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Page 53
Why, Mr. President, this is a most singular state of things. Who is it
that is complaining? They that have been in a minority? They that have
been the subjects of an oppressive and aggressive Government? No, sir.
Let us suppose that when the leaders of the old glorious Revolution met
at Philadelphia eighty-four years ago to draw up a bill of indictment
against a wicked King and his ministers, they had been at a loss what
they should set forth as the causes of their complaint. They had
no difficulty in setting them forth so that the great article of
impeachment will go down to all posterity as a full justification of all
the acts they did. But let us suppose that, instead of its being these
old patriots who had met there to dissolve their connection with the
British Government, and to trample their flag under foot, it had
been the ministers of the Crown, the leading members of the British
Parliament, of the dominant party that had ruled Great Britain for
thirty years previous: who would not have branded every man of them as a
traitor? It would be said: "You who have had the Government in your own
hands: you who have been the ministers of the Crown, advising everything
that has been done, set up here that you have been oppressed and
aggrieved by the action of that very Government which you have directed
yourselves." Instead of a sublime revolution, the uprising of an
oppressed people, ready to battle against unequal power for their
rights, it would have been an act of treason.
How is it with the leaders of this modern revolution? Are they in a
position to complain of the action of this Government for years past?
Why, sir, they have had more than two-thirds of the Senate for many
years past, and until very recently, and have almost that now. You--who
complain, I ought to say--represent but a little more than one-fourth of
the free people of these United States, and yet your counsels prevail,
and have prevailed all along for at least ten years past. In the
Cabinet, in the Senate of the United States, in the Supreme Court, in
every department of the Government, your officers, or those devoted to
you, have been in the majority, and have dictated all the policies of
this Government. Is it not strange, sir, that they who now occupy these
positions should come here and complain that their rights are stricken
down by the action of the Government?
But what has caused this great excitement that undoubtedly prevails in a
portion of our country? If the newspapers are to be credited, there is
a reign of terror in all the cities and large towns in the southern
portion of this community that looks very much like the reign of terror
in Paris during the French revolution. There are acts of violence that
we read of almost every day, wherein the rights of northern men are
stricken down, where they are sent back with indignities, where they are
scourged, tarred, feathered, and murdered, and no inquiry made as to
the cause. I do not suppose that the regular Government, in times of
excitement like these, is really responsible for such acts. I know that
these outbreaks of passion, these terrible excitements that sometimes
pervade the community, are entirely irrepressible by the law of the
country. I suppose that is the case now; because if these outrages
against northern citizens were really authorized by the State
authorities there, were they a foreign Government, everybody knows, if
it were the strongest Government on earth, we should declare war upon
her in one day.
But what has caused this great excitement? Sir, I will tell you what I
suppose it is. I do not (and I say it frankly) so much blame the people
of the South; because they believe, and they are led to believe by all
the information that ever comes before them, that we, the dominant party
to-day, who have just seized upon the reins of this Government, are
their mortal enemies, and stand ready to trample their institutions
under foot. They have been told so by our enemies at the North. Their
misfortune, or their fault, is that they have lent a too easy ear to the
insinuations of those who are our mortal enemies, while they would not
hear us.
Now I wish to inquire, in the first place, honestly, candidly, and
fairly, whether the Southern gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber
that complain so much, have any reasonable grounds for that complaint--I
mean when they are really informed as to our position.
Northern Democrats have sometimes said that we had personal liberty
bills in some few of the States of the North, which somehow trenched
upon the rights of the South under the fugitive bill to recapture their
runaway slaves; a position that in not more than two or three cases,
so far as I can see, has the slightest foundation in fact; and even if
those where it is most complained of, if the provisions of their law are
really repugnant to that of the United States, they are utterly void,
and the courts would declare them so the moment you brought them up.
Thus it is that I am glad to hear the candor of those gentlemen on the
other side, that they do not complain of these laws. The Senator from
Georgia (Mr. Iverson) himself told us that they had never suffered any
injury, to his knowledge and belief, from those bills, and they cared
nothing about them. The Senator from Virginia (Mr. Mason) said the same
thing; and, I believe, the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Brown).
You all, then, have given up this bone of contention, this matter of
complaint which Northern men have set forth as a grievance more than
anybody else.
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