Daily national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1854, 1854-06-15
MORAL RrsposslpIrarr or STATESMEN.
SPEECH
MR.. GIDDINGs, OF OHIO,
SPEECH
Bill organizing Territorial Governments
in Nebraska and Kansas.
In c0mmillee Of ths Whole HOUSE, May u, 1854.
on THE

In Nebraska and Kansas.
In Committee Of the Whole House, May II, 1854.
[ooN0UDED.l
While these plans are put forth through the
public press, we are constrained TO listen TO ex-
hortations to pass this bill in order to silence agi-
fafioa, again to cheat Northern men with false
pretences. Sir, these efforts to defeat the objects,
the Interior designs, of those who founded this
Republic, to overthrow our Constitution and tram
pie upon the principles of humanity and Justice,
is gross fragrant, and unqualified attempt at
yepoiution II is treason to humanity, treason to
liberty treason to the Constitution Yet, all this
is doing under the disguise of attempting to
silence agitation, again to render us dupes Of the
slave power. We know from official messages
that the President is DESTROYS OF entering upon
such war with Spain; that he is willing to
sacrifice the lives of thousands of our own people,
to stay the progress OF freedom under a foreign
Government He is prepared to offer up heca-
tombs of his countrymen, to maintain oppression
and crime in other lands.
The profound guilt Of such policy cannot be
properly characterized. Such prostitution Of
the powers Of this Republic would constitute a
revolution of the most aggravated and the most
bloody character. / do not believe there is
another civilized nation upon earth that would
peacefully suffer such a proposition to be put
forth by its Executive. In other Governments
the scaffold would be regarded as the fitting re-
ward of such conspirators against the lives and
the liberties of the people.
Nor are his abettors less guilty / refer to
those SWiSs guards" who are ever ready to fight
for oppression, for anything, If thereby they can
obtain Executive favors. ! know of no worse
enemies to freedom, none more unfriendly or dan
gerous to free institutions. They are worse trail
tors to liberty than were the Tories of the Revo-
luton; and the time is not far distant when they
will be SO branded by popular sentiment. GEN
tlemen may think me excited. | make my calcu-
lations from the past !; from that judge Of
the future. Pass this bill commence your war
with Spain sacrifice the commerce OF the free
States to the canse of Slavery in Cuba; send
your army and navy there let our men be shot
down by emancipated slaves, and then tell me
have over-estimated the Northern spirit. If the
avowed designs of the President be carried for
ward, we shall not wait long to witness blood
shed in our own country. Indeed, we have seen
that, under the compromise acts of 1850. But
the excitement arising from the question before
us has rendered it impossible to execute the
Fugitive Slave Law in the northern portions of
the free States. At this moment do not be-
lieve the whole army of the nation could execute
that law in Northern Ohio. Sir, it is notorious,
that people already bid defiance to your laws
and your power. They look upon Congress with
suspicion; and woe be to the public men who,
in such an hour as this, shall betray this Gov
eminent into barbarous and piratica war for
maintaining and extending human bondage The
remedy for these things rests with the people of
the North. They must commence the work by
passing sentence, and by the political execution of
the entire genus called DoUGHFAcEs Then, ag-
tation may cease.
We are also told that this prohibition of Sla-
very interferes with the right Of the people to
|" govern hemseloes" In other words, the logic of
those who advocate this measure amounts to
this that self-government" includes the privi-
lege Of buying, selling, fogging, and robbing,
such men and women as they can subject to
their power. They do not include under the
term people" those who have been so unfortu-
nate as to be born of mothers who have been
enslayed. If their fathers were the first men in
the State of Virginia, if they themselves possess
intellects far superior to our own, yet slavehod-
ers and doughfaces deny that they possess any
rights. They are not to be called "people."
They insist that such persons have no right to
participate in the privilege of self-gopernment'
nor of " self-protection.D Why, sir, / believe
that many of these enslaved persons are more
capable of passing laws to control the doughfaces
now before me, than these doqghfaces are to pass
laws to govern the Territory. Sir, the very OBJ
ject Of this prohibition was to secure to all the
people who 60 to Nebraska the enjoyment of
(" equal rights and on this account, and no
other, do gentlemen seek TO repearit. The mem
Der who votes for this bill will thereby exhibit
his hatred Of popular sovereignty" Of "equal
laws"
Why, sir look TO history. In 1887, the United
States possessed the Northwestern Territory
Congress adopted an Ordinance for its govern
ment and, as have already shown, in the pre-
amble they set forth their objects TO be the
F" EXTENSION or THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES or
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY" To attain this OBJ
ject, they excluded Slavery from the Territory in
the same identical words by which il is now ex-
cluded from Nebraska. But the times have
changed at least statesmen have changed. In
1887, Slaverywas regarded as incompatible with
civil and religious liberty now, we are told that
the privilege Of holding slaves is essential to self
government; that no people can be truly Ssee,
unless permitted TO hold siaues and to commit all
the crimes attendant upon that institution. Why
not extend this proposition, and say they cannot
be said TO "goyern themselves unless permitted
to rob, murder, and commit pracys The logic
would be the same, the argument the same, and
the reasoning just as forcible.
AS remarked, the Congress Of 1887 adopted an
Ordinance for the government Of the Northwest
Territory. Ihere We're al that time, perhaps less
than fifty electors resident there, probably about
the same number now in Nebraska. Yet these
few required protection. Congress was bound
to give II, as we are now. They legislated, how
ever, as much for those who were expected to go
into the Territory after the adoption Of the Ord-
nance as for those then settled there. So do we.
II would not be right for fifty men now in Ne
braska to legislate for ten thousand who are to
go there next year. That would not be giving
the ten thousand equal privileges with those
now there We give them a Legislature, with
authority to pass certain laws not incompatible
with the laws Of the United States. We then
extend over them the law 10 prohibit murder.
While the friends of this bill are proclaiming
here and through all their presses the doctrine
of "non-intervmfiong we expressly intervene
TO prohibit larceny; we intervene TO prohibit
robbery and all other crimes, unless committed
under the law Of Slavery. The law Of 1920 pro-
hibits the commission OF those crimes also. This
prohibition we are called on to repeal, under