* * *

cal opinions differ very widely from those of the Senator from Kentucky. It may be true, that he, with many great statesmen, may believe that the Wilmot proviso is a grievance to be resisted "to the utmost extremity" by those whose rights it destroys and whose honor it degrades. It is true that he may believe that the admission of California will be the passing of the Wilmot proviso, when we here in Congress give vitality to an act otherwise totally dead, and by our legislation exclude slaveholders from that whole broad territory on the Pacific; and, entertaining this opinion, he may have declared that the contingency will then have occurred which will, in the judgment of most of the slave-holding States, as expressed by their resolutions, justify resistance as to an intolerable aggression. If he does entertain and has expressed such sentiments, he is not to be held up as peculiarly a disunionist. Allow me to say, in reference to this matter, I regret that you have brought it about, but it is true that this epithet "disunionist" is likely soon to have very little terror in it in the South. Words do not make things. "Rebel" was designed as a very odious term when applied by those who would have trampled on the rights of our an

cestors, but I believe that the expression became not an ungrateful one to the ears of those who resisted them. It was not the lowest term of abuse to call those who were conscious that they were struggling against oppression; and let me assure gentlemen that the term disunionist is rapidly assuming at the South the meaning which rebel took when it was baptized in the blood of Warren at Bunker Hill, and illustrated by the gallantry of Jasper at Fort Moultrie. * * *

MR. CLAY:-Mr. President, I said nothing with respect to the character of Mr. Rhett, for I might as well name him. I know him personally, and have some respect for him. But, if he pronounced the sentiment attributed to him -of raising the standard of disunion and of resistance to the common government, whatever he has been, if he follows up that declaration by corresponding overt acts, he will be a traitor, and I hope he will meet the fate of a traitor."

THE PRESIDENT:-The Chair will be under the necessity of ordering the gallery to be cleared if there is again the slightest interruption. He has once already given warning that he is under the necessity of keeping order. The Senate chamber is not a theatre.

MR. CLAY:-Mr. President, I have heard with pain and regret a confirmation of the remark I made, that the sentiment of disunion is becoming familiar. I hope it is confined to South Carolina. I do not regard as my duty what the honorable Senator seems to regard as his. If Kentucky to-morrow unfurls the banner of resistance unjustly, I never will fight under that banner. I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union-a subordinate one to my own State. When my State is right—when it has a cause for resistance-when tyranny, and wrong, and oppression insufferable arise, I will then share her fortunes; but if she summons me to the battle-field, or to support her in any cause which is unjust, against the Union, never, never will I engage with her in such cause."

WENDELL PHILLIPS,*

OF MASSACHUSETTS.

(BORN 1811, DIED 1884.)

ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT, BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY

SOCIETY, AT BOSTON, JANUARY 27, 1853.2

Mr. CHAIRMAN:

I have to present, from the business committee, the following resolution:

Resolved; That the object of this society is now, as it has always been, to convince our countrymen, by arguments addressed to their hearts and consciences, that slave-holding is a heinous crime, and that the duty, safety, and interest of all concerned demand its immediate abolition without expatriation.

I wish, Mr. Chairman, to notice some objections that have been made to our course ever since Mr. Garrison began his career, and which have been lately urged again, with considerable force and emphasis, in the columns of the Lon

* For notes on Phillips, see Appendix, p. 366.

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don Leader, the able organ of a very respectable and influential class in England. * * * The charges to which I refer are these: That, in dealing with slave-holders and their apologists, we indulge in fierce denunciations, instead of appealing to their reason and common sense by plain statements and fair argument; that we might have won the sympathies and support of the nation, if we would have submitted to argue this question with a manly patience; but, instead of this, we have outraged the feelings of the community by attacks, unjust and unnecessarily severe, on its most valued institutions, and gratified our spleen by indiscriminate abuse of leading men, who were often honest in their intentions, however mistaken in their views; that we have utterly neglected the ample means that lay around us to convert the nation, submitted to no discipline, formed no plan, been guided by no foresight, but hurried on in childish, reckless, blind, and hot-headed zeal,-bigots in the narrowness of our views, and fanatics in our blind fury of invective and malignant judgment of other men's motives.

There are some who come upon our platform, and give us the aid of names and reputations. less burdened than ours with popular odium,