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SPEECH.

DEMOCRACY..

The following manly speech was delivered in the U. S. Senate Chamber, June 12, 1856, when Senator Hamlin formally abandoned party affiliation with his old associates. His democracy was of the rugged Silas Wright school, and for several years had the Maine Senator felt himself becoming isolated in the ranks of his old friends. It was a bold and manly speech. The occasion which called it forth was the platform adopted at Cincinnati by the National Democratic Convention, and the outrages perpetrated in Kansas, by the connivance and under the protection of, the administration of Mr. Pierce. All who read the following speech will agree that Senator Hamlin did a manly act in a manly way.

A PERSONAL MATTER.

Mr. President, I arise for a purpose purely personal, such as I have never before risen for in the Senate. I desire to explain some matters personal to myself and to my own future course in public life. I ask the Senate to excuse me from further service as Chairman on Commerce. I do so because I feel that my relations hereafter will be of such a character as to render it proper that I should no longer hold that position. I owe this act to the dominant majority in the Senate. When I cease to harmonize with the majority, or tests are applied by that party with which

I have acted to which I cannot submit, I feel, certainly, that I ought no longer to hold that respectable position. I propose to state briefly the reasons that have brought me to that conclusion.

"6 SPEECH IS SILVERN, BUT SILENCE IS GOLDEN.

During nine years of service in the Senate I have preferred rather to be a working than a talking member, and so I have been almost a silent one. On the subjects which have so much agitated the country, Senators know that I have rarely uttered a word. I love my country more than I love my party. I love my country above my love for any interest that can too deeply agitate or disturb its harmony. I saw, in all the exciting debates through which we have passed, no particular good that would result from my active intermingling in them. My heart has often been full, and the impulses of that heart have often been felt upon my lips, but I have repressed them there.

WRONG OF THE NEBRASKA ACT.

Sir, I hold that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a gross moral and political wrong, unequalled in the annals of the legislation of this country, and hardly equalled in the annals of any other free country. Still, sir, with a desire to promote harmony and concord and brotherly feeling, I was a quiet man under all the exciting debates which led to that fatal result. I believed it wrong then; I can see that wrong lying broadcast all around us now. As a wrong I opposed that measure, not indeed by my voice, but with consistent and steady and uniform votes. I so resisted it in obedience to the dictates of my own judgment. I did it also cheerfully, in compliance with the instructions of the legislature of Maine, which were passed by a vote almost unanimous. In the House of Representatives of Maine, consisting of 151 members, only six, I think, dissented; and in the Senate, consisting of 31 members, only one member non-concurred.

A WISE FORBEARANCE.

But the Missouri restriction was abrogated. The portentous evils that were predicted have followed, and are yet following, along in its train. It was done, sir, in violation of the pledges of that party with which I have always acted, and with which I have always voted. It was done in violation of solemn pledges of the President of the United States, made in his inaugural address. Still, sir, I was disposed to suffer the wrong, until I should see that no evil results were flowing from it. We were told by almost every Senator who addressed us upon

that occasion, that no evil results would follow; that no practical difference in the settlement of the country, and the character of the future State would take place, whether the act was done or not. I have waited calmly and patiently to see the fulfilment of that prediction; and I am grieved, sir, to say now, that they have at least been mistaken in their predictions and promises. They all have signally failed.

THE CAUSE OF DISTURBANCE.

That Senators might have voted for that measure under the belief then expressed, and the predictions to which I have alluded, I can well understand. But how Senators can now defend that measure, amid all its evils, which are overwhelming the land, if not threatening it with a conflagration, is what I do not comprehend. The whole of the disturbed state of the country has its rise in, and is attributable to, that act alone, nothing else. It lies at the foundation of all our misfortunes and commotions. There would have been no incursions by Missouri borderers into Kansas, either to establish slavery or control elections. There would have been no necessity either for others to have gone there partially to aid in preserving the country in its then condition. All would have been peace there. Had it not been done, that repose and quiet which pervaded the public mind then, would hold it in tranquillity to-day. Instead of startling events, we would have quiet and peace within

our borders, and that fraternal feeling which ought to animate the citizens of every part of the Union toward those of all other sections.

WHERE DUTY LIES.

Sir, the events that are taking place are indeed startling. They challenge the public mind, and appeal to the public judg ment; they thrill the public nerve as electricity imparts a tremulous motion to the telegraphic wire. It is a period when all good men should unite in applying the proper remedy to secure peace and harmony to the whole country. Is this to be done by any of us by remaining associated with those who have been instrumental in producing these results, and who now justify them? I do not see my duty lying in that direction.

I have, while temporarily acquiescing, stated here and at home, everywhere uniformly, that when the tests of those measures were applied to me as one of party fidelity, I would sunder them as flax is sundered by the touch of fire. I do it

now.

A MORAL QUESTION.

The occasion involves a question of moral duty; and selfrespect allows me no other line of duty but to follow the dictates of my own judgment and the impulses of my own heart. A just man may cheerfully submit to many enforced humiliations; but a self-degraded man has ceased to be worthy to be deemed a man at all.

THE ACTION AT CINCINNATI.

Sir, what has the recent Democratic Convention at Cincinnati done? It has indorsed the measure I have condemned, and bas sanctioned its destructive and ruinous effects. It has done more, vastly more. That principle of policy of territorial sovereignty which once had, and I suppose now has, its advocates within these walls, is stricken down, and there is an absolute denial of it in the resolutions of the Convention, if I draw

right conclusions, a denial equally to Congress, and even to the people of the territories, of the right to settle the question of slavery therein. On the contrary, the Convention has actually incorporated into the platform of the Democratic party that doctrine which, only a few years ago, met nothing but ridicule. and contempt, here and elsewhere, namely, that the flag of the Federal Union, under the Constitution of the United States, carries slavery wherever it floats. If this baneful principle be true, then that national ode which inspires us always as on a battlefield, should be rewritten by Drake, and should read thus:

"Forever float that standard sheet,

Where breathes the foe that falls before us,
With SLAVERY's soil beneath our feet,

And SLAVERY's banner streaming o'er us."

WHERE IS TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY?

Now, sir, what is the precise condition in which this matter is left by the Cincinnati Convention? I do not design to trespass many moments on the Senate; but allow me to read and offer a very few comments upon some portions of the Democratic platform. The first resolution that treats upon the subject is in these words. I read just so much of it as is applicable to my present remarks.

"That Congress has no power, under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution."

I take it that this language, thus far, is language which meets a willing and ready response from every Senator here; certainly it does from me. But, in the following resolution, I find these words:

"That the foregoing propositions cover, and were intended to embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress."

The first resolution which I read was adopted years ago in

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