Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1856-06-25

raise sectional strife even to carry out a sound
principle. Acting on that same theory, in
August, 1913, [ proposed in the Senate of
the United States, law to extend the Mis-
souri, line to the Pacific ocean, in the same
| sense and with the same understanding, with
which it was orig ginally adopted. That prop
osition passed the Senate aud was voted down
in the House of Representatives. Had the
! policy of Buchanan, proposed in the ''Har-
| vest Home letter." then prevailed-the same
policy which advocated in the law Of 1913
there would have been an end of this sec
tional controversy forever. Who is RESPONSE
bic for the defeat of the proposition to extend
that line to the Pacific ? Certainly not James
| Buchanan-certainly not myself-certainly
not the Democratic party The men who
were responsible for that were the Abolition
lists, the Free Sellers, the present anti-Nebras-
ka men of the country.
| They then told US that the Missouri law
was an infamous measure said that if slavery
was right On the south side of the line, it was
right on the north side. They said if it was
right to leave the people to do as they pleased
on the south of SO. 80, it was right to grant
them the same privilege north of $3.50. They
said they would agree to any measure but
that infamous measures the Missouri Compro-
mise BY the defeat of the expression of the
Missouri Compromise line in 1S48, as rropo-
sed by Mr.. Buchanan in his Harvest Home
| letter proposed by myself in the United
States Senate, the country was plunged into
whirlpool of dangers of sectional agitation and
sectional controversy which lasted from 1913
to 1850. That controversy the result of
the defeat of the proposition to extend the Mis-
souri, Compromise line as proposed by Mr..
Buchanan, and introduced by myself.
In 1850 the controversy had ragged to such
an extent that the best men in the land trem-
bled for the fate of the Republic. Even the
immortal Clay, who, after long life of patri-
otic public services, had retired to the shades
of Ashland to prepare himself for another and
happier existence. There in his retirement
he heard the mutterlngs OF the approaching
storm-heard the angry voices ofdiscord brea-
| thing sectional hatred and sectional strife, un-
til he felt bound to come out of his retirement
into the Senate of the United States, the scene
of his greatest triumphs and proudest services,
| to see if he, by his age, his experience, his
counsel, could not do something to calm the
troubled WI tiers, and restore peace and quiet
to disturbed community
From the moment when Clay appeared in
the Senate, all party strife was hushed, patri-
otic feelings subdued factious resistance Clay
became the leader of all the Union men of the
country. He had the great ard immortal
Cass, whom you have heard tonight, for his
right hand man. and the god-like Webster
for the left. and there ranged around him all
the patriotic Union men, Wings and Demo-
Gratis united by a common object animated
by common spirit, and that was, to restore
peace to the country, to queil the sectional
strife that abolitionism and free sol!ism bad
produced, in consequence OF defeating the
proposition of Mr. Buchanan to extend the
u How ft-nt
lone months we assembled in the Council room
each morning to plan the operations for that |
day-to head off faction-to suppress combl- !
nation against the institutions of the country; |
and there We arranged step by step the prop
ositions until they resulted in the adoption of
he measures known as the Compromise Meas /
ures of 1850.
You all remember with what shouts and re-
ioicings the passage of those measures was re-
ceived throughout the country. You all re- |
collect the great meeting you then held here |
in Philadelphia composed of Wings and DEM
ocrats-Union men of all parties-who ap- |
nroved of the settlement which was made BY
those measures of that vexed question; and |
now let me remind you my friends, that among |
the proudest productions of that meeting here
in fact the chief ornament of that meeting
is the letter of James Buchanan to that
meeting congratulatiug the country upon the
restoration of peace by the establishment of
the great principles of the Compromise meas
ures of 1S50.
Thus we find that Mr.. Buchanan was among
the first to approve of those measures lie
had been for the Missouri line-so had L. We
tried to carry it out and were voted down.
Failing in that we took the next best measure,
and succeeded in that, and, fortunately for
the country. that measure was return TO the
true PRINCIPLES of the Constitution of the Uni
ted States. as the great Washington, Madison,
Hamilton aud Franklin, and other sages Tor
med If in that Hail. From 1850 having re
turned to the Constitution having abandoned
all of these patchwork compromises, which
were outside of the Constitution. james Bu-
cbanan ho, stood firm and mmovable by those
principles.
Tn 1854. it became my duty to repo't bills
| IN oroanize Kansas and Nebraska. on the
principles laid down in 1850, endorsed by the
Whics +: endorsed by the Democracy; sane
toned bv Mr.. Buchanau's letter to the Phila-
delpbia Ratification meeting; and | brought
in the Nebraska Bill in the form that it now
stands. from the statute book. (Cheers y
| That bill passed the Senate by majority of
the Whig party then in the body, also by
majority of the Democratic Senators receiving
the votes of majority of the Southern Sena
tors, and also of majority of all the Nor
thern senators and yet we are tod the conn
try was betrayed in the passage of that bill,
Ca voice. no such thing.') betrayed By
whom! Betrayed by majority of the North?
BETRAYED bv the whole South Betrayed
by majority of the Democrats Betrayed
I c.l... II hot too in