January 10, 1865

But, Mr. Speaker, in reviewing the history of the last thirty years it is impossible not to perceive that while there has been a party who have •v furnished irritating pretexts, irritating to the pride and nature of men, there has also been a party who have as eagerly seized upon those subterfuges for the sole purpose of inflaming and controlling the southern mmd. They have used this power, not more with the view of defending slavery than for the purpose of carrying out a long determined deliberate, and wicked aim of setting up an independent power upon this continent for selfish and mgloiious ends; and if in the end those using slavery for this nefarious purpose shall find that the people, by the adoption of these amendments, destroy slavery, then it can but be evident to them that they have been the architects of their own fortunes.

Without any arguments, Mr. Speaker, as to the good or ills of slavery a primary question, and as it has all along existed under the sanction of the laws of our ancestors, nevertheless it has transpired during the course of this war that this institution was the chief lever by which the rebel leaders have wielded the southern mind; and for that reason it has lost nearly all the sympathy and support it once maintained. And to such extent has it become a source of irritation that it seems at length necessary, in order to secure the great blessings of peace and union once more, that the great question of its further existence or non existence shall be submitted to the people for their decision.

And here I am reminded by the arguments of gentlemen upon this floor of our want of constitutional power to pass this amendment. 1 aver that if I had a doubt as to the right of Congress upon this subject of proposing and passing this amendment by two thirds of this House and the Senate as at piesent organized, I unquestionably would vote against this amendment. I believe in the existence of the power; and while I say that I indorse the wisdom of that provision of the Constitution which declares that all power not delegated to die United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people. It has served as a guide and a landmark heretofore, and I trust it will long remain there as a landmark in the future; and it is Siot at all in conflict with that provision of the Constitution which authorizes amendments to be made to this Constitution.

Some gentlemen argue that we have no right to do it because slavery was one of the reserved rights of the States. 1 see nothing in the Constitution which reserves that right to the States, but i see from the proceedings which took place prior to the adoption of the Constitution, and especially in the provisions wh h are in the Constitution itself, that theConvention to frame the Constitution did take cognizance of this question of slavery. In the ninth section of the first article— and that is what is declared as one of the sentiments of the great Dred Scott decision—all the States were allowed, for twenty years after the adoption of this Constitution, to buy, sell, trade, and traffic in slaves in any manner they might please. And they might have done so, so far as any prohibition in the Constitution is concerned, up to 1864. But after the lapse of twenty years power was given to Congress to prohibit it in the future; and they did so at a subsequent period. Suppose we had here a proposed amendment to abrogate that ninth section, giving Congress that power after the expiration of twenty years, and to say that Congress should have no such power in the future, would gentlemen then quote the very language of the ninth section giving to all the States the power to trade and traffic m such propei ty? Gentlemen would not have the power to do that.

There is another provision which allows Congress to propose amendments to the Constitution. And the last provision is that Congress shall have no power to propose amendments by which States are deprived of their equal right of representation in the Senate. Now 1 maintain that this House has no right to propose an amendment to deprive a State of its equal representation in the Senate, because all our powers to propose amendments are derived from the Constitution. That is really the only existing prohibition that I know of in the Constitution. Can it be said that, under that restriction declaring the powers of the General Government, and the powers reserved to the States, Congress has no right to propose any amendment to the Constitution at all? Legitimately and logically, the argument would come to that. And yet, on a moment s reflection, no gentleman would take such a position.

Some gentlemen argue that we have no right to make any amendment, unless it be in reference to something already in the Constitution. The answer to that is that the very first session of Congress after the adoption of the Constitution a number of amendments were adopted on the suggestion of States to which the Constitution had been submitted for ratification, some of which had no sort of reference to anything in the Constitution as originally drafted. The most important of these grew out of principles which had cost the people of England oceans of blood—out of principles which were asserted in the Revolution. There cannot be any doubt of this but if any gentleman should still have a doubt on the subject, let us see how this Constitution was to be adopted.

In the very last article of the Constitution it is declared that the ratification by the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of the Constitution between the States so ratifying the same. Eleven of the States ratified the Constitution at once. Nine would have been enough to create and constitute a Government, not only de facto but dejure. The States of North Carolina and Rhode Island did not agree to it for several years afterwards; and according to my view of it they were not parties to the Constitution. The Convention originated with the delegates from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and perhaps some other States, who recommended that delegates should meet in Philadelphia on the second Monday in May, 1787—to do what? In order to amend and revise the Articles of Confederation. That was all the power they had. But who will say thatafter these delegates assembled in Convention they had not plenary power? They exercised it, and nobody has ever objected to it.

But the article of the Constitution which gives Congress power to propose amendments is that which declares that Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall find it necessary, shall propose amendments to the Constitution, and if adopted by three fourths of the States they become apart of the Constitution; or, on the application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, and that these amendments, when adopted by three fourths of the States, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution.

There are thus twomodes provided foramending the Constitution. If the proposed amendments come from the Legislatures of two thirds of the States, they are to be referred to a convention. But if they come from Congress, I ask whether Congress has not plenary powers to the extent of the authority given in the Constitution to propose any amendment it pleases, which is notexpressly prohibited to it, or reserved to the States in the Constitution itself. Certainly it has. Bull have heard the suggestion that it cannot be done because, saysone gentleman, there are eleven States that are not represented here. Why are they not here? Is it our fault that they are not? We cannot coerce States to send members here. That is one of the powers of coercion which I deny. It is a personal privilege guarantied to the States, and if they fail to avail themselves of it, it is their own fault.

This I House and the Senate, as at present organized, constitute Congress and we have aright to propose amendments to the Constitution. I do not suppose that the framers of the Constitution ever contemplated that eleven States, orany other number of States, should, upon any proposition which did not suit them, absent themselves. But it is a plain proposition that Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, may propose amendments to the Constitution. If we have not the power to do so because the Representatives of eleven States are absent, then all our acts are void. They are not what they purport to be on their face, acts passed by the Congress of the United States. That is one argument. Then, sir, the adoption of the Constitution required the consent of all the States, or, m other words, the States that did not agree to it were not to be bound by it, because in ai tide seven of the Constitution it is expressly declared that all the States agreeingto it should be bound by it. But that is not the rule when these amendments are proposed. Three fourths of the Legislating of the States, on the recommendation of two thirds of Congress, can propose and ratify amendments. Now, if the constitutional provision was that an amendmentshould receive the assent of all the States, just as that was required in the original adoption of the Constitution, I admit that the question might be raised whether or not we could proceed in this matter without the assent of those States that are now absent; many gentlemen here believing them yet in the Union, although they have thrown themselves outside of its pale for the time being. But that is not the constitutional provision.

To my mind this proposition is so plain that I had never studied much on this subject until I heard the arguments of gentlemen here, but the longer and more closely 1 look at it the, more I become satisfied that that clause in the Constitution amounts to nothing if such objections are to be raised.

Why, sir, upon this subjest of slavery, I know that Alexander Hamilton went home to New York from the Convention which framed the Constitution and told the people there that if they had not compromised on this subject there could have been no Union. I know that other men said so. That goes to satisfy my mind that if the North had held out there would perhaps have been no Union. On the other hand, if southern men had not demanded these compromises, m all probability a different Constitution would have been presented to the American people.

I now leave the constitutional question. I have endeavored to satisfy my own mind upon the subject, for to me it would be a stumbling-block if my mind was not clear upon it.

And now, Mr. Speaker, 1 ask the indulgence of the House while 1 recur briefly to some of the prominent facts connected with the history of this agitation. Chief among those, to my mind, appears the long fixed purpose of the rebel leaders to overthrow the Government without regard to slavery, and, in fact, regardless of everything which stood in the way of their own selfish aggrandizement.

As early as 1832 we find the spirit of treason abroad in South Carolina under the leadership of Mr. Calhoun. The pretext for this demonstration and effort to destroy the Government was the unequal and oppressive operation of the tariff; but in fact the promptings of Mr. Calhoun, and those of his political school, originated, not so much in their opposition to the tariff, as from a fixed design to sever the Union and set up a southern confederacy. Calhoun, while Vice President, having early saw the influence likely to be exerted by Mr. Van Buren in the administration of General Jackson, sought means to drive him from the Cabinet, and to produce a rupture between him and General Jackson, and to get himself m favor with the President. Failing in this, and determined to push his schemes to the point of a rupture with the Government, he sought as a pretext opposition to the tariff. I refer to the opinion of General Jackson, expressed shortly after the event, and which the history of events since that time abundantly verifies. In a letter dated at Washington, May 1, 1833, and written to Rev. Mr. Crawford, of Georgia, he says: u I have had a laborious trisd? hoic; but nullification is dead, and its actors and courtiers will only be remembered by the people to be execrated for their wicked designs to sever and destroy the only good Government on the globe, and that pto perity and happiness we enjoy over every other portion of the world. Hainan s gallows ought to be the fate of all such ambitious men who would involve their country in civil war and all the evils in train that they might reign and rule on its whirlwinds and direct the storm. The free people of these United States have spoken and consigned these wicked demagogues* to their proper doom. Take care of your nullifiers you have them among you. Let them meet with liie indignant frowns of every man who loves his country. The Uuiff, it is now known, was a ni epretc t <cTheiefoie the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and a southern confederacy the real object. The next yrelcxl will be the negro or blavei y question."

Thus wrote General Jackson nearly thirty two years ago. What says Colonel Benton, whose whole history, from lfc 33 to the day of his death, is filled with warning upon this subject, and who sacrificed himself by refusing to worship the Moloch of slavery in Missouri, whose people are today reaping the bitter fruits of their persecutions and disregard of his counsels? In thesecond volume of his Thirty Years in the Senate" he has furnished a truthful page for history upon this subject, and which it may be useful to introduce here. He says:

"The icgnlar inauguration of this slavery agitation dates from the year It3."); but it had commenced two year* before, and m this way: nullification and disunion had commenced m lb 3U upon complaint agvun t piut clive tariff. That being put down in under President Jackson s proclamation and energetic measures, was immediately substituted by the slaveiy agitation. Mr. Calhoun, when lie went home from Oongie-^ in the spuug of that year, told his friends that the South could ucverbe united against the Noitli on the taull' que lioti that the ^ugar interest of Louisiana would keep Isei out, and tli it ihe b iMa of outh ei n union mil -t be* shifted to the slave question. Then all the paper" in hi-: mteie t and especially the one at Washington, published by IVh. Duff Green, dropped tariff agitation and commenced upon slavery, and m twoyeas had the agitation ripe for inauguration on the slavery question. And in 1 tracing this agitation to its present stage, and to comprehend its rationale, it is not to ho forgotten iluu it a jneie continuation or old tan ft' disunion, and preferred because more available."

Those words of Jackson and Benton were prophetic, and we are now reaping the fruits of that policy. I ask the privilege for a few moments now to review as briefly as I can the course that has been uniformly pursued by these southern men in reference to this matter from that day down to the day of the inauguration of this rebellion.

Mr. Calhoun, being thwarted on the tariff question, early went to work in reference to the slavery question. The next agitation, as we have seen, was to be upon that question, and my recollection is that the action by the anti-slavery societies of the North commenced about the same tune. They saw that the field was open; they saw the purpose of those southern men, and I admit that they fanned the flame. They went side by side, seemingly at times cooperating together, each one of them, in every instance and in every movement, tending to make wider the breach between the North and the South. They talked so mueh about the North and the South that we who lived in the Westalmost came to the conclusion that there was nothing; in this Union but the North and the South. We never heard of any question bemgdiscussed here unless it was a northern and southern question, una that, too, in reference to slavery.

Mr. Calhoun commenced his intrigues shortly after Mr. Van Buren had been made President, having an eye to Texas, and not being satisfied with Mr. Van Buren s position on that question, he intrigued against him, and Mr. Van Buren was defeated in the next nominating convention. In 1848 Mr. Van Buren was nominated by a convention at Buffalo, and at that stage of our political history arose what was called the free soil party. Up to this point of time the question had not assumed a particular or definite shape as to the mode and manner in which they should agitate this question, yet it was continually broached in every possible shape without seeming to have any definite result m view.

But the administration of Polk passed off. Then arose another branch of this question, or rather, it was an addition to the old question. And what was called the free soil party, or the YVilmot pro viso party, then arose. And in 1848 General Taylor, not upon questions and issues that sprung up between the politicians, but upon the high appreciation for his character and military ability, was nominated and elected. After his time had expired there was a convention of the Democratic party held in 1852 and nominated a candidate for the Presidency.

And whom did they nominate? Franklin Pierce, avowedly the candidate of southern men. 1 have nothing to say against the administration of Franklin Pierce; at least, 1 have no arraignment of him to make. But he was unquestionably the candidate of southern men, and could never have been nominated or elected unless they had brought him forward.

But let me refer here to some measures of importance that preceded his nomination. The compromise measures of 1850 had been adopted. Those measures were acceptable to the great body of the people both North and South. I do not think they were acceptable to the nullifiers of the South, nor do I believe they were acceptable to the abolitionists, who were fanning the flame of discord in the North. But I say that to the great mass of the American people, North and South, the compromise measures of 1850 were acceptable. And it became evident that there wasa disposition among the American people to drop this slavery agitation; and when Mr. Pierce was nominated, in 1852, there was an express agreement, and stipulation, and understandmgbetween southern men and northern men, that they would nominate and elect Mr. Pierce, and forever stop this slavery agitation. Therefore the barnburners and Wilmot-proviso men came together, with others,! in support of Mr. Pierce, and he was elected.

But who denies, at this time, that his Secretary of War, who is now the president of the confederate States, shaped his course and his policy with an eye to the ultimate object that he believed was approaching.' No one can deny it now. We can trace it in all his acts and movements. And after Mr. Pierce was elected, and before the electionof Mr. Buchanan, there came up another question. The Territory of Kansas was to be organized; and what was the policy pursued by the southern men then? They thought it was a trump in their hands, if they could only force the principles ot non-intervention, as adopted m the compromise of 1850. The Missouri compromise R stood in their way, and non-intervention was one of the arguments which they used for its repeal. They believed that if they could get the Missouri compromise out of the way in the organization of the Territory of Kansas, then they could play the trump card in the great effort they were making, and win a position which would enable them ultimately to get up such a state of feeling among the people of this nation as to break it up.

A bill was brought in to organize the Territory of Kansas. I have not looked at the Journals; 1 have never looked at them. But i know the impression made upon my mind, and I will state it. The Senate was not satisfied with the bill as first reported by the Committee on Territories, being controlled by the Calhoun influence at the time, and referred it back to the committee The committee reported a second time, and reported a bill for the organization of Kansas and Nebraska.! The southern members were not satisfied with. that, and it was referred again to the committee.( 1 well recollect the doolaratum made to me by our Senator, Mr. Atchison, in r< frrence to that matter. The committee had known very wellatthe first what they wanted, but they had refused to give it. Mr. Atchison said to me that if the committee, when they reported the third time, had not reported a bill to repeal the Missouri compro~ mise, they would have taken it out of the hands of the chairman of thecommittee, (Mr. Douglas,) and he, Mr. Atchison, would have reported it himself. But they got their report at last. They inserted in the bill, as a sort of justification of their action, what Colonel Benton very properly and forcibly characterized as" a stump speech injected into the belly of the bill." They said that they did not intend to legislate slavery into or out of the Territory, but leave the people there perfectly free to act for themselves, in accordance with the principles of the compromise measures of 1850.

Then immediately after the organization of that Territory and the wiping out of the Missouri compromise—which was the worst measure ever adopted as a party measure by the Democratic paity since its first organization Democratic party broke down for a time. 1 had belonged to the Democratic party up to that time, and continued still to act with it, yet I declare here to day that if I could have found any other party which would have suited me better, or even as well, I should have gone into it; and I know that thousands of good Democrats did abandon the party on that occasion. By that act they had taken away the only wall of defense, other than the Constitution, that the slaveholders had against which to plant themselves for the purpose of protecting their rights againstaggression. They had wiped it out; but then they had a purpose to accomplish in it. And what was that? Directly after the Territory was organized we in Missouri saw, and no doubt you heard. There was a Colonel Buford—[ believe they called him—from Alabama, Georgia, or South Carolina, one of those three States. He absolutely came with a lot of young sprouts from South Carolina, from Georgia, and from Alabama, up to Kansas. They did not come as emigrants; but they came there with arms in their hands. For what? To clear the road and put slavery into Kansas. Great excitement was aroused upon the border at that time; and a number of Missourians joined in: the effort. Thereupon the emigrant aid societies sprang up. They, too, came not in the capacity of emigrants; but they came trotting along with black carpet sacks in their hands, with very little, seemingly, to live upon after they got there. Every one understood their object. Each one of them had, either in his wagon or on his shoulder, a good Sharpe s rifle.

Now, that just suited the notions of those men who had sent Buford and his gang to Kansas. There was an issue. There was bloodshed there. Many men were induced to go there from Missouri. I deprecated it at the time, just as I deprecate this rebellion as a wrong. I believed then, and I believe now, that two wrongs never make a right. The conduct of the Emigrant Aid Society, and of those men who were trying, the one party to whip slavery into Kansas, and the other' to whip it out, could result in no good. Oh 1 sir, if you could but know how the people of my district on the border of Kansas are suffering to day and have been suffering fho bitter fruits of the effort to whip slavery into Kansas and fight it in there, those people would at least have your commiseration. The men of Missouri who were engaged in that matter were the identical men who engaged in this rebellion. They joined the army of the South. Many of them are dead and gone, and those who are living are afraid to come back. But the honest inhabitants of the country there—and there were thousands and thousands of them who countenanced no such thing as this —have been made to suffer; and the result is that we are desolated, burnt out destroyed We have been made to drink the bitter cup to the very dre s not by our own conduct, but by the efforts of those men who set out with the purpose to break up this Union. These facts are well recognized and understood in Missourinow. The people all see and feci that the thing was brought uporiud by the causes to which I have alluded.

But, sir, they failed to make Kansas a slave Stale, although thfy had obtained the repeal of the Mist ouri compromise. After they had failed in that object, what was their next move? In 1856 a President was to be elected, and in the summer of that year there assembled at Cincinnati a convention which nominated Mr. Buchanan. That, I believe, was the first occasion on ■which South Carolina ever sent delegates to a national convention. But what was the course and conduct of the South in that convention? Do you not remember, sir, that Mr. Yancey, at the head of the Alabama delegation came to Cincinnati with instructions from the party in Alabama which he represented that if the convention did not recognize the principle of non interventiorr he should withdraw, and then they were going to make a point? But, Mr. Speaker, the compromise measures of 1850, recognizing the principle of non-intervention, had been adopted. The Missouri compromise, which was in the wayof nonintervention (for that measure was intervention) had been repealed. The party then recognized in their platform for the first time (although it had been pressed on them time and again) the principle of non intervention Upon that principle they nominated Mr. Buchanan; upon that principle they went into the election; upon that principle their candidate was electcd.

What was done during the Administration of Mr. Buchanan? I helped to elect Mr. Buchanan; I gave him nVy vote; but I am bound to say that, whether he knew it or not, no man is now so blind as not to see that during that Administration there was sought to be made the whole arrangement which was to give the southern men such a position in its winding up that they would be enabled safely and securely and according to their own theory to go out of the Union without any sort of trouble. With a Secretary of War, a Secretary of the Treasury, and a Secretary of the Interior, all of whom have since held high positions in the rebel army, who doubts for a moment that during that Administration they made every arrangement and put sued every policy that was calculated to give them the advantage; not the advantage as equals, but to put them m a position to accomplish their diabolical purposes? JNo one can doubt Unit. At the very close of the Administration I may as well mention H here because it has always been bearing upon my mind —at the very close of his Administration, if he had the nerve—oh, that we had a Jackson then —if he had had the nerve of General Jackson, when men were talking treason upon this floorand in the Senate Chamber, just to have had his Attorney General prepare the papers and his marshal to take them into custody, and if there were no other place than the Old Capitol prison, if he had incarcerated them there, then tried them for treason and efforts to subvert the Government, there would have been no war at all. Instead of that we had seven States seceding from the Union. The laws had been violated; the rebels refused to allow the revenues to be collected, and finally they fired upon our unarmed vessels, which, if a foreign nation had done, would have kindled a fire in the hearts of the American people, and we would have had war. I suppose that even Mr. Buchanan would have gone to war. Instead of that seven States had gone out of the Union; troubles had accumulated upon us; Mr. Buchanan had scruples as to what he should do; the country was in a state of indescribable confusion.

J will say Mr Speaker, because I havealways believed it—it has always looked so to me— that there was an implied if not an express contract between the secessionists and Mr. Buchanan to this effect, that they should shape their course so as not to interfere with him and make it obligatory upon him to go to war with them, and he would let them alone and turn all the burdens of the revolution over to his successor, it has always impressed me that that was the understanding. Whether it was or not, such turned out to be the fact.

When Mr. Lincoln s Administration came in seven States had dissolved the Union so far as they could. Ms. Lincoln was inaugurated. I have not been a Republican or a supporterof his Administration, except so far as my convictions satisfied me he was right. Every man must admit that since the days of Washington no President has entered upon the administration of the Government under such perilous circumstances, it is easy to find fault, and I have sometimes found fault myself. But I have rejected that if 1 occupied the stand point he did and seeing what perhaps he saw and I did not see, I would probably havedone no better than he has done. I make no excuse for what has been done or for what has not been done. My only object is to revert to the history of the country to show that the very men who finally began this revolution were the same men who had been trying to start it for thirty years. I hold them responsible for it, and for what has been done under it.

I know, sir, that what are called personal liberty bills have been passed, and of an aggravated character; but there was no pretext in them for rebellion. Every one of them, so far as I know, when taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, have been overruled. There was a law in Pennsylvania, and under it Prigg took his case to the Supreme Court, and the opinion of that court, written by Judge Story, a Massachusetts man, laid down the rights of the several States in reference to that matter clearly in accordance to the Constitution.

A number of the States repealed these laws; but if they had not repealed them, if they had been attempted to be executed, the parties could have gone to the Supreme Court of the United States and had the difficulty properly adjusted. Now let me tell you a fact. The census shows that from 1840 to 1850 there was a loss of slave property of one thirtieth of one per cent. The proportion had largely decreased from 1850 to 1860. The compromise measures of 1850 had been adopted, and there was a general disposition among the people .North and South to let this question die out. According to the census the estimated value of the slave property lost between 1850 and 18G0 was one fiftieth of one per cent., whereas ten years before it was one thirtieth of one per cent. The question was dying out, and if the southern Representatives had remained here and not seceded they would have had a majority. They could have done what they pleased in the way of legislation. Congress did, after they went away, m order to show that they had no disposition to irritate them upon the subject, pass bills for the organization of three Territories—Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota—not one of which contained a word about prohibiting slavery from going into those Territories. The Congress that did that had the power to include that prohibition, had they seen fit, as the southern members left these Halls. If those men had stood to their posts nothing could have been done contrary to their wishes; and in the Congress which just met after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln they would have had a majority of from twenty to forty in the House, and from ten to sixteen in the Senate. The Presidentcould not have appointed a Cabinet officer without their consent, nor a foreign minister, nor could he have obtained a dollar of money to carry out any project whatever.

But I must now allude to their schemes to break up the Democratic party, and their successful efforts in that way at Charleston and Baltimore in I860. Colonel Yancey ata meeting in Columbia, South Carolina, in October, 1859, urged the sending of delegates to Charleston as best to give them a position to break up and divide the Democratic party, for, said he, with a national party in organization they never could succeed with their designs. When the convention met, Colonel Yancey came with instructions A from his State that if the principle of intervention was not recognized by the convention, the delegates from Alabama were to withdraw. The convention at Cincinnati had adopted the principle of non intervention and declined to change their position. Thereupon the delegates from Alabama and a number of southern States withdrew. I asked Colonel Yancey myself why it was that four years ago he, with the Alabama delegation, went to Cincinnati with institutions, if the convention did not recognize the principle of non-intervention that they were to withdraw, and now, said I, you come here with instructions from the same party, if the principle of intervention is not recognized you are to withdraw. I recollect well his significant and emphatic answer, "We found the principle of non-intervention would not answer our purpose." We adjourned from Charleston to Baltimore to give time for the States whose delegates had withdrawn to send other delegates, but we were followed up, and some of these seceding delegates, the more successfully to carry out thenplans, claimed their seats, and on being rejected a second time withdrew and nominated their own candidate, and in this way effectually broke up the Democratic party. When these delegates returned to the South, they proclaimed they had broken up the Democratic party; that Mr. Lincoln would now be elected, which would open the way for the success oftheir wishes. And to show what their wishes were after the election of Mr. Lincoln, in the South Carolina convention which passed the secesh ordinance, Mr. Uhett said:

The secession of South Carolina is not an event of a day. Jtisnot anything produced by Mr. Lincoln s election, nor by the non execution of the fugitive slave law. It has been a matter which lias been gathering head for the lust thirty years."

Is it not plain that they have forfeited the only opportunity they ever had of maintaining and upholding their constitutional rights? And here let me say that these men have forfeited their constitutional rights. Forfeited them how? They have rebelled against the Government; they have declared that they will not be governed under our Constitution; they have repudiated H; and yet we, the great Democratic party of the North, have been standmgupto them, appealing to them, and telling them that wc are ready to stand by their constitutional rights. But they indignantly spit upon us and say, "Wc claim no constitutional right; we have no affiliation with your Government; wethrowyou off, and asevidenceofthat here is ourownindependentgovemmentand constitution, and we claim nothing at your hands." 1, for one am tired of followingafter those men. If they will come back; if they will, as the President said in his last message, lay down their arms; if they will ask to return into the Union, I think they could put a damper upon this amendment in the LegislaturesoftheStates. If they would come back to day it would be in their power to make an issue, but it is not in our power. This thing has gone so far that there is no such thing as our holding it back. They can make the issue if they choose. Let them unitedly propose to recognize this Government and Constitution, and to yield obedience to the laws made in pursuance thereof, there would be a powerful party to say, and I think the President himself would be bound to say, that is all we ask. Then this question of slavery would become a political one. It might produce some difficulty, but it could be handled better afterward. They have the power, then, to come back, and if they do not it is their fault.

And now, Mr. Speaker, that the supports of slavery, by the workmanship of southern hands are broken, and from all appearances soon to crumble into dust, we may reflect for a moment on the spell bound terror forbidding debate with which the now revealed enemies sought to surround that subject upon all occasions, great and small. Scarcely a subject of importance could arise for the decision of the people in which these men failed to see a chance for yet more agitation. As a consequence those men in my State who refused to participate in these agitations which had for their immediate object the embroilment of sections, and theirultimate object the disunion of the States say that that class of men who would not lend themselves to this treason breeding work, had for many years prior to the war been the special object of vindictive hate and persecution. The great Senator from M issouri, for thirty years a shining light in the councils of the nation, was brought to the guillotine erected by these agitators for no other reason than that he had announced the doctrine, "let slavery alone where it is, do not send it where it is not." Scores of lesser men for like reasons were made powerless and hated by these arch agitatois and it should be remembered that whatever of tyrannical opinion was brought to bear against freedom of speech fell at all times with great power upon those moderate men whose life was cast m the midst of it. Indeed, how common was the declaration in former days by these men, that they endured the out spoken sentimentsof the abolition extremists with more patience than they could trie reasonable remonstrance of dwellers in their midst.

Mr. Speaker, now that the result, the extinguishment of slavery, is likely to be accomplished by war of their own choosing, yet gentlemen here may very well consider that rashness is still out of place in subsequent dealings under this result. This accomplished, we should at once stay the hand of confiscation, desolation, and destruction of the property and other material interests of this unfortunate people, and by our united efforts satisfy them that we seek no personal degradation for them; that after, by the prowess "of our arms, we shall conquer the strong military power which has heretofore held them ill subjugation, we will encourage the inauguration of a policy, so happily begun by the intrepid Sherman in his dealings with the people of Savannah. Yet another consideration may be suggested, Mr. Speaker, with this accomplished, why we should not further deal harshly "With these people. It is the historical fact that twelve of the thirteen original States owned, possessed, and dealt 111 slaves; that for reasons satisfactory to several they parted with it, each in their turn, and to their respective advantages. There are wise persons who believe that under profound peace on this subject a like result would have followed ere this in all the border States. But by the fate of war, for which the southern leaders are solely responsible, its sudden extinction is likely to come, and the question of a few years precedence, more or less, in point of time as between the States, amounts to naught in the life of a nation, and can leave no just ground for future bickerings on the subject.

Not among the least of the developments of the times, sir, is the fact that in the dire extremities to which the fortunes of war have driven rebellion the rebels themselves now contemplate the extirpation of slavery and placing of arms in their hands to defeat the cause of the Union. Our arms at the close of last year were everywhere victorious; the forces of the rebels were by deaths, sickness, desertions, and captures, fearfully lessened. To replenish their armies and at the same time secure the fealty of their slaves, as well as reassure their discouraged friends at home and abroad, the rebel leaders are resolved to make use of our measure to abolish slavery. They saw the party with which 1 have acted arrayed in an almost unbroken column against this amendment; and, well knowing the unyielding nature of party spirit, they judged" the party" would stand fast to their position and thus defeat the passage of the constitutional amendments. And now with the usual dexterity of these old politicians they appear to be making every preparation to appeal to their slaves for two or three hundred thousand soldiers. They would thus be able to say to the slaves, The Yankees have pretended to desire your freedom, but when the pinch came, when called on to pass a law giving freedom to you, they voted it down. They dislike you as much as they do us. Help us whip the deceitful wretches, and we will give you freedom; you can get it of nobody else; Lincoln s plan of freeing you was voted down."

The chances are now decidedly apparent that the rebels will thus talk to theirslaves, and undertake to put into the field hundreds of thousands of them as soldiers. I would like to heargentlemen explain to this House and the country how we benefit the Union cause by thus enabling rebels to speak and act. 1 would like to know if it is wise and statesmanlike to afford to the rebels an opportunity to raise such an issue against us in European courts. I ask if it is not more easy to prevent than to meet such an issue when raised before foreign Powers.

The fact that such a design and the raising of such issues are meditated appears plainly from the current news of the day. Now, sir, in view ol these anomalous facts, and devoted as 1 ever have been to the Union of the States and the perpetuation of the principles which animated our fathers, I ask where should be found the position of Uie loyal man on such a question? Where, in view of which, should be found that noble array of northern men who have heretofore apologized for slavery and bared their breasts to the storm of opposition because the Constitution supported it? Where, ill view of this, can be the position of the border State loyalist? Sir, there can be but ojae answer in the loyal heart. If the slave is to be used in this war let him be used in the cause of the Union. Viewed in the light of the rebel purpose to use slaves in their rebellious war, there is no alternative (even if it were desirable at this late day) but to choose that the former slave shall war for the cause of Union rather than against it. Thus much I have taken the liberty to say to those noble men of the North with whom it has been my pride to act politically. Thus much I say to those who have all along realized the vast difficulties of Constitution and laws and prejudice which circumvented the slavery question, but who never made slavery paramount to the Union.

But after all, Mr. Speaker, is it anomalous in the history of the world that the slaves should be used in war? If we appeal to the history of the renowned republics of old, which tolerated slavery as doesour own, we shall be convinced to the contrary. In those great civil commotions which at times so terribly shocked the Greek republics, and especially in the long and terrible civil wars of the Romans, we find slavery playing a conspicuous part in the policy of the contending factions; and those contending for the ancient and cherished forms of government, as well as those opposing, vied with each other in efforts to ameliorate the condition of the slave in consideration of the support he would give to this or that cause. But it would hereafter be anomalous in history if we should fail to avail ourselves of whatever support we can derive from this measure, when it is so apparent that our enemies are about to avail themselves of the same resource. Mr. Speaker, I have done with the subject. In what I have said 1 have been prompted by no spirit of ill or hate to the mass of the southern people of the Union. 1, upon the contrary, deplore the ill fortune by which for the time being they were placed under the power of evil men who for thirty years have been bent upon" precipitating them into revolution." But in what I have said I have endeavored to speak the words of truth and soberness, nothing extenuating nor setting down aught in malice. In what 1 have said I am amply warranted in the history of those political perturbations which culminated in this tremendous war. Vast has been the sacrifice of blood and treasure already in this war for the Union; but great though it be, we nevertheless owed it to unborn generations to come, to deliver to them unimpaired the great legacy bequeathed to us through blood and fiery trial by our ancestors. We owed it to the great cause of republicanism to show before the world that the form of government can be maintained by a republican people despite the machinations of all foes, internal and external. We owed it to all the best and brightest hopes of mankind to show that millions of .freemen could rush to arms in defense of their cause, and could stand persistently by it through good and evil report. Let us hope, Mr. Speaker, that from the bloody ordeal and fierce chastening of the past four years our glorious nation may still brave the trials yet to come, and that ere long we shall enter the sunshine of peace, and stand before the world a free, united, and happy people.

Mr. GRINNELL. I will detain the House but a few moments, intending to divide my time with the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Farnsworth.] I regard this as a marked day in American politics and American history. 1 am happy to follow a gentleman from a slave State—and a slaveholdertoo, 1 believe— Mr King,] who advocates a constitutional amendment whereby slavery may become extinct throughout all the breadth of the land. I rejoice that the State of Iowa, which 1 have the honor in part to represent upon this floor, and is known by her forty thousand majority for freedom, has so honorable a neighbor, so magnanimous and so able a philosopher and statesman upon this floor.

It seems to me this is a day of great opportunities; great for the conservative Republican who shall never more have to apologize for his votes, correcting his record; and a great day for the Democrat, who may now break the shackles of party, and stand forth with the great men and patriots in our early history, and march on in the royal highway of freedom for all nations. Sir, this is one of the days which makes the text for volumes of history big with the fate of races and an empire.

Now, sir, as I have not to talk about my own consistency, having been, so far as 1 know, always an abolitionist, I am here to say that 1 do not enter into the discussion of the simple propriety of this measure. No; at the threshold 1 deny that there can be property in man. 1 never believed in the doctrine. My whole nature revolted at it, and the reading of books of law, volumes of history, and of God s word, never taught me else than that the institution was barbaric, m defiance of natural justice, and so shameful in its pretensions that in, no State in this Union lias its legal existence been, established by any law. And here I desired to aslc, the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Clay,] when he spoke of the legal and constitutional rights of his people, where he finds a law in the State .of Kentucky, or in any other slave State, that establishes the system of African slavery. It can not* be found. Slavery is an outlaw, and we are butproposing to execute the criminal that has been;« an outlaw for generations in this country."

It is well known that the British constitution. and the common law of England and tlfPdecis-' decisions of the great jurists of England were against' the existence of slavery in that country. One John Hawkins was the first to engagein the slave trade in this country. He planted the institution here. Did that legalize slavery? Did he have from his queen any authority to traffic in human beings? None. How did slavery come to exist in the colonies? From whence came the authority to hold slaves? From England? No. Did it come by colonial legislation? No. How then came it in these States? By brutal force. As I have already said, it is not found to be established by law in any State, and must stand here as an outlaw. The great expounders of our Constitution have said that the Declaration of Independence itself, proclaiming all men free and equal, laid the corner stone of our Confederacy and that it is above all constitutions and all laws. That is enough for me; and we are only tolerating here, that which should have ceased to exist long ago, and spared us civil war. Sir, if I had my preference, I would rather see slavery wiped out here by a legal decision, and announced by a chief justice—our Lord Mansfield, I trust—on the great principles of justice, rather than by the tardy action of States.

I wish now to refer for a moment to the statement made by the venerable gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Clay] that we are about by this measure to deprive his State of representation in this Chamber. How is that? They now have three fifths representation for their slaves; when the genius of liberty shall take possession of that State, and the votes of the people shall have destroyed slavery there, then their slaves will be counted as freemen. Instead of decreasing their representation, wo augment it.

But the gentleman asks, What will you do with our slaves? What shall we do willi them? All 1 it seems to me there is something due to those who have so long supported their masters, certainly to be let alone. Cannot they who have supported themselves and their masters in the past lake care of themselves? That, sir, is a question which we can well afford to leave unanswered, since the enslaved race are establishing their manhood and fighting our battles.

The gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks] stands up here in defense of those who are now in rebellion, so far as to declare that slavery has not ruled the country. I wish, sir, that he had been more conversant with American history; that he had read less of newspapers and more of our political history. Why, sir, it is well known that the great majority of the people of this country have befm controlled by the institutions of the South. We propose to break away from that control, and to stand forth free and independent, never more to be bartered away by a body of men banded together for any political or selfish purpose, much less by those in the control of tyrants.

If you look into the facts and figures m regard to this control, you will find that up to the year„ of the rebellion for two thirds of the time the Presidency of the United States had been held by slaveholders or southern men; you will find that of the Presidents of the Senate slavery had sixtyone out of seventy seven you will find that of Speakers of the House of Representatives they had twenty one out of thirty three you will find that of Attorney Generals they had fourteen out of nineteen; and that they have had the Secretaryship of State nearly two thirds of the time; and since the slavery agitation, as if it were to be ready for this conflict of arms, for four fifths of the time have the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy been from the South.

Look, too, at the Supreme Court of the United States and its organization slavery has hadseventeen out of th« twenty eight member*. It was organized purposely, as all the world knows, to give five judges to the slaveholding States, and four to the free States, notwithstanding that the free States exceeded the slaves States almost one third in population and one half in wealth and in business for the courts.

Thus do facts answer that assertion of the gentleman. And hence it is the business, the high and holy work of the American people henceforth to sunder these shackles, and no more to be controlled by the system of slavery which was fast bindingpus and defenseless to be cast into outer darkness.

Mr. Speaker, I have noticed the agonies of gentlemen over the tomb of slavery. 1 do not forget how they agonized, even to the going down of the sun, against the abolition of slavery in this District. There were, according to them, untold horrors looming up from that measure; but what has been the result of its passage? It has raised the value of property in this District two hundred per cent. It benefited a race and enacted justice. Not one of the horrors which filled men s imagination have visited us. Then, again, when the enlistment of negroes was proposed, we were told that the negroes would not fight, and that if we tried to make soldiers of them our white troops would resist it, and the rebels would fight with increased desperation. Neither assertion was true. So, too, on the discussion of the confiscation law, we were told that if it were passed rebels would fight to the last ditch, and our last victory was won. Twenty thousand people in Savannah and a hundred and fifty thousand in New Orleans have made your prophesy false. They came out to take food from your hands and welcome the old flag. You shed ink in great profusion in protest and opened the lachrymal founts over unborn children; yet the born children mock at your fears, and you are, gentlemen, m tolerable health to day except in that sense political in which you seem to be on the verge of dissolution. But there is political health to be found in this grandest opportunity of the century which is given to make the land of the Pilgrims and of Washington free; so free that another rebellion will be impossible; to make the nation s destiny oglorious that Heaven shall look down to see.

Mr. Speaker, I am aware that there has been much coaxing outside and inside of this Hall in effort to induce Democrats who have voted against the Republican party and against the amendment so long to come now and vote for the amendment. I for one do not share the solicitude of many on this point. I am in no coaxing mood. If these gentlemen see no wisdom in giving orders for a shroud, that there may be an early and decent burial of that which is in its death throes and ought to have been hastened to the tomb long ago, wo can endure its putrescence till the" ides of March" at least, when at a called session of Congress, if a necessity, a jubilant majority will give the vote which they were elected to cast, and will ally their names with the honored dead of the centuries. We can pass the constitutional amendment then without coaxing, thank God, The nextCongress was elected for that purpose, and we shall have an overshadowing majority which will open a new page in m r political history; and to vote for this constitutional amend mentis just the feast to which those members fresh from the people were invited. Those who sunder party ties and vote for it cannot fail of grateful remembrance, for slavery and Democracy have been mutual supporters for thirty years. They cling together like the Siamese twins. And so theirs shall be the folly, theirs shall be the curse, if they do notresist the sorcery of party. Let them abide together and go down to the depths" with bubbling groan," for, pleasant in their lives, in death they should not be divided.

Mr. Speaker, I need notgive my reasons in full why I shall vote for this constitutional amendment. I will simply state a few of the reasons that will impel me to do so. In the first place, I will vote for it because the Constitution provides for its own amendment. Secondly,! will vote for it because it allows the people of the States to exercise their sovereignty—that" popular sovereignty" which we have heard descanted upon, lo, these many years. I propose to have a practical illustration of the doctrine. I will vote for it because it is a measure of justice to millions in chains, to hundreds of thousands fighting our battles. The country demands it. The people, although their Representatives here heed not their voices, demand it. They demand it by the voice of four hundred thousand majority given in the late election to the present Executive of the United States. Above all there is a voice sounding out louder than the thunder if men would hear it; it is the voice of God to this nation," Break every yoke and let the oppressed go free."

I rejoice, Mr. Speaker, to welcome so many who are coming into the ranks of free men, and to know that there is a breaking up of unholy alliances. I rejoicenotinanymerepartyvictory, but am gladdened in seeing men restored to their right minds and placing themselves in the currents of intelligence and patriotism, so that when there shall be a reorganization of the Government, when there shall be an adjustment, when the war is ended, we shall find men of all classes and of all parties allied together invoking the blessing of Almighty God to the end that this may be the great, the glorious, the free, the mighty nation of the earth.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I take pride in the fact, and let it go down to history, that but one gentleman on the other side of the House has stood up here to advocate" the sum of all villainies," American slavery. Thank God, he did not belong to a slave State. A thousand thanks those who live in the midst of the institution do not dethrone their reason and provoke the vengeance of the Almighty by standing up here in defense of American slavery. But let him, [Mr. Fernando Wood.] livingon northern soil and in a mighty city, degrade, if he choose, his manhood, defame the African race, and thus bear off all the honors to which his pandering and vassalage entitle him. "Let him enjoy his solitary ignominy," is said nil around me. Yes, sir, i repeat it. That gentleman, born and reared in a free State, has seen fit to stand up in this year of 1865 and declare that American slavery is the best condition of the African race. He deserves the shackles he would fasten upon others, and, as I trust in God, I believe his posterity will at least wear his brand of ignominy if not wear the chains which lie would forge for others. Reproaches of scorn for slavery s defender, but thanks for those who have broken the shackles of party and are coming forth for their country! I rejoice that this is their day of freedom, and that we are now about to give liberty to millions who have no voice in this Chamber.

I will now yield the remainder of my hour to the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Farnsworth,]; who desires to speak upon this question.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Mr. Speaker,« property,"" vested rights,'"* robbery are the dying cries from the agonized hearts of the men who defend man stealing and women whipping and who apologize for treason. 1 do not use here for the purpose of making a constitutional argument, but only for the purpose of briefly answering those charges. It seems to me that they come from the wrong side of this question when used by the men who oppose this constitutional amendment.

Property!" What is property? That is property which the Almighty made property. When at the creation lie gave man dominion over things animate and inanimate, He established property. Nowhere do you read that He gave man dominion over another man.

"Vested nghfs!" What vested rights so high or bo sacred as a man s right to himself, to his wife and children, to his liberty, and to the fruits of hisown industry? Did not our fathers declare] that those rights were inalienable? And if a man cannot himself alienate those rights, how can another man alienate them without being himself a robber of the vested rights of his brother man "Vested rights "and "robbery, "forsooth, from the slaveholder! Why, sir, it is passing strange that men, from usage and familiarity with a crime, will even get to using the very words and phrases in defense of that crime which legitimately and properly describe the crime itself. There never was a highwayman who had pursued his course of crime for a series of years who did not regard the execution of the law upon him for his crimes as most unjust to him. The poet has well said that—

No man e er felt the lialter draw,

With good opinion of the hur."

It has been truly said by the gentleman who preceded me, [Mr. Grinnell,] that in the statutes of no slave State in the Union can you find the origin of slavery. There is not a statute in any one of those States that ever established property in slaves; not one. It is a carbuncle; it is an ulcer; it is a cancer which has grown up by stealth upon the body politic and which has only from usage become familiarized to men, and they have surrounded it with the statutes protecting the relation that we find in any of the codes of the slave States. You cannot find in any statutes of any civilized nation on the face of the earth where property in things animate or inanimate is established. Nowhere is that property defined; nowhere is it declared in any statute in the world that man shall have properly in this or that thing. Because, as I have said before, the Almighty having given property in these things it is only necessary that civilized society should surround it with laws to protect men in the possession and enjoyment of it.

I trust we will hear no more of robbery, of vested rights. Slavery commenced in robbery and theft, and has been carried on by a trespass, and no usage in the lapse of time can make that just or legal or right which in its origin and inception was a crime.

What is that we now propose to do? We propose to say in the organic law of the land that there shall be no more involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime. And there is another thing; we are now dealing with a class. While there may be now and then a loyal slaveholder in the rebellious States, as a class the slaveholders are traitors, as a class they brought on this rebellion, as a class they are fighting our soldiers in the field, starving our prisoners in their dungeons, and by every high handed and ruthless outrage conducting this war of treason. That is the character of slaveholders as a class.

But there is another class of people there denominated slaves. What are they? Invariably the fnendsof theUmon; invariably the friends of the Union soldier, giving him aid and comfort, secreting him on his stolen flight from southern dungeons to the lines of our Army, furnishing him food and shelter on the way, and diverting from him the bloodhounds on his track.

It ih but a day or two since that I took by the hand the adjutant of that grand old regiment that I raised and took into the field. For a year and a half he had been sojourning in a variety of southern prisons. Escaping from Columbia with a few others, he was for twenty days and nights within the rebel lines traveling by night, and secreting himself by dtiy in the hut of the slave, until he reached the lines of Sherman near Savannah. In every instance, (and his tale isbuta repetition of the tale told by thousands,) in every instance he could with the utmost confidence approach the humble door of the slave, either by night or by day, and rap for admittance, and could obtain there concealment, protection, and food. He was never turned away and never deceived by any slave from whom he sought assistance. The slaves guarded him; they fed him upon the best they could procure, and sent him on his way rejoicing. And when the slaveholders those men who, according to the declaration of the member from New York, [Mr. Fernando Wood,] are a brave, generous, and noble people, put upon his track the bloodhound sand the bull dogs and when their hoarse howling was heard upon his track, his pursuers were, by the arts taught by the slaves, diverted from the seen?, and he was protected.

Sir, it is said, I believe, that every man looks upon and appreciates character from his own stand point I suppose thata man who stands upon the gallows and feels the halter drawn about his neck would regard a very disreputable person, if exempt from the doom of that punishment, as very respectable; and I suppose that, if a man lias escaped the penitentiary by the statute of limitations or any other device, he would regard as very respectable a character which others might consider very ignoble. Men of a low class regard the character of others from their own low stand point and by a comparison with their own position in the moral scale. But it is left for the member from New York to justify and support this barbarous institution of slavery, and to declare that the slaveholders engaged in this rebellion are, par excellence, the noble gallant and generous people of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I do not so regard them. From the stand point which I occupy I look upon them in a very different light. I think that they are neither just, generous, 1101' noble; and, sir, you shall find that, wherever slavery has existed for a series of years, it makes the slaveholder ignoble, unjust, ungenerous, and tyrannical. Such is the natural effect of the institution everywhere.

The member from New York caused to be read at the Clerk s desk a description, as I learned afterward, of some horrid scene in Africa as written by a traveler. I did not know when it was read from what source it was taken, nor had I heard what was said by the gentleman in connection with it. Forming my surmise on the character of the description, I turned to some one near me and asked whether it was a description ofthe horrid atrocities committed by the denizens of the Five Points and others, constituents of the gentleman, during the riot in New York city a year or two ago. It seemed so apt and complete a description of the scenes which occurred during that riot, as they were detailed in the New York papers, that I thought it must be an extract from some history of those occurrences. Wo all recollect that during that riot colored orphan asylums were set on fire, negro women with children in their arms were murdered, and in some instances negroes were burned. Those are scenes which were participated in by voters of that member s own city and district. You need not go to Africa to find scenes of horror.

1 think that we should deal justly with the unfortunate class of people who will lie freed by the adoption of this amendment. Justice, long delayed, should be awaided to them. Why, sir, suppose that by some turn of the wheel of fortune the slave should become the master, and the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Clay,] who addressed the House yesterday, should become the slave. Would he then cry out," Robbery! violation of vested rights!" if wc sought to strike the shackles from his limbs? Yet his slave is a man. And Thomas Jefferson declared that it was by no means impossible that some turn of the wheel of fortune might bring about that state of circumstances; and he declared that in case of a contest between the masters and their slaves the Almighty possessed no attribute that would take sides with the masters.

Mr. Speaker, I thank God that by the votes of my constituents, who sent me here by over thirteen thousand majority, I have the privilege to day of standing up here and advocating this amendment; and I know that when the light of the past and the present and the future shall with their concentrated rays throw a focal blaze upon the page of history that we are making to day it will be a source of the highest pride for my children to point to the record which 1 make and the vote which 1 give to day while I know equally well that as to the men who may vote against this amendment, and particularly those who apologize for the institution of slavery, their action will be an everlasting disgrace to themselves and their children and their children s children. Sir, we ore making history, am! we aremaking ltfast. These things will not be looked upon fifty years hence as they are now. When this usage of slavery is abolished and when we have ceased to be familiarized with the clank of chains, then we shall look upon this thing with the horror it deserves.

Mr. McBRIDE. Mr. Speaker, by the vote on the motion of the gentleman ft om Ohio [Mr. Ashley] this House will decide whether the proposed amendment to the Constitution, by which slavery shall be prohibited within the limits of the United States, shall be submitted to the several States for their action or not. No one authorized to speak for the people of the State whose interests I represent upon this floor has yet spoken upon this question in either branch of Congress, and I avail myself of the privilege of giving expression to my views with greater pleasure because my State has been hitherto unheard; and secondly, that they are in emphatic harmony with the clearlyexpressed sentiments of my constituents.

I shall ask the indulgence of the House for but a brief time, while I present in concise form the reasons which govern my vote on this grave question. I have no wish to enter the broad field which has been swept by this debate for the purpose of gleaning after the myriad reapers who have entered the harvest before me, but I will traverse the limited scope which I have prescribed to myself with as much rapidity as is consistent with the perspicuous presentation of the positions which I shall endeavor to establish by the way promising to be (for I know how anxious most members are to close this debate) neither elaborate nor diffuse.

The first question thatpresentsitselfin the consideration of this proposition is whether we have the power to take the proposed action of initiating the abolition of slavery by a prohibition of it in our fundamental law; if we have not the power to do it, the rightful authority as an American Congress, then all discussion as to the propriety, the expediency, or even the necessity of the act is of course idle folly.

But, sir, I have listened carefully and attentively to the arguments ofgentlemen upon the proslavery side of this question, who deny our authority to amend the Constitution as proposed, without beingable to perceive thejustice orsoundness of their assumption. I perused with patience the ingenious argument of the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Pendleton,] made at the last session of Congress, and reiterated Saturday last by his colleague, [Mr. Bliss,] the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Pruyn,] and a member from New Jersey whom 1 do notchoose to name. The gist of that argument being that slavery is a State institution, ncversubmitted by them to Federal control, that it is an indefeasible right of property conferred by State laws, and not to be divested by any other sanction is a fallacy which can, I think, be most easily and conclusively met and answered.

You assert that slavery is a local institution, deriving all Us right to exist from the municipal laws of each State where it is acknowledged. I admit the assertion. You assert that it was a subject left by theframersof the Constitution to the States, to be by them controlled, legislated upon, encouraged, fostered, or abolished in the States, as to them seemed most expedient. That I also admit. You assert that, owing its existence to State laws and State authority, and being a subject left by the framers of our fundamental law to the exclusive control of the State authority, therefore we have no right to so amend the Constitution as to take Federal control of and abolish it. This assertion 1 deny. The conclusion does not follow from your premises, as 1 now propose to demonstrate. This i3 a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States and to establish in that Constitution a power hitherto not possessed. That Constitution is the existing fundamental law of all the States, having been assented to and ratified by them. It contains among its provisions one by which itprescrtbcs the methods by which the instrument may be altered, changed, and amended. Those methods are, that the two Houses may, by a two thirds vote, propose amendments; or Congress may, on application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, call a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution; and in either case, whenever the proposed amendment or amendments shall be ratified by three fourths of the States, they shall become valid and binding provisions ofthe Constitution; and upon this power of amendment there is one and only one limitation, and that is that" no State without its consent shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." The lull and complete power to amend the Constitution in any and every particular is given and confirmed by the fifth article of the Constitution, curtailed by the single existing limitation as to equal State representation in the Senate. If the States had intended, when the Constitution was originally formed, to forever keep the institution of slavery beyond Federal control, they should and would have excepted that also, with the right of equal suffrage in the Senate, from among the subjects of rightful amendment.

I grant that the right to abolish slavery was not given to the Federal authority as a legislative power, but the means by which the national Government might obtain that power through an amendment to the Constitution were given, and those we now propose to apply.

If domestic slavery was beyond our control originally, the Constitution points out the way by which we may legitimately take it under cognizance, and we are following strictly the" methods, it prescribes.-.":

Sir, we are told the by this amendment, if it succeeds, we are encroaching upon the rights of the States, and that we are taking a step "toward consolidation. Certainly we are; and if, the States, in the mode prescribed by the Constitution, choose to yield not only the righYwhiiE they have hitherto enjoyed of controlling and perpetuating the system of slavery, but every other political right exercised by them, they can .unquestionably do so. It may be very unwise policy for them to do so; but it can nevertheless be done constitutionally; and that is the question I am now considering.

I think, then, that I have established the proposition that, as all the States have agreed by their ratification of the Constitution to abide all amendments which shall be made to that instrument which receives the sanction of three fourths of their number, having first passed the preliminary ordeal of a two thirds majority of both Houses of Congress, or of a national convention, our proposed amendment is perfectly within our province and power.

And now, Mr. Speaker, I pass from the question of our power to amend, and come to the equally important practical question, the expediency of the proposed amendment. Ought slavery in these United States to be abolished? Is it our duty as statesmen seeking the good of the country and of posterity to put an end to this institution?. Is it our dutyas citizens, loving our country and seeking her glory and prosperity, and withal having her good name among nations committed to our care, to rid her of this institution?

Sir, itseemsto me that but one patriotic answer can be given to these questions, and that is an affirmative one. View it in whatever light you may, the answer must still be the same. Look at it as a question of mere political economy, and the aigumentof material prosperity alone would say abolish it forever. The argument pf statistics and facts, so triumphantly conclusive as to defy all attempts at refutation, which my friend from Maryland [Mr. Creswell] presented the other day, ought of itself to determine every man who seeks for the proper development of this fair western continent, to vote for the abolition of slavery on every proper occasion.

When an American citizen enters a foreign land and sees the degradation to which the downtrodden masses are subjected by their kingly rulers, his soul revolts at the injustice, but his mouth is closed against remonstrance. If lie talks of the beneficence of free institutions and the glory of republican government he is told to learn toprac- x tice what he preaches before he seeks to proselyte abroad. If the American, indignant at the wrongs he sees done to unhappy Ireland by the proud rulers of England, expresses his hope to see her emancipated from their rigorous rule, he is asked to think of the millions pining in chains beneath the starry flag of the country he so proudly praises. If, burning with that instinctive hatred of tyranny which finds new fuel in the dark history that records the endurance of noble Hungary, and the oppression of despotic Austria, he ventures an utterance of the feelings of his heart, he is shamed into silence by the sneering suggestion that a more galling tyranny and a more degrading slavery stain the prosperity and dim the glory of his own fair land. If then, sir, it were only to make our Government consistent with itself, to make her an example of freedom, to which all the nations of tlie world might turn and be instructed, free her from every stain, and wipe off every reproach based upon the existence of human bondage; if it were only to vindicate our good name with mankind, I would vote to abolfsh slavery.

But, sir, I contend that the argument against the institution asan offenderagainst the rulesof common justice, os a felon self convicted of ineffable crimes, as a traitor assassin seeking madly the life of this free nation, demands that it be summarily sentenced withoutbenefit ofclergy. Long enough has it debauched and deadened the conscience of the people; long enough has it shocked humanity and defied Heaven by its violations of every principle of truth and morality; and now, having filled up its cup of crime and villainy by a treason so rank and foul as to shame all historic example and all criminal parallel, we, who hold the malefactor in our grip, owe it to humanity, to justice, to ourselves, and the world, to strangle the guilty monster. If, instead of being guilty of the indictment which I have presented, slavery were only an element of political discord, a constant subject of agitation and disturbance as it has undoubtedly always been, still the peace, order and prosperity of the country demand its extinction. Glance at our brief national history and learn that no danger to our national integrity has ever existed that is not chargeable to the irritating effects of slavery. It was the one subject which in the Convention to frame our Constitution was the most difficult of adjustment, and threatened us with all the evils of national disintegration and anarchy. Its demands and exactions began then; they have ended by a vain attempt to destroy the nation which it could not longer keep in subjection beneath its iron yoke. Not a single serious danger to our nation has ever existed since we became one people that does not find its origin and motive in the institution. Foreign aggression we never feared; subjugation from abroad we have always defied; but domestic dissension, arising out of the dissimilarity of ourinstitutions and the conflicts to which these diversities have given rise, has ever been the care and dread of our statesmen.

Slavery demanded those acquisitions of territory in 1803 which finally led to the fierce controversy as to the admission of Missouri, which came so near involving us in revolution and civil war in 1820. In 1832, taking the guise of mere commercial jealousy in the shape of nullification, it again threatened the country with the horrors of war and bloodshed. Demanding the annexation of Texas a demand yielded to against the moral sense of the nation, and thrown to it as a sop to Cebcrus," the war with Mexico ensued, and all the fierce and bitter agitation of 1850. Not satisfied with having torn and distracted the country by that fierce excitement before which in 1850 all that had preceded it4 paled their ineffectual fires," and grasping with insatiate hunger at every elementof power and strength the demon of slavery again in 1854 roused the fiery tide of sectional and political excitement by endeavoring to rob the free Territories of the nation of the fair jewel of their glory and prosperity and appropriate them for its own base uses. And for the last ten years we have had no other question in national politics deserving the name or dividing politics save slavery and its incidents. It lias at every period in our history, when our integrity as a nation has been threatened, been the promptingenemy of the public peace, the active offender against order and quiet. It has filled the land with broil, with hate, with intestine commotion and irreconcilable discord. When after six years of continual and angry agitation it capped the climax of its crimes in 1860 by letting loose upon the country all the devastations of civil war war that has made the world stand still with horror as it gazed upon the desolation and the havoc that have marked its gory track—it left the hand of vengeance with no further excuse for clemency. It filled up the measure of its wickedness, and proclaiming itself an open enemy, it henceforth became an outlaw whom it is our duty to follow to utter extermination.

The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Clav] complains that this amendment is treating Kentucky with bad faith. Sir, the charge comes with bad grace. Why, air, in 1820 the North, confiding in the faith of Kentucky pledges, agreed to the compromise of the great statesman of the West, Henry Clay, but when the time came that the North was to realize the benefits guarantied by that compromise, Kentucky, in the person of her Senator, made the motion which broke the plighted faith of the nation and covered the national Legislature with a stain of dishonor from which the waters of time can never wash it clean. Sir, let me ask that gentleman whether it is kind in Kentucky to insist that her interest, if in antagonism with that of her twenty odd sisters, who he says are arrayed against her, shall be maintained and theirs sacrificed? Is it good faith to her sister States to insist that her interests shall be maintained at their expense? That slavery is the motive of the rebellion we can establish by every fact bearing upon our troubles. Why is it that West Virginia clung to the Union while the chivalry district went off in revolt? Simply because slavery was the dominant interest in the latter, and had little power in the first. Why did the free mountaineers of Tennessee rally round the flag of their fathers with an honest devotion unsurpassed by any example furnished in history, while the planting regions of the same State went frenzied into the dark abyss of rebellion? Slavery explains the reason. Go to the mountains of Kentucky and of North Carolina, where the husbandman earns his scanty living by the honest toil of his own hands, and where slave labor is the exception and not the rule, and fidelity and devotion to the Union burn as warmly and as brightly as in any part of our land. Go to the cotton and rice fields tilled by the sweat and moistened with the tears of the slave, and rebellion fierce and bitter seems to reign in every heart. If then rebellion is the result of slavery, let us destroy slavery and thus destroy the motive to rebellion, give peace to the country, and harmony to all our future.

But we are met with another objection, that if weemancipatc we must enfranchise also. I deny the conclusion; but I should not be deterred from the move, even if it were correct. A recognition of natural rights is one thing, a grant of political franchises isquiteanother. Weextend to all white men the protection of law when they land upon our shores. We grant them political rights when they comply with the conditions which those laws prescribe. If political rights must necessarily follow the possession of personal liberty, then all but male citizens in our country are slaves. This illustration alone reduces the conclusion to an absurdity. Sir, let the rights and status of the negro settle themselves as they will and mustupon theirown just basis. If, as a race, they shall prove themselves worthy the elective franchise, I tell gentlemen they will enjoy the right; they will demand and they will win it, and they ought to have it. If, on the contrary, as a race, they are so far inferior to those with whom they must compete as to be unequal to the high and responsible position of free electors, any attempt to elevate them to that standard will be a signal failure. I have no faith in their ability to contend in the race before them successfully and no fear of degrading my own race by contact with them, for sir there is an antagonism between the races which will preventanythmghke a complete blending of them, and I leave all questions of the consequences of emancipation to be settled by justice and expediency as experience shall dictate." Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and I will do what right and expediency require now, and leave the consequences to be provided for as they may arise. Conscious as I am that the best interests of the country and posterity require a mitigation of the evils with which slavery has afflicted this war desolated and strife torn land, I will notsufiermyself to be prevented from giving my aid to this beneficent proposition by any imaginary evils that it may not provide for. If the abolition of slavery shall still leave us the dregs of this pestiferous question to be dcaltwith at a future time, I am willing to trust the future for their settlement, well convinced tlmtall others are mere subordinate difficulties which time and statesmanship will enable us to wisely overcome. Mr. C. A. WHITE obtained the iloor^