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 THE RECOGNITION OF HATTI AND LIBERIA. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 June 
 
 1862. 
 
 The SPEAKER having stated the question 
 i order to be Senate bill No. 184, to au- 
 lorize the President of the United States to 
 ppoint diplomatic representatives "to the re- 
 ublics of Hayti and Liberia, respectively, on 
 hich the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
 ^elley] was entitled to the floor — 
 Mr. KELLEY said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker: When I obtained the floor 
 ^sterday, at the conclusion of my colleague's 
 Mr. Biddle] remarks, I was about to observe 
 iat the friends of the Administration are fre- 
 aently charged with obtruding what is called 
 ie negro question upon the House and coun- 
 y, and that it seemed to be a fitting occasion 
 < indicate to his and my constituents how, 
 jrtinently or impertinently, that question does 
 •metimes get before us. The bill under special 
 msideration is a bill to establish proper interna- 
 Dnal relations between the United States and 
 io great and rapidly-growing republics. It 
 ight be entitled a bill to increase our foreign 
 immerce and protect it against discriminat- 
 g regulations, duties, and taxes ; or a bill to 
 ocure for our factories and workshops cheap 
 id adequate supplies of raw materials from 
 opical countries, and to secure for our farm- 
 s, workingmen, and other citizens, sugar, 
 >ffee, and all other tropical coniraodilu.j at 
 st cost, direct from the country of their pro- 
 • iction, in American vessels, and at prices 
 )t enhanced by the profits of the English 
 erchant, and duties paid into the exchequer 
 an envious and powerful commercial rival. 
 The bill «omes to us from the Senate, having 
 e sanction of that body, and the recommen- 
 .tion of the President, expressed in his an- 
 lal message. The distinguished Senator from 
 assachusetts, [Mr. SckkebJ iu presenting 
 s argument in its support, let no sentence fall 
 )m which his auditors could tell whether tha 
 
 people of these republics were of the Cauca- 
 sian, the Basque, the Indian, or African race. 
 It was an international question, and he dis- 
 cussed it as such. IPs remarks were free from 
 reference to the origin of the people of the re- 
 i publics to which they had reference, or to the 
 : people otherwise than in their commercial and 
 I national character. The gentleman from Maa- 
 I sachusetts [Mr. Gooeii,] who called up the bill 
 I yesterday, and spoke in favor of its passage, 
 [ treated it as closely as possible in like manner. 
 I But the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Cox] and 
 I my colleague [Mr. Bihdle] failed to follow 
 ! these admirable examples, but spoke two whole 
 i hours, not in controverting the wisdom or 
 i tice of the bill, but in showing — to borrow an 
 elegant phrase, the paternity of which, I think, 
 i belongs to their side of the House — that there 
 ' was " a nigger iu the wood pile." We, who 
 know so well the purity of the patriotism of 
 these gentlemen, and the elevation of their tone 
 and character, cannot suspect them of such a 
 I motive ; but I fear that strangers who may 
 have chanced to hear them may have fallen 
 'into the unjust suspicion that they perverted 
 ! the occasion to party purposes, by attempting 
 to excite the prejudices. of ihe vulgar and ig- 
 norant against the Adminietration and its 
 friends, by deriding, scouiug at, and ridiculing 
 the people of these republics, and exhausting 
 their wit and sarci>..m upon that portion of 
 j God's American family which our unjust and 
 unchristian laws have doomed to poverty and 
 ■ ignorance. 
 
 The uninfocmed may, I repeat, misconceive 
 the object cf the gentlemen in assailing tho 
 bill as th.y have done; in assening that all 
 , that its friends desire to accomplish by its pas- 
 sage ia to give dignity to black republics ; and 
 that its sole object is to promote and produce 
 I negro equality at theexpeuseof the white mau, 
 
 '•• U>£*( ; £? 
 
by bringing a black minister or two to reside 
 near our Government, and they may possibly 
 suspect them of a desire to inflame the igno- 
 rant and prejudiced against the Administration, 
 its friends, and policy, increase the irritation of 
 the border States, and if possible add to the 
 intensity of the hatred of the rebels in arms. 
 But be this as it may, they are responsible for 
 having thrust the irritating question into the 
 discussion of this bill, so free from any connec- 
 tion therewith. Sir, there was a time when for 
 the learned and powerful to serve as eyes to 
 the blind and feet to the lame was to deserve 
 and secure the commendation of all good men. 
 There are still some States in which such is the 
 case; but within their jurisdiction, they who 
 fashioned and decreed the platforms of the last 
 Charleston and Baltimore conventions reversed 
 all that. Such conduct is in their judgment 
 Quixotic, and indicates the taint of unconstitu- 
 tional humanity. 
 
 The gentletnan from Ohio, [Mr. Cox,] acting 
 under the new code, indulged himself in pa- 
 rading before the House the squalor and igno- 
 rance of the recently-escaped slaves around us 
 as a fair portraiture of the condition of the 
 negro race. He drew a melancholy picture. 
 But how he enjoyed it, and with what evident 
 satisfaction he added each sombre tint ! The 
 gusto with which he completed the work gave 
 some indication of how jolly he would be, could 
 he join a ring in derisive dance around some 
 ulcerous Lazarus or blind Samson fallen by the 
 way side. And, then, his other picture of the 
 negro official in shoe-buckles, knee breeches, 
 
 fold lace, and bag wig. It was so funny ! True 
 did not hear the roars of laughter that should 
 have followed it ; but I am quite sure that if 
 there was any such person as the elder Mr. 
 Weller in the galleries, the effort to suppress 
 his laughter must have brought him well nigh 
 to apoplexy. 
 
 My colleague, less mirthful, more grave and 
 philosophical, gave us his statement of the 
 causes of the rebellion ; and his constituents 
 and mine, who live upon opposite sides of the 
 street, will be a little surprised to discover that 
 the South had no hand at all in bringing about 
 the present rebellion. I read in the Intelligen- 
 cer this morning, for the Globe does not furn- 
 ish me with the remarks of either of the gentle- 
 men, my colleague's enumeration of the causes 
 of the rebellion, and I cannot find there that 
 any southern man was guilty of favoring or 
 doing anything to produce this grandest of all 
 crimes. I think his constituents and mine, as 
 they talk to each other across the street that 
 divides our districts, will be a little surprised 
 to discover that it was not the southern States 
 that determined to destroy the Union and at- 
 tempted to secede, that it was not southern 
 men who fired upon the national flag, and that 
 it was not southern men who seized the arms 
 S(,nd power of the country, binding by oath to* 
 
 peace such of our soliiers as they could seize 
 and did not massacre. Our constituents are 
 not under the impression that the rebellion was 
 necessary or was intended to resist northern 
 aggression, for no aggression upon the South 
 was attempted or intended by the people of the 
 North. They believe that the people of the 
 North, to whom freedom and the right of the 
 laborer to wages are endeared by immemorial 
 usage, resisted wisely and well the unholy at- 
 tempt, as I have before said, to make, slavery 
 the law of our broad territories and to domes- 
 ticate the institution in all the States, and es- 
 pecially around Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill, 
 by enigmatical legislation and judicial chican- 
 ery, and that the rebellion is but the predeter- 
 mined consequence of the defeat of the wicked 
 conspiracy to bring about these unconstitution- 
 al, inhuman, and barbarous results. 
 
 Summing up the results of our legislation, 
 he accomplishes the work by a single excla- 
 mation. Says he, " yes, we have achieved 
 freedom for the twenty-nine slaves in Utah, 
 and for the twenty-four slaves in New Mexico, 
 and for the cooks and chambermaids in this 
 District." 
 
 Great God ! is the vision of my colleague 
 so contracted that he can see no other results 
 than these flowing from our legislation? Have 
 we not dedicated to freedom all the broad terri- 
 tories of our country ? Have we not settled, aye, 
 settled forever, that question which has kept the 
 nation boiling with agitation for the last thirty 
 years ? Throughout countless generations, the 
 millions of men who will people those immense 
 territories, and who will not probably even 
 hear our humble names, will bless this Con- 
 gress and Abraham Lincoln for the great 
 work already done by it and his Administra- 
 tion. Yes, we have freed the cooks and cham- 
 bermaids in this District, and my colleague 
 might have spoken of even humbler occu- 
 pations in which some of the poor creatures 
 were engaged. They were chattels all, but are 
 men and women, and may now, through our 
 agency, under God's guidance, without fear of 
 the slave-dealer or woman-whipper, rear their 
 children about their knees, and teach them 
 to honor their father and mother, in the hope 
 that their days may be long in the land which 
 the Lord their God, through us, His instru- 
 ments, has given them. 
 
 Thus much we have done. I will not tell my 
 colleague what we have not done, but which 
 those who have a right to be heard think we 
 ought to do. I will, however, leave a Demo- 
 cratic leader of Philadelphia to say a few words • 
 to him on that subject. I will take the liberty 
 of reading to him and the House a letter I re- 
 ceived yesterday from the camp before Chicka- 
 hominy. Whether the writer of that letter is 
 now at the head of his gallant regiment, or 
 whether he died in the conflict of Saturday 
 and Sunday, I know not. I hope he yet lives ; 
 
 &$^\ 
 

 but if he was among the victims of that terri- 
 ble conflict, those who mourn him will see that 
 his last testimony was honorable, patriotic, and 
 humane. The letter is from one who has shared 
 the honors of many a political field with my 
 colleague, laboring with him on the stump, and 
 marching shoulderto shoulder with him in many 
 a hotly-contested political campaign. He is 
 a tried and gallant soldier, who, having served 
 three months and been honorably mustered out 
 of service, organized and led to the field under 
 the lamented Baker another regiment; a native, 
 1 believe, of the same beautiful island, and a 
 worshipper at the same ancient altar with him 
 who still pines in a southern jail because he 
 led the New York sixty-ninth so gallantly at 
 Bull Run. His regiment is the sixty-ninth 
 Pennsylvania, and was so numbered because 
 the gallantry of his countrymen from New 
 York had endeared the number to him and his 
 men. In October last, at our State election, 
 his regiment, under his lead, voted unanimously 
 for my colleague's coadjutors in the Democratic 
 party of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. But 
 enough of preface : let the gallant soldier and 
 life-long Democrat, Colonel Joshua T. Owens, 
 speak for himself, and tell my colleague and 
 us what we have not done, which he thinks we 
 ought to do : 
 
 Camp near Trre CmCKAHOHrirr, 
 Virginia, May 25, 1862; 
 
 Mr Dear .Trnc.E : * * * * We, who are in 
 the field, are often disheartened by the ill-advised and traifrJ 
 speeches of mere politicians in Congress. For God's 
 sake lash them when you have the opportunity. The man 
 who, at this mototento s crisis of the country, bondesc inds 
 to prostitute his oilieial position to the making of capital for 
 future party use is a traitor or a fool. 
 
 Let Mr. pass, as I have, through most of Virginia, 
 
 and listen to those even who sly;.' themselves Union 
 ana even he would be disgusted with the deep-scatud cor- 
 ruptions of these deluded people. There are np patriots in 
 Virginia, and there have been, none since Bull Run w I 
 •''rah only; and evei 
 only while the Federal arm j is iu their neighborhood. They 
 
 i l-thirsty, and bo i tTul, and lb 
 duct, in shooting down our pickets, and insulting our I 
 wherever we have our priees for 
 
 thing we bay of them, and even Chen selling to us 
 with i has so infused a spirit of hatred into our 
 
 men and officers, thai toe 
 
 orable rould be disastrous 
 
 oops. I am not at all plo ujrfd w itb 
 itary life, and would ^ of all things, liko to go back b 
 i 
 the punishment justly duo them, I would re- 
 main in thei army and fight on without the hope of promo- 
 tion until 1 was gray and pinto an honorable 
 
 grave. 
 
 They must We made to sue for peaooand lay down their 
 Choir Jeadera must bo given up to th" halter, and 
 
 •<>. As 
 
 ig that, Frank Hi ur's great S] oh In- 
 
 . i think. Or idual 
 tmancinali ri, coupU ' wUh colonization, must b 
 
 tn no, cripple theslavc power 
 
 [eluding from .or under the Government 
 
 irvod in any capacity in ibe rebel army. 
 
 Much or little as we may have done, this let- 
 tor shows that there are some things which this 
 gallant Democratic soldier and his eompn; 
 in arms think we oughtyet to do. The wisdom 
 of his suggestions may not be apparent to my 
 colleague and whether we regard them or uo 
 
 /^7- 
 
 may be unimportant. God's providence will 
 be worked out. Mercy and justice are His 
 attributes. And we may not resist their influ- 
 ence without bringing upon ourselves crises 
 more or less general and severe in proportion 
 to the power and persistence of our resistance 
 to His will. In His ways alone may nations or 
 individuals hope to find paths of pleasantness 
 and peace. 
 
 The gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Com.] while 
 sneering at the negro race, denies the accuracy 
 of official statements, and says the gentleman 
 from Massachusetts [Mr. Goocii] exaggerates 
 the exports of Hayti. He does not, however, 
 correct the statistics of our own and for 
 Governments, but passes them by with a simple 
 denial. But be it as he says — which it is not — 
 is not Hayti as large as Ireland ? Is it not the 
 most beautiful, salubrious, and prolific of the 
 tropical isles ? Is it not capable of maintain- 
 ing eight millions of people ? Has it not now 
 a population of seven hundred thousand ; and 
 does it not unquestionably stand higher than 
 Russia in its commercial relations with our 
 country? 
 
 If its statistics have been somewhat exagger- 
 ated, we may be assured they will seem poo- 
 and paltry enough when compared with what 
 they will be ten years hence. Our more intel- 
 ligent freed men are flocking thither to become 
 citizens and enjoy the rights of man. The 
 non-consuming and, consequently, lis 
 American slave is thus transformed into the 
 Haytien planter, raising on his own farm, the 
 free grant of an enlightened Government, the 
 luscious fruits of the tropics, with such staples 
 as cotton, coffee, cocoa, sugar, rice, arrow- 
 root, indigo, ginger, and scores of other ar- 
 ticles, which, through the Haytien merchant, 
 black as himself, he will exchange for the 
 products of our factories, forges, and work- 
 shops. Pass this bill, secure to our commerce 
 equal chances in her ports, and the swelling 
 tide of agricultural emigration to ITnyti from 
 our own shores will make her the munificent 
 patron of our manufacturers and mechanics, 
 especially those engaged in the production of 
 agricultural tools an<J machinery. 
 
 The bill, sir, is of great national interest, 
 and the suggestions in its favor are not an- 
 swered by sneers at that race, the creation of 
 which by the Almighty is evidently regarded 
 by the gentleman from Ohio as a grand mis- 
 take. 
 
 Mr colleague [Mr. Biddle] spoke of this 
 country as being " 'be sick man" of the west- 
 ern hemisphere. The sick man of the western 
 hemisphere! His own country, the land of his 
 I fathers and his posterity, the sick man of the 
 western hemisphere ! A country with six hun- 
 dred thousand men in the field, cloth'- 1, 
 land paid as soldiers never w — six 
 
 hundred thousand men, the children of the 
 {•ruudest and poorest of the land, the poor man 
 
often in command, the proud man's sons often 
 serving under him, illustrating to all time the 
 beautiful effect of democratic republicanism ! 
 A nation involved in war on such a scale with 
 its owa people, aud while its armies are moving 
 steadily on to final victory, maintaining its 
 order and dignity in the face of the world, and 
 putting its credit so high that its irredeemable 
 paper brings a premium in the markets of the 
 world, to be characterized as the sick man of 
 a hemisphere I Had this slander been uttered 
 by a foreigner, how would our countrymen 
 denounce him I The country, sir, is giving to- 
 day an illustration to ihe world of a healthy 
 vigor and power such as history does not record. 
 
 My colleague is somewhat given to erratic 
 sayings. I remember that, after having been 
 invited by a Republican Governor to accept 
 the colonelcy of a regiment, and by our Repub- 
 lican President to assume the rank of brigadier 
 general, he spoke of the war as a Black Repub- 
 lican job. It was, I am sure, in a heated mo- 
 ment that he did it. 
 
 When warmed by the enthusiasm of early 
 manhood, he tendered his life to his country, 
 and, under the leadership of the grand old 
 commander-in-chief, won rank and honor on 
 the hardest fought fields of Mexico — yet has 
 he told his people that that honored general 
 had entrusted the reins of this war to politi- 
 cians and " able editors " till they nearly upset 
 the coach. 
 
 Mr. BIDDLE. In reference to whatever I 
 may have had occasion to say upon this floor, 
 those who listened to me, and those who may 
 hereafter read what I said, will be able to judge 
 how far my colleague justly appreciates my re- 
 marks. 
 
 If, in discussing the propriety of admitting 
 the colonies of Hayti and Liberia to diplomatic 
 intercourse in this country, he proposes to go 
 back to some period remote from the present, 
 when I was not sitting as a member in this 
 Congress, to introduce to this body some pro- 
 duction of mine which he is about to criticize, 
 I suggest, as a point of parliamentary proprie- 
 ty, that he should first send to the Clerk's desk 
 the document in question, and have it read. 
 Then I shall not have the least objection to 
 any criticism upon it to which the House may 
 see proper at the present time to listen. I shall 
 be perfectly satisfied if what I have written 
 shall be thus heard. If the gentleman does 
 not wish to have the time consumed in reading 
 it, let him embody it in his remarks and have 
 it printed in the Globe. If I understand the 
 matter, the gentleman is alluding to a letter 
 written 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I will send the document 
 to the Clerk's desk, but not to be read as a part 
 of my speech. I cannot spare the time for that, 
 happy as I would be to oblige my colleague. 
 I must object to all further abstraction of my 
 time. If the House will indulge me to the'es c 
 
 tent of allowing the time which I may yield to 
 gentlemen, I will gladly yield to any, but if I 
 am thereby to lose time I cannot. 
 
 Mr. BIDDLE. Then, I rise to a question 
 of order. This is a bill for the admission of 
 Hayti and Liberia to diplomatic relationship, 
 and it is not in order to discuss the letter in 
 question. I look back to few things with as 
 much satisfaction as the writing of the letter 
 to which the gentleman alludes. But my point 
 of order is, that in discussing a bill which re- 
 lates to Hayti and Liberia, it is not in order to 
 comment upon a letter written by an individual 
 member of this House before he took his seat, 
 and which it is assumed has no relation to 
 Hayti and Liberia. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Chair sustains the 
 point of order. 
 
 Mr. BIDDLE. I then withdraw the point 
 of order, if my colleague will allow the docu- 
 ment to which I suppose he refers to be read. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I will not allow it to be 
 read in my time ; but will not refer further to 
 the letter. 
 
 Mr. BIDDLE. I have no possible objection, 
 if my colleague will allow it to be read. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. No, sir ; I repeat I will not 
 allow it to be read in my time. My colleague 
 was right in supposing I referred to a letter 
 written by him ; and if I have fallen into error 
 in alluding to it, he will bear witness that I 
 have been misled by his own examples. So 
 little relation had his remarks of yesterday to 
 the bill, that the point of order he now raises 
 would have excluded nearly all he said. And 
 in the speech which he made on the 6th of 
 March, in which he so felicitously interwove 
 the pet phrase of the Mexican greaser and the 
 bar-room lounger of our region with the mag- 
 nificent rhetoric of Chatham and Sumner, he 
 said : 
 
 " An eminent member of the dominant party has promul- 
 gated his scheme for carrjnng on this war. He has promul- 
 gated it in many essays and speeches, to one of which par- 
 liamentary usage permits me to refer, since it was not made 
 in his place in the Senate." 
 
 And as the gentleman's letter had not been 
 promulgated in the Senate, I was under the 
 impression that parliamentary usage would per- 
 mit me to refer to it in the House. 
 
 Mr. BIDDLE. I do not object. I place it 
 perfectly at my colleague's disposal. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, as my col- 
 league seems to be somewhat sensitive on this 
 subject, I will, lest I may have misrepresented 
 him, cite the brief paragraph of the letter to 
 which I have referred, and make no further ref- 
 erence to the subject. I would not, for any 
 consideration, disturb the pleasant relations 
 that exist between us : 
 
 " When the national flag was struck down at Charleston 
 and the national capital was threatened by secession, tho 
 North rose like one man. The world saw with astonish- 
 ment the great uprising of the people ; Europe prejudged 
 the issue in our favor ; yet, as if smitten with blindness, 
 the Kepublican leaders seemed striviug to waste and dissi- 
 
/2-$ 
 
 pate, instead of to seize and use,. the noble material for 
 great armies which was, with scarcely any limit, p aced at 
 their disposal. The soldier who offered himself for the pub- 
 lic service found that he must ear- wig some politician be- 
 fore ho could be allowed the privilege to fight or die for his 
 country. Men began to say that the war was to be made 
 1 a Black Republican job.' 
 
 " Politicians were put at the head of troops— politicians 
 who thought that to wear lace and feathers, and to pocket 
 pay, was the whole duty of the officer ; feasting and trol- 
 licking and speech-making took the place of training ana 
 discipline ; and while the officer spouted and revelled, the 
 rank and file were robbed of their first right — the right to 
 skilful guidance and instruction. The reins were nomi 
 nally put into the hands of a venerable chieftain ; but every 
 politician, every ' able editor,' took a pull at thorn, till they 
 upset the coach. 
 
 " Amid shouts of ' On to Richmond,' the North, with its 
 teeming population, found itself outnumbered at every point 
 of conflict, and the battle of Bull Run proved that the Ad- 
 ministration had known neither its own strength nor the 
 enemy's. ' Where, then, were our legions?' we may well 
 ask of it. But the battle of Bull Run was not without its 
 fruits for us." 
 
 When interrupted, Mr. Speaker, I was about 
 to say that, regardless of the warnings of 
 would-be Cassandras,I hoped to see our coun- 
 try rise high above her present exalted posi- 
 tion ; that I desire see her become the patron 
 of feeble nations, and by her justice and gen- 
 erosity make her power and grandeur glorious 
 in history as the glowing hearts of grateful 
 ages can depict them. 
 
 The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Cox] denied 
 that the negro had any faculty for commerce. 
 Sir, the hardy enterprise of our whalers is the 
 theme of glowing eulogy in English and Ameri- 
 can literature and eloquence, yet Great Britain, 
 in the single year of 1860, received from the 
 little republic of Liberia not less than forty 
 thousand two hundred and sixteen tons of 
 palm oil, worth more, as I shall hereafter show, 
 than the whole whale oil product cf the most fa- 
 vorable years. The exports of that little repub 
 lie — planted by us in the equatorial region of 
 Africa, and near the mouth of the Niger — to 
 Great Britain, in the first six months of 1860, 
 amounted to no less than $3,056,116, beiDg a 
 gain of forty per cent, over the corresponding 
 period of 1858. The crop of Liberia in 1860 
 was more than one hundred per cent, advance 
 upon the crop of the same country for 1859. 
 Sir, who are producing these grand national 
 results, and making such wonderful progress ? 
 People sent from this country since 1827 ; sent, 
 hence fresh from slavery, the subjects of the 
 degradation, ignorance, and improvidence its 
 essential laws inflict upon its victims. 
 
 For the last fifteen years, although they num- 
 ber only some ten thousand American emi- 
 grants and about five thousand civilized and 
 christianized native Africans, they have main- 
 tained an independent Government, modeled 
 on our own, with an executive, legislative, and 
 judicial department, each independent in its 
 sphere, and co-ordiuate with each other. Our 
 decisions are quoted in their courts, our lan- 
 guage taught in their schools, and the word of 
 the God we worship made known to them in 
 their churches from King James and Qouay 
 
 Bibles as in our own. Civil equality and reli- 
 gious freedom prevail among them ; their 
 schools, colleges, and churches are prosperous, 
 and have been largely instrumental in enabling 
 them to extend their jurisdiction over and as- 
 similate several hundred thousands of docile but 
 aspiring heathens. 
 
 It is a fact worthy of note that when the site 
 was purchased for the New Jersey colony, the 
 last purchase of which I have knowledge, the 
 chiefs who ceded the land insisted upon one 
 stipulation as the most important element of 
 price. It was, that they and their people should 
 be guarantied the right to attend the churches 
 of the colonists, and their children have admis- 
 sion to their Sunday and day schools on the 
 same terms as those of colonists. 
 
 There, sir, is a republic which has grown as 
 the American colonies did not grow. Our fa- 
 thers had a savage and hostile people to con- 
 tend with, and they almost ^extirpated there. 
 The Liberians find a loving but degraded peo- 
 ple to absorb and elevate. Thus, year by year, 
 the limits and influence of that republic have 
 been extended, and they will continue to ex- 
 tend until those who legislate in this Hall a 
 few generations hence will find their commer- 
 cial relations with the republic of Liberia 
 grown to a magnitude and importance equal- 
 ing those of the leading nations of the world. 
 They are an agricultural people ; they give us 
 the products of the tropics — coffee, sugar, spi- 
 ces — I speak now of both Liberia and Hayti — 
 lignumvitaa, palmwood, and such dye stuffs as 
 the wc-M has never produced— stuffs for dyes 
 that nei.aer light nor acid will affect. 
 
 In 1849, Commodore Foote was ordered to 
 the African coast. I hold in my hand a book 
 which he published, containing his African ob- 
 servations made in 1850-51. He often dwells 
 upon the young republic of Liberia. He does 
 not agree with the gentleman from Ohio that 
 the negro has no fitness for commerce. 
 
 Mr. COX. Will the gentleman allow me to 
 interrupt him ? 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I will be glad to hear the 
 gentleman when I shall have finished, but I 
 cannot yield to him if his remarks are to be de- 
 ducted from the time I am entitled to ocoupy. 
 
 Mr. COX. The gentleman misrepresents 
 me. I said nothing of the kind. 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. I so noted the gentleman 
 at the time. 
 
 Mr. COX. On the contrary, I argued 
 
 The SPEAKER. Does the geutleman from 
 Pennsylvania yield the floor? 
 
 Mr. KELLEY. No, sir; I do not. I will 
 gladly be corrected if I have not stated the po- 
 sition assumed by the gentleman correctly, but 
 as my time is passing rapidly, I cannot now 
 yield to the gentleman even for that purpose. 
 Commodore Foote says : 
 
 "It is impossible to say how lucrative this (Liberiau) 
 commerce may ultimately become. That the whole African 
 
coast should assume the aspect of Liberia is, perhaps, not 
 an unreasonable expectation. That Liberia will continue to 
 grow in wealth and influence, is not improbable. There is 
 intelligence among its people, and wisdom and energy in 
 its councils. There is no reason to believe that this will not 
 continue. Its position makes it an agricultural community. 
 Other lands must afford its manufactures and its traders. 
 There will, therefore, ever bo on its shores a fair held for 
 American enterprise. 
 
 " The reduction or annihilation of the slave trade is open- 
 ing the whole of these vant regions to science and legal com- 
 merce. Lut America take her right share in them. It is 
 throwing wide the portals of the continent, for the entrance 
 of Christian civilization. Le*. our country exert its full pro- 
 portion of this influence, and thus recompense to Africa the 
 wrongs inflicted upnn her people, in which, hitherto, all na- 
 tions have participated." — Africa and the American Flag, 
 pp. 389, 3G0 
 
 Speaking of the dyes of this Republic, it 
 should be borne in mind that as a manufactur- 
 ing people we are large consumers of dye stuffs, 
 upon the quality of which our successful com- 
 petition with other nations often depends, and 
 that we are now compelled to procure them 
 from these Republics through the medium of 
 England, paying tribute to her and receiving 
 from her the dregs, her people using the best. 
 On this and kindred topics let Commodore Foote 
 also be heard : 
 
 "The vegetable articles of export are of great value. Cot- 
 ton may bo produced in unlimited abundance. The African 
 dye stuffs are already recognised as extensive and valuable 
 articles of commerce. Indigo is used extensively by the na- 
 tives. When wo recollect that the vast trade of Beugal in 
 this article has been created within the memory of men still 
 living, and that India possesses no natural advantages be- 
 yond those of Africa, we may infer what a profusion of 
 wealth might be poured rapidly over Africa by peace and 
 good government. 
 
 "Gums of various kinds constitute a branch of trade which 
 may be considered as only commencing. The extensive 
 employment of india-rubber- and the knowledge of gutta- 
 percha, are only a few years old. Africa gives promise of 
 a large supply of such articles. Its caoutchouc has already 
 been introduced into the arts. It may bo long before the 
 natural sources of supply found in its marshy forests can be 
 exhausted. Se that as it may , when men are induced, as 
 perhaps they soon will be, to substitute regular cultivation 
 for the wild and more irregular modes of procuring articles 
 which are becoming every day of more essential impor- 
 tance, Africa may take a great share in the moans adopted 
 to supply them. 
 
 "•What maybe done in the production of sugar and coffee 
 no man can tell. James McQueen, who has during a great 
 part of his life devoted his attention to the condition aud 
 interests of Africa, gave evidence before a committee of the 
 British House of Peers, in 1850, to the following effect : 
 
 " ' There Is scarcely any tropical production known in the 
 world which does not come to perfection in Africa. There 
 are many productions which are paculiarly her own. Tlie 
 dye stuffs and dye woods are superior to any which are known 
 in any other quarter of the world, inasmuch as they resist both 
 acids and light, things which we know no other dye stuffs from 
 any other parts of the world can resist. Then there is the 
 article of sugar, that can be produced in every part of Africa 
 to an unlimited extent. There is cotton also above all things, 
 cotton of a quality so fine, it is finer, than any description 
 of cotton W8 know of in the world. Common cotton in Afri- 
 ca I have seen and had in my possession, which was equal 
 to tho finest quality of American cotton. 
 
 " ' Egyptian cotton is not so good as the cotton away to 
 the south ; but the cotton produced in the southern parts of 
 Africa is peculiarly fine. Africa is a most extraordinary 
 country. In the eastern horn of Africa, which you think to 
 be a desolate wilderness, there is the finest country and the 
 liuost climate I know. I know of none in South America 
 equal to tho climate of the country in the northeastern horn 
 of Africa. It is a very elevated country, and on the upper 
 regions you have all the fruits and flowers and grain of Eu- 
 rope growing ; and in the valleys you have the finest fruits 
 of the Torrid Zone. The whole country is covered with 
 myrrh and frankincense; it is covered with flocks and herds ; 
 it produces abundance of the finest grain. Near Brasa, for 
 instance, on tho river Webbe, you can purchase as much 
 
 fine wheat for a dollar as will serve a man for a year. All 
 kinds of European grain flourish there. In Encreaand Kaffa 
 the whole country is covered with coffee. It is the original 
 country of the coffee You can purchase an ass's load (two 
 hundred pounds) of coffee in the berry for about a dollar. 
 The greater portion of the coffee that we receive from Mocha 
 is actually African coffee, produced in that part.' " — Africa 
 and the American Flag, pp. 67-70. 
 
 Commodore Foote also answers some of the 
 suggestions of my colleague [Mr. Biddle] and 
 the geutleman from Ohio [Mr. Cox] as to the un- 
 fitness of the negro for social, political, or com- 
 mercial relations. He says, (pages 205 and 
 206:) 
 
 "A movement for the elevation of the colony into an in- 
 dependent State has been made by the people at Cape 
 Palmas, and a commission has visited this country to make 
 arrangements for the purpose. That there bo full political 
 independence granted to this people is requisite as an ele- 
 ment of the great achievement now going on. This con- 
 templates something far higher than creating merely a ref- 
 uge for black men, or sticking on a patch of colored America 
 on the coast of Africa, like an ill-assorted graft, for which 
 the old stock is none the better. Liberia is the restoration 
 of the African, in his highest intellectual condition, to that 
 country in which his condition had become the most de- 
 graded. The question is to be settled whether that condi- 
 tion can be retained or so improved that he may keep pace 
 with the rest of the world. 
 
 " It is a necessary element in this proceeding, that ho b'e 
 self-governing. It is to the establishment of this point that 
 all men look to decide the dispute, whether negro races are 
 to remain forever degraded or not. Time aud patience, 
 however, and much kiud watchfulness, may be required be- 
 fore this experiment be deemed conclusive. Let many fail- 
 ures be anticipated ere a certain result is secured. Let no 
 higher claims be made on the negro than on other races. 
 Would a colony of Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, 
 Sicilians, if left to themselves, offer a fairer prospect of suc- 
 cess than Liberia now offers ? Few persons would have 
 confidence in the stability of republican institutions among 
 these races, if so placed. 
 
 " Let then the black man be judged fairly, and not pre- 
 sumed to have become all at once and by miracle of a higher 
 order than old historic nations, through many generations . 
 of whom the political organization of the world has been, 
 slowly developing itself. There will be among them men 
 who are covetous, or men who are tyranica!, or men who 
 would sacrifice the pubiic interest, or any others, to their 
 own ; men who would now go into the slave trade if they 
 could, or rob hen-roosts, or intrigue for office, or pick-pock- 
 ets, rather than trouble their heads or their hands with more 
 honorable occupations. It should be remembered by vis- 
 itors that such things will be found in Liberia, not because 
 men are black, but because men are men." 
 
 A word more as to the capacity of these peo- 
 ple for commerce, and as to the "folly of a pol- 
 icy which would prevent our merchants from 
 engaging in that commerce, aud which would 
 exclude our manufacturers, farmers, and me- 
 chanics from enjoying its advantages. 
 
 Sir, we need a minister at each of these 
 countries. When once we have a minister res- 
 ident at Hayti or Liberia, the tariff and terms 
 of commercial intercourse will be regulated by 
 treaty, and our merchants and manufacturers 
 will not be. subject, as they now are, to dis- 
 criminations against them, under which they 
 suffer seriously. By the laws of these republics au 
 extra duty is now levied upon the imports of 
 those nations which have failed to recognise 
 their independence. Give us ministers or com- 
 missioners resident there, and we will then be 
 on equal terms with the most favored nations. 
 Let us recognise the nationality of these re- 
 publics, aud cease to be the proper subjects, of 
 these,, exactions. Let us, I repeat, open the 
 
/<LU 
 
 way for our commerce with these countries, 
 welcome their products which we need, and 
 find in them markets for our manufactured 
 articles. 
 
 I now read from a letter addressed to me in 
 the early part of the session, by a gentleman 
 of Philadelphia, who for years has taken a pro- 
 found interest in the question under consider- 
 ation. I do so for the purpose of showing the 
 fitness of these people for commerce and self: 
 government, and the injustice of the tone with 
 which the proposition before the House has 
 been met : 
 
 " Liberia is a centre of trade and commerce in Africa and 
 is developing this region of the continent. The export of a 
 single commodity — palm oil — from western Africa, is esti- 
 mated to reach, annually, sixty thousand tons, exceeding in 
 value that of a whale oil season. Great Britain received, in 
 1S60, 804,325 cwts., as is shown in official returns, equal to 
 40,'/16 tons. The exports of British geods to west coast of 
 Africa during the first six months of I860 amounted to 
 $3,056,310, being a gain of furty per cent, on the shipments 
 ol the corresponding period of 1858. * The subject of African 
 commerce is engaging more and more the attention of our 
 merchants, and the power of Liberia will soon be felt in the 
 commercial world. 
 
 "The far-reaching policy of the British authorities and 
 p eople is drawing to its ports a large and highly lucrative 
 intercourse with the west coast of Africa. The proof of this 
 is shown in the recent money article in the London Times, 
 in noticing the half-yearly meeting of the African Steam Com- 
 pany, held on the 14th day of last December. It is stated 
 that ' a dividend of seven shillings per share was declared — 
 being at the rate of seven per cent, per annum — free of in- 
 come tax.' A reserve of seven and a half per cent, per an- 
 num was likewise made for depreciation and several heavy 
 losses were also met and liquidated. 
 
 " Some forty craft, built in Liberia, and owned and manned 
 by its c.tizens, trade along its sea-board and navigable riv- 
 ers. Larger vessels are similarly engaged between it and 
 foreign countries. Three of these, the Moses Sheppard, Day- 
 light, and Euschia J. Roye, which used to visit Baltimore 
 and New York, now run to Liverpool from the Liberian 
 waters, in consequence of the discriminating charges im- 
 posed upon them and their cargoes in our ports. France, 
 Great Britain, Belgium, Prussia, Brazil, Lubec, Bremen, 
 Hamburg, Portugal, and the kingdom of Italy , have acknowl- 
 edged the nationality of Liberia, and it has treaties of amity 
 and commerce with not only the majority of these Powers 
 but with numerous others. 
 
 . "Soon, it is hoped, the United States will recognise this 
 young African State, and enter into treaty relations with it. 
 Should the existing and injurious status be maintained, our 
 country must lose its present share of Liberian trade, for it 
 will flow where there are the least obstructions and its con- 
 ductors freely welcomed instead of being repelled by bur- 
 densome exactions. As yet, our shipping and products are 
 admitted into Liberia on the same footing as those of the 
 most friendly nations; but may not its people retaliate, and 
 cause the enactment of measures which shall practically 
 drive American ships and traffic from their ports, as we are 
 now doing with hers f Can we well afford to do this ?" 
 
 And shall we hesitate about recognising as 
 members of the family of nations these two re- 
 publics ? What reason can we give for it to 
 history and to the world ? What trade or legit- 
 imate interest will such an act injure or inter- 
 fere with ? None. Itwill indeed break up the 
 slave trade ; make Liberia powerful, and in 
 this cause she will fight the nations of the world 
 gallantly, as her little navy did the Spanish 
 steamer that undertook to punish her for hav- 
 ing searched a Spanish vessel for slaves. It 
 will, I say, break up the slave trade, and shut 
 out of our country further importations of what 
 my colleague is so terribly afraid of, the negro. 
 He will not willingly come from a land where 
 
 he is a man to one in which he is embraced in 
 the category of cattle. Nor will he, when Li- 
 beria can prevent it, be brought here as our 
 Democratic friends have been in the habit of 
 bringing him for the last few years. It may 
 be said that slaves have not been brought here 
 at all. If so, let me just here make another 
 little extract from the letter of my friend, Wil- 
 liam Coppinger, esq. : 
 
 "The capacity and value of Liberia to the United States 
 is practically illustrated in the receipt and wise disposition, 
 during the space of nine months, August 21, 1800, to May 
 8, 1861, of four thousand four hundred and seventy-nine 
 liberated slaves, seized in slavers by American cruisers 
 and landed in that republic by direction of our Govern- 
 ment. Its humanity and strength are demonstrated in the 
 successful resistance made September 11, 1881, in the har- 
 bor of Monrovia, to an unexpected attack made by a three- 
 masted Spanish war steamer, the Ceres, which undertook 
 to sink the Liberian naval vessel Quail, for capturing a sla- 
 ver at Gallinas, the northern boundary of the republic ; and 
 in preventing the native chiefs and head men along its in- 
 terior, from Gallinas to Palmas, from participating in the 
 infamous slave traffic." 
 
 I admit that the passage of this bill will in- 
 juriously affect the interest of the slave-trader, 
 by cutting off the supply of slaves. It wiil also 
 do much to break up one other traffic — the 
 manufacture and sale of counterfeit Haytien 
 dollars. As we do not recognise Hayti as a 
 nation, our courts cannot punish the counter- 
 feiting of her coin as a crime. When, there- 
 fore, we find a counterfeit Haytien dollar in 
 our pockets, we may charge it to our own act, 
 for by our unwisdom and inhumanity we have 
 legalized the manufacture of such counterfeit 
 coin in every town in our country. The man- 
 ufacture of such coin and the slave trade are 
 the only interests that the passage of this bill 
 can possibly affect injuriously, while those en- 
 gaged in every branch of art, trade, and com- 
 merce, from the man who digs iron ore from 
 the earth to him who manufactures the finest 
 mechanism* or the most elegant furniture or 
 apparel, will feel its beneficial influence. And 
 I ask again what argument can be made 
 against it ? What but derision of the negro 
 can be suggested as an objection ? The dis- 
 tinguished gentleman from Ohio and my col- 
 league shrink from personal contact with 
 negroes. I would not willingly cause either of 
 them pain. But suppose these republics should 
 each send a colored minister, the gentleman 
 cannot be much annoyed by them ; they need 
 only come in contact with such official per- 
 sonages for brief interviews, at long intervals, 
 during the period that they shall respectively 
 be President of the United States or Secretary 
 of State. [Laughter.] This measure of an- 
 noyance the honors that doubless await them 
 may subject them to; and .1 am sure that 
 they will endure it with becoming fortitude if 
 assured that it will achieve great national 
 good. Thus much their distinguished patriot- 
 ism justifies me in promising for them. 
 
 Our commerce, trade, manufactures, agricul- 
 ture, will all feel the stimulating influence of 
 this measure ; but, above all, the gentlemen on 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 the Democratic side of the House will soon 
 have reason to rejoice, for, under the influence 
 of this bill, they will be relieved of the ghost of 
 their Banquo. The negro will soon have leave 
 to depart ; peace will come to their souls. Sir, 
 when Liberian steamers and sailing vessels en- 
 ter our ports, owned, freighted, and manned by 
 Liberian citizens, and when our colored people 
 observe these evidences of prosperity, and learn 
 that the President is a negro, that the chief 
 justice is a negro, that the judges, the legisla- 
 tors, the congressmen, are negroes, and that 
 the wealth and honors of the country are open 
 to them and their children ; and when their 
 friends bring them, as they can, such books as 
 lie upon the tables of some of our members, 
 the essays of that graduate of Queen's College, 
 Cambridge, England, Rev. James Crummell, 
 who spends an occasional hour with the barber 
 in the cloak-room of the House ; when, I say, 
 they see evidences of wealth, enterprise, and 
 prosperity, and such native literature, coming 
 from these republics, and learn, as they soon 
 will, that they may there associate freely with 
 men who have been the companions of princes 
 in the schools of England, they will feel that 
 they can no longer bear the taunts and gibes 
 of the gentleman from the second district of 
 Pennsylvania and from Ohio, and will escape, 
 even at the cost of becoming the companions 
 
 of such men as Crummell and Jeffrard and 
 President Benson, black though they be. 
 
 How strange a thing is the human intellect! 
 To get rid of the negro is the special anxiety of 
 these gentlemen, and yet they will not help to 
 build up a power that will prevent more slaves 
 being brought into the country ; they will not 
 give dignity and character to nations that urge 
 our negroes to come to them. They hate them, 
 they love them, they sneer at and embrace them, 
 until logic and instinct are alike at fault when 
 attempting to ascertain what their views and 
 wishes are upon this to them all-absorbing sub- 
 ject. I am for recognising every nation that 
 has power to maintain itself peaceably among 
 the nations of the world, and I pray that God 
 may give me grace, whenever I see a suffering 
 fellow-man, to pity and to wish to serve him ; 
 and as a member of the Government of this 
 great nation, to be always ready, not alone 
 when, as in this case, there are powerful mo- 
 tives leading to it, not when dollars and cents 
 lie in the way, but when it might be, which 
 this cannot, an act of generous magnanimity to 
 urge my country to extend its recognition and 
 sympathy to feeble and struggling nations. I 
 believe that it comports with the spirit of the 
 age and the honor and dignity of my coun- 
 try. 
 
 [Here the hammer fell.] 
 
 WASHINGTON t) C 
 
 SCAMMELL & CO. PRINTERS, CORNER OF SECOND STREET AND INDIANA A«JE, THIRD FLOORj 
 
 1862, 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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