FEDERAL RELATIONS.
On motion by Mr. CONNER the order of business was suspended, in order to take up the report of the Committee on Federal Relations.
The PRESIDENT. When the Senate was las, considering this report, at the adjournmentt the Senator from Marion [Mr. Newcomb] was entitled to the floor.
Mr. NEWCOMB. I was not anticipating the discussion this morning. If any other Senator desires to speak, as I am very hoarse this morning, I will give way, if not, I would prefer that we proceed with the regular order of business.
Mr. WAGNER, I had hoped gentlemen who wished to address themselves upon this question would, by this time, at least, be ready, that the Senate may come to a conclusion in regard to this matter at as early a day as possible. Already other States have expressed themselves upon this great national question. As a matter of course, I do not want gentlemen to speak upon these great questions before they are prepared; but, I wish Indiana to make her declaration soon.
Mr. HAMILTON. I hope Senators will discuss this matter with calmness and deliberation. I shall discard all party predilections, and come to a vote upon this subject as a Senator representing a conservative constituency. It is enough for me to know that my country is in danger, and that discord and disunion is before us. I know of nothing I would not do or sacrifice upon the altar of my country. I see nothing, sir, in the resolutions you introduced to prevent my voting for them. I have only one objection to them, and that is, they page: 81[View Page 81]don't go far enough. I am net going to inquire what is the cause of the revolution that now exists. If I can, by any vote I can give, throw a mite upon the troubled waters, it will be the happiest vote I ever gave in my life. I did not intend to trouble the Senate with any lengthy researches. I only want to ask my Democratic friends not to throw a firebrand in here, by saying the Republican party is the cause of this trouble; and also to ask my. Republican friends not to say it is the speeches and papers of the Democratic party that has caused this trouble.
A man that will attempt to make party triumph at a time like this, it appears to me has but little manhood-but little honor. Then, Mr. President, I hope we will meet the question in a spirit of conciliation, and that we will agree upon something that will be the united voice of Indiana.
Mr. NEWCOMB. I see that it is the desire of the Senate that this discussion shall go on. I will endeavor to proceed with my remarks, and if I find myself compelled to close abruptly on account of my hoarseness, I will do so.
Mr. COBB. I discover the Senator is laboring under a severe hoarseness. I should like to hear him at a time when he is free from a cold. If the Senator will give way, I will move to postpone the consideration of this subject till to-morrow.
SEVERAL SENATORS. "No." "No." "No."
Mr NEWCOMB. I will go on as gentlemen urge; but I may not be able to follow the line of argument suggested by the Senator from Allen, [Mr. Hamilton.] I think it necessary, in order that we may occupy a just position before the country in discussing this question, that something should be said of the recent position of the several political parties. What I say will not be said in any spirit of anger, but simply in vindication of the party to which I belong from the oft-repeated charge that we are disinclined to adopt measures to save the country. The discussion which has arisen on the report of the Committee, was a surprise to me, and must be a matter of astonishment to the people. I had hoped the patriotic sentiments embraced in the resolutions would have met with the earnest, ready and unanimous approval of every member of the Senate. Let me inquire for a few moments who is responsible for the crisis that is upon the country? Not the Republican party. We have but exercised in a constitutional form the elective franchise, an inheritance from our fathers, which no free man can give up without becoming himself a slave. We have voted for and elected to the presidency a man whose honesty has come to be a proverb, a man whose conservative sentiments have been vouched for by more than one of the secession leaders in the South. An attempt is now made te introduce a new and alarming feature in American politics, which is nothing more or less than this recognition of the right a defeated party to revolutionize the Government. I ask gentlemen to point to a case where a defeated party has come up and demanded that the Constitution shall be amended. Heretofore when an election has been had and the result ascertained, there has been a ready acquiesence. But what has been the conduct of the Opposition on this occasion? Why, sir, from our Presidential election until now, the Democratic press of the country has been teeming with articles embracing just such sentiments as we find in this minority report, and they have been scattered broadcast through the South, and wherever they have been read, they have palsied the hand of the honest Union man in the South, and nerved the arm of treason. More than that,sir, we have had resolutions of Democratic Conventions, even in this hour of our country's peril, when we see, day after day, States falling away from our Confederacy, and we find this same stream of misrepresentatisn poured into the excited oars of the South, still further complicating the difficulties.
Now this thing started out by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and we have been fighting over that for six years. I think the olive branch would be to offer to settle that line. I am perfectly willing to restore the Missouri Compromise line, and I think that ought to be satisfactory to the South. I understand the feelings of my constituents and I believe there are eight thousand of them at my back. There are many other portions of the Crittenden amendment that I will cheerfully indorse. I am willing that he should put forty clauses in the Constitution that no Congress shall ever interfere with the system of slavery where it exists under statute law.
Mr. Newcomb spoke an hour by way of illustration and enforcement.
Mr. MURRAY. I cannot agree with some of my Republican friends in the position they have assumed here. I like in the main the argument made by the Senator from Marion, [Mr. Newcomb,] but I am against doctoring up our present Constitution, as setting a bad precedent; and then, sir, against his own argument he comes in and says we are willing to amend the Constitution to avoid these present difficulties. As a Republican Senator, I will not agree, by vote or by act, to any compromise-in the language of the illustrious Clay, no power on earth shall make me by word or deed give one rood of free territory to the everlasting curse of human bondage.
Mr. Murray continued the argument on the same side generally; also speaking at length.
When he had concluded, this subject was postponed, and made the special order for ten o'clock to-morrow.
The Senate accepted the House invitation to the flag raising, and then adjourned till 9 o'clock to-morrow morning.
