HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
SATURDAY, February 2, 1861.PETITIONS.
Mr. NEBEKER presented a petition for the repeal of the acts for the formation of New Counties.
Mr. WELLS presented a petition for such change of the law that the people of each district in the county shall elect their own commissioners; they were referred to the Committee on County and Township Business.
Mr. COLLINS, of Adams, presented the petition of Snow and others, citizens of Adams county, for remuneration to Wm. Vance for expenses incurred by him in arresting a fugitive from justice; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. JENKINSON presented a petition for legislation against sheep - killing dogs; which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture.
CONVENTIONAL INTEREST.
Mr. BUNDY, from the Committee on Judiciary, returned the petition of Joshua Holland page: 160[View Page 160] and others, for a law authorizing parties to contract for a rate of interest on the loan or forbearance of money not exceeding ten per cent, and reported a bill [163] to amend the first section of the act concerning interest on money, approved May 27, 1852; which was passed to the second reading:
Mr. EDSON, on the part of the minority of the Judiciary Committee, asked and obtained leave to present a minority report; which subsequently he did, and without reading, it was ordered to be spread on the Journal.
PERSONAL EXPLANATION.
Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I delivered before this body what were my deliberate views of the state of the country. I said nothing in that speech that I would take back-not a sentence-not a syllable of a sentence. That speech, or the substance of it, will be published. I am willing-my record shall go out-I am willing to abide by what I have said. After I had closed my remarks (it seems they had raised something of a flutter on the other side)quite a number of Republicans came round me here asking me various questions. I replied, that in my speech I had expressed my sentiments, and if they could find anything wrong in that, they could take it and make the most it. I made no other answer to the questions propounded to me. I only said I regard coercion as civil war, and compromise and conciliation as the only means of obviating the ruin of this divided country; and that so long as I had power to raise my arm, I would stand up and oppose any and every effort for coercion, because I believed it would be destructive of our entire country. Now, sir, I see, in the Indianapolis Journal of this morning, a squib fired at me, purporting to come from a member of this House. I will send it up to be read.
The clerk read the following:
ONE OF THEM CORNERED.
February 1,1860.ED. JOURNAL-To-day, after the Hon. Mr. Packard had finished his speech in the House of Representatives, I went to him and propounded the following question: " If war will and must come, between the North and the South, on which side will you be found?" After some hesitation he answered: "On the side of the South!" The answer was given in the presence of several gentlemen.
[-The above statement comes to us authorized by the name of a good and true man, and a member of the House. It is unquestionably true, and shows that we said no more than facts will prove when we declared that " all the traitors were not in the Gulf States." Such a man has no business in the Legislature of a State he avows his readiness to oppose by force.-Ed. Journal.]
Mr. PACKARD. I would just say, Mr.Speaker-
The SPEAKER. The Chair is unable to see exactly a question of privilege in that.
Mr. PACKARD. It is an attack on me.
Mr. FEAGLER. Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman, I am the man responsible for ' that.
Mr. PACKARD. I say I never answered a question-none that were asked me. And I now denounce the author of that statement as a black-hearted liar, infamous scoundrel a coward.
The SPEAKER appealed to the House to preserve order.
Mr. FEAGLER (amidst various calls to order.) That matter I can call testimony to prove, sir. I went round and put the question to you, and you stated, after hesitation, If war come you would be on the side of the South.
The SPEAKER. The House will come to order!
Mr. FEAGLER. I hurl the lie back, and I say to the gentleman-
The SPEAKER. Gentlemen, the Chair expects the House to preserve order. If this is to be made an arena for the settlement of private quarrels and resentments of member against member, the sooner we go home the better. I appeal to the House, and I hope the House will manifest a sufficient sense of itg dignity to censure members guilty of such violation of the rules. Since the announcement of yesterday, members coming in and indulging in such gross contempt of the House, should be punished by the House.
Mr. EDSON. When a member is grossly misrepresented and insulted in a newspaper has he not a right to take notice of it in his place ?
The SPEAKER. The proper course is to go to the editor, demand the author, and settle all private quarrels outside of the House.
Mr. BUNDY (by unanimous consent) submitted a preamble and resolution, which was adopted, viz :
WHEREAS, by the Constitution of the State of Indiana, it is declared that any person who shall give or accept a challenge to fight a duel shall be ineligible to any office of honor or trust; and whereas, the practice of duelling is a barbarism, and abhorrent to the moral sense of the age; therefore-
Resolved, That any member of this House who shall give or accept a challenge to fight a duel ought to be expelled therefrom.
Mr. WOODHULL desired to understand the point of privilege decided-
The SPEAKER. Anything occurring within the bar is a question of privilege. Anything transpiring without the bar, like that submitted by the gentleman from Marshall and Starke, is as much beyond the jurisdiction of the Chair as though it was in the streets of the city.
STATE OF THE UNION.
Mr. VEATCH, sorry for this interruption, stated that during the short time he had had the honor to hold a seat here, he had found no occasion to entertain or express ill-feeling toward his fellow members; and he desired especially, in what he had now to say, to avoid all personalities and all offensive language toward anyone; at the sometime he intended to speak with all that freedom which the case demanded. But if, in the ardor of debate, he should happen to be led into any transgression of the rules of the House, he hoped he would be promptly called to order.
page: 161[View Page 161]He had listened yesterday with some attention to the speech of the gentleman from Washington and Harrison, and he must be permitted to say of it, (since variety is the spice of life,) that that speech contains a large amount of that spice. If, during the delivery speech, any person had come into the Hall to listen without knowing the subject of it, he would, from time to time, have been compelled to change his mind as to what was the gentleman's object. At one time he might have thought we were in midsummer-in the heat of the month of July-and that a Fourth of July celebration was going on in the House, instead of a little discussion on two joint re-solutions of the House of Representatives. Then in a few moments more, he might have bought the gentleman a minister of the gospel-a magnate of the church-whose whole life had been given to piety and holiness; he might have imagined him enthroned in the hair of the Holy See, administering his rebukes and warnings to the faithful, and teaching them, by infallible rules, how to read the sacred scriptures and seek their souls' salvation. Then, if he had listened further, he might have regarded him as an intrepid military leader, urging on his followers to deeds of violence and blood, threatening in their results to merge in wreck and ruin the proudest and best government ever constituted by man. Such were some of the varied characteristics of the speech of the gentleman from Washington.
He did not propose now to offer any such entertainment to the House. He proposed, as aa humble member of the Republican party, to submit what he understood to be the great principles of that party, and to offer some reasons, briefly, why they ought to be sustained by the lovers of our country.
He was inclined to look on the favorable side of men and things. He hated misrepresentation, and the man that loves it and practices it. This he applied to that class of partizans who would distort the views of others for strife. Now Republican speakers could not go South, nor their papers and speeches. But day after day distortions and misrepresentations of them were borne by every mail to the South. But every Republican knew he was not an enemy of the South, and the whole country ought to know and acknowledge this fact.
The right of the majority to rule was a fundamental principle with the Republican party. They asserted no new doctrine, but the old principles of the fathers. In 1857 they resisted the spread of slavery. They were defeated. Republicans propose no other correction of a public grievance than a peaceful appeal to the ballot-box. In 1880 they went before the people on the same issue-the retraining of slavery by constitutional enactments of Congress. They had a right to present that issue : and they had found a sanction of that principle by 1,800,000 voters. In opposition to this doctrine, there was one that Congress had a right to establish, and the people no right to prohibit, slavery in the territories-sanctioned by about 700,000 voters. A few days after the November election, this minority rebelled, and, like the gentleman from Marshall yesterday, with all the complacency of a prophet, they add: I told you so: I told you, you would bring ruin upon the country. Compromise, they say. We have no principles; why should you be tenacious now ?
But they claim the right of revolution. No man respects that right more than I do. But should it obtain in the case of a government formed by the people themselves ? Why was it that the rule of Democracy had been so bad, that they were now so earnest, for the destruction of their own work, that they were justified in taking up arms against it? Was that worth thanking God for, after the example of the gentlemen from Marshall and Starke? But they come back with the everlasting, whining cry, Why don't you do something? Millions of the public property had been seized by rebels; State after State had seceded ; and yet we are told that 100,000 men in Indiana will present a rampart of their bodies against any attempt of the Administration to enforce the laws and protect the public property. But some gentlemen, like the gentleman from Vigo, had got already a little too much record on this.
He was opposed to coercion ; but in favor of the proper, due enforcement of every law of the land. He would not think of subduing the seceding States-would not compel them to have their mails carried by the General Government-would not compel them to send representatives to Congress. But we will collect the revenue, and if mobs resist, they must be punished. He would not bandy the word traitor. But when men here join a Southern army to prevent the execution of the laws, that act was treason. He read the constitutional definition of treason, and decisions of the Courts under it. The gentleman from Washington had said yesterday, in reply to Mr. Nebeker,that, in case the President should go south with the army to enforce the laws, he would leave the home of his childhood, the hearth-stone of his father's house, and as De Kalb, Lafayette and Kosciusko left their homes and country, he would resign his commission, and go and become a private in the armies of the South, sooner than become a commander in chief of a Northern army. A combined force to resist the execution of the laws was treason-joining, giving aid and comfort to the enemy,was treason ; and a man arrested under such circumstances, could not be adjudged by any jury otherwise than as guilty of treason against his country. He trusted he was not violating any rule of courtesy when he made this statement.
page: 162[View Page 162]He replied to Mr. Packard, ringing the changes pleasantly on his "thank God, Democracy has ruled the State of Indiana"-combining therewith the Republican exceptions to the management of the finances of the State.
He then reviewed the minority report, with copious strictures, especially on that clause in the resolution which charges responsibility for our national difficulties upon Ministers of the Gospel-religious vagabonds; and proceeded to reply more specifically to the speech of Mr. Heffren.
He replied also to the speech, and showed the impracticability of the amendment of Mr. Stotsenberg-speaking at length on the whole premises in defence of Republicanism.
Mr. JENKINSON had looked up to the gentleman from Spencer, as a neophite looks to his teacher, and was disappointed because he had failed to propose a remedy for our National difficulties, and contented himself with captious criticisms and strictures on the speeches of Democratic members on this floor. He sustained the minority report. It denounced not ministers of the gospel, but pretended ministers. He would not go South to fight-would not fight his brethren-would not have Indianians to go. If they attacked, he would defend. He would have resented the attack on the Star of the West. He would protect and defend the public property and the forts wherever the flag of our country waves. The position of the Democratic party on this question of coercion, was that of Pitt, and Barry, and Burke, on the same question before the war of the revolution, in the British Parliament ; and the present position of the Southern Cotton States was not without a close analogy to that of our fathers of the revolution. The Republican heart was right, but its head was wrong. They should take a lesson from history against the disastrous results of civil war. He objected to the Republican policy of building a wall of fire around the slave States. Slavery must have scope and expand.
Mr. FRASIER. If the South refuse your terms of compromise, would you coerce them ?
Mr. JENKINSON. If old Virginia were met in the proper spirit, she would not go out; and the cotton States could not stand alone. He would throw a cordon of armed vessels around the Southern coasts and collect the revenue. He would give the slave States an equal chance in the Territories, as a policy to get rid of the institution. Give it scope and it would retire toward the tropics, and leave all the original States free. Such was the policy of the Crittenden amendments. It would repel slavery, not attract it, nor advance its interests in this Union. And this was all the people of the South wanted-simply a guarantee that they may take their slaves and be protected with them in their share of the common Territories. And the Republican platform was the thing in the way of this: hence civil war. He referred to the error of taking the powerof appointing commissioners to the Washington convention out of the hands of the Legislature, and insisted that he could pick 200 Republicans in the State of Indiana, better men for the place than those the Governor has appointed. They were men of extreme and uncompromising views. He knew them all but Slaughter, and this was the extent of his objection to them. He charged that the whole political course of the Republican party was tending directly to the disruption and disunion originally desired professed by the Abolitionists.
He spoke at length, closing with an argument for submitting the Crittenden amendments to the people of Indiana on the 22d Of February, and the expression of his assurance that they would be sustained by a majority Of 50,000 voters.
Being interrupted, he answered that he regarded a negro as a man-an inferior of the white man. He recognized popular sovereignty as the true doctrine (all the Constitution did was to recognize slaves as property;) but he was willing to yield popular sovereignty south of the line for the sake of peace.
When he concluded, Mr. CASON took the floor.
And then, at 11:35 o'clock, the House adjourned till Monday 2 o'clock p. m.
