Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1856-12-27
GBe Daily Spp.
DEFENsE OF TaE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
SPEECH OF HON. HENRY WILSON
OF MASSACHUSETTS,
PRESID ENT'S MESSAGE.
Delivered Dec. 10Th, in the U. s. Senate.

L IL = L IL IN L Ql Il y = ~ NJ
Delivered Dec. 10Th, in the U. s. Senate.
Rep,red for the Boston Traveller by their Special Cor
respondent at washington.)
Sir, the free laboring men of the North
never did go into the slaveholding States, and
they never will. Establish slavery in Kansas
and you exclude the entire population of the
free States from that territory with the ex-
ception of few teachers, professional men
and merchants. The farmers, the mechanics,
the laboring men of the North, never put
themselves on a degrading equality with
slaves. In 1850, while five hundred and fif-
ty.six thousand Southern men had passed
into the five Northwestern States, less than
ninety thousand Northern men of all the free
States had passed into Florida, Texas, and the
whole Louisiana purchase, which was dedi-
Gated to slavery. | tell the Senator from
Texas that the great reason why we maintain
the doctrine of the prohibition of slavery in
all the Territories of the United States, is that
we want to preserve those Territories to the
free laboring men.
L commend to the consideration of Senators
who would open the Territories to slavery,
these words of the Hon. C. ]. Faulkner, of
Virginia, concerning the effects of slavery
upon the condition of the farmer, mechanic,
and laboring man:
+" 1t banishes free white labor-it extermia-
ates the mechanic, the artizan, the manufac-
turer. 1t deprives them of occupation. 1t
depriyes them of bread. 1t converts the en-
ergy OF a community into indictments pow
er into imbecility-its efficiency into weak
ness. Must the country lauguish,
droop, die, that the stakeholder may flourish ,
Shall all interests be subservient to ones all
rights subordinate to those of the STAKEHOLDER?
Has not the mechanic-have not the middle
classes their rights-rights incompatible with
the existence of slavery y
Sir, the Senator from Texas spoke sneering-
ly of " bleeding Kanzas." Throughout the
canvass our efforts in favor of making kanzas
a free State, and protecting the legal ghts of
the people, were sneered at as Z" shrieks for
freedom" and for " bleeding Kanzas!"
remember that on the evening when the news
came to New York, that Pennsylvania was
carried in October, the Empire Club came out
with cannon, banners, and transparencies.
The Five Points, where the waves of Adolf
ton fanaticism have never reached, the in
habitants of that locality, like the people of
the Lower Egypt of the West, stood fifty to
one by the Democracy--the Five Points and
the Sixth Ward were out-and upon a trans
parency borne through the streets of the great
commercial capital of the Western World,
was the picture of three scourged black men.
and on that transparency were the words
" Bleeding Kansas" thought then that it
was degradation which had reached the pro-
foundest depths of humiliation but even that
degradation has been surpassed here in the
national capital. In that procession which
passed along these avenues but few eve"
nings before we came here-a procession
formed under the immediate eyes of the chiefs
OF the Executive Departments of the Govern
ment, and filled with their retainers led by
Government officials-was borne upon tran
sparency the words, +" Sumner and Kanzas-
let them bleed -
The Senator from Texas may sneer, any
others may sneer, at ''bleeding Kansas = but
tell him one thing, that, the next day. at
ten o'clock, after the election, there was an
assemblage of men, continuing through two
days, in the city of Boston. from several
States, and from " bleeding Kansas men,
some OF whom you guarded through the sum-
mer months for treason--assembled together
to take measures to save Kansas, and assure
that Senator, and others who may think this
struggle for Kansas is ended with the election,
that more money has been contributed since
that election than during any three months
OF the whole controversy. Thousands of gar
ments have been sent to protect that suffering
people. We have resolved-and we mean to
keep that resolution-that if by any lawful
effort, any personal sacrifice, Kansas can be
saved to freedom, it shall be saved in spite of
your present administration, or anything your
incoming administration can do.
listened the other day, with surprise and
pain, to the allusion made by the venerable
Senator from Michigan, CMr. Cass) to my COL
league, (Mr. Summer whose forced absence
from this body for the last seven months must
have touched the sensibilities of every honor
able man in America. Sir, he is not here to
speak for himself. If he were here. his phys
ical condition is such that he could not speak
for himself with safety; but he will come here
again, if God in his providence shall restore
him to health, by the almost unanimous voice
of his native State, to whose cherished senti-
ments and opinions he has been true. He
may not come until the seat which now knows
the venerable Senator from Michigan shall
know him no more. The venerable Senator
retires from this body by the inexorable de-
cree ofthe people of his adopted State. / know
my colleague we'll enough, however, to know
that he is too magnanimous to hurl shaft at
the absent.
But the Senator takes objection to this fig
ure of speech: ''The rape of virgin territory,
compelling it to the hateful embrace Of sla-
very" The senator calls this an ''unpatriotic
metaphor, showing "prurient imagination"
l would remind the Senator that to the pure
all things are pure. If this metaphor was not
tit to be made, surely it was unfit to be repeat
ed and subjected TO that Senator's criticism.
But is not the figure trues Was not Kansas
virgin Terrtorys Was it not frees And
has it not been polluted by slavery Were
not the sacred words, "Slavery shall be, and
is, forever prohibited" written upon every
foot of its green sodsi Every breeze that
swept over il bore to the world the words,
Liberty for ALL You took this Territory
you took it, and have you not compelled it to
the hateful embrace of slavery Slavery is
there--carried there by an invasion. That in
vasion has placed it there, and your Admins
tration has sustained it; and the Senator from
Michigan and other Senators have supported
the Administration in its policy of coerton.
Sir, the soil Of Kansas has been bathed in the
blood Of brave men for the sole oifense of low
ing liberty.
But we are charged by the President with
intoxicating spirit which would lead the peo-
pie of the North and South tn stand face TO
face as enemies. Sir, repel that charge, as
utterly and wholly false. There is no such
feeling in the Northern States towards the
people Of the South. But few months ago,
the senator from Georgia Mr.. Toombsl whose
views upon this question ofslavery are known
to be EXTREMITY ultra, went to the city OF Bos.
ton, and leetured before one of the mnst in
teIlgent audiences that ever assembled in
that section of our country. He was received
by all with that courtesy and that kindness Of
failing winch avery Southern man who visita