7;>.
TIlE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE -THE  SECTIONAL  PARTY.
SPE ECIE
OF'
HON. JOHN A. BINGHAM, OF 01H0.
r _o
Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 24, 1860.
0
M  as well; and it is eminently fit that the sectional
policy of   the President  and of his part y   s hould  be
rebuked in return  by t he w hole  - people.  Theri
is so  much in t he  tone o f t hi s paper that is is
tensely sectional, that  I am constrained to belieasw
that the President's plaintive invocation to allay
" the  demon  spirit," was but smoo th  dissimulr t i
tion, the better to  disguise the sectional: po lic y
of himself and his        party.
Sir, to  put down   for ev e r th is se ctional     party;
to  put atu  end forever to th is  sectional strir; and
sectional innovation upon the Constitution andthe rights of the people, I a m ready to join hands
with  go od  mes     t i n   every  section  of the  fnion,
That is  a fell spirit, a demon   spirit, which, und er
an      y  pretenc e   or for any   purpose, would strike
down all the defennes of law; would   s weep  away
all the  landmarks of right   and  justice; would
break down the  traditional policy of th i s    Goverwament, as wise  as i t is be ne ficent;   which, inb
stea~d of maintaining and perpetuating.peace
between every section of this country, would in-,
augurate and perpetuate discord, which would'
fill this goodly land with the lurid light of civ~
war; which would give its peaceful homes to
conflagration, and its it itizens t o    t he  swors;g
staining the  w hite   raim ent of its mountains  andt
the green vesture of its plains with the blood of
human sacrifice shed in that unnatural and un-:
matched atrocity, fraternal strife.
Notwithstanding all I have heard, sir, upon
this floor, of threats of disunion and civil war, I:
do not fear it; for there is in this land as power
stronger than armnies —that new power, born of
the enlightened intellect and conscience of the
people —the power of public opinion. That power.
speaks to-day, through the pen and the press,;
the living voice and the silent ballot. That power
is stronger, I repeat, than armies. No, sir; notwithstanding all these threats, there can be no
conflict of arms between thee great sections of
this Union. This land, consecrated to freedom
anld to man, by the blood of patriots and of martyrs, would refuse to bear up upon its holy
ground an armyr of traitors. L~ocal rebellions
there may be; but in the future, as in the past,they will be suppressed by the popular will; bythlat majestic voice of the nation, at whose lightest word the tumult of the mob is still, and the
Mr. CHAIRMAN: The annual message of the
President of the United States, which has been   I
referred to this Committee for its consideration,  r
should not be passed over lightly.  It contains
much that, in my judgment, is offensive to the
people and injurious to their interests, and which
should not be allowed to go to the country unchallenged.  It is my purpose, sir, to speak of
this paper with all the respect that is due to the
distinguished position of its author, but with the
utmost freedom and candor.  I speak to-day as
a representative of the people and for the people;
not as the representative of party or for party.
I speak to-day as an American citizen, claiming
every State and section and rood of the Republic
as part of my native country, that country wvhich:
at last has but one Constitution and one destiny.
I do not intend, in anything I may this day utter,
to do injustice to any section of that country, or
to any of its interests.
The President of the United States, in this
paper, invokes all good citizens to strive to allay
" the demon spirit of sectional hatred and strife
now alive in the land." This sectional spirit, to
which the President refers, manifested itself upon
this floor during the first two months of ttlis session. It found fit, fierce, and expressive utterance
on the other side of this Chamber, amongst the
avowed political friends of the President himself,
in their attempt to arraign and condemn sixty of
their peers here as the aiders and inciters of treason, insurrection, and murder;  and this, too,
without giving to the accused a hearing, without
testimony,       in defiance of all law,                  and without
subjecting the conscience of these self-constituted triers to the inconvenient obligation of an
official oath. While these gentlemen were thus
attempting to enforce mob law on this floor, they
were loud in proclaiming that the inauguration
of a Republican President, elected by the people
in conformity with the Constitution and laws,
should be resisted to the extremity of disunion
and civil war.
These were the enunciations with which our
ears were greated for two months, pending the
contest for the organization of this House. If it
was fit that the President should rebuke this
sectional spirit among the people, it is fit that its
manifestations upon this floor should be rebuked
I
J 
2
wild, stormy sea of human passion is calm. God
is not ia the whirlwind, nor in the earthquake,
nor in the storm.
The question to-day is, not how shall civil
war between the great sections of this Union be
averted-for that is not to be, it is an impossibility-but the question of to-day is, how shall
this sectional party and this sectional strife be
allayed? I answer, sir, that this sectional strife
will never be allayed by imitating the example,
or adopting the policy, of the President and his
party; never, while there is an honest head or an
honest heart in this land.  Neither will this sectional strife be allayed, but fostered, rather, by
the attempt, here or elsewhere, either by National
or by State legislation, to enact sedition laws, by
which to fetter the conscience, or stifle the convictions, of American citizens.  This sectional
strife will never be allayed by the attempt, here
or elsewhere, either by National or by State legislation, to annul the sacred right of domicile, to
make it a felony for any freeman, born anywhere
within the limits of the Republic, to live unmolested on the spot of his origin, so long as he
behaves himself well, and it pleases God to let
him live.
This                                         sectional strife never will be allayed by
the attempt  to nationalize chattel slavery, to
place it under the shelter of the Federal Constitution, and to maintain it in all the national domain, either by force of a Congressional slave
code, which the President recommends in this
message, of by force of Territorial legislation,
enacted by virtue of Congressional grants of
power.
Sir, it i      s in such legislation             as I  have named,
or in            the attempt to  inaugur a te such  legislation,
that the Prerident's                    p       arty, sometimes misnamed
the Democratic party, live         s,  and  m     oves,  and has
its being.  The       time was, at  the              organization of
this Government, when it wa         s conceded by every
State and every                                great statesman in the land, that
it       w       as the right  and the duty   of the Federal
Govern ment  to                         exclude slave labor and chatte l
slavery from                everey  r  o o d    of the national'domain,
and to protect the      fre     e labor of freemen,  not only
in  the T      erritorie s    of t he U nited States, but in
everyState of  the U nion           or, North, South, East,  and
Wes,  and wherever the jurisdiction of the Goveeranent extended, eithe         r          on the land or the sea.
In          tha t  d       ay, sir, the grand words of the Constitution, " TO ESTABLISH JUSTICE, TO PROMOTE THE
GENERAL WELFARE, AND SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF
LIBTBRY," were not denounced as "glittering generalities," or the utterances of "infant philosophers;" but were reverently hpld, believed in,
and acted upon, as absolute verities. Then, sir,
to promote the general welfare, Congress-the
First Congress-legislated for the greatest good
of the greatest number, by protecting the free
labor of the whole country; and to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty, that Congress re-enacted the ordinance of 1787, (which
had ceased with the Confederation to be lasw,)
for the government of all the national territory;
declaring thereby that NO PERSON therein should
ever be enslaved, except for crime; or be deprived of life or liberty, but by due process of law
and the judgment of his peers; nor of his propert~ Xheproduct of hi~ to41~ without just cornpen
sation. Under the influence of this legislation,
enacted in the very spirit of the Constitution,
and sanctioned by the great name of Washington,
the country commenced its sublime march of independence; and      was not then, as    now, poss essed   of th  a     t devil, that demon spirit, which today rends  and d     istracts her.
In that  d ay,  sir, it was e verywhere declare d
and ad mitted  that   slavery  d      id not exist by virtue
of the Constitution;that the Constitution    did
not operate on any class of men, black or white,
as property, but only n   a nd al ways a s persons;
that  the inst itution  of slavery was purely local,
sectiona l, not national; existing only  within the
limits -of such of the  Stat es as    tolerated it, and
there only by force  of local, no t  national,  law;
that slavery  was a grea t  evil to the master and
slave, foreign to   the spirit o f our laws and institutions, an  evil to be  softened, not a ggravated,
to be go t  rid of and ende d, not to be spread  into
new lands to be perpetuated and eternlzed. Unhappily, the t ie   am   i       the ame in the history of the Republic, when these just  sen ti ments,  and this wise
national legislation to which I have referred,
came to be questioned and denounced.
This was the beginning of this sectional strife.
When and by whom was this strife'inaugurated,
by whom has it been continued, and who and
what party are responsible fox its continuance?
In the year 1803, by a treaty of purchase, the
United States acquired from France the Territory
of Louisiana. This acquisition was made confessedly without warrant in the Constitution, but
under a supposed public necessity. In 1804, an
organic act was passed for the government of so
much of this Territory as lay south of the thirtythird parallel of north latitude. By that act the
traffic in foreign and domestic slaves was prohibited in that Territory, under the penalty of fine
and the emancipation of the slaves. Jefferson,
in his approval of this act, was either ignorant
or careless of the alleged duty of this Government to protect the slave property of the citizens
of the slave States in the national Territories.
It was clearly a violation of this alleged duty to
provide that the citizen should not traffic in his
slave property in that Territory without subjecting himself to fine and forfeiture.
The subsequent organization of Missouri as a
slave State within that Territory, and her application for admission as such into the Union,
gave rise to the first great sectional conflict,
which was finally determined by the admission
of that'State, and the enactment of the compromise act of 1820, by which chattel slavery
was forever excluded from all that territory lying
west of Missouri and north of the parallel of 36~
30/ north latitude.
After this compromise the nation reposed in
peace, and its policy in favor of free territory
and the protection of free labor was deemed settled, until about the year 1830, when, under the
beneficent effects of this policy, it became apparent that, unless it was abandoned, slavery itself
must give way and cease to be in the slave
States, by the general consent and in obedience
to the ever-increasing- demands for fr'ee labor.
Then, sir, Maryland tolerated open and active
effiorts among her citizens for the abolition of
domestic slavery. Then Kentuckty tolerated- like 
1~
3
e  "Your ordinance * * * is the grave of libertry. b-I
fore I will pollute my lips or perjure my soul with your tes'
oath, you may cut oftr my right hand, and nail it up as a 
ger-board, to point my way to the gibbet."
That State became a military encampment;
the cry to arms  was everywhere heard within
her borders,  and  the treasonable  purpose  of
armed resistance to the laws everywhere pro claimed.
Strange, sir, that armed resistance in South
Carolina to the national laws for the protection
of free labor should be hailed ss patriotism, and
those who advised or attempted it crowned with
honors, while an  old man, into whose soul the
iron of oppression has entered, whlo, in his wild
dream of duty, lifts his hand against the slave
laws of Virginia, hoping thereby to shiver the
fetters which bind four million of men, and lift
them from the  darkness of their prison-house
into the sunlight of liberty, is denounced as a
traitor, and strangled as a felon.  What part, sir,
did the President, who  now complains of sectional strife, play in this sectional raid upon the
laws and the interests of free labor, in this at tempt to paralyze the mighty arm of intelligent~
industry, in which is the nation's strength, in,
order to secure increased profits to the few, who
produce by proxy, and live upon the unpaid toil
of slaves?
Go read the record of his shameless surrender
of the interests and rights of free labor to the
rebels against the law, the conspirators against
the national prosperity. I commend that page
which  records. his conflict with honest Jot-ia
Davis, of Massachusetts.  Hear this, our present
complacent counsellor and adviser against " sec —
tional hatred and strife," urge the sectional demands of South  Carol;.na, in words that  should
be remembered only to blast him:   "Reduce,",
said he, "the  stand ard of prices in th is count ry,
to the  standard of prices in Europe, and you
cover our country with blessings and benefits."
That is, make your sons of honest toil, in your
fields, and shops, and mines, work for the pittance of sixpence a day, as in plundered,  oppressed, and fettered Spain, and France, and
Austria, and you cover our country-that is, tie
non-laboring, non-producing few of the South":with blessings and benefits."  To  allay this
sectional strife, this demand was, to a great  extent, complied with.
Notwithstanding this suicidal change  of the
national policy, avowedly, to enable the slaveholder to buy cheaper, and sell at an increased
profit by obtaining a reciprocal reduction of duties upon his slave products in the foreign  market; notwithstanding this blow dealt by the
Government upon the mighty brotherhood of
free, intelligent industry in the North, the free
States, though inferior in fertility and in climate
and territorial extent and geographical position
to the slave States, maintained the ascendency
in wealth} population, intelligence; and, unless
further interfered with by additional sectional
legislation, would inevitably soon assert such an
influence in the administration of the Government as would permanently restore the timehonored policy of protection to free labor, North
and South. Thlat fact was made apparent by
the great political revolution of 1840, anyl tabe:
protective enactmnent of 1842, To check thi''
efforts for the abolition of slavery among her
citizens; and, Virginia saw and felt in every
fibre of her existence that she must elther throw
off that giant wrong, or perish in its embrace.
Her Legislative Assembly about that time
engaged in a -debate on the question of the
total abolition of the system; some of her ablest
citizens  insisting  upon  it,  foremost  among
whom was a distinguished gentleman who, but
the  the  oher day, was appoin ted         our        minister pleni potentia ry to Fr       ance, (Mr. Faulkner,)         wh         o    re peated  the expressive and                           prophetic admonition
of Jefferson: "Yo u must adopt some p            lan of
emancipation, or worse will follow.'; It was
then, sir, that in the South this sectional strife
w      as again  renewed, by  opposing emancipation
an    d  by  making  war upon  th e  g reat              and be nefi cent policy of protection to free labor. That
strife was by the South  brought into                        these Halls, 
and  here inaugura ted, by demand                      ing        that the
system of pr ote cti ng and  encoura gi ng       the f ree
lab     or             of the freemen   of               this country by legisla tion should be abandoned.  That sectional  par ty in  th    e       South, then, as now, ostracize               d every
open and avowed friend of emancipation and of
protection         to f re     e labor.
Mr. SMITH,  of Virginia.  I want t       o  s   ay to  the
gentleman from Ohio
Mr. BINGHAM.  The   gentl           em      an will excuse me.
Mr. SMITH, of Virgin         ia.  I           do not                                 r-ant the
ge ntlem        an t o say      that Virginia did              that.  Some
of          her p oliticians did      it, butVirginia repudiated   it.
Mr. BINGHAM.  I am speaking of her polit           icians;  and I wish to say  that then,  ever since,
and now, the S ou         th h   ad and has men             superior
to all such narrow, bigoted, selfish, mercenary
prejudic     es an  d  p   ractic es; but, unhappily, the
gentleman  from Virginia is not                                 one  of them.
Whatever pre                     texts may  have been urged,    the
real purpose of the South,  in assailing this policy of protection, w       as   to        s      ecur e   an advantage to
the slave-owners o          f the South, at the expense of
t        he         free laborers of  the   whole country, North
and South. The aban donment of                          this system
for such a       purpose involved the   practical applicatio        n, i n  the legislation of the country,             of the
specious dogma that the Constitution was made
for the minority; it involved the specific disavowal of the expr      esse   d  in t   ent and purpose of the
Constitution, " the promotion of the general welf    are," of the -greatest good of the greatest number; it involved the sacrifice of the interests of
th      e  m any for     the benefit of the few. What was
this, sir, but a demand               that Congress should so
legislate as to make slave labor more profitable,
and free labor less profitable?
That has been the demand, the end, and aim,
of this sectional party, from that day to this.
The watchword of this party then was, and still
s, the expansion and protection of slavery and
slave labor, at the sacrifice of free labor, by the
withdrawal of legislative protection from it. To
accomplish the repeal of the lass which protected free labor, then, as now, the South blustered, and threatened secession and treason.
South Carolina passed her ordinance and test
act, so offensive and treasonable in terms, as to
wring from the gentle spirit of her Grimkd~ in
her Senate Chamber, the burning invective: 
4.
ever-increasing political influence of free labor-      a
this triumph of freedom over slavery, of light
over darkness, of right over wrong-these same
pro-slavery sectionalists insisted upon the repeal
of the protective act of 1842, and the maintenance by legislation of the political equilibrium
of the slave with the free States.  That was the
prbposition of Mr. Calhoun.   I regret that an
intellect so strong, and once so national as was
his'could be cribbed and fettered by this sectional spirit which demanded legislation for the
few, to the lasting injury of the many.  He yielded to the demands of this sectional spirit, this
slave interest, and, as its champion, insisted that
the advancing column of free labor should be
checked, and made  to halt in its rapid and
sublime march to await the lagging step of the
fettered bondman.
To maintain this political equilibrium, having
converted all the territory south of the thirtysixth parallel into slave States, including Florida, all north was to be declared a trust held in
common for the slave and free States, into which
slavery was to go with the citizen of the slave
States, and to be acknowledged and protected
there under the Constitution.  This proposition
involved the avoidance or repeal of all that
legislation which had, by the consenit of Monroe
and Jackson and Van Buren and Polk, forever
excluded slavery from the national Territories
between the compromise line of 1820 and the
Pacific ocean.  It was but the announcement of
that political blasphemy and atheism which decla'res that it is right to enslave labor, to take
away by law from honest toil and honest endeavor and honest purpose its just reward-proclaiming that a man shall not reap where he has
sown;  that he shall not enjoy the fruit of his
own toil; that the roof-tree which his own hands
have reared shall not be for shelter or defence to
him or his children.
To maintain the equilibrium of the slave with
the.free States, the Federal Government must,
by legislation, counteract the laws of population
anfad growth; must essay to annul the great law
of human progress, the law of civilization, that
they who cultivate the land shall possess it.  Intelligence, the central orb in our industrial, political, and social system, must pale its splendors
in'the darkening shadows of a perpetual and
ever-increasing despotism, thatthe political equi librium of the slave States may be maintained.
To accomplish this end, this sectional party fur ther demanded that a foreign slave State, as
lar,ge in territorial extent as New York, Pennsyl vania, and Ohio, should be annexed as a slave
State to the Union, for the twofold purpose of
furnishing to Virginia a new market in which to
make merchandise of her children, and securing
tot a sparse slave population of two hundred
thousand a Senatorial representation equal to
that of the Empire State with her three million
freemen.
The proposition shocked right-mninded citizens
and patriots of all parties and of all sections.
The great Commoner of Kentucky opposed it as
a violation of the nation's plighted faith, and,
with the prescience of a seer, proclaimed that its
accomplishment would  involve the cEntry in
-      b g'reaft~ ot MAl nt'nt                                  "     nlatio'' tmities —s an
Tio al dishonor and national eulwa r.  That pure a n d,
noble man, Mr. J. Q. Adams, who for fifty years
had  stood a  war d er  of civi lizatione     and liberty,
denounced it as treason to the r   ights of  man.
The on ce  chosen of       the D emocracy to the Chief
Magistracy, Mr. Van  Buren, also denounced it as
dangerous to the peace and honor of the country.
This proposition, sir, was the very incarnation
of that demon spirit of sectional strife. This
sectional party banded together and trampled
down the good men and true, who rejected, with
honest  scorn, the monstrous  purpose.   They
persecuted the Lion-Hearted Kentuckian to his
grave, and, aided by such traitors to the right
in the North as the present Chief Magistrate,
they hunted down the noble and patriotic Silas
Wright.
In accomplishing this infamy, this party committed a wanton, deliberate violation of that
Constitution which the immediate actors in this
wrong were sworn to support, that Constitution
which these same gentlemen have now the audacity to say is with them sacred as life itself I
Where, sirs, was your reverence for the Constitution when the treaty-making power-the only
power under the Constitution which can contract
with foreign States-was struck down; its solemn rejection of the proposed contract of Texan
annexation treated with contempt and set asideby the wicked and flagitious joint resolutions,
sustained by a majority of one in the Senate, andl
by which Texas came into the Union? This
perfidious act of aggression was no sooner done,
your banner of liberty was no sooner advanced
to wave in solemn mockery over a land of slaves
in this newly-acquired domain, than this party
took another step forward in this war of aggression, and asserted that the left bank of the lio
Grande was the western boundary of this new
slave State, and, to establish it, sent the army
of the United States forward, under the lead, but
against the protest, of that brave man, Zachary
Taylor. You did establish and mark that line,
not only by the waters of; that river, rolling in
silent majesty from the mountains to the sea,
but you marked it as well by an ineffaceable,
crimson line of blood.
Having thus fixed the Texan boundary, this
sectional party demanded indemnity for the past
and security for the future. Indemnity, sir, for
what? Not for what we lost, but for what we
took and held by force, and without color of
right. Security for what? Not security for a
violated Constitution; not security for the rights
of freemen and free labor, which had been cloven down i but security for the " great humanitarian fact," as the gentleman from Alabama
[Mr. CURRY] called~the institution of slavery. To
this end, this sectional party, by the national
arm, conquered large portions of Mexico, and
annexed them, softening the venality of the act
by the formrula of a constrained treaty of peace
at Guadalupe Hidalgo. That these acquisitions
were made for this purpose, let the subsequent
conduct of this sectional party bear witness.
California, a portion of this Mexican acquisition, was rich in gold, in a genial climate, in a^
fruitful soil, and commanding in geographical
and comm~ercial position. Such a country w~
not Wriih~it ~trong ~;at    f6ns to anal, ~d   i:> n,
1, - 
A'                                                         J  >.. <. 
5
rejected, and remanded to the condition of a
Territorial organization, with the concession to
the slave interest that Congress should not then
exercise its adnmitlted power of legislation for the
protection of liberty and right, either in that Ter  ritory or in Utah.
Ye;, sir; the free North, with her twenty mil  lion of freemen, for the sake of peace, submitted
to the humiliation of the demand of this  sec  tional party, that in those vast Territories  the
law of God should not be re-enacted, as Mr.
Webster called the law of liberty.  That great
man, now sleeping in his tomb by the great sea,
at the demand of this power, yielded up his own
convictions, and not only consented to this, but
joined with others in yielding a reluctant assent
to the enactment of the fugitive slave  law of
1850-a  law which, in direct violation of the
Constitution, transfers the judicial power from
judges duly appointed by the President, with the
consent of the Senate, to irresponsible commis sioners appointed by the Circuit Courts, tender ing them a bribe of five dollars, if, upon e xparte
evidence-the affidavit of some unknown  man,
taken in the rice swamps of Florida, it may be,
before some justice of the peace-he shall ad judge a man brought before him on his warrant
a fugitive slave, guilty of the crime of preferring
liberty to bondage.
That flagitious law insults the conscience of
the people, by declaring it a crime  tO exercise
that highest duty enjoined by God upon  man charity.  That law also discriminates most offen,sively in favor of slave property over all other
movable property, by providing that the slave owner, or claimant, may, on his affidavit, have
his property restored to him at the national ex pense; while,  if the  cattle of  a   Northern farmer
escape     into anoth er State, he  must    reclaim them
at his own expense.
I should like to be informed of the constitu tional provision for this discrimination. Can it
be accounted for upon any other hypothesis than
that this Government is made exclusively to ex pand, maintain, and protect, the slave institution, and to legislate exclusively for the pecuni ary and political benefit of three hundred and
fifty thousand slaveholders? The people are
told that they shall not repeal this act of 1850,
or the Union will fall.  How  comes it that the
Union lasted for sixty years without this enact ment? Having thus saved the Union by enact ing the fugitive law of 1850, and by refusing, in
the Territorial acts for Utah and New Mexico, to
re-enact the law of God, these sectional disturb ers and aggressors, in'Democratic Convention at
Baltimore, in 1852, resolved to suppress all agitation of this question, either in or out of Congress.
Thus, to maintain as a finality this legislation
for slavery, this sectional party  attempted  to
muzzle the press, and stifle the lowest whisper
of the national conscience. even in humble protest against this infamous enactment. These
gentlemen did not themselves obey their own
officious and insulting order of silence. The
whole country: knows who opened anew this
angry cont.roversy in 1854, and filled the whole
land with the agitation of this question, by the
repeal of thte eighth section of the act of 1820,
Xknown  as thoe Missoulri compromise,  under the
ergetic, and   ad venturous people.  The          y  f orsook
all          the endearments, and burst awa       y  fr om all
the ties of home            woand kindred, and took posses  sion of the land  of go        ld. A        n     ation was born in
a d    ay.    A    new Statsr was thus created as by
m    agic,         washed by     th     e quiet waves and guarded
by the Golden Gates of          the gr  eat P acific.  Th e
people of Cali                                  fornia, and also  of New Mexico,
formed each a free Constitution, and hand in
handthe   in    the  came, in t he white   robes  of freedom,
a sking       for admission as free States into the
Union. This    cons                       titutional exercise of  the right
of petition was made the occasion for a wild
sto rm         of        s e ctional    a    gitat     i on.
In the mi       dst of the tmlt, the brave patriot,
President Tayl          or, t he chos en of  the people,  resi dent in the South, but                            not of this  sectional party;
full of years and full  of    h onors; calm  and                   col,
lec ted,     just and       h         onest,    with               a patriarchal sim plicity, said, let    t hese new free States come  in;
there is room f           or  them in the paternal mansion in  that      great Uni on b   uilt                 for freedom by those
mighty men of old, whom God taught to build for
glory  and for beauty.  N            o, cried              this sectional
party,             we       i      nsist that the proposed       Constitutions
embrace too much              territory for perpetual free —
dom;              thos e  terri tories  must  be divided;      a  part
of these  grea        t regi ons at least   must be kept  in
reser      ve for sl avery;             they,  together with Ut ah,
m    ust b e   divi  ded by    the  thir ty-  s ixth parallel.
That was   the u       sim   atum;                it must    be acceded to,
or   t      he Union should perish.
T    hese sectional partisans hissed lik       e  so many
serpents upon the path of the brave old man,
President Taylor, whose whole life had been
spent in th e                        camp or on              the battle-field. He was
denounced as a traitor-not to his country, but
to the slave interest-and was hunted, with a
relentless persecution, to his grave. He adhered,
thank God-he  adhe              re       d with more  than an eastern dev otion, to  th e            right of  the people and          the
highest          in terests  of             the couniry.  Thus steadfast in his great purpose, the last summons came,
not too soon for him, but too soon for us. Death
laid his hand upon that manly form, and at its
touch his great and noble spirit departed, ar,iculating those grand words, noble as ever fell
from hero's or patriot's lips before, "1 I have tried
to do my duty." Sir, itwas not in the field of poised
battle; it was not when the earthquake and the
fire led the charge; it was not when victory,
with its lance-light and triumph singing, threw
its splendors around the person of that heroic
man, that his great character so fully revealed
itself, as in that dread hour, and the near coming of the shadow of death, when he said, " I
have tried to do my duty."
When all was over, when the strong arm
which had conquered, and the clarion voice
which had commanded in the storm of battle,
were powerless and hushed, those who had assailed his motives —who had resisted his purposes of justice and fair-dealing with the young
Pacific States —those sectional agitators and ag.
gr essors tooks fresh courage, whispering, likegibbering ghosts, above his perished dust, " after
life's fitfull iever he sleeps well." The agitation,
the aggression, the conspiracy against free principles, free labor, and equal rights, went on.
California was a'dmitted; but N~ew Mexico was.
-- tI 
A?
6:
false pretence of giving to the people of the great
Territories north of that line the right of selfgovernmluent, under the title of popular sovereignty.  The demagogue cry was: the people of
a Territory, like the people of a State, are perfectly free to establish slavery, black or white.
True, the Federal Government appoints for all
the Territories their Governors, judges, and marshals; prescribes the qualifications of their electors; limits, as well as confers, their legislative
powers; and approves or annuls, at pleasure, all
their legislative enactments; but the people have
the right to enslave  and  sell one  another.
"This," said the President, "is a right as old as
the right of self-government "-the right to do
wrong, and to be supported in that wrong by the
nation.  This right of popular sovereignty not
only includes the right to convert a man into
property, but, for reasons of State necessity, to
roast and eat him, if they see fit.
The President, as the chief of this sectional
party, in one year after his inauguration, announced, as another principle of this sectional
party, that slavery exists in all the Territories,
not by virtue of this ancient right of self-govern- 
ment, but by virtue of the Constitution of the
United States.  To make good this proposition,
this party, aided by the President, attempted to
fasten the Lecompton slave Constitution upon
the people of Kansas, against their protest-that
Constitution waich declared that it should never
be so altered or amended as to a ect the ownership of
property in slaves, and that this property was higher
than all Constitutions. This sectional party, foiled
in this attempt to legalize this atrocity only by
the united action of the Republican party on this
floor, next enacted that other statute, the English bill, for the double purpose of restricting
the exercise of the right of petition, and of fettering the progress of free labor by the formation of a free State.  The population, all-sufficient for a slave State, was held not sufficient
for a free State.  The demon spirit of this enactment can be seen in the declaration of the President, that slavery exists in Kansas by virtue of the
Constitution of the United States, and therefore KaCan-t
sas is as much a slave Slate as Georgia or South
Carolina.
This dogma is the burden of the message now
before us.   The llresident. has not more than
concluded his invocation " to allay the demon
spirit'," than he informs us that the Supreme
Court has finally determined the question of slavery in the Territories, and established the right
of every citizen to take his slave property into
the Territories and "have it protected there under the Constitution; " and that "neither Congress, nor a Territorial Legislature, nor any                          heSman power, has any authority to annul or impair this vested right."  Yes, sir, we are gravely
told that a mere stump speech made in the
Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, on this
Territorial question, whereof the court had confessedly no jurisdiction, is a final judicial decision
which has " irrevocably fixed the status of a Territory" as a slave Territory. "Had it been decided,"'
pays the P     r        esident, "          that either Congress or   the
Territorial Legislature possess the power to imp~air the right of property in slaves, the evil
would be intolerablY." it is settled thats the
Judiciary must relieve against such Territ  orial
legislation    as im pairs     this  right, and   that Congress " must strerngthen their hands by further
legislation."   I submit that it was bad  enough
for this   party to declare, s it did,  fromn 1854 to
1856, that the   s cattered settlers    of a T erritory
were perfectly free  to  ens lave  the ir f ellow men in
the  Territ or ies;  but  who  ca n      fathom th at lower
deep of infamy to which it descends when it
aver s that property in sl av   es wi th in t he Territories is  a vested  right, to b e  prote cted by  a Co ngressional slave code?
The President seems to think, and so to instruct us, that we are to be bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court in the discharge of
our duties here. The time was, sir, when the
President thought and spoke differently. In the
Senate, in  1841, when the fiscal bank bill was
under  consideration, this same  person, now
President, then a Senator, on being told that the
constitutionality of the questio;l had been settled
by the Supreme Court, said:
" If the Judiciary had settled the question, I should never
hold myself bound by their decision.  * * * If they failed
to convince me that the law was constitutional, I should be
guilty of perjury before high Heaven if I voted in its favor."-Congressional Globe, vol. 10, page 163.
If the Supreme-Court is to decide all constitutional questions for us, why not refer every question of constitutional power to that body, not
already decided, before acting upon it. l recognise the decisions of that tribunal as of binding
force only as to the parties and privies to the
suit, and the rights particularly involved and
passed upon. The court has hopower,in deciding
the right of Dred Scott and of his children to
their liberty, to decide, so as to bind this body,
that neither Congress, nor a Territorial Legislature, nor-any human power, has authority to
prohibit slavery in the Territories; neither has
that tribunal the power to decide that five million
persons, born and domiciled in this land, " have
no rights which we are bound to respect." The
Judiciary are entitled to respect; but if they arrogate powers not conferred upon them, and attempt by such arrogation of power to take away
the legislative power of the whole people, and
to deprive large numbers of them of their natural
rights, I claim, as a Representative, the right to
disregard such assumed authority, and, as a
citizen and a man, to appeal from such decision to that final arbriter, the public opinion of
the country.
With Jefferson, I deny that the Supreme Court
is the final arbiter on all questions of political
power, and assert that the final arbiter on all
such questions is the people-that people which
ordained the Constitution. While I would condemn armed resistance to any decision of the Supreme Court, or to the execution of any statute
of the United States, I would claim for myself,
in common with all my fellow-citizens, the right
to question their- propriety, to denounce their injustice, and to insist that whatever is wrong
-therein shall be corrected. This is one of " the
powers reserved to the people."' While the people should habitually revere the Judiciary as the
ministers of justice, they should not forget that
the judge is fallible, and sometimes stains his
ermine with that darkest of all crimnes that ever
blackened the sunny pape of human life —the 
I    ~            ~           "'' 
7.   t-  t    }    t    S-f-R: -
11 --,            t"I,,
crime of judicial murder!  That people which
are jealous of all delegated power, whether judi- 
cial, legislative, or executive, and ready to avenge
the wanton and oppressive abuse of it, are most
likely to maintain their liberties. 
England. had her judicial monester, Jeffreys,
who could hang his court in scarlet, fit emblem
of cruelty and injustice; who could condemn,
without a hearing, innocent men and women to
a speedy and violent death, mocking at their
fear and laughing at their calamity.  That was
a just retribution which overtook him when he
was made to skulk and hide from the wrath of
an outraged people; to disfigure his face and
disguise his person in filthy apparel, in hope to
elude their stern, searching gaze.  Vain hope!
no disguise could hide the features of that ter   rible face, which had glared upon the people from
the high places of power with a ferocity that
filled them with horror.  He who  had been
Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and Lord
High Chancellor of England; who could boast
a judicial massacre of three hundred and twenty
victims; this man, unapproatched in infamy, in
order to be saved from the fury of the people,
was trundled by the train-bands through the
streets of London, pallid with fear and be  grimed with dust, at his own request was com  mitted to the Tower; and accepted with thank  fulness the protection of those dark walls, made
famous by so many crimes and sorrows, there to
remain, amid gloom and solitude, friendless and
alone, until remorse should gnaw  away  his
heartstrings, and send him to his last account.
With such an example before us, we, the linan
decendents        of th ose who witnessedan and avenged
Jeffreys's jud   icial crimes, are not to be told that
the Judiciary are, a          t p leasure, and by the as  sumption    of power, to bind  the co nsci enc    e           and
dispose of the lib   erties and lives                  of the people l
Bu      t, sir, the Pr esident respects                    the decisions
of the Supreme Court only when it suits his pur pose,  and  accords with  the interests of slavery
and the de mand                      s of the s        ectional slave party.
In this    message,  in which the President claims
that                       the Supreme  Court has finally settled the
ve sted  right o                              f property in    slaves beyo;d the
pow er of Congress or a  Territor    ia         l Legislature,
or any  human authority, to affec t it,  he        tells us
that  the Spanish claimyants "in the Amistad
case" are clearly entitled to compensation under
the Spanish treaty of 1795, and recommends that
an appropriation be made for that purpose out
of the National Treasury.
What is this Amistad case? Who are these
Spanish claimanits?  On the 28th day of Juue,
1839, a Spanish schooner, named Amistad, sailed
from the port of Havana, in Cuba, bound to
Pueito Principe, in the same island, having on
board Captain Ferrer, and two Spanish gentlemen named Ruiz and Montez; also fifty-three
Africans, claimed and held by these Spaniards
as their slaves. These fifty-three persons were
natives of Africa, speaking an Afiican dialect.
Ignorant and uninstructed as they were, they
had the natural love of liberty, and the natural
affections of humanity for h-ome and kindred,
sweet visions of which soothed their troubled
rest amid the horrors of that second death, the
middle passage.
The felon-ship~ wigi its cargo of human souhr
Emoved out, like a thing o f      life, over the  calm,
blue waters of that w estern s ea, o n which was
seen, sinking beneath  it s waves, the lifeless body
of one  of th ose  capti ve  child ren of  sorrow.   The
felon-ship floats on. The  day is  gone; the   mists
of night gatbther, " l      ow and cold, like   the shadow
of death, upon the  doodned a nd  guilty vessel, as
it labors in darkness  amid the  lightnings of  the
sea, its thin  masts  wr i tten  upon the  sky in line s
of  blood, and  girded with condemnation."  The
uplifted arm of one  of th ose  sons of  wrong and
oppression,  made st r ong by      the       cighty  arm of
the  Go d of  the oppr  essed, comes down in terri   ble retribution upon the  master at the  he lm, and
he  falls a lif eless  corpse u p on   the deck. HIis
bo dy is  consigned, wi th  tha t  of his captive  who
had  gon e   before, to the  same silent  buria l in  the
d eep waters, there to rest   unti l the  sea gives up
its dead I
On the 27th of August, 1839, the United States
brig Washington captured the vessel and crew,
off the  co ast of the United States, and brought
her i nt o the port  of New Lo     ndon,  C onnecticut.
The officers of the brig filed a libel in the
District Court of the United States for the dis   trict of Connecticut, against the vessel, cargo,
and slaves, for salvage. On the 29th of August,
1839, Ruiz and Montez filed in that court claims
to the negroes as their slaves, and claimed the
right to hold them under the treaty of 1795. The
United':States attorney for the district of Con   necticut filed an information, stating that the
Minister of Spain had claimed of the Govern  ment of the United States, that the vessel, cargo,
anti'laves, should be restored under the provis  ions of the treaty of 1795, between Spain and
the United States. On the 23d of January, 1840,;
the district judge made a decree in the case,
wherein is recited the decree of the Government
of Spain, made December, 1817, prohibiting the
slave trade, and declaring all negroes brought
into the dominions of Spain by slave traders
free, and enjoining the execution of the decree
on all officers of Spain in all her dominions.
The court decided that these Afiicans were
kidnapped, and could not be held or claimed
under the treaty of 1795. From this decree the
U.nited States, in pursuance of the demand of the
Minister of Spain, duly accredited to the United
States, appealed to the Circuit Court of the Uni ted States for the district of Connecticut.    The
Circuit Court affirmed the decree of the District
Court in the premises; and from this decree of
the Circuit Court, the United States appealed to
the Supreme Court.  At the January term, 1841,
of the Supreme Court of the United States, this
great cause came on to be heard upon the claim
of Ruiz and Montez to these Africans as their
slaves, and the answer of the kidnapped Afri cans, that they were natives of Africa, born free,
and of right ought to be free, and not slaves;
that in the land of their nativity they were unlawfully kidnapped, and forcibly, and against
their will, and under circumstances of great
cruelty, carried to Cuba. Spain, and the "S2panish claimants,'} Ruiz and Montez, were ably represented on the trial of the cause by the Attorney
General of the United States} Mr. Gilpin. These
Africans, captives in a strange land, awaited.
with fear the issue, in the prisons of Connlecticut. To the honor. of..our coutry and' of our
I
I
I
;-,i 
8
both Great Britain and the United States  " are
desirous of continuing their efforts to promote
its ENTIRE A1BOLITION;" and it is thereby agreed
"that both the contracting parties shall use their
best endeavors  to accomplish so desirable an
object."  (U. S. Statutes at Large, vol. 8, p. 223.
The President gravely says that we should
annex Cuba in order to put an end to the Afri can slave trade, and that until this is done there
is no hope for benighted Africa.  The sincerity
of the President's professions of sympathy for
"benighted Africa" might not tax our credulity
quite so much, if the President had executed our
laws against this traffic at home, and if he had
not asked us to pay these Spaniards for kidnap ping Africa's children.
This Cuban  annexation  is only another at tempt by legislation to maintain the political
equilibrium of the slave with the free States, by
the increase of slave representation in Congress.
While this sectional party thus press these sec tional measures upon us and  upon the country,
with equal zeal they resist all attempts to enact
into a  law that  much-needed and  beneficent
national measure, the homestead bill, which has
thrice passed this House, and has been as often
defeated by this sectional party in the Senate.
That measure, sir, which would give free homes
to the homeless families of all our citizens, North
and South, (and in the latter section they are
legion,) finds no favor in this message, and was
but the other day resisted and attempted to be
defeated by the vote of every Representative of
the slave interest, save one, on this floor.  This
reasure would fill our vast Territories with a
free and industrious population; would greatly
i n crease the number of land ed  propri etors, and
the measure of our wealth; it would secure to
every family the means of acquiring that com   petence which, politically speaking, is the very
rock of life, on which the citizen may stand erect,
unawed by power, unbribed by gain, ready to
return the supercilious sneer, to smile at the
haughty frown, to give to truth its due force, and
scorn " the embroidered lie."
This measure, so just, so national, and benefi   cent, is: resisted by this sectional party. There
staadsithe long list of' aggressions of this sec   tional Democratic party, to which, in the brief
time allowed me, I have but referred:
The repeal of the laws for the protection of
free labor; the repeal of the laws for the protec    tion of freedom and free labor in the Territories;
the conquest of fbreign territory for slavery; the
admission into the Union of' a foreign slave
State; the rejection by this sectional party of the
homestead bill; the restriction of -the right of
petition; the restoration of fugitive slaves at the
national expense; the attempt to reward slave
pirates for kidnapping Africans; the attempt:to
acquire Cuba, with her six hundred thousand
slaves; the attempt to fasten upon an unwilling
people a slave Constitution; the attempt to en    act a sedition law, thereby restricting the freedom
of the press and the freedom of speech, in direct
violation of the Constitution, which declares
that Congress shall make no law abridging either;
and the attempt, by extra-judicial interference,
to take away from the people and their Repre     sentative3 the power to legislate for freedom und
freo labor m the Territories 
common humanity, these c    apti ves fo und a n a dsocate  in one of the  most  remarkabl   e  m en o  f    his
time,     or any  time, now gone,  the profound and
illustrious John Quincy Adams-that venerabl    e  m     an, who had filled      the highest and most
responsible trusts  of  hist country,  and  had confer        red honor upon each.   After an abs ence      of       a
third of a                 century from    the presence of that great
tribunal, Mr. Adams appeared                              to plead  the cause
of        u  a the      pooro, the oppressed, and defenceless.  He
said:
H   I appear to plead the cause of justice, *  * *  of liberty, and life, in     behalf of many of my fellow-men,               before
that sal me co   ur t which, in a former age, I had add ressed  bil
support ofl the    r ight         s of property."                                              I
Touching was his allusion to the fact, that                         he
sto    o    d b   efore  the s a     me court,  but not before the
same judges-Marshall and his great associates
were gone to join the illustrious dead-stronger
than an     y  fo rmal argument wa   s        his            statement:
" This c    ourt is a court of justice; and justice demands      that
the rights                           of each party should be allowed to himself.
It was  in vai    n        th     at  the treaty of 1795 was set
up by the A        tt or     ney Gene ral as securing to Ruiz
and Miontez  th e  righ                               t to hold  these men, women,
an         d  c hildren,                a s  their chattels, against their para mount right  to th em sel     ves, by the law of       nature
and of  nature's God.   The  cour                   t decided the
case; and, by th eir solem n judg      ment, dec lared
that the kidnapped Africans      were  free,                       a      nd
should be dismissed from cu       stody,  and go hence
without day. They did go hence. They went
back        to their own coun  try, under          the protection
of  our flag, singing               their simple songs of             thanks giving to him  and His servants wh o               had deliv ered them from the hand of the spoiler.    How com      es  it, sir, that t    he Pre sid ent has so
high a           regard  for  the decision of the Supreme
Court in the Dred Scott case, and so profound a
contempt for its decision in the Amistad case?
Is it because the Dred Scott case is a decision
AGAINST LIBERTY AND LIFE, and the Amistad case
a decision IN FAVOR OF LIBERTY AND LIFE?  By
what logic does the President hold the one bind  ing upon us, and the other not binding upon us?
He recommends an appropriation to) be made by us,
to be paid to Spain, to be distributed among these
Spanish claimants, " because," he says,'  they are
clearly entitled to restitution under the treaty of
1795." Appropriate out of your Treasury money
to be paid to Ruiz and Montez to the amount of
the value of fifty-three human souls. Have you
that amount in your Treasury? What is -the
value of a human soul? The question, "What
will a man give in exchange for his soul?'" has
been asked, but -never answered.   In keeping
with this recommendation of the President, to
pay those Spanish claimants for their kidnapped
Africans, is that other recommendation for the
purchase of Cuba and her six hundred thousand
slaves, at aprie. As a Representative and citi   zen of the United States, I beg leave to protest
against this attempt to convert this Government
into a mere pirate and slave trader.
This traffic in slaves is condemned and out    lawed by all civilized nations. By statute we
have declared this traffic on the high seas piracy,
and punishable with death. By our treaty at
Ghent, with Great Britain, we have solemnly
declared, without respect to time or place, that
"sthe traffic in slaves isq irreconcilable with the
principles of humanity and justice," and that,,