^°-n^. V ^^^\. '• '-• '^ ^K" \' .i-^-^^.. ' '^o^ .4^ • « • »* * "^ ' •• ' « V V* .t^!^'* <^ 'bV'^ aO* •!•« REMARKS \ HON. JOHN B. HASKIN, OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YORK, IN REPLY TO ATTACK MADE BT TOE PRESIDENT'S HOME ORGAN, '^E CONSTITUTION," A.ISrTI-LEOQ]5^:PTOJSr DEMOCRA^TS, COLLOQUY MR. LOGAN, OF ILLINOIS, AND MR. HASKIN. DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER, I8o9. WASHINGTON : THOMAS MoGILL, PRINTER 1859. / // // I c4 ^ REMARKS. ^. The House Laving umler consideration the resolution inti-oduced by Mr. Clark, of Missouri — Mr. HASKIN rose and said : Mr. Clerk : I rise to a personal explanation, and, in order to be as brief possible, I have committed wh'at I desire to say to writing. It was not my intention to take part in any debate which might arise upon ihis floor previous to the organization of the House, and I would not do so now, were it not for a grossly libelous attack upon me in the home organ of the President on Saturday last. It is not my custom, upon this floor or else- where, to notice little things, ^ but, as rumor has accorded to the President and his Attorney General Black the editorial management of the Consti- tution, concealing themselves by the temporary employment of a hireling writer named Browne — not a relative of Ossawatomie Brown, for, though a madman, a fanatic, and a traitor, yet he was a truthful and brave man, I feel that the high authority which supervised and justified the attack made, in the article to Avhich I have alluded, upon the eight anti-Le- compton Democrats of this House, including myself, warrants me in noticing it at this time and in this place. It is unnecessary for me to allude to either President Buchanan or Attorney General Black, as their character is well known to the country ; but let me say in relation to this man Browne, who is, I am informed, an alien originally from Eng- land, but lately imported into this city by Mr. Buchanan to grind the music from his dolorous organ, that he was previously employed as a penny-a-liner in the city of New York upon the Journal of Commerce, a newspaper started by Lewis Tappan and the original Abolitionists, and which was persuaded to support this Administration by its patronage and the patronage lavished upon it by the merchants who are engaged in the southern trade. During the campaign of 1858, he was induced, as I have eason to believe, by a prominent United States official in the city of New York, to take the stump in opposition to my re-election, and I well recollect that he made a speech in the town of Morrisania, which was reported in zxtenso in one of the New York Administration organs, and the eff'ect of which was to assist to give me two hundred and four majority in that town, in old Democratic town, which regularly gives a majority to any reputable candidate standing upon the Democratic platform. I am confident, sir, hhat, if he had spoken in the other towns of Westchester county, the re- iult would have been an increased majority for me in each and all of them. :t is a fact, recognized throughout the country, that whilst this paper, the Constitution, is the home organ of the President, the New York Herald is vlr. Buchanan's personal exponent. For the Herald, I can say that, as a newspaper, it has been conducted rith an amount of energy and ability which may easily be appreciated by 1,11 the members of this House, if they will call to mind the fact that since he Clerk called the roll, the foreshadowings of the Herald as to the policy be pursued by Administration members have been stwtly accurate. It was that paper that introduced to tho notice of the House and country the names of the Republican members who, by their signatures, recom- mended the circulation of the compend of the Helper book. It sounded the key-note of the opposition, which commenced with our assembling here, by the introduction of, in ray judgment, the irrelevant resolution of the gentleman from Missouri, [iMr. Clark;] and it has insisted that there should be no organization of this House by the election as Speaker ot any one of those who recommended the circulation of that pamphlet. How- ever much, therefore, I may have heretofore, or may now oppose many ol the doctrines advocated in the Herald, I "cannot withhold from that papei the credit which it deserves for the complete control which it has over th( Administration, foreshadowing and directing, not only the policy of Mr Buchanan and his Cabinet, but the course to be pursued by the member; who sustain him upon this floor : and all this, too, notwithstanding its fierce opposition to Mr. Buchanan in 1856, and the support it then yieldec to Mr. Fremont and the Republican party. I desire, Mr. Clerk, in order that the House may understand th( character of the charges made by the home organ of the President, tha you will read the following article from the Constitution : [Mr. Haskin sent up to the Clerk an editorial article of over a column in length from th Washington Constitution of Saturday last, 9th inst., the whole of which was read to th House. °This article charges the eight anti-Lecompton Democrats withheing " mercenaries, and Messrs. Haskin and Hiclcman with having entered into a combination to iecure th ttUction of Col. Forney as Clerk, and Mr. Sherman as Speaker.] Mr HASKIN. Now, Mr. Clerk, for the charges contained in thf j^i-ticle— evidently published "by authority." The first is, that the eigi independent anti-Lecompton Democrats upon this floor are mercenarie In answer to this, let me say that no one in the country knows better tha Mr. Buchanan himself^ the utter falsehood of this charge ; /or he ei deavored by threats and by the seductions of his patronage, without effec to draw true men away from the path of duty. The second is, that the is a corrupt bargain between the Black Republicans, so-called and t distin^ruishfcd gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Hickman] atid myse I cmpliatically and indignantly deny this charge. The third declares th [ WIS false to my pledges when I was elected to the Ihirty-J^itthCo gress. During the campaign, in 1856, which resulted in my election, made as many speeches as probably any other candidate upon the stum and in each of them I insisted before my people, that, if elected to Co cress I would not vote for the admission of Kansas as a State into t Union unless I was satisfied that the constitution under which she appli had been fairly submitted, and fully and fairly ratified by the popul vote I then declared that I had no compunctions of conscience for a^ai'nst the admission of a slave State ; but that, inasmuch as by the co p?omi^e measures of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska bill of lb54, C( gross had determined upon the doctrine of nonintervention in the alia Sf the Territories, in order to localize the question of slavery, and iec it to be decided by the people there, as are other domestic institutions stood by that settlement of this exciting question. For that feasor obiect to the introduction of the resolution of the gentleman troni jy hold of this Congress, and before this House has organized by the elec- tion of its proper officers, and which unnecessarily excites the country throughout its length and breadth. Well, sir ; in pursuance of ray pledges, and in the performance of my duty as. a Representative of the people — free from the control and dictation of the Executive — I did, during the last Congress, do all in my power to prevent the admission of Kansas, under a constitution which every member upon this floor will now con- cede in no way reflected the will of the majority; but, on the contrary, was the emanation from a small minority of the people of that Territory. I, therefore, deny the charge that I have not lived up to all the pledges that I made in 1856. Another charge is, that I was actuated in my course during the last Congress toward the Administration by motives of revenge, for the reason that the President had refused to allow me the control of certain Federal patronage. I reply to the President himself, for I judge that this charge was made by his consent and approbation, that I never asked him for the ap- pointment of a single man to office ; and that about the only persons I re- commended, if I remember rightly, were those whose claims my Demo- cratic colleagues likewise recommended and supported, most of whom Vv-ere appointed. The President must know that the motive which actuated this charge is as malicious as the charge itself is infamous and void of truth. It is also charged, Mr. Clerk, that I undertook an investigation at the last Congress which resulted in my discomfiture. I did commence an in- vestigation, under a resolution of the last Congress, into the sale and pur- chase by the Government, inl857, of a property upon Long Island Sound, opposite my district, known as Willett's Point, for fortification purposes. Now, for the results, in brief, of that investigation as detailed in the proof before the committee and the reports made to this House. It was proved that the Secretary of War purchased this property for $200,000, when the appropriation therefor was but §150,000; and that in this he trans- cended the power given him to the extent of $50,000. Now, Mr. Clerk, if the Secretary of War could usurp the rights of the House of Repre- sentatives, which has, under the Constitution, the power to originate all bills of supply, and the rights of Congress, and exceed an appropriatioi to the amount of $50,000, he certainly could to the amount of $5,000,000, or even, sir, to the extent of burdening this country by the debt of Eng- land, which now almost strangles her commerce and her industry. Thi» was an important discovery of itself, as it showed an unlawful expendi- ture of the public money ; but it was outside of the corruptions which I maintain were incident to the transaction, and which would have war- ranted Congress in placing its seal of reprobation upon the extravagance and illegal conduct of the Secretary of War. In addition to the fact that the Secretary of War went beyond the appropriation, it was proved that for this property there was paid $150,000 more than it could have been purchased for a few months previously ; and that the broker and personal friend of the Secretary of War, who loaned the money with which this property was purchased by the person who sold it to the Government, and who at the time was discounting the notes of tho Secretary to the amount of from ten to twenty thousand dollars, destroyed his check books for the purpose of preventing the ascertainment of facts which would, in my opinion, have shown the complicity of the Secretary of War and his particular friends in this improper transaction. Another charge is, that, in 1858, I proceeded home from here and called myself a Democrat — " a Jeffersonian Democrat." It is true that I went home in June, 1858, and called a meeting of the independent people of my district, and allowed my name to be proposed for re-election. I asked them to approve my whole course in Congress, as well in reference to the Willett's Point investigation as to my opposition to the territorial policy of the Administration, I submitted it to the electors of my county, who reside opposite the property known as the Willett's Point purchase, whether I should be sustained on the charges I had made, and the proof I had elicited. What was the verdict ? Westchester county, good, honest old Westchester, around which clusters as many revolutionary reminiscences as has any county in the Union, came forward, and, by a majority of one thousand and twenty-two, sustained me over the President's candidate, Gouverneur Kemble, who the President informed me he had done all in his power to nominate and elect, while, at the same time, it gave the Democratic candidate for Governor, Mr. Parker, over twelve hundred ninjority. If majorities speak intelligently, and in this case I know they do, the fact I state is a sufficient refutation of the charge that the investiga- tion into the sale and purchase of the Willett's Point property had no result. I plead guilty to the accusation that I announced myself a Democrat upon my return home. I proclaim here that I am a Democrat, a Democrat in essence, in substance, and not in mere form. Democracy, according to m}' teaching, is the rule of the people undef the law ; and, let me say to the Administration, that, by its influence and power of patronage, it denied the right of itie people to judge for themselves when it urged the adoption of the Lecompton constitution. It was in reference to the admission of Kansas into the Union as a State, and the protection of the rights of the people of that Territory, that I declared here that the anti-Lecompton men were Democrats. I made this declaration in opposition to the Federa' " doctrines to which Mr. Buchanan has in his old age returned, and under which he sought to force, with Federal power and patronage, a State into the Union with a constitution repugnant to its people, and in defiance ot the protest of its Legislature. This was an unsuccessful attempt, it would appear, to gratify the South by the introduction of another slave State and the addition to their political power of two Senators. And, Mr. Clerk, just here I will say a word or two in reply to the remarks made by the distinguished and courteous gentleman from Vir- ginia, [Mr. SiMiTir,] who in his colloquy with my colleague, [Mr. Clark,] stated that he determined his Democracy by his vote upon the Democratic caucus nominee. I take issue with him. With me, organization, espe- cially under this Administration, is an instrument of tyranny and proscrip- tion. Whoever is the Speaker, it is within the power of a majority of this House to control his action. Yet sometimes the Speaker has abused the discretion intrusted to his hands. There was a memorable instance in the last session. After days of conflict, the House, by deliberate vote, in response to the unmistakable wish of the country, determined that there should be an investigation into the affairs in Kansas, but the Speaker, with whom the discretion was left to appoint the committee, in my judg- ment, selected, contrary to all parliamentary precedent, a majority of that committee from the enemies of that investifration, and from those who had upon the record solemnly voted against it, so that all inquiry was effec- tually defeated. I deny that organization here is the test of my Democracy, or of that of any man in this land. The only body I recognize as capable, in a party sense, of declaring the principles which are to guide me as a Democrat is the national Democratic convention. I recognize the resolu- tions and platform of the last national Democratic convention which assem- bled at Cincinnati, in 1856. 1 hold that those resolutions embody the precepts of our faith. No congressional caucus, and no Administration party vote upon the floor of this House, upon any measure which the President may recommend, can unmake my Democracy or force me to for- sake the pledges I made, in 1856, to support the Cincinnati platform. Adhesion to congressional caucuses, we knov/, has for years been an ex- ploded idea. I insist, whenever an organization deserts the principles upon which its representatives were elected, it acts treasonably toward the party, and is not deserving of respect. For example : s"uppose I were a Presbyterian, and the minister of my church should, from the pulpit, begin to preach the diabolical doctrines of the Thugs of India, would I be obliged to leave the Christian religion and follow him in his apostacy ? No, sir, I would continue to follow the cross of our Saviour, as I have continued to abide by the creed of our party pronounced at Cincinnati. The organization of the Democratic party must be subordinate to princi- ple, and not principle to organization ; and the doctrine that organization is paramount to principle is a political heresy that the people of the United States have rejected, and will indignantly reject in the future. I have been surprised, sir, to see strict constructionists of the South, and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Logan] especially, insisting with this effete Administration upon the infallibility of organization. I am accused in addition by The Constitution Avith having called upon my Black Republican friend Greeley, and having entered into an arrange- ment by which he was to yield me his support. I assert, in respect to this gentleman that, until after the adjournment of the first session of the Thirty-fifth Congress, I never corresponded or spoke with him. His paper ^"severtheless sustained my course during the whole of my opposition to the Lecompton policy of the Administration, as it had also generously and ably sustained the course of Judge Douglas on that question. I never had any understanding with him in my life. He came to my sup- port, as he came to the support of Mr. Davis of Indiana, Messrs. Adrain and RiGGS of New Jersey, Messrs. Hickman and ScinfARXZ of Pennsyl- vania, and Messrs. Clark and Reynolds of New York, and to the sup- port of Mr. McKibbin, who warred so bravely for principle in California, but who had at last to yield before the myriads of office-holders in that State. He came to our support, not that he expected us to act with his party in the future, but to justify and sustain each one of us for acting like honest men in vindicating the pledges upon which we had been elected. lam not one of those who feel insensible to the able and the patriotic support which the New York Tribune gave to OMch of us in the eventful contest of 1858. Mr. Greely is my constituent, and although I differ with him in princi- ple, yet from my knowledge of the man, I take pride in saying upon this floor that he is undoubtedly honest in his views, and that, wherever he is known, uo man questions his sincerity or his veracity. lie supported me knowing me to be a Democrat and with a full knowledge of my views in favor of popular sovereignty, as explained by Judge Douglas in his interpretation of tlie Kansas-Nebraska bill, and as enunciated by the President himself i» his letter of acceptance, where he declared that the people of a Terri- tory, like those of a State, should decide the question of their domestic institutions for themselves. Each and every one of the gentlemen Avho have been abused and stigmatized as mercenaries by the home organ of the President, were supported by the Tribune for election, oi- re-election, upon the same ground that it sustained me, with a full knowledge that they differed with Mr. Greeley in respect to congressional intervention for the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, as they differed with southern gentlemen who favored congressional intervention for the pro- tection of slavery in the Territories. The Constitution further alleges that I am for the election of Colonel John W. Forney, of Pennsylvania, to the Clerkship of this House, to seeure which a bargain has been entered into between his friends and the Republicans. I deny this combination, M'hilst I confess that I am the friend of Colonel Forney for Clerk. There is no man throughout the length and breadth of this country whose election would more completely rebuke this Administration for its departure from Democratic principles, its treachery to pledges made in 1866, its extravagance, its proscriptions, and the virulence of its federalism, than that of Colonel John W. Forney. I am for his election, because it would be the vindication by the people of an honest statesman against the arrogance and tyranny of an Adminis- tration of which he Avas the Warwick. In him we have beheld one, who as an editor, has sustained each and all of us as independent Democrats, in our districts ; and who, as an orator of signal power, has carried con- viction by the force of his reason and his eloquence. I remember that he went into the district of my colleague, [Mr. Clark,] and there made a speech in his support, which was both brilliant and effective. I cannot forget that he was, upon several occasions, in the districts of my friends from New Jersey [Messrs. Adrain and Riggs] doing good service in their behalf. I would not, if I could, forget that he did the same thing for me in my district, at Tarry town; and that in Pennsylvania, he was in the districts of Messrs. Schwartz and Hickman, battling nobly and success- fully for the right. # And, sir, let me call the attention of the House to the fact that he, more than any other man, gave the State of Pennsylvania to Mr. Bu- chanan in 185G; and that, he, in 1858, more than all other men combined, placed the seal of condemnation of that old Commonwealth upon James Buchanan, its once favorite son, by a majority of over seventy thousand of the popular vote, as shown in the election of Representatives to Con- gress now on this floor. For these eminent services, rendered in a righteous cause, not referring to his extraordinary capabilities for the position which he has already honorably held, I plead guilty to the charge that it is nearest my heart, in the organization of this House, to see Col. Forney selected as its Clerk. Now, sir, for the gist of this article, which is an attempted defense of the Administration from the effect of my charges in the debate between the distinguished gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Logan] and myself. I then charged that it had been extravagant and corrupt. The Adminis- tration organ denies the charge, and challenges me to the proof. When this becomes an organized House, I trust that among the first things done will be the selection of investigating committees to expose to the country still further grounds for that charge than those Avhich have been already published. This is no time or place to get to that work. Let me say, generally, that when this Administration came into power, there was in the Trea'^sury a surplus of about twenty million dollars, and that notwith- standinsr that, we were asked at the assembling of the first session of the Thirty-Fifth Congress to vote $20,000,000 in Treasury notes, in order that the Government might be carried on. At the session following we were asked to vote another $20,000,000. The expense of this Adminis- tration of the Government for the last fiscal year was about eighty mil- lion dollars, one-third larger than under any previous Administration. Staring us in the face is the startling fact that in two^ years the War De- partment alone has asked appropriations exceeding in amount w^hat was required by that Department, when under Mr. Marcy, during the Mexican war. No corruption, Mr. Clerk, in the sale of the Fort Snelling property for, I- think, $90,000, at the time Avhen it was generally believed to be worth $200,000 ! That property, we know, went into the hands of the immediate and confidential friends of the Secretary of War. No corrup- tion in the purchase of land for fortification purposes, at New Bedford, for which sixty-eight or seventy thousand dollars were pai(^, when it could have been obtained a short time before for one-fourth of that amount! That property was purchased just previous to its sale to the government by the friends of the Secretary of War, and by them sold to the United. States. No corruption in the Utah war contracts for the transportation of supplies to the Army ! No corruption in the mule contracts ! No cor- ruption in the purchase of extravagantly high-priced ships for the useless expedition to Taraguiy, an expedition which has cost the Government millions, and resulted in rendering it ridiculous forever ! No corruption in the division of the coal agency, made, I believe, for the purpose of returning the President's favorite, J. Glancy Jones, from Berks county, against the old Jackson Democrat who sits near me, [Mr. Schwartz,] and in the face of an r.utraged and indignant constituency ! No corrup- tion in the bo?«;owal of the printing of the Post Office blanks, as has been charged, And I believe nowhere denied ! No corruption there, where it is alleged tlfe contract was given to Mr. Rice, of the Philadelphia Pennsyl- vanian, with a view of supporting that paper, and the Union, alias the Constitution, as well as the Evening Argus, of Philadelphia !^ No corrup- tion in the employment of extra hands in immense numbers in the Phila- delphia and Brooklyn navy-yards just prior to the elections, and their dismissal immediately afterward ! Why, sir, it is well known throughout the North that this has been the most extravagant and corrupt adminis- tration of Government which the world has seen since the days of Wal- pole. So glaring were these extravagancies and corruptions, that during the last Congress, in Avhich the Democrats had a working majority, the power was taken from the Secretary of War, after mature deliberation, to sell the Government reservations, and from the Secretary of the Navy the power of appointing agents for the purchase of coal for the Navy, and throwing coal supplies open to the lowest bidder by contract ! If the Ad- ministration members will permit a speedy organization of this House, these 10 matters can be all looked into, I know, with beneficial results to the country. Having thus replied to the specific charges contained in the Constitu- tion, permit me now to briefly give to the House my views in rehition to its proceedings since the Clerk called the roll on Monday last. We were elected to organize this body, and to proceed with the legitimate business of the country. The adjournment of the Thirty-Fifth Congiess without the passage of the appropriation bill for the support of the Post Office Department, has compelled that Department to proceed with the postal arrangements of the country, without money to pay for them, and under contracts based upon the honor of this Government to promptly meet them on the assembling of the present Congress. The contractors under this Department since Monday last have been suffering for the lack of means with which to supply their wants, and to perform their engagements. The Administration, through its representatives upon this floor, immedi- ately upon the roll being called, commenced here an agitation upon the negro question by the introduction of the resolution of the gentleman from Missouri. This subject might have been considered with order and decorum, when the House organized ; and it is, in my opinion, clearly out of place at present, under the circumstances surrounding us. So far as the resolution is concerned, I would suggest that it would have been just as fair and proper for me, or any other member, to have offered a resolution, provided John Letcher, the present Governor elect of Virginia, had been a member of this House and the candidate of the Administration for Speaker, proclaiming that, inasmuch as he once, in a letter to Mr. Hufner, declared that slavery was a " a social and political evil," he was, therefore, unfit to be the Speaker of this House. Sir, that resolution had nothing legitimately to do with the business of the country, or of this House. As well might a resolution have been introduced that, because somebody signed a circular, favoring the use of Mrs. Pease's hoarhound candy, as Clay and Webster once did, therefore, such a recommendation unfitted the person so recom- mending it for becoming Speaker. Its introduction has aroused feelings in this House which should never have been called up here, and scenes have been witnessed upon the floor which have disgraced this deliberative body in the eyes of the whole country, and of the civilized world. Mr. Clerk, I have heard upwards of a dozen speeches already from gentlemen of the South, proclaiming secession doctrines, in certain con- tingencies, which doctrines have been applauded by the galleries, in this southern city, where large numbers of the men who daily fill them re- side — the employes and recipients of Government money. They are, it seems, paid the people's money to appear here and insult their Eepresen- tatives. The members from the free States have come here, expecting to enjoy the hospitality for which the South has alwas been celebrated, and not such treatment as this. I have not heard from this side one single speech or sentiment which has not breathed devotion to the Constitution and the Union, and a determination to faithfull}^ maintain and protect the South in all of her constitutional rights. I was pleased, on Saturday last, when the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. Miles] announced his devotion to his own State, and proclaimed that, in that sense, he was a sectional man. In the same sense, I proclaim my devotion to the great interests of New Yo)k, the Empire State of the Union, whose commerce 11 penetrates every part of the world. I am proud to avow on this floor that I am a northern man ; but as a northern man, it is ray desire to stand up here and proclaim that I am a brother of the southern man. This is a compact between coequal States, and I am in favor of respecting and pro- tecting the local laws, and of sustaining each State in all its constitu- tionarpriviloges in this House. I heard, with the blood tingling through my veins, the patriotic speech of the gentleman from Tennessee, [Mr. Nelson,] in which he offered his devotion to the Union. In common with him, the Representatives from the free States do the same tbing ; but it must not be expected that we will sit here and listen to the gentlemen on this floor charge aggression on the part of the North, without stating that it has its rights to be maintained, as well as the rights of the South. I cannot forget that out of the taxation received by the Government, three-fourths of the expenses of the postal service of the country are paid by the people of the free St-ites. I cannot forget that over one-half of the patronage of this Government is concentrated among inhabitants and citizens of southern States. I cannot forget that the Army and Navy have had more than their just quota of representatives from the southern States. Yet I do not complain, although, the other day, I heard the gen- tleman from Mississippi [Mr. Davis] proclaim that they would hang all of us North Avho Avere suspected of want of devotion to southern interests, and take possession of the Army and Navy. To that I say, "Who is afraid ?" Would it not have been in better taste to have said the Army and Navy should be used, if necessary, for the purpose of preserving the Union and sustaining the principles which underlie its foundation ? Would it not have been better to have insisted that, in case of an invasion of Vir- ginia by fanatics from the North, the East, or the^West, that the Army should be called out by the Executive to crush it, and that the same power should be exerted in case of an invasion from the South, or any other sec- tion into a northern State ? These violent denunciations, threatening us of the North, who have the numerical strength, are productive of preju- dice, and are creating feelings which, I fear, may not be allayed. Sir, when I heard the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Crawford] assert, several days ago, in substance, that he was not in favor of any more Castle Garden Union-saving meetings for the purpose of protecting the rights of the South, I felt gratified. We have had recent exhibi- tions of this kind in Philadelphia and Boston. It is not those who get up such meetings who will defend your rights, gentlemen of the South, in the North. The South itself is capable ^nd must vindicate its own rights, joined by the whole conservative body of the North, with which I rank myself as ready on any legitimate occasion to take up arms to protect her. Sir, those Union meetings are too frequently controlled by scheming poli- ticians and selfish merchants. It is one of the clap-trap schemes of the dav for advertising men and merchandise, and many who engage in them know less of the constitutional questions arising in this body and the gen- eral politics of the country than the mechanics and laboring men through- out the free States. If you rely upon them, you rely on the sordid inter- ests of men — of those who will not do what the conservative body of the people from the rural districts from which I come would do in case of ne- cessity. Mr. Clerk, let me indulge in a few words in relation to this reckless 12 raid of old John Brown. I do not believe that there are one thousand men in all the free States who justify his act of treason. The people of the North desired to see the laws of the country executed, and I heard no one object to hanging him. There were, however, many who admired his deportment from the time of his arrest to the time of his execution, and the bravery with which he met his final end. Some sympathy may have been felt for the man, but none for his act. And here I would ask, whether there are not men in the South who are accountable for setting bad examples. I allude to those who last Congress justified General Walker and his men in their invasion of Nicaragua, a country with which we Avere then at peace. Do gentlemen upon the other side of the House justify those who met in southern convention and proclaimed themselves in favor of reopening the African slave trade, in opposition to the com- promises of the Constitution ? Do gentlemen upon the other side justify the landing of a cargo of slaves, by the Wanderer, upon the southern coast of the United States — an act which set at defiance the law declar- ing the slave trade piracy ? While there are gentlemen South entertain- ing such extreme views, is it to be wondered at, considering the numerical superiority of the North, that there should be found fanatics there? Transplant Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Parker Pills- bury, and such men. South, and you would make them fire-eaters, and take the fire-eaters of the South into Massachusetts, and very likely they would prove fanatics against slavery. We of the anti-Lecompton legion, to- gether Avith the patriotic South Americans, who were with us last Con- gress in our struggle, are against the extremists of both sections of the Confederacy. We design to maintain the Constitution and the laws as they have been handed down to us by our fathers. Now, a word or twc^in relation to the party position 1 occupy, speaking for myself. I have been re-elected to this Congress as an independent man. There are eight of us, all told, who can say the same thing, viz: John G. Davis of Indiana, Major Schwartz vP '■ 4V «4» .^*^^ .^^r .-e:^ \ "^yi^. ♦ ^ '#'. <»^ - .*^< <> *'T7V» .0*' ^^, '» . . <> *'.: .< o. .0 .4 0^ o ,0. 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