STATE OF THE UNION.
The SPEAKER announced the order of the consideration of the remainder of the reports of the Committee of Thirteen.
Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I trust it will not be denied by any gentleman on this floor, that I have been extremely modest in my pretensions since the commencement of the session. I have no doubt this meed will be accorded to me. During this exciting discussion, I have not expressed an opinion, for this reason: I cannot see any good that can possibly come from debate. The minds of gentlemen on this floor are fixed, made up, established and no argument can change their opinion. And I believe, sir, that mere appeals to the passions and prejudices but tend to destroy the harmony and interrupt the progress of legislation. And now, after listening to the eloquent stump speech which I recognize in the report of the gentleman from Washington, I think no gentleman on this floor can fail to perceive a spirit of rebellion and treason against the Federal Government breathing throughout the entire report. Hence I rise to move that the report be unqualifiedly rejected by the House.
Mr. DOBBINS. Mr. Speaker, I trust that we shall be able to meet this inomentons question without appealing to party feelings, passions and prejudices, so much dreaded by the gentleman from Laporte. I remember, sir, that in the fore part of this day, it was indicated by the votes of our Republican friends, that this shall be made,a party question, and only a party question. But, sir, I trust we have higher and purer motives, and that they will yet produce in this House a readiness to sacrifice on the altar of our country's good all our party prejudices. For the question is not how we shall preserve our party organization; but it is a far higher and nobler question. It is the question of the preservation of our Federal Union. This is the momentous question presented for our consideration to-day. And, I trust, since we all represent a conservative constituency, we are all of us determined that the Union shall be preserved. I trust, at least, that I shall be able to meet the question in that spirit. Let me tell my Republican friends, that within a few days past, in the other end of this building, I have heard similar taunts to that just uttered by the gentleman from Laporte. I have heard the Democracy charged with the act of treason to their country,simply because they were willing to enter into a convention for compromise and conciliation with the States of Virginia, Kentucky, and others loyal to the Union, Simply for this cause, Mr. Speaker, we are charged, and our constituents are charged, with aiding and abetting treason, and with being traitors ourselves. Why, sir, if I should say-and I trust I shall not give offence by putting it hypothetically-if I should say that Republicans, by acting in concert with Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison-that by their sympathyzing with such men, they are guilty of high treason, I suppose they would take it as very offensive. But I do not deal in epithets here. I have to meet and consider a question that excludes them. I trust we shall all meet this question like men, and stand upon oar manhood, determined never to sacrifice or surrender any right of the State of Indiana, under the Constitution. And what we claim for Indiana, in the name of God and patriotism, let us not withhold from Kentucky, Virginia, or any other slaveholding State now loyal to the Constitution. We do not intend, by the convention proposed, to present propositions for compromise to States in open rebellion ; but we do present compromises to those States yet acting with us for the purpose of keeping off civil war. But, sir, the spirit which I have seen manifested, and to which I have adverted, must lead to division, and that is the spirit that would maintain, at all hazards and every expense, the Republican party. It seems to me that this spirit manifested by the majority here, runs through every Republican speech in the other end of the Capitol; and therefore, I think this charge of treason comes from them with a very bad grace.
Let us look at the question a moment. Why is this difficulty upon us? You on the Republican side for the last ten years have been advocating a centralization of power in this Union-a power that shall take from the people of the Territories and the States, rights that belong to them, and concentrate their exercise at the Federal Capital. You wish the Congress of the United States to legislate upon the local rights of the people. You wish to give to the Federal Government that sovereign page: 148[View Page 148] power which belongs to the people only. Your advocacy of this doctrine has caused the distant South to advocate the extreme on the other side. Hence, there is between, your extreme men of the North, and your extreme men of the South, a collision; and the only thing that can preserve the Union of these States intact, is the sentiment of compromise which is developing amongst those who stand between your extremes. On these two wings of the party of extremes rests the responsibility for the difficulties that are upon us today.
As to the reports presented by this Committee of Thirteen, I do not concur in everything in the minority report. I do not concur in that part of it censuring the ministers of the gospel. Yet I know that many of the ministers of the church of my affections have done wrong. Still I do not believe in censuring them. Let them go. Let the responsibility for their action be with themselves and God. But while I do not concur in that portion of it, I think the minority report is right in principle. We state in it that we are opposed to coercion in the sense in which the word is now applied to the Southern States. That we are opposed to driving the people of those States like slaves into a Union where they believe they can. not enjoy their rights. But I suppose we shall have commissioners from those States from various considerations; from Kentucky, Tennessee-from the conservative States North, and from nearly all the Southern States. I was raised in that section. I have been a citizen of Indiana but about seven or eight years. I am not here, however, to speak for a section, but for the whole country. Then, let me tell you, sir, that when you advocate a policy that looks to making war on the South, you advocate a policy that will not meet my sanction, nor the sanction of those I represent. I speak plainly. I expect to meet this issue as a man, and I think we had better meet it to-day, at once, and decide it finally.
Now, sir, take up the report of the majority, and there you will see an entire dodging of the question at issue. In that report you fail to meet the State of Virginia as brethren, in a fraternal spirit. You fail to meet her request. You simply present to her something that has no substance. You tell her, also, that all the resources of the State of Indiana shall be given to the General Government for the purpose of making war upon the seceding States.
Mr. ROBERTS (interposing.) I understand the gentleman to say he is not in favor of coercion. Am I to understand from-that, that he is opposed to the enforcement of the laws ?
Mr. DOBBINS, I am easily embarrassed, Mr. Speaker, when addressing myself to a question of so much importance. I will state, in reply to the gentleman, that when the Union of these States was formed, there were certain conditions settled between the States and the Federal Government. The Federal Government agreed that she would not encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the several States agreed that, they would abide by the laws of the Federal Government These conditions stand written in the history of the country. Let us read them, and see if these conditions attached to the original compact have been violated-see if the South have had any cause to complain. I do not come here to justify those States in open rebellion, but I am authorized to say, that in the opinion of the people of the border States, they have a right to complain of the manner in which their institution of slavery has been treaty by the men of the North ; they have a right to complain in so far as they have been misrepresented by the newspapers and stump orators of the North. Now, I will answer the gentleman's question: Yes; I am in favor of the enforcement of the laws for the perpetuity Of the Government, if such enforcement do not lead us into civil war, to imbrue our hands in the blood of our Southern brethren.
Mr. Speaker, in the minority report we present the Crittenden amendment as being a basis of compromise acceptable to the border States. What is the Crittenden amendment? I know you say it establishes slavery; and I suppose, from your votes to-day, that before you would permit slavery to be recognized, you would be willing that the pillars of our Federal Government should crumble and fall. It divides the Territories entirely to the Pacific. It gives to the people of the slave States all the Territories south of the line of 36:30, and it gives to the people of the Northern States all the Territories north of that line.
Mr. SHERMAN, (interposing.) I ask the gentleman to explain what the Crittenden amendment is.
Mr. DOBBINS. Some gentlemen cannot be satisfied, I suppose, with any explanation I could make. It establishes a, geographical line, and provides that north of that line the people of the Northern States shall have for their inheritance all the territories dedicated to freedom: and that all the territories south of that line the people of the Southern States shall have for their inheritance, to dedicate it, if they please, to slavery. And as a compromise, this is to be incorporated into the Federal Constitution, and become the supreme law of the land. When this shall be done, sir, then the thunder of the Republican party will cease. Then the slavery agitation will cease. Then Republicans can no longer stand up and preach to the people of the North against the encroachments of slavery, and pander to their prejudices and passions against their Southern brethren. Then we of the North will have all the territories north of that line for our purposes, and they of the South will have all the territories south .of it yielded to them. Sir, I ask Republicans here, Are you willing to stand upon that as a basis of settlement? No sir. But you would page: 149[View Page 149] do so willingly, if it were not for the fact, that when the slavery agitation is hushed, you know you cannot meet us before the people on the principles that will then be left in the Chicago platform,-from the fact that if that is taken from it, the platform falls to the ground.
But sir, as for ray individual position, I do not accept the Crittenden proposition as a first principle. I hold a different view from some of my Democratic friends. I take it that, under our Constitution, we are all brethren; that there is an equality of rights amongst white men; that we all have equal rights to emigrate to those territories and enjoy them together, with all our institutions, Southern as well as Northern. But I am willing to yield up those principles I hold dear, and accept as a, compromise the establishment of slavery southward, and the prohibition of it northward, of the proposed line.
Mr. Speaker, I have not, on any occasion, spoken half an hour since I have been in my place this session; and I do not now intend to speak the alloted 30 minutes. I speak from the impulse of the moment. I rose simply to ask the majority here to surrender not principle but mere passion, prejudice that party pride which they have exhibited here by their votes to surrender it for their country-for our common country.
Mr. MOODY did not intend to detain the House long. He agreed with the gentleman from Laporte, in one thing here, that should meet with general condemnation. He accorded the right of speech in the expression of opinion. But here was a question of maintaining the Constitution, the laws, and the Union; and the man that would not stand with us, he proclaimed as a traitor. He made no personal charge. Here was no question of concession, but simply whether we will stand up for the Union and its flag, and no man here or elsewhere had a right to differ with us. Every man was bound to stand up and maintain the Constitution.
Mr. HEFFREN. Suppose the gentleman were in South Carolina to-day, what would he say, if required by the Federal Government, to take part in the preservation of the Union?
Mr. MOODY. If he were a South Carolinian, he would be none the less an American citizen. He would expostulate against treason, just as he would in Indiana. If it requires the strong arm to put down rebellion, he was ready to ready to use it.
He believed this Government would be maintained.
He discussed not the political question. The verdict on that had been rendered and recorded. The only question now was whether the Union and the Constitution shall be preserved. Could gentleman point to any thing done by the State of Indiana to alienate the South?
Mr. DOBBINS. Do yon not demand all the Territories?
Mr. MOODY. The free white laboring men demand them. Unfortunately for the gentleman's party, the laboring men have been found arrayed against it. The gentleman was mistaken in his estimate of the feeling of the Republican party, when he said we advocated the centralization of power. On the contrary, the Republican party, has ever been in favor of State Rights. He (Mr. M.) was in favor of the enforcement of the laws. If that was coercion the gentleman had it. He denied the right of coercion. If the right to enforce the laws were conceded, the power to prevent secession must be understood. You could not make war on rebels. It was quelling rebellion-not making war.
Mr. DOBBINS. Were the fathers in the revolution rebels ?
Mr. MOODY. Did the gentleman place the South Carolinians alongside of the fathers of this Republic ? It might be a good Christian part to accept the proposition to restore the Missouri Compromise, which was wrongfully broken down by the Democratic party. But they would do more now. They would establish slavery. Since the verdict of the country was in our favor, he never would, by his vote permit the virgin soil of the common territories to be tainted with slavery. As for the alleged grievances of the South, he believed personal liberty bills to be unconstitutional and void. They were enacted in a spirit of retaliation, and should be stricken from the statute books.
Mr. STOTSENBERG proposed to amend the majority report, (the Senate resolutions,) by substituting an application to Congress for a convention to amend the Constitution of the United States.
[His speech thereupon is reserved for revision.]
Mr. FRASIER obtained the floor.
The SPEAKER laid before the House a communication from the Warden of the State Prison, and another from the Superintendent of the Blind Asylum, responding to resolutions of the House; the former promising a more detailed communication, and the latter appointing next Friday at 3 o'clock p. m., for the time of the exhibition of the blind pupils before the members of the General Assembly, at the Institute.
The House adjourned.
