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 SPEECH 
 
 OP 
 
 HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, OP ILLINOIS, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE ARMY APPROPRIATION BILL. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, AUGUST 2T, 1856. 
 
 • Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President: The senator from New York [Mr. 
 Seward! who has just taken his seat, has made himself merry over 
 the prospect of the defeat of the appropriation hill for the army. 1 
 have never seen him so exultant and jubilant since he has been a mem¬ 
 ber of this body as on the occasion of what he considers to he the great 
 triumph which he hopes to achieve in paralyzing at least one of the 
 departments of the government. He has referred to the evils and the 
 mischievous and unfortunate consequences which may result, and has 
 made them the subject of ridicule, and of laughter and ol mirth, 
 confess that I listened to him with no pleasure when I heard him dis¬ 
 cussing the question in that mood. I confess that I am not able o 
 sympathise with the tone of feeling which makes him ,so exultant m 
 
 the prospect of such consequences. ' 
 
 That mischiefs must result from the defeat of the general appropria¬ 
 tion bill for the army is a fact to which no one for a moment can close 
 his eyes. That it must have a deranging and disorganizing ettect on 
 all the operations of that department of the government, it it does not 
 entirely paralyze them, is certainly true. That it must hung su er 
 ing and distress to a very large portion of the people of the United 
 States is admitted by all. That it must bring discredit upon this 
 country abroad in the eyes of the whole civilized world, no one can 
 question. Why, then, should this be a subject of rejoicing f bir, the 
 history of the world shows that whenever an attempt has been made 
 to overthrow any government, good or bad, the first step has been to 
 cripple and destroy the the army. Revolutionists at all times men 
 bent on the destruction of their government, no matter by what pur¬ 
 pose animated, or what cause they allege to justify themselves, first 
 attempt to destroy the regular force of the country. X have no sym¬ 
 pathy in this movement; have never admired that complacency winch, 
 can rejoice in public mifortunes, since I read the story of Nero, w o 
 could make himself merry and fiddle while Rome was burning . 
 
 Sir. circumstances have begun to develop themselves which enable 
 us now to see the whole scheme which has been plotted and arrange , 
 and is now being executed. The first part of the scheme was o 
 feat the appropriations for the Territory 01 Kansas, and, 1 I ‘ ’ 
 
 to paralyze the civil government there. The next was to organize a 
 body of armed desperadoes to invade Kansas ior the purpose o g © 
 up civil war. The political party with which the senator from Ne 
 York is identified, and of which it may be said he is ^chmi, 
 convention at Buffalo, agreed to raise $100,000 a month «o o I y 
 
men, and supply, arm, and equip them to invade Kansas, for the pur¬ 
 pose of making war upon the law and order men there. They have 
 had their men hovering on the western boundary of Iowa for weeks, 
 waiting for the adjournment of Congress, and for the telegraphic dis¬ 
 patch to reach them announcing that the army bill had been defeated, 
 so that the war could commence. You kept your forces there, first, 
 to c<J&trol the election in Iowa by fraudulent and illegal votes, and 
 then to be marched across the river to murder the inhabitants and 
 burn the towns in Kansas. Your men were kept there for that pur¬ 
 pose, receiving telegraphic information from their leaders here, and 
 the moment they w~ere informed that the army bill had been defeated, 
 the civil war instantly commenced in Kansas. Houses were burned, 
 buildings destroyed, a post office consumed, innocent inhabitants phot 
 down in cold blood, without the slightest pretext or provocation. 
 
 For weeks previous to that time—yes, for months previous—there 
 had been peace, quiet, and order in Kansas. There was no disturb¬ 
 ance there. The people were happy in the security that surrounded 
 them, and there would never have been another telegraphic despatch 
 or communication conveying the sad intelligence of bloodshed and 
 murder if Lane had not been sent there by the freesoil party to get up 
 •civil war as a party movement. The facts of the case are too clear to 
 allow any man to deny them; and there is no one of you who does not 
 rejoice when the news of a new conflagration or of a new murder 
 reaches you. It is notorious to every man in Washington that if you 
 see the freesoilers with their eyes glistening, and congratulating each 
 other, it is when they have heard of murder, of robbery, of larceny, 
 of house-burning in Kansas by their agents for political effect. This 
 is a part of the political campaign. I confess that it is a sad spectacle 
 to behold ; it is a mournful thought, that the blood of innocent men 
 can be shed, for party purposes, in pursuance of caucus arrangements, 
 in order to control the presidential election ; yet the fact is too glaring 
 for any man to deny or doubt it. This invasion of. Kansas is unpro¬ 
 voked ; the murders are of the most barbarous and cruel character; 
 the Territory is being ravaged for the purpose of compelling citizens 
 there to rally in their defence and bring on a pitched battle, in order 
 that you may show some of your own men as martyrs sacrificed to free¬ 
 dom! 
 
 Your daily prayers and nightly invocations are that a battle may 
 take place, in which some men from the north maybe murdered, that 
 you may play the part of Mark Antony over the dead Caesars. If a 
 pro-slavery man is killed, it is a glorious triumph in your estimation. 
 If a freesoiler is killed, it is so much political capital for the stump 
 and for the newspapers. It is on such an issue that the senator from 
 Massachusetts challenges and dares us to go before the country. Sir, 
 it is an issue from which every feeling of my heart recoils. The idea 
 that blood shall be spilled and murders perpetrated for political effect 
 is revolting to every sentiment of humanity. Yet, sir, if it must be 
 so, let us carry this issue to the country, and charge these crimes on 
 the heads of the men in this city who get them up and the party who 
 sustains them. Sir, in my heart I believe that every drop of blood 
 shed in Kansas rests upon the souls of the leaders of that political 
 party which is organizing this civil war with a view to the presidential 
 
3 
 
 election. If they can rejoice in the prospect of consummating their 
 plan of the campaign, their feelings are very different from mine. 
 
 What is the excuse for all of this organization of military force, this 
 invasion of a peaceable people, this burning of houses and murdering 
 of citizens? The excuse is, that certain laws, which have been read 
 to the Senate several times to-day, and on many previous occasions 
 also, are cruel and tyrannical, inhuman and barbarous. That is the 
 only excuse which is offered for all this crime. You say that you are 
 not willing to allow the President of the United States to use the mili¬ 
 tary force for the enforcement of these barbarous laws. When did he 
 ever propose to use it for that purpose? When has he ever used it to 
 enforce one of them? You know very well that up to this hour no 
 one prosecution has ever arisen under any one of those laws of which 
 you complain. By common and universal consent in Kansas these 
 laws remain unexecuted, and no mortal man has ever made a com¬ 
 plaint to a court of justice, so far as I can learn, for a writ or process 
 for a violation of any one of those obnoxious laws. You know that 
 they have never been executed. You know that the very officers of 
 whom you complain in Kansas do not pretend to enforce them. Hence 
 you have no right to suppose, and I undertake to say you do not be¬ 
 lieve, that these particular laws are to be enforced by this appropria¬ 
 tion ; and, therefore, the excuse which you give for the defeat of the 
 army appropriation bill is not sustained by the facts. It is a mere 
 pretext, and has no foundation in truth. 
 
 Whenever I find a man saying to me on the stump that his vote 
 against the army bill was in order to prevent the President from en¬ 
 forcing those particular obnoxious laws, I shall say to him that he 
 knows that pretext is not true ; that there is not an honest man living 
 . who does not know that it is a mere excuse. You know that the 
 appropriation bill is not for the enforcement of those particular laws. 
 You have been told before, time and time again, that no one of those 
 laws has been enforced, no one of their penalties has been inflicted, no 
 case of the kind has ever arisen; yet, when one of you rise to make a 
 speech to excuse the crime of stopping the wheels of government and 
 producing civil war in the Territory of Kansas, you cite these very 
 laws which nobody pretends to enforce. Whenever men are driven to 
 give a false reason for their persistent action, it shows that there is a 
 true reason which decency or patriotism does not allow them to avow. 
 
 I show that the pretence in regard to these laws is a false reason, 
 and the inference is that there is a different one which impels their 
 action ; and why not avow the true one if consistent with honor, with 
 duty, with patriotism? I am constrained to believe that, if there 
 were no presidential election approaching, there would be entire quiet 
 and peace in Kansas. I am constrained to believe that each crime 
 committed there recently has been done by the orders of a political 
 organization. I am constrained to believe that Lane i^the regularly 
 appointed agent and commander for that purpose, and that this is not 
 to cease until after the presidential election. When that election is 
 over, if the Constitution triumphs, as I believe it will, there will be 
 peace in Kansas; for there will be no motive for any political party to 
 spend money to fit out bands of marauders and desperadoes to get up 
 sivil war. 
 
4 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Order will reign in Warsaw then. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. Order will reign in Warsaw, the senator says. 
 
 All these cant phrases are used for the purpose of concealing a design. 
 None of you will pretend that these obnoxious laws, to which you 
 refer so often, have been the cause of the disorders and disturbances 
 which have occurred in Kansas. 
 
 Again : is it really true that you are anxious to get rid of these ob¬ 
 noxious laws ? If it were true, with your organized majority in the 
 other House, sufficiently numerous and well trained to defeat the ap¬ 
 propriation bills and stop the wheels of government, could you not 
 have passed a bill to repeal the obnoxious laws? You have not dared 
 to pass a bill to repeal them for fear the Senate would concur, and 
 thus destroy your political capital. 
 
 Mr. WADE. The House of Representatives did pass a bill, and sent 
 it here, repealing those laws, and the Senate has never touched it. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. What bill ? 
 
 Mr. WADE. It is called Dunn’s bill. You commented on it before. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. I am much obliged to the senator for calling my 
 attention to it. He will, I suppose, be frank enough to withdraw a 
 part of this statement. I say I did touch Dunn’s bill and not very 
 lightly. I made a report upon it, and I made a speech upon it, and 
 I showed the character of that bill. Now, I will tell the senator from 
 Ohio that I showed that that bill does not repeal one of those laws, 
 unless it may be by the general declaration of rights; but, on the 
 contrary, it recognizes the validity of the entire code of laws enacted 
 by the legislature at the Shawnee Mission. It provides that it shall 
 be the duty of the judges, the governor, the marshal, the district at¬ 
 torneys, the sheriffs, and justices of the peace, to remain in office, 
 and execute those very laws, in so many words. It will not do for the 
 senator to shake his head. The bill is a part of the archives of this 
 government. It will remain a permanent record, to stare you in the 
 face, and convict every man who dares to deny that the whole free- 
 soil party in the House of Representatives, with one exception, voted 
 for a bill to recognize the validity of these very laws. 
 
 Mr. WADE. As the senator has alluded to that bill twice before, 
 
 I wish barely to put this question to him: If the republican party in 
 the House by voting for that bill affirmed those laws, did not the 
 senator’s party, by voting against the bill or acting against it, disaf¬ 
 firm them ? 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. I will answer the senator. We did not disaf¬ 
 firm them, for these reasons: By the organic law of the Territory, 
 whenever the legislature passed an enactment it became a law, with 
 the approval of the governor, without being reported to Congress at 
 all. No affirmation of the laws was necessary in order to make them 
 valid. If you bring in a proposition now to affirm any law in any 
 Territory—Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, or Washington—about the 
 propriety of which there is no controversy, I would vote to lay it on 
 the table, for the reason that no legislation is necessary upon* the sub¬ 
 ject. You give no validity by the affirmance. You do not impart 
 vitality to it, for it had all the sanctions of law before such action. * 
 Our motion was to lay this bill on the table, and I voted for the mo¬ 
 tion. It had no affect in the affirmance or disaffirmance of the acts ; 
 
6 
 
 but the House of Representatives, by their vote on the bill prepared 
 by themselves, have declared in so many words that those laws are 
 valid, and shall be enforced, with the exception of the criminal code. 
 You affirmed that slavery law, extracts of which were read by the 
 senator from Massachusetts to-day. Every free-soiler, every Fremont 
 man in the House of Representatives, voted to affirm those very laws 
 in regard to slavery which the senator from Massachusetts read and 
 condemned to-day. 
 
 Mr. WADE. Is the senator claiming that he has changed sides with 
 the abolitionists ; that they are in favor of slavery and he opposed to 
 it ? Is that his position. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. When the senator asks this question, and takes 
 his seat, I will answer him. 
 
 Mr. WADE. I put this question. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. Put the question and sit down. 
 
 Mr. WADE. You say that this side of the House voted to continue 
 slavery in the Territory of Kansas, and, therefore, you were opposed 
 to their action. If they become pro-slavery by that, you become an 
 abolitionist, being exactly the opposite. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. My object is not to prove that they become pro¬ 
 slavery, or that I have become anti-slavery. My object is to prove 
 that they are not sincere when they pretend that they wish to defeat 
 the army appropriation bill because of those laws, but that*they wish 
 it for blood, murder, robbery, civil war, for political effect, instead of 
 the repeal of those laws ; that they are opposed to the repeal of those 
 laws, in order to make political capital out of it, at the same time that 
 they condemn the laws in their political speeches. 
 
 Sir, I have said that every man of that party, with one exception, 
 voted to recognize the validity of those laws ; that one has published v 
 a letter, in which he assigns his reason for his vote. I find the letter 
 in the newspapers. 
 
 Mr. WADE. I do not wish to interrupt the senator ; but he says 
 we are opposed to the repeal of those laws. I want to know how it 
 happened this morning, on our endeavoring to repeal them, that every 
 member on the other side of the House voted to lay the bill on the 
 table. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. We passed a bill to annul them once, and sent it 
 to the House of Representatives, and your majority would not take it 
 up and pass it. We then sent the bill a second time, and your ma¬ 
 jority in the House of Representatives would not take it up. It was 
 well known that the reason why you would not take it up was the fear 
 that a few of your men would join us and pass the bill. It was un¬ 
 necessary for us to send a third bill—twice, assuredly, was enough. 
 It is no excuse to say that our bill contained other matter which you 
 did not like in connexion with that repealing section. If you had in¬ 
 superable objections to the other matter, if it involved your consciences 
 or your judgment, you could have stricken out all that you objected to, 
 and sent us the residue. You have had assurances sufficient to-day 
 that your action would have been concurred in by the Senate in a 
 moment if you had done it; and if your folks are sincere in desiring 
 these obnoxious laws to be repealed, you will take up our bill and 
 c ertainly pass the repealing section, whether you pass the remainder or 
 
6 
 
 not, before 12 o’clock to-morrow. We shall now wait to see whether 
 you are sincere in trying to get rid of these obnoxious laws. I be¬ 
 lieve, and it is painful to me to be under the necessity of saying that 
 I have been forced to the conviction, that you will not permit these 
 obnoxious laws to be swept from the statute book until after the presi¬ 
 dential election. I believe you have a distinct understanding that the 
 repealing bill shall not pass. It is the main plank in your political 
 platform for the pending election. 
 
 But I said I would read an extract from a letter of one member of 
 the black republican party of the House who could not vote for your 
 bill. • He says : 
 
 “We passed Dunn’s bill for Kansas yesterday in a very objectionable manner. It has 
 many good provisions, but extends the fugitive-slave law over Kansas and Nebraska, and 
 perpetuates slavery there until 1858, and makes all children born therein up to that time of 
 slave mothers slaves. This was too msch for me. I have always said, and now repeat my 
 pledges, that I will never vote to recognize slavery ; I will never vote to make any human 
 being a slave ; I will never vote to extend slavery one single foot; I will never vote for the 
 fugitive-slave law or its extension over any free territory. I therefore voted against Dunn's 
 bill, solitary and alone of all our party.” 
 
 A Senator. Who is that?. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. Leiter, of Ohio. He shows in this letter 
 that it was known and understood* at the time when every member 
 of the freesoil party but himself voted for that bill, that they were 
 voting to perpetuate slavery in the Territory by continuing in force 
 laws which are so obnoxious to gentlemen now. It also appears from 
 this letter that they knew that they were voting on a proposition to 
 make children hereafter born slaves for life, and their posterity after 
 them, if born of slave mothers and removed from the Territory before 
 1858. The letter shows, too, that you all knew, when you passed 
 that bill, that you were voting to extend the fugitive-slave law over 
 Kansas Territory, with all its provisions, at the same time that the 
 senator from Massachusetts, in his speech to-day, talks of the bar¬ 
 barity of the fugitive-slave law, of its heavy and monstrous penalties 
 n not allowing food and raiment and water to be furnished to the un¬ 
 fortunate fugitive. I will not repeat his doleful speech on that branch 
 of the subject delivered to-day. I wish him to bear in mind that 
 every man of his political party in the House of Representatives, with 
 one exception, did every act which he condemns, and is responsible 
 for every consequence which he professes to lament. Do not misun¬ 
 derstand me On this point. I am not complaining of the harshness 
 or the injustice of the fugitive-slave law. I believe it was a law re¬ 
 quired by the Constitution of our country, and I sustain it for that 
 reason. But. with what face or show of justice or truth can one of 
 this freesoil or black republican party rise and condemn that‘fugitive- 
 law, when he knows that his whole party have voted for it within the 
 last three or four weeks ? 
 
 Then, sir, we find, upon looking into this question, that it is clear 
 to the mind of every impartial man, that while the democratic Senate 
 desire to get rid of those laws which violated the freedom of speech, 
 and all those great and fundamental principles of liberty and justice 
 intended to be secured by the Constitution and the organic act, the 
 freesoilers, for political effect, have managed to perpetuate those laws 
 on the statute book, in order that they may use them for political effect 
 after Congress adjourns. 
 
7 
 
 
 Mr. WADE. I should like to inquire how long it is since the senator 
 became convinced that those laws were so obnoxious, and ought to be 
 swept away. It is certainly since his first or second report on the 
 subject. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. I will answer that question. I regarded those laws 
 to which I referred as being repugnant to the Constitution and to the 
 organic act. I was entirely willing to rely on the judiciary to make 
 wise decisions on that subject in the annulment of those laws. I did 
 not believe that a law infringing the freedom of the press was con¬ 
 sistent with the organic act allowing a decision of the slavery question 
 by the people themselves. So with a long list of those laws ; but I 
 did not deem it any part of my duty, nor did I deem it necessary to wipe 
 out those laws by legislative enactment, for the reason that the courts 
 would do it. But when it was proposed here I was entirely willing to 
 pass a declaratory act that they were null and void, and should not be 
 enforced, in order to bring the men who hoped to make political capital 
 out of them to the test, and show that you would never permit those 
 laws to be blotted out. You cling to them as you would to the last 
 hope of life. If they had been blotted out you would have lost all your 
 capital on the stump ; you would have been under the necessity of 
 rewriting all your stump speeches, changing the tone of all your news¬ 
 papers, and of making an entire new plan of campaign for the presi¬ 
 dential election. * * 
 
 Mr. President, I have shown that the House would not pass a bill 
 to repeal the obnoxious laws. I have shown that they would not take 
 up and act on our bill when we did pass it. Let us trace this history 
 a little further. In this very proviso to the army bill they have not 
 even there a repeal of the obnoxious laws. That very proviso pre¬ 
 serves those laws in force as they are. You do not even propose to 
 repeal them in the proviso. 
 
 Now, let me see what you have done by your appropriation bills. 
 You first put in a proviso not to allow the judges to have their salaries 
 until they should dismiss certain prosecutions. If they dismissed the 
 prosecutions for political offences they were to have their salaries; but 
 when they got their salaries, what were they to do ? Of course, go 
 on and hold their courts, and try murderers, thieves, robbers, and 
 every man guilty of crime. At last you receded from your condition 
 or proviso to the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill, 
 and allowed it to become a law. I will not say that the fact that it 
 contained an appropriation for your pay and mine was any inducement 
 for thus receding; but it so happened that the bill on which you 
 receded frdfei'your provisoes, and passed, contained the appropriations 
 to pay the governor, the judges, and all the civil officers of the Terri¬ 
 tory. You thus have voted money already to carry those laws into 
 effect. Your proviso to the army bill leaves them in force, but says 
 the President shall not use the military power to enforce them. You 
 leave them in force ; you make it the duty of the governor of the Ter¬ 
 ritory to enforce them; you leave it to the judges to enforce them ; 
 and by appropriating for their salaries, you leave them on the statute 
 book with entire vigor for them to enforce. You furnish the money 
 to do it, and you only provide that the President shall not use the 
 military power of the government. Now, if you intended to blot out 
 
8 
 
 those bad laws, would you have framed language of that kind ? It is 
 clear that it has never been the intention to allow these laws to be 
 blotted out or repealed. Great skill was shown in drawing the pro¬ 
 viso to the army bill in such a way as to leave the obnoxious laws in 
 force, to be talked about on the stump during the campaign, at the 
 same time you cripple the President and deprive him of the power of 
 coming to the rescue of the civil authority. Hence it is evident that 
 the proviso to this army bill is not designed to prevent the execution 
 of those laws. You never intended it for that purpose. It was de¬ 
 signed to cripple the army—not to prevent the execution of those laws 
 in Kansas, for you left them in force, you recognized their validity, 
 you appropriated the money for the governor to enforce them. You 
 appropriated the money to the judiciary for the same purposes. You 
 did everything that could be done to aid the civil authorities in en¬ 
 forcing them, but you would not allow the military power to be used. 
 
 I am, therefore, forced to the conclusion that by framing this pro¬ 
 viso, thus guarded, to preserve these darling laws, which you hug to 
 your hearts so dearly, in order to use them for political effect, you wish 
 to get rid of the army in order to get up a civil war on account of 
 these very laws which you thus leave in force. Why did you thus 
 limit the power of the army at the same time that you recognized the 
 laws as being in force, and authorized the governor and judges to 
 carry them into effect ? If the governor and judges did not attempt 
 to execute the laws, perhaps, you would not have any pretext for get¬ 
 ting up civil war. In order to make the scheme complete, it was 
 necessary to make it the duty of the civil officers to carry the laws into 
 effect, and then prohibit the President from aiding the civil authori¬ 
 ties, and then march an army of your own into the Territory under 
 your own leaders, and thus you get up a civil war in which blood can 
 flow, and flames can rage, and the country can be laid waste, and you 
 can have victims who will answer as “ good enough Morgans,” at least 
 until after the election. 
 
 Mr. President, I repeat that I take no pleasure in showing up a 
 scheme of revolution so daring, so reckless, so treasonable in its pur¬ 
 poses as the one which I have noticed here to-day. Each day brings 
 confirmatory news of the whole scheme—an attempt to destroy a gov¬ 
 ernment that you cannot rule. It is a painful reflection that one of 
 the great political parties of the country allow passion, or prejudice, 
 or ambition to urge them to an extent that would destroy the very 
 temple of liberty in which we are assembled. I believe that it is a 
 question of union or disunion, depending upon the protection of the 
 Constitution of the United States inviolable. I look upon it as a con¬ 
 test rising in importance and magnitude far above any other that this 
 or any other country has ever witnessed, because w'e have a party 
 arrayed against the Constitution on the one hand, and a party uphold¬ 
 ing and sustaining the Constitution and the Union of the country upon 
 the other. When the question shall be submitted to the people, and 
 fully understood, a rebuke will be administered to these revolutionists 
 more severe, terrible, and overwhelming than any which any band of 
 desperate men who combined to seize and destroy the liberties of their 
 country ever received.