court of the State, and on the 7th of December, 1857, that decision was affirmed, one judge only dissenting. In January, 1860, the case was taken before the Court of Appeals, William M. Evarts and Charles O'Connor appearing respectively for the slaves and the slaveholders; and it, too, affirmed the decisions below, recognizing the principle claimed, and establishing the fact that New York could not be made a highway or port of transit for the domestic slave-traffic.

This trial was noticeable, too, for the extreme opinions advanced by the counsel of the slaveholders. He based his argument for reversal of decision upon the ground that property in man rested on the basis of all other property, and that no State could pass laws that would vitiate or extinguish its claim. To establish that point, it was necessary to show that slavery was not wrong, and not contrary to the self-evident truths of the Declaration. The first he boldly affirmed, declaring that slavery was not morally wrong, and that there was no law of nature or of God against slaveholding. He said that if slaveholding was a sin, it was a sin of the greatest magnitude; that the man who did not shrink back from it with horror was utterly unworthy of the name of a man; and that an honest European would, if he had self-respect, turn his back upon a Northern man wilfully offending, as "the vilest of the vile." Of the phrases concerning human equality in the Declaration of Independence he said, if they were intended to include negroes, that the first sentence of the Constitution, setting forth its purpose to establish justice, is "a piece of hypocrisy and falsehood, and the American name is covered with the undying stigma inwrought with the perpetuation of injustice." Though many may not have accepted this estimate of slavery or this interpretation of the Declaration, yet it would have been then, as it is now, much easier to denounce the insincerity and extravagance of this language than to answer this sharp arraignment of the nation for its inconsistency, not to say "hypocrisy and falsehood," in promulgating such a Bill of Rights, adopting such a Constitution, and then supplementing it with such a history.

CHAPTER LI.

MENACES OF DISUNION.

Intense Southern feeling. — Disloyal sentiments. - Parties in Congress. -- Failure to elect a Speaker. Clark's resolution. - Helper's book. Millson's declaration. Sherman's disclaimer. - Sarcasm of Stevens. Treasonable utterances of Garrette and Lamar. "Overt Act.". Threats of De Jarnette, Leake, Pryor, Keitt, Crawford, Underwood, Pugh, Clopton, Barksdale, and Singleton. - Patriotic utterances of Southern men. Stokes. Anti-Lecompton Democrats. —John Hickman. - Thomas Corwin. - Extreme utterances in the Senate. Toombs, Iverson, Clay, and Clingman. - Mr. Wilson's response. - Such sentiments feebly rebuked by Northern Democrats. - Similar sentiments-proclaimed throughout the South. Public meetings. — Avowals of Jefferson Davis, Faulkner, McRee, and Iverson. Picture of a Southern confederacy.

WHEN the XXXVIth Congress met on the 5th of December, 1859, the Southern members exhibited great intensity of feeling and earnestness of purpose. Many had convinced themselves that in secession alone could the South find protection from the rapidly accumulating forces of free institutions. They were indifferent to anything like conciliation and agreement; and they sought rather to aggravate than remove whatever was calculated to widen the breach already existing, and to render hopeless everything but disunion. Such had become the tone of several of their leading presses, and such the sentiment which had been proclaimed at several public meetings held during the summer and autumn.

There were three parties represented in the House by one hundred and nine Republicans, one hundred and one Democrats, and twenty-seven Americans, or old-line Whigs. On the first ballot for Speaker there was no choice, John Sherman receiving sixty-six, and Galusha A. Grow forty-three votes; the latter, however, withdrawing his name on the declaration of the result. This vote and the state of feeling indicated thereby became the signal of an irregular debate, extending

through eight weeks, before an election of Speaker was effected. In it were uttered sentiments of the most disorganizing character and of the baldest treason.

This stormy debate was introduced by a singular resolution, offered by John B. Clark of Missouri, to the effect that the doctrines of a book just published, written by Hinton R. Helper of North Carolina, and styled "The Impending Crisis of the South," were insurrectionary and hostile to the domestic tranquillity of the country; and that no member who had indorsed it was fit to be Speaker. The impertinence of that intrusive measure was indicated, not simply by its conflict with freedom of speech and action, but by the fact that the book condemned was not distinctively an abolition work, but was written not so much in the interest of the black as of the white population, for prudential rather than philanthropic reasons, more in behalf of the master than the slave, and more to help the non-slaveholding whites than either. A compendium, prepared for general circulation, had received the recommendation of a paper signed by nearly seventy members of the House of Representatives, and by such men as Horace Greeley, William C. Bryant, Thurlow Weed, and John Jay. The special point of the resolution was directed to the fact that Mr. Sherman, one of the candidates for the speakership, was among these signers; and the demand was made by the mover that his name should be withdrawn.

Mr. Millson of Virginia said that he who "consciously, deliberately, and of purpose lends his name and influence to the propagation of such writings, is not only not fit to be a Speaker, but he is not fit to live." This strange and senseless. declaration was applauded by the galleries. Mr. Sherman then informed the House that he had never read the work, and that he had never seen copy of it. He read, too, a letter from Francis P. Blair, in which it was stated that Mr. Helper had promised to expurgate the objectionable passages, and he added that it was in consequence of this assurance that Republican members had joined in the recommendation. Mr. Leake of Virginia, rising under great excitement, demanded of the "candidate of the Abolition party," whether he was opposed

to any interference on the subject of slavery. Mr. Sherman too promptly, some thought, replied: "I am opposed to any interference whatever by the people of the free States with the relations of master and slave in the slave States."

But soft words were thrown away. Mr. Keitt confronted them with quotations from the speeches of Mr. Seward, the utterances of the New York" Tribune," concerning the book and the John Brown raid. The South, he said, asked nothing but her rights; "but," he added, "as God is my judge, I would shatter this republic from turret to foundation-stone before I would take one tittle less."

Thaddeus Stevens, mingling sarcasm with severity, and his severity designed more for the North than the South, said he did not blame the Southern members for the course they were pursuing, though he regarded it as untimely and irregular. He did not blame them for their language of intimidation, "for using this threat of rending God's creation from turret to foundation." They had tried intimidation Before and it had succeeded. They had tried it "fifty times, and fifty times" they had found "weak and recreant tremblers in the North."

This cool sarcasm of the imperturbable Pennsylvanian was more than the fire-eaters could bear. Mr. Crawford of Georgia, interrupting him, impatiently remarked that they wanted no backing down, but "a square and manly avowal of their sentiments"; at the same time he gave the assurance that there would be no "cowardly shrinking" on the part of the South. Members crowded into the area, and great excitement prevailed. Mr. Stevens contemptuously remarked: "This is the way they frightened us before; now you see exactly what it is, and what it has always been." He raised, however, the point of order that no business should be entered upon until the House was organized. Garnett of Virginia, springing to the floor, at once took issue, and vehemently demanded that the discussion should go on, remarking that there was no power that could stop it. This defiant threat was received with marked approval by Southern men and their sympathizers, both on the floor and in the galleries. This saturnalia of

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words it could hardly be called debate-proceeded. The arrogant Virginian told Northern members to go home, repress the abolition spirit, repeal their personal liberty laws, and adopt legislation to punish men engaged in such insurrectionary proceedings. "Unless," he said, "you do pass such laws, unless you do put down the spirit of Abolitionism, the Union will be short." Thus boldly and baldly did he avow his contumacy and treason. Mr. Lamar of Mississippi charged Republicans with taking issue with the Constitution, and practically renouncing allegiance to its requirements. Claiming that the fathers had put the negro "as an institution of property and of society and of government into the Constitution," he defied them to put him out. They could do it, but at their peril. Avowing his devotion to the Constitution, he said: "But when its spirit is no longer observed on this floor, I war upon your government. I am against it. I raise then the banner of secession, and I will fight under it as long as the blood ebbs and flows in my veins."

But these remarks were too general, and not sufficiently explicit. Something more specific and direct was necessary, if not to give full expression to the Southern purpose, at least to suitably affect the Northern mind, and to convince it of the imminence of the impending danger. The election of a Republican President was therefore seized upon as the "overt act" that was to seal the doom of the Union, and to place the offending party beyond the pale of Southern endurance. De Jarnette of Virginia said that Mr. Seward was a perjured traitor, whom no Southerner could either consistently support, or even obey, should the nation elect him President. "You may," he said, "elect him President of the North, but of the South never." Mr. Leake, of the same State, avowed her right to secede, with manifest tokens of approval on the Democratic side of the House. Repudiating the sentiment uttered by Governor Wise, of fighting inside of the Union, he said: "We will not fight in the Union, but quit it the instant we think proper to do so." Mr. Pryor, in reply to antislavery utterances, said that slavery was not repugnant to the Constitution; nor was it calculated to impede the progress of the