not prevent that equality of which I speak. I say, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, that they were 'created equal,' and you have trampled them underfoot and made them apparently unequal by your own wrong. That is all there is of it. That is my doctrine."

Observe, this was two years before Sumner was struck in that very hall, and about the same time before the present Republican party was organized.

Wade spoke February 6, 1854; on the 8th Edward Everett rose. How different the two men! Wade plain, rugged, outspoken, and fearless; Everett cool, clear, and precise. I can almost hear him as these exquisite words fell from his lips. He was then in his sixtieth year, and resembled an English clergyman in his careful dress and religious air:

"We are about to take a first step in laying the foundations of two new States, of two sister independent republics, hereafter to enter into the Union, which already embraces thirtyone of these sovereign States, and which, no doubt, in the course of the present century, will include a much larger number. I think Lord Bacon gives the second place among the great of the earth to the founders of States-conditores imperiorum. And though it may seem to us that we are now legislating for a remote part of the unsubdued wilderness, yet the time, will come, and that not a very long time, when these scarcely existing Territories, when these almost empty wastes, will be the abode of hundreds and thousands of kindred, civilized fellow-men and fellow-citizens. Yes, sir, the time is not far distant, probably, when Kansas and Nebraska, now unfamiliar names to us all, will sound to the ears of their inhabitants as Virginia and Massachusetts, and Kentucky and Ohio, and the names of the other older States do to their children. Sir, these infant Territories, if they may even at present be called by that name, occupy a most important position in the geography of this continent. They stand where Persia, Media,

and Assyria stood in the continent of Asia, destined to hold the balance of power-to be the centres of influence to the East and to the West. Sir, the fountains that trickle from the snow-capped crests of the Sierra Madre flow in one direction to the Gulf of Mexico, in another to the St. Lawrence, and in another to the Pacific. The commerce of the world, eastward from Asia, and westward from Europe, is destined to pass through the gates of the Rocky Mountains over the iron pathways which we are even now about to lay down through those Territories. Cities of unsurpassed magnitude and importance are destined to crown the banks of their noble rivers. Agriculture will clothe with plenty the vast plains now roamed over by the savage and the buffalo. And may we not hope that, under the ægis of wise constitutions of free government, religion and laws, morals and education, and the arts of civilized life will add all the graces of the highest and purest culture to the gifts of nature and the bounties of Providence ?"

The next day, February 7, 1854, Truman Smith, of Connecticut, had the floor. He is still living, nearly ninety, at his old home, well preserved for his years. Wholly unlike Wade or Everett, he dealt with the subject in a spirit of the quietest satire. With spectacles on nose, bowed head, and inharmonious voice, with its predominant Yankee dialect, he kept the Senate in a continuous roar of laughter. I give you his words, but I cannot give you a picture of the merriment that followed, in which Douglas heartily participated :

"Old Governor Wolcott, who was a most amiable gentleman, and who had been in the administrations of Washington and Jefferson, got into a lawsuit with a petty bank in his village. The bank, by way of securing the case, employed all the lawyers in the place but himself [Smith], supposing him not to be of sufficient importance to be afraid of. For this reason he got the management of Mr. Wolcott's case. The old Governor was one of the most honorable, upright, and sincere men he

had ever known-utterly opposed to all artifice, cunning, chicanery, and trickery. He was a frank and straightforwardspoken man-in short, a real specimen of New England character. [Loud laughter.] I mean old-fashioned New England character. [Renewed laughter.] I wish, sir, to be understood as meaning real New England character, not such as it is after being transplanted to Illinois. [Laughter.] During the lawsuit I used frequently to see Governor Wolcott, and on every occasion he used to say to me, 'Mr. Smith, whenever a man gets an idea that he is cunning, he is ruined.' He [Mr. Smith] was utterly opposed to cunning legislation. He was opposed to making an enactment adding to it excuses. The South wanted no excuses; they wanted the act. Why not, then, speak the matter out plainly? He did not know, however, that he would dispute much about the matter, if it was admitted that this peroration was inserted for the accommodation of the Senator from Illinois, who had already brought into the world five Territories, and was loaded to the muzzle with two more. [Laughter.]

"If the Senator [Mr. Douglas] was correct, the people of. Utah had full power to regulate their domestic institutions; then was not this establishment of polygamy under the kind. auspices of the chairman of the Committee on Territories? The Senator was not alone in his ideas. It appeared that, in a council of war held on this bill by its friends, it had been solemnly decided, upon due consideration, that the acts of 1850 gave the Utah people full power to regulate their domestic institutions; that Brigham Young and all his crew may practise polygamy and have as many wives as they pleased. It was to be hoped the President of the Senate was not in that council. [Loud laughter.] He intended to expose this business of polygamy and explain its modus operandi. [Loud and long-continued laughter.] What he meant was that he intended to explain how it was that Brigham Young and his crew practised

polygamy. [Renewed laughter.] If any one supposed evil from any suggestion of his, he desired it to be done on that person's responsibility, and not on his." [Loud and boisterous laughter, continuing for several minutes.]

The Chair appealed to all present to preserve order and avoid demonstrations unbecoming the Senate.

General Houston, of Texas, was then a Senator, and hostile to the bill, for which he was severely denounced. He bore these assaults with the idle indifference he knew so well how to assume, and when he spoke of them it was with lofty disdain.. On the 15th of February he said (and over his honored grave I revive these words, so honorable to his memory),

"When I first saw the Richmond Enquirer, in old Rockbridge County, Virginia, I thought it was the only newspaper in the world. [Laughter.] Sir, I was very young then. It was deemed orthodox at that time. It has changed hands since, and that it should change politics and principles is not strange. I do not claim the charity of the Richmond Enquirer, because I am a native of the Old Dominion. I have prided myself on my origin. I have never received any marks of sympathy, favor, or admiration from that State. I shall never ask for them, although I have always endeavored to deserve them. Yes, sir, from the deepest gorges in her mountains I have drunk of her pure streams; on her summits my eyes first learned to look upon nature; and I have never ceased to feel proud that it was upon her soil that I walked in childhood. I remember it still. For her virtues I will laud her; in her misfortunes I will pity her. I will not raise a parricidal hand against my mother. Some of her children, though, have, no doubt, been spoiled, sir.

"Mr. President, I came into public life under the auspices. of this compromise. More than thirty years ago, I occupied a seat in the other end of the Capitol. Since then I have seen much, and have not been unobservant. I have seen great changes take place in this Government, and but one memorial

remains of the period when I was first acquainted with it in an official position. Mr. Pleasonton, the Fifth Auditor, is the only officer left of all who were then attached to the Federal Government. Even the porters of the public buildings have disappeared. New generations have succeeded. Ten Presidents have filled the Executive chair. Out of nearly three hundred Representatives in the Senate and House of Representatives, but three remain. A distinguished member of the other House, from Missouri [Mr. Benton], who was then a Senator on this floor, the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Everett], who was then a member of the House, and myself, are all the memorials left; and, sir,

'When I remember all

The friends so linked together

I've seen around me fall,

Like leaves in wintry weather,

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed.'

Others must succeed us and occupy the places which we now fill. They will be instructed by what we do. We are not acting alone for ourselves, but are trustees for the benefit of posterity. Our actions are to inure to them for good or evil. We are, by our legislation, to benefit or to prejudice them. Mr. President, in the far-distant future I think I perceive those who come after us, who are to be affected by the action of this body upon this bill. Our children have two alternatives here presented. They are either to live in after-times in the enjoyment of peace, of harmony, and prosperity, or the alternative remains for them of anarchy, discord, and civil broil. We can avert the last. I trust we shall. At any rate, so far as my efforts can avail, I will resist every attempt to infringe or repeal the Missouri Compromise."