\ -rj J. • n .LA ^ r ■v;. l\ ttiyf^ ' I 7,A.-i ii > , '.'Mj^^I^^Hk i„l Book . kV ^ G)i5)Tight]^"_ c^ ivvy a. COPiiKIGliT DEPOSm THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE AND FAREWELL ADDRESSES OF THE SOUTHERN SENATORS ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR THE Great Parliamentary Battle and Farewell Addresses OF THE Southern Senators on the Eve of the Civil War BY THOMAS RICAUD MARTIN NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1905 TH5 libr;»ry of CONORSbS Two CoDie« Kttceiveo JUN 24 1905 Oopyngnt tntry OASS £? XXc. Noi COFV A. COPYRIGHT, 1905 BY THOMAS RICAUD MARTIN CONTENTS PAGE Great Senators and Great Speeches in the Old Senate Chamber 7 The Old Senate: The Great Debate Between Senator John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Edward D, Baker of Oregon 12 The Great Debate Between Gen. E. D. Baker and John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, with an Outhne of the Pre- hminary Discussion 16 Pen Pictures of the Old Senate and the New: Senator John J. Crittenden's Great Speech and the Vice- President's Oration 56 ^ The Great Parliamentary Battle and Farewell Addresses of the Southern Senators on the Eve of the Civil ^ War 79 Farewell Speech of Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana on the Occasion of His Withdrawal from the United States Senate on February 4, 1861 89 Celebrated Debate Between Benjamin and Baker in the Senate Chamber on January 3, i86r 98 Farewell Speech of Robert Toombs of Georgia, Delivered January 7, 1861 144 Farewell Speech of Senator Jefferson Davis, U. S. Senator from Mississippi, on the Occasion of His Withdrawal from the U. S. Senate, January 21, 1861 180 Farewell Speeches of Senators Clay and Fitzpatrick, U. S. Senators from Alabama, on the Occasion of Their Withdrawal from the U. S. Senate, January 22, 1861 . . 201 Farewell Speech of Senator Slidell of Louisiana on the Occasion of His Withdrawal from the U. S. Senate, February 4, 1861 215 Judah P. Benjamin 225 Edward Dickinson Baker 238 John C. Breckinridge 251 GREAT SENATORS AND GREAT SPEECH- ES IN THE OLD SENATE CHAMBER The object of this volume is to call attention to the genius and character of the distinguished South- ern Senators of antebellum days. A conspicuous place is assigned to Judah P. Benjamin, who intel- lectually was a towering figure among the senatorial leaders who figured in the old Senate Chamber on the eve of the Civil War. A sketch of his eventful and stormy life aims to emphasize the distinction he achieved in the United States and England in the field of law. Picture the life of the man who, in ever}' sphere in which he figured, shed luster as a statesman, diplomat, writer and citizen. His fare- well speech was delivered in the Senate Februarv 5, 1861. Brief sketches are presented of the brilliant Sena- tors John C. Breckinridge, who graced the Vice- President's chair, and of the brave and accom- plished Baker, of Oregon, who early won his spurs as a matchless orator and whose noble and heroic death at Ball's Bluff touched a sympathetic cord in the hearts of his countr}'men. \Mthin these pages are the farewell speeches of the remarkable coterie of Southern Senators who surrendered their commissions to cast their fortunes 8 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE with the Confederacy. They were as distinguished a body of men as ever influenced a legislative as- sembly, and were great actors among the political forces of their day. These speeches give them rank among the great masters of English, eloquence, and style. The period anterior to the Revolution produced a number of men who stand preeminent in American history for their intellectual powers and as the de- fenders of the Constitution. No greater names adorn the pages of American history than those of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. These men sat in the convention that framed the Constitution of the United States. They were the great figures of the epoch at the birth of the American Republic. The War of 1812 produced a group of men whose fame is dear to every American patriot. The founders of the Government did not seem to foresee the sectional issues destined to overturn the policies they formulated, and that slavery would bring about an agitation that would shake the fabric of our Republic. It was as late as 1820 that the changed condition became recognized and that the slavery issue had hoisted a danger signal that pointed to war. Thomas Jefferson speaks of it as falling "like a fire bell in the night." He wrote to his friend, Mr. Holmes: *T considered this agitation at once as the death knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment, but this is a reprieve only, not a final sen- tence; the geographical line coinciding with the marked principle moral and political." THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 9 The agitation over the Missouri Compromise in 1820 defined Hnes as between two confederacies, the one non-slaveholding and the other slavehold- ing, divisions that were to grow more and more apart, creating sectional animosities that would in- flict wounds that could not be healed save by war, — cruel war, — blood and carnage, wounds so deep that only a revolution could satisfy the combatants, a revolution the grandest and saddest of modern times. The period of 1832 stands out in our history as that of the great tariff debate, when the discussion emphasized the coming storm. It was the strong hand of Andrew Jackson that held the discordant elements at bay. In that famous Congress the de- bate assumed proportions that carried with it rumors of war, and some of the representatives in that Congress declared that before they would sub- scribe to the tariff bill then under discussion they would advocate nullification. This was a great Congress, and the men who constituted it used all their methods of compromise to avert what then seemed to be an impending struggle. Their efforts were crowned with success. Then followed the period of 1850, when that galaxy of men, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, debated the great compromise measures and analyzed the question whether the State had a right to secede, and when Mr. Webster conceded that the Constitution was a compact. The compromise measures of 1850 simply deferred what was to come a decade later. The most eventful and sensational page of Ameri- can history was opened at noon-day, December i, 10 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 1 86 1, when the Vice-President of the United States called the Senate to order. This Congress was des- tined to become more momentous than any of its predecessors. From the opening day until its close there were memorable scenes fraught with sensa- tional episodes, and every day seemed to have its omen of a darker day that was to follow. A small band of men represented the Southland in the Senate, among whom were R. M. T. Hunter and James M, Mason of Virginia; Thomas Bragg and Thomas L. Clingman of North Carolina ; Clement C. Clay, Jr., and Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama; Albert G. Brown and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi ; Alfred Iverson and Robert Toombs of Georgia; Lazarus W. Powell and John J. Crittenden of Ken- tucky; David L. Yulee and Stephen K. Mallory of Florida: John Hemphill and Louis T. Wigfall of Texas. In this Senate sat Stephen A. Douglas, Edward D. Baker, Charles Sumner, and their col- leagues, presenting a solid phalanx of opposition. The most striking figure in the forefront of the Civil War Senate was Judah P. Benjamin, the dis- tinguished statesman and jurist from Louisiana. These men stand preeminent in the legislation of that day, and they fought the first battle of the Civil War. No more pathetic scene is recorded in his- tory than the farewell departure of these men from the scene of their labors in the service of the United States Government when they surren- dered their commissions to cast their lives and their fortunes with the cause of the Confederacy. The purpose of these pages is to recite some of the great and marvelous surprises of their lives and to present THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE ii to the reader the poHshed, brilliant, eloquent speeches delivered during this session of Congress. It is a senatorial page that has never been written. The writer should dip his pen in blood to tell the story of what these men aimed to tell to their coun- trymen. It was on the eve of a fratricidal war. They stood in the calm of the coming storm that was soon to burst upon the country in all its fury, carrying devastation, ruin, and bloodshed in its fiery path. The power of language is inadequate to convey the suffering that was to fall upon the homes of the Southern people. No compromise could avert the impending struggle, and we had finally reached the point where the conflict had to be settled by the ar- bitrament of the sword. Noble men were to lay down their lives on the altar of conviction, while innocent women and children were to suffer what only the heart can feel and words cannot describe. The great parliamentary battle as revealed in these speeches tells the story of the Nation's conflict with a fervor of eloquence that appeals to us even at this late day, though the heart-reaching voices have long since ceased to speak. These men, martyrs to a lost cause, lived and acted their part at a crucial period of our history, and their names should be preserved and live long after "storied urn and animated bust have gone to decay." THE OLD SENATE The Great Debate Between Senator John C Breckinridge of Kentucky and Edward D. Baker of Oregon The old Senate was a grand-looking Chamber with its lofty dome; the Vice-President's chair be- neath the eagle draped in folds of the American flag, its oval shape and its taper pillars supporting the lofty gallery. Before the senatorial gladiators, Breckinridge and Baker, who were to enter the arena of debate on the night of August first, 1861, sat an array of talent which has rarely, if ever, been equaled. Distinguished men of the nation sat near the speakers to hear, criticise, approve, or condemn. A graphic page was about to be written in the records of the American Congress. There was an expectancy floating around that something uncom- mon was to happen, and accordingly the galleries were packed. The old Senate Chamber, though grand to look upon, was an acoustic failure and ordinarily the human voice reverberated through its lofty dome with a confused sound. Not so with the voice of Breckinridge — it had a silvery ring which in spite of his rapid enunciation could be heard distinctly in THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 13 every part of the Chamber. John C. Breckinridge was endowed with all the attributes of an orator. First of all a magnificent presence, then vigorous in- tellect with strong convictions completed his capac- ity for eloquence. The speech Mr. Breckinridge delivered on the night of Baker's memorable reply was a masterpiece of diction and replete with the fire of Southern oratory. The old South of antebellum days typified the very embodiment of its ardent character in the per- son of John C. Breckinridge. Of the great debate in which he was about to participate, a Senator who was present said it was one of the most eloquent discussions that ever took place in legislative halls. "The cross-fire was full of scathing criticism and innuendo and the Senate sat spellbound for hours. We sat with breathless anxiety, when the clear voice of Breckinridge rang out 'Mr. President,' for he was recognized as an intrepid leader and formida- ble debater." His opening sentence at once ar- rested the attention of the galleries. It was a unique spectacle — the occurrences of that fateful night. The Southern Senators had retired some months before and Breckinridge stood alone, almost without a senatorial sympathizer to bestow upon him a nod or glance of favor. It was in this cele- brated speech that Breckinridge threw out the ulti- matum to his State and boldly proclaimed his pur- pose to cast his destiny and seal his fortunes with the Rebellion. "If the Commonwealth of Kentucky," he said, "instead of attempting to mediate in this unfortu- nate struggle shall throw her energies into the strife 14 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE and approve the conduct and sustain the policy of the Federal Administration in what I believe to be a war of subjugation and annihilation, she may take her course. I am her son and will share her destiny, but she will be recognized by some other man on the floor of this Senate." It was a sorrowful valedictory and farewell this great man was tendering to his old associates, for all recognized that it carried a prophecy too soon to be realized. A few weeks after, we find Breckinridge in the uniform of a Confederate soldier, fighting the battles and enduring the hardships of the Con- federate Army. At the beginning of the delivery of this eloquent speech General Baker, fresh from the field of battle, in military dress, sword dangling at his side, entered the Senate Chamber and at once became a conspicuous and picturesque figure in the distinguished group of Senators surrounding the speaker. General Baker in this senatorial forum was to meet a foeman worthy of his steel. His speech is one of the most magnificent orations ever delivered in the halls of the American Congress. Clothed in the classic language of which he was master, it was at the same time vested and tinctured with scathing criticism. Breckinridge had declared in substance that when the Senator from Oregon had indulged in the language that stamped upon him the stigma of a traitor, he had flaunted an in- sult in his face. Baker, with that nobility of char- acter and speech that was ever present with him, made this reply : "Mr. President, I rose a few minutes ago to en- deavor to demonstrate to the Honorable Senator THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 15 from Kentucky that all these imaginations of his as to the unconstitutional character of the provisions of this bill were baseless and idle. I think every member of the Senate must be convinced from the manner of his reply that that conviction is begin- ning to get into his own mind ; and I shall therefore leave him to settle the account with the people of Kentucky, about which he seems to have some pre- dictions which I trust, with great personal respect to him, may, different from his usual predictions, become prophecy after the first Monday of August next." When we recall all that took place on that night we see some meaning in what the great delineator of hearts said, that "all the world's a stage," and if we paraphrase, the men players. How well those men played their part! What a sad memorial we have to place on the finality of their work! Each represented opposite lines of thought and each was ready to die for his convictions. This night closed their legislative career, for soon after Baker sealed his convictions with his blood, while Breckinridge, after a fitful career in the Confederate cause, went into retirement. One of the last utterances of Mr. Breckinridge in the Senate was : "My opinions are my own. I am not a man to cling to the forms of office and to the emoluments of public life against my convictions and my principles." His subsequent action sus- tained this declaration. He was a brave man. THE GREAT DEBATE Between Gen. E. D. Baker and John C. Breck- inridge OF Kentucky, with an Outline of the Preliminary Discussion The Senate was called to order by the President pro tempore Thursday, August first, 1861. Routine business was laid aside and on the motion of Senator Trumbull of Illinois, the Senate pro- ceeded to the consideration of Senate Bill No. 33, which bill enacted — "That any military commander in any district declared to be in a state of insurrection and war, may cause any person suspected of disloyalty to the Government of the United States to be brought be- fore him and may administer or cause to be admin- istered to such person an oath of allegiance as follows : " * I do solemnly swear that I will support, pro- tect, and defend the Constitution and Government of the United States against all enemies whether domestic or foreign, and that I will bear true faith and loyalty to the same, any ordinance or resolution of any State convention or legislature to the con- trary notwithstanding. I do this with a full deter- i6 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE \^ mination and pledge, without any mental reservation or evasion whatever, so help me God.' "Refusing to take such oath they shall be detained as prisoners until the restoration of quiet and peace in the locality where such arrests may have been made." Mr. Bayard briefly addressed the Senate, declar- ing that the exigencies existing did not demand the enactment of such a law, saying : "I think it involves very grave constitutional questions. If we are at war there is no doubt that the rights and usages of war belong to and apply to the war, without any bill passed on our part. That arises under the laws of nations and not under special legislation. I believe myself that we are at war. Nothing like this bill has ever been at- tempted before." Senator Harris briefly stated that the features of the bill were novel, contemplating a state of things which was never before contemplated in this coun- try. He said : "Our Constitution was framed with no reference to such a state of things. We have a state of civil war. Here is a belt of country lying along the Vir- ginia side of the Potomac in a perfect state of an- archy. Civil authority has disappeared; civil gov- ernment no longer exists; crime is committed with impunity. What shall be done? I am credibly informed that, without process, arrests for high crime have been made and that now the jail at Alex- andria is nearly filled with prisoners who have been committed on military authority without civil pro- cess. * * * If our Army shall progress south- i8 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE ward, as I trust in God it will, there will be not only ' a belt of country along the borders of the Potomac, but we shall have the whole State of Virginia, and I hope still more territory which will be embraced within the considerations which the bill involves." Senator Lyman Trumbull made these observa- tions on the bill : "Mr. President, I do not wish to detain the Senate or to press pertinaciously upon its consideration this bill. If a bill of this character is needed its neces- sity grows out of the emergencies of our condition, the anomalous state of affairs in the country. Now, sir, what do we find ? The Senator from Kentucky thinks that this bill allows the military authority great power to arrest men. Are they not arrested now? Are not men arrested in the city of Balti- more and already in confinement and sent from Baltimore to other places to be confined ? Are they not arrested in my State? Before I left home the military authorities in Illinois had arrested persons charged with treason. One of the very men cap- tured in Camp Jackson in the State of Missouri with arms in his hands was discharged in the State of Illinois on a writ of habeas corpus, by the judge of our court. "Mr. President and Senators, there is, in my judgment, resting upon us as heavy and as high a responsibility as was ever devolved upon men at any time in the history of the world. The existence of constitutional government is at stake. A Constitu- tion devised, perhaps, by the wisest men who ever undertook to frame a government is threatened seriously with overthrow. An attempt is now made THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE ig to disrupt the Government. * * * We are en- gaged in a civil war and I believe we have voted to raise $500,000,000, to raise five hundred thousand volunteers to fight to maintain this Constitution. I oppose the postponement of the bill. Can it be pos- sible that Senators of the United States in their hurry to get home for their personal convenience, when our brothers and our children are sleeping upon the ground, when we are taxing the people to their utmost capacity and when the blood of our citizens is to be poured out to sustain this Govern- ment, can Senators justify it to themselves to go away without maturing the bill?" Senator Saulsbury advised the postponement of the bill because he believed, as he stated, every sec- tion of the bill to be violative of the Constitution of the United States, He said : "I believe it is, in fact, making a dictator of the President of the United States, and that if it passes there will not be, in fact, a free citizen in the United States. Why, sir, if this bill passes the President of the United States can declare my State in rebel- lion tomorrow ; he can declare the State of New York or any State in rebellion tomorrow; all that has to be done is for the military commander to make proclamation thereof and he can arraign be- fore a court martial any citizen of the United States and subject him to trial by court martial instead of allowing him to be tried according to the law of the land. Sir, I have regarded this from its first intro- duction the most dangerous bill that was ever in- troduced, not only in this body, but into any legis- lative body of which I have had any knowledge that 20 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE has ever existed on the face of the earth. I think it clothes the President of the United States, if possi- ble, with greater power than any dictator was ever clothed with in any period of Roman history." Mr. Doolittle said : "Mr. President, in the heat and excitement of this debate there are one or two ideas that ought not to be lost sight of. I refer to this talk about subjuga- tion, and I hope that my friends on this side of the Chamber will not lose sight of it in the excitement of debate. I undertake to say that it is not the pur- pose of this war, or of this Administration, to sub- jugate any State of the Union or the people of any State of the Union. What is the policy? It is, as I said the other day, to enable the loyal people of the several States of this Union to reconstruct them- selves upon the Constitution of the United States. Virginia has led the way ; Virginia, in her sovereign capacity, by the assembled loyal people of that State in convention, has organized herself upon the Con- stitution of the United States and they have taken into their own hands the government of that State. * * * "Mr. President, I have heard a Senator denounce the President of the United States for the use of constitutional power. I undertake to say that with- out any foundation he makes such a charge of usurpation of unconstitutional power, unless it be in a mere matter of form. He has not. in substance ; and the case I put to the Senator the other day he has not answered and I defy him to answer. I undertake to say that as there are fifty thousand men, perhaps, in arms against the United States in THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 21 Virginia within thirty miles of this Capital, I, as an individual, though I am not President, though I am clothed with no official authority, may ask one hun- dred thousand of my fellow-men to go with me with arms in our hands to take every one of them and if it be necessary to take their lives. Why do not some of these gentlemen who talk about usurpation and trampling the Constitution under foot, stand up here and answer that position or forever shut their mouths? * * * Away then, with all this stuff and this splitting of hairs and pettifogging here, when we are within the very sound of the guns and of the armies who threaten to march upon the Capi- tal and subjugate the Government." At this stage of the discussion the Vice-President announced that the Senator from Kentucky was en- titled to the floor, THE GREAT DEBATE. Mr. Breckinridge. " I do not know how the Senate may vote upon this question ; and I have heard some remarks which have dropped from cer- tain Senators which have struck me with so much surprise, that I desire to say a few words in reply to them now. ^'This drama, sir, is beginning to open before us, and zve begin to catch some idea of its magnitude. Appalled by the extent of it, and embarrassed by what they see before them and around them, the Senators who are themselves the most vehement in urging on this course of events, are beginning to quarrel among themselves as to the precise way in which to regidate it. 22 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE "The Senator from Vermont objects to this bill because it puts a limitation on what he considers already existing powers on the part of the Presi- dent. I wish to say a few words presently in re- gard to some provisions of this bill, and then the Senate and the country may judge of the extent of those powers of which this bill is a limitation. "I endeavored, Mr. President, to demonstrate a short time ago, that the whole tendency of our pro- ceedings was to trample the Constitution under our feet, and to conduct this contest without the slightest regard to its provisions. Everything that has oc- curred since, demonstrates that the view I took of the conduct and tendency of public affairs was cor- rect. Already both Houses of Congress have passed a bill virtually to confiscate all the property in the States that have withdrawn, declaring in the bill to which I refer that all property of every de- scription employed in any way to promote or aid in the insurrection, as it is denominated, shall be for- feited and confiscated. I need not say to you, sir, that all property of every kind is employed in those States, directly or indirectly, in aid of the contest they are waging, and consequently that bill is a general confiscation of all property there. "As if afraid, however, that this general term might not apply to slave property, it adds an addi- tional section. Although they were covered by the first section of the bill, to make sure of that, how- ever, it adds another section, declaring that all per- sons held to service or labor, who shall be employed in any way to aid or promote the contest now wag- ing, shall be discharged from such service and be- THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 23 come free. Nothing cafi be more apparent than that that is a general act of emancipation; because all the slaves in that country are employed in fur- nishing the means of subsistence and life to those who are prosecuting the contest; and it is an indi- rect but perfectly certain mode of carrying out the purposes contained in the bill introduced by the Senator from Kansas [Mr. Pomeroy]. It is doing under cover and by indirection, but certainly, what he proposes shall be done by direct proclamation of the President. "Again, sir: to show that all these proceedings are characterized by an utter disregard of the Fed- eral Constitution, what is happening around us every day? In the State of New York, some young man has been imprisoned by executive authority upon no distinct charge, and the military officer having him in charge refused to obey the writ of habeas corpus issued by a judge. What is the color of excuse for that action in the State of New York ? As a Senator said, is New York in resistance to the Government? Is there any danger to the stability of the Government there? Then, sir, what reason will any Senator rise and give on this floor for the refusal to give to the civil authorities the body of a man taken by a military commander in the State of New York? "Again : the police commissioners of Baltimore were arrested by military authority without any charges whatever. In vain they have asked for a specification. In vain they have sent a respectful protest to the Congress of the United States. In vain the House of Representatives, by resolution, 24 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE requested the President to furnish the representa- tives of the people with the grounds of their arrest. He answers the House of Representatives that, in his judgment, the pubhc interest does not permit him to say why they were arrested, on what charges, or what he has done with them — and you call this lib- erty and law and proceedings for the preservation of the Constitution! They have been spirited off from one fortress to another, their locality unknown, and the President of the United States refuses, upon the application of the most numerous branch of the National Legislature, to furnish them with the grounds of their arrest, or to inform them what he has done with them. "Sir, it was said the other day by the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Browning] that I had assailed the conduct of the Executive with vehemence, if not with malignity. I am not aware that I have done so. I criticised, with the freedom that belongs to the representative of a sovereign State and the people, the conduct of the Executive. I shall con- tinue to do so as long as I hold a seat upon this floor, when, in my opinion, that conduct deserves criticism. Sir, I need not say that, in the midst of such events as surround us, I could not cherish personal animosity towards any human being. Towards that distinguished officer, I never did cher- ish it. Upon the contrary, I think more highly of him, as a man and an officer, than I do of many who are around him and who, perhaps, guide his coun- sels. I deem him to be personally an honest man, and I believe that he is trampling upon the Consti- tution of his country every day, with probably good THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 25 motives, under the counsels of those who influence him. But, sir, I have nothing now to say about the President. The proceedings of Congress have ecHpsed the actions of the Executive; and if this bill shall become a law, the proceedings of the President will sink into absolute nothingness in the presence of the outrages upon personal and public liberty which have been perpetrated by the Congress of the United States. "The Senator from Vermont objects to the bill because it puts a limitation upon already existing powers. Sir, let us look for a moment at the pro- visions of this bill. I shall speak presently of the Senator's notions of the laws of war. The first section of the bill authorizes the President of the United States to declare any of the military dis- tricts in a state of insurrection or actual rebellion against the United States. Those military districts are composed of States and of parts of States. When the President shall so declare, and he is au- thorized to do it in his discretion — there may, or there may not, be insurrection or rebellion : the President may say there is, and no man shall chal- lenge his assertion — when that is done, the military commanders in those respective States or military districts shall give notice thereof, and what then follows? It provides in the second section that any military commander in one of those States or dis- tricts shall make and publish such police rules and regulations, conforming as nearly as may be to pre- viously existing laws and regulations — not mere police rules and regulations, but just such rules and regulations as he may desire, conforming as nearly 26 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE as he may choose, in his discretion, to the existing laws of the several States or military districts, ' and all the civil authorities within said districts shall be bound to carry said rules and regulations into effect.' They are subordinated, at the discretion of the Presi- dent, to the dictation of any of his subordinate mili- tary commanders. "The third section provides : " 'That if, from any cause whatever, the said civil authorities fail to execute the said rules and regulations' — "So made by this subordinate military com- mander — " 'the said military commander shall cause them to be executed and enforced by the military force under his command.' "The fourth section authorizes, not the President, but any military commander in any of these dis- tricts, generals, colonels, majors, captains — if one of them should be the commander of a military dis- trict — in his discretion to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and make return that he will not obey, to any judge that may issue it. "Then, sir, if any person — not a camp follower, not any one subject to the rules and articles of war — but if any person — " 'Shall be found in arms against the United States, or other- wise aiding and abetting their enemies or opposers, within any district of country to which it relates, and shall be taken by the forces of the United States, shall be either detained as prisoners for trial on the charge of treason or sedition, or other crimes and offenses which they may have committed whilst resisting the authority of the United States; or may, according to the circumstances of the case' — THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 27 "This to be judged of by this military com- mander — " 'be at once placed before a court martial, to be dealt with according to the rules of war in respect to unorganized and lawless armed bands, not recognized as regular troops.' "Or in his discretion may be discharged upon parole. The Constitution of the United States de- clares that the crime of treason and all other crimes shall be tried by a jury, and not by a military com- mander, or a drum-head court martial. The power to suspend the habeas corpus which Congress may do by the Constitution, but cannot delegate to the President, or any one else, it is proposed by this bill to authorize the President to delegate to any subor- dinate military authority — a power which he does not himself possess. "The sixth section provides that — " 'No sentence of death pronounced by a court martial upon any person or persons taken in arms as aforesaid, shall be executed before it has been submitted to the commander of the military department within which the conviction has taken place, or to the Commanding General of the Army of the United States.' "Sentence of death may be passed upon any per- son under these circumstances, with the approval either of the General-in-Chief of the Army or of the subordinate military commander who may have the control of the district in which he is taken. "Sir, I do not at present comment upon the sev- enth section, in regard to persons put upon parole; nor the eighth section, which provides that any mili- tary commander may cause any person suspected of disloyalty to the United States to be brought 28 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE before him, and may administer, or cause to be ad- ministered, to such person an oath of allegiance — a very peculiar oath — an oath not alone to support the Constitution of the United States, but to bear true allegiance to many other things not provided for in the Constitution of the United States. There is no legitimate oath which can be put upon any one ex- cept an officer under the Government, and that oath is limited to a support of the Constitution of the United States ; and I think the public liberties are at a low ebb when any military commander may seize, throughout the length and breadth of the land, any citizen suspected merely, and compel him to take such an oath as is prescribed by this bill. "Then, Mr. President, without discussing the other points at present, how does it sum up? Let me take the State of Kentucky, for example. That State is a military district. Suppose that, for any cause, the President may choose to say that that State is in a condition of insurrection or rebellion — though she has suffered enough from violations of the Constitution committed by the Executive ; al- though she has been clinging with her characteristic fidelity to the Union of the States — he is to be the sole judge of the facts; he is to declare that Ken- tucky, for example, is in a state of insurrection or rebellion. What follows? The military com- mander in charge of the United States forces in the district may then publish just such rules and regu- lations for the government of that Commonwealth as he may choose, making them conform as nearly as he may, in his discretion, to the existing laws of the State ; and the civil authorities of that State are THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 29 to be bound by the rules and regulations of this mili- tary commander, and if they do not execute them, he is then to see that they are executed by the mili- tary force under his command. "What is it, sir, but vesting first in the discretion of the President, to be by him detailed to a sub- altern military commander, the authority to enter the Commonwealth of Kentucky, to abolish the State, to abolish the Executive, the Legislature, and the judiciary, and to substitute just such rules for the government of its people as that military com- mander may choose ? Well might the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Saulsbury] say that this bill con- tains provisions conferring authority which never was exercised in the worst days of Rome, by the worst of her dictators. I have wondered why the bill was introduced. I have sometimes thought that possibly it was introduced for the purpose of pre- venting the expression of that reaction which is now evidently going on in the public mind against these procedures so fatal to constitutional liberty. The Army may be thus taxed, perhaps, to collect the enor- mous direct taxes for which preparation is now being made by Congress ; and if in any part of Illi- nois, or Indiana, or New York, or any State, North or South, there shall be difficulty, or resistance, the President in his discretion may declare it to be in a state of insurrection, all the civil authorities may be overthrown, and his military commander may make rules and regulations, collect taxes, and execute the laws at his pleasure. "Mr. President, gentlemen talk about the Union as if it was an end instead of a means. They talk 30 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE about it as if it was the Union of these States which alone had brought into life the principles of public and of personal liberty. Sir, they existed before and they may survive it. Take care that in pursu- ing one idea you do not destroy not only the Con- stitution of your country, but sever what remains of the Federal Union. These eternal and sacred prin- ciples of public and of personal liberty, which lived before the Union and will live forever and ever somewhere, must be respected ; they cannot with im- punity be overthrown; and if you force the people to the issue between any form of government and these priceless principles, that form of government will perish ; they will tear it asunder as the irrepress- ible forces of nature rend whatever opposes them. "Mr. President, I shall not long detain the Senate. I shall not enter now upon an elaborate discussion of all the principles involved in this bill, and all the con- sequences which, in my opinion, flow from it. A word in regard to what fell from the Senator from Vermont, the substance of which has been uttered by a great many Senators on this floor. What I tried to show some time ago has been substantially admitted. One Senator says that the Constitution is put aside in a struggle like this. Another Senator says that the condition of affairs is altogether ab- normal, and that you cannot deal with them on con- stitutional principles, any more than you can deal by any of the regular operations of the laws of nature with an earthquake. The Senator from Vermont says that all these proceedings are to be conducted according to the laws of war ; and he adds that the laws of war require many things to be done which THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 31 are absolutely forbidden in the Constitution; which Congress is prohibited from doing, and all other de- partments of the Government are forbidden from doing by the Constitution ; but that they are proper under the laws of war, which must alone be the measure of our action now. I desire the country, then, to know this fact; that it is openly avowed upon this floor that constitutional limitations are no longer to be regarded; but that you are acting just as if there were two nations upon this continent, one arrayed against the other; some eighteen or twenty million on one side, and some ten or twelve million on the other ; as to whom the Constitution is naught, and the laws of war alone apply. "Sir, let the people, already beginning to pause and reflect upon the origin and nature and the prob- able consequences of this unhappy strife, get this idea fairly lodged in their minds — and it is a true one — and I will venture to say that the brave words which we now hear every day about crushing, sub- jugating, treason, and traitors, will not be so uttered the next time the representatives of the people and the States assemble beneath the dome of this Cap- itol." Mr. Lane, of Kansas. "With the consent of the Senator from Kentucky, I should like to ask him a question." Mr. Breckinridge. "I prefer that the Senator from Kansas should not at present interrupt me. I shall soon close what I have to say, and then he will be entitled to the floor. "Then, sir, if the Constitution is really to be put aside, if the laws of war alone are to govern, and 32 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE whatever may be done by one independent nation at war with another, is to be done, why not act upon that practically ? I do not hold that the clause of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to declare war, applies to any internal difficulties. I do not be- lieve it applies to any of the political communities, bound together under the Constitution, in political association. I regard it as applying to external ene- mies. Nor do I believe that the Constitution of the United States ever contemplated the preservation of the Union of these States by one-half the States warring on the other half. It details particularly how military force shall be employed in this Federal system of Government, and it can be employed properly in no other way ; it can be employed in aid of the civil tribunals. If there are no civil tribunals, if there is no mode by which the laws of the United States may be enforced in the manner prescribed by the Constitution, what follows? The remaining States may, if they choose, make war, but they do it outside of the Constitution ; and the Federal system, as determined by the principles and terms of tliat in- strument, does not provide for the case. It does provide for putting down insurrections, illegal up- risings of individuals, but it does not provide, in my opinion, either in its spirit or in its terms, for raising armies by one-half of the political communities that compose the Confederacy, for the purpose of subju- gating the other half; and the very fact that it does not, is shown by the fact that you have to avow on the floor of the Senate the necessity for putting the Constitution aside, and conducting the whole contest THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 33 without regard to it, and in obedience solely to the laws of war. "Then, if we are at war, if it is a case of war, treat it like war. Practically, it is being treated like war. The prisoners whom the United States have taken are not hung as traitors. The prisoners which the other States have taken are not hung as traitors. It is war. The Senator is right in saying it is war ; but, in my opinion, it is not only an unhappy but an unconstitutional war. Why, then, all these proceed- ings upon the part of the Administration, refusing to send or to receive flags of truce ; refusing to rec- ognize the actual condition of affairs ; refusing to do those acts which, if they do not terminate, may at least ameliorate the unhappy condition in which we find ourselves placed ? "So much, then, we know. We know that ad- mitted violations of the Constitution have been made, and are justified. We know that we have conferred by legislation, and are, perhaps, still fur- ther by legislation to confer, authority to do acts not warranted by the Constitution of the United States. We have it openly avowed that the Constitution of the Union, which is the bond of association, at least, between those States that still adhere to the Federal Union, is no longer to be regarded. It is not enough to tell me that it has been violated by those com- munities that have seceded. Other States have not seceded ; Kentucky has not seceded ; Illinois has not seceded; some twenty States yet compose the Fed- eral Union, nominally under this Constitution. As to them, that instrument, in its terms and in its spirit, is the bond of their connection under the Fed- 34 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE eral system. They have a right, as between them- selves and their co-members of the Confederacy, to insist upon its being respected. If, indeed, it is to be put aside, and we are to go into a great conti- nental struggle, they may pause to inquire what is to become of their liberties, and what their political connections are to be in a contest made without con- stitutional warrant, and in derogation of all the terms of the instrument. How can this be success- fully controverted? Though you may have a right to trample under foot the Constitution, and to make war (as every power has a right to make war) against the States that have seceded, have you a right to violate it as to any of the adhering States, who insist upon fidelity to Its provisions? No, sir. "Mr. President, we are on the wrong tack; we have been from the beginning. The people begin to see it. Here we have been hurling gallant fellows on to death, and the blood of Americans has been shed — for what? They have shown their prowess, re- spectively — that which belongs to the race — and shown it like men. But for what have the United States soldiers, according to the exposition we have heard here to-day, been shedding their blood, and displaying their dauntless courage? It has been to carry out principles that three-fourths of them ab- hor; for the principles contained in this bill, and con- tinually avowed on the floor of the Senate, are not shared, I venture to say, by one-fourth of the Army. "I have said, sir, that we are on the wrong tack. Nothing but ruin, utter ruin, to the North, to the South, to the East, to the West, will follow the prosecution of this contest. You may look forward THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 35 to innumerable armies; you may look forward to countless treasures — all spent for the purpose of desolating and ravaging this continent; at the end leaving us just w^here we are now ; or if the forces of the United States are successful in ravaging the whole South, what on earth will be done with it after that is accomplished ? Are not gentlemen now perfectly satisfied that they have mistaken a people for a faction? Are they not perfectly satisfied that, to accomplish their object, it is necessary to subju- gate, to conquer — ay, to exterminate — nearly ten millions of people ? Do you not know it ? Does not everybody know it? Does not the world know it? Let us pause, and let the Congress of the United States respond to the rising feeling all over this land in favor of peace. War is separation ; in the lan- guage of an eminent gentleman now no more, it is disunion, eternal and final disunion. We have sep- aration now ; it is only made worse by war, and an utter extinction of all those sentiments of common interest and feeling which might lead to a political reunion founded uopn consent and upon a conviction of its advantages. Let the war go on. however, and soon, in addition to the moans of widows and or- phans all over this land, you will hear the cry of dis- tress from those who want food and the comforts of life. The people will be unable to pay the grinding taxes which a fanatical spirit will attempt to impose upon them. Nay, more, sir; you will see further separation. I hope it is not 'the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,' but in my mind's eye I plainly see 'coming events cast their shadows before.' The Pacific slope now, doubtless, is devoted to the union 36 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE of States. Let this war go on till they find the burdens of taxation greater than the burdens of a separate condition, and they will assert it. Let the war go on until they see the beautiful features of the old Confederacy beaten out of shape and comeliness by the brutalizing hand of war, and they will turn aside in disgust from the sickening spectacle, and become a separate nation. Fight twelve months longer, and the already opening differences that you see between New England and the great Northwest will develop themselves. You have two confeder- acies now. Fight twelve months, and you will have three ; twelve months longer, and you will have four. "/ will not enlarge upon it, sir. I am quite aware that all I say is received with a sneer of incredulity by the gentlemen who represent the far Northeast; but let the future determine zvho zvas right and who was wrong. We are making our record here; I, my humble one, amid the sneers and aversion of nearly all who surround me. giz'ing my votes and uttering my utterances according to my convictions, zvith but fezv approving voices, and surrounded by scowls. The time zvill soon come, Senators, when history zcill put her iinal seal upon these proceedings, and if my name shall be recorded there, going along zvith yours as an actor in these scenes, I am zvilling to abide, fearlessly, her final judgment." At this juncture Senator Baker, who had been following the Kentucky Senator and making notes as he proceeded in his speech, was recognized by the Vice-President and immediately proceeded with this eloquent reply : Mr. Baker. "Mr. President, it has not been my THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 37 fortune to participate in at any length, indeed, not to hear very much of, the discussion which has been going on — more, I think, in the hands of the Sen- ator from Kentucky than anybody else — upon all the propositions connected with this war; and, as I really feel as sincerely as he can an earnest desire to preserve the Constitution of the United States for everybody, South as well as North, I have listened for some little time past to what he has said with an earnest desire to apprehend the point of his objection to this particular bill. And now — waiving what I think is the elegant but loose declamation in which he chooses to indulge — / would propose, with my habitual respect for him (for nobody is more courteous and more gentlemanly), to ask him if he will be kind enough to tell me what single particular provision there is in this bill which is in violation of the Constitution of the United States, which I have sworn to support — one distinct, single proposition in the bill." Mr. Breckinridge. "I will state, in general terms, that every one of them is, in my opinion, flagrantly so, unless it may be the last. I will send the Senator the bill, and he may comment on the sections." Mr. Baker. 'Tick out that one which is in your judgment most clearly so." Mr. Breckinridge. "They are all, in my opin- ion, so equally atrocious that I dislike to discrimi- nate. I will send the Senator the bill, and I tell him that every section, except the last, in my opinion, violates the Constitution of the United States; and of that last section, I express no opinion." 38 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE Mr. Baker. "I had hoped that that respectful suggestion to the Senator would enable him to point out to me one, in his judgment, most clearly so, for they are not all alike — they are not equally atro- cious." Mr. Breckinridge. "Very nearly. There are ten of them. The Senator can select which he pleases." Mr. Baker. "Let me try then, if I must gener- alize as the Senator does, to see if I can get the scope and meaning of this bill. It is a bill providing that the President of the United States may declare, by proclamation, in a certain given statement of fact, certain territory within the United States to be in a condition of insurrection and war; which proclama- tion shall be extensively published within the district to which it relates. That is the first proposition. I ask him if that is unconstitutional ? That is a plain question. Is it unconstitutional to give power to the President to declare a portion of the territory of the United States in a state of insurrection or rebellion ? He will not dare to say it is." Mr. Breckinridge. "Mr. President, the Sen- ator from Oregon is a very adroit debater, and he discovers, of course, the great advantage he would have if I were to allow him, occupying the floor, to ask me a series of questions, and then have his own criticisms made on them. When he has closed his speech, if I deem it necessary, I may make some re- ply. At present, however, 1 will answer that ques- tion. The State of Illinois, I believe, is a military district ; the State of Kentucky is a military district. In my judgment, Congress has no right to confer i THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 39 Upon the President authority to declare a State in a condition of insurrection or rebelHon." Mr. Baker. *'In the first place, the bill does not say a word about States. That is the first answer." Mr. Breckinridge. "Does not the Senator know, in fact, that those States compose military districts? It might as well have said 'States' as to describe what is a State." Mr. Baker. ''I do ; and that is the reason why I suggest to the honorable Senator that this criticism about States does not mean anything at all. That is the very point. The objection certainly ought not to be that he can declare a part of a State in insurrec- tion and not the whole of it. In point of fact, the Constitution of the United States, and the Congress of the United States acting upon it, are not treating of States, but of the territory comprising the United States; and I submit once more to his better judg- ment that it cannot be unconstitutional to allow the President to declare a county or a part of a county, or a town or a part of a town, or part of a State, or the whole of a State, or two States, or five States, in a condition of insurrection, if in his judgment that be the fact. That is not wrong. "In the next place, it provides that, that being so, the military commander in that district may make and publish such police rules and regulations as he may deem necessary to suppress the rebellion and restore order and preserve the lives and property of citizens. I submit to him, if the President of the United States has power, or ought to have power, to suppress insurrection and rebellion, is there any bet- ter way to do it, or is there any other? The gentle- 40 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE man says, do it by the civil power. Look at the fact. The civil power is utterly overwhelmed; the courts are closed ; the judges banished. Is the Presi- dent not to execute the law ? Is he to do it in per- son, or by his military commanders ? Are they to do it with regulation, or without it ? That is the only question. "Mr. President, the honorable Senator says there is a state of war. The Senator from Vermont agrees with him ; or rather, he agrees with the Sen- ator from Vermont in that. What then? There is a state of public war ; none the less war because it is urged from the other side ; not the less war because it is unjust ; not the less war because it is a war of insurrection and rebellion. It is still war; and I am willing to say it is public war — public as contradis- tinguished from private war. When then? Shall we carry that war on? Is it his duty as a Senator to carry it on? If so, how? By armies, under com- mand ; by military organization and authority, ad- vancing to suppress insurrection and rebellion. Is that unconstitutional? Are we not bound to do, with whoever levies war against us, as we would do if he was a foreigner? There is no distinction as to the mode of carrying on war ; we carry on war against an advancing army just the same, whether it be from Russia or from South Carolina. Will the honorable Senator tell me it is our duty to stay here, within fifteen miles of the enemy seeking to advance upon us every hour, and talk about nice questions of constitutional construction as to whether it is war or merely insurrection ? No, sir. It is our duty to ad- vance, if we can ; to suppress insurrection ; to put THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 41 down rebellion ; to dissipate the rising ; to scatter the enemy, and when we have done so, to preserve, in the terms of the bill, the liberty, lives, and property of the people of the country, by just and fair police regulations. I ask the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Lane], when we took Monterey, did we not do it there? When we took Mexico, did we not do it there ? Is it not a part, a necessary, an indispensable part of war itself, that there shall be military regula- tions over the country conquered and held ? Is that unconstitutional ? "I think it was a mere play of words that the Sen- ator indulged in when he attempted to answer the Senator from New York. I did not understand the Senator from New York to mean anything else sub- stantially but this, that the Constitution deals gen- erally with a state of peace, and that when war is de- clared it leaves the condition of public affairs to be determined by the laws of war, in the country where the war exists. It is true that the Constitution of the United States does adopt the laws of war as a part of the instrument itself, during the continuance of war. The Constitution does not provide that spies shall be hung. Is it unconstitutional to hang a spy? There is no provision for it in terms in the Constitution ; but nobody denies the right, the pow- er, the justice. Why? Because it is part of the law of war. The Constitution does not provide for the exchange of prisoners ; yet it may be done under the law of war. Indeed the Constitution does not pro- vide that a prisoner may be taken at all ; yet his cap- tivity is perfectly just and constitutional. It seems 42 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE to me that the Senator does not, will not, take that view of the subject. "Again, sir, when a military commander ad- vances, as I trust, if there are no more unexpected great reverses, he will advance, through Virginia and occupies the country, there, perhaps, as here, the civil law may be silent; there perhaps the civil offi- cers may flee as ours have been compelled to flee. What then ? If the civil law is silent, who shall con- trol and regulate the conquered district — who but the military commander? As the Senator from Il- linois has well said, shall it be done by regulation or without regulation? Shall the general, or the col- onel, or the captain, be supreme, or shall he be regu- lated and ordered by the President of the United States ? That is the sole question. The Senator has put it well. "I agree that we ought to do all we can to limit, to restrain, to fetter the abuse of military power. Bayonets are at best illogical arguments. I am not willing, except as a case of sheerest necessity, ever to permit a military commander to exercise author- ity over life, liberty, and property. But, sir, it is part of the law of war ; you cannot carry in the rear of your army your courts; you cannot organize juries ; you cannot have trials according to the forms and ceremonial of the common law amid the clangor of arms, and somebody must enforce police regula- tions in a conquered or occupied district. I ask the Senator from Kentucky again respectfully, is that unconstitutional ; or, if in the nature of war it must exist, even if there be no law passed by us to allow it, is it unconstitutional to regulate it? That is the THE GREAT PARLIAIVLENTARY BATTLE 43 question, to which I do not think he will make a clear and distinct reply. "Now, sir, I have shown him two sections of the bill which I do not think he will repeat earnestly are unconstitutional. I do not think that he will seri- ously deny that it is perfectly constitutional to hm- it, to regulate, to control, at the same time to confer and restrain authority in the hands of military com- manders. I think it is wise and judicious to regulate it by virtue of powers to be placed in the hands of the President by law. "Now, a few words, and a few only, as to the Senator's predictions. The Senator from Kentucky stands up here in a manly way in opposition to what he sees is the overwhelming sentiment of the Sen- ate, and utters reproof, malediction, and prediction combined. Well, sir, it is not every prediction that is prophecy. It is the easiest thing in the world to do ; there is nothing easier, except to be mistaken when we have predicted. I confess, Mr. President, that I would not have predicted three weeks ago the disasters which have overtaken our arms; and I do not think (if I were to predict now) that six months hence the Senator will indulge in the same tone of prediction which is his favorite key now. I would ask him what would you have us do now — a Confed- erate army within twenty miles of us, advancing, or threatening to advance, to overwhelm your Govern- ment ; to shake the pillars of the Union ; to bring it around your head, if you stay here, in ruins? Are we to stop and talk about an uprising sentiment in the North against the war? Are we to predict evil, and retire from what we predict ? Is it not the man- 44 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE ly part to go on as we have begun, to raise money, and levy armies, to organize them, to prepare to ad- vance; when we do advance, to regulate that ad- vance by all the laws and regulations that civiliza- tion and humanity will allow in time of battle ? Can we do anything more? To talk to us about stop- ping, is idle; we will never stop. Will the Senator yield to rebellion? Will he shrink from armed in- surrection? Will his State justify it? Will its bet- ter public opinion allow it ? Shall we send a flag of truce ? What would he have ? Or would he conduct this war so feebly, that the whole world would smile at us in derision? What would he have? These speeches of his, sown broadcast over the land, what clear distinct meaning have they? Are they not in- tended for disorganization in our very midst? Are they not intended to dull our weapons? Are they not intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not in- tended to animate our enemies? Sir, are they not words of brilliant, polished treason, even in the very Capitol of the Confcderacyf" [Manifestations of applause in the galleries.] The Presiding Officer (Mr. Anthony in the chair). "Order." Mr. Baker. "What would have been thought if, in another Capitol, in another Republic, in a yet more martial age, a Senator as grave, not more elo- quent or dignified than the Senator from Kentucky, yet with the Roman purple flowing over his shoul- ders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the il- lustrations of Roman glory, and declared that ad- vancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace? What would THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 45 have been thought if, after the battle of Cannae, a Senator there had risen in his place and denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasure, and every appeal to the old recollec- tions and the old glories? Sir, a Senator, himself learned far more than myself in such lore [Mr. Fes- senden], tells me, in a voice that I am glad is aud- ible, that he would have been hurled from the Tar- peian rock. It is a grand commentary upon the American Constitution that we permit these words to be uttered. I ask the Senator to recollect, too, what, save to send aid and comfort to the enemy, do these predictions of his amount to? Every word thus uttered falls as a note of inspiration upon every Confederate ear. Every sound thus uttered is a word (and falling from his lips, a mighty word) of kin- dling and triumph to a foe that determines to ad- vance. For me, I have no such word as a Senator to utter. For me, amid temporary defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty calls me to utter an- other word, and that word is, bold, sudden, forward, determined war, according to the laws of war, by armies, by military commanders clothed with full power, advancing with all the past glories of the Re- public urging them on to conquest. "I do not stop to consider whether it is subjuga- tion or not. It is compulsorv obedience, not to my will ; not to yours, sir ; not to the will of any one man ; not to the will of any one State ; but compul- sory obedience to the Constitution of the whole country. The Senator chose the other day again and again to animadvert on a single expression in a little speech which I delivered before the Senate, in 46 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE which I took occasion to say that if the people of the rebellious States would not govern themselves as States, they ought to be governed as Territories. The Senator knew full well then, for I explained it twice — he knows full well now — that on this side of the Chamber; nay, in this whole Chamber; nay, in this whole North and West; nay, in all the loyal States in all their breadth, there is not a man among us all who dreams of causing any man in the South to submit to any rule, either as to life, liberty, or property, that we ourselves do not willingly agree to yield to. Did he ever think of that? Subjuga- tion for what? When we subjugate South Carolina, what shall we do ? We shall compel its obedience to the Constitution of the United States ; that is all. Why play upon words? We do not mean, we have never said, any more. If it be slavery that men should obey the Constitution their fathers fought for, let it be so. If it be freedom, it is freedom equally for them and for us. We propose to subju- gate rebellion into loyalty; we propose to subjugate insurrection into peace; we propose to subjugate Confederate anarchy into constitutional Union lib- erty. The Senator well knows that we propose no more. I ask him, I appeal to his better judgment now, what does he imagine we intend to do. if for- tunately we conquer Tennessee or South Carolina — call it 'conquer,' if you will, sir — what do we propose to do ? They will have their courts still ; they will have their ballot-boxes still ; they will have their elec- tions still ; they will have their representatives upon this floor still; they will have taxation and repre- sentation still ; they will have the writ of habeas THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 47 corpus still ; they will have every privilege they ever had and all we desire. When the Confederate armies are scattered ; when their leaders are ban- ished from power ; when the people return to a late repentant sense of the wrong they have done to a Government they never felt bnt in benignancy and blessing, then the Constitution made for all will be felt by all, like the descending rains from heaven which bless all alike. Is that subjugation? To re- store what was, as it was, for the benefit of the whole country and of the whole human race, is all we desire and all we can have. "Gentlemen talk about the Northeast. I appeal to Senators from the Northeast, is there a man in all your States who advances upon the South with any other idea but to restore the Constitution of the United States in its spirit and its unity? I never heard that one. I believe no man indulges in any dream of inflicting there any wrong to public lib- erty; and I respectfully tell the Senator from Ken- tucky that he persistently, earnestly, I will not say wilfully, misrepresents the sentiment of the North and West when he attempts to teach these doctrines to the Confederates of the South. "Sir, while I am predicting, I will tell you an- other thing. This threat about money and men amounts to nothing. Some of the States which have been named in that connection, I know well. I know, as my friend from Illinois will bear me wit- ness, his own State, very well. I am sure that no temporary defeat, no momentary disaster, will swerve that State either from its allegiance to the Union, or from its determination to preserve it. It 48 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE is not with us a question of money or of blood ; it is a question involving considerations higher than these. When the Senator from Kentucky speaks of the Pacific, I see another distinguished friend from Illinois, now worthily representing one of the States on the Pacific [Mr. McDougall], who will bear me witness that I know that State too, well. I take the liberty — I know I but utter his sentiments in ad- vance — of joining with him, to say that that State, quoting from the passage the gentleman himself has quoted, will be true to the Union to the last of her blood and her treasure. There may be there some disafifected ; there may be some few men there who would 'rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.' There are such men everywhere. There are a few men there who have left the South for the good of the South ; who are perverse, violent, destructive, revolutionary, and opposed to social order. A few, but a very few. thus formed and thus nurtured, in California and in Oregon, both persistently endeav- oring to create and maintain mischief ; but the great portion of our population are loyal to the core and in every chord of their hearts. They are offering through me — more to their own Senators every day from California, and indeed from Oregon — to add to the legions of this country, by the hundred and the thousand. They are willing to come thousands of miles with their arms on their shoulders, at their own expense, to share with the best offering of their heart's blood in the great struggle of constitutional liberty. I tell the Senator that his predictions, some- times for the South, sometimes for the Middle States, sometimes for the Northeast, and then wan- THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 49 dering away in airy visions out to the far Pacific, about the dread of our people, as for loss of blood and treasure, provoking them to disloyalty, are false in sentiment, false in fact, and false in loyalty. The Senator from Kentucky is mistaken in them all. Five hundred million dollars? What then? Great Britain gave more than two thousand million in the great battle for constitutional liberty which she led at one time almost single-handed against the world. Five hundred thousand men! What then? We have them ; they are ours ; they are the children of the country. They belong to the whole country; they are our sons ; our kinsmen ; and there are many of us who will give them all up before we will abate one word of our just demand, or will retreat one inch from the line which divides right from wrong. "Sir, it is not a question of men or of money in that sense. All the monev, all the men, are. in our judgment, well bestowed in such a cause. When we give them, we know their value. Knowing their value well, we give them with the more pride and the more joy. Sir. how can we retreat? Sir, how can we make peace ? Who shall treat ? What com- missioners? Who would go? Upon what terms? Where is to be your boundary line? Where the end of the principles we shall have to give up? What will become of constitutional government? What will become of public liberty? What of past glories? What of future hopes? Shall we sink into the in- significance of the grave — a degraded, defeated, emasculated people, frightened by the results of one battle, and scared at the visions raised by the imag- ination of the Senator from Kentucky upon this 50 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE floor ? No, sir ; a thousand times, no, sir ! We will rally — if, indeed, our words be necessary — we will rally the people, the loyal people, of the whole country. They will pour forth their treasure, their money, their men, without stint, without measure. The most peaceable man in this body may stamp his foot upon this Senate Chamber floor, as of old a warrior and a Senator did, and from that single tramp there will spring forth armed legions. Shall one battle determine the fate of empire, or a dozen ? the loss of one thousand men or twenty thousand, or $100,000,000 or $500,000,000? In a year's peace, in ten years, at most, of peaceful progress, we can restore them all. There will be some graves reeking with blood, watered by the tears of affection. There will be some privation ; there will be some loss of luxury ; there will be somewhat more need for labor to procure the necessaries of life. When that is said, all is said. If we have the country, the whole coun- try, the Union, the Constitution, free government — with these there will return all the blessings of well- ordered civilization, the path of the country will be a career of greatness and of glory such as. in the olden times, our fathers saw in the dim visions of years yet to come, and such as would have been ours now, to-day, if it had not been for the treason for which the Senator too often seeks to apologize." Mr. Breckinridge. "I shall detain the Senate, sir, but a few moments in answer to one or two of the observations that fell from the Senator from California — " Mr. Baker. "Oregon." Mr. Breckinridge. "The Senator seems to THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 51 have charge of the whole Pacific coast, though I do not mean to intimate that the Senators from Cali- fornia are not entirely able and willing to take care of their own State, They are. The Senator from Oregon, then. "Mr. President, I have tried on more than one occasion in the Senate, in parliamentary and respect- ful language, to express my opinions in regard to the character of our Federal system, the relations of the States to the Federal Government, to the Consti- tution, the bond of the Federal political system. They differ utterly from those entertained by the Senator from Oregon. Evidently, by his line of ar- gument, he regards this as an original, not a dele- gated Government, and he regards it as clothed with all those powers which belong to an original nation, not only with those powers which are delegated by the different political communities that compose it, and limited by the written Constitution that forms the bond of Union. I have tried to show that, in the view that I take of our Government, this war is an unconstitutional war. I do not think the Sen- ator from Oregon has answered my argument. He asks, what must we do ? As we progress southward and invade the country, must we not, said he, carry with us all the laws of war? I would not progress southward and invade the country. "The President of the United States, as I again repeat, in my judgment only has the power to call out the military to assist the civil authority in ex- ecuting the laws ; and when the question assumes the magnitude and takes the form of a great political severance, and nearly half the members of the Con- 52 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE federacy withdraw themselves from it, what then? I have never held that one State or a number of States have a right without cause to break the com- pact of the Constitution. But what I mean to say is that you cannot then undertake to make war in the name of the Constitution. In my opinion they are out. You may conquer them ; but do not attempt to do it under what I consider false political pretenses. However, sir, I will not enlarge upon that. I have developed these ideas again and again, and I do not care to reargue them. Hence the Senator and I start from entirely different standpoints, and his pretended replies are no replies at all. "The Senator asks me, 'what would you have us do ?' I have already intmiated what I would have us do. I would have us stop the war. We can do it. I have tried to show that there is none of that inex- orable necessity to continue this war which the Sen- ator seems to suppose. I do not hold that constitu- tional liberty on this continent is bound up in this fratricidal, devastating, horrible contest. Upon the contrary, I fear it will find its grave in it. The Sen- ator is mistaken in supposing that we can reunite these States by war. He is mistaken in supposing that eighteen or twenty million upon the one side can subjugate ten or twelve million upon the other; or, if they do subjugate them, that you can restore constitutional government as our fathers made it. You will have to govern them as Territories, as sug- gested by the Senator, if ever they are reduced to the dominion of the United States, or, as the Senator from Vermont called them, 'those rebellious prov- inces of this Union,' in his speech to-day. Sir, I THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE S3 would prefer to see these States all reunited upon true constitutional principles to any other object that could be offered me in life ; and to restore, upon the principles of our fathers, the Union of these States, to me the sacrifice of one unimportant life would be nothing; nothing, sir. But I infinitely prefer to see a peaceful separation of these States, than to see endless, aimless, devastating war, at the end of which I see the grave of public liberty and of personal free- dom. '; "The Senator asked if a Senator of Rome had ut- tered these things in the war between Carthage and that Power, how would he have been treated ? Sir, the war between Carthage and Rome was altogether different from the war now waged between the United States and the Confederate States. I would have said — rather than avow the principle that one or the other must be subjugated, or perhaps both de- stroyed — let Carthage live and let Rome live, each pursuing its own course of policy and civilization. "The Senator says that these opinions which I thus expressed, and have heretofore expressed, are but brilliant treason; and that it is a tribute to the character of our institutions that I am allowed to utter them upon the Senate floor. Mr. President, if I am speaking treason, I am not aware of it, I am speaking what I believe to be for the good of my country. If I am speaking treason, I am speaking it in my place in the Senate. By whose indulgence am I speaking? Not by any man's indulgence. I am speaking by the guarantees of that Constitution which seems to be here now so little respected. And, sir, when he asked what would have been done with 54 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE a Roman Senator who had uttered such words, a certain Senator on this floor, whose courage has much risen of late, repHes in audible tones, 'he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock.' Sir, if ever we find an American Tarpeian rock, and a suit- able victim is to be selected, the people will turn, not to me, but to that Senator who, according to the measure of his intellect and his heart, has been the chief author of the public misfortunes. He, and men like him, have brought the country to its pres- ent condition. Let him remember, too, sir, that while in ancient Rome the defenders of the public liberty were sometimes torn to pieces by the people, yet their memories were cherished in grateful re- membrance; while to be hurled from the Tarpeian rock was ever the fate of usurpers and tyrants. I reply with the just indignation I ought to feel at such an insult offered on the floor of the Senate Chamber to a Senator who is speaking in his place. "Mr. President, I shall not longer detain the Sen- ate. My opinions are my own. They are honestly entertained. I do not believe that I have uttered one opinion here, in regard to this contest, that does not reflect the judgment of the people I have the honor to represent. If they do, I shall find my reward in the fearless utterance of their opinions; if they do not, I am not a man to cling to the forms of office and to the emoluments of public life against my con- victions and my principles; and I repeat what I ut- tered the other day, that if indeed the Common- wealth of Kentucky, instead of attempting to medi- ate in this unfortunate struggle, shall throw her energies into the strife, and approve the conduct and I THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 55 sustain the policy of the Federal Administration in what I believe to be a war of subjugation, and which is being proved every day to be a war of subjugation and annihilation, she may take her course, I am her son, and will share her destiny, but she will be repre- sented by some other man on the floor of this Senate." Mr. Baker. "Mr. President, I rose a few min- utes ago to endeavor to demonstrate to the honor- able Senator from Kentucky that all these imagina- tions of his as to the unconstitutional character of the provisions of this bill were baseless and idle. I think every member of the Senate must be con- vinced, from the manner of his reply, that that con- viction is beginning to get into his own mind; and I shall therefore leave him to settle the account with the people of Kentucky, about which he seems to have some predictions, which, I trust, with great personal respect to him, may, different from his usual predictions, become prophecy after the first Monday of August next." Thus closed the most sensational debate in the eloquent discussions of the 37th Congress. PEN PICTURES OF THE OLD SENATE AND THE NEW Senator John J. Crittenden's Great Speech AND the Vice-President's Oration The night of January 4, 1859, marked an event of uncommon interest in the legislative annals of our history. It was on this occasion that two of the great living actors and participants of the eventful scene set forth here delivered speeches which ex- plained and illuminated the subject upon which they addressed the Senate. John J. Crittenden and John C. Breckinridge were distinguished Kentuckians. Their speeches touched with a feeling of tenderness and thrilling in- terest the change of the old Senate Chamber to the new. It was noteworthy that the United States Senate should make a choice of its orators of two men from the same State. It was suggestive as well that one of these men represented the type of the old school statesman, while the other was the true ideal of the new regime. It must have been a picturesque scene when the white-haired Crittenden, bent with age, took the floor on that historic night, the last time that he was to appear as a speaker in the old 56 The great parliamentary battle 57 Senate, the scene of 18 years of association with him, for through these years he had been a United States Senator. No man has ever appeared in the senatorial forum who has wielded stronger influence than Mr. Crittenden. If the term "golden speech" can be applied to the utterances of any of the men of that day it certainly belongs to all that he had to say on every occasion. He never spoke except to speak well and directly to the question that was the subject of discussion. He was not a combative man in temperament. The whole spirit of his mental make-up was compromise. His name will always be associated with the great compromise measures of 1 860-61 in any review of great legis- lative events. He had striven to bring together the warring factions, but all efforts in this direc- tion were futile. No man had the strength or power — the ability — to stem the tide. It was irresistible — rushing like a mighty torrent over all that came within its reach. Only a few days be- fore, Mr. Crittenden had presented the credentials of his successor, John C. Breckinridge. At the close of this Congress he retired to his Ashland home, where he resumed the practice of his profession, for in all the years of his public life he had not saved a dollar above his salary. He was a man of strict integrity. When the Rebellion came, and the coun- try was dealing with the issues of war, his only son entered the Confederate Army. After a brief period spent in retirement he was elected to the House of Representatives, and, true Roman as he was, while the position was regarded inferior in a sense to that he had held, he responded to the call of duty and took 58 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE his seat in the House of Representatives at the open- ing of the following Congress. He served through this Congress with distinction, making some notable speeches, and returned again to the Southland. On the 14th day of April, 1863, he was stricken with paralysis in the city of Louis- ville, and after a brief illness passed to "the great beyond." It might be said that on the night of this eventful speech he was the central figure. He was a striking contrast to the handsome, dashing, youthful Breck- inridge, the very paragon of manliness in the health- ful vigor of youth. Breckinridge's career is alluded to elsewhere in these pages. No Senator has ever stood on the floor of the United States Senate, in the flush of manhood, with a great future before him, with higher aspirations, greater opportunities, with as many honors in store, as seemed before John C. Breckinridge in this great hour of his fame and his power. It did not seem within the bounds of reason to contemplate this picture and to strike the change that was to follow within two brief years. How quick and rapid are the fortunes of men! Here he was to-night almost at the pinnacle of fame, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, and we find the same John C. Breckinridge three years later, de- throned of his power, leading the vanguard of a sec- tion of the Southern forces, an organized army, against what he termed "subjugation and annihila- tion." Breckinridge had a strange career. He was the last of the Senators of the mighty group from the South to resign from the Senate. His State alone had not honored him, because he had been II THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 59 elected Vice-President of the United States, polling more votes in the electoral college than any can- didate for that office had ever received. Compare the oration in the old Senate Chamber with the speech he delivered in the Senate Chamber on Au- gust I, 1 86 1, when he said, speaking to an amend- ment offered by the Senator from Virginia: "Mr. President : The drama, sir, is beginning to open before us, and we begin to catch some idea of its magnitude. Appalled by the extent of it, and embarrassed by what they see before them and around them, the Senators who are themselves the most vehement in urging on this course of events are beginning to quarrel among themselves. * * * I wish to say a few words presently in regard to some of the provisions of this bill, and then the Senate and country may judge of the extent of those powers of which this bill is a limitation. I shall en- deavor, Mr. President, to demonstrate that the whole tendency of our proceedings is to trample the Constitution under our feet, and to conduct this con- test without the slightest regard to its provisions. Everything that has occurred since demonstrates that the view I took of the conduct and tendency of public affairs was correct. Already both Houses of Congress have passed a bill virtually to confiscate all the property in the States that have withdrawn, de- claring in the bill to which I refer that 'all property of every description employed in any way to pro- mote or to aid in the insurrection,' as it is denom- inated, 'shall be forfeited and confiscated.' I need not say, sir, that all property of every kind is em- ployed in these States directly or indirectly in aid of 6o THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE the contest they are waging", and consequently that bill is a joint confiscation of all property there." The first speech breathes the love of country, full of the enthusiasm of a patriot. The second speech foreshadows the action on his part that seemed to bespeak the political influence that was about him, and forecasts the mantle of rebellion that was to fall upon him. Then followed the resignation that was to mark the beginning of the life which cast over him a political gloom from which he never recovered — the close of a great political career. His military career was not a remarkable one. He first entered the campaign in Kentucky. He participated in the battle of Stone River, having risen previous to that date to the rank of major-gen- eral. He held an important command in Louisiana in the summer of 1863. On the 5th of August he attacked the Federal garrison at Baton Rouge and was repulsed. His later campaigns in East Ten- nessee and in Virginia have not brought him any en- viable distinction as a military officer. It remains to be seen what he could accomplish as Confederate Secretary of War. In later life he took up a work among the rail- road corporations that was not congenial to him. It was remunerative, but he was never satisfied, and it never filled the longing that was within him. He seemed always to be looking backward. No doubt he encouraged the belief that some day his disabil- ities would be removed. Had the National Gov- ernment conceded this to him there could be no ques- tion that he would have been returned to the United States Senate. THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 6i Speech of Crittenden of Kentucky on the Removal to the New Hall, Tuesday, Janu- ary 4, 1859 Mr. Crittenden. "I move you, Mr. President and Senators, that we proceed at once to the consid- eration of this report, and that it be adopted. That is the purpose for which I rise. Before, however, submitting that motion to the vote of the Senate, I hope that I may be indulged in a few words of part- ing from this Chamber. This is to be the last day of our session here; and this place, which has known us so long, is to know us no more forever as a Senate. The parting seems to me, sir, to be some- what of a solemn one, and full of eventful recollec- tions. I wish, however, only to say a few words. "Many associations, pleasant and proud, bind us and our hearts to this place. We cannot but feel their influence, especially I, Mr. President, whose lot it has been to serve in this body more years than any other member now present. That we should all be attached to it, that my longer association should at- tach me to it, is most natural. Mr. President, we cannot quit this Chamber without some feeling of sacred sadness. This Chamber has been the scene of great events. Here questions of American con- stitutions and laws have been debated ; questions of peace and war have been debated and decided ; ques- tions of empire have occupied the attention of this assemblage in times past ; this was the grand theater upon which these things have been enacted. They give a sort of consecrated character to this Hall. "Sir, great men have been the actors here. The 62 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE illustrious dead, that have distinguished this body in times past, naturally rise to our view on such an occasion. I speak only of what I have seen, and but partially of that, when I say that here, within these walls, I have seen men whose fame is not sur- passed, and whose power and ability and patriotism are not surpassed, by anything of Grecian or of Roman name. I have seen Clay and Webster, and Calhoun and Benton, and Leigh and Wright, and Clayton (last though not least) mingling together in this body at one time, and uniting their counsels for the benefit of their country. They seem to our imagination and sensibilities, oil such an occasion as this, to have left their impress on these very walls; and this majestic dome seems almost yet to echo with the voice of their eloquence. This Hall seems to be a local habitation for their names. This Hall is full of the pure odor of their justly-earned fame. There are others besides those I have named, of whom I will not speak, because they have not yet closed their careers — not yet ended their services to the country; and they will receive their reward hereafter. There are a host of others that I might mention — that deserve to be mentioned — but it would take too long. Their names are in no danger of being forgotten, nor their services unthought of or unhonored. "Sir, we leave behind us, in going from this Hall, these associations, these proud imaginations so well calculated to prompt to a generous emulation of their services to their country; but we will carry along with us, to the new Chamber to which we go, the spirit and the memory of all these things ; we THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 63 will carry with us all the inspiration which our illustrious predecessors are calculated to give; and wherever we sit we shall be the Senate of the United States of America — a great, a powerful, a conserva- tive body in the government of this country, and a body that will maintain, as I trust and believe, under all circumstances and in all times to come, the honor, the right, and the glory of this country. Because we leave this Chamber, we shall not leave behind us any sentiment of patriotism, any devotion to which the illustrious exemplars that have gone before us have set to us. These, like our house- hold gods, will be carried with us ; and we, the repre- sentatives of the States of this mighty Union, will be found always equal, I trust, to the exigencies of any time that may come upon our country. No matter under what sky we may sit; no matter what dome may cover us ; the great patriotic spirit of the Senate of the United States will be there; and I have an abiding confidence that it will never fail in the performance of its duty, sit where it may, even though it were in a desert. "But it is yet, sir, not possible to leave this Hall without casting behind us many longing and linger- ing looks. It has been the scene of the past; the new Chamber is to be the scene of the future; and that future, I hope, will not be dishonored by any comparison to be made with the past. It, too, will have its illustrations of great public services ren- dered by great men and great patriots; and this body, the great preservative element of the Govern- ment, will discharge all its duties, taking care to preserve the Union of the States which they repre- 64 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE sent — the source of all their honors, the source of the trust which they sit here to execute, the source as it has been and as it will be of their country's greatness, happiness, and prosperity, in time to come as it has been in the time that is past. "Mr. President, I cannot detain you longer. I move that the vote of the Senate be now taken on the report which has been presented, and that it be adopted." Speech of J. C. Breckinridge of Kentucky on THE Removal to the New Hall. Tuesday, January 4, 1859 The Vice-President : "Senators, I have been charged by the committee to whom you confided the arrangements of this day, with the duty of express- ing some of the reflections that naturally occur in taking final leave of a Chamber which has so long been occupied by the Senate. In the progress of our country and the growth of the representation, this room has become too contracted for the representa- tives of the States now existing and soon to exist; and accordingly you are about to exchange it for a Hall affording accommodations adequate to the present and the future. The occasion suggests many interesting reminiscences; and it may be agreeable, in the first place, to occupy a few minutes with a short account of the various places at which Congress has assembled, of the struggles which preceded the permanent location of the seat of Gov- ernment, and of the circumstances under which it was finally established on the banks of the Potomac. THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 65 "The Congress of the Revolution was sometimes a fugitive, holding its sessions, as the chances of war required, at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, Annapolis, and Yorktown. During the period be- tween the conclusion of peace and the commence- ment of the present Government it met at Prince- ton, Annapolis, Trenton, and New York. "After the idea of a permanent Union had been executed in part by the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, the question presented itself of fixing a seat of Government, and this immediately called forth intense interest and rivalry. "That the place should be central, having regard to the population and territory of the Confederacy, was the only point common to the contending part- ies. Propositions of all kinds were offered, debated, and rejected, sometimes with intemperate warmth. At length, on the 7th of October, 1783, the Congress being at Princeton, whither they had been driven from Philadelphia, by the insults of a body of armed men, it was resolved that a building for the use of Congress be erected near the falls of the Delaware. This was soon after modified by requir- ing suitable buildings to be also erected near the falls of the Potomac, that the residence of Con- gress might alternate between those places. But the question was not allowed to rest, and at length, after frequent and warm debates, it was resolved that the residence of Congress should continue at one place; and commissioners were appointed, with full power to lay out a district for a Federal town near the falls of the Delaware ; and in the mean time Congress assembled alternately at Trenton and An- 66 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE napolis ; but the representatives of other States were unremitting in exertions for their respective lo- calities. "On the 23d of December, 1784, it was resolved to remove to the city of New York, and to remain there until the building- on the Delaware should be completed; and accordingly, on the nth of Jan- uary, 1785, the Congress met at New York, where they continued to hold their sessions until the Con- federation gave place to the Constitution. "The commissioners to lay out a town on the Delaware reported their proceedings to Congress; but no further steps were taken to carry the resolu- tion into effect. "When the bonds of union were drawn closer by the organization of the new Government under the Constitution, on the 3d of March, 1789, the subject was revived and discussed with greater warmth than before. It was conceded on all sides that the resi- dence of Congress should continue at one place, and the prospect of stability in the Government invested the question with a deeper interest. Some mem- bers proposed New York, as being 'superior to any place they knew for the orderly and decent be- havior of its inhabitants.' To this it was answered that it was not desirable that the political capital should be in a commercial metropolis. Others ridi- culed the idea of building palaces in the woods. Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, thought it highly unrea- sonable to fix the seat of Government in such a position as to have nine States of the thirteen to the northward of the place; while the South Caro- linians objected to Philadelphia on account of the THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 67 number of Quakers, who, they said, continually an- noyed the Southern members with schemes of eman- cipation. "In the midst of these disputes, the House of Rep- resentatives resolved, 'that the permanent seat of Government ought to be at some convenient place on the banks of the Susquehanna.' On the introduc- tion of a bill to give effect to this resolution, much feeling was exhibited, especially by the Southern members. Mr. Madison thought if the proceedings of that day had been foreseen by Virginia, that State might not have become a party to the Consti- tution. The question was allowed by every member to be a matter of great importance. Mr. Scott said the future tranquillity and well-being of the United States depended as much on this as on any ques- tion that ever had, or could, come before Congress ; and Mr. Fisher Ames remarked that every principle of pride and honor and even of patriotism was en- gaged. For a time, any agreement appeared to be impossible; but the good genius of our system finally prevailed, and on the 28th of June, 1790, an act was passed containing the following clause : " 'That a district of territory on the river Potomac, at some place between the mouths of the eastern branch and the Can- nogocheague, be, and the same is hereby, accepted, for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States.' "The same act provided that Congress should hold its sessions at Philadelphia until the first Mon- day in November, 1800, when the Government should remove to the district selected on the Poto- mac. Thus was settled a question which had pro- duced much sectional feeling between the States. 68 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE But all difficulties were not yet surmounted; for Congress, either from indifference, or the want of money, failed to make adequate appropriations for the erection of public buildings, and the commis- sioners were often reduced to great straits to main- tain the progress of the work. Finding it impos- sible to borrow money in Europe, or to obtain it from Congress, Washington, in December, 1796, made a personal appeal to the Legislature of Mary- land, which was responded to by an advance of $100,000; but in so deplorable a condition was the credit of the Federal Government that the State required, as a guarantee of payment, the pledge of the private credit of the commissioners. "From the beginning Washington had advocated the present seat of Government. Its establishment here was due, in a large measure, to his influence; it was his wisdom and prudence that settled dis- putes and conflicting titles ; and it was chiefly through his personal influence that the funds were provided to prepare the buildings for the reception of the President and Congress. "The wings of the Capitol having been suffi- ciently prepared, the Government removed to this district on the 17th of November, 1800; or as Mr. Wolcott expressed it, left the comforts of Phila- delphia 'to go to the Indian place with the long name, in the woods on the Potomac' I will not pause to describe the appearance, at that day, of the place where the city was to be. Contemporary accounts represent it as desolate in the extreme, with its long, unopened avenues and streets, its deep .jorasses, and its vast area covered with trees in- THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 69 Stead of houses. It is enough to say that Washing- ton projected the whole plan upon a scale of cen- turies, and that time enough remains to fill the measure of his great conception. "The Senate continued to occupy the north wing, and the House of Representatives the south wing of the Capitol, until the 24th of August, 18 14, when the British army entered the city and burned the pub- lic buildings. This occurred during the recess, and the President immediately convened the Congress. Both Houses met in a brick building known as Blodgett's Hotel, which occupied a part of the square now covered by the General Post Office. But the accommodations in that house being quite insuffi- cient, a number of public-spirited citizens erected a more commodious building, on Capitol Hill, and tendered it to Congress ; the offer was accepted, and both Houses continued to occupy it until the wings of the new Capitol were completed. This building yet stands on the street opposite to the north- eastern corner of the Capitol Square, and has since been occasionally occupied by persons employed in different branches of the public service. "On the 6th of December, 18 19, the Senate as- sembled for the first time in this Chamber, which has been the theater of their deliberations for more than thirty-nine years, and now the strifes and un- certainties of the past are finished, we see around us on every side the proofs of stability and improve- ment ; this Capitol is worthy of the Republic ; noble public buildings meet the view on every hand ; treasures of science and the arts begin to accumu- late. As this flourishing city enlarges, it testifies to 70 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE the wisdom and forecast that dictated the plan of it. Future generations will not be disturbed with questions concerning the center of population, or of territory, since the steamboat, the railroad, and the telegraph have made communication almost in- stantaneous. The spot is sacred by a thousand memories, which are so many pledges that the City of Washington, founded by him and bearing his revered name, with its beautiful site, bounded by picturesque eminences, and the broad Potomac, and lying within view of his home and his tomb, shall remain forever the political capital of the United States. 'Tt would be interesting to note the gradual changes which have occurred in the practical work- ing of the Government, since the adoption of the Constitution; and it may be appropriate to this occasion to remark one of the most striking of them. "At the origin of the Government, the Senate seemed to be regarded chiefly as an executive coun- cil. The President often visited the Chamber and conferred personally with this body ; most of its business was transacted with closed doors, and it took comparatively little part in the legislative de- bates. The rising and vigorous intellects of the country sought the arena of the House of Repre- sentatives as the appropriate theater for the dis- play of their powers. Mr. Madison observed, on some occasion, that being a young man, and desir- ing to increase his reputation, he could not afford to enter the Senate; and it will be remembered, that, so late as 1812, the great debates which pre- ceded the war and aroused the countrv to the asser- I THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 71 tion of its rights, took place in the other branch of Congress. To such an extent was the idea of se- clusion carried, that when this Chamber was com- pleted, no seats were prepared for the accommoda- tion of the public; and it was not until years after- wards that the semi-circular gallery was erected which admits the people to be witnesses of your proceedings. But now, the Senate, besides its pe- culiar relations to the Executive Department of the Government, assumes its full share of duty as a co- equal branch of the Legislature; indeed, from the limited number of its members, and for other obvious reasons, the most important questions, es- pecially of foreign policy, are apt to pass first un- der discussion in this body, and to be a member of it is justly regarded as one of the highest honors which can be conferred on an American statesman. "It is scarcely necessary to point out the causes of this change, or to say that it is a concession both to the importance and the individuality of the States, and to the free and open character of the Government. "In connection with this easy but thorough transi- tion, it is worthy of remark that it has been ef- fected without a charge from any quarter that the Senate has transcended its constitutional sphere — a tribute at once to the moderation of the Senate, and another proof to thoughtful men of the com- prehensive wisdom with which the framers of the Constitution secured essential principles without in- conveniently embarrassing the action of the Gov- ernment. "The progress of this popular movement, in one 72 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE aspect of it, has been steady and marked. At the origin of the Government no arrangements in the Senate were made for spectators; in this Chamber about one-third of the space is allotted to the public ; and in the new apartment the galleries cover two- thirds of its area. In all free countries the admis- sion of the people to witness legislative proceedings is an essential element of public confidence; and it is not to be anticipated that this wholesome prin- ciple will ever be abused by the substitution of partial and interested demonstrations for the ex- pression of a matured and enlightened public opin- ion. Yet it should never be forgotten that not France, but the turbulent spectators within the Hall, awed and controlled the French Assembly. With this lesson and its consequence before us, the time will never come when the deliberations of the Senate shall be swayed by the blandishments or the thunders of the galleries. "It is impossible to disconnect from an occasion like this, a crowd of reflections on our own past history, and of speculations on the future. The most meager account of the Senate involves a sum- mary of the progress of our country. From year to year you have seen your representation enlarge; time and again you have proudly welcomed a new sister into the Confederacy; and the occurrences of this day are a material and impressive proof of the growth and prosperity of the United States. Three periods in the history of the Senate mark, in strik- ing contrast, three epochs in the history of the Union. "On the 3d of March, 1789, when the Govern- THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 7i ment was organized under the Constitution, the Senate was composed of the representatives of eleven States, containing three milHon people. "On the 6th of December, 1819, when the Senate met for the first time in this room, it was composed of the representatives of twenty-one States, contain- ing nine million people. "To-day it is composed of the representatives of thirty-two States, containing more than twenty- eight million people, prosperous, happy, and still de- voted to constitutional liberty. Let these great facts speak for themselves to all the world. "The career of the United States cannot be meas- ured by that of any other people of whom history gives account ; and the mind is almost appalled at the contemplation of the prodigious force which has marked their progress. Sixty-nine years ago, thir- teen States containing three millions of inhabitants, burdened with debt, and exhausted by the long war of independence, established for their common good a free Constitution, on principles new to mankind, and began their experiment with the good wishes of a few doubting friends and the derision of the world. Look at the result to-day ; twenty-eight mil- lions of people, in every way happier than an equal number in any other part of the globe! the center of population and political power descending the western slopes of the Alleghany mountains, and the original thirteen States forming but the eastern margin on the map of our vast possessions. See besides Christianity, civilization, and the arts given to a continent; the despised Colonies grown into a Power of the first class, representing and protect- 74 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE ing ideas that involve the progress of the human race; a commerce greater than that of any other nation ; every variety of cHmate, soil, and production to make a people powerful and happy; free inter- change between the States — in a word, behold pres- ent greatness, and, in the future, an empire to which the ancient mistress of the world in the height of her glory could not be compared. Such is our country ; ay, and more — far more than my mind could con- ceive or my tongue could utter. Is there an Amer- ican who regrets the past? Is there one who will deride his country's laws, pervert her Constitution, or alienate her people? If there be such a man, let his memory descend to posterity laden with the exe- crations of all mankind. "So happy is the political and social condition of the United States, and so accustomed are we to the secure enjoyment of a freedom elsewhere unknown, that we are apt to undervalue the treasures we pos- sess, and to lose, in some degree, the sense of obli- gation to our forefathers. But when the strifes of faction shake the Government, and even threaten it, we may pause with advantage long enough to re- member that we are reaping the reward of other men's labors. This liberty we inherit; this admir- able Constitution, which has survived peace and war, prosperity and adversity; this double scheme of Government, State and Federal, so peculiar and so little understood by other Powers, yet which pro- tects the earnings of industry, and makes the largest personal freedom compatible with public order. These great results were not acquired without wis- dom and toil and blood. The touching and heroic \ THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 75 record is before the world; but to all this we were born, and, like heirs upon whom has been cast a great inheritance, have only the high duty to pre- serve, to extend, and to adorn it. The grand pro- ductions of the era in which the foundations of this Government were laid, reveal the deep sense its founders had of their obligations to the whole family of man. Let us never forget that the responsibilities imposed on this generation are by so much the greater than those which rested on our revolutionary ancestors, as the population, extent, and power of our country surpass the dawning promise of its origin. "It would be a pleasing task to pursue many trains of thought, not wholly foreign to this occa- sion, but the temptation to enter the wide field must be vigorously curbed; yet I may be pardoned, per- haps, for one or two additional reflections. "The Senate is assembled for the last time in this Chamber. Henceforth it will be converted to other uses ; yet it must remain forever connected with great events, and sacred to the memories of the departed orators and statesmen who have en- gaged in high debates, and shaped the policy of their country. Hereafter the American and the stranger, as they wander through the Capitol, will turn with instinctive reverence to view the spot on which so many and great materials have accumu- lated for history. They will recall the images of the great and good, whose renown is the common prop- erty of the Union; and chiefly, perhaps, they will linger around the seats once occupied by the mighty three, whose names and fame, associated in life, 76 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE death has not been able to sever; illustrious men, who in their generation sometimes divided, some- times led, and sometimes resisted public opinion — for they were of that higher class of statesmen who seek the right and follow their convictions. "There sat Calhoun, the Senator, inflexible, aus- tere, oppressed, but not overwhelmed by his deep sense of the importance of his public functions; seeking the truth, then fearlessly following it — a man whose unsparing intellect compelled all his emotions to harmonize with the deductions of his vigorous logic, and whose noble countenance habit- ually wore the expression of one engaged in the performance of high public duties. "This was Webster's seat. He, too, was even such a Senator. Conscious of his own vast powers, he reposed with confidence on himself; and scorn- ing the contrivances of smaller men, he stood among his peers all the greater for the simple dig- nity of his senatorial demeanor. Type of his Northern home, he rises before the imagination, in the grand and granite outline of his form and in- tellect, like a great New England rock repelling a New England wave. As a writer, his productions will be cherished by statesmen and scholars while the English tongue is spoken. As a senatorial orator, his great efforts are historically associated with this Chamber, whose very air seems yet to vibrate be- neath the strokes of his deep tones and his weighty words. "On the outer circle, sat Henry Clay, with his impetuous and ardent nature untamed by age, and exhibiting in the Senate the same vehement patriot- THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE ^^ ism and passionate eloquence that of yore electrified the House of Representatives and the country. His extraordinary personal endowments, his courage, all his noble qualities, invested him with an indi- viduality and a charm of character which, in any age, would have made him a favorite of history. He loved his country above all earthly objects. He loved liberty in all countries. Illustrious man! — orator, patriot, philanthropist — his light, at its meridian, was seen and felt in the remotest parts of the civilized world; and his declining sun, as it hastened down the west, threw back its level beams, in hues of mellowed splendor, to illuminate and to cheer the land he loved and served so well. "All the States may point, with gratified pride, to the services in the Senate of their patriotic sons. Crowding the memory, come the names of Adams, Hayne, Mason, Otis, Macon, Pinckney, and the rest — I cannot number them — who, in record of their acts and utterances, appeal to their successors to give the Union a destiny not unworthy of the past. What models were these, to awaken emula- tion or to plunge in despair! Fortunate will be the American statesman, who in this age, or in suc- ceeding times, shall contribute to invest the new Hall to which we go with historic memories like those which cluster here. "And now, Senators, we leave this memorable Chamber bearing with us unimpaired the Constitu- tion we received from our forefathers. Let us cherish it with grateful acknowledgments to the Divine Power who controls the destinies of em- pires and whose goodness we adore. The structures 78 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE reared by men yield to the corroding tooth of Time. These marble walls must molder into ruin ; but the principles of constitutional liberty, guarded by wis- dom and virtue, unlike material elements, do not de- cay. Let us devoutly trust that another Senate in another age shall bear to a new and larger Chamber this Constitution, vigorous and inviolate, and that the last generation of posterity shall witness the de- liberations of the representatives of American States still united, prosperous and free." The Great Parliamentary Battle and Fare- well Addresses of the Southern Senators ON THE Eve of the Civil War The session of Congress of 1 860-61 was re- markable for sensational argument and debate. The withdrawal of the Southern Senators upon sur- rendering their commissions as United States Sena- tors made this session memorable in American his- tory. The members of the House of Representa- tives from the seceding States, with one or two note- worthy exceptions, made no addresses. On the con- trary, the Senators from the South delivered vale- dictories, a farewell to old associates in the Senate Chamber, abandoned their seats and returned to their respective States to identify themselves with the Rebellion. The members of the House of Representatives in most cases withdrew, stating in a brief card before the Speaker that the people of their State had, in their sovereign capacity, resumed the powers dele- gated by them to the Federal Government of the United States, hence their connection with the House of Representatives was dissolved. Their method of withdrawal was brief and dignified. 79 8o THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE The card of withdrawal of the Mississippi dele- gation was drawn by L. O. C. Lamar of Mississippi^ who had just embarked on his legislative career and was full of the fire of youth. He was a distin- guished man in the affairs of the Southern Con- federacy and his career afterward is noteworthy. He was one of the chosen few who recovered from the misfortunes of the Civil War and succeeded in re-establishing himself in the affections of his coun- trymen and lived to serve the National Government in positions of high honor and responsibility. He was returned after the war to the House of Repre- sentatives, where he rendered his State valuable services. For some years he was one of the great figures in the House. His great debate with James G. Blaine marks an interesting episode in the Lower House of Congress. He served as a U. S. Senator, and all through his senatorial career was one of the conceded leaders on the Democratic side of the Chamber. Later he became a member of the Cab- inet of President Cleveland, where his ability was conceded by all and commanded the attention, not of the Cabinet alone, but of the entire country as well, so when President Cleveland appointed him to the Supreme Court Bench of the United States it met with general approval, and while serving in this capacity his judicial decisions were recognized for their fairness, sound law and elegant diction. The Senators of the seceding States presented their case with a clear and logical analysis of the situation and with a ring and tone of fervor that be- spoke the intensity of their convictions. After the lapse of forty years, when the curtain is lifted anew THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 8i on the great scenes of that day, we are enabled to say that the scenes "were charged with what men beHeved to be right and had the courage to publish to the living and to their posterity," On January 21, 1861, the Senators from Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi formally withdrew from the Senate. Their speeches were full of lucid thought and they waged a strong manifesto against the free States for aiming to place their Government under the control of an anti-slavery Administration. The remarks of Senator Yulee excited deep interest because of the boldness of their declarations. He said that "the State of Florida through a conven- tion of her people had decided to recall the powers she had delegated to the Federal Government and assume the full exercise of her sovereign rights as an independent and separate community." He was followed by his colleague, who besought the North "not to repeat the folly of contending that the South would submit to the degradation and constrained existence of a violated Constitution." "The sub- jection of the South by war is impossible." said Mr, Mallory. He hurled thunderbolts of invective at the North. "Remember," he said, "that you are dealing with a nation, and not a faction." The formal announcement of withdrawal by Clement C. Clay. Ji*-- was received with a feeling of marked regret by his political opponents. Mr. Clay was a true representative of the Southern type of statesman of that day. His career in the Senate had been marked by a grace and mildness of tem- perament that made him beloved by all. In a re- 82 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE cent publication entitled "A Belle of the Fifties," by Mrs. Clay, of Alabama, there is a graphic ac- count of the withdrawal of the Senators of ante- bellum days. Perhaps she can be best quoted by using her exact words, rather than distorted ex- tracts : "And now the morning dawned of what all knew would be a day of awful import. I accompanied my husband to the Senate, and everywhere the greeting or gaze of absorbed, unrecognizing men and women was serious and full of trouble. The galleries of the Senate, which held, it is estimated, a thousand peo- ple, were packed, principally with women, who, trembling with excitement, awaited the announce- ments of the day, as one by one Senators David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory, Clement C. Clay, Ben- jamin Fitzpatrick, and Jefferson Davis arose. The emotion of their brother Senators and of us in the galleries increased when I heard the voice of my husband, steady and clear, declare in that Council Chamber: 'Mr. President, I rise to announce that the people of Alabama have adopted an ordinance whereby they withdraw from the Union formed un- der a compact styled the United States, resume the powers delegated to it, and assume their separate station as a sovereign and independent people.' It seemed as if the blood within me congealed. "As each Senator, speaking for his State, con- cluded his solemn renunciation of allegiance to the United States women grew hysterical and waved their handkerchiefs, encouraging them with cries of sympathy and admiration. Men wept and embraced each other mourn full v. At times the murmurs THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 83 among the onlookers grew so deep that the Sergeant- at-Arms was ordered to clear the galleries; and as each Senator took up his portfolio and gravely left the Senate Chamber, sympathetic shouts rang from the assemblage. Scarcely a member of that sena- torial body but was pale with the terrible significance of the hour. There was everywhere a feeling of suspense, as if, visibly, the pillars of the temple were being withdrawn and the great Government struc- ture was tottering ; nor was there a patriot on either side who did not deplore and whiten before the evil that brooded so low over the nation. When Senator Clay concluded his speech many of his colleagues, among them several from Republican ranks, came forward to shake hands with him." The valedictory of Jefiferson Davis was so digni- fied, argumentative and statesmanlike in its presen- tation as to challenge the respect, if not the ap- proval, of his Republican colleagues. He drew some fine distinctions between nullification on the one side and secession on the other. "Nullification was the remedy in the Union, secession the remedy out- side." It was an impressive scene when the great Mississippi Senator closed his farewell address. He had been popular with his colleagues and the feel- ing prevailed that he was forfeiting more than the average Senator in identifying himself with the Southern cause. One of the most distinguished men of this Senate was Robert Toombs of Georgia, powerful of stature, strong of intellect, forceful of speech and in every sense a true representative of Southern statesman- ship. He did not deliver what may be termed 84 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE strictly a farewell speech, but he took formal leave of the Senate on the 7th day of January, 1861, in a speech recalled for its boldness of utterance, close reasoning, and a studied declaration of what he regarded the dividing lines between the sections. On the 28th day of January, Alfred Iverson, his colleague, delivered a message to the Senate which marked the parting of the Georgia delegation. "The Rubicon is passed," he said, "and with my consent shall never be recrossed." On the 4th day of January Messrs. Slidell and Benjamin delivered their valedictories as Senators from Louisiana. Senator Slidell was aggressive and outspoken. He notified the Senate "if any steps should be taken to enforce the authority of the Union over the seceding States they would be re- sisted." He sounded the tocsin of war. In the group of antebellum Senators from the Southland Judah P. Benjamin was by all odds the preeminent mind and the most dramatic figure that was fashioned to play its part in the scene before the Senate. Born of Jewish parentage, under that star that seems to shape the destiny of some men, — that makes them great, — Judah P. Benjamin had a career that reads like a novel. His parents were English Jews and the vessel that steered them to a new home from ;> foreign shore was stranded on the island of St. Croix, where thev were almost ship- wrecked in the storm. On this island was born Judah Philip Benjamin. It seemed to presage the future of this babe, for the life of Benjamin was a life of storm, struggle, and of heroic conflict. His masterful mind asserted itself in every sphere of THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 85 action and in every vocation where he was called. His speeches in the Senate were really classic pro- ductions, full of that earnestness of expression we call eloquence. He was a lawyer of the highest attainments. In the legislative throes covering the decade of 1850 to i860, the Congressional Record has no more felicitous utterances than those of Mr. Benjamin. His speeches were replete with profound reasoning and logical thought. He was a man of high char- acter and his public acts seemed to be prompted by the dictates of a conscience and judgment con- trolled by a higher power. From i860 until his dying day his life was filled with momentous ac- tion. He had enjoyed the highest honors and dis- tinctions that come to a public man under our form of government. Franklin Pierce offered him an ap- pointment to the United States Supreme Court, which he declined. He left the Senate Chamber to go into the Cabinet of Jefferson Davis. His services to the Confederacy belong to the history of that period, but we cannot look back on the life of this man without being struck by the force of his career, remarkable and meteoric in the extreme. Ere reaching the highest pinnacle of fame in the United States during the Rebellion he descended to the lowest round of the ladder. It was a sad senatorial career at its close, when Judah P. Benjamin walked out of the Senate Cham- ber for the last time February 4, 1861. Memories must have crowded upon his mind of better and hap- pier days that he would have liked to live over again, but they were gone forever. Before him were the 86 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE fitful, cruel, humiliating hardships to be imposed by civil war, and for four years his life was to be obscured in the darkness of the Rebellion, We see him one day the central figure of a great gen- eration; the next day his life torn and tossed about in the pitiless storm of opposition. We feel as though we would like to blot out the page that tells us how this man became an exile; how, when the war clouds lowered, he was forced to seek an asylum in a foreign country, among strangers, after he had passed the meridian of life. What must have been his thoughts as he walked through the streets of Liverpool at night, impoverished by the exigencies of the war, with a new life before him! To see this man of mature years beginning as a student, taking up the study of the English law, really, it was pathetic — this struggle for honor and for fame anew. After spending three years in preparation he takes up the trial of paltry cases in the English courts and his genius even lights up the trial cases of a police court. Genius is often retiring. Within a few years he leaps to the front of the English bar and is recognized as the greatest lawyer of England in his day. He accumulates a fortune estimated at three hundred thousand dol- lars; he lives a new life; he has written his name on the tablets of fame of two continents! To-day his work is valued and quoted as an authority in law, both in England and the United States. It is said that the memory of other days at times seemed to hover over him and he rarely sought the lighter recreation of social enjoyment. Yet these opportunities, while denied by him, were sought by THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 87 Others, The daughter of a celebrated English bar- rister, at whose fireside sat Mr. Benjamin, now bent with age and with his hair whitened by many win- ters, has said that he was the most charming com- panion, and would revel in his description of the days that were spent in his old Louisiana home. Yet he never gave an expression of his desire to visit the scenes of the theater of his marvelous past career in the land he had left behind him. No wonder that the last speech delivered by this man in the Senate of the United States was so peculiarly and intensely interesting, and that it excited the public mind all over the country. He brought his eminent legal ability to bear upon the question as he presented it. A writer of the history of that day has said that his speech was "full of specious pleading," but it was a magnificent forensic effort, and merited the praise of friend and foe alike. These pages have been amplified beyond the orig- inal purpose of the writer, who, after all, has but given a passing notice to Judah P. Benjamin, He was a great man — great in that he made himself superior to every obstacle, and was undaunted by the things that ordinarily crush lives and carry them down to defeat. His life at three different periods was crowned with success. Marvelous life! Kind was the Providence of God in allowing it to run to what the prophet of old declared was life's richest blessing, three score and ten. February 4, 1861, was the fateful day on which Judah P. Benjamin stamped the impress of his magnetic character for the last time on the pages of the United States Senate. He was then in the 88 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE meridian of his powers. It had been announced that he was to deUver on that day his farewell ad- dress to the Senate. Long before the hour for the Senate to convene the galleries were crowded out into the corridors. Every Senator was in his seat, and on the floor were many distinguished men from the Lower House. When the eventful moment ar- rived the great Senator stepped out into the arena, his handsome face flushed with the excitement of the hour and what was probably, in a sense, the most tragic and momentous of his life, in that it closed one career and opened up another; in that it was the passing of the old and the taking up of the new. He faced an audience large enough to in- spire the great effort he was about to deliver. There was a hush and a stillness when he addressed the presiding officer — then followed this great im- passioned masterpiece of eloquence : Farewell Speech of Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana on the Occasion of His With- drawal FROM THE United States Senate on February 4, 1861 "Mr. President, if we were engaged in the per- formance of our accustomed legislative duties, I might well rest content with the simple statement of my concurrence in the remarks just made by my colleague. Deeply impressed, however, with the solemnity of the occasion, I cannot remain insensible to the duty of recording, amongst the authentic re- ports of your proceedings, the expressions of my conviction that the State of Louisiana has judged and acted well and wisely in the crisis of her destiny. "Sir, it has been urged, on more than one oc- casion in the discussions here and elsewhere, that Louisiana stands on an exceptional footing. It has been said that whatever may be the rights of the States that were original parties to the Constitu- tion — even granting their right to resume for suffi- cient cause, those restricted powers which they dele- gated to the General Government, in trust for their own use and benefit — still Louisiana can have no such right, because she was acquired by purchase. Gentlemen have not hestitated to speak of the sov- 89 90 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE ereign States formed out of the territory ceded by France as property bought with the money of the United States, belonging to them as purchasers; and although they have not carried their doctrine to its legitimate results, I must conclude that they also mean to assert, on the same principle, the right of selling for a price that which for a price was bought. "A hundredfold, sir, has the Government of the United States been reimbursed by the sales of pub- lic property, of public lands, for the price of the acquisition; but not with the fidelity of the honest trustee has it discharged the obligations as regards the sovereignty. "If then, sir, the people of Louisiana had a right which Congress could not deny, of the admission into the Union with all the rights of all the citi- zens of the United States, it is in vain that the partisans of the rights of the majority to govern the minority with despotic control attempt to estab- lish a distinction, to her prejudice between her rights and those of any other State. The only distinction which really exists is this — that she can point to a breach of treaty stipulations expressly guaranteeing her rights as a wrong superadded to those which have impelled a number of her sister States to the assertion of their independence. "The rights of Louisiana as a sovereign State are those of Virginia. No more, no less. Let those who deny her right to resume delegated powers, successfully refute the claim of Virginia to the same right, in spite of her express reservation made and notified to her sister States when she consented to THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 91 enter the Union. And, sir, permit me to say that of all the causes which justify the action of the Southern States I know none of greater gravity and more alarming magnitude than that now de- veloped of the denial of the right of secession. A pretension so monstrous as that which perverts a restricted agency, constituted by sovereign States for common purposes, into the unlimited despotism of the majority, and denies all legitimate escape from such despotism when powers not delegated are usurped, converts the whole constitutional fabric into the secure abode of lawless tyranny and de- grades sovereign States into Provincial dependen- cies. "It is said that the right of secession, if conceded, makes of our Government a mere rope of sand ; and to assert its existence imputes to the framers of the Constitution the folly of planting the seeds of death in that which was designed for perpetual exist- ence. If this imputation was true, sir, it would merely prove that their offspring was not exempt from that mortality which is the common lot of all that is not created by higher than human power. But it is not so, sir, that facts answer theory. For two-thirds of a century this right has been known by many of the States to be at all times within their power. Yet, up to the present period, when its I exercise has become indispensable to a people men- aced with absolute extermination, there have been but two instances in which it has been even threat- ened seriously; the first, when Massachusetts led the New England States in an attempt to es- cape from the dangers of our last war with Great 92 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE Britain ; the second, when the same State proposed I to secede on account of the admission of Texas as • a new State into the Union. "Sir, in the language of our declaration of seces- sion from Great Britain it is stated as an established 1 truth that 'all experience has shown that mankind ' are more disposed to suffer while evils are suffer- able than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they have been accustomed.' And nothing can be more obvious to the calm and candid observer of passing events than that the disruption of the Confederacy has been due, in great measure, ' not to the existence but to the denial of this right. Few candid men would refuse to admit that the Republicans of the North would have been checked in their mad career, had they been convinced of theii existence of this right and the intention to assert' it. The very knowledge of its existence by prevent- ing occurrences which alone could prompt its exer- cise would have rendered it a most efficient instru-' ment in the preservation of the Union. But, sir, if the fact were otherwise — if all the teachings of ex- perience were reserved — better, far better, a rope of sand, ay, the flimsiest gossamer that ever glistened , in the morning dew, than chains of iron and shackles of steel; better the wildest anarchy, with the hope, the chance, of one hour's inspiration of the glorious breath of freedom that ages of the hopeless bondage, and oppression to which our enemies would reduce; us. "We are told that the laws must be enforced;' that the revenues must be collected ; that the South' ^i THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 93 is in rebellion without cause and that her citizens are traitors. "RebelHon! The very word is a confession; an avowal of tyranny, outrage, and oppression. It is taken from the despot's code and has no terror for other than slavish souls. When, sir, did millions of people as a single man rise in organized, de- liberate, unimpassioned rebellion against justice, truth and honor? Well did a great Englishman exclaim on a similar occasion : " 'You might as well tell me that they rebelled against the light of Heaven; that they rejected the fruits of the earth. Men do not war against their benefactors ; they are not mad enough to repel the instincts of self-preservation. I pro- nounce fearlessly that no intelligent people ever rose or ever will rise against a sincere, rational, and benevolent authority. No people were ever born blind. Infatuation is not a law of human nature. When there is a revolt by a free people with the common consent of all classes of society there must be a criminal against whom that revolt is aimed.' 'Traitors ! Treason ! Ay. sir, the people of the South imitate and glory in just such treason as glowed in the soul of Hampden; just such treason as leaped in living flame from the impassioned lips of Henry; just such treason as encircles with a sacred halo the undying name of Washington ! You will enforce the laws. You want to know if we have a Government ; if you have any authority to collect revenue ; to wring tribute from an unwilling peo- ple? Sir, humanity desponds and all the inspiring hopes of her progressive improvement vanish into empty air at the reflections which crowd on the mind at hearing repeated with aggravated enormity the sentiments at which a Chatham launched his in- dignant thunders nearly a century ago. The very 94 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE words of Lord North and his royal master are re- peated here in debate not as quotations but as the spontaneous outpourings of a spirit the counterpart of theirs. In Lord North's speech, on the destruc- tion of the tea in Boston Harbor, he said : " 'We are no longer to dispute between legislation and taxa- tion ; we are now only to consider whether or not we have any authority there. It is very clear we have none, if we suffer the property of our subjects to be destroyed. We must pun- ish, control, or yield to them.' "And thereupon he proposed to close the port of Boston, just as the representatives of Massachu- setts now propose to close the port of Charleston in order to determine whether or not you have any authority there. It is thus that in 1861 Boston is to pay her debt of gratitude to Charleston, which in the days of her struggle proclaimed the generous sentiment that 'the cause of Boston was the cause of Charleston.' Who after this will say that Re- publics are ungrateful? Well, sir, the statesmen of Great Britain answered to Lord North's appeal, 'Yield.' The courtiers and the politicians said, 'Punish, control.' The result is known. History gives you the lesson. Profit by its teachings. "So, sir, in the address sent under the royal sign- manual to Parliament it was invoked to take meas- ures 'for better securing the execution of the laws' and acquiesced in the suggestion. Just as now the Executive under the sinister influence of insane counsels is proposing with your assent 'to secure the better execution of the laws' by blockading ports and turning upon the people of the States the artillery which they provided at their own expense THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 95 for their own defense and entrusted to you and to him for that and for no other purpose. Nay, even in States that are now exercising the undoubted and most precious rights of a free people, where there is no secession, where the citizens are assembHng to hold peaceful elections for considering what course of action is demanded in this dread crisis by a due regard for their own safety and their own liberty, ay, even in Virginia herself the people are to cast their suffrages beneath the undisguised menaces of a frowning fortress. Cannon are brought to bear on their homes and parricidal hands are preparing weapons for rending the bosom of the mother of Washington. "Sir, when Great Britain proposed to exact tribute from your fathers against their will Lord Chatham said: " 'Whatever is a man's own is absolutely his own ; no man has a right to take it from him without his consent. Whoever attempts to do it attempts an injury. Whoever does it com- mits a robbery. You have no right to tax America. I rejoice that America has resisted. Let the sovereign authority of this country over the Colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legis- lation whatever, so that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures and exercise every power except that of taking money out of their own pockets without their consent.' "It was reserved for the latter half of the nine- teenth century and for the Congress of a Republic of free men to witness the willing abnegation of all power save that of exacting tribute. What Imperial Britain with the haughtiest pretensions of unlimited power over dependent colonies could not even at- tempt without a vehement protest of her greatest 96 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE statesmen, is to be enforced in aggravated form, if you can enforce it, against independent States. "Good God! Sir, since when has the necessity arisen of recalling to American legislators the les- sons of freedom taught in lisping childhood by lov- ing mothers ; that pervade the atmosphere we have breathed from infancy; that so form part of our very being that in their absence we would lose the consciousness of our own identity? Heaven be praised that all have not forgotten them ; and that when we shall have left these familiar halls, and when force bills, blockades, armies, navies and all the accustomed coercive appliances of despots shall be proposed and advocated, voices shall be heard from this side of the Chamber that will make its very roof resound with the indignant clamor of outraged freedom. Methinks I still hear ringing in my ears the appeal of the eloquent Representative [Hon. George H. Pendleton of Ohio] whose North- ern home looks down on Kentucky's fertile borders. Armies, money, blood cannot maintain this Union; justice, reason, peace may. "And now to you, Mr. President, and to my brother Senators on all sides of this Chamber, I bid a respectful farewell; with many of those from whom I have been radically separated in political sentiment my personal relations had been kindly, and have inspired me with a respect and esteem that I shall not willingly forget ; with those around me from the Southern States. I part as men part from brothers on the eve of a temporary absence, with a cordial pressure of the hand and a smiling assurante of a speedy renewal of sweet intercourse THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 97 around the family hearth. But to you noble and generous friends who, born beneath other skies, pos- sess hearts that beat in sympathy with ours ; to you who, solicited and assailed by motives the most powerful that could appeal to selfish natures, have nobly spurned them all ; to you who in our behalf have bared your breasts to the fierce beatings of the storm and made willing sacrifice of life's most glit- tering prizes in your devotion to constitutional lib- erty; to you who ever made our cause your cause, and from many of whom I feel I part forever, what shall I, can I, say? Naught I know and feel, is needed for myself; but this I will say for the peo- ple in whose name I speak to-day; — whether pros- perous or adverse fortunes await you, one price- less treasure is yours, the assurance that an en- tire people honor your names and hold them in grateful and affectionate memory. But with still sweeter and more touching return shall your un- selfish devotion be rewarded. "When in after days the story of the present shall be written, when history shall have passed her stern sentence on the erring men who have driven their unoffending brethren from the shelter of their common home, your names will derive fresh luster from the contrast, and when your children shall hear repeated the familiar tale it will be with glow- ing cheek and kindling eye, their very souls will stand a tip-toe as their sires are named and they will glory in their lineage from men of spirit as generous and of patriotism as high-spirited as ever illustrated or adorned the American Senate." CELEBRATED DEBATE Debate Between Benjamin and Baker in the Senate Chamber on January 3D, 1861 amendments to the constitution Mr. Bingham. "If there be no further morning business, I move that the Senate proceed to the con- sideration of the unfinished business of yesterday." The motion was agreed to; and the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the considera- tion of the joint resolution (S. No. 48) introduced by Mr. Johnson, of Tennessee, proposing- amend- ments to the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Baker. "Mr. President, I cannot resume the remarks which I propose to conclude briefly to-day, without rendering my thanks to the Senate for the courtesy which was extended toward me in allowing me to continue them now ; and adding to those thanks, others to the distinguished Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], whose just expectations of addressing the Senate to-day I will endeavor not very long to postpone. *T am not of those. Mr. President, who enter- tain the opinion that discussion upon all points of 98 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 99 difference between what I hate to call 'sections' of the Confederacy, can be otherwise than useful. I desire, for my part, to understand clearly and dis- tinctly from gentlemen upon the other side, what it is of which they complain. I desire to understand, as I may, the ground, the reason, the proof of that complaint; because I am very sure that I intend, faithfully and loyally to the Constitution, to obviate all just, reasonable, and manly ground of opposi- tion to us. I do not propose, in the eyes of poster- ity, to place myself (if, indeed, they may ever glance upon me at all) in a position where good and wise men may say, 'that man, from pride of opinion or pride of party, fostered the feeling which led to the dissolution of the Union, and refused to listen to honorable and just complaint against him.' I do not mean to do that. Therefore it is that I inquire, respectfully, earnestly, probing it, as I believe, to the bottom, if I can, what it is that gentlemen are going to dissolve this Union about ? I say, with all respect to my distinguished friend from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden], that to do that in a good temper, cannot do any harm ; and, sir, I feel, as I ought to feel upon this floor, nothing but sentiments of courtesy towards every member of this body. 1 hope that so far I have thus conducted the discus- sion, and so I shall continue to the end. "I may remark, sir, that when the Senate ad- journed yesterday I was endeavoring to demon- strate that the complaint made by the distinguished Senator from Louisiana that we were endeavoring to establish a construction of the Constitution that slavery was the creature of local law, thereby banish- 100 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE ing it from the Territories of the United States, if true, was not just as a matter of complaint; that whether he attacks the Repubhcan party, of which I am a humble member, or whether he attacks the great majority of the people of the North, with whom I feel a common sympathy, the attack is un- just, because the leading men of the South, the pub- lic opinion of the South, the leading men of the North, the public opinion of the North, the Democ- racy of the North, the Republicans of the North, the Whigs of the North, nay, all classes of politicians and all classes of men have agreed, according to the doctrine and teaching of our fathers, that slavery was in fact the creature of local law, only, and could not go into the Territories by virtue of that local law. That is what I have been endeavoring to establish so far, not so much as a matter of argu- ment as a matter of authority. "For that purpose, sir, I have read passages from the speeches of many distinguished gentlemen known to the country. I have one or two more; 1)ut out of respect to the time of the Senate I will pass to the discussion of other topics. I shall read next, directly upon this question of the right of the Southern people to go into the Territories with their slaves, the opinion of Mr, Cass, expressed in a speech delivered November 4. 1854, at Detroit." Mr. DooLiTTLE read, as follows : " 'The doctrine [of equality, etc.] never had any real founda- tion either in the Constitution or in the nature of the Confed- eration. It re.sted on the assumption that the puhlic domain being acquired by the whole Union, the whole Union had equal rights in the enjoyment. This postul.nte is undeniable. But what then? It was contended further that the United States THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE loi could not enjoy its equal right of settlement upon the public lands, unless a comparatively small portion of its inhabitants, say three hundred and fifty thousand out of more than six million white persons could take their slaves with them, or, in other words, that every man from every State in the Union, had a right to take all his property to the public domain and there hold it — whisky, banks, or anything else — though pro- hibited by the local law. A true answer to this pretension is, that if any man, North or South, holds property not recog- nized as such or prohibited by the local law, his remedy is to be found, not in the violation of it, but in the conversion of such property into money, the universal representative of value, and take that to his new home, and there commence his work of enterprise in a new and growing community. " 'If the South has changed its views of this great question, the North has not ; nor is the unshaken adhesion of Northern men to their original convictions a just subject of complaint, any more than the expression of them in proper terms of for- bearance and moderation.' " Mr. Baker. *' 'Nor is the unshaken adhesion' — I quote again his emphatic language — 'Nor is the unshaken adhesion of Northern men to their original convictions a just subject of complaint, any more than the expression of them in proper terms of for- bearance and moderation' — a very decided squint at the right itself and the right to express it. "Now, sir, it may be said that this is the opinion of a Northern man. While it is none the better, I am sure it is none the worse for that. Gentlemen will remember that I am quoting on all sides, from the chieftains of the people and the leaders of the war. But, not to be singular, and indeed to be, as I mean to be, perfectly respectful to all sections, I shall show by my next extract that Virginia, the mother of States and of statesmen, speaking by an authoritative voice on this floor — a voice which we all hear with pleasure, one of her distinguished Senators [Senator Hunter] — says what, according 102 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE to the opinions of the Senator from Louisiana, must, I think, be considered of itself cause for dissolution." Mr. DooLiTTLE read, as follows : "Mr. Senator Hunter, in his speech, last fall, before the Breckinridge Democratic State convention, at Charlottesville, Virginia, said : " 'When I first entered the Federal councils, which was at the commencement of Mr. Van Buren's administration, the moral and political stattis of the slavery question was very dif- ferent from what it now is. Then the Southern men them- selves, with but few exceptions, admitted slavery to be a moral evil, and palliated and excused it upon the plea of necessity. Then there were few men of any party to be found in the non- slaveholding States who did not maintain both the constitution- ality and expediency of the anti-slavery resolution, now gen- erally known as the Wilmot proviso. Had any man at that day ventured the prediction that the Missouri restriction would ever be repealed, he would have been deemed a visionary and theorist of the wildest sort. What a revolution have we not witnessed in all this ! The discussion and the contest on the slavery question have gone on ever since, so as to absorb al- most entirely the American mind. In many respects the re- sults of that discussion have not been adverse to us. Southern men no longer occupy a deprecatory attitude upon the ques- tion of negro slavery in this country. While they by no means pretend that slavery is a good condition of things, under any circumstances and in all countries, they do maintain that, un- der the relations that the two races stand to each other here, it is best for both that the inferior should be subjected to the superior. The same opinion is extending even in the North, where it is entertained by many, although not generally ac- cepted. As evidence, too, of the growing change on this sub- ject of the public sentiment of the world, I may refer to the course of France and Great Britain in regard to the cooly and the African apprenticesliip system as introduced into their colonies. That they are thus running the slave trade in an- other form is rarely denied. It is not to be supposed that these Governments are blind to the real nature of this cooly trade ; and the arguments by which they defend it already af- ford an evidence of a growing change in their opinions upon slavery in general.' " Mr. Baker. "T have caused this passage to be THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 103 read, Mr. President, for one purpose. With the argument I have now nothing to do ; with the opin- ion of the Senator from Virginia, that France and England are endeavoring to advance slavery in their own peculiar and pet way, I do not propose to deal ; but I do present it to show that Southern men have been always of the opinion of the fathers, that Con- gress had the power to restrict slavery in the Terri- tories, because slavery was the creature of local law alone. That is all. I do not say it proves it. I am sufficiently in the habit of differing from the Senator from Virginia not to take what he may say as evidence always ; but against the Senator from Louisiana — " Mr. Hunter. *T ask the Senator, does he say that he quoted that to show that I admitted that the Senators of the South believed there was power in Congress to restrict slavery in the Territories?" Mr. Baker. "Repeat, if you please." Mr. Hunter. "Does he mean to say that he quoted that in order to show that I maintained that it was the opinion of Southern men that there was a power in Congress to restrict slavery in the Terri- tories?" Mr. Baker. "Not exactly ; but I apprehend that I can ask the Senator two or three questions that will make him admit it right out now." [Laugh- ter.] Mr. Hunter. "All I can say is, that I have never admitted it yet." Mr. Baker. "And all I say, in answer to that, is, that it is never too late to do well. Now, I sub- mit to gentlemen everywhere ; J understand them to 104 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE be in favor of establishing — I will not say establish- ing — protecting slavery in the Territories ; I under- stand that that arises from the power of Congress to govern Territories. The Republicans generally admit the power to govern ; and from that they argue the right to prohibit. I believe that, accord- ing to the later phase of Southern opinion — and it has many phases — the Southern gentlemen admit the power of Congress to govern the Territories; and from thence they argue the power to estab- lish, or, at least, to protect slavery ; and when, now, with the new fit, many of them profess to be in favor of the Missouri compromise, I suppose it will not be denied that that means just this : Congress has the power to govern the Territories ; and govern- ing them, it may govern them upon slavery as upon every other subject; the Constitution takes it there; they may regulate and protect it there; and if they may do it upon all the Territories, they may refuse to do it upon part. Some of them say so, and some of them deny it; but, at any rate, they all say, in making the Missouri compromise line, that it is the power of prohibition on one side, and of protection on the other. The distinguished Senator from Vir- ginia does not deny that, as I understand him. The distinguished Senator from Louisiana has not. in former years, denied that, as I have understood him." Mr. Benjamin. "Do I understand the Senator from Oregon to say that I ever admitted the power of Congress to exclude slaves from any portion of the public territory ?" Mr. Baker. 'T will not say that I am quite THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 105 certain that the distinguished Senator has so done; and if he says otherwise, of course I would cheer- fully yield to the correction, if I had so said; but I may say that I do understand that gentlemen upon that side of the Chamber, at some period of their lives, in some of the phases of politics — when my friend was a Clay man ; when my friend was a Whig; before the repeal of the Missouri compro- mise was proposed — at a time when most of us were singing hallelujahs to it, I should think it very strange if I could not prove that the gentleman was in favor of some line of separation between slavery and freedom." Mr. Benjamin. "Mr. President, I will answer the Senator, so far as I am concerned, that I never have admitted any power in Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories anywhere, upon any occa- sion, or at any time in my life that I can remember. I will say further to him: so far as the question is concerned about the desire of the South to extend the line — that the Southern States, at the period of the acquisition of Territory from Mexico, proposed to extend that line — not upon the idea that Congress had the power to exclude slavery from any part of the Territory, but that, the representatives of the Southern States in both Houses consenting to that act, it would operate as an agreement or compact, not binding constitutionally, but binding upon the good faith of the people of all parts of the Confed- eracy. In that light they proposed to settle the question forever. They never did admit that Con- gress had the power, constitutionally, that I am aware of." io6 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE Mr. Baker. "When the Senator says that he himself never did it, I am by no means disposed to dispute it, and particularly so, as I believe I have not asserted it; but the Senator does now say that the Southern people were in favor of the Missouri compromise — " Mr. Benjamin. "Excuse me." Mr. Baker. "I think that is what the Senator said." Mr. Benjamin. "That the Southern people were in favor, at the time of the acquisition of the new Territory from Mexico, of extending the line to the Pacific Ocean, and leaving it undisturbed, as a matter of compact, not as a matter of constitu- tional power. That was refused by the North." Mr. Baker. "Well, Mr. President, at a proper time and on a proper occasion, I think I could show the Senator that it would be very difficult to establish the proposition that anybody has a right to do by compact what will violate the Constitution. That is the sum total now of all he is saying." Mr. Benjamin. "Does the Senator deny that a State has a right to abandon any privilege accorded to it by the Constitution, if it does not choose to exercise it?" Mr. Baker. "No, sir; but this is what I do say : that if you, the Senator from Louisiana, do, in your conscience, believe that an act of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territory of the United States, or in any part or parcel thereof, is in viola- tion of the Constitution of the United States, and in derogation of the rights either of the States or the people — if, in your heart and conscience, you THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 107 really do believe that, you are false and perjured when you do it. Let me add, as the language is strong, that I am quite as sure as I live, that, with that view, the Senator never would do it." Mr. Benjamin. "Mr. President, I endeavored to make my proposition as plain as I know how to do it. I say that, under the Constitution, Congress has no power to exclude the Southern States from participation in the Territory, from going there with their slave property, and there finding protection. I say that, notwithstanding the absence of all that congressional power, it is perfectly competent, and in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution, for Southern members, even by way of an act of Congress, to pledge the honor of their States that they will not avail themselves of the privileges of go- ing into that part of the Territory that is north of a particular line, and of proposing that to the people of the North as a settlement of a disputed question — not because the act of Congress would thereby be binding, under the Constitution itself, but because it would be good and authentic evidence to the people of the North of an agreement by the people of the South not to insist on that part of the Constitution which gave that right." Mr. Baker. "Mr. President, I do this time cer- tainly clearly understand the distinguished Sena- tor from Louisiana, and yet I do not see any- thing fairly in reply to what I have urged upon him. Now, he tells me that the Southern people have agreed that slavery may be prohibited. How ? Sir, in passing the Missouri compromise bill, they did not merely agree to do it — the act of Congress io8 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE is not a mere evidence to be used in a court of honor that the people of Louisiana will not interfere with the bargain. That is not it ; but the act of Congress is a positive law, made under the sanction of an oath, in the light of the consciences of the men who agreed to it ; and I ask him in all fairness and honor, if he or I to-day vote in this Senate Chamber to prohibit slavery in a certain Territory, whether, if we be- lieve that we have no right under the Constitution to do that, we do not violate both the Constitution and our oaths when we render that vote? I think that from this position there is no escape. When Mr. Clay gave that vote, he had no constitutional doubt. When the South urged it, and the North agreed to it, they who voted had no constitutional doubt; or if they had, it vanished before the clear light of reason and argument. The North, as it is said, accepted it reluctantly ; at least they abided by it. When gentlemen destroyed it they ran after strange gods ; and now when many of them propose to come back to it, they are offering a truer and more acceptable worship. But, sir. the point of the argument is not to be evaded by any pretense that it is a mere agreement in a court of honor to do that which they have no legal and constitutional right to do. Suppose a gentleman from Alabama comes up and says : 'Sir, you. the Senator from Louisiana, have voted to prohibit me from taking my slaves into the Territory north of 36° 30' ; what do you mean by it; have you any right to do it?' 'O, no,' the Senator says, 'no right in the world; it is just a sort of legislative flourish, a compact between us and somebody else, that having done it. THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 109 we will never take it back; it is the exercise of a right which theoretically we do not claim; we have just done it — we do not exactly know why in point of law, but we have done it because we hope, having done it, nobody will undo it.' What will the strict constructionists on the other side say to that ? What words will they put in my mouth? "I do not think the argument can be defended other than upon the ground assumed by a justice of the peace, well known to my distinguished friend from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], old Boiling Green, in answer to a little law advice that I gave him on one occasion when the Senator and I were both very young men, and (if he will excuse me for saying so) very poor lawyers. [Laughter.] Old Boiling Green, then a magistrate, came to me and said : 'Baker, I want to know if I have jurisdiction in a case of slander.' I put on a very important air; looked at him steadily — looked as wise as I could, and I said to him: 'Squire, you have no such au- thority ; that is reserved to a court of general juris- diction.' 'Well,' said he, 'think again; you have not read law very well, or very long ; try it again ; now, have I not jurisdiction; can I not do it?' 'No,' I said, 'you cannot.' Said he: 'Try once more; now, cannot I take jurisdiction.' 'No, sir,' said I, 'you cannot ; I know it ; I have read the law from Black- stone to ; well, I have read Blackstone, and I know you cannot do it.' 'Now, sir,' said he, 'I know I can ; for, by Heaven, I have done it.' [Laughter.] I understand, now, that the sum total of the answer which is made to my objection as to the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise no THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE touching the consciences of the gentlemen who pro- posed to pass it without power, is just the reply of my old friend Boiling Green. They say, 'Theoreti- cally we have not the power ; constitutionally we have not the power ; but, by Heaven, we have done it/ [Laughter.] "Well, sir. I do not assume to deal with them in a court of conscience. That is their matter. I do not pretend to discuss the propriety of making a solemn act of the Congress of the United States merely evidence in a court of honor, subject, as I think, to a demurrer to evidence at least. That is none of my business. What I am dealing with is this : if that be the opinion of Virginia, of Lou- isiana, of the entire South ; if they have done it by their leaders, by their speeches ; if they have lived by it; if, being a compact, it is an executed com- pact ; if under it State after State has come into this Union, is it not too late for them to deny now that we are justified if we wish to adhere to that prin- ciple? Have they a right to come and say: 'You are declaring slavery to be a creature of the local law, and we will justly dissolve the Union by revolu- tion in consequence thereof? This is the sole pur- pose for which I have read all these extracts ; and I think, from the conclusion, that this is neither fair, nor just, nor right, nor constitutional. There is no escape. "But, sir, passing from that; the Senator from Louisiana, in the second item of the 'dreary cata- logue' which he recounts in his speech, says, in sub- stance, that we attack slavery generally. Now, I am going to reply at some little length to that count in THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE in the indictment. I begin thus : if the gentleman means that, in violation of the Constitution of the United States, we of the North or West, by any bill, resolu- tion, or act, do in anywise interfere with the state and condition of slavery where it exists within the States of this Union, or any of them, by virtue of local law, by which alone it can be created, we deny it. We have offered no such interference ; we claim no such power. Sir, as I remember the history, as early as 1790, a committee of the House of Repre- sentatives — composed, with one exception, of North- ern men — reported to that Congress a resolution, which you will find in the great speech of Mr. Web- ster upon this point, declaring that we have no right or power to interfere with slavery in the States. That resolution was adopted by a Northern Con- gress — a body near two-thirds of whom were North- ern men ; and I say that from that day to this, according to my recollection, and in my best judg- ment, and on my conscience, I do not know, nor do I believe, that Congress has attempted seriously to doubt practically that doctrine, or in anywise to interfere with the condition of slavery in the slave States. Upon that point I am subject to correction on either hand." Mr. Benjamin. "If the Senator will permit me, the charge is not that Congress does it, but that the States do it." Mr. Baker. "Very well. I thank the gentle- man ; and with the directness which belongs to his character, and the courtesy which he can never for- get, I shall be happy if, only to carry down the argu- ment, whenever he sees a proper place, he will just 112 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE direct my attention to the pith and marrow of the matter as he does now. Now, be it understood, on this given day of January, in the year of our Lord 1 86 1, the great champion of the South upon this question gets up in his place in the Senate and ad- mits that there is no ground of complaint that the Federal Government ever has attempted to interfere with the existence of slavery in the Southern States. We will get that down upon the record, and I ap- prehend it will be quoted before this controversy is over, again and again. "But it is said that the Northern States, the West- ern States, in other words, the free States, do so interfere. Again we deny it. The fact is not so. The proof cannot be made. Why, sir, I might ask, in the first place, how can the States so interfere? Suppose Illinois, of which I desire to speak always with affectionate solicitude, and of which I can speak with considerable knowledge, were to violate all the opinions which she has manifested in her history, and desired to interfere with the existence of slavery in Virginia, how would she go about it? I have the profoundest respect for my friend as a lawyer; but I would like to know what bill he could frame by which Illinois could interfere with the existence of slavery in Virginia." Mr. Benjamin. "Mr. President, I will tell the Senator, not how they can do it by bill, but how they do it in acts. A body of men penetrated into the State of Virginia by force of arms, into a peace- ful village at the dead hour of night, armed with means for the purpose of causing the slaves to rise against their masters, seized upon the public prop- THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 113 erty of the United States, and murdered the inhabi- tants. A man was found in Massachusetts who, in public speeches, declared that he approved of that, and that the invasion was right; and the people of Massachusetts, by an enormous majority — the fact of that man's action placed before the people as a ground why he should be elected their Governor — elected him their Governor, indorsed the invasion of a sister State, indorsed the murder of the peaceful inhabitants of the State of Virginia. The people of Massachusetts, by the election of Andrews as their Governor, have indorsed the act of John Brown, have indorsed the invasion of a sister State, and the murder of its peaceful citizens at dead of night. "The people of Massachusetts in their collective capacity have done more. They have sent Senators upon this floor, whose only business has been, for year after year, to insult the people of the South; here, in this common assembly of Confederate em- bassadors, to cast slander and opprobrium upon them; to call them thieves, murderers, violators; charge them as being criminals of the blackest dye ; and because the men who here represent Massachu- setts did that, Massachusetts has sent them back to repeat the wrong. They have done that, and nothing else, since ever I have been in the Senate." Mr. Wilson. "Mr. President — " Mr. Baker. "O, never mind. Mr. President, I asked the gentleman from Louisiana to point out to me and to the Senate, how, if the State of Illinois were desirous to interfere with the existence of slavery in Virginia, it could be done. I leave to his cooler temper and his better taste to examine how 114 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE he has answered me. Why, sir, he runs off into a disquisition upon John Brown, which would not dignify a stump. Now, I submit that that is not the point between us. I hold that his answer is an acknowledgment that a free State cannot, as a State, interfere in any conceivable way with slavery in a slave State; and that being so, we advance another step. We agree now that Congress never has inter- fered, and that States never can. "But the gentleman says (and I do not reply to it now on account of what he has said at this mo- ment, but because it is another of the counts in the indictment) that individuals in the Northern States have interfered with slavery in the Southern States. I believe that to be true ; but being true, I ask, what then? Is that the chief ground of dissolution? Are you going to revolt for that? Will you plunge us into civil war for that? Is that all? Sir, let us examine it a little more closely. I pass, as un- worthy the dignity of the debate, the incidental at- tack which the Senator from Louisiana has chosen to make upon the people of Massachusetts, upon the Governor of that great State, and upon the dis- tinguished Senators from that State, who, in my judgment, are an honor on this floor to this body. It is not my purpose — they would not intrust me with their defense; nor is it needful that I should make it here or anywhere. That is not within the scope and purpose of this debate; but it is within the scope and purpose of this debate to examine how much of truth there is in the general sweeping charge which the Senator has chosen to make, and THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 115 how much justification in the fact, if the fact be true. "Sir, the people of the Northern and Western States are a free people. We have there various rights guaranteed to us by our State Constitutions, among the chiefest of which are liberty of thought and freedom of speech. We are an inquiring peo- ple ; we are an investigating people ; and we are, no doubt, very subject to the charge often made against us, that we are a people of isms. Where there is perfect freedom of opinion, that must be the case in the nature of things. It is in the nature of the human mind itself. Laws will not restrain it. We cannot bind the human mind with fetters, nor can we limit it to modes of expression. It will think, and it will act, spite of all government, and beyond all law. It follows, as a consequence, that the peo- ple will not think alike ; and, of course, as there can- not be two ways perfectly right upon any one sub- ject, the people will not always think truly and wisely. "What then ? There are people in Massachusetts and in Illinois and in Oregon, who will not only violate the rights of the slave States, but the rights of the free. There are people in the North who will not only steal niggers, but steal horses. There are people in the North who will not only try to burn down houses in the slave States, but who will be incendiary in the free States. It is the duty of the distinguished Senator from Louisiana and my- self sometimes, as counsel, to defend such men. Nor do I know that such men or such defenses are confined to the North or the West alone. I appre- ii6 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE hend if a grateful procession of the knaves and ras- cals, who are indebted to the distinguished Senator from Louisiana for an escape from the penitentiary and the halter, were to surround him to-day, it would be difficult for even admiring friends to get near him to congratulate him upon the success of his efforts upon this floor. [Laughter.] When, therefore, he says that individuals — not States, not Congress — but individuals in the free States, do attack in their individual capacity the honor and dignity of the slave States, and do run off their nig- gers, and do steal their property, and do kidnap, and do various other things contrary to their duty as good citizens, I am inclined, while I regret it, to believe the whole of it. "Springing from that, and evidenced, as I think, by the excited enumeration which the distinguished Senator has chosen to make of the wrongs and crimes of the State of Massachusetts and her Sena- tors; springing from that exaggerated mode of thought and expression, as to the free States, arises the spirit of the count in the indictment against the whole of us. Now, I beg leave to say to the honora- ble Senator, that the desire to interfere with the rights of slavery in the slave States is not the de- sire of the Northern people. It is not the desire of the people of Oregon, T know ; it is not the desire of the people of California, I am sure : it is not the desire of the people of Illinois. I would swear ; and I may say more, that in all my association with the Republican party, I have yet to find among them, from their chiefs down to their humblest private, one man who proposes to interfere with the exist- THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 117 ence of slavery in the slave States by force, by legis- lation, or by congressional action. I have known no such man in all my short experience, nor do I believe that the Senator from Louisiana can point out any such man." Mr. Benjamin. "If the Senator merely desires me to answer him, I will tell him exactly what I said the other day : that the belief of the South is, and I admit I share it, that without intending to violate the letter of the Constitution by going into States for the purpose of forcibly emancipating slaves, it is the desire of the whole Republican party to close up the Southern States with a cordon of free States for the avowed purpose of forcing the South to emancipate them." Mr. Baker. "Very well, sir. See how glo- riously we advance step by step. We abandon now the charge that Congress does it ; we abandon now the charge that States do it; we abandon now the charge that the individual members of the Northern and Western communities as a body desire to inter- fere with slavery contrary to law ; to violate any ex- isting right in the slave States; but we insist tena- ciously and pertinaciously on our fourth count in the indictment; and it is this — " Mr. Benjamin. "The Senator, I trust, does not desire to misrepresent what I said." Mr. Baker. "I do not, sir." Mr. Benjamin. "I am confident that he does not. I understood the Senator to ask me, in rela- tion to the Republican party, what proof I had of their desire to destroy slavery in the States. I gave it to him. I did not say that independently of that, ii8 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE there were not other attacks upon Southern slavery. I just this moment referred him to the direct attack of the State of Massachusetts — the State as a State. Independently of that, by the further exemplification of the State of Massachusetts, I will refer him to the fact that her Legislature indorsed the vitupera- tions of her Senator on this floor, by an enormous majority, and made that a State act ; and further- more, that she passed a law in violation of the rights of Southern slaveholders, and all her eminent legal men are now urging the State to repeal the law as a gross outrage upon the constitutional rights of the South." Mr. Baker. "Why, Mr. President, in a State where all her eminent legal men are desirous to rectify a wrong, I do not think, if the Senator will wait a little while, there can be any very great danger. Our profession is a very powerful one; and I have never known a State in which we all agree upon a legal proposition that we could not induce her to agree to it too. That is a mere an- swer in passing. "I insist, however^ — I know it is not quite pleas- ant to my friend, and I regret that it is not so — that I have brought him down to a clear statement by way of abandonment of three or four of the specifi- cations. It is now true that the great ground of complaint has narrowed itself down to this : that, as a people, we desire to circle the slave States with a cordon of free States, and thereby destroy the institution of slavery ; to treat it like a scorpion girt by fire. I take that to be an abandonment of the main counts in the indictment, unless that be con- THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 119 sidered one of them. Now, I approach that ques- tion : first, if we, a free people, really, in our hearts and consciences, believing that freedom is better for everybody than slavery, do desire the advance of free sentiments, and do endeavor to assist that ad- vance in a constitutional, legal way, is that, I ask him, ground of separation?" Mr. Benjamin. "I say, yes; decidedly." Mr. Baker. "That is well. And I say just as decidedly, and perhaps more emphatically, no ! And I will proceed to tell him why. The argument is a little more discursive to-day than yesterday, but per- haps not less instructive. Suppose that circling slavery with a cordon of free States were a cause of separation, and therefore war with us: is it not just as much so with anybody else? It is no greater crime for a Massachusetts man or an Oregon man to circle, to girdle, and thereby kill slavery, than for a Frenchman, or an Englishman, or a Mexican. It is as much a cause of war against France, or Eng- land, or Mexico, as against us. "Again, sir : how are you going to help it? How can we help it? Circle slavery with a cordon of free States ! Why, if I read history and observe geography rightly, it is so girdled now. Which way can slavery extend itself that it does not en- croach upon the soil of freedom? Has the Senator thought of that? It cannot go North, though it is trying very hard. It cannot go into Kansas, though it made a convulsive effort, mistaking a spasm for strength. It cannot go South, because, amid the degradation and civil war and peonage of Mexico, if there be one thing under heaven they hate worse 120 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE than another, it is African slavery. It cannot reach the islands of the sea, for they are under the shadow of France, that guards their shores against such in- fectious approach. It is circled ; I will not say gir- dled. I recollect the figiU'e, familiar to us all, by which he intimates that that which is girdled will die. Therefore, I do not say girdled ; I say circled, inclosed, surrounded ; I may say hedged in ; nay, more, I may say — where is the Senator from New York [Mr. Seward], he is a prophet, and I will not predict; but, if I were not warned by his example and his prediction as to the 'irrepressible conflict,' I might say that, being so hedged, circled, guarded, encompassed, it will some day — it may be infinitely far distant, so far as mortal eye can see — but it will be some day lost and absorbed in the superior blaze of freedom. And, sir, that would be the case, just as much as it is now, if there were no Northern free States. What harm do I, in Illinois or Oregon, to the Senator from Louisiana? Where can his slav- ery go, that it is not now, unless it be in this dis- puted Territory of New Mexico? Where else? If it go anywhere else, it will go incursive, aggressive upon freedom. It will go by invading the rights of a nation that is inferior and that desires to be friendly. It will go in defiance of the wish and will and hope and tear and prayer of the whole civil- ized world. It will go in defiance of the hopes of civilized humanity all over the world. The Senator will not deny that. Therefore it is that it appears to me idle — and I had almost said wicked — to at- tempt to plunge this country into civil war, upon the pretense that we are endeavoring to circle your THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE i2i institution, when, if we had no such wish or desire in the world, it is circled by destiny, by Providence, and by human opinion everywhere. "I will press the Senator from Louisiana a little further. We of the Northern and Western States — and it is the complaint that our Abolitionists make against us — are the only allies you have got in the world. It is to us (and I speak it to you with affectionate kindness) that, in the hour of your ex- tremest trial, you are to look for sympathy, for succor, for support. You have with us what you call a league; what you call a compact; what we call a united Government, by which we are bound, in some points of view, to recognize your institution, and by that to afford you support in the hour of your danger. Why, sir, if your slaves revolt; if there be among you domestic insurrection — God grant the hour may never come! — we are called upon by our constitutional obligation to march to your support; and, though there be nothing worse than to fight in a servile war, unless it be to suffer in one, we of the North, when that hour shall arrive, will march to sustain you, our brethren, our kindred, the people of our race, with all our power. It is a painful subject to refer to, and I pass it with a single remark. "Again : by the Constitution of the United States we are required to protect you against the escape of your slaves through our Territories, to return them, and to return them in violation of common law and against the principles of international rela- tions acknowledged by the whole civilized world. Would France do that? Would Mexico do that? 122 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE Would England do that ? Would the Czar of Rus- sia do that ? No, sir. It is to us, and to us alone, that you are to look for whatever of safety, of suc- cor, of sympathy, you can find in the whole world, and — I had well nigh said — in the whole universe. "There is, then, no ground of complaint against us, even if all you say be true, that we are surround- ing you by a girdle, a cordon, a circle of free States. Why, you seem to me to have the same notion with an old man in my country who was complaining that he was not rich enough. He was a farmer. He said he would be perfectly happy if he only had all the land that joined him. [Laughter.] It ap- pears to me that the complaint of the honorable Senator is, that slavery does not extend everywhere, without border, or limit, or girdle, or circle in the world. "Again : does the Senator remember, when he asks us to restrain this process of circling the slave States by the settlement of free communities upon their borders, that he is asking us to do what we have no power to do by our system of Government, or by our Constitution? What is the process? When slavery is circled, it is circled by the elastic, expansive power of free labor. California so cir- cled it ; Oregon so circles it. Make Arizona a Ter- ritory to-day; steal Sonora to-morrow; and there free labor will so circle it, spite of laws, spite of government. "Now, why should the Senator from Louisiana propose to dissolve with us because this is so? I would ask gentlemen on the other side: will it be any the less so if you dissolve with us? Will not THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 123 our young men take their axes upon their shoulders, or their ox-whips in their hands, and drive their teams out in the wilderness upon the very edge and border of civilization, adventurous, fearless, elastic, expansive? Do you not know that we will gear up the team, put the wife and children in the wagon, and be half way there — nay, that we will seize and possess the goodly land, while you are hallooing 'Pompey, Jube, Scipio, get ready and come?' That, sir — the peaceful progress of settlement and civiliza- tion — must be the real substantial ground of com- plaint, if there be any. "The Senator talks about John Brown; and he says the people of Massachusetts approved of John Brown. Let us rise to a higher view. Let the wing of our genius plume itself for a nobler flight than that, here — talking of peace and war in this Senate Chamber. Let us not confine ourselves to the mere bitterness of partisan discussion. John Brown is in his grave. We, as a party, do not con- demn the act of Virginia. We, as a party, do con- demn his act. We acknowledge it was in violation of the Constitution and of your law. We regret it. It found no sanction in the public mind. If there were men who were sorry, who admired his courage, who sympathized with what they believed to be the integrity of his purpose, though it were a very dan- gerous, and, in my judgment, a very unworthy pur- pose, will you dissolve for that? Why, sir, all that line of complaint — I may add all the argument based upon that complaint — is akin to the very peculiar remark made by the Senator from Texas [Mr. Wig- fall]. He turned to us the other day and conde- 124 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE scended to give us a list of the conditions upon which they would be graciously pleased to receive our capitulation, I do not remember it all. It was speculative, fanciful; but there were some things in it kindred to the complaint and the argument of the Senator from Louisiana. For instance, he said to us : 'You representative men : you Sewards and Sumners and Hales and Wilsons, go home and in- struct your people to repeal your personal liberty bills; abolish your Abolition societies; stop your presses, and do various things kindred to these, and when you have done that, come back to us and tell us that you have done it, and we will think about it.' Well now, sir, I think the mode of expression was extravagant. It was hardly what I had expected — it was the first speech I heard here — to hear in the Senate of the United States. The sentiment that prompts it is not unlike that of the Senator from Louisiana. He says: 'Do not girdle us; do not circle us; do not enclose us; do not migrate so as to surround us.' That is our right. It would be our right if you were not in a common union with us. It would be your necessity and your misfor- tune, if there were no free States, no North and no West. Then, sir, as for destroying the liberty of our press, as for abolishing societies formed to pro- mote the abolition of slavery, or for any other pur- pose in the world, do Senators think when they ask us to do that ? Sir, I ask them how ? Whether they do it in their own States, it is not for me to determine. Whether the severe necessities of their condition will allow free and unrestrained discus- sion, it is not for me now to inquire. But I may I THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 125 inquire how do they expect us to abolish the right of free speech and of free discussion? It is a very unpleasant right sometimes, I know. Looking around upon distinguished men here, I suspect that I do not see one of them that has not suffered ex- cessively by an . abuse of that power. I think I could read in the biography of every Senator near me, as given by his enemies, things very far from complimentary; and I suspect they make a good many people believe them. "I understand, sir, that wherever free govern- ment is, and wherever, as a consequence, free speech follows, there things may be said and will be said very unpleasant to hear, and very improper to be believed ; and I think that I could show in commen- taries in England, even in Holland, and even in Belgium to-day, or wherever else besides here free speech is allowed, reflections upon Government, and upon the personal character of the rulers, as offensive to their tastes and their opinions as any the Senator from Texas or the Senator from Louisiana could point out uttered in any State of the North and West against them. The abuse is, if you like, an evil, incident to free government ; and how and why do you ask us to obviate in your case what we cannot remove in our own? Will you really make war upon us, will you really separate from us, because we cannot alter the model and frame of our free Government for which your fathers and ours fought side by side? You will not do that. "Mr. President, do gentlemen propose to us seriously that we shall stop the right of free discus- sion ; that we shall limit the free press ; that we shall 126 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE restrain the expression of free opinion everywhere on all subjects and at all times? Why, sir, in our land, if there be any base enough, unreflecting enough, to blaspheme the Maker that created him, or the Saviour that died for him, we have no power to stop him. If there be the most bitter, unjust, and vehement denunciation upon all the principles of morality and goodness, on which human society is based, and on which it may most securely stand, we have, for great and overruling reasons connected with liberty itself, no power to restrain it. Private character, public service, individual relations — neither these, nor age, nor sex, can be in the nature of our Government exempt from that liability to attack. And, sir, shall gentlemen complain that slavery shall not be made, and is not made, an ex- ception to that general rule? You did that when you made what you call a compact with us. You were then emerging out of the war of Independence. Your fathers had fought for that right, and more than that, they had declared that the violation of that right was one of the great causes which im- pelled them to the separation. "I submit these thoughts to gentlemen on the other side, in the candid hope that they will see at once that the attempt to require us to do for them what we cannot do for ourselves is unjust and cruel in the highest degree. Sir, the liberty of the press is the highest safeguard to all free government. Ours could not exist without it. It is with us, nay. with all men, like a great exulting and abounding river. It is fed by the dews of heaven, which distill their sweetest drops to form it. It gushes from THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 127 the rill, as it breaks from the deep caverns of the earth. It is fed by a thousand affluents, that dash from the mountain top to separate again into a thou- sand bounteous and irrigating rills around. On its broad bosom it bears a thousand barks. There Genius spreads its purpling sail. There Poetry dips its silver oar. There Art, Invention, Discovery, Science, Morality, Religion, may safely and securely float. It wanders through every land. It is a genial, cordial source of thought and inspiration, wherever it touches, whatever it surrounds. Sir, upon its borders there grows every flower of grace and every fruit of truth. I am not here to deny that that river sometimes oversteps its bounds. I am not here to deny that that stream sometimes becomes a dangerous torrent, and destroys towns and cities upon its bank ; but I am here to say that, without it, civilization, humanity, government, all that makes society itself, would disappear, and the world would return to its ancient barbarism. Sir, if that were to be possible, or so thought for a mo- ment, the fine conception of the great poet would be realized. If that were to be possible, though but for a moment, civilization itself would roll the wheels of its car backward for two thousand years. Sir, if that were so, it would be true that, " 'As one by one in dread Medea's train, Star after star fades off th' ethereal plain, Thus at her felt approach and secret might, Art after art goes out, and all is night. Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, Sinks to her second cause, and is no more. Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, And unawares morality expires.' 128 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE "Sir, we will not risk these consequences, even for slavery; we will not risk these consequences even for union ; we will not risk these consequences to avoid that civil war with which you threaten us ; that war which you announce as deadly, and which you declare to be inevitable. "Sir, while I say that it is quite well that I should announce, at this moment, my opinion as to what we might do, I shall enter into no detail. I shall endeavor to bind nobody else. I shall express my own convictions at the moment, subject, of course, to all the changes that events and circumstances hereafter to transpire may justify. I will never yield to the idea that the great Government of this country shall protect slavery in any Territory now ours, or hereafter to be acquired. It is, in my opinion, a great principle of free government, not to be surrendered. It is, in my judgment, the object of the great battle which we have fought, and which we have won. It is, in my poor opinion, the point upon which there is concord and agreement between the great masses of the North, who may agree in no other political opinion whatever. Be he Republi- can, or Democrat, or Douglas man, or Lincoln man ; be he from the North, or the West, from Oregon, or from Maine, in my judgment, nine-tenths of the entire population of the North and West are de- voted, in the very depths of their hearts, to the great constitutional idea that freedom is the rule, that slavery is the exception, that it ought not to be ex- tended by virtue of the powers of the Government of the United States ; and, come weal, come woe, it never shall be. ] THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE i2g "But, sir, I add one other thing. When you talk to me about compromise or concession, I am not sure that I always understand you. Do you mean that I am to give up my convictions of right? Armies cannot compel that in the breast of a free people. Do you mean that I am to concede the benefits of the political struggle through which we have passed, considered politically, only? You are too just and too generous to ask that. Do you mean that we are to deny the great principle upon which our political action has been based? You know we cannot. But if you mean, by compromise and concession, to ask us to see whether we have not been hasty, angry, passionate, excited, and in many respects violated your feelings, your character, your right of property, we will look; and, as I said yes- terday, if we have, we will undo it. Allow me to say again, if there be any lawyer or any court that will advise us that our laws are unconstitutional, we will repeal them. Such is my opinion. Even if our own courts do not believe so and yours do — I say yours, because I do speak now of a supreme court, not subordinate, but acquiescent — if that court shall declare these laws unconstitutional in any particular, we will yield. "Now as to Territory. I will not yield one inch to secession ; but there are things that I will yield, and there are things to which I will yield. It is somewhere told — and the fine reading of my friend from Louisiana will enable him to tell me where — that when Harold of England received a messenger from a brother with whom he was at variance, to inquire on what terms reconciliation and peace could 130 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE be effected between brothers, he replied in a gallant and generous spirit, in a few words, 'The terms I offer are the affection of a brother, and the earldom of Northumberland'; 'And,' said the envoy, as he marched up the hall amid the warriors that graced the state of the king, 'if Tosti, thy brother, agree to this, what terms will you allow to his ally and friend, Hadrada, the giant?' 'We will allow/ said Harold, 'to Hadrada, the giant, seven feet of English ground, and if he be as they say, a giant, some few inches more' : and as he spake, the hall rang with acclamation. "Sir, in that spirit I speak. I follow, at a humble distance, the ideas and the words of Clay, illustrious, to be venerated, and honored, and remembered for- ever. Upon this floor, in 1850, he said, in reference to a threat of secession : " 'Now, Mr. President, I stand here in my place, meaning to be unawed by any threats, whether they come from man, living or dead, that arms should be raised against the individ- uals or from States. I should deplore as much as any author- ity of the Union, either by individuals or by States. But. after all that has occurred, if any one State, or a portion of the people of any State, choose to place themselves in military array against the Government of the Union, / am for trying the strength of the Government. I am for ascertaining whether we have a Government or not — practical, efficient, capable of maintaining its authority, and of upholding the powers and interests which belong to a Government. Nor, sir, am I to he alarmed or dissuaded from any such course bv intimations of the spilling of blood. If blood is to be spilled, by whose fault is it? Upon the supposition I maintain, it will be the fault of those who choose to raise the standard of dis- union, and endeavor to prostrate this Governrnent ; and, sir, when that is done, so long as it pleases God to give me a voice to express my sentiments, or an arm. weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and that arm will be on the side THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 131 of my country for the support of the general authority, and for maintenance of the powers of this Union.' "He said, I say, that I will yield no inch, no word, to the threat of secession, unconstitutional, revolu- tionary, dangerous, unwise, at variance with the heart and the hope of all mankind save themselves. To that I yield nothing; but if States loyal to the Constitution, if people magnanimous and just, desir- ing a return of fraternal feeling, shall come to us and ask for peace, for permanent, enduring peace and affection, and say, 'What will you grant?' I say to them, 'Ask all that a gentleman ought to propose ; and I will yield all that a gentleman ought to offer.' Nay, more : if you are galled because we claim the right to prohibit slavery in territory now free, or in any Territory which acknowledges our jurisdiction, we will evade — I speak but for myself — I will aid in evading that question ; I will agree to make it all States, and let the people decide at once. I will agree to place them in that condition where the prohibition of slavery will never be necessary to justify ourselves to our consciences or to our constit- uents. I will agree to anything which is not to force upon me the necessity of protecting slavery in the name of freedom. To that I never can and never will yield. "Now, Mr. President, I trust I say that in no spirit of unkindness. My friend from Louisiana, in his count — his hypothetical count — against us, supposes a case. He says : 'If you were to refuse South Carolina her two Senatorships ; if you were to allow her but one Senator, what then? Revolu- tion.' He says: 'What if a Northern President 132 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE just elected should come in and give all the offices to Northern men, eating out the substance of us of the South, what then?' Well, I answer to that: 'Wait, and do not dissolve the Union upon a hy- pothesis.' I might tell my friend from Louisiana that, after all, this thing of not having office is not so very hard to bear. We Whigs tried it a long time ; we Republicans have experienced it very often. I have been for nearly thirty years a man, and have never been able except for a very, very few months, during all that time, to have my slightest wish as to the General Government gratified, even to the ap- pointment of a tide-waiter. I have been, so far as the affairs of the General Government are concerned, as thoroughly disfranchised as if I were a Chinese or a Hottentot. What little of position or of place I have acquired, has been by the generous confidence of my own State: but I have been tabooed — not I alone, but we Whigs, we Republicans, have been tabooed by the General Government, I will not say vindictively, but, I will certainly say, uniformly. Tt is not so bad to take as you might suppose; it is nothing when you get used to it. [Laughter.] We have not proposed to dissolve the Union for that. Sir, we have never allowed the flame of our loyalty for one moment to fade because that was so. We have loved the Union all the better the worse we were governed in it, and we will continue to do so when we are beaten, as we shall sometimes be, to the end of the chapter. "I ask the distinguished gentleman from Louis- iana, does it not look — I will not say that it is that wav — but does it not look as if vou cannot bear the THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 133 mortification of a little defeat? You have had all the offices, all the honors — the President on his throne, the dignity of this Chamber, the power of the House of Representatives, the acquiescence of the Supreme Court, a long array of foreign minis- ters, Cabinet officers — everything that can grace your state and form your procession; and most of you have had them ever since you were children ; and now, when, according to the will of the people, constitutionally expressed, you are likely to lose one branch of the Government for a brief season, and as many of you believe even if you remain with us but for a very brief season, you propose to dissolve this Government and inaugurate civil war. Why, sir, as the distinguished gentlemen from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson] has said so well, in a speech in which there are so many things with which I agree, that I grieve there should be so many others in which I cannot agree — a speech Jacksonian in its tone, often Websterian in its argument — as he has said, and well said, even in the case of the President, what can he do without you; you have a majority upon this floor ; you can check him in his power of appointment; you can compel him to select good men. Will he touch slavery ; will his Cabinet ; will you let him? Who is to be hurt? A gentleman from Georgia said the other day that the Federal Government might comply with all the requisitions of the Constitution, and yet in ten years slavery cease to exist. How? [At this point, a chair occupied by Mr. Mason in the area in front of the Secretary's desk, owing to 134 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE the frail condition of its supporters, gave way, pre- cipitating its occupant to the floor.] "The incident before me, Mr. President, is not the only case where a fall will succeed dissolution. [Laughter.] "Sir, I am loth to believe that gentlemen are really in earnest in supposing, in the case before me, in be- lieving that if men will not serve in the South, and they are appointed from the North because you will not serve there, that is cause of separation. When we were engaged ten years ago, as I left this coast, in compromise, as some people say we are now, I heard somebody say, 'O, never mind, never mind; only give me a toll of a dollar apiece on all men of the South who will come over the Potomac to get office, and I would be a rich man.' I admit the sentiment is very different now in some of the Southern States, perhaps in all. I will say another thing : the sentiment to hold office now among loyal men at the South is not for the mere sake of office; it is a higher hope and a holier purpose ; they come now, when they do come, or as they shall come, for the Union, for good government, for constitutional government, for peace, for glory, and for the im- mortal renown of their country. Amid all the threats of dissolution, amid all the croakings and predictions of evil, when the gentleman gets up in- flamed by the momentary inspiration, and declares that there will be civil war, and when, while with one breath he says there will be civil war, in the next as he concludes, in an expression full of pathos, he says, 'Let us depart in peace,' 'crying peace, peace, when there is no peace' — amid all this, I have great THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 135 faith yet in the loyalty of the people of the South to the Union. I see around me to-day, on every hand, that the clouds are breaking away. I have great — I had well nigh said unshaken — confidence in right, in truth, and in duty. I see men of every shade of opinion upon other subjects, agreeing in this one thing : that in secession there is danger and death. I see from 'Old Chippewa,' from General Wool, from men of their high character, of their great age, of their proud career, of their enlarged patriotism, down to the lower ranks of men who love the country and venerate the Constitution — I see and I hear everywhere expressions that even yet fill the patriot heart with hope ; and I am not with- out hope that, when there is delay, when time is allowed to the feverish sentiment to subside and for returning reason to resume its place, trusted to the people of this whole Union, the Constitution of the Union will remain safe, unshaken forever; yes, sir, until, " 'Wrapt in flames the worlds of ether glow, And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below.' "Sir, as I approach a close, I am reminded that the honorable Senator from Louisiana has said, in a tone which I by no means admire, 'Now, gentle- men of the North, a State has seceded ; you must either acknowledge her independence, or you must make war.' To that we reply: we will take no counsel of our opponents; we will not acknowl- edge her independence. They say we cannot make war against the State; and the gentleman under- takes to ridicule the distinction which we make be- tween a State and individuals. Sir, it was a dis- 136 THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE tinction that Mr. Madison well understood; it was a distinction that General Jackson was very well determined to recognize ; it was the distinction which was made in the whole argument when the Consti- tution was formed; and I may say here and now, that all the arguments adduced by the gentleman from Elliot's Debates on the subject of the forma- tion of the Constitution, were arguments addressed against the propriety or wisdom of giving, under the old patched-up Confederation, power to the Govern- ment to compel States, because they could not ; they did not dare to do it, for they did not choose to con- found the innocent with the guilty, and make war on some portion of unoffending people because others were guilty; and therefore, among other reasons, the new Government was formed a Union, 'a more perfect Union,' by one people. That is the answer to the whole argument. "Now, sir, let us examine for a minute this idea that we cannot make war. First, we do not propose to do it. Does any gentleman on this side of the Chamber propose to declare war against South Car- olina? Did you ever hear us suggest such a thing? You talk to us about coercion ; many of you talk to us as if you desired us to attempt it. It would not be very strange if a Government, and hitherto a great government, were to coerce obedience to her law upon the part of those who were subject to her jurisdiction. No great cause of complaint in that, certainly. 'But,' says the gentleman, 'these persons offending against your law are a sovereign State; you cannot make war upon her ;' and, following out with the acuteness of a lawyer what he supposes to THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY BATTLE 137 be the modus operandi, he asks : 'What will you do if you will not acknowledge her independence, and you do not make war; how will you collect your revenue?' And he goes on to show very conclu- sively, to his own mind, that we cannot. He shows us how a skilful lawyer, step by step, will interpose exception, motion, demurrer, rejoinder, and sur- rejoinder, from the beginning to the end of the legal chapter ; and he says, with an air of triumph, which I thought did not well become a gentleman that is yet (may he remain so always) a Senator from a sovereign State, upon the floor of this Chamber; he says, with an air of triumph: 'It is nonsense; you cannot do it ; you will not acknowledge her ; you will not declare war; you cannot collect your revenue.' Sir, if that is the case to-day, it has been so for sev- enty years; we have been at the mercy of anybody and everybody who might choose to flout us. Is that true? Are we a Government? Have we power to execute our laws ? The gentleman threat- ens us with the consequences ; and he says if we at- tempt it, there will be all sorts of legal delays inter- posed, and when that is done, there will be a mob ; a great Government will be kicked out of existence by the tumultuous and vulgar feet of a mob, and he seems to rejoice at it. If we do not do it, he says, *Why do you not advance?' He puts me somewhat in mind of the lawyer — and belonging to that hon- orable profession myself, he will pardon me for al- luding to it — in the play of London Assurance, I think, who gets into a controversy with Cool, insults him, and says, when Cool does not kick him, that 'he is a low, underbred fellow; he cannot afiford i3