This was the language of the Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, when he found that the Republicans, united with some Democrats, had stricken out the fourth resolution of the series, and inserted this as a subst.i.tute. I said to Mr. WILSON on that occasion:
"I desire merely to tender my thanks to the honorable Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts. The series of resolutions, as introduced by the honorable Senator from Mississippi, are germane one to the other. They are a declaration of principles by the Democratic party. This amendment, as the Senator has said correctly, has been fastened on the Democratic resolutions by the votes of the Republican Senators. I feel grateful, indeed, to the Senator for making the motion to reconsider. I hope the vote will be reconsidered, and the resolution voted down."
The motion was put, and on the yeas and nays the vote was reconsidered. I voted for the reconsideration, and I voted against the amendment when it was adopted as a subst.i.tute for the fourth resolution. Among those who voted in the affirmative for reconsideration were Messrs. BENJAMIN, BROWN, CHESNUT, CLAY, DAVIS, FITZPATRICK, GREEN, GWIN, HAMMOND, HARLAN, HUNTER, IVERSON, JOHNSON of Arkansas, and LANE. Among those who voted against it, I find JOHNSON of Tennessee. I did not vote to continue in the series a resolution that refused protection to all the people in the common Territories.
Portions of the Journal have been paraded to show the vote on Mr.
BROWN"S amendment to Mr. CLINGMAN"S amendment. I said, in several speeches, that I should vote against all amendments, because the series had been considered not only here, but in a caucus composed of the Democratic Senators of this body, and we had agreed to take them as a whole, and to vote them through altogether if we had the strength to do so. I voted against every proposition to amend. I voted against Mr. BROWN"S, and I voted against Mr. CLINGMAN"S, and I voted against every other amendment that was calculated to weaken or embarra.s.s the pa.s.sage of the resolutions. Yet I am represented here as having voted against affording protection to slave property in the Territories! I ask again, if any Senator, if any man who can read, can say that the fourth resolution, for which I did vote and for which I struggled and contended, does not declare that slave property shall be protected in the common Territories of our country.
Could any thing be stronger than the fourth resolution? Could any man desire a more direct declaration of principles than that? Upon the yeas and nays I voted for it. I voted against the amendment that was adopted, and afterwards reconsidered. How, then, can a man arraign me before the country as having said upon oath, on the 25th of May last, that slave property should not be protected in the common Territories with other property? I have always held that all property should be protected, slave as well as other property; that it should have the same protection as, and no more protection than any other property.
That they do not secure all this, is the objection I have to the amendments to the Const.i.tution proposed by the Peace Conference. They are ambiguous, loose, and deceptive. I do not know that the people can comprehend them. There will be no certainty under them; and they would, if adopted, result in endless trouble and litigation. I trust no amendments will ever be made to the Const.i.tution, unless they are made upon principles of right, justice, and equality, so that there can be no mistake in construing them hereafter. If we amend the Const.i.tution, let us do it with a view to the peace of the country, with a view to the harmony of the country, with a view to the security of every interest, and of every State in the Union. If we could do that, and this day amend the Const.i.tution so as to provide expressly that every State should have equal rights in the Territories and elsewhere within the Union, this Confederacy would last forever, the States that have left us would come back, and we should have then a great and a lasting Union indeed. Without it, we never can have a permanent Union. We must do something that is clearly right, or the States that have left us will never return. They never ought to return, unless they can have the right of equality secured to them by the Const.i.tution. I claim for my State just that which she is ent.i.tled to, and not a particle more. I would concede to the Southern States, that to which they are ent.i.tled, and not a particle more. That, they must have, or there can be no peace, no union, no harmony, no security, and no perpetuity of this Confederacy. Such amendments to the Const.i.tution, securing these objects and principles, are indispensable to the maintenance of the Government as it was formed.
Then why not do right? Why not every southern man ask just that which he is ent.i.tled to, and no more? He ought to be content with nothing short of what he is ent.i.tled to; and if he be, he is untrue to his section and his const.i.tuents; untrue to the people whose servant he is; and untrue to the inst.i.tutions of the country; for the country can exist only upon the triumph of such principles. He who is unwilling to deal fairly by the North and the South, is a man who is guilty of shattering and ruining the Confederacy; destroying the peace and harmony and success of this great experiment of ours.
Mr. President, in the State of Connecticut the Democracy a.s.sert the correct principle, and they charge the trouble in the country to the right quarter. I stated, on a former occasion, that the Democracy of old Connecticut would never join the Republican party in any attempt to coerce the Southern States; and I am now authorized by their own declaration to say again, what I said before, that they, like the Democracy of Oregon and of every other Northern State, will never join a party that has refused justice; that has refused equality and right; that has refused to protect property in the Territories, or wherever the jurisdiction of the United States extends, in putting down those who contended for their rights and for the equality to which they were ent.i.tled. Sir, the loyal Democracy of this country fully understand the question, and they a.s.sert the right.
Now, sir, these great principles were not carried out. The platform on which the Democracy presented their candidates for President and Vice-President was not heeded, though based upon the Const.i.tution. I will say to the Senator who has boasted of his efforts in Tennessee in behalf of the BRECKINRIDGE ticket, that I shall notice that hereafter; but I have only to say now, that, for the sake of the country, I would to G.o.d the ticket had succeeded. We should then have had those principles endorsed upon which the Government is established, and the country would have been at peace. For that alone I wished it to succeed.
I will say only a word, now, as to the amendments proposed to the Const.i.tution. I had the pleasure of listening, yesterday, to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. I know his patriotism and his devotion to the Union. I know his willingness to take any thing, however small, however trifling, however little it might be, that would, in his opinion, give peace to the country. Sir, I am actuated by no such feeling. We should never compromise principle nor sacrifice the eternal foundations of justice. Whenever the Democratic party compromised principle it laid the foundation of future troubles for itself and for the country. When we do, then, amend the Const.i.tution, it ought to be in the spirit of right and justice to all men and to all sections. I voted for the Senator"s propositions, and I will do so again, if we can get a vote, because there is something in them; something that I could stand by; but there is nothing in the amendments proposed by the Peace Conference. He proposed to establish the line of 36 30", and to prohibit slavery north of it and protect it south of it, in all the present territory, or of the territory to be hereafter acquired. In that proposition there was something like justice and right; but there is nothing in the amendments proposed by the Peace Conference that any man, North or South, ought to take. They are a cheat; they are a deception; they are a fraud; they hold out a false idea; and I think, with all due respect to the Senator--for I have the highest regard for him personally--that he is too anxious to heal the trouble that exists in the country. He had better place himself upon the right and stand by it. Let him contend, with me, for the inalienable and const.i.tutional rights of every American citizen.
Let him beware of "compromising" away the vital rights, privileges, and immunities of one portion of the country to appease the graceless, unrelenting, and hostile fanaticism of another portion. Let him labor with me, to influence every State to mind its own affairs, and to keep the Territories entirely _free_ to the enterprise of all, with equal security and protection--without invidious distinctions--to the property of every citizen. Thus, and only thus, can we have peace, happiness, and eternal Union.
I could not avoid noticing the anxiety of the Senator from Kentucky to accept any thing, and the readiness of the Senator from Oregon to pledge his people--"my people"--to any thing that he chooses. Now, I know there are many free people in the State of Oregon. They generally do as they please. They have no master. No man owns them; and no man can claim to control them. But this I am warranted in a.s.serting--for I know long, well, and intimately, the gallant men of Oregon--that they will not be found ready or inclined, at the Senator"s and his masters beck, to imbrue their hands, in a G.o.dless cause, in fraternal gore.
Mr. President, the principles a.s.serted in the resolutions adopted by the Senate, last winter, have not been carried out. We see the consequences. We see a dissevered country and a divided Union. A number of the States have gone off, have formed an independent Government; it is in existence, and the States composing it will never come back to you, unless you say in plain English, in your amendments to the Const.i.tution, that every State in the future Union has an equal right to the Territories and all the protection and blessings of this Government--never! I tell you, sir, although some foolish men and some wicked ones may say I am a disunionist, I am for the Union upon the principles of the Const.i.tution, and not a traitor. None but a coward will even think me a traitor; and if anybody thinks I am, let him test me. This Union could exist upon the principles that I have held and that are set forth in the DAVIS resolutions; but upon no other condition can it exist. Then, sir, disunion is inevitable. It is not going to stop with the seven States that are out. No, sir; my word for it, unless you do something more than is proposed in this proposition, old Virginia will go out too--slothful as she has been, and tardy as she seems in appreciating her own interests and her rights, and kind and generous as she has been in inviting a Peace Congress to agree upon measures of safety for the Union. The time will come, however, when old Virginia will stand trifling and chicanery no longer. Neither will North Carolina suffer it. None of the slave States will endure it; for they cannot separate one from the other, and they will not.
They will go out of this Union and into one of their own; forming a great, h.o.m.ogeneous, and glorious Southern Confederacy. It is and it has been, Senators, in your power to prevent this; it is and it has been for you to say (you might to-day, as it is the last day, say so), whether the Union shall be saved or not. I know, that gallant Old Dominion will never put up with less than her rights; and if she would, I should entertain for her contempt. I should feel contempt for her if she were to ask for any thing more than her rights; and so I would if she were to put up with any thing less than her const.i.tutional rights. Then, sir, secession has taken place, and it will go on unless we do right.
Mr. President, in the remarks which I made on the 19th of December last, in reply to the Senator from Tennessee, I took the ground that a State might rightfully secede from the Union when she could no longer remain in it on an equal footing with the other States; in other words, when her continuance as a member of the Confederacy involved the sacrifice of her const.i.tutional rights, safety, and honor. This right I deduced from the theory of equality of the States, upon which rests the whole fabric of our unrivalled system of government--unrivalled, as it came from the hands of its ill.u.s.trious framers--a model as perfect, perhaps, as human wisdom could devise, securing to all the blessings of civil and religious liberty, when rightly understood and properly administered; but like all other Governments, and even Christianity itself, a most dangerous engine of oppression when, having fallen into the hands of persons strangers to its spirit, and unmindful of the beneficent objects for which it was framed, it is perverted from its high and n.o.ble mission to the base uses of a selfish or sectional ambition, or a blind and bigoted fanaticism. I said, on that occasion--referring to this fundamental principle of our Government, the equality of the States--that "as long as this equality be maintained the Union will endure, and no longer." I might here undertake to enforce, by argument and the authority of writers on the nature and purposes of our Government, this, to me, self-evident proposition. But I deem it unnecessary to consume the time of the Senate in discussing that branch of the subject.
I propose, Mr. President, to confine what I have to say in regard to the right of secession to the question, Who must judge whether such right exists, and when it should be exercised? According to the theory of every despotic Government, of ancient or modern times, there is no such right. A province of an empire, how much soever oppressed, is held by the oppressor as an integral part of his dominions. The yoke, once fastened on the neck of the subject, is expected, however galling, to be worn with patience and entire submission to the tyrant"s will. This is the theory of despotism. What are its fruits?
We have seen, in modern times, some of the bloodiest struggles recorded in history growing out of the a.s.sertion by one party, and the denial by the other, of this very right. Hungary undertook to "secede"
from the Austrian empire. Her right to do so was denied. She const.i.tuted an integral part of the empire--a great "consolidated"
nation, as some consider the United States to be. Being an integral part of the empire, according to the theory of the Austrian Government, she must so remain forever. Austria not having the power to enforce an acquiescence in this doctrine, Russian legions were called to her aid; and Hungary, on whose gallant struggle for independence the liberty-loving people of this country looked with so much admiration and sympathy, soon lay prostrate and bleeding at the tyrant"s feet. You may call this attempt of Hungary to regain her independence revolution. That is precisely what Austria called it. I call it an effort on her part to peaceably secede--to peaceably dissolve her connection with a Government which, in her judgment, had become intolerably unjust and oppressive. Her oppressors told her it was not her province but theirs, to judge of her alleged grievances; that to acknowledge the right of secession would strike a fatal blow at the integrity of the empire, which could be maintained only by enforcing the perfect obedience of each and every part.
We have, in the recent struggle of the Italian States, an instructive commentary on the now mooted questions of secession and coercion.
Indeed, history, through all past ages, is but a record of the efforts of tyrants to prevent the recognition of the doctrine, that a people deeming themselves oppressed might peaceably absolve themselves from allegiance to their oppressors. When our Government was formed, our fathers fondly thought that they had made a great improvement on the despotic systems of modern Europe. They saw the infinite evil resulting from coercing the unwilling obedience of a subject to a Government which he abhorred and detested. They accordingly declared the great truth, never enunciated until then, that "Governments derive all their just power from the consent of the governed." A Government without such consent they held to be a tyranny.
Now, Mr. President, this brings us to the very point in issue. Who is to determine whether this consent is given or withheld? Must it be determined by the ruler? If so, the proposition just stated is an absurdity. Clearly it was the meaning of those who enunciated this great truth, that the subjects of a Government have the right to declare or withhold their consent; otherwise no such right exists.
They, and they only, must judge whether their rights are protected or violated. If protected, every consideration of interest and safety impels them to consent to live under a Government which secures the blessings they desire. If, on the other hand, in their judgment, their most sacred rights are violated, interest and honor, and the instinct of self-preservation, all conspire to impel them to withhold their consent; which being withheld, the Government, as far as they are concerned, ceases.
Here I would call the attention of the Senate to the first of the Kentucky resolutions of 1798-"99, written by Mr. JEFFERSON, in which he says distinctly, that the parties to a political compact must judge for themselves of the mode and measure of redress, when they consider the compact violated and their rights invaded:
"_Resolved_, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that by compact, under the style and t.i.tle of a Const.i.tution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they const.i.tuted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary ma.s.s of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government a.s.sumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party; that this Government, created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Const.i.tution, the measure of its power; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."
Here Mr. JEFFERSON a.s.serts that a State aggrieved shall judge not only of the mode, but the measure of redress. Is this treason? If the measure of redress extends to secession, how can the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. JOHNSON] do less than denounce the great apostle of liberty--as Mr. JEFFERSON has been called--a traitor?
No less clear and explicit on this point, is the language of Mr.
MADISON. Being chairman of a committee to whom the subject was referred--the resolutions having been returned by several of the States--he says in his report:
"It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, ill.u.s.trated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Const.i.tution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the States, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Const.i.tution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The States, then, being the parties to the Const.i.tutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated, and consequently that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition."
In the remarks which I made on the 19th of December last, I referred to the fact that Virginia, in accepting the Const.i.tution, declared that the powers granted under that instrument "being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." I referred, also, to the fact that New York had adopted the Const.i.tution upon the same condition and with the same reservation. I may here quote the language of Mr. WEBSTER, distinctly recognizing the right of the people to change their Government whenever their interest or safety require it.
He says:
"We see, therefore, from the commencement of the Government under which we live, down to this late act of the State of New York"--
To which he had just referred--
"one uniform current of law, of precedent, and of practice, all going to establish the point that changes in Government are to be brought about by the will of the people, a.s.sembled under such legislative provisions as may be necessary to ascertain that will truly and authentically."
If the people of a State, believing themselves oppressed, undertake to establish a Government, independent of that to which they formerly owed allegiance, and the latter interferes with the movement, and employs force to prevent such a consummation, no one who acknowledges the great truth that the basis of all free government is the "consent of the governed," will deny that such interference is an act of usurpation and tyranny. Those only who borrow their ideas of political justice from the despotic codes of Europe, and are more imbued with the spirit of METTERNICH and BOMBA than of JEFFERSON and MADISON, will attempt to justify, palliate, or excuse such violation of the sacred rights of the people. I have observed that often the noisiest champions of popular rights are the first to trample those rights under foot. The word "freedom" is continually on the tongues of gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber; and I believe the Senator from Tennessee has been suspected of a decided leaning to agrarianism, so zealous has he been in advocating the rights, so entirely devoted is he to the interests of the "dear people." But now, when the _people_ of the seceding States have p.r.o.nounced, in tones of thunder, the fiat which absolves them from allegiance to a Government which they no longer respect or love, these same gentlemen all lift their hands in horror, roll up the whites of their eyes, as did old Lord NORTH many years ago, and exclaim "Treason!" "Treason!" Then, boiling with patriotic rage, they rise up and declare that "this treason must be punished; the laws must be enforced." History tells us that this was the language of King GEORGE and Lord NORTH when the colonies renounced their allegiance to the mother country. The former of these worthies, we are told, spent much of his life in a state of mental darkness--in other words, he was a lunatic. The other received from nature a narrow intellect, and inherited prejudices common to the aristocracy of that period and of all other periods of the world"s history. Their errors were the natural offspring of incapacity and the false teaching received in their youth. While, therefore, we cannot admire or approve their conduct, these circ.u.mstances incline us more to sorrow than to anger, disarm our resentment, and dispose us to forgive what, under other circ.u.mstances, would deserve the severest censure.
But what excuse can we find for the peculiar champions of popular rights in this Chamber; these zealous servants of the people, forever ringing in our ears, "Let the voice of the people be heard; respect the will of the people; _vox populi vox Dei_!" Sir, I say too, let the voice of the people be heard and respected. And I think, for the sake of consistency with all my past professions as a Democrat, I am bound to respect the declared will of the sovereign States which, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, have seceded from the Union and established a separate and independent Government. Whatever the causes may have been which impelled them to a separation from the other States, I am bound to respect the expression of their sovereign will; and I heartily reprobate the policy of attempting to thwart that will under the pretence of "punishing treason" and "enforcing the laws." We are told that the design is to attempt nothing more than to collect the revenue in the ports of the seceded States. To say nothing of the justice or injustice of the attempt so to do, I ask Senators from the North, and the Senator from Tennessee, _will it pay_? Will it not be a declaration of war against the seceding States, involving the people of all the States in a long and b.l.o.o.d.y conflict, ruinous to both sections? Are their ethics not the ethics of the school-boy pugilist, "Knock the chip off my shoulder"?
One of the framers of the Const.i.tution [Mr. MADISON], whose expositions of that instrument all cla.s.ses, all parties, have heretofore received, and still receive, or pretend to receive, with profound deference and respect, has left on record his views of the injustice, impracticability, and inefficacy of force as a means of coercing States into obedience to Federal authority.
Among the statesmen of the Revolution--those who partic.i.p.ated in the formation of our Government--there was no one who had such exalted notions of the power and dignity of the Federal Government, as the great HAMILTON. He was a consolidationist. The advocates of coercion might naturally expect to obtain "aid and comfort" from the recorded declarations of one of his peculiar political faith. But an examination of his writings will show, that instead of favoring coercion, instead of being the advocate of force, he was the advocate of leniency and conciliation towards refractory States, and deprecated a resort to force as madness and folly.
If the great names of MADISON and HAMILTON have not sufficient weight to restrain the madness of those who urge a coercive policy against the seceding States, then, indeed, I see no escape from that most dreadful of all calamities which can befall a nation--civil war. If those in this Chamber who talk so flippantly of war, had seen, as it has been my lot to see, some of its actual horrors, they might, perhaps, heed the warnings and respect the counsels of the sages and patriots whose language I have quoted. They would at least refrain from ungenerous insinuations against the patriotism of those northern Democrats, who, like myself, reprobate the policy of coercion as destructive of the peace, the prosperity, and happiness of every part of the country, north as well as south.
But to return to the remarks of the Senator from Tennessee. In the pamphlet report of his speech, page 7, JEFFERSON is quoted; but the concluding part of the quotation is repeated in the _Globe_ report and not in that of the pamphlet. That part is:
"When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it."
JEFFERSON is here quoted to show that the Confederation has a power to enforce its articles on delinquent States. But the citation is unfortunate for the Senator from Tennessee. He had just previously a.s.serted that Vermont and other States had, by personal liberty bills, violated the Const.i.tution. Well; can he tell us how Virginia and South Carolina could enforce the Const.i.tution on Vermont in that respect? It cannot be done. What follows? Why, as Mr. WEBSTER said at Capon Springs, "a compact broken by one party is broken as to all." Hence, according to the doctrines of JEFFERSON and WEBSTER as to the actual case which, according to the Senator, has occurred, the compact having been broken, the Southern States have a right to retire--are absolved from further obligations under the const.i.tutional compact.
The Senator complains that I replied at all, as I was a northern Senator, and a Democrat whom he had supported at the last election for a high office. Now, I was, as I stated at the time, surprised at the Senator"s speech--because I understood it to be for coercion, as I think it was by almost everybody else, except, as we are now told, by the Senator himself; and I still think it amounted to a coercion speech, notwithstanding the soft and plausible phrases by which he describes it--a speech for the execution of the laws and the protection of the Federal property. Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in any such State that can be protected by the power of this Government. In attempting, however, to subst.i.tute the smooth phrases of "executing the laws" and "protecting public property" for coercion, for civil war, we have an important concession, _i.e._, that this Government dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real purposes, and of their consequences. No, sir; the policy is to inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the design in smooth and ambiguous terms.
Now, sir, I want it distinctly understood, as I have already shown, that during the last session I stood firmly by the DAVIS resolutions.
I voted against every amendment. I voted against an amendment that he voted for, because I believed it was partial, and did not do justice.
But the Senator from Tennessee proceeded with an air and tone of great triumph to bring forward my vote on the amendments proposed to the DAVIS resolutions. I think I have said all that it is necessary for me to say upon that subject. I have shown that I have voted for them under all circ.u.mstances, and against every amendment. Those resolutions a.s.sert the right of property in the Territories, and that when the courts fail to afford protection, then it is the duty of Congress to come forward and provide that protection. I wished to put slave property upon the same footing as other property. That is where I then stood, where I now stand, and where I intend to stand. The Senator asks, with a kind of triumphant air, what has happened since that day? Mr. President, I have said that I have done all in my power, by standing firm to the resolutions agreed to by the Democratic party, to afford protection. The Senator misrepresented my vote on those resolutions. I never voted against the DAVIS resolutions, nor did their subst.i.tute ever come up as a separate proposition. It was an amendment to one of that series of resolutions I voted against; and I would vote against any thing and every thing that would embarra.s.s their pa.s.sage, for they contained just what I thought was right.
What has happened since? Why, a thing has happened that never happened before. The denial of any and all protection to slave property in any and in all the territory; the denial of the right to take slave property to any of them has been proclaimed and affirmed at the ballot-box by a majority of the States, and a majority of the electoral votes of this Union. What has happened? Why, the thing has happened that has been three times before attempted, and three times before failed; the first attempt having endangered the formation of the Union, and the second and third its continuance. The first attempt was made in 1784, to exclude slavery from all the Territories. It was abandoned in 1787 by excluding it only from the territory northwest of the Ohio, leaving it to colonize that portion southwest of that river.
The same thing was again attempted in 1820, as to the territory acquired from Louisiana; and after a terrible agitation, was abandoned by adopting the Missouri line. The third attempt was made in 1850, as to the territory acquired from Mexico; and then also the Union narrowly escaped destruction; but the compromise measures were adopted. And now it comes again, but in a more formidable way than ever. A President has been elected on that issue; for the first time the people of the North, after all previous compromises and warnings, have voted on the question, and every Northern State has p.r.o.nounced for the spoliation.
Mr. President, perhaps the most signal instance of the evils of compulsory union between dissimilar people, is that of Ireland and England. The people of Ireland--the home and heritage of my ancestors--have, as the South has, a representation in the national Legislature; but being also, as the South is, in a minority in that body, have no power to protect themselves from the aggressions of England. The consequence is, that they have been excluded from the common benefits of British legislation, commercially, and even religiously, to say nothing of their exclusion from official station in the empire. And, accordingly, Ireland has been impoverished, degraded, and discontented. She has been trampled upon, outraged, insulted, treated like Cinderella. The people of this country have always sympathized with the wrongs of Ireland, and her struggles for independence. Yet there is now a greater difference between the people of the South and of the North than between those of England and Ireland, and greater antagonism of opinion and feeling. Nevertheless, it is proposed to hold the South in political subjection to the North, and for that purpose to employ naval and military force.
Sir, I might mention many other cases: the subjection of Greece to Turkey; of Poland to Russia; of the Netherlands to Spain; Italy to Austria. In all these cases we have sympathized with, and, in many of them aided, the secession from the common government, by contributions and individual service. Yet those Governments were not founded on consent, and there was no compact conceding the right of secession.
Sir, in conclusion, whether the course the seceding States have seen fit to take be right or not, is a question which we must leave to posterity, and the verdict of impartial history. Our time will probably be more profitably employed in considering how we shall deal with secession than in discussing the causes which have produced it.
Secession, right or wrong, justifiable or unjustifiable, is an accomplished fact; and it presents to us no less an alternative than that of peace or war. Sir, I believe that, in the general ruin which would follow coercive measures against the seceding states, all sections, all cla.s.ses, all the great interests of the country, without any exception, would be involved. How much better, Mr.
President, that, in so fearful a crisis as the present, instead of pa.s.sing "force bills," and preparing for war, instead of "breathing threatenings and slaughter," and preparing implements of destruction to be used against our brethren of the South, how much better, I say, for ourselves, for posterity, for the cause of civil liberty throughout the world, that our thoughts should be turned on peace?
Peace, not war, has brought our country to the high degree of prosperity it now enjoys. The energies of the people up to this time have been directed to the development of our boundless resources, to the mechanic arts, to agriculture, mining, trade, and commerce with foreign nations. Banish peace, turn these mighty energies of the people to the prosecution of the dreadful work of mutual destruction, and soon cities in ruins, fields desolate, the deserted marts of trade, the silent workshops, gaunt famine stalking through the land, the earth c.u.mbered with the bodies of the dying and the dead, will bear awful testimony to the madness and wickedness which, from the very summit of prosperity and happiness, are plunging us headlong into an abyss of woe.
Sir, in G.o.d"s name, let us have peace! If we cannot have it in the Union, as it existed prior to November last, let us have it by cultivating friendly relations with those States which have dissolved their connection with that Union, and established a separate government. Though we and they may not, and, perhaps, in the nature of things, cannot live harmoniously under the same Government, it is our interest, no less than theirs, that we should at once endeavor to establish between our Government and theirs those amicable relations which should ever exist between two neighboring Republics. War, with its attendant horrors, being thus happily averted, the people of each Republic will be left at liberty to pursue, undisturbed, their several vocations. A mutually advantageous commerce will grow up between the two nations; treaties, such as regulate our intercourse with the Canadas, will be formed; confidence in all branches of business will be restored; a new impetus given to every variety of industry; the march of improvement accelerated, and the cause of humanity, of civilization, and of Christianity, advanced throughout the world. The people of Europe, accustomed to refer the settlement of their slightest differences to the b.l.o.o.d.y arbitrament of the sword, will behold with silent wonder and amazement the spectacle of a great people unable to agree in reference to one of their peculiar domestic inst.i.tutions, peacefully separating, as did the patriarchs of old; resolving themselves into two distinct political communities, not hostile, discordant, belligerent; but each, animated with a spirit of generous rivalry toward the other, pursuing a more successful and prosperous career in its own chosen path, than when, united under the same Federal head, they painfully sought together the same common destiny.
Mr. President, we are living at a day and at a time when a Northern sectional party have obtained possession of the power of this great Government, who have declared in their platform, in their speeches everywhere, and in their press, that slavery shall never go into another foot of territory; that no other slave State shall ever be admitted into this Union; that slavery shall be put in the course of ultimate extinction. We have the announcement of the party that the foot of a slave shall never press the soil of one of the Territories; that no new slave State shall be admitted; and, in addition to that, that no slave State shall go out of the Union. Who ever saw such a party as that? Who ever knew any thing like it in the world before?
They will not let slavery go into the Territories; they will not let a slave State come in; and they will not let one go out! They will not let them go out because they could not carry out their programme of placing slavery in the course of ultimate extinction. They want to keep the slave States in for their benefit--to foot the bills, to pay the taxes--that they may govern them as they see fit, and rule them against their will. Well, sir, I wish to say one word to that party, in all kindness; for I shall not trouble them again on this subject. I shall be a private, independent citizen before long. But I will say to that party, they had better change their tactics; they had better change front, and do it speedily. Let them place themselves upon the high ground of right and justice, and adopt such amendments to the Const.i.tution as will not only hold old Kentucky, which has produced the greatest "compromiser" of us all--that good old State where I was raised, and that I am proud of--but the other Southern States also. I am afraid Republicanism will not do this. I know those old Kentucky people from terrace to foundation. They will endure much--very much--peaceably and quietly; but if they are goaded too far; if, by repeated wrongs, they are compelled to fight, then I would say to their enemy "beware!" There are chivalry and patriotism in Kentucky which is neither in the power of accident nor nature to subdue. You had better not press them too far. Do not drive them to the goal of last resort. Give them justice while you have it in your power to do so. Satisfy them that ultimately they shall have equality in this broken Government, or Union, if you will. But, sir, I leave the patching up of the Const.i.tution to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky and other gentlemen, especially my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. BIGLER], who has labored harder to patch up the Const.i.tution than any man I ever knew, except my friend from Kentucky, and I wish him G.o.d speed in the work. Let it be upon just principles; let it be right; let us have justice; and I shall be content.
Now, Mr. President, I have paid all the attention to the attempt that was made to place me in the wrong that I deem necessary. I can only now repeat, in the conclusion of my speech, that neither the Senator from Tennessee, nor any other Senator, nor can any man, tell the truth and say that I have, by any vote, word, or act of mine, at any time or on any occasion, refused protection to all property alike in the Territories. I have made it a point always. Indeed, the doctrine of the equal right of property, whether slave or any other, in the Territories, and its equal right to protection, is as strong in me as life itself. I have never uttered a word against that principle; but I have said, upon all occasions, that that doctrine must be maintained, or this Union could not stand. I have fought for it; but as I said in the outset, while I deeply deplore the condition of the country, it has been caused by no act of mine. And with this remark, I part with him, who, in imitation of Esau, seeks to sell his birthright. I would, if there was time, give a little advice to all sides, to every Senator on this floor. I would say: Senators come up to the great importance of this question; meet it; adopt, by a two-thirds vote--as we could do if Senators would deal rightly--amendments to the Const.i.tution, placing all the States upon an equality in the Territories, and on every other question; submit them to the people; and by such amendments I believe we could prevent, or stop, a further rupture of this Union.