Washington sentinel., 1854-04-13
Extract from the proceedings Of the Senate


This record is specimen of what takes
place every day. The free States petition !;
the slave States are silent. So it was in l84s
and 1850. Memorials against slavery poured
in from the former; from the latter was heard
an occasional protest against the Wilmot pro-
viso. Why this difference? Is it because the
people of the slaveholding States are less in
terested in the question of slavery-extension
than those of the non-slaveholding? Are their
views less decided Are they more Indifferent
to the policy of their representatives in Con-
gress? Far from it. Why then Sc silent,
while the people of the free States are forever
petitioning memorializing, demonstrating, pro-
testing? Because the latter are naisrepresented
in Congress; the former, al,cays represented
National Era, Of the llh.
The foregoing is pretty concession truly.
!. The southern representatives are all honest
and true; the northern are all scoundrels.
And why? Because, simply, they refuse to
rob their southern brethren-that is, those who
admit the claim of the south TO their rights
under the Constitution, when they could rob
them for the benefit Of the north misrepresent
their constituents.
And yet these same men puff as superior
to the angel Gabriel, every southern man who
goes against the south. Call you this equal
justice?
But why is it that the northern members are
at variance with some of their constituency,
and the south usually united on the subject Of
slavery The reason is clear The south is
perpetually on the defensive; the north on the
aggressive. This is so palpable to members
that they cannot resist their convictions. To
suppose the allegation to be true, would be to
say that slavery fosters TRUTH honor, and intel
lgence, while in the free States none but
rogues ever get to Congress. This, the aboli-
tionists have been averring for the last thirty
years and they have as often selected and
offered for public support their honest men,
who would strip the south Of every vestige of
right and yet in all those years they have
failed to get one of their honest men in a hun
dred sent TO Congress. These petitions and
memorials come from those very people who
had offered honest men Of their oicn as repre-
sentatives; and, the great constituency having
rejected their honest men and selected others
whom, they preferred, these same people, who
have been three hundred times beaten before
jury of the people, have the superb audacity
to come forward and claim obedience from a
representative elected in the very teeth Of their
opposition, and require him to do not what
those cho sent him wish, but to do that which
those who did not send him wish.
These memorialists have been kicked and
cuffed, time out Of mind, by the real constitu-
ents of members, on account of their barefaced
proclamations of an intent to rob and ruin the
south and yet they who alone have no claim
to his attention are almost exclusively the par
ties who instigate and collect these memorials.
What possible motive can be SO strong as
thus to cause northern members habitually, as
alleged by the Era, to prefer the interests of
southern constituency over their own? Is it
not clear that if the general opinions Of the
constituents Of northern members be as stated
by the Era, that every member Of Congress
would, on his return, be invariably consigned
10 infamy; and yet what are the facts? Why,
the reverse in public estimation, in private es
timation, and political influence they stand
lmmeasurapiy superior, az rome as abroad, 10
the whole herd at the heels Of the Era. Show
the first man, if you can, that ever came to the
Senate from the north by the exclusive support
Of such party as is represented by the Era.
No instance can be found no one oftheir faith
ever trod the Senate floor, whose commission
did not bear stamped on its face Corruption
Here is party, who never had representative
honestly chosen, charging dishonesty upon al
others. Truly, suspicion harbors.in the guilty
soul.