Year: 1859

AAIN DNOs 1A - SPEECH OF HON. A. H STEPHENS

 The Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, o Georgia, made speech to his constituents at Augusta, a week or two since, on the occasion of his retiring from Congress:

 ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.

 After some preliminary remarks on the subject of State policy, he alluded to his connection with the annexation of Texas one of the most momentous questions, and the first which he ever met with. It was a fiery ordeal, for he then stood in opposi- ton to his friends; but a sense of duty impelled him to adopt the course he did. The secret history of the subject has never been written. The annexation of Texas secured four slave States to the Union. Without claiming any honor for himself, he stated that the resolutions that passed the Senate were drawn up by himself and MT. Brown, of Tennessee, and that Mir. Calhoun and Mr. Tyler never saw them until they were in print. In 1850, Mir. Hale asked Daniel Webster, the great constitutional expounder, whether he thought it was constitutional to admit ter- ritory with guarantee of four slave States into the Union. Mir. Webster replied, Il dor' This was one of the most grati- | fying events of his life. In six years, not withstanding the disagreement and diff cuties through which he passed, he lived to see the abIest expounder admitting, in the face of the world, that the act of ad- mission was constitutional, and now men of all parties and creeds agree that il was right.

 l NoN-INTERvENTr0N IN TERRITORIES. A great and fearful crisis arose-that | was the question of the power of Congress over Territories whether new slave States should be admitted, or whether the South should never expand or enlarge; whether the South should submit to degradation. He would not give the history of those times, but simply say. in regard to the path he took, it is past; what he did is done, but, whether right or wrong, the record IS made up. The South was successful she asked nothing wrong from the North and got only what was right. He was perfectly willing to remain in the Union, but simply said, stay the hand of oppression. As much as he loved and admired the Union, if the South was to be hemmed and hedged in, he was for resistance sooner than submit to practical or theoretical questions of wrong, he was for resistance. He be- lieved truth would triumph; all the South wants is decision, union, patriotism. He believed in the power and omnipotence of truth, and would ask for nothing wrong.

 The great principle to be carried out is expansion-the right of the people of the South to go to the territories with their slave property, protected by the Consitu- tion, on platform of equal rights. The question was fully settled, as a principle, that Congress should make no discrimina- ton in regard to sectional rights in the Territories, but that the people of each Territory, when about to form constitution as a State, should decide for themselves, whether they should come into the Union as free or slave State. The Missouri Compromise doctrine, the Texas doctrine, the territorial doctrine of Rufus King inI 1877, have all been abandoned. In the admission of this principle, it was not a triumph of the South, but a triumph off justice, truth and right. The settlement was fully up to the demands of the South. She never asks but for what is right. The principle is now settled that Congress shall abstain from all legislation on the subject of slavery in the Territories, whether as to the North or South; and the Territories are now open to all sections, and have the privilege of adopting slavery or not. as the people may choose, when they come to form a constitution. These measures, however, did not go as far as he wished he would have Congress to give protection to slave property in the public domain as long it should remain in territorial condition. A majority of the South diff fered with him-not more than twenty five men in Congress agreed with him but he finally yielded to the doctrine of non intervention, because it was not aggressive; and because 1t secured for all practical purposes what we wanted. If climate and soil do not favor slavery, it will not go into the Territory. Many thought all the dis cussion on the slavery question had nothing in it; slavery would not go to Kansas, Ne braska, etc. what harm would be done if the Wilmot proviso was passeds Itistrue. it was an abstract principle which had been gained; but some of the greatest questions in the governments of the world have been abstract He would advise as strong re- sistance to abstract as to practical questions. Nations that submit to abstract questions of wrong will not long maintain their in- dependence.

 Let no man, then, say that all this discus sion about slavery in the Territories was for personal motives, and that all the details amounted to nothing. Fates of Empires have been settled by abstract questions. The Dred Scott decision was only in re- gard to one slave, but it contained an ab- stract question of great importance. Mir. Stephens cited several law cases where the interests at stake were small, but wherein great abstract principles were contained {; and asked where would have been the Dred Scott decision but for the debate in Congress. Let no man place too light an