this whole Apology to the ineffable contempt which it deserves; but it has been made to play such a part in this conspiracy, that I feel it a duty to expose it completely.

Sir, from the earliest times, men have recognized the advantages of organization, as an effective agency in promoting works of peace or war. Especially at this moment, there is no interest, public or private, high or low, of charity or trade, of luxury or convenience, which does not seek its aid. Men organize to rear churches and to sell thread; to build schools and to sail ships; to construct roads and to manufacture toys; to spin cotton and to print books; to weave cloths and to quicken harvests; to provide food and to distribute light; to influence Public Opinion and to secure votes; to guard infancy in its weakness, old age in its decrepitude, and womanhood in its wretchedness; and now, in all large towns, when death has come, they are buried by organized societies, and, emigrants to another world, they lie down in pleasant places, adorned by organized skill. To complain that this prevailing principle has been applied to living emigration, is to complain of Providence and the irresistible tendencies implanted in man.

But this application of the principle is no recent invention, brought forth for an existing emergency. It has the best stamp of antiquity. It showed itself in the brightest days of Greece, where colonists moved in organized bands. It became a part of the mature policy of Rome, where bodies of men were constituted expressly for this purpose, triumviri ad colonos deducendos. (Livy, xxxvii., $ 46.) Naturally it has been accepted in modern times by every civilized State. With the sanction of Spain, an association of Genoese merchants first introduced slaves to this continent. With the sanction of France, the Society of Jesuits stretched their labors over Canada and the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. It was under the auspices of Emigrant Aid Companies that our country was originally settled, by the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth, by the adventurers of Virginia, and by the philanthropic Oglethorpe,

whose "benevolence of soul," commemorated by Pope, sought to plant a Free State in Georgia. At this day, such associations, of a humbler character, are found in Europe, with offices in the great capitals, through whose activity emigrants are directed here.

For a long time, emigration to the West, from the Northern and Middle States, but particularly from New England, has been of marked significance. In quest of better homes, annually it has pressed to the unsettled lands, in numbers to be counted by tens of thousands; but this has been done heretofore with little knowledge, and without guide or counsel. Finally, when, by the establishment of a Government in Kansas, the tempting fields of that central region were opened to the competition of peaceful colonization, and especially when it was declared that the question of Freedom or Slavery there was to be determined by the votes of actual settlers, then at once was organization enlisted as an effective agency in quickening and conducting the emigration impelled thither, and, more than all, in providing homes for it on arrival there.

The Company was first constituted under an act of the Legislature of Massachusetts, 4th of May, 1854, some weeks prior to the passage of the Nebraska Bill. The original act of incorporation was subsequently abandoned, and a new charter received in February, 1855, in which the objects of the Society are thus declared:

"For the purposes of directing emigration Westward, and aiding in providing accommodations for the emigrants after arriving at their places of destination."

At any other moment, an association for these purposes would have taken its place, by general consent, among the philanthropic experiments of the age; but crime is always suspicious, and shakes, like a sick man, merely at the pointing of a finger. The conspirators against freedom in Kansas now shook with tremor, real or affected. Their wicked plot was about to fail

To help themselves, they denounced the Emigrant Aid Company; and their denunciations, after finding an echo in the President, have been repeated, with much particularity, on this floor, in the formal report of your committee.

The falsehood of the whole accusation will appear in illustrative specimens.

A charter is set out, section by section, which, though originally granted, was subsequently abandoned, and is not in reality the charter of the Company, but is materially unlike it.

The Company is represented as "a powerful corporation, with a capital of five millions; " when, by its actual charter, it is not allowed to hold property above one million, and in point of fact its capital has not exceeded one hundred thousand dollars.

Then, again, it is suggested, if not alleged, that this enormous capital, which I have already said does not exist, is invested in "cannon and rifles, in powder and lead, and implements of war," all of which, whether alleged or suggested, is absolutely false. The officers of the Company authorize me to give to this whole pretension a point-blank denial.

All these allegations are of small importance, and I mention them only because they show the character of the report, and also something of the quicksand on which the senator from Illinois has chosen to plant himself. But these are all capped by the unblushing assertion that the proceedings of the Company were "in perversion of the plain provisions of an act of Congress; " and also another unblushing assertion, as "certain and undeniable," that the Company was formed to promote certain objects, "regardless of the rights and wishes of the people, as guaranteed by the constitution of the United States, and secured by their organic law;" when it is certain and undeniable that the Company has done nothing in perversion of any act of Congress, while, to the extent of its power, it has sought to protect the rights and wishes of the actual people in the Territory.

Sir, this Company has violated in no respect the constitution

or laws of the land; not in the severest letter or the slightest spirit. But every other imputation is equally baseless. It is not true, as the senator from Illinois has alleged, in order in some way to compromise the Company, that it was informed before the public of the date fixed for the election of the Legislature. This statement is pronounced by the Secretary, in a letter now before me, "an unqualified falsehood, not having even the shadow of a shade of truth for its basis." It is not true that men have been hired by the Company to go to Kansas; for every emigrant, who has gone under its direction, has himself provided the means for his journey. Of course, sir, it is not true, as has been complained by the senator from South Carolina, with that proclivity to error which marks all his utterances, that men have been sent by the Company "with one uniform gun, Sharpe's rifle;" for it has supplied no arms of any kind to anybody. It is not true that the Company has encouraged any fanatical aggression upon the people of Missouri; for it has counselled order, peace, forbearance. It is not true that the Company has chosen its emigrants on account of their political opinions; for it has asked no questions with regard to the opinions of any whom it aids, and at this moment stands ready to forward those from the South as well as the North, while, in the Territory, all, from whatever quarter, are admitted to an equal enjoyment of its tempting advantages. It is not true that the Company has sent persons merely to control elections, and not to remain in the Territory; for its whole action, and all its anticipation of pecuniary profits, are founded on the hope to stock the country with permanent settlers, by whose labor the capital of the Company shall be made to yield its increase, and by whose fixed interest in the soil the welfare of all shall be promoted.

Sir, it has not the honor of being an Abolition society, or of numbering among its officers Abolitionists. Its President is a retired citizen, of ample means and charitable life, who has taken no part in the conflicts on Slavery, and has never allowed

his sympathies to be felt by Abolitionists. One of its VicePresidents is a gentleman from Virginia, with family and friends there, who has always opposed the Abolitionists. Its generous Treasurer, who is now justly absorbed by the objects of the Company, has always been understood as ranging with his extensive connections, by blood and marriage, on the side of that quietism which submits to all the tyranny of the Slave Power. Its Directors are more conspicuous for wealth and science than for any activity against Slavery. Among these is an eminent lawyer of Massachusetts, Mr. Chapman,- personally known, doubtless, to some who hear me, who has distinguished himself by an austere conservatism, too natural to the atmosphere of courts, which does not flinch even from the support of the Fugitive Slave Bill. In a recent address at a public meeting in Springfield, this gentleman thus speaks for himself and his associates:

"I have been a Director of the Society from the first, and have kept myself well informed in regard to its proceedings. I am not aware that any one in this community ever suspected me of being an Abolitionist; but I have been accused of being Pro-Slavery; and I believe many good people think I am quite too conservative on that subject. I take this 'occasion to say that all the plans and proceedings of the Society have met my approbation; and I assert that it has never done a single act with which any political party, or the people of any section of the country, can justly find fault. The name of its President, Mr. Brown, of Providence, and of its Treasurer, Mr. Lawrence, of Boston, are a sufficient guaranty, in the estimation of intelligent men, against its being engaged in any fanatical enterprise. Its stockholders are composed of men of all political parties, except Abolitionists. I am not aware that it has received the patronage of that class of our fellow-citizens, and I am informed that some of them disapprove of its proceedings."

The acts of the Company have been such as might be expected from auspices thus severely careful at all points. The secret through which, with small means, it has been able to accomplish so much, is, that, as an inducement to emigration, it has gone forward and planted capital in advance of