June 15, 1864

Sir, I hope this resolution may pass by the necessary majority to give itvalidity. All truly honest and philanthropic men throughout the world will have reason to rejoice and will rejoice if it so passes. It will be heralded over the world as another grand step upward and onward in the irresistible march of a christianized civilization. The old starry banner of our country, as it "floats over the sea and overthe land," will be grander and more glorious than ever before. Its stars will be brighter; it will be holier; it will mean more than a mere nationality; it will mean universal liberty; it will mean that the rights of mankind, without regard to color or race, are respected and protected. The oppressed and downtrodden of all the world will take new courage; hope will spring afresh in theirstrugglingand weary hearts; and when they look upon that banner in distant lands they will yearn to be here, where they can enjoy the inestimable blessings which are denied them forever on their native shores.

Mr. Speaker, it would seem that this resolution should be adopted by a unanimous vote. Yet I fear we shall lose it. The slave power has notyetlostall its influence in this Congress. The pock marks of slavery are plainly visible on the faces of many ofthe members of the Opposition. They were inoculated and corrupted by it in the days of its wanton power. Its woeful and baneful influence is upon them still. Slavery has been their idol. They worshiped at its shrine in the days of its power, and even now, when it is going to an ignominious grave, they rally around and protect and defend it in all its hideous ghastliness as though it were really divine. We may admire their pluck, but we must condemn their action, their want of patriotism, their inappreciation of liberty, and their entire lack of generous sentiments common to humanity. They are blinded by prejudice. They are politically corrupt, under an undue desire to regain that power which they so ingloriously lost during the last Democratic administration, or, I should say, maladministration. Being the slaves of the slave power, wo cannot expect much of them until we have made them free and hewn down their prejudices. In my opinion many of the Opposition members would vote for this resolution if they could be convinced that slavery could no longer be made available to them as a political power. But they know it as certain as fate that if slavery goes down the present Democratic organization goes down with it. Hence their herculean efforts to save slavery; but they cannot succeed in their unholy and detestable work. The liberty loving and loyal people of this country have sworn in their hearts that the rebellion anil slavery shall both go down, and forever. And they will keep that oath. When we have succeeded in burying the rebellion and slavery, if we could only petrify the pro slavery Democracy, what a becoming and fitting tombstone it would make to mark the place of their burial.

There can be no objection on legal grounds to amend the Constitution in the precise manner pointed out by thatinstrument itself. Article five of the Constitution provides for its own amendment as follows:

"Art. 5. The Collin 1 whenever two thirds of both IIou es Ll all deem it m necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application ottlicLcgii Iaturi a of two thirds ol the several State*, shall call a convention loi pmnuuiiig amendments, which, in either case shall hi valid to all intents and pin poses, as part ot this l onstitu tion. when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths ot the several States, or by conventions in tfrrep fourths thereof, as the one or (lie other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided, that no amendment which may be made prior to tile year 180b sliail in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section oflije first article; and that no State, without Its consent shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in tile Senate."

It is plain to be seen, then, that this resolution contemplates no violation of the Constitution. Then why this objection to adopting it and submitting the proposed amendment to the Legislatures of tlfe several States not in rebellion? Are you of the Opposition afraid to trust the representatives of the people? In reality I believe you are. You fear, and have good cause to fear, that the necessary majority of States will ratify the proposed amendment, and make it thereby a part of the Constitution. Then slavery will no longer need defenders and protectors in our national Congress. Othello s occupation" will be gone indeed. You will go hungry for place and office, and slavery can no longer gratify your unholy ambition. But the people will rejoice, the friends of freedom everywhere will rejoice, and our country will be infinitely more prosperous, more glorious, and grander than ever before.

But the Opposition object to the adoption of this resolution at the present time, because they say Mississippi, South Carolina, and other States in rebellion can have no voice upon the question of its ratification. Is this a good objection? I answer not.- Why is it that Mississippi and South Carolina can have no voice upon this question? It is because they voluntarily entered into this rebellion. Had they not done so they would have had equal right and enjoyed equal privilege with Illinois upon this question. Are we, because a portion of the States inaugurated and still carry on this rebellion, to suspend all legislative action which might affect things or institutions in such States? I say not. Let those who inaugurate and carry on the rebellion take the consequences. We are responsible to the Constitution and the loyal people, not to the disloyal and rebels. It is truly said that at almost any time it is well to do right. It is well to eradicate an evil. That slavery is an evil no sane, honest man will deny. It has been the great curse of this country from its infancy to the present hour. And now that the States in rebellion have given the loyal States the opportunity to take off that curse, to wipe away the foul stain, I say let it be done. We owe it to ourselves; we owe it to posterity; we owe it to the slaves themselves to exterminate slavery in this country forever by the adoption of the proposed amendment to the Constitution. If we fail to do it, now that we have the power, not only will our constituents but posterity and humanity hold us responsible, and remember us only to condemn.

I hold that slavery and rebellion are so closely allied that any act, legislative or military, which cripples the one tends to destroy the other. If slavery could be abolished to day the rebellion would end to-morrow. If the rebellion could be put down to day slavery would go down to-morrow. So that in my opinion any act that we can do, which is lawful in itself, to weaken slavery, if we should fail to tlo it, we would be criminally culpable.

I believe slavery is the mother of this rebellion, that this rebellion can be attributed to no other cause but slavery; from that it derived its life and gathers its strength to day Destroy the mother, and the child will die. Destroy the cause, and the effect will disappear. Slavery has ever been the enemy of liberal principles. It has ever been the friend of ignorance, prejudice, and all the unlawful, savage, and detestable passions which proceed therefrom. It has ever been domineering arrogant, exacting, and overbearing, it has claimed to be a polished aristocrat, when in reality it, has only been a coarse, swaggering, and brutal boor. It has ever claimed to be a gentleman, when in reality it has ever been a villain. I think it is high time to clip its overgrown pretensions, strip it of its mask, and expose it in all its hideous deformity to the detestation of all honest and patriotic men.

For eighty years the bogus aristocracy ot slavery have left nothing undone to corrupt and demoralize the people and their Representatives. For eighty years they have attempted to clothe this monster in the radiance of divinity .when in reality it should only be draped tn the blackness of its own enormity. In order to maintain their power they had so molded public opinion, even in the grand free States of the North, that many honest but deluded men were willing to concede that slavery, if not divine, was not so bad an institution after all, that" the devil was not so black as he is painted." The North, against its sense of justice and right, for the sake of peace and union, has, time and time again, humiliated itself in its own and the eyes of the world by conceding to the unhallowed and ambitious demands of slavery.

At the formation of our Constitution slavery demanded that a section should be incorporated therein restraining Congress from passing a law prohibiting the importation of negroes prior to the year 1808. The North, in violation of its sense of honor, got down upon its knees and consented thatitshould be" written in the bond," thereby conceding the right to this bogus aristocracy to freight its ships with human beings stolen from their native land and consigned to an ignominious slavery only equaled by its savage cruelty.

Again, in 1793, they demanded a fugitive slave law; that is to say, that free northern men should be their blood-hounds. TheNorth again assented, and went into the blood hound business. In 1850 they again demanded more and fiercer bloodhounds. TheNorth, true to its instinctsof peace and union, but false to its honor, agreed that the blood-hounds should be forthcoming. Forone— and I am happy to say that I am not alone—lam tired of this blood hound business, and voted on Monday last to abolish it. The Opposition are in favor of its continuance: I am for this amendment to the Constitution, in order to take from thf se adherents of the slave power the ignominy and degradation consequent upon so base an occupation. Again, in 1820, thesame relentless monster demanded ofthe North more territory for the uses of slavery. The North again got upon its knees and admitted Missouri with a slave constitution, arid again suffered the mortification of self degradation Again, in 1854, they demanded the repeal of the Missouri compromise line. Again, in northern men, whom they had demoralized and corrupted by the contaminating influence ofslavery, united to a corresponding lust for office, they found the willing tools wherewith to consummate this treachery. Liberty received a blow in the face, and slavery was taken by the hand.

Again, in 857 the slave power brought all its energies to bear to convert this territory, which had been thrown open to it by the repeal of the Missouri compromise line, into a slave State. To the everlasting infamy of James Buchanan s Administration be it said, with a few honorable exceptions, it lentthe whole force and power of its authority to the accomplishment of this foul crime. But, thank God, the people ofthe North at last had become aroused, and they determined that slavery should no longer be the master of liberty. They felt it in their hearts, they expressed it with their lips, that they would no longer be the tools of slavery, or the indifferent spectators of its encroachments. They declared thatKansas should be free. The slave powerswore itshould be slave; and then and there this war commenced which is now deluging this land with blood. After along and not a bloodless struggle justice and freedom triumphed, and Kansas to day is a beaming star of liberty in the western horizon. The South saw in this triumph the ultimate overthrow of their most cherished institution. They became alarmed, and felt and knew that if the people of the North were unwilling to submit to further degradation thereafter they mustdepend on themselves for the protection ot slavery, as their northern friends were powerless to stem the tide which was rising and swelling toward universal liberty.

So, in 18G0, at the Charleston convention they demanded that additional guarantees for slavery be incorporated in the platform of the Democratic party. The northern Democracy saw at once that to yield to them on this point was certain defeat. The South repudiated Douglas in thatconvention for the reason that they did not believe him sound on the slavery question. As an evidence of his unsoundness they pointed to his Freeportspeech, made in 1858, in joint debate with President Lincoln. In this speech he enunciated the doctrine thatTerritonal Legislatures possessed the power to exclude slavery from the Territories by" unfriendly legislation." This was anything but orthodox in their view. Another objection to Senator Douglas was that he had been opposed to the Lecompton Kansas constitution. Consequently Douglas was thrown overboard. They demanded that slavery should be recognized as a national institution, and that Congress should protect it in the Territories by affirmative legislation. The northern Democracy positively refused to accede to this. The consequence was that the southern Democracy seceded and nominated their own candidate, upon their own platform, thereby breaking up the Democratic party and depriving it of all hope of success in the then approaching presidential campaign. Who can say but that the northern wing of the Democratic party is responsible for this war? for had the northern Democracy been willing to concede at that convention to the demands of the South, and accept a platform agreeable to it, the nominee of that convention would have been elected President, and this "cruel and bloody war," as the Opposition delight to call it, would have been avoided, or, at any rate, postponed. Let the responsibility rest where it legitimately belongs. It is dishonorable in any man to say that the Republican party is responsible for this war, when, as I have shown, it perhaps might have been avoided had the northern Democracy been willing to have covered themselves with a thicker coating of degradation than they had .ever before worn, and sacrificed their dignity and manhood to the behests of slavery.

I am well aware that the Opposition persistently charge that the abolitionists are responsible for the war and are the authors of the war. This charge is as false as is the assertion that slavery is divine. Had there been no slavery in this country there never would have been an abolitionist or an agitator; the inhuman and barbarous system of slavery created the abolitionist and the agitator. In this instance the evil produced the good—the wrong the right; and the good andthe right must prevail. Slavery has piled up the mountain which will fall upon it and crush it to dust. Slavery alone is the cause of the war, and he who attributes this war to any other cause than slavery is wide of the mark. The man who to day after three years of war and desolation, would raise even a straw to shield or protect slavery, deserves, and at no very distant day will receive, the merited condemnation of a united, happy, prosperous, and liberty loving people.

It is a humiliating and saddening spectacle to witness how persistently and unrelentingly the Opposition pursue our most worthy President, and with what vehemence they denounce his war policy, if such policy m their opinion tends in the least to interfere with the institution of. slavery. If, under the war power ofthe Administration a rebel sympathizer, who disgraces the soil of Illinois, is arrested and imprisoned, if a disloyal paper is suppressed, they at once set up a tremendous howl about personal liberty and the freedom of the press, if an attempt is made .to expel or censure a member of Congress for uttering disloyal sentiments, another distressing howl goes up in protestation against the Administration. Their denunciation is all against Lincoln. They utter none against Davis. Our soldiers may be starved in Libby prison; they may be butciieied in cold blood, as at Fort Pillow and elsewhere; Union men all through the South may be indiscriminately plundered and then dragged to the gallows, and they have no voice to raise against it or denounce it. The reason of this is obvious. They care more to regain political power than for the triumph of liberty and justice. The eloquent and scholarly Sumner may be knocked down in the United States Senate by a southern ruffian and blackguard: northern doughfaces say," Served him right." xYGiddmgs and an Adams may be censured in the House of1 Representatives because they have the manhood: to raise their voices m behalf of liberty and justice: northern doughfaces cry outagain," Served them light." The incorruptible Parker, Codding, and Garrison maybe mobbed, stoned, and! imprisoned, for daring to give utterance to the sublime and eternal punciplcs of truth, and lib-] orty, and justice, and these same northern doughfaces rise up and cry out, "Served them right."' A northern man imbued with the spirit of liberty! may, within the limits of a slave State, have the effrontery to raise his voice against oppresj sion,and say," Your system ofslavery is wrong, and you ought to abolish it:" a coat of tar and feathers or the halter may be administered as a corrective of such heretical expressions, and the northern doughfaces again cry out," Served him right." A. minister ofthe gospel may find it to be his duty to say to his people," ft is right that you should do unto others as you would they should do unto you;" that you ought to let the bondman go free; and lie is immediately denounced as an abolition agitator, and the varnished hypocrites of his church call upon him at once and say they cannot tolerate the expression of such opinions in the pulpit, as they are calculated to irritate the South, and he must stop them or they will withdraw their support. Consequently the poor, good preacher must close his lips to such divine and heaven born truths or starve, and this, too, in a free State; and again the northern doughfaces say," Served him right." To crown all this record of infamy, the martyr, Elijah P. Lovejoy, is mobbed and murdered on the free, broad prairies of Illinois, simply for the crime of publishing a paper dedicated to the advocacy of the rights of mankind; and again these northern doughfaces cry out, "Away with him," "Served him right." O liberty! where is thy power? 0 justice! where is thy strength? But thank God, that day is gone, and gone forever. Let us take courage; the world is better; their sufferings and their trials were not in vain; liberty is stronger; justice is surer; and the idols of oppression, ignorance, and prejudice, which have been worshiped so long, are crumbling to dust. And so the good work goes bravely on. It is as irresistible as the avalanche and as grand as the Alps.

Sir I am in favorin the fullest sense of personal liberty. I am in favor of the freedom of speech. The freedom of speech that I am in favor of is the freedom which guaranties to the citizen of Illinois, in common with the citizen of Massachusetts, the right to proclaim the eternal principles of liberty, truth, and justice in Mobile, Savannah, or Charleston with the same freedom and security as though he were standingat the foot of Bunker Hill monument; and if this proposed amendment to the Constitution is adopted and ratified, the day is not far distant when this glorious privilege will be accorded to every citizen of the Republic. I am in favor ofthe adoption of this amendment because it will secure to the oppressed slave his natural and God given rights. I believe that the black man has certain inalienable rights, which are a3 sacred in the sight of Heaven as those of any other race. I believe he has a right to live, and live in a state of freedom. He has a right to breathe the free air and enjoy God s free sunshine. He has a right to till the soil, to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and enjoy the rewards of his own labor. He has a right to the endearments and enjoyment of family ties; and no white man has any right to rob him oforinfiinge upon any of these blessings.

lam in favor of the adoption of this amendment to the Constitution for the sake ofthe seven millions of poor white people who live in the slave States but who have ever been deprived of the blessings of manhood by reason of this thriceaccursed institution of slavery. Slavery has kept them in ignorance, in poverty, and in degradation. Abolish slavery, and school houses will rise upon the ruins of the slave mart, intelligence will take the place of ignorance, wealth of poverty, and honor of degradation; industry will go hand in hand with virtue and prosperity with happiness, and a disinthralled and regenerated people will rise up and bless you and be an honor to the American Republic.

Slavery has shed every drop of blood which has been spilled in this war. It has filled thousands of graves with our heroic dead. It has filled our hospitals with our shattered heroes. It has swept American commerce from the ocean. It has carried desolation and mourning to the hearthstones of our northern homes from Maine to California; consequently I am the unyielding and persistent enemy of slavery and the earnest supporter of any and all lawful measures for its speedy and effectual extinction. It is this demon of slavery which has called from their happy homes in Illinois one hundred and seventy five thousand of her sons as brave and heroic us ever thesunshone upon. Donclson Shiloh Arkansas Post, Vicksbuig, and many other well fought fields attest their devotion to liberty and Union. Their self sacrificing heroism to maintain the honor arid glory of the Republic has won for them a tame more enduring than granite and a place in the hearts of their countrymen so long as liberty shall be loved and justice respected.

I wish we could emulate the example of the soldiers. The Democrat and the Republican have gone together, side by side, fighting these great battles for liberty and Union. They have allowed no former political differences to divide them, or to weaken their devotion to the cause. They have fought side by side. If the Democrat falls in battle the Republican gathers him in his arms, composes his limbs in death, hollows out a little place in the earth, and therein deposits his heroic and sacred remains; he covers him tenderly with the earth; he marks the spot where he lies, that you may, know a hero sleeps there; lie drops a tear upon the grave, and rushes again into the thickest of the fight, if the Republican falls, his Democratic comradeextends to him the same sacred charity, forgets that he was a Republican, and only remembers that he was a heroic soldier of the Union. Why cannot we, far from the roar of the battle, secure in the enjoyments of peace—secured only by the heroism and devotion of the Army—forget that we ever have been partisans, and unite, with heart and hand, for the suppression of the rebellion and the establishment of "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable.?"

Mr. Speaker, I have already occupied too much time. There is a great deal more that I would like to say, but I must forbear. I implore the House to adopt tlii.-. resolution.• 1 implore it to stand by the Army and the country and the war policy of the Administration, and the day is not far distant when we may rejoice in the glorious consummation of the eternal principles of liberty, truth and justice. There shall be no more slavery and 110 more oppression, no more tyranny and no more injustice, and our voices may go lip together in one grand diapason which will ascend to heaven over a country reunited, over a people disinthralled, and God will bless us.

Mr. RANDALL, of Pennsylvania. The joint resolutions under consideration, Mr. Speaker, propose to amend the Constitution of the United States so as to prevent the existence of slavery in any of the States. Sir, I cannot favor this amendment with my vote, for many reasons:

1. The time proposed for the agitation of this question is most inopportune. Our country is rent by the throes of civil strife, and the Constitution that you seek to amend by these resolutions is being tested by the intense fires of rebellion. Under such circumstances it is unwise to make any alteration whatever. It is doing a double injury to that sacred instrument, being, ill my judgment, wrong in point of time as well as impolitic and entirely unnecessary. In fact, sir, I am convinced that the occasion does not now, nor is it likely to, occur that will justify any amendment of the kind pioposed.

2. It in substance says to the people of the seceded States that we never will live on terms ot peace within the Union so long as slavery has any existence among them, and to this extent prevents any restoration ot the Union or reen-, forcement of the Constitution within their territory, except after subjugation and annihilation shall have been fully accomplished with a,! its dire, bloody, and barbarous accompaniments.

3. It tends to that which at this time our people have most to fear, a centralization of power and a consolidated Government. It strikes at the root of all State institutions, overturns and sets at naught all local laws, and while it throws away every hope of reconciliation, either now or in the future it at the same moment looks to the enslavement of the white citizens of the country.

Sir if this is the beginning of a radical change in our Constitution, is it not the foieiunner of other usurpations of a like nature with those that the Executive of this Government has from time to time resorted to, setting aside the laws ami the Constitution, and the rights of individuals and States guarantied by them? This change once commenced will not stop, but go on from usurpation to usurpation, until Bi e swallowed up in acommon linn, -the rresi dent and those who surround him have so far ignored all law and rights that we may nextexpect to see introduced in this body amendments permanently striking out the writ of habeas corpus. Then will follow the erasure of the second section of article four of the Constitution, third clause-

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged fiora such service 01 labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the pauy to whom such service or labor may be Which you have practically done already. Following in the wake of the extinction of this chartered right will be the destruction of a free press, to be placed under the absolute control and dictation of an Executive, perhaps an ambitious one, and allowed only to publish such matter as shall meet the approving caprice of his excellency or some of his agents who shall be assigned to this degradingduty. Then, sir, the rightoffree speech, freedom of conscience, and trial by jury wiU be demanded to complete the holocaust on the altar of a despotism as ruthless as it is unrelenting. This fearful sacrifice of our liberties will be interspersed at will by the agreeable pastime ot stealing property, gobbling up Legislatures, men thrown in and let out of prison, being neither informed why they w6re put in or why they were let out, and redress denied for wrongs inflicted. This you have tried to do by the act of March 3 1863 section four, which makes the order of the President a good defense against such ai rests, to ee That any order of the President, or under his authoiity, made at any tune during the existence ot the present rebellion, felialI be a detente in all courts to any action or piosccutioiu civil or criminal, pending, or to be commenced, tor any search, seizure, aire t or imprisonment, made, done, or committed, or acts omitted to be done, nndei and by virtue of such oider, or under color of any law ot .\nd Mich detente may be made by special plea or "under the geneial ifrsuc."

This section the party in power were quite aware the Supreme Court would declare unconstitutional, and to remedy that you have passed the seventh section, limiting the time in which suit must be instituted to two years. This you could do, this you did do, but was it rightor just thus to act?

A most remarkable similarity exists 111 the acts of this Administration toward the people of the North and those that were perpetrated by the mother country against the colonies, and which called forth from those colonies and now these States such able, persevering, and just appeals for redress. These like acts in a great measure produced the Revolution, whereby the mother country lost the colonies. Some may think 1 speak without the record. To it I appeal.

In the first Continental Congress, man address containing a declaration of rights, it was held that seizing or attempting to seize any American m order to transport him over the seas foe trial was a violation of the lights and privileges of the colonies. Does not this Administration almost daily transport citizens from State to State from fort to fort without any legal procedure whatever. It broke up and dispersed or imprisoned the Legislature of Maryland. Parliament in like manner in 1767 suspended the functions of the New York Assembly. My friends from Illinois have the misfortune to have a Governor at this time who assumed a like despotic prerogative. In 17bo the stamp act was passed; and if you examine it yen. will find the same interference with therightof bv jury through an adiniraltyjunsdietion, transferring decisions of the law and trials of persons from hecolonialcourts whereit of right belonged, lo the admiralty courts of England, presided over bv the pets of the Crown; and, sir, now, in X b4 the ri ht of trial by jury is interrupted by military power, in each case the result being alike. The Gazetteer of that day tells usi that one Captain McDougal was arrested in New Y-ork be cause he sawfit to speak freely his opinions. How many hundreds of such cases have occurred since this Administration came into power? us was one of the grievances complained of by the colo mes and r. dress being refused they fell back upon then' inalienable right of life with liberty il life at d in 1774 town meetings were interdicted by act of Parliament. What have gentlemen from hx>- Kentucky to say as to the same despotic proceeding in their own sovereign State? Her recent history shows that without even the flimsy pretext of an unconstitutional enactment, similar, ay, worse, interferences have taken place with the freedom of speech. Public meetings in my own district have been interrupted under the quasi approval of the police, and would have been broken up but for the gritof those who composed the assembly. Sir, I am one of those who obey the laws. 1 never did and never will counsel or countenance any resistance thereto, but when the right of the people to assemble peaceably and discuss their grievances is trampled down by unconstitutional enactmentsor the illegaland unwarranted exercise of military force, then, then, sir, I would say to the people:

"Think through whom your life blood tracks Us parent course,

And then—ttrike home

The suspension of newspapers occurred at the same early period that marked the interference with public meetings by the minions of the British Crown. In our own day, side by side with the breaking up of public assemblages, goes the invasionof newspaper officesand the suppression of their publication. Is not the parallel complete? Mr. Speaker, I cling to the States as a shipwrecked man clings to the plank. They gave the Constitution birth. We lived under it happily, cheerfully, and prosperously up to the advent of this Administration. I believe a change of the Administration will again make us united, happy, and prosperous. I look to its approach with a hope full of promise. I will hail it as a glad return from the decaying era of the Roman republic, when spies, informers, and a despotic military power prevailed against civil liberty, and made her the" lone mother of dead empires. But if the great conservative party of the country is beaten in the coming presidential campaignI see no hope, unless a power mightier than man s so rules the heart and judgment of the Executive as to cause him to acknowledge his errors, correct them, and by carrying out the principles enunciated in his inaugural entitle himself to the good opinion of all who love truth and constitutional liberty. If this unlooked for change should occur, such another exhibition will be witnessed as took place in Congress in April, 1861, when the nation, through her representatives, spoke almost as one man in favor of crushing the rebellion, yet maintaining," unimpaired, the rights of the States.

Sir, there is a fixed and growing belief ill the public mind that the conduct of this Administration is not what it should hence, 1 in all sincerity desire a change such as will reestablish confidence among the people, and thus strengthen the capacity of the North to restore the Union, and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the laws enacted under its provisions. Letusgetnii of all laws extracted through imaginary implications of thatinstrument. Let the Administration walk up to the line of policy and principle upon which a large majority of the people agree, sianil firmly and immovably there, and I will predict no failure ill the success of our efforts to bring about amity among the now parted States. Ill is feeling was shown at the period to which 1 have alluded through the channel of volunteering, whereas now, under the changed policy of the Administration, drafting has failed and volunteering is of the past. Universal conscription comes next. The beginning of the war found a united North and a divided South in sentiment and action. How sit to day Under the inroads upon the Constitution by those in power we find the South united, and the North, to a great extent, almost equally divided.•

Sir, I maintain that the only mode in which the Union can be restored and put on the march of" a newer and more glorious progress, is by having due regard to the mutual advantages and interests of the States. This will rest our liberties on a solid basis. This cannot be done by laying waste their lands, or by carrying off then property, or by endeavoring to make the African that which God did not intend—the physical, mental, and social equal of the w^ rin t o it as bo IS done now reposed. bv tinkering Let with the. the Constitution Oonstitu one 11 is good enough. Under it we grew in power and dignity until the civilized world compelled to admit the' J nal Reli covenmient J ei uit. v tree "stand in all its fullness and beauty, not a leaf withered and dropping, not a bough dead and topped off; let it stand, and under its refreshing shade, beneath its green branches, there will yet repose a united, happy, and prosperous people.

The heart of the nation has been wonderfully stirred by the following words of an American poet, so that they have passed into household language:

Woodman, spare that tree!

Touch not a single bough;

In youth it sheltered me,

And I-ll protect it now."

Paraphrasing these touching words, I to day invoke this House to protect the Constitution of our fathers.

Mr. ROLLINS, of Missouri, next addressed the House. [His speech will be published in the Appendix.]

Mr. PENDLETON. I desire, before proceeding with any remarks upon this joint resolution, to submit an amendment.

The SPEAKER. One amendment is pending offered yesterday by the gentleman from Wisconsin, [Mr. Wheeler.]

M r. PENDLETON. Is not an amendment to the amendment in order?

The SPEAKER. If it is germane to the amendment of the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. PENDLETON. What I propose is to strike out that portion of the bill which submits the amendment of the Constitution to the Legislatures of the several States, and to insert a provision submitting it to the conventions of the several States, so that the ratification, if at all, shall be by conventions of three fourths of the States.

The SPEAKER. The gentleman can only introduce his amendment to accomplish that purpose by moving a substitute for the entire resolution.

Mr. PENDLETON. I offer my amendment, then, in the shape of a substitute.

Mr. ARNOLD. Will the gentleman yield to me for five minutes?

Mr. PENDLETON. T will.

Mr. ARNOLD. I desire to ask the gentleman from Ohio whether with that amendment he will vole for the resolution?

Mr. PENDLETON. I will not. There is no difficulty in answering that question; but I desire, if gentlemen intend to submit a proposition ot this kind to the States for ratification, that* they shall submit it to conventions which are elected for the sole purpose of passing on it, and not to Legislatures already elected upon other and different issues.

Mr. Speaker, I approach the discussion of this question with great diffidence. I believe in the constant progress of political science, and I am willing always to yield to its just demands. 1 believe in the constant amelioration of the condition of the human race, and I am anxious in every position in social or political, in private or public life, to aid in every movement toward that result. I believe in the constant development of the human intellect; and I think it our bounden duty to apply its maturing powers to theever va rymg condition of affairs which the ages in their course evolve. I revere the wisdom and the virtue of the good men who have gone before us; but I am unwilling blindly to believe that either their principles or their actions have attained to absolute perfection. I regard their achievements as the landmarks by which our course ought to be directed, not as barriers by which our progress should be stayed.

IJut, sir, I am profoundly convinced that wise men will not lightly touch the organic law of a Government which has held its beneficent sway over thirty million people, and that their hesitation will be akin to solemn dread when that Government by the sparing exercise of extremely limited powers has been able to maintain social order without retarding an unparalleled development of material prosperity in t he midst of the enjoyment of civil and pei so mil liberty unequaled in the history of the world. This Constitution has existed for seventy five years; for sixty its provisions have been unchanged. Three times only has the hand of change touched it: once when, in obedience to the requirements of the conventions which ratified it, the First Congress proposed amendments to the States; again in 1794, when the Third Congress proposed an amendment to limit the power of the Federal judiciary; and again after the struggle for the Presidency in 1801, when it became necessary to change the mode of electing the Presidentand Vice President. it is worthy of attention that not one of these amendments added to the powers which were delegated to the United States, and not one of them added to the powers which were prohibited to the States. All of them except the last, in reference to the election of President and Vice President, were guarantees of the personal liberty of the citizen, or declarations of the inviolability of the reserved rights of the States.

Sir, these sixty years have been eventful in the life of the nation. Three million people have become thirty million. Our western boundary, then hidden in the almost unknown valley of the Mississippi, now touches the Pacific, whose laughing waves reflect the gems which sparkle on the golden shore. France, Spain, Mexico on the south and Great Britain on the north have added to the extent of this magnificent domain. We have had wars upon the sea and wars upon the land. We have had wars of invasion, and have repelled the invader. We have had foreign wars, and have tasted the triumphs of conquest. We have had struggles for the emoluments of office; we have had struggles for the political powers of the Government; we have had partisan strife; we have had sectional strife; and this Constitution was sufficient for all of these things.

But a change has come over us. New principles have been asserted. A new party has come into power, and that party, in the first term of its administration, in the midstof the civil war which was coincident with its attainment of power when a million and a half of men with serried ranks and glittering bayonets invoke the arbitrament of the sword, calls upon us to change in a vital point this Constitution.

I object to this action for many reasons. I object to it because the time is not auspicious. I know full well that in the excitements of war, when all the elements of mind and matter are brought into conflict, we attain in a moment, as it were, to results which the experience of an age of peaceful life would not develop. But, sir, these are times for inventing and not for perfecting. They are times for experimenting and not for the full matin nig of plans. They are times in which to try expedients. But it requires the self possession, the deliberation, the freedom from excitement which belong to times of peace to lay securely and justly and wisely the foundations of a permanent free Government.

Jn 1861, before a drop of blood was shed, before an army was put into the field, before excitement was rife, before exacerbation had sprung up, an eminent statesman then in the Senate, now in the Cabinet, spoke on this subject. His theme was the perils which environed the Union, and the true method of avoiding them. All eyes were directed to him, all ears were intent to hear him. The country stood silent to catch the word of hope. Gentlemen who were here at that time will remember how this House was deserted in order that we might hear from Mr. Seward, in the Senate, his remedy for the evils and his plans to allay the excitements of that hour. He concluded his speech with the remark which I desire to commend to my friends on the opposite side of this Chamber:

But it" the measure were practicable I should prefer a difl eient course, namely, when (he eccentric movements of secession and disunion e hn l have ended, In whatever form that end may come, and the angry excitements of tiie iiourxhai! have subsided, and calmness shall h ive once moio Kisumod its accustomed sway over the public* mind, then, and not till then—one, two, three years hence would cheerfully advise a convention of the people, to be assembled in pursuance ot ti u Constitution, to consider and decide whether any and what amendments of the national organic law ought to be made.*'

I confide the weight of the objection I first make to the passage of this resolution to the wisdom and soundness of the views expressed at that time by that Senator.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the passage of this resolution for this simple reason, that it is impossible that the amendment proposed should be ratified without a fraudulent use select the term advisedly—without a fraudulent use of the power to admit new States or a fraudulent use of the military power of the Federal Government in the seceded States.

There are thirty five States. Twenty seven are necessary to ratify this amendment. There are nineteen free States. Suppose you get them all, where do you get the others? Count also Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia, even Delaware, if you please, and you have but twenty three Where are the otherfour? Gentlemen tell me they have provided for the admission of Colorado, Montana, and Nevada. This addition to the number of States increases to the same extent the number necessary for the ratification. If you get them all, four are still wanting. If you intend to make up this number by the addition of new States you will have to add sixteen; three fourths of which, twelve, will be the proper proportion for the nu nber added, and the remaining four to make up the deficiency among the old States. Are gentlemen prepared to carve sixteen new States out of this territory in the Westforthis purpose? Will gentlemen call on the southern States to furnish the requisite number? Does any man suppose that Kentucky, if left to her unbiased choice, will ratify this amendment? Will you call on Tennessee? Tennessee is to day in possession of a military governor, and not represented in either House of Congress. Arkansas? Arkansas begs to day that you will recognize her as a State and admit her Senator. And he cannot be admitted. Louisiana? General Banks is again its military governor. He is already ashamed of the farce which was enacted there a short time since, and is about to get rid of the pretense of a government which a little while ago he set up in the person of our quondam colleague, Michael Hahn. South Carolina? -Is she to be called upon? Why, sir, the possession of Hilton Head did not give hold upon that State enough to secure the admission of delegates to the Baltimore convention.

If these States are to vote in their present condition, it would be a broad farce if it were not a wicked fraud.

If they are to be reorganized under the proclamation of the President, or under an act of Congress, upon the basis of one tenth of the population, it must be effected through the exercise of military power and by the votes of the dependents and hangers on and contractors and cormorants who follow an army, and if you should attempt to amend the Constitution by such means, what binding obligation would it have? What binding obligation ought it to have? Do you suppose the States now in secession, with arms in their hands, and where you have hardly a foothold, would ever submit to it? Do you really propose to establish over them by force of arms a Constitution which you have just changed by force of arms?

If that is your purpose, I warn you now that you will destroy the last lingering hope, faint, small as it now is, that you will ever be able to restore this Union, or even to maintain the jurisdiction of the Federal Government over those States.

But, sir, I object to the passage of this resolution because in my judgment this amendment, or this change will not call it an amendment— of the Constitution is not within the power conferred by the Constitution. The arguments which my friend from Kentucky [Mr. Mallohy] and my friend from Indiana [Mr. Edgerton] have made upon that subject relieve me from the necessity of dwelling long upon it. 1 know what the language of the Constitution is. I desire to ask gentlemen opposite, and I address my question particularly to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Thayer] who spoke this morning, whether they contend that three fourths of the States can make any and every change of this Constitution. The gentleman said this morning that they can change the number of Representatives here in the Federal Congress. I grant it. He said that they could change the length of tenure of the presidential office, i grant it.

Mr. STROUSE. What gentleman from Pennsylvania made those assertions? To whom does the gentleman reft r?

Mr. PENDLETON. I refer to the gentleman s colleague over the way, [Mr. Thayer,] who spoke this morning. But is it competent under the Constitution for three fourths of the States to change the Government into a hereditary tnonarchy; to abolish, the Senate and House of Representatives, and convert this Government into an autocracy? It certainly is not. That would be revolution, not amendment. The States cannot, under the pretense of amending the Constitution, subvert the structure, spirit, and theory of this Government.

Mr. THAYER. Does the gentleman expect me to answer his question now?

Mr. PENDLETON. Certainly. I will yield to the gentleman for that purpose.

Mr. THAYER. I say distinctly that it is in the power of the people of this country to erect any Government that the people may choose. I will say, further, that the weakness of an argument is often shown by putting an extreme case like that which the gentleman puts and which is scarcely within the range of human probability.

Mr. PENDLETON. It is not a question of human probability. The question is whether the power exists under the Constitution to do it.

Mr. THAYER. In answer to that I will say that the powers of the people under the Constitution are unlimited except in the case of the particulars in which by the Constitution they are limited.

Mr. PENDLETON. That is a different proposition. The gentleman thinks that there is power under the pretense of amending the Constitution to revolutionize it. He thinks it competent to change this Government into a monarchy or into an oligarchy; to change it not by the mere force of arms under the rights of revolution, but under this written Constitution. He believes that one fourth of the States are bound hand and foot, and must submit to anything that the other three fourths attemptto impose upon them.

Mr. THAYER. I think it competent for a majority of the people of this country to determine what shall be the character of the institutions of the country.

Mr. PENDLETON. Do you think it competent for a majority to do it under the provisions of the Constitution?

jtfr. THAYER. I do.

Mr. PENDLETON. Then why is it that three fourths of the States are required to ratify the amendment of the Constitution? Why not simply require a majority of all the people of the States?

Mr. THAYER. Because three fourths of the States is the constitutional majority which it requires to accomplish it. When I speak of a majority I mean, of course, a constitutional majority.

Mr. PENDLETON. Exactly. That is the Constitution. And therefore it is not competent for a majority of the people, under the Constitution, to change this Government as they see fit.

Mr. THAYER. When I spoke of a majority, I meant a constitutional majority.

Mr. WADSWOttTH. 1 beg the gentleman from Ohio to indulge me for a single question.

Mr. PENDLETON. For only a single one.

Mr. WADSWORTH. I wish to know whether, under the doctrine of the gentleman from Pennsylvania Mr Thayer,] three fourths of the States could compel all the States to have slavery.

Mr. PENDLETON. I yield for a moment that the gentleman from Pennsylvania may say yes" or" no" to that proposition.

Mr. THAYER. I believe that under the Constitution three fourths of tiieStates might legalize it in all the States; and allow me to add that m saying that I stand by that Constitution which gentlemen on that side of the House make a great show of upholding until there is a practical question presented under it for our action, when they oppose its plain provisions.

Mr. PENDLETON. I agree to no such doctrine. I repudiate it entirely. There is in three fourths of the States neither the power to establish nor to abolish slavery in all the States. The gentleman says I put an improbable case. I admit it. I did so purposely. 1 desired to test the extent of the constitutional power. 1 desired to show that the power was to amend, not to revolutionize, not to subvert the form and spirit and theory of the Government. The Federal Government has powerovcr the relations ol the States with foreign nations, and the relations of the States as between and among themselves. It has no power over the purely internal affairs of the State. This principle was as familiar as household words three years ago. Every power delegated to the Federal Government relates either to the international or the inter State relation s of the United States. Every power prohibited to the States affects the same relations, and them only". The domestic internal affairs of a State, having no connection with the Federal Government, or with foreign nations, or with the other States, are reserved to the absolute, exclusive sovereign power of the States respectively, and to the people thereof. The other States are not affected by them, and have no interest in them. The Federal Government has no cognizance of them. The power of amendment which is confided to three fourths of the States does not reach them nor the power to regulate them, but is limited to the subjects and powers delegated to the United States. It is not competent, in my judgment, for three fourths of the States to abolish that provision of the Constitution by which no new State shall be formed within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, without the consent of the Legislatures, and give to the Congress thepower to subdivide orunite the States; norisit competent for three fourths of the States to amend the Constitution so as to give to the Federal Government the power to appoint the Governors of the States, nor to prescribe the qualifications of electors in the State, nor the number or qualifications of the members of its Legislature, nor to amendtheconstitution oflheStaie. Three fourths of the States might change the war making power, or the power to regulate commerce, or thepower to make treaties. Three fourths of the States may abolish the three fifths rule of representation, or the provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves, or the rule for imposing direct taxes. All these amendments may be made, because they relate to inter State affairs. They relate to the connections of the States as between themselves, or as between the States and foreign nations. But neither three fourths of the States, nor all the States save one, can abolish slavery m that dissenting State, because it lies within the domain reserved entirely to each State for itself, and upon it the other States cannotenter.

I have said nothing about the purposes sought to be accomplished by this amendment. I do not intend to. if the institution of slavery were all that gentlemen in this debate have declared it to be, if its abolition were as desirable as they assert, I, for one, would still not yield the position which I have taken. I would deny the power of the States to touch it outside their own limits, and I find my satisfaction in the fact that the people of the States themselves could and doubtless would correct the evil. But if this amendment were within the constitutional power of amendment; if this were a proper time to consider it; if three fourths of the States were willing to ratify it; and if it did not require the fraudulent use of power either m this House or in the executive department to secure its adoption, I would still resist the passage of this resolution, it is another step toward consolidation, and consolidation is despotism; confederation is liberty.

1 believe, sir, in the doctrine of State rights. 1 know it is fashionable to day to denounce it. I know that regard for it has been diminished in the public mmd; and I know also that in the same degree has love of union waned, and want of harmony among the States increased.

The colonies were originally independent of each other. Their only connection was through the British Crown. New York was as independent of Virginia as of India; Massachusetts was as independent of Pennsylvania as ot New Zealand. At times, when threatened with an Indian war, or pressed by some oilier common danger, they took counsel together, and asked for their common protection. In early times the New England colonies formed a league, but it was finally dissolved in 16S8. In 1754 war with France was imminent, and delegates from the colonies met at Albany. The convention was held under the auspices of the British Government. The delegates unanimously declared in favor of a Federal Union, ami adopted a scheme of confederation prepared by Franklin. It was disapproved by the mother Government and by every provincial Assembly. The encroachments of the Crown roused the colonies again to the necessity of union. In 1774 they sent delegates to Philadelphia. They were sent for consultation and advice. They exhausted their power in doing that. Their successors met in 1775. It was the revolutionary Congress. It was that Congress whose State papers Lord Chatham declared to be unsurpassed in the history of diplomacy. Their authority was to take counsel; their legislation was recommendation. They sat for a year, and then they declared that the united colonies were free and independent States—not a State— but each a free and independent State; and to maintain this declaration they pledged each to the other" their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." This declaration converted colonies into independent States, whose sole relation to each other would thenceforth depend upon their own will.

On the same day the Articles of Confederation were proposed. They were adopted by the first State in July, 1778, by the last in 1781. We have been told lately by one high in authority that the States weronever out of the Union. What was their condition between July, 1776, and July, 1778? They were independentStates cooperating, acting m unison, uniting their armies for their common defense. There were nodefined relations, no fixed duties, no prescribed obligations. There was no treaty, no compact, no contract; some of them were ready to enter into confederation, some had authorized their delegates to agree to and sign articles. Butthis had not been done, and until it was done the cooperation was purely voluntary, and' each State was the sole judge of the extent and character ofits cooperation. The pressure of war ceased. The Articles of Confederation were disregarded; the Union was fastgoingto pieces; the Convention which framed the Constitution met. The student of political history will find much to interesthim. The men of this day would find food for reflection in the history of parties and of men in that Convention. Randolph and Madison of Virginia, Pinckney of South Carolina, scarcely less than Hamilton, were advocates of a strong consolidated Government. Oppressed by a sense of the insufficiency ofthe powerofthe Confederation of which they each had large experience, they sought a remedy in centralization. They were citizens of large States, and large States were safe by reason of their numbers and wealth. The delegates from the small States were opposed to consolidation. New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware were the friends of confederation. I have not time to trace the action of the Convention. 1 will content myself with one or two particulars as illustrations of the spirit of the members and of the conclusions which were attained.

Mr. Hamilton proposed that the Governors of the States should be appointed by the General Government. Mr. Pinckney declared himself warmly in favor of this plan, and desil ed in addition to give the Governor a control over State laws. It met apparently with little favor, how* ever, and was not pressed.

The power of the national Legislature to negative the laws ofthe States elicited much discussion. Mr. Randolph proposed that the power should extend to all laws 44 contravening, in the opinion of the national Legislature, thearttcleeof Union or any treaty subsisting under the authority of the Union." Mr. Charles Pinckney proposed that it should extend to "revise the laws ofthe several States that may be supposed to infringe the powers exclusively delegated by the Constitution to Congress, and to negative ami annul such as do." Mr. Charles Co esworlh Pinckney moved" that the national Legislature should have authority to negative altlaws which they should jud e to be improper," Mr, Madison seconded the motion." He could not but regard an indefinite power to negative legislative acts of the States as absolutely necessary to a perfect system." The debate was warm. Mr. Pinckriey s motion was rejected, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia only voting for it. And the proposition of Mr. Randolph was also rejected, Massachusetts and Virginia alone voting for it. (Madison Papers, 732, 735, 1116.) It was in this debate that Mr. Madison said:

"Should no such precaution be taken the only remedy would be an appeal to coercion. Was such a remedy eligible? Was it practicable? Could the national resources, it exerted to the utmost, enforce a national dccrcc agam t Massachusetts, abetted, perhaps, by several of tier neighbors? It would not be possible. Any government for the United States formed on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional pioceedinys of the States would prove as visionary as the government of Congress —Madison Papers, 829.

And or) the question whether any negative of any kind on State laws should be given, the vote stood: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, in favor of, and Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, against it. (Madison Papers, 1412.)

The rule of suffrage in the national Legislature was so difficult of adjustment as to jeopard the continuance of the Convention. The contest was between those who insisted on an equality of votes as in the Confederation and those who desired to apportion the votes according to numbers or otherwise. The large States—Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina—voted steadily for an inequality of vote. This rule for the first branch was readily adopted, New Jersey and Delaware alone dissenting. And upon the question of applying the same rule to the Senate, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for it. (Madison Papers, 843.)

An accommodation was finally effected between the parties by giving to each State representation in the House according to population and in the Senate an equal representation; and against this adjustment Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia voted to the last; Massachusetts divided. (Madison Papers, 1107.)

i have not time to discuss the various views put forward in relation to the various modes of electing the President, nor to show the position of the States and the delegates on that point. The same general spirit pervaded the discussion, and the votes were determined generally by the desire or the fear of a strong consolidated government.

The Constitution was adopted. It was submitted to the States for ratification.

Madison and Hamilton, both members of the Convention, both disappointed by the defeat of some of their favorite provisions, both anxious for a stronger national Government, and for the subordination if not the destruction of tiie State governments, understood well the intention of the Convention and the meaning of the Constitution. They urged its ratification in the Federalist.

The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] has spoken of" the pestilent doctrine of State rights;" and the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Baldwin] has said" State sovereignty never was anything more than a dream of theorists." I confront them with Hamilton:

"The State governments, by their original constitutions, are invested wall complete sovereignty."*** An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entno subordination of the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them would be aitogetherdependenton the general will. But as the plan of the Convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the lights of sovereignty which they before bad, and which were not by that act exclusively delegated to the United States."**** "The rule that all the authorities of which the States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union remain with them in full vigor, i? not, only a theoretical consequence of that division, (t e.. of sovereign power,) but is clearly admitted by the whole tenor of the instrument which contains the ai tides ot the proposed Constitution —federalist Nos 3l i confront them with Madison:

"In this relation, then, the piopo od Government cannot be considered a national one, since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumeiated ai tides only, and leaves to the several States a rc iduaiy and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects —Federalist No. 39.

My colleague [Mr. Garfield] says, "The States have no flag, have no army, cannot declare war, cannot make peace; how then can they be sovereign?" Sovereign power can forbear the exercise of any attribute; can delegate its exercise to another. 11 requires an act of sovereign power to delegate these powers of declaring war and making peace. But if the gentleman denies the sovereign power of the States because they have agreed to delegate certain powers to the Federal Government, upon what ground will he claim sovereignty for the Federal Government, whose powers are all delegated, and which cannot now and never could provide a tribunal or a law by which the citizen of a State may recover from a citizen of the same State the amount of a simple promissory note?

The Constitution was adopted by the States, not by the people as a nation, nor yet by the people of the States, but by the States themselves:

Each State in ratifying the Constitution is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act —Madison Papers, No. 39.

The States ratified the Constitution, and the citizens of each State owed obedience to it by reason of the ratification by that State. Their allegiance to it was through their State, given by its command, transferred by its act. The State of Massachusetts adopted the Federal Constitution; by that act that State became a member of the Federal Union; and in this wise, and this alone, the citizens of Massachusetts were compelled, were entitled, to recognize its authority. If Massachusetts had rejected the Constitution, its citizens would have owed no obedience to, would have had no interest in, would have been entitled to no protection from the Federal Government. Rhode Island did not ratify the Constitution till May, 1790, one year after the inauguration of the new Government. What was hercondition in the interval? The old Confederation had been entirely dissolved. She had not become a member of the new one. Was she not then an independent, sovereign State? Was she not a "State out of the Union r"

The discussions during this period had caused a searching investigation of the nature of the Federal Government, itscharacterasanationalGovernment had been asserted. The powers and rights of the States had been questioned. The ratifying conventions demanded that all uncertainty on this point should be dispelled. The First Congress proposed and within six months nine States adopted the amendment to the Constitution, that

All powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The pure character, the spotless patriotism, the unfaltering firmness of Washington sufficed to delay the struggle between confederation and consolidation in the early administration of the new Government. It came in the days of John Adams. The alien and sedition laws were the occasion. The States of Virginia and Kentucky declared their fixed opinion and purpose. Other States responded; the struggle was severe, butits termination gave possession of the administration for twenty four years to Jefferson and Madison and Monroe, and that party which adhered to the declaration of principles contained in the Resolutions of 1798 and 1799. They declare that the powers of the Federal Government result u from the compact to which the States are parties;" that they are is limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact;" that they "are no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact;" and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right and are in duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within theirrespective limits the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them."

Mr. Speaker, 1 have entered into this historical examination not for the purpose of insisting upon the use of mere names, or of discussing any questions which are just now rather speculative than practical. They all find their solution in the logical deductions from these premises. I desired rather to assert the true theory and nature of the Government in order to solve this pending question. I have desired to maintain that the States are sovereign; that their powers are inherent; that they comprise the undelegated mass; that the Federal Government is their agent, derives all its powers from them, exercises its powers in their name; that its duties are few and defined, and its powers are few and simple, sometimes exclusive and far reaching but always limited to the grants declared in the Constitution. have done this in order that I might bring vividly to the mind of each gentleman here that this Government was designed to be a confederation of States, not a consolidated empire, and to beg them, amidst the temptations of these evil days, to adhere to the wise design of its original formation.

The experience of seventy five years has confirmed the wisdom of the fathers. The States administering their own internal affairs, the Federal Government regulating their international and inter State relations, have each fulfilled their respective duties and exercised in harmony their respective powers. We have had peace and prosperity; we have had liberty and social order; we have had variety of institutions in the parts, and unity and vigor in the whole; we have solved the problem of large confederations; we have reconciled the liberty of. the citizen with the expansion of empire; individuals have been free; communities have been self governing minorities have been protected. The theory of State sovereignty, the theory of State rights, has done this. 1 beg gentlemen not to depart from it. I beg them not to be seduced into the idea that we can be more free or more prosperous or more happy by breaking down the States and substituting for their just influence the unbridled will of a majority of the whole people. We do not need uniformity of institutions. Their very variety develops' the good in all. Organized communities, with all the powers of well ordered and settled State governments, are the best security for the personal liberties and material interests of all the people. We of the Northwest will have little to fear if you insist upon a change. Our country, rich in all the products of a fruitful soil, is prolific of men. If the rule of a consolidated majority is to prevail, we can from our northern prairies send down a countless host under whose mighty tread the institutions of pigmy States and small communities will be trampled in the dust. Illinois has more voters than IStew Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut. Ohio has more voters than Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Teach them that power resides in numbers alone; teach them that the institutions of the States are not sacred from their touch: while they attack the institution of slavery to day you may smile, but to-morrow you will tremble when your religion, your manufactures, your capital are wrested from your control and subjected to their will. You have no safety but in the maintenance of your State governments, no security for your liberty, your property, your prosperity but in the protection of the rights of minorities under the power of firm, well established communities. We have gone too far toward consolidation already. Federal poweris encroachingon the States. The Executive is displacing the Legislature; the rights of individuals are not safe; the rights of minorities are not respected; power is raising itself above law, above Constitution, and putting the safeguards of liberty and the guarantees of good government beneath his feet. This House declares that it cannot look with satisfaction upon the establishment of an Austrian empire upon the ruins of a Mexican republic, and thereupon the President makes haste humbly to tell the Emperor of the French that although the House expresses the unanimous sentiment of our people, he governs the foreign affairs of the country and thatho will defy that sentiment in his action. Arguelles seeks asylum in New York. 'He is demanded as a slavetrader by the Cuban authorities, and the President and the Secretary of State, without treaty, without law, without judicial investigation, in violation of the rights of New York, m violation of the Constitution of the United States, command that he be secretly kidnapped in the night, and that to avoid a habeas corpus he be hidden away till the vessel sails for Cuba. We must retrace our steps; we must return to State rights. They are the conservators of liberty; they are the conservators of Union; and the first step of that return should be now and here, in our firm resolve to remit to the States, where the Constitution left it, the whole subject of domestic slavery.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. STILES. I move that the gentleman have leave to proceed for ten minutes.

Mr. PRICE. I object.

Mr. SPALDING. I desire permission of the House to ask thegentleman from Ohio aquestion.

Mr. PENDLETON. I shall be very happy to answer any question my colleague will ask, if the House will permit it.

Several Members objected.

Mr. WILSON. I desire to submit this suggestion to the House.

Mr. KALBFLEISCH. I object.

Mr. "WILSON. Well, sir, I move that the time fixed for taking a recess be extended till this resolution has been disposed of.

The SPEAKER. That motion is in order.

The motion was agreed to.

The question being on the amendment submitted by Mr. Wheeler,

Mr. GANSON called for the yeasand nays.

The yeas and nays were not ordered.

The amendment was disagreed to.

The substitute proposed by Mr. Pendleton was disagreed to.

The joint resolution was then ordered to a third reading, and was accordingly read the third time.

Mr HOLMAN demanded the yeas and nays upon the passage of the joint resolution.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The question was taken; and it was decided in the negative—yeas 93, nays 65, not voting 23; as follows:

YEAS—Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, Arnold, Bail), John D. Baldwin, Baxter, Bedmau, Blame, Blair, Blow, Boutwell, Boyd, Brandeaee, Droomall, Ambiose \V. Ciatk. Freeman (JlaikP, Colit), Cole, (.'resweil, Dawes, Denims, Dixon, Donnelly, Dnggs, Eckley, Ehot, Farnswoith. Fenton, Frank, Gaifield, Goocb, Griswold, Hale, Higi^ IIoojM Ilotcbki^, Abahcl VV, Ilubbaid, John If. Hubbard, Uullmnl, Ingei oIi Jencke?, Julian, Ka so Kelley, Francis W. Kellogg, Orlando Kellogg, Littlejohn, -Loan, Longyear, Marvin, McClura, Melndoe, Samuel F. Miller, Moojhead, Morrill, Dniiiof Morris, Amos Myers, Leonatd Myeis Norton Odell Charles O Neill Oith, Fattei on Peiliam, Pike, Price, Alexander H. Rice, John H. llice. riclieuck, Scofield, Shannon, Sloan, Snmh, Bnntliers, Spalding, Stair, Stevens, Thayer, Thomas, Tracfy, Up on Van Valkenourgh, Ehliu B. Wa hbin ne, Webster, Whaiey, Wheelei, Williams, Wilder, Wilson, Winuom, and Woodbridge—93.

NAYS—Messrs. James C. Allen, William J. Allen, Aneona, Ashley, Augustus C. Baldwin, Bliss, Brooks, James S. Brown, Clianler ColFjotli Cox, Cravens, Daw on DenifcOn, Edeii, Edgorton, EJdridge, English, Finek, (Sanson, Oridor, tlardiug, Harrington, Heirick, Holtnaii, Hutching Philip Johnson, William Johnson, Kalblletsch, Kernan, Kmc, Law, Lazear, Le Blond, Long, Maliory, Marcv, MeAlbsier, M( Dowel], McKmnev, William ii. Miller, James R. lMoi i is,Morrison, Noble John O Xeill Pendleton Pinyn Radford, Samuel J. Randall, Robinson, Rogers, James S. Rol in Ros-«, Scott, John B. Steele, William G. Steele, Stile, Stiou e Stuait, Sweat, Wadswortb, Ward, Chilton A. White, Joseph VV. White, and Fernando Wood—bo.

NOT VOTING—Messrs. William G. Brown, Clay Henry Winter Davis, Thomas T. Davis, Dimimif, Grinnell, Hail, Benjamin G. Harris, Chatles M. Harris, Knapp, McBride, Middleton, Nelson, Perry, Pomeroy, William H. Randall, Edward 11. Rollins. Stebbin-?, Voorhees, William B. Washburn, Winfield, Benjamin Wood, and Yeaman—23.

So the joint resolution was not passed, two thirds not having voted in favor thereof.

Daiinsj the, call of the roll,

Mr. WEBSTER stated that his colleague, M r. Davis, of Maryland, was detained from the House by illness, and was paired with Mr. Knapp, also detained by illness. Mr. Davis would have voted in the affirmative and Mr. Knapp in the negative.

Mr. STEELE, of New York, stated that his colleague, Mr. Davis, had paired with Mr. "Winfield.

Mr. COX stated that Mr. Voorhees had paired with Mr. Rollins, of New Hampshire.

Mr. McBRIDE stated that he had paired with Mr. Hall, otherwise he would have voted in the affirmative.

Mr. ASHLEY changed his vote from the affirmative to the negative, for the purpose of submitting at the proper time the motion to reconsider. JY11 Tn HARRIS, of Illinois. I, when very busy, was i requested by Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, to pair with him on this question. Without reflection or thinking that it required a vote of two thirds to cl.! iy the resolution, I agreed to it, which I now re l t t and but for which I should vote in the negative.

The vote was announced as above recorded.

Mr. HOLMAN. I rise to a question of order. I desire to know whether less than a majority is competent to lay a motion to reconsider the vote just taken on the table?

The SPEAKER. The only provision of the Constitution requiring a two thirds vote is upon the passage of the resolution.

Mr. HOLMAN. Then I will not submit a motion to reconsider.