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The next day, February 16, 1854, George E. Badger, of North Carolina-born in that State 1795, and died at Raleigh, the State capital, May 11, 1866-took the floor for the bill. He was a combination of scholar, orator, lawyer, and humorist, with a fine, open face, and quick, dashing manner; popular with his colleagues, genial and warm-hearted, and most conscientious. You have the man before you in this outburst of feeling :

"This is a strange mode of enforcing the observance of compacts; and it shows with what facility we perceive the propriety of obliging others, and how easily we perceive it is not easy to oblige ourselves by the obligation of a compact, when the question returns whether we shall give the consideration for which the other party contracted. I remember having seen somewhere that Dr. Porteus, who was at one time the Bishop of London, and a man of no small celebrity in his day, had written a poem on the horrors and miseries of war, in which he had given so vivid a picture of the dreadful consequences and accompaniments of war, and its utter irreconcilability with the principles of Christianity, that everybody who read the poem. was deeply struck with the fervid eloquence and impassioned piety of the right reverend author. It is said that some time afterwards, during the prosecution of a foreign war, he made a strong speech in the British Parliament in favor of the war, and. in support of the Ministry who were carrying it on. As he was leaving the House, some noble lord fell alongside of him, and said, 'After reading your Lordship's very animated and stirring picture of the horrors of war, I was a little surprised to hear your Lordship's speech to-day, comparing it to what you have said in your poem.' 'Oh!' said he, 'my Lord, my poem was not written for this war.' [Laughter.] It seems to me that this is just exactly the same answer which the honorable Senator from Ohio gives to us. He says, 'Observe your plighted faith; hold yourselves bound by the bargain; adhere to the Missouri Compromise.' We ask him, in reply, 'Will you

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adhere to it?' 'Oh!' he answers, 'my position, my argument, my urgency, were not intended for this case, but for the other.' William H. Seward, February 17, 1854, opposed the bill. Never was he in finer trim. He saw in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise the opportunity for a new party. The Whigs were fading out. Clay and Webster had died two years before, full of years, with unfulfilled ambitions, and he, not yet fifty-five, had a wide field before him in which to figure. He was the uncontested leader of the antislavery idea, not the oldest, but certainly the best soldier. He was a man of wealth and society, had occupied high station, and was the equal of any other gentleman in manners and experience. Hence he spoke with the emphasis of a judge and the authority of a prophet when he said,

"Senators from the slaveholding States, you, too, suppose that you are securing peace as well as victory in this transaction. I tell you now, as I told you in 1850, that it is an error,, an unnecessary error, to suppose that because you exclude slavery from these halls to-day it will not revisit them tomorrow. You buried the Wilmot Proviso here then, and celebrated its obsequies with pomp and revelry. And here it is again to-day, stalking through these halls, clad in complete. steel as before. Even if those whom you denounce as faction-ists in the North would let it rest, you yourselves must evoke it from its grave. The reason is obvious. Say what you will, do what you will, here, the interests of the non-slaveholding. States and of the slaveholding States remain just the same; and they will remain just the same until you shall cease to cherish and defend slavery, or we shall cease to honor and love freedom! You will not cease to cherish slavery. Do you see any signs that we are becoming indifferent to freedom? On. the contrary, that old, traditional, hereditary sentiment of the. North is more profound and more universal now than it ever was before. The slavery agitation you deprecate so much is an

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eternal struggle between conservatism and progress, between truth and error, between right and wrong. You may sooner, by act of Congress, compel the sea to suppress its upheavings, and the round earth to extinguish its internal fires, than oblige the human mind to cease its inquirings, and the human heart to desist from its throbbings."

Two interesting men spoke in the other House the same day, February 17, on opposite sides—Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, and Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, both still living, and both now co-operating with the Democratic party. So much has been written of Alexander H. Stephens, and he has himself written so much, he has been so conspicuous an actor on the public stage from 1850 to 1880, that he is as well known as any of our modern statesmen. It is astonishing that one who has looked like a dying man for thirty years should to-day be alive and active. Of boyish stature, the voice of a woman, fragile frame, and delicate sensibilities, his eloquence is as athletic as that of John Bright, and his industry as intense as that of Caleb Cushing. Mr. Stephens was sixty-eight February 1I, 1880. On the 17th of February, 1855, he said,

"In behalf of this principle, Mr. Chairman, I would to-day address this House-not as partisans, neither as Whigs nor Democrats, but as Americans. I do not know what you call me or how you class me, whether as Whig or Democrat, in your political vocabulary; nor do I care. Principles should characterize parties, and not names. I call myself a republican, and I would invoké you, one and all, to come up and sustain this great republican and American policy, established in 1850 for the permanent peace, progress, and glory of our common country. If any of you are convinced of its propriety and correctness, but are afraid that your constituents are not equally convinced, follow the example of Mr. Webster, after his 7th-ofMarch speech, when the doors of Faneuil Hall were closed against him. Meet your constituents, if need be, in the open

air, and, face to face, tell them they are wrong and you are right. I think, sir, that great man on no occasion of his life ever appeared to greater advantage, in the display of those moral qualities which mark those entitled to lasting fame, than he did in the speech he made in an open barouche before the Revere House, in Boston, to three thousand people who had assembled to hear what reason he had to give for his course in the Senate. He stood as Burke before the people of Bristol, or as Aristides before the people of Athens, when he told them, above all things, to be 'just.' In that speech Mr. Webster told the people of Boston, 'You have conquered an inhospitable climate; you have conquered a sterile and barren soil; you have conquered the ocean that washes your shores; you have fought your way to the respect and esteem of mankind, but you have yet to conquer your prejudices.' That was indeed speaking vera pro gratis; and that was a scene for a painter or sculptor to perpetuate the man in the exhibition of his noblest qualities, far more worthy than the occasion of his reply to Mr. Hayne or his great 7th-of-March speech. Imitate his example -never lose the consciousness that 'truth is mighty and will ultimately prevail.' The great 'truth' as to the right principle of disposing of this slavery question in the Territories was first proclaimed by the Congress of the United States in 1850. It was as oil upon the waters. It gave quiet and repose to a distracted country. Let it be the pride of us all in this Congress to reaffirm the principle; make it coextensive with your limits, inscribe it upon your banners, make it broad as your Constitution, proclaim it everywhere, that the people of the common Territories of the Union, wherever the flag floats, shall have the right to form such republican institutions as they please. Let this be our pride; and then, with a common feeling in the memories and glories of the past, we can all, from every State, section, and Territory, look with hopeful anticipations to that bright prospect in the future which beckons us on in

our progress to a still higher degree of greatness, power, and renown."

Immediately after he had taken his seat, Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, rose to reply. How irresistibly circumstances control men! Mr. Campbell was for many years a Whig and Freesoiler. In the discussion on the Nebraska bill he was a leader among its adversaries, and so decided that the friends of the measure were roused to anger against him—one of them, exGovernor Smith, of Virginia, going to certain unparliamentary extremes. The allusion in the close of Mr. Campbell's speech, which I copy, was to that gentleman. To-day these men are all living and all members of the Democratic party, and not the least zealous of the triumvirate is the author of the following peroration:

"As I have before said, Mr. Chairman, I have not the personal acquaintance of the honorable gentleman; and I repeat that in what I said the other day, and in what I now say, I disclaim any design to give personal offence, or to do more than is necessary to vindicate my own rights, and the rights of my constituents, in this Congress of the nation. The character of our future intercourse I leave with him. I desire that my relations with him, and with all men, shall be those of friendship. If, however, he wishes to press a personal hostility because of my sentiments on the question of slavery, or for any other reason, to use his own language, he can every day 'find me when the House adjourns.' If he desires to meet me in friendship, I stand ready for such a meeting. If, on the other hand, he comes as my enemy, I simply ask that he will so telegraph me in unequivocal terms.

"Mr. Chairman, in my digression upon this personal matter I have lost much of the time which I intended to appropriate to a discussion of other features of the proposed repeal of the Missouri Compromise. My hour is nearly spent. The other points which I proposed to discuss must be left for a future oc

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