35TH CONG....1ST SESS. Kansas and the Administration-Mr. Cragin. McGruders, and other names not unknown to fame, have scattered along the base of the Blue Ridge. bation. The several States have the sole right HO. OF REPS. grandfather was an Irishman. I am glad to hear it. I have no doubt that the gentleman may attribute the solidity of his system to that fact. Mr. MARSHALL, of Kentucky. I should think it very possible that it may have come from the other side. My grandfather, on the other side, was a Virginian. My whole stock on both sides runs back to the Revolution. not speak the sentiment of the gallant old State of If, therefore, adopted citizens have in any State abused the right of voting, let that State see to it; let it, like New Hampshire, insist that the Senators and Representatives of its Legislature be of the Protestant religion; or, like Rhode Island, require adopted citizens to own a certain quantity of property; or, with some other States, require them to read and write, or add such new qualifications as they deem best suited to attain their object. Nearly all of the New England States allow the negro the right to vote, in defiance of the decision of the Supreme Court that they are not citizens. Each State may fetter the elective franchise as it will, either by property qualifica-eign emigration generally seeks a northern or tion, by religious tests, by prolonged residence, or by education; and as the power rests with them, so does the right. But suppose that Congress extends the term of probation to ten, or twenty years, and that the States generally retain citizenship as a qualification for the exercise of the elective franchise: what will be the result? A danger greater than has ever yet met us is suddenly thrust upon the country. Then the immigrant who arrives, and seeks, by the influence of his genius, ability, skill, or honest toil, a home in the country of his adoption, is debarred from the rights of a freeman; he is governed, but not one of the sovereign people-a helot, not a citizen. The discontent will deepen and widen; a determined combination will arise, and plots and plans be formed, not only by these disfranchised emigrants, but by designing politicians, to effect a change in the Government and laws. The fact of the existence of a large body of men, discontented and dissatisfied, suffering from what they must deem a wrong and unjust distinction, will be taken advantage of by designing, unscrupulous, and ambitious men. One party after another will court and cajole them, and the elective franchise at last be accorded as a party bribe, and the suddenly-admitted voters become the arbiters of the elections. There would be but one hope of relief from these evils: and that is, the Japanese laws of non-intercourse with the rest of the world. Our decadence would date from that time, and in after ages some South American Republic would take the place of the North American Republic of the nineteenth century. I hope, Mr. Chairman, that I have shown the gentleman from the Louisville district that his views on the naturalization of foreigners are wrong, and erroneously conceived; and also the representative from Tennessee, that his preconceived notions of paupers and their emigration to this country are not so well founded as he supposed, or so inimical to the prosperity and future progress of the nation; and last, though not least, the gentleman from Virginia, whose conceptions would be enlarged, I think, by a visit to parts other than the Accomac district. The gentleman's individual argument, together with that of his colleague, [Mr. SMITH,] is no indication that Virginia will ever stoop so low as to countenance or approve the unholy and unconstitutional war upon adopted citizens and their guarantied rights, which has so often deluged our cities in blood, and has brought so much disgrace and dishonor upon the nation. Nobly did she stand forth before the nation and the world when this war was at its fiercest height, and threw herself between the enemies of the Constitution and the South. She fought the battle bravely; but she fought it in the name and in behalf of the South. She drove back the restless hordes of innovators, who would indoctrinate her people in the pestiferous principles of northern fanaticism, and would lay sacrilegious hands upon the enduring monuments of ancestral glory which the McDowells, the Breckinridges, the McDuffies, the i Sir, this very fidelity, not only of Virginia, but of the entire South, to principle, when she had everything to gain and nothing to lose, (for for western resting place,) is one of the brightest jew els in her diadem of proud supremacy. I therefore cling to her with a devotion almost equal to that of her own sons; and while she has made so many sacrifices for the Constitution and equal liberty, craven must be the northern heart, that draws its political life-blood from the national Democracy, that would abandon or desert her when the same spirit of fanaticism and bigotry assails either her rights or her honor. Mr. MARSHALL, of Kentucky. As I entered the Hall, the gentleman from New York was entertaining the committee by a reference to the early history of Kentucky, as written by my ancestor of my own name, and was recommending its reperusal to me to correct me in what he is pleased to term my antagonism to immigration. The gentleman claimed that the early and distinguished pioneers of our Kentucky civilization and settlement were Celts, or of Celtic origin; and he named our Harrods, and Harlans, and McAfees, McBride, and Logans, as falling within the class to which he referred. Never was a gentleman more mistaken. Of all these men, so justly celebrated on the historic page, none were Irishmen, and only one, so far as I know from history or tradition, was of Irish origin. Finley was our first pioneer; Daniel Boone our second, in 1769. He was born in Maryland-where his ancestors had lived and died-moved thence, first to Virginia, then to North Carolina, whence he emigrated to Kentucky. Of James Harrod's nativity nothing is known. The McAfees were Virginians, from what is now Botetourt county. Ben Logan was the only man of all these who was of Irish descent, and he was not an Irishman. Mr. KELLY. Who were his parents? Mr. MARSHALL, of Kentucky. They were Irish persons who had at an early age emigrated to Pennsylvania before the war of the Revolution, when all were British subjects. They were married before the Revolution, and moved to Virginia, where Ben Logan was born. He served two campaigns before the American Revolution, and had retired as a soldier, and was married, and lived where Abingdon now stands, before his emigration to Kentucky, which took place in 1775. If the gentleman in his avarice for Celtic reputation claims him as an Irishman, he might as well claim me, for my maternal grandfather was an Irishman, who was also among the early settlers of Kentucky. If he claims the McAfees and McBrides, merely because they have Mc to their names, the claim of the Irishmen may take in the title to almost our entire people. I have read the history of Kentucky carefully, and I have no recollection of a single one among all her early celebrated characters who was of foreign birth. They were born in the colonies, and had learned those lessons of personal independence which led our forefathers to win the civil liberty we now enjoy, and I fear shall be so negligent of as sadly to abuse. I return to the gentleman the advice he proffered to me, to read again the history of Kentucky. Mr. KELLY. The gentleman has said his Mr. KELLY. The question, then, is only a question of time. I do not restrict the Celtic element in this country within such narrow limits. Iam willing to concede that the names I have cited may have been planted originally either in Maryland or Virginia before they appeared in the vanguard of Kentucky civilization; but they were Celts for all that; and they have left behind them the unmistakable and indestructible marks of Celtic bravery and true courage. But, sir, these are incidents, not the substance of this controversy. I only desired to point to the ungrateful blood, and tear down the monuments of our colonial or revolutionary glory, because they perpetuate the names as well as the deeds of our Celtic forefathers. I care not if you trace them to the very moment they first set foot on these shores: you cannot go behind that, unless you claim for them an aboriginal lineage. Where you stop I shall begin; and be assured, in tracing back the current of blood to its parent fountain, I shall need no better compass to guide my steps to the Celtic source than that which the McBrides and McAfees supply. The ear-mark is there; it needs no historian to fix its origin. But, sir, may we not hope that a better day is beginning to dawn upon our country? We have had enough, and more than enough, of this rancorous spirit of partisan warfare. It is time we should forget those feuds that would separate brother from brother and friend from friend, and meet once again on the common platform of true, constitutional, American nationality. When our liberties are menaced, and the foeman dares to invade our soil, we stop not to ask the birth-place of our ancestors, or the period of our own or our fathers' emigration. Are we true and loyal to the Constitution of our country, and ready to peril our life in its defense? That was the revolutionary standard of citizenship; let it, in the name of God and of librety, be ours also. Our adopted citizens have, in no instance, proved themselves unworthy this standard, and they are not likely to degenerate in future time. The German and the Irishman of to-day are no less patriotic and ardent in the cause of human freedom than the German and the Irishman of the Revolution. We may, perhaps, sooner than we imagine, need the bravery of all our sons. A wily enemy is lurking about our borders. Her emissaries and agents are marauding about the waters of our southern States, and already our flag has been insulted and our citizens maltreated by these arrogant intermeddlers. We may need the union of all true hearts and bold hands. Let us not palsy the national strength by unmeaning distinctions and illiberal proscription. Our truest glory consists in our birthright of freedom. Our freedom is but a name without the virtues of our sires. KANSAS AND THE ADMINISTRATION. SPEECH OF HON. A. H. CRAGIN, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union Mr. CRAGIN said: Mr. CHAIRMAN: Having failed to put the Lecompton fraud and swindle through this House naked, and thereby fasten slavery upon the State of Kansas against the known and expressed will of her people, the godfathers of the monster have concluded to clothe it in garments of gold, and send it back to the people, and if possible, bribe them to adopt it as their legitimate child. It is to be taken to the Territory of Kansas with a bribe in one hand and a scourge in the other. It is hoped that its residence, in the pure, polite, and refined society of Washington for the past few 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. months, has so improved it, as to induce the people of Kansas to forget its base origin, and to receive it as the virgin offspring of popular sovereignty. But if they will not accept the bribe as the price of its adoption, apostatize from their faith, and bow down and worship the Moloch of slavery, they are to be punished, and doomed to remain a Territory for an indefinite period of time. The bill which has passed Congress, and received the approval of the President, speaks to the people of Kansas in the following language: "It is the desire of the present Democratic Administration that you come into the Union at this time, provided you will come with the Lecompton constitution. We know that you loathe and abhor that instrument. We know that you have protested against it in the most earnest and solemn manner. You claim, and we admit, that it is the workmanship of a minority, and that it is spotted all over with fraud. But feeling that it is the only chance to make Kansas a slave State, we have used every means in our power to force it upon you. In this we have failed. We are still anxious that you should take it; and as an inducement, we offer you admission and public lands worth $5,000,000. But if you refuse this bribe, and will not become a slave State, you shall be deemed unfit for admission, and must remain out of the Union until you have a population nearly double that which you now have, and lose the benefit of the public land, much of which we have already advertised for sale. "In other words, "We admit that your present population is sufficient for a slave State; but it will require forty or fifty thousand more inhabitants before you can even apply for admission as a free State. I will state the proposition contained in this law, in the language of Colonel John W. Forney, the gallant defender of the rights of the people. In the Press of April 24, he says: "By a careful analysis of the report, it will be seen that the present proposition tenders a distinct bribe of large land grants, as an inducement to the people of Kansas to accept a form of government which they utterly loathe and abhor. It says, in so many words, to the people of Kansas: You must accept this bribe, coupled with the bill of abominations which you have again and again condemned, if you wish to come into the Union without delay; or, if you are perverse enough to spurn the bribe, you shall be deemed guilty of contumacy, and shall remain out of the Union until it shall legally appear that you have a population large enough to entitle you to elect a Representative on the ratio of representation established by Congress." I can think of but one transaction in sacred or profane history with which to compare this. The Bible records it as follows: "The Devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them: "And saith unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. "Then saith Jesus unto him, get thee hence, Satan." The slave power, in this latter transaction, personates the Devil, and says to the people of Kansas: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. The people of Kansas will make the same reply-"Get thee hence, Satan." Kansas and the Administration-Mr. Cragin. This measure is hailed as a compromise, as an offering of peace. It is no such thing. It is only equaled by the Lecompton constitution itself, in its mean, deceptive, and shuffling character. It prolongs the controversy, and adds fuel to the fires of agitation. It adds one more chapter to the history of the efforts of the Democratic party to make Kansas a slave State. It is only a change of policy to attain the same end-the end which the last and present Administrations have labored so hard to reach-to wit: the enslavement of Kansas. Ho. OF REPS. fraudulent voting and forged returns had not saved them, and they now resolved upon the bold game of making Kansas a slave State by their own action, and the aid of a Democratic Congress. They refused to submit the constitution to the people. I know there was a pretended submission of the slavery question; but every man of common sense knows that the contrivance was such that Kansas must be a slave State, whichever way the people might vote. The submission was a cheat and a swindle. It was beyond dispute that there were at least twelve thousand free-State voters in Kansas, to less than three thousand pro-slavery. If, therefore, Kansas was to be made a slave State, a constitution must be forced upon the majority against their will. The three thousand must in some way rule the twelve thousand. This was the game of Calhoun and his confederates in Kansas, Missouri, and the whole South. That has been the game in Washington for the first five months of this session. There is not a man in this Hall who does not know that the Lecompton constitution is condemned and repudiated by an over that they protest against admission under it. Yet, sir, it has been pressed here with a pertinacity worthy of the noblest cause. The first movement after the passage of the Nebraska bill, was one of violence and invasion from an adjoining State. The ballot-box was wrested from the rightful voters and converted into an engine of oppression. Under this usurpation the territorial government of Kansas started. Cruel and unjust laws were enacted by the usurping Le-whelming majority of the people of Kansas, and gislature, all having for their object the establishment of slavery. Ever since then, the struggle has been between the people and the usurpers. The minority have labored to retain their ill-gotten power, and to fasten slavery upon the people. The majority have labored to throw off the usurpation and regain their natural and legal rights. The former and present Administrations took sides with the usurpers, against the people, and upheld them in their work of subjugation. When the people refused assent to the odious laws passed by their oppressors, the President quartered large bodies of armed men in the Territory, for the pur-|| pose of enforcing these laws and strengthening the hands of the invaders. The President has bent all his energies to put Lecompton through, "naked," and thus trample upon the first and dearest rights of the people. He has begged and implored. He has shed tears of grief over the representatives of the people's rights, because they would not do this thing. He has almost refused to be comforted; so anxious is he to do the bidding of the slave power. I trust he may live to thank God that his efforts failed; and to regret the unmerited abuse he has heaped upon the people of Kansas. I hope, moreover, that he may live to see this Government brought back to its original policy and purity, and Freedom once more enthroned the goddess of America. Having failed to subdue the heroic people of Kansas, by armed invaders at the ballot-box, and a standing army in the Territory; and being convinced that fraudulent votes and forged returns will not make Kansas a slave State; and finding that the Lecompton contrivance cannot be forced through Congress, the game now is, as developed by the conference bill, to combine bribery with fraud; and, failing in that, to punish the people by When it was ascertained that the people would not submit, a plan was devised for driving them from the Territory. Their crops were destroyed; their property stolen and burned; their lives were threatened, and oftentimes taken. This game failing, another was devised. It was known to the leaders of the pro-slavery party that a large majority of the people were in favor of making Kansas a free State. It would not do to trust the election of the next Legislature to honest, legal voters. They resolved to try ballot-box stuffing and forged returns. They thought it would be just as right and legal for one man to manufacture five thou-keeping them out of the Union for years to come. sand votes as for five thousand men to come all the way from Missouri to vote. It was less trouble and much safer. They abandoned the Cincinnati platform, and planted themselves on the Cincinnati Directory. They counted upon success; for they supposed they had the game all in their own hands; but Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton were too honest men for the managers of this diabolical game. They refused to receive a return of one thousand six hundred votes from a precinct which could not cast one hundred legal votes. When these returns were rejected the tables turned, and the people, to some extent, regained their rights. For this act of justice and right Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton, so far as the public know, never received one word of approval from the President or his Cabinet. It is evident that there was disapproval at the White House. From the hour that it was known that the Oxford and McGee returns had been rejected, Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton were doomed men. The slave power demanded it, and the President dared not refuse. The game of making Kansas a slave State was likely to be blocked. This could not be tolerated. It must be confessed that this proposition is an adroit and cunning scheme. If the history of the noble men of Kansas did not furnish us an ample guarantee of their fidelity and devotion to principle, we might fear that they would falter in this hour of trial and temptation. They have suffered as no people ever suffered in this country since the formation of our Government. For wishing and honestly striving to make their future home, and the home of their children and children's children, a free State, many of them have been murdered in cold blood. Their property has been stolen and destroyed; their houses The bogus Lecompton convention next took burned down; and their wives and children ren- the matter in hand. They attemped, by assumdered houseless and homeless, for no other cause. ing legislative powers, to supersede the newlyBecause they have refused to sanction the gross-elected Legislature, and to deprive it of all power est acts of usurpation and fraud, and abandon their dearest rights as American citizens, the President of the United States, in imitation of George the Third, has stigmatized them as "rebels" and "enemies of their country." They have stood through all these trials, and many more which no pen has written or tongue told, the true and devoted champions of liberty. They have shown an attachment to principle only equaled by the men of the Revolution. I will not doubt their to act. They sought, by their action, to remove The election had demonstrated that a large ma- The past history of the people of Kansas is a glorious one, and I have no doubt the future will be even more glorious. Kansas will be made a free State in spite of usurpation, violence, fraud, attempts at bribery, and threats of punishment. She will be made a free State by the long-suffering, virtue, intelligence, fidelity, and patriotism of her people. I propose briefly to examine the conference bill, and compare it with the House bill, known as the Crittenden-Montgomery amendment. The bill, which has become a law, does not pretend to submit the Lecompton constitution to the people for a direct vote upon its merits. It would not do to subject that infamous thing to any such test. It is hung up to await the acceptance of a proposition in itself known to be extremely desirable to the people; the question virtually submitted being, "will you take three million five hundred thousand acres of land with the Lecompton constitution attached, and run your own risk of getting rid of the latter, or will you suffer the inconvenience and hardship of a territorial government for an indefinite period, with no assurance of land gifts, when you are able to become a State?" I admit that the law provides an indirect met hod by which the people, by first stultifying themselves, may strangle the constitution. The question of land rants is submitted, and upon the vote upon that question alone, is to depend the immediate admission of Kansas. The adoption of the land proposition is made the condition precedent. If the people vote that down, Lecompton falls with it; if they adopt it, Kansas is at once a State in the Union, with the Lecompton constitution fastened upon them. They are compelled to vote against what would be of advantage to them, what they desire, in order to get rid of a hateful constitution. They must vote against what they want, to wit: 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. immediate admission and reasonable land grants; to prevent having imposed upon them what they do not want, to wit: the Lecompton constitution. By this law they cannot come into the Union, except they come in as a slave State. Kansas and the Administration-Mr. Cragin. In the event that the people vote down the land proposition, their action is to be interpreted as indicating a desire on their part to remain out of the Union; and they are to continue a Territory until they have ninety-three thousand inhabitants; or, failing in that before 1860, one hundred and twenty thousand. They are compelled to tell two lies in order to get rid of one great lie. They must say that they do not desire admission at this time, and that they do not want the lands, in order to avert the calamity of having the Lecompton constitution thrust upon them. If the proposition is voted down, as it certainly will be, the whole question is left open to agitate the country, and to return here at each session of Congress, until the State is admitted into the Union. This law is no settlement of the question. It only removes it temporarily from Congress. It will return again to plague the inventors. The end of the Kansas agitation is, apparently, further off than when this Administration came into power. The country will hold those who have delayed and prevented a fair settlement of this question, to a strict and fearful accountability. The bill that passed this House, on the 1st day of April last, submitted the Lecompton constitution, the thing in dispute, fairly and squarely to the untrammeled and unbiased judgment of the people, for their adoption or rejection. No bribes were offered for Lecompton; the adoption of no land-grant proposition was made a condition of admission. The only question presented to the people was, whether they would have Lecompton, or some other constitution. They were perfectly free to vote down Lecompton, and then as free to adopt another constitution to suit themselves, and in their own way. By that bill Kansas was admitted into the Union, absolutely and finally. By it she might at once become a free State. By the law, as it now stands, Kansas can only be a slave State. Had that bill become a law, the whole controversy about Kansas would have been settled, and forever removed from Congress. Agitation upon that question would have ceased from that hour. But the party in power refused the settlement, fair and honorable as it was, and choose rather to open the flood-gates of agitation anew, and continue the strife for two or three years longer. The country will hold this Administration responsible for the failure to settle this question on the basis of that bill. Heretofore the friends of this Administration have falsely charged that the Republican party were anxious to keep this question open for political effect. The Republicans have been anxious for two years to settle this question by admitting Kansas into the Union as a free State, knowing that a very large majority of the people desired such admission. The Democrats have prevented that admission; and now that they cannot succeed in forcing her into the Union as a slave State, against the will of her people, they have determined that, if she will not come in that way, she shall not come at all. Theirs is the responsibility of keep- || ing this question open. But it is said the conference bill gives no more land than did Crittenden's bill; that they are exact copies, so far as the land grant is concerned. This is true, sir; but the grant now offered is on different conditions and under different circumstances. It is now offered on condition that the people will come into the Union under the Lecompton constitution. If they will not do that, it fails. It is made the condition of admission. The adoption of the land grant carries with it, as a consequence, the Lecompton constitution. The people cannot take the land without at the sama time taking the constitution. Both are hitched together, and both must stand or fall by a single vote. By the Crittenden bill the two propositions were distinct and separate-one could stand and the other fall. The people could take either, or neither, and still be in the Union. They could accept the land grant, and reject Lecompton. Now the acceptance of the land grant must necessarily and inevitably adopt Lecompton. By the Crittenden bill the State was admitted; and the people were left free to vote down Lecompton, and adopt a constitution of their own making. The land grant offered no inducement in favor of the Lecompton swindle, as it certainly does in the law as it now stands. The State was to be admitted, whether the people took the land or not. If they accepted the grant, it was to be binding on the Government of the United States; but it in no way affected the admission of the State, or the constitution that it might adopt. In the one case, Kansas was to come into the Union with such constitution as the people should adopt; and they were then, or afterwards, free to accept the land or not. In the case as it now stands, Kansas must come into the Union, if she come at all, with the Lecompton, constitution. If she will not take the land, and with it Lecompton, she is denied admission. The Crittenden bill is an honest, fair, manly, straightforward, and statesman-like measureleaving the question of the constitution to the people, where it rightfully belongs. The conference scheme is dishonest, unfair, crooked, and unstatesmanlike. It is debasing in its tendenciescorrupting the public morals. The examples of the Government will be followed by the people. Fraud and bribery have already become so frequent in matters connected with elections, as to endanger the purity of the ballot-box, and to threaten the very existence of our republican system. Demagogues and scoundrels will pattern from this measure, and in future we may expect an increase of double dealing, trickery, fraud, and bribery. Such legislation is unworthy a great and Christian nation. It is a sad commentary on the true doctrine of popular sovereignty. It seeks to circumvent the people, and, by gifts and threats of punishment, to induce them to take a constitution which does not embody their will, and which receives and deserves their execration. The friends of the Lecompton constitution dare not submit the naked thing to the people. They know that four fifths of them are against it, and that, if they could only get at it, in that shape, they would give it immediate burial. It would also demonstrate to the world the wickedness of the attempt to force it upon them. They have, therefore, given it a sugar coating, hoping that, for a consideration, the people will gulp it down. There is one other significant difference between these two measures. By the Crittenden bill, in order that the election might be fair, four commissioners were to have charge of matters connected therewith, namely, the Governor and Secretary of the Territory, appointed by the President, and the President of the Council and the Speaker of the House of the Territorial Legislature. Two appointed by the President and two elected by the people. The people were to have an equal chance. But by the bill prepared by the conference committee, one more is added to the board, to wit, the district attorney; thus giving a majority to the friends of the Lecompton constitution. By the law any three of the board constitute a quorum, and can act. This is pure popular sovereignty," as practiced by the Democratic party. This change was made for some purpose, and it will be difficult to convince the country that it was not done to control the election, and give facilities for fraudulent voting and forged returns. Kansas has long been fruitful ground for the basest election frauds by the friends of this Administration; and it would be strange if seed so plentifully sown would not produce another crop. To cap the climax the bill should have provided that the returns be made to John Calhoun, and deposited in his candle-box. No expense It is very evident to my mind that the Administration will bend all its efforts to carry the election for "proposition accepted.' will be spared to make Kansas a slave State. Everything that endangers this result, so far as they have the power, will be removed. Already has District Attorney Weir been removed because he would not worship Lecompton, and a man by the name of Davis appointed, to aid in the work of making a slave State of Kansas. Secret agents of the Administration will be sent into the Territory to influence the people to vote for Lecompton. Of course they will all be free-State men. HO. OF REPS. They will tell the long-suffering people of Kansas that they have only to come into the Union, and that they can immediately change Lecompton into anything they choose. This will be in perfect keeping with the trickery of this law. It is well known that the most valuable lands in the Territory are already advertised for sale. The times are hard, and the settlers find it impossible to raise the money to pay for their lands, in order to save them from this sale. They have asked a postponement of the sale for one year. Their reasonable request has not been granted. The sale has been postponed till November, with an intimation from the Administration, that there will probably be no difficulty in granting a further postponement, if Kansas becomes a sovereign State. That is, if the people will take Lecompton, the Administration of James Buchanan will give them longer time to pay for their land. The necessities of the poor are to be taken advantage of, in order to induce them to do what they abhor. Like the exacting money-lender, the men now in power promise an extension, for a consideration, namely: the acceptance of the Lecompton constitution. An Administration that has urged and begged Congress to force this spurious constitution upon the necks of an unwilling and protesting people, will not scruple to use all the means at its command, to accomplish the same thing by bribery or by a pretended election. I have full faith that the people of Kansas, if they have anything like a fair chance, will spurn the bribe, maintain their integrity, and treat every man as a traitor who advocates admission on such degrading terms. Beyond all this, the conference bill enunciates a new principle-one that has already attracted the attention of the country. The doctrine that it requires a greater population for a free State than for a slave State, is distinctly implied in this measure. I suppose this doctrine is to become a new article in the pro-slavery Democratic creed. Whether this new invention is to be labeled "State equality," or christened with some other popular name, I know not. Call it by what name you please-we accept the issue! It is a degrading and insulting distinction, and the North will resist it. The most ingenious doughface in all the free States, cannot invent a reason why Kansas should be admitted as a slave State with her present population, and denied admission as a free State till her population has doubled. You have thrown down the glove on this issue: we shall take it up. We will go to the people with this issue. Upon our banners we will inscribe: "The rights of the people. The immediate admission of Kansas as a free State. No distinctions in favor of slavery." If there are not members enough in this House two years hence to admit Kansas without delay as a free State, I shall be greatly mistaken. I think it will be much easier to convince the people of the free North that it is vastly more proper to keep the men who voted for this new principle of "equality" out of Congress, than that Kansas should be denied admission as a free State, with conditions, that, in the opinion of these gentlemen, qualify her for admission as a slave State. The political grave-yard received large accessions when the Nebraska bill passed; and the mourners still go about the streets. Again its gates will be thrown wide open, and many will go in thereat. The race of doughfaces has not increased for the past four years, and this measure is likely to prove a Noah's flood to the remainder. Already has this Administration a fearful account to settle. Its supporters on this floor and elsewhere will be punished not only for what they have done and attempted to do, in respect to Kansas, but they will be arraigned before the country for betraying great trusts-for repudiating solemn pledges, and for obtaining power under false pretenses. By the common law, as well as by statute, in most of the States, the obtaining of goods, money, and other valuable things, by false pretenses and false tokens, is declared to be an offense, and is severely punished. The fact is as notorious as the election itself, that throughout the northern States the Democratic party, in the campaign of 1856, inscribed upon its banners the motto Buchanan and free Kansas." The sincerity with which they promised to make Kansas a free State, and the seeming indignation with 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. which they repelled the charge of a want of fidelity in their presidential candidate to this policy, defeated the inflexible Frémont, and elected the supple Buchanan. But for these reiterated pledges, the so-called Democratic party would have been defeated in every free State in this Union. Had the people of Pennsylvania dreamed, in the fall of 1856, that the chief business of the first eight months of a Buchanan Administration would be wheedling and dividing the free-State men of Kangas, and then, by fraud and force, securing the apparent adoption of a pro-slavery constitution; and that, during five weary months of this Congress, the whole Federal power and patronage would be prostituted to forcing upon that people a government which they abhor; and that, failing to do this directly, it would try to effect it by a dark and devious policy, as deceptive as it is despicable-I say, had the people of the land of Penn and Franklin dreamed that such would be the Kansas policy of Mr. Buchanan, they would have beaten the Democratic ticket in the "Keystone State" by thousands upon thousands. sas, Origin of Slavery-Mr. Bliss. on the land. They believed most sincerely that should a state of things arise in Kansas such as has now involved her affairs in a net-work of frauds, perjuries, forgeries, ballot-box stuffing, and rascalities of all sorts, Mr. Buchanan was the very man to crush such crimes with the weight of his authority, and to vindicate the cause of justice, honesty, and fair dealing in that Territory. That these conservative gentlemen, whose votes turned the scale in favor of Buchanan, have been most woefully deceived in him, is beyond all question. That their pride of character has been deeply wounded at finding themselves classified among the supporters of an Administration that protects and honors thieves, forgers, ballot-box stuffers, and rogues in general, is very certain. That their pride of opinion has been sorely mortified at being duped by the Pecksniffian morality of the author of the Connecticut clerical epistle, is most true. Men thus galled in their tenderest points will not only embrace the first opportunity to dissolve this uncongenial alliance, but will take swift vengeance upon those who wheedled them into such position. Of all the ingredients of that retribution which is soon to be poured out upon the pro-slavery Democracy of the North, the most bitter, the most destructive will be the hot indignation of these cheated " conservatives," these deluded "old-line Whigs," these betrayed I repeat, then, that not only will the people of the North scourge this Administration for what it has done and attempted to do in respect to Kan,but they will compare the record of its actual deeds with the pledges it made when asking public confidence, and will mete out punishment accordingly. Human nature always feels more indignant at being circumvented by trickery and hypoc-party men. risy than at being beaten in open, manly conflict. Cornwallis, who drove Greene before him in fair, manly battle, is a name honored even in America; while that of Arnold, who, by false tokens, obtained the command of West Point that he might betray it to the enemy, is the synonym of falsehood and treachery the world over. The Republicans, who asserted that Buchanan would ply all his arts to make Kansas a slave State, and would prove the most ready tool of the negro oligarchy that ever occupied the presidential chair, have not been deceived. Their predictions have been verified. Their present hostility to his Administration is natural. The assault they will make upon it hereafter will only be the warfare of consistent foes. But what name shall I give to that summary punishment which thousands upon thousands of betrayed Democrats are eager to inflict upon the Administration at the earliest opportunity; men who were honest in their pledges of "free Kan sas, ," who promptly indorsed the promises of party leaders in the great contest of 1856, who implicitly relied upon the sincerity of their presidential chief? Cheated by their leaders, betrayed by their chief, taunted by an incensed people, they will deride the man, and repudiate the party that has deceived and disgraced them. Sore and sure as will be the chastisement that this large class will inflict upon the Administration, it will be mildness and mercy itself, when compared with the terrible retribution that another portion of Mr. Buchanan's supporters have in store for him and his retainers. I allude to that most respectable body of them called "conservatives," "old-line Whigs," or 66 no-party men. In the very crisis of the contest, they threw their weight into the trembling balance, and awarded him the victory. Towards the close of the conflict it assumed such a shape as to give these men great influence over the result. Especially was this true in the preliminary October election in Pennsylvania, the pivot on which the whole canvass finally turned. These gentleman were, no doubt, partly influenced to join the standard of Buchanan by his vaunted respectability of character, his mature age, his great experience in public affairs, his gravity of visage, dress, and demeanor. They could not doubt that so venerable a personage must be a conservative. I have always thought that the white cravat and doctor-of-divinity like air in general, of the Wheatland sage had not a little to do in luring to his support this high minded and somewhat aristocratic body of men. But the chief motive that influenced them, probably, was his express and implied promise, that he would deal fairly by Kansas; that he would rebuke pro-slavery "fanaticism," as well as "abolitionism;" that he would set his face against "sectionalism;" that he would not wink at "fillibustering" on the ocean, nor "border-ruffianism" 66 no The gathering in the political heavens is ominous of the coming storm. The tempest that swept the free States in the autumn of 1854, when the people visited their wrath upon the party that had just removed the old landmarks" by obliterating the slavery prohibition of the Missouri compromise; and the tornado that careered through the North two years afterwards, prostrating so many aspiring men, and, though not wholly successful in its objects, yet most salutary even in its partial effects, and full of hope for the future, will prove to be but gentle gales when compared with that retributive hurricane which, in the approaching autumn, will scathe the Lecompton Democracy as with the besom of destruction. Are we mistaken in the signs of the times? Turning the eye towards the setting sun, can we doubt that the young State lying beyond the Sierra Nevada will sustain her able representatives in the Senate and in this House in their opposition to the Lecompton fraud? As to the five growing States of the Northwest, which were saved to perpetual liberty by the immortal ordinance of 1787; and the State, not less prosperous, which was consecrated to freedom forever by the Missouri compromise; and the vigorous new State just admitted to the Union, will they not all vindicate the cause of free labor by sending a delegation to the next Congress that will be a unit on questions like those which have divided men and rent parties during the present session? As to Pennsylvania, her favorite son has ascended to power. He has disappointed her hopes. He has soured her spirit. The charm is gone. The spell is broken. She will break her chains and stand forth redeemed, emancipated, and disenthralled. Let him who doubts this, ponder the result of the recent election in Philadelphia, and be assured that what has been done in May on the banks of the Delaware and Schuylkill, will in October be repeated on the banks of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, the Monongahela, the Alleghany, and the Ohio. As New Jersey suffered with Pennsylvania in the struggle, and shared with her in the triumph of the Revolution, so, too, has she generally followed the lead of that great State in all political changes; and so will she now. It would also be belying the whole history of New York, a State that gave to the war of Independence the sword of a Schuyler and a Hamilton-that gave to the constitutional era the pen of a Jay and a Livingston-and that has given to the counsels of the Republic and the cause of freedom the services of a King, a Clinton, a Tompkins, and a Wright, to question that in a crisis like this she will cast her "Empire" weight into the scale of liberty. I hardly need speak for New England; for since this Congress has been in session she has begun to speak for herself. The emphatic voice of New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, re HO. OF REPS.. cently uttered against this Lecompton crime, will in due time be reiterated by Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts. Those who now misrepresent the sentiment of New England in these Halls will soon have leave of absence. They will not appear here at the next Congress, nor will anybody of like faith succeed to their seats. The places which now know them will know them no more forever." No human being outside of a nursery or a lunatic asylum doubts that, in the next Congress, glorious New England will present an unbroken front in the cause of freedom. Speaking for my own State, I can certify to her fidelity. When her own son, sitting in the presidential chair, forced upon the country the Kansas-Nebraska act, she turned her back scornfully upon him, and set her feet indignantly upon his Administration. But so much more does she detest the policy of James Buchanan, that in comparison therewith she is beginning to look upon that of Franklin Pierce with a feeling akin to complacency. I know the people of New Hampshire well. Her White Mountains are not more firmly rooted to the earth than her sons are grounded in the cause of civil and religious freedom. In that most solemn and eventful hour of the Republic, on that memorable 4th of July, 1776, her Representatives in Congress were the first to vote for the Declaration of Independence; and her people will be the last to abandon the principles of that immortal charter of human rights. Whoever else falters in the hour of trial, they will be found faithful. Whenever the trumpet calls to battle, they will rally to the standard; and "From their tall mountains to the sea, ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. SPEECH OF HON. PHILEMON BLISS, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union Mr. BLISS said: Mr. CHAIRMAN: During the crowded Lecompton debate, I refrained from seeking the floor, chiefly because I desired to see the new opponents of the Kansas outrages, and especially my colleagues, learn to stand and, if possible, to walk alone; and also because the subject itself was one I could with great difficulty coolly consider. I could reason with a highwayman, if I had no more effective weapon; I might also remonstrate with a pickpocket; but I could find no fit words for discussing, in a republican representative body, the propriety of forcing a dark despotism upon a protesting people, upon one of our own young States, especially as this was to be done in the name of Democracy and of "popular sovereignty." If the statement of the proposition would not carry its own damnation, no parliamentary language of mine could fitly describe it; and the mind that could for a moment entertain it, is entirely beyond my reach. And when the Administration and its masters, foiled in the naked wickedness, incubated with those whose plighted faith, if not their principles, should have been their guard, and hatched the nasty substitute-a substitute establishing the principle of non-submission, while claiming to provide for its effect, though coupled with conditions fraud-inviting and deeply insulting to Kansas, to freedom, and the North-I watched the new-born men to see whether a soul had been actually given them. More in pity than in anger, I saw them fall before they had well learned to stand; saw them, with mouths full of valiant words, swallow naked and degrading insults; saw them yield to a dominant absolutism, though not a complete, yet a real, and to us and them degrading victory. By a lawless enforcement of lawless dicta, slavery exists in all the Territories; and we have now the precedent that such Territory may at any time become a slave State; but, if it cannot be forced or bribed to receive a slave constitution, it must continue a slave Territory; must wait for the last jot and tittle of preliminary requirement. I had faintly hoped to have been spared this 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. Origin of Slavery—Mr. Bliss. HO. OF REPS. cup of degradation; but why should I? Ever since. don't" of the other; and "I'm afraid I can't" is and, what so much more tries a great man's soul, the slave interest has succeeded in overriding the bravest response to. the grim " you shall;" the shrinking of coward friends, boldly met, every other interest; ever since the enemies of and while the former have kept their representa- breasted and overwhelmed the tyranny that had free labor, the contemners of free speech, the as-tive men in the middle of the conflict, the latter stifled this House, and restored, what to lose is sassins of free thought, have established the reign have sought to send into retirement all whose to lose all freedom of debate, to this, the peoof terror in nearly half these States, have I seen earnestness of resistance has seemed to make real-ple's Hall. Ay, and more; that will, that resolubut a single purpose, a "one idea," an absorbing ity of the sham. Even the brave champions of tion, is taking captive the honest, the free masses object, prompting and guiding their every scheme. "the equality of the States" and "the sover- of the land, and the fresh impositions of mad Gentlemen seem astonished at the bald wick- eignty of the people," after consistency has been tyranny, instead of cowing and discouraging, but edness of striving to force upon an unwilling, a made more safe than surrender, as they meet the inspire them to eager labor and patient waiting protesting people, a despotic fundamental law, frown of the accustomed master, eagerly yield for its sure overthrow. and the balder meanness of tendering them a bribe both, by a dishonorable discrimination against a and a threat to receive what could not thus be free constitution, and by tendering a brave people forced. Yet, where the end is the supremacy of a bullying bribe to accept an oft-rejected slave one. force, where that end has been for years the steady, unremitted object, with no variableness, and scarce a shadow of turning, how can we wonder? Shall the means be more holy than the end? The Lecompton scheme of fraud and usurpation, the preparatory outrages-the forays, the robberies, the burnings, the imprisonments, the murders-all perpetrated by, or under the eye of, Federal officials; all sustained, directly or indirectly, by Federal bayonets, and the disgraceful finale, may well astonish and alarm! Yet they are but acts in the one grand drama. We often hear the shuffling and the inconstant social or domestic. It is based upon an idea- The success of these champions of force is no less surprising. Representing but a section of this Union, and that section, from the blighting influence of their rule, comparatively weak and poverty stricken, men wonder to see them able to control the federation and realize every sectional scheme; able to give a construction to the fundamental law one way against the wants of commerce, of creative art, and the necessities of per-So with society, whether political or religious, sonal protection, and another way in favor of despotic interests; to see them make solemn contracts to subserve such interests, and break them for the same end; to see them able to sectionalize and pack the supreme judiciary; to strike down the habeas corpus and trial by jury; to involve us in war upon the weak to rob territory for slavery, And we hear the same class of materialists dewhile yielding to the strong that which was free, nounce the world's workers as "men of one and to which "our title was clear and unques- idea;" as though any man could breast the curtionable;" to see them able to proscribe all high- rent or stem the tide, could wake the sluggish race, minded men, driving from the public service those give form to society, and soul and sentiment to of all sections who believe in the harmony of the man; or even achieve those less difficult, though, Decalogue, the Declaration, and the Constitution to vulgar eyes, more striking material triumphis -making tests that would have excluded Frank- that send the steam engine along the mountain lin and Jefferson and Jay from the pettiest office; slope, or the lightning upon its quiet post-boy to see them make cringing slaves of northern errands, who is not controlled by a leading, abboasters, dooming to the curse of the serpent,sorbing, all-conquering idea. A resolute purpose, "upon thy belly shalt thou crawl," every applicant for Federal favor; to see them cause in this Hall parliamentary law, respected upon other questions, to be so often overthrown upon questions of slavery; and make the courts of the federation, eager and bloodthirsty after a fugitive from servitude, powerless against the piratical apostles of foreign propagandism. Men, too, wonder, ay, they are sore amazed, to see the apostles of force able to place this Government in league with conspirators against one of its Territories, sustaining them in ballot-stuffings, forgeries, and every political crime known among men, to cause it to employ all its powers to fasten upon this Territory a form of State government it loathes and detests, giving as the chief reason for the damning crime the fact that it does thus detest it! Ay, and their wonder grows to astonishment as they behold Representatives of spasmodic virtue glad to be permitted to aid to the fell end by bribes, by threats, and by invited frauds! a steady zeal, must burn in his soul. An unsha- || I might also instance from the champions of force, from those who have fought so well in a cause so bad, the name of Calhoun, the John Calvin of the propaganda. Constant in his labor, undiverted by personal hopes or party ties, with only a band, searce a twelve, of acknowledged followers in the national councils, he has finally, by his fidelity and by his and their perseverance, furnished the dogmas and controlled the action of the party of absolutism. He affected no consistency but in the one idea. He was pure in his life, yet the apostle of systematised violence, and unchecked lewdness. He was clear in his logic, yet he ran to the most opposite conclusions. Starting out with the boldest and most outspoken opposition to Democratic principles, he and his followers have given laws to the Democratic party. Holding the Union to be subject to the will, and its measures to the veto of any State, they have indirectly dictated the policy that makes States but subject provinces, and their authorities the sport of the pettiest Federal official. Constantly talking of constitutions and laws, they as constantly labor to turn back the tide of civilization, and reënthrone the law of the strong hand." Yet there was method in all these inconsistencies, a resolute purpose running through them, a will that has wrenched from coward partisans the stamp of State, and made current guineas of them all. I have often been surprised to see men apparently so unconcious of the power of a great idea. They would erect that most sublime of creations, a just State, by appeals to mere pecuniary interest, as though interest alone ever worked in that direction, ever withstood the lower instincts-as though, untempered by the sentiments, it ever appealed but to the merest avarice. It needs a high passion, a noble enthusiasm, an elevated principle, to work the beneficent revolutions of earth. True, our highest interests are in harmony with them, like the sympathy of the elevated spirit and body. The body should be fed; but "man lives not by bread alone." The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. THAYER,] himself distinguished for a great -a Teutonic idealism-has told us of the power of organized emigration. I deeply sympathize with him and his idea, and only fear that he too greatly relies upon mere interest. How long would his Kansas emigration have stood the bloody foray and the Federal frown, had it not been recruited and sustained by the sentiment, the idea, that burned in the northern mind? There was no organization in the West, and yet, without the aid of the men and women of the West, impelled by their ideas, rather than interests, the whole machinery of organized emigration would have been impotent against the mad fanaticism of the border. Organized emigration, based upon the idea of justice as well as interest, impelled by a generWhence this omnipotence for evil? Yet we Were I to indulge in personal illustration, I ous enthusiasm, a passion to plant States whose should not wonder. These are the necessary re- might point to men of my own section-men of future will be great and stable, as embodying and sults of the different spirit and resolution, the dif- great opportunities, and who have become illus-looking to this great idea, will be, must be, sucferent manner and purpose, that have hitherto trious or an offense, according to their faith, their cessful. But devoid of it, the quiet enthusiasm distinguished the controversies between the friends fixedness of purpose. I might instance our Web- that resolutely plants and patiently waits for the and opponents, if opponents they may be called, sters and Van Burens, who, seeing the right, spas- sure and immortal growth, becomes the mad foray of human enslavement. The friends of abso- modically struggled against the wrong; yet lov- that knows not to plant, but essays to build by lutism have been all will, all energy, all perse-ing the lap of Delilah more than the rough tents of overthrow. That natural love of power and of verance in their work; while their opponents have Israel," yielded to treacherous caresses, and be- property, that, as tempered by justice, teaches met them by temporizing, now expostulating, came but the sport of the common enemy. Those us to acquire influence over men by vindicating now faintly resisting, and finally always yielding. who might have carved themselves a name on their rights, and dominion over things by the paThe former have seized a great idea as the basis which the hopeful would come from afar to look; tient accumulations of labor, without this guard, of their civilization; and steadily keeping it in who might have given their country a faith; inspires demagogism, ballot-stuffings, and coup view, have subordinated every other considera- bowed to the superior will of their enemies, and d'états, swindles, and embezzlements. Wherein tion. The latter, intent upon gain and peace in are laid, and are waiting to be laid, in the forgotten differed the colonists of Plymouth and Philadelits pursuit, have ignored all fixed principle, been graves of the vulgar great. phia, from those of Port aŭ Prince and Mexico? blind to any great end, and have substituted a or the founders of Lawrence from Buford's brigshuffling expediency for an enduring purpose. ands? Their interests were the same, and if inThe "will" of the one is met by the "please terest alone governed their conduct should have I might also point to our Adams-and my colleague will pardon me for adding our Giddingswhose fidelity, whose will, amid storms of foes, |