Year: 1861

guarantees rendered to the conservative slave
States and shall be refused, the Northwestern
Democracy will be the lion in the path of Wide
Awake armies from the North to establish Re-
publicanism in the South.


The great problem of the hour is how can this
unhappy imbroglio be adjusted? How can this
Federal Union be preserved from destruction at
the hands of enemies North and South This
Union must be preserved; the peace of the coun-
try must be maintained; the Federal laws must be
enforced by civil process; the Federal authority
over Federal property must be asserted. Now
have my own views of the delicate relations which
each of these propositions bears to the other How
IS it possible with the complicated and quasi in
dependence and de fdctO government of South
Carolina to exercise exclusive power over Fed.
eral property at Charleston? Possibly Federal
dominion could be maintained and the laws en-
forced by military power, but not without the ter
rible argument of cannon and bavonets which
in the present temper of the public mind South
would unite in a common cause of resistance
the fifteen States and light up the whole land with
civil war and not maintain the government Can
the Union of the States be maintained by forceg
We all know that such Union as can only be
maintained by force in this country is curse TO
the conquerer and the conquered In fact il
would be no Union at all, for one OF all the
Southern States thus subiugated would be at best
conquered provinces. Then one proposition is
melsurably dependent upon and is a condition to
the other. No more fatal deiusion could betray
the public mind than that either the Federal
Union or public liberty can be preserved in such
an earthquake of revolution as will shake the
very mountains and improve the horrors of the
revolutionary carnival of France.


We are constantly met by the Republicans with
the plea that the present Constitution is adequate
to the protection of the rights of all the States
and Territories, as an argument against this
change. This is doubtless true If the Reaubli
cans would live up to its spirit; but they every
where invoke the most dire curses on themselves
if they ever vote to change the Federal Constitu-
ton 50 as to recognize slavery any where DO
we not all know that that instrument recognizes
slavery wherever it exists already! Do we not
also know that the Dred Scott decision recoc.
nizes property in slaves, and do We not know that
the Republican leaders, from Mr.. Seward down
repudiate the authority of that decision and claim
that the election of Lincoln reversed il? How j
any Constitution adequate when such yandaIc
denial of its terms and judicial interpretations
are shamelessly avowei? But the South NAV
well be pardoned for her alarm, when we leave
the purely abolition aspect of the question and
look to some other dangerous principles hereto
fore avowed by the Republican party and never
disclaimed by them. Sixty eight Republican
members of Congress subscribed an endorsement
of the Helper book. the most diaboical of all the
incendiary productions of the anti-slavery press
The Republican party for years have avowed tie
purpose to admit more slave States They
have denied in the Chicago platform that Con
greSs, n Territory, n community, or any assOca-
ton Of individuals have power to give legal ex-
istence to slavery. They have denied and de-
nounce1, from Mr.. Seward down, the Dred Scott
decision and contemnel its authority. and haSe
ap .lsal IN III
and to-day openly boast that they have reversed it.
They openly declare in this Chambe., through
Mr.. Seward and elsewhere, for higher law than
the Constitution to which they owe allegiance;
they openly declare purpose of reconstructing
the Supreme Court so as to make il the echo of
the Republican caucus. All these issues they
say are determined in their favor | ask candid
Senators whether there is not Just ground for
alarm in all thisl


Heretofore party pride and party committals
have been sacrificed for party success, but now
when issues are of such magnitude and colossal
grandeur as to command the sympathies and fix
the gaze of two continents, sectional patriots of
the modern school give as their daily toast, mil
lions for Repubicanism, but not a cent for com
promise to save the Union.'' They are only for
the Union, at the expense of blood, and only for
blood at the expense of slavery.


How long has it been, Mr.. President, since the
organization of the Republican party, that its
principles and utterances have become more in
fallible and sacred than the Koran to the Mohom-
medan or the bible to the Christiang The Nor
mon prophet Joe Smith, exhumed his hero
glyphic plates of revelation from their hallow ed
repository, in western New York, quarter of a
century ago, and notwithstanding his wild fables
of the law, were taken from the archives of a
miserable imposture, they still live and hold sway
over host of corrupt and benighted followers
But, sir, the Republican party commenced bust
ness on capital of revealed law, for which they
were indebted to every other party in the land
than the Democratic. They obtained one plate
from the secret archives of Know Nothingism
another from the order of political temperance
the third they nodded themselves. at the foundry
of the Missouri compromise, and the fourth
which was as big as full moon, they accepted ai
the hands of Mr.. Giddings, at the Philadelphia
Convention in 1856. Now it became necessary,
in less than two years, for the high priest to re
ject the translations of the frst second and third


plates as apocryphol. while they held on to the
fourth and have gone through the political wilder
ness ever since, preaching the anti slavery gospel
until they have relched the promised land. Now
1t has occurred to me that party possessing such
n versatility of genius, such talent for change


such powers of penetration and analysis that en-


ables il to embrace or reject revelation as fass
or true by the infallibIe test of popular ayaila


blity, might have less scruples ON the score o


consistency than even Joe Smith, whose reyealet


creed has such great advantages on the score o


antiquity. In all seriousness, allow to ask Sena


tors why Is that the proposition to restore the Mis-


sour compromise as peace measure, fraught witt
| a nations hopes and happiness, is rejected now
when so much affectation of holy horror has beer


expressed at its repeal, and so many pledges mad


for its restorationg Let not Republican leader


tell me of their fixed regard for the principles an,


platforms of the party, and give that as reasol


why they propose to bring the calamities of wa


and intermnable discord upon the country ant


place the liberties of this once proud and fraterna
people at stake to abide the fortunes of revolu


ton and the arbitrament of the sword, after tn


numerous instances of the abandonment of DO


litcal creeds TO meet the exigencies of politica


campaign. No, Mr.. President the shibboleth O


party, the existence or non existence of the Re


publican organization is at the bottom of all thi


cant about principle. The Republican part


leaders are hesitating between their duty to thei


country and their duty to their party. ITO be O


not to bef' is the question with them; they kno,


that if Repubcanism survives the Union mus


perish, because the very terms and conditions o


compromise on which the Federal Union can b


maintained, terms of extinction to aboltio


agitators in the North, as well as in the nations


councils. Hence, Mr. President, the uupatrioti


and partisan tenacity with which party leader


cling to the policy of coercion and civil wal
rather than compromise | would suppose, Nj


President. that the surrender of principles so pro


ductive Of discord and blood would not he muc


of sacrifice for patriots who place their countr
above party; the Constitution above platform,


the union OF the States above the union of a sec
tional party, and the equality, liberty and fratel
nifty among the sister States, above the insatiabl
, scramble OF political cormorants for Office Bu


in response TO all our appeals the dominant part
in the North SAYS, rather than surrender part
dogma or the spoils and laurels of a party tr
umph, we would see the stars fall from our eagl


banner; rather than lower our flag we would Sc
, the glorious ensign OF the American republ
trailed in the dust" According to this view
it, they would convert this country into a bloc
stained desert to maintain the consistency of III


Chicago platform, to the effect that all men al


created equal. and in order TO seal and cement th
p'ighted faith in the rrepressible conflict" do,
trne enunciated by Messrs Seward and Lincoln
that the republic can not endure half slave an


half free-that house divided against itself ca
not stand. For these reasons am ready to TAX
| m .