Washington sentinel., 1854-02-24
Speech OF SENATOR WELLER.

We take much pleasure in spreading before
our readers to-day the able and effective speech
of Hon. Mr.. Weller, of California, on the Ne
braska and Kansas bill, delivered in the Senate
on the 18th Of February. We do not hesitate
to say that it is one of the very best speeches
that has been drawn out by that important bill.
1t is one of those speeches that can be read with
profit by men of all classes. The profound
statesman will feel his views frightened and
his courage recruited by the convincing logic
and the bold and manly spirit that distinguish
it. The masses of the people can read it with
the same interest and the same profit. 1t pre-
sents to them, in plain, strong, sensible man
ner, thetrue issues involved in this bill and we
are inclined to think that in its freedom from that
useless lumber which disfgures the speeches and
writings of SO many Of our public men, and
which tends rather to confuse and perplex than
to enlghten and convince, and from its brief,
lucid, and practical illustrations Of the whole
question involved, it will produce more real
actual results than almost any speech to which
the occasion has given birth.
Mr.. Weller has mingled much with the
world. He has long been engaged in public
affairs and has found out all the avenues to the
!. hearts and minds of men. He does not fire
above the heads Of those for whom his speeches
are intended, nor does he fall short Of the high
est mark. He levels with the greatest accura-
cy, and fires with the greatest power.
Born and raised in free State, honored
with political advancement by the State of his
birth and the State of his adoption, and exposed
asmuch as any other public man tothe contagion
with an honesty most rare and q courage most
dauntless, contends for State rights and State
equality. He resists any effort to exclude sla-
very from Territories by congressional enact
ments, as he would resist, and for the same
reasons, any effort to introduce slavery into
Territories by the same means. He stands
where every patriot, whether from the north
or from the south, should stand-upon the con
stitutional doctrine of congressional non-inter-
vention.
Mr. Weller is no advocate Of slavery, as an
original question. But as slaves are property,
he is for extending over that property the
guarantees and projections of the Constitution.
But whilst no advocate of slavery, he is yet
manly enough to say that he has not yet seen
the demoralizing effects of that institution so
often referred to by abolitionists. He believes
that the men Of the south are as intelligent and
patriotic as those of the north, and that the wo-
men of the south are as chaste and virtuous as
their sisters of the north.
He concludes an eloquent passage of his
speech in regard to the Indians, whose rights
he desires to protect, and whose rights ne
thinks are protected by the bill in question, with
the following humane wish: 81 would to
Heaven that they (the Indians) we're as happy
and contented this day as the black population
of the south, over whom misguided philanthro-
pists and wild fanatics are now shedding their
crocodile tears"
He rebukes the inconsistencies of those who
are ever prating about the Declaration of In
dependence and about all men being free and
equal, by asking why they do not place the
negroes in the free States on the platform of
equality with themselves; why they do not
suffer them to sit on juries; why they do not
make them eligible to Office; why they do
not admit them to social privileges, extend to
them their hospitalties, and advocate intermar-
riages between them and the whites.
He calls attention to the fact that, at the
beginning Of this government slavery existed
in all the thirteen colonies. Congress did not