Slavery in the States ---again.

Mr. Stanton.  I hope the gentleman will withdraw the demand for the previous question for a few moments.

Mr. Kilgore.  Yes;  if the gentleman will renew it.

Mr. Stanton.  Mr. Speaker, when there were fifteen slaveholding States acknowledging allegiance to this Federal Government, and therefore having in their hands the power to protect themselves against any invasion of their rights on the part of the Federal Government, it was a matter of very little consequence whether such an amendment as that were incorporated in the Constitution or not.  But the state of the country is now radically and essentially changed.  Seven or eight States now deny their allegiance to this Government, have organized a separate confederacy, and have declared their independence of this Government.  Whether that independence is to be maintained or not, is with the future.  If they shall maintain their position, and if public opinion in those seceding States shall sustain the authorities there for a year or two to come, so as to show that nothing but a war of subjugation and conquest can bring them back, I, for one, am disposed to recognize that independence. [Applause, and cries of "That's right" from the Democratic benches.]  Now, in this state of things, if the remaining seven slaveholding States remain in this Confederacy, they are entitled to additional guarantees, [Renewed demonstrations of applause.]

There are now, Mr. Speaker, seven slaveholding States and nineteen free States.  In ten years more, Delaware will be, for all practical purposes, a free State.  That would make twenty free States and six slave-holding States.  In a few years more, you will have five more free States organized out of the Territories.  You will then have the requisite three fourths to change the Constitution, and to confer on the Federal Government and on Congress the power to interfere with slavery in the States.  Now, Mr. Speaker, I hold that that power ought never to be vested in Congress, no matter if there were but one slave-holding State.  Slavery is a matter of local and domestic concern, and Congress ought not to have jurisdiction over it;  and if I were to-day a citizen of a slave-holding State, and were desirous of the emancipation of the slaves in that State, I would resist the interference of the General Government;  because it is a subject which the General Government does not understand, over which it ought to have no control, and which ought to be left to the States.  I apprehend, therefore, Mr. Speaker, that if it is the intention to afford that constitutional protection to the slave-holding States which the altered circumstances and condition of the country demand, it is incumbent on us now to submit that question to the people, to say the least of it;  and the people ought to recognize and adopt it.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it will not do for us to say that the Constitution which our fathers made is sufficient for this country under all circumstances and in the altered condition of public affairs.  At the organization of the Government, there was but one free State. All the others were slave-holding States.  Everybody anticipated the increased growth and power of the slave-holding States.  There was, therefore, no necessity for any guarantee beyond what was incorporated in the Constitution.  Suppose it had been then provided that thirty thousand inhabitants should, in all future time, be the ratio of representation:  would not the increased number of inhabitants have made it a necessity to change the Constitution so as to increase the ratio ?  Is a Constitution which was framed for a Confederacy when there was but one free State and twelve slave-holding States, adequate for the protection of all sections, at a time when there are nineteen free States and but seven alave-holding States ?  I am in earnest in this business, and am sincere when I state that I do not desire to interfere with slavery in the States.  I apprehend that my colleagues are equally so.  I apprehend that they do not desire to interfere with slavery in the States.  But will they guaranty that their successors, ten or twenty years hence, will not be ?  Will they answer for the progress of public opinion in the free States, and for the position which they may assume some years hence ?  I say that these slave States, if they intend to remain in the Confederacy, have a right to demand this guarantee;  and so far as my vote is concerned, they shall have it. [Applause on the floor and in the galleries]

My friends on this side of the House are making a mistake.  I tell them that public opinion in the States which we represent will not warrant this refusal.  At all events it is an ungracious thing for them to refuse to permit their constituents to express their opinion on this subject.  No exception can be taken to the form and structure of this amendment.  It was proposed by the distinguished Senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] and adopted by the committee of thirteen of the Senate, and voted for in that committee by Messrs. Collamer, Doolittle, Grimes, Seward, and Wade, who were all of the Republican members of that committee;  and voted against by Messrs. Hunter and Toombs.  This was early in the month of January, when no State but South Carolina had seceded.  There were then fourteen slaveholding States acknowledging their allegiance to this Government.  There are now but seven.  If this amendment was called for then, how much stronger is the necessicy for it now ?  I now move the previous question.  They may rest assured that such a position will not be sustained.  All I have to ask at the hands of gentlemen on the other side is, if this thing is now refused, that they will forego any act of secession or rashness until we shall have an opportunity of appealing to the people of the free States for the justice of their demands. [Applause.]  I renew the call for the previous question.

Mr. Lovejoy.  I ask the gentleman from Ohio to withdraw the demand for the previous question.  It is not fair to have two speeches made on the same side, and none on the other.

Mr. Stanton.  I most emphatically refuse.

The previous question was seconded, and the main question ordered to be put.  The question now being on the motion to reconsider the vote by which the joint resolution for an amendment to the Constitution was rejected, Mr. Fenton demanded the yeas and nays.  The yeas and nays were ordered.

[Great confusion prevailed in the Hall, and the Speaker was unable, after repeated efforts, to rerestore order.]

Mr. Cox.  I am satisfied we can never get along with our business until the Hall is cleared of the strangers who are present.  A great part of the confusion arises from the presence of strangers, who are here to bolster up the Red Republican part of the House.

Mr. McPherson.  I think the remark of the gentleman from Ohio is rather uncalled for.  There is as much disturbance, and as many strangers, on that side of the House as on this.

Mr. Cox.  I make no distinction.  I want the Hall cleared of strangers.

The Speaker.  There can be no difficulty in this matter.  At the suggestion of the gentleman the Chair orders the Hall to be cleared of all who are not entitled to its privileges.

Mr. Adrain.  I hope the Chair will direct the Doorkeeper to carry out that order.

The Speaker.  The Chair has so directed him.

Mr. Adrain.  Then I hope he will execute it thoroughly.

Mr. Clark, of Missouri.  I think the gentleman does injustice to the strangers who are here.  It is the members themselves who make the disturbance.

Mr. Lovejoy.  What is before the House ?  I call the gentleman to order.

The question was taken;  and it was decided in the affirmative--- yeas 128, nays 65;  as follows:

Yeas--- Messrs. Charles Adams, Green Adams, Adrain, Aldrich, William Anderson, Avery, Babbitt, Barr, Barret, Boteler, Boulugny, Brabson, Branch, Briggs, Bristow, Brown, Burch, Burnett. Butterfield, Campbell, Horace Clark, John Clark, Clemens, Clark Cochrane, John Cochrane, Colfax, Corwin, Cox, James Craig, Burton Craige, Winter Davis, John Davis, DeJarnette, Delano, Dimmick, Dunn, Edmundson, English, Etheridge, Florence, Fouke, Garnett, Gilmer, Hale, Hall, Hamilton, Morrison Harris, John Harris, Haskin, Hatton, Helmick, Hoard, Holman, Alanson Howard, William Howard, Hughes, Humphrey, Jenkins, Junkin, William Kellog, Kenyon, Kilgore, Kunkel, Larabee, James Leach, Leake, Logan, Maclay, Mallory, Charles Martin, Elbert Martin, Maynard, McClernand, McKenty, McKnight, McPherson, Millson, Montgomery, Laban Moore, Moorhead, Morrill, Edward Morris, Isaac Morris, Nelson, Niblack, Nixon, Noell, Olin, Palmer, Pendleton, Peyton, Phelps, Porter, Pryor, Quarles, John Reynolds, Rice, Riggs, Christopher Robinson, James Robinson, Ruffin, Rust, Scranton, John Sherman, Sickles, Simms, William Smith, Spaulding, Stanton, Stevenson, James Stewart, Stokes, Stout, Stratton, Thayer, Theaker, Thomas, Trimble, Vallandigham, Vance, Verree, Webster, Whiteley, Windom, Winslow, Woodson, and Wright ---128.

Nays--- Messrs. Alley, Ashley, Beale, Bingaum, Blair, Blake, Brayton, Buffinton, Burlingame, Burnham, Carey, Carter, Case, Coburn, Conkling, Conway, Covode, Henry Dawes, Duell, Edgerton, Edwards, Eliot, Ely, Farnsworth, Fenton, Ferry, Foster, Frank, Gooch, Graham, Grow, Gurley, Hickman, Hutchins, Irvine, Francis Kellogg, DeWitt Leach, Lee, Loomis, Lovejoy, Marston, McKean, Pettit, Potter, Pottle, Edwin Reynolds, Royce, Sedgwick, Somes, Spinner, Stevens, William Stewart, Tappan, Tompkins, Train, Vandever, VanWyck, Wade, Waldron, Walton, Cadvalader Washburn, Ellihu Washburne, Wells, Wilson, and Woodruff ---65.

So the motion to reconsider was agreed to.  Before the vote was announced, Mr. Hindman (not being within the bar when his name was called) asked leave to vote Mr. Bingham objected.  Mr. Hindman stated that, if permitted, he would vote "no."

The question recurred on the passage of the joint resolution;  which was read, as follows:

Joint resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States.

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two thirds of both Houses concurring,) That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution;  namely:

Article 13.  No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

Mr. Hickman.  I rise to a question of order.  I understood the Chair to announce the vote as 128 in the affirmative, and 65 in the negative.  That, in my judgment, does not authorize a reconsideration.

The Speaker.  The Chair is of the opinion that a majority is sufficient to reconsider any vote.

Mr. Hickman.  When it requires a two-thirds vote to carry the question ?

The Speaker.  The Chair is of the opinion that, in accordance with the uniform practice of the House, a majority is only required to reconsider.  A two-thirds vote will be required to pass the joint resolution.

Mr. Corwin.  I call the previous question on the passage of the joint resolution.

The previous question was seconded, and the main question ordered to be put.  Mr. Cox demanded the yeas and nays upon the passage of the joint resolution.  The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. Washburne, of Illinois.  I ask that rule 65 may be read.

The rule was read, as follows:

"65.  While the Speaker is putting any question, or addressing the House, none shall walk out of or across the House;  nor, in such case, or when a member is speaking, shall entertain private discourse;  nor while a member is speaking shall pass between him and the chair.

The Speaker.  The Sergeant-at-Arms will see that the rule is strictly enforced, and that members are not permitted to stand around the Clerk's desk while the roll is being called.

Mr. Sherman.  I hope the rule which requires mentbers not to speak during the call of the roll will also be enforced.

Mr. Lovejoy.  And I ask that the rule which requires all members present to vote will also be enforced.

Mr. John Cochrane.  I rise to a question of order.  I am informed that the confusion which exists in the Hall arises in consequence of the fact that there are persons in the Hall who are not privileged persons here.  I trust, again, that the Sergeant-at-Arms will be directed to perform his duty.  It is a constitutional privilege of the members of the House of Representatives, that they shall be allowed to perform their official duties without interference.

The Speaker.  The Chair again directs the Sergeant-at-Arms and Doorkeeper to clear the Hall of all persons not entitled to admission under the rules.

Mr. Lovejoy.  I ask if the time has expired in which the members of the peace conference are allowed admission into the Hall ?

The Speaker.  The Chair supposes the time has expired.  He would not be disposed to enforce the rule strictly against them, if we could have order;  but the Chair is compelled to decide that the privileges of the members of the peace conference upon this floor expired with the dissolution of that body.

Mr. John Cochrane.  It is proper to observe that my remarks were not directed against those who have been members of the peace conference.

Mr. Lovejoy.  It is proper to remark that I do refer to them.  I consider them as busybodies, having no business upon this floor.

The Speaker.  The Chair directs the rule to be enforced strictly, and that it must cover all cases, including both members of the peace conference and ex-members of Congress.

The question was then taken on the passage of the joint resolution;  and it was decided in the affirmative--- yeas 133, nays 65;  as follows:

Yeas--- Messrs. Charles Adams, Green Adams, Adrain, Aldrich, William Anderson, Avery, Babbitt, Barr, Barret, Bocock, Boteler, Bouligny, Brabson, Branch, Briggs, Bristow, Brown, Burch, Burnett, Butterfield, Campbell, Horace Clark, John Clark, Clemens, Clark Cochrane, John Cochrane, Schuyler Colfax, Corwin, Cox, James Craig, Burton Craige, Winter Davis, John Davis, DeJarnette, Delano, Dimmick, Dunn, Edmundson, English, Etheridge, Florence, Fouke, French, Garnett, Gilmer, Hale, Hall, Hamilton, Morrison Harris, John Harris, Haskin, Hatton, Helmick, Hoard, Holman, Alanson Howard, William Howard, Hughes, Humphrey, Jenkins, Junkin, William Kellogg, Kenyon, Kilgore, Killinger, Kunkel, Larrabee, James Leach, Leake, Logan, Maclay, Mallory, Charles Martin, Elbert Martin, Maynard, McClemand, McKenty, McKnight, McPherson, Millson, Montgomery, Laban Moore, Morehead, Morrill, Edward Morris, Isaac Morris, Morse, Nelson, Niblack, Nixon, Noell, Olin, Palmer, Pendleton, Peyton, Phelps, Porter, Pryor, Quarles, John Reynolds, Rice, Riggs, Christopher Robinson, James Robinson, Ruffin, Rust, Scott, Scranton, John Sherman, Sickles, Simms, William Smith, Gerry Spaulding, Stanton, Stevenson, James Stewart, Stokes, Stout, Stratton, Thayer, Theaker, Thomas, Trimble, Vallandigham, Vance, Verree, Webster, Whiteley, Windom, Winslow, Wood, Woodson, and Wright ---133.

Nays--- Messrs. Alley, Ashley, Beale, Bingham, Blair, Blake, Brayton, Buffinton, Burlingame, Burnham, Carey, Carter, Case, Coburn, Roscoe Conkling, Conway, Dawes, Duell, Edgerton, Edwards, Eliot, Ely, Farnsworth, Fenton, Ferry, Foster, Frank, Gooch, Grow, Gurley, Hickman, Hindman, Hutchins, Irvine, Francis Kellog, DeWitt Leach, Lee, Longnecker, Loomis, Lovejoy, Marston, McKean, Pettit, Potter, Pottle, Edwin Reynolds, Royce, Sedgwick, Somes, Spinner, Stevens, William Stewart, Tappan, Tompkins, Train, Vandever, Van Wyck, Wade, Waldron, Walton, Cadwalader Washburn, Ellihu Washburne, Wells, Wilson, and Woodruff ---65.

The Speaker announced that the joint resolution, having received the constitutional majority of two thirds of the House, was passed.

[The announcement was received with loud and prolonged applause, both on the floor and in the galleries.]

The Presiding Officer.  The joint resolution (H.R. No. 80) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, is before the Senate as in Committee of the Whole;  and the Senator from Texas is entitled to the floor.

Mr. Wigfall. [Louis Trezevant Wigfall (April 21, 1816 -- February 18, 1874), Texas, D; studied law]  Mr. President, I think I can say with truth, that this is positively my last appearance on these boards.  I would have made that pledge last night, but it is said that a certain place not mentionable to ears polite is filled with good intentions.  I trust that the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade, rabid reconstructionist] will have this sin placed on his shoulders, not on mine.  I was utterly astonished to see the Senator rise here and charge upon the Democratic party the offense, and he seemed so to regard it, of containing all the elements of secession, disruption of the Union, rebellion, resistance to the Government, &c.  Why, sir, the Senator from Ohio himself, in the State of Maine, in the year 1855, is reported to have used this language:

"There was no freedom at the South for either white or black.  He would strive to protect the free soil of the North from the same blighting curse.  There was really no union now between the North and the South.  He believed that no two nations upon Earth entertained feelings of more bitter rancor towards each other than these two sections of the Republic.  The only salvation of the Union, therefore, was to be found in divesting it entirely from all taint of slavery.  There was no union with the South.  Let us have a Union, said he, or let us sweep away this remnant which we call Union.  I go for a Union where all men are equal, or for no Union at all.  I go for right."

If that is not tolerably strong secession and disunion sentiment, I am suffering under the inability to understand the meaning of the English language.

Mr. Wade.  I ask the Senator if he does not believe that every word of it is true ?

Mr. Wigfall.  I answer with all frankness that I do, so far as the irrepressible conflict between the two sections is to be considered;  and hence it is that I am now, and have for a long time past, been, utterly opposed to medicines.

Mr. Wade.  If the Senator will let me, I propose to say here, what I have frequently said, that I believe that speech of mine was not reported by a regular reporter;  and I never supposed that the person who did report it took it down right at the time.  The language was modified from what it is there, I think.  I have always held so.  I think it is a little different from what I spoke.

Mr. Wigfall.  I never have seen any denial of the Senator.  I recollect, in the canvass of 1856, having used it very frequently in speeches in my own State, and supposing that Cluskey's text-book had everything in it which anybody wanted to have, I sent for the text-book;  and looking under the title of "Abolitionists and Republicans," I found the very sentence which I was looking for.  That is all I know about it.

Mr. Wade.  It was so reported;  but the first time I ever knew it was so reported, I stated what I have said now, that I did not think it was correctly reported.  I do not think so now;  and I stated so to Mr. Clay, of Alabama, here, on one occasion.

Mr. Wigfall.  The Senator was certainly so understood in Maine, and he was so reported in the Boston Atlas.  That is the paper from which this extract is taken.  From 1855 to 1861, the Senator has been so understood throughout the entire limits of the southern country.  Under these circumstances, it did strike me as a little singular that the Senator should have risen here and denounced, with some degree of acrimony and bitterness, disunion sentiments, and complained that we had produced the whole difficulty.  Now, sir, a gross injustice has been done that Senator by the party which he so ably, and I will add so faithfully, represents upon this floor.  He is, in fact, the real author of the irrepressible conflict doctrine.  The Senator from New York [Seward], in 1858, dressed the idea in that phraseology, and got the credit for it.  In 1860, it was understood that one Abraham Lincoln was the author;  and persons in the northern States and in the Republican party not being so well informed, nor having so closely scrutinized their writings and speakings as we further south have done, were ignorant of the fact that there was a double plagiarism -- first by the distinguished Senator from New York, who copied it from the Senator from Illinois;  but the Senator from Illinois had stolen the thunder of the Senator from Ohio.  He is the real irrepressible conflict man;  the genuine bona fide sarsaparilla Dr. Townsend [Laughter.]

Mr. Douglas.  You do not mean "the Senator from Illinois," but Mr. Lincoln.

Mr. Wigfall.  The President elect;  he was not the Senator;  no, he was not elected to the Senate.

Mr. Douglas.  That is the only correction I want made. [Laughter.]

Mr. Wigfall.  Certainly, I am glad to have made it.  I did not allude to you, of course;  I was speaking of Abraham. [Laughter.]  Now, sir, the Senator from Ohio has paid me the compliment of saying that I am the only physician who has discovered the disease under which the body-politic is suffering.  I feel flattered by the compliment, and will not deny the soft impeachment. [Laughter.]  I have been for some time laboring under that impression.  I think that bread pills will not cure;  and that in this case, after death has literally come, the doctor and some of those who are now officiating are the very individuals who have produced death.  That I believe further to be true.  If there is, Mr. President, any class of men in this country who are more responsible for the present disruption of this Union than another class, it is that class of men who are called "Union-savers."  They have been dealing with people as though the people had no sense;  they have been getting up their quack medicines;  they have been compromising, and couching their compromise in language which was not intended to be understood.  They have made compromises and platforms which may be construed one way at the North and another way at the South;  and while they have kept the word of promise to the ear, they have invariably broken it to the hope.  There ought to have been no irrepressible conflict in our Government between slave labor and hireling labor, between the free white States and the free negro States.  Senators have a cant, short way of talking of the slave States.  There are no slave States;  there are some States in which negroes are held as slaves, and in which white men are held as freemen;  some States in which negroes black boots and white men do not drive carriages.  There are other States in which white men black boots and wear liveries, not the entire class, not the respectable class, not the farming class of the country, not the bone and sinew of the country;  but those States may, with propriety, be called the hireling States of the Union;  the others, the slave States if you please;  or, as in some of the States, negroes are slaves and white men are free, and in others negroes are free and white men perform menial services, I suppose the better application would be "the free white States" and the "Free negro States."  So much for that.

I desire to pour oil on the waters, to produce harmony, peace and quiet here.  It is early in the morning, and I hope I shall not say anything that may be construed as offensive.  I rise merely that we may have an understanding of this question.  It is not slavery in the Territories, it is not expansion, which is the difficulty.  If the resolution which the Senator from Wisconsin introduced here, denying the right of secession, had been adopted by two-thirds of each branch of this department of the Government, and had been ratified by three-fourths of the States, I have no hesitation in saying that, so far as the State in which I live and to which I owe my allegiance is concerned, if she had no other cause for a disruption of the Union taking place, she would undoubtedly have gone out.  The moment you deny the right of self-government to the free White men of the South, they will leave the Government.  They believe in the Declaration of Independence.  They believe that—

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;  that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

That principle of the Declaration of Independence is the one upon which the free White men of the South predicated their devotion to the present Constitution of the United States;  and it was the denial of that, as much as anything else, that has created the dissatisfaction in that Section of the Country.  There is no instrument of writing that has ever been written that has been more misapprehended and misunderstood and misrepresented than this same unfortunate Declaration of Independence, and no set of gentlemen have ever been so slandered as the fathers who drew and signed that Declaration.  If there was a thing on Earth that they did not intend to assert, it was that a negro was a white man.  As I said here, a short time ago, one of the greatest charges they made against the British Government was, that old King George was attempting to establish the fact practically that all men were created free and equal.  They charged him in the Declaration of Independence with inciting their slaves to insurrection.  That is one of the grounds upon which they threw off their allegiance to the British Parliament.

Another great misapprehension is, that the men who drafted that Declaration of Independence had any peculiar fancy for one form of government rather than another.  They were not fighting to establish a democracy in this country;  they were not fighting to establish a republican form of government in this country.  Nothing was further from their intention.  Alexander Hamilton, after he had fought for seven years, declared that the British form of government was the best that the ingenuity of man had ever devised;  and when John Adams said to him, "without its corruptions;”  "Why,” said he, "its corruptions are its greatest excellence;  without the corruptions, it would be nothing.”  In the Declaration of Independence, they speak of George III., after this fashion.  They say:

“A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.”

Now, I ask any plain common-sense man what was the meaning of that ?  Was it that they were opposed to a monarchical form of government ?  Was it that they believed a monarchical form of government was incompatible with civil liberty ?  No, sir;  they entertained no such absurd idea.  None of them entertained it;  but they say that George III, was a prince whose character was "marked by every act which may define a tyrant” and that therefore he was "unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”  Had his character not been so marked by every quality which would define a tyrant, he might have been the fit ruler of a free people;  ergo, a monarchical form of Government was not incompatible with civil liberty.  That was clearly the opinion of those men.  I do not advocate it now;  for I have said frequently that we are wiser than our fathers, and our children will be wiser than we are.  One hundred years hence, men will understand their own affairs much better than we do.  We understand our affairs better than those who preceded us one hundred years.  But what I assert is, that the men of the Revolution did not believe that a monarchical form of government was incompatible with civil liberty.

What I assert is, that when they spoke of "all men being created equal,” they were speaking of the white men who then had unsheathed their swords —for what purpose ?  To establish the right of self-government in themselves;  and when they had achieved that, they established, not democracies, but republican forms of government in the thirteen sovereign, separate and independent colonies.  Yet the Declaration of Independence is constantly quoted to prove negro equality.  It proves no such thing;  it was intended to prove no such thing.  The "glittering generalities” which a distinguished former Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Choate] spoke of, as contained in the Declaration of Independence, one of them at least —about all men being created equal— was not original with Mr. Jefferson.  I recollect seeing a pamphlet called the Principles of the Whigs and Jacobites, published about the year 1745, when the last of the Stuarts, called "the Pretender,” was striking a blow that was fatal to himself, but a blow for his crown, in which pamphlet the very phraseology is used, word for word, and letter for letter.  I have not got it here to-night.  I sent the other day to the Library to try and find it, but could not find it;  it was burnt, I believe, with the pamphlets that were burnt some time ago.

That Mr. Jefferson copied it or plagiarized it, is not true, I suppose, any more than the charge that the distinguished Senator from New York plagiarized from the Federalist in preparing his celebrated compromising speech which was made here a short time ago.  It was the cant phrase of the day in 1745, which was only about thirty years previous to the Declaration of Independence.  This particular pamphlet, which I have read, was published;  others were published at the same time.  That sort of phraseology was used.

There was a war of classes in England;  there were men who were contending for legitimacy;  who were contending for the right of the Crown being inherent and depending on the will of God, "the divine right of Kings,” for maintaining a hereditary landed aristocracy;  there was another party who were contending against this doctrine of legitimacy, and the right of primogeniture.  These were called the Whigs;  they established this general phraseology in denouncing the divine right and the doctrine of legitimacy, and it became the common phraseology of the country;  so that in the obscure county of Mecklenburg, in North Carolina, a declaration containing the same assertions was found as in this celebrated Declaration of Independence, written by the immortal Jefferson.  Which of us, I ask, is there upon this floor who has not read and re-read whatever was written within the last twenty-five or thirty years by the distinguished men of this country ?  But enough of that.

The Senator from Ohio says, very justly, that these matters cannot be compromised in this way.  The Senator from New York [Seward], twelve years ago, declared that it was the duty of the people of the North to abolish slavery;  he then said they must teach hatred of it in their schools, and preach in their pulpits;  they must their people to hate slavery.  He has accomplished that;  and they now not only hate slavery, but they hate slave-holders.  As I said before, there ought not have been, and there did not necessarily result from our form of Government, any irrepressible conflict between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States.  Nothing of the sort was necessary.  Strike out a single clause in the Constitution of the United States, that which secures to each State a republican form of government, and there is no reason why, under precisely such a Constitution as we have, States that are monarchical and States that are republican, could not live in peace and quiet.  They confederate together for common defense and general welfare, each State regulating its domestic concerns in its own way;  those which preferred a republican form of government maintaining it, and those which preferred a monarchical form of government maintaining it.  But how long could small States, with different forms of government, live together, confederated for common defense and general welfare, if the people of one section were to come to the conclusion that their institutions were better than those of the other, and thereupon straightway set about subverting the institutions of the other ?

That the people of the North shall consider themselves as more blessed then we, more civilized, and happier, is not a matter at which we would complain at all, if they would only content themselves with believing that to be the fact;  but when they come and attempt to propagandize, and insist that we shall be as perfect as they imagine themselves to be, then it is that their good opinion of themselves becomes offensive to us.  Let my neighbor believe that his wife is an angel and his children cherubs, I care not, though I may know he is mistaken;  but when he comes impertinently poking his nose into my door every morning, and telling me that my wife is a shrew and my children brats, then the neighborhood becomes uncomfortable, and if I cannot remove him, I will remove myself;  and if he says to me, "you shall not move, but you shall stay here, and you shall, day after day, hear the demerits of your wife and children discussed," then I begin to feel a little restive, and possibly might assert that great original right of pursuing whatever may conduce to my happiness, though it might be kicking him out of my, door.  If New England would only be I content with the blessings which she imagines she has, we would not disturb her in her happiness;  but she insists, with that puritanical---

Mr. Foster.  Will the Senator allow me to ask a question ?  When he has said that the Senator from Ohio was responsible for all this doctrine, I ask why charge New England ?  I ask whether it is kind to give the Senator from Ohio all the credit for this matter, and then charge it on New England ? [Laughter.]

Mr. Wigfall.  Certainly;  I will explain it easily enough.  You know the leader of your party, the Senator from New York, said a short time ago, and it is true, I believe, that the "Massachusetts school of politics" has spread;  and so far as Ohio is concerned, I believe that the State from which the Senator who last interrupted me comes, Connecticut, is responsible for the politics of Ohio.  I have heard something about "the Connecticut Reserve" in Ohio;  and that, I believe, has been the hot-bed of all the fanaticism of that country.  The mere expression of "the irrepressible conflict" was credited first to Mr. Lincoln, and then to Mr. Seward, and then to the Senator from Ohio;  but this doctrine of perfectibility in the people of the free States is of New England origin.  It began before your Revolution;  long before that.  It began when Charles lost his throne.  I think it began before his time.  Old John Knox started it, and then it got down into England.  They helped Cromwell to cut off their King's head.  After that, better than even the Puritans, they were called Independents;  then they were called fifth-monarchy men;  and then Cromwell had to run them out of England;  and then they went over into Holland, and the Dutch let them alone, but would not let them persecute anybody else;  and then they got on that ill-fated ship called the Mayflower, and landed on Plymouth Rock. [Laughter.]  And from that time to this, they have been kicking up a dust generally, and making a muss whenever they could put their fingers in the pie. [Laughter.]  They confederated with the other States in order to save themselves from the power of old King George III;  and no sooner had they got rid of him, than they turned in to persecuting their neighbors.  Having got rid of the Indians, and witches, and Baptists, and Quakers in their country;  after selling us our negroes for the love of gold, they began stealing them back for the love of God. [Laughter.]  That is the history as well as I understand it.

There was properly no irrepressible conflict between the slave-holding States and the non-slaveholding States.  They could have lived long in perfect peace and amity.  We could have had slaves;  they could have had none;  we never attempted to thrust them upon them.  We never wished to carry our institutions among them.  But when we acquired common territory, we said, "that territory belongs to us in common with you."  When the Mexican war broke out, we had to settle the question by the sword;  and the slave-holding States, with about one third of the population of the Union, furnished two thirds of the army;  with double our population, you furnished about twenty thousand men;  with half your population, we furnished forty thousand.  The territory was acquired.  You told us we should not go there;  that the air was too pure in Utah to be breathed by slaves, but polygamists might live there.  That did not offend the northern sentiment of morality. So this thing has gone on.

The Senator from Ohio to-night spoke of the Constitution as expounded by "that eminent jurist, Judge Story."  Judge Story was an eminent man in the way of making books.  He made a great many of them.  I am not going to detract from him, nor discuss his character here at this hour of the morning;  but I will say, that if there was a man next to the Union-savers who is more responsible for a dissolution of the Union than every other man who ever lived, that man is Joseph Story;  and if I were going to propose a compromise by which this Union would be saved, I would just provide an amendment to the Constitution vesting in Congress the power to make an appropriation to buy up all the commentaries on the Constitution written by Joseph Story, and have them publicly burned, [laughter;]  and then, if you could eradicate from the minds of the American people the false doctrine, as to the form of Government under which they are living, that has been created by those mis-called commentaries on the Constitution, and eradicate from their minds the prejudices which have been taught under the teachings and advice of the Senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] in which the northern people have been taught to hate slavery, in their schools and in their pulpits;  if these things could be accomplished, and the American people could, all of them, north of Mason and Dixon's line, be made Democrats, in the just acceptation of the term, not, sans culottes, but State-rights men, who believe that the Constitution is a compact between States, and that the Federal Government derives its authority from the written instrument, and can exercise no power that is not expressly delegated, or both necessary and proper for carrying out the delegated power --could all these things be done, I would then consider the question as to whether, under existing circumstances, a reconstruction would be practicable.

But as things are, it is useless, I am satisfied, to talk about a reconstruction.  This Federal Government is dead.  The only question is, whether we will give it a decent, peaceable, Protestant burial, or whether we shall have an Irish wake at the grave.  [Laughter.]  Now, I am opposed to fighting, and would prefer a peaceable burial;  but if the Republican Senators insist upon fighting, and they can get the backbone again put into their President-elect, and can get Mr. Chase reinstated in the Cabinet, from which he has been expelled, I do not know but that we shall have to fight.  If their President has recovered from that "artificial panic" under which he was laboring a short time ago, under the advice of the Lieutenant General and the Secretary of War --I believe they advised him to be frightened, so say the Republican papers in defense of him;  it was done by the card;  he goes by the platform-- if they can recover him from that artificial fright under which he was laboring, and get him to take the Chicago platform fair and square, we shall have a fight;  otherwise we shall not.  I think myself it would be for the benefit of both sections that we should not have an Irish wake at our funeral;  but that is for the North to decide, and not for us.  Believing --no, sir, not believing, but knowing-- that this Union is dissolved, never, never to be reconstructed upon any terms --not if you were to hand us blank paper, and ask as to write a constitution, would we ever again be confederated with you.  Your people have been taught to hate us;  your people have been taught to hate our institutions;  your people have been taught to believe that you are Pharisees;  that your philacteries are full;  that you are entitled to the high places in the synagogue;  and you come and thrust yourselves into our presence, and thank God before our faces that you are not like us poor publicans, and your company has become distasteful to us;  you tell us that ours is distasteful to you;  we say, "grant it, then we will separate;"  and you say we shall not.  Then we are going to make the experiment, and we will trust in Providence.

Napoleon Bonaparte, who was a wise man, once said that he trusted in Providence, but he said that he found that Providence always took sides with the artillery.  We have taken the forts and guns, which you complain of, because we think Providence again will take sides with the artillery;  and we have been securing a good deal of it. [Laughter.]  Then, knowing that the Union is dissolved, that reconstruction is impossible, I would, myself, had I been consulted by the Union-savers, have told them that Union-saving was impracticable, but that peaceable separation was practicable, I would have advised that you should treat these sovereign States with the courtesy, at least, that you treated Brigham Young.  When he threatened to setup for himself, you sent commissioners there;  but, when sovereign States assume the right of self-government, you send the bayonet and the broadsword.  That is the difference in the manner in which you have treated these two questions.

I suppose commissioners, in a few days, will be here from the confederate States.  They were not sent by my advice.  To be very candid with you, I do not think there is any Government here with which they could treat. [Laughter.]  You have a sort of de facto, certainly a revolutionary Government [laughter] that time and acquiescence on the part of the States may give the character of legitimacy to;  but it surely has not that stamp now.  One of the partners having withdrawn from a partnership dissolves the firm.  It is true that, if the remaining partners go on, and still use the partnership name, by implication they are supposed to consent, acquiesce in the withdrawal, and to have reformed another. In the course of time, seven of your partners having withdrawn, if the rest shall acquiesce in the action of this revolutionary, irregular, wrongful, de facto Government that is about to inaugurate a President to-day, acquiescence may give legitimacy to it, and we may properly treat with you. [Laughter.].  I judge that President Davis, however, will waive these little irregularities, [laughter,] and probably send commissioners here, and then you will have the choice of peace or war;  and that is a matter that you had better well consider.  Turn your backs upon these commissioners, attempt to reinforce the forts and retake those which we now have;  attempt to collect the revenues, or do any other manner or matter of thing that denies to the free white men, living in those seven sovereign States, the right which they have asserted of self-government, and you will have war, and it will be war in all its stern realities.  I say this not in bravado, but I say it because I know it and you know it.

The Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Trumbull,] to-night, supposed that if a little coercion had been used, instead of persuasion at first, all this thing would have been stopped;  the treason would have been crushed in the egg.  I think the Senator is mistaken.  It was the unfortunate interference of the Lieutenant General volunteering his advice, followed by the War Department, which has accelerated secession.  Unfortunately for the country, the President seemed to have no well-defined opinions as to the form of government he was administering, or its character of the powers of the States, or the powers of the Federal Government;  and a provincial lawyer, who, some way or other, got into a subordinate position in one of the offices --I believe the Interior-- and remained there for some time, by a sad dispensation of Providence, became Postmaster-General;  and after that he got to be Secretary of War;  and a Democratic President, having waited until twelve Democratic Senators had withdrawn, then sent in the name of this person to be confirmed by a Republican Senate---

Mr. Doolittle.  Will the honorable Senator allow me ?  Perhaps he can as well suspend at this point as any other;  he will remember that he was talking about the recently appointed Secretary of War.  If we are to take a recess at all, I suppose it is necessary we should take it now.

Mr. Wigfall.  I will finish in a few minutes.  I do not wish to stop now, and commence again.

Mr. Doolittle.  You will remember where you left off.

Mr. Douglas.  There are objections to a recess.

Mr. Wigfall.  If you get up a discussion now, I will take much longer.

The Presiding Officer.  The Senator from Texas has the floor.

Mr. Wigfall.  I will not detain the Senate much longer, it is near daylight now.

Mr. Johnson, of Arkansas.  Give us the vote.

Mr. Wigfall.  You shall have one in a few minutes.  I was saying, Mr. President, that the parenthesis that is now incumbent in the War Office, following, unfortunately, the advice of the Lieutenant General, attempted, in a very feeble way, coercion.  The Senator from Illinois seemed to be shocked at my speaking with a feeling of gratification at the flag of what he chooses to call my country being insulted.  It is not the flag of my country, I hope and believe;  but I have not official information on that point.  That flag was never insulted with impunity until it floated over a cargo of Black Republican hirelings, sent to one of the sovereign States of this Union to coerce them to obedience to a Government that was distasteful to them.

Mr. Doolittle.  I think I shall rise to a question of order.  If the Senator from Texas does not know whether he belongs to this country or not, if he is really a foreigner in his own estimation, I desire to know whether he is in order in addressing the Senate of the United States. [Laughter.]

Mr. Wigfall.  I think the point is well taken;  and if the Senator and those who act with him will acknowledge my State to be out of the Union, I will take my seat without a word further. [Laughter]  If they choose to call my name here, and to call not my name only, but the names of Senators who have filed here at your desk certified copies of the ordinances of secession of their States, and you treat them as blank paper, I shall treat them so too, for my purpose.  I shall discuss your Government just as long as you choose to consider me a member of it;  and as long as you please to call my name, I may stay here and vote;  and if I find it convenient to defeat any of your nominations, I may see fit to do it;  and when you get tired of that game, you will cease calling my name, and acknowledge my State out of the Union, and then you get rid of me. [Laughter.]  That is a game two can play at.

Senators keep interrupting me until I shall make a very long speech, I am afraid.  I was speaking of this parenthesis that is now incumbent in the War office.  Without allowing even the President to know it, as it is said in the newspapers --I am not in the confidence of the last Cabinet, and I suspect will not be in the new one, [laughter,] ---it is said that, without allowing even the President to know it, he surreptitiously, in the dead of night, sneaked a merchant vessel out of the harbor of New York, intending to sneak it into Charleston harbor;  but they had put on the lights and blocked up the channel, and she was obliged to come up in broad daylight.  A shot was thrown athwart the bow of this vessel containing armed men;  they displayed a flag and it was fired at.  I did say that that vessel had swaggered into Charleston harbor, had received a blow in the face, and had staggered out;  and that this Secretary of War, who had brought the flag of this country in a condition to be fired at, had never dared, from that time to this, to resent the injury and insult;  and in consequence of that, the State to which I owe my allegiance has withdrawn and cut loose from all connection with a Government that allows its flag to be so insulted.  She has plucked her bright star from a bunting that can be fired at with impunity.  If your President elect has recovered from that artificial fright, see if you cannot induce him to try and wipe out the insult;  but I predicted last night that he would not;  and I predict again that he will not.  You fear to pass your force bills;  you abandon them in both Houses.  If you can get a Cabinet properly organized, with fire-eaters enough in it, the Cabinet may precipitate the country into a war, and then call upon what is denominated the conservative elements of your party to sustain the country in a war in which you have already involved it;  but I know, and you know, that those men whom you represent are not in favor of war, and that their representatives here, a large number of them, fear it.  What will be the result, I do not know;  and to be very frank, I do not care.

Now, having. explained why it was that I felt rejoiced at this insult to the flag of your country, I shall take up very little more time.  The country is composed of States;  and when that Government which was established by those States, and that flag which bears upon its broad folds the stars representing those States, is used for the purpose of making war upon some of those States, I say that it has already been degraded, and that it ought to be fired at, and it should be torn down and trampled upon.  These are my feelings upon the subject;  and "if this be treason, make the most of it."  I owe my allegiance --and Senators are not mistaken about that, for I have said it frequently-- to the State which I here represent.  I do not owe my allegiance to this Government.  The Senator from Illinois [Trumbull] spoke of the necessity of coercing these States, or not entertaining propositions from them, and likened it to the case of a Government in which there were revolted provinces.  Your President elect, a short time ago, in a speech, asked the question gravely, what is the difference between a State and a county ?  And he seemed to be really in quest of information.  Now, I was not astonished at that, for I did not expect anything better of him.  From a man who is taken up because he is an ex-rail splitter, an ex-grocery keeper, an ex-flatboat captain, and an ex-abolition lecturer, and is run upon that question, I would not expect any great information as to the Government which he was to administer.  But I was surprised to hear a Senator --a Senator of education and ability, such as the Senator from Illinois is-- compare the States of this Union, the States that formed this Government, the States without the consent of which this Government could not originally have had existence, and without the consent of which this Government cannot exist a day.  To hear him talk about those States as revolted provinces did surprise and shock me.

Then, briefly, a party has come into power that represents the antagonism to my own section of the country.  It represents two million men who hate us, and who, by their votes for such a man as they nave elected, have committed an overt act of hostility.  That they have done.  You have won the Presidency, and you are now in the situation of the man who had won the elephant at a raffle.  You do not know what to do with the beast now that you have it;  and one half of you to-day would give your right arms if you had been defeated.  But you succeeded, and you have to deal with facts.  Our objection to living in this Union, and therefore the difficulty of reconstructing it, is not your personal liberty bill, not the territorial question, but that you utterly and wholly misapprehend the form of government.  You deny the sovereignty of the States;  you deny the right of self-government in the people;  you insist upon negro equality;  your people interfere impertinently with our institutions and attempt to subvert them;  you publish newspapers;  you deliver lectures;  you print pamphlets, and you send them among us;  first, to excite our slaves to insurrection against their masters, and next, to array one class of citizens against the other;  and I say to you that we cannot live in peace, either in the Union or out of it, until you have abolished your Abolition societies;  not, as I have been misquoted, abolish or destroy your school-houses;  but until you have ceased in your school-houses teaching your children to hate us;  until you have ceased to convert your pulpits into hustings;  until you content yourselves with preaching Christ, and Him crucified, and not delivering political harangues on the Sabbath;  until you have ceased inciting your own citizens to make raids and commit robberies;  until you have done these things we cannot live in the same Union with you.  Until you do these things, me cannot live out of the Union at peace.

Now, you have my views upon the subject.  If the leaders of your party have any common sense left;  if they have not become drunk upon fanaticism, and are not now suffering from delirium tremens, as I believe most of them are;  if you have one particle of sense left, you will set about immediately seeing how this dissolution that has already taken place can be stopped from going farther;  how you can save some of these border States still to tax, and levy revenue and tribute from;  how you may still find somebody that you can persecute with impunity;  begin hatching up some sort of a compromise that will pay southern traitors for misrepresenting facts to their constituents.  Do these things, and you may keep some of those border States still in;  but above all things, try to have the dissolution that has already taken place a peaceable one.  It may go very hard with us, and will certainly cost us a good deal of money;  but you will not make much by the operation of war ---not much.  Your people will not thank you for reducing them to the dire necessity of direct taxes.  Your ship-owners will not thank you for laying up their ships at their wharves to rot.  Your manufacturers will not thank you for stopping the movements of their machinery;  but that is your business, not mine.

Now, having made these few, little, conciliatory, peace-preserving remarks, I am not disposed to take up more time, and am willing that there should be a vote.

Mr. Douglas.  Let it be read for informa­tion.

The Secretary read the amendment, to strike out all after the word "resolved," and insert:

That the provisions of the Constitution are ample for the preservation of the Union, and the protection of all the material interests of the country;  that it need to be obeyed rather than amended;  and that an extrication from our present dangers is to be looked for in strenuous efforts to preserve the peace, protect the public property, and enforce the laws, rather than in new guarantees for particular interests, compromises for particular difficulties, or concessions to unreasonable demands.

Resolved, That all attempts to dissolve the present Union, or overthrow or abandon the present Constitution, with the hope or expectation of constructing a new one, are dangerous, illusory, and destructive;  that in the opinion of the Senate of the United States no such reconstruction is practicable;  and therefore, to the maintenance of the existing Union and Constitution should be directed all the energies of all departments of the Government, and the efforts of all good citizens.

"The political transformation which the American Republic had undergone can perhaps best be measured by contrasting for an instant the two constitutional amendments which Congress made it the duty of the Lincoln Administration to submit officially to the several States.  The first was that offered by Thomas Corwin [(July 29, 1794 - December 18, 1865) Ohio, Whig.; secretary of the treasury (1850-1853)], in February, 1861, and passed by the House of Representatives, yeas 133;  nays 65;  and by the Senate, yeas 24;  nays 12.  It was signed by President Buchanan as one of his last official acts, and accepted and indorsed by Lincoln in his inaugural address.  The language of that amendment was:

'Article 13.  No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.'

"Between Lincoln's inauguration and the outbreak of war, the Department of State, under Seward, transmitted this amendment of 1861 to the several States for their action;  and had the South shown a willingness to desist from secession and accept it as a peace offering, there is little doubt that the required three-fourths of the States would have made it a part of the Constitution."