iiifiiiiisiiii E458 SimJw: LIBRARY OF CXJNGRESS jiiiiw QDQDbmfi7DD -^o^ o » o - » o V .#>. -6 c^' <• 40, 0_ *' >K»iJ' • _o % H ^ SPEEC H 07 ON, D, W. VOOEHEES, OF INDIANA, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF EEPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 9, 1864. ' The multitude in all countries are patient to a certain point." Junius. WASHINGTON, D. C. . rniNTED AT CONSTITUTIONAL UNION OFnCE. 18G4 'OS- ^. &A :% ^0,^ SPEECH. The House being in Committeo of the Whole on the atate of the Union — Mr. VOORHEESsaid: Mr. Chaikman: I arise to address the Houye to-day with feeliugs of prot'ound de- pression and gloom. It is a melaneboly spec- tacle to behold a free government die. The world it is true is filled with the evidences ot decay. All nature speaks the voice of dissolu- tion, ar-.d the highway of history and of life is strewn with the wrecks which time, the great despoiler, has made. But hope of the future, bright visions of reviving glory are no where denied to the heart of man save as he gazes upon the downfall of legal liberty. He listens sorrowfully to tho auturan winds as they sigh through dismantled forests, but he knows that their breath will be soft and vernal in the spring, and that the dead flowers and the withered foliage will blossom and bloom again. He sees the sky overcast with the angry frown of the tempest, but he knows that the gun will reappear, and the stars, the bright emblazony of God, cannot peri.eh. Man him- self, this strange connecting link between dust and deity, totters wearily onward under the weight of years and pain towards the gaping tomb, but how briefly his mind lingers around that disuMl spot. It is filled with tears and grief, and the willow and the cypress gather around it with their loving, but mournfal embrace. And is this aJl ? Not so. If a man die shall he not live again ? Beyond the grave, in the distant Aiden, hope provides an elysium of the soul where the mortal assumes immortality and life becomes an endless splendor. But where, sir, in all the dreary regions of the past, filled with convulsions, wars, and crimes, can you point your finger t© the tomb of a free commonwealth on which the angel of resurrection has ever descended or from whose mouth the stone of despoti-'m has ever been rolled away ? Where, in what age and in what clime, have the ruins of constitutional freedom renewed their youth and regained their lost estate f By whose etronj? grip has the dead corpse of a Republic once fallen ever been raised ? The merciful Master who walked upon the waters and bade the winds be still left no ordained apostles with power to wrench apart the jaws of national death and release the victims of despotism. The wail of the heartbroken over the dead is not so sad to ! me as the realization of this fact. Bat p.!! history, with a loud unbroken voice, proclaims it, and the evidence of what the past has lieen is conclusive to my mind of what the future will be. Wherever in tho wide domain of human conduct a people once possessed of liberty, with all power in their own hands, have snr- r ondered these great gifts of God at the com- mand of the usurper they have never utter- wards proves themselves worthy to regain their forfeited treasures. Sir, let history speak on this point. Bend your ear, and listen to the solemn warnings which distant ages perpetually utter in their uneasy slumbers. Four thousand year.s of human experience are open and present -for the study of the American people. Standing as wo do the last and greatest Republic in the midst of the earth, it ijecomes us most deeply in this c isis of our destiny to examine well the career and the final fate of kindred gov- ernments in the past. The principles of self-government are of ancient origin. They were not created by the authors of the American Constitution. They were adopted by those wise and gifted minds from the models of former times and applied to the wants of the American people. Far back in the gray, uncertain dawn of his- tory, in the land of mystery and of miracles, the hand of Almighty benevolence planted the seeds of constitutional government by which life, liberty, and property were made secure. Abraham and Lot each governed his household and his herdmen by law ; and al- though they became offended at each o'her, yet under the divine sanction they refrained from the pleasures of conquest, subjugation, confiscation. They divided the country be- fore them by a primitive treaty, and the grass continued to grow for their flocks unstained by fraternal blood and uncrushed by the hoof of war. Aud in long after years, when the descendents of the patriarchs brok^ thoir prison doors iu Egypt and lay encamped In the wilderness, the omniscient presence came down and gave them a frame- work of funda- mental law in which the popular will was largely recognized. A system of jurisprudence was devised for the people of Israel which pro- tected liberty and administered justice. Un- der its influence the feeble fugitives and home- less wanderers without bread and without water in the desert became an empire of wisdom, of wealth, and of power. The hberal 4 ir.stitutions of th'* Jewish theocracy proilucecl Statesraf>u, poets, historians, and warriors, who will continue to challf^nj2;e th« admiration of posterity by the splendor of their achieve- menrs as long as generations como an^-i ^o on the waves of time. Th^y lived within the immediate juri:^diction of Jehovah. They possessed the ark of the covenant and took counsel wich ministering angels din.^ctly from the portals of Paradise. With all these evi- dences of celestial favor ia their behalf, it is not to b9 wondered that they claimed aa ex- emption from the changes and mutations of human aflfairs, and boasted that the seal of perpetuity had been impressed by the Divine hand on the pillars of their government. But public virtue became debauched ; the popular heart corroded with the lust of cou- ijuest and of gain ; primitive purity faded away under the baleful breath of embittered factions ; the fires of patriotism were smother- ed by rankling hato and the thirst for revenge; and all these evil passions broke forth in the voice of a malignant majority clam«ring for a king. In that hour of disastrous eclipse, the spirit of liberty took her flight forever from the bills of Judea. Thousands of years have rolh d away since then. The Holy Land has been the theatre of conflicts which rocked the tporld as the throes of an earthquake. Genius and heroism h.ive there blazed as stars in the Eastern skies. There, too, was enacted the sublime tragedy of redemption — that tragedy which summoned the inhabitants of all worlds as its witnesses, and filled nature with egony in all her parts. The eyes of mankind have been turned back and fixed upon those scenes of immortal interest for more than thirty centuries. But wLo has lifted up and restored her fallen system of liberal institutions ? The people surrendered their rights, their francJiises, their self-control, and welcomed the power of one man. The base act has never been reversed. As the tree fell so it lies. It died at the root. Despotism reigns undisturbed and unbroken, iu darkness andin silencp, where once the light and music of / freedom gladdened the souls of the stately ,' sons and dark-eyed daughters of Israel. And leaving the land of sacred history, what BJmilar scenes of human weakness and human folly meet us at every step in tlie onward path- way of time. Where now are those splendid structures which once adorned the shores of the JE^ean, the Euxine, and the Mediterra- nean ? Athens, the eye of Greece, the school of the world — has her dismal fate impressed no lesson on the thoughts of mankind ? Fif teen hundred years betore the birth of onr Saviour, the light of civil order and civil free- dom arose in the Idand of Crete, and sent its rays through the vale of Tempe, the rich plains of Thessaly, over the fruitful fields of Attica and Boeotia, and hovered with an ever- lasting and imperishable radiance around the heads of Olympus, Helicon, and Parnassus. It is true that kin^-s governed in those early days, bat absolute power id one man was un- known. Laws rande by the people chained the licentious hand of oppression. The pi oudest monarohs of thos.-t warlike agf s gov- erned in obedience to the will oi the legisla- tive departments. Thev enacted i.o laws; they ex-'cuted them as they found them. A house of peers and an as.sembly of the people shared the sunreme authority and ensured safety and liberty to the citiz'^n. Ulyssus speaks of one chief "to whom Jupiter hath intrusted the sceptre and the laws, that by them he may govern." But he recognizes that these instruments of governm'-ut aro bestowed by the pooular favor, for, wh'^n ship- wrecked upon a strange coast and fiddrassing himself as a supplicant to its queen, he says: " May the gods grant yoa and your gu-st3 to live happily; and may yon all transmit to your children your possessions in your houses and whatsoever honors the people hath given you." But even this limited and constitu- tional system of monarchy was no* long borne by that proud race which drank in the lovo of liberty from the free air of the mountains over their heads, and the breath of the rest- less and stormy ocean at their feet. '■ Those vigorous principles of Democracy which had always existed in the Grecian goT^rrnments began to ferment ; and, in the cour.se of a few figes monarchy was everywhere aviolished ; the very name of king was very generally proscribed ; a commonwealth was thought the only government to which it became men to submit ; and the term tyrant was intro- duced to denote those who, in opposition to these new political principles, acquired mon- archical sway." Then sprang into existence that wonderful cluster of republics whose memory yet fills the earth with its fragrance 1 of noble deeds and exalted genius. Liberty ' hovered over that classic peninsula of South- ern Europe like the angel of creation hovering over night and chaos, and from the fostering warmth of hnr embrace came forth an im- mortal world of letter^, of art, of science, and of law. The Macedonian, the Spartan, the Athenian, and all lifted their heads among the stars, and barely condescended to pity and despise neighboring nations who were less free than themse ~ Marathon and S Platea, as the American points to .Saratog and Bunker liill, Yorktown and New Orleans. They kept their festive days of national deliv- erance and joy as the fourth day of July and the eighth day of J.\nuary have been com- memorated and hallowed by us. They sound- ed all the depths and shoals of honor ; drank deep draughts from the very fountains of free- dom ; achieved immortality in every depart- ment of human thought and ao'-ion. Ai.d yet, with their cup lull of glory for mora than a thousand years, spara.ling to the brim with rights and privileges more snvet to theT taste than the honey of Ilymettus, they ashed it ^ to the earth, and its thatterKd ir^trra n'-s ro- / main as they fell. The lust of power on the part of {.ublic rulers, and the luxury, sloth, iiboring nations who were , . emselves* They pointed to; \ 5alr.mip, Thermopyle, and \ merican points to Saratoga ' and indifference of the people, nnrsed so loBg in the lap of prosperity that they allowed the usurper to march on in his lawless career ixn- challenged and unquestioned, worked the over- throw of the Republics of Greece. And what traveller, standing upon those blighted and withered plains, has beheld a sign of resur- rection for more thsn two thousand years ? Now and then, it is true, a murmur or a groan has disturbed the deadly sleep in which that I land is embraced, but it only shows that she Hdreams of the past, not that she will awak" \) the future. Her birthright was abandoned "by her own sordid hand, and it cannot be re- claimed. A petty power of Northern Europe now gives a king to the countrymen of Homer, Themistocles, and Solon. But, sir, another name more promment than all others, presents itself to the student of antiquity in this csnnection. Roman his- tory stands out upon the canvas of time as plainly marked as the events of modern ages. We see Tarquin, the Proud, expelled from his throne, and the foundations of the common- wealth laid five hundred years before the Christian era. For the next five centuries we behold a race of men who "would have brooked the eternal devil i@ keep his state in Kome, as easily as a king." How fondlv the devotee of liberty dwells upon that period ! With what grandeur the names of the mighty dead, and the sublime creations of their genius, arise to our vievr I In what does the boasted civilization of the present surpass the achievements of a race and an age to whom the revelations of God were unknown ? Who has spoken as Cicero spoke? What historian has guided a pen so full of majesty and of beauty as that which inscribed the annals of Tacitus ? Whoso muse has winged a loftier flight or sung a nobler strain than Virgil's? In arms too, what warriors have improved upon the skill and magnificence of Scipio and Cssar ? But it was still more in the dignity aud freedom of her private citizens that Rome was great than in the renown of her most illustrious leaders, statesmen, and orators. Kings of powerful nations bowed their uncovered heads before the Roman people. The magis- trates, consuls, and military commanders paid homage and obedience directly to the public will. The sovereignty of the people was ab- solute. The principles of self- government were never iu the history of nations more fully or clearly displayel. Jurisprudence became an enlightened science, from whose pages a light extends to the present hour, and under whose guardian protection tue humblest citizen of Rome was secure in every right declared unalienable by the declaration of American independence. But why linger upon the well-known story of Roman liberty and Roman greatness. I use it but to illus- trate. The melancholy conclusion came. As the son of the morning fell from Heaven, so ' Rome fell from the luminous sphere of liberty never to hope again. The world grew dark as her light ifaded away, and ten centuries of gloom succeeded hpr downfall. And why---^ perished this mistress of the earth ? Not because the vandal ravaged her borders : not because the Gaul burned to avenge the vic- tims of Caesar: not because the Goth beat her gates to pieces ; but because her people submitted to the encroachments of executive avtthority, lulled by the Syren voice of a false security, until at last they awakened / to find their chains and manacles forged and / fastened. Their links yet fester in the flesh' of the descendants of Brutus, and their clank- ings may yet be heard iu the forum where- Cato warned his countrytnen against the ap- proach of despotic power. No deliverer has eveir arisen. Liberty has never been woood to return. Once abandoned and surrendered by those whom she has crowned with honor 1 and greatness, in the m'dst of the earth she goes forth with the air and feelings of insulted 1 majesty to seek more worthy objects of her/ love and care. Sir, modern history contains no exception to the rule which the fate of ancient republics has established. Aspirations for freeiiom have at difterent periods ascended from almost every portion of the map of modern Europe. A sys- tem of confederated states built up and nur- tured the free institutions of Holland for more than three hundred years, while the night of despotism lay thick and heavy on all the sur- rounding horizon. As revolted colonies, as states in rebellion, thj Dutch republic main- tained a defensive war for thirty years a^'ainst the whole power of Spain when Philip II controlled the councils and commanded the wealth of the civilized world. Their proudest cities were besieged and fell a prey to pillage and murder. In pitched battles they seldom triumphed over the superior numbers and equipments of the powerful Spaniard. Their country was trodden under foot ; their houses plundered ; their fields laid waste ; and the wild boar and the wolf roamed unmolested through the streets of once populous towns. , But the endurance and patriotism of a people to whom no terms were offered except abject, unconditional submission, outlived and broke the rage of their oppressors. A free common- wealth, the United States of Holland, arose and extended the spirit of enterprise, com- merce, and refinement into all the four quar- ' ters of the earth. She conquered the sea and j subdued distance. The peaceful victories of her trade were celebrated at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the harbor of Ndw York, in the ladies of the East, and in every latitude of thd Western Hemisphere. Nor was she less renowned in war. The broom at the mast- head swept the ocean of her enemies, and the onlji guns of a foreign power whose hostile roar ever penetrated the Tower of London, were the guns of the free States of Holland. Louis XIV, the grand monarch of imperial France, when Turreae and Luxemburg and Conde led his armies, poured the torrents of his power against her for conquest and sub- « r jogation ; but they were poured in vain. She ' fought with tha inspiration of freedom, and made her history secure and illustrious as long as a generous heart shall be found to throb in sympathy with the welfare and hap- piness of a heroic people. Bat where now is that noble prodigy of liberal institutions ? Why does she lift her beautiful head to the Heavens no longer? Her glories declined under the burthen nf unbounded wealth and overflowing prosperity. Her people relaxed the vigilance of their guard over the citadel of their liberties, and slumbered at their posts while unlawful power fortified itself beyond successful attack, ^hus she perished ignobly by her own hand, having throughout her whole career defied and held at bay a world in arms. And how still and heavy ha^ been her long repose ! No awakening convulsions shake her rigid limbs, or disturb her frozen arteries. Once fallen, and forever lost is the mournful epic of her fate. She takes her plftce in the dreary catalogue furnished by antiquity. But cross the ckanntl and take your stand on twe soil of England. She too has furnished mankind with a short-lived experiment ef lepublican government. Wrongs and out- rages inflicted on the English people, similar in kind, but far less enormous than tho^e which now oppress the citizen of the United States of America, wrought the volcanic eruption of 1640. The best blood of England perished in the conflict between Magna Charta on one sida and absolutism on the other. John Hampden bled on the plains of Chal- grave, but the royal Stu.irt bled on the scaf- fold. When the strife died away, the British constitution was found to be possessed and ! upheld by those who partook of the sacrament | of the Lord's supper with bloody hands, andwho enforced the sermon on the mount with tire \ and sword. They were the ancestors of those j who to-day in this land are crucifying liberty j afresh, and putting her to open shame. God does not allow Himself to be mocked, and ! Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England went out together, while a wrathful tempest raged around the dying bed of the gr^at, but bloody and tyrannical I'rotector. The incom- ing wave, the reaction in the tide of human j afl'airs, bore back the dissolute and worthless ! Charles H to the home of his ancestors, and j Englishmen have never from that time to this lifted their hands or their voices in behalf of a republic. France points to the revolting blotch, the stain of mingled blood and tears, which her wild and mad attempts at freedom havo left upon the page of history. We gaze at it but for an instant, and turn away with horror. At the very moment almost that the President of the French Directory declared "that monarchy would never more show its frightful head in France, Bonaparte with his grenadiers entered the palace of St. Cloud, and dispersing with the bayonet the deputies of the people deliberating on the affairs of State, laid the foundation of that vast fabric of despotism which overshadowed all Europe." Sir, I pause in this train of sorrowful illustrations. I tremble at their contempJatiou when my min-t is bi ought to embr.oe the conclusions which flaw from them. But shall we shrink back affrighted and appalled because the great lessona of uniform history come to us with a voice of solemn and pro- phetic warning ? Shall the universal expe- rience of the human race bring us no v/is- dom ? Shall we wrap ourselves in a sweet delusion and lie down to pheasant dreams when we know by every chart of navigation that the fatal maelstrom is just at hand? Will the proud and daring people of America close their eyes and ears against the teaching of ages, and wait for fetters and gyves to convince them that their liberties ere in dan- ger ? Are they to be chained like Prometheus to the reck, while the vulture of desjrjotism preys forever upon their bleeding vitals ? Sir, in my hours of seclusion and study I have to the best of my humble capacity held up the lainp of the past to the face o( the future, and I call God to witness that I wpnld be recrt-ant and faithless to my own con- science if I did not proclaim, as far as my voice will reach, that a danger is this hour upon the American people more deadly than the juic(« of the hemlock or the bite of the asp. This Government is dying ; dying, sir, dying. We are standing around its bed of death, and will soon be wretched mourners at its tomb, unless the sovereign and heroic remedy -13 speedily applied. I will submit tha facts in condensed array on which I make this asser- tion, that a candid public may judge between mep-ndthat pestilent class who, failing to an- swer, resort to slander. The American republic was established in order to accomplish avowel and specified purposes. The objects of its creation were lettin no uncertainty. Its mission was clear and distinct by the terms of the Constitution. It came into eivisteace "z'n crder to forma more perfect union, establish justice, insure do- mestic tranquilitij, provide for the common de- fense, promote the general welfare, and secure the hlessings of liberty" to that and all succeeding peaerations of American citizens. Who will dare to rise in his place and say that this Government has been administered during the last three years in a mode even tending towards the accomplishment of the^e grand results? Has the establishment of justice been maintained ? The sword has been thrown into the scale.5 of justice, and there is not this hour a court betweea the two oceans left frea to decide the laws as they have uniformly teen decided in England and America for the last two hundred years. The very foundations of civilized jurisprudence have been torn away, and the v/hole tdifice is in ruins. The Magna C/iaria is erased ; the Habeas Corpus is deid ; the very soul and spirit of lib.-irty is extinguishei in the forum of the judiciary. To this sacred sanctuary, more than to any other department of the Government, the ble-singa of liberty were entrusted. But has the present Administra- tion made them secure? It is required to do so by the terms of the Constitution. Let each mind give its own answer. Not one right which consiitutes the free:1om and safety of the citizen but what has been wickedly and wantonly violated. Prisons filled without in- dictment and without warrant ; long and bit- ter punishment inflicted without trial or con- viction ; the whole jury system abolished by a strok.e of the pen in the hand of the Execu- tive, or his subordinates in crime ; no wit- nesses brought to the face of the accused ; no counsel pe'-mitted to appear in his behalf ; his house broken open and his papers searched in the midst of his pallid and terrified wife and children ; such are some of the evidences which exist on every hand that our free in- stitutions are hastening to their overthrow. Asd not content with breaking down all the ancient safeguards of liberty, new and malig- naat measures of legislation have been con- tinually devised by a slavish Congress by which to more effectually reach, and torture, and grind the citizen. The most innocent conduct, a harmless word, a simple look has been enacted into guilt. The hired hounds of arbitrary power find conspiracy and crime in the friendly greetings of neighbors on their farms. Speaking of the period of 1795 in England, that great modern philosopher, Henry Thomas Buckle, in his History of Civilization, uses the following language, which I adopt as faithfully descriptive of the conduct of the party now in power, and of the times in which we live. " Nothing, however, could stop the Government in its headlong career. The ministers, secure of a majority in both houses of Parliament, were able to carry their measures in defiance of the people, who opposed them by every mode short of actual vio- lence. And as the object of these new laws was to check the spirit of inquiry and prevent reforms which the progress of society rendered indispensa- ble, there were also brought into play other means subservient to the same end. It is no exaggeration • to say that for some years England was ruled by a system of absolute terror. The ministers of the day, turning a struggle of party into a war of pro- eeription, filled the"pri?ons with their political op- ponents, and allowed them when in confinement to be treated with shameful severity. If a man was known to be a reformer ho was constantly in danger of being arrested; and if he escaped that, he was watched at every turn, and his private letters were opened as thoy passed through the postoffice. la such cases no scruples wore allowed. Even the con- fidence of domestio life was violated. Xo opponent of Government was safa under his own roof against the tales of eaves-droppers and the gossip of ser- vants. Discord was introduced into the bosom of families, and schisms caused between parents and their children. Not only were the most strenuous attempts made to silence the press, but the book- sellers were so constantly prosecuted that they did not dare to publish a work if its author were obnox- ious to the court. Indeed, whoever opposed the Government was proclaimed an enemy to his coun- try. Political associations and public meetings were strictly forbidden. Every popular leader was in personal danger, and every popular assemblage was dispersed, either by threats or by military exe- cution. That hateful machinery familiar to the worst days of the seventeenth century, was put into motion.' Spies were paid ; witnesses were suborned; juries were packed. The coS'ee-hou'-es, the inns, and the clubs were filled with emissaries of the Gov- ernment, who reported the most hasty expresfions of common conversation. If by these means no sort of evidence could be collected, there was another resource which was unsparingly used. For, the haheuK corpus act being constantly suspended, the crown had the power of imprisoniag without inquiry and without limitation any person offensive to the ministry, but of whose crimo no proof was attempted to bo brought." Sir, why are you, why am I out of the vaults of a dungeon, and standing on this floor to- day ? Not because we are guilty of no offence ; not because the broad shield of the law inter- poses its protection, but simply because the Executive has not yet seen fit and proper in the exercise of his absolute and unrestrained will to lay us in irons. This is the ultimate climax of despotic power. Each one of the twenty millions of people within the control of the United States holds his ©r her tenure to personal liberty— the right to walk the green earth, to breathe the air, and look at the sun — not by virtue of a free Constifution, but dependent upon the clomency and pleas- ure of one man. May I not he arrested to- night ? May not you or any one else to-mor- row ? Has it not been done in more than a thousand instances, and have not the courts, and the laws been powerless to save ? While I am now speaking, may not some minion who licks the hand ©f power, and whom it would honor to call a slave, be preparing notes from which to testify against me before a military commission ? Have we in the West forgotten Burnside, and the infamy of his reign in our midst ? Will the inhabitants of the Western Circuit in England ever forget the monster Jeffries and the murder of Alice Lisle? Will some poor, crawling, despised sycophant and tool of executive despotism dare to say that I shall not pronounce the name of Vallandigham ? The scandal and stigma of his condemnation and banishment have filled the civilized world ; and the Lethean and oblivious waves of a thousand years will not wash away the shame and reproach of that miser- able scene from the American name. Some members on the other side of this chamber have attacked with fierce clamor the great American statesman and the Christian gen- tleman who suffers bis exile in the cause of liberty on a foreign soil. So the basest cur that ever kenneled may bay, at the bid- ding of his master, the caged lion in the distance. Protract this iniquity, this crimo, as long as you will, however, the judg- ment of history will at last overwhelm you with an insufferable odium, as certainly as the streams of truth emanate from beneath the great white throne of God. "Establish justice 1" " Secure the blessings of liberty I" Oh I bitter mockery. Justice has bedn de throned and the blyssings of liberty anui- hilated. There is not one square mile of free soil in the American Republic. It is slave territory from the Aroostook to the Columbia. Every man in all that vast ex- panse may be reduced in an instant to hops- less bondage, every home may ba brckf^n open and pillaged, every dollars' worth of propnrty may be swept into that yawning and bottom- less gulf— the National Treasury ; and all under the sanction of the principles and practices daily exemplified by the Adminis- j tration which now hurls us on to ruin. But the "domestic tranquility," has it been I insured f When the present party came into power the road to an honorable peacg on the basis of the Union was still open. Before the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln his friends r.nd supporters held the issues of life and death, peace and war in their hands in this capitol. The records of the last session of the 36th Congress are immortal. They cannot perish ; and as the woes and calamities of th« people thicken and magnify by the frightful war in which we are engaged, they increase in value to posterity more rapidly than the leaves of the sybilline book. The baleful brood of political destructionists who now unhappily possess the high seats of national authority did not then want public tranquility. They invoked the storm which has since rained blood upon the land. They courted the whirlwind which has prostrated the pro- gress of a century in ruins. They danced with a hellish glee around the bubbling cauldron of civil war and welcomed with fero- cious joy every hurtful mischief which flick- ered in its lurid and infernal flames. Compro- mise, which has its origin in the love and mercy of Gcd ; which made peace and ratified the treaty on Calvary between Heaven and the revolted and rebellious earth ; which is the fundamental basis of all human associa- tion, and by which all governments the world ever knew have been created and upheld; compromise, which fools pronounce a trea- sonable word, and skilful knaves cover with reproach, because they are enriching them- selves at the expense of the national sorrow and blood, was discarded by the North and accepted by the South when offered by Mr. Crittenden. By it domestic tranquility could have been ensured. But an ulterior and de- structive spirit ruled the hoar and fl )oded the nation with misery. And sines the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep who of this party have labored to tranquilize our disordered affairs ? Who has endeavored, in the name of Christ and by the omnipotent power of the principles which He left His Father's throne to proclaim and for which He drank the wormwood and the gall on the cross, to expel the cruel and ferocious demon of civil war that has howled so fi-jrcely for the last three years among the tombs of our young and heroic dead ? Not one, sir ; not one. Wise and Christian measures, looking [ to reconciliation and peace and union have been repeatedly spurned by the Executive and this l.'gislative department which he holds in du.esg. At no distant day, when the horror of this war can no longer be borne, the various propositions which have been made and rejected in behalf of enlight- ened negotiation and a constitutional restora- tion will be gathered up and hurled at those in power as an accusation more appallinc, an indictment more damning, than was ever I leveled against a murderer upon his trial Nor can they, in that hour of their fear and I calamity at which the righteous world will augh and mock, hide their guilty heads under the assertion that the South will not treat for peace; yes, peace which shall restore the Union nuder the Constitution as it was writ- ten by the fathers, and as it has been inter- preted by the supreme judicial tribunals. Why came that wasted figure, that gifted child of genius, the pure and elevated Ste- phens, of Georgia, from Richmond on his way to this Capitol in the midsummer of 1863 ? Was it a trifling cause that moved him ? Ail the world knows that his judgment and his heart clung fondly and to the last to the old Govern ment, in whose councils he had won so much honor. It is equally well known that he has never embraced the suicidal doc- trine of State secession. The right of revolu- tion IS the ground upon which he stands. The malignant portion of the Southern press too such rnischievous and damaging prints as the Examiner and Inquirer at Richmond, and the Register at Mobile, who continually cripple the interests and friends of humanity in this bale- ful contest, assailed Mr. Stephens for his at- tempt at negotiation, which they averred would lead to reunion. Yet, with these thin-^s well known, and perhaps much more, which now slumbers in the secret drawers of the Executive, this great messenger of peace, this most acceptable mediator between an estranged and misled people was denied a hearing- turned back in silence ; and the festival of death commanded to proceed. The book of time in all its ample folds contains no more inhuman or revolting spectacle. Those who love war for the mere sake of war, when the same objects can ba better attained by the gentle and holy influences of peace, are mon- sters of such frightful depravity that the blackest of those murdering ministers, "who in their sightb^ss substance wait on nature's mischief, " appear as angels of light and benev- olence in the comparison. Sir, I will not here pause to dwell in detail on the usages of civilized nations in conduct- ing civilizid warfare. But I challenge his- tory, that "reverend chronicler of the grave," whether in its sacred or profane records, to produce a parallel to the spirit and temper with which the party now in power has qan- ducted the awful struggle in which we are engaged. Commence at the early daybreak of the world, traverse all time, and explore all space, gropo your way among the vast heca- tombs of all former wars, examine the gory stains of every battle plain, ransack the ar- chives of kings, cabinets, and councils, and no instance, not one, can be found where a peo- ple claiming Christian civilization has waged a war of any kind against any foe in dumb, ferocious silence, without a word, a sign, or a look in behalf of a peaceful solution as long as we have now been engaged in this cruel conflict. "Blessed are the peace-makers," was not spoken for the present administrators of American affairs. They spurn the examples and teachings of all Christian ages and enlight- ened people. They drink not from the benev- olent fountains whose waters were unsealed to gladden and refresh the earth by the divine Nazarene on the Mount of Olives. They lave their lips, rather, in a stream whose waves, more putrid than the river of Egypt when smitten by the rod of Moses, taint the air with pestilence and calamity. Nor are they wholly without models in the past. The boundaries of civilization it is true, as I have stated, are barren of any precedents for their conduct, but the dark regions of barbarism furnish here and there a ghastly and horrible example of fury, hate, and revenge, which is now followed by the Executive and his parti- san supporters. Demons have occasionally, in the mysterious providence of God, visited the earth in the guise of men, to prey upon the human species from the mere love of slaughter and misery. Alaric, the Gothic monster, never treated with his enemies, never negotiated for a peace. The dying groan of the soldier on the field, the bitter wail of the widow and the choking sob of the orphan at home were equally music in his ear. Attila, the fierce Hun, known to history as " the scourge of God," neither sent or re- ceived commissioners to discuss and allay the ■causes of war. He painted upon his banners the sword, and the sword alone, and pro- claimed that by that sign, and by it alone, he would conquer. Genghis Khan and Tamer- lane, preserved by the pen of the historian for universal execration, found no pursuit so pleasant as calling for more men, more men, more men for the harvest of death, and, like our present Executive, snufling with jests and ribaldry the warm taint of blood on every gale. The patriots who sur- rounded these barbarian chiefs spurned with eager indignation aU proffers of mediation, all efforts at compromise, ail talk of negotiation, just as do now the patriots who are seated on the v/est side of this chamber, and who pay court for eontracts at the west end of the avenae. Nor did Hyder Ali, that more mod- ern incarnation of unconditienal exterminat- ing war, regard with favor the suggestions of peace, when pausing for a moment like a cloud of wrath on the brow of the mountain he swept slown over the plains of the Carnatic, and smote them with blasts of fire, with indis- criminate woe. Sir, these are your examples. These are they who never said conciliate, but always said crush ; who never said harmon- ize, but who always said destroy ; who de- nounced fraternal aifection and embraced the doctrine of subjugation ; who never sought to restore peaceful relations with their neigh- bors, but who always sought to ruin them by confiscation and plunder, whose voice was for- ever like the voice of Moloch in hell, and the voice of those who now rule this nation, for war, for mere war, and war alone, as a cure for every evil, a remedy for every grievance fancied or real. With what loathing and ab- horrence does & Christian world now regard these destroyers of their kind ! All countries and every people utter a cry of horror at the mention of their names. No pillar, no monu- ment, no fountain, no grove perpetuates their place in the respect of a single human being that ever lived or died. And yet who will compare the ages in which they enacted their various tragedies to the one in which we live, and call them to such an account as awaits those who in this period of gospel light have fashioned the Administration of the American Republic on the principles and practices of unenlightened barbarians ? But 1 will cease to reason on this point by comparison. I will grasp the naked question which the supporters of this Administration have so persistently clamored into the public ear for the last three wretched years. Is it right in itself to treat with those who are in rebellion, with a view to a restoration of their allegiance, and thus to ensure the domestio tranquility ? If we draw an answer from tha conduct of this Government in former in- stances of treasonable resistance to law that answer is all in favor of negotiation and , compromise. Washington set the example in the case of Pennsylvania, and Jackson fol- lowed it in the more celebrated case of South Carolina in 1832. Incur wars with foreign powers the same course has uniformly been pursued. And wo ourselves were the objects of similar treatment even from the tyrannical ministry of George III in the days of the revolution. Commissioners from the Court of England came to our shores more than once a year during that struggle to treat for a return of the rebellions colonies to the union of the British Empire. But I shall not content myself with the enlightened pre- cedents furnished by the history of our own and other countries. Is there no higher standard of moral right to which to appeal ? Is the voice of Him who spake as never man spake hushed and stifled by the hoarse cry of passion and rage ? Have those pages which blaze with inspiration and which contain all the principles of national as well as individual morality and justice lost their light and power in this unhappy land ? Can a government long survive or hope to escape retributive punishment which blots out the doctrines of Christ in the regulation of its affairs ? Shall a sneer, the sneer of the Jacobin and the Atheist deter me from seeking the path of public as well as private duty in the declared record of the Great Father of us all f Have Robespierre and Marat come from their dis- honored graves to dethrone God and to give us the hideous infidelity of the French Revolu- tion ? Sir, I ask you to go with me to the un- sullied fountain of eternal truth : " Jloreovcr if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between theo and him alone ; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. "But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. " And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." In these brief but comprehensive sentences are embraced the great principles of social harmony, individual charity, and national fra- ternity. They were written by divinity to convey a lesson of humane philosophy into every department of life and to every succeed- ing age. They furnish the text for every treaty of peace which nations ever framed to prevent the effusion of blood. They inculcate the duty of not ono only, but repeated at- tempts at reconciliation ; and those attempts, too, upon the part of those who have suffered the injury. Under the malignant auspices, however, of the present hour in this afflicted country, what a contrast is presented to these saered passages ! Not only do we refuse to go to our brother who has committed the trespass, but we reject him when he oflfers to come to us. Sir, I take my stand on these immortal maxims and appeal to the native justice of the human heart. I appeal to those instincts of charity and benevolence by which it is al- lied to the attributes of deity. The plain people of America, those who, with honest hands earn their daily bread, whose wearing apparel is not purple and fine linen. Hashing with diamonds and pearls purchased by the blood and tears of millions — to them, in their humble homes, darkened perhaps by the death of the first-born, I make this solemn invoca- tion. Before that pure and unselfish tribunal I lodge my cause in behalf of domestic tran- quility, and tiender the Bible as authority for the princfples which I declare. By the voice of my own heart, unseduced by gain and un- awed by terror, I know what will be the ver- dict of an incorruptible and free people. But there is another class who preside over the ministrations of this inspired book, and who mingle with their offerings to God the poison of political prejudices, before whom the cause of humanity, union, and peace need not be presented. That large portion of the clergy of the land who, claiming to be the chosen agents of the merciful Uedeemer, fill the cup of his sacrament with rancor and vengeance, hear none of the sweet, angelic tones which plead from every page of his gospels in favor that individual and national charity which suffereth long and is kind. They teach their flocks no longer to hunger and thirst after righteousness, but to hunger and thirst for the blood of their enemies. They ascend the sacred desk no more to pray that gentle peace like the dews of Heaven may descend upon our wounded and distracted country, but to declaim in warlike strains in the face of the Almighty upon the delight which they feel in the infliction of human agony. They hav« reversed the order of the millenium which the Christian world has look'^d ferward to since the days of the prophets. The ene which they hail in fond anticipation is that in which every plough-share shall become a swerd, and every pruning-hook a spear ; in which conscription, slaughter, and taxation shall go hand in hand; "when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding is low : * * because man goeth to his Jong home, and the mourners go about the streets." To these men much of the sorrow which now overshadows our homes is properly at- tributable. They have ever been, and are to-day, the foremost enemies of domestic tran- quility. Agitation on matters pertaining to civil government has been their element. Sedition against laws which conflict with their ignorant and selfish bigotry has been their favorite calling in all countries and in every age. They have a higher law than the sermon on the mount ; and the word of God is made to fit the Procustean bed of their blind and furious prejudices, which they mistake for conscience. Sir, I here proclaim as a fact to which all history attests, that wherever in the tide of time the ministry of the Most High have assumed as a part of their duties the control of affairs of State and the policy of nations, they have appeared as the advocates of despotism, the friends of high prerogative, the defenders of oppression, the allies of tyranny — obstacles in the pathway of pro- gress, enemies to popular rights, and extor- tioners of the poor and laboring masses. I might dwell long on the evidence which the old and the new world furnish on this point. That great author and majestic thinker, Buc- kle, whom I have already quoted, in speaking of ths conduct of the political clergy in the reign of James II, says : " They looked on in silence while the King was amassing the materials with which he hoped to turn a free government into an absolute monarchy. They saw Jeffreys and Kirke torturing their fellow- subjects. They saw the jails crowded with pris- oners, and the scaffolds streaming with blood. They were well pleased that some of the best and ablest men in the kingdom should be barbarously perse- cuted ; that Baxter should bo thrown into prison, and that Howe should bo forced into exile." 1 pause but for a moment to point to the history of puritan Massachusetts as a con- firmation of my statement on this side of the ocean. What oppression did a political, priesthood fail to approve ? What 'cruelty did they not instigate and sanction in the early days of that famous colony ? They scourged, seared, cropped, burned, and gib- Deted the bodies of those who were unable to conform their views in all matters, civil and religious, to the reigning fanaticisms ; and then consigned their soula to the regions of the lost. Carpenter, in his standard his- tory of Massachusetts, a work warmly par- tial to that State, says : "In July, 1656, several Quakers arrived in Mas- fachusetts from Barbadoee, two of whom were women. Fully aware of the contemptuous disre- gard for existing ordinances indulged in by the more zealous of tho sect in England, the magistrates in Boston brought the law against heresy to bear upon the intruders and ordered their immediate ar- Cdit. After their persons had been examined for those marks which were supposed at that period to mdicato such as dealt in witchcraft, no satanic signs being discovered, their trunks were rifled, and tho books found therein ordered to bo publicly burned. A brief imprisonment was imposed upon them, but they were finally released and banished tho colony. Several others who arrived subse- quently were sent back to England by the vessels in which they came. About the same time a law was passed to prevent their introduction into the colony, and imposing tho penalty of stripes and coercive labor upon all Quakers that should in- fringe it. * * Some of the women were whipped, and several men condemned to lose an ear. * * AVhen seized they oCFered no re- sistance. Sentenced to be flogged, they yielded with entire satisfaction their backs to the execu- tioner." Finding that these atrocious measures were QOt sufficient to crush, out the liberty of thought, a law was passed, says the same historian, in 1658, banishing the Quakers from the United Colonies of New England, and forbidding their return under pain of do&th : " This sanguinary and unjustifiable enactment was carried by one vote only. Various staunch friends oftheGovernmentstrong'y protested against it, not only as cruel, but as liable to invite the per- secution it sought to avoid. Tho result soon proved how well grounded was tho fear. Marmaduko Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer courted the danger to which they were exposed and quietly awaited the operation of the law. In Sep- tember, 1058, they were seized, and, after trial, condemned to be hanged. The sentence was car- ried into effect upon Robinson and Stephenson, but Mary Dyer was reprieved upon the scafi'old, and again thrust from the colony. Resolute in seeking a martyr's death, she returned soon after and was publicly executed on Boston Common." " Oh ! the rarity of Christian charity." Will not some New England clergyman of modern orthodoxy shed at least one tear over the scarlet sins of his own ancestors who assisted in the murder of this poor woman on Boston Common, while he is weeping as if his head was a fountain of waters over the landing of the Dutch ship with slaves at Jamestown ? But again, says the same friendly historian : " It was at the beginning of this year that many persons of piety and good understanding were j again led to believe in the great prevalence of witchcraft in the province. Prominent among the most credulous of these was Cotton Mather, son to the Reverend Increase Mather, for some time past tho agent of Massachusetts in England, and him- self a clergyman. * * « The aliirm of witch- craft was again sounded. Tho ministers fasted and ])rayed with the distressed father. Tho villag- ers of Salem also fasted and prayed ; and tho fear of demonaical influences becoming general, a day of fasting and prayer was specially set apart to bo kept by the whole colony. The belief in witch- craft being thus solemnly recognized and fostered, it was not long before tho delusion spread across the whole breadth of tho province. Tho number of victims so rapidly increased that many of tho colonists, perfectly panic-stricken, became the ac- cusers of others, lest they should be brought under suspicion themselves. Tho execution at Salem village of Mr. Burroughs, a minister of blameless life, was a terrible instance of the power which the delusion exercised over the strongest minds in the community. For fifteen months this strange be- lief held full possession of the popidar faith. Dur- ing this period, out of twenty-eight persons capi- tally convicted of witchcraft, ninteeen had been hanged and one pressed to death." Sir, let not these remarks and records of faithful history be construed into an attack upon the ministers of our divine religion. I have endeavored rather to portray the evil results which flow from a desecration of that high calling. To my mind there is no voca- tion on this side of the mysterious river which divides time from eternity so lofty, no career of life so serenely beautiful and bordering so closely upon Heaven as the benevolent pursuits of him who tenders the cup of salvation to the lips of a fallen world. A halo hovers around his head which tells that he walks in the footsteps of his blessed Master. In the presence of such a man I would stand uncovered and do him reverent homage. And there are many such whose pure and noiseless lives pass almost unheeded by the busy, striving world, but around whom the comforting angels of the Lord en- camp by night and by day. In their keeping are all the future hopes of the chprch — the Christian welfare of mankind. The youth of the land should sit at their feet and learn wisdom, and both young and old should rise up and call them blessed. But ii this bright category of human excellence— this high galaxy of stars shining with an unearthly splendor — there is no place for such as take charge of churches by order of the War De- partment, and preach the gospel as commanded by the President of the United States. The vineyards where they labor will never bear tho fruits of peace — never smile with domes- tic tranquility. Before them I do not plead my cause. From them I expect io hear no voice save the continued and protracted cry of havoc. But, sir, I will be told by the advocates of force and violence as a remedy, and the sole remedy, for our troubles, that although the South might send commissioners to treat for peace, yet they would accede to no terms « gav*^ recognition and separation. In snpport of this view, certain propositions recently of- fered in the Congress at Richmond are cited. To my mind they indicate a far different con- clusion. It is true they do not signify to me that the power of the Southern people is ex- hausted ; that the rebellioa is crushed ; that a panic of fear prevails in the Southern mind; that a government, whether de facto or de jure, which can maintain an army of half a million of well armed men in the field is con- quered. I do not see the evidence of all this as some have professed to do every sixty days since the war began ; but I do see in these propositions an earnest desire upon the part of the South to conform to the usages of the civilized world, and to bring this un- happy and disastrous conflict to a close by the power of reason. It is true that certain ob- jects are declared for which they desire to negotiate ; but does that fact include final results which may grow out of negotiation when once commenced ? What nation at war with another ever opened communication for a treaty of peace by proclaiming in advance the precise terms on which it was to be con- cluded ? Such a course peremptorily excludes the very idea of negotiation. Commissioners would have no discretion, and reason and ar- gument would have no room to act. Such is not, in my judgment, the meaning of this movement in the Confederate Congress. Sir, what is this contest ? What interests does it involve ? They are very distinct and simple when divorced from fanaticism. On the part of those who have kept their alle- giance, it is a struggle to maintain the bound- aries of the Republic, and thus defeat the ruinous doctrine that a State has a right to secede. On the part of those in rebellion, it is an efifort, in their estimation, to preserve the integrity of their local laws, their social institutions, the right to control their do- mestic affairs free from Federal interference. With some, this attempt is made under a claim of the right of secession ; others pro- claim a revolution, which is the right of all people if grievances sufficient exist as a jus- tification. But the people of the South are united in the objects at which they aim, and if they could be attained in the Union, and without war, would they not gladly embrace and accept them rather than continue in a state of endless hostility, which is destroying the very interests they seek to protect ? Why, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Garfield) de- clared a few days ago on this floor, that if the privates of the opposing armies in the field were permitted to come together in peace, they would speedily remove all our troubles ; and yet he spoke and voted in favor of taking from even the wives and children of the Sauthern masses, who he asserts, are thus willing to return to the Union, the last foot of soil, and the last crust of bread by which life is sustained. With such evidence then as this can we justify our- selves before God or man if we fail to respond to the action of the South in favor of negotia- tion, which promises in advance such happy results? Let all grievances, whether fancied or real, be coasidered by candid statesman- ship. Let there be safe and unrepealable guarantees adopted against those that are are found to be real ; and those that are fan- cied will be easily explained away. Five en- lightened commissioners from each section, imbued with the spirit of Christian benevo- lence animated by an unselfish love of coun- try and of their fellow-men, meeting by the consent and encouragement of their respec- tive authorities, could, and in my solemn and deliberate judgment would, in ninety days agree upon terms which would be acceptable to a large majority of the American people, and by which the Union of these States would be more firmly established than ever before — the lives of millions spared, the hard earn- ings of the laborer left for him to enjoy, peace and domestic tranquility restored. I would improve the armistice which winter de- clares to achieve many bloodless and per- manent victories in favor of the Union and the Constitution. I would not stop there. I would extend the armistice as long as there was hope of inducing the return of a single State. But suppose negotiation should fail. Then, indeed, would this Administration be armed with an argument in favor of war which it has never yet possessed. This fact is well understood by the Executive and his advisers, but they refuse to negotiate because they have reason to believe that the Union would thus be restored and the war ended. But slavery would not thereby be abolished, and the scheme of building up a despotic, centralized Federal Government would be de- feated. The war, therefore, goes on ; th» young men of the nation are swept into their graves upon the plain of battle, and the old men become slaves to the tax gatherer, not to restore the Union, but to give a worthless liberty to the black man, and to strike down the legal rights and privileges of the white man. Sir, upon this question of negotiation, con- cession, compromise, and Union, I appeal for approval to my own conscience. It sustains me with all the force of a burning conviction of duty. By it I am lifted beyond the roach of partisan malice. I appeal to the people ! The voice and humane instincts of honest na- ture will plead my cause in their hearts. At their hands I fear no evil for the cotintry. They are just, and will appreciate a plain and inherent element of right. I appeal to future vears. When candor, reason, and Christian- ity sit in judgment on this struggle, every line which records the history of war or peace in all former ages, tells me that their verdict will be in favor of the principles which I ad- vocate. I seize this hour of future triumph by anticipation. That it will come I entertain no more doubt than I do that I breathe the air of life this moment. I appeal, finally, to God before whom I stand, and into whose presence we all hasten to answer for our con- duct and our motive?. In tbat awful hour I humbly trust and believe that my fecbl« ef forts to turn aside the devouring edj^e of the Bword ; to stay the hand of th^ great r^-aper death ; to pause in the horrid work of send- ing souls to their eternal account without re- pentance or pardon; to stop bereavement, woe, and tears around every fireside • to brighten the mournfisl face of the land with the radiance of peace ; to reconstruct and re- store a fraternal and harmonious Union will meet with the approval of the Father and go far towards relieving the newly liberated and trembling spirit of the terrors which sur- round it. But, Mr. Chairman, what other declared purposes of the Constitution for the accom- phshment of which this government was established have been carried out by the policy and administration of the party now in power? Do they proimte the general wel- fare f With the priciples of justice every- where suppressed, .he blessing of liberty annihilated throughout all our borders, and the domestic tranquility utterly destroyed, it IS almost needless to enquire what is left to constitute the general welfare. But it is my painful duty on this occasion net only to show that the principles of free government are dying, rapidly dying before our faces, but that the material prosperity, the absolute piiysical resources of the country are peri-*h- mg also. The welfare, the strength and glory of a nation are dependent in a vast measure upon the extent of its population and the amount of its wealth. Next to the virtue and intelligence of the people their numbers constitute the power and dignity of a btate. The ancient commandment and the blessing delivered to the original founders of tne human race was to be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth. And one of the ruihest promises to the Patriachs of old was uiat their tribes and their descendents should increase until they became as the leaves of the forest and the sands of the sea shore, t-very public ruler who by wise political and «ocial economy has rapidly swelled the popu- lation of Lis country, holds a place in history asa benefactor of his kind. Every human being IS a machine of labor. Each head and each hand is a producer. The busy brain and the active muscle are perpetually adding to the storehouses, the granaries, and the mer- chant ships of the world. It was a blessin- and not a curse ; it was in mercy and not in wrath that man was commanded to eat his bread m the sweat of his face. By obedience to this command the glory of civilization auorns the earth, and commerce penetrates the most distant seas. The fulfillment of this decree redeems the savage face of nature, builds up the great marts of trade, patroniz.« sciences and letters, erects temples to art and progress, end is a forerunner of the Chiistiau Tac . '^ ^^® fountain of all wealth and of all happiness. Nations and individ- uals are alike utterly and entirely dependent upon It for th-ir prosperity. And national loro.p^rty is simply the result of individual abor. The humble and obscure toil of the honest ploughiuan, who "Homeward plods his weary way" at nightfall is the source of all" the nation's greatness, the foundation of all its vast enter- prises, thesupportofallits boasted revenues- it .3 tho small spring breaking intoarivuletfrom Uie hill side which flowing on and mingling with the other waters of its kindred at last swell3_ into an ocean on whose bosom the destinies of the world are determined All the great authors who hare written on the subject of the wealth of nations have recog- nized this as a fundamental truth. Adam Smith embraces it in the first sentence ol his immortal work. He says : '; The annual labor of cvury nation is the fund which ovigmuXly supplies it with all thcnecessariee and conveniences of life, which it annually con- sume<= and which consist always either in the im. media produce of that labor, or in what is pm- chased wuh that produce from other nations." Locke, in his equally celebrated treatise on civil government is still more explicit and c.ear upon this pakt. H, uses the followine of kbof ^' ^^'°^ '"''^^^^ *^^ ^^°^° philosophy "'Tis labor then, which puts the greatest part of 10 value upon land, without which it nould .carcclv the , a.u^ ui,..u lauu, Kiznoiu icktch it wouhl .carceh letcorth muiUiuvj. ' Tis to that we owe the great- est part of all its useful products; for all that the straw, bran, bread of that acreof wheat is more worth ban the product of an acre of good land which hcs waste is all the effect of labor For 'tis not merely the ploughman's pains, the reaper's, and the thrasher s toil, and the baker's sw-at is to ba counted into the bread we eatj the labor of thooa wao broke the oxen, who digged and wrought the iron and stones, who foiled and framed the timber employed about the plough, mill, ovon, or any other utensils, which are a vast number, requisite to this corn, from its being seed to bo sown, to its being made bread, must all be charged in the account of labor, and received as an effect of that: nature and ttie earth furnishing only the almost worthless ma tQrials as in themselves. 'Twould bo a stranze catalogue of things that industry provided and made use of about every, loaf of bread, before it camo to our use, if we could trace tiiem. From wood, leather, barks, timber, stone, brick coals hme, cloth, dyeing-drugs, pitch, tar, musts' rope»' and a'l materials made u.^o of in the ship that brought away the commodities made use of hy any of the workmen, to any part of the work ; all-wbich tw.mld bo almost impossibk, at least too lone to reckon up." ° Sir, aside then from motives of humanity what shall be said of an administrative policy which is unnecessarily depopulating the na- tion ? Every unsanguined field of strife cov- ered with the noble and once animated forms of American citizens, is an irreparable loss to the true wealth of the country. When the last call for troops which has been made upon the laborers of the fend, by the Executive shall have teen complied with, more than two miUions of men will have gone to the 14 fields of death. In the y^ar iSflO, the nnm- ber of voters in thn Uoue 1 S-«es locluding all the seciums wa., 4 061,193. Th« States Xh r.ma:«ed fauhtul to tue Umon con- tain.d, at the commeueement of this war about three millions. This may fairly be «.^ as the number of laborers m the W SUtes three years ago, for while many So voterre too ofdto wo'rk yet pcrh.ps an Idual number are capable of labor who are too young to vote lon'-er do vou expect the toiling mUlions to end"ure in silence? When the curtain first rose on the hateiul scene of this civil war, the country was mocked with a call for seven- tv-five thousand men, and our prt'edy ears were saluted from high quarters with the flattering story that the moon would Ecarcely wax and wane until the Government would aeain possess its own. You tell me of states- manship ; you tell me of honesty in the pre- sent conduct of our disastrous affairs. Sir, »v,- A. «f +TiA not a nlan laid down in the oeginnmg but It- will thus be seen that t-O'thir^^ ^^^Jf I ^ ^^, ^^, , promise made by labor ug population of the ^^^^^^^^J^^.t This Administration to the people but what ready been levied upon by thi* '^'f ^A^'''^^" ^ been broken. The armies of the rebel- administration, and drawn away f^«JJ |fM f^J'^ S stand with a defiant front almost m business of production, figures cannot be 1^;^"^^^;^^^ ^^pj^^l . ^„a ^^e hoarse and ter- aad the census tables do not a°ceive a ^ j ^f a new conscription aie now prosperity of tbis gov^^^^.^^.^ronfcaStan ^^^^^^^^^^ o^^^ ^^« ^^^^^^^ '^^ '"*,"' '" S" labor of its people This is its mily ca^i^al go g .^^,, of the people as the In proportion as the population l^ <^ii^^°;^^^^ P; ^ ^f tl,^ raveH to the life of i^uncan. Do or diverted from productive P^bui in th« ^^o^'J/; ^^^ ^,^ Hot in th« lives and for- eame proportion is tl^^?«°^ll7iH%ur" tunes of the many imagine that they can ' prolong forever the deception which they have imposed upon an anxious and trusting ^^But on this vital question of the rapid decrease of our laboring population, and the consequent prostration of the general welfare, -I will doubtless be pet by an in- dignant denial from the other side of the chamber. I submit, therefore, the follow- ing extract from the last message of the Pre- sidput * " I a^ain submit to your consideration the expe- diency 'J.f establishing a system for the encourage- ment of immigration. Although this .ource ot na- tional wealth and strength is again flowing with greater freedom than for scvera years before the insurrection occurred, there is still a great deficiency in every field of industry, especially in agriculture, and in our mines, as well of iron as the precioas metals. While the demand for labor is thus in- creased here, tens of thousands of persons destitute stroved. And no nation ever long sur vivedVhe shock which the abstraction of two- thirds of its population inflicted upon every branch and department of industry. A par- ^{.Tis will sei/e every ^^^^^ f, KS^Sd Z\rZlrL wm wither and die The fountains will be dried up, and the river wiU cease to flow. Sir, I am dea mg in no Imaginary picture. Go to the regions n^ a^r iculmre, on which all else depends. You w I here hear the cry that the laborers are fTw. One man cannot da the work of three ; and two are gone and but one is oft to sow the seed and reap the harvest. I have seen the wife ai:d the mother tilling the soil fmy own district ; her children following m the furrow, and their father away in the -army I h^ve seen broad fertile acresm the • We/t lyin^ waste and idle for the want ofhands to place them in cultivation. How.long can rloW.lODg cim I creasea nere, Lcua v^i vu.-^^.l.,«. i ,„ ^ long WiU of remunerative occapation are thronging our for- this state Of things continue? How long wo ^^^ ^^^^.^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ one-thirdofour usual proauce meet the dec^g.^^^^ ^ery cheap assis- mands of our increased and stupe^duous ex ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^.^^^^^ ^^^^,. pendit ures ? How long ^an diminished pro- ^^^ foreigner-to the stran- Suction and multiplied taxation go hand m 1 ^^ * ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^.^^ liberty or hand ? How long cau you continue to destroy ger w ^^^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^ the laborer, and at the same time raise om^^^^^.^^ ^^^ ^^.^ ^^.^^ supporters took a revenue from the produc s "fl^^^'^ J^^^^'^ I ^he midnight oath to disfranchise him because tendency and speedy result of og^P"';^°M f his reli|ious faith, and oppressed him in all carceer are plain and inevitab e Sooji' J^^7. o ^^^g^^ ^ ^^^^^^^ ^.^ ^ ^^ ^ soon, the fruits ot industry will prove maae ou ^ ^ ^ ^^ ual enjoyment of quat; to meet the ^nmial demands oth ad e^^^^^^^^ ^'ational Treasury, and then the land itseii, | f^i^^.^_^^. _^ ^^^ ^.^j^ ^^^^^ sorrowful emo- tion. >viu ... people of this once proud land listen to the voice of America pleading with ^'ational Treastiry, and theiiu.--^^.— ^^ But with wh the farm, the homestead, ^^^f^ Jj^^f^J^'^^fJ',^ Tons will the people of this once proud land and swept away. Ai*e you reac^ tor ti i. ( ^.^^^^ ^^ the voice of Amc Are ;:v ready r the^land tax upon uncul UvateJ ficlds"^^ in addition to the tribute whkhwe already pay to fanaticism and cor- ruption? If you are, then eternal war, vast coLcriptions no negotiation, no >e™°> "« re:.l zation of all youP uop^^a. ^" profltgate destruction of human life^andwan toa and wi.ked overthrow of the whole nat ural system of American labor, how much the populations of Europe, and offering them pecuniary inducements to come and take the places of our lost and dead-to fill the emp y chairs around b-reaved firesides-to supply the demands which war and death have made in the cornfields and at harvest time! And yet, the destroying angel is to continue to hover in every blast ; the fierce spirit of the olass and scythe is to pursue bis insatiate 15 career ; tlie flower of our manliood are to be •cut down ; strangers from foreign lands are to occupy their vacant seats ; and it is treason to attempt to stay this horrid holocaust of human sacrifice by a restoration of the Gov- ernment upon the principles which were satis factory to Washington ! The rebel chief at Richmond, who makes open war against the Union, and the Executive here who does not make war for it, and who would not accept its restoration to-day on the ancient doctrines of the Constitution, are engaged by conscription force and violence in hulling against each other the unwilling and peaceful populations of every section; bleeding, palpitating and mangled ; to struggle, to combat and to die, like the gladiators in the amphithe^itre of Rome, butchered to make a Roman holi- day. These are facts which •will not escape history, and yet, the consent of the gov- erned is the just measure of power which a public ruler can exercise in a free gov- ernment, and we fondly imagine that we still are free ! ^ Bat in immediate alliance with the ques- tion of population arises the consideration of the amount of burthen which is to be borne. While looking on the one hand in fadnes-g and grief at the depletion and destruction of the laboring masses, we are compelled to turn and gaze with apprehension and terror at the frightful proportions, and increasing magni- tude of our public indebtedness. As the ability of the people to meet taxation becomes each day more feeble, the demands upon their toil and their resources accumulate with appalling velocity. I shall deal iu cold and steady figures. What I assert upon the subject of the national debt I stand prepared to make good, as time, the test of truth, has done for me heretofore. On the 2lst day of May, 1S62, on this floor, I made the following statement : " It is safe, then, to conclude that the year that 13 to come, and on which we are just entering — tie second year of the war — will swell the indebt- edness of this Government to the alarmiug sum of $2,000,000,000." The fierce clamor which broke upon my head here and elsewhere, for that statement, will not be easily forgotten. I was honored .by an official contradiction from the Secretary of the Treasury himself produced on this floor by the gentlemen from Massachusetts, [Mr. Dawes] . Then came the indignant outcries of injured patriotism from the throats of that venal and slavish class who earn the favor of princes, and purchase the privileges of plun- der by echoing the words of. their master. But I appealed to time' for my vindication, and now here again to-day, I challenge my accusers to the issue. On the 6th day of March, 1863, when the Thirty-seventh Congress adjourned, less than ono year from the date of my esti- mate, the appropriations of money from the Federal Treasury, in the payment of the public espenditurea, stood as follows : First session 37th Conid in my speech of May 21pit, 1862, that same Congress, of which I wag then a member, appropriated $128,309- 200 more than even I predicted would be con- sumed by our alarming rate of expnr.se. Re- ports may be written by able and skillful pens, and speeches may be made by eloqueftt, and plausible tongu*^s, in order to disguise these figures, and dwitfie the people still furthnr to their ruin, but tho murd.-r of tiie nation's welfare at last will out, and bankruptcy, like an uneasy and troubled ^host, with its shrivelled face and skeleton fingers, will come to plague and torment the faithless murderers. It may be an unwelcome task to portray these facts now, but the hour is fast approaching, in which the sons and daugh- ters of honest toil will lay bitter maledictions on tho authors of this oppression, and thank those who have pointed out their danger. In tho report of the Secretary of the Trea- sury submitted at the opening of the present session of Congress, we find his estimate for the fiscal year ending Jane 30th, I8()4, of the expenses of the GovernOient amounting to $l,t'99,73l.960. It is true that he amuses the country by a conjecture that a consider- able portion of that sum will not bo exp«-nded at the close of tho fiscal je^r. He asks that it may all be appropriated, but gently inti- mates that some of it may remain in his hands, not paid out on tho 30th June, 18G4. But inasmuch as we have already at this session passed deficiency bills over and above his estimates to the extent of more than a hundred millions of dollars, I must decline making any calculation upon any lower basis than the full amount of his own '' fi:,'ures. Then taking tho appropriations already made up to March 4th, 1863, as above stated : $2,128,309,200 Add the estimate of the Secretary up to June 30, 1804, ...... 1,099,731.906 $3,228, <)41,1G0 We thus have from the ofiieial records, an indebtedness on the oOlh of Juno rext, not more than four months distant, reaching the sum of three thousand, two hundred and twenty-eight millions, forty-one thousand, one hundred and sixty dollars. Pause for a moment, ye sweating tax -payers, and com- prehend if you can the Weight of this load. I pause with you, for my heart is now at home clinging to the scenes of intelligent hus- bandry which I represent here, and which I seek to save from desolation. But the Secretary of the Treasury has given us a forecast of another year of the fu- ture. Commencing again on the 1st of July, w 1864 and closing Jane 30ih, 1SG5, lie giv-s us his estimates of the expeudim es ot ano- ther fiscal year. Ue places them— A.t --------- - $1>151)815.0S8 Add the r.mount already estimated uptoJuneo0th,1861, - - - 3,223,041,100 Totil debt, June 30th, 1865,. - - $1,37'J,856 243 From this amount ■ must be deducted the actual receipts from every source of revenue during the years of 186-3 and 1863, and the estimated r^^ceipts for the years of 1SG4 and 1865. Allowing that the eitimates of the Secretary w/U prove correct in the future, which is exceedingly charitable in view of the past and we find that these receipts will amount in all to $519,643,155. Subtract this amount from the above sum, and we have left $3 8uO, 213.093. To this again, however, must be added at the lowest calculation, one hundred and fifty millions to cover the claims of States for advances to the Federal Govern- ment, and the claims of citizens for the des- truction of their property by the inevitable eperations of war. Thus the P^ibhc debt will stand, June 30th, 1865, at $4,010,213,093. Sir, in this calculation I have strained noth- ing'in order to swell the amount. Far other- wise^. I would gladlv diminish it if in my power. I have simply taken the amounts ap- propriated by a former Congress, and added the amounts which the Secretary of the Trea- surv asks shall bs appropriated for the years of 1804 and I8li5. I assume, and most safely I think in view of the past, thit all the money thus appropriated by Congress for specihed obi«-ts wiUbe spent. This is all, and you behold the apnalling result. I do not stop to take au account of State dabts, which count by hundreds of millions. I pass by the debts of counties, cities, towns, and various corpo- rations, all of which are a direct tax upon the people. I simply compute the Federal indebt- edness, and you have these frightful figures. Sir this debt now inevitably fastened up- on the American people, has no parallel in the history of nations. Its like is unknown ia the annals of mankind. It stands alone in its career of devastation. The power of lan- Buage cannot exaggerate it as an agent of des- truction. Mora than four thousand milhona of dollars ! The debt of England, which is now a p'-rmaneat curse, is less. Yet, since 18''9 no Britiili Statesman has thought for an ins"tant that it would ever be finally paid. It commenced accruing in small proportions during the reign of Charles Il-two hundred Years ago. Succeeding wars rapidly increas- ed it, and baffled all the wisdom and res^ources of the Euglish people, in their long and faith- ful efforts to accomplish its payment. They piiy the interest and bequeath the piincipal, wiih all its crushing weight, to each succeed- ing generation. And even this burthen oq the labor of England is so great and so per- petual, that one-eighth of her citizens are m- nines of the poor-house, and almost another eighth have been driven by want from then- native land. We are to tread in the same blighted pathway, groaning wearily under a still heavier load— the cursed fruits of a sec- tional party, and financial corrupt on. We look out upon the field of the future. It lies dismal and endle:;3 before us. There is no land of rest in the distance for the tired tax- payer. There is no promise of deliverance brightening the sky before him. His step from this on is in a ceaseless treadmill, from which he will never escape. Are you afraid, men of labor throughout America, to look at this picture ? Will you turn away your faces and hug yourselves in the delusion that all is well, a little longer ? Will you punibU and denounce the faithful sentinel who crits %ut to you the approach of destruction 1 It may be so yet awhile. It is in the heart of man to put off the evil hour. Wo often take i efuge from danger by afTecting not to see it when we know it is inevitable. Death itself at last surprises us in the midst of the busy plana and pleasing aspirations of life, TL.e vou-.e of warning dies away OH the ear unheede-l by the heart. But this fact does not divorce a man in public station from the performance of his thankless duty. I shall here perform mine, and take all the reward I seek or desire, in the approbation of my own conscience— m the ever-present self-assurance that I kniow that I am acting for the welfare of my country. Sir, in order to enable us to grasp the mighty figures which will sum up our national debt sixteen months hence, let us indulge for a moment in comparisons. The grovrih of the American Republic, in all the elements of material wealth, from its birth to the hour of its present misfortunes had been the marvel and wonder of all time. It had strode upon the loftiest peaks of greatness with an easy and familiar sten. In peace or m war our glory was the same— the first of all nations. Our actions at home and abroad were up- on a scale of magnitude which dwarfed the giant achievements of history by contrast. But in all that time every item of our public expenditures would scarcely suffice to meet the demands of one year under our present system of ruin. Take the period of seventy- two years— those halcyon days of liberty and fraternity— from 1789 to 1861. During that space of happy time, for every year, and lor all purposes, the expenses of the Government . ^"'^ ' $1,453,790,786 For four years from 1861 to 1865 - 4,010,213,093 Increase of expense in four years ^ _ ^ ^^ ^ over seventy-two years, - - - §-,yj(J,.l.-,oUi Four brief but terrible years under the pre- sent Administraiion will have consumed more than three times as much of the wealth the labor, the taxes of the people as every other Administration of the Government put to- gether from. Washington to James Buchanan! Do you still say, in view of this starthnglact, that there is no necessity for a chasge m our I policy and in our rulers in order to save us 17 from utter overthrow ? Are yon still con'erit i that this rate of expt^noiuire sh;ill contir.nfi ? ' How loDjj; can it conrinu' 1 Bv the statistics ! fuinisbed in the eensu-^ of I860, the valne of the real and p^rsonal property of the entire United States, before' war aud destruction had s.ssailed it, was $12 (iS4, GGO 005, Even admit- ting that it possesses thi^ sara*- value to day, yet the d«!>bt is OD<--third of the wlmle amount. Bat every one will atki owiedge that an as- scssnuut of the value oi the propi^rty through- cut the Ucited States now would not show n ore than two-thirds of its 0 lute ior, pt-iuiniiH, Indians, etc., . . . 2ih00 0(O W r I»pp ) tmc nt, 120.0 0,f,00 ■> aw Dc-a imtiit , . . 2.') 000,000 Misc'elian- cue, lighthouse?, building, . L'.'i (lOO.Ot $2(11 odl^('l0O Interest on the pub ic debt, .... 24().6lj^7j5 $441,612,765 Every one of the above items is put much lower than I candidly believe it will be, but even at these rates we find that each year of the darkened future, the Treasury Department will reach forth the hungry hand of revenue and seize upon the fruits of industry to the extent of four hundred and forty-one millions six hundred and twelve thousand, seven hun- dred and eighty-five dollars. And the pay- ment of this vast sum leaves us as much in debt as before, for it pays not a dollar of the enormous principal. It is simply what must be annually paiu to prevent instant repudia- tion. It constitutes the curre'it expenses by which alone the Government is enabled to live from day to day. How, then is this annual sum to be raised by the people ? Taxes must be paid out of the earnings of the people, and not by the sale of their original pos?e.3sious. Otherwise taxation becomes confiscation, and soon the citizen would have neither the means to sup- ply 'revenue or to support life. It, what the laborer earns ove^r and above his own liveli- hood is not sufficient to meet the claims of the tax-gatherer, then sales commence by which the Government sooner or later will become the sole owner of all the estate of its inhabi- tants. For annual payments you must have annual earnings. The above annual sum must le paid by a corresponding annual surplus earning in the hand sot the people, after a! lowing them to supply their own wants and necessities. Now let us turn to an estimate of- aDQual earnings. Th^« State valuations for taxable purposes in 1850 and 1860, according to an estimate ihade by the financial editor of Ihint\% ilerchants^ Magazine, furnish us the avt-rage annual earnings of the following States for that period of tea years, as follows : Californi.i, . . - . Conucclicut, Illinoi.s, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, . - Maine, Mas-'^achusetts, - IM'chigan, - I^Iinnes'ita, - New llampshire,- Now Jersey, iS'cw York, - Oh'O, Oregon, Penn.-^jlvania, Rhode Lfii,i:-; 1,802 18 I have not taken into account the border slave States, as their situation is such as to defeat any calculation of their earnings, at least for som« y^-ars to come. It will he seen therefore, that the anuual amount which from this time forward must be paid into the Fede ral Treasury, exceeds by almost one hundred mtllious of dollars the total annual earnings of the nineteen free States, during a period of peace and unexampled prosperity. Under the present policy pursued towards the seced- ed State?, a half a century will roll away be fore they will again assist the wealth of the country. Their whole system of productive- ness is to be destroyed. Four millions of annual producers are to beoome idle and worthless consumers, and a vast Bureau is about to be erected by which the Govern- ment shall support the negro instead of the negro, as heretofore, assisting to support the government. Time will show that emanci- pation is the costliest feature of this war. Cotton, tobacco, riee, sugar, will perish, as means of revenue. The Mow of the Execu- tive which releases four millions of hands from profitable labor, imposes the task from which they are set free as producers on a similar number of white laborers. It does more. They are still consumers — they must be fed and "they will not feed themselves. The Pre- sident unconsciously uttered a philosophic truth when a year ago he said of free negroes : " They eat and nothing else." Nor can the negro "be much blamed for accepting this easy life when an insane party tenders it to him, and lays the burden of labor from which he is liberated on the neck of the white man. A totally ruined and impoverished South, her property destroyed and her slaves set free, all simply means the annihilation of so many sources' of national revenue, and the conse quent enormous increased taxation in the North. Confiscation will not pay the expeEses of its own machinery and execution. As a means of replenishing the Treasury it is not to he mentioned, except by madmen. All history bears testimony to the folly of thus attempting the liquidation of a public debt. It mu:;t be met and paid by the fruits of the soil produced by labor. And he who reduces the number of laborers North or South, white or black, in the same proportion multiplies the toils and sacrifices of those who yet re- main. Mr. Chairman, I need not pause to dwell upon the mathematical certainty of national and individual bankruptcy and ruin which the foregoing calculations so conclusively de- monstrate. The humblest mind in the land will grasp the fatal result upon which we are hasteiiing. But some superficial observer, intending too to further deceive the popular mind, will doubtless point to the surrounding appearances of general prosperity as an an- swer to this portion of my remarks. Money is flowing in boundless profusion. Unsatural prices ..re paid for everything. A meretric- ious splendor hails us upon the streets, at the rout, the assembly, and the theatre. The na» tion seems fattening on blood and carnage. But this high feverish flush which we every- where behold is not the genial warmth of health. It i-s the fierce hectic glow of a swift consumption. It is the herald of death, and points to the tomb. What we call money is not money, and the most gorgeous wealth has no value, because it is a prey to the monster debt. Frenchmen, more than a hundred years ago, dreamed of a fabulous fountain of prosperity, and located it in the valley of the Mississippi. The credit of the Mississippi company became the basis of an illimitable paper currency, and both the king and people of France hailed John Law, its founder, as the deliverer of their kingdom. It was treason to doubt the infallibility of his gigantic scheme of human credulity and folly, as it is now to doubt the wisdom and final success of our own fiu-incial departmeat. Bancroft, the historian, well portrays our own unhappy situation in describing this great delusion of the French : " A government," he says, "which had almost ab.sdluto power of legislation, conspired to give the widest extension to what was called credit. Law might have regulated at his pleasure the interest of money, the value of stocks, and the price of labor and produce. The contest between paper and specie began to rage— the one buoyed up by des- potic power, the other appealing to common sense. ■» » Paper was made the legal tender in all payments. To win the little gold and silver that wa.s hoarded by the humble classes small bills, as low even as ten livres, (a livre is about twenty cents) were put in circulation. * * * , AVhen men arc greatly in the wrong, especially when they have embarked their fortunes in their error, they wilfully resist light. So it has been with the Frencb people; they remained faithful t^ the delusion till Frauco was impoverished, public and privae credit was subverted, the income of capitalists annihilated, and labor left without em- ployment, while in the midst of the universal wretchedness •of the middling class, a few war i speculators gloried in their unjust acquisition aud I eujoyment of immense wealth." At about the same period a similar frenzy I was raging on the other side of the English I channel, and British statesmen fancied they had found the magic alembic by which paper issued upon credit could be made to supply the uses of gold. The trade of the South sea, was to pay the debt of England in twenty-seven years, and Sir John Blunt issued Government bonds on ! the faith of this fictitious wealth. Avarice I and speculation instantly seized like twin i furies upon the heart of the whole kingdom. The glittering beams of a false and deceptive 1 proBperity gilded every present scene, and 1 illuminated the future with the radiant smiles of hope. The British parliament resounded with high eulogiums upon the financial scheme which was so soon to release the hands ol En<'lish industry from the galling manacles of debt. We are listening from day to day to similar speeches upon a sinQ^' >J^'k''*^ ^^ they aro made on the other si||ol5|l\«|^hain:« 0^ ..'■'j;. ^o '' 0^ ^-„.^* .*:^i£^". ■^-«: '>b >^" by '^,. .,h% '%