government; because it did not come up to the doctrine of 1787. But after it had been adopted the North, for more than a third of a century, acquiesced in it. After the South had secured, under that compromise, all the advantage that could accrue to her and her peculiar institutions, she comes into this Hall, and she asks, she demands, and she obtains, a repeal of all that was beneficial to the North. We are told by the Senator from South Carolina that we can rely upon the South; that her plighted faith has never been broken! Sir, I will not quote what is so familiar upon my lips in relation to the South, but I will quote it as to what they call the Democratic party: "their faith is Punic, and branded to a proverb."

But, sir, it is not in a party aspect alone that I propose to view this question. A broader and a wider view is before me. It is not the South as a party, and in a party aspect, that has violated this time-honored compact, and I say has violated her faith; but she has extended her power to the court below. I think, on the whole, “the court below" is an appropriate term. She seized upon the Executive and bound him in her manacles. She holds the

government in all its departments. You have got the legislative power in your control; you have got the executive in your control; you have got the judiciary in your power. How you got the two latter I do not precisely undertake to say,— by political complicity and collusion, any how. Search all the records of your country, examine all the messages that have ever been presented to us, and not one can be found where an Executive has undertaken to foreshadow the opinions of the judiciary, until you come to the inaugural address of the present President of the United States, not one; and in that political collusion and complicity, I affirm that the object was to rob the people and the States of the rights that belong to them.

PROSTITUTION OF THE JUDICIARY.

Now, sir, with how much grace, or with how much truth, can the Senator from South Corolina affirm that the plighted faith of the South has never been broken? This opinion of the court mark the word I use; I do not call it the decision of the court, for I regard it only as the opinion of the judges individually—is given upon a question which they tell us gravely is not before them. They erect a structure for which they have no foundation. They

gravely and judicially tell us that they have no jurisdiction of the matter, and that they volunteer an opinion as to what they would decide if the question was before them. That is all there is of it; there is nothing more. I concur with Justice McLean, who said that he would treat it as no decision at all. There is not a lawyer in this body, there is not a lawyer in the country, who does not know that when the court determine that they have no jurisdiction in the matter, they have no right to determine the question which lies behind the issue of jurisdiction. I regret, sir, I deeply regret, that that court should have gone outside of its appropriate jurisdiction for the purpose of seeking an occasion on which to issue or make public their private opinions. I had before looked at that court with high respect; but I hold that they had no more right to decide upon that question than we have to decide for them. It was a political question purely; and it is one of those questions in regard to which Thomas Jefferson so early and so ably warned us against judicial interference. But why quote Thomas Jefferson? He is obsolete on the other side of the Chamber.

They had no more authority to decide a political question for us, than we had to decide a judicial question for them. Keep each branch of the government within the sphere of its own duties. We make laws, they interpret them; but it is not for them to tell us what are the limits within which we shall confine ourselves in our action; or, in other words, what is a political constitutional right of this body, any more than it is for us to tell them what is a judicial right that belongs to them. Of all despotisms upon earth, the despotism of a judiciary is the worst. It is a life estate. When that court shall make the decision foreshadowed in this opinion, they will be regarded on the pages of history as exceeding in infamy the famed Jeffreys, of England. His decisions did not undertake to grasp the liberties of a people, but were confined to individuals. Our court, broader in their grasp, undertake to usurp the rights of a nation. Jeffreys will be forgotten when the opinions of this court shall have grown into a judicial decision. Sir, that will never be. There is a peculiar fact that belongs to that court; I have been unable to find a decision contravening the party in power. While I am no prophet, I can read when "coming events cast their shadows before." We are to have the power; we are to restore the government to what our fathers made it; we are to place it upon its original basis; and the court will come back to the original basis.

WHO CONTROLS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

All parties, I have said, are directed more or less by certain influences within their organization. The Democratic party, so called, is in the control of South Carolina. I remember when Mr. Calhoun offered his resolutions here, only a few years ago, in relation to the powers of government over slavery in the territories. I refer to the resolutions which he offered about the days of the compromise. The Senator from New York [Mr. Seward] remembers how they were laughed and scouted from the Senate. They are in the Senate to-day; they are the basis of your Democratic party ; they are now triumphant in every branch of the government; they are triumphant here; they are triumphant in the other branch of Congress, one of its very worthy and distinguished members being its presiding officer. They are here by your action, and you fasten your power upon the Executive at the other end of the avenue. Democracy in 1858 means the nullification doctrines of South Carolina in times gone by. It is so. I say you have the Senate, and you have the Congress. I have no earthly doubt as to what is to be the fate of this measure in this branch of the government. I have no doubt as to what will be its fate in the other House. I affirm, therefore, that you have got this branch of the government. That you have the Executive is clear. While he told his subordinate, the Governor of Kansas, that he must insist upon the submission of the Lecompton Constitution to the people for their vote of approval or rejection, he has yielded all, and tells you now that you must adopt the constitution, notwithstanding there is ten thousand majority against it. You have the Supreme Court, because they say, in their opinion, that,—“ For more than a century before the adoption of the Constitution they had regarded negroes as beings of an inferior order, and possessed of no rights” mark the words - "which a white man was bound to respect."

Is there a beast that toils in any State, I speak of beasts, where legislation has not thrown around it a protecting care that it shall not be abused by its owner? Is there a slave State where slavery exists intensified, where your legislation have not protected the rights of persons in the slave? It is an inhuman expression, it is historically untrue besides.

But, sir, what you call the Democracy have improved upon that

doctrine. If you will pass this bill, (and who doubts that you will?) they come to the same conclusion; and they go further; for, while the court decide that colored men have no rights that you are bound to respect, they affirm that majorities of white men in the territories have no rights that the Democratic party are bo ind to respect. That is the conclusion. It is the logical conclusion from your acts. The court, I thought, went a great way. It is a revolting, — I repeat once more, it is an inhuman expression. They said that was the sentiment of the revolutionary times. I mean to quote them correctly. I say it is historically incorrect. But, improving on that doctrine, that black men, for a century before the Constitution, had no rights that a white man was bound to respect, modern Democracy claims that a majority of free white men in your territories have no rights that it is bound to respect.

Mr Durkee. That is the doctrine of progress?

Mr. Hamlin. That is the doctrine of progress, as my friend says. Yes, sir, it is the doctrine of progress: but such a progress! I think it is that kind of progress that the boy made in going to his daily toils at school. There had been snow and rain, and the ground was very slippery, and he arrived at a very late hour. On being reprimanded by his instructor for not getting there earlier, he said that on taking a step forward, he always fell two steps behind. "Then pray, sir, how did you ever arrive?" Why, after struggling a long while, I turned around and went backwards.” [Laughter.]

66

The speaker proceeded to answer the insulting allusions of the South Carolinian, and thus rebuked his reference to Northern working-men. The courteous tone of the Senator added to the force of the earnest sarcasm, wherewith allusion was made to the source whence Mr. Hammond drew his conclusions relative to the industrial classes of the North.

THE LABORERS OF THE NORTH.

In my judgment, the Senator from South Carolina,- I assure him I say it in kindness,― has mistaken the character of our laborers and their position. I do not think he would designedly assign them a position to which they do not belong; and I have said, that in my opinion, he has come to the conclusion that our laborers occupy precisely the same position as those whom he sees in his

་

own vicinity. I do not say that even that is so; but I say such is my conclusion. I am frank to admit that I know very little of the character of the laborers who toil beside the slave, but I have seen something of it. I have seen what has satisfied me that they have little intelligence; that they were poorly clothed; and that, while they felt themselves above them, they were actually, in the social scale, below the slaves. I remember, Sir, that upon the banks of the Potomac, I once heard a negro taunt a white man, that he was so poor, that he had not a master; and when I looked at the poor white man, I confess, I thought there was some truth in the

taunt.

Now, my word for it, the Senator from South Carolina has mistaken the character of our population, and our laborers. I stand here the representative of Northern laborers. I wish they had a better and abler representative in my stead; but such as I am, they have sent me here; such as I am I will vindicate their rights.

The debate continued on the following day, Wednesday, March 10. Mr. Hamlin thus proceeded to rebuke the insults of the haughty South Carolinian.

When the Senator from South Carolina undertakes to draw imaginary distinctions between classes of laborers, he goes back to the old, the worn, the rotten, the discarded system of ages that have long since passed. I tell that Senator what is true, that we draw no imaginary distinctions between our different classes of laborers, -none whatever. "Manual laborers!" Well, Sir, who are the manual laborers of the North, that are degraded and placed beside the slave of the South by the Senator from South Carolina ? Who are our manual laborers? Sir, all classes in our community are manual laborers; and, to a greater or less extent, they are hireling manual laborers. They constitute, I affirm, a majority of our community,- those who labor for compensation. I do not know, I confess I cannot understand, that distinction which allows a man to make a contract for the service of his brains, but denies him the right to make a contract for the service of his hands. There is no distinction between them. We draw none; we make Who are that class of citizens in our community, who are its hirelings? That is the term. I do not know whether he designs it as opprobrious; but that is the term with which he desig nates our laborers of the North. This is modern Democracy!

none.