:

SPEECH OF MR. WILSON.

The Senate having under consideration the motion of not till then, the cry was raised, and the feeling Mr. Rusk to fer so much of the President's Message as industriously excited, that the influence of relates to foreign affairs to the Committee on Foreign Re-Northern men in the public councils would en

lations

Mr. WILSON said:

danger the relation of master and slave. This ' is a delicate and sensitive point in Southern feeling; and of late years it has always been touched, and generally with effect, whenever 'the object has been to unite the South against Northern men or Northern measures. This feel'ing, always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our politi'cal machine. It moves vast bodies, and gives 'to them one and the same direction. But it is without adequate cause, and the suspicion which exists is wholly groundless. There is not, and never has been, a disposition in the North 'to interfere with these interests of the South.

Mr. PRESIDENT: In the memorable debate of 1830 on Foote's resolution, Mr. Webster, in that magnificent speech, which won for him the proud title of the ablest defender of the Constitution, spoke of the Ordinance of 1787 as a measure of great foresight and wisdom, which had laid the interdict against personal servitude over the region northwest of the Ohio while it was yet a wilderness, deeper than all local laws or local constitutions. We are accustomed," said he, "to praise the lawgivers of antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character, | than the Ordinance of 1787." This tribute to the crowning work of the old Congress of the Con federation brought upon him and upon his section of the Union the accusation of making an Onset upon the South; of interfering with their domestic institutions; of endangering the relation of master and slave. General Hayne, his distinguished opponent, who fought then the first great battle of nullification under the eye of his great leader, Mr. Calhoun, who then presided over the Senate, brought these accusations into day. It is even now stronger than when it

the Senate, and hurled them against Mr. Webster,

Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of the Government; nor has it been in any way attempted. The Slavery of the South has always been regarded as a 'matter of domestic policy, left with the States 'themselves, and with which the Federal Gov'ernment had nothing to do."

The motive, Mr. President, for these unjust

accusations "of some persons in the South" against the people of the North, is here clearly stated by Mr. Webster. That motive has continued to animate this class of persons to this prompted the arraignment of Mr. Webster for his and against the people of the North. Mr. Web- eulogium upon the Ordinance of 1787. The ster met these accusations, these unjust reproach"sensitive point in Southern feeling" has been es, with a prompt and emphatic denial. After "carefully kept alive" up to this hour, "and expressing his surprise that these charges should maintained at too intense a heat to admit disbe brought into the Senate, he said:

1

crimination or reflection." Nor were there

"I know fuil well that it is and has been the set- wanting in 1830 Northern men to echo the words, tled policy of some persons in the South, for years, and join in the cry against the people of the to represent the people of the North as disposed to interferet the people of their own exclusive and peculiar concerns. When it became neces

Bary, or was thought so by some political per- by one of the most accomplished statesmen of

sons, to find an unvarying ground for the exclusion of Northernvarying confidence and from lead in the affairs of the Republic, then, and

North. If Mr. Webster, for a simple and beautiful tribute to the beneficent effects of the Ordinance of 1787, was arraigned on this floor in 1830 the South; if there were then found Northern men ready to echo his words, surely the men who now vote to apply the principle of that great

Ordinance to the vast territorial possessions of constitutional rights of the people of any of the the Republic cannot hope to escape the misrep- States-they gave their votes with the profound. resentation, censure, and reproach, of Southern est conviction that they were discharging the men, who see in the expansion of Freedom the duties sanctioned by humanity, patriotism, and signs of their waning power, or of that class of religion. Youth with its high hopes and aspiraNorthern men who

"in the dust are groping
For the largess, base and small,
Which the hand of power is scattering;
Crumbs which from its table fall."

But, sir, I can stand, we can stand here to-day and say, as the great New England orator then said, that their accusations and suspicions are wholly groundless-that no attempt has ever been made, since Washington took the oath of office on the 30th of April, 1789, to this hour, to interfere with the legal and constitutional rights of the people of the Southern States in their domestic concerns.

On the 4th of November last, more than one million three hundred thousand men, intelligent, patriotic, liberty-loving, law-abiding citizens of New England, the great Central States, and of the Northwest, holding with our Republican fathers that all men are created equal, and have an inalienable right to liberty; that the Constitution of the United States was ordained and established to secure that inalienable right everywhere under its exclusive authority; denying

tions-manhood in the vigor and maturity of its powers-age with its rich and ripe experiences, inspired with the spirit of Washington, when he announced to Robert Morris that his "suffrage should not be wanting" to effect "the abolition of Slavery" in his native Virginia "in the only proper and effectual mode in which it could be accomplished that is, by legislative authority"severed the ties which had bound them to other organizations, and united to prohibit Slavery everywhere outside the slave States, where it exists under the exclusive authority of Congress. This is the offence of these one million three bundred thousand sons of the free North, upon whom the unkennelled hounds of the slave propagand. ists have been unleashed.

Sir, the President of the United States, in this his last will and testament, has arraigned these one million three hundred thousand intelligent and patriotic freemen of the country. His ac cusations have gone forth over the land. Steam and sail, wind and wave, are bearing these accusations all over the Christian and civilized world. Wherever our country is known, these

"the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Leg- accusations made by the Chief Magistrate of the islature, of any individual or association of indi- Republic will meet the eye or reach the ear of viduals, to give legal existence to Slavery in men. I indulge the hope, however, that the any Territory of the United States, while the Republicans of the Old World who have been present Constitution shall be maintained," pro- and now are branded as factionists, "disorgannounced through the ballot-box that "the Con-izers, levellers, enemies of churches and hierarchstitution confers upon Congress sovereign power ies, will remember that the Republicans of the over the Territories of the United States, and New World, who battle for the liberty of man that in the exercise of this power it is both the against the dominion of man, are doomed, like right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the themselves, to share the contumely and reproachTerritories those twin relics of barbarism, Polyg-es of power. amy and Slavery." Believing, with Franklin, Assuming, Mr. President, that his policy has that "Slavery is an atrocious debasement of hu- been sanctioned by the election, the President man nature"-with Adams, that "consenting to proceeds to accuse more than one million three Slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust"- with hundred thousand American citizens of an atJefferson, that "one hour of American Slavery tempt to organize a sectional party, and usurp is fraught with more misery than ages of that the Government of the country. He proceeds to which we rose in rebellion to oppose" with arraign more than one million three hundred Madison, that "Slavery is a dreadful calamity," thousand citizens of the free North, and to charge that "imbecility is ever attendant upon a coun- them with forming associations of individuals try filled with slaves"-with Monroe, that "Sla- "who, pretending to seek only to prevent the very has preyed upon the vitals of the communi- spread of Slavery into the present or future inty in all the States where it has existed" with choate States, are really inflamed with a desire Montesquieu, that "even the very earth, which to change the domestic institutions of existing teems with profusion under the cultivating hand States" with seeking "an object which they of the free-born laborer, shrinks into barrenness well know to be a revolutionary one" with enfrom the contaminating sweat of a slave"-they tering "a path which leads nowhere, unless it be pronounced their purpose to be to save Kansas, to civil war and disunion" with being "pernow in peril, and all the Territories of the Repub- fectly aware that the only path to the accomlic, for the free laboring men of the North and plishment" of the change they seek "is through the South, their children, and their children's burning cities and ravaged fields and slaughtered

children, forever.

Accepting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States as their political charts-avowing their purposes to be to maintain the Constitution, the Federal Union, and the rights of the States-proclaiming everywhere their purpose not to make war upon the South, not to interfere with the legal and

populations"-with endeavoring "to prepare the people of the United States for civil war by doing everything in their power to deprive the Constitution and the laws of moral authority, and to undermine the fabric of the Union by appeals to passion and sectional prejudice, by indoctrinating its people with reciprocal hatred, and by educating them to stand face to face as enemies."

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Sir, I deny each every one-ay, all of these in the dust, so that squadrons of cavalry could charges. There is not the semblance of truth | gallop over them unimpeded, as the steeds sweep in them. If the serpent that stole into Eden, that beguiled our first mother, which the angels

"Found

Squat like a toad close at the ear of Eve,"

over the boundless prairies of the West. He should have restrained the pen which libels more than one hundred thousand sons of his native State, whose only offence is that they have resolv.

had glided into the Executive Mansion, that ser-ed that Slavery shall never be introduced "into

pent could not have hissed into the President's ear words more skillfully adapted to express the precise and exact opposite of truth. Sir, these accusations against as intelligent and patriotic men as ever rallied around the standard of Freedom, are untruthful and malignant, showing that the shafts hurled in the conflict through which we have just passed, rankle in his bosom.

the North." Sir, these aspersions of the Executive upon Northern men will recoil upon his own head. He will go out of power with the stern condemnation of hundreds of thousands who were instrumental in elevating him to that lofty position from which he has hurled his envenomed shafts.

The first charge is, that associations have been formed of persons pretending to seek the restriction of Slavery in the Territories, but who desire to interfere with Slavery in the States. This does not apply to the Garrison Abolitionists-they do not pretend to act in favor of the restriction of Slavery in the Territories; the Gerrit Smith Abolitionists do not make that pretension. These words apply to the Republican party of the United States a party that has given a larger vote in the free North, by nearly one hundred and fifty thousand, than any party ever gave there before-a vote within a few thousands as large as Taylor received in 1848, or Scott in 1852, in the whole Union.

Senators express their surprise that we on this side of the Chamber should utter the indignation which men who have any spirit, any sense of honor, should feel at these malignant and false charges of the Chief Magistrate of the Republic. Sir, he has undertaken to arraign us before the world, as making pretensions to one line of polior. when we intended to act up to another. He has charged us with engaging in revolutionary movements. He has charged us with having entered on a line of policy that has no possible outlet but civil war and disunion. He has charged us with thus acting, in the full knowledge that our path leads over ravaged fields, burning cities, and slaughtered populations. He has charged us with undermining the Constitution and laws of our country; with arraying the people of one section against the others, learning them to stand face to face as enemies. Sir, we should #meet the scorn and contempt of all honorable men, if we did not utter the feelings which these Gajust, untruthful, and malignant aspersions upon the people whose representatives we are, excite in our bosoms. To us, to the people he has so bitterly assailed, these expressions of the President's personal opinion are of very little importance. We know his weight of metal, and to the Garrison Abolitionists, or to that class of

i

the limited range of his vision. The New Hamp

But the Senator from Ohio [Mr. PUGH] undertook to break this charge, the other day, by telling us, on this side of the Chamber, that if our positions were as we stated them to be, the President could not have intended this attack upon us; that he meant it for the little organization of Abolitionists in the North. I was surprised that the Senator should have invented such an excuse for the Chief Magistrate. I tell the Senator, and I tell other Senators, that this excuse will not do. The President intended to arraign the electors who voted for Fremont; his words do not apply radical Abolitionists who supported Gerrit Smith

shire Patriot, the Boston Post, and the Washing- for the Presidency.

ton Union, are little calculated to convey to the Executive that exact, full, and accurate information, which would entitle his personal opinions to much consideration. These charges, however, Gerive some little importance from his high posi

tion.

Sir, Senators who have undertaken to sustain or rather to apologize for this extraordinary course of the President, bave condemned the discussion of the Slavery question during the past few years. I commend to Senators who censure the people for these discussions, the words of JAMES MADISON, that

There is one member of his Cabinet, whose hand some think they see in the message, who knows full well the character of this production-involve national expense or safety, becomes of "Everything which tends to increase danger, I mean the learned Attorney General. His vast 'concern to every part of the Union; and is a

acquisitions and tireless industry, his early asso- proper subject for the consideration of those ciations and correspondence with the Abolition-charged with the general administration of the ists of New England, all teach him that these Government."

accusations against the people of the North are Surely Senators cannot be surprised at the diswithout any foundation. For years he was in cor- cussion of questions so vast as those which grow respondence with the leading Abolitionists of the out of the slavery of nearly four millions of men North. Iremember, sir, the public letter penned in America. American Slavery, our connections in his night-dress, dictated by the poet Whittier, with it, and our relations to it, and the obligations Waich he wrote to secure Abolition votes. I these connections and relations impose upon us remember too, sir, that when Wise made the as men, as citizens of the States and the United ent threat that they would introduce Slavery States, make up the overshadowing issues of the foro the North, he indignantly answered, that age in which we live. Philanthropists who have before they could introduce Slavery into the sounded the depths and shoals of humanity; North, her cities and villages would be levelled scholars who have laid under contribution the

'Slave Power in regard to our vast Territorial ' possessions at the West."

Sir, this is what Garrison said; and I call upon the Senator to place this matter right before the people whose ear he has. Garrison said, in explanation of this position:

domain of matter and of mind, of philosophiction for endeavoring to baffle the designs of the inquiry and historical research; statesmen, who are impressing their genius upon the institutions of their country and their age-all are now illustrating, by their genius, learning, and eloquence, the vast and complicated issues involved in the great problems we, of this age, in America, are working out. The transcendent m. gnitude of the interests involved in the existence and expansion of the system of human bondage in America is arresting the attention of the people, and stirring the country to its profoundest depths.

The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. JONES] quoted a remark of mine, to the effect that this agitation of the Slavery question would never cease while the soil of the Republic should be trod by the foot of a slave. That sentiment I repeat here to-day. I believe it. GOD is the great agitator. While his throne stands, agitation will go on until the foot of a slave shall not press the soil of the eastern or western continent. Would that Senator suppress all aspirations for human Liberty? I commend to the Senator the words of Henry Clay, whom he followed so devotedly while living, by whose bedside he stood when dying, and whose memory he cherishes and reveres. Of those who would repress all generous effort for Freedom in America, Henry Clay said:

"They must blow out the moral lights around 'us, and extinguish that greatest torch of all which America presents to a benighted world, pointing the way to their rights, liberties, and happiness. And when they achieve all these purposes, their work will be incomplete. They must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of Liberty. Then, and not till then, when universal dark(ness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate Slavery, and repress all sympathies and all humane and benevolent efforts among freemen, in behalf of the unhappy portion of our race doomed to bondage."

I commend, Mr. President, these words of the great American statesman to Senators who would silence every noble pulsation of the human heart which beats for the liberty of the poor unfortunate men now held in perpetual bondage.

The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. BROWN] told us the other day that Garrison had said, if he had a million of votes, he would give them all for Fremont. Sir, the impression has gone out to the country, that Garrison voted for Fremont. The Senator's remark will deceive those who have already been deceived, and mislead those who have already been misled. Garrison had but one vote to give, but he did not give even that for Fremont. Garrison, speaking for himself and his associates, did say:

"The best wishes of every enlightened friend of Freedom must be on the side of Fremont; so that, if there were no moral barrier to our voting, and we had a million of votes to bestow, we should cast them all for the Republican candidate. Justly open to censure as the Republican party is, on other ground its fidelity to the United States Constitution, in regard to its Pro-Sla' very compromises-it is deserving of commenda

"We have uniformly expressed our preference 'for Fremont as against Buchanan or Fillmore, and this is the universal feeling of the 'ultra Abo'litionists;' not because Fremont is an Aboll' tionist, not because his party gives any counte'nance whatever to our disunion views, or to ''ultraism' in any shape; but because he and 'they are right in resisting the extension of Slavery, and in that act necessarily have our sym'pathies and good wishes, however culpable 'they may be, and are, in other respects; just as 'we approved of Mr. Webster's course when he 'declared: 'The freemen of the North have a deep interest in keeping labor free, exclusively free, in the new Territories.' * 'shall consent to no extension of the area of 'Slavery upon this continent, nor to any increase ' of slave representation in the other House of 'Congress.' This is Fremontism, in whole and in part-nothing more-nothing less."

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The Senator also made the charge here, that the New York Tribune had appealed to the Garrison Abolitionists, and to the supporters of Gerrit Smith, to support the Republican party; promising that in due time the Republican party would go with them in attacking Slavery in the States. To this declaration of the Senator, the Tribune gives this complete denial:

"The Tribune made no appeal whatever to 'the Garrison and Gerrit Smith Abolitionists to 'come over to the Fremont party, nor anything 'of the sort. It never promised to unite in urg'ing the use of Federal authority or power to overthrow Slavery in the States."

I call the attention of the Senators who make it a practice here before the people to class us with the Garrison Abolitionists, and with the supporters of Gerrit Smith, to the precise and exact difference between us. The Garrison Abolitionists do not vote at all. They will neither vote nor hold office. They take no political part or lot in the Government of the country. They are not only committed against the extension of Slavery, but they are committed against Slavery in the slave States. Believing, with Brissot, that "Slavery in all its forms, in all its degrees, is a violation of divine law, and a degradation of human nature;" and believing the Constitution to be what some honorable Senators on this floor represent it to be, an instrument that recognises what Madison said he would not embody in it, "the idea that there can be property in man," they are in favor of dissolving the present Union, and overthrowing the Federal Constitution. I dissent, the Republican party dissents, from their construction of the Constitu tion of the United States. We dissent altogether from their disunion sentiments we do not couL cur with them in abstaining from the exercise of the elective franchise. I have ever avowed that disagreement at home-I avow it here. But