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SPEECH 
 
 HON. SAMUEL A. PUKVIANCE, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SLAVERY AND PRESIDENTIAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 4, 1856. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 
 1856*. 
 

SLAVERY— THE PRESIDENCY, 
 
 The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the 
 state of the Union- 
 Mr. PURVIANCE said: The merits of the 
 great trial which is now going on before the grand 
 unquest of the nation are now prominently forced 
 upon the consideration of this House. It is, per- 
 haps, right to have the principles of the great 
 parties of the country properly presented and fully 
 canvassed in a discussion, even in the chamber 
 of American legislation, radiating, as itdoes,over 
 the length and breadth of the land, and bringing 
 back a pure, strong, and wholesome reflection of 
 the entire popular will. The friends of Mr. Buch- 
 anan in this House, calling themselves the Dem- 
 ocratic party, have arraigned the American and 
 Republican parties, and severely criticised the 
 principles of both in speeches of great length, 
 which have been sent to every post office in the 
 Union, with direction, doubtless, to give them 
 general distribution. 
 
 The American and Republican parties were 
 produced by, and are, the legitimate offspring of 
 the old Democratic party. In other words, the 
 course pursued by the latter in endeavoring to 
 secure the two great political powers of the Gov- 
 ernment, the papal and the slave, has very natu- 
 rally created antagonisms amongst the people, 
 resulting in the formation of strong political par- 
 ties. It is a fact which cannot be controverted, 
 that for twenty years the so-called Democratic 
 party has bowed with obsequious devotion to 
 secure the support of the Catholies of the country, 
 and that, with a few honorable exceptions, they 
 have been successful. 
 
 In 1852, Mr. Pierce, the nominee for the Pres- 
 idency, hailing from the only State whose con- 
 stitution proscribes a Catholic from holding office, 
 it was thought and believed, that body of people, 
 if actuated by a proper spirit of resistance to re- 
 ligious intolerance, would have cast their votes 
 against the grandson of him who helped to frame 
 the obnoxious constitution. For a time, and 
 within a short period before the election, many 
 of them showed a determination to avenge them- 
 selves of what they then complained was a most 
 
 grievous wrong. The election came, and with 
 but a few honorable exceptions the Catholics 
 throughout the United States licked the rod that 
 smote them, by throwing almost their entire suf- 
 frage to Pierce. 
 
 This most singular vote produced a shock upon 
 public sentiment which has not yet ceased its 
 vibrations. It was boldly charged that the result 
 had been obtained by an arrangement between 
 Bishop Hughes and the friends of Mr. Pierce, by 
 which the former was to secure a participation 
 in the management and control of the incoming 
 Administration. 
 
 The distribution of official patronage riveted 
 upon the public mind the conviction which pre- 
 vious circumstances had strongly tended to in- 
 spire. 
 
 From this result the American people turned 
 with indignant horror, refusing to recognize, so 
 far as the ballot-box was concerned, a body of 
 men as equals, who suffered themselves to be 
 politically controlled by the head of the Church 
 of which they were members. Separation of 
 Church and State being the true American doc- 
 trine, the complete identification of Catholicism 
 with Democracy naturally inspired the public 
 mind with suspicion and alarm. 
 
 The Democratic party having wooed to their 
 embrace the Catholic power of the country, they 
 must be content with the chastisement they are 
 now receiving as a punishment for this improper 
 alliance of Church and State. Ours is a Govern- 
 ment in which like voice of the people is the con- 
 trolling element, and every man should speak 
 and act for himself as becomes the character of a 
 sovereign, and not suffer himself to be controlled 
 in political affairs by any power on earth but his 
 own convictions of duty. The enlightened state 
 of public sentiment in America must, and I am 
 happy to say is beginning gradually to dispel the 
 delusion under which our Catholic population 
 labor. Already there are to be found men reared 
 in that faith who are asserting and maintaining 
 their freedom from all restraint of pope, bishop, 
 priests, or church hierarchy in political affairs. 
 
With some of these I am personally acquainted, 
 and can vouch for their firm determination in 1852, 
 persisted in to the end, to resist the power which 
 unfortunately, in the judgment of the American 
 public, controlled the most of them. When they 
 step aside from this church dominancy , and think 
 and act for themselves, assert and maintain the 
 high prerogative of freemen, and shut their ears 
 against the repeated and never-ending efforts of the 
 Democratic leaders to inflame their prejudices for 
 no other purpose than to make them " hewers 
 of wood, and drawers of water;" then, and only 
 then, will they cease to be slaves, and at once rise 
 to the dignity of freemen, and become, in every 
 sense of the word, " Americans." Freedom of 
 conscience, as well as freedom of speech and of 
 the press, are the constitutional guarantees which 
 belong to all; and no one, either in Church or State, 
 has any right to control the political action of the 
 humblest citizen in the land. Americanism is 
 arrayed against political Romanism only, and 
 seeks to give every conscience its own control, 
 instead of allowing it to be controlled by others. 
 For twenty years and upwards, within my own 
 personal knowledge, the Democratic party has 
 been engaged in the habitual practice, a short 
 time previous to an election, of fabricating ludi- 
 crous stories of the wrongs which other parties 
 are about to inflict upon Catholics, and never 
 failing to secure the services, in every town and 
 township, of some supposed leader, upon prom- 
 ise of political reward, they reach the ears, and 
 delude the minds of the masses, with no other 
 purpose than to secure their vote, and afterwards 
 to laugh at the means employed to obtain their 
 object. The imposition of restraint by the head 
 of the Church, or, in the absence of this, the in- 
 flammatory appeals to the prejudices of the Cath- 
 olic mind By the Democratic party, in the judg- 
 ment of a large body of the American people, 
 has kept, and until removed will doubtless keep, 
 the Catholics, as a body, the allies of the Demo- 
 cratic party, which mainly contributed to create, 
 and which will doubtless equally contribute to 
 continue in existence, the American party. 
 
 REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 
 
 In 1852, Franklin Pierce was elected to the 
 Presidency with a unanimity unprecedented — 
 twenty-seven States out of thirty-one casting in 
 his favor. The dispensation of Federal patron- 
 age, as already observed, helped to bring into 
 existence the American party, but in other re- 
 spects his administration gave promise of undis- 
 turbed quiet and repose. The Thirty-Third Con- 
 gress assembled, a majority or* both Houses 
 being Democratic, and giving to that party abso- 
 lute and undisputed sway in the administration 
 of the Government. The responsibility of meas- 
 ures enacted of course devolved upon the party 
 in power. Without either petition or memorial 
 from North or South, East or West, a bill was 
 presented repealing the Missouri compromise, a 
 compromise made by our fathers in 1820, by 
 which the Territory of Kansas and Nebraska was 
 forever dedicated to freedom. The cause of this 
 extraordinary act, in which northern Democrats 
 played a conspicuous part as originators and lead- 
 
 ers, was readily found to exist in the restive de- 
 sire of those leaders to make themselves prom- 
 inent with the slave power — a power which 
 has heretofore ruled the Government, and which 
 these political marplots believed would ever con- 
 tinue to do so. Turning their backs upon the 
 North, they joined hands with Stephens, Toombs, 
 and others of the South; and in the hour of mid- 
 night broke the seals of the solemn covenant 
 made by our fathers, North and South, in 1820, 
 for the maintenance of freedom in the Territories 
 north of 36° 30'. The deed was done, but not 
 without resistance from patriots North and South. 
 The members of the once-powerful Democratic 
 party of the North, disgusted with this exhibition 
 of bad faith and broken honor, left by thousands 
 the party with which they had ever acted, and 
 helped to change entirely the character of the 
 national House of Representatives. 
 
 Why did the Democracy repeal the Missouri 
 compromise ? They say it was done to establish 
 popular sovereignty — the right of the people to 
 act for themselves in the government and control 
 of territorial affairs; and to establish, or refuse to 
 establish, slavery, as they may determine. If this 
 were even so, it would amount to a perpetration 
 of a wrong, in robbing freedom of her right to 
 soil obtained by solemn contract thirty-four years 
 ago. Wrong for another reason: that it opens a 
 large tract of fertile country to become the theater 
 of bloodshed, of continued strife, in fighting about 
 a question which our fathers, thirty- four years 
 before, had settled upon a basis satisfactory to 
 all. As an evidence that it was not done for the 
 purpose of establishing popular sovereignty, the 
 very authors of the bill and doctrine will not allow 
 the free resident voters to control, and the boasted 
 authors of popular sovereignty rob the very sov- 
 ereigns they create of the power for which they 
 say they fought so hard, in the passage of the 
 Nebraska bill, to invest them. 
 
 Although the law professes to leave it to the 
 people to say whether slavery shall, or shall not, 
 exist, the very authors of the bill assert and 
 maintain that slavery does exist in the Territo- 
 ries, independent of the bill; therefore the Ne- 
 braska bill inaugurated no new right, and, on this 
 account, can claim no merit. 
 
 If Congress has no constitutional power to con- 
 trol slavery in the Territories — as most, if not all, 
 southern gentlemen contend; and if, as they say, 
 popular sovereignty applies only to the action of 
 the people in forming a constitution for admission 
 as a State, then it is obvious the bill conferred 
 no new power, and of course created no changes. 
 The right of the people to form their own con- 
 stitution, when about to apply for admission, is 
 doctrine as old as the Government itself, and 
 asked for no enactments to give it additional 
 strength. 
 
 ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 
 
 Popular sovereignty is the pretext, but exten- 
 sion of slavery the purpose, for which the repeal- 
 of the time-honored Missouri compromise was 
 effected. A large majority of the resident citizens 
 of Kansas selected delegates to a convention to 
 frame a constitution for admission into the Union. 
 
The convention sat at Topeka, framed its consti- 
 tution, and presented it to Congress for admis- 
 sion. All the friends of Mr. Buchanan, in the 
 House and Senate, but three, voted against the 
 recognition of this act of popular sovereignty of 
 the people of this unfortunate Territory The 
 admission of Kansas, therefore, as one of the 
 States of the Union — it is folly to disguise the 
 fact — is opposed for no other reason than that she 
 presents herself clothed in the beautiful garb of 
 freedom. She asks to come into the sisterhood 
 of States robed in white, as an appropriate em- 
 blem of the purity of her devotion to universal 
 liberty. Along side of her sister California, she 
 desires to take her stand, if not as a golden 
 magnet, as the. star of the West — the future des- 
 tined center of the Union — the pivot State between 
 the two great oceans which wash the eastern and 
 western limits of heaven's favorite nation. There 
 is a fitting propriety in giving her a cordial wel- 
 come, a warm and hearty embrace, as the young- 
 est sister whose birth will end the painful throes 
 of an almost dying mother. Her coming will be 
 the signal for hearts to leap with joy at an event 
 which will inaugurate a new era, by ending the 
 horrors of civil war and bloodshed in the land. 
 Shall she come a* such, or be ushered in under 
 the pall of liberty's funeral dirge — her beauty 
 covered by the dark vail of slavery, to remain 
 forever hid from the gaze of an admiring world ? 
 
 This is the question which claims the judgment 
 •of the whole American people, which judgment 
 we, as their Representatives, are required to give. 
 Por one, I rejoice to declare that I am most un- 
 reservedly, heart and soul, on freedom's side. 
 Others, I know, have taken a different stand. The 
 conflict must come here in this and the other 
 Chamber, and at the ballot-box, and it behooves 
 us all to be prepared. 
 
 That the South have determined to make Kansas 
 a slave State, and that, too, for the purpose of 
 perpetuating the political power of the nation in 
 their hands, I have no doubt; because I have from 
 them the open and direct avowal of such a pur- 
 
 Cose. That that purpose is to be accomplished 
 y an attempt to restore the slave trade is also 
 openly, publicly, and, I may add, recklessly 
 avowed. The Charleston Standard, of recent 
 date, holds the following language: 
 
 '• We believe the Union will be temporarily prolonged by 
 the introduction of slavery into Kansas ; but we believe it 
 might be extended to an indefinitely distant period by the 
 measure we propose [the restoration of the slave trade ] 
 With the certainty of having I he balance of political power, 
 we would have little motive to a dissolution ; while the sta- 
 bility and repose to the North, from the predominance of 
 slave power in the Government, would counterbalance 
 any inclination they might have to leave us." 
 
 The Richmond Whig, of recent date, says: 
 " In a word, we stand ready to approve and encourage 
 every effort which southern men, in their wisdom and judg- 
 ment, may decide upon to promote emigration to Kansas 
 from the southern States. If Kansas can be rescued from 
 the grasp and dominion of the Free-Soilers and Aboli- 
 tionists, and erected into a defense of slavery and southern 
 institutions, why. in God's name, we appeal to the patriot- 
 ism, and enterprise, and liberality of the South, to rally to 
 the rescue and consummate the glorious work."' 
 
 Again: in the call for a meeting at Charleston, 
 '.he following language is used: 
 " The meeting announced in behalf of the cause of the 
 
 South in Kansas, takes place to night in the hall of the In- 
 stitute. The occasion and the cause cannot fail to call forth 
 our citizens in great zeal and numbers. Their importance 
 can duly be appreciated when it is remembered that Kansas 
 has swallowed up all other questions in the Union ; that for 
 two long months it has kept the Government in a state of 
 anarchy ; and that its solution is admitted on all hands to be 
 the most hazardous problem that has yet come up before 
 the Republic ; but to the southern people it has an interest 
 higher than that of the Union. Tt is linked with the destiny 
 of 1,500,000 of slave property, and with the entire wealth, 
 civilization, and hopes of the southern people. In such a 
 cause Charleston cannot be lukewarm. Her commerce, 
 her trade, her existence, is but a portion of the life of the 
 South ; and whatever strikes at that strikes at her. It will 
 be seen by the advertisement, that the galleries of the hall 
 will be reserved for the ladies, who never fail to respond to 
 the calls of patriotism and honor." 
 
 The object, therefore, of the South, in forcing 
 slavery into Kansas, is boldly avowed to be the 
 acquisition of political power; in other words, 
 the political subjugation of sixteen millions of 
 free whites in the North, to the control of three 
 hundred and forty-seven thousand slaveholders 
 of the South. Disguise it as you may, this is 
 the question which has to be met by the people 
 of the North with a sternness of purpose which 
 knows no faltering. For one, whatever the con- 
 sequences may be, I am prepared to fight this 
 moral battle to the end. It is not my habit or 
 my purpose to deal in personalities. I mean 
 to be respectful — to infringe upon no parliament- 
 ary decorum; but I mean to speak boldly, freely, 
 and frankly, unawed by any power on earth, 
 and answerable only for what 1 do and say here 
 to my own convictions of duty and to my con- 
 stituents. 
 
 I desire to speak of the consequences of this 
 reckless repeal of an act of plighted faith. 
 
 It has reopened the slavery agitation anew, and 
 fomented quarrels and bloodshed even at the 
 Capitol of the nation. 
 
 It has produced the burning of cities and mur- 
 dering of freemen by an infuriated mob. 
 
 It has struck a fatal blow at the freedom of 
 speech and freedom of the press, worse than that 
 of the sedition law of 1798. 
 
 It has led to an invasion of the ballot-box and 
 the usurpation of government. 
 
 It has led to the enactment of a code of laws, 
 or pretended laws, so tyrannical that the seifs of 
 Russia could not live under them, much less free 
 citizens of the freest Government on earth. 
 
 It has imprisoned freemen for refusing to obey 
 these laws; and a tyrannical judge, appointed by 
 and removable at the pleasure of the President, 
 has refused to accept bail and release the pris- 
 oners. 
 
 The admission of Kansas as a free State would 
 at once remedy, in the future, all these evils, and 
 end the strife. The friends of Mr. Buchanan, as 
 already shown, had this in their power to do; but, 
 by an almost unanimous vote, refused it. 
 toombs's bill. 
 
 [n lieu of this, the Senate send to the House a 
 bill known as the Toombs bill, in which it is pro- 
 posed that the President, by the advice and con- 
 sent of the Senate, shall have the power to appoint 
 five men to take the census of Kansas, and fix 
 upon who shall and who shall not be citizens, 
 which decision is to be final. Under this clause 
 
6 
 
 the President might appoint Stringfellow, Atchi- 
 son, Jones, Donaldson, and Lecompte,and their 
 list of citizens would have to be taken without 
 exception in any way, not even by the plainest 
 proof, at the time of voting, that such registering 
 was grossly fraudulent. The bill further pro- 
 vides^ that none but those who were citizens on 
 the 4th of July, 1856, should be taken into the 
 enumeration. After having burned and sacked 
 cities, and driven free-State settlers from the Ter- 
 ritory, they fix the 4th of July as the time upon 
 which the enumeration shall be made, for the 
 purpose, as is evident, of fixing upon the Terri- 
 tory forever their exacting and arbitrary system 
 of slavery. 
 
 The friends of Mr. Buchanan in the House 
 and Senate vote for this infamous bill, and then 
 publish it far and wide that they have made this 
 beautiful proposition for the purpose of pacifica- 
 tion ! I blush to know that a Senator from my 
 own glorious free State is helping to push this 
 miserable, flimsy, gauze-work idea upon the 
 people of Pennsylvania. Our people, although 
 honest, I admit have been deceived; but let them 
 but ask themselves the question, whether they 
 would allow this great question to be placed for 
 settlement in the hands of Franklin Pierce alone? 
 The bill provides for nothing more nor less; and 
 it is, therefore, the grossest arrogance to tell the 
 free people of the North that Franklin Pierce, 
 who has been the chief actor and manager in all 
 these troubles, should have the power intrusted 
 to him to settle them. The people would agree 
 to no such arbiter. Already they have lost all 
 confidence in his ability to administer the Gov- 
 ernment, and therefore cannot and will not trust 
 Iiim to try a great cause in which he is the chief 
 criminal himself. 
 
 dunn's bill to restore the Missouri compro- 
 mise, AND RESOLUTIONS TO RELEASE PRISONERS 
 AND EXPEL BROOKS. 
 
 The friends of freedom in the House next passed 
 a bill restoring the Missouri restriction, and pro- 
 viding for the release of the prisoners charged 
 with treason for participating in the formation of 
 a free-State constitution. On the passage of this 
 bill, all the friends of Mr. Buchanan but three are 
 found recorded in the negative. 
 
 On the resolution submitted by myself for the 
 release of George W. Smith, N. W. Dietzler, 
 G. W. Brown, and others, the friends of Mr. 
 Buchanan, with three exceptions, are found 
 voting in the negative. 
 
 On the resolution to expel Brooks for an un- 
 justifiable assault upon Senator Sumner, the 
 friends of Mr. Buchanan are found voting, with 
 three exceptions, against the expulsion. In the 
 argument upon this resolution, the prominent and 
 leading friends of the Democratic nominee are 
 found justifying the use and application of the 
 bludgeon against the freedom of speech — one of 
 the guarantees of our national Constitution. 
 
 On the resolution to expel Whitfield from the 
 seat he obtained through the frauds and usurpa- 
 tions of men from Missouri, as most clearly es- 
 tablished by the testimony of several hundred 
 witnesses, the friends of Mr. Buchanan, with 
 
 three or four exceptions, voted in favor of his 
 retaining his seat as a representative of Kansas. 
 Upon all these questions, the friends of freedom 
 in the House stood shoulder to shoulder, and, 
 with serried ranks, maintained their position 
 despite the taunts and jeers and threats of men 
 whose habits and associations have taught them 
 to believe they were born to command, and that 
 we were made to obey. 
 
 The Administration party in this House, who 
 are now the leaders of the Buchanan ranks, are 
 constantly engaged in glorifying the Nebraska 
 bill — a bill, in my judgment, of abominations — a 
 Pandora's box, from which has issued countless 
 wrongs, and inexcusable and unmitigated out- 
 rages. They speak of the men who aided in its 
 passage as worthy soldiers in a worthy cause; 
 and declare that none but those who indorse the 
 gallantry of that soldiery are worthy to become 
 the standard-bearers of the Democratic party in 
 the coming presidential election. I believe it was 
 a Spartan mother who enjoined it upon her son, 
 in going to battle, to return (if return he did) with 
 his wounds in front. It is matter of opinion 
 what are, and what are not,- honorable wounds 
 in the Nebraska battle. In my judgment, the 
 honorable gentlemen from No«tli Carolina, [Mr. 
 Puryear,] from Tennessee, [Mr. Etheridge,] 
 and the honorable Clerk of this House, [General 
 Cullom,] bear their wounds in front. They ad- 
 monished you and the country of just such fruits 
 of this palpable breach of faith; and they, as 
 beacons of light, warned you of the rock against 
 which you were dashing, but you recklessly 
 refused to heed them. When the names of 
 Douglas, Pierce, Toombs, and others, will be 
 ; spoken of as agitators of measures which led to 
 j mobs, riots, and bloodshed, those of Puryear, 
 j Etheridge, Cullom, Hunt, Bell, and Houston, will 
 be linked in association with those of the great 
 conservators of the age, as men worthy of being 
 enrolled in the scroll of fame as wise and patriotic 
 statesmen. 
 
 History assigned a place to Nero and Draco, 
 the oppressors of human rights, and they are 
 remembered only as the bloodiest tyrants of the 
 age in which they lived. The frarners of the in- 
 famous black code of Kansas, as well as those in 
 power who sustain them, can expect to occupy 
 no higher ground when the historian shall write 
 the history of their political oppressions. Some 
 American Michael Angelo may yet be found who 
 will canvas the horrible picture, to be hung in 
 the rotunda, there to be looked upon by future 
 generations only to be execrated and abhorred. 
 Painted, as it should be, with a dark back ground, 
 made red by the blood of freemen, with Lawrence 
 wrapped in flames, the printing press — the Herald 
 of Freedom — thrown into the river, with Pierce, 
 Douglas, Toombs, Mason, and other prominent 
 actors in the bloody drama, grouped and stand- 
 ing in full view of the work of destruction which 
 they have been the reckless instruments of pro- 
 ducing, with the fire of the devoted city glaring 
 in their faces, that our children and our children's 
 children, when they visit this Capitol, and look 
 upon the picture, may learn to value freedom 
 more, by increasing their detestation for tyranny 
 
in whatever shape or form it may be exercised 
 over the minds or bodies of men. Let this be 
 done to assist in perpetuating freedom of opinion, 
 of speech, and of the press — the three great ele- 
 ments of free institutions. 
 
 KANSAS LAWS. 
 
 In breaking down this great partition wall, 
 built by our fathers, between freedom and sla- 
 very, the Democratic party have allowed and sanc- 
 tioned, and now refuse to repeal, enactments by a 
 body of usurpers, which reflect a deep and damn- 
 ing disgrace upon the pure, free, exalted, and 
 never-dying spirit of universal liberty. These : 
 cruel laws they suffer to be enforced at the peril 
 of the lives of the citizens, who cannot obey them 
 because they owe a higher duty to the Constitu- ! 
 tion of the Union, which guaranties the freedom 
 of speech and of the press to all. What free- 
 man, who prides himself upon his reverence and 
 respect for the laws of the land, would dare to call 
 these border ruffian acts laws, and then look the 
 Constitution in the face? If he did, and that 
 sacred instrument had eyes to confront him, it ! 
 would frown him from its presence, and, if tongue 
 to speak, would pronounce him false to its most 
 sacred provisions. The Constitution secures the ; 
 liberty of speech, and tyrants pass laws which 
 deny this right, and imprison and murder men 
 for violating a so-called law, which itself violates 
 and tramples under foot the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 It is but a short time since I listened to a Sen- 
 ator from the Old Dominion, [Mr. Mason,] pre- j 
 tenting an array of constitutional refinements as 
 to the power of the Government to appropriate 
 money for internal improvements, which would 
 laugh to scorn all the hair-splitting distinctions j 
 ever conceived of by the most learned metaphy- ' 
 sicians. The Constitution conferred no power to 
 cjear away obstructions in the mouth of the Mis- ' 
 aissippi, because not expressly found in that in- 
 strument. But here an express power or right 
 of freedom of speech and the press is trampled 
 upon; and because representatives portray these 
 as flagrant outrages and wrongs upon the rights 
 of freemen, the Constitution is violated with im- 
 punity, and all southern subtilties and refine- 
 ments are scattered to the wind. 
 
 No man is permitted to say that in his opinion 
 slavery does not exist in a free territory. If he 
 thinks so he must suppress his thoughts, or other- 
 wise he becomes a felon, and must be imprisoned 
 for two years; and to cap the climax — if once 
 charged with having opened his lips in favor of 
 freedom — he is to be tried by ajury of slave- 
 holders, or pro-slavery men. He is first denied 
 the right of free speech, and then denied the right 
 of a fair and impartial trial by jury. What other 
 step could be taken approaching nearer to mon- 
 archy ? 
 
 The sedition act of 1798 punished by fine and 
 imprisonment for writing against the Government 
 and its officers, but gave the- accused an impartial 
 trial by jury, and allowed him to plead, in justifi- 
 cation, the truth of the charge made; but the 
 Kansas law does not permit the truth to be given ' 
 in evidence, and goes a step still beyond the in- 
 
 famous sedition act, by punishing a man not only 
 for writing but for speaking. Writing and pub- 
 lishing a falsehood were the requisites of guilt in 
 the sedition law; but in the Kansas code, a man 
 may be punished who has neither written nor 
 published, but who may have been guilty of pro- 
 claiming his thoughts in the presence of freemen, 
 that slavery does not exist in the Territory. Nay, 
 more, he is punished if he carries about him a 
 newspaper, pamphlet, magazine, letter of a friend, 
 or any other document, in which it is asserted 
 slavery does not rightfully exist in a/r«e Territory. 
 Under this infamous code of tyranny, an inti- 
 mate friend and acquaintance, George W.Smith, 
 of Pennsylvania, is now imprisoned, and not per- 
 mitted even to address a letter to his wife, or 
 receive one from her, unless subjected to the 
 examination of those who have robbed him of 
 his liberty. His offense consists in this, that he 
 helped to frame a free constitution for Kansas, 
 and for this he is charged with treason — trea- 
 son, not for raising his arm or voice against the 
 laws of the land and threatening to dissolve the 
 Union, but treason for attempting to bring into 
 the Union an additional free State. For upwards 
 of twenty years I have known him as a friend 
 and a companion in social life, upon the circuit 
 and at the bar — his impulses kind and generous; 
 his love of liberty ardent and sincere, and his 
 whole life a refutation against the charge upon 
 which he is now imprisoned. His friends, with 
 whom I have had the pleasure of holding recent 
 converse, are breaking away from all restraints 
 of party, and giving utterance to deep-toned in- 
 dignation, which, like the rumbling of distant 
 thunder, shakes the haiints of his youth and his 
 manhood. Pennsylvanians as they are, and 
 hitherto conservative, lovers of peace and of the 
 Union, are roused to the cry of vengeance for the 
 degradation and shame to which a cherished 
 friend has been subjected, for no crime but that of 
 freedom of opinion and speech. Pennsylvania 
 seeks no quarrel with any law of the land; but I 
 tell you now, in the name of that loyal, peaceful, 
 and powerful Commonwealth, she demands the 
 immediate and unconditional surrender of Smith, 
 Brown, Deitzler, and others of her sons who 
 are now in prison for the exercise of the con- 
 stitutional rights of freedom of opinion and of 
 speech. She demands it because they are there 
 without wrong and against manifest right. If 
 you tell me they are there to answer the demands 
 of the law, I hurl it back with scorn, as the taunts 
 and jeers of despots. For this unwarrantable 
 invasion of the rights of freemen, Pennsylvania 
 arraigns the actors, aiders, and abettors for trea- 
 son against the Constitution of the country, and 
 proclaims her fixed purpose to place her iron heel 
 upon all concerned in passing, maintaining, and 
 executing, a pretended code of laws which, for 
 tyranny and oppression, rival the worst laws of 
 the worst tyranny which ever degraded the Gov- 
 ernment of any country. Unshackle her sons, or 
 bide the wrath of two millions and a half of free- 
 men. The bugle-note of preparation is unmis- 
 takably heard in the resolute and determined tone 
 of insulted freemen. You pass laws which 
 muzzle the mouths of freemen, and then say, wait 
 
8 
 
 till the law is declared unconstitutional. As well 
 might you pass a law prohibiting my attendance 
 upon a church of my own choice, or one declar- 
 ing trial by jury a fallacy and delusion, and in- 
 flict a penalty for asserting otherwise, and com- 
 mand my obedience until a constitutional test 
 should be applied. All such palpable onslaughts 
 upon the inherent and constitutional rights of 
 man, I would scatter to the winds and resist to 
 the death, not as the laws of rational legislators, 
 but as the devices of the worst and most unmiti- 
 gated species of tyranny. 
 
 REASONS AGAINST SLAVERY EXTENSION. 
 
 The exacting nature of slavery, as exhibited in 
 the character of laws which pro-slavery men 
 enact, foreshadow its manifest destiny, dissolu- 
 tion, and decay, at no distant day. 
 
 This law of nature is now grappling with 
 slavery, and the power of the latter must yield to 
 the uncontrolled and uncontrollable fiat of the 
 former. The accomplishment of this great era 
 in the history of our Government is, I admit, not 
 to be the result of anything but moral suasion 
 upon slavery where it is, and governmental re- 
 straints upon its enlargement upon the virgin free 
 soil of the nation. 
 
 The dispassionate reflection of southern minds 
 must bring it about in States where it now exists; 
 but northern sentiment has a right to control its 
 invasion of territory, the common property of 
 all the States. Public policy, the controlling ele- 
 ment Of all well-regulated governments, should 
 direct public sentiment in the exercise of the func- 
 tions and powers conferred upon the people by 
 the Constitution, without fear or favor, and with 
 an eye single to the advancement of the interest, 
 character, and dignity of the entire nation. 
 
 With the deep and abiding conviction upon my 
 mind, that it is the right and solemn duty of this 
 Government to restrain slavery and the slave 
 power within its present bounds, I solicit the fur- 
 ther attention of the House while I present the 
 arguments in support of the postulate I have 
 assumed. Aside from the sentimentality of the 
 question, with which I profess to have nothing 
 to do, and which must address itself alone to the 
 mind of the southern philanthropist, I have ob- 
 jections, founded in public policy, which control 
 my action upon this great question, and, until 
 otherwise convinced, will forever constrain me 
 from agreeing to the enlargement of the slave 
 power. That slavery is an evil, and a great one, 
 the wisest men of the nation, North and South, 
 have admitted — an evil to be tolerated only be- 
 cause it seems to be without a remedy. In the 
 memorable discussion on the admission of Mis- 
 souri, Mr. Elliott, of Georgia, declared that sla- 
 very was an evil found in this country at the 
 formation of the present Government, and was 
 tolerated because it cannot be remedied. 
 
 Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, in the same dis- 
 cussion, declared its perpetuation necessary, that 
 its revolting features might inspire us with a 
 higher appreciation and love of liberty. 
 
 Mr. Lee, in the constitutional convention of 
 Virginia, himself perhaps a slaveholder, and sur- 
 rounded by scores of others, " wished he had been 
 
 born in a land where domestic and negro slavery 
 was unknown, and that Providence had spared 
 the country the moral and political evil." 
 
 James Monroe, a President beloved as much 
 by the North as the South, in that same conven- 
 tion declared that he considered the question of 
 slavery the most important one which could come 
 before that body; " and that he was satisfied the 
 claim of the western part of Virginia for the 
 white basis of representation, under particular 
 circumstances, was rational." 
 
 Mr. Mercer, another distinguished member of 
 that body, bewailed the desolation of Virginia, 
 and declared " that the bone and sinew of the 
 State must be raised above the slave." 
 
 In the discussion of the Missouri compromise 
 the language of your own immortal Jefferson is 
 quoted, and not denied. It is this: 
 
 " There must be an unhappy influence on the manners 
 of our people, produced by the existence of slavery amongst 
 us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a 
 perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most 
 unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading sub- 
 mission on the other. Our children see this and learn to 
 imitate it, for man is an imitative animal. The parent 
 storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, 
 puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives 
 a loose rein to his worst passions ; and thus nursed, educa- 
 ted, and daily exercised in tyranny cannot but be stamped 
 by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prod- 
 igy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by 
 such circumstances." 
 
 The connection which this immortal statesman 
 had with the ordinance of 1787, by which the 
 great Northwest Territory was forever dedicated 
 to freedom, affords the strongest proof that he 
 deprecated the existence of slavery, and gave his 
 name, power, and influence, in favor of its abridg- 
 ment. A perpetual exercise of boisterous pas- 
 sion and unremitting despotism, as was observed 
 by the author of the immortal Declaration of In- 
 dependance, was most likely to prove fatal to 
 that cherished element in the Government he had 
 helped to form, and hence his anxious solicitude 
 for the spread of that restrictive principle of which 
 he was the founder. Men who are used to com- 
 mand, and to enforce obedience to those com- 
 mands, are apt to exhibit, in boisterous passion 
 and unremitting despotism, the power which they 
 claim and which they cannot tolerate to be called 
 in question. The boisterous exhibitions of pas- 
 sion by the parent become daguerreotyped upon 
 the infant mind, and lead to the result so faith- 
 fully and truthfully delineated by Mr. Jefferson. 
 To the reflective southern mind, the portrait of 
 slavery drawn by their own immortal statesman 
 cannot fail to prove a lesson of profitable instruC' 
 tion, and worth a thousand lectures from ultra 
 northern men. With the evils and responsibilities 
 of slavery as it exists in the States, we of the 
 North have nothing to do; the whole must rest 
 upon those who are connected with and maintain 
 the system. But with its expansion we believe 
 we have responsibility, because we believe we 
 possess the power to arrest its future progress in 
 territory now free. The fullest and freest exercise 
 of all the constitutional power conferred upon us 
 is a duty we owe ourselves, our constituents, and 
 our country; a power which I shall not fail to 
 exercise to the fullest extent of my own interpre- 
 
9 
 
 tation of that sacred instrument. For that inter- 
 pretation I shall look to its written language — 
 cotemporaneous legislation, in which the frame rs 
 of the Constitution to some extent participated; 
 to judicial construction since; and to subsequent 
 recognitions by southern as well as northern 
 statesmen. My convictions of duty, whatever 
 they are, shall be obeyed uninfluenced by bois- 
 terous passion or unremitting despotism. 
 
 I seek to disturb no vested right, but to abridge 
 the enlargement of an admitted evil; an evil be- 
 wailed by the wisest statesmen of the Ancient 
 Dominion thirty years ago, because of the blight 
 and desolation which then followed in its train, 
 and now become indelibly impressed upon the 
 broad face of that cherished and renowned Com- 
 monwealth. With an area in square miles greater 
 than Pennsylvania, a more balmy climate, and 
 rich, profusely rich, in mineral resources, since 
 1790 she has but doubled her free white popula- 
 tion, whilst Pennsylvania, in the same time, has 
 more than quadrupled hers. The mighty oak 
 has stood for generations in the dark and sullen 
 forests of the Ancient Dominion, untouched by 
 the hand of the hardy white pioneer, and bidding 
 defiance to the ax of the poor, enervated Afri- 
 can. The richest valleys upon which the sun of 
 heaven ever shone are there to be seen in their 
 primeval state, just where the' red man found 
 them centuries ago. What does all this mean — 
 this uninterrupted, solemn stillness, in a land 
 blessed with a profusion of God's richest boun- 
 ties? There is a cause for all this, which Vir- 
 ginians must look in the face, and count its prob- 
 able cost. Time alone will solve the problem, 
 what it is that desolates the fairest portion of the 
 universe, and when it is that that desolation shall 
 cease, and give place to life, business, and a state 
 of unexampled prosperity, which the Ancient 
 Dominion, I sincerely hope and trust, is one day 
 destined to enjoy. 
 
 With the blight and desolation which pervade 
 the mother of States and of statesmen I have 
 nothing to do except to point to the cause, with 
 the view of impressing the American mind against 
 the enlargement of a system so fraught with 
 danger to the growth and happiness of a free 
 people. Fully convinced, as I am, that it dwarfs 
 the nation in which it exists, 1 would be recreant 
 to my own long and well-settled convictions to 
 allow it to extend beyond its present limit. If 
 this be abolitionism, then Jefferson, Monroe, 
 Lee, and other distinguished southern men, were 
 Abolitionists, for they deplored the existence of 
 slavery as an evil, and left upon record the most 
 solemn admonitions against its enlargement. I 
 maintain that this Government possesses the 
 power, in the broadest sense of the term, to pre- 
 vent the extension of any system or institution 
 within its limits which may affect the wealth, 
 strength, or growth of our Confederation. The 
 primary object of the Union was to increase, nut 
 diminish, these governmental elements; and if I 
 am prepared to show, by the history of the past 
 and the sad realities of the present, that slavery 
 tends to depress all these right arms of a nation 's 
 greatness, I succeed indisputably in establishing 
 the postulate that the power to abridge belongs 
 
 to, and should be exercised by, the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 I have said it diminishes the wealth, strength, 
 and growth of a nation; and now for the proof, 
 first, as to the wealth. 
 
 By the last census, the estimated cash value of 
 all the farms in the free States is $2,13:2,15] ,676; 
 whilst that of the southern States is $1,1 17,298,38,8; 
 the North being almost double that of the South. 
 
 The North has an area in square miles of six 
 hundred and forty-three thousand three hundred 
 and twenty-six miles; whilst the South has nine 
 hundred and twenty-eight thousand eight hun- 
 dred and ninety-two — being an excess over the 
 North of two hundred and eighty-five thousand 
 four hundred and thirty-six miles, with a much 
 more favorable latitude, and a greater amount of 
 sea-coast, with navigable rivers extending into 
 and across the States, the comparative value' 
 of farms is as already given, exhibiting a marked 
 depression in the value of southern property when 
 compared even with the cold, bleak, granite hills 
 of New Hampshire. 
 
 Virginians, who clamor so much about the ex- 
 tension of slavery, bear with me while I institute 
 a comparison between your once " Old Domin- 
 ion" and the "Empire State." The area of 
 square miles in the former is sixty-one thousand 
 three hundred and fifty-two; and in the latter 
 forty-six thousand. The cash value of farms in 
 New York is $554,546,642; and in Virginia but 
 $216,401,543. The improved lands in New York 
 are 12,408,964, and unimproved, 6,710,123 acres. 
 In Virginia, improved, 10,360,135, and unim- 
 proved, 15,792,176 acres. Why this great dis- 
 parity in the value of property in these two great 
 States ? Will gentlemen across the way tell me 
 that New York had advantages over Virginia in 
 starting out? If they do, I answer, that the Old^ 
 Dominion, in 1790, had a white population of 
 442,1 15; whilst New York had but 314,142. With 
 130,000 more strong arms — I mean white arms 
 of chivalric men, how has she fallen behind in 
 the accumulation of wealth ? But more, sir; Vir- 
 ginia, at that period, had 293,427 slaves, and New 
 York but 21,324; and yet the former sinks into 
 insignificance in the scale of wealth alongside of 
 the latter. There is a cause for this, which Vir- 
 ginians mustknowand feel, and doubtless bewail, 
 as did Benjamin Watkins Lee in 1820. 
 
 The cause, so palpable, is like the hand-writ- 
 ing on the wall, and long ere this Virginia 
 might well have shook, as did Belshazzer of old. 
 Whilst I point to this disparity in the wealth of 
 these two great States, I do it out of no desire to 
 call up unpleasant thoughts and reflections; nor, 
 sir, is it done with any view of inducing Virginia 
 or the South to adopt a change of policy. I do 
 it to convince even Virginians that they should 
 not ask us to agree to the extension of a system 
 which strikes down national wealth in the com- 
 parative ratio which I have exhibited. 
 
 Where slavery exists, all other business seems 
 to be paralyzed. Out of 791,545 persons engaged 
 in manufacturing in the United States in 1840, but 
 187,787 are in the South; out of 117,575 persons 
 engaged in commerce, but 37,387 belong to the 
 South; out of 56,025 engaged in navigating the 
 
10 
 
 mighty deep, but 4,987 belong to the South; and 
 in internal navigation, out of 33,067 persons en- 
 gaged, but 10,697 are from the South. Who that 
 reads these statistics can fail to divine the cause? 
 Reposing and relying almost solely upon your 
 cotton, you have turned your backs upon almost 
 every other industrial pursuit. Fold your arms, 
 and sleep in undisturbed repose upon your accus- 
 tomed couch of ease. You shaJl not, so far as I 
 am concerned, be disturbed; but seek not to ex- 
 tend that system to land where commerce, agri- 
 culture, and manufactures, claim to have undis- 
 fmted sway. You have territory enough — mil- 
 ions of acres more than the free States — upon 
 which to spread, if you please, the malaria which 
 blights the business and prosperity of the freest 
 and happiest people on earth, without extending 
 it to territory now free, and which I trust, in the 
 providence of God, is destined forever to remain 
 so. 
 
 I have said, secondly, it diminishes the strength 
 of the nation, Which I flatter myself I can prove. 
 The strength of our nation consists in the free 
 population, the growth of which slavery tends to 
 repress, as is manifest from facts to which I call 
 the attention of the House. 
 
 The aggregate white population of the United 
 States, in 1S50, was 19,553,068, of which 6,184,477 
 were 1 in the South. 
 
 The white population of New York and Penn- 
 sylvania, in 1775, was 579,000, and that of Mary- 
 land and Virginia, 474,000. How stands the 
 figures now? The former have a population of 
 5,306,485, and the latter, 1,312,743, being the 
 enormous increase of 4,000,000 beyond 'the States 
 which have the decided advantage in sea-coast, 
 latitude, and in many other respects. Here is a 
 fact startling in its character, and one which 
 should awaken southern gentlemen from the ap- 
 palling lethargy with which they have been im- 
 pressed formore than half acentury. Remember, 
 Maryland and Virginia started out within a hun- 
 dred thousand of the white population of New 
 York and Pennsylvania, and that they are now 
 four millions behind, and yet they ask us to carry 
 this same devastating system into States which 
 are yet in embryo, in the crysalis State, and 
 about to breathe the pure, free air of universal 
 liberty. 
 
 Of the 56,025 persons engaged in the navigation 
 of the seas, 42,154 hail from New England, and 
 but 4,987 from the entire South; and yet we have 
 been obliged to sit here for months listening to 
 the oft-repeated and now stale denunciations of 
 the noble sires of nine tenths of the gallant tars 
 who ride upon the whirlwind and the storm, and 
 whose business it is to teach the present and com- 
 ing generations where and how to navigate in 
 safety. A nation's strength consists in part of 
 just such men — men who are unused to a life of 
 ease, but who, by nature and education, are emi- 
 nently fitted for the severest trials which the 
 hardest fate and destiny can assign them. 
 
 Any system or policy which decreases popula- 
 tion, the great (dement, after all, of national 
 strength, and which enervates and unfits that 
 population for hardships, weakens the national 
 strength. It is the true policy of this Government 
 
 to people the Territories, and even States, with 
 freemen, who may, if necessary, become soldiers, 
 and not with slaves, who cannot. The latter, if 
 pressed into the service and killed, must be paid 
 for, as your congressional enactments, I believe, 
 will show. By a comparison of the strength of 
 the militia of the free and slaveholding States, it 
 will be seen, that in this respect it is impolitic to 
 extend slavery beyond its present limits. 
 
 I have said, as a third reason against its exten- 
 sion, that it affects the growth of the nation. By 
 this I mean in population, agriculture, commerce, 
 and manufactures, as is evidently the case by the 
 comparisons already instituted. If Maryland and 
 Virginia have lost four millions of popuration in 
 sixty-six years by adopting and adhering to sla- 
 very, what has been the relative loss of the other 
 old States of the South during the same period, 
 and growing out of the same cause? If com- 
 merce and manufactures shall continue to lan- 
 guish in the same relative proportion for the next* 
 half century, where will be found, in this land of 
 liberty, a single man to raise his voice in favor 
 of an extension of a system which carries in its 
 train nothing but desolation and decay? 
 
 The decrease of population occasioned by the 
 incubus of slavery upon a State or Territory, 
 even with the addition of the three fifths of the 
 slaves, is apparent by the loss of representation. 
 Beginning with the first apportionment for con- 
 gressional representation under a census which 
 was taken in 1790, Virginia and Maryland started 
 out with twenty-seven Congressmen, and Penn- 
 sylvania and New York with twenty-four. At the 
 second apportionment, the former increased four, 
 while the latter increased eleven. The third, Vir- 
 ginia and Maryland increased but one, whil« 
 Pennsylvania and New York increased fifteen. 
 The fourth apportionment, in 1820, Virginia and 
 Maryland lost one, and Pennsylvania and New 
 York increased ten; and at the fifth, in 1830, the 
 latter increased eight, while Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia lost two. At this latter period the Repre- 
 sentatives of the last named States had fallen to 
 twenty-nine, only two beyond what they started 
 with forty years before; whilst Pennsylvania and 
 New York increased their number forty-four be- 
 yond that with which they started in 1790. Be- 
 tween 1830 and 1840 the tide of migration was 
 westward, and sunk the representation of'the 
 old States to swell the new, leaving the relative 
 representation of the States between which the 
 comparison is drawn, at about the same as it was 
 in 1830, but presenting the sad spectacle of an 
 actual loss on the part of Maryland and Virginia, 
 in sixty years, of five members, haying now the 
 meager representation of but nineteen on thisfloor, 
 whilst Pennsylvania and New York have fifty- 
 eight — a gain of thirty-four; and this, too, after 
 having contributed mainly to the settlement of 
 the entire Northwest. 
 
 Georgia is called the fast State of the South. 
 Let us run her a tilt with the Buckeye. In 1790 
 Georgia had three Representatives — Ohio not 
 then admitted. By the census of 1800, the latter 
 had but one Representative, and Georgia had 
 added one to her number, making four. The 
 next ten years, Georgia increased two, and Ohio 
 
11 
 
 five; each at this period. 1810, having six Repre- 
 sentatives; and now, sir, what has the past forty 
 years done for Georgia? It has increased her 
 representation but two members. The answer 
 is a melancholy commentary upon the slave 
 policy which she early adopted, and has since 
 been clinging to as if it were her only salvation. 
 The same forty years have added to the represent- 
 ation of Ohio fifteen members. How is this, and 
 why is this? Georgia has an area greater by 
 twenty thousand miles than Ohio, has the ad- 
 vantage of a sea-coast on its entire eastern bound- 
 ary; and checkered by magnificent rivers, upon 
 which the commerce of the great Atlantic can 
 be floated to every point, she falls back and 
 counts, slaves and all, but a little more than a 
 third of her younger sister, Ohio. If it be ar- 
 gued that the slhve States divided their territory, 
 and helped to increase the new States formed out 
 of their limits, I answer that the whole represent- 
 ation of the new States formed out of old slave 
 States is forty-eight, whilst that of the new States 
 formed out of free territory amounts to fifty- 
 two. 
 
 You may further argue, that you have helped 
 to settle and people the free States as well as your 
 own. To some considerable extent I grant this 
 has been the case; but why have your people de- 
 serted the sunny South — the land of which you 
 boast so much — to seek and find a northern home, 
 to endure the hardships of a rigorous climate, 
 and to face the frosts and snows of almost never- 
 ending winters. Slavery has driven them there, 
 and will continue to drive out your white popu- 
 lation, until you will have nothing to clamor over 
 or about but deserted towns and cities, and dilap- 
 idated and abandoned estates. Another compari- 
 son between the fast State of the South, Georgia, 
 and the queen of the West, Ohio. The cash value 
 of farms in the former is $95,753,445, and in the 
 latter, $358,758,603. Think of it, statesmen of 
 Georgia ! Ohio two hundred and sixty millions 
 beyond Georgia in the value of improved farms, 
 and yet the latter State is of the last, whilst Ohio is 
 but a child of the present, century. South Carolina, 
 in 1790, had a white population of 140,178, and in 
 sixty years has increased it only 130,385. The 
 county of Alleghany, in Pennsylvaeia, principally 
 represented by my colleague, [Mr. Ritchie.,] and 
 in partby myself, has apopulation of one hundred 
 and thirty-eight thousand, and upwards, which 
 has mostly, if not entirely, grown up since 1790. 
 I appeal to South Carolina to know why it is 
 you have been clamoring so long about the mainte- 
 nance of this poor, miserable,, truckling system 
 of slavery, that has hung as ajdead weight upon 
 yourbody-politic,and kept you for half a century 
 stationary? It is no business of mine to ask you 
 to give it up; but it is my business to say to you 
 as honorable, chivalric men, for the love you bear 
 your native land, for the hope yon may have of 
 its swelling greatness in the future, send not this 
 nation-blasting system into Territories now free, 
 and which may seek to unite with us in harmo- 
 nious union. I have now, Mr. Speaker, as I con- 
 ceive, satisfactorily proved that slavery affects 
 and destroys the wealth, strength, and growth of 
 a nation; and for these reasons, I give my most 
 
 solemn admonition to my constituents, and to the 
 country, against its extension. 
 
 BASIS OF REPRESENTATION REVIEWED. 
 
 But, sir, this question wears a political phase 
 which claims, and should receive, the attention 
 of every northern freeman. There is an element 
 of power in slavery, which I do notquestion where 
 it exists, but which shall never, by any vote of 
 mine, be carried into territory now free. I refer, 
 sir, to the basis of representation by which three 
 fifths of the slaves of the United States are rep- 
 resented. I desire to be distinctly understood as 
 not objecting to it in the present slave States, 
 but simply to its extension. It is a false prin- 
 ciple, and was only agreed to originally by com- 
 pact, which I would never break if I could; but 
 I shall not extend it if I can prevent it. In other 
 words, I shall not agree to the admission of a 
 State which claims any such anti-democratic and 
 anti-republican basis of power, for, sir, disguise 
 it as you may, it is a question of power, and not 
 merely one of representation. It is paradoxical 
 to say that you are the Representatives of men 
 who have no right to petition you for alleged 
 grievances; and it is equally so to say that you 
 occupy the relation of Representative and con- 
 stituent, the latter in popular acceptation being 
 the master, and the former the servant, when it 
 is known that you reverse this popular axiom, 
 and make them the servants, and you the masters. 
 Your right to representation upon slave basis 
 is not, and cannot, be sustained, except by the 
 compact in the original Confederation, and in the 
 States subsequently admitted by northern con- 
 cession. This basis of representation is at best 
 but a property one, and finds, and can find, no 
 sanction in any political principle, so as to make 
 it applicable to one set of men, and not to another. 
 No one who is the least observant can fail to 
 perceive that an extension of this power or basis 
 of representation is dangerous to the existence of 
 our republican institutions. It necessarily tends 
 to a Concentration of power into the hands of the 
 few to the detriment of the many. It confers the 
 suffrage of the country, the great lever by which 
 the Government is controlled, upon a privileged 
 class, and may ultimately lead to the most sin- 
 gular political anomaly of a minority ruling a 
 large majority with " boisterous passion and 
 unremitting despotism." I propose to demon- 
 strate its inequality and unsoundness, and inap- 
 plicability to a republican form of government. 
 
 The State of Ohio contains a free-State popu- 
 lation of 1,980,408, and sends twenty-one Repre- 
 sentatives to Congress. The aggregate number of 
 slaves in the United States, by the last census, is 
 2,204,313: from which deduct two fifths, and you 
 have left 1,922,593, upon which twenty or twenty- 
 one gentlemen hold their scats in this House, 
 thus neutralizing, or, in other words, blotting 
 out of existence, the young giant of the West. 
 The voice of near two millions of freemen, intel- 
 ligent freemen, is entirely silenced in your Con- 
 gressional Hall, because there are within the 
 limits of the Government 3,000,000 of slaves. 
 In other words, twenty-one Representatives are 
 thrown away to appease the slave power. This 
 
12 
 
 was a part of the terms of our partnership in 
 entering upon the Confederation between the 
 thirteen old States, but there was no part of that 
 compact which requires us to extend it to States 
 which might afterwards come into the Union. 
 The Constitution of the United Slates, coiempo- 
 rary with the Confederation, fixed the terms upon 
 which new States were afterwards to be admitted, 
 in the language used therein: "Congress may 
 admit new States;" which evidently conferred 
 upon the Congress to which application for ad- 
 mission should be made, the power to admit or 
 reject, with or without assigning reasons. The 
 framers of the Constitution intended that the 
 whole people of the United States, through their 
 Representatives in Congress, should have a voice 
 in the admission or rejection of new States. If 
 I had no other objection to the admission of a 
 State than that it claimed a Representative for 
 three fifths of its slave property, I should most 
 certainly vote against it on the ground that it 
 diminished my political rights, and those of my 
 constituents. For the purpose of presenting the 
 argument in a way in which it may be generally 
 and clearly understood, suppose a proposition of 
 annexation should be made us by some slave- 
 holding Government, with a slave population of 
 40,000,000, each thousand of whom were owned 
 by a single master, making 40,000 masters — that 
 a part of the principle of annexation should be the 
 adoption of the three-fifths basis of representation: 
 what would be our condition in the event of an 
 acceptance of the proposition ? Deduct two fifths 
 and you have twenty-four millions left — more 
 than the whole of the present population of the 
 United States, slaves and freemen. To accept 
 would be a surrender of your Government into 
 the hands of forty thousand men, simply because 
 they aie the owners of a thousand slaves each., 
 Would the Democrats of the North agree to this, 
 obliging as they are to their southern neighbors? 
 Would the Representative from the city of Phil- 
 adelphia, my colleague, [Mr. Cadwalader,] agree 
 to this surrender of northern rights. And yet, sir, 
 is not the admission of every slave State a prac- 
 tical adoption of the same unjust and unequal 
 principle ? Why, sir, [ can point to two congres- 
 sional districts in Pennsylvania which poll about 
 forty thousand votes, and yet they can send to this 
 House but two members; whilst, in the case put, 
 you would allow forty thousand voters, because 
 they owned slave property, to send one hundred 
 and twenty members under the present ratio. 
 
 In the one case, you allow less than one hundred 
 and fifty men to elect a Congressman, and in the 
 other you require twenty thousand. If this be 
 Democratic, then I confess I am at fault in under- 
 standing the force of a term long the popular 
 sobriquet of a large and respectable party of the 
 United States. The owner of a thousand slaves 
 for purposes of enumeration, is six hundred times 
 better than the best northern Democrat upon the 
 floor of this House; and when he accumulates 
 this particular species of property to four thou- 
 sand, he is then twenty-four hundred times better 
 than either of my Democratic colleagues, and 
 stands, politically, so immeasurably beyond ami 
 above them, as to require the use, of a microscope 
 
 to see them. One hundred and fifty men, with a 
 thousand slaves each , would be entitled to a mem- 
 ber of Congress; they would do the voting:, the 
 legislation; and to them would belong the control 
 of the entire congressional district. Let the 
 ownership of this body of slaves concentrate stilt 
 further by one man owning four thousand, and 
 you reduce the congressional voters of a district 
 to thirty-seven or thirty-eight less than the voters 
 of the smallest borough or precinct in my con- 
 gressional district. What northern man will 
 dare to sanction this unjust principle of repre- 
 sentation when once his constituents fully under- 
 stand it ? 
 
 Freemen of the North, and non-slaveholdingciti- 
 zens of the South, you are invoked to join in putting 
 a stop to the further progress of slavery in new 
 States and Territories. There yon have the power 
 to act, and that action should be prompt and de- 
 cided, unless you are willing to surrender the 
 control of the Government to a slave oligarchy, 
 composed of a minority of the people of the Uni- 
 ted States. 
 
 POWER TO PROHIBIT EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 The next question I propose to examine is, 
 Have we the power to prevent the extension of 
 slavery ? I affirm the existence of that power, as 
 resulting from the nature and construction of the 
 Government, as well as from the repeated legis- 
 lation and judicial interpretation irt favor of its 
 existence. A Government which does not pos- 
 sess within itself the elements of its own protection 
 would be unworthy the name, and less worthy 
 the respect, of the governed. It is clearly within 
 the power of Congress to exclude all persons, 
 from any and all quarters, from the Territories 
 under their control. The Constitution makes 
 Congress the national guardian over the Terri- 
 ritories; and to that body belongs the power to 
 sell them, as a whole or in parcels, donate them to 
 schools, colleges, or railroads, or refuse to dis- 
 pose of them at all. This, I take it, from the 
 language of the Constitution, is an absolute and 
 unqualified power, not to be doubted by any one, 
 and until recently, as I shall show, never has been 
 called in question. If the people of the United 
 States become satisfied that slavery weakens the 
 power of the nation for self-defense by decreasing 
 our population, by depressing our energies and 
 crippling our,resources, what sane man can doubt 
 the right of Congress to prohibit its extension to 
 territory under the nation's control? 
 
 That Congress did exercise this power with 
 reference to Territories prior to 1808, I am pre- 
 pared to show; an, a further, that the exercise of 
 this power received not only favorable judicial 
 construction, but the legislative sanction of south- 
 ern men. The ordinance of July, 1787, prohib- 
 iting slavery, except for crime, in any of the Ter- 
 ritories, received the support of southern men, 
 thus commencing the prohibitory policy before 
 the organic law was formed; the organic law 
 came next, in which you find the implied power 
 to Congress to prohibit slavery in the new States 
 and Territories prior to 1808 and in the old States 
 after that period; also, in the same organic law, 
 the power to Congress to edmit new States, with 
 
13 
 
 a right, of course, to reject, if not satisfactory to 
 the whole people of the Union. 
 
 In 1798, Congress passed a "law prohibiting the 
 importation of slaves into the Mississippi Terri- 
 tory, under the penalty of $300 and freedom to 
 the slave. So, in Louisiana, in 1804, a similar 
 enactment. The citizens of Virginia presented 
 petitions to the Territorial Legislature, after the 
 ordinance of 1787, asking permission to settle 
 with their slaves in the Territory. 
 
 I would pursue this question of power still 
 further; but my colleague [Mr. Ritchie] has so 
 fully elaborated the argument on this point, that 
 it becomes unnecessary. A reference to his able 
 speech, which is a complete compendium of ad- 
 judications upon this question, will satisfy every 
 rational mind that the power ought to be regarded 
 as clear and decisive. 
 
 PRESIDENCY. 
 
 The coming presidential struggle will be one 
 in which the future destiny of slavery and of 
 Kansas are involved. The policy of the respect- 
 ive parties is now plainly inscribed upon their 
 banners. Slavery, polygamy, or any other ex- 
 crescence which .the resident inhabitants of a 
 Territory, whoever they may be, the refugees of 
 Botany bay if they choose to come, upon a sin- 
 gle day's residence, may think proper to adopt, 
 is the favorite policy of the so-called Democratic 
 party, thus wresting from the whole people the 
 power to reject which follows the power to admit 
 new States. Inflexible opposition to the further 
 extension of slavery into territory now free is 
 the doctrine of the anti-Administration party. 
 Deception can no longer now be practiced upon 
 the public mind, although, doubtless, to some 
 extent in the coming campaign it will be at- 
 tempted. Already unmistakable indications of 
 this are given by the friends of Mr. Buchanan in 
 their affectation of kindness to Kansas. They now 
 even talk of joining us in the admission of Kansas 
 as a free State, and they now affect to condemn 
 with us the black code of Kansas laws. 
 
 A Senator in the other end of the Capitol, from 
 Georgia, the embodiment of slavery, proposes a 
 bill for the admission of Kansas as a State, to 
 which I have already referred, and a member of 
 this House, from the same State echoes a response 
 to his Senator's proposition by offering to amend 
 the people's proposition here by the slaveholder's 
 magnificent conception in the other wing of the 
 Capitol. The conspicuous part these gentlemen 
 took in breaking down the Missouri compromise, 
 to say the least of it, does not make them safe 
 depositaries of freedom's cause in Kansas; and 
 the friends of Mr. Buchanan may as well under- 
 stand it now as again, that the people of Penn- 
 sylvania cannot be deceived by the feint and 
 false pretense they are about to make for free- 
 dom. For nine long weeks they fought against 
 the election of a friend of freedom to the Speak- 
 ership of this body, and for four orfive more they 
 opposed the raising of a committee to investigate 
 the frauds of the Kansas Legislature, on the 
 ground th it J ' ■ ould not go behind the record 
 which made them Representatives, although that 
 record might have been conceived and consum- 
 mated ir *l - " 3 st fraud. No one contended 
 
 with more tenacity and ability for this, as we 
 believed and now believe, palpable illogical posi- 
 tion, than the able and talented gentleman from 
 Georgia, [Mr. Stephens.] 
 
 This second moral battle was desperately 
 fought, and the friends of freedom were once more 
 triumphant. The committee have closed their 
 labors — have now returned and unfolded the scroll 
 of infamy which the friends of Mr. Buchanan 
 for fourteen weeks labored to suppress. The 
 Democratic party denied the existence of frauds, 
 and contended the so-called " border ruffians" 
 were fighting for " law and order" — that they were 
 maintaining the laws passed by the Territorial 
 Legislature, and that our friends were resisting 
 those laws; and now, when the overwhelming 
 evidence of the falsity of all this is about to come 
 to light, they talk of pleading guilty and putting 
 themselves upon the mercy of the court. If 
 they had been really ignorant of these things, 
 and had not put into requisition the power of the 
 Federal Government to awe the freemen of Kan- 
 sas into submission to fraudulent and tyrannical 
 laws, a nation's clemency might have been ex- 
 erted in their behalf. The President bowed to 
 sectional influence, and turned prosecutor against 
 the free people of Kansas; and the friends of Mr. 
 Buchanan, in convention, assembled in Pennsyl- 
 vania, as well as here in this House, with but 
 two or three exceptions, and at Cincinnati, in- 
 dorsed and approved the action taken by Franklin 
 Pierce. 
 
 Now, what is to be the programme for the ap- 
 proaching presidential election ? Far and wide it 
 will be given out that Mr. Buchanan disapproves 
 of the course of the Pierce administration in ref- 
 erence to Kansas, and thus another fraud like 
 that of 1844 will be attempted upon the people of 
 the North. Then the so-called Democratic party 
 in Pennsylvania fought under the banner of Polk, 
 Dallas, Shunk, and the tariff of 1842; and the 
 only question in Pennsylvania was as to which of 
 the two candidates was to be considered soundest 
 upon that particular measure. So far as the pro- 
 tective policy is concerned, they cannot deceive 
 our people any longer, as they have distinctly 
 unfurled to the breeze at Cincinnati the banner of 
 free trade, for the first time, openly and distinctly 
 avowed by them in Pennsylvania. 
 
 DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 
 
 Another part of the Democratic programme is, 
 the old and oft-repeated story and bugbear of 
 dissolution of the Union. Whilst, in the South, 
 they unceasingly apply themselves to the single 
 argument, vote for Mr. Buchanan, because he is 
 the soundest man upon our negro question, and 
 because in his election we can carry slavery into 
 all the Territories of the Union; and because, in 
 his election, on this account, the value of our 
 negroes, as Governor Wise, of Virginia, said, 
 would be preserved and increased; in the North 
 they elongate their faces, and hang their heads, 
 and prate nothing but dissolution of the Union. 
 Dissolution of the Union, for the establishment of 
 the Jeff rso: :!.'■': doctrine of slavery non-extension ! 
 Nonsense! Dissolution of the Union, for arresting 
 the progress of an evil, admitted to be such by the 
 fat' ■• •' the Confederacy, and for the arrest of 
 
14 
 
 •which they repeatedly interposed their power j 
 and control! Dissolution of the Union, for 
 preventing the growth of a system which I be- 
 lieve I have shown is gradually undermining the 
 wealth and strength and population of this grand 
 Confederacy! Dissolution of the Union, because 
 we will not consent to have the beautiful and 
 fertile Kansas, a country twice as large as Penn- 
 sylvania, and capable of maintaining a population 
 often millions, erected into a slave State ! Lying, 
 as it doeB, almost directly west of Philadelphia, 
 the great metropolis of my own native State, and 
 brought within close proximity to it by railroads 
 in progress of completion , it requires no prophetic 
 vision to see and tell the amount of interest the 
 city of brotherly love has in its preservation as 
 the home of the enterprising and industrious 
 freeman. 
 
 Kansas and Nebraska secured to freedom, you 
 build up a population of millions of thrifty agri- 
 culturists, manufacturers, and artisans, and the 
 rolling, swelling tide of trade, running into count- 
 less millions, will help to increase the magnificent 
 proportions of my own cherished city. The 
 keen and shrewd perception of a De Witt Clinton, 
 even when the far Northwest was an illimitable 
 forest, and inhabited alone by the Indian and the 
 panther, grasped the destined, mighty future of 
 Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, 
 and persisted in the policy of the city of New 
 York to reach its arm in that direction, and 
 grapple the teeming wealth which that country, as 
 he most surely predicted, would one day unfold. 
 Kansas and Nebraska is a still greater north- 
 west, already almost grappled by the city of 
 brotherly love; and if not destined, in the provi- 
 dence of God , to suffer under the blight of slavery, 
 will prove to Philadelphia a reservoir of wealth, 
 from which she will draw perpetual and never- 
 ending supplies. Kansas and Nebraska, if free, 
 are destined to have a population of thirty mil- 
 lions: if slave, it will never rise to three, as free 
 white settlers refuse to go where the master's 
 lash takes the place of the freeman's will. 
 
 Let Philadelphia but continue to be influenced 
 by the ignis fatuus of dissolution of the Union, 
 about which such men as her Reeds, Biglers, and 
 Cadwaladers, are constantly prating, and the day 
 is not far distant when her commercial interests 
 will reap the fruits of a timidity at which even 
 southern men join in the laugh of derision. Dis- 
 solution of the Union for presuming to elect a 
 President and "Vice President north of Mason and 
 Dixon's line, when the retrospect of our political 
 history for but a very few years points them to 
 Jackson and Calhoun, both from southern States; 
 to Adams, and Rush, and Harrison, and Gran- 
 ger, northern men, for whom these very men who 
 prate-disunion cast their suffrage. 
 
 Sir, I was pleased to hear the noble stand on this 
 question taken by the honorable gentleman from 
 Kentucky, [Mr. Cox,] a southern man. If north- 
 ern men would but read his speech, they would 
 drive demagogues from the stand, who would dare 
 to talk to them about disunion. That honorable 
 gentleman declares that the people of the United 
 States have the undoubted right to select, if they 
 choose, their President and Vice President from 
 
 either side of Mason and Dixon's line, without 
 offense to the people North or South. He justly 
 ridicules the cringing creature who fears to vote 
 his own convictions for any such unfounded 
 reason. 
 
 Another southern gentleman [Mr. Davis] from 
 Maryland justifies northern men in throwing their 
 votes for the man who represents the principle of 
 non-extension of slavery, when southern men of 
 all parties throw themselves in the opposite direc- 
 tion. Whilst he condemns sectionalism in either, 
 he points to the fact of southern men going to 
 Mr. Buchanan, because they believe he is sound- 
 est on the slave question; and charges Mr. Buch- 
 anan and his friends with having created a 
 sectional party in behalf of the peculiar interest 
 of slavery, justifying, in his opinion, a counter 
 sectional party north of Mason and Dixon'a 
 line. 
 
 Let the legislation of the country be such as 
 will make it flourish, and there will be no danger 
 of a dissolution of the Union. If we have happy 
 and prosperous homes, we will not trouble our- 
 selves about localities, and whether we are north 
 or south of Mason and Dixon's line, our theme 
 will be the Union as it was, as it is, now and for 
 all time to come. As long as demagogues and 
 dough-faces in the North are found traveling 
 about making disunion speeches, there will be 
 found madmen enough in the South to join in the 
 silly cry. 
 
 Why talk about an event which can never hap- 
 pen ? This Union is bound together by an indis- 
 soluble tie, which, like the Gordian knot, cannot 
 be unloosed; and to cut it would be treason. It 
 is bound together by rivers and mountains, by 
 cities connected in great commercial enterprises, 
 by the grave of the northern soldier in the South, 
 and the southern soldier in the North, and by 
 that immortal Declaration of Independence which 
 pledged North and South, East and West, for ita 
 preservation. It cannot be dissolved unless by 
 the rankest, foulest treason. The hand that would 
 dare to strike the first blow would palsy in the 
 attempt. The tongue that would dare to pro- 
 claim the separation of these United States would 
 cleave to the roof of a traitor's mouth. The spirits 
 of the gallant veterans of the Revolution would 
 haunt the wretch who would dare to expatriate 
 their honored graves by throwing them outside 
 that glorious Union for which they fought and bled 
 1 and died. No, sir, this Union cannot be dissolved; 
 and men who play the part of alarmists should 
 be rebuked wherever they appear. This Union is 
 the monument of all our battle-fields. It stands 
 ' out in bold relief, as well to perpetuate the chiv- 
 ' airy of the South as the North ; and equally heralds 
 the fame of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. ft is 
 I the monument of that indomitable energy and 
 enterprise for which our people are everywhere 
 distinguished. In a word, it is a monument of 
 ! the greatest good and the greatest glory which 
 could be conferred upon any nation. There is a 
 j talismanic influence and charm in the very name 
 of Union, that will hush the demagogue to silence, 
 and that will continue to unite us in a destiny 
 which cannot fail to make us individually and 
 1 collectively happy. 
 
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