The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1857-02-05

. | less on any vantage ground actually gained by
the House of Representatives, thanson a retrea
safely effected from the late legislative contest
r instead of an absolute capitulaton. God knows
that / do not undervalue the brave and true
e champions of Freedom who have honored hu
mainly so long in the House of Representatives
John Quincy Adams, Giddngs, Thaddeus Ste.
vens, Preston King, David Wilmot, John A
3 King, heretofore and now, Grow, and Banks
and Burlingame, and Howard, and Sherman
and Morgan, and Colfax, and the Washburnes all
But ask, nevertheless, what have we saved in
this last our only successful contest in the
House of Representatives Whitfield the rep
, resentative of the Missouri borderers in Kansas
only expelled, and Reeder, the true representa-
tive of that Territory, rejected Speaker, faith
r full to justice and humanity, barely chosen by a
plurality; an investigation into the atrocious
crimes of Kansas barely sustained: a meager
plurality vote for the admission of Kansas, un-
der the Topeka Constitutions, rendered half
| worthless by an embarrassment of the question
, with an incOngruous vote for a reorganization
of the Territorial Government; and an eight
months struggle for the equal independence OF
the House of Representatives, closed with a con-
cesson of absolute independence to the Senate
by consenting to its dictation in bill directing
the supplies for the support of the civil authori-
ties and the army of the United States
Enough Of the House of Representatives
Come along with me, felow-citizens. This pas
sage, crcuitous and descending, leads us into
the chamber of the Supreme Court of the United
States. 1t is an imposing tribunal, a great con-
sentative department of the Government. 1t
regulates the administration of Justice between
citizens of the different States, and between
States themselves. Its members are independ-
ent of the Legislature and of the President and
it has the power of setting aside even laws and
treaties if it find them subversve of the Consti-
tuition of the United States The court is just
opened for the business of the day. How fifty
does the proclamation of its opening close with
the Invocation, " God save the United States and
this honorable court" See also, how the men,
cries of the benefactors of mankind held in
honor here. There is the statue of John Jay,
the author of emancipation in New York. Alas,
our imagination has quite deluded US. The
court consists of Chief Justice and eight Asso-
ciate Justices. OF these, five were called from
slave States, and four from free States. The
opinions and bias of each Of them were care
fully considered by the President and Senate
when he was appointed. Not one of them was
found wanting in soundness of politics, accord
ing to the Shareholders exposition of the Con-
stitution, and those who were called from the
free States were even more distinguished in that
respect than their brethren from the slavehold-
ing States
We have thus completed our survey of the
supreme authorities of the Republic. Let us now
leave the Capitol, and look into the subordinate
departments.
In this modest edifice is the Department of
State. 1t is the depository of the seals of the
Republic. 1t directs and regulates the merely
Executive operations of government at home,
and all its foreign relations Its agents are
numbered by the hundred, and they are dis
persed in all civilized countries throughout the
world From the chief here in his bureau to
the Secretaries of Legation in South America,
Great Britain, France, Russia, Turkey, and
| China, there is not one of these agents who has
ever rebuked or condemned the extension or ag-
grandizement of Slavery. There is not one who
does not even defend and justify it. There is
not one who does not maintain that the flag of
the United States covers with its protection the
slaves Of the slaveholding class on the high
| seas.
In the majestic pile behind this unique but
| graceful colonnade, sits the Secretary of the
| Treasury. He manages the revenues and ex-
penditures of the United States, and guards and
improves their sources commerce, and the pub
lie lands. Seventy millions of dollars annually
pass through his hands into those of other pub
lie agents, contractors, creditors, and foreign
| Powers He directs the movements of agents
who, scattered abroad in all the seaports and
in all the States and Territories, are counted by
the thousands. His wand contracts or opens
| banks, and frees embargoes the merchant
| ships which carry on trade, domestic and for
|
but one has maintained. All the national
revenues are raised in such way as to favor
| most the purely agricultural labor of slaves, and
to afford the least impulse to the great wheel Of
manufacture, which is turned only by the hands
| of freemen. The custom houses and the public
lands pour forth two golden streams-one into
| the elections, to procure votes for the slavehold
ing class and the other into the Treasury to be
| enjoyed by those whom it shall see fit to reward
| with places in the public service.
walk of half mile brings US to the porticO
| of great edifce faultlessly conforming to the
best style of Grecan architecture. This is the
Department of the Interior, and here is its Sec
rotary. He is charged with the ministerial part
| of the administration of justice, with the dis
position of the public lands, the construction of
buildings, the granting of patents, and the pay
| ment of pensions. His agents abound especially
in the Territories and States, built on the public
domain. You see them here among yourselves
and know them well. Did you ever know one
of them whose devotion to the slaveholdng
class could be shaken by any miracle less than
| that which converted Saul of Tarsus, perse-
cutOr of saints into preacher of righteousness?
| Merely turning short corner, we reach the
General Post Office. This is the great domicili-
airy inquistion of the Government 1t reaches
by long arms with insnuating fingers, every
settlement, village, city, and State capital, in
forest, prairie, mountain, and plain among the
|
| vades with its presence the seas throughout the
whole earth. There is not one, of its more than
| twenty thousand agents, who is false to the
slaveholding interest, unless indeed he is so OBJ
scure as to have escaped, not merely the notice
of the chief of the Department ITSELF but also the
envy of stimulated avarice and ambition in his
| own neghborhood.
| A circuit of half a mile has now brought us
to the Departments of " War" and the Navy"
Here two energetic and far-sighted ministers
brought from the slavehodng States and
identified with their policy, WELD the two great
physical forces of the Republic, each ready, on
receiving despatch by telegraph, to subdue re-
sissnce to reclaimants of fugitive slaves in Bos-
ton, to DISTINGUISHING statutes in Kansas, or to
slave coursers on the high seas
Finally, in the most unpretending of all the
public edifices sits the Attorney General of the
United States 1t belongs to the office of an At
torney General to be willing adviser and cum
ming executoner Of the policy of the power by
whom he appointed. When or where in all
the memorable struggles of liberty with prerog-
alive, in this country Or in Europe, has this
character been more successfully illustrated than
it has been by the present Attorney General in
his efforts to establish the interests of the slave
holding class, and crush out its opponents in the
free States?
Fellow citizens, you start with astonishment
| at the picture have made, by simply bringing
together well-known and familiar, but distant
objects into one group, and in a clear light. You
say that it cannot be truthful / reply, if it be
not truthful, then let any one here whatever
may be his political bias or associations, point
out single figure that is wrongly placed on the
canvass, or show spot where the cold and pas
sionlcss shadowing | have given to it ought to
be mellowed.
You are impatient of my theme but I cannot