The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1852-03-03
speech Of Hon. 4. B. Khett, Of ssuth Caro-.
lima.
IN REPLY TO MR.. CLEMENS,
IN SENATE February 81, 1852.
| CONCLUDED. |

The Presidents message, transmitting th'
constitution of California TO the Senate, wal
transmitted on the 18Th of February. On tn,
goth of February, on the question OF reference
the Senator from Alabama addressed the Senate
It is abored effort to prove that California
cannot be admitted into the Union, consls'en
aonh The Constitution. Mr.. CLAY had submitted
his compromise resolutions on the 18th Of jan
uary, and on their character the Senator re-
marked as follows:
"After all the ref ,ction which he Mr.. CLAY
has been able to bestow upon the subject, aided
by the resources of his long experience, and his
great familiarity with difficult questions in trying
times, he has been able to suggest no remedy
which does not recognize the right Of aggression
on The one side, and demand an unconditional sub
mission on The other. He has submitted for our
consideration n series of resolutions dignihed
with the name of "a compromise but which,
like most other compromises between the weak
and the strong, is little better than cloak to
hide from public gaze hidsous ,orong."
" He comes forward now with a compromise
which comedies everything demanded by the
North, and proposes nothing for the satisfaction
of the South but the re-asserton, in less solemn
form, of rights already guaranteed and adj
mitted."
On the 9th of May, the committee of thirteen
made their report. The Senator from Alabama
Immediately attacked it. He affirmed that the
report and the resolutions offered by Mr.. CLAY
on the 29th of January were the same in pur-
port and on this ground he rebuked Mr.. MAN
GUM, for intimating an acquiescence in the COM
promise measures:
flask" he exclaimed, in all sincerity, and
with an anxious desire to be corrected if my i'm
| pressons are erroneous, what is this report but
repetition of those resolutions? Where is
there a solitary deviation from them in any vital
point? The Senator from Kentucky Mr.. CLAY
has been consistent; he has abided by his orlgi
nal plan; and those of us who denounced it
then, cannot support it now, and claim the merit
of consistency To do so, would be giving the
lie direct to the declarations We then made. =
"The Senator from North Carolina speaks Of
liberality !-of the propriety and necessity Of
liberality Sir, the Constitution is not thing
about which we are at liberty to exercise that
very commendable quality. 1t is not in my
power to exercise liberalty here. have no
right to trihe with my sporn duties. | am not
here to compromise away the provisions of the
Constitution"
See with what sternness and consistency he
vindicates the rights and honor of the South
attacks tho enemies of the South, as he supposed
them to be, who were willing to surrender her
rights and honor But he was not content to
assail the Senator from North Carolina alone
No, sir; he turned upon the Senator from Mis-
sissippi Mr. Foote Also and portrayed his in
consistency exactly as | am doing now to him,
Mr.. CLEMENS He took all the speeches of
the Senator from Mississippi, and convicted him
of the grossest Inconsistency, and as Mr.. FOote
understood him, denounced him as traitor.
Previously, when cooperating in the great cause
of the South together, he had paid very high
compliment to the Senator from Mississippi,
which will read. He and Mr.. Foote had been
attacked by some etter-writers whilst standing
forward as the gallant leaders of the South.
They were the Diomedes. Sir, in that contest,
although we had a Ulysses, they stood in the
foremost rank of our combatants. On the 18th
of February, in the debate on the petition pre-.
scented by MIR. HALE, praying that the Union
should be dissolved, the Senator from Alabama
said:
"But recently noticed that some small-fry
| politician, whose name | do not remember
some minow in the waters of Pennsylvania poll
tics-electrfed his little auditory by the decla-
ration that he had just as much respect for Will
mot as for CLEMENS or Foote. hope the Sena-
tor from Mississippi will survive this assault, and
that he will not drown himself in despair
venture even to hope that he will not be senced
by it, The South has yet much need of my
honorable friend. His genius, his talents, his
energy, his readiness to defend the right, his
fearless denuncations of the wrong, his unrivaled
powers of sarcasm and invective, are each and
all familiar acquantances, with which | should
be very unwilling to part at crisis like the
present"
! There was crisis occasioned by the preten-
sions of the North to exclude us from all of our
territory, and these senators stood side by SIDE
denouncing Mr.. CLAY and Mr.. Benton, and all
those in the South who were in favor of the ad
mission of California in the Union, with her
anti-slavery constitution. But when Mr.. Foote
went for the admission Of California, and sup
ported the report of the committee of thirteen,
the Senator from Alabama stood out against
him manfully, and arraigned his consistency. If
had known of these speeches when Mr.. Foote
assailed me the other day, might have read
them as my best defence, for then should
have better shown his inconsistency and treach-
cry. The Senator from Alabama denounced
the compromise as shameless surrender"
not compromise, and the ACKNOWLEDGMENT of
Texas, which it proposes, in the following strain:
cit is we'll the Senator Mr.. Foote1 informed
us that he had no regard for consistency"
When man says he has no regard for con-
sstency, it is very much like what Dogberry
says of writing himself down an ass. There
may be want of consistency, perhaps, without
fault; but to say that he does not regard con-
sstency, is proof of gross moral deficiency:
ale proposes now to cut off ten degrees of
latitude from the State of Texas-enough for
three free Statcs--whch we have his authority
for saying will be infallibly subject to the Will
mot proviso. He proposes further, to tax us
ten or fifteen millions Of dollars for the priv-
lege of making them free States, and adding to
the vast power now threatening to crush u.s.
and then, by way Of adding the most galingn
suit to the deepest injury, he demands that we
accept this outrage as compensation for the ad-
mission of California"
He denounced also the admission of Cali
fornia, and shows Mr.. Foote'S Inconsistency on
this point and in reply to certain lctter-writers,
who had said that Mr.. Foote'S national repu-
tation would not allow him to be ultra, he OBJ
serves, as follows:
at may not be amiss, however, to say few
words of this thing called national reputation.
IL il something | yalue very LIGHTLY We all