These members of the
Senate and House were representative men and my seniors in
years and political experience. After conferring- with them,
I finally accepted their judg-ment, and in accordance with
their sug-gestions prepared a modified form of my original
plan, omitting the provision for the creation of the National
Colleg-e of Deputies, the election of United States Senators
by the people, and for proportional or equitable represen¬
tation.
The modified plan as then prepared, and the speech
which I made in the House in support of it, may be found in
the Congressional Globe for the second session of the
Fortieth Congress, Vol. 3, pag-e 2713.
Had I been re-elected to Congress in 1868, I should have
presented this amendment as originally prepared and as now
submitted for your consideration.
Failing- to be re-elected, I resolved to present it through
some representative member of the Senate or House on the
first occasion when I thoug-ht public opinion would warrant
the probability of a favorable reception of it.
When the Electoral Commission of 1877 declared Mr.
Hayes the duly elected President, I believed that the time
had come, when the statesmen of all parties would be forced
by public opinion to g-ive prompt consideration to some such
plan as mine, for the election of the President, to the end
that another perilous contest such as that adjusted by that
extraordinary commission, should never happen again.
Accordingly, I went with it to Senator Chandler of
Michigan, and outlined it to him and urged him, as Chair-
— 812 —
man of the National Republican Committee, and the man
who had done more to elect Mr. Hayes than any other, to
take the proposed amendment and go to Mr. Hayes with it
and see if he could not induce him to adopt it, and have him
in his inaugural address present it, and say that he proposed
to call an extra session of Congress to act upon it, and state
that on its adoption and ratification as part of the national
Constitution he would resign the Presidency and submit his
title to the office to a vote of the people at the first election
under it. I presented the subject to Mr. Chandler with much
earnestness, because I felt confident that such a proposition,
coming from him at that time, would be acceptable to the
Republican party and to the great body of Democrats North
and South, and that some such amendment could be passed by
Congress and submitted to the States for their ratification,
which might then have been done within a 3-ear.
I urged that if Mr. Hayes would do this, and the amend¬
ment became part of the national Constitution, that his
nomination and election would most certainly follow, and
that he would thus become a marked and historic figure, and
much more of the same import.
But Mr. Chandler was in no frame of mind to entertain
my proposition, nor for that matter, any other. He was in
fact jubilant and defiant, and in the strongest language ex¬
pressed his determination to stamp out all opposition.
I have often regretted that I did not, at that time, go
personally to Mr. Hayes with my amendment, and urge him
to do as I should have done had I been in his position.
Since that lost opportunity, I have seen no time for its
acceptable presentation. The impelling motive which
prompted me to accept a nomination for Congress last fall
was, that in such a canvass I might have an opportunity to
discuss the questions presented in this amendment; and in
the event of my election, would hold a position from which
I could legitimately command a hearing on it before the
country.
For nearly a quarter of a century I have regarded the
affirmative settlement of the questions involved in this
amendment, as of vastly more importance to our future
peace and national unity, than any question growing out of
— 813 —
tariff reform, or silver coinage, or any ordinary economic or
commercial legislation. But during my ten days' canvass
last fall, I found that public opinion was entirely engrossed
with tariff discussion and the free coinage of silver, and
that the time was not opportune for the public discussion of
questions involving important constitutional reforms. So I
now come with this amendment, which I have guarded for
years with paternal care, and present it for the consideration
of the members of the "Ohio Society of New York," and
through them, to the judgment of all who may do me the
honor to read it.
The adoption of this proposed amendment will neces¬
sitate the omissions and changes indicated below by small
capitals in Articles One and Two of our present Constitu¬
tion.
Article One, when amended, will read as follows:
article i.
Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall
be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall
consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be com¬
posed of members chosen every second year by the people of
the several States, and the electors in each State shall have
the qualifications requisite under this Constitution to vote
for President op the United States.
No person shall be a Representative who shall not have
attained the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years
a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when
elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be
chosen.
When vacancies happen in the representation from any
State, the College of Deputies for such State shall fill
such vacancies, until the next regular election for
Representatives in Congress.
The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker
and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeach¬
ment.
— 814 —
[JUSP" Amendments to Article One when adopted will be
inserted here as part of Section 2.]
Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be
composed of two Senators for each State, and shall be
chosen by ballot by the qualified electors thereof, for
six years, and each Senator shall have one vote.
When vacancies happen in the Senate from any State by
resignations or otherwise, the College of Deputies for
such State shall fill the vacancy until the next
regular election for Senator.
No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained
the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the
United States, and who shall not when elected be an inhabi¬
tant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Senate shall choose its own presiding- and other
officers.
The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeach¬
ments. When sitting- for that purpose they shall be on oath
or affirmation; and no person shall be convicted without the
concurrence of two-thirds of the Senators present and vot¬
ing-.*
Judg-ment in case of impeachment shall not extend
further than to removal from office and disqualification to
hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the
United States; but the party convicted shall, .nevertheless, be
liable and subject to indictment, trial, judg-ment and punish¬
ment, according- to law.
Section 5. A majority of each House shall constitute
a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn
from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attend¬
ance of absent members in such manner and under such
penalties as each House may provide.
The fifth section of this article is amended by omitting
the words "Each House shall be the judg-e of the election
returns, and qualifications of its own members," and thus
takes from the Senate and House the power, now often
*The provision for the impeachment of the President is stricken out.
Jefferson properly characterized that provision of the Constitution as a " scare¬
crow," and as all will remember, the attempt to impeach Andrew Johnson ended in a
national farce.
— 815 —
exercised by a partisan majority, of excluding- persons who
present duly authenticated certificates of election, and admit
to seats persons who have not been elected.
The proposed amendment prescribes the " qualifications ''
of Senators and Representatives; and the Circuit or District
Court of the United States in the State or District where anv
contest may arise is authorized and required to determine
the validity of all election returns where a. contest is made,
and from such determination there can be no appeal to the
Senate or House of Representative
All clauses relative to the Vice-President are stricken
out, and such parts of Article One not above quoted down to
the end of Section Five.
Section One of Article Two is stricken out, except the
clauses which provide that " the President shall be a natural
born citizen of the United States and shall have attained the
age of thirty-five years," and "shall at stated times receive
for his services a compensation, which shall not be increased
or diminished during- the period for which he shall have been
elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other
emolument from the United States, or any of them."
"Before he enter on the execution of his office he shall
take the following- oath or affirmation
" I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully
execute the office of President of the United States, and will
to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States."
Sections Two, Three and Four of Article Two remain
unchang-ed, except the word Vice-President is stricken out of
Section 4.
Article Twelve of the amendments is entirely eliminated.
The presidential term is made six years.
The paragraphs above quoted will advise the reader of
the chang-es necessary in our present Constitution to make it
conform to the amendment as herein proposed.
—816 —
PROPOSED AMENDMENT OF THE NATIONAL CON¬
STITUTION.
Providing- for the nomination and election, by a di¬
rect vote of the duly qualified electors in the several States,
of a President of the United States, and Senators and
Representatives of the several States in Congress, and for
the creation and election of a National Colleg-e of Deputies,
in the several States.
Said Colleg-e of Deputies, when duly chosen and org-anized
in the several States, and at the seat of government of the
United States, shall be charged with the authority and duty
of conducting* all national elections in their respective
States, and with, the power and duty of filling- such vacancies
as may from time to time happen in the office of Presi¬
dent of the United States and Senators and Representatives
in Congress and members of the National Colleg-e of Deputies
for any State.
amendment to article one.—who shall be electors.
All native-born male citizens of the United States, of
the age of twenty-one (21) years and upwards, and each
person of like ag-e who shall have been duly naturalized, in
pursuance of the laws of the United States, and who shall
have been a resident of the State in which he may offer to
vote for one year next preceding- any election herein provided
for, shall be an elector, and qualified to vote in such State
for the nomination and election of a President of the United
States, and for Senators and Representatives in the Congress
of the United States, and for the members of a National
Colleg-e of Deputies in such State.
The duly qualified electors in each State shall vote at all
national elections, under such rules and reg-ulations as
the Congress may by law prescribe ; provided that no insane
or idiotic person, nor any person duly convicted of a felony,
shall be permitted to vote at such elections.
amendment to articles two and twelve.— the manner
op nominating and electing a president.
The executive power shall be vested in a President of
the United States. The term for which he shall be elected
shall be six }rears. He shall enter upon the duties of his
office at 12 o'clock m., on the fourth Monday in the April
next succeeding- his election in November.
No person nominated and elected President by the voters
of the several States, as herein provided, shall be eligible
for re-election.
The year in which the first election for the nomination
and choice of a President shall take place, after the ratifi¬
cation of this amendment, shall be prescribed by the Con¬
gress, and special provision shall be made by law for the
appointment of such officers as may be required, to conduct
all national elections, in their respective States, until the
College of Deputies herein provided for shall have been duly
chosen.
The President shall be nominated and elected as follows:
On the first Tuesday of August, in the year appointed
by the Congress for the first election, and on the first Tues¬
day of August every six years thereafter, the electors quali¬
fied as hereinbefore provided shall assemble in their respec¬
tive States, as the Congress may prescribe by law, and vote
by ballot for the nomination of a citizen of the United States
for President, eligible under this Constitution. Such election
for the nomination, or for the election of a President, shall
not be held in any room in which an election is being con¬
ducted on the same day for State or local officers, in such
State. But no voting district or precinct in any State shall
be larger in territorial extent than districts designated by
State law for State elections.
The College of Deputies in each State charged by law
with the conduct of such nominating elections for President
shall make distinct lists of all candidates voted for at such
elections, together with the number of votes cast in their
52
— 818 —
respective States for each candidate, which list they shall
officially sign, seal and certify, in triplicate, and within
twenty (20) days after such nominating* election in each State,
they shall transmit, in such form and manner as the Congress
may by law prescribe, one copy of such certified returns to
the chairman of the National Colleg-e of Deputies, at the seat
of g-overnment of the United States; one copy to the Secre¬
tary of the Interior of the United States, and one copy to the
Secretary of State for the State in which they, as officials,
reside.
The Chairman of the National College of Deputies, and
the chief clerk of such college, tog-ether with the Secretary
of the Interior of the United States, shall meet at the seat of
g-overnment of the United States on the first Tuesday in
September, at 12 o'clock m., after each nominating- election
for President on the preceding- first Tuesday in Aug-ust,
and shall, in the presence of such persons as the Congress
may by law direct, open all the certificates from each State
containing a list of the candidates voted for and the
votes cast for each at such nominating election, and they, or
any two of them, shall within the time fixed by law, jointly
canvass, certify and officially publish the result, stating the
number of votes cast for each candidate for President in the
several States, and the total vote for each in all the States.
this ejection of the president.
On the first Tuesday of November, after each nomina¬
ting election for President, the qualified electors shall again
assemble in their respective States, and from the list of can¬
didates officially certified as having the highest votes, not ex¬
ceeding four (4) on the list voted for, at such nominating
election on the first Tuesday of August preceding, the elec¬
tors shall by ballot choose a President, and the person hav¬
ing the greatest number of votes cast at such election for
President, in all the States, shall be the President,
The persons in each State charged by law with the con¬
duct of the election appointed for the first Tuesday of
November, for the choice of a President, shall make a dis¬
tinct list of all the candidates voted for at such elections,
— 819 —
together with the number of votes cast in their respective
States for each, which list they shall sign, seal and officially
certify in triplicate, and within thirty days after such elec¬
tion they shall transmit, under such regulations as the Con¬
gress may by law prescribe, one copy to the Chairman of the
National College of Deputies, at the seat of government of
the United States ; one copy to the Secretary of the Interior
of the United States, and one copy to the Secretary of State
for the State in which they reside.
The Chairman or the acting Chairman of the National
College of Deputies, and the chief clerk or acting chief clerk
of such college, together with the Secretary or acting Secre¬
tary of the Interior of the United States, shall meet at the
seat of government of the United States, at such place as
the Congress may by law provide, on the second Tuesday in
December, at 12 o'clock m., after each election for President,
and shall in the presence of such members of the College of
Deputies as may be present, and such other persons as the
Congress may by law authorize, open all the certificates con¬
taining the official returns of the votes cast for President on the
preceding first Tuesday of November, and they or any two
of them shall forthwith jointly certify and publish the total
number of votes cast for each candidate, and officially declare
the person having the highest number of votes to be the
duly elected President of the United States for six years from
and after the fourth Monday in the April next succeeding
such election in November.
But no Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States, nor Judge of any Circuit or District Court of the
United States, nor Judge of the Supreme Court or highest
appellate court in any State, shall be eligible to be elected
President of the United States.
The President of the United States may at any time
resign his office and appoint a day when his resignation shall
take effect, or he may designate that it shall take effect on a
given day after his successor shall have been chosen by the
College of Deputies. And the Congress shall provide by
law for such contingency.
— 820 —
THE NATIONAL COLLEGE OF DEPUTIES.
A College of Deputies, composed of members from each
State, equal in number to its Senators and Representatives
in the Congress of tlie United States, shall be chosen every
six (6) years by the people of the several States; and the
voters in each State authorized to choose members of the
College of Deputies shall have the qualifications requisite to
vote for President of the United States.
Members of the College of Deputies shall be elected for
the term of six years, and their term of office shall begin on
the first Tuesday in December after their election in No¬
vember.
No person shall be a member of the College of Deputies
who shall not have attained the age of thirty years, and who
shall not have been a voter for seven years in the State for
which he shall be chosen.
All authority herein granted for the choice of a Presi¬
dent of the United States, to fill any vacancy which may
happen, by death or otherwise, in the office of President,
shall be vested in the National College of Deputies, as here¬
in provided.
The members of the College of Deputies for each State
shall be nominated and voted for in States and congressional
districts of each State as herein provided.
The duly qualified electors in each State shall be entitled
to nominate and to elect two members of the College of
Deputies for the State at large, who shall be designated " the
Senatorial Deputies."
The members of the College of Deputies to which each
State is entitled shall be elected on the same ballot with the
President of the United States and Senators and Repre¬
sentatives in Congress.
In addition to the two Senatorial Deputies, the voters in
each State entitled to seven or to less than seven Representa¬
tives in Congress, shall nominate and elect on a general
ticket for the State at large, one member of the College of
Deputies for each Representative in Congress allotted to
such State.
— 821 —
In States entitled to eight Representatives in Congress,
or to any additional number, the members of the College of
Deputies shall be nominated and elected in districts corre¬
sponding- to the congressional districts in such States of not
less than four nor more than five members each.
In States entitled to one and not to exceed two addi¬
tional members of the College of Deputies, to correspond with
the number of Representatives in Congress, not included in
any district, such additional member or members shall be
voted for and nominated and elected for the State at larere,
on the same ballot with the two Senatorial Deputies and the
members to be elected in districts.
On the first Tuesday in December after each election for
members of the College of Deputies, the persons duly chosen
from each State shall be convened at the seat of government
of the United States, and they shall then organize by choos¬
ing one of their own number for chairman, and he shall hold
such office for the term of six years.
The College of Deputies shall choose a Chief Clerk and
Sergeant-at-Arms, who shall hold their offices for six years,
and the Chief Clerk and Sergeant-at-Arms shall appoint
such additional clerks and assistants as the Congress may, by
law, authorize.
In case of the death, resignation or removal of the Chair¬
man, the Chief Clerk or other officers of the National College
of Deputies, such vacancy for the unexpired term shall be
filled as may be provided by law.
In national assemblies, a majority of all the members of
the National College of Deputies, and in State assemblies,
a majority of all the Deputies for such State, shall be requi¬
site to make a quorum for the transaction of business, but a
less number than a quorum in each may adjourn from day to
day, and they may compel the attendance of absent members
in such manner and under such penalties as they shall pre¬
scribe in rules for their own government.
A member of the National or of the State Assembly of
Deputies, who shall violate such rules, may be suspended or
expelled, by an affirmative vote of two-thirds oi the Depu¬
ties present in either body.
A Deputy who may have been suspended or expelled
— 822 —
from his office by an Assembly of Deputies for any State,
may appeal to the District or Circuit Court of the United
States, for such State, and the Court shall grant him a sum¬
mary hearing", and promptly determine the questions involved
in such appeal.
If a Deputy shall be suspended or expelled from his office
by the National College of Deputies, such Deputy may appeal
to any Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,
and the determination of such appeals by the District or Cir¬
cuit Court of the United States, in any State, or by any Jus¬
tice of the Supreme Court of the United States, shall be final,
touching the matters in controversy.
The Congress shall by law provide for the assembling of
the members of the College of Deputies for each State at
their respective State Capitols within thirty (30) days after
their election, and prescribe the manner in which they shall
organize by selecting one of their own number for Chairman,
together with a Chief Clerk and Sergeant-at-Arms, who shall
not be members of the Coll'ege of Deputies, and each of whom
shall hold such office for six years.
The College of Deputies for each State shall be charged
with the conduct of all national elections in their respective
States for the nomination and election of the President,
Senators of the United States, Representatives in Congress
and members of the College of Deputies.
The Chairman of the College of Deputies in each State
shall give public notice of all national elections, as the Con¬
gress may by law prescribe, for the nomination and election
of the President, Senators and Representatives in Congress
and for members of the College of Deputies, and they shall
be the custodians of all election returns of such State, for
President, Senators and Representatives in Congress and
members of the College of Deputies.
The members of the National College'of Deputies and
the Chairman and Chief Clerk and such officers as they shall
be authorized by law to appoint, and the Chairman of the
College of Deputies [for each State, together with the Chief
Clerk and such other officers as they may be authorized by
law to appoint in each State for the conduct of national
elections, shall receive a compensation for their services to be
— 823 —
fixed by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United
States.
Except for offenses such as the Congress shall prescribe,
the members of the Colleg-e of Deputies shall be privileg-ed from
arrest, or from service of legal process of any kind, dur¬
ing- attendance at any meeting- of their body in any State,
or when convened at the seat of g-overnment of the United
States, for the choice of a President, or when g*oing- to or re¬
turning- from the same.
In case of the death of the President, or of his resigna¬
tion, disability or removal from office, the Secretary of State
of the United States, if there be one, and if not, then such
member of the Cabinet as the Congress may designate by
law, shall act as President until a successor to fill the vacancy
shall have been duly chosen and qualified.
The acting- President shall by proclamation convene the
members of the College of Deputies from all the States at the
seat of government of the United States within thirty days
from the date of any vacancy in the office of President, and
the members of the Colleg-e of Deputies shall assemble in
such hall or building- as the Congress may by law prescribe,
and forthwith proceed to the choice of a citizen of the United
States qualified under this Constitution for the office of Pres¬
ident to fill out the unexpired term.
On the assembling of the College of Deputies in pursu¬
ance of the proclamation of the acting President, the Chair¬
man of the Colleg-e, if he be present, and if not, then the
senior member of the Colleg-e of Deputies, shall call the mem¬
bers to order, and direct the clerk of the body to call the
States alphabetically and the roll of members in alphabetical
order. A. majority of all the members elected and qualified
shall be necessary for a quorum to transact business.
On the assembling- of a quorum, in the absence of the
Chairman, the College shall select a Chairman pro teji., and
at once proceed to the choice of a President to fill the vacancy
for the residue of the unexpired term as herein prescribed,
and no other business shall be in order, until a President
shall have been chosen.
On the call of the roll each member of the College shall
— 824 —
rise in his place, name his choice, and vote viva voce; for
President, and each member shall have one vote.
If any person shall receive on any roll-call a majority of
all the votes given for President, he shall be declared by the
Chairman of the College of Deputies the duly elected Presi¬
dent of the United States for the residue of the unexpired
term.
The members of the College of Deputies, after organiz¬
ing-, shall vote for President at least once each day until a
President is chosen.
No member of the College shall speak more than once on
any subject or motion on the same day, nor more than ten
minutes except by unanimous consent.
If no person shall receive a majority of the votes given
on the first roll-call, the roll shall again be called, and from
the persons having the highest vote on the list, not exceeding
five of those voted for on the first roll-call, the college shall
proceed to choose a President.
If no person shall receive a majority of all the votes
given on the second roll-call, the College shall again pro¬
ceed to vote a third time, and from the persons having the
highest vote on the list, not exceeding four of those voted for
on the second roll-call, the College shall secure a President.
If no person shall have a majority of all the votes given
on the third roll-call, the College shall proceed to vote a
fourth time, and from the persons having the highest vote,
not exceeding three of those voted for on the third roll-call,
the College shall choose a President, and the person having
the highest vote on the fourth roll-call, shall be declared by
the Chairman to be elected, to fill the vacancy for the residue
of the unexpired term.
In the event that no person shall receive a plurality vote
on the fourth roll-call, the roll shall at intervals of not ex¬
ceeding one day again be called, until one of the three candi¬
dates highest on the list shall receive more votes than either
of his competitors.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this amend¬
ment by appropriate legislation.
— 825 —
The: nomination and ejection of united states sena¬
tors.
Senators of the United States shall be nominated and
chosen by the electors of each State qualified to vote under
this Constitution for President, as follows :
On the first Tuesday of August next preceding* the ex¬
piration of the term of any Senator, the electors duly quali¬
fied to vote for Senator shall assemble in their respective
States and counties, as provided by lav/ for the election of
President and Representatives in Congress, and vote by bal¬
lot for the nomination of a candidate for Senator of the
United States.
All nominating- elections for Senator shall be held in each
State at the time and places in which Representatives in Con¬
gress for such State are nominated and elected, and at no
other time.
The Congress shall provide by lav/ the manner in
which the members of the College of Deputies and the offi¬
cials charged in each State with the conduct of such nominat¬
ing elections for Senators of the United States shall conduct
the same, and such officers in each county shall make distinct
lists of all the persons voted for at such election for Senator,
together with the number of votes cast in the several counties
for each candidate, which list they shall sign, seal and offi¬
cially certify in triplicate, and within ten (10) days after such
nominating elections they shall transmit, in such form and
manner as the Congress may prescribe by law, one copy of
such certified election returns to the Chairman of the Col¬
lege of Deputies; for such State at the Capitol thereof, one
copy to the Secretary of State for such State, and one copy
to the clerk of the county of which they are residents.
The Chairman and Chief Clerk of the College of Deputies
for each State, together with the Secretary of State for eacii
State (if there be such an officer, and if not, then such per¬
son as the State may appoint), shall be in session at the Capi¬
tol thereof, on the fourth Tuesday of August, at twelve
o'clock m., after each nominating election for Senator of the
— 826 —
United States, on the previous first Tuesday of August, and
they or any two of them shall, in the presence of such per¬
sons as the Congress may by law designate, jointly canvass,
certify and officially publish the result, stating" the total
number of votes cast in the State for each candidate.
On the first Tuesday of November following- such nomi¬
nating election for United States Senator the qualified elec¬
tors in such State shall again assemble, at the places ap¬
pointed by law, in their respective counties, and from the
candidates officially certified as having the highest vote for
Senator, not exceeding four (4) on the list of those voted for,
at such nominating election on the preceding first Tuesday
of August, shall choose by ballot a Senator, and the person
having the greatest number of votes cast for Senator at said
election in such State shall be the Senator. The term of
office of each Senator shall begin on the fourth Monday in
April, at 12 o'clock m., succeeding his election in November.
The Chairman and Chief Clerk of the College of Deputies
for each State shall canvass and certif}7 the election of
Senators and Representatives in Congress and members of
the College of Deputies.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this amend¬
ment by appropriate legislation.
the; nomination and ejection of representatives in
congress.
Representatives in Congress shall hold their office for
the term of two }"ears, and shall be nominated and chosen
b}7 the electors in each State qualified by law to vote for
President.
On the first Tuesday of August (beginning with the
time appointed by Congress for the nomination and election
of a President), and every second year thereafter, the elec¬
tors qualified to vote, as hereinbefore provided, shall assemble
in their respective States and counties, at such places as the
Congress shall by law direct for the holding of such elec¬
tions, and vote by ballot for the nomination of such number
of candidates for Representatives in Congress as each elector
— 827 —
shall be authorized by law to vote for in such State or dis¬
tricts, or both.
In a State entitled under any apportionment to seven
Representatives in Congress, or to less than seven, the duly
qualified electors thereof shall nominate and elect such
Representative or Representatives on one general ticket for
the State at large.
If under any apportionment a State shall be entitled to
eight Representatives in Congress, or to more than eight, the
College of Deputies for that State shall, after each regular
election for President, divide it into Congressional districts
of contiguous territory, of not less than four nor more than
five members each, and in such manner, that no State which
may be entitled to two or more such Congressional districts,
shall elect for the State at large a greater number than two
Representatives in Congress, and such Representatives for
the State at large shall be nominated and elected on the same
ballot with the members in each district. And every appor¬
tionment shall be made, by dividing the total vote for Presi¬
dent in the State by the number of Representatives in Con¬
gress to which each State is by law entitled.
No Representative district in any State shall be changed
by the College of Deputies thereof until after the next presi¬
dential election, nor until after Congress shall have appor¬
tioned the Representatives among the several States ; but the
Congress may by law, on the application of one-fourth of
the College of Deputies in any State, change the districts in
such State, should such change in the opinion of the Con¬
gress be necessary to secure the minority of the electors
thereof an equitable representation in Congress in proportion
to the total vote cast at the last presidential election in such
State.
The Congress shall by law prescribe the manner and
form in which the returns of all elections shall be made for
the nomination of Senators and Representatives in Congress
in each State or Congressional Districts in any State ; and the
result of such nominating elections shall be officially pub¬
lished in such manner and form as shall be provided by law.
At such nominating election for Representatives in Con¬
gress, each qualified elector may cumulate his vote and cast
— 823 —
all the votes to which he is entitled for one candidate, or foi
more than one, as he may elect.
On the first Tuesday of November following1 such nomr
nating election, the electors in each State qualified to vote
for Representatives in Congress shall again assemble ir
their respective counties, and from the candidates officiall}
certified as having the highest vote on the list of those votec
for at the nominating- election on the preceding- first Tuesday
of Aug'ust, not exceeding- four candidates for each Represen
tative to be chosen, either in Congressional districts or for a
State at large, or in both State and districts as the case maj
be, shall choose the number of Representatives in Congress
for such State or districts, or both, as they may be authorized
by law to elect; and the person or persons having the highest
number of votes cast at said election in such State or dis¬
trict, or both, for Representative in Congress, shall be the
Representative.
Each elector shall have the right to cumulate his vote
and cast all the votes to which he is entitled in the district of
his residence, or for the State at large, or both as he may
elect, for one candidate, or for more than one candidate,
under such regulations as the Congress may bylaw prescribe.
TSTo Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,
nor Judge of any Circuit or District Court of the United
States, nor Judge of the Supreme Court or highest appellate
court or court of record in any State, shall be eligible to be
chosen a Senator or Representative in Congress or member of
the College of Deputies.
MISCELLANEOUS PARAGRAPHS.
All electors and each organized group of electors in the
several States shall prepare and print their own ballots for
use at all nominating- elections, in such form and manner as
the Congress may by law prescribe.
After the result of each nominating election for Presi¬
dent, and for members of the College of Deputies, or for Sen¬
ators and Representatives in Congress, shall have been de¬
clared, the College of Deputies for each State shall cause to
be prepared and printed all official ballots, and shall furnish
— 829 —
such ballots to the electors thereof, free of cost to them, as
the Congress shall by law direct, and said official ballots
shall be the only legal ballot to be used at any final election
in November.
Any elector or group of electors in any State or district
shall select from the candidates officially declared as herein¬
before provided to be duly nominated for President or Senator
or Representatives in Congress, or for members of the Col¬
lege of Deputies, and from no others, the names of such
person or persons as he or they may desire to vote for at the
final election in November, not exceeding the number of Rep¬
resentatives in Congress or members of the College of Depu¬
ties authorized by law to be elected by any constituency.
And the names of all candidates on any national ticket shall
be printed on a plain white paper ballot, as the Congress may
by law direct.
In case two or more candidates for nomination to any
office shall receive an equal number of votes at such nominat¬
ing election, the Congress shall .provide by law the manner of
determining which of the candidates shall have his name
printed on the official ballot.
In case of the death, resignation or disability of any Sen¬
ator of the United States, or Representative in Congress, or
member of the College of Deputies, the College of Deputies
for the State in which such vacancy may happen shall, on
receiving official notification thereof, be convened at the Cap¬
itol of such State and vote to fill such vacancy, in the manner
prescribed for filling vacancies in the office of President, as
the Congress may by law prescribe.
The person so appointed shall be a resident of the State
and district in which such vacancy shall have happened, and
he shall, when appointed, be a member of the same party to
which the Senator or Representative or Deputy belonged,
whose vacancy is to be filled.
All appointments made by the College of Deputies, in any
State, shall be for the residue of the unexpired term.
The College of Deputies for each State shall once in six
years, at least thirty days prior to the time fixed in this Con¬
stitution for the nomination of candidates for President, cause
a registration to be made of all electors in the several States,
— 830 —
duly qualified to vote for President, and shall provide for
verifying and correcting1 such national registration thirty
days prior to each election for the nomination of Senators
and Representatives in Congress.
Offenses committed against the peaceful conduct of na¬
tional elections, by the inhabitants of any State, or against
the persons of voters when going to or returning from such
elections, or against the members of the College of Deputies
for such State, or against any official charged by law with
the conduct of such elections, shall, on trial and conviction
before any District or Circuit Court of the United States
for such State, be punished as the Congress may by law pre¬
scribe.
The Congress shall by law provide the manner in which
elections shall be conducted for President and Senators and
Representatives in Congress, and for members of the College
of Deputies in each State, and prescribe for the counting and
officially declaring and certifying the result of such vote at
each election.
If a citizen who has been elected a member of the College
of Deputies for any State, shall refuse or neglect to qualify,
or after qualifying, shall refuse or neglect to discharge the
duties of his office, as prescribed by law, any one or more
electors may file a petition before any Judge of the District
or Circuit Court of the United States in such State, asking
for an order directing such Deputy to appear forthwith and
show cause why he should not be removed from his office, or
why the office should not be declared vacant.
In case such Deputy should fail or refuse to obey the
process of Court, or its order, he shall be summarily removed
from his office by the Court; and may, in addition to such re¬
moval from office, be punished, as for contempt, by fine or
imprisonment, or both, at the discretion of the Court.
In case of a contest touching the conduct and returns of
an election in any State under this Constitution for President
or Senator of the United States, or Representatives in Con¬
gress, or for members of the College of Deputies, the matter
in controversy shall be immediately heard and determined by
the Circuit or District Court of the United States for the
district and State in which such controversy arose, in such
— 831 —
manner as the Congress may provide by law, and from the
decision of such Court touching- the matters in controversy
there shall be no appeal.
The Secretary of the Interior and such officers as the
Congress may by law designate shall be authorized and re¬
quired every six years to determine and officially to announce
the number of Representatives in Congress to which each
State is entitled under each new apportionment. Such repre¬
sentation to be determined by assigning- to each State such
proportion of the number of Representatives fixed by law as
the number of the votes cast for President, at the election
next preceding- in such State, bears to the total number of
votes so cast in all the States. But each State shall have at
least one Representative.
The qualified electors in the District of Columbia and in
each of the duly organized Territories of the United States,
shall have the right to vote at all elections for the nomina¬
tion and election of President of the United States.
The Congress may provide by law that a delegate elected
in any duly org-anized Territory, which contains a popula"
tion equal to one-half that required under any apportion¬
ment for one Representative in Congress, shall have secured
to him all the privileg-es of a member of the House of Repre¬
sentatives, including- the right to vote.
The Congress shall by law define specifically in what the
term " inability of the President to discharge the powers and
duties of his office " shall consist; and in case of such " ina¬
bility " happening*, may by a concurrent vote of two-
thirds of both the Senate and House of Representatives,
suspend the President from the function of his office during
such inability, or may by a like vote of the Senate and House
remove him from office because of such inability.
All amendments which shall be proposed to this Consti¬
tution, by the Congress, or by any duly authorized constitu¬
tional convention, shall be submitted to the qualified voters
of the United States residing- in the several States, for their
ratification or rejection.
Such submission shall be at any national election when
Representatives in Congress are chosen, and a majority of
all the votes given at such election for and against such
— 832 —
amendment or amendments, shall be necessary for its ratifi¬
cation as part of this Constitution.
The Congress shall have power to enforce the several
provisions of this amendment by appropriate legislation.
MEMORANDUM,
First.— The stability and safety of democratic govern¬
ment, both national and State, depend so largely on their
clearly denned powers, that the Constitutions of each must
of necessity limit the power to be exercised, and specifically
define the manner in which all branches of the several de¬
partments of each shall be administered.
This fact is universally recognized in all our modern
State constitutions. The constitutions of Ohio and New
York contain nearly two and one-fourth times the number
of words found in the national Constitution, while the consti¬
tution of California will exceed it in length more than three
times.
Our fathers, when framing- the national Constitution,
attempted to settle and define in concise language the princi¬
ples on which the National Government should be founded.
After a hundred years, their descendants are waking- up
to the necessity of demanding1 that the principles on which
the National Government must be administered shall be
more clearly and intelligently defined. That which has ob¬
tained in all our State constitutions, has become a necessity
in our national Constitution. This is all the answer that
needs be given to the objections, which many will doubtless
make to the length of my proposed amendment.
As originally drafted, there was in this amendment a
clause which provided, that a majority of all the duly quali¬
fied voters in any State might abolish their State govern¬
ments and, with the consent of Congress, unite the whole or
any part of the territory of such State with one or more
adjacent States, or, that they might be remanded to a Terri-
q -> ->
ojj —
torial condition, whenever its people determined, for any
cause, that they no longer desired to support a State govern¬
ment.
That clause is omitted in the amendment as herewith
submitted, for the reason, that during- the reconstruction
period, immediately after the War of the Rebellion, the
practical working- of the Constitution taught us that a ma¬
jority of the electors in any State could, as they in fact did
in all the rebel States, abolish constitutional State govern¬
ments, and that Congress had no power, except force, to
compel a majority of the people in any State to maintain a
State government and elect Senators and Representatives to
Congress, and vote for electors of President and Vice-Presi¬
dent.
"When such a condition obtains in any State, the sover¬
eignty of the nation over such people and territory remains
unchanged and unquestioned, under the Constitution, as it
is — and therefore such an amendment is not now required.
The suggestion made by Mr. Lincoln, during the war,
4 'that whenever one-tenth of the voters in any State which had
abolished their constitutional State governments, and united
with other rebellious States in organizing the so-called con¬
federate government, should signify their desire to establish
constitutional State .governments, in subordination to the
national Constitution, that they should be authorized by
Congress to do so," was a proposition so objectionable to the
majority that it was, after a brief discussion, abandoned,
and the sovereignty of the nation over all citizens residing
in the rebellious States was fully and distinctly affirmed
and recognized, in the plan of reconstruction adopted by
Congress.
Of the defects of that plan, I have neither the time nor
the disposition to say a single word.
It will be observed — in case a majority of the voters in
any State should determine to alter or abolish their State
governments in the form and manner prescribed in their
State constitutions, and to ask Congress to establish for
them a Territorial government instead — that, under my pro¬
posed amendment, the citizens of such Territory would have
53
— 834 —
secured to them the right to vote for President of the United
States and for at least one Representative in Congress.
Second.—This plan provides that, at all November elec¬
tions, the official ballots must contain the names of candidates
'for every office to be elected, and each party or group of
electors sufficiently numerous in any State or district in a
State to demand under the law the printing and the distribu¬
tion of official ballots by the College of Deputies must make
up a complete ticket by selecting, from among the four
highest nominated for any office at the preliminary election
in August, a candidate for every office to be elected for the
State or district in November.
This provision is important, because it enables every
elector when cumulating his vote, or when substituting the
name of a duly nominated candidate of any party or group
of electors, in place of any name he may desire to erase on
his own party ticket, to do so, without trouble, and to indi¬
cate intelligently and unmistakably, on the face of his bal¬
lot, to the judges of election the change he has made. With
such a ticket no voter of ordinary intelligence can make a
mistake, when changing his ballot, nor can election judges
be in doubt as to the intention of an elector, even if he blur
his ticket when making such changes, because the name of a
candidate must be erased before another can be substituted.
Congress must provide by law the form of all official bal¬
lots and the size of the type in which the names of the
several candidates shall be printed, the space which shall
appear on such ballot between the names of each candidate,
so that the voter shall have room to write or paste in the
name of any candidate for whom he may desire to vote, in¬
stead of the candidate whose name is printed on the official
ballot of his party.
Third.—It provides that a plurality of the votes cast at
all nominating elections shall designate the persons to be
voted for at each final election in November. It provides
that a plurality shall, after the fourth ballot, elect, when the
National College of Deputies may be called upon to fill
vacancies in the office of President, or the College of Depu¬
ties for any State shall vote to fill the office of Senator or
Representative in Congress, so that there can be no deadlock,
— 835 —
or failure to nominate or to elect candidates at an)' election.
I ourth.—It provides that the legislatures of the several
States shall no longer be charged with the duty of electing
Senators of the United States, and confers that power
directly on the people of each State, thus enabling the legisJ
latures of the several States to attend strictly to the local
business of their States, and to save time and expense — now
recklessly thrown away, as witness the one hundred days lost
last winter in electing a Senator from Illinois. This amend¬
ment will also relieve the average legislator from the dan¬
gerous mental strain which now oppresses him, as he lies
awake nights devising gerrymandering schemes, whereby a
large part of the people in a majority op States are dis¬
franchised, by a dishonest distribution of political power, in
the districting of States into Congressional districts, and
districts for the choice of electors of President and Vice-
President, as was done in Michigan last winter.
Fifth.—It provides for making ineligible for President
or Senator or Representative in Congress, or member of the
College of Deputies, any "Justice of the Supreme Court of
the United States, or Judge of any Circuit or District Court
of the United States, or Judge of the Supreme Court or
highest appellate court in any State." This provision was
inserted with the hope that, when adopted, it will materially
aid in reducing the number of ambitious politicians now on
the bench in every State, who are officially pandering to the
worst element of our population, and appealing to them for
political recognition and promotion.
In my opinion, an able and pure judiciary can best be
secured by permanently excluding all judges from eligibility
to political office, national or State.
It would be desirable if all elections for governors and
State officers in the several States were held either the year
before or the year after each presidential election, or in
any year other than the one in which the presidential election
must be held under this proposed amendment.
And as the expenses of all national elections must be
paid by the National Government, there can be no valid ob¬
jection to holding all national and State elections as sug¬
gested. This would ultimate in a complete divorce of
— 836 —
national and State politics, and confine the business of State
legislatures strictly to local matters in their respective States.
If to this suggestion could be added the nominating and
election in March and April, of all State judges made elec¬
tive by the people, and the officials of all cities (say that
such final election of all such officials should be on the first
Monday in April), we should, at a much earlier day than
now seems possible, witness the election of a majority of
non-partisan judges and a majority of non-partisan city offi¬
cials, and thus secure an abler and purer judiciary than we
now have, and also a better and more competent class of city
officials than is possible under our present system.
It will be observed that this amendment provides that at
each national election the names of every candidate for
whom any elector is authorized to vote must be printed on
one ballot.
In order that the reader may the more readily under¬
stand how impossible it will be to commit fraud when voting
such a ballot, I have prepared four tickets such as each
elector or party in any State must make up in order to have
all tickets printed by the College of Deputies, after the nom¬
inations are made, as an elector can only vote for candidates
whose names appear on official ballots.
Tickets for States and cities are also printed herewith.
— 838 —
FORM OF OFFICIAL BALLOTS SUGGESTED
National Republican Ticket.
National Democratic Ticket.
For President of the United, States:
For President of the United Stales:
John Doe, of Pennsylvania.
Richard Roe, of Kentucky.
For United States Senator:
For United States Senator:
David Gibbs, of Sciota.
Norman B. Cook, of Hamilton.
For Representative in Congress for the
For Representative in Congress for the
State at Large:
State at Large:
Moses McCoy, of Franklin.
Albert Sydney, of Wood.
For Representatives in Congress for the
For Representatives in Congress for the
First District:
First District :
1. Hezekiah Brown.
1. Hugh McBride.
2. Israel M. Hale.
2. Zachariah Holmes.
3. Joseph Wilkins.
3. Nimrod Hunter.
4. Peter J. Fairfield.
4. Milton R. Smith.
5. Mathew Zane.
5. Noah Jackson.
For Senatorial Deputies:
For Senatorial Deputies:
1. Azariah 0. Long,
1. John Newman.
2. Salmon A. Hooper.
2. Prosper W. Clay.
For Member of the College of Deputies
For Member of the College of Deputies
for the State at Large:
for the State at Large:
Abraham Knull.
Moses Norton.
For Members of the College of Deputies
For Members of the College of Deputies
for the First District:
for the First District:
1. Washington Hunter.
1. James Lyons.
2. Martin Simmonds.
2. John K. Ledwick.
3. Sampson Yarner.
3. Ralph Lect.
4. William Houston.
4. Joseph Barber.
5. Robert Montgomery.
5. Aaron Vance.
— 839 —
FOR NATIONAL ELECTIONS IN OHIO FOR 1896.
National Alliance Federation
Ticket.
National Prohibition Ticket.
For President of the United States:
For President of the United States:
Frank Granger, of Kansas.
Paul St. John, of Maine.
For United States Senator:
For United States Senator :
Alexander Farmer, of Clinton.
Gideon Stewart, of Fulton.
For Representative in Congress for the
For Representative in Congress for the
State at Large :
State at Large:
Israel Putnam, of Washington.
John B. Gough, of Ashtabula.
For Representatives in Congress for the
For Representatives in Congress for the
First District:
First District:
1. Columbus Fairplay.
1. Gideon J. Stewart.
2. Paul B. Miller.
2. Benjamin Brown.
3. Butler F. Benjamin.
3. Philo B. Scott.
4. Lawrence Ainsworth.
4. Samuel C. Hunter.
5. Job Leadbetter.
5. Nathan Owens.
For Senatorial Deputies:
For Senatorial Deputies :
1. Andrew Jackson.
1. Allen G. Marx.
2. William J. Marvin.
2. Zebulon Vance.
For Member of the College of Deputies
For Member of the College of Deputies
for the State at Large:
for the State at Large :
Jacob Cone.
Isaac Rodney.
For Members of the College of Deputies
For Members of the College of Deputies
for the First District:
for the First District:
1. John P. Turly.
1. Thomas M. Davey.
2. Asher J. Flanders.
2. Robinson McCane.
3. Oliver P. Hall.
3. Carl Pomeroy.
4. Kingsley G. Baird.
4. George Kinney.
5. Moses Goodridge.
5. John McDowell.
— 840 —
THE OFFICIAL BALLOTS SUGGESTED FOR
National Republican Ticket.
National Democratic Ticket.
For President of the United States:
For President of the United States:
John Doe, of Pennsylvania.
Richard Roe, of Kentucky.
For Representatives in Congress for the
For Representatives in Congress for the
State at Large:
State at Large:
1. Azariah Flagg.
1. Langdon Smith.
2. Benj. F. Jarvis.
2. Moses B. Jordan.
For Representatives in Congress for the
For Representatives in Congress for the
Eighth District:
Eighth District:
1. Able M. Cooney.
1. Abraham Long.
2. James C. Banks.
2. Solomon Bliss.
3. George W. Davis.
3. Addison St. Clair.
4. David A. Wilder.
4. Charles S. Brown.
For Senatorial Deputies:
For Senatorial Deputies:
1. Jackson Donaldson.
1. Madison J. Bell.
2. David McPherson.
2. Paul Jones.
For Members of the College of Deputies
For Members of the College of Deputies
for the State at Large '.
for the State at Large:
1. Lafayette Jones.
1. Norton C. Bacon.
2. Andrew J. King.
2. Wm. Henry Brady.
For Members of the College of Deputies
For Members of the College of Deputies
for the Eighth District:
for the Eighth District:
1. Arthur Doe.
1. Able J. Roe.
2. Melangthon Doe.
2. Solomon Roe.
3. Hezekiah Doe.
3. Peter Roe.
4. Jeremiah Doe.
4. Timothy Roe.
— 841 —
NATIONAL ELECTIONS IN NEW YORK FOR 1896.
National Alliance Federation
Ticket.
National Prohibition Ticket.
For President of the United States:
For President of the United States :
Frank Granger, of Kansas.
Paul St. John, of Maine.
For Representatives in Congressfor the
For Representatives in Congress for the
State at Large:
State at Large:
1. Nathan G. Cole.
1. William Gibbs.
2. Allen B. Jones.
2. Galen Morris.
For Representatives in Congressfor the
For Representatives in Congress for the
Eighth District:
Eighth District:
1. James Emmerson.
1. Samuel Carey.
2. Thomas J. Smith.
2. Noah Chance.
3. Amos Doolittle.
3. Arthur Coldwater.
4. Lyman Cross.
4. Calvin Tucker.
For Senatorial Deputies :
For Senatorial Deputies:
1. Eli Z. Hooper.
1. Isaac Clearwater.
2. Luke McDay.
2. Jacob Clingman.
For Members of the College of Deputies
For Members of the College of Deputies:
for the State at Large:
for the State at Large:
1. John B. Walker.
1. Wilkins Micauber.
2. Weller J. Fuller.
2. Asa B. Downing.
For Members of the College of Deputies
For Members of the College of Deputies
for the Eighth, District:
for the Eighth District:
1. Andrew Kirk.
1. James Clearwater.
2. Allen Kirk.
2. John Clearwater.
3. Abraham Kirk.
3. Paul Clearwater.
4. Isaac Kirk.
4. Peter Clearwater.
— 842 —
FORM OF TICKETS FOR NEW YORK OR OHIO
Republican State Ticket.
Democratic State Ticket.
—
For Governor:
For Governor:
William McKinley, Jr.
James E. Campbell.
* % * * *
For Senators for the State at Large:
* «- -Z
For Senators for the State at Large:
1. Orlando Stevens.
1. Patrick Noland.
2. Henry J. Howard.
2. John Marks.
3: Jacob Cable.
3. Bailey McBride.
For Senators for the Sixth District:
For Senators for the Sixth District:
1. Andrew J. Knapp.
1. Mathew C. West.
2. Charles Godfrey.
2. Jackson Oakland.
3. Hamilton Houghton.
3. Harding Kellogg.
4. Horace J. Smith.
4. Marshall King.
5. David Rathbourne.
5. Obediah Mills.
For Representatives in the Legislature
For Representatives in the Legislature
for the State at Large:
for the State at Large:
1. James Long.
1. Jason Quinsey.
2. John Wentworth.
2. ^ffllen Quinsey.
3. Jacob Williams.
3. Morris Quinsey.
For Representatives in Legislature for
For Representatives in Legislature for
the Eighteenth District:
the Eighteenth District:
1. Stanton Brown.
1. John Knowlton.
2. Heber Zimmerman.
2. James Knowlton.
3. Anthony Moore.
3. Henry Knowlton.
4. George A. Rhodes.
4. Charles Knowlton.
5. Clayton Brewer.
5. Abner Knowlton.
— 843 —
STATE ELECTIONS. FOUR OFFICIAL BALLOTS.
Alliance Federation State Ticket.
Pbohibition State Ticket.
For Governor:
For Governor:
John Seitz.
John J. Ashenhurst.
*****
For Senators for the State at Large :
* * ¥ -s- »
For Senators for the State at Large :
1. Abner L. Jones.
1. Peleg G. Scott.
2. Benjamin Briggs.
2. Samuel Ramsey.
3. Allen G. Holmes.
3. Barney May.
For Senators for the Sixth District:
For Senators for the Sixth District:
1. Chancy N. Olds.
1. Willard Warner.
2. Arthur Cook.
2. Francis G. Scott.
3. Jonathan Wynn.
3. Asa Sherwood.
4. George A. Greene.
4. Nathan Jewell.
5. Michael Sheridan.
5. William J. Bell.
For Representatives in the Legislature
For Representatives in the Legislature
for the State at Large:
for the State at Large :
1. Able Adams.
1. Morrison Roach.
2. Nicholas Adams.
2. Dennison Hale.
3. Philander Adams.
3. Robinson Holmes.
For Representatives in Legislature for
For Representatives in Legislature for
the Eighteenth District:
the Eighteenth District:
1. Benjamin Stanton.
1. Mason G. Thorp.
2. Oliver Hutchings.
2. Iiezekiah Hooper :
3. Wilbur Ford.
3. Waldron Dugan.
4. Thomas H. Ford.
4. Joseph Stewart.
5. Frederick Beaman.
5. Abram Benson.
FOUR OFFICIAL TICKETS FOR CITIES OF THE
Republican City Ticket.
Democratic City Ticket.
For Mayor :
For Mayor :
John Paul Jones.
% 3? % #
Marshall P. Hall.
#
For Board of Aldermen for the
For Board of Aldermen for the
City at Large:
City at Large:
1. Allen G. Mason.
1. Jacob Brown.
2. Franklin Fuller.
2. Isaac Brown.
3. Aaron Winfield.
3. Zachariah Brown.
For Board of Aldermen for the
For Board of Aldermen for the
Fourth District:
Fourth District :
1. John Smyth.
1. Milton Brown.
2. Jason Smyth.
2. Obediah Brown.
3. Jackson Smyth.
3. Paul Brown.
4. James Smyth.
4. Peter Brown.
5. Jonathan Smyth.
5. Moses Brown.
For Members of the Council for the
For Members of the Council for the
City at Large:
City at Large:
1. Anthony Salsbury.
1. Norman Lang.
2. Arthur Salsbury.
2. Henry J. Lang.
3. Albert Salsbury.
3. Allen B. Lang.
For Members of the Council for the
For Members of the Council for the
Twelfth District:
Twelfth District: .
1. John Bingham.
1. Washington Brady.
2. James Bingham.
2. Worthington Brady.
3. Jackson Bingham.
3. William Brady.
4. Jason Bingham.
4. Worden Brady.
5. Jasper Bingham
5. Walden Brady.
— 845 —
POPULATION OF CINCINNATI AND NEW YORK.
Citizens' Non-partisan City
Ticket.
Prohibition City Ticket.
For Mayor:
For Mayor:
Jacob Zeigler.
Arthur Brown.
« * x- ® *
* ®
For Board of Aldermen for the
For Board of Aldermen for the
City at Large:
City at Large :
1. Otho Blake.
1. Melville Frank.
2. Norton Blake.
2. Melangthon Fay.
3. James G. Blake.
3. Orlando Brown.
For Board of Aldermen for the
For Board of Aldermen for tJie
Fourth District:
Fourth District :
1. John J. Jones.'
1. William Aikens.
2. John Paul Jones.
2. John Aikens.
3. Jackson Jones.
3. Jason Aikens.
4. James J. Jones.
4. Jeptha Aikens.
5. Jeptha Jones.
5. James Aikens.
For Members of the Council for the
For Members of the Council for the
City at Large :
City at Large :
1. William Banks.
1. Alford Gleason.
2. Washington Banks.
2. Aaron Gleason.
3. Walter J. Banks.
3. Addison Gleason.
For Members of the Council for the
For Members of ihe Council for the
Twelfth District:
Twelfth District :
1. Elliot Zane.
1. John Coldwater.
2. Elbert Zane.
2. Jason Coldwater.
3. Elihu Zane.
3. Moses Coldwater.
4. Ezekiel Zane.
4. Paul Coldwater.
5. Elijah Zane.
5. St. John Coldwater.
— 846 —
Population.
Population.
White.
1790.
Colored.
1790.
White.
1800.
GJ ©
OT O
a eg
o r*
C c-
Colored.
1800.
CJO
K ©
03 00
Q) yh
ll
District of Columbia-
Delaware
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Georgia
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Maryland _
South Carolina
New Hampshire-
Virginia- -
New York
North Carolina
Rhode Island -
Vermont — _
Kentucky _
Tennessee -
Maine-
Ohio - -
10,066
49,852
586,095
194.325
102,261
244,721
416,393
216.326
196,255
182,998
514,280
557,731
337,764
65,438
153,908
179,873
91,709
150,901
45,028
%
4,027
14,421
16,270
16,824
60,425
6,281
6,452
125,222
149,336
860
365,920
31,320
140,339
3,684
557
41,082
13,893
818
337
%
46,310
424,099
169,954
52,886
232,374
373,324
208,649
140,178
141,097
442,117
314,142
288,204
64,470
85,154
61,133
31,913
96,002
12,786
10,274
14,185
29,662
5,572
5,463
111,079
108,895
788
305,493
25.978
105,547
4,355
271
12,544
3,778
538
8
38
14
93
5
12
4
40
30
16
78
17
2
81
194
187
57
13
58
19
104
13
18
13
37
9
20
21
Defl5
106
228
268
52
Louisiana - _
Indiana
5,343
5,179
298
3,671
Mississippi - -
Illinois
Alabama _ _
Missouri _
Arkansas
Michigan _ _
Florida _
Texas- _
Iowa _
(Wisconsin- _
California -
Minnesota
'Oregon _
Kansas
West Virginia
Nevada- - - -
Nebraska
Colorado - - -
North Dakota- -
i
South Dakota -
Montana - - -
J
Washington-
Wyoming-
Idaho
Utah
Total
36
3,172,006
757,208
4,306,446
1,002,037
32
— 847 —
Population.
Population.
White.
1810.
6
as
O
m
o
a
m
Colored.
1810.
6
9
£
cp
a
97'
20
43
11
77
8
4 '
16
35
13
16
29
28
1
35
100
230
18
464
lit
372
White.
1820.
c5
co
<sS
<u
u
v-»
Colored.
1820.
a3
'&
<a
u
«
a
k-4
16,079
55,361
786,804
226,868
145,414
255,179
465,303
235,117
214,196
213,490
551,514
918,699
376,410
73,214
217,145
324,237
215,875
227,736
228,861
34,311
23,890
23,024
11,501
%
60
11
34
17
42
4
12
. 9
9
17
7
65
11
12
41
80
135
51
408
__347
345
7,944
17,313
23,287
18,694
107,019
6,763
6,737
145,429
200,919
970
423,086
40,350
179,090
3,717
750
82,274
45,852
969
1,899
42,245
630
17,328
781
22,614
55,282
1,017,094
257,409
189,566
267,181
516,419
200,223
237,440
243,236
603,085
1,332,744
419,200
79,413
235,063
434,644
339,927
297,340
576,572
73,383
145,758
42,176
53,788
85,451
55,988
12,579
8,591
%
41
Dec. 1.
29
13
30
5
11
11
11
14
9
45
11
8
8
34
57
31
152
114
510
83
368
225"
10,425
17,467
30,413
20,017
151,419
7,967
6,740
147,127
265,301
786
462,031
39,367
219,629
3,602
903
129,491
82,844
929
4,723
79,540
1,420
33,272
] ,374
. 42,450
10,569
1,676
174
/o
31
1
31
7
41
18
0.04
1
32
Dec. 19
9
Dec. 2
23
Dec. 3
20
57
81
Dec. 4
149
88
125
S2
76
192 "
17,227
3,618
4,618
144
86
21
5,862,073
36
1,377,808
38
7.862,166
34
1,771,656
29
— 848 —
I
Population.
Population.
White.
1830.
ai
C3
a;
o
a
Colored.
1830.
ai
d
o
u
O
P
White.
1840.
V
c5
O
tH
o
a
Colored.
1840.
0>
03
a>
o
M
6
2
25
6
29
1
23
Dec. 3.
4
Dec-il-
Dec. 4.
n
l
Dec. 9.
Dec 17.
ii
29
14
81
54
97
197
65
115
133
332
141
62
Dist. Columbia
Delaware
Pennsylvania.
New Jersey —
Georgia
Connecticut —
Massachusetts
Maryland
South Carolina
N. Hampshire
Virginia
New York
North Carolina
Rhode Island-
Vermont
Kentucky
Tennessee
Maine
Ohio
Louisiana
Indiana
Mississippi —
Illinois
Alabama
Missouri
Arkansas
Michigan
27,563
57,501
1,309,900
300,266
296,806
289,603
603,359
291,108
257,863
268,721
694,300
1,873,668
472,843
93,621
279,771
517,787
535,746
398,263
928,329
89,441
339,399
70,443
155,061
190,406
114,795
25,671
31,346
18,385
%
22
4
29
17
57
8
17
12
9
10
15
41
13
18
19
19
58
34
61
22
133
67
188
123
105
104
265
12,271
19,147
38,333
20,557
220,017
8,072
7,049
155,932
323,322
607
517,105
44,945
265,144
3,578
881
170,130
146,158
1,192
9,574
126,298
3,632
66,178
2,384
119,121
25,660
4,717
293
16,345
%
18
10
26
3
45
1
5
6
22
Dec. 23
12
14
21
Dec. i.
Dec. 2.
31
76
28
103
59
156
99
74
181
143
181
68
30,657
58,561
1,676,115
351.588
407,695
301,856
729,030
318,204
259,084
284,036
740,968
2,378,890
484,870
105,587
291,218
590.253
640,627
500,438
1,502,122
158,457
678,698
179,074
472.254
335,185
323,888
77,174
211,560
27,943
%
ii
2
28
17
37
4
21
9
4
6
7
27
3
13
4
14
20
26
62
77
100
154
205
76
182
201
575
52
13,055
19,524
47,918
21,718
283,697
8,122
8,669
151,815
335,314
538
498,829
50,031
268,549
3,243
730
189,575
188,583
1,355
17,345
193,954
7,168
196,577
3,929
255,571
59,814
20,400
707
26,534
42,924
30,749
—
188
196
"West Virginia
North Dakota-
South Dakota-
1
f —
Utah
1 1
Total-
a 10,537,378j 34|2,328,642
31
b!4,195,805
35
2,873,648
23
a Includes 5,318 persons on public ships in the service of the U. S.
b Includes 6,100 persons on public ships in the service of the U. S.
— 849 —
Population.
Population.
White.
1850.
©
V
u
O
Colored.
1850.
6
§
O
"White.
1860.
<y
p
V
a
Colored.
1860.
V
7;
O
f-
O
a
37,941
71,169
2,258,160
465,509
521,572
363,099
985,450
417,943
274,563
317,456
894,800
3,048,325
553,028
143,875
313,402
761,413
756,836
581,813
1,955,050
255,491
977,154
295,718
846,034
426,514
592,004
162,189
395,071
47,203
154,034
191,881
304,756
91,635
6,038
13,087
%
24
22
35
32
28
20
35
31
6
12
21
28
14
36
8
29
18
16
30
61
44
65
79
27
83
110
87
69
~347
891
13,746
20,363
53,626
24,046
384,613
7,693
9,064
165,091
393,944
520
526,861
49,069
316,011
3,670
718
220,992
245,881
1,356
25,279
262,271
11,262
310,808
5,436
345,109
90,040
47,708
2,583
40,242
58,558
333
635
962
39
207
5
4
12
11
36
Bee. 5
5
9
17
Dec. 3.
6
Dec. 2.
18
13
Dec. 2.
17
30
.07
46
35
57
58
38
35
51
134
265
52
77
224
60,763
90,589
2,849,259
646,699
591,550
451,504
1,221,432
515,918
291,300
325,579
1,047,299
3,831,590
629 942
170,649
314,369
919,484
826,722
626,947
2,302,808
357,456
1,338,710
353,899
1,704,291
526,271
1,063,489
324,143
736,142
77,746
420,891
673,779
773,693
323,177
169.395
52,160
106,390
%
60
27
26
39
13
24
24
23
6
3
17
26
14
19
0.3
21
9
8
18
40
37
20
101
23
80
100
86
65
173
251
154
253
2705
299
14,316
21,627
56,949
25,336
465,698
8.627
9,602
171,131
412,320
494
548,907
49,005
361,522
3,952
709
236,167
283,019
1,327
36,673
350,373
11,428
437,404
7.628
437,770
118,503
111,259
6,799
62,677
182,921
1,069
1,171
4,086
259
128
627
%
4
6
6
5
21
12
6
4
Dec. 5.
4
Dec. 0.1.
14
8
Dec. .1.
7
15
Dec. 2.
45
34
1
41
40
27
32
133
163
56
212
221
84
325
564
Dec. 38.
6,812
28,696
34,231
2,576
45
82
46
11,138
30
_
11,330
61,525
50
22
40,125
82,924
254
35
59
85
18
286
19,553,068
38
3,038,808
27
26,922,537
38
4,441,830
OO
54
— 850 —
Population.
"White.
1870.
District of Columbia-
Delaware
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Georgia
Connecticut"
Massachusetts
Maryland
South Carolina
New Hampshire
Virginia
New York
North Carolina
Rhode Island
Vermont *
Kentucky
Tennessee
Maine
Ohio—
Louisiana
Indiana
Mississippi
Illinois
Alabama
Missouri
Arkansas
Michigan
Florida
Texas
Iowa
Wisconsin
California
Minnesota
Oregon
Kansas
West Virginia
Nevada
Nebraska
Colorado
North Dakota
South Dakota
Montana
Washington
Wyoming
Idaho
Utah
New Mexico
Arizona
Oklahoma
Total
88,278
102,221
3,456,609
875,407
638,926
527,549
1,443,156
605,497
289,667
317,697
712,089
4,330,210
678,470
212,219
329,613
1,098,692
936,119
624,809
2,601,946
362,065
1,655,837
382,896
2,511,096
521,384
1,603,146
362,115
1,167,282
96,057
564,700
1,188,207
1,051,351
499,424
438,257
86,929
346,377
424,033
38,959
122,117
39,221
| 12,887
18,306
22,195
8,726
10,618
86,044
90,393
9,581
33,589,377
/o
45
13
21
35
8
17
18
17
Dec. 0.6
Dec. 2
Dec. 32
13
8
24
5
19
13
Dec. 0.3
13
1
24
8
47
Dec. 0.9
51
12
59
24
34
76
36
55
159
67
226
472
326
15
400
99
114
9
Colored.
1870.
25
43,404
22,794
65,294
30,658
545,142
9,668
13,947
175,391
415,814
580
512,841
52,081*
391,650
4,980
924
222,210
322,331
1,606
63,213
364,210
24,560
444,201
28,762
475,510
118,071
122,169
11,849
91,689
253,475
5,762
2,113
4,272
759
346
17,108
17,980.
357
789
456
94
183.
207
183 .
60
118
172
26
4,880,009
— 851 —
Population.
White.
1880.
118,006
120,160
4.197.016
1.092.017
816,906
610,769
1,763,782
724,693
391,105
346,229
880,858
5,016,022
867,242
269,939
331,218
1,377,179
1,138,831
646,852
3,117,920
454,954
1,938,798
479,398
3,031,151
662,185
2,022,826
591,531
1,614,560
142,605
1,197,237
1,614,600
1,309,618
767,181
776,884
163,075
952,155
592,537
53,556
449,764
191,126
133,147
35,385
67,199
19,437
29,013
142,423
108,721
35,160
43,402,970
%
34
18
21
25
28
16
22
20
35
9
24
16
28
27
0.5
25
22
4
20
26
17
25
21
27
26
63
38
48
112
36
25
54
77
88
175
40
37
268
387
933
93
203
123
173
66
20
267
Colored.
1880.
29
59,596
26,442
85,535
38,853
725,133
11,547
18,697
210,230
604,332
685
631,616
65,104
531,277
6,488
1,057
271,451
403,151
1,451
79,900
483,655
39,228
650,291
46,368
600,103
145,350
210,666
15,100
126,690
393,384
9,516
2,702
6,018
1,564
487
43,107
25,886
488
2,385
2,435
401
346
325
298
53
232
1,015
155
6,580,793
37
16
31
27
33
19
34
20
45
18
23
25
36
30
14
22
25
Dec. 10
26
33
60
46
61
26
23
72
27
38
55
65
28
41
106
41
152
44
37
202
434
327
89
57
63
Dec. 12
97
490
496
White.
1890.
35
154,695
140,066
5,148,257
1,396,581
978,357
733,438
2,215,373
826,493
462,008
375,840
1,020,122
5,923,952
1,055,382
337,859
331,418
1,590,462
1,336,637
659,263
3.584,805
558,395
2,146,736
544,851
3.768.472
833.718
2,528,458
818,752
2,072,884
224,949
1,745,935
1,901,086
1.680.473
1,111,672
1,296,159
301,758
1,376,553
730,077
39,084
1,046,888
404,468
f 182,123
\ 327,290
127,271
340,513
59,275
82,018
205,899
142.719
55,580
58,826
54,983,890
Population.
Colored.
1890.
%
31
17
23
28
20
20
26
14
18
9
16
18
22
25
0.1
15
17
2
15
23
11
14
24
26
25
38
28
58
46
18
28
45
67
85
45
23
Dec. 27
133
112
283
260
407
205
183
45
31
58
27
75,572
28,386
107,596
47,638
858,815
12,302
22,144
215,657
688,934
614
635,438
70,092
561,018
7,393
Q37
268,071
430,678
1,190
87,110
559.193
45,215
742,559
57,028
678,489
150,184
309,117
15,223
166,180
488,171
10,685
2,444
11,322
3,683
1,186
49,710
32,690
242
8,913
6,215
914
1,490
1,602
922
201
588
1,956
1,357
2,973 •
7,470,040
^ cfy~& &£? &-t$c~tr;
Z&2*-
jGL-^L—£•
y^> <•-£.. / Sf-'^..<? '^a-^, 'J n-j^,
fa 2^-0 }sa^^sg~^<ry>^-
SZJZtf -^£t-
S/ t t- <? Q£}^CCV-£W7:
**&%
/'
04^^, oA, ^jsuHa&^M
APPENDIX.
The " Souvenir " presentation was made on Emancipa¬
tion Day, September 22nd, 1893, at the Art Palace in Chicag-o,
in Columbian Hall of the World's Parliament of Religions,
in the presence of not less than five thousand people.
In this edition of the Souvenir, we add the appeal made
f:o the public by the Publication Committee ; the address of
Hon. Wm. H. Young-, President of the Afro-American
lueagne of Tennessee, and Bishop Arnett's able address, with
the short speech of his little son, Master Daniel Payne Ar-
nett, and Governor Ashley's admirable response.
This appendix when added to the matter in the original
Souvenir, makes a complete record and an invaluable his¬
toric volume.
the) address of
BISHOP BENJAMIN WILLIAM ARNETT, D. D.,
of wilberforce, ohio,
At Chicago, Ii.iv., September 22, 1893,
on presenting a souvenir volume, in behalf of the afro-
american league of tennessee, and of the friends
of human liberty throughout the world.
To the Hon. James M. Ashley, of Toledo, Ohio,
in art palace and in the presence of the parliament
of religions. the rev. john henry barrows, d. d.,
presiding.
Mr. President, Members of the Parliament of Re¬
ligions and Fellow-Citizens of the Commonwealth of
Humanity :
In the name of my countrymen and fellow-sufferers of the
past I come with greetings and rejoicings this night, that
our night has turned to day, our former prison has become a
mansion, and we are now the legitimate heirs of the heritage
of American freemen. We are to congratulate ourselves that
this gathering- is not only to be a mount of toleration and
cordiality, but is to be one of gratitude and thanksgiving" to
God, and to one of the foremost heroes in the battle of free¬
dom. This is one of the greatest honors of my life, to be
spokesman of the Tennessee League and of 7,500,000 of my fel¬
low-countrymen. It will be my privilege to review the work
of the race for the past thirty years, and to follow some of
the steps that have led to the marvelous triumphs of thirty
years of labor in field, study and schoolhouse. We are also
to honor one to whom honor is due, and let him and his
friends know that we are not unmindful of the workmen of
the past. The battle of human freedom has been fought in
all lands for all races.
THE VICTORIES WON.
Fourteen hundred and ninety-one years before the Star of
Bethlehem was hung in the vaulted skies, or the celestial or¬
chestra sung the natal song of the "Infant Redeemer of
Man," Moses, the servant of God, the lawgiver of the centu¬
ries, the first to unite in his person, human and divine law,
led Israel, the children of God, beneath a banner of vapor
and fire from the house of bondage, to Mt. Nebo, in sight of
the land of liberty. Joshua, his successor, lifted up the ban¬
ner, drew the sword, rallied his forces, crossed the Jordan,
Jericho fell ; he moved on to Aiai in the plain of Gilgal,
erected the first monument to the triumph of liberty, with
the stones brought from the Jordan by the priests of the
living God. It became their "Triumphal Arch," and our
" Bow of Hope," and Joshua spoke to the children of Israel,
saying : "When your children shall ask their fathers in time
to come, saying, ' What mean these stones ?' then shall ye
let your children know, saying Israel came over this Jordan
on dry land."
And in the future men and women shall inquire, " What
means this day, the 22d of September ?"
When our children and their children's children shall
inquire of their moral and religious teachers, why the 22d of
September is set down in the calendar as the day of hope and
joy to the negro, then will you answer them and say :
When your father's father was in bondage there was a
great war between the northern and southern States of the
Union ; at times one army was successful, and at times the
other was successful. *
A great and good man was the President of the United
States. The party of men that elected him were opposed to
the extension of slavery, and many of them believed in uni¬
versal freedom ; others of them believed in the emancipation
of the slaves, while another class believed that the normal
condition of the negro was to be a slave to the white man.
There was a division among" the people and the states¬
men in regard to the powers of the State and General Gov¬
ernment. One party believed that the General Government
was superior to the'State government. The Southerners be¬
lieved that the State government was superior to the Nation,
al Government; the logical conclusion of this was that a part
was greater than the whole. Finally on the twelfth day of
April, 1861, the American flag was fired upon at Fort Sum¬
ter, and the fort was compelled to surrender, and the Ameri¬
can flag was lowered. Thus came the great war known as
the Rebellion.
The leaders on both sides lifted up their standard, and
hundreds of thousands rallied around them. Brave, trained
and skilled men were appointed to lead them. The contest
was long, bloody and dreadful. The war-cloud hung low
and dark from sea to sea. Soldiers were vigilantly guarding
the frontiers of liberty on one side, and those of slavery on
the other. Every man was brave as though his face was
brass, his muscles of iron and his fingers of steel. The
minie-ball whistled its favorite song of death ; cannons
spoke to cannons in the voice of thunder ; the earth heard
and trembled, and the sky frowned upon the scene, grape and
canister flew like birds through the air, bombs like meteors
spread destruction in their path. The nights were made
hideous by shells screaming and screeching like wild beasts
of prey, contending with each other. The midnight air was
burdened with groans of the wounded and the wails of the
dying. Ag-ain could be heard the shouts of the advancing
army amid the din of battle. The curses of the retreating
foe could be heard, mingling with the shouts of triumph and
victory. The bass voice of the artillery and the heavy tramp
of the cavalry were broken by the shrill cries of the command¬
ers urging- their men to victory. Doubtful as to the way the
battle was going-, the President of the United States issued a
proclamation, inviting- all Christians and people to assemble
in their churches and places of worship to pray to the God
of the armies of heaven, that He might reinforce the armies
of the Union by His ever-conquering- legions. The people
obej^ed, prayer was offered, and the answer from on High
was awaited by the nation.
On the 16th of April, 1862, the first victory was gained
for freedom and justice. The slaves of the District of Co¬
lumbia were emancipated, and the jubilant shouts were heard
throughout the land. In the camp, in the prison and on the
march the bands played, and the soldiers sang, "John
Brown's body lies moldering in the grave, but his soul goes
marching on ; glory, glory hallelujah," etc. [Applause.]
While this and other songs were filling the homes, hearts
and tents of the land, the President of the United States, the
commander of the Union army, stood upon the rock of mili¬
tary necessity, and gave the confederate army 100 days to
surrender and renew their allegiance to the Constitution and
the Union, attaching as a military penalty, ''If they failed to
comply he would on the first day of January, 1863, emanci¬
pate all slaves in certain designated States and Territories
of the country, and promising protection to all who might
come within the lines of the Union army, whether as labor¬
ers, teamsters or servants." Freedom was to be their re¬
ward.
Thus this man hung the bow of promise over the prison of
the negro, and bade the bondmen believe, pray and hope,
Within the prison, the South, prayers ascended daily and
nightly from the cabin, field and woods. In the North, daily
and nightly meetings were held, speeches and prayers alter¬
nating with each other ; prayers to God, and petitions to
men.
The negrc wanted the Union saved, he wanted the Union
flag tc triumph, but not till the first day of January, 1863, had
passed. Days increased their weary marches ; weeks dragged
themselves along-, appearing" to be months in length, and
three months rolled along- as though they were three years to
the weary, trusting" and hopeful bondmen; in fact, the whole
negro race lived a lifetime over, between the 22d of Septem¬
ber, 1862, and the first day of January, 1863, for the liberty of
the generations, the prosperity and happiness of millions, and
the destiny of a nation hung- upon the issue of the hour and
the resolve of the President of the United States.
Of this proclamation, Mrs. Harper says :
"It shall flash through coming- ages,
It shall light the distant years,
And eyes now dim with sorrow
Shall be brighter through their tears."
"When the first of January, 1863, came, the proclamation
went forth, and millions of the slaves were made freemen in one
day. The hut of the bondman was deserted, and the freedman,
with his wife and with his children, was banished from the
old homestead, and they started to a land they knew not of ;
but with faith in God, and a trust in His word, and with a
lively hope in the final triumph of right, truth and justice,
they began their wear}7 march to the land of liberty. There
was joy and there was sadness ; joy that the hour of deliver¬
ance had come ; sorrow that they had to leave behind their
associates. They started out not as the Israelites from
Egypt, with the clothes and jewels of the Eg}rptians, for
they had only the garments that they wore in bondage, and
their only jewel was the jewel of freedom.
The scene was sad and joj'ful ; millions of people
without a foot of land to stand upon, without a house or
home to protect them from the storm of winter or the heat of
the summer. In fact, they were landless, houseless and
nameless, because hitherto they had borne the names of their
masters ; now having no masters, they had no names, and
each family had to choose a new name of freedom, and they
named their children after the generals, the majors, the
colonels and captains of the Union army, so that the roster
of the army of the Union is the key to the genealogical rec¬
ord of the new sons and daughters of freedom, and the two
were bound tog-ether forever and forever, the deliverer and
the delivered. [Great applause.]
Thirty years have passed away with all of their scenes
of hope and joy, life and death, peace and war, and the in¬
habitants of the city of the living have been transferred to
the city of the dead, and there await their final summons to
appear at the bar of judgment. A generation of men and
women have appeared on the stage of human activities, have
entered the conflict between right and wrong, justice and in¬
justice, have conquered and received their crown of reward,
while others are yet contending for the faith once delivered
to the saints, and for which the saints of goodness and the
heroes of virtue have died.
The question now is, "What has the negro done with his
thirty years of freedom ? " The following are some of his
achievements in the field of politics and government.
Hundreds and thousands have served in ward meetings,
city meetings, county and state conventions ; hundreds have
attended the national conventions, which nominate the Presi¬
dent of the United States ; and John R. Lynch and others
have presided over the national convention.
In thirty years the negro has been elected, and served
with honor to himself and to his race in city councils, on
boards of aldermen, in State legislature, in. State senate,
in national Congress and in the United States Senate, and in
each of the deliberative bodies has he presided with dignity.
What race can show a better record than this ? I challenge
comparison and wait for a parallel, either from history,
tradition, observation or experience.
Since the negro left the house of bondage he has been
elected, and has acted as mayor of a town, he has been
constable and marshal, the county 'squire and the city jus¬
tice of peace, the county sheriff and the United States mar¬
shal, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and lieut.-
governor, presiding over the State senate, acting as Governor
of Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina, approving the
laws, liberating convicts, commuting sentences of death to
that of life, the embodiment of law and order for a common¬
wealth.
He has presided over the national House of Representa¬
tives, and filled the chair of Vice-President of the United
States with honor and dignity. The Hon. B. K. Bruce was
register of the United States treasury and stamped his name
upon the currency of our country, and gave the negro's con¬
sent to pay the nation's debt in silver and gold, or in green¬
backs.
In thirty years the negro went from field, shop and hotelr
and has been elected and served as secretary of state, auditor
of state, treasurer of state, attorney-general of state, super¬
intendent of public schools in county and state ; and the
negro in the days of reconstruction laid the foundation of
the public school system of the South, and to-day it stands a
monument of his love of education and of posterity.
Since 1862 the negro has studied law, been admitted to
the bar, has been elected city judge, has presided in the
supreme court of South Carolina. He has acted as prose¬
cuting attorney and persecuting attorney too. He has been
admitted to practice in the district, circuit and supreme
courts. Thus the negro is able to plead his cause from the
police courts to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Hon. James M. Townsend and D. P. Roberts have
acted as recorders of the general land offices of the United
States, one of the most important offices in the gift of the
President, for not one foot of public land can be sold or trans¬
ferred without the signature of the recorder of the lands.
He is the custodian of the great seal of the land office, and
when he signs his name and stamps with the seal, he repre¬
sents the wishes of 62,500,000 people.
The Hon. Frederick Douglass, the greatest of all Ameri¬
can negroes, acted as marshal of the District of Columbia ;
he was the representative of law and order of the Govern¬
ment, and in a city where less than thirty years ago his kin¬
dred were bought and sold. What a wonderful triumph !
"What marvelous progress has been made in recognizing the
rights of the new-made freeman ! [Great applause.]
Again, inside of thirty years the negro has been appoint¬
ed by the President of the United States to serve the Gov-
ernment as consul in Madagascar, San Domingo, minister
resident and consul general to Hayti, the morning star of
negro independence and negro reign ; and to Liberia, Africa,
the lone star of hope to more than 200,000,000 of men,
women and children, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.
The negro has assisted in framing the organic laws of many
States of the Union, since his freedom. He was an impor¬
tant factor in the reconstruction conventions, and has assist¬
ed in embodying in the organic law of the land the principles
of justice and right.
WHAT PROGRESS HAS THE NEGRO MADE IN EDUCATION ?
That education is essential to the success of an individ¬
ual, family, race or country is a common axiom, and it is said
on every side, "We must educate or perish." This is relative¬
ly and absolutely true with us as a race. Therefore we desire
to see what progress we have made since our chains have
been broken, and we stepped out into freedom. The follow¬
ing communication from Hon. W. T. Harris, Commissioner
of Education of the United States, tells the story of thirty
years of freedom and education.
NUMBER OP SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED RACE.
THE ENROLLMENT OE THEM BY INSTITUTIONS WITHOUT REFERENCE TO
STATES.
Teachers. Schools. Enrollment.
Public schools
Normal schools
Institutions of secondary in-
22,956 21,520 1,327,822—89
316 41 7,462
struction
Universities and colleges....
Schools of theology
Schools of law
Schools of medicine
Schools of deaf, dumb and
354
238
89
15
30
■W—V
22
4
11,480
1,010
1,008
42
241
blind
30
9
287
Total
24,038 21,674 1,327,822—89
Grand total in all schools of all grades
1,353, 3D.
IN COLLEGE AND SEMINARY.
The students in our colleges and seminaries in the pur¬
suit of their studies have acquitted themselves nobly. They
have made excellent records in the study of the classics, in
the study of the higher mathematics, in the contests for
class honors they have been very successful, and have won
victories against great odds.
In thirty years they have captured the oratorical prize in
century-crowned Harvard; have borne aloft the palm of victory
in Boston University. In all these institutions distinguished
for their learning, the negro student has shown that the in¬
tellectual power of the race is equal to that of the Anglo-
Saxon, in the acquisition of knowledge, and I firmly believe
that time and circumstances will prove that he possesses the
power of applying his knowledge in the world of thought
and matter. It is only a question of time, for time is an essen¬
tial element, until the latent powers of the race will manifest
themselves in the organization, and in the subsidizing of the
moral and mental forces, and utilizing them for the advance¬
ment of science and the development of art, and in the foster¬
ing of the higher culture of our young men and our young
women to such an eminent degree that the doubt that hangs
over the possibilities of the race will be removed, and con"
fidence and trust and hope will then illumine the path of the
future, to such an extent that the seekers after truth will be
permitted to join in the excursions of investigation and study,
regardless of race and color.
THE NEGRO ON THE PLATFORM.
Before the war and before freedom, it was a strange thing
to hear of a negro upon the platfofm, or a platform of politi¬
cal parties, for he has had some connection with the platform
of political parties, from the organization of our Government.
I have reference to the public platform where an individual
stands before an audience, presents facts of history, illus¬
trates by instances of biography or recites events connected
with his own personal observation or experience, or discusses
principles, men and policies of government, approving* one
party and disapproving- another, using- every argument of
moral suasion to have an individi^al follow the standard of an
organization or a party, and to accomplish his end, uses
logic, rhetoric and elocution, playing upon the passions, prej¬
udice and sympathies of his audience as the musician touches
the keys of his instrument.
In thirty years the negroes have produced a number of
spell-binders or orators as they are called in common par¬
lance,'among whom are the Hon. Frederick Douglass, old
man eloquent of the old school; Rev. J. C. Price, of the new
school; Rev. "W. B. Derrick, a "child of the Tropics"; the
Hon. Jno. R. Lynch, a product of the Sunny South; Hon. J.
Madison Bell, the man that sounded the key-note of freedom,
on the morning of emancipation at the Golden Gate. Bishop
T. M. D. Ward, whose voice and speech have alike cheered
the miner in the Sierra Nevada, and the new made freed-
men in the savannah and the everglades of Florida, whose
words were as beautiful as the magnolia, and as sweet as the
orange-blossom.
Time fails me to speak, for the coming orators are too
numerous. 'Twould require a volume to record their names,
their hopes, their ambitions; but whether in religious or
political connections, at home or abroad, the platform orators
of the negroes have been heard and felt within thirty years.
THE STAGE.
The negro has appeared upon the stage, and the dra¬
matic power of the race has been tested, weighed and has not
been found wanting. ' Several stars have appeared above the
horizon in the dramatic sky, their brilliant light softened
the midnight darkness, and became a guide to those strug¬
gling to rise from horizon to zenith, until we now have a con¬
stellation appearing to the joy of all:
Madame Selika, the queen of song; Miss Hallie Q.
Brown, the queen of elocutionists; Miss Henrietta Vinton
Davis, the gifted and matchless, magic, emotional and
humorous reader; Miss Sisseretta Jones, the black Patti, lias
delighted thousands in the East and West in the United
States, and has won laurels for herself and for the race in the
West Indies and in foreign* lands; Miss Daisy Nahar, with
wonderful skill, instructs and delights those who have had
the pleasure of listening to her entertainments.
THE NEGRO AS A PHYSICIAN.
The doctor is one of the necessary and one of the indis¬
pensable members of a community. The healing art is one
of the most important of professions. It is so intimately
connected with life and death, health and sickness, that a
skillful physician is a blessing to his fellow-men.
Everybody is interested in his success. The happiness of
homes, the success of enterprises, the prosperity of the com¬
munity depend upon the health of its inhabitants. When the
negro race assumed the responsibilities of freemen, we had'
no physicians of our own; we had to depend on others to care
for our sick and to relieve our ills. But since that day our
young men have entered college, have graduated with honor
and now are practicing with eminent success.
We have physicians who are not only practitioners, but
are eminent as surgeons and oculists. Among the many who
have distinguished themselves for learning and skill are:
Drs. Purvis, Cook, Francis and Powell, of Washington City;
Dr. Ray, of Brooklyn; Dr. Thompson, of New York; Dr.
Darnes, of Jacksonville, Fla.; Dr. Buckner, of Cincinnati,
Ohio; Dr. D. H. Williams, the founder of Provident Hospital
and Training School, of Chicago, and one of the surgeons of
the World's Fair. Dr. Boyd, of Nashville, and many others
whose names time fails me to mention.
The following figures will give some idea as to the num¬
ber of colored physicians of the United States of thirty years
of freedom, for when freedom came we had only Dr. Delaney,
and one or two others.
The Mahary College has graduated in 1891, 132 physi¬
cians.
Howard University, 1891, graduated being- 112 colored
and 216 whites.
The Leonard Medical School in 1391, had graduated 30
students and had 54 on the way.
The Louisville National Medical College has graduated
11 persons and had an enrollment of 23.
The New Orleans University graduated 4 in 1892, and a
arge number have graduated from Ann Arbor, and Chicago
md other places.
There are a large number of dentists in the country, and
pharmacists.
The number of young- men is increasing" in those pro¬
fessions.
THE MUSIC OP OUR FATHERS.
One of the distinguishing- marks of a people is its music
and language. The last thing's of a race to die are its song's
and its language. There is something- of immortality
stamped upon the heart and the human soul. They being-
immortal, their utterances are immortal.
Our fathers in their bondag-e crystallized their sorrows
and their woes into song-s and into hymns. The words were
stamped on the memory of the g-enerations, and their song's
were impressed upon the souls of the old and the young,
and when freedom came, and they marched out of their
prison into the sunlig-ht of liberty, the song's of the nig-ht
were blended with the song's of the day. The minor of de¬
spair and the major of hope were set to the music of liberty
and joy, and the music of the freedmen became the hymns of
liberty. The song's were so unique, the music so original,
that the children of the fathers gave concerts to the multi¬
tudes, thus transmitting- the songs of the fathers to the
hymns of the children.
Temples of education were needed, the fathers were poor
and the children were without money, so a company was
organized and named the "Fisk Jubilee Singers." They
sang in the East, West, North and Soifth; finally they went to
Europe and collected means and built a temple to Christian
education. Other companies have been organized, the Wil-
berforce Concert Co.; the Hampton Singers, who sang in the
interest of Hampton College; the Tennesseeans, who sang in
the interest of Tennessee College; the F. J. Loudin Co., who
sang in Europe, America and Australia, returning by way of
the Hawaiian Islands and San Francisco, thus circumnaviga¬
ting the globe. Thus, within thirty years, the children have
sung the songs of the fathers to the common people of the
eastern, western and southern hemispheres.
They also appeared in the royal presence of kings and
queens, and of aristocrats in England, Germany, Spain, Por¬
tugal and Russia, bringing tears from the eyes of the distin¬
guished of many lands as they sang, " Steal Away to Jesus."
The people of the South Sea were delighted to hear the
children sing their father's song of "Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot, Coming to Carry You Home." Thus the broken
music of the slave became the harmony of the children of
freedom, and everybody delights to hear the plantation melo¬
dies, the only original music of America.
DOMESTIC ECONOMY.
What are we doing toward training our daughters? Have
we done our duty in the past, and are we doing it now ?
A race cannot be greater than its women. The women
are the teachers and molders of the thought and sentiment
of the rising generation. A woman is the teacher at the
fireside, the priest at the family altar, and what mother or
sister says cannot be changed by what any one else says.
Hence it is important to have mothers and sisters who
are intelligent and refined. The influence of woman is not
limited by the sides of the house or the boundaries of the
premises, but she is one of the principal instructors of our
Sunday-schools. In fact, they form a large majority of our
moral and religious teachers in this and all other civilized
countries, and I am told that she is the principal instructor in
the semi-civilized countries, and the general sentiment is—I
have many sisters, many wives, but only one mother.
The work that the women of the race have had to perform
in the past thirty years ; they have had heavy burdens to
bear, difficult tasks to perform, intricate subjects to consider
and difficult questions to decide. They were moved from hut
to hut of slavery to the house of freedom, without furniture,
without any preparation. They had to leave many things
behind that they desired to bring- with them ; they brought
with them many thing-s that they ought to have left behind.
Thus embarrassed and surrounded, they began the home
work of reconstruction without a model or a teacher. It is
true that a few noble women of the North came down, visited
the cities and instructed our women how to arrange a home
for free men and free women, and g*ave lessons in training-
boys and girls for usefulness in this life, and for preparing
them for usefulness in serving God throug-h eternity.
Thirty years have made a wonderful change in our
homes and in the social circles ; our women have made won¬
derful progress. To-day the model home of the negro is a
place of refinement, culture, a home of song-, a temple of in¬
dustry, a sanctuary of relig-ion, the citadel of virtue and the
altar of patriotism, where obedience to human and divine law
is taug-ht in theory and practice.
God bless our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.
The progress they have made,-the advancement they are
making-, is a marvel in our sig*ht, and a source of joy to every
man who loves his race and his country.
THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER.
One of the highest qualities of manhood is that which
makes a soldier. It requires obedience, courage and love of
country to constitute a good soldier. He must ODey without
questioning authority ; he must endure fatigue without com¬
plaining ; he must leave his mother or wife and children be¬
hind without grieving ; he must run and not weary ; he must
walk and not faint.
At the close of the Revolutionary war the negro was
denied the right to bear arms in many of the States, which
was against the Constitution of the country. But he bore it
with patience, trusting- in God, hoping- for the final triumph
of right. When the civil war broke out, he offered his ser¬
vices to the governors of the States to help fill the quotas of
the State. He received answer that '' this is a white man's war,
and that the negro has nothing- to do with it." But times
changed, and after numerous defea'ts to the Union army, the
leaders were convinced that the white man could not settle
the war, and the negro was called in as an umpire ; but he
would not enter without conditions, and one of the conditions
was : " Give us a flag, all free without a slave, and We will
defend it as our fathers did so brave."
When the conditions were complied with, the refrain was
caught up by the negro, east, west, north and south, and he
sang :
"Onward, bo}~s, onward,
This is the year of jubilee
God bless America,
The land of liberty."
And during- the civil war in America, from 1861 to 1865,
there were 178,975 negro soldiers who enrolled in the United
States volunteer army. Of this number 99,337 were enlisted
by the authority of the National g-overnment, 79,638 by the
States and Territories, 36,847 soldiers died in the service of
the country, and in the 449 eng-ag-ements in which they par¬
ticipated they proved themselves worthy to be entrusted with
the nation's flag- and honor. And it has become a proverb in
military parlance that the colored troops fought nobly, and the
children of the soldiers have sung- and continue to sing-:
"We have stood and foug-ht like demons,
Upon the battlefield.
Both slave and valiant freemen
Have faced the g-littering- steel.
Our blood beneath the banner
Has mingled with the whites',
And beneath its folds we now demand
Our just and equal rights.
"We fed the Union soldier
When ileeing from the foe.
"We led him through the mountains,
Where white men dared not go.
Our hoecake and our cabbage
And our pork we freely gave,
That this old flag might be sustained,
Now let it proudly wave.
Let it wave, let it wave,
But never over a slave."
After the war had closed the Grand Army of the Repub¬
lic was organized. The negro was admitted as a comrade,
and to-day he is received as other comrades in the Grand
Army of the Republic, sometimes in separate posts, some¬
times together ; be it as it may, they have one flag and one
country. When the National Guard was organized the negro
was received as a soldier, and is treated as all other mem¬
bers of this important branch of public service.
We have companies, regiments, battalions of infantry,
cavalry and of artillery. Colored men to-day bear commissions
as captains, majors, colonels and generals, as well as chap¬
lains.
Among the best military organizations in the country
are those in South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and other North¬
ern States have encouraged and supported these organiza¬
tions. In thirty years we have had several young men to at¬
tend West Point and graduate, also to attend the United
States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. We have a num.
ber of regular troops in the regular army. In the last Indi¬
an war one of the colored companies distinguished itself
for bravery and saved the army from defeat and destruction.
They were commended by the commanding general, thanked
by the Secretary of War, and transferred from the field in the
west to Washington, D. C.,as a mark of honor and distinc¬
tion for their bravery, and to-day they are guarding the na¬
tion's capital.
All this within thirty years.
skilled labor.
The mechanic is an important factor in every community.
Skilled labor is more effective than unskilled labor. Brain
and muscle combined can do more than brain alone or muscle
alone. The man or race that has the largest amount of
brain in the hand and the fingers will be more serviceable
to humanity than the one with no brain in his hand. There¬
fore it is the duty of every father and guardian to so train the
children that they can perform the greatest amount of skilled
labor. In order to do this we must encourage the industrial
schools by sending our children to them, b}T contributing of
our means, by making friends for them.
We must be able to build our own houses, make our own
furniture, weave our own carpets. We must teach our boys
to make brick; to be blacksmiths; to be tinners; to be wagon
and carriage makers.
We have now a large number of young men who are be¬
ing trained in the mechanical arts at Pine Bluffs, Ark.; at
Tuskegee, Ala.; at Normal, Ala.; at Kittrell, N. C.; at Paul
Quinn, Waco, Tex.; and at Vtfilberforce, Ohio.
Our boys throughout the country have awakened to the
situation and are preparing themselves for the future. The
following figures will give the number of teachers and pupils
engaged in the work of mechanical instruction:
the arena.
Man is a physical, intellectual and moral being, composed
of mind and matter. The culture of the physical man
was the care of the ancient. Greece and Rome cultivated
the physical and the mental man to the neglect of the moral
and the spiritual, while the Jews cultivated the moral and
spiritual to the neglect of the physical and mental.
The racer, the boxer and the gladiator were the greatest
of physical men, or the athlete, as the model physical man is
called.
In the intellectual world the greatest are orators, rhetori¬
cians, grammarians, mathematicians, poets, dramatists and
philosophers. Pericles, of Athens, was the patron and de¬
fender of this class of men to a greater extent than any of
his predecessors or his successors.
Christianity, recognizing- man to be a tripartite being,
has encouraged and fostered the development of the body,
mind and soul to their uttermost. For 200 years or more the
race has not had systematical culture or training, but that
which has come incidentally through work in the field and
shop.
Within the past thirty years the race has had time to
train the muscles, the arms, the legs and the feet. Hart has
been known as the champion walker. Pugilist Dixon wears
the champion belt of his class; Peter Jackson stands with the
champion of the world, for the champion of the world failed
to conquer Jackson; he fought a draw with Jackson, then
challenged the champion of the world, and after defeating
him still has Jackson to conquer. Thus Jackson and Cor-
bett are champions of the world.
THE NKGRO IN THE PULPIT.
The pulpit is one of the great forces in the elevation of
the race. The growth of the church since the war has been
marvelous. The Christian ministry has been the leader of
the people in church and in state; but now we are getting-
leaders in other branches of activity.
The following- is the status of the Methodist churches :
NEGRO METHODISM IN THE UNITED STATES, 1892.
Church.
Pastors.
Local
Ministers.
Members.
Adher'nts
Sunday
Schools.
Officers
and
Teachers.
Scholar?.
Churches, j
Church
and
School
Property.
In M. E. Church _ -
A.M. E. Church
A. M. E. Zion Church —
C. M. E. Church
U. M. iE. Church- ___
Minor bodies-
1,627
4,150
3,650
1,800
115
92
3,800
9,913
7,926
4,024
75
50
247,439
475,565
425,000
130.824
3,869
7,031
950,000
1,483,000
1,253,750
490,590
14,475
25,000
3,297
4,275
3,200
1,961
115
75
19,830
41,958
30,560
7,731
1,151
740
179,832
325,000
300,000
78,455
9,200
6,560
2,890
4,069
3,500
3,196
115
82
$5,434,230
7,772,284
5,000,000
1,200,000
50,000
30,000
11,434
25,788
1,289,728
4,216,815
12,923
101,970
899,047
13,852
19,486,514
Pastors 11,434
Local preachers 25,788
Members 1,289,728
RECAPITULATION.
membership and sunday-schools.
Teachers and officers-
Scholars
Total teachers and scholars-
Total ministers and members 1,326,950
Houses of worship 13,047
Church and school property $19,486,514
RECAPITULATION.
institution of learning from tables iv. and vi.
101,970
899,047
1,001,017
Churches.
In M. E. Church—
A. M. E. Church —
A. M, E. Z. Church
C. M. E. Church—
Total
Schools.
22
38
1
4
65
Teachers.
225
134
13
16
388
Students.
5,396
4,014
275
415
10,100
Property.
1,285,500
502,650
75,000
42,000
$1,905,150
Endowments.
$606,500
21,000
25,000
$652,500
THE NEGRO AS AN AUTHOR.
The race is now producing- some very fine books, among-
them the Hon. G. W. Williams's "History of the Negro
Race;" " The History of A.M. E. Church," by Bishop D.
A. Payne; "The Voice from the South," by Mrs. A. J.
Cooper; "The Divine Log-os," by Rev. H. T. Johnson;
" Theology," by Rev. J. C. Embry, and many others are the
first crop of authors in thirty years. I have in my own li¬
brary ninety-two, and the list covers more than 100.
THE NEGRO PRESS.
The press is a power. It was formerly used against the
interest of the negro, but now the negro has his own papers
and can speak for the race, demand his rig"hts and present
his wrong's to the world. The Christian Recorder is the
oldest religious press in this country. Rev. H. T. Johnson
is its editor. It is the org-an of the A. M. E. Church. The
A. M. E. Church Review, Rev. L. J. Cooper, editor, and the
A. M. E. Zion Church Review,' Hon. J. C. Dancy, editor, are
doing- g'ood work. We have now about 150 newspapers, plead¬
ing- the cause of the race every week, all since the emancipa¬
tion.
After having- reviewed the progress of the race for thirty
years, and witnessed the advance it has made, it is with
more than ordinary satisfaction that I appear in the presence
of this great audience to discharg-e the very pleasant duty
which has been assig-ned me and to show the world that we
are not a race of ingrates, nor are we forg-etful of the bless¬
ing's received, nor is our memory bad when recording- the
wrong's we have suffered in this land of freedom.
Now, Hon. James M. Ashley, when in 1865 I sat in the
g'allery of the House of Representatives and witnessed }rour
successful leadership in the last great congressional battle
for freedom, I did not think that I would be called on to per¬
form so pleasant a duty as this. I was there when the Speak¬
er announced that the 13th amendment had passed. I
joined in the song- of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." I heard
the cannons in the city carrying- the g-lad tiding-s in the air.
The bells of the city shouted for joy. Having- done your duty
at all times—and the present g-eneration of black men are
aware of it — and in their name and on their behalf I have
headed the committee of compilation. It has been a work of
love and pleasure to collect your orations and speeches which
in their day were our army and battle axes, and became our
victory and liberty. [Applause.]
In all you then said or did in our behalf, we have found
no word or thought or act, which we or any black man could
wish to chang-e or blot. [Applause.] In 1864, when you
said (and we have preserved it in this Souvenir) "that if
true to the cause of freedom, the very stones cast at you
would one day be made into your monument," you uttered
a prophecy which to-nig-ht is fulfilled. [Applause.]
To fulfill that prophecy we thought that to collect your
speeches and put them in a volume, to be read for many genera¬
tions, would be better than a shaft of marble or a statue of
bronze, for the marble would crumble beneath the weight of
years and the,bronze would tarnish in the breath of time, but
this volume will be sent to the public libraries of this and
other lands and be read by the coming- g-enerations.
Accept this token from the present g-eneration, and on
behalf of the coming- g-eneration I thank you for what you
have done for them, and with you I rejoice that the door of
our prison is closed forever and the g-ateway of freedom is
opened for all the g-enerations to come. [Applause.]
The following- presentation address was prepared by
the Hon. Wm. H. Young-, President of the Afro-American
League of Nashville, Tennessee.
As Mr. Young- was unavoidably detained at home, we
publish this address in full.
Bishop Arnett (with the aid of his little son, Daniel
Payne Arnett) took Mr. Young-'s place.
MR. YOUNG'S ADDRESS.
Mr. President : As the representatives of the Afro-
American Leag-ue of Tennessee, we have met this evening,
in this great city, the Mecca toward which the heart of
civilization has been turned during- this Columbian jubilee oc¬
casion, to erect a monument founded in the gratitude of the
ex-slaves and their children of the United States of America.
The spirit which actuated us in the movement, whose
consummation we shall this night witness, impelled the
nation to dedicate monuments to the champions of the cause
of the Union, and the devotees of States' sovereig-nty to foster
as an abiding- possession the memory of heroes whose convic¬
tions were dearer to them than life.
Forty years ag-o the social fabric of our great country
consisted of four distinct threads :—
(1) The slave, who by nativity, residence and conquest
had become an essential part of the nation ;
(2) The abolitionist, who stood upon the broad doctrine
announced by the revolutionary fathers, that "all men are
created free and equal
(3) A larg-e element, who professed to believe that
"there were races" who could be chattelized without sin or
crime.
And (4) a larg-er number who cared little for the equality
of men,, so long as their own rights remained intact, and the
integrity of the National Government was undisturbed.
In the struggle which followed the slave remained for a
time a passive quantity.
The abolitionist demanded the emancipation of the slaves.
The devotees of States' rights maintained that the slave,
being property, was wholly within the jurisdiction of the
States, and that any infringement upon property rights by the
National Government would justify a dissolution of the
Union.
This dictum left to the unconditional Unionist but one
alternative, a coalition with the abolitionist for the purpose
of saving the Union.
The war is ended. Its results and subsequent legislation
are enshrined in the nation's history.
Under Providence, the Union is restored, slavery is abol¬
ished and the entire nation, North and South, rejoices in the
accomplishment of both.
We are not here to revive the unpleasant memories of
the past, nor to rekindle the camp-fires which are possessions
of the dead past; but we are here to crown the head of him
from the fullness of whose great heart the second declaration
of independence sprung :
' Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction."
This declaration contains the essential element of dem¬
ocratic institutions; and secures the perpetuity of the
American republic.
Mr. Lincoln was the mouth-piece of Unionism; Mr. Davis
of State sovereignty, Mr. Ashley of freedom.
The two former championed the cause of peculiar forms
of government, the latter the cause of humanity.
The followers of Lincoln have seen the Union re-estab¬
lished.
The followers of Mr. Davis have seen State sovereignty
maintained in part with the exception of the right of secession.
The followers of Mr. Ashley have seen the freedom of all
men acknowledged in theory at least.
Each has his reward in the gratitude of his chosen con¬
stituency.
The images of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Davis are perpetu¬
ated in marble and bronze as a lasting reminder to the gen¬
erations to come.
But to-night we erect a unique monument of the charter
of " the Tribune of the people."
We come not as partisans, but as freedmen and citizens,
the immediate beneficiaries of the crowning act of Mr. Ash¬
ley's noble life.
We come to snatch from the consummate statesman,
patriot, philanthropist and benefactor, the chill and gloom of
ingratitude and to reinvest his being with new life.
We come to reassure him that the years of strife, turmoil,
and self-abnegation spent for a despised race were "as bread
cast upon the water."
We come to remind him that we to-night intend that his
name and life-work shall be a precious legacy to our chil¬
dren's children.
That they shall rise up and call him blessed.
We have come to announce to the world that henceforth
he who shall merit our gratitude shall not go unrewarded.
This souvenir is the tribute of the Afro-Americans to the
Hon. Jas. M. Ashley.
PRESENTATION.
At the conclusion of Bishop Arnett's address, he invited
Gov. Ashley to arise.
Thereupon Master Daniel Payne Arnett, the Bishop's
little son, stepped forward and presented him the volume and
said:
Gov. Ashley:—I present you this volume in the name of
the coming- g-enerations, thanking- you for what you have
done for us in the past. May God bless you and give you
long- life.
Gov. Ashley's response to Master Arnett's speech was as
follows :
This is indeed a welcome surprise, and I take this book
from your little son's hand with mingled feeling's of satisfac¬
tion and delight.
To me childhood is the connecting1 link between man
and his Creator. When Jesus said " Suffer little children to
come unto me," He touched all unperverted human hearts.
My little man, your speech and act touches my heart with
pleasurable emotions which words cannot fully express. May
you always remember with pride the occasion on which you
represented President Young- of the Afro-American Leag-ue
of Tennessee, and when you reach man's estate may you
appreciate in all its leng-th and breadth the work of the
Grand Men, who were the recog-nized Leaders of this great
Parliament of Religions. As a citizen may you prove worthy
of the priceless heritag-e secured to you by the heroism and
valor of the liberating- Army of Anti-Slavery Heroes, and
worthy of the noble man for whom you were named.
MR. ASHLEY'S RESPONSE
To Bishop Arnett and President Young.
Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : Some seer
or sage has said, "that the unexpected always happens."
That the unexpected often happens, you and all observing
men can testify. Certainly, in my most impassioned and
vividly illuminated moments, when denouncing- this nation,
as I often did, for its great crime against the negro, and de¬
scribing him after he should be free, as in my mind's eye I
then saw him liberated and marching in solid black columns
of advancing civilization, I did not comprehend, in all its
moral power and stately grandeur, that which greets me as a
living reality to-night.
Here in this magnificent building, on an occasion made
forever memorable and historic, I am told that in the vast
audience before me, I can look upon eleven negro bishops
and not less than 150 regularly ordained negro clergy¬
men of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, represent¬
ing an actual membership of five hundred thousand souls.
And I am told that there are here present negro clergymen
from all branches of the Christian church, representing nearly
a million communicants more, and that in addition to these
clergymen, there are before me representatives of numerous
schools and colleges, and editors, lawyers, physicians and
authors, with many men of recognized ability in artistic,
mechanical and business pursuits ; and last though not least, a
large representation of organized wage-workers, and of negro
farmers and planters.
This is indeed a convocation of black men, such as the
world has never before witnessed, and such as the most
sanguine of the "old liberty guard," never expected to live
long enough to see. [Applause.]
Fellow-Citizens : On a day such as this, filled with historic
memories, it is proper that I should say to }tou, that I did not
want Mr. Lincoln to issue his one hundred days preliminary
proclamation. I knew that such a proclamation would
strengthen me personally and politically in the congressional
contest of that year, and beyond doubt secure my re-election.
But I was not fighting- for a personal triumph, nor was I fight¬
ing to save the Union with slavery. I was fighting for free¬
dom and national unity, and national peace through the
liberation and enfranchisement of the negro. I believed
then, as I believe now, that no union could be honorable and
enduring whose government was administered over the pros¬
trate form of Justice. [Applause.]
As soon as the result of our State election in 1862 was
known, Mr. Lincoln invited me to come to Washington.
The morning after reaching the city, I walked over from the
Treasury Department with Mr. Chase to the White House.
The President, Mr. Stanton, and others who were present,
cordially congratulated me on my re-election (I was the
only Republican member of the Ohio delegation who with¬
stood the mad political cyclone of that year), and they were
all anxious to know how I escaped. I answered: "Itwas
your proclamation, Mr. President, that did it." In a moment
or two, Mr. Lincoln said: "Well, General, how do you like
the proclamation?" I answered: "That had I been com¬
mander-in-chief, I should not have given the enemj* one hun¬
dred days' notice of my purpose to strike him in his weakest
and most vulnerable point, nor would I have made an apology
for doing so just and noble an .act." And I added by way of
quiet protest against recognizing the slave-baron conspirators
as entitled to any such consideration, "That I certainly
should not have given General Lee one hundred days' notice
of my purpose to move on the weakest point of his fortifica¬
tions around Richmond, and publicly designate that point as
this proclamation does." Mr. Lincoln enjoyed my way of
answering him, and acknowledged 1113-" hit," as he called it.
But though I did not want the one hundred days proclama¬
tion issued, I nevertheless hailed it with joy, because I knew
that it was a step in the right direction, and one from which
there could be no retreat. I felt confident, that the slave
barons in their blindness and madness would not accept its
terms, and that on the expiration of one hundred days, the
promised proclamation must be issued if Mr. Lincoln lived.
Many of us were at that time apprehensive that he would be
assassinated, or that some unexpected and untoward event
mig-ht happen, to postpone or defeat the issuing-of the final
proclamation. It was because of this fear and anxiety, that I
preferred to have but one proclamation issued, and I was per¬
sistent, as all know, that it should be issued at once. [Ap¬
plause.]
Certainly you and all honest men understand that I was
thankful, as were the great body of Union men, for the
promise which that one hundred da}Ts proclamation gave!
I hoped that the Confederates, like the Egyptians of old,
would harden their hearts, and refuse to accept Mr. Lincoln's
offer of peace, and believing- that they would do so, this one
hundred days' delay did not at any time shake my faith as to
the final result, and they were to me days of hopefulness and
thankfulness.
I am a born optimist. No matter how dark the cloud my
hopeful vision penetrates it and my eyes catch early glimpses
of the g-olden lig-ht beyond. [Applause.]
Mr. President, often during- the war, a number of my
associates in Congress were wont to say, " that when Wendell
Phillips blew a blast upon his bugle horn, 'twas worth a
thousand men !"
After the first of January, 1863, we all came to know, that
Mr. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was worth a
hundred thousand men. As we now look back, we all realize,
that when Mr. Lincoln blew a blast upon his bugle horn, the
nation paused, and listened and approved.
At Spring-field, Illinois, in 1858, Mr. Lincoln said^, "A
house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this gov¬
ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free."
The people heard him, and believed him and made him Presi¬
dent.
In closing his immortal Emancipation Proclamation, he
spoke in lang-uage that will live in history forever ! These
are his golden words: "And upon this act, sincerely be¬
lieved to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution
upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of
mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God."
This blast upon his bugle horn reverberated from center to
circumference, and was hailed with joy by all patriotic
Americans. It was also heard and welcomed by the friends
of liberty all around the world. [Applause.]
Mr. President, I am glad your committee has preserved in
this volume a speech of mine made in Congress before Mr.
Lincoln's inauguration. It was made against the amazing-
surrender of the House Committee, known in those days as the
"Union Saving Committee of 33." That committee pro¬
posed a compromise which they intended should silence for
all time, the troublesome abolitionist, and give the slave
barons the ease and peace, the security and perpetual power
they sought. This so-called final compromise, was an amend¬
ment to our national Constitution, which reads as follows:
"Article 12. No amendment shall be made to the Consti¬
tution, which shall authorize or give Congress the power to
abolish or interfere within any State, with the domestic insti¬
tutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or ser¬
vice, by the laws of such State."
As an American, I blush to state that this proposed amend¬
ment passed both Houses of Congress, with the active sup¬
port of President Buchanan, two days before Mr. Lincoln's
inauguration. Had it been ratified by the requisite num¬
ber of States, it would have made the chattelization of men,
everywhere beneath our flag, whether white or black, consti¬
tutional and perpetual. In all coming time, this humiliat¬
ing and shameless proposition will confront us, as the black¬
est act proposed by the American Congress during all our
dark history! Nor need I add, that its passage by Congress
completed our national degradation.
I cannot describe to j*ou how this appalling weakness of
loyal men in our own ranks, who voted with the conspirators
for this abomination of abominations, oppressed and over¬
whelmed me with shame and sorrow. Often in my agony I
cried out:
" God give us men ! A time like this demands
Strong minds, g-reat hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue,
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking-.
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog-
In public duty and in private thinking-."
[Applause.]
On page 126 of this volume may be found what I said in
Congress on the 17th of January, 1861, against this Christless
proposition of the Committee of 33:
"The basis of the new Union is to be the recognition of
slaves as property by constitutional provision, unalterable
except with the consent of every slave State." .
"That such demands will ever be acceded to by the peo¬
ple of the United States I do not believe possible. But what¬
ever may be the course of others, be the consequences
what they may, by no act or vote of mine shale the con¬
stitution of my country ever be so amended as to rec¬
ognize property in man." [Applause.]
Contrast the proposed amendment of the Compromise Com¬
mittee of 33, with the 13th amendment, introduced by me in
the House of Representatives on the 14th of December, 1863,
which reads :
Article 13.
"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or
any place subject to its jurisdiction.
" Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by law duly enacted."
This amendment, with the changes stated by me on page
331 of this volume, is now part of our national Constitution,
and you and I know that it will remain there forever. [Ap¬
plause.]
If, when delivering- the earlier speeches, which your pub¬
lication committee has compiled in this volume before me,
the announcement had been publicly made, that within the
life-time of their author, the four million or more of black
men who were then in bondage would so soon thereafter
be liberated and made citizens, and that out of their poverty
and helplessness they would be advanced in civilization so
rapidly as to accomplish all the black man in the first
quarter of a century after his freedom has accomplished, and
that in their gratitude they would compile and publish, as
they have done in this book, some of the appeals made for their
liberation and enfranchisement, such an announcement would
have been received by a majority of my countrymen, as " mid¬
summer madness." And yet if the interpretations put upon
some of my utterances by your Bishop are not purely imag-
inative, I seem before the war, by a process of reasoning-
satisfactory to myself, to have comprehended something- of
the magnitude of the impending- conflict and its results.
[Applause.]
Mr. President, in every period of the world's history and
among- all peoples, there have been those who unconsciously
were illuminated with what the poet calls "the inner
light," those whose eyes were permitted to look into the
future and to behold the glory of the coming- day, before the
breaking- of the dawn, and to see visions, such as come to
human souls only when lighted with the glory of regions
celestial. Such was the "inner light," which illuminated
the great men of the Revolution of 1776, when they launched
our ship of state, and promulgated our immortal Declaration
of Independence and formed our national Constitution.
This is the "inner light" which illuminated the souls of
all the leaders of our great anti-slavery revolution. "A pil¬
lar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night," it inspired
the faith of every living and of every dying anti-slavery
hero. [Applause.]
It inspired John G. Whittier, our beloved Quaker poet, and
Frederick Douglass, the negro's matchless representative. It
inspired William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips, James
G. Berney and Nathaniel P. Rogers, Gerrit Smith and William
Leggett, Cassius M. Clay and John G. Fee, Gamaliel Bailey
and William Goodell, Theodore Parker and Samuel J. Ma}-,
Henrj Ward Beecher and Wm. Cullen Brj^ant, Horace Gree¬
ley and Wm. H. Seward, Jolin P. Hale and Robert Rantoul,
Salmon P. Chase and Charles Sumner, Joshua R. Giddings
and Benjamin F. Wade, George W. Julian and David Wilmot;
the martyred Lovejoy and the immortal Lincoln ; and I must
not omit to name with these memorable men, such illus¬
trious women as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child,
Lucretia Mott and Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Miss Susan B. Anthony.
To this recognized g-alaxy of matchless men and women
must be added a large number whom no man can name in
one short address, names worthy of our profoundest regard
and grateful remembrance. This wonderful army was made
up of the grandest men and women who ever walked the
earth, and made it better for having lived in it. I mean the
great body of anti-slavery men and women whom we always
designated as '' the old liberty guard." These are the men and
women who never bowed the knee to the Moloch of Slavery,
nor voted to compromise with that indescribable villainy,
and who practically made the creed, and g^ave life and dignity
and g"lory to the Republican part}-, and to each of whom,
in the dark days of slavery domination, there came in full
measure the faith they sought, so that at times they were
illuminated with the "inner light" from realms beyond our
reach, and were thus able to prophesy our impending-
triumph. [Applause.]
Mr. President, the memory of the 22d of September, 1862,
oug-ht to make jubilant our hearts and quicken our footsteps.
On that day, eventful to every black man and to the lovers of
liberty in every land, Abraham Lincoln issued his prelimi¬
nary proclamation of emancipation ! It proved to be a day
ever memorable in our history, and a day of thanksgiving
to every bondman. But the day of its issue was also a day of
anxiety and fear to millions, and this fear and anxiety wa.s
especially oppressive to the impassioned leaders of the "old
anti-slavery guard." All the long dark night of that one
hundred days, they endured the Gethsemane which evermore
comes to all great souls, and in pra} erful supplication
walked with the nation through the valley of the shadow of
death. They knew that without the liberation of the negro
the republic was doomed ! They believed that with the Presi¬
dent's Proclamation of Emancipation, it could be saved and
redeemed. In this sublime and patriotic faith they walked
with unfaltering* tread, until the year 1862 expired,
and the immortal proclamation of January 1, 1863, was born.
[Applause.]
When this welcome proclamation appeared, the soul of the
nation, out of its sackcloth and ashes, was uplifted to heaven
in an all-forgiving aspirational thanksgiving, and the long-
pent-up hopes of our old anti-slavery champions broke forth
in songs of joy and shouts of triumph.
Whittier declared, that there were no words in his Quaker
vocabulary, with which he could fittingly express in crisp
terms, the emotions of his heart, and that he was compelled
to use the short, but comprehensive and favorite exclamation
of his Methodist brethren, and simply shout, "Glory to
God."
I do not know what words my friend Douglass used, but I
am sure they were strong and clear and true. Every loyal
soul broke forth in words of thankfulness and gladness, as on
that memorable day, the bells rang out the old and rang in
the new order of things! In memory, I now hear the glad
booming of cannon, the wild roll of drums, and the quickened
and determined footsteps of our triumphal army, and to¬
night feel like shouting ag-ain as I did then: "Glory to God
in the highest, peace on earth to g'ood-willing* men." On
that day, in every lo}-al church and around every loyal
hearthstone, songs of triumph and tears of joy were melted
into one united hallelujah!
What wonder then, after so long a strain, that these shouts
and songs, mingled with the peals of cannon and the chim¬
ing of bells, thrilled our glad hearts as they did, with a tri¬
umphal melody, akin to the
"Songs of praise, that awoke the morn,
When the Prince of Peace was born."
[Applause.]
Mr. President, monuments are usually erected by friends
or by the public long- after men are dead. Never, so far as I
know, has there been erected a monument to the memory of
a public man during- his lifetime ! But I who (barring- acci¬
dents ) have fifteen or twenty years of fighting material in
me yet, find myself at this moment confronted with what
President Young- and your Bishop are pleased to call
my monument, and you appear by your approval to
recpgnize the claim which each has made. I certainly
recognize the fact, that in compiling- and publishing- this
volume, the American negro has builded me a monu¬
ment more enduring- than any which my family or my
friends can erect, after I shall have quit this mortal life; a
monument more appropriate and welcome than the one which
your Bishop says was foreshadowed in the quotation which
he made a few moments ag-o from one of my addresses in
this volume, an utterance which he affirms is a prophecy
now fulfilled, and certainly, if he claims that his interpreta¬
tion is authoritative, I shall not, on an occasion like this, un¬
dertake to question it. [Laughter and applause.]
But whether authoritative or not, I can truthfully and with
propriety say, that this " Souvenir " is to me a more desirable
monument than any other which my colored friends could
have designed or presented to me, for I recognize that it
was conceived by generous and grateful hearts, and built
with honest hands. I accept it as the black man's tribute
and testimony. It is a monument which the maligner can¬
not misinterpret, nor vandals deface, nor the hired assassin
destroy, for I am told you are to duplicate it by thousands I
And now, what shall I say to my friends of the "Afro-
American League of Tennessee," and to the gentlemen of the
Publication Committee, who from the public records and
from the voluminous yet fragmentary material placed in
their hands, have with such care and fidelity compiled this
volume, in which is reflected so faithfully from my lips and
pen the views held by me and the measures which I advocat¬
ed, prior to and during the war of the rebellion, and since.
The truth is, that I do not know what to say! To make
fitting answer I should have need of golden-voweled words,
the poet's prophetic vision and the thoughts of a philosopher.
As I have them not, I simply say I thank you. Again and
again, out of a full heart, I thank both the " Afro-American
League of Tennessee," and your able and painstaking Pub¬
lication Committee. The declaration of your Bishop, "that
your Publication Committee found no word or thought or
vote of mine, which they or any black man, could wish to
change or blot"— gives me a satisfaction so pure and unalloy¬
ed that no words at my command can fittingly express the
emotions that stir my heart. Certainly, when these speeches
and orations were delivered, I did not expect to have this
priceless testimony come to me. [Applause.]
Mr. President, as I interpret this occasion and this testi¬
mony it also means much for the negro. It means, a testi¬
mony of his fidelity and gratitude! It means, that how¬
ever poor or however black, "A man's a man for a' that." It
means, that everywhere beneath that flag crime and wrong
against your race must cease. It means, a recognition of the
Fatherhood of God— and the brotherhood of man.
It means that your long dark night of sorrow will soon be
over, that the day is dawning and that the hour now
draweth nigh, in which the children of Ethiopia may stretch
forth their glad hands to their Creator and to ours, and with
confidence claim fulfillment of the Divine promise delivered
to the world by His Apostles and Prophets.
" O, clear-eyed Faith, and Patience, thou
So calm and strong!
Lend strength to weakness; teach us how
The sleepless eyes of God look through
This night of wrong."
[" Amen" and " amen" and applause.]
A.t the conclusion of this masterly address the whole
audience rose to their feet with cheers, and united in sing¬
ing Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic.
This h}Tmn may be found in full on page 262 of this volume.
Bishop Arnett called Rev. O. P. Ross, of Vicksburg,
Mississippi, who presented a duplicate volume of the Souvenir
to Rev. John Henry Barrows, D. D., President of the Parlia¬
ment of Religions of the World, and also presented one to
the Hon. C. C. Bonny, President of the Columbian Auxiliary
Congresses, in the name of the Afro-American League of
Tennessee, and the lovers of human liberty throughout the
world.
THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE
To the Public :
The personal correspondence on pages 9 to 12 inclusive
is self-explanatory. In addition thereto, it is proper to state,
that after the material for this book had been compiled, and
made ready for the printer, we obtained from Mr. Ashley
his consent to have the matter thus selected, electrotyped as
it was set up, so that a book which should be an exact dupli¬
cate copy of the " Souvenir," as to its contents, might be
copyrighted by us, published from the electrotyped plates
and sold to the public at moderate cost.
The only conditions prescribed by Mr. Ashley were that
the net proceeds arising- from the sale of the book should be
applied to preparing young men and women of our race to
become teachers in the public and private negro schools of
the South.
Our purpose was, that the book when published should
be within the reach of all, and be especially for use in Afro-
American public libraries and in the libraries of our own
colleges and public and private schools, also for the home
libraries of all our. people and of our lawyers and clergy¬
men and members of other liberal professions.
It will be observed, that a number of the speeches and
addresses selected, were made by Mr. Ashley when he was a
very young man, and that they were made at a time when
the champions of slavery were masters of the nation, as well
as our masters.
The high moral tone of all the speeches, addresses and
orations contained in the book, their earnestness and ability,
can not fail to command the attention and respect of even
the most partisan political opponent.
In the light of history, the reader will recognize that
the time and conditions under which these speeches were de¬
livered, stamp them as both masterly and prophetic.
In these speeches will be found a living- reflex of Mr.
Ashley's life and character and a faithfully condensed his¬
tory of the great battle waged for our liberation.
They are calm and eloquent appeals for the rights of our
race and of all races of men.
No one of these speeches contains a partisan appeal or
an appeal in behalf of any clique or faction nor for himself.
Firm, faithful and just — they are as potent now for liberty
protected by law, and for the equal rig-hts of all men before
the law, as they were at the time of their delivery.
We know of no book in which can be found grander ap¬
peals for the rig-hts of man, and in which there appears no
word or thoug-ht that the negro could wish to chang-e or
blot.
For a clearer and more specific statement of the contents
and value of the book, we beg to refer to the " Introduction,*'
written by Hon. Frederick Doug-lass and to the letters wnich
appear as editorial foot-notes, written by some of our ablest
men. These notes with the likenesses of some of the writers
are interspersed throughout the book. We respectfully com¬
mend this book to our race and to the liberal statesmen of
America.
Benjamin W. Arnett,
Wilberforce, Ohio,
Chairman Publication Committee.
Bishop Benjamin F. Lee,
Waco, Texas.
Rev. Charles S. Smith,
Nashville, Tennessee.
Pres't I. T. Montgomery,
Mound Bayou, Miss.
Bishop W. J. Gaines,
Atlanta, Ga.
Rev. J. C. Embry,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Rev. A. H. Ross,
Cvnthiana, Ky.
Prof. B. W. Arnett, Jr.,
Little Rock, Ark.
As he Appears now.
THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS
met in Chicago, Ili,., in connection with the "World's
Fair.
The 22d of September, 1893, was set apart to celebrate
the thirtieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
of Abraham Lincoln, which liberated over 3,500,000 slaves in
1863. The occasion was thought to be appropriate to take
notice of the fact that there was not a legal slave on the
American continent—every man, woman and child were the
sons and daughters of freedom. This occasion was made
historic by the Afro-American League of Tennessee, who
presented to the Hon. James M. Ashley a souvenir, as a token
of the regard of the Afro-Americans for his work in the in¬
terest of universal freedom, and especially in the passage of
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, 1865.
The program was arranged under the direction of Bishop
B. W. Arnett, who acted for the general committee.
Friday evening, at eight o'clock, Columbus Hall was
crowded with an audience of not less than five thousand per¬
sons, from all parts of the world.
Rev. John Henry Barrows was president. Bishop Daniel
A. Payne, D. D., LL. D., acted as the chairman.
The choirs of Quinn Chapel and Bethel A. M. E.
Church furnished the anthems of freedom.
Prof. John T. Layton, Washington, D. C., sang an orig¬
inal solo.
Madam Flora Batsen Burgan, of Chicago, sang a solo.
Prof. T. P. Morgan, of Chicago, and Rev. B. F. Watson,
of Kansas, led the Battle Hymn of Freedom and other cho¬
ruses.
Father Slatterly, of Baltimore, read a paper, "The
Catholic Church and the Colored Race."
Bishop Benjamin William Arnett delivered the oration
on the Principles of Liberty, and also delivered the presenta¬
tion address in behalf of the Afro-American League, to Hon.
J. M. Ashley.
The following- will give the reader some idea of the com¬
position of the Parliament of Religions, and the distin¬
guished persons who were in attendance. "We also g-ive an
account of the opening of the Congress of the African Meth¬
odist Episcopal Church, and the names of the distinguished
men and women who were in attendance. It was these two
distinguished bodies that met to celebrate the jubilee of
freedom, and to present the volumes to the Hon. James M.
Ashley. It was the most distinguished body that has ever
met on the American continent, or in the world.
A writer has given the following description of the meet¬
ing of the Parliament, September 11, 1893:
"Under the banner of a common hope met yesterday the
strangest gathering of men the world has seen. No tie of
blood bound them. Jew sat by Gentile; Russian by Hindoo;
Greek by negro; Saxon by Gaul. There were black faces
and white; yellow and red; bearded and shaven.
"No great scheme of universal power or conquest held
them. Men were on that platform who owe allegiance to
the kings of twenty empires. Yet some of them had traveled
13,000 miles around the world to meet under the bare rafters
of the Hall of Columbus.
"To the eye they had nothing in common. They were
men of many tongues; of all races. They wore strange robes;
turbans and tunics; crosses and crescents; flowing hair and
tonsured scalps. There were spots of Oriental color and bits
of Occidental gloom.
" From the four corners of the earth these men had come
together to forward the cause of a common humanity here
and hereafter. They had come to demonstrate by their
presence the vital power of that universal spirit which drives
men everywhere to look upward at a star. They had come to
teach the ancient lesson, professed but never practiced, that
men are brothers and all the world is kin. They had come
"to make memorable the most historic day of all this latest
centur}\
"It was the peaceful gathering- of warring- creeds; the
parliament of the world's relig-ions. Proselytism and per¬
secution were forgotten. New England Puritan shook hands
with a Prince of the Roman Catholic Church. The high priest
of the Brahmins, oldest of all religions, leaned upon the
shoulder of a Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church,
himself the founder of the sect. Over them all was lifted the
common idea of a great Divinity, and in that idea they were
one.
DISCIPLES OP AU, CREEDS.
"Many notable gatherings have the gray walls of the
Art Institute sheltered since the opening of the world's con¬
gresses. Leaders in every line of human effort and endeavor
have met and laid before the world the ripest fruits of their
toil. Great men have told how nature was being robbed
of her secrets; how the lightning was tamed; how the ocean
was bridged; how the stars were measured.
"But, on the platform met disciples of Christ, disciples
of Mohammed, disciples of Buddha, disciples of Brahma,
and, standing together in the name of a common God, asked
a blessing upon mankind and all the works of man. It was
the crown upon the head of gathered nations; the climax
the Columbian Exposition has made possible.
"The people felt the importance of the day. Early
they moved toward the Art Palace. They filled the great
Hall of Columbus.
"Before ten o'clock, the hour set for the great congress
to open, men and women were turned away to fill other halls
where overflow meetings were held. In the splendid audience,
numbering all of 4,000, were hundreds of notable men. They
were scholars, teachers, dreamers, men who have looked for¬
ward to the day when the united religionists of the world
might move forward, unbroken, against the forces of in¬
fidelity and disbelief. They were broad-minded, liberal
men, who have worked their lives through to forward the
coming of that day. To them the opening of the Worlds
Parliament of Religions was like the dawning- of a long--ex-
pected sun. When the long- line of delegates, many of them
in splendid robes, moved forward to the platform, tears of joy
giistened in many earnest eyes.
KUL, JOIN IN THK DOXOI^OGY.
t
"But wait! From the grand org-an peal the inspiring-
strains of 'Praise God from Whom All Blessing-s Flow.'
All are on their feet. Men of all religions are singing- the
doxolog-y. Then his Eminence, James, Cardinal Gibbons,
splendid in the scarlet and black robes of his office, steps to
the front of the platform. He lifts his thin white hands
above the bowed heads. " Our Father, who art in Heaven,"
he begins. Thousands follow him in repeating- the Lord's
Prayer, among- them many of the distinguished deleg-ates up¬
on the platform. Already the men of all religions have
found a common creed.
"But if the deep sig-nificance of the great parliament
was stirring- in the hearts of men, no less striking- and
picturesque was the scene set before their eyes when the
deleg-ates sat down in long- triple lines upon the platform.
In the middle a flash of flaming scarlet reflected from the
robes of the Cardinal; at his right the lavender and black
lace g-own, which set off the beauty of the President of
the Board of Lady Manag-ers; at his left the higii black
peaked cap, the trailing- robes and the g-olden chains of the
Bishop of the Greek Church; further on, the green and
g-arnet velvet tunics of East Indian Punjabs; here the singie
violet orang-e g-arment of a Hindoo monk; there the pinks of
a Japanese Bishop and his suite; on one side black and royal
purple where sit a group of Archbishops of the Catholic
Church; on the other, the g-org-eous red and g-old of a mem¬
ber of a Hindoo Sisterhood — a confusion of colors, as strang-e
as the confusion of tongues, of races and of religions.
"Through all the addresses of welcome and many re¬
sponses ran one clear note. It spoke of the Fatherhood of
God and the Brotherhood of man. From the great leaders
of all religions came the same message.
"It was an imposing- procession that filed upon the plat¬
form of the Hall of Columbus, led by President Bonney,
escorting- the head of the Catholic Church in America, Car¬
dinal Gibbons. There were Caucasians, Mongolians and
Ethiopians, men from all the nations of the earth, represent¬
ing- all the religions of the earth. They seated themselves
closely tog-ether upon the hug-e platform, the strangers from
the farther points of the world with their picturesque g-arbs,
in front. Those upon the platform were :
" Bishop D. A. Payne, A. M. E. Church, of Wilberforce,
O. ; SiddhuRam, appeal writer, Mooltan Punjab, East India ;
Carl von Berg-en, Ph. D., President of the Swedish Society
for Psychical Research, Stockholm, Sweden ; Birchard
Rag-havji Gandhi, B. A., Honorary Secretary to the Jain
Association of India, Bombay ; Sward Vivekananda, a monk
of the orthodox Brahminical religion ; the Rev. B. B. Nag-ar-
kar, minister, Brahmo Somaj of Bombay, India ; the Rev.
P. C. Mazoomdar, minister and leader of the Brahmo Somaj of
India, Calcutta ; Jinda Ram, a lawyer, President of the
Temperance Society, Vedic, Muzaffargarh, India; the Rev.
P. G. Phiambolis, Oeconomus, a priest of the Greek Church ;
his Grace the Archbishop of Zante, of the Greek Church ;
Homer Peratis, Archdeacon of the Greek Church ; Reiich
Shibata, President of one of the Shinto sects, Tokio, Japan ;
Ashitsu Zitsuzen, representative from the Tendai sect, Omi,
Japan ; Banrin Yatsubuehi, President of Hoju Buddhist So¬
ciety, Hamemsto, Japan ; Shaka Soon, Archbishop of one of
the Buddhist sects, Kamakura, Japan ; Horin Toki, Professor
of Shing-en sect, and its Bishop, Sanuki, Japan; Noguchi
and Neg-ura, interpreters, Tokio, Japan ; Dharmapala, Gen¬
eral Secretary, Maha Bodhi Society, Calcutta ; Prof. G. N.
Chakravarti, Allahabad, India; Dr. F. A. Noble, Prince
Serg-e Wolkonsky of Russia ; D. G. Crandon, Secretary of
the Free Relig-ious Society of Boston; the Rev. J. H. Ma-
cauber, chaplain U. S. A., Angel Island, Cal.; Yungkwai,
China, Miss Jeanne Serabji K. Langrana ; G. Benet Maury,
Professor a la Fauilte de Thcologic, Paris ; Prince Momolu
Massaquoi of Liberia; Bishop Jenner, Anglican Free Church;
the ReV. Aug-usta J. Cliapin, D. D., Chicago; Mrs. Potter
Palmer, Mrs. Charles Henrotin, Cardinal Gibbons, Arch-
bishop Feehan, Archbishop Ryan, Archbishop Redwood, of
New Zealand; President C. C. Bonney, Dr. Adolf Bredbeck,
Count Bernsterff, Z. Zmigrowski, John W. Hoyt, Bishop
Keane, H. N. Higinbotham, W. J. Onahan, the Rev. Jenkin
Lloyd Jones, Bishop B. W. Arnett, Bishop J. A. Handy, Prin¬
cipal Grant, of Canada, the Rev. Alfred Williams Momerie,
D. D., the Rev. Maurice Phillips of Madras, India ; Prof. N.
Valentine, William T. Harris, Commissioner Education of
United States, Dr. Ernest Faber, the Rev. Geo. T. Candlin,
Prof. Kosahi, Bishop Cotter, of Winona; Prof. Chakravarti,
Rt. Rev. Banrin Yatsubuchu, Hon. Pung- Quang- Yu, Chinese
Legation."
September 22d, 1893, was the day of the meeting- of the
African M. E. Congress. At an early hour the men, women
and children of the church were seen making- their way to
Art Palace. The reception room of Hon. C. C. Bonney was
given us for a place of meeting-. When the bishops, g-eneral
officers, presiding elders, elders, members and friends of the
church met, a procession was formed and all marched to the
Hall of Washington. There we found a large audience
waiting for us, who cheered as the procession marched on the
platform.
The organist played a march, and choruses were sung-
and a song of praise to God was sung, and when we were all
seated on the stage all joined in singing- " Praise God from
whom all blessings flow." It was a grand sight to see men
and women of every nation and race joining- with the chorus
of freedom and with the children of freedom in singing song-s
of praise to God.
The following- are some of the distinguished persons
present :
Bishop D. A. Payne, Wilberforce, Ohio; Bishop A. W.
Wayman, Baltimore, Md.; Bishop H. M. Turner, Atlanta,
Ga.; Bishop W. J. Gaines, Atlanta, Ga.; Bishop B. T. Tan¬
ner, Philadelphia, Pa.; Bishop A. Grant, Atlanta, Ga.;
Bishop J. A. Handy, Kansas City, Kan.; Bishop B. W.
Arnett, Wilberforce, Ohio; Bishop Walters, D. D., A. M. E.
Zion Church; Hon. C. C. Bonney, Chicago, 111.; Hon. C. E.
Young; Hon. Frederick Douglas, LL. D., Washington, D. C;
Prince Serge Wolkonsky, St. Petersburg, Russia; Mrs,
Isabella B. Hooker, Connecticut; Rev. S. P. Mercer, Chicago,
111.; Rev. J. C. Embry, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. L. J.
Coppin, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. H. T. Johnson, D. D.,
-A.. M., Ph. D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. Wm, D. Johnson,
D. D., Atlanta, Ga.; Rev. C. S. Smith, D. D., Nashville,
Tenn.; Rev. W. B. Derrick, D. D., New York, N. Y.; Rev!
J. H. Armstrong-, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. A. M.
Green, D. D., New Orleans, La.; Mrs. Bishop B. W. Arnett,
Wilberforce, Ohio; Mrs. Bishop B. T. Tanner, Philadelphia,
Pa.; Mrs. Bishop H. M. Turner, Atlanta, Ga.; Mrs. Bishop
A. W. Wayman, Baltimore, Md.; Mrs. Dr. W. H. Yeocum,
Camden, N. J.; Mrs. Rev. G. W. Prioleau, Wilberforce, Ohio;
Mrs. Rev. G. L. Jackson, Nashville, Tenn.; Mrs. Rev. J. H.
Armstrong, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. Rev. A. A. Whitman,
Lawrence, Kan.; Mrs. Rev. O. P. Ross, Yicksburg, Miss.;
Mrs. Rev. C. H. Thomas, Chicago, 111.; Mrs. Rev. D. A.
Graham, Chicago, 111.; Mrs. S. J. W. Earley, Nashville,
Tenn.; Mrs. Landonia Williams, Indianapolis, Ind.; Mrs.
Louisa White, Portsmouth, Ohio; Prince Momo Massaqua,
Africa; Mrs. Grace Offer, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Mrs. E. J. Page,
Cincinnati, Ohio; Mrs. E. J. Thompson, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Mrs.
Eudora Duncan, Toledo, Ohio; Mrs. Henrietta Morgan,
Chicago, 111.; Mrs. W. R. Rodger Webb, Texarkana; Mrs.
Saddie Tyree, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. J. A. Davis, Nash¬
ville, Tenn.; Mrs. J. A. Brown, Cleveland, Ohio; Rev. W.
H. Mixon, Selma, Ala.; Rev. W. A. Moore, Lincoln, Neb.;
Rev. J. W. Beckett, Baltimore, Md.; Rev. Jno. Coleman,
Portsmouth, Ohio; Rev. A. A. Whitman, Lawrence, Kan.;
Hon. Jas. Madison Bell, Toledo, Ohio; Prof. J. P. Shor¬
ter, Wilberforce, Ohio; Rev. Geo. W. Prioleau, Wilber¬
force, Ohio; Rev. S. A. Hardison, Clinton, Iowa; Rev. Jas.
M. Townsend, Chicago, 111.; Rev. Henry Brown, Spring¬
field, 111.; Rev. I. S. Lee, Baltimore, Md.; Rev. Jno. Hurst,
Baltimore, Md.; Rev. Cornelius Asbury, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Rev.
S. R. Reed, Memphis, Tenn.; Rev. B. F. Watson, Wichita,
Kan.; Rev. Jno. G. Mitchell, Wilberforce, Ohio;Rev. W. A. J.
Phillips, Little Rock, Ark.; Rev. W. J. Davis, Champaign, 111.;
Rev. C. H. Thomas, Chicago, 111.; Rev. W. H. Yeocum, Cam¬
den, N. J; Rev. J. A. Davis, Nashville, Tenn.; Rev. Clias. H.
Sheen, Cairo, 111.;Rev. J. II. Morgen, Orange, N. J.; Rev. Jno.
T. Jenifer, Washing-ton, D." C.; Rev. Jno. B. Dawison, Evans-
ton, 111.;Rev. D. S. Bentley, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Rev. P. A. Hub¬
bard, Denver, Col.; Rev. S. A. Johnson, Washington, D. C.;
Rev. G. W. Gaines, St. Paul, Minn.; Rev. E. H. Bolden, Ports¬
mouth, Va.; Rev. O. D. Robinson, Baltimore, Md.; Rev. Jas.
T. Evans, Carlisle, Pa.; Hon. I. T. Montgomery, Mound
Bayou, Miss.; Rev. R. McDaniel, Indiana; Rev. Walter S.
Lewis, Memphis, Tenn.; Rev. W. H. Brown, New Brighton,
Pa.; Rev. S. B. Jones, Ottumwa, Iowa; Rev. Jno. A. Collins,
Grand Rapids, Mich.; Rev. Walter S. Lowery, Pittsburg-h,
Pa.; Rev. J. H. McGee, Chicag-o, 111.; Rev. D. Franklin Tay¬
lor, Palestine, Texas; Rev. C. H. Johnson, Washing-ton C. H.,
Ohio; Rev. J. C. Anderson, Rockford, 111.; Rev. Anderson
Hunter, Troup, Texas; Rev. F. T. Harvery, Decatur, 111.;
Rev. Jno. M. Henderson, Detroit, Mich.; Rev. T. W. Hender¬
son, Indianapolis, Ind.; Prof. F. H. Steward, Wisconsin; Miss
Ida B. Wells, Chicago, 111.; Miss F. E. W. Harper, Chicago,
111.; Miss Mary Harper, Chicago, 111.; Daniel Payne Arnett,
Wilberforce, Ohio; Hon. James Hill, Jackson, Miss.; Rev.
W. W. Beckett, Charleston, S. C.; Rev. S. F. Flegler, Sum-
merville, S. C.; Rev. John H. Welsh, Charleston, S. C.; Rev.
M. B. Parks, Omaha, Neb.; Rev. O. P. Ross, Vicksburg,
Miss.; Prof. W. S. Scarborough, EL. D., Wilberforce, Ohio.