e-y 
 
 UNION OE DISUNION. 
 
 THE UNION CANNOT AND SHALL NOT BE DISSOLVED. 
 MR. LINCOLN NOT AN ABOLITIONIST. 
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS, 
 
 AT HOLCOMBE HALL, 
 
 IN LYNCHBURa, VIRGINIA, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 18. 
 
 On Thursday evening Holcombe Hall was crowded to hear the address of Mr, Bolts. 
 His appearance on the platform was the signal for the wildest enthusiasm, which con- 
 tinued for several minut(^s. "When quiet was restored, John H. Speed, Esq., introduced 
 the distinguished gentleman to his audience in a brief speech, at the conclusion of which 
 Mr. Botts came forward and addressed them as follows ; 
 
 Fellow-Citizens: — This being the first time I have had an opportunity of present- 
 ing myself to the people of Lynchburg, it becomes me to return my acknowledgments 
 for the greeting I have received ; although I must confess I know not the party to which I 
 am indebted for this flattering reception, for I stand here in rather a new character — that 
 of a representative of the Democratic party. [Laughter.] If I do not play mj' part 
 well, it is not for the want of good will towards that party, for, as you well know, the 
 kindest and most amiable relations have always subsisted between us. [Renewed laugh- 
 ter,] Yet I do not know whether I shall come up to the expectations of some of my 
 Democratic friends, for a paper has been put into my hands by which I ascertain, with 
 some surprise, tliat it is expected I will make at least one th(Kisand votes for the Demo- 
 cratic party by my speech to-night. [Laughter.] But I trust they will be content, when 
 I have done, and in a spirit of charity to compromise for half that number, [Great 
 Laughter,] But, in all seriousness, for I have little time for preliminary remaiks, I 
 trust I shall bo able to gain your attention, and that you will be patient while I deliver 
 to you my views on all the issues involved in the present Presidential camjiaign. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I am not here in the character that I have often occupied in my 
 younger days; I am not here as a partisan. I have jiassed the period of life when it be- 
 comes me, in my judgment, to play that part, and no small share of experience in political 
 life teaches me that I have a country to serve and to save, if I can, which rises very far 
 above all party considerations ; and I hesitate not to say that if this were a mere party 
 contest, for the defeat of this party or for the triumph of that, I should leave it to younger 
 and more active men. But when I saw disunion and treason, with a brazen front, and 
 with a bold and defiant tongue, stalking through this glorious old Commonwealth of 
 Virginia, I felt I had no right to devote myself to retirement — that my country was en- 
 titled to what inrtuence I might be able to exert; and, casting all other considerations 
 aside, I took the field with a determination to discharge my share of duty. [Applause.] 
 In the remarks I propose to admit, I beg leave to say that I do not address myself to the 
 young, the thoughtless, the inconsiderate, and the unrefl<>cting. I propose to address 
 Tnj'self t(» the calm reflections of intelligent men — men who are capable of appreciating 
 the argument which I shall otfer, and wlio valu<' the institutions of the country. I know 
 very well, gentlemen, that what I shall say will not be api>roved by all. I know I shall 
 
 (1)
 
 2 SPEECH OE THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 be, as T have been heretofore, grossly misrepresented, vilified, and denounced. I know 
 I sliall be called an Abolitionist. 
 A Voice — Of course. 
 
 Of course — and why not? Because I do not vote the Democratic ticket. And yet, 
 when I reflect that such men as Henry Clay, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, 
 and Winfield Scott, all natives of Virginia, have been held, by that party which de- 
 nounces me, as unsound on the institution of Slavery — as being, in truth. Abolitionists of 
 the darkest dye, and that such men as Martin Van Buren, Gen. Cass, Franklin Pierce, 
 and .James Buchanan, are only to be trusted on this question, I must say I am reconciled 
 to the denunciation of the party. Such a charge gives me no annoyance. I feel as com- 
 fortable under it as a man who has a note in Bank, with a plenty of money in his pocket; 
 he can discharge the obligation whenever it meets his convenience; and in like manner, 
 I can relieve myself of this imputation, whenever I desire to do so, or that it occasions 
 me the least disturbance. All I have to do is to vote the Democratic ticket, and the 
 charge will never be made again. For I have never heard the charge made yet against 
 one of their own party, and have never known one of prominence in our party against 
 whom it was not made. I gave my answer to the foul libel in 1856, when I said, "Ho 
 who calls me an Abolitionist, is either a knave or a fool, and not unfrequently both." I 
 have nothing to add to, or take from what I then said, I treat the whole thing with 
 contempt. 
 
 I propose now to enter upon the discussion of some questions involved in the present 
 canvass. A very extraordinary state of things exists in the country. AVe have not only, 
 for the first time in the history of the Democratic party, two candidates presented to the 
 people, but we have threats of disunion, more or less, in every Sotithern state, depending 
 upon certain contingencies. An imcharitable mind might come to the conclusion, per- 
 haps, that the reasons of the division had arisen from the fact of an empty treasury, for I 
 believe nobody ever heard of a division of the Democratic party as long as there remained 
 any money in the treasury that they could appropriate to themselves ; but having spent 
 $17,000,000 that were in the treasury at the time they came into power, and created a 
 debt of S60, 000,000 more, it might be that they had divided for the purpose of enabling 
 us to get into power that we might replenish it for them. [Laughter and applattse.] But 
 I think there are other reasons for it, which 1 shall attempt to make manifest. When 
 you get into conversation with those gentlemen who talk in this way of the contingency 
 to which I refer, you will find they have almost as many reasons as there are persons 
 you encounter. If you ask one of the Breckinridge portion of the Democracy why they 
 have two candidates in the field, and why they could not support Douglas, who was the 
 regular nominee of the National Democratic party, if such a party can be supposed to 
 exist, they tell you it was because Douglas was the advocate of the doctrine of Squatter 
 Sovereignty, and that he stands on a platform they cannot support, notwithstanding the 
 fact that in the Charleston Convention they voted fifty-seven ' times for Mr. Hunter — I 
 mean the delegation from Virginia — upon the identical platform that Douglas nOw occu' 
 pies. But I take issue with the gentlemen, and 1 deny that Squatter Sovereignty has 
 anything to do with the question between the Breckinridge and Douglas men. I deny it 
 because I make the assertion, broadly and without qualificatii)n as far as my knowledge 
 extends, that there was not a Democrat from the Southern States in the Charleston Con- 
 vention that did not stand unqualifiedly and overwhelmingly committed to Squatter Sove- 
 reiarntv. Thev were all its advocates, and thev all assisted as far as thev could, whether 
 in Congress or out of it, in establishing that doctrine. What is the doctrine of Squatter 
 Sovereignty? It is non-intervention. What is non-intervention? It is non-interfe- 
 rence. Non-interference on the part of whom ? Non-interference on the part of Con- 
 gress. On the part of Congress with whom ? With the people of the territories. And 
 during the discussion of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, this great fundamental feature of the 
 bill was specially recommended by our Democratic representatives from the South to 
 their constituents on that especial ground, and no other. It would be no very difiicult 
 task to take up The Congressional Globe and show that there was not a Southern repre- 
 sentative who advocated that bill, that did not pvit it upon the ground of non-interven- 
 tion, as being the feature of the bill which most recommended it to the country. I shall 
 not undertake to do this, but I propose to submit authority that will be as conclusive on 
 the subject as if I were to read every speech of those who addressed Congress on the 
 subject. 
 
 First of all, take Mr. Cass, the present Democratic Secretary of State, and we find that 
 a day or two after the passage of the bill, he said : 
 
 " On the morning of the passage of the bill, I congratulate the Senate on the triumph 
 of Squatter Sovereignty, and I have just cause for congratulation. Many of us have 
 labored long and zealously for the recognition of political freedom, and have been exposed 
 to misrepresentation and denunciation. When, therefore a bill had received the sanction 
 of the Senate, which conferred a greater freedom on the Territories than had ever before 
 
 V ^^.-*«i 
 
 a M « -« « W V ^V^-^VAl
 
 Y? ^ '/?/ 5-f" SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 3 
 
 been grnnted to such local communities, yielding up all the supervisory authority by 
 Congress over their legislation, . . 1 felt thut a great advance had been made in the pro- 
 gre!»s of free principles." 
 
 There, then, was the congratulation of one of the foremost men of the party, and one 
 of the ablest expounders of law and the Constitution in the Senate of the Unitid States. 
 Did any member of the Democratic party from the South rise in his place and dispute 
 this authority of Gen. Cass, that th(^ doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty was established by 
 the passage of the bill ? Far from it. The next who spoke upon the subject was our own 
 representative, ]\[r. Mason, and what does he say? This gentleman, who now advocates 
 the election of Breckinridge, and opposses the election of Douglas upon the ground that 
 he cannot sustain the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty, said to the Senate : 
 
 " From the experience which the Southern States have had of the tendencies of Con- 
 gress heretofore on the subject of Slavery, I do not know that we may not quite as safely 
 trust the people, come from where they may, as the Congress of the United States, with 
 that institution." 
 
 Again. In the Congressional Globe of the 34th Congress, 1855-56, we find the follow, 
 ing language employed by Mr. Mason, in his construction of the Cincinnati platform and 
 the Kansas-Nebraska bill : 
 
 '♦I do know what was the issue on this subject (slavery in the Territories) which was 
 presented in the political platform adopted at Cincinnati by the Democratic party. That 
 issue was the doctrine of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. AY hat was that? The Territorial 
 Government was so organized then as to admit citizens of all the States, whether free or 
 slave, to take their property into the Territories, and when they organized themselves, or 
 were organized under the law, into a legislative body, then to determine for themselves 
 whether this institution shall exist among them or not." 
 
 So much for Mr. Mason. 
 
 But this is not all. In the year 1856, on the occasion of the anniversary of ^Mr. Clay's 
 birthday, the llith day of April, at a place called Ashland, formerly called Slash Cottage 
 — which you have all seen on your way to the North — a short distance from Kichmond ; 
 a large number of distinguished gentlemen were invited to participate in the celebration 
 of th:it daj'. Among others was the then Attorney-General of the United States, the 
 Hon. Caleb Cushing, late presiding officer of the Charleston Convention, and subsequently 
 presiding officer of the Seceding Convention at Baltimore, and who now expresses a holy 
 iiorror at this doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty. Mr. Cushing came to Ashland as the 
 law otticer of the Government, the highest legal officer in the United States, and he came 
 for the purpose, as it appeared, of giving a legal, technical construction to the bill, for that 
 constituted the main features of his remarks. As you will perceive, he was anxious to 
 keep good company by associating the name of Henry Clay with the doctrine of Squatter 
 •Sovereignty, which high honor 1 took occasion to disclaim for Mr. Clay in the papers of 
 next day : and before I read what he said, 3'ou will pardaoi me for saying that he often 
 uses words that even educated men know not the meaning of. He has been a professor of 
 languages, and is fond of indulging in grandiloquent, or what is commonly termed high- 
 fuluda words. And you will pardon me if I undertake to explain what he means, as I 
 go along. 
 
 " I anticipate that many eloquent and stirring things will be said by gentlemen present, 
 in exhibition of the character, of the career, and of the fame of Henry Clay. I will 
 venture to stand upon a single point in that great brilliant, and glorious career. I will 
 refer to that tinal struggle, of the patriotic efforts of Henry Clay — that final struggle in 
 the Senate of the United States, when he cooperated with others of his compeers, and 
 among them gentlemen here present, in those elforts which resulted in the establishment, 
 I will venture to say, in the perpetual and unshakable establishment in the public law 
 and political theory of the United States, of the absolute equality, the coequal political 
 ftutoiiorny" (any other man-would have said the right of self-government, for that is what 
 autonomy means) "of each and all those States; the great corollary of that doctrine is 
 the establishment of the corresponding theory that each distinct inchoate State" (anybody 
 else would have said each distinct Territory) " of this Union shall determine for itself 
 what shall b(^ its own institutions. I say, if he left no other legacy to his countrymen, it 
 would be sufficient to perpetuate his memory, that luf aided in the establishment of that 
 
 1)rinciple which h-^s now become fixed and irrevocable in spite of all the howls of faction, 
 n all parts of this Union it must become the unanimous ci>nviction of the people of these 
 United States that whether a State in this Union is or is not to regulate labor, in this or 
 that manner, depends upon the will of the people of that State or Territory." 
 
 " Of that State or Territory." So that w have the authority of the law officer of the 
 Government as to what was meant by the bill ; that it has become a fixed and irrevocable 
 law of the land, in spite of all the howls of faction, that the Territories shall determine 
 for themselves whether or no Slavery shall be admitted within their borders. 
 
 If that is not enough, let me proceed a little further, and give you the testimony of two
 
 4 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 otlier important gentlemen ; and, I will here remark that it seems to have been a most 
 miraculous accident that these gentlemen should have fallen, in their hot haste to condemn 
 and denounce all who advocate the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty — it was truly- miracu- 
 lous that they should have fallen on two gentlemen who occupied precisely and identically 
 the same position that Douglas occupies on the question. I daresay many of you have seen 
 this before, but it is necessary, for the argument, that I shall present it for your con- 
 sideration again. Mr. Breckinridge says : 
 
 "Among many misrepresentations sent to the country by some of the enemies of this 
 bill, perhaps none is more flagrant than the charge that it proposes to legislate Slavery 
 into Kansas and Nebraska. Sir, if the bill contained such a feature it would not receive 
 my vote. The right to establish involves the co-relative right to prohibit ; and, denying 
 both, I would vote for neither The eifect of the repeal (of the Missouri Com- 
 promise), therefore, is neither to establish nor to exclude Slavery, but to leave the future 
 condition of the territories dependent wholly upon the action of the inhabitants, subject 
 only to such limitations as the Federal Constitution may impose It will bo ob- 
 served that the right of the people to regulate, in their own way, all their domestic institu- 
 tions, is left wholly untouched, except that whatever is done — must be done in accordance 
 wdth the Constitution — the supreme law for us all." 
 
 In 1856 he says : 
 
 "The recent legislation of Congress (on the Kansas-Nebraska bill) respecting domestic 
 Slavery, derived as it has been from the original and pure fountain of legitimate political 
 power, the will of the majority, promises ere long to allay the dangerous excitement. 
 This legislation is founded upon principles as ancient as free government itself, and in ac- 
 cordance with them has simply declared that the people of a territory, like those of a State, 
 shall decide for themselves whether Slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits." 
 
 Again, he said in 1856, after his election to the Vice-Presidency: 
 
 "The whole power of the Democratic organization is pledged to the following proposi- 
 tions: That Congress shall not intervene on this subject (of Slavery) in the States, in the 
 Territories, ov in the District of Columbia ; that the people of each territory shall determine 
 the question for themselves, and be admitted into the Union upon a footing of perfect 
 equality with the original States, without discrimination, on account of the allowance or 
 prohibition of Slavery." 
 
 Does Douglas say more or less upon the subject? Is it not precisely and identically 
 his ground ? And so with Gen. Lane. He says : 
 
 ""There is nothing in the law, gentlemen, but what every enlightened American heart 
 should approve. The idea incorporated in the Kansas-Nebraska bill is the true American 
 principle ; for the bill does not establish or prohibit Slavery, but leaves the people of these 
 territories perfectly free to regulate their own local affairs in their own way. Is there 
 any man who can "^object to that idea? Is there any American citizen who can oppose 
 that principle ? <* 
 
 "The question of Slavery is a most perplexing one, and ought not to be agitated. "We 
 should leave it with the states, where it constitutionally exists, and the people of the terri- 
 tories to prohibit, or to establish, as to them may seem proper. 
 
 "All that the Democracy ask in relation to this matter is, that the people of the terri- 
 tory should be left perfectly free to settle the question of Slavery for themselves, without 
 the interference of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, or any other state." 
 
 There, then, is the testimony and the authority of not only Gen. Cass and Mr. Gush- 
 ing, but of Breckinridge and Lane, themselves, the candidates of the party, who are set 
 up in opposition, on the ground that they cannot support Douglas for the reason that he 
 is in favor of Squatter Sovereignty. [Applause.] 
 
 But I am perfectly willing to discard all the authority I have read on the subject, and 
 come to the plain, naked bill itself; and let us see what it is, What is the language of 
 the bill? It declares, in so many words, "it being the true intent and meaning of this 
 act not to legislate Slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom ;" when ? 
 Now. At this moment. At the time of the passage of this bill. 
 
 "It is not intended to legislate Slavery into or out of the territories, but to leave the 
 people thereof perfecthj f7-ee to regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way." 
 
 To decide for themselves when? At this moment, at the time of the passage of the 
 bill ? Is a word said about admission into the Union when it forms a Constitution and 
 asks for admission into the Union? Not a word. But it is not intended now to legislate 
 Slavery into or out of the territories, but to leave the people thereof (now) free to legislate 
 in their own way; and I will say, as Douglas said at Norfolk that if any man in Congress 
 did not understand the language of the bill, he ought to confess his incapacity to repre- 
 sent the public, and resign his seat and come home. [Applause.] I will add, he ought 
 to go to school and l^arn the English language again. 
 
 They were not deceived. They outwitted themselves. They came home, and attempted 
 to raise their emigrant aid societies throughout the South. Alabama and South Carolina,
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. $ 
 
 both T believe, made appropriations out of the public treasury to all who would g;o into the 
 Territories to sustain Sluvory, and in thi' town of pL*ter?bur<^. my own city, in this State, 
 they did the same thing, rni.sed j)rivate sub>crij)tions to.})ay the expenses (jf tlie emigrants, 
 but they did not succeed in getting enough of them to uccompli&h their purpusu, and 
 they were beaten at their own game. 
 
 How stands it now in regard to New oVIexico ? It has authorized the introduction of 
 Slavt'rv. Do you hear anything from Jireckinridge or the Democratic party against 
 Squatter Sovereignty there? Not a word. That is all right. They legishited there in 
 accordance with their views; but when they legislate el»ewliere in opjjo.sition to their 
 viows. they ojipose it. ^Vhy, gentlemen, there is but one thing that can furnish a fit 
 illustration of the conduct of these men. and that is the case of a desperate gambler who 
 bets his all upon the throwing of the die, or the turning of a card, or upon a game of all- 
 fours ; the parties stand six to six; the adversary turns uf) .Jack, and the party who pro- 
 posed the game and the wager grabs the stakes and attempts to run otf. but is caught and 
 held by the coat-tail, as these gentlemen are. It is a miserable subterfuge, unworthy of 
 the men who resort to it, to say they did not intend to give the power of legislation to 
 the Territories. And when I raised my voice against it in 1854, during the pendency of 
 that bill, and asked you to pause and retlect before you gave that measure your ajiproval, 
 I was universally denounced and condemned, not only by the Democratic party and press, 
 but by my own party, as the only traitor to the South. 
 
 Now we are all traitors and Abolitionists in one pen together. [Laughter and ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 Well, you will ask somebody else what they propose the dissolution of the Union 
 for, and he will give you another reason. One says he is not willing to remain in the 
 Union except on the condition of entire equality among the States. Who has proposed 
 inequality among the States ? Do not the small States of Khode Island and Delaware ex- 
 ercise all their constitutional powers in the Government to the full extent that the great 
 States of New York and Pennsylvania can do? 
 
 But they say unless the people of the South are permitted to carry their slaves into the 
 Territories there is no equality among the States. The answer to which is, that if that 
 constitutes mequality, then equality never did exist, and was never intended to exist, for 
 the very men who made the Constitution, themselves excluded you from all right to carry 
 slaves into any part of the Territory then belonging to and subject to the jurisdiction of 
 the United States, which they did by the ordinance of 1787 — which was adojjted just before 
 the Constitution was ratified — and which was immediately on the assembling of th(^ first Con- 
 gress thus recognized by a preamble to a law passed on the 7th of August, 1789, which 
 preamble is in the following words: 
 
 " Whereas, in order that the ordinance of the United States in Congress assembled, for 
 the government of the territory north-west of the River Ohio, may continue to have full 
 effect, it is requsite that certain provisions should be made so as to adapt the same to the 
 present Constitution of the United States; therefore be it enacted," &c. 
 
 Now, all this was not only acquiesced in and submitted to, without a murmur of 
 complaint, but nobody ever dreamed that we were living on conditions of inKjuality in 
 the Union. This, then, is not the real treason or ground of complaint. 
 
 I am fully aware, gentlemen, that the tyranny of the public press, and I may say, to 
 some extent, of public opinion, is such that few men can dare to express the opinions they 
 reallv entertain on this much vexed and aimoying question of Slavery. I can dare to do 
 it, and will do it — because it is a free country. I am a free man and have no favours to 
 ask of any one. [Great applause.] Let any man express a sound rational and national, 
 sc'nsi})le and conservative opinion on the subject of Slavery, and he is instantly stigmatized 
 and denounced as an Abolitionist, and a traitor to the S(Uith, unless, indeed, he belongs to 
 the Democratic party ; then he is at liberty to say and think what he chooses. No such 
 ridiculous and contemptible imputations shall deter me from saying what I think, and 
 thinking what I please. 
 
 I am free to say that the events of the last Winter and Spring, in my own State, have 
 emothered, if they have not extinguished, whatever aspirations I might have in- 
 dulged, and I have no desire that my name shall ever again be coupled with any political 
 otfiee — no man is more indiflerent to political honors than I am — and so 1 proceed. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Well, you ask another portion of the party why they would dissolve the Union, and 
 tliey tell you it is owing to the John Brown raid. The Cotton States propose to take our 
 grievances off our hands, thinking, I suppose, we cannot take care of ourselves, or have not 
 pufficiently punished the aggressions, or that it did not cost quite money enough to do so, 
 and they generously propose to take it upon themselves to redress our wrongs. Thankful 
 for small favors, we can take care of all such, without the aid of Messrs. Yancey and 
 contpjiny. [Laughter.] 
 
 Well, you put the same question to another, and ho tells you it is because the Fugitive
 
 rma^i ±jjli^ jj.u^n. t}yjn.^\ j.jl. £iw±±o. 
 
 Slave law has "been nullified in fourteen states. Well, if tliat is so, it is all wrong and 
 ought to be corrected. But it happens not to be true. There are but three States, so far 
 as I am informed, that have passed the Personal Liberty bill — Michigan, Vermont, and 
 Massachusetts. Michigan is too remote for a slave to get to, and as far as she is concerned, 
 it is practically of no moment. Theoretically, it is all wrong, and ought to be corrected. 
 Vermont lies on the borders of Canada, there is no difficulty in running a Slave into 
 the Canadian provinces ; and Massachusetts has modified her Personal Liberty bill, but I 
 am not prepared to say to what extent. But if any State in the Union has nullified or 
 resisted it, I say it is all wrong. But what right huve these extreme Southern States to 
 complain and threaten to break up the Government on that account? First, they lose 
 no slaves ; it is from the border States the slaves run ofl". We are the sufferers, not they ; 
 and if we are willing to live in the Union, we beg them not to go out on our account ; we 
 will try and take care of ourselves. Secondly, if those States have nullified the law, who 
 set the example ? Was it not set by the Cotton States, who have insisted on the right of 
 each State to judge for itself. Thirdly, because the responsibility rests at last not upon 
 those States that have nullified the law, but on the Democratic President of the United 
 States. Who is responsible for the resistance that may be made to the law, or for any 
 nullification of the Fugitive Slave or any other law, whether in Massachusetts or in South 
 Carolina ? It is the man who has laid his hand upon the sacred book and sworn to see 
 the laws faithfully executed. It is the President of the United States — it is James 
 Buchanan who is responsible for it — and if you had a man there who knew his duty, and 
 possessed the courage to perform it. you would hear nothing of nullification in any State, 
 whether in Massachusetts or South Carolina. They would all be made to execute the 
 law, cost what it might — even if it cost every dollar in the Treasury, and the life of every 
 man in the Arm}^ and Navy of the United States — it is his business to see the laws faith- 
 fully executed in every State ; and when Mr. Fillmore was there he did execute the law. 
 [Applause.] He sent Federal troops to Boston to execute the law, as it was his duty 
 to do. 
 
 Now let me say a word about this Fugitive Slave law, and explain what are the 
 objections made to its execution in the North. Two features of it are much complained 
 of. First of all, they complain of a feature of that bill which authorizes the Marshal of 
 the District to call on any person in the hearing of his voice to aid him in capturing a 
 fugitive slave. They say, and, I think, with propriety, that inasmuch as you are not re- 
 quired to do it here, you have no right to require them to do it there. If a man's slave 
 runs away, you have no right to cafl upon me to aid in the catching of the slave ; but if 
 the Marshal has taken possession of the slave, and there is an attempt to rescue the slave, 
 then he has the right to call on all men to vindicate the law. The one, you perceive, is 
 the vindication of a personal right; the other is the vindication of a public law. Now, 
 that feature of the bill which gives offence to the North, was put there by Mr. Mason, 
 who was so much opposed to the passage of the compromise measures then pending, that 
 he proposed that feature as an amendment to the bill — with the hope it would occasion its 
 defeat in the House of Representatives, and thereby defeat the whole batch of compromise 
 measures fo which he was opposed. But it passed and became a law with all the rest. 
 
 So that you are indebted to Mr Mason for whatever resistance has been made to its 
 execution. My own impression is, that that feature of the bill might be modified without 
 destroj-inc: the efficiency of the bill, and it ought to be done, and the South ought to pro- 
 pose it. There is another feature in the bill to which they object, in-which, I think, they 
 are v/rong. They say the trial of the right of the master to his slave ought to be where 
 the slave is arrested. I think not. First, because the slave is sure of a fair trial in the 
 State from which he makes his escape. No man ever yet heard of a free man being re- 
 duced to slavery against the law in a Slave state. Public feeling inclines the other way, 
 and if you were to change the venue, I am sure that such is the prejudice of the public 
 mind there that justice would rarely be done, and it would cost a man more than his 
 slave would be worth to recover him. In addition to this, the evidence of the titte is 
 where the slave makes his escape from. 
 
 I have thus shown you the difficulties about the Fugitive Slave law. I think I have 
 showji you it is not on account of the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty, nor of the in- 
 equality of the States, nor of the Fugitive Slave law, that the Breckenridge Demf)cracy 
 propose a dissolution of the Union in a certain contingency. Well, another will say it is 
 because you will not give us a Territorial bill for the protection of Slavery. I take issue 
 again, and I say that is not the reason. Why is that not the reason ? First, because 
 when Mr. Brown of Mississippi, at the last session of Congress, proposed an amendment 
 to a bill, giving a Territorial Code, it received but three votes in the Senate. They did 
 not want it. It did not suit their convenience to have it. It would have removed one 
 of the weapons with which they proposed to fire the Southern heart and precipitate the 
 Cotton States into a revolution. They would not vote for it. There was no necessity for 
 it, and more than that they were not entitled to it.
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHX M. BOTTS. 7 
 
 But that constitutes no reason for their present position of hostility to the Government. 
 I say they do not want it. First, because there is no Territory to wliich they could send 
 their slaves; and, secondly, if all the Torrit<»ries were at their control, they have no 
 negroes to send. The States which propose a dissolution of the Union because they cannot 
 send their slaves into Territories that do not exist, are now clamoring for a revival of the 
 slave-trade in order to supply that deficiency. Thirdly, if they had the territory, and the 
 neirroes to send, they have not the white men to send with them. Have we in the South 
 any population to spare ? If we dispose of any portion of our white population by send- 
 ing them into the Territories, where we have no negroes, as a matter of course we de- 
 preciate the value of our lands, lessen our importance in the national c(juncils, and become 
 reduced to the political conditions of one of the smallest States in the Union. "What do 
 vou want to dissolve the Union for? Do they want protection to their slave property? 
 i'irst, who disturbs them in the possession of their slaves ? Secondly, what right have 
 they to ask for protection to their slaves ? Have not the Cotton States always resisted 
 this principle of protection, and threatened to dissolve the Union if the principle of pro- 
 tection should be recognized by Congress; and when the AVhig party claimed protection 
 for the poor man's labor, whicii constituted the projx-rty and wealth of the country, they 
 were always met by threats to dissolve the Union, to destroy the Government, if such 
 protection was afibrded. 
 
 Now they come forward and say, if you do not protect the rich man's negro, they will 
 dissolve the Union again. Well, it is not on the principle of protection, then, that they 
 mean to dissolve the Union. 
 
 AVhat is it? Now, there is a veil that to the vision of some obscures the scene behind, 
 which to me is as clear as the gas-light that shines before me ; and here lies all the mystery. 
 All admit, or decline to deny^ the value and blessings of our Government; all are ready 
 to concede that it is the only Government on earth where civil, religious, and political 
 freedom can be indulged and enjoyed. All admit it is the fairest fabric of Government 
 ever erected by human hands, and yet it is proposed to destroy it. Well, there is some 
 secret reason tor all this, not yet fully and openly disclosed. Why is it that they have 
 nominated John C. Breckinridge against Stephen A. Douglas ? From the apprehension — 
 encouraged by their last success — from the apprehension that Douglas may be elected. 
 Why is i4 that they put Breckinridge in opposition to the national nominee of the party ? 
 Why, for no other reason than to make the election of Lincoln sure, and thus get up 
 agitation xnd excitement at the South. It is, gentlemen, for the purpose of stirring up 
 commotion, i evolution, and disunion, that they may revive the African slave-trade — the 
 African slave-trade without the Union, rather than the Union without the African slave- 
 trade, and they are impelled to it by the most debased of all considerations. They are 
 impelled and are pre])ared not only to destroy the Government, but to sell their liberty, 
 and the hopes of mankind, for gold, for the purpose of introducing little negroes from the 
 coast of Africa, into their cotton fields, in order that they may make cotton sell at 12 cents 
 a pound, to put into their breeches pockets. They do not ask us to unite with them, but 
 we, the border States, are to act in the capacity of breakwater between them and the 
 North — we are to do the lighting while they make the cotton. [Applause.] We are to 
 do the fighting ; they are to make the money. According to the census of 1850, there 
 were 350,000 slaveholders in the United States. I think the number has diminished, as 
 will appear by the census of ISOO, for the reason that negroes brini; such high prices, poor 
 men have not been able to keep them, and they have been sold to the rich planters ot^ the 
 South, and they are held now in larger quantities by the rich planters and smaller quan- 
 tities by the poor. So that I think by the census of 18(50 it will be found that their number 
 has diminished — I do not mean the number of slaves has diminished, but slaveholders; 
 there are now about 4,000,000 of them, but I think the number of slave owners has 
 diminished — and I think it is a fair computation to say that more than four-fifths of the 
 slaveholders in the United States are o|)posed to the revival of the trade, and the other 
 handful propo.se to engage in a trade that has been pronounced to be piracy not only by 
 our laws but by the whole civilized world; and yet they propose to set themselves up in 
 defiance of the civilization of the world, and carry on this trade, and ask that we shall 
 protect them in it. It would be no dithcult matter to show by figures taken from public 
 document authorized by Congress and issued from the different Di'partinents of tlie Gt)Vern- 
 ment, that more money has been lost by the failure to protect the labor and interests of 
 the non-slaveholders and of the poorer class of slaveholders during the last fourteen years, 
 than would p:iy for every negro in the United States twice over, estimating the negroes 
 at 4,000,000, and valuing them at the price which our Constitution fixes upon them, $800 
 a head, making $1,200,000,000. Now go back to the taritf of 1842, that did protect the 
 labor of the entire country, slaveholders and non-slaveholders, North and South, and 
 ascertain what was the balance of trade, annually increasing, in fjivor of the United 
 States, and then take the tarifl'of 184t», and ascertain what had been the annual balance 
 of trade against the United States, and it will give you considerably more than $100,000,-
 
 ^^^^^ Sl-JiEUH OJ^' THE MO^. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 000 per annum for the last fourteen years. And yet who has proposed to dissolve the 
 Union on that account? We have submitted, because we submit to the Constitution and 
 the laws of our country, and to the legal control of a majority, as they will be compelled 
 to do, now that that majority is against them. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I have not desired to make a charge against the leaders of the Breck- 
 inridge party on the subject of disunion ; and if I had made a speech before you previous 
 to the meeting of the Charlottesville Convention, I should have acquitted the entire party 
 of any such purpose ; and if I do not do it now, it is only because they have forced upon 
 me the necessity of holding them responsible for it. In that Charlottesville Convention, 
 a gentleman who occupies quite a prominent position, and is a most respectable, amiable, 
 and intelligent gentleman in all the relations of private life, one whom I have known a 
 long time, and entertain the highest respect for, and therefore, on account of his posi- 
 tion as a man of wealth and influence, his opinions are rendered the more important and 
 the more obnoxious. Mr. Willoughby Newton, who had the modesty to describe himself 
 to the Convention as ^^ a retired philosopher,'' [laughter], made a speech which contained, I 
 think, as much treasonable matter for the space it contained as any other gentleman could 
 very well infuse into a speech of that length. He says: 
 
 " We are here to make a stand for the South, or we are here for nothing. If we are to 
 be appalled by the shadow of disunion, let us go for Douglas ; or if we are for the spoils 
 of victory let us go for Bell. A revolution has already taken place and we are now 
 bowing under a government which no free people would ever have assented to. Gentle- 
 men talk of awaiting an overt act. Have we not had overt acts ? Have not fifteen States 
 nullified by law the Fugitive Slave act? Was not the fatal Compromise of 1850 an overt 
 act? What acts shall we wait for? He called upon them to take their stand now as 
 patriots. Let us have no more compromises, but trust to the God of Battle. Our fathers 
 did not count the cost. They fought on a point of honor. They were three millions — 
 we are nine. But he believed that the idea of civil war, if the Union were dissolved, was 
 a chimera. There might be border forays, but a dozen intrepid Virginians would quell 
 them. But if war should come in so just a cause, who would shrink from it? Our fore- 
 fathers, with a third of our population, &c., not a tenth of our territory, went to war on 
 a preamble, because it involved a point of honor. Had we not courage enough to follow 
 their example ? What was there so hard to give up in our present government ? The 
 Constitution was already repealed, effete and incapable of maintaining our rights. The 
 popular mind should be familiarized with the thought of a separation. It should be 
 directed to the glorious position that Virginia would occupy if the Union were destroyed. 
 The speaker then drew a picture of the results that would flow, in the development of our 
 material resources — commerce, manufactures, and agriculture. Norfolk would become 
 the great emporium of a Southern empire, and the stream of wealth that now flows to the 
 North from the rich State of the South would all pour through Virginia, or be arrested at 
 home. Virginia would become the most powerful State in tiie world. In twelve months 
 her whole fortunes would be revolutionized. These were not the inconsiderate conclu- 
 sions of rashness or resentment, but the calm deductions of a retired political philosopher. 
 We could not rely upon those we considered our friends at the North ; we must reW on 
 ourselves. Mr. Newton was about to conclude, but the Convention urging him to pro- 
 ceed, he said he was happy to find that his plain doctrines were not distasteful to his en- 
 lightened audience. He had retired from public life from self-respect, and had been de- 
 Voting himself since exclusively to the interests of his State and section, and the cultiva- 
 tion of letters and philosophy." 
 
 He goes back "to the Compromise measures of 1850, to show that that was an overt act 
 justifying a dissolution of the Union. Those Compromise acts that were the work of the 
 first men of all parties in the nation, with Henry Clay at the head and Gen. Cass giving 
 his aid — the two great leaders of the two great parties of the day ; those measures which 
 the Democratic party took from us and claimed as their own. To be sure they made re- 
 sistance in the beginning, and did call for a Southern Convention in Nashville, for the 
 purpose of dissolving the Union then, rather than submit to the Compromise measures ; 
 but so overwhelmingly popular did they become, that those gentlemen were driven from 
 their position, and advocated the Compromise measures of 1850 as their own. They put 
 Pierce on the platform, and swore he was a better Compromise man than Scott, who aided 
 in the passage of these measures, as far as any one vote in Congress could do, and this was 
 conclusively established even by those who were opposed to him. Yet they swore that 
 Pierce was more to be relied upon for his fidelity to those Compromise measures than 
 Winfield Scott. To be sure, we swore hard on the other side, but they outswore us so far, 
 that they beat Scott so badly that he has hardly shown his face in public since ; and Mr. 
 Willoughby Newton voted for Pierce on that platform. 
 
 Letters and Philosophy ! Here was a gentleman preaching treason and disunion, the 
 philosojihy of Benedict Arnold, and of Aaron Burr, and before whom? A mass of igno- 
 rant men, whose passions were to be excited and led away ? No ! He was addressing
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 9 
 
 himself to the elite, the select, the chosen representatives of the Breckinridge Democracy 
 of this State ; and when lie pr(»posed to retire from the stand, they cheered him to go on — 
 "Go on !" they were delighted with such philosophy as he preached, and he did go on, 
 congratulating himself and them that his "phiin doctrine" was not distasteful to them. 
 Oh ! wlnit a pity it is for the memory of Aaron Burr, tliat he lived fifty years too soon I 
 He would have had no competitor in the Baltimore or Kichmond Conventions for the 
 nomination by this party for the Presidency. [Applause.] For I am told that when a 
 gentleman named Baldwin, from the State of New York, attempted to say something in 
 the Kichmond Convention favorable to the Union, he was called to order, and not allowed 
 to proceed with his remarks. What did liurr design against his country beyond that of 
 dismembering the Union and establishing a Southern Confederacy ? What more and 
 what less do these Democrats contemplate or threaten ? And in what are they better 
 than he, and why are they patriots and he a traitor, whom every child is taught in 
 infancy to abhor ? But that is not all. We have the opinions of other gentlemen on 
 the subject. 
 
 I hardly need tell you what is Mr. Yancey's position, or read his Slaughter letter that 
 has been published in every newspaper — no, not in all. I do not know whether it has 
 been in every newspaper, for I do not believe that the Breckinridge papers will publish 
 it. [Applause.] But I will read to you what he says: 
 
 "No national party can save us, no sectional party can ever do it. But if we could do 
 as our fathers did — organize Committees of Safety all over the Cotton States (and it is 
 only in them that we can hope for any effective movement), we shall fire the Southern 
 heart, instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and at the proper moment, 
 by one organized, concerted action, we can i)recipitate the Cotton States into a revolution." 
 January 11, 1860, before the Alabama Democratic Convention, he said: 
 " But in the Presidential contest a Black Republican may be elected. If tb's dire event should 
 happen, in my opinion the only hope for the South is in a withdrawal from the Union before he 
 sball be inaugurated." 
 But he .says again : 
 
 " Upon that question I bide my time, and shall be ready with the readiest, believing at the same 
 time that sufficient cause exists for a resort to that expedient, even now if it were expedient." 
 Upon his present course, as taken during his tour through the Northern States, the Edjejield (S. 
 
 C.) Advertiser says : 
 
 "But why should Mr. Yancey endeavor to fight against the general conviction that he is a Dis- 
 unionist ? It is the very thing that has given bim strength in the present hour of strife. It is cer- 
 tainly the cause why many South Carolinians have thrown up their bats for him. Take away his 
 Disunion strength, and Mr. Yancey, it seems to us, will be another Samson, shorn of his strength. * 
 ;?**«•* "At all events, we venture the assertion that ninety-nine hundredths of the 
 Disunionists 'per ae' at the South are perfectly satisfied with Mr. Yancey's extremeisni ; is it not 
 true that they believe him to be the ruling .spirit of approaching dissolution ? and if this estimate 
 of him be correct, is it not much better and much wiser that he should drop a mere warfare of policy 
 and come out boldly for Disunion in certain contingencies?" 
 
 Well, now, it was not necessary to undertake to show you that Mr. Yancey is a disunionist. But 
 we have something more of it in our own State. Your late Governor, Mr. Wise, has made a speech 
 recently, which I have not read, but I am told he takes the ground that the election of Lincoln 
 would be an act of war ; and on my way here this morning I saw an article taken from The Rich- 
 mond Enquirer, in which that paper says : 
 
 " Virginia can no more prevent the dissolution of this Union after Lincoln's election, than she 
 can prevent that election. She will be powerless to prevent civil war, with all its attendant horrors. 
 Any one of the Southern States can, and some of them will involve the whole country, North as well 
 as South, in the internecine strife of a bloody and desolating civil war. Virjinia tcill, by a majority 
 of her people, decide upon resistance, whWe fi large minority may desire to postpone resistance for 
 the 'overt act;' but hitched as she is to the Southern States, she will be dragged into a common 
 destiny with them, no matter what may bo the desire of the people. We believe that a large ma- 
 jority of the people of Virginia, if the opportunity of a State Convention was allowed them, would 
 vote for immediate resistance and for a common destiny with the Southern States ; and with this 
 belief we would advise the Slave States not to hesitate to strike an early blow from fear that Vir- 
 ginia may hesitate in her duty to the South." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I'will not trust myself to characterize that article. I confess I have not lan- 
 guage to express my utter abhorrence and indignation at reading such an article from the leading 
 organ of the Breckinridge party in this State. The English vocabulary would not more than fur- 
 nish me with terms to say what I think of it. One thing I have to say, however, is this, and I say 
 it with all becoming respect for Mr. Buchanan, between whom and myself have always existed 
 feelings of kindness and respect, and I still feel for him a warm personal regard ; but of his political 
 course I wish I could say less than I am obliged to gay ; but if be knew his duty, and had the firm- 
 ness to execute it, it is my solemn conviction he would not only have the authors of that article, 
 but every man who preaches disunion and endeavors to stir up rebellion in the Government, instan- 
 taneously arrested; and if I were President of the United States, so help me God, I would do it 
 before the week ran out. [Great applause.] I would have them arrested for conspiracy to levy war 
 against the United Stat«8 — not for war or treason, but for high misdemeanor, for conspiracy to levy 
 war against the Uniteil States ; and I would test the strength of the law to ascertain whether the 
 frauera of the Cuustitutiou had given it the power to protect itself.
 
 In the trial of Asiron Burr, who, by the by, was acquitted of a charge of treason on a technicality 
 of law raised by my father, who was one of his counsel, on the question of what constituted an overt 
 act, he was acquitted of a charge of treason, because they could not prove the overt act; and then 
 he was arraigned for misdemeanor — for conspiracy to levy war against the United States, and the 
 country was ransacked during the administration of Mr. Jefferson, (who knew his duty and had the 
 nerve to perform it,) that they might establish upon him, by hia correspondence, the charge of mis- 
 demeanor, and if there could have been found a tithe of what these gentlemen furnish against 
 themselves, he would not have gone unpunished. In that trial, Chief Jvistice Marshall, one of the 
 purest men and one of the profoundest expounders of law that ever adorned the Bench of this or 
 any other country, says ; 
 
 '•Judge Chase has been particularly clear and explicit in an opinion which he appears to have 
 prepared on great consideration ; he says the quota of opinion, that if a body of people conspire 
 and meditate an insurrection to resist or oppose the execution of a statute of the United States, 
 they are guilty of a high misdemeanor. But if they proceed to carry that intention into execution, 
 they are guilty of the treason of levying war, and the quantnm of force employed neither increases 
 nor diminishes the crime." 
 
 Again, Judge Marshall says: 
 
 *' Any combination to subvert by force the Government of the United States; violently to dis- 
 member the Union ; to compel a change in the Administration; to coerce the repeal or adoption of 
 a general law, is a conspiracy to levy war ; and if conspiracy be carried into effect by the actual em- 
 ployment of force, by the embodying and assembling of men, for the purpose of executing the 
 treasonable design which was previously conceived, it amounts to a levying of war." 
 
 Well, now, the question is. Are these gentlemen engaged in any attempt to subvert the Govern- 
 ment, to change the Arainistration, to coerce an election, or to defeat an election ; and if they are 
 are they not, under that decision, thus pronounced guilty of high misdemeanor; and, if so, why is 
 it that the President of the United States sits with his arms folded without any attempt to arrest 
 it? Well, he happens to belong to the same political party; he has, in fact, descended from hia 
 high estate and come down into the political arena. He either does not know, or has not the manli- 
 ness to perform, his duty to the country. 
 
 It might be a difficult matter to convict sttch men as Mr. Yancey, and a partial jury might acquit 
 him, but the moment he opened his mouth again on the subject, I would have him arrested again : 
 and if he again opened upon the subject, after having been again acquitted, I would arrest him 
 again. [Applause.] And so with all the rest of them in this State as well as in Alabama and South 
 Carolina. Suppose a body of men were marching up and down the streets of our principal cities 
 with drum and fife, to recruit or enlist soldiers, for the purpose of taking possession of or subverting 
 the Government, or raising the standard of rebellion against the United States in the event of a 
 contingency' which was almost sure to happen, would there be any hesitation as to the propriety of 
 their arrest? and if public speaking and writing in the newspapers are deemed more efficient means 
 for the accomplishment of the same objects, why should not the same steps be taken towards them ? 
 
 Now, gentlemen, we come to a very important question, and that ia, Is this Union going to be 
 dissolved ? Well, I do not think it is. [Applause.] I think I can see as clearly as I can see any- 
 thing, how this matter is going to terminate. I speak in the event of Lincoln's election. I do nofc 
 say iie will be elected. Every intelligent man will admit that there is a prospect for his election. 
 I will neither discourage my friends by saying he will be elected, nor will I mislead the public 
 luind by saying he will not be elected. I treat it only as a possible contingency ; as an event that 
 may be upon us in the course of the next three weeks. Is his election to bring about a dissolution 
 of the Union ? I do not think it will. If he is elected, I have no doubt the fiery Governors of the 
 Cotton States will send flaming messages on the subject to their Legislatures. But the Legislatures 
 can do nothing. It is only the people in convention assembled that can take any active hostile 
 measures. The members of the Legislatures will make inflammatory speeches, and the subject will 
 finally be referred to a committee. The committee will act upon it at their leisure, and toward the 
 close of the session, they will report that inasmuch as Virginia and the other Southern border States 
 are not prepared to act upon the subject, it is premature for them to move, and they will postpone 
 the evil day until the border States are prepared to go with them. [Great applause.] 
 
 I say, in the first place, the Union is not going to be dissolved, for the reason that they have no 
 right to dissolve the Union for any such cause. It is no more cause for a dissolution of the Union 
 that Lincoln should be elected, if a majority of the people of the United States, acting under the 
 forms prescribed in the Constitution, and in accordance with the laws of the country, slioald choose 
 to elect him, than it would have been in the year 1800, for the Federal party to have dissolved the 
 Union on account of the election of Mr. Jefferson. The Federalists were as hostile to the Demo- 
 cratic party then, as the Democratic party are to the Republican party at the present day, and if it 
 was not cause for dissolution then, it is not cause now; and if it were good cause then, it is good 
 cause now. If it were good cause, we all should be revolutionists; I should have been a revolu- 
 tionist all my life, for I have never seen the man of my choice elected President. But I yield to 
 the Constitution and the laws of my country, and to the expressed will of the majority of the people 
 of the United States. 
 
 When did this right of revolution, this right to secede from the Union — when did it begin ? If 
 it exists now, did it not exist from the time of the adoption of the Constitution? 
 
 But I come to that subject presently. 
 
 Is it necessary that I should introduce authority here to show that there is no right to dissolve 
 the Government for any such cause ? I have the authority here. But, to be sure, it is of no great 
 weight. It is only that of a number of insignificant characters, whose opinions never did exert any 
 ipfluence over the public mind, especially of late years, since we have been blessed with the present
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 11 
 
 generation of politicians and statesmen. We have a new set of unfledged politicians, many of them 
 just from school, who speak flippantly of the institutions founded by our fathers, who give laws to 
 the country as leaders and organs of parties, and they tell us they have the right to secede from the 
 Union. 
 
 And what of it, if I bring before you the opinions of such men as George Washington, Thomas 
 Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, and Bpeneer Hoaue, to ofi"set the opinions of these 
 mushroon politicians? And yet Mr. Madison said thoy had no such power; for when New York 
 proposed to come into the Confederacy upon the condition that she should be permitted to ofi'er cer- 
 tain amendments to the Constitution, and Mr. Hamilton wrote to Mr. Madison to know if New 
 York could come into the Union upon such conditions, what does Mr. Madison say: 
 
 " .My opinion is, that a reservation of a right to withdraw, if amendments be not decided on under 
 the form of the Constitution within a certain time, is a conditional ratification ; that it does not 
 make New York a member of the new Union, and, consequently, that she could not be received on 
 that plan. Compacts must be reciprocal : this principle would not in such a case be preserved. The 
 Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and foreveu. It had been so adopted by the other States, 
 An adoption for a limited time would be as defective as an adoption of some of the articles only. 
 The idea of reserving a right to withdraw was started at Richmond, and considered as a conditional 
 ratification, which was itself abandoned as worse than a rejection." 
 
 In a letter written to Mr. Webster in 1833, Mr. Madison says : 
 
 " I return you my thanks for your late very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States 
 It crushes nullification, aud mitst hasten au nbuudoument of seceaaion." 
 
 Speaking in the same letter of the Constitution, he says : 
 
 " It mtikes the government, like other governments, to operate directly on the people; 
 places at its command the needful physical means of executing its powers ; and finally, 
 proelitims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitu- 
 tions and laws of the States — the powers of the Government being exercised, as in ot'her 
 elective and responsible governments, under the control of its constituents, the people, 
 and the Legislatures of the States, and subject to the revolutionary rights of the 
 people in extreme eases." 
 
 Mr. Madison to Edward Everett (Miles's Register, supplement to vol. 43, pp. 25, 26, 
 27), August, 1830, says: 
 
 A political system that does not provide for a peaceable and authoritative termination 
 of existing controversies would not be more than the shadow of a government, the object 
 and end of a real government being the substitution of law and order for uncertainty, 
 
 confusion, and violence In the event of a failure of every constitutional resort, 
 
 and an accumulation of lasurpations and abuses, rendering passive obedience and non-re- 
 sistance a greater evil than resistance and revolution, there can remain but one resort, the 
 last of all — an appeal from the canceled obligations of the constitutional compact to the 
 original rights and the law of self-preservation. This is the ultima ratio of all govern- 
 ments, whether consolidated, confederated, or a compound of both. It cannot be doubted 
 that a single member of the Union in the extremity supposed, but in tuat only, would 
 have a right, as an extra and ultra constitutional right, to make the appeal." 
 
 Again, Mr. Madison says : 
 
 " The distinguished names and high authorities which appear to have asserted and 
 given a practical scope to this doctrine, (nullification), entitles it to a respect which it 
 might be difficult otherwise to feel for it." 
 
 Under the old articles of confederation, which I shall refer to more particularly hero- 
 after, Mr. Jefferson held that it was not necessary to give the power to Congress under 
 the Constitution to enforce anything — for example, contributions of money — for they 
 have it by the law of nature. He says : 
 
 " It has been so often said, as to be generally believed, that Congress has no power, % 
 the confederation, to enforce anything — for example, contributions of money. It was not 
 necessary to give them that power expressly — they have it by the law of nature. When tioo 
 parties make a compact, there results to each the potver of compelling the other to execute it. Com- 
 pulsion was never so easy as in our case, when a single frigate would soon levy on the com- 
 merce of any State the deficiency of its contributions." 
 
 There, under the old articles of confederation, Mr. Jefferson recognizes the power of the 
 Government to resort to force by sending troops into a State and compelling contributions. 
 
 You have all heard of the Hartford Convention, but you never heard the name of any 
 man connected with that treasonable movement [which first proposed to secede from the 
 Union during the war] but in terms of scorn and ignominy; Mr. AVebster, who was 
 charged by his political opponents with having boon a member of that Convention, but 
 which he uniformly disclaimed, yet even he with all his subsequent services to his country, 
 did not live long enough to remove the stain that rested upon him under the chai'ge that 
 he was a member of that l)()dy, the design of which was disunion or revolution, under 
 circumstunces one hundred fold more trying than those under which we are now threat- 
 ened with it. At that time there was another gentleman who exerted a great influence 
 over the minds of the Democracy of the State, who is now no more — I mean Thomas 
 Ritchie, of The Richmond Enquirer. The Enquirer of that day — then under the control of
 
 12 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 the party headed by Mr, Jefferson — and with the whole body of the ablest men of the 
 Democracy in the Union as its contributors and advisers, and when no step was taken by 
 that paper that was not approved by the "Junto" — said: 
 
 "No man, no association of men, no State or set of States has a right to withdraw itself 
 from the Union of its own accord. The same power which knit us together can unknit. 
 The same formality which formed the links of the Union is necessary to dissolve it. The 
 majority of States which formed the Union must consent to the withdrawal of any one 
 branch of it. Until that consent has been obtained, any attempt to dissolve the Union or 
 obstruct the efficacy of its Constitutional laws, is Treason — Tkeason to all intents 
 
 AND PURPOSES." 
 
 I need hardly refer you to the proclamation of General Jackson in 1833, which is, 
 doubtless, familiar to many of you, in which he declared he w'ould enforce the execution 
 of the laws in South Carolina, when she refused to submit to the revenue laws. Yes, and 
 though he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, 
 and had control of both for the purpose of enabling him to execute the laws, not being 
 able to measure the exact amount of the resistance his troops would meet with, he called 
 on Congress for additional forces under what has been known as the "Force Bill," and 
 they gave him all he desired, and they did right, for the reason that if the law was wrong 
 it should have been repealed, and if not repealed, whether right or wrong, as long as it 
 remained on the Statute-book of the United States it should have been enforced, fur there 
 is no such thing as government without law, and no such thing as law without the power 
 to enforce it. 
 
 After stating that a Convention held in the State of South Carolina had ordained that 
 that State was no longer a member of the Union unless the revenue laws were repealed, 
 Gen. Jackson says : 
 
 " No act of violent opposition to the laws has yet been committed, but such a state of 
 things is hourly apprehended, and it is the intent of this instrument to proclaim not only 
 that the duty imposed upon me by the Constitution to take care that the laws be faithfully 
 executed, shall be performed to the extent of the powers already vested in me by the law, 
 or of such others as the wisdom of Congress shall desire and intrust to me for that purpose, 
 but to warn the citizens of South Carolina, who have been deluded into an opposition to 
 the laws, of the danger they will incur by obedience to the illegal and disorganizing 
 
 ordinance of the Convention The laws of the United States must be executed. I 
 
 have no discretionary power on the subject. My duty is emphatically pronounced in the 
 Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution, de- 
 ceived you. They could not have been deceived themselves ; they know that a forcible 
 opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposi- 
 tion must be repelled. Their object is Disunion. But be not deceived by names. Dis- 
 union by armed force is treason. Are you ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the 
 heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences : on their heads be the 
 dishonor ; but on yours rnay fall the punishment. On your unhappy State will inevit- 
 ably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the Government of your country. It 
 cannot accede to the mad project of Disunion, of which you would be the first victims. 
 Its first Magistrate cannot if he would avoid the performance of his duty. The conse- 
 quence must be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and to the friends 
 of good government throughout the world. .".... Snatch from the archives of your 
 State the disorganizing edict of its convention: bid the members to re-assemble and prom- 
 ulgate the decided expression of your will to remain in the faith which alone can conduct 
 you to safety, prosperity, and honor. Tell them that compared to disunion all other 
 evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of ills. Declare that you will 
 never take the field unless the star spangled banner of your country shall float over you; 
 that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, 
 as the authors of the first attack on the Constitution of your country. Its destroyers you 
 cannot be. You may disturb its peace ; you may interrupt the course of its prosperity ; 
 you may cloud its reputation for stability ; but its tranquility will be restored, its prosperity 
 will return, and the stain upon its national character will be transferred and remain an 
 eternal blot on the memory of those who caused the disorder." 
 
 The force bill passed the Senate by a vote of 32 to 1, and in the House by 149 to 48. 
 But apart from all this, I hold in my hand an authority still higher than that, an 
 authority higher than law, and discarding all those gentlemen have said, in former times, 
 supposing them to have left nothing upon record, I still appeal to the Constitution of my 
 country to show that there is no such right as the right of secession. [Great applause.] 
 This Constitution declares that. 
 
 " This Constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance 
 
 thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the Judges in every State shall be bound 
 
 thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 Who adopted this Constitution of the United"^ States ? We, the people of Virginia,
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. B0TT3. 13 
 
 through our representatives in Convention, are just as much parties to the Constitution of 
 the United States as to our own Constitution. But let us go buck a little. Let us fjo 
 back to tlie Articles of Confederation under which we lived befure the Constitution was 
 adopted, and see what we did there. 
 
 My purpose is to show you thai this is a perpetual Umon. which there is no power to 
 destroy. [Applause.] Under the old Articles of ConlVderation it is proved " that no two 
 States shall enter into any alliances whatever between iheni without the consent of Congress, 
 specifying accurately the purpose for which the same is to be entered into, and how long 
 it shall continue." Again, Article 13th: 
 
 " Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assem- 
 bled on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them : and the articles 
 of this confed«'ration shall be inviolably observed by every State, AND THE UNION SHALL 
 BE PERPETUAL." 
 
 And the concluding article reads : 
 
 ♦' And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, 
 that the}' shall abide by the deterniiiiatiun of the United States in Congress asembied on 
 all questions which by the said confederation are submitted to them. And that the 
 articles thereof shall be inviolably observed bv the States we respectfully represent and that 
 THE UNION SHALL BE PERPETUAL." 
 
 There was the compact between the States, — there was the marriage ceremony solemnly 
 performed in the face of the world, by which we bound ourselves together for better or fur 
 worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and iu health, in prosperity and in adversity, 
 througli good and evil report, till death do us part. [Great apjilause.] And under this 
 Constitution of the United States it is declared that "-we the people of the United States, 
 in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquil- 
 lity, &c., &c., &c., do ordain and establish this Constitution for the L^nited States of 
 America." 
 
 " To make this a more perfect Union." And in what respect did they make it moro 
 perfect ? They provided for its perpetuity by giving to the Government the power to 
 enforce its laws and protect its own existence. 
 
 Yes, but gentlemen say, it is a reserved right! JIoio was it reserved ? When was it re- 
 served ? Where was it reserved ? It is a reserved riirht in ti)eir own imaginations, and there 
 only. What a calumny and libel upon the name and fame of the great and good men who made 
 the Constitution, to say that when they declared that tlie constitution of the United St;ites, and 
 all laws made under it, should be the supreme law of tlie land, and that the Judges of llie courts 
 in the several States should be bound thereby ; when they prohibited you from the right, even 
 in your organic law, in the adoption of your State Constitution, to say or do any thing that 
 Would, to any extent, conflict with any law made under it ; that they reserve the right to permit 
 the violation of the ('onstitution and all law, at any moment it suited their pleasure, whim, 
 caprice, or supposed interest to do so. Why, when did tiiat right begin ? Here I have shown 
 you it was a perpetual contract, that it was never intended to be dissolved ; and yet, after they 
 l)ad done their work, one State, on the very next day, had the right to withdraw and bn uk up 
 the whole ! with or without cause ; they being made judges of tlie cause. ^ 
 
 Reserved rijrhts I 
 
 And what is the argument used by Mr. Yancey, in a speech he made the other day in Bos- 
 ton ? Just that which is used by all tliese gentlemen wliotalk about reserved rights — that all tlic 
 powers not granted to the Federal Government are reserved to the States. W\'ll, I nevei heard 
 one of these gentlemen quote correctly that leature of the Constitution yet. Whether they omit 
 it from ignorance or design, it is not for me to say. Unless they mean to mislead the public 
 mind, 1 can hardly account for it, why it is they do not quote it rightly. The article reads : 
 
 "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to 
 the Stales, are reserved respectively to the State:* or to the people." 
 
 Now, I have just read another clause of the constitution, wiiich shows you u-hat is prohibited 
 to the States. And what is prohibited to the States? It is that you shall do nothing by State 
 law or constitutional provision that shall conflict with tiie perpetual contract made under it, by 
 opposing or obstructing the Constitution and laws made under it. 
 
 Oh ! that I had the eloquence of your heavenly gifted and venerated father [turning to a son of 
 Patrick ficnry, who sat near him on the platform] that I might make my voice heard through- 
 out the lengtli and breadth of tlie land. The Union would, were I a Patrick Henry, or he alive, 
 need but one advocate to insure its satety. Unbounded applause) 
 
 " The powers not delegated to tlie United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it, are 
 reserved to the States or the people," and Mr. Yancy argues that because power was not dele 
 gated to the Federal Government to destroy itself, therefijre the power was reserved to 
 the States to destroy it. What were the powers reserved ? Powers fur all legitimate 
 subjects of legislation — your own domestic institutions, fi»r instaucc — Slavery (or t)ne. 
 That is a power withheld by the Constitution of the United States. It is a power re- 
 served too from the Congress, the States, and the people wlio own the slaves. Tlie pewer to sol- 
 emnize marriages, to establish the laws of descent, to reguLte the right of suffrage. Bui. is the
 
 14 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 power to destroy reserved ? It is prohibited in express terms. The Federal Government wag 
 not clothed with the power to destroy my person-or my property ; ergo^ says Mr. Yancey, thnt 
 power is reserved to the States or the people, and only reserved to the States or the people, be- 
 cause it is not conferred upon Congress. I do not know whether the power is vested in you, 
 the people, to deprive me of my property or to cut my throat ; but such power is in you or in 
 the State Government because it is not granted to Congress; and therefore all powers not con- 
 ferred on the Federal Government are reserved to the people or to the States. 
 
 As I said before, there is something solemn in the marriage compact of these States. 
 The wife, on entering the marriage state, binds herself to obe}' her husband just as we 
 bound ourselves to obey the laws of the country, and the Constitution of the United 
 States. But she has an ugly, crabbed, old husband with whom she becomes dissatisfied, 
 and she claims that she reserves to herself, in her own mind, the right to destroy by 
 poison, and withdraw in search of a more congenial partner. Some old man has an ugly 
 old wife, and sees a handsome, rich young woman, and falls in love with youth, beauty, 
 and Avealth, and though he did bind himself perpetually to the marriage contract, yet, 
 casting aside the marriage tie, and forgetting the sacred compact, he says, " Though I did 
 enter into such an agreement, there were mental reservations of my own [laughter] — 
 certain reserved rights by which I can withdraw, and form another and more favorable 
 alliance." 
 
 Now I would advise all the secession men to go over to the Free Love party. [Laugh- 
 ter.] There is where they belong, and there is where their doctrines would be appre- 
 ciated. [Renewed laughter.] 
 
 But in sober truth, what does this doctrine of the right of secession lead us to? 
 In the year 1803, Mr. Jefterson purchased the Territory of Louisiana from France, and 
 through that territory runs the Mississippi river. He acknowledged there was no con- 
 stitutional authority for the purchase, and even asked for an amendment to the Constitu- 
 tion legalizing what he had done. And why did he do it ? 
 
 Now, why did Mr. Jeflerson purchase Louisiana, in violation of all constitutional 
 authority? It was because the navigation of the Mississippi was essential to the interest 
 of a number of the old States as well as to the interest of a number since formed. It 
 was necessary to the commerce of Western Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
 and Mississippi — to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all the North Western States. He paid 
 $15,000,000 for it — a misserable pittance in comparison with its real value. 
 
 Mr. Jeflerson made a purchase indispensable to the commerce and welfare of the country. 
 But when we had bought it, and made for the convenience of our own people a magnifi- 
 cent trade, and admitted Louisiana as a State, how easy it would have been on the part 
 of Louisiana to say, " I do not like this Constitution of yours quite as well as I thought I 
 would. I think I can do better to set up in business as an independent State, and levy 
 tonnage dut}'' on all the produce that comes down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers." They 
 would have said, " We purchased and paid for you, and admitted you into copartnership 
 with us; but since you did come in, you must remain perpetually." 
 
 How would it be in the case of the purchase of Cuba ? Great anxiety has been dis- 
 plaved on the part of this Government to purchase Cuba, and a minister was sent for the 
 purpose of making an offer of $200,000,000 or 8300,000,000 for that island. Now, estab- 
 lish the doctrine of the right of secession, and see how it will operate in the event that 
 she be purchased. You admit her into the Union. There are reserved rights on the 
 part of Cuba, and there is a reserved determination on the part of Spain. The day after 
 the admission of Cuba this reserved determination of Spain is whispered into her ear. 
 She is equal in all respects to the other States of the Union, and with equal rights to go 
 out or stay in. 
 
 She demands of the Government an exorbitant duty to be laid on sugars, for her es- 
 pecial benefit — it is denied, and Cuba secedes from the L^nion. Do you think Mr. Bu- 
 chanan would have any difficulty in purchasing Cuba if this were the established doc- 
 trine of the United States? I think an arrangement could very easily be made with 
 Spain to part with Cnba, if such were the case. 
 
 How in regard to Texas ? we purchased Texas of herself, at a cost of 810,000,000. We 
 went to war also for Texas, and paid in blood and treasure, millions for the total. It was 
 matter of negotiation whether we should assume her public debt, or not, it was doneindirectly, 
 but not iu terms, she was left in the enjoyment of all her public lands in lieu ot the assumption 
 of her debts, but that would not affect the question. Suppose the debt had been assumed to 
 other foreign governments, how then would the case have stood ? We would first have paid an 
 equivalent for the State, then we would have gone through a bloody war on her account, then we 
 came under the obligation to meet all just demands held by other governments against her, 
 and at this point she goes to playing pranks, and cutting up her heels just as South Carolina is now 
 doing, and proclaims her independence, and sells herself again to England, or if you prefer the 
 term, annexes herself to England, or enters into treaties of alliance offensive and defensive with 
 England or France, or both, as South Carolina now proposes to do. What would sensible, rea-
 
 vSPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN ]SI. BOTTS. 15 
 
 soning, reflecting men have to say about it? Yet her right do all this, is just exactly equal to 
 tiiiit ot' South Carolina in her present position. 
 
 I liave been talking about the right to dissolve the Union. I now come to the power to do so. 
 Have you the ^ou'cr to secede ? If the United States Government, numbering 32,0U0,()(l0 puo- 
 pic, is clothed with the power that I think it is, and that .Madison suid it was, and wliich you 
 find during the Administration of General Jackson it actually was, I think it would bo a very 
 difficult m:itter to oppose or resist the United States, Tliere are 3:2,(J00,UU0 of inhabitants, in- 
 cluiiing blacks and whites, and I suppose about 28,1)00,000 tree whites m the United Statt:s. 
 
 We are in the habit of hearing gentletnen, on the Fourth of July, making patriotic speeches, de- 
 claring that the Government of the United States is able and ready to cojie with the world in arms 
 if necessary ; and yet it has not the power to resist little South Carolina. [Applause.] That is 
 playing the game of bluflf rather too strong — it does not dovetail together well. 
 
 A South Carolina orator will say the same of the Government, that the combined forces of the 
 woiKl cannot overthrow it : and yet a "retired philosopher" on the banks of the Potomac, can do it 
 with twelve intrepid Virginians. 
 
 What is the power and what are the resources of the United States? 
 
 When you talk about all the Southern States combined competing with the Federal Government, 
 it is all moonshine and nonsense when you come to put it into practical operation. 
 
 Suppose you all go out, what do you carry ? You carry nothing, but you leave everything be- 
 hind you. You leave the Public Treasury. There is not much of that just now, however, under 
 Mr. Buchanan's Administration : but it is coming in, by degrees. [Laughter.] You leave the aruiy, 
 the navy, the public lands, the fortifications, all the dock yards, all the public property of every de- 
 seri])tion, munitions of war and all. And what have you got to tight with? 
 
 Virginia could not furnish clothes foi' her men. It has taken all our money to 
 hang John Brown and his confederates. [Laughter.] What do» you propose to carry 
 out with you ? Nothing. And what will you fight upon ? Nothing. Alabama is in 
 a state of actual starvation. She had to call the Legislature together to provide the 
 common necessaries of life for her people. I will tell you my opinion on the subject. 
 I mean no personal disrespect to any gentleman. I doubt not, as Mark Anthony said of Brutus, 
 •' and the rest," they are all, all honorable men ; men who are very bold, chlvalric and patriotic, 
 possessing any amount of physical courage; but I do say, a more base, unmanly and co^vardly 
 proposi'ion was never submitted to an intelligent people on the face of the earth. [Applause.] 
 What is their proposition? It is to run away, not only before we are whipped, but before we are 
 even struck a blow. [Great applause.] If this was a large private estate, to be divided among 
 us all, would you run away from it? If all the people of the Union were to go in, and each get 
 his share, how many do you suppose would secede and forfeit their share? Not one. Suppose 
 they aU held the bonds of the United S'ates fbr the moderate sum of $10,000 each, to be forfeited 
 by them whenever they seceded from the Union, how many do you think would run away and 
 leave them behind? 
 
 Now, if you would not run away from your private estate, why attempt to persuade me to run 
 from my public estate? Tbis is our Government; this is our Union, our Treasury, our Army, our 
 Navy; it all belongs to us — vviiy persuade us to run away and leave them behind, I say not only 
 before we are whipped, but before we are struck a blow? 
 
 No, I will not ruu — I see no occasion for running — and when the occasion does come, which I 
 do not look for, I will claim my own, and I will tight, if jiecessary, for my rights in the Union. 
 
 What would you think of some rich old farmer, who had a tine estate in copartnership with 
 somebody else. He had made a large crop of tobacco, bad plenty of wheat in his barn, and corn 
 very abundant — enough of this world's goods, in fact, to enable him to enjoy all that a luxurious 
 appetite could desire — and he was suddenly to quit his estate, his family and his crops, and the 
 next thing you heard of him he was down in Texas, and somebody asked him, " What induced 
 you to ran away and leave such a fine estate?" and his reply should be, " Oti! I had a partner 
 who every morning came to the fence and shook his fist at me, and threatened to take my estate 
 from me; and I thought it best to run off and leave it all to him!" [Laughter.] 
 
 That is just what these people propose to do. I am for standing here and fighting for my 
 rights, if necessary. They call me a submissionist. What do I submit to? I submit to the Con- 
 stiturjon and the laws of my country. [Applause.] And even in my day, gentlemen, the time 
 has been when he who was not a submissionist, in the sense in which I am a submissionint, would 
 have entitled himself to a cravat not made of silk. [Applause.] I hope these gentlemen will not 
 pash the matter to such an extreme as to entitle themselves to it; but if they do, I trust such ex- 
 amples will be made as will have salutary and effective influence for the future. [Applause.] 
 
 Havin;^ discussed the riirht and the power to secede from the Union, I say we will not be dis- 
 turbed with this ghost of disunion, and you will hear no more of it after passion has had time w 
 subside, because there is no cause for it. Is there any law of which they complain ? Is there any 
 man who is now disturbed by any federal law in the quiet possession of his property? There is 
 no', a law on the statute book which the Democracy of the Southern country has not passed. 
 They have had absolute and uncontrolled management of the legislation of the country from the 
 year 1800 to the year 1860. 
 
 So that, if there is any law on the statute book that ought not to have been passed, just get out 
 of the way and we will repeal all those laws for you. [Applause.] 
 
 Some gentlemen seem to open their eyes when I say the Democratic party has had control of 
 the Government for the past sixty years. It would be more correct to say that the Opposition to 
 Democracy has never had the legislative control of the country. I know they think there have 
 been 8>3veral intervals, such as the administrations of Mr. Adams and others. But Congress was 
 oppose! to him and he had no legislative power. So in 1810 we elected Gen. Harrison, who died 
 withiu a month after his inauguration. We then had both branches of Congress, and the Presi-
 
 16 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 dent on our side. But General Harri«on died before Congress met, and consequently nothing was 
 done during that period. Vv^hea he died we had a Vice President and the two Houses of Con- 
 gress; but I do not think Ti'ler had beea there a week before he was purchased by the Domocraiic 
 party — a debt which they afterward repudiated. I mention this only as a historical fact and from 
 no desire to deal unkindiv with things long passed away. We all know he deserted us to become 
 a rcDresentative of ihe D.emocratic party; and when we had the two Houses of Congress we had 
 no President to caiTV out our views; so they still continued in control of the legislation of the 
 country. So it was' when General Taylor was elected; and when Fillmore was there we, had both 
 branches of Congress against us; so that, in fact, we have never had the control of the Govern- 
 ment from the year 1800 down to the present day. 
 
 Well, if there is anv law of <vhich complaint is made, they alone are to blame. Is that a suffi- 
 cient or just excuse for a dis^iolution of this Government ? It may be just cause for us to complain; 
 but not for us even to dissolve the Uoion. Now these gentlemen use a very specious and plausi- 
 ble argument — one that is acceptable to the public, or one that seems to take with every unreflect- 
 ing maa— that we have the power and the right to carry our slave property into the Territories. 
 Well, I am not going to tell vou what T think ought to be the law; but I will tell you what is the 
 Constitution and the lav. The idea is that what is property in one State is necessarily property 
 in all the States. But it is not true. 
 
 For example: — A short time aaro the game of billiards was prohibited in this State by law, and 
 a billiard table could not be used in Virginia. In New York they are property, and you may find 
 a manufacturer of the article with $20,000, $30,000 or $10,000 worth in his establishment. Was 
 it property here? Yes, it was property ; that is. he could bring it here, and you could not take it 
 from him; but he could not use it as a billiard table, and therefore was not property that could be 
 used as such. So it is now with distilleries where the Maine Liquor Law has been adopted. You 
 cannot carry your distilleries, to be used as such, in many of the States. Bank notes are not 
 property everv^where. As, for example, in the State of ISTew York, they authorize the issue and 
 circulation of notes below'the denomination of five dollars. In Virginia they are prohibited. 
 They are not property here. Suppose there was a law of that sort in Kansas, Territorial or Con- 
 gressional, prohibiting the circulation of all bank notes. You sell out your estate here, receive 
 payment in bank notes, and emigrate to Kansas, and carry your bank notes with you into the 
 State or Territory of Kansas, you' cannot use them there, they not being property. So with a 
 great variety of things. Race horses are not property in New Jersey; that is to say, racing is 
 prohibited there by law. and, although you may carry^ your race horse to New Jersey, if you at- 
 tempt to use him as such you incur the penalty of the law; he is, therefore, useless to you for the 
 only purpose for which he is valuable. 
 
 If you set out to morroAv with a drove of hogs, another man with a drove of horses, an- 
 other with mules and another with negroes — all wanting to go into Kansas — the first three will 
 go there without askin^r .orotection for their property from the Federal Government. But the 
 inan with the negroes will not go there without asking protection. The reason is this : You will 
 have to learn it some time or other, and you might as well know it now. The reason is, that 
 6l ives are not recogoised as property under the common law. While negroes are not property 
 your horses are; and if you carry your horses or mules into Kansas they are protected by the 
 common law; but if you carrv your negroes there, they are not protected, because Slavery is a 
 municipal institution, and requires special law for its protection. Why is this ? Because, in the 
 year 1772, a decision was rendered by Lord Mansfield which established the law on this subject. 
 Prior to that year slaves had been recognised as property, and the rich planters of the West India 
 Islands were in the habit of carrying their negroes to En2;land when they visited that country. 
 If they escaped from them, they would be apprehended and thrown into jail, so that their owners 
 could recover them, put them on board a ship and carry them home. But in the year 1772, am xu 
 named Stewart carried his negro, James Summerset, there, who ran away. He was apprehended 
 and thrown into prison, was then carried before Lord Mansfield under a writ of habeas corpus, 
 who finally rendered the decision— as you will find in Howell's State Tiials. In the opinion ren- 
 dered. Lord Mansfield said : 
 
 " Slavery is of such a nanire that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or 
 political, but onlv by positive law, and it is so odious that nothing can be suffered to sustain it 
 but positive law." 
 
 That became the common law of England, and we being the Colonies of Great Britain at the 
 time, it became the common law of the Colonies, and it was so recognised by the framers of the 
 Constitution, at the time of its formation and adoption,— the evidence of which is to be found in 
 the fact that, in fixing: that clause of the Constitution which relates to the recovery of fuuitive 
 slaves, and which is the only part of that instrument which does recognise Slavery at all— and 
 then it is only by inference, and not by express terms, for the word slave was purposely excluded 
 from the Constitution — that clause declares : 
 
 " No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof" — not under this Constitu- 
 tion, but " under the laws thereof — escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or 
 regulation therein, be discharged," &c.. &c. 
 
 Mark the words, and remember that I did not make the Constitution, I am only reading it as I 
 find it; but it is manifest that the framers of the Government regarded it as local and municipal 
 under the laws of those States which recognised and protected it. The public mind may have 
 undergone a great change in the South, yet we must hold to the Constitution as it is, and bear in 
 mind it has undergone no change, and that the Northern mind has changed the other way; but 
 thji^y, too, must hold to the Constitution as it is. Why did they use this peculiar phraseology ? 
 Because slaves were not recognised as property under the common law, and they did not mean to 
 recognise it under the Constitution. It was a local law, depending entirely upon local legislation 
 for protection, and Mr. Madison said in the Convention, " he thought it wrong to admit in the 
 Constitution that there could be property in men." Now they say that the Dred Scott decision has 
 set all that aside, and you have the same right to carry your slaves into a Territory as they have
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOH^S M. BOTTS. IT 
 
 to carry any other property. What is that decision ? It is not worth the snuff of this candle to 
 the slaveholder. 
 
 In the first place, the Supreme Court, which is the common arbiter by which we must all abide, 
 decided that they had no jurisdiction over the case, because Scott was of African extraction, and 
 was not a citizen of the United States; and not being a citizen, he had no right to appear in that 
 Court, and they had no jurisdiction over his case. 
 
 It has been argued that when they so decided the whole case was thrown out of the Court, and 
 that all the opinions pronounced after that were nothing but the political opinions of some of the 
 Judtres on the bench. 
 
 One other point, pretended to be settled by the Supreme Court, is, that neither Congress nor 
 the Territorial Lejjislature has the power to legislate to exclude Slavery from the Territories. 
 WfU. they have not done it. Congress has not excluded it from the Territories, nor has the 
 Territorial Legislature. 
 
 AVhat then? Is Slavery legalized there? I think not; and those gentlemen know not; other- 
 wise they would not clamor for protection there. There is no exclusion of Slavery there; but 
 they have failed to do what is necessary for its security. They have failed to make laws for its 
 protection. The Supreme Court cannot mjike laws nor force legislation on the part of Contrress — 
 they can onlv interpret law after it is made. No law has been passed prohibiting Slavery. Yet, 
 who will carry his slaves to Kansas under this Dred Scott decision, and without legislation for its 
 protection? Let us test it practically. 
 
 Novv we will Suppose some gentlemen here to go into Kansas. Mr. A. B. starts with his negroes 
 to go into Kansas. He starts from Virginia, where local law protects him in the possession of 
 his slaves. He gets into the State of Maryland, and what law is he subjected to? Is he not subject 
 to the laws of Maryland? When he passed the limits of Virginia, he left Virginia laws behind 
 hira. He leaves Maryland and gets into Pennsylvania, and becomes subject to Pennsylvania laws ; 
 and so on until he reaches his destination. He lands in Kansas, and there he is with the Dred 
 Scott decision to protect him. Now let us see how far it operates, and how far it protects him in 
 his slave property. He says to his negroes: " Sam, Bob, let us go to work and cut down these 
 trees; let us build a shanty and then cultivate the ground." The negroes hear his orders, but 
 they say, " we do not feel like work to-day," and refuse to obey him. He undertakes to correct 
 them — to coerce them; in so many words, he undertakes to whip them; but suppose they resist, 
 and, instead of his whipping them, he gets whipped. [Laughter.] What then? I am a magis- 
 trate. Tou come before me to lodge your complaint. I ask you what is the matter — what is the 
 nature of your complaint? You say, "look at these two black eyes of mine — look at my bloody 
 no-ie." How did it happen, I ask. You say, " my negroes did it." I inquire, under what circum- 
 stances did they do it? " Why," you say, "they refused to go to work when I told them, and 
 when I undertook to whip them for it they turned on and whipped me. I want you to punish 
 them for it." "Well. I am a magistrate here, and will do so with pleasure if there is any punish- 
 ment prescribed by law; but is there any Territorial or Congressional law fixing the punishment? 
 He answers, "None," that he is aware of. What shall I do with them? If there is no law to 
 punish, I must discharge them; for I can only execute, not make the law. You undertook to 
 whip them, and they whipped you in self-defence. If you had undertaken to whip white men, 
 and they had whipped you, they surely had the risrht to do it; but you undertook to whip those 
 ne^ro's, and they whipped you. There is no law here to punish them, and I must, of course, 
 acquit them. But you say, " the Constitution of the United States protects me." Well, sir, here 
 is the Constitution; where do you find the punishment for these negroes prescribed in the Consti- 
 tu'ioii ? " Well, but they told me that the Dred Scott decision protected me." Does that prescribe 
 the punishment for the offence charged against these negroes? " No; it has only said I have the 
 right to bring my slaves into the Territories." But you find, when you get there, that neither the 
 Constitution, nor the Dred Scott decision, nor any act of Congress, nor of the Territorial Legisla- 
 ture, has prescribed the punishment for them in case they refuse to obey your orders. Well, 
 finding that your slaves are worthless to you there, you say: " Come boys, let's go back to Vir- 
 ginia." But they do not want to go back, and they say; " No; we will not go. In Virginia yoa 
 are a better man than we are; here we are quite as good as you." [Laughter.] Well, you come 
 to me again, to lod^je your complaint, and you say that the laws of Virginia protect you. 
 
 Yes, but you left the Virginia laws behind you when you came into Kansas. For, if every man 
 who comes into Kansas brinirs with him the laws of his State, we should have the laws of thirty- 
 three States. Which are we to execute? 
 
 You want to carry your negroes back to Virginia, and you attempt to force them to go, and iu 
 Belf-defence they put you to death. Your friends come to me, and it is proved that the negroes 
 killed you in self-defence. What is the punishment? None whatever. Now, I want to know 
 if these negroes are not just as free there as the white man, either under the Constitution of the 
 United States or the Dred Scott decision? And why? Simply because they are not property 
 under the common law, and you require positive enactment for your protection; and the Ured 
 Scott decision no more establishes Slavery in the Territories, without further letjislation for its 
 protection, than the decision of the same Court, in 1S19, declaring a Bank constitutional, estab- 
 lished a Bank of the United States. 'How, the Bichmond Enquirer und Mr. Yancey both express 
 great surprise that any Virginian should admit that Slavery is a municipal institution. 
 
 Every lawyer of intelligence will tell you it is a municipal institution, protected by municipal 
 law; and if you repexl the lasv of this State to-morrow, which provides a punishment for your 
 Flave for resistance to your authoritv, your slaves are as free as you, if they choose to claim it; 
 for, if you cannot punish, you cannot hold thorn in subjection except by fon-e, and I am not talking 
 about force or Lvnch law, but Constitutional law. But thoy express surprise that any one living 
 in a slave S^ate ehoiUd admit that Slavery is a municipal institu'ion. 
 
 I should like to know how they will leconcile their vote for Mr. Breckinridge, who holds pre- 
 cisclv the same opinion, which is of record, and must have been seen by them ; for one of the first 
 resolutions offered by him, when he was a meraberof the Kentucky Legi^lature, was as follows: —
 
 18 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 ''Resolved, Br the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, That the question of 
 Slaveiy in the Territories, being wholly local and domestic, properly belongs alone to the people 
 who inhabit them." 
 So much for that question. 
 
 There are some persons who say that the Dred Scott decision went behind that — which I utterly 
 deny — and declares that the Constitution itself carried Slavery, of its own force, into all the i'er- 
 ritories. It does no such thing, in my opinion. 
 
 If the Constitution carried it into the Territories, and protected it there, Slavery would exist not 
 only in the Territories, but in all the States, for the Constitution is surely not less binding in the 
 States than in the Territories; and if it was estabUshed and protected by the Constitution, there 
 would have been no power in the States, by their Constitution or laws, to exclude it, for that 
 would have been in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, which declares, as I hav« 
 already shown, that — 
 
 "This Constitution shall be supreme law of the land, and the judires in every State shall be 
 bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of the State to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 An'd even in Massachusetts or Vermont any citizen slaveholder might have claimed his proper- 
 ty under the Constitution. 
 
 Let me tell you that this idea may be carried to a great extreme and to a dangerous extent. It 
 is a delicate subject, and the man who proposes to take the institution from the position which it 
 now occupies as o. peculiar institution, differing from all other property, and put it on an equality 
 with merchandise generally, and say because you have the right to carry your merchandise into the 
 Territories, you have the right to carry slaves as merchandise, he takes a very hazardous posi- 
 tion. It is better to let it stand as it is, a peculiar institution, not subject to any other control 
 than our own, because the moment you propose to put it upon a footing with ordinary merchan- 
 dise, then may come in another proposition, that Congress may regiilate Slavery and the slave- 
 trade between the States as it does merchandise. 
 
 Let us hold it as a peculiar institution, consisting of both persons and property, and never 
 agree to put it upon a footing with common merchandise; for if you do, I do not know the law- 
 yer who could successfully dispute the fact that Congress would have the power to regulate 
 Slavery between the States, as it does in reference to every other article of commerce. 
 
 Having thus discussed the issues made in this canvass, I propose now to say, a word about the 
 candidates and their records. I have no quarrel with Mr. Douglas n:)w — I hope none for the fu- 
 ture. He is in a progi'essive and improving condition. He is, as they say of persons who are 
 getting over a spell of sickness, convalescent; for I saw that in a speech he made at Harrishurg, 
 Pennsylvania, a short time since, he has come over to us on the great principle of protection, and 
 he told the people of Pennsylvania that their coal and iron had never received that share of pro- 
 tection which it was entitled to receive at the hands of a fostering Government. This is a great 
 step in the right direction. But what operates on me even more than that, is that he is a good 
 Union man; and I am ready to shake hands with him and embrace all good Union men, at a time 
 like this. 
 
 I diifer with him, politically, on his doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty. I differ with him in this. 
 I am inclined to think that the plan proposed by him, and which was established by the Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill, which, if not for one slight difficulty, would perhaps be the best way of settling the 
 question. I think, with reference to the peace and harmony of the country, we should ad be 
 benefitted by transferring it to the Territorial Legislature, and let them settle it for themselves, 
 for the reason that it would cease to be a national question and become entirely local in irs 
 effects. The difficulty is, that there is a constitutional impediment that requires Congress to legis- 
 late for the Territories. Xow, my arjiument is, that if the Constitution gives to Congress the 
 power to legislate for the Territories, Congress must exercise that power — that if we, in adopting 
 that Constitution, have conferred that power on Congress as the only body that could safely exer- 
 cise it, Congress can no more divest itself of the power, and transfer ic to a Territorial Legisla- 
 ture, than it can transfer the war-making power, or the power to regulate commerce among the 
 Stares, or any other power to the State Legislatures; and the only security we, of the South, have, 
 is to insist on and adhere to a true interpretation of the Constitution, and a rigid enforcement of 
 all its provisions; if we cannot be protected in that way, we cannot look for it elsewhere. 
 
 I would never consent to the imposition of Slavery on our unwilling people in the Territories, 
 and if they desire to have it, I would offer no obstacle to the accomplishment of their wishes. I 
 am in favor of its settlement, therefore, by the people of the Territory; but they must come up 
 and observe the forms prescribed by the Constitution, and obtain the assent of Congress to all 
 their laws, as they have done from the foundation of the Government up to 1854. I propose to 
 read now from the record of Mr. Lincoln— and let no man go from here to-night and say, because 
 I do so, that I am a Lincoln man or have made a Lincoln speech, as the only means to break the 
 influence of an argument they cannot answer, and destroy the effect of a truth that may be crush- 
 ing to their fondest anticipations. If to read Lincoln's record makes me a Lincoln nian, then I 
 am also obnoxious to the charge of being a Breckinridge man, because I have read from his 
 record, and a Douglas man, because I have read from his record also. But I am neither; and I 
 read tuis record of Lincoln's without intending to express either approval or disapproval, for 
 there is no reason why I should. It speaks for itself. Let that be borne in mind. I want every 
 man to stick a pin there, that he may not forget it. 
 
 I have a high and patriotic object to serve in reading his record, looking, as I do, to the pos'i- 
 hle event of his election, in the course of three weeks, which we are told by Governor Wise will 
 be "an ovei-t act of war," and that certain States mean to go out of the Union. I read his record 
 that you may see and determine for yourselves whether it is just cause for a dissohition of the 
 Union. I mean neither to approve nor disapprove the record of Mr. Lincoln, but I felt that I 
 owed it to you and to myself to become familiar \vith his antecedents before I presented myself 
 before the people to address them on the questions that are so soon to be decided — and I have 
 done so, and am not to be deterred from doin^ full justice to Mr. Lincoln by any lidiculous and 
 contemptible charge of being a Free Soiler or an Abolitionist
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 19 
 
 In 1837 Mr. Lincoln was a member of the I^irislatare of Elinois, and that Legislature adopted 
 ro.solunon, of an obnoxious chiiractor to the South, dcclarin!; that Congress had not only the right 
 to abolish Slavery in the District of CoUimJiia and the slave-trade between the States, but that 
 thev were bound to exercise that power; and Mr. Lincoln was one of two members who entered 
 their protest upon the records of the House, in which he took the {rround that while Congress liad 
 the power, he was opposed to the exercise of that power, except upon the application of the own- 
 ers of the property, and then only on condition of remuneration to the owners. I served in Con* 
 gress with Lincoln in 1817; I know very little about him; I do not recollect that I made his per- 
 sonal acquiintMnce. He was a youny: or new member, and did not take a very axMive part in the 
 business of the House, and I do not recollect that I was thrown into his comjiany. Mr. Goggin 
 was on the Committee with Mr. Lincoln, and I am told, testifies to his high qualities as a man 
 and a gentleman. 
 
 Of course that made Go'j-gin an Abolitionist. Mr. Lincoln, however, might, like other politi? 
 ciins, plead the statute of limitations on what hid occurred 23 years ai;o in the Illinois Legisla- 
 ture; so I traced him down to a later period. Mr. Benjamin, in the Senate, declared he was a 
 sounder man upon the Slavery question than Douglas. But Mr. Benjamin was a Democrat — he 
 could aftbrd to say so. I could not, for that would estai)lish Abolitionism on me. Charity 
 covereth a multitude of sins, but Democracy covereth charity. [Great applause.] But I was 
 reminded the other day, by reading a speech of Mr. Winthrop, of Boston, lately returned from 
 his Kuropean tour, of a circumstance which occurred while I was in Congress with Mr. Lincoln; 
 and the circumstance to which Mr. Winthrop refers was, that a similar proposition contained in 
 the resolutions of the State of Illinois, in 1837, were offered in Congress in IS 17, and that Mr. 
 Lincoln offered a substitute for them, carrying out his views as expressed in 18-37; but s'ill this 
 ■was thirteen years ago, and the statute of limitations might be pleaded to that, so I traced him 
 down to a still later period. 
 
 Now I am going to read what Lincoln said. In 18-58, before he became a candidate for the 
 Presidency, and when he was a candiiiate for the Senate of the United States, and had every 
 inducement to be as strongly An ti -Slavery as possible before the people of Illinois, it seems 
 certain questions were put to him by Douglas, and I only read the quettions as propounded and 
 the answers as given: — 
 
 Question 1. I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 18.j4, in favor of the 
 unconditional repeal of the Fui^itive Slave law. Answer. I do not now, nor ever did stand in favor 
 of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. 
 
 Q. 2. I de.sirehim to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 18.>1, against the 
 admission of anymore Slave States into the Union, even if the people want them? A. I do 
 not now, nor ever did stand pledged against the admission of any more Slave States into the 
 Union. 
 
 Q. 3. I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the 
 Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make? A. I do not 
 stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a Constitution as 
 the people of that State may see fit to make. 
 
 Q 4. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of Slavery in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia? A. I do not stand pledged to-day to the abolition of Slavery in the District 
 of Columbia, 
 
 Q. 5. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the Slave trade 
 between the diflferent States? A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the Slave trade 
 between the different States. 
 
 Q. (3 I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit Slavery in all the Territories of 
 the United States, North as well as South of the Missouri Compromise line? A, I am implicitly, 
 if not expressly pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit Slavery in all the 
 United States TerriTories. 
 
 Q. 7. I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any new territory, 
 unlets Slavery is fir^t prohibited therein? A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of 
 territory; and, in any s^ivon case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition accordingly as I 
 might think such acquisition would or would not aggravate the Slavery question among our- 
 Bolves. 
 
 At a subsequent period of the same speech, he said he should regret that any Tenitory should 
 ask to come into the Union as a Slave State; but if the people thus asked admission into the 
 Union, he did not consider that a sufficient ground of objection to their admission. In another 
 speech, which I will read from, he says : — 
 
 " Before proceeding let me say, I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They 
 are just what we would be in their situation. If Slavery did not now exist among them, they 
 would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. — 
 This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are individuals on both sides 
 who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would madlj' introduce 
 Slavery anew if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their 
 slaves, cro North, and become tip-top Abolitionists; while some Northern ones go South and 
 become most cruel slave masters. 
 
 " When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the oriirin of Slavery than we, 
 I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to 
 get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will 
 not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power 
 were iriven me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse 
 would" be to free all the slaves and send them to Liberia, to their own native land. But a mo- 
 ment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there 
 may be in this, in the lonir run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed in a 
 dav they would al' perish in the next ten days, and there are not surplus shipping and surplus
 
 20 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free 
 them all and keep them among us underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condi- 
 tion? I tbink I v^ould not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough 
 to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially 
 our equals ? My own t'eeliags will not admit of this ; and if mine would, we know that those of 
 the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound 
 judgment, is not the sole que3iion, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether 
 well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does 
 seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in 
 this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren in the South. 
 
 " When they remind us of their Constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudg- 
 ingly, but fully and fairly ; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of 
 their fugitives, which should not, in its stringG-ncy, be more likely to carry a free man 
 into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one. 
 
 "But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting Slavery to go 
 into our own free territory, than it would for reviving the African slave-trade by law. 
 The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has so long 
 forbid the taking of them to Nebraska can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle ; 
 and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter. 
 
 " I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows that I said this. I think he haa 
 the answer here to one of the questions he put to me. I do not mean to allow him to 
 catechize me unless he pays back for it in kind. I will not answer questions one after 
 another, unless he reciprocates ; but as he has made this inquiry, and I have answered 
 before, he has got it without my getting anything in return. He has got my answer on 
 the Fugitive Slave law. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this is the true com- 
 plexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of Slavery and the black race. 
 This is the whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and 
 political equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, 
 by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, 
 while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with 
 the institution of Slavery in the States where it exists, I believe I have no lawful right 
 to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no pni'pose to introduce political 
 and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference 
 between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living 
 together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that 
 there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which 
 I belong having the superior position. 
 
 " Now, I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where Washington and 
 Jefferson, and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinction, and the 
 public mind would, as for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate 
 extinction. The crisis would be past, and tho institution might be let alone for a hundred 
 years, if it should live so long in the States where it exists, yet it would be going out of 
 existence in the way best for both the black and the white races." 
 
 We have all heard it stated that be said that if he could not come into Kentucky and 
 Virginia, he would stand on the banks of the Ohio and fire into these States. Here is his 
 own explanation of what has been thus ascribed to him. He says : 
 
 "As the Judge had so flattered me, I could not make up my mind that he meant to 
 deal unfairly with me; so I went to work to show him that he misunderstood the whole 
 scope of my speech, and that I really never intended to set the people at ^var with one 
 another. As an illustration, the next time I met him, which was at Springfield, I used 
 this expression : that I claimed no right under the Constitution, nor bad I any inclination 
 to enter into the Slave States and interfere with the institutions of Slavery. He says, 
 upon that, ' Lincoln will not enter into the Slave States, but will go to the banks of the 
 Ohio, on this side, and shoot over ! He runs on, step by step, in the horse-chestnut "style 
 of argument, until he shall have extinguished Slavery in all the States ; the Union shall 
 be dissolved.' Now, I don't think that was exactly the way to ' treat a kind, amiable, 
 intelligent gentleman.' I know if I had asked the Judge to show when or where it was 
 I had said that, if I didn't succeed in firing into the Slave States until Slavery should be 
 extinguished, the Union should be dissolved, he could not have shown it. I understand 
 what he would do. He would say, ' I don't mean to quote from you, but this was the 
 result of what you say.' But I have the right to ask, and I do ask now, Did you not put 
 it in such a form that an ordinary reader or listener would take it as an expression from 
 me?" 
 
 That is as much of the record of Lincoln as I feel to be necessary to read. I have 
 heard a great deal about him, as about other men in public life, but I do not believe any- 
 thing I hear about^any public man until it is proved to be true. I have good roasim for 
 it ; for I have seen such frightful pictures drawn. of myself that neither I nor any friend 
 of mine, X amsufe, would eyer recognize the likeness.
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 21 
 
 The next question is, I3 there any remedy fur all this ? There i.«, and it is one which we can sustain 
 ourselves upon, by tlie Coiistitutiun, by our own eonsciunces, by common honesty, and by common 
 aense. Go back to the Constitution as our fathers made it. Tills is u Jew doctrine preaclied — that 
 of forcing; Slavery into a Territory where it is not wanted. It is not to be strengthened but weak- 
 ened by division. It is not for the purpose of strengthening Slavery that the Democratic party 
 want to carry Slavery into the Territories, but to strengthen the Democratic party itself. Cut up 
 the slave property, and divide it among the States and Territories, according to their federal num* 
 bers, aud it would not exist twenty years in any one of them. 
 
 The power itself would become so weak, and the antagonistic power of free labor so strong, it 
 Wuuid be extinguished everywhere. Keep it where it is, and it constitutes a moral force which will 
 always sustain itself. Senator Muson said the public mind had undergone a great change siuce the 
 ndoption of the Constitution. 
 
 It is true — but, unfortunately for him and his party North, the public mind has not kept pace 
 wilh the changes of the South, and, what is of still more cousequence, the Constitution has not 
 changed. Let us be satisfied to keep our slaves where they are; and let us demand, at all hazards, 
 and yoder all circumstances, that we shall not be interfered with by the Northern States. That ia 
 all it ia necessary for us to do; but in order to do that you must first get rid of Democratic politi- 
 cians, [applause] — men who in a number of instances have not the heart to feel nor the brain to 
 ci>noeive the cousequences of their folly; men who have kept alive this Slavery agitation because it 
 is the only means by which they can obtain the favor of the people, and secure the power to them- 
 selves, by presenting themselves to the people as the exclusive champions of Slavery; men who 
 never did own a slave on earth, and probably never will, yet denounce me who am a slaveholder, 
 and all the slaveholders in the country, every man, no matter what his interest in slave property, aa 
 an Abolitionist, unless he votes the Democratic ticket; who have kept the agitation alive for their 
 own selfish purposes, and who will keep it alive, no matter what will bo the consequences to your 
 peace and happiness, or to the safety of the Union. 
 
 Get rid of Democracy. 
 
 But when we tell them that, some demagogue will take the stand and say. Look and see what 
 Democracy has done for the country ! See how it has grown and expanded under Democracy ! We 
 were but thirteen States, and now there are thirty-two I We were but 3,000 000 inhabitants, and 
 now we have grown to 33,000 000 I Well, so have I grown up and expanded under Democracy. 
 [Great laughter.] My family have grown up and expanded. Your families have grown up and in- 
 creased. But pray tell me what had Democracy to do with it? Why, the bees go on and expand 
 and increase their numbers, aud when they get too thick, they swarm, and go out and settle new 
 territory. And it is so with us. The natural increase of our people, with the great influx of for- 
 eigners, has swelled our population to 32,000,000. Would it not have done the same thing under 
 any other rule ? Let us try it awhile. I am afraid to trust them any longer — a party that has 
 brought us to the verge of the precipice — as I lean now over this platform, threatening to precipi- 
 tate us into the gulf of Disunion. 
 
 They have gone too far to recede. They cannot save the Union. Try some other party, and see 
 if they cannot save the Union. At all events, let us content ourselves with the question of Slavery 
 as it has existed from the formation of the Government. Leave it (Slavery) to climate and produc- 
 tion to regulate itself, and there will be no difficulty on the snbject. If we could change the face 
 of nature, and transfer their long, cold Winters of the North to the South, and our long, hot Sum- 
 mers to the North, they would in twenty years become the Pro-Slavery party, and we the party of 
 Freedom. 
 
 Well, r.ow, gentlemen, I have said nothing personally against any of the candidates 
 for the Presidency, because it is not my purpose to do so ; and I stand here to-night dis- 
 claiming any intention or desire to speak harshly of any one of them, or to glorify 
 another. I know all of them personally. Breckinridge, I know well, and I know him 
 to be an honorable, high-minded, intelligent gentleman, and one against whose character 
 nothing can be said. Yet I think there is one strong objection to the election of Bn-ck- 
 inridge, I do not moan to say that he is a disunionist, but he has lent his name to a jtarty 
 which had its origin in, and whose avowed purpose is the dissolution of the Union. iStill 
 further is it from me to say he is an Abolitionist. I should feel myself dishonored to 
 stand before you and bring a charge against him that I did not believe to bo true, to 
 effect the election of any man or the success of any party. 
 
 Another objection to Mr. Breckinridge is, that he is too young, too inexperienced, to 
 take charge of this great empire and administer all its affairs, foreign and domestic. Mr. 
 Douglas is a man of more enlarged experience in public affairs, and a gentleman against 
 whom nothing is to be said. But I think he deserves some jiunishment, independent of 
 my opposition to him on account of his Democracy, for his agency in the repeal of tlio 
 Missouri Compromise. It may bo that we shall ourselves have to support him some of 
 these diiys* I cannot tell. I think the two wings of the party are so far apart that they 
 are not likely to get together again, and the Union portion of the Democracy and our- 
 selves must coalesce in tln^ future. I do not see where they are going to ; they must come 
 to us; we must go to them, or, perhaps, we shall have t<> meet half way. What is tho 
 rea.son of the difference that now exists between the politicians and tho people in this 
 State? It is because there never was any bond of sympathy between ihem. The Calhoun 
 wing held the balance of pow^r originally between the Old Line "Whigs and the Demo- 
 cratic party, and the Democrats were afraid to trust them, and afraid to offend them, and
 
 22 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 
 
 from the first tboy have never given the Old Line Democrats a crumb. The Douglas 
 men are in no better condition than we poor Whigs have been. They have been kept 
 shivering in the cold, without food or clothing. [Laughter.] They want shelter, and 
 the onl}^ way they can got it is to come to us. [Renewed laughter.] 
 
 As to Mr. Bell, I know him, too. I have heard but one charge against him. I sup- 
 port him not only because he is the candidate of my party, but I support hira because I 
 know him to be a sound, national, conservative, Union.loving man — a man of enlarged ex- 
 perience in public life ; and because I look upon the ticket presented by the party to 
 which I belong as being the most national that has been presented to the country. I 
 have heard that the charge has been made — it was never made in my presence — that he 
 is an Abolitionist. Well, I would not take the trouble to refute it; and I would not 
 offend you, nor do the injustice to him, to regard that charge as worthy of a moment's 
 consideration. [Applause.] The man that would consider the charge, is not worthy of 
 voting. He ought to be excluded by the Commissioners on the ground that the right of 
 suffrage is withheld from all men of unsound mind. [Laughter and applause.] The 
 only answer I have to make to it, is to read from a paper called the Sentinel, a Democratic 
 paper published in Alabama, which says: 
 
 " How foul ! The Montgomery Advertiser boldly charges Mr. Bell with being an Aboli- 
 tionist. We are no defender of John Bell and his party; but a more base and waiiton 
 charge never was made against any man, than that John Bell is unfriendly to negro 
 Slavery. There is just about as much truth or propriety in charging Abolitionism 
 against any gentleman of Lowndes or Montgomery counties. The man who charges John 
 Bell with being an Abolitionist, does it through a desire to lie upon his fellow man." 
 
 This is as plain and emphatic as it is true, and we commend it to the consideration of 
 the Breckinridge orators and editors generally. 
 
 Now in regard to Mr. Lincoln, I have only to say, if he was the purest, wisest, and most ex- 
 perienced of all, there is an insurmountable objcclioa to him, and that is that in all rcsp; cts 1 
 am a national man in every sense of the word, and I could under no circumstances vote for a 
 man who is asectional candidate, no matter to what party he may belong. But candor eom'Kls 
 nie to say that he is not more sectional than Breckinridge, and not half so dangerous us tlie 
 party Mr. Breckinridge represents. 
 
 Now, one or two subjects briefly touched, and I quit. 1 have been asked what I thought it 
 was the duty of the South to do in the event of the election of Mr. Lincoln. I answer, nothing 
 in the world, but submit as we have always done. I have no desire to keep secret from any 
 man what I would do, for I would wear my heart upon my sleeve, and if every political opinion 
 I entertain could be summed up in one word, I would have that word on my breast that every 
 man might read it who felt an interest in knowing. His election would constitute no reason 
 for a dissolution of the Union, nor would that of any other free white man. A native citizen of 
 tlie United States, 35 years of age, the only qualificatioa required by the Constitution ; first he 
 h:is the Senate fixed against him, the politicaf complexion of which cannot be changed within 
 the next four years, and the Supreme Court is against him, so there is another source of protcc 
 tion to the South. So that if Lincoln were elected and even prepared to offer violence and out- 
 rage tothe South, 1 would not be prepared to dissolve the Union. If he were elected and should 
 recommend violent and extreme measures to Congress, I should not think the time for dissolu- 
 tion had arrived. His recommendation might be repudiated by both branches of Congress ; but 
 suppose Congress adopted his recommendation. Would the time for a dissolution then have 
 arrived ? I think not, because this sacred little book, the Constitution of the United States, pro- 
 vides another remedy, and that is the Supreme Court. I would go to the Supreme Court, I 
 would there proclaim that Congress had no power to interfere with Slavery, and demand that 
 justice and right should be done me. But, if the Supreme Court refused me redress, then I 
 would say the time has come for revolution, and let him take the lead who will, I will follow. 
 [Great applause.] But I never will consent to plunge this country into all the horrors of civil 
 war ; to involve your children and my children; to inflict such a calamity upon the nation ; to 
 oppose brother to brother and father to son in deadly conflict, I never will until 1 have exha-usted 
 every remedy provided by the Constitution. (Great applause.) 
 
 I have been asked, also, "Suppose South Carolina thinks proper to go out of the Union : 
 •what would you do then ?" I have heard some patriotic gentlemen say no Federal troops 
 should ever cross this State while they are alive ; but if I were asked what I was going 
 to do in such an event, the first inquiry I would make is, Who is coming at the head of 
 the Federal troops? Who is going to take command of the troops ? Is it Lincoln ? No; 
 they will not wait for his inauguration. Will it be Mr. Buchanan ? No ; he will stay 
 in Washington and manage the finances, for which he seems particularly well qualified. 
 [Laughter.] Now, I think if any army were to march here, it would be headed by Gen. 
 Scott. [Applause.] And then, if he came along on his way to the South, it would 
 depend on how many men he had with him what I would do. If he had enough to ac- 
 complish his object, I would be satisfied to give him safe escort through the State. But 
 if not, I would buckle on my knapsack and shoulder my musket and go along with him. 
 
 \
 
 f 
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN M. BOTTS. 23 
 
 [Applause.] Now, do not let us confound our personal sympathies with the higher obli- 
 gations of public law and public duty. I do not mean I would literally go along with 
 him ; he would not expect such a thing of me ; but I only mean to appeal to the obligii- 
 tions of duty, and state what I think we ought all to do. 
 
 If South Carolina declares herself out of the Union, what aspect does she present to 
 the United States? Is she a State in the Union? If so, the laws must be enforced ia 
 the Union. But if she is no longer a State in the Union, she assumes the position of a 
 foreign enemy to the United States, and also to Virginia ; and am I to be asked to givo 
 aid to the enemy of the States? or am I to be called a traitor for obeying the Constitu- 
 tion of my State and of the Union ? She is an enemy to the States and to you. I owe no 
 allegiance to South Carolina because she is a Slave State, and I would as soon march to 
 South Carolina to enforce one law as I would to Massachussetts to enforce another, 
 whether the Fugitive Slave law or any other, or to reduce either to submission if they 
 were rash enough to assume the position of a foreign enemy to me and mine. I am not 
 a slave to Slavery, and I will not make a fool of myself to please fools. [Applause.] 
 
 But I apprehend there will be no need of forces passing through the State. Certainly there ia 
 no power by which South Carolina or any other State can be restrained from going out of the Union, 
 if she thinks proper to be guilty of so wild and rash an act, nor from committing any other act of 
 violence or wrong upon the Constitution or laws of the country, unless the Federal Executive shall 
 be disposed to exercise the authority entrusted to him by the Constitution, and the people who have 
 deposited that Constitution in his hands for safe keeping; but if he has the courage and the jciV^ 
 he will not lack the jjower to keep the Union together as it was when he took upon himself the re- 
 sponsibility and the obligation to see that the laws were faithfully executed. 
 
 As Gen. Jackson said in his proclamation : " The laws of the United States must be executed. I 
 have no discretionary power on the subject. My duty is emphatically pronounced in the Coustitu- 
 tioQ. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution deceived you : they 
 could not have been deceived themselves; they knew that a forcible opposition could alone prevent 
 the execution of the laws, and they knew that such opposition must be repelled." 
 
 But I said I did not apprehend that there would be any necessity for sending troops through Viry 
 ginia, although a force that would be absolutely irresistible could be sent if necessary. The Presi- 
 dent may certainlj- exercise a sound discretion as to the best mode of executing the law : and if it can 
 be done without blood.^hed, then that is the best way to do it. Then let him ask of Congress at 
 an early day for the re-enactment of the bill of the 2nd of March, 1S32 : "For the colleitiun of 
 duties on ihiporis." 
 
 Let him then under that act establish his Custom Ilouse on board the Steamer Susquehanna, sta- 
 tioned in the harbor of Charleston, then cut off all mail facilities and intercourse, allow no remit- 
 tances to go in, and no cotton to go out, and then the people would begin to inquire into the reason 
 for this precipitate and passionate action on the part of the politicians, they would find that Lin- 
 coln's election was only the pretext and not the came of the disturbance of their peace : they 
 ■would find that they had been misled: and that without cau.-e, they had been induced, by seductive 
 appeals to their passions and prejudices, to cast off the most magnificent endowment thai a kind Provi- 
 dence had ever bestowed on his unworthy creatures* and it would lead to a revolution and secession 
 within the limits of South Carolina in less than thirty days. 
 
 South Carolina is a very extreme State — Massachusetts is another. I do not think it 
 just to take either as reflecting fairly the conservative sentiment of either section of tho 
 country. There is no more fairness in looking on the extreme States of the North as 
 fair exjponents of the public sentiment there, than that South Carolina is a fair exponent 
 of the public sentiment of the South. 
 
 These are the opinions I entertain upon the issues involved in the present canvass. I 
 have expressed them fully and freely, but I hope I have left no handle by which, through 
 misrepresentation, our adversaries will injure us. I have endeavored to present my 
 views in a manner perfectly inoflensive to any candidate, and, I trust, to the feelings of 
 all here present. 
 
 If what I have said constitutes a submissionist, I am a submissionist ; but I submit to 
 the Constitution and laws of my country, and he who does not is a traitor to both. 
 
 I return you my thanks for your patientiattention, and hope I have done as much service 
 for the Democratic party as the Dc^niocracy this morning exjiected of me. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have concluded my argument, and again express my acknowledgments 
 for the very flattering manner in which it has been received. 
 
 At the close of Mr. Botts's remarks, there was one universal cheer, which rung tlirough 
 the Hall, and being caught up by the outside crowd, was continued until it died away 
 in the far distance of the suburbs. The reporter has never witnes.sed more enthusiasm 
 exhibited in favor of a public speaker ; and it was rendered the more impressive in this 
 instance, from tho fact of the vnry vindictive spirit recently manifested toward him by tho 
 leading political organs in the State.
 
 Mi 
 
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