an expense that no people can meet, and that our people now cannot meet. I am with the gentleman in desiring to send the freed black men out of the country, or at least in preventing any more from coming into my own State. The State of Indiana excludes them, and I believe has, like the State of Illinois, a colonization fund to pay their way out of the country. I wish the State of Ohio had the same thing, and then, instead of the census showing in Ohio an increase in the ratio of the free colored population of our State over the whites, it would show a decrease in proportion to the white race, as is the case in Indiana and Illinois.

Mr. JULIAN. In the State of Indiana the black law is notoriously a dead letter upon our statute-book.

Mr. HOLMAN. The constitutional provision, and the law made in pursuance of it prohibiting the immigration of free negroes into Indiana, may be inoperative in that part of the State which my colleague represents, but I am very sure that in that portion of the State which borders upon Kentucky the people have deemed it necessary, as a measure of policy, and to protect their own internal interests, to enforce the law.

Mr. Cox. I think I must go on with my remarks. I have been led away altogether from the course which I had marked out for myself in regard to this bill. I intended to show the state of society in Hayti; something of its commerce; something of the condition of its Government, that we might see whether there is any propriety in our having a diplomatic functionary at that place, and having one from them in return. I shall, however, take an early opportunity of showing to this House exactly what I conceive to be the effect of these schemes of emancipation and colonization, especially in reference to the free negroes and their immigration into my own State. I made an issue the other day with my colleague [Mr. BINGHAM] on this subject, and I intend to pursue that issue, and to see whether or not the State of Ohio has the right, and should exercise it, to keep out these hordes of blacks that are now coming over into Ohio. I know we cannot send them to Hayti. They will not go there. The idea of the gentleman from Missouri is utterly chimerical. They claim the same right in this country that he has. In the meetings at which they have assembled in this city, the proposition to go to Hayti was made to them, and they voted it down. It was so in Boston

Mr. BINGHAM. Will my colleague have the kindness to let me suggest here, as he proposes to make an issue with me in our State

Mr. Cox. I joined issue with the gentleman the other day.

Mr. BINGHAM. I did not know that we had joined issue so very formally, but will he have the kindness to let me know how he proposes to dispose of these free negroes? He says he will not favor their compulsory emigration to Liberia: where will he put them?

Mr. Cox. I said not a word about compulsory emigration to Liberia. I would put them where the Constitution puts them. But one thing I will not do favor the equality of blacks with whites, either individually or nationally.

A few words before I conclude as to the Government of Hayti. The present state of Haytien society is divided into two political parties very distinct from each other-that of the blacks or pure negroes, and that of the mulattoes or mixed race. The former have the power, but are very

T

ignorant; the latter embrace all the educated classes, but are envied and suspected by the pure blacks, and therefore kept by them under a species of yoke similar to that of the "rayas" in Turkey. As an illustration of the extreme ignorance of the blacks, I will quote the words of President Pierrot, in 1845, who pretended that all Haytiens who, like himself, could not read, were to be considered blacks, and all those that read were to be deemed mixed. The Haytien black achieved his independence; but as he has always present to his mind the fact that he was a slave to the white, and has suffered under him, he naturally hates him, and all that have any connection with him. Hence the envy and suspicion he entertains against the mulattoes, whom he supposes to be the friends of the white, and to be plotting with him to bring the black back to slavery. He has a decided reluctance to every kind of improvement proposed by the white or mulatto, and he will not educate himself. The pure blacks are in the proportion of nine to one, and rule all. The administration of the Government is ignorant, improvident, engaged in nothing but uniforms and parade, inexplicable dumb shows, and "negro shows" at that. They have an army of forty thousand strong, in rags, and scarcely one-third armed, without any kind of discipline, almost without officers, and whose pay, small as it is, is neglected. They are the ebony counterpart of Falstaff's company when he used the king's press so damnably. They have a treasury, kept up by paper money, the nominal value of which, issued for one dollar, or gourde, has fallen to twelve cents! They have an excessive tariff on both imports and exports, from which the State derives its revenue. There is great corruption in all the departments of their Government.

Several MEMBERS. They are on an equality with this Government in that.

Mr. Cox. That remark might well apply to one Department; and if Hayti instead of Russia had been selected by a former Cabinet officer for his dishonorable retiracy, there would, I admit, be a sort of fitness of things. [Laughter.]

Thus I have recounted in a desultory way-for I did not expect Hayti in to-day-the condition of one of the finest countries in the world, which, had it been well administered, would really deserve its old name, "the Queen of the Antilles." This state of things is due to the fact that, for the last seventy years of their independence, the blacks have been confined to themselves, and have declined all improvement or instruction, either in law or economy. During this trial of seventy years the blacks have proved that they are not fit for government, nor competent for independence. The conduct of Spain, referred to by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. GOOCH], proves this. To admit such a nation on an equality with this Republic, is as much of a caricature on international comity as the admission of a Port Royal contraband to a seat in Congress. It is an indisputable fact that Hayti, with a population of over half a million, and one of the finest soils on the earth, productive of the rarest articles, possessed of rich mines of gold, mercury, iron, and coal-an Eldorado-has for the past seventy years remained an unprofitable spot because of the inability of its people to raise themselves above the corruption, laziness,

improvidence, ignorance, and vice which seem to follow the undirected African wherever he goes.

It is said that England and France receive chargés from Hayti and Liberia. The Exeter Hall abolitionists have perhaps made it possible in - London to have the negro recognized at Court; but I understand that except on Court days, when he is presented in that solemn scene of mockery, he is isolated and slighted, except it may be in the saloons of the Duchess of Sutherland or some other innamorata of the African. In Paris we know that any show from a puppet to a prince is a sensation; and besides, there was some reason why France should take Hayti under her protective wing. But unless gentlemen here propose equality, unless they intend abolition entire, there is nothing logical in their pressing this bill. So long as they suffer slaveholders and slave States to have or take any part in this Union, it is an insult to bring into the Federal metropolis this black minister proposed by the gentlemen. What is it for, unless it be to outrage the prejudices of the whites of this country, and to show how audaciously the abolitionists can behave? How fine it will look, after emancipating the slaves in this District, to welcome here at the White House an African, full-blooded, all gilded and belaced, dressed in court style, with wig and sword and tights and shoe-buckles and ribbons and spangles and many other adornments which African vanity will suggest! How suggestive of fun to our good-humored, joke-cracking Executive! With what admiring awe will the contrabands approach this ebony demigod! while all decent and sensible white people will laugh the silly and ridiculous ceremony to scorn.

TRENT AFFAIR.

SEIZURE OF SOUTHERN AMBASSADORS-RIGHT OF SEARCH IN TIME OF WAR-ENGLISH AND AMERICAN DOCTRINE.

On the 17th of December, 1861, I took occasion, in reporting a bill for the relief of the owners of the British ship "Perthshire," to discuss the matters involved in the Trent affair. A few extracts from the debate will furnish the preface to the more elaborate discussion of the rights of neutrals, which follows:

I would not to-day bring in this bill, if I believed that any inference would be drawn from its passage that it was dictated by any concession to British arrogance. I would not ask this House even to do a matter of right under a threat from Great Britain, or under the dictation of her arrogance or passion; but in order that we may demand our rights of Great Britain, we should always be ready to do right toward her. In the jealous defence of our maritime rights our officers may exceed their duty. The moment that is ascertained, as it is in this instance, the Government will take pride in according satisfaction. Our Government must do its duty in order to assert its rights. It is to be hoped that the action of this House, at least toward foreign powers, will show a wise and just con

ciliation without any timid or time-serving submission. While we would not yield one inch to any servile fear or ungenerous compulsion, such as is threatened by the late news from England, it is becoming the dignity of the Republic promptly to remedy grievances. Thus we are triply armed to demand prerogatives belonging to our nationality, both at home and abroad.

Great Britain should, and I trust will, meet us in this spirit, when we demand of her why it is that she has afforded an asylum in Southampton harbor to the Nashville. Without nationality, without even the pretence of a barbarous privateering commission; and after bearing an envoy of the rebels (Colonel Peyton) to Great Britain; after overhauling the Harvey Birch upon the high seas, almost within sight of the shores of England; after dragging down the stars and stripes from that ship, and raising instead that strange banner of triple-striped infamy; after ironing her crew, and with the red hand of the bold buccaneer burning her to the water's edge; after all this, the Nashville has found a hospitable asylum in the harbor of Southampton, to be refitted for another outrage with warlike armaments from English storehouses! We have a right to demand how it is that she is permitted thus to refit. We have a right to demand whether that is in accordance with her much-boasted but ill-disguised neutrality. We have a right to know, after Great Britain has assumed her position of neutrality, and assumed it voluntarily and in defiance of our protest, how it is that, consistently with that assumption, she can give aid and comfort and warlike stores to this ship Nashville, for the very purpose of enabling her again to make roving inroads upon our commerce? I think, so far as I know anything of the case of the Nashville, that the English people, if not the English Government, have acted as accessories after the fact to the piracy committed upon our commerce. She cannot complain, then, that in the midst of the great national peril that overshadows us, and while the public nerve is so acutely sensitive to the very least indignity-she cannot complain that we, in our great tribulation, should ask of her to do right as a neutral, since she has assumed that position. In connection with the case that I have presented to the House, I will now, for a very few moments only, call the attention of the House to the position which our Government assumes with reference to the case of the Trent. I say our Government assumes a position. True, the President has in his message preserved a discreet reticence with reference to it; but this House in the first hours of its session, and the Secretary of the Navy in his report, have justified Captain Wilkes for his performance. Honors have been showered on him. His heroism has been lauded. I assume that our Government, by not disapproving, at least has sanctioned his conduct on the highest principles of international justice..

The other day, at the beginning of this session, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. LOVEJOY] introduced his resolution approving the conduct of Captain Wilkes. I voted for that resolution. I approve of that action of Commodore Wilkes, because it was founded on international right. This matter came again before the House yesterday; and lo! in the face of the morning news which echoed with the roar of the English lion, there seemed to be a different spirit on the other side of the House! I hope

that the House did not intend on yesterday to express an opinion adverse to our rights in the case of the Trent, by referring the matter to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. I believe that, when the matter is discussed by that committee and reported to the House, the committee and the House will stand together by our rights in the premises. But I was reluctant to vote for its reference; not because the members of that committee will not examine it fully and do their duty to the country, but because my own opinion was foregone and had been expressed on the resolution of the gentleman from Illinois. The more I examine it, the more I am satisfied that, in regard to this question, this Government stands in a position to defend herself in any forum before the world.

Mr. COLFAX. I desire to say to my friend from Ohio, that in common with many other members, I voted yesterday for the reference of the resolution to the Committee on Foreign Affairs because I thought that, standing as we may probably be on the brink of war, it was the duty of the American Congress to send out whatever it declared gravely, deliberately, solemnly, as the emanation of a standing committee, and not as the mere impulse of a solitary member.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. Will the gentleman from Indiana be kind enough to explain why those considerations which he urges with such force just now, did not occur to him on the first day of the session, when he proposed to imprison one of those men?

Mr. COLFAX. I will do so with great pleasure.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. He had not heard from England at the time, peradventure.

Mr. COLFAX. My resolution in reference to Mr. Mason was in reference to a man who had taken an oath as a Senator of the United States to support the Constitution of the country, and had violated it. He was not only a traitor, but he had violated his oath. He was in our hands, and I proposed to imprison him and subject him to treatment corresponding with that shown to Colonel Corcoran. When we come to deal as a nation with foreign nations, that is, of course, a different matter.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. I ask the gentleman from Indiana whether there is to-day any less violation of their oaths on the part of Mason and Slidell than there was the first day of the session? Are they less traitors now than they were then? If so, what makes the difference?

Mr. Cox. I must arrest this interlocutory debate.

Mr. COLFAX. I am still in favor of meting out the same treatment to them as Colonel Corcoran receives.

Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. These men will be surrendered before three months in the face of a threat. I make that prediction here to-day. Mr. COLFAX. I disbelieve it.

Mr. Cox. I hope that the prediction of my colleague will never be fulfilled. I have some faith in the sagacity of our Secretary of State, too much faith in the honor of the people of the country, to believe that they will ever permit their Government, in a case of clear right, to so dishonor them. The honor of a nation is its credit; its credit is its commerce; its commerce is its cash; and its cash brings with it the comforts and refinements of civilization. Where you touch the cash, you have a powerful argument with any nation. The pecuniary argument is, with the majority,