Monday] HALL. [February 23d every township, every point, and every hermit-ism! Wonderful fruits of liberty, these! When age throughout the broad land, because this lo- it suits their purposes, they are in favor of the cal question, this question upon which there is largest freedom; and when it suits their purpoa divided sentiment, divided by a line, is thrown ses they can draw the chains as tight and close out of the question with us. They do not ask as the southern task-master. They have a wonus of the north to extend slavery, but on the derfully independent way of doing business. contrary say that they will not themselves extend it. We of the north say that we will not extend it, and they of the south say-you shall not extend it; and neither will we. They are as fixed upon that as any one, or any party can be, and so are we. Hence we continue our old relations with these people. We stand as we did four years ago. We stand as we did eight years ago. We stand as we did twelve years ago. And we can have a victory in the South as well as in the North, because it is a victory wi hout this agitating question of slavery in it. We can fraternize with the people then as we have ever done. This is the reason why we are called by these flippant speakers, the slaveocracy of the country. It is because we discard this agitating question. It is because we wish to turn it over to the people to whom it belongs; because we wish to take from the people of this State the power of governing the people out of the State. This makes ns odious to these modern Republicans. And I want you to bear it in mind that they are Republicans, for you will forget it, sure as the world, if you look at their conduct. whom I act, have been struggling, and arguing, Now, sir, I, as a Democrat, and the party with and debating for the last two years, in order to secure the liberty of white men after they leave our State, to implant it as an eternally fixed principle of our institutions, to say that a man who lives here and passes into Nebraska, upon the West, or Minnesota upon the North, or who goes to Oregon, New Mexico or Kansas, is protected, when there, by the broad flag of his country, and still retains those rights regarded as inalienable by every constitution in the United States, and by the Declaration of Independence. And yet we are called the slaveocracy; while the party constantly denying him these rights, quarreling to take them from him, and to reduce him, to some extent, to a state of vassalage and slavery, claims to be the only party in favor of liberty. Now these are truths. Here is the record. Here is the history. It proves this beyond a peradventure. This is the issue the two parties are making, and which has been presented to the American people during the last year. Now, sir, I say that they have presented false issues, unjust issues. They have and have denounced the Democratic party as aroused a hurricane of fury and excite..ent, guilty of things which it never has been guilty of. They have taken the acts of a few persons, located in Missouri, and going into Kansas, violating and trampling upon law, and have absoThat is not fair. The Democratic party are not lutely charged them upon the Democratic party. responsible, nor have they ever been responsible, for these acts. They have never approved those acts. unknown to any, because there is great violence And because there is a violation of law by a single individual when no person was consulted and no person justified it-that has all been thrown upon the integrity of the Democratic party. Gentlemen have made all the capital they can out of these things. The time is past. History has satisfactorily explained these matof these reproaches which it never gave occasion ters; and the Democratic party now stand clear for, and which no tongue but that of slander could ever have uttered against them. The Democrats, North and South, say to the people of the territories, in regard to their local institutions, you shall have the right of deciding this question for yourselves. We divorce our selves from that question, living here in the States, and we turn it over to the people of the territories. Modern Republicans say-no; when you get into the territories you must not govern yourselves; you are incapable of that; we fear you will do something we do not want you to and so we Republicans will govern you. That is the doctrine of this newly manufactured party. That is the doctrine of gentlemen who make such imperturbable speeches in favor of freedom. How is it here in Iowa? I could quote a volume of the getlemen's speeches, saying: you are endowed, even if you are a negro, with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Let a man go to the western boundary of the State, to the Missouri river, and he has all the endowments; he is perfectly able to govern himself; the folds of the Declaration of Independence The democratic party believe in State rights, shield him, and the eternal laws of God, of and I have heard that word mentioned very fawhich the gentleman from Henry, [Mr. Clarke,] vorably by many gentlemen upon this floor, who speaks, still stand over him. He stands there hold opinions different from mine. The demowith all the attributes of man; but let him cratic party believe in the constitution of the make one solitary step, and he becomes a babe, United States. They believe that to be a noble and comes under the tutelage of modern Repub-compact; a compact that will last, and last for licanism. That is the history of this matter. They are unwilling that the white man in the territory should govern himself, and they seek to retain the power in Congress to govern the people in spite of themselves. And yet this is called Republicanism. Wonderful Republican all coming time. They are entirely satisfied with the provisions of that constitution. They are entirely satisfied to be governed by the principles which the constitution has said shall govern them. They are entirely satisfied that when any questions arise under that constitution, or Monday,] HALL-EDWARDS. [February 23d an act of Congress, or a treaty, or an act of an cause sympathy is the most powerful of all pasofficer under the general government, the tri- sions and all feelings-why appeal to them unbunals which that constitution has pointed out less he expects to derive support and aid in an shall be appealed to for a remedy. And when attempt to remedy the evils which he pictures? these courts, under the constitution, have deci Nay, he says he would even shoulder his musket ded in accordance with that instrument, we be- and go there to resist any attempt at interfelieve that it is the duty of every citizen to stand rence. Why does he call upon us? that is the by them as the constitution and the law of the question. Is it because, forsooth, he wants to land. We are a party of laws. We are a party excite these wild prejudices against his native of constitutions. We believe that wherever land? Is it because he wishes to encourage there is a violation of law there is a remedy. upon the part of the people of the north, a haMore than sixty years have expired since that tred of such monsters as the friends of his youth constitution took effect, and at sea and upon and his early home? Is it because he wishes to land, whether at home or abroad, it has been a excite a hostility against the south? There shield of protection. It has protected the Amer- must be some purpose, some object. He admits ican. It has protected every one who has taken that the constitution is a complete and perfect shelter under its flag. In Europe, Asia, Africa, barrier against our interference; that we have or wherever that flag has been rightly appealed no right to raise a voice or a hand against the to upon this vast globe, it has sheltered and oppressions and wrongs and outrages that he protected the person who has appealed to it. has pictured. They must stay there, for all that We believe it is adequate to protect any wrong we can do, for all coming time. He concedes ail or any outrage that may be inflicted against us. this. Then why this appeal? why this wild It provides a peaceable remedy. It provides a outery, if they are beyond the reach of our exremedy as perfect as human laws or human in-ertions? Sir, it is to get up a hatred, an anstitutions can provide. Wrongs are redressed tipathy, a war, a hostility, in the minds of the with more ease, more speed, more certainty, in people of the north, that will ultimately bring this country than in any other country which on collision, that will ultimately bring on civil ever existed upon the face of the earth. Reme-war and bloodshed. It can be for this, and for dies are more easily obtained here than they are nothing else. or ever have been under any other government The gentleman entertained us with a little arupon the face of the earth. We have a machin- ticle from the Day Book. I never saw a number ery so arranged that the lowest, the most hum- of that paper in my life. I have heard of the ble individuals can appeal to the government, paper, but the nearest I ever saw it, was in the and is sure to obtain a remedy. gentleman's reading. How far it may be a leading paper in New York I do not know. Now when the gentleman charged the sentiments of that paper upon the democratic party, was that a fair induction? Was it generous for him to read from a single number of the Day Book, and then Yet you find that this constitution has been assailed. You find gentlemen upon this floor who are unwilling to abide by acts of Congress passed under that constitution, and to leave it to the constitutional tribunal to decide whether these acts are constitutional or not. You find gen-charge the entire democratic party with entertlemen upon this floor in open hostility to some taining sentiments of that kind? Does that provisions of that constitution, and to laws pass- gentleman not know that the attempt to revive ed under that constitution. I allude to the fu- the African slave trade has been put down by gitive slave law. The law of 1850 is not more the legislature of South Carolina, by a vote alunconstitutional than the law of 1795 was. That most unanimous? Does he not know that it law was passed under the recommendation of Washington. It passed in a Congress composed of many of the very men who framed the constitution; and it passed that Congress without a dissenting voice. Yet after sixty years, after it has been declared constitutional by the highest tribunal of the country, you find men rising up and appealing to the people, going before them to produce a revolution, a complete change in the construction of the constitution, and in its manifest meaning. These things are true. has been met with repudiation in Congress itself? Does he not know that not more than half a dozen members voted against the resolution which he read here? Does he not know that the opposition to that is everywhere almost unanimous? that it is indeed universal, there being hardly enough exceptions to prove the rule by? Why then charge a doctrine of that kind upon the democratic party? Would it be fair for me to charge that gentleman with entertaining the sentiments of the person reported to be the author of the resolutions adopted at the Philadelphia Convention, who says that he "looks forward to the day when the torch of the incendiary and the avenging brand of the slave shall crimson the soil with blood, and although he may not wink at their calamity nor laugh when their fear cometh, yet he shall regard it as a just retribution from Heaven?" Now I am sorry that the gentleman from Lucas, [Mr. Edwards,] is in this State against his will. I am sorry to learn that he has been banished from his native home. He has drawn a picture of his native flag, and he has told you the horrors, the terrible horrors, of the institutions maintained there. Why is this picture drawn? Is it to excite our apprehension? or is Mr. EDWARDS. Does the gentleman allude is because we can remedy that evil? Why ap- to Mr. Giddings, of Ohio? peal to those passions of the human heart-be- Mr. HALL. I do. Monday} HALL-EDWARDS-ELLS. [February 23d Mr. EDWARDS. I state, then, upon the au- [submitted to them, I would not hesitate a mothority of Mr. Giddings himself, that he has ment. My path of duty would be plain and used no such language, that the report which clear before me. But gentlemen say that the the gentleman quotes is garbled and false. It people do not want it. This is admitted by every was quoted in Congress not long since, and Mr. speaker here. The gentleman from Scott [Mr. Giddings gave it a flat denial. Ells] if I am not mistaken, said that he should himself vote against it. Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Giddings has uttered sentiments which he has never disavowed, quite as atrocious as these. There was a leading man in New York who prayed that he might live to see the streets run middle deep in blood, and said that he should look on with complaisance, for a just avenging God would do it. I do not charge that upon the gentleman or his party. Another said that he could spit upon the grave of Washington, and denounced him as a scoundrel. I do not charge that upon the gentleman. There was a preacher, but a few days ago, I see by a paper before me, a leading Republican in Massachusetts, who said: "We have compelled Buchanan to go into the Presidency with but a small majority, and under a protest from the Christianity, the intelligence, and the decency of the North." And at the same time he was riding about the country in close connection with another man's wife. Now, if it is fair for the gentleman to charge upon the Democrats the sentiments to which he refers, it is equally fair for me to charge Republicans with all the misdoings and outrageous sayings which every one has noticed upon the part of Republicans. I will be more generous than the gentleman was. I will not charge it upon them. I could go on. I can add to the catalogue as long as he can. We have fools in our party, too, men who act with us sometimes, and who have no discretion; but they cannot endow the Democratic party with their errors end their follies, any more than we can the liberty party with the wild indiscretions and the treasonable doctrines of some of their leaders, who have managed to keep upon the surface of the party, much against the will, I have no doubt, of the majority of the voters in their ranks. Mr. ELLS. Will the gentleman allow me to correct him? I did not state, at least, I did not intend to state, that I myself would not If it is a question made outside of vote for it. the constitution, I shall vote for it if I vote at all. I did not say that the people did not want it. I cannot say that. I said that I did not believe the people would vote for the constitution if that word was in it; but I did know a very large and respectable portion of my constituents who would vote for this, if the question were asked outside of the constitution; and so believing, I was anxious to give them an opportunity of doing so. That is all. Mr. HALL. The gentleman has admitted now that the people do not want it-that he does not believe they want it. He has admitted that a large majority of the people will vote it down, and thus declare that the question ought not to have been submitted. The gentleman from Henry, [Mr. Clarke,] made this same honest confession. They dare not risk this question in the Constitution, however much they may be attached to it. The time has not come yet; the abolition yeast has not worked enough yet to justify even the gentleman from Heny, with his sanguine feelings and ardent temperament, in believing that the majority of the people want any such thing. Yet this is the Republican party! They only want to make a beautiful little cradle to rock Abolitionism in, in order to keep up agitation. If that is not their principle, I Lave looked for it in vain. Conceding, admitting that the majority of the people are hostile to the principle presented here, it is to be thrust upon them against their wishes by gentlemen claiming to be the particular friends of the people. This is a beautiful thing, sir; is it not? Why should these i dividuals-these old ironsided Abolitionists, who have produced more mischief, who have bound the chains of the slave tighter, who have injured the cause that they have espoused, and notoriously so, all their lives, more than any other class of men-why should they claim to be the special guardians of the objects of this Convention, and the cause of The question before us is simply whether we, what I believe to be a miserable minority? They as a convention, forming or amending the con- propose to speak the voice of the majority; they stitution of our state, for that is our purpose, proclaim vox populi, vox Dei; and yet they will shall submit a question to the people which is step aside, in derogation of what they know to not an amendment until they have acted upon be the voice of the people, and insist here upon it. It is the question whether we shall travel what they believe-they have said it and cannot out of the usual course, and being dissatisfied take those words back-to be against the voice and disagreed ourselves as to what ought to be of the majority. They insist that this abolition done, shall refer the matter back to the people bantling shall be thrust before the people, to agfor them to decide for us. If this was a ques-itate, and to keep up this continuous sectional tion upon which there was any difference of opinion as to the views of the people; if it was a question which the people wanted to have If the gentleman from Lucas [Mr. Edwards] had discussed the question before the convention at all, I should have discussed it. He sat down, and I did not know which side of the question he was upon. But I knew which party he belonged to. excitement, to stir up men of the North against their brethren of the South, to unloosen the bonds of this Union, to tear down our institu Monday] EDWARDS-HALL. [February 23d Because it would violate the public senti- tions. It appears to me that there must be why? something elementary to their party in this mat-ment. ter; that they cannot get along unless they feed belief that the time was coming; nay, he went up this bantling, and keep it as one of the allies further, and said it should come. It shall be so. of their party. But when gentlemen are charg- He said, God has made it so, and it must be so. ed with being Abolitionists, they fly in my face. He assumed the sacredotal shape, and became My friend from Lucas, [Mr. Edwards,] would not the organ of Heaven, to say to the people what like for me to say that he was an Abolitionist; its decrees were. Now I may be entirely misbut I think he is sliding towards their little taken, but this looks to me a little like fanatcamp quite rapidly. Take another step or two icism. It looks to me as if men wanted to apand the gentlemen will be as good Abolitionists pear to be prophets, when in fact they have as Gerrit Smith or Wendell Philips. Abolition-never been acknowledged so, either at home or ism is fitting up its cradle to rock them to sleep in, and will have them before 9 o'clock. Mr. EDWARDS. [In his seat.] I guess not. Mr. HALL. I do not mean this night; if I had meant to-night I should have said that they had got into it before seven. The truth is, that this little band of Abolitionists, sixteen or seventeen hundred in this State, are sturdy fellows. I have known them for years, and would not doubt the honesty of the large majority of them. In 1850 the Abolitionists and Whigs united would have carried this State. The in a foreign country. My opinion may be worth less to everybody but myself, but I do not believe the day is anywhere near, indeed I do not believe it will ever come, when the black population and the white population of this country will associate together, either as political or as social equals. In one thing I feel the utmost confidence; and that is, that if that time shall not come until you, Mr. Chairman, [Mr. Gillaspy,] shall be one of its champions, we have a considerable respite at any rate. It would be out of order to argue the question of the propriety of admitting this population Strike upon an equality with the white race. would as 300n strike the word out of Webster's out the word "white" from the constitution! I dictionary, as strike it out of the constitution of my country. Whigs bid for this Abolition vote; they nominated a man out of their party, by the name of Alison; and they adopted resolutions nearly up to the mark; but that party stood firm. Finally, in 1856, the Whigs made a jolly rush, and all went over to the Abolitionists, were rocked in the same cradle, and have fought the same batThe gentleman talks about principle, and tle, cheek-by-jowl with them, ever since. And about following it wherever it may lead. Why now if they cannot reconcile the Abolitionists then does the gentleman limit this right of sufto themselves, nor themselves to the Abolition-frage to white male persons, who are twentyists, why need we be surprised if there should one years of age? Does not this bill of rights be a revotution among them even in this convention? The gentleman from Jones [Mr. Marvin,] tells them that if they will not make the negro equal, and adopt the principles of bona fide Republicans, he is off. And so with the gentleman from Henry, [Mr. Clarke,] I believe. Anything short of old fashioned Abolitionism would make him secede. Either he, or those whom he left, would have to get a new This is the way they stand. This is the doctrine. The bantling which they have got up here, is thrust into the faces of the great mass of the people, and they are called upon to vote against their wish and their will. A proposition which it is conceded will be voted down, is to be the bait with which they are to back up these negro voters. That is the whole story-not to waste words about it. name. say, that all persons are equal? Are not women persons? Are not minors persons? And are they not created equal? And yet minors and females are excluded from the privileges of other citizens. Our bill of rights, if it does not include them, according to the doctrine of the gentleman, is a libel upon the principles of our government. I would as soon-indeed I would a great deal sooner-trust the females of this country with the right of suffrage, than to trust the colored population, Indians and negroes, with this right. The gentleman scouted at the idea, that by opening the door here, and making a constitutional equality between the blacks and the whites, opening every avenue of the government to the negroes, we would affect our population. Such an event would not happen immediately, and would not be brought about in a day. But I would ask gentlemen, when all the surrounding States form their institutions so as to prevent the black population from emigrating to them, or living in their midst, and we open our doors to them, would we not have a great influx of that class of population among us? Would we not have our State filled up with that class, when they are secured greater rights and privileges here, than in other States? I do not believe there is any man in this convention who thinks that the majority of the people will vote in favor of this measure. I do not believe there is any one in the convention who would put it into this constitution. I believe the gentleman from Henry himself, [Mr. Clarke,] said that if he had the power to strike this from the constitution, he would not do it. It was not because he was not devoted to the principle; because he can beat Samuel Howe in his attachment to the negro population; but The gentleman in the course of his remarks still if it depended upon his vote he would not complimented Virginia. I want to show you strike that word from the constitution; and how we would get this class from that state, to tution: "Every white male citizen of the common wealth, of the age of twenty one years, who has been a resident of the state for two years, and of the county, city or town, where he offers to vote for twelve months next preceding an election, and no other persons shall be qualified to vote for members of the General Assembly and all other officers elective by the people." They struck out the word "negro" here in the very next breath, after they have subscribed to such a glorious sentiment as that, to which the gentleman called our attention. I find also, that "Slaves hereafter emancipated shall forfeit their freedom by remaining in the commonwealth more than twelve months after they became actually free, and shall be reduced to slavery, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law." Most of the slave states have a similar provision to this, that all slaves set free must leave the state within a limited time. If we open our doors, as the gentlemen propose, our state will become the Liberia for the refuse colored population of all the southern states. To say that the mingling of the two classes would not tend to produce amalgamation, would be to deny the laws of nature. We know from the very best evidence, putting it beyond the power of contradiction, that the mingling of the two races would produce a leprous, diseased class of people, feeble and short-lived, as compared with either of the pure white or black races. Why do not the free negroes go to Connecticut and Massachusetts? There is nothing to invite them there; for they have not the skill to become manufacturers, and they cannot go into workshops and perform work with the skill of the white man. They are indeed sunk in deeper degradation in Massachusetts than they are in South Carolina. At an early period in the history of the country one hundred and fifty of this class were brought into the state of Maine. There are now a few of their descendants left, and they are dwindled down into mere dwarfs, and the whole race has become diminished by the rigors of the northern climate. New England is not adapted, from the business in which it is engaged, to employ that kind of labor; and the negroes are not treated there with that degree of kindness that is found in practice in some other states. Look to Canada, the great point to which the black race has emigrated, and to which the abolitionists are running them daily. The people of that province are petitioning Parliament to send these negroes back, for they consider them a curse to the country. Canada, in my estimation, will soon cease to become a desirable place of residence for these negroes. In the south part of lowa we have a [February 23d climate in which they can live, but they comprise a class of population to which I do not wish to extend an invitation to settle in our midst.. He must re If a foreigner comes here, you can make him, under our laws, give security, if he is liable to become a public charge, and you can send him back to another state from whence he came, if he was a resident of the same. main here five years, and take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and prove his character and fidelity to our institutions, before you allow him the right of citizenship, and before he is entitled to that privilege, which you are willing to give the negro at once, and as soon as he steps over the line. How gentlemen who have found the evil of foreign emigration so great as to make all foreigners ineligible to office, and how gentlemen who have taken an oath to put down the native born citizen, in consequence of the peculiar religion in which he was nurtured, and in which he was educated, can cling with tenacity to the eligibility to citizenship of the negro, and advocate the doctrine of inviting negroes to become citizens of this state, and to make them such upon six months residence, is more than I can account for. But changes come over the cpinions of people, for which they cannot give any good reasons. Questions of this kind come up and last but for a day. I do not believe that the mania upon the slavery question, which is now exciting the public mind, and in consequence of which the mind of the whole country is taken up with the negro question to the exclusion of every thing else that really pertains to the progress and welfare of the country, is to smother up every thing else. I do not believe that this single isolated question is, in the future, to assume the supremaey over the public mind, that it has exerted for the year or two past. I think that other matters will command the attention of the people, and I think that they will ere long turn back to the issues which have heretofore agitated the public mind, and will then begin to look to the success of measures which will tion. They will regard the black population in tend to advance the interests of this great nathe light of a curse upon this land, and while they look upon slavery as one of the evils that afflicts us as a nation, they will look to some other means than hostility towards the south to remove it. They will not tolerate those feuds and excitements which raise the hand of brother against brother, father against son, and that create a gulf of discord between the north and the south. They will look to the Farewell Address of Washington, and ponder carefully the words of warning which he uttered with a prophetic voice, when he pictured before us the very crisis in which we are now placed. He warned us to guard against internal dissentions and jealousies, for, if suffered to arise in our midst, they would prove fatal to the success and perpetuity of the Union. |