^ pHSJ 1 PLAIN TRUTHS POR THE PEOPLE. Copy I SPEECH ^ SENATOR'A¥ADE, OF OHIO. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, Mareli 13 and 15, 1858. Mr President, I would gladly fore;»o the task that ia now before me, especially aa ihe whole subject has beeu debated by those much more able to enlijjhteu ihe Senate and the country upon it than I can claim to be. Indsed, rvfier the able report of my colleague on the Com mittee ou Territories, the Senator from Ver- mont, [Mr. CoLLAMER,] on all the points in- volved iu the coniroversy, which met with my entire approbation, backed by that masterly speech which he made on the case, it would be arrogant in me to suppose that I could add anything that would tend to enlighten either the Senate or the country on the subjects there- in discussed. I would not speak at all, sir, if I did not know that the people of the Srate which I in part represent are more deeply mov- ed with the consideration of this question than they ever have been before. They consider it a question of the first magnitude. They are alarmed at the b jldaess with which a Constitu- tion is urged upon a reluctant people against their will. They are alarmed at the progress of the principle of despotism which they think they perceive connected with the administra- tion of this Government. PROSCRIPTION. It is thought that we are very unreasonable because we take so much interest in the institu- tion cf Slavery. I have been here long enough to know that that great bsdy of Northern people who remain true to the traditions of their fathers, who act up to the spirit of those who inaugu- rated our institutions, are just as much pro- scribed from auy of tha beaefits, emoluments, or honors of this Government, aa if they were alien enemies. There are nearly thirteen hun- dred thousand voters belonging to the great Republican party of the North, who, jear after year, see the Government administered by bands that to them are alien, and they cannot partici- pate in it. Wh) ? Because, wh'sn a nomina- tion com«a before you, the question is asked, how stands this Northern mau upon the institu- tion of the South? Whatarehia views? Did he over, in an unguarded moment, give utterance to the impulses of the heart of evpry freeman ? Did his tongue ever pronounce tliat which the heart of ever? freeman feels? If he did, and any spy can fiah it up, and brin'::: it here, he is proscribed from any favors from the Govern- mrint under which ho lives, and which he snp- p./its. This should furnish a reason to you why alaaost everything political that is unpurchasa- ble in the market, that grounds ili'^lf upon prin- ciple, and cannot be swerved by those applian- ces, now ranks in the great Republican party of the North. If men are purchas.ib'.e, if Execu- tive favor can reach and sway them, if any of those appliances that are broughs to bear in political controversies can swerve them from tha truth, they have gone over to you ; they have repudiated the principles under which they were born; they hu,ve forgotten the sentiments that they imbibed even from their mothers' breasts. Such men have repudiated all this, and sworn fealty to an institution that they bate ; such are the men of the North who find favor in this Government ; the rest are aliens, pro- scribed by you. Yet, sir, because they are not perfectly patient under this state of things, they are said to be fanatical Abolitionists. I should like to know how long the patience of the South would hold out ? Let us reverse this nefarious judgm^-nt; let Northern majorities come here as inexorable as you ; let us inquire, is he a slaveholder that is prooosed for ctlice? does he train in their company ? and if he ever dropped a word that favored the institution of Slavery, let us pcoacribe him — would there be any shriek- ing ? would you bear it like lambs ? I do you the credit of saying that you would rise up un- der such prosciption as this, and show a spirit more worthy of the fathers than we do on this side. I know you would. If we should under- take to hold you to those same intolerant and proscriptive principles that you exercise to- wards U3, you would hear a nowl worse than Mr. Buchanan heard from the Scuth when Walker would not count fraudulent votes. "BUELL a BLA^NOfiAHD, Prmters, Washington, n ^/'i _ ANTAGONISM. • Mr. President, I have stated some of the rea- sons why Northern men take a deep and abi- ding interest in the question of Slavery, because it tends to fasten its nefarious shackles upon them. We may just as well look it right straight in the face, for it never will be allayed with sen- timent; you may sing hoaannas to thij Union until you are hoarse ; you may talk of our com- mon blood and our compaon memories ; and you may eulogize that great flag under which our fathers fought ; and you may go into hys- terics on the subject; but I tell you that Govern- ments, in the long run, will be governed by their interests as they understand them, and by nothing else. These are all very pretty matters in their place, but the administrations of gov ernment are made of sterner stuff. They are never perpetuated by sentiments like these. I say to you, Mr. President, there is unfortunate- ly — and I regret it as much as any other man — a diversity between us in cur government that seems almost irreconcilable. I do not know but that means may be fjund by which thi* great gulf can be bridged over; but on the one hand you find the freest communities that the world ever saw, where real and unadulterated Democracy does not reign as a sentiment, but is lived out in practice by all the people ; where there is no aristocracy ; where there is no man ED high that he can claim a privilege beyond his most humble fellow citizen. This is the nature of the communities of the North, and of none more so than of that State which I have the honor in part to represent here. That is the freest of the free. It was there that the mind of that great patriot, Thomas JefFcirgou, fixed his eye the moment we had repelled the force of Great Britian. His philanthropic eye saw that great and beautiful wilderness Iving open, soon to be peopled by the citizens oi th;- United States. It was a leading object with him to carry into practice those beautiful theo- ries of equality which had charmed his great mind so long. He labored unceasingly until he had fixed out a document fully to carry out there his great idea that the people should rule the Governments of the earth. He found nothing in the way of his theory ; there was a blank sheet of paper. There was a Government to be laid, unstained by any of the crimes of ancient Rome. No institutions had grown up there, inconsistent with right ; and he fixed upon that soil to carry out the great theory of self- government for which the world had labored and sighed for so many generations; and there the work was completed. lu that region there is no aristocracy. In that glorious region there is no slave. Whoever comes there impressed with the image of God, is acknowledged to have an inalienable right to liberty that none but God can take away. This is the character of the communities composing more than one-half the States of this Union. How is it on the other side ? Why, sir, I understood the Ssn^tor from, Virginia, [Mr. Hunter] in the beautiful speech that he made yesterday, which would have challenged the admiration of every one, except for some sentiments that were scattered through it, to say — I have not had the benefit of seeing bis speech printed, but I think h^ said — that these ideas of political equality which were held up befjre our communities were Utopian and fan- ciful, and never could be realized. This proba- bly was not his language, but it was his senti- ment. Those principles of equality, asserted in the great charter of human liberty, the Dec- laration of Independence, ha believes to bs Utopian, incapable of practice ; mere abstrac- tions, not to be lived out. I wish Southern gentlemen were better ac- quainted than they seem to be with Northern iaatituticns. I tell the Senator from Virginia, ycu are wrong in believing this to be an ab- straction. It is, thank God, a truth, the reali- zation of which any man can witness who will cross over into my State. I have heard these sentiments uttered so often on the other side of the Chamber, that I have come to know that our viev/s of government are just as diverse as men's views possibly can be. There is, as I eaid before, an antagonism existing between us, which I know net how you are to cover up. The Deelarariop. of It dependence an abstrac- tion ! Are the great rights which it proclaim- ed, and which were the boast and gicry of our fa^hera " giittering generalities," having no prac- tical meaning? If so. I w:uld a?k any man, what did you sain by that boasted Revolution of yours ? Wherein does your Government differ from any despotism on the face of the earth ? Once break loose from the glorious doctrines of that great charter of liberty, and you are in the slough of despond ; you have nothing to distinguish you from the most hor- rible despotism that ever reigned over prostrate human nature. I ask again, why do you boast of what your fathers did, if they established a mere abstraction, or, as it is sometimes called, a '' glittering generality ? " The Senator from South Carolina, carrying out the game idea, said: "In all social syslems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perforiu the drudsjery of life. Thai is, a class requiring but a low order of imellect, and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docihiy, fideiily. Such a class you must have, or you wo'ild not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement." Now, suppose you had not that class which leads progress, civilizition, and refinement: which class can you dispense with best? Of what use is your idle aristocracy? la God's name, have they not been the curse, the blight of every nation of the earth ? You cannot have this refined aristocracy, says the gentle-" man, unless yoa have a class to do your drudg- ery ; and that is the sentiment of the whole South. How diametrically opposed to it is the whole practical system of the North ! Is it reasonable, is it right, that " a class " shall do jonr drndpery— " ^ cIbps " that shall obey ? Sir, / labor should never Ve done by a cla?a. If ycu obeyed the mandtta of the Almighty, and labor were diatribu/^d amon^ all the able-bod- ied men, it wouldZeaae to be a task ; it would become a mere anuseraen^, and it would tax no man's physiokl powers abovo what would consist with his lealtb and his welfare. It wa*- desifrned— for (/od is just— that this drnde'ery of which the S/>iatcr speaks should be diatrib- uted among aV the able-bodied men, bo as to make it light,^nd then it would not be inoon- sistent with we highest perfection of civiliza tion and retfr.ement; but, on the other hand, would lead directly to it. Labor done by a class I Tbat, sir, was the old curae of the Old World, i. class has been asfiipned to do the drudgery, to do all that h valuable, to prcducp everjthinij that is beneficial ; and the system leaves aristocratical drones, useles?, vicious idlers, whom any community can well dispense with. I Kay this class you can dispense with, to the advantP.ge of any community that I . know of; but the class who do your labor can 1 not be dispensed with. The Senator says you must have a class to do your degraded labor. 1 deny that labor is degraded; and here is the point of dilfnence between us, which I fear can nerer be overcome. That ia one grand rea3on why we resist your system coming into cur Territories; it is because you are deter- mined to contaminate all labor bv this degra ded class. Will the free, intelligent laborer place himself upon a level with your mere ab ject chattel, and toil there? Sir, he cannot do \ it, and ought not to do it, and will cot do it. i>— - THK WORKING CLASSICS. f " What, an idea ot labor I The Senator sup- poses that the laboring class want but very litt'e mind and very little skill. Sir, there is nothing on earth that puts the human intellect to all that it can attain, like the varied labor of man. What does jour drone, your refined aristocrat, do in his mind? What problems does he work out ? He consumes the products of labor; he ia idle, and ten to one he ia also vicious. He never invents. Go to your Pat- ent Office, and see what are the products of your degraded labor and your refined aristocrat. The latter never invents anything, unless it is a new way of stiifiiDg a chicken or mixing liquor. [Laughter.] He invents nothing beneficial to man. Degraded labcr, with a low intellect, is all you want 1 Sir, the ma- chinery brought into operation by intelligent labor is doing now more drudgery than all the slaves upon the face of the earth. The ele- ments are yoked to the machines of human usefulness, and there they are doing the work of bone and muscle, and ycur system cannot abide with it. The doom of Slavery would be fixed, if it was by nothing else than the pro- ducts of intelligent labor. You drudge along in the old way ; you invent no steam engine, because ycur labor ia degraded. You do not want skill ; yon want but very little mind ; and the Senator thinks the more ignorant the la- borers are the better, for, he says, they are so degraded that they have no ambition, and they never will endanger this refined class that eata up the proceeds of their labor I That is the idea of government that prevails nil through the slaveholding regions of the South. Again, the Senator says of the de- graded class that do the drudgery ; •'Ii coiiHiiltitra iliK very muil-HJII ol Nnoirly and ofpoliii- ciil 1,'ovtTiiinriii : niid you tnif>lii n* well uilrmpt (o build It lioiiHo ill ihe iiir, its lo huild cither llie oii« or ihij other, e.xci |)t on tliid inuil.mll." And then he goes on to say that we of the North have white slaves ; that we perform our labor by white slaves. This class must exist everywhere, and they must be a mndeill upon which you must erect civil societies and political organizations. How little that gentle- man understood of the spirit qf our Northern laborers I I would like to see him endeavoring to erect his political institutions upon their prostrate necks as mud-sills. I think it would be a little trouble?,ome. He might as well make his bed in hell, or erect his building over a volcano, as to undertake to build on his Northern " mud-sills." Then, with a simplicity that shows he knows nothing of Northern soci- ety, he says we have sent our missionaries down lo their very hearthstones, to endanger their system. I do not know how that is ; but he turns round and asks how we would like them to send their missionaries up to teach our la- borers their power. I was astonished at such an idea as that being prt^ented to political men of the North, who know and see and feel the power of the laboring class of men. We are all laboring men, and the politician can- not live, unless they breathe upon him ; he cannot move, unless he moves with their entire approbation. They are the scul, the strength, the body, the virtue, the mainstay, of all our society. Deprive our State of its laborers, and what would it be ? We have nothing else, and we have none of your refined society that is spoken of. We all labor, and are all disgraced, as the gentleman would call it, in our commu- nity. Labor with us is honorable ; idleness is disreputable. That is the state of things with us, and the laboring man knows full well, and needs no missionary to tell him, the potency of his vote. We should like to have your miEsionaries come up and endeavor to endanger our society 1 Good heavens! One man has the same inter- est in upholding it as another. Suppose one man ia richer than another in Ohio. There ia no very great diversity, as a general thing ; but suppose he is ; take the child of the poorest man in our State, and has he any temptation to overthrow our Government ? No, sir. Full of life, full of hope, full of ambition to go beyond him who has gone furthest, he wishes to avail himself of the same securities which have min- istered to the upbuilding of others. He is a citizen, who holds all the rights of citizen- ship as dear as the most wealthy. His stake in society is the same ; his hope is the same ; his interest in good government is the same. He is none of your prostrate mudsills, deprived of those rights which God Almighty has given him, trampled under foot, and made to minis ter to the interests of another man. There is no such system as that with us. ALLIES OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS. But the Senator spoke about a degraded class in our great commercial cities. I have to con- fess that there ia some truth in that. We have a degraded class in the cities. They are the cff- Bcourings generally of the Old World— naen who come here reduced to beggary by their igno- rance ; reduced to beggary by their vice ; igno- rant, vicious, dangerous, I do not deny it. They are incident to all large cities ; but the Senator should' not complain of them. They are the chief corner-stone of your political etrength in the North. Find me the vicious ward of any city that does not uphold your sys- tem of Slavery, vote for its candidates, support its measures, and labor for its men. No, sir ; you should not complain of this vicious popu- lation. In truth and in fact, they are about the only stay and support you have there now, and you ought not to traduce them. From their very natures, they attach themselves to you, and I do not think by any treatment you will be able to drive them off. They are naturally with you ; they were alaves in their own coun- tries; they do not know anything else than to be the understrappers of somebody ; and when they hear that here are slaveholders contending with freemen, you find them with the former all the time. UNION AND DISUNION. Mr. President, I think this shows the antag- onisim between the institutions of the North and the South. We have not made them so. Nobody here is particularly to blame for the state of things that exists. It has grown im- perceptibly with our growth. Our lot has been cast either on one side of the line or the other. Our habits and our education have conformed to that state of things existing where our lot has been cast. I can appreciate and make al- lowances for that, but I cannot be biased as to the right of the matter. I know where that is. Now, what is the remedy for this ? If you bring us into collision, your system of despot- ism encountering our system of freedom here on this floor, do you suppose there will be no excitement ? Is any one so superficial as to believe that it will depend on the temper and disposition of a man how this great controversy shall be settled ? Not at all, sir. You may preach harmony, you may preach forbearance till doomsday ; but a violent conflict will take place every time these principles meet on this floor or elsewhere, because they are naturally antagonistic. God Almighty has made them so, and man cannot reconcile them. What, then, is our safely? It is to stand upon the principles you once professed, rigid State rights, yielding to the General Go'ernment just as lit- tle power as is possible to cement it together so far as to provide for the :;ommon defence ; for the moment you drag thee things into the General Government, I assume you that you may preach conciliation till domsday, and con- ciliation will not come. I do not know, sir, what is to be the result of this controversy. I know some :f you threaten to leave the Union unless you are gralifisd every time a collision takes plac?i between ua ; and that Texas of ours, with which I opened this debate, stands iu a singular attitude to- wards us to-day. I have in my drawer three resolutions of her Legislature, presented to us at this session, aekiug for men for her protec- tion, and for sums of money to indemnify her for expenses incurred, as ahe claims, in pro- tecting herself, and urging upon the General Government to make further provision for that State, which has already cost us so much. Her Legislature has sent to us a fourth resolution. I have not got it here, but I heard it read at the table; and, if I understood it avight, she has given us fair notice that she is about to go out of this Union. At all events, I do not think that was in good taste. I do not think it was politic; because we may say to her, "if you are really going to leave us, perhaps it is best for us to make no further appropriation for you." Why beg of us protection, and turn right around and tell us " we are going to put you at defiance ; we are going to hold a Hart- ford Convention of the South, to deliberate whether we shall leave the Union?'' Bpfore I vote for the supplies she at^ks, I think I shall want to hear an explanation of this. I may want to know whether they are to inure to the benefit of the Union, or to furnish powder to blow out our own brains. -r-" Let me eay here, Mr. President, that I have no apprehensions about the Union. The peo- ple I represent have got bravely over any qualms about your dissolving the Union. You may preach about it, and howl about it, until your lungs are sore; it will not move a muscle of my constituents or of myself. I know that our destinies are cast together; and wheth- er it is beneficial or not — and I do not know whether it is or not — you can obtain no di- vorce. We are wedded for better or for worse, and forever ; and we had better make the best of our lot. You cannot go out. The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Clay] asked the Senator from Wisconsin, [Mr. DoolittleJ in the course of his remarks, whether, if they undertook to go out cf the Union, we were going to forcibly interpose to prevent it ? I do not remember exactly what the answer was, but I wanted to ask another question, for it has taxed my inge- nuity to know how it is you can get a State out of this Union. If the most violent resolution, if the most flaming declaration, could have done i^ your Uaion would have been blown to atoms 'on{» as;o. It wants aomethinf; more than Conveiiliors; it wants fiomething stronger than resolutions. I do not ktiow how you pro- pose to effect it. II iw can a State so ont? A man may commit trea interc-ct of one, waa the interest of another. You are forced all on the same piafform, all acting; to one end. Yon found the Democracy of th« North divided in various pursuits, laboring in thf ir various avo- cations, with very little time to study this prob- lem of politics ; and you have always bsen able to seduce enout'h of us over to you, to enable you to carry your Government along. I know that gentleman smile at this; but I am com- pelled by truth to state facts here that I wish I could hide from the world. It is a rottenness at the North that you do not have. It is dis- reputable to us, but I am compelled to admit it. ADAf;LKRREOTVHE FOR THE BENKl'IT OF FU- TIKK AfiES. Your allies, the doughfaces cf the North, in my judgment, are the most despicable of men. The modern doughface is not a character ne- culiar to the a^je in which we live, but yon find traces of him at every period of the world's history. He is void of pride ; he is void of self- respect; he is actuated by a mean, grovelling selfishness, that would sell his Maker for a price. Why, fir, when old Moses, under the immediate inspiration of God Almichty, en- ticed a whcle nation of slaves, and ran awty, not to Canada, but to old Canaan, I suppose that Pharaoh and all the chivalry of old Egypt denounced him as a most furious Abolitionist. [Liughter.] I do not know but that they blas- phemed their God, who had assisted the fugi- tives from labor to escape. I have no doubt at all, that when some Southern gentlemen of the Gcspel come up to preach to the North, they will say that the Almighty acted a very fanati- cal part in this bueiness. I am afraid they will say so; for He was aiding and abetting in the escape. But amidst the glories of that great delivarance, even feeding upon miracles cf the Almighty as they went along, there were not wanting these who loved Egypt better than they loved liberty ; whose souls Icnged for the flesh-pots of Egypt ; and who could turn from the visible glories of the Almighty God to wor- ship an Egyptian calf. These were the dough- faces of that day. They were national men. [Laughter.] They were not exactly Northern meu with Southern principles; but they wers liraelites with Egyptian principles. [Laughter.] Again : when the Saviour of the world went forth on his great mission to proclaim glad tidings of joy to all the people of the earth, to I break every yoke, and to preach deliverance to ' the captive, He met with the same class of men 8 in the persona of Judas lacariot and the chief priests. In the days of our own Revolution, when Washington and hia noble associates were carrying on that struggle to establish justice, and to secure the blessings cf liberty to them selves and their posterity, they met with the same class of men in the admirers of George III and Lord North. They are all of the same class — fal se to the education of their fathers — false to the great principles which have been inslilled into them by their mothers from their birth — willing to do anythiug that will minister to the cupidity of their masters, let the consequences be what they may. It is this ciasa of men, aided by a close aristocracy at the S luth, that has euabiec the minority to rule with iron hand the majori- ty, since the organization of this Government. I have endeavored to daguerreotype these men for the benefit of future ages ; for I believe tha', like the Indian tribes, they are disappear- irg. You have put them to very hard service, sir. They die faster than the Northern negroes in your rice-swamps — politically, I mean. You put them to service that they cannot stand. Whea you ask them to vote for a fugitive bill. they may do it once, but political death stares them in the face. When you ask them to go with you for the repeal of the Missouri reairietion, you find the same et8>te of things. And now, worst of all, when yen ask ihem to fasten upon their fellow meu, in a Teriiiory of the United Stateo, a Constitution which that people abhor, I tell you every Northern repre- sentative who participates in this act is not only politically dead, but he may thank his God if he escapes with that. A LAWYER -ADMITS AWAY HIS OWN CASE. I find, sir, that I am detaining the Senate longer than I wished ; and yet, if I am to go over the argument of the subject immediately under consideration, I shall have to detain them some time longer. [" Go on I "] I shall be as brief as possible on this part of the case. I desire first to notice some things ia the argu- ment of the able and eloquent gentleman from Louisiana, [Mr. Benjamin,] who addressed ua on the day before yesterday. He endeavored to shew that there was a distinction between the right of a slaveholder to his slave and the remedy he might have ; and hence he claimed that, when a slave went into a ftee country, the master did not lose hia right over him, but lost the remedy. He said that in a free country, where there was no law for the protection of the rights cf the master, he did not lose his right to the slave, but lost his remedy — lost his power to control the slave. He likened it to the case of a man who had a patent right, or a poet who had a property in the productions of his own inspi- ration. I will read the Senator's language, tc show how the most gifted man, when he is not on his guard, may admit away his own case. He said : " There lives now a man in England, who, from time to time finps, to the enclianied ear of the civilized world, -trains of such melody that the charmed senses seem to abandon the grosser regions of earih, and to rise to purer and serener regions above. God has creafd that man a poet. His inspiration is his; his song- are his by right Divine; they are his properly, so recrgnised by liuman law; yet here, in these United Slater men steal Tenny- son's works, and sell his property for their profit: and this because, in spite of the violatfd conscience of the nation, we refuse to give him protection for his property." Again, following out the same idea, he said : " Does not every man see at onf e that the right of the inventor to his discovery, that the right of the poet to hi.^ inspiration, depends upon tho'e principles of eternal justice which God has implanted in ihe heart of man ; and that wherever he cannot exerci-e them, it is because man, faithless to the trust that he has received frotn God, denies them the protection to which they are enti- tled." That is a very sound doctrine, in my judg- ment ; it is an appeal to that higher law which has been so much traduced. The poet has a divine right to the inspiration of his genius and the products of his mind ; the inventor of a machine has a God-given right to the use of hia discovery. Does not the honorable Senator see, that if these rights are from God, above human law, no Constitution and no law can take them away ? And how much more has a man a right to his own body and to his own soul, than he can be said to have to his own producdoas? How could the gentleman fail to see that, if the poet and the inventor had this divine right, the slaveholder could not claim the right cf ownership over another man? Would not that man have the came God-given right that he claims for the pcei and the dis- coverer? Most assuredly he would. This ad- mission stultified his whole ca-.e. He admits, then, that Slavery would be impossible. It is not a matter of right. No, sir ; he might as well admit at the outset that Slavery is not a matter of right. It is a ma ter ct positive law. It is a matter of force. It is a matter of fraud. It is not a matter cf right ; and the moment the slave gets beyond the power fo enforce the mandate, he is as free as his master. Has God Almighty put any mark on hia], by which you can say, when he gets into a foreign jurisdic- tioi), which is the elave and which the master? The slave might as well claim a right to the master, as the master to the biave, the moment he passes beyond the jurisdiction. THE GRKAr FfiAUD. Now, Mr. President, wish regard to the Kan- sas question, I thall treat it very briefly. I contended here, four years ago, ihat the abro- gation of the MisBCuri re8iti:;'.ion would be attended by the same train of circumstances that has taken place. I conteuded then that you were opening this Territory to strife and to contention ; that you were puttirg it up to a vendue, to make it a theatre where the most selfiih and outrageous passiona would contend for the mastery; that you were begettirg a state of civil war. You claimed that it was going to be all peace ; that it was done for the purpose of withdrawing this terrible controversy from 9 the Halls of Corgreas to your Terrltoriee. Do you gain anything by it? A^ilution begins in your Territories. Is it not sure to find its way into thene HalU 7 The House of Representatives pent into lha» Territory a commission of the most honorable men,notonoueeidecf politics, but on both, there to investigate the charges that were made against the first Legislature. I have its report before me. I have read more than ninety of the depositions that were taken, of m'n whj are not impeached, mtn who were partisans, many of them against the side of the qupsiiou ■which I advocate. Here are their depotiiions. Perhaps I had better read some of them. They go to show you that even before this law waa^ passed, there were orgnn ztd upon the borders' of Missouri divers lodges, under d'fl'erent names, for the sole and only purpose of carry- ing Slavery into that Territory at all hazards. That was the object of their orgauizition. They had all the paraphernalia of a secret society. They had their grips, their pass words, their modes of recognition of one another; and be- fore the day of election they went over tbtre,em- bodied in military array, in vaet number-', with their colors flyicg and their drums beating, with gune, cannon, pistols, and bowie knive?. They disseminated themselves through all the Territory, took possession rf all the polls but one, and fiequeutly removed the judge?, giving them a certain time to deliver the poll books — a few minutes — holdirg wa*ch in haiid, and pointing pistols at the heads of the election judges. They drove them off with force and fraud. This is undeniable. The volume be- fore me proves it. It will go down to the latest posterity, that these nefarious acts are proved. They are part of the records of your legisla-.' tion. They never shall be gainsayed. ''- I know the Sencitor from South Carolina, and a good many other Senators, have been willing to divide the odium of this transaction wiih us. He thought there were disgraceful frauds en both sides — •' disg'-aceful," said be, "to the country," and he has not sought to investigate them. He says it is a disagreeable subject, and he has no doubt both sides are guilty. Sir, it was not on both sides. It was only on one side. You took possession of those polls. You elected your own men, members of a foreign State, who came in there to control the desti- nies of this Territory, which it was especially said should be ruled as its own ciiizans pleased. I do not want to detain the Senate by read- ing the pages which I have turned down in this document, unless some gentlemen wishes to hear them. They are long, but they are all perti- nent. All go to show the fasts I have stated, and there is nobody to deny or contradict them. Now, you aey we do not prove them. Did not we ask you for a commission to exam- ine them during the last Congress? We made charges ; we said they were true ; we had letters and communications imploring us to in- vestigate the state of things that was prevailing j there ; but as often as we aakcd you to ^ive us a ' commission, you refused it. S'.andiin? on that refusal, you turn round and deny th«> wei^^ht of iho authorities we produ-e. Sir. that will not sro down. Now, at a la'er day, when your can- dle-box frauds, your forgeries most di-ttraceful, are comifg to light — when they are known of nil men — we ask you for a commission to invest- igate this matter; nnd as ofien as w(> ask it, you turn ronrd coolly and vote ns down, and then deny thit there is any such thing! Sir, the country will take cogni7,%nc3 of that. The fraud by which the election of March .30, 1855, was carried, is eatablisbed. I know you undertake to estop us by saying that Governor Reeder gave certificates to a majority of thell him what the business was for which he was wanted, because it was beneath the dignity of airee citizen in England, at that period, to have a summons come in such a mandatory form that he must obey it in a moment. It seemed to be a mark of servitude that our sturdy ancestors would not submit to. It is not so now, however. In one day, your liberties may be gone. In one day, you m^ay become a slave, and be denied all chance ot liberty. Why do you say these men are rebels and traitors? You have had an army of two thou- sand men in Kansaa, and all the paraphernalia of war, for what purpose? To compel that people to conduct their domestic concerns in their own way! [Laughter.] They would no: do it. Did you ever hear ot so perverse a race aa there is in that Territory? Two thousand soldiers, with all the paraphernalia of war, are required to force a people to do just as they please. [Laughter.] Governor Vi/aiker wrote to the Picsident, ever and over again, before he got the hang of these men. The first per- sona he met in the Territory, when he got there, ware those busy Border Kuffians, always in communication with the President, who seem to have mesmerized him and entranced him. The Governor, no doubt, took letters of intro- duction to some of the first Border Ruffians in the Territory; and they seemed to have ob- tained their knowledge at first from that source. They wrote ferocious letters for about a month. Governor Walker, however, finally took it upon himself to act the missionary. He thundered forth his proclamation. First, he told the peo- ple he would enforce those Border Ruffian usurped laws upon them ; but he had the grace to say, that when the Constitution came to be acted upon, all of them should have a fair op- portunity to vote. He said, "such are my in- structions from the President, such is my will; and in that respect you shall not be thwarted." He went amongst the people; he found them uneasy about the Government which was ruling them. He wrote to the President, over and over pgain, that there was reason to fear there would be civil war if tyranny was persisted in, and that the only way he could pacify them was by assuring them, oa the authority of the Pres- ident, that they should have the right to make their own Constitution, in their own way. He said that wa3 the only pacification be could otfer them ; and if he had not done if, the Ter- ritory would have been in a blaze of war. Ha wrote to the President that he had told the people of his consultations with the President; he informed them that they had the faith of the President and the Cabinet that the Consti- tution would be submitted to them. The peo- ple there had had a little experience of Pres- idents and Cabinets. They said to Governor Walker, " these are very fine words of yours ; but we have been dealt with so falsely and per- fidiously by our Government, that we fear even your good faith cannot protect us ; but he gave such assurances as ultimately pacified them. A SECRET HISTORY. There must be some secret history connected with the course of the Administration in refer- ence to this matter, which it would be' exceed- ingly interesting to have unfolded. The Presi- dent in his inaugural had proclaimed, in the hearing of the whole people of the United States, that the people of Kansas should have a free and fair opportunity to vote on their own Con- stitution. He proclaimed that, as a matter of course, that must be done. He admits it in his last message. He acknowledges in that message that he made these general statements, but he says hia miud dwelt on the question of Slavery only. Well, sir, I am not a man who wishes to keep anything back, and I tell my friends here who expect to support the people of Kansas in their course, you cannot blink the question ; it is Slavery that the people are opposed to. I have no doubt they would like to express their sentiments on every part of the Constitution; but I candidly admit that if there were no Slavery in it, there would not be much contention about it on the other side of the Chamber, nor on this. Let not my frienda eay that it makes eo difference whether there is Slavery in it or not, and that the bare quea tion is on the aubmisBion. I agree that they are right in principle on that. The people should pass upon anything and everything con nected with their welfare, touching the Consti- tution under which they are to live; but uever- thelesa the Slavery queatioa ia the great maltei that divides us. Mr. President, there is something extraor- dinary iu the manner in which this Constitu- tion was submitted. V/as the like of it ever heard of before ? I have heard floating rumorn that the ingenuity of this whole District was invoked to invent that form of submission ; but I do not know how the fact was. I do not believe that rude Border Ruffianism had the ingenuity to invent these meshes of Slavery. I fear that the lingers of men at the other end of the avenue may be tainted with it. I do not know that; but I have shrewd surmises about it. How was it submitted? I will ask, first, why did you submit it at all ? On the other side of this Chamber, you claim that the Conven- tion was under no obligations whatever to the people ; that the Convention was supreme ; that it might do as it pleased ; that, if it did not submit it, the people must be content — a doctrine as much fraught with despotism as anything that can be found in the Eastern world. You say that a set of men called into a Convention can, at their will, frame aa in strument by which the whole people are to be bound, hand and foot, against their will. Why. air, it is an absurdity, in my judgment, alto- gether too palpable for argument in any pan of the Uciced States. If we hold our liberties by such a tenure ap that, they stand on a more fragile basis than 1 have supposed. Why, sir, I have always sup- posed that everybody understood, that when a CDnvention was framing a Constitution, it was merely making a proposition to the people who were to be governed by it. They say to the people : " Will you have this ? We have done our best to make a Constitution which we, as members of this community, have believed would be acceptable to you. We propose, therefore, that you look into it, and, if it meet? your approbation, make it your Constitution." I have always supposed that that was the mean- ing of the action of such a Convention ; and certainly it is, if American liberty means any- thing. The men assembled at Lecompton dare not present their Constitution to this body without some attempt to cover it up ; they must make an attempt to submit it. How have they done it ? Why, sir, they have contrived, by ingenui ty, to get up a scheme whereby the form of voting might be preserved to the people, and the result be the same, let them vote as they would. It makes me think of a man who built a hog pen up in our couutry once, and the rails were to crooked and winding, that when his hogs got through, and thought they had got oat, as they wound alon;/ thpy came right in again. [Laughter.] 80 here, th*5 people were to say " Corislilution with Slavery," or " Con'-titution without Slavery." If tb<;y said " Constitution with Slavery," that //av« t!i» m Slavery up to their ears ; it nev*r could be done away with. If they voted " Consti'ution without Sla- very," what wou'd i\u uu8ophi«licat(;d man Bup- pose would come then ? He would nuppo'e he had got out of the pen ; bu'. lh» fuci is, it twisted him right in where he was before. He bad not gone an inch ; Slavery was there ; it was to be there ; it wan to be protected there forever, vote as you would. And they extorted an oath, before they put this nefarious fraud to the people, that they should support iu Now, sir, whoever devised this echeme, had a more mean and contemptible opinion of the American people than is consistent with Uepub- licanism cr Democracy. I do not believe there is a despot on God's earth that dare deal thus with his people ; and you say they are to be bound by puch a Peter Funk operation aa that I Do you suppose men are to be entrap- ped and deprived of their liberties in this way ? The only difference in the result, whether they voted for the Constitution with Slavery or without it, was, whether they would allow the future importation of slaves icto the State, or whether those now there should be kept in Sla- very, with their posterity, forever. It was to be a, slave State, and, in the language of the Pres- ident, a^ much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina, whether the people voted that they would have the Constitution with Slavery, or whether they said they would have it without Slavery. Is not that a fine aspect to hold up to the American people, to auppote they are to be gulled by a such a thing as that ? Then they provided, in the schedule, that the vote should be returned to one John Calhoun, the President of the Convention. I deny, as a legal proposition, that Calhoun could political- ly live one moment; after the Convention had expired. All the incidents die with the princi- pal. He was defunct, and it was not in the power of the Convention to keep him on foot ia his official form one hour after that. But, passing by that point, we see the shrewd ingenuity with which it was done. This Cal- houn was empowered, as dictator there, to fix all the election districts, to appoint the judges, his own mere creatures and instrum-^nts, to make the returns, and they were to make them to him, and, as it is construed now, to make them either this year or next year, just as he pleases. They said the returns should be made to him in eight days after the eltction, but he need never exhibit them at all; and he has proclaim- ed in this city, to the honorable Senator from Illincio, who has stated it on this floor, that un- less this Constitution be adopted, he, in his sovereign majesty, never will make known what was done ! J 16 \ entrant. Mr. President, is it not an open, downright 1 insult, ctiered to the American Senate, to send this fugiiive from justice, pmed with this tre- mendous power cf turning a conetitutional ma- iority one way or the othf.r, just as he seeq fit? Will the liberty-loving people of the United States submit to this kind of^ authority and dic- tation ? Who is this John C. Calhoun ? A Senator. He drops the *'C." Mr. WADE. I am glad he does so, for the honor of his predecessor. Who is he? We know nothing ahont him. The only history of him we have, is, that he has been indiguantly driven out by that people, as a violator of their laws, as a man so inlamous that they would not suffer him to live there at ali, and he has fled to the place where eveiyihing that is anti re publican and tyrannical seems to fly — he has sought a city oi refuge here, where everything too vile to live at home seems to find a place. Here we are wailing on John Calhoun for light as to who shall govern the Territory of Kan- sas. [" The State."] Well : the State of Kan- sas, when it geta to be a State. I know the President calls it a State now, and did it a great while ago. Was ever anything done like it on this continent before? When before was a man armed with authority to take the votes of the people cf a State, bury them up in a candle- box, if jou pleaae, or carry them in his pocket, not letting anybody be witness cf what he has got, and there hold them in the face of the whole people just, as long as he pleases, and, if he pleases, so forever? Sir, if you give sanction to frauds like this, American institu- tions are on their last legs, and they ought to be. John Calhoun, eiLiicg in some public house in this city, with the destinies cf a great State in his pocktt, and he refusing to exhibit the truth to the Senate of the United States, to to the President of the United States, to the House cf Representatives, or to anybody in terested to know anything about it! Dicta- tor John Cilhoun is to say who shall rule Kan- sas. A gentleman here said the other day, "Cotton is King." He was mistaken. Sir, it is John Calhoun who is King. But I do not wieh to pursue thi3 subject any further. I am sick of it. The honorable Sen ator from Sjuth Carolina [Mr. Hammoxd] said he had seen enough to satisfy him that these frauds were sickening and shameful, and he did not want to investigate them. It is sickening; it is loathing to the American mind to contem- plate these nefaiious frauds that are flouted in our faces ; and we have no means to redress them. Sir, we should scout them from us with indignation; and I hope, for the honor of the American name, that all these proceedings, so fraught with most palpable and undeniable fraud, will receive the stern denunciation of this bo^y. THE CONCLUSION. Many gentlemen who are attempting^ to justify the admission of this Territory into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution, say that other States have been admitted ■' without an enabling act. Sir, all that is said on this suVjectlwill not say is mere sophistry; but it ought to deceive ncbody. Perhaps more than half the new States have come into the Union without any enabling act. I do not think that such act is at all essential. Here are a people all homogeneous, all having the same interests, having no matter of contention between them ; _ they could get together, and, without any dissent, frame a Constitution, and ask us to admit them under it. The evidence must be such, always has been such, in every instance, that there has been no reason to doubt that the Constilntioa had the approbation of the whole people, or of a va9t majority. Why do you require a pop- ular vote on that point? Because, when there is dispute, it is the only means of ascertaining where tha majority is; but if there is no dis- pute, you c?in have that evidence in another way, and it is just as legitimate. What has that to do as a precedent with a case where civil war even is raging in regard to the Con- stitution th'^t is presented; where stride, con- ten tic n, and arms, are invoked to settle the con- troversy ? You are likening that to a peaceful gatherirg cf homogeneous people, all agreed to fix their i:>8titutiocs in their own way. Sir, there ia no parallel. One throws no light en the other. Th'5 people of Kansas, in three days, can settle this matter, if you will let them. You are convulsing the whole nation by the attempt to fcrce a Constitution on the unwill- ing necks of a pecple, which they abhor and de'test. Withdraw your force, withdraw your ^ coercion, say to that people, '• aseemble your- selves together peacefully, and de ermine what Constitution you choose to live under ;" and my word for it, sir, the hour yon do so, peace and tracquillity will reign throughout the whole of Kansas. Every man knows it. This contenton ia kept up for no other reason than to hang on the necks of that people this pei, institution of Slavery. In one hour you can make peace. Adopt the other course, and God only knows to what it will lead. I do not know what may be the rei3ult now; but it has never yet been found that by external interference, by force, or by fraud, ycu could coerce any set of American people to submit to a G :vernment they abhorred and detested. If they do it now, it will only mark the degeneracy of this age and of this pecple, and show that we are verging towards Slavery and Despotism. In my judgment, it is as necessary for us to rebuke and overthrow the frauds to which I have alluded, as anything else we possibly can do. If there is anything more dangerous to this Union than another, it is the immunity that is given to fraud, allowing your ballot-box to be invaded. Why, sir, the hour your ballot-box is undermined to that degree that the American people shall not have confi- dence in it, from that very hour you render free government impossible. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 895 905 ft LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 011 895 905 A ^ -=^'