SECRET POLITICAL SOCIETIES.
The special order for 3 o'clock, (Mr. Gregory's resolution.) coming up--
Mr. BUSKIRK (Mr. Packard in the chair) said: In the discussion which took place this morning, gentlemen belonging to the opposition seemed to take it for granted that there were secret political organizations in Indiana, and that those organizations were in some way connected with the Democratic party.
As to the first point he had no knowledge. He could not say whether there were secret societies in the State or not. But as to the second supposition, viz., that these societies were connected with the Democratic party, and that that party, was responsible for them, he could speak emphatically in denial. Every principle, every instinct of the Democratic party repudiated any and all association with secret political associations for any and all purposes. That party had repudiated and overthrown Know Nothingism. That party, in its State, county and township conventions had again and again denounced such organizations. He was not prepared to say that there were not such societies or that members of the Democratic party did not belong to them, but he vindicated the Democratic party as a party from all endorsement of or responsibility for them. Repeatedly, as he had said, had that party denounced officially such societies. But he knew of no instance in which the People's. Republican, Anti Lecompton, or Union parties had in their public conventions repudiated them.
He doubted whether the subject of the resolution was a proper matter for legislative action; however, he would vote to send it to the Committee on Federal Relations. He would be plain with his Republican friends. It was a principle settled by the Republican majority of the last Legislature, that the majority should have the right of forming all committee of investigation. Therefore, if the committee should report in favor of the resolution, he should vote against it, because under Parliamentary law, its mover would become the chairman thereof. We, the majority on this floor, have the right to the Chairman and to manage and control the investigation.
Again, the resolution was not comprehensive enough. He had reason to believe--nay, he might go a step further and say he knew--that secret political associations were being formed in every town ship in the State by gentlemen who were instructed from the capital, where the order originated, by persons standing very high in the Republican party. He wanted a resolution broad and comprehensive enough to include these associations these Republican secret political associations.
page: 65[View Page 65]Mr. VAN BUSKIRK argued in favor of the resolution. He would favor the most rigid and searching investigation; he wanted, for the sake of the country he loved and the Government he cherished, traitors ferreted out and brought to punishment. Who was to be harmed, but traitors, by such an investigation? Gentlemen whose skirts are clear ought to court the investigation. He, in reply to the gentleman from Dearborn, (Mr. Roberts,) said that of his own knowledge he knew of sufficient facts on which to base the resolution and to demand the proposed investigation. He quoted extracts from the Cincinnati Enquirer of the 19th to show that neither the principles or instincts of the Democratic party forbade them to organize secret societies, and that it guardedly admitted their existence in this State. The course of that party in prosecuting the investigation of military arrests, and shunning this investigation was not, consistent.
Mr. BUSKIRK in reply to the gentleman from Decatur, (Mr. Van Buskirk,) declared the purpose of the majority to be to hold every officer, civil and military, to the strictest accountability for every illegal arrest which had been made in Indiana. (Applause.)
Mr. ATKISON would leave the matter to the courts.
Mr. BROWN did not propose to be convicted on Abolition testimony, as to the designs of the societies referred to by the Cincinnati Enquirer. He challenged the proof from Democratic sources, that such societies existed. He did not propose to stand here and be catechised concerning rumors set afloat by Abolition sheets and demagogues. He did not deny that, as the Enquirer had said, there were societies of as good and loyal men as ever trod the soil of this noble State, banded together for mutual protection; who had resolved that they would spill the last drop of their heart's blood, rather than that their friends should be torn from their midst by arbitrary arrests. Their object was self-protection not treason nor the demoralization of the army; for when tyrants and despots invade the threshold of civil liberty, the people will take the matter into their own hands to make those tyrants and cowards bite the dust. These men had declared that the outrages upon the citizen by this corrupt and infamous administration must stop. But where was the proof that these men were associated for the purpose of overthrowing the Constitution and the Government ot the country? Where was this proof? You had none but that furnished by your lying abolition sheets and your lying abolition demagogues.
Mr. HANNA spoke in bitter denunciation of such secret political associations as the Know Nothing organization, to which most of the gentlemen advocating the resolution had belonged. He paid a glorious tribute to the unswerving fidelity of the Democratic party to the Constitution and the Union. He was for referring the resolution.
Mr. MORGAN argued in favor of the resolution.
