Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-03-04
snrKre OF wEsE q. STATES.
PASSAGE At ARMS.
Betceea Senators .RheH and c

| req. 2S.--lDe senate resumed
the consideration of the unfinished business of
yesterday, being the resolution declaring the
! Compromise acts a settlement of the slavery
| questions, &c.
! Mr.. Clemens resumed the remarks commence
ed by him yesterday. He said that one of the
papers published in this city stated this morn
ing that the Senate had been disgraced yester-
day. After the means taken by the Senator
from South Carolina in announcing his intended
attack, and from the nature of that attack ITSELF
he did not think there any one unreasona-
BILE enough to suppose that the war would be on
one side.
Had the Senator from South Carolina con-
fined himself to review of his public acts, his
public positions and speeches, he would not
! have used the language to that Senator that he
had on yesterday; but when the Senator went
beyond this, and in an effort to make out some
thing from his private affairs, sought, in low
and scunilous newspaper published i'll Alabama,
| an infamous charge, and attempted to give dig
| nifty to it by reading it to the Senate, he felt
warranted in repelling it in the mannerit desery-
ed. There was nothing else said by the Sena-
tor against him but what had been advanced
over and over again, and as often answered and
refuted by him in Alabama. TWAS not because
the Senator had charged him with political in
consistency; not because he had charged him
rights, that he had replied to him in the manner
he did; but because he introduced that base
SANDER here which already had been refuted in
Alabama, he used language towards the Sena-
| tor which he never intended to recall.
lie proposed now to refute the charge of in
consistency, and to repel the attack of the Sem
ator upon his public course. He referred to
quotations from his speeches made by Mr.. R.,
to prove that he Mr.. c. had at one time held
that States were sovereign; he had never said
that the States were sovereign beyond the linn
its prescribed by the Constitution. They were
sovereign, except so far as their sovereignty
was circumscribed by the Constitution of the
| United States. When the Constitution did not
take away their sovereignty, they were sover-
eign and in the same degree that the Constitu-
ton of the United States took away the sover-
| eighty OF the State, in the same degree that
State ceased to be sovereign. In the speech of
December last, commented upon by the Sena-
tor, he enumerated q alf-dozen points upon
which the Constitution took from the States the
attributes OF sovereignty; among these the SEN
| ator seized upon what he considered the weak
est one-that no State had the power to punish
treason committed against itself. He had not
said that the State could not call murder, trea-
son, or riot, Or IA forcible rescue, treason; but
would that constitute the offence of treason
| Treason was an offence against, and could only
| be committed against, the highest sovereign
| power of the State. The power to punish trea-
son was taken away from the States by the Con-
stitution itself. An old mode of Furnishing trea-
son was by attainder. The Constitution saws
that the States shall not pass bills of attainder
The Constitution of the United States says that
| the Constitution and laws of the United States
shall be the supreme law of the land, any thing
in the Constitution Or laws of the States to the
loon +l,ct,y, +l,o.
gress were to pass revenue law which the State
of South Carolina would determine to resist the
United States officers in Charleston would call
upon the citizens OF that city-citizens of South
Caroina--to aid in the execution of that law
which by the Constitution, is declared the SUI
preme law of the land-woud they commit
treason by obeying it? Could South Carolina
punish them for treason for doing so! That
State might hang a man who would obey that
supreme law; but who would say his offence was
! treason
TWAS true, as stated by the Senator, that he
| had stated that he was with AlabaIna-that he
would stand by her he said so now. He
would stand by Alabama, right or wrong; not
| however, under the miserable plea of right of
peaceful secession, but in the right of secession
| by revolution-a right to be accomplished and
maintained by force and force alone.
While he had been engaged in efforts to qui-
| ct agitation and allay excitement, the Senator
from South Carolina had been pursuing con-
trary course, and had been doing all he could
to keep alive agitation, and create it where none
! existed
| He had introduced, early in the first session
OF the last Congress resolution of inquiry as
to what had been done in California, but who
other than the Senator from South Carolina
would ever think OF deducing Il mans senti-
ments from resolution of inquiry? The res
olutlon implied that there was doubt existing
as to the matters inquired of, and information
was desired. 1t conveyed nothing more.
He considered the South as responsible for
what had occurred in California. The South
could have forced the adoption in the House of
the amendment of Mr.. Walker if they had cho-
sen. They could have presented the aterna-
tive OF the adoption of that amendment by the
House, or the defeat of the appropriation bills.
This they could have accomplished by resort
ing to the calls for the yeas and nays, and other
parliamentary proceedings. They refused to
do this, and California was left without gov
ernment and her people made one for them
| selves.
He had always said that the admission of
California was wrong. He said so now; and
had said so in the very speech upon which the
Senator had so much commented. But did the
Senator expect him to 90 back to Alabama and
counsel her to secede because of that act =
Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia. North Carroll
ma, Missouri and Maryland all had contributed
votes torit Was he to preach secession from
Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia-for those
States had participated in the robbery? Was
he to advocate the establishment of southern
confederacy in which these States were not to
be included!
He denied ever having said that the admission
OF California was unconstitutional. But suppose
he had said so, was he to forever stand by his
opinion and set it up against the judgment of
so many southern men who had voted different
ly! Was his opinion so great that, because
others did not agree to it, he was to lead the
people of Alabama to civil war; Was he to
suppose his judgment inRllible and that all
oilers who differed from him, and who had done
as much for their country as he had, were false
+l,a Conc+;+ut;on1