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R E M A It K S 
 
 HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL. OF' ILLINOIS, 
 
 On seizure of Arsenals at Harpefs Ferry, Va., and Liberty, Mo., and 
 i in ation of the Republican Party and its Creed, in respt . 
 
 to Senators Chesnut, Yulee, Saulsbury, Clay, and Pugh. 
 
 Delivered in the United States Senate, Decembex* 6, 7, and S, 1859. 
 
 December 6, 1859. 
 •>'The Senate having under consideration the 
 allowing resolution, offered by Mr. Mason, of 
 
 .ia : 
 
 it a committee be appoln* : 
 
 Sion and seizure- of the ar- 
 States at Harper's Ferry, 
 u Vn. ■ d of armed men, and re] 
 
 uthori- 
 Qnited SI it 
 
 >ps sent 
 
 property ; wh . . asion 
 
 • o ia- 
 
 organi- 
 
 ■■>. by 
 
 vb.a w 
 iunt in 
 .it: v. :, 
 
 ition may, ii 
 
 I 
 
 v -rty ; and I 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL said: 
 
 Mr. E'resi lent, when that resolution was offer- 
 ■d yesterday, 1 stated- that I would move an 
 imi-ndiaent to it when it should come up for 
 :onsideration ; but, before proceeding to 
 he an . I will state that the resolo 
 
 is offered by the Senator from Virginia, will re- 
 :eive niy support. If any other persons than the 
 ity-two whose names are known to the coun- 
 ry are implicated in, or in any way accessory to, 
 he seizor • of Harper's Ferry, and the murder of 
 .he citizens of Virginia, let us ascertain who 
 ' ey b and let them be held responsible for 
 
 I hoix this investigation will be thorough and 
 complete. I believe it will do good by disabu- 
 sing the public mind, in that portion of the Union 
 tvhich feels most sensitively upon this sub- 
 .ect, of the idea that the outbreak at Harper's 
 Ferry received any countenance or support from 
 lonsidetable number of persons in any por- 
 bf this Union. No man who is not prepared 
 ibvert the Constitution, destroy the Govern- 
 ment, and resolve society into its original ele- 
 ments, can justify such an act. No matter what 
 3vils, eithei real or imaginary, may exist in the 
 body politic, if each individual, or every set of 
 
 twenty individuals, out of more than twenty mil- 
 lions of people, is to be permitted, in his own 
 way, and in defiance of the laws of the land, to 
 undertake to correct those evils, there is not a 
 aovernment upon the face of the earth that could 
 last a day. And it seems to me, sir, that those 
 persons who reason only from abstract princi- 
 ples, and believe themselves justifiable on all 
 occasions, and in every form, in combating evil 
 wherever it exists, forget that the right which 
 they claim for themselves exists equally in every 
 other person. All Governments, the best which 
 have been devised, encroach necessarily more cr 
 less on the individual rights of man, and to that 
 extent may be regarded as- evds. Shall wo 
 therefore destroy government, and in place of 
 regulated and constitutional liberty inaugurate 
 a state of anarchy, in which every man shall be 
 permitted to follow the instincts of his own pas- 
 sions Or prejudices, and where there will be no 
 protection to the physically weak against the 
 encroachments of the strong? Till we are pre- 
 pared to inaugurate such a state as this, no man 
 tify the deeds done at Harper's Ferry. 
 
 In regard to the misguided mau who led the 
 insurgents on that occasion, I have no remarks 
 to make. He has already expiated upon the gal- 
 lows the crime which he committed against the 
 laws of his country ; and to answer for his errors 
 or his virtues, whatever they may have been. I e 
 has gone fearlessly and willingly before 
 Judge w ho cannot err ; there let us leave him. 
 
 The amendment which I propose to offer to 
 the resolution which is pending, and in which, 
 I trust, I may have the support of every Senator, 
 provides for the investigation of a like transac- 
 tion which occurred in the State of Missouri. I 
 will briefly state what that transaction was. as 
 it may not be fresh in the recollection of Sena- 
 tors. 
 
 The Government of the United States had an 
 arsenal at the town of Liberty, in the State of 
 Missouri, of which Captain Leonard had charge. 
 In December, 1855— and the facts which I state 
 appear upon the official records of the country — 
 Captain Leonard testifies that a Judge Thomp- 
 son, in company with a large number of others, 
 appeared at the arsenal, overpowered him, con- 
 fined him, broke open the magazines, supplied 
 

 
 themselves with cannon, rifles, swords, and pis- I Perhaps the latter would never have occurred if 
 
 tols, with powder and ball, and took them away I inquiry had been made, and the proper steps had 
 
 enal. This was followed by the in- j been taken when the cry for succor came frot i 
 
 a of a peaceful Territory; not twenty- two Kansas, and her citizens were murdered by the 
 
 only, bul more than a thousand men, very arms taken from thjs arsenal or at any 
 
 led into the adjoining Territory, armed with Irate by persons in the same army with them 
 
 weapons taken by violence from an arsenal of the ! Then the complaints that were made were treated 
 
 States, under the charge of an officer of as the " shrieks of bleeding Kansas" and the T 
 
 the United States, with the avowed object of 
 making that Territory a slaveholding State. It 
 appears that societies were formed — secret or- 
 ganizations — reaching from Missouri into vari- 
 ous States, and, among others, the State of Vir- 
 giria, whose object and design was by force to 
 introduce Slavery into Kansas; and to carry out 
 this object, these men seized upon these arms 
 and munitions belonging to the Government of 
 the United States. Captain Leonard, in his 
 statement under oath, says: 
 
 "The Jm and others told me there were troubles in 
 Kni wanted arms, but would do nothing wrong 
 
 I told Hi" Judge this «t is aggressive on the 
 part oi Missouri, and every community was competent to 
 a own affairs, and that the Missourians ought 
 er A goo I deal m ire was sua on both sides, 
 an i I foil indignant at the aggn ssion. The JuUj e linn : 
 didni civil word to me. I had not expected any 
 
 i •■ when I lirst saw the Judge, or I count 
 id the gates locked. 
 "The mob proceeded to take arni3, forcing the doors, and 
 i " ■': thi ••• six-pounders, some . .. pisti Is, rifles, and 
 
 ammunition, powder, balls, &c, as much as they w 
 
 i p ■:;- [ do not know how they pot 
 the keys to get into the powder m igaz ae, which is composed 
 : had double doors. Captain Price was the lead- 
 in the c owd, us I understood. Mr. Rout was there. 
 I in the room until the men had got all the arms 
 crition they wanted, and had gone away, Judge 
 b the lagt one; when he let mc go out, and 
 
 ■•■•■ - o i ght days afterwards, the guns were re- 
 
 nal. They were left, I was told, at Col. 
 three-quarters of a mile from the arse- 
 nal. In the mean tune, I had report • ! the Tarts to C il. Sum- 
 and he had sent down a company of dragoons. The 
 men sent I i mc to know if 1 would receive the arms, and I 
 them I was not in command, and referred them to 
 . Bcall, and he told them to bring them along ; they 
 -. re received. Among the property taken 
 wis sain- artillery harness; I cannot recollect how many 
 e - imc deficiencies in the number of rifles", 
 ; istols, and some harness returned ; but I can- 
 not state the precise particulars. These deficiencies have 
 r been made up By the citiz :ns of Missouri ; but I have 
 i instructed by Col. Craig, the head of the ordnance de.- 
 Washington, to purchase sufficient of such arti- 
 is I could obtain in the neighborhood to make up the 
 •. but the swords, pistols,' and ri- 
 .. e have not been abie to make up. I do not know how 
 In making up this leficiency. Irn- 
 fter tins robber}-, I reported the circumstances to 
 ..- i ng the number and amount 
 if each oi the din* srent art ules taken. I.i th i i ourse of the 
 ir,he nt me orders to ship the public property to 
 Fort Leavenworth and St. Louis arsenal, giving mo a sched- 
 
 i I i i to be taken to each place, which I did as 
 
 igcned." — House Report No. 200, Thirty- 
 , first session, pages 1130-31. 
 
 It seems that the arsenal at Liberty was bro- 
 ken up, and what remained of the arms were 
 ;:;a" d to other military posts. Now, sir, there 
 
 could not be heard. I trust they may get 
 a better hearing now. Now. sir, when the 
 shrieks of Virginia are heard, and the ears <. f. 
 the country are opened, I trust those from Kar. 
 sas may get a hearing also. I am prepared t 
 hear both ; and I hope that the investigation i 
 regard to Harper's Ferry may be impartia 
 thorough, and complete, and let whoever is im- 
 plicated in the unlawful transactions there be 
 held responsible; and so, too, in regard to tbe 
 seizure of the arsenal in the State of Missouri, 
 I offer the following amendment : 
 
 After the word " invaded," near the end of the resolutia • 
 insert : -J ' 
 
 And that said committee also inquire into the facts atteil !- 
 ing the invasion, seizure, and robbery , in Dec inber, &1S 
 of the arsenal afUM < "'too gmte . ;■, ■ . ,, . V{K A 
 
 Missouri, By a mWb or body of arnica ..',,., r L 
 
 whether sui h seizure an i robbery was attended by rcsi t- 
 ance to the authorities ol the United SI ites, and : i low. d •.- 
 an invasion of the Territory of Kansas, and the plunder aid 
 ol any of its inhabitants, or of any citizen of i ie 
 United States, by the persons who thus se msai ,; 
 
 ammunition of the Government, or others combined w. a 
 them, whether said seizure raid robb iry of the n serial \v< o 
 made under color of any organization intended to subvdrt 
 the Government of any of the States or Territories of t ie 
 Union ; what was the eharaci di orgiaiiv i- 
 
 tion, and whether any citizens of the United States, nol pres- 
 ent, wore implicated therein, or ac to by corci- 
 tributions of money, arms, ammunition, o ■; w! it 
 was the character and extent of the military equipments *n 
 the hands or under the control of said mob, a: d how a: a 
 when and where the same were sul used by i t 
 mob ; what was the value of the arms and ammunii on ; 
 every dc cription so i ken from the said arsenal b 
 mob ; whether the same or any part th ir ivc 1 n A 
 turned, ana the value of such as were lost ; whether Captain 
 Luther Leonard, the United States officer in command of tho 
 arsenal, communicated the facts in rel; to its uziir i 1 
 robbery to his superior officer, and what measun s, it any, 
 were taken in reference thereto. 
 
 December ,7, 1S59. 
 
 Mr. PUGH, of Ohio, having made an appeal 
 to Mr. Trumbull to withdraw his amendment, 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL said: 
 
 After what has been said, particularly by the 
 Senator who last addressed the Senate, [Mr. 
 Chesnut,] in regard to the apprehension that 
 something may be drawn out in the course of 
 this investigation which may fasten the insurrec- 
 tion at Harper's Ferry upon the Republican party, 
 and it appearing, also, by the statements of the 
 Senators from Virginia, that the object of t- '3 
 resolution is to ascertain the public se>*fment 
 of the North, I am a little astonished that aay 
 person can ask me to withdraw an amendment 
 which will lead also to ascertaining what the 
 
 is a vi ;■;.- striking similarity between the break- , sentiment of the South may be. 
 
 i that arsenal and the attack upon the 
 one a; Harper's Ferry. The question of Slavery 
 had to do with both. The arsenal in Missouri 
 i iken into for the purpose of obtaining 
 anas to force Slavery upon Kansas; the arsenal 
 at Harper's Ferry was taken possession of for the 
 purpose of expelling Slavery from the State of 
 Virginia — both unjustifiable, and, it seems to 
 me, both prooer subjects to be inquired into. 
 
 I have been appealed to to state why this 
 amendment was offered. I will tell yoii, sir, ami 
 it will be but a repetition of what I stated ; > ■>- 
 terday. I believe the outbreak at Harper's Fei'ry 
 has arisen, not from the teachings and the acts 
 of the Republican party, or any of its leaders, or 
 anybody in its ranks, as the Senator from South 
 Carolina supposes, but from the teachings of fie 
 party with which he himself is associated. T!jc 
 
 XCHAI 
 
 Orvi 
 
 
 ii 1/ 
 
 / 
 
Democratic party, by upholding and never re- 
 buking the sacking of the arsenal in Missouri, by 
 rewarding with office the men who did it, by 
 sending the Federal troops, they having control 
 of the Government at the time, into Kansas, to 
 hold in confinement men indicted upon trumped- 
 up charges of treason, set an example to the 
 country which engendered the spirit that mad- 
 dened Brown. 1 need not and will not go over 
 the history of that transaction, which the Senator 
 from Wisconsin has just detailed. I offered the 
 Amendment in good faith, as being pertinent to 
 the original resolution, as properly connected 
 with il Dg to a similar transaction. 
 
 But it is asked why I did not call for this in- 
 vestigation five years ago. "Well, to begin with, 
 the occurrence was only four years since. But 
 of what use would it have been for me to have 
 moved in the Senate for a committee of investi- 
 gation ? Dots the Senator from South Carolina 
 inppose that the Senate or the country has for- 
 gotten how everything relating to Kansas was 
 here? A proposition offered in the 
 ite of the United States to inquire into these 
 matters would nave been scouted at the time. 1 
 that I offered several propositions in 
 order to remedy the difficulties in Kansas, not 
 one of which received the sanction of tin- 
 rue. [ ] 1 to repeal the laws abridging the 
 Kansas — laws which 
 1 a in .u to imprisonment for y ars who 
 3 that Slavery did not exist 
 in th ry. All my propositions were 
 voted down. 
 
 There was a condition of things then existing 
 would have wide any effort in this li- 
 ly useless. 
 Now, hov. rent feeling prevails. An- 
 
 ; :i of. There 
 
 is a difference between the two cases. I do not 
 l that the arms of the Government al 
 Harper's Ferry were appropriated to the use of 
 the il ' ut in .Missouri the public anus 
 
 wen-. art have never been return- 
 
 ed, at eiiin command was directed to 
 
 supply oth bypurchase, which he has 
 
 done. 
 
 I think that the two things properly go to- 
 gether, and that one should lie inquired into as 
 i as the other. As great an outrage was 
 committed four years ago, in taking possession 
 of the arsenal . I . as was committed a 
 
 month or two ion of the 
 
 armory al Harper's Ferry. I 
 
 Is of dollars worth of property 
 were t Harpei 
 
 were quence of the I 
 
 possession of the arsenal at Liberty. I appre- 
 iv here one life was lost in consequence 
 of the acts at Harper's Ferry, many lives were 
 lost it nee of the taking possession of 
 
 I at Liberty and the events that fol- 
 lowed it. with the arms which were 
 lied from that arsenal that Lawrence was 
 imped at Waka- 
 •i '■ re weapons from the United 
 i arsenal, to \vl. I am unable to 
 (•v. I should like to see the official report that 
 rf -- ma i • to the War Department at the time 
 tu3 transaction occurred. I recollect that we 
 
 passed resolutions calling upon the President, or 
 upon the proper Department, and probably upon 
 both, for all the papers and correspondence in 
 regard to these matters, but I have no recollec- 
 tion of having ever seen the official report of the 
 officer commanding at Liberty at the time tho 
 arsenal was taken possession of by this Missouri 
 mob. 
 
 Now, sir, as I nm up, I will reply to some of 
 the statements of the Senator from South Caro- 
 lina, lie says that he claims only that which 
 is the right of the South— the right to take 
 slaves to the common Territories of the United 
 States. Sir. they have no such right. We do 
 not deny the equality of the States which hold 
 slaves. I am as much for maintaining the equal- 
 ity of the States of the Union as the Senator 
 from South Carolina ; but what on earth has the 
 introduction of Slavery into a Territory to do 
 with the rights of any State, North or South? 
 Has any State, as a State, a right to take a slave 
 into a Territory? The Senator will not pretend 
 that. Then why talk about State rights ? The 
 most that can be claimed is, that individuals re- 
 siding in different States of the Union may take 
 their properly, if it happens to be in slaves, into 
 the Territories. Well, that is not a State right; 
 it is an individual right, if it exists at all. We 
 ot propose to impose on the Senator from 
 
 . Carolina, or any of his constituents, an 
 inequality in that respect. If he cannot take a 
 
 into the Territory of Kansas, neither can I. 
 
 ft' the citizens of South Carolina cannot take 
 
 Shivery there, neither can the citizens of Illinois. 
 
 tate are precisely the same. 
 
 Now, you of the South are threatening to 
 
 dissolve the Union, and break up the Confed- 
 
 , because, as you charge, the Northern 
 
 • are assailants and aggressors on your 
 rights. Is the whole history of this country for- 
 
 ; ? How is it. that the moment this Gov- 
 it was formed, one of the first acts of the 
 men who made it was to provide that Slavery- 
 should not go into the Territories belonging to 
 the United States? Is it possible that the men 
 
 made this Government would, in the first 
 I under it, pass a law so unjust 
 to a portion of the States of the Union as to 
 justify their breaking it up? How was it that 
 South Carolina herself agreed to exclude Sla- 
 very from the State, then Territory, which I 
 have the honor, in part, to represent? 
 
 Sir, we lived under this policy' ; the great 
 Northwest was settled under this policy of ex- 
 cluding Slavery from the Territories of the Uni- 
 ted States; and how is it that neither South 
 dina nor Virginia found out that they were 
 not treated as equals in this Confederacy ? , 
 Why, sir, at so late a period as 1848, when a 
 Southern man was President of the United 
 
 -, Congress, by direct act, excluded Slavery 
 from Oregon. Now, can it be that there is any 
 such thing as inequality or injustice to any 
 
 tif this Union in the exclusion of Slavery 
 from a Territory? Will the Senator from South 
 Carolina do his ancestors the injustice to believe 
 th.it they submitted to the degradation and dis- 
 honor, as he now calls it, of being excluded from 
 the common Territories of the country? Sir, 
 they chose it, not as a degradation, not as a dis- 
 
Honor, but for wise purposes, and to accomplish 
 great ends. The founders of our Government 
 were men who, in their day, believed the insti- 
 tution of Slavery to be an evil in the country. 
 They found it here. They did not see the means 
 of getting rid of it immediately. They would 
 not abolish it at once. They conferred upon the 
 Federal Government no power to interfere with 
 it in the States which formed the Federal Gov- 
 ernment ; but they gave power to this Federal 
 Government to prevent its extension. They took 
 steps immediately after the Government was 
 organized to prevent Slavery from going into 
 any portion of the territory then belonging to 
 the United States. I know, sir, that Slavery 
 went into Tennessee, Mississippi, and other 
 States, but it went there in defiance of the Fed- 
 eral Government. The territories composing 
 those States were ceded to the United States on 
 condition that the United States should not ex- 
 clude Slavery from them ; but the territory 
 northwest of the river Ohio was ceded without 
 any such condition, and Congress immediately 
 excluded Slavery, with the acquiescence of the 
 South — yea, sir, the South itself moving in the 
 matter ; and your own great man, the great 
 statesman of America, himself is the author of 
 the provision which excluded Slavery from the 
 Northwestern Territory. 
 
 We deny that there is any disposition in any 
 portion of the North to treat the South as une- 
 quals in this common Confederacy. 
 
 Having shown that to some extent, I wish to 
 come back, and inquire of the Senator from 
 South Carolina, and his associates, what is the 
 meaning of the resolutions adopted in the South- 
 ern States, and of the speeches made by promi- 
 nent men in the Southern States, in which they 
 declare that in case a certain individual is elect- 
 ed President of these United States, in a consti- 
 tutional way, or in case the Republican party 
 elect a President of the United States, that they 
 will take steps for the formation of a Southern 
 Confederacy and the dissolution of the Union. 
 13 not that treating us as unequals ? What do 
 you mean by it? You come into the Senate of 
 the United States, and charge the North with act- 
 ing unequally and unjustly towards you ; and yet 
 you say to the North, " although we have united 
 together in a common Confederacy, i 1 which we 
 have agreed that the Chief Magistrate shall be 
 elected in a particular way, and by a majority 
 expressed in the constitutional form, yet, ifyou so 
 elect a man, we will break up the Government ! " 
 What is that but saying, " we are your superiors, 
 and your majority shall submit to what the mi- 
 nority think proper to dictate?" 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. Does the Senator desire an 
 answer now? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. I will simply state, so far as 
 it is within my knowledge, what I believe to be 
 the meaning of that declaration. It is not charg- 
 ing the North with inferiority. The declarations 
 having been made by tho3e who entertain them, 
 I presume go upon the ground of a distinct, un- 
 mistakable, clear enunciation of principles — 
 principles which subvert the Constitution of the 
 United States, the rights and equality of the 
 States, and which are held up in advance to us, 
 
 that " this will be our programme ; this will be 
 the course of action that we will pursue, and we 
 notify you in advance." Now, sir, what is that 
 programme? What have they announced to us 
 as the " irrepressible conflict?" Does the Sen- 
 ator suppose that when the distinguished leader 
 of that party announced to the world that the 
 wheat-fields and the rye-fields of Massachusetts 
 and New York must ultimately be tilled by slave 
 labor, that he meant any such thing — that he 
 supposed for a moment that that was to be the 
 result of this " irrepressible conflict ? " No, sir ; 
 but the other branch of the alternative — that the 
 sugar plantations of Louisiana and the cotton 
 and rice plantations of South Carolina shall be 
 tilled by free labor, and by free labor only. That 
 is a declaration of war. 
 
 It is a declaration against the rights of the 
 people, secured by the compact and the Consti- 
 tution of the country, and wc are' forewarned. 
 Notwithstanding this may be a constitutional, 
 election, that a majority, according to the pre- 
 scribed forms of the Constitution, have a right to 
 elect, and the election is valid, yet, rather than, 
 submit to a fate forewarned, they who think so 
 give timely notice that they do not intend to 
 submit to it. It is a degradation by a proclama- 
 tion in advance, to be mfet by a counter-procla- 
 mation, without touching the inferiority of the 
 Northern States at all. Sir, it is not the men, it 
 is not the party, it is not the States, but it is the 
 principle, that "we subjugate you; give us the 
 reins of power, and we will place you at our 
 feet; we will take from you what you have, qui- 
 etly ifyou will yield, forcibly ifyou do not; and 
 we will hold you under the power of this Fed- 
 eral Government, subject to the domination of a 
 party whose principles are in violation," accord- 
 ing to our judgment, "of every principle of the 
 Constitution." That, I presume, is the meaning 
 of those who profess that sentiment. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, it is just 
 such speeches as this we have listened to from 
 the Senator from South Carolina based upon a 
 misunderstanding of the Republican party of the 
 North, that has misled the Sduth. The North 
 intends no encroachment upon the South. The 
 Republican party is a party, in its principles, pub- 
 lic and avowed to the world, and it is because of 
 the misrepresentation of the objects and views of 
 that party that the prejudices of the South have 
 been excited against it, and chiefly by the mis- 
 representations which have been made by r this 
 so-called Democratic party in the North. They 
 choose to call every person that does not unite 
 with them an Abolitionist. 
 
 I was born and bred up in the Democratic 
 faith, acted with the Democratic party, sustained 
 its measures and its men upon principle when 
 that party was divided from the Whig parly 
 upon questions of finance, in regard to the com- 
 mercial interests of the country, and other great 
 questions. But, in 1854, what was done? I 
 was oie of those who acquiesced in the measures 
 of 1850, and agreed to abide by the settlement 
 then made. I heard with delight the declarator*' 
 of Franklin Pierce, when inaugurated Preside) 1 " 
 and in his message, that the settlement of )Hi Ui 
 should suffer no shock which he could prcvc aC 
 during his Administration. I was glad win 
 
 I 
 
tbo Kansas-Nebraska bill was introduced, ac- 
 companied by the report of a committee in this 
 body, declaring that to repeal the Missouri com- 
 promise would be a departure from the meas- 
 ures of 1850. It was said that the compromise 
 measures of 1850 had given peace to the coun- 
 trv : that the Slavery question was forever after- 
 wards to be banished from the Halls of Congress, 
 and that no man was to be tolerated who should 
 under any pretence whatever, in Congress or out 
 of Congress, attempt to stir up again this exci- 
 ting question. 
 
 I, in good faith, supposed that these declarat- 
 ions meant something; and therefore when, in 
 1854, notwithstanding these assurances to the 
 country, the proposition was sprung upon it to 
 repeal the Missouri compromise, and open Kan- 
 sas to Slavery, and when the measure was made 
 the test and the only test of party faith, I did 
 refuse to co-operate with the party which made 
 i .: i t of its political faith. Then it 
 
 : be oil Democratic party and the Whig 
 party were broken up. They were both disband- 
 (•'!, and a new question was thrust upou the 
 country, which had not before been in issue be- 
 tween partie . When it was thrust upon us, ami 
 parties and persons took issue upon the qui 
 
 ie n peal of the .Missouri compromise and the 
 as to Slavery, I united with that 
 party which took ground against the repeal ot 
 the Missouri compromise, and in favor of stand- 
 ing by what all parties had agreed to but four 
 \> : is previous — ay, sir, hut two years previous, 
 when the nominati Ltheirre pective candidates 
 1 . j i t To style the party that now 
 
 mocratic, the successor of the old 
 D tocratic party, is a misnomer. It is no more 
 
 or of that party than the Republican 
 party. The country seems to have forgotten, 
 and gentlemen who use this word '• Democratic,'' 
 as it it had Bome meauing, at this day, seem to 
 
 tl at a majority of the mem 
 of the Bouse of Representatives from the North- 
 era State* of the Democratic party voted against 
 the repeal of the Missouri compromise. It was 
 a minority of the Democratic party that favored 
 thai measure, and then it was that these new 
 parties were formed, compo3ed ot persons who 
 had lido!.- belonged indiscriminately either to 
 the Whig or the Democratic parly. 
 
 Whon the Senator from South Carolina at- 
 tribi ; to the Republican party of the North the 
 
 h he does, h3 entirely misapprehends 
 the view 3 of that party. They have been reit- 
 
 tmdred times. 1 wish I had a voice 
 that I could reiterate them so that every man in 
 South should hear. I would say tp every 
 the Gulf to the Potomac, the Republi- 
 can party plants itself on this Slavery question 
 ely mi the ground upon which your own 
 Washington and Jefferson stood. We avow in 
 our platform of principles that we will abide by 
 the Constitution. We have no intention of in- 
 
 vith your domestic institutions; and 
 when the Senator from South Carolina talks 
 North interfering with the institutions 
 Of the South, 1 ask when, where? Never, sir. 
 I but you exclude us from the common ter- 
 ■ an interference with your insti- 
 tutions? Wai it an interference in 1787 ? Was 
 
 it an interference in 1789, when your own great 
 men passed the act to exclude Slavery from the 
 Territories? You did not so regard it. Did 
 those men put a dishonor upon themselves ? We 
 believe that these Territories are the common 
 property of the United States, as much as you ; 
 we tell you that a man who has no slaves has 
 as much right to go there as a man who has 
 slaves ; that one has just as much right to settle 
 in the Territories of the United States as another; 
 but we tell you that no man can take the insti- 
 tutions of his State, along with him wherever he 
 goes. When he goes beyond the jurisdiction of 
 his State, and enters some other jurisdiction, the 
 local laws which governed him in the State 
 whence he emigrated cease to operate. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States has ex- 
 pressly conferred upon Congress authority to 
 govern these Territories, and the authority has 
 always been exercised. It is altogether a mis- 
 taken notion that any inequality is put upon 
 Southern men by refusing to extend Slavery in- 
 to the Territories. Why, sir, in the Southern 
 States, a majority of your white population are 
 not slaveholders. Not one in ten, only a*bout 
 one in twenty of your population own slaves, 
 and if you will divide them into families, I sup- 
 pose that not one family in five in all the South- 
 ern States owns a slave. We believe that it is 
 for the interests of this great country, for the 
 interests of the people who are to settle our 
 Territories, that they should be settled by free 
 white people. What interest have four families 
 out of five in the Southern States in introducing 
 Slavery into Kansas, or into any free territory ? 
 Will you tell me that it is putting a degradation 
 on them, unless they are permitted to introduce 
 slaves into the Territories? They have none to 
 introduce. They do not want Slavery. Nine 
 out of ten of your white population in Carolina 
 own no slaves, and at least four out of five of 
 the families of that State, I presume, have no 
 slaves. Is it a degradation then upon them? 
 Who is it upon? Why, if on any one, it is on 
 your one-twentieth person ; and legislation to 
 protect his interests, at the expense of nineteen- 
 twentieths, is to be brought about in the name 
 ot Democracy. I said a degradation upon the 
 one-twentieth person. It is no degradation 
 upon him. It is no degradation upon any man. 
 You of the South, as citizens of this common 
 country, are as much interested in keeping the 
 Territories free as we of the North. Most of 
 your people own no slaves, and, as a matter of 
 course, would prefer, when they emigrate, to 
 come into a non-slaveholding country. The 
 State in which I reside has in it hundreds and 
 thousands and tens of thousands of people from 
 the slaveholding States. They want no Slavery, 
 and I suppose if the question were to be submit- 
 ted to the citizens of Illinois to-morrow, whether 
 Slavery should be introduced, although there- 
 are thousands of voters from Maryland, Virginia, 
 Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, 
 and South Carolina, it would not get one vole 
 in ten thousand in the State. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. Will the Senator allow me to 
 interrupt him a moment? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. The Senator undertook just 
 
G 
 
 now to enlighten us in respect to the attitude of 
 the party of which he is a member upon this 
 slave question. I am very solicitous to know 
 precisely where the Senator's party stands upon 
 that question, and what is the purpose of the 
 organization/for I understand the organization 
 to refer mainly to the question of Slavery. 1 
 desire to know the precise position of the party 
 to which the Senator belongs, and which prin- 
 cipally prevails in the Northern States on that 
 subject. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL; If the Senator from Florida 
 cannot understand the principles of the Republi- 
 can party, which have been proclaimed and 
 published to the world, he is certainly not a very 
 apt scholar, and I shall almost despair of enlight- 
 ening him. Our principles are emblazoned be- 
 fore the country and published in the platforms 
 of the party. Did he never read them, or has 
 he gone on. without reading our principles, and 
 misunderstanding them ? 
 
 Mr. YULEE. I have certainly read them ; 
 but, unfortunately, never understood them. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Then, if I can be the means 
 of enlightening my friend from Florida as to 
 any particular part of our platform that he can- 
 not understand, it will afford me great pleasure 
 to do so. 
 
 Mr. WADE. I think it will take until morning 
 to do this, and I therefore move that the Senate 
 do now adjourn. 
 
 The motion was agreed to; and the Senate 
 adjourned. 
 
 December 8, 1359. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL said : 
 
 Mr. President, just before the adjournment of 
 this body yesterday, I was called upon by the 
 Senator from Florida [Mr. Yulee] to state what 
 were the principles of the Republican party. 
 
 Sir, 1 did suppose that the Senator from Flor- 
 ida, and every Senator, could understand, if he 
 desired to do so, what our principles were. They 
 have been proclaimed by an authoritative Con- 
 vention of the party, in language as p'ain as it is 
 in the power of man to employ ; and it is only by 
 mystification, by misrepresentations of them in 
 many portions of the country, as I think, that 
 the public mind of the South has been excited 
 against the Republican party. I have brought 
 along with me their declaration of principles, 
 and, so far as it relates to the Slavery question, 
 I will read it ; it is brief, and. I should like to 
 know to what portion of it the Senator from 
 Florida, or any other Senator or individual, 
 North or South, objects. Here it is : 
 
 " Resolved, That the maintenance of the principles promul- 
 gated in the Declaration of Independence, and embodied in 
 the Federal Constitution, are essential to the preservation of 
 our Republican institutions, and that the Federal Constitu- 
 tion, the rights of the States, and the Union of the States, 
 must and shall be preserved." 
 
 Does the Senator from Florida understand 
 that — that the Constitution ot the United States, 
 the rights of the States, and the principles em- 
 bodied in the Constitution, must and shall be 
 preserved? 
 
 Mr. YULEE. I want to know how you con- 
 strue the Constitution ? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. We will tell you. We say 
 ourselves how we construe it on the Slavery 
 question : 
 
 " Resolved, That, with our remiblican fathers, we hold it 
 to be a self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the 
 inalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness; and that the primary object and ulterior design of our 
 Federal Government is, to grant these rights to all persons 
 under its exclusive jurisdiction. That as our republican 
 fathers, when they had abolished Slavery in all our national 
 territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, 
 liberty, or property, without due process of law, it becomes 
 our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution 
 (against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of estab- 
 lishing Slavery in the Territories of the United States) by 
 positive legislation prohibiting its existence or extension 
 therein. That We deny the authority of Congress, of a- Ter- 
 ritorial Legislature, of any individual or association of indi- 
 viduals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory 
 of the United States, while the present Constitution shall bo 
 maintained. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress 
 sovereign power over the Territories of the United States, for 
 their government; and that, in the exercise of this power, it 
 is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to pro- 
 hibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, Polyg- 
 amy and Slavery." 
 
 That is the whole platform of the Republican 
 party on the subject of Slavery. 
 
 Mr. SAULSBURY. Will the Senator from Il- 
 linois allow me to ask him a question? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. SAULSBURY. If it be true, as that last 
 resolution states, that the Constitution confers 
 upon Congress sovereign power over the Terri- 
 tories of the United States, for their government, 
 why is it that that power, which the resolution 
 declares to be sovereign in Congress — by which, 
 I presume, is meant a supreme power, a power 
 which has no superior — is not capable of being 
 exercised for the establishment of Slavery in a 
 Territory, as well as for the prohibition of Sla- 
 very in a Territory? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, the power 
 which the Federal Government may exercise 
 over a Territory is sovereign power in its gov- 
 ernment, as we all know and understand, within 
 the Constitution of the United States. The Con- 
 stitution of the United States declares that Con- 
 gress shall pass no law establishing any partic- 
 ular form of religion or abridging the freedom of 
 speech or of the press. I readily admit, and so 
 does the Republican party, that the Congress of 
 the United States cannot pass a law abridging 
 the freedom of speech in any one of the Territo- 
 ries. They are expressly prohibited from so 
 doing. They have the sovereign power over the 
 Territories, to legislate for them in all matters 
 within the Constitution of the UnitedStates; and 
 the Constitution of the, United States does not 
 authorize Congress to establish Slavery. The 
 Constitution is based upon this principle. It 
 does not establish Slavery At all, but merely 
 tolerates it where it already exists by virtue of 
 State laws. That is the meaning of the Consti- 
 tution cf the United States. It is a Constitution 
 of Freedom, the word " slave" not occurring in 
 it, and the men who framed the Constitution be- 
 lieved that in the process of time there would be 
 no slaves in any portion of the Confederacy, and 
 one of its principal authors objected to the use 
 of the word "slave," lest future generations 
 might know that there was Slavery in some of 
 the States when the Constitution was formed 
 If you will turn to that clause of the Constitu- 
 tion relating to the reclamation of fugitive slaves, 
 you will find that it reads, that " no person liel 1 
 to service or labor in one State, under the laws 
 
. 
 
 thereof," that 13, under the laws of the State, 
 "escaping into another, shall, in consequence of 
 any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
 from such service or labor, but shall be delivered 
 up." There is no provision for the delivering 
 up of a man who is held to service by any other 
 than a State law. If held to service by virtue 
 of the Constitution, that instrument contains no 
 provision for his return when he escapes from 
 one State to another. This shows that the tra- 
 iners of the Constitution never contemplated that 
 a person could be held to service, whether as a 
 slave or as an apprentice, except by virtue of 
 State laws, else the provision for reclamation 
 would have been general, and not limited to 
 persons so held. Would the Senator from Del- 
 aware contend that, under this clause of the 
 Constitution, he could reclaim a person held as 
 a slave, by virtue of that instrument, who had 
 escaped from one State into another? Sup 
 a person comes into the State of Delaware, who, 
 it is contended, is a slave, and his alleged owner 
 comes to reclaim him — would you give him up it 
 he did not show that lie was held as a - 
 under the laws of the State from which he es- 
 d? If you would not, then, as a matter of 
 course, you could not give up a person who was 
 held as a slave in one of the Territories, because 
 he could not be so held in a Territory by virtue 
 of any State law. 
 
 I be misunderstood, I will state that I 
 do not mean to say that if there is Slavery in 
 one of the Territories of the Union, as there was 
 Ly the acquiescence of Congress in Ten" 
 and Kentucky and in the Southwestern i 
 while they were Territories, a negro who i 
 as a slave there, and escapes into any of the 
 States ol the Union, may not be reclaimed. 1 
 hold to no such doctrine. I contend that the 
 Congress of the United States have sovereign 
 I ower over the Territories, to legislate for them 
 within the Constitution, and'bad the right to 
 is it did in the enactmenl of the ordi- 
 nance ol L787 for the Northwestern Territory, that 
 fugitives who should escape to that Territory 
 from slavehol liug States should be surrendered 
 up. It is by virtue of its sovereign power over 
 the Territories, and not by virtue ot the clause 
 of the Constitution relating to the return of fugi- 
 fr mi one State to another, that Co:. 
 
 La v ' J u hich a person held to service 
 or labor iu a Blaveholding Territory may be re- 
 claimed when he escapes into a State, and by 
 
 ive in a State who escapes into a free 
 Territory maj be reclaimed and brought back to 
 the State whence he fled. 
 
 Now, sir, what portion of this platform or 
 creed does the Senator from Florida object to? 
 I.know what he will say. He objects to that 
 pari \\ hich Slavery from the Territories. 
 
 Is thi 
 
 Mr. YULEE, 1 desire to hear from the Sena- 
 tor an illustration and exposition of his creed; 
 whether he intends us to understand, or bis 
 party intend it to be understood, that by the 
 Constitution of the United States property in 
 Blav.es was abolished, and stands abolished in 
 all national territory, and in all territory over 
 which we have exclusive jurisdiction. Does he 
 mean to say that the tenure iu slave property in 
 
 the District of Columbia, and in the forts and in 
 the arsenals, as well as in the Territories of the 
 United States, was abolished under the Con- 
 stitution, and stands abolished now? 
 
 If there be any meaning in this platform, it is 
 a meaning which strikes at the root of property 
 in slaves in all the new States of this Con- 
 federacy. The ground upon which you rest 
 yourself is, that it is not only not in the 
 power of Congress, but that it is not in the 
 power of a Territorial Government or of any as- 
 sociation of individuals, under any pretext or iu 
 any form, to give existence to Slavery in a Terri- 
 tory. If that be so, all the slaves in Louisiana, 
 all the slaves in Tennessee, in Missouri, in every 
 other new State of this Confederacy, were free by 
 virtue of the Constitution, and are illegally held. 
 
 When the Senator attempts to present to us 
 here a principle by which his party io to be rule I, 
 we have a right to ask him, and to know, by 
 what practical measures of legislation his par y 
 propose to give effect to the principle which they 
 undertake to assert. Now, let us take the case 
 of a Territory immediately occupied by emigrants 
 from a Southern State, and by them alone, ac 
 companied with their slave property, which the 
 Supreme Court declares to be legally their prop- * 
 erty there — I wish to know by what practical 
 measure of legislation the Senator proposes to 
 _rtve effect to his principle. Is it by a code to 
 abolish the property of the slaveholder in his 
 slaves there? Is that what he proposes to do? 
 [f the people of the Territory desire to use that 
 form of labor, does he mean to deny them tl 
 right, and to deny it by an act of the Federal 
 Legislature prohibiting the enjoyment of that 
 right to the inhabitants of the Territory? 
 
 More than that: if, when they come to form 
 Ives into a sovereign community, and pre- 
 sent themselves here, under the Federal Consti- 
 tution, for admission as a State of this Union, 
 with a clause in their Constitution protecting 
 ■ ty, I wish to know whether it is apart 
 ol the policy and purpose of the party of which 
 
 ■ Senator is a member, giving effect to the 
 principle here asserted as their rule of action, to 
 reject the application. 
 
 It the end and aim of the Senators organiza- 
 tion is limited to the Territorial question, and 
 when that is done with, all is done with it on the 
 slave question, then the South will know, so far, 
 what to expect from them. 
 
 Next, so far as the Territorial question is con- 
 cerned, I ask tl. ■ Senator to give us the practical 
 measures by which they propose to give applica- 
 tion to their principles, and to tell us upon what 
 ground they assert that property in slave- is al - 
 ished by the Constitution, and yet justify a con- 
 tinued recognition of that right in the District of 
 Columbia, the forts and arsenals, and those of 
 I rritories of the United States in which it 
 has been permitted, not only by the acquiesce c ■ 
 but by the direct authority of law, to exist, ibr 
 was the case in Tennessee, and in other 
 portions of the new States. Congress did, by ex- 
 press enactment, authorize the existence of Sla- 
 very. I yield to the Senator. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I am glad, 
 this discussion has arisen. I have no right to 
 impeach the motives of gentlemen on the other 
 
side ; I suppose they really labor und^r some 
 misapprehension in regard to our principles. I 
 think, if we could understand each other, the 
 good old times, when a man from the South and 
 a man from the North could meet together in a 
 friendly spirit, without any dispute upon this 
 question, would return. I think misapprehension 
 is the foundation of the great controversy upon 
 vhe Slavery question. 
 
 The Senator has thought proper to speak of 
 the South. He speaks ot the degradation, as he 
 calls it, to the South, of excluding them from a 
 Territory 
 
 Mr. YULEE. That was the Senator's own 
 word. 1 rarely quoted his own language. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. We mean no degradation 
 to the South. I am sorry that the word "South" 
 has been used with regard to this alleged right 
 to extend Slavery to a Territory. I tried yester- 
 day to explain that the South is made up of a 
 great many persons who are not slaveholders, 
 by tar many mure than the slaveholders, and 
 therefore 1 do not know what right those who 
 hold slaves have to arrogate to themselves that 
 they are the South. They are a portion of the 
 • South, and a small portion only, about one- 
 twentieth part, as shown by the census. 
 
 The Senator asks if this platform of principles 
 is only intended to apply to the Territories. Most 
 assuredly the Republican party had its origin in 
 the question of Slavery in regard (o the Territo- 
 ries. It was the departure from the policy of 
 this Government, from the day of its foundation 
 down to 1S54, which gave rise to che Republican 
 .1 riy. It was an organization in reference to 
 the question of Slavery in the Territories, and 
 nowhere else. There is nothing in this platform 
 in regard to the question of Slavery in the States 
 of this Union; and, lest I forget it, permit me to 
 say that I speak not for the Republican party, 
 except as its platform speaks. I claim no au- 
 thority to be its exponent. Its exponent is its 
 principles, as declared here in this document. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. I desire to have his exposition of 
 the platform, or what he presents as his plat- 
 form. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. The Senator speaks of what 
 I present as the platform. Now, is it possible 
 that the Senator from Florida has not seen, and 
 does not know, this platform? Is there any 
 other? Why say, " what I present as the plat- 
 form ? I' Why net say, '• the platform of I he Re- 
 publican r <aity V " Why should we seek here, in 
 the Senate of the United States, to mislead any- 
 body ? I am sorry tve cannot speak of admitted 
 facts, as they are. We are trying here, I trust, 
 to arrive at an understanding with each other. 
 That is niy object; and I wish to do away with 
 all these clap-trap expressions and these ugly 
 name-i that are used for the purpose of exciting 
 prejudice. Why is it that members of the Sen- 
 ate of the United States, and that the Cabinet 
 officers of the country, talk of the Republican 
 party as the Black Republican party ? Do they 
 want to create a prejudice against it? The Sen- 
 ator did not use that word. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. No, I did not use it. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I happened to speak of it 
 now — it has been used in this debate — because 
 
 the Senator seemed to cast a suspicion upon the 
 platform. Why, sir, there is but the one. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. It may be. I would state here 
 to the Senator, that I did not use the term Black 
 Republican. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I have said you did not. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. But I did not use the term Re- 
 publican here, for the reason, as I said last nigbtj 
 that that term and that party denomination hav- 
 ing been once consecrated by a national party of 
 far other, and, as I humbly think, higher objects 
 than the present party, no party, whatever its 
 objects may be, has the right to appropriate that 
 name. It has become the property of a prece- 
 ding party, and therefore some qualification of 
 the term Republican, by which the gentleman's 
 party may be defined, ought to be adopted. I 
 will not myself apply a qualification, but leave 
 it to that party to discover, as I hope they will, 
 some qualification of the term Republican. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, it is because 
 we advocate every principle advocated by T the 
 old Republican party that we adopt its name ; 
 and I say to the Senator to-day, show me a de- 
 parture from the principles of the Republican 
 party of Thomas Jefferson's days, and I will op- 
 pose that departure in the Republican party of 
 to-day. It is because we advocate the princi- 
 ples of Thomas Jefferson, because we advocate 
 the principles of the Republican party of 1800, 
 that we, call . ourselves Republicans; and, if I 
 know myself, I will adhere to the principles of 
 the old Republican party in regard to ibis ques- 
 tion. The father of that party is our great model. 
 Our principles are taken from him. The very 
 words of our platform which the gentleman ob- 
 jects to, were indited by his baud. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. '-To create, not to destroy, a 
 free government?" 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir ; and we will per- 
 petuate free government by continuing the prin- 
 ciples that he advocated. But, sir, what beyond 
 that? How has it come, from a gentleman upon 
 that side of the House, to tell us we must not 
 call ourselves Republicans, when they assume 
 to call themselves Democrats ? Democrats ! 
 And the illustration of your principle, democ- 
 racy, is the supremacy of an aristocracy of slave- 
 holders in this country. Any man can be a 
 member of the Democratic party who will adopt 
 your creed on the subject of the spread of Sla- 
 very, and the upholding of slaveholding institu- 
 tions in this country, which concern directly not 
 one man in sixty of the population of this Union. 
 That is the party that has arrogated to itself 
 the name of '• Democrat," and that reproaches 
 us for calling ourselves Republicans. Dem- 
 ocrats! A party that legislates for the interest 
 of one out of sixty — forgetting the interest of 
 four-fifths of the families of the South to pro- 
 mote that of one-fifth. 
 
 The Senator wishes to know if Slavery was 
 abolished by the Constitution of the United 
 States. I have already said, no; Slavery y/ns 
 not abolished by the Constitution of the United 
 States. I stated before, and I will try to repeat 
 it again, that the Constitution was 1 a n d upon 
 the idea of Freedom, but it did not abolish Sla- 
 very where it existed by State or local law. It 
 did not interfere to do that. It allowed the 
 
9 
 
 States to manage that for themselves, and pro- 
 vided that, when one held to service shquld es- 
 to another State, where Slavery did not 
 i be reclaimed; and I wish the 
 or to understand from me that I acquiesce 
 tuse of the Constitution of the United 
 1 recognise your right to reclaim the 
 person who runs away, bat I think it should lie 
 done roper manner, without 
 
 ding in toe country. 
 Mr. CLAY. Will the Senator allow me a mo- 
 meut, to ask him whether he recognises the 
 i fugitive slaves in the Territo- 
 ries '.' 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I do, under an act of Con- 
 
 • to Territories. 
 Mr. CLAY. Then 1 will ask him to re 
 
 iscrepancy between the platform 
 
 id and the position he now 
 
 »r ia that platform, as he read ','., it 
 
 i ... i i ither Congress nor any indi- 
 
 any legal assistance to Slavery 
 
 within ories. 
 
 Mr. 1 I legal existence to 
 
 ^ rritory," i . i -ire. We 
 
 ih it the right to reclaim a fugitive pi 
 ■ 
 
 it te. We have expn p pro- 
 
 ■ 
 thai .- 
 
 Bay to the m Alabama, that if a slave 
 
 o! I.i ■ State et' [iiinois, we , 
 
 owner to reclaim him, and 
 i i ■ tory. 
 • LAY. If i r will pardon me 
 
 I ■ upting hi'.n. 1 u . ut iij the plat- 
 
 tbe word i . istance," no "ex i . " and 
 
 ::i of that p irty 
 ftortl 
 •• exi tence.' I 
 
 i . 
 
 Mr. , . nd is "exi 
 
 in the plal i I I never un . x- 
 
 .i dit- 
 
 : reof it. 
 
 Mr. CLAY. Still, if the Si nator will pardon 
 
 jne, Eupp I the 
 
 word shou aimi d uj hitn, 
 
 i e wiih his 
 theoi pla form, of the 
 
 ■ of all men to liberty, and the obligation of 
 the 1 1 Go i cure that right 
 
 within the Territories, the countervailing obliga- 
 tion to I ve. 
 
 [r. President, 1 will try to 
 
 him my understanding of it 
 
 impartially as 1 am able. 1 un- 
 
 iat part of the platform to 
 
 B -riiou of a gre . what 
 
 1 understand by those wo. Declaration 
 
 , wherein it is declared that "all 
 
 men are i tal, and endowi 1 by their 
 
 I the Government, " with certain 
 
 .i.ong which are lite, liberty 
 
 the pursuit of happiness." Now, I do not 
 
 understand that our fathers supposed they could 
 
 carry out these principles perfectly in govern- 
 
 ment. Every Government, as I had occasion to 
 say in this debate before, is an encroachment, 
 more or less, on the natural rights of man. What 
 did they mean? Why, sir, the men who signed 
 their names to that immortal Declaration of In- 
 dependence were men who either themselves or 
 their ancestors had fled from despotisms in the 
 Old World. They had seen men claiming to rule 
 by D.vine right as kings; they had seen another 
 class of men claiming to rule and lord it ove? - 
 the mass of their fellow-beings by hereditary 
 right, and they intended to pm it upon record in 
 this formation of the Government which they 
 were m-vking, that their posterity in all time 
 might know that they recognised no Divineright 
 of one man over another, no hereditary right of 
 lords and nobles to trample upon their fellow 
 me .. Naturally, no sucn right can exis;. It is 
 but the assertion of powei ; rowing out of the 
 mizatiou of Governments. Car ancestors in- 
 1 to form a Government as near the great 
 tural right as they could. As 
 .Mr. Jefferson said, the most perfect Government 
 on earth would be one which secured to hou- 
 I'ruits of its own industry, and in- 
 ed no more than was necessar to prevent 
 anarchy, or the encroachments of the strong 
 upon the weal;. I do not quote his beautiful 
 it. the idea.. This is what 1 under- 
 i meant by this platform of principles 
 in that respect. 
 
 CLAY. Will the Senator pardon me for 
 asking him a further question? 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Undoubtedly: 
 Mr. CLAY. 1 do not mean to interrupt him; 
 . isposed to be candid and com- 
 municative, 1 will tiouuie him wen a. further 
 q . ■ ion. t would be glad if he can explain how 
 n reconcile with toe personal integrity of 
 imers of Lhe Declaration ol Independence 
 Lhe federal Constitution, tht ir holding slaves, 
 and retaining tbem as slaves, and distributing 
 them by their last will and testament among 
 i children, with their declaration that those 
 i were entitled to life and Lberty; and if no 
 ■ ■an reconcile these matters, 1 wo ild ask him, 
 . . lermore, whether he unders an !s the words 
 • Declaration of Independence, or of the 
 i Ci i'-i union, which declares that the 
 C a citution was formed for ourselves and our 
 posterity, to embrace also the negroes. 
 
 Mr. TtiUMB'ULL. I reconcile what seems to 
 lhe gentleman to be a contradiction in this way: 
 fathers had to deal with circumstances as 
 they were. They declared great fundamental 
 principles. The Senator from Alabama will 
 a.Tee with me, that any evil is wrong; that any 
 lachment upon the natural rights of any of 
 us (and our Government restrains us more or 
 less) is only to be justified upon the ground that 
 it is necessary for organized society and lor 
 government, and that men could not live to- 
 gether, except in eternal quarrels, unless we ha 1 
 a government of some kind; but that does not 
 militate against the truth that the great Author 
 or all created us equal and with the same rights. 
 Mr. CLAY. The Senator does not seem to 
 apprehend the force of my question. Perhaps I 
 did not put it fairly. According to the declara- 
 tion in your platform, as read, 1 understand youi 
 
10 
 
 party to maintain that the negro enjoys, in com- 
 mon with the white man, an inalienable right to 
 liberty. You denounce the violation of that 
 right as a crime, a sin in the eye of Heaven, 
 and a crime against the laws of man ; a violation 
 of the doctrines of Christianity. You denounce 
 it as a twin relic of barbarism with polygamy. 
 Now, I ask you how you can reconcile it with 
 the personal integrity of the framers either of 
 the Declaration of Independence or of the Fed- 
 eral Constitution} that they sanctioned a crime 
 at the same time that they protested against it. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I am satis- 
 fied that I am not understood by the Senator 
 from Alabama. I say that the negro has the 
 same natural rights that 1 have ; and now I Bay 
 it is no: a crime, under all circumstances, to hold 
 a negro in slavery. 
 
 Mr. CLAY. Why, then, does the Senator's 
 party denounce it as a twin relic of barbarism 
 with polygamy ? Is not that a crime? Do not 
 your laws punish it? Do not the laws of my 
 State punish it? And if Slavery is equal in ini- 
 quity with polygamy, why should not the laws 
 of all tl>e Shifts punish it? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. We would punish polygamy 
 in Illinois as a crime ; and we would punish the 
 holding of a slave in Illinois as a crime. 
 
 Mr. CLAY. Will the Senator pardon me? I 
 do not mean to be officious, and I do not intend 
 to by offensive. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I do not take it so. lam 
 very glad, iadeed, to be interrogated. I wish to 
 express my gratification at Senators' efforts to 
 obtain explanations. 
 
 Mr. CLAY. I wish the Senator to explain 
 whether, according to his code of ethics, or that 
 of the party to which he belongs, it becomes 
 any civilized, any Christian Government, to rec- 
 ognise crime ; whether there be any circum- 
 stances under which crime can be justified, ex- 
 cused, or palliated ? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I will not 
 cavil about the word " crime." 1 do not call it 
 a crime in citizens of the South to hold slaves 
 at all. 
 
 Mr. CLAY. Is not polygamy a crime ? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Polygamy is a crime under 
 some circumstances, but not always a crime. I 
 take it that polygamy is no crime in Turkey. 
 
 Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that concession, 
 in this Christian country. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I think it is no crime in 
 Turkey. It is a crime in our Christian country. 
 We regard it so, but other nations do not regard 
 it as a crime. I do not regard the holding of 
 slaves as they are held in the Southern States 
 of this Union, and in many other countries, as 
 necessarily criminal. That is not the term I 
 apply to it. I think it is a wrong to those per- 
 sons who are so held, but it is a wrong which 
 had better be endured than to do worse. It is 
 better to be endured than to undertake to right 
 it by committing a greater wrong and a greater 
 evil. 
 
 Mr. CRAY. Then, if the Senator will pardon 
 me, I understand him to maintain that right and 
 wrong are merely conventional ; that whether 
 polygamy bo a crime or not, depends merely 
 
 upon the laws of society or upon the tone ot 
 moral sentiment of society. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Not entirely, Mr. President, 
 do I concede them to be conventional. Many 
 things, doubtless, are either criminal or innocent 
 according to the circumstances; and when we 
 speak of crime in human society or in political 
 organizations, we mean some violation of the 
 law3 of the land; and I take it there are no laws 
 of the land upon the subject of polygamy in 
 some countries, and I suppose it would not, in 
 that sense, be a crime in those countries. If the 
 gentleman wants my opinion of it morally, which 
 I presume he does not, of course I am very will- 
 ing to express it. 
 
 Mr. CLAY. Will the Senator pardon me for 
 interrupting him ? Would not the taking of a 
 human being's life without justifiable or excusa- 
 ble cause be a crime, independent of all statu- 
 tory provision or legal enactment; and if so, by 
 parity of reasoning, is not polygamy a crime ? 
 and if so, by the force of your own platform, 
 which condemns Slavery equally with polygamy, 
 is that not a crime, independent of all human 
 legislation? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. The taking of human life 
 in the instance the Senator puts, unjustifiably, 
 would undoubtedly be a great wrong and a 
 crime, and so it would be a gre it wrong and a 
 crime to deprive a person of his liberty without 
 justifiable or excusable cause. It is always a 
 natural wrong, but it is not, in my judgment, a 
 crime in every instance. 1 have never so re- 
 garded it. This is my explanation of that part of 
 the Declaration of Independence which declares 
 that all men were created equal, and of the 
 enunciation of the same principle in the platform 
 of the Republican party. If it means anything 
 else, I do not understand it, and the people of 
 the State of Illinois do not understand it. It is 
 the doctrine we have proclaimed there always, 
 and the people of the State of Illinois who be- 
 long to the Republican party, belong to it as a 
 party adopting the principles of the old Repub- 
 lican party ; and as that old Republican party 
 kept Slavery out of the Territories, believing it 
 to be an evil, we desire to do the same thing, 
 and for that purpose the present Republican 
 party was organized, because of the change of 
 the policy of the Government on the subject of 
 Slavery, in undertaking to extend it. 
 
 I may omit to answer fully the Senator from 
 Florida. I hope I shall not, and certainly I wi.l 
 not omit answering frankly, so far as I am able 
 to do so, if I recollect the positions which he 
 has assumed, for in this debate it is no interrup- 
 tion to me that gentlemen ask questions. I wish 
 to deceive nobody. I have no prepared speech 
 to make, and therefore it is no interruption to 
 me. If I can afford information to any gentle- 
 man from the South, that shall disabuse his 
 mind as to the objects and views of the. Northern 
 people, I shall consider that 1 am pfr'brming a 
 service to my country in giving the information. 
 • I have not been able to get through with what 
 I designed to say in reply to the Senator from 
 Florida, the Senator from Alabama having in- 
 terposed some questions in the mean time, divci i- 
 ing my attention from him. I shall endeavor io 
 answer him. The Republican party, as I undci- 
 
11 
 
 stand, was organized with regard to the Territo- 
 rial question ; but if the Senator, when he says 
 it is confined altogether to that, means to under- 
 stand me a3 saying that the Republican party 
 would not make itself efficient in preventing the 
 violation of the law in the revival of the African 
 elave trade, or anything of that kind, he misun- 
 derstands me. The Republican party, on this 
 subject of Slavery, would prevent its extension. 
 and ; t would enforce the laws equally in the 
 North and in the South. While it would not in- 
 terpose to prevent the owner of 9 slave from re- 
 capturing him in a free State, it would make it- 
 self active in preventing violations of the law in 
 the Southern States by the introduction of ne- 
 groes from the coast of Africa, and the revival of 
 the African slave trade. We would administer 
 this Government very differe-ulv from the man- 
 ner in which it i3 now administered ; and if we 
 had control, the army and navy ot the land would 
 be as ready to arrest your vessels loaded with 
 when they landed upon the Southern 
 coast, as they are to arrest a negro that may be 
 found loose somewhere in the city of Boston. 
 
 The Senator asked me the question distinctly, 
 Was Slavery abolished by the Constitution of the 
 United States? No, sir. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. No, sir; I did not ask that ques- 
 tion. I asked the meaning of this clause in the 
 ilican platf 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Perhaps I shall be able to 
 
 answer; if not, when I get through, the Senator 
 
 can n [uestion. He wanted to know if 
 
 the slaves in Tennessee and Louisiana are freed 
 
 i. No, sir; the Senator certainly 
 
 that. 
 
 .Mr. 5 I do. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. He wanted to know if the 
 in the District of Columbia by this 
 rm. No. sir. 
 
 Mr. PUGH. May I ask the Senator whether 
 he is speaking for bimselt or for the party? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I am speaking for myself ; 
 and as I understand 
 
 Mr. PUGH. I thought you were interpreting 
 the party. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I am giving my understand- 
 ing of the Republican creed, and the way it is 
 i stood by the people of the Northwest, who 
 arc a conservative, Union-loving, Constitution- 
 abidiug pi ople, loyal to the Constitution and to 
 the Union, and are no ultraists in any sense of 
 the word. 
 
 Mr. ITCH. Will the Senator permit me to ask 
 him whether he considers Governor Chase, of 
 Ohio, an exponent of the principles of the Re- 
 pnblican 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I consider 
 that (the platform) the exponent of the princi- 
 ples of the Republican party, anil not what any 
 one man may say. It is the creed of one million 
 three hundred thousand men, and Governor 
 I y or may not precisely agree with me 
 
 ia his interpretation of every clause. I do not 
 believe n possible there can lie as much differ- 
 1 ictween us as there is between the Senator 
 h his popular-sovereignty dogma 
 ind the great Democratic patty. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. PUGH That is just what I want to find 
 
 out; how much difference there is between the 
 Senator and the rest of his party. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I do not believe there is so 
 wide a difference as that. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. But the Senator wondered yes- 
 terday evening that I was unable to understand 
 his platform. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. It seems to me a plain 
 platform. It has no Northern and Southern face, 
 like your Cincinnati creed. We do not preaeli 
 popular sovereignty ia the North, and scout it 
 as a humbug in the South. 
 
 Mr. PUGH. You do not preach it in the South 
 at all. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. No, sir ; we do not preach 
 it in the South at all ; and yet the men who do 
 not allow our principles to be proclaimed in the 
 South, talk about sectionalism. A sectionalism 
 so pure and unadulterated that it will not tol- 
 erate the exposition of the principles of its oppo- 
 nents at all where it is in power, talks to the 
 other party about sectionalism ! 
 
 I say that Slavery was not abolished in Ten- 
 nessee and Louisiana by the Constitution. Why. 
 sir, does not the Senator from Florida know that 
 we acquired Tennessee by a deed of cession that 
 prohibited the extension to it of that portion of 
 the ordinance of l7S7*which excluded Slavery ? 
 Slavery existed there, not by virtue of the Con- 
 stitution creating it, but by virtue of local law, 
 and that is the authority which establishes Sla- 
 very everywhere. Slavery can exist nowhere 
 except by virtue of local law, and that is the 
 reason why the person who owns a slave in a 
 State cannot hold him as a slave, under the law 
 of his State, in a Territory where Slavery has 
 never been established. The Senator wants to 
 know if Congress can confiscate his property. 
 Surely not. That question cannot arise ; he can- 
 not hold the property there ; he does not own 
 the man ; he voluntarily goes into a jurisdiction 
 where there is no law to establish Slavery, and 
 when he goes there the shackles of the slave fall 
 
 11'. not by virtue of the Constitution of the Uni- 
 ti I States abolishing Slavery everywhere, but by 
 the universal law of mankind, that this thing of 
 Slavery is so odious that it can only be sus- 
 tained by positive law. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. As I wish to understand the 
 i or perfectly as we proceed, I will ask him 
 this question : When he spoke of the existence 
 of Slavery in Tennessee by virtue of the local 
 law, did he mean the local law of the Territory, 
 or the local law as established and recognised 
 by Congress by virtue of the compact with North 
 Carolina ? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I mean the local law exist- 
 ing in that Territory when it was ceded, and 
 which Congress, in accepting, agreed not to in- 
 terfere with. 
 
 The local law in Tennessee authorizing Sla- 
 very was not a law to which Congress gave ex- 
 istence ; it was a law in existence before Con- 
 gress had any jurisdiction over the Territory. 
 The Constitution did not intervene by its terms 
 to exclude Slavery, there being a local law in 
 existence, not made by Congress, authorizing it. 
 Congress had nothing to do with the making of 
 that local law. It wa3 there; men had a right 
 to their slaves as property in the Territory telore 
 
19, 
 
 it belonged to the United States at all. Now, 
 he wants to know whether Congress can confis- 
 cate that property. No — not it it is property; 
 but if it was in a Territory where there had been 
 no law establishing Slavery, and if, as he sup- 
 poses, people from the Southern States exclu- 
 sively go into such a Territory with their slaves, 
 they do not hold them by virtue of any law when 
 they get there, and it is no confiscation of prop- 
 erty so to de-dare. They have no property in 
 slaves in such a case. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. Suppose they make a law. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. They cannot. That is the 
 very thing the Republican party say they cannot 
 do while in a Territorial condition. They have 
 no right to do it. The creed of the Republican 
 party, as I understand it, is, that you cannot ex- 
 tend Slavery, under the Federal Government, 
 into the Territories of the United States. There 
 may be Slavery in a country which does not be- 
 long to the United States; the United States 
 may acquire that country, and may not abolish 
 Slavery, because the right to hold slaves existed 
 when the country was acquired ; but it does not 
 follow, that if the country was free when we ac- 
 quired it, men could afterwards have property in 
 slaves in it; and that is the distinction. 
 
 The Senator wants to 'know whether it is a 
 part of the Republican creed to keep out of the 
 Union a State tolerating Slavery, which applies 
 for admission. Read the creed ; is there any 
 such word in it? Is there anything that looks 
 like it? Why not ask me if it is a part of the 
 Republican creed to keep out of the Union a 
 State applying for admission into the Union, the 
 Constitution of which provides that her people 
 shall elect her own Governor? We have never 
 said so. What right have you to assume any 
 such thing? It is no part of our creed, as laid 
 down in our platform, to refuse a State admis- 
 sion into this Union because she may or may not 
 have Slavery. Look into it; see if you can find 
 any such thing. Why, then, propound a ques- 
 tion founded upon a hypothesis which has no 
 foundation in the creed of the party? 
 
 If the Senator wants my individual opinion, 
 he can have that. I have no concealments. I 
 stated it here at the first session of Congress 1 
 served. I stated that it was not, with me, a 
 fundamental principle that a State should not 
 come into this Union as a slave State. I would 
 regret the application of a State of that charac- 
 ter ; but I have adopted it as no part of my po- 
 litical faith, that under no possible circum- 
 stances shall a State be admitted into this 
 Union that tolerates Slavery. The Republican 
 party is not to be charged with having assumed 
 the ground, that a State may not be admitted 
 into the Union that has Slavery. The old Re- 
 publican party, from which we learn our princi- 
 ples, did not keep slave States out, although 
 they provided against the extension of Slavery 
 into all territories, when they were not prohib- 
 ited from so doing by the terms of cession : and 
 if we do that, we will never, I trust, be troubled 
 with the application of a slave State for admis- 
 sion. 
 
 The Senator says that the Supreme Court has 
 decided that slaves may be legally held in a Ter- 
 ritory. I deny it. The Supreme Court has de- 
 
 cided no such thing. The Supreme Court baa 
 no power to lay down political doctrines in this 
 country. It may decide a case that comes be- 
 fore it, and by the decision of the Court in that 
 case I am willing to abide. The Court did de- 
 cide that Dred Scott had no right to bring a suit 
 in the United States courts, and that is all it de- 
 cided. That decision is final as to him in that, par- 
 ticular case; but, when the judges of the Court 
 travelled out of the record, and undertook to lay 
 down political principles for this Government, they 
 departed, in my judgment, from the line of their 
 duty, and the expression of their opinions is en- 
 titled to no more credit with me, upon political 
 questions, than the expression of the opinion of the 
 same number of gentlemen off the bench. Why, sir, 
 there had been decisions involving the question 
 of the right to govern the Territories before the 
 present Chief Justice presided. Look back, sir, 
 [Mr. Masox in the chair,] to the doctrine promul- 
 gated by your own Marshall, the ablest lawyer 
 that ever sat on that bench, a Southern man. 
 In one of his opinions, which is the opinion of 
 the whole and not of a divided Court, he says, 
 that in legislating for the Territories, Congress 
 possesses the combined powers of the Federal 
 and a State Government. If so, and if a State 
 Government may prohibit Slavery, then Con- 
 gress, possessing in a Territory the powers of a 
 State Government and of the Federal Govern- 
 ment combined, may do the same thing ; and 
 where is your reverence for the doctrines of the 
 Supreme Court, when you attack that decision ? 
 Sir, for sixty years that was the doctrine of the 
 country, acquiesced in by all parties. Why did 
 you assail it, and open up this exciting ques- 
 tion ? I deny that any such decision has been 
 made as that Slavery exists in 'a Territory, or 
 that the owner of a slave has a right to take him 
 to a Territory, and hold him there as a slave. 
 
 I believe, sir, that I have answered — I have 
 certainly endeavored to do so — the questions 
 which the Senator from Florida propounded to me. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. Is the Senator proposing to leave 
 the subject? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir; I propose to leave 
 that point. 
 
 Mr; YULEE. I am very sorry to trouble the 
 Senator. But suppose the inhabitants of a Ter- 
 ritory chose to recognise Slavery, and to legis- 
 late with reference to the protection of that 
 property ; and, without undertaking to discuss 
 with him whether the courts have already de- 
 clared that the right of property in a slave is not 
 changed by migration to a Territory, suppose a 
 local law of the Territory authorizes it, and sup- 
 pose the courts x>f the Territory and the courts 
 of the United States sustain the legality of it, 
 will then the party to which the gentleman be- 
 longs feel themselves bound to legislate for the 
 destruction of the right asserted of property in 
 slaves within that Territory? I am not speaking 
 of territory in which there was any previous ex- 
 istence of Slavery, * * * but a Territory in 
 which the inhabitants choose to recognise Sla- 
 very and to legislate for it, and in which the 
 courts sustain it; would it be incumbent upon 
 the gentleman's party under this platform to 
 legislate to exclude it ? That is what 1 want to 
 know. 
 
13 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, in my judg- 
 ment, t'jcy should exclude it, as was done in the 
 of Indiana and Illinois, when Territories, 
 whose inhabitants were refused permission 
 t i introduce Slavery when they asked it of Con- 
 
 [f the Supreme Court of the United States 
 should make a decision so utterly variant from 
 t e repeated decisions of the courts in the South- 
 ern Mates, and of the former decisions of the 
 Supreme Court itself, as to say that one person 
 t to hold another as a slave in a Ter- 
 ritory by virtue of any action of the inhabitants 
 ot a Territory, in defiance of Congress, I would 
 in the decision of the court as to the 
 particular case. \t' A sued for his freedom, and 
 the court, decided that he was not entitled to it, 
 I would not revolutionize the Government upon 
 that ; but it would be a decision in that case, and 
 in*that case only, and I would contest it on the 
 morrow in the next. I would contest it day by 
 day, until the court was reformed, and another 
 its head, who should administer 
 our fathers made it. 
 Mr. YULEE. I do not ask the Senator's opin- 
 ion. I ask him to expound the platform. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. 1 have expounded it. It§> 
 anysuch right. Your hypothetical case will 
 never arise. We deny that a court will aver 
 make sm h a decision; and if it should, we will 
 ! means, to the ballot- 
 re will appeal from the ex- 
 .:! rights by men dressed in 
 .owns to the great b idyofthe people, who make 
 too. 
 Mr. iTULEE. You would legislate to exclude 
 
 Mr. TRUMBWLL. We would legislate to ex- 
 clude it ; aud • d ol :- •' " would no 
 inore Slavery in a Territory, except as 
 t i the individual case, than has your decisi 
 to Dred Fed- 
 eral ied the fact thai i 
 com il of a Ter- 
 ritoi ■_•, . ion which scarcely a justice oi 
 ii pes \' ' '■ State of Illinois would I 
 
 , if an individual had come be- 
 me of our justices with a claim exceeding 
 the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace, and the 
 justice had examined it, and had seen that he 
 ction, and then had gone on and 
 d the case, and said how he would 
 have i eci l( d it be had had jurisdiction, I think 
 the •.. ! nunity would have laughed at 
 
 folly. That is exactly what the Supreme 
 C 'iitt of the United St ites has done in the Dred 
 The idea that the Supreme Court 
 of the United Stati 3 can establish political prin- 
 ciples in this country is a new article in the creed 
 ot the Democratic party. It was not the former 
 doctrine of the present Chief Magistrate of the 
 try. It was not the doctrine of Thomas 
 Jefferson. lie regarded the Supreme Court as a 
 set of sappers and miners, digging under the 
 Constitution, who might in process of time sub- 
 vert and destroy it. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. Now, then, I would turn the 
 Senator's attention to another question. I asked 
 whether, under the first clause of this platform, 
 the Senator construed Slavery to be legally exist- 
 
 ing, or otherwise, in the District of Columbia, 
 and in the forts and arsenals, and f)ther places 
 in which the exclusive jurisdiction of the United 
 States prevailed by the Constitution. These are 
 the words 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I will answer the question 
 without troubling the Senator to read the plat- 
 form. I conceive that in the District of Colum- 
 bia the Constitution of the United States has 
 not, ex vi tcrmvii, abolished Slavery, because it 
 existed here, by virtue of local law, when the 
 United States obtained jurisdiction over the 
 District. 
 
 Now, sir, I think I have answered these gen- 
 tlemen so that they cannot at any rate misap- 
 prehend my views, and I have done it without 
 concealment or holding back at all- and, as I 
 said, if I have been the means of disabusing the 
 mind of a single Senator, or of a single person 
 in the South who may ever take occasion to 
 look over the desultory remarks I have made, I 
 shall rejoice at it. 
 
 Having endeavored to show what the Repub- 
 lican platform is, having given my understand- 
 ing of it, 1 wish to ask Southern Senators why 
 is there such a persistence in choosing to mis- 
 understand us ? I do not charge that upon any 
 particular Senator; but why is it that in the 
 Southern States of this Union we are called 
 Abolitionists. Would Senators induce their 
 constituents to think more harshly of us than we 
 ought to be thought of? What is to be gained 
 by it? Is the South to gain anything by-ma- 
 king its inhabitants believe, and inducing, if you 
 please, the slaves to believe, that the great Re- 
 publican party is ready to put knives and pis'.ols 
 into the hands of the slaves, to murder their 
 masters? What will you have accomplished 
 when you shall have induced such a belief 
 among the white people of the South, or among 
 the slaves of the .South ? Will yon be more se- 
 ' Will there be any less likelihood of an 
 insurrection, when you have circulated through- 
 out the whole slave population the idea that the 
 : mass of the people of the North are ready 
 to arm tbera to slaughter their masters? Wbj 
 not, then, 1 ask, treat us tts brethren? Treat us 
 fairiy , take our platform as it is. When we say 
 that all m9U are created equal, we do not mean 
 that every man in organized society has the 
 same rights. We do not tolerate that in Illinois. 
 I know that there is a distinction between these 
 two races, because the Almighty himself has 
 marked it upon their very faces ; and, in my 
 judgment, man cannot, by legislation or other- 
 wise, produce a perfect equality between these 
 races, so that they will live happily together. 
 
 I have always been a Democrat ; and yet, now 
 I am denounced as a Black Republican, as au 
 Abolitionist ; for some of the Southern Govern- 
 ors, I believe, choose to call us all Abolitionists. 
 I have changed no sentiment on the subject of 
 Slavery since the time when I acted with the old 
 Democratic party. I am no more averse to it 
 now than I was then. I have lived amidst it, 
 and would be as far as any Senator from interfer- 
 ing with this domestic relation where it exists in 
 the States. 
 
 I inquired what gentlemen meant by talking 
 about an inequality of rights between the North 
 
14 
 
 and the South ; and about aggressions of the 
 North upon 'the South ; and when and where 
 they were made. In reply, the Senator from 
 South Carolina, instead of taking our platform 
 as the exponent of our principles, adverted to 
 what a single individual of the Republican party 
 bad said. Now, sir, does it eornpoitf with the 
 candor and the fairness of that distinguished 
 Senator, who is, I believe, ordinarily, a. very can- 
 did and fair gentleman, to attribute to a great 
 partj r in the country, which has declared its 
 principles in Convention assembled, what any 
 one individual member of the party may say are 
 his own opinions ? 
 
 The Republican party, has declared no such 
 principles as the Senator attributes to it. Would 
 he mislead his people? Would he deceive him- 
 self? 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. Mr. President 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. Mason.) 
 Does the Senator vield the floor? 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Yes, sir. 
 Mr. CHESNUT. The Senator has been pleased 
 to comment on a portion of the remarks which I 
 made yesterday, as not presenting a candid view 
 of the subject, as if I did not speak in candor. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I do not mean to impute a 
 want of candor, in any offensive sense, to the 
 Senator ; but I think he has not fairly stated our 
 principles. 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. Mr. President, I merely rose 
 to state, in response to what the Senator asked 
 of rue, whether I would take the opinion of a 
 party from an individual, that ordinarily I would 
 not; but when I find the party acting upon such 
 principles generally ; when I find him who is ac- 
 knowledged as the distinguished leader of that 
 party, and so admitted, I believe, everywhere, 
 and I suppose among themselves, uttering his 
 well-considered and elaboiate opinions ; opinions 
 which have been promulgated, and which have 
 had their effect upon the country ; opinions which 
 have never before been denied by the party ; 
 which have never before been questioned, so far 
 as I am aware ; which have never been respond- 
 ed to by the gentlemeu who belong to that par- 
 ty, as not being the opinions of their party, I felt 
 at liberty, and I think I was authorized in feel- 
 ing myself at liberty, to hold them as the opin- 
 ions, the we'1-considered opinions, of the leader 
 of this great party in the North. That is the 
 reason why I chose, upon the discursive debate 
 of yesterday, having that speech before me, to 
 predicate my remarks of the purposes and prin- 
 ciples' of that party upon the speech of that dis- 
 tinguished leader. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Mr. President, I wish to 
 say that I acknowledge, and, so far as I know, 
 the Republican party acknowledges, no nun as 
 its leader. However high my respect for the dis- 
 tinguished Senator from New York, not now with 
 us, I do not acknowledge him as the leader of 
 the Republican party-; nor do I hold myself re- 
 sponsible for the opinions he may express. We 
 acknowledge no leaders. Whether the views 
 enunciated by the Senator from New York are 
 correct or not correct, is not the question ; if they 
 differ from the creed of the Republican party as 
 announced in its authoritative Convention, then 
 they are not the creed of the party. 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. May I ask the Senator one 
 question ? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. Does he repudiate those views 
 of the Senator from New York? 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I repudiate the construction 
 that you have put upon those views. And now 
 I wish to ask the Senator from South Carolina, 
 who read from that speech, which I have here 
 before me, if it comported exactly with his sense 
 of fair dealing and propriety as a Senate* of the 
 United States, speaking in his place here for the 
 information of the Senate and the country, and 
 his own constituents in the South, to attribute 
 to him such sentiments as these : " We (of the 
 North) will subjugate you ; give us the reins of 
 power, and we will place you at our feet? " 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. I quoted no such language as 
 having been used by the Senate* from New 
 York. I quoted from the speech of the Senator 
 from New York, in which he expressly stated, as 
 the result of this " irrepressible conflict," that 
 the wheat-fields and rye-fields of New York and 
 Massachusetts would ultimately be tilled by slave 
 labor, or that the sugar plantations of Louisiana 
 a.nA the rice-fields and cotton-fields of South 
 CaTolina must b3 tilled by free labor. That was 
 the language of the Senator from New York. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL, I will ask the Senator, then, 
 if it comports with his sense of fair dealing to a 
 Senator from one of these United States, to quote 
 that portion of the speech, and leave out this : 
 
 "On tlv other Land, while I do confidently believe and 
 hope that my country will yet become a land ot universal 
 hi, 1 do not expect that it will be made so otherwise 
 than through the action of the several States co-operating 
 with the federal Government, and all acting in strict con- 
 formity with their respective Constitutions." 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. True, Mr. President, that part 
 of the speech is there. * * * I quoted, from 
 another speech, a portion which I thought bore 
 strongly udou the recent occurrences ; but from 
 the speech from which the gentleman now quotes, 
 I made a quotation expressly to show what was 
 the purpose of the gentlemen, and what they had 
 in view. I do not care by what means they seek 
 to bring it about. They may take one means or 
 another, but they have the end in view ; and it 
 is that which we resist, and which we will resist. 
 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. This is the speech where the 
 term " irrepressible conflict " occurs ; and if the 
 Senator is satisfied to go before the country in 
 the attitude of having quoted one portion of the 
 speech, and given to it a meaning at variance 
 with another portion which he has left out, 
 wherein it is stated in express terms, by the Sen- 
 ator from New York, that he has no expectation 
 that this country will all become free, except 
 through the action of the States in a constitu- 
 tional way, it is his privilege to do so. I draw 
 his attention to it in fairness and in candor, as 
 I have conducted this whole discussion on my 
 part; and it seemed to me that it was. at least, 
 due to the Senator who was not here, that his 
 own explanation of the language which he had 
 used should go along with what hud been quo- 
 ted ; particularly as the Senator from South 
 Carolina drew inferences which led him to use 
 language wherein he spoke of subjugating the 
 South, and placing them under the feet of the 
 North, as if that were a legitimate deduction 
 
15 
 
 from the re-marks vrhich he quoted, though the 
 Senator who made these remarks had himself 
 i oca sion, in the same speech, to guard 
 against such an interpretation. 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. One word, by the permission 
 of the Senator. I think, if the Senator will read 
 that speech again, he will discover that, no mat- 
 ter what i have been mentioned spe- 
 cifically, the speaker indicated to his audience, 
 to the people of the North, that it. is in their 
 power; that this conflict is to be carried on; 
 through them and by their power they can 
 pi id fills result. * * * I consider that I 
 hare done no injustice. I am willing to go be- 
 fore the country and before the world upon the 
 •ion of fairness and justice to the views of 
 fork. * * "•■ 
 Mr. TRUMBULL. I am 3orry that the Senator 
 from Sou' '. who usualiy speaks with 
 so much candor, should not be willing that the 
 qualifying remarks made by the S-: 
 
 mra go out with those which he 
 ad especially wi. 
 ation upon them difff rent from 
 of their author. Uut, sir, if he is sati 
 it shall go before country as he has si 
 it, that is a matter of taste and propriety with 
 him. 
 
 One word i i reply to the Senator fro; i 
 I q i 
 sa\ 3, if i overeign ] , and can 
 
 not e 
 
 I shall not i 
 
 ion in turn. 
 
 it of a 
 
 . - 
 
 [iflh prohibit murder ; ran 
 
 it leg ppose by a law ol 
 
 ! we d > prevent murder in the 
 Indian i 
 
 ' ler the ( institu- 
 
 tion o could sanc- 
 
 tion i.. i 
 
 my !■ : i , ompare 
 
 Slav ■ d that Sla- 
 
 ■ .til 'l pat these as 
 illu.- it does not necessarily 
 follow that Congress can 
 cause it can prohibit i;. Bui i will m 
 ' 
 
 ^Sir, the sentiments of the Senator fro 
 York, which have been so much commi 
 upon, are not in w to this country. He is not the 
 author i 'ration of this principle, thai 
 
 there i tween righi 
 
 f.v en goi d and evil; nor is he the I. 
 
 has looked forw .tie when all the 
 
 ■ <ur read, to the Si ti- 
 nt. ..h.i; 
 
 this vert dngton, in a 
 
 tcr written to I said : 
 
 '■:,'. 1 .- i ■ 
 
 a most 
 
 •a any 
 a burden. 
 
 which pro- 
 
 n i. ir N'orth- 
 
 irc It 
 
 j 
 
 in slave labor. 
 
 T1 w prova rginia is against the spread of 
 
 Slavery into the new Territories, and I trust we shall have a 
 Confederacy of free States." 
 
 What more than that is the declaration of the 
 Senator from New York? Were these doctrines 
 considered heretical in 1798 ? Did General 
 V ashington promulgate a principle which was 
 to degrade the South, reduce it to subjection, 
 trample its rights under foot? This principle 
 then met the approbation of the people of the 
 South: the prevailing sentiment of Virginia was 
 against the spread of Slavery into new Territo- 
 ries, and such is the prevailing sentiment of the 
 people of Illinois. Hear further, sir, what the 
 founder of the old Republican party said upon 
 this subject: 
 
 " With the morals of the people, the r in lus ry also is de- 
 
 . in a warm climate, no man will labor for Inm- 
 
 another labor fur bun. This is so true, 
 
 tors of slavi s, a very small proportion 
 
 to ibor. And can the liberty of a na- 
 
 u we have removed their only 
 
 a in then leople that these 
 
 1 : i re noi . ted 
 
 :. 1 tremble for my country 
 st; Hut His j t sieep 
 
 - nt mbers, natun , and natural 
 wheel of fortune, an ex- 
 cvents : that it may 
 i natural influen . m ghty 
 
 I i u Hi us .ii such a con- 
 
 test." 
 
 That was the language of Thomas Jefferson, 
 'he gi le of human liberty in this coun- 
 
 try. Again: Thomas Jefferson, in 1821, referring 
 number of bills which had been. introduced 
 into the Legislature of Virginia, with regard to 
 anticipation of slaves, used this language: 
 
 ;to! the 
 
 ling them, v, I i ,.i.,ti<.u of a 
 
 . a. Ii wis thought 
 
 b ... inly by 
 
 ■ ill should be brought on. 
 
 .. however, ■■■. i igrecd on; 
 
 ii a ■ l day, 
 
 latapri per agi . But il w ... at tho 
 
 qi t \ et bear the proposition, nor will it 
 
 ..i this day. Yi ; the day is not distant when it 
 
 worse will follow. Nothing is 
 
 tten in the book of fate, than that these 
 
 ■ was the Senator from South Carolina 
 
 2 1 . whi n Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that 
 
 nothing was more certainly written in the book 
 
 .-» that these people were to be free. 
 
 I further : 
 
 ■■ X. cerl till that the two i ly free, 
 
 Government. Nature, habit, opin- 
 
 ii tion I tween them. 
 
 ir to direct the process oi emancipation 
 
 ac lably, and i .... that 
 
 then plat q be, pari 
 
 ■ white laborers. If, on the contrary, 
 
 ii is i . ill on, human nal i r at the 
 
 ''■ ■ i ild in vain loi I n i mple in 
 
 tation or deletion o the Moors. This pre- 
 
 L Of i ....-.-. 
 
 "I cons b passed or 1 1 ported, as 
 
 bj which every fibre would be eradicated 
 
 . .. . and a foundation laid tor a 
 
 i ly rep 
 
 Where, then, was the feeling which is now 
 exhibited, that the South ought to dissolve the 
 Union on account of the utterance of such senti- 
 ments, and especially when the Senator from 
 New York has taken the pains to guard against 
 the inference that he was for using any other than 
 constitutional and legal means in co-operation 
 with the States it: getting rid eventually, in the 
 far distant future, of this thing of Slavery. It 
 will be seen that the idea is not new nor pecu- 
 
1G 
 
 liar to the Senator from New York. It had its 
 origin in Virginia years ago; and I trust that 
 an idea foreshadowed by Mr. Jefferson will 
 hereafter .become, although it is not now, part 
 of the creed of the Republican party— I mean the 
 idea of the deportation of the free negro popula- 
 tion from this country. I trust the Republican 
 party will make it part of its creed, that this 
 Government should procure some region of coun- 
 try, not far distant, to which our free negro pop- 
 ulation may be taken. I fear the consequences, 
 ■which Jefferson so eloquently prophesied, unless 
 that is done. The negro population is increas- 
 ing at a rapid rate. I agree with the sentiment 
 of Mr. Jefferson, that two races which are marked 
 by distinctive features cannot live peaceably to- 
 gether without one domineering over the other, 
 especially when they differ in color. The free 
 negro population of this country is a great evil 
 now. 1 believe it to be the interest of the black 
 populati m that they should go to some country 
 where they may develop their powers, and where 
 there sh I be no superior race to domineer over 
 them, and that it is the duty of this Government 
 to use its means for the purpose of freeing our 
 country of that portion of this population that is 
 willing to go. I think, in that way. this thing 
 of Slavery may eventually be got rid of. Thou- 
 sands of masters would be willing to free their 
 slaves, if there was any provision for them when 
 freed; but in most of the States where Slavery 
 exists, laws' have been passed prohibiting eman- 
 cipation except on condition that the emancipa- 
 te*! slave shall leave the jurisdiction of the State. 
 "Where are they to go '( The North does not 
 want a free uegro population ; the South will 
 not have them. The consequence is, that eman- 
 cipation has nearly ceased. U\ however, a coun- 
 try contiguous were provided, where the tree 
 negro population of the United States who were 
 willing might go — and 1 think they would soon ail 
 be will;::;; to leave, if they couid go under the 
 fostering care of this Government until they be- 
 came sufficiently numerous to protect themselves 
 and establish a Government of their own — we 
 might establish a system which, in process of 
 time, not in your day, sir, nor in mine, nor per- 
 haps ii: the day of the coming generation, but in 
 future time, would relieve us of the black pop- 
 ulation, and prevent consequences which we 
 shudder to contemplate. I cannot so well ex- 
 press my views on this point as by qu ■■■: ■ 
 a spee I ; distinguished Senator from 
 
 Kentucky, now no more, before the American 
 Colonization Society. He said : 
 
 " We are reproached with doing mischief by the agitation 
 of this question . The Society goes into no household 
 tiirb it:- d< mestic tranquillity ; a addresses itsell to no slaves, 
 to weaken their obligations of obedience; it seeks to affect 
 
 I no man's property. It neither has the power nor the will 
 I to affect the property of any one contrary to his consent. 
 The execution of its scheme would augment, instead of di- 
 ! minishing, the v<ilue of the property left behind. Tin- So- 
 ciety, composed of freemen, concerns itself only with the 
 free. Collateral consequences we are not responsible for. 
 It is not tns Society which lias produced the great moral 
 n volution which the ago exhibits. What would they, who 
 thus reproach us, have done?" 
 
 Now, see how his language fits the declarations 
 of the Senator from South Carolina, who finds 
 such fault with the idea of ultimate emancipa- 
 tion : 
 
 " If they would repress all tendencies towards liberty and 
 ultimate emancipation, they must do more than put down 
 the benevolent efforts of ties Society. They must go back 
 to the era ol our liberty and independence, and muzzle the 
 cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. They 
 must revive the slave trade, with all its tram of atrocities." 
 
 Ay, sir, revive the slave trade as we now see 
 it being revived ! 
 
 " They must suppress the workings of British philanthropy, 
 seeking to ameliorate the condition of the unfortunate West 
 Indian slaves. They must arrest the career of South Amer- 
 ican deliverance from thraldom. Xhoy must Hot out ",^o 
 v ; al ' "'■ ! - arc r.Bd-tis, and "• i tcsGh 
 
 hi all, which Anierio.-, pros ail i to a benighted world, point- 
 ing the way to their rights, their liberties, and their happi- 
 ness. And when they have achieved all these purposes. 
 work will be yet incomplete. They meat penetrate 
 the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the 
 toyo oi liberty. Then, and not till then, when universal 
 darkness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate slavery, 
 and repress all sympathies and all humane and benevolent 
 efforts among freemen in behalf of the unhappy portion of 
 our race who are doomed to bondage." 
 
 That, sir, was the language of Henry Clay in 
 regard to the colonization of the free blacks in 
 Attica. It seems to be impracticable to trans- 
 port this great population to Africa. Let us 
 obtain a country nearer home ; and to show the 
 sympathy of the North for the South, I think I 
 may say — I know 1 may say for the people wlrnu 
 1 represent — we will contribute liberally of our 
 means to relieve the country of the free negro 
 population, and of all slaves who may be volun- 
 tarily emancipated, by planting them in some 
 contiguous country by themselves. I hope that 
 may become the policy of the Republican party. 
 ! hope that we shall join hands with the South ; 
 that, instead of reproaching each other, instead 
 of saying anything which would create a mis- 
 understanding between different sections of the 
 Union, we may come together as our fathers did 
 of old in their struggle, for independence, and, 
 side by side as brothers, adopt a policy which, ii 
 i it shall net eventually deliver the ccuntrj 
 
 : iver seriously threatened 
 its peace, shall at least prevent its spread and 
 j increase, and at the same time furnish the means 
 j of relieving the country of the evils of a largf 
 i free negro population. By such a course we may 
 i lay the foundation for continued and permanent 
 ■ prosperity. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 
 
 1859. 
 
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