FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY IN THE SENATE, DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF JACKSON—PETITIONS FOR ITS ABOLITION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA—THE RIGHT OF PETITION VINDICATED BY BUCHANAN—INCENDIARY PUBLICATIONS—ADMISSION OF MICHIGAN INTO THE UNION—STATUARY FOR THE CAPITOL—AFFAIRS OF TEXAS.

In the latter part of the second administration of General Jackson, the subject of slavery began to be pressed upon the attention of Congress by petitions for its abolition in the District of Columbia.

In a future chapter will be traced the origin and progress of the anti-slavery agitation in the Northern States. At present, it is only needful for me to describe Mr. Buchanan’s course as a Senator, on the different aspects of this subject which arose during the second administration of General Jackson. On the 7th of January, 1836, two petitions were presented in the Senate, signed by citizens of Ohio, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Mr. Calhoun demanded that they should be read, and, after the reading, he objected to their being received. Mr. Buchanan made the following remarks in replying to Mr. Calhoun:

Mr. Buchanan said that, for two or three weeks past, there had been in his possession a memorial from the Cain Quarterly Meeting of the religious Society of Friends, in the State of Pennsylvania, requesting Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade within the District of Columbia. This memorial was not a printed form—its language was not that in established use for such documents. It did not proceed from those desperate fanatics who have been endeavoring to disturb the security and peace of society in the Southern States, by the distribution of incendiary pamphlets and papers. Far different is the truth. It emanates from a society of Christians, whose object had always been to promote peace and good-will among men, and who have been the efficient and persevering friends of humanity in every clime. To their untiring efforts, more than to those of any other denomination of Christians, we owe the progress which has been made in abolishing the African slave trade throughout the world. This memorial was their testimony against the existence of slavery. This testimony they had borne for more than a century. Of the purity of their motives, there could not be a question.

He had omitted to present this memorial at an earlier day, because he had thought that, on its presentation at the proper time, much good might be done. He had believed that, by private consultations, some resolution might be devised upon this exciting subject which would obtain the unanimous vote of the Senate. If there was one man in that body not willing to adopt a proper measure to calm the troubled spirit of the South, he did not know him. This, in his judgment, would be the best mode of accomplishing the object which we all desire to accomplish. The proper course to attain this result was, in his opinion, to refer the subject, either to a select committee, or to the Committee for the District of Columbia. They would examine it in all its bearings, they would ascertain the views and feelings of individual Senators, and he had no doubt they would be able to recommend some measure to the Senate on which they could all unite. This would have a most happy effect upon the country. He had intended, upon presenting the memorial which he had in charge, to have suggested this mode of proceeding. He regretted, therefore, he had not known that his friend from Ohio (Mr. Morris) was in possession of memorials having a similar object in view. If he had been informed of it, he should have endeavored to persuade him to wait until Monday next, when he (Mr. B.) would have been prepared to pursue the course he had indicated. But the question has now been forced upon us. No (said Mr. B.), it has not been forced upon me, because I am glad to have a suitable occasion of expressing my opinions upon the subject.

The memorial which I have in my possession is entitled to the utmost respect, from the character of the memorialists. As I entirely dissent from the opinion which they express, that we ought to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, I feel it to be due to them, to myself, and to the Senate, respectfully, but firmly, to state the reasons why I cannot advocate their views or acquiesce in their conclusions.

If any one principle of constitutional law can, at this day, be considered as settled, it is, that Congress have no right, no power, over the question of slavery within those States where it exists. The property of the master in his slave existed in full force before the Federal Constitution was adopted. It was a subject which then belonged, as it still belongs, to the exclusive jurisdiction of the several States. These States, by the adoption of the Constitution, never yielded to the General Government any right to interfere with the question. It remains where it was previous to the establishment of our confederacy.

The Constitution has, in the clearest terms, recognized the right of property in slaves. It prohibits any State into which a slave may have fled from passing any law to discharge him from slavery, and declares that he shall be delivered up by the authorities of such State to his master. Nay, more, it makes the existence of slavery the foundation of political power, by giving to those States within which it exists representatives in Congress, not only in proportion to the whole number of free persons, but also in proportion to three-fifths of the number of slaves.

An occasion very fortunately arose in the first Congress to settle this question forever. The Society for the abolition of Slavery in Pennsylvania brought it before that Congress by a memorial which was presented on the 11th day of February, 1790. After the subject had been discussed for several days, and after solemn deliberation, the House of Representatives, in Committee of the Whole, on the 23d day of March, 1790, resolved “That Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them within any of the States; it remaining with the several States alone to provide any regulations therein, which humanity and true policy may require.”

I have thought it would be proper to present this decision, which was made almost half a century ago, distinctly to the view of the American people. The language of the resolution is clear, precise, and definite. It leaves the question where the Constitution left it, and where, so far as I am concerned, it ever shall remain. The Constitution of the United States never would have been called into existence,—instead of the innumerable blessings which have flowed from our happy Union, we should have had anarchy, jealousy, and civil war among the sister Republics of which our confederacy is composed, had not the free States abandoned all control over this question. For one, whatever may be my opinions upon the abstract question of slavery, (and I am free to confess they are those of the people of Pennsylvania,) I shall never attempt to violate this fundamental compact. The Union will be dissolved, and incalculable evils will arise from its ashes, the moment any such attempt is seriously made by the free States in Congress.

What, then, are the circumstances under which these memorials are now presented? A number of fanatics, led on by foreign incendiaries, have been scattering “arrows, firebrands, and death” throughout the Southern States. The natural tendency of their publications is to produce dissatisfaction and revolt among the slaves, and to incite their wild passions to vengeance. All history, as well as the present condition of the slaves, proves that there can be no danger of the final result of a servile war. But, in the mean time, what dreadful scenes may be enacted before such an insurrection, which would spare neither age nor sex, could be suppressed! What agony of mind must be suffered, especially by the gentler sex, in consequence of these publications! Many a mother clasps her infant to her bosom when she retires to rest, under dreadful apprehensions that she may be aroused from her slumbers by the savage yells of the slaves by whom she is surrounded. These are the works of the abolitionists. That their motives may be honest I do not doubt, but their zeal is without knowledge. The history of the human race presents numerous examples of ignorant enthusiasts, the purity of whose intentions cannot be doubted, who have spread devastation and bloodshed over the face of the earth.

These fanatics, instead of benefiting the slaves who are the objects of their regard, have inflicted serious injury upon them. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. The masters, for the sake of their wives and children, for the sake of all that is near and dear to them on earth, must tighten the reins of authority over their slaves. They must thus counteract the efforts of the abolitionists. The slaves are denied many indulgences which their masters would otherwise cheerfully grant. They must be kept in such a state of bondage as effectually to prevent their rising. These are the injurious effects produced by the abolitionists upon the slave himself. Whilst, on the one hand, they render his condition miserable, by presenting to his mind vague notions of freedom never to be realized, on the other, they make it doubly miserable, by compelling the master to be severe, in order to prevent any attempts at insurrection. They thus render it impossible for the master to treat his slave according to the dictates of his heart and his feelings.

Besides, do not the abolitionists perceive that the spirit which is thus roused must protract to an indefinite period the emancipation of the slave? The necessary effect of their efforts is to render desperate those to whom the power of emancipation really belongs. I believe most conscientiously, in whatever light this subject can be viewed, that the best interests of the slave require that the question should be left, where the Constitution has left it, to the slaveholding States themselves, without foreign interference.

This being a true statement of the case, as applied to the States where slavery exists, what is now asked by these memorialists? That in this District of ten miles square—a District carved out of two slaveholding States, and surrounded by them on all sides—slavery shall be abolished. What would be the effects of granting their request? You would thus erect a citadel in the very heart of these States, upon a territory which they have ceded to you for a far different purpose, from which abolitionists and incendiaries could securely attack the peace and safety of their citizens. You establish a spot within the slaveholding States which would be a city of refuge for run-away slaves. You create by law a central point from which trains of gunpowder may be securely laid, extending into the surrounding States, which may, at any moment, produce a fearful and destructive explosion. By passing such a law, you introduce the enemy into the very bosom of these two States, and afford him every opportunity to produce a servile insurrection. Is there any reasonable man who can for one moment suppose that Virginia and Maryland would have ceded the District of Columbia to the United States, if they had entertained the slightest idea that Congress would ever use it for any such purpose? They ceded it for your use, for your convenience, and not for their own destruction. When slavery ceases to exist, under the laws of Virginia and Maryland, then, and not till then, ought it to be abolished in the District of Columbia.

(Mr. B. said that, notwithstanding these were his opinions, he could not vote for the motion of the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) not to receive these memorials. He would not at present proceed to state his reasons, still hoping the Senate could yet agree upon some course which would prove satisfactory to all. With this view, he moved that the whole subject be postponed until Monday next.)

When the following Monday came (January 11th, 1836), Mr. Buchanan said:

He was now about to present the memorial of the Caln Quarterly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Pennsylvania, requesting Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. On this subject he had expressed his opinions to the Senate on Thursday last, and he had no disposition to repeat them at present. He would say, however, that on a review of these opinions, he was perfectly satisfied with them. All he should now say was, that the memorial which he was about to present was perfectly respectful in its language. Indeed, it could not possibly be otherwise, considering the respectable source from which it emanated.

It would become his duty to make some motion in regard to this memorial. On Thursday last, he had suggested that in his judgment the best course to pursue was to refer these memorials to a selected committee, or to the committee for the District of Columbia. He still thought so; but he now found that insurmountable obstacles presented themselves to such a reference.

In presenting this memorial and in exerting himself so far as in him lay, to secure for it that respectful reception by the Senate which it deserved, he should do his duty to the memorialists. After it should receive this reception, he should have a duty to perform to himself and to his country. He was clearly of opinion, for the reasons he had stated on Thursday last, that Congress ought not at this time to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and that it was our duty promptly to place this exciting question at rest. He should, therefore, move that the memorial be read, and that the prayer of the memorialists be rejected.

At a subsequent day (January 19th), the pending question was, on the reception of the Memorial of the Pennsylvania Quakers, or Friends; and on this question Mr. Buchanan said:

It was not now his intention to repeat anything he had said on a former occasion in regard to the abolition of slavery in this District. The remarks which he had then made, after much reflection, still met his entire approbation. He would not now have alluded to them were it not for the misapprehension which still appeared to prevail upon this floor in regard to the state of Northern feeling on this subject.

Those remarks had, he believed, been more extensively circulated throughout Pennsylvania than any which he had ever made upon any occasion. If they had been censured anywhere in that State, by any party, the fact was unknown to him. On the contrary, he had strong reasons to believe they had been received with general approbation.

He was not in the habit of using private letters to sustain any position which he might take upon this floor or elsewhere. He would say, however, that since he had presented the memorial now the subject of consideration before the Senate, he had received another memorial of a similar character from the city of Philadelphia. This memorial had been transmitted to him by two gentlemen whose name and character would be the strongest guaranty for the truth of their assertions, did he feel himself at liberty to make them known to the Senate. He would not even have alluded to their letter, but that it related to a public subject in which the country was deeply interested, and accompanied the memorial which they had requested him to present to the Senate. The following is an extract from this letter:

“Although we have not the pleasure of thy acquaintance, permit us on this occasion to express our satisfaction with thy remarks in the Senate some weeks since, in which the opinion was forcibly sustained that no sensible man at the North would advocate the right of Congress to interfere with the subject of slavery in the slave States themselves. We are fully persuaded this is the fact in our neighborhood.

“In a pretty extensive acquaintance with the friends of abolition in this city, we unhesitatingly declare that we have never heard such an opinion advocated, and we defy our opponents to point out a man that has ever circulated any publication calculated to produce discord in the Southern States.

“But whilst we fully recognize this view, we are aware that the Constitution guaranties to us the right of memorializing Congress on any subject connected with the welfare of the District of Columbia, and we intend ever to exercise it in the spirit of charity and good-feeling.”

Mr. B. believed this statement to be true. Although all the people of Pennsylvania were opposed to slavery in the abstract, yet they would not sanction any attempts to excite the slaves of the Southern States to insurrection and bloodshed. Whilst they knew their own rights, and would maintain them, they never would invade the rights of others which had been secured by the Federal Constitution. He was proud to say this had always been the character and the conduct of the State which he had in part the honor to represent in her relations with her sister States.

He felt himself justified in declaring that Pennsylvania was perfectly sound upon this question. Abolitionists there may be in Pennsylvania, but it had never been his fate to meet a single one. If we have a man amongst us who desires, by the circulation of incendiary publications and pictures throughout the slaveholding States, to produce a servile insurrection, and thus to abolish slavery, he knew him not. In the language of the letter he had just read, whatever might be the case further north, he might defy any gentleman to point out a man in Pennsylvania who has ever circulated any publication calculated to produce discord in the Southern States.

He had heard within the last few days that emissaries were now traveling throughout Pennsylvania for the purpose of propagating the doctrine of immediate abolition. He thought he might venture to predict that they would fail in their attempts.

Although he did not mean at present to discuss the general question, yet the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Preston) must permit him to say that, in his remarks of yesterday, he had done much to dignify the cause of abolition, and to give its supporters a character which they did not deserve.

Mr. B. was not so well able to judge what effect those remarks might produce on the South; but he protested against the accuracy of the statements which that gentleman had made in regard to the condition of Northern feeling on this subject. His information had been incorrect. If the gloomy coloring of the picture which he had presented could be considered any thing but a fancy sketch, the South might believe that the time had arrived when it would be their duty to decide whether it was not necessary to dissolve this Union, for the protection of their rights. Mr. B. thought far otherwise. This crisis had not arrived, and, he trusted, never would arrive. The force of public opinion will prostrate this fanatical and dangerous spirit. He must say, however, that the enemies of the cause of abolition at the North had a right to expect that gentlemen from the South would not adopt a course which might tend to increase our difficulties. They ought to permit us to judge for ourselves in this matter, and to throw no obstacles in our way which the nature of the subject does not necessarily present.

Let it be once understood that the sacred right of petition and the cause of the abolitionists must rise or must fall together, and the consequences may be fatal. I would, therefore, warn Southern gentlemen to reflect seriously in what situation they place their friends in the North, by insisting that this petition shall not be received.

We have just as little right to interfere with slavery in the South, as we have to touch the right of petition. Whence is this right derived? Can a republican government exist without it? Man might as well attempt to exist without breathing the vital air. No government possessing any of the elements of liberty has ever existed, or can ever exist, unless its citizens or subjects enjoy this right. From the very structure of your Government, from the very establishment of a Senate and House of Representatives, the right of petition naturally and necessarily resulted. A representative republic, established by the people, without the people having the right to make their wants and their wishes known to their servants, would be the most palpablepalpable absurdity. This right, even if it were not expressly sanctioned by the Constitution, would result from its very nature. It could not be controlled by any action of Congress, or either branch of it. If the Constitution had been silent upon the subject, the only consequence would be, that it would stand in the very front rank of those rights of the people which are expressly guarantied to them by the ninth article of the amendments to that instrument, inserted from abundant but necessary caution. I shall read this article. It declares that “the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” It would, without any express provision, have stood in the same rank with the liberty of speech and of the press, and have been entirely beyond the control of the Government. It is a right which could not have been infringed without extinguishing the vital spirit of our institutions. If any had been so bold as to attempt to violate it, it would have been a conclusive argument to say to them that the Constitution has given you no power over the right of petition, and you dare not touch it.

The Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) has justly denominated the amendments to the Constitution as our Bill of Rights. The jealousy which the States entertained of federal power brought these amendments into existence. They supposed that, in future times, Congress might desire to extend the powers of this Government, and usurp the rights which were not granted them by the people of the States. From a provident caution, they have, in express terms, denied to Congress every sort of control over religion; over the freedom of speech and of the press; and over the right of petition. The first article of the amendments declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Now, sir, what is the first position taken by the Senator from South Carolina against receiving this memorial? I desire to quote him with perfect accuracy. He says that the Constitution prohibits Congress from passing any law to abridge the right of petition; that, to refuse to receive this petition, would not be to pass any such law, and that therefore, the Constitution would not be violated by such a refusal.

Does not the Senator perceive that, if this doctrine can be maintained, the right of petition is gone forever? It is a mere empty name. The Senate would possess the power of controlling it at their will and pleasure. No matter what may be the prayer of any petition; no matter how just may be the grievances of the people demanding redress, we may refuse to hear their complaints, and inform them that this is one of our prerogatives; because, to refuse to receive their petition is not the passage of a law abridging their right to petition. How can the gentleman escape from this consequence? Is the Senate to be the arbiter? Are we to decide what the people may petition for, and what they shall not bring before us? Is the servant to dictate to the master? Such a construction can never be the true one.

The most striking feature of this argument is, that the very article of the Constitution which was intended to guard the right of petition with the most jealous care is thus perverted from its original intention, and made the instrument of destroying this very right. What we cannot do by law, what is beyond the power of both Houses of Congress and the President, according to the gentleman’s argument, the Senate can of itself accomplish. The Senate alone, if his argument be correct, may abridge the right of petition, acting in its separate capacity, though it could not, as one branch of the Legislature, consent to any law which would confer upon itself this power.

What is the true history and character of this article of the Constitution? In the thirteenth year of the reign of that “royal scoundrel” Charles the Second, as the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Leigh) has justly denominated him, an act of Parliament was passed, abridging the right of petition. It declared that “no petition to the king or either House of Parliament, for any alteration in Church or State, shall be signed by above twenty persons, unless the matter thereof be approved by three justices of the peace, or the major part of the grand jury in the county; and in London by the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council; nor shall any petition be presented by more than ten persons at a time.” Each Senator will readily perceive that the right of petition was thus laid almost entirely prostrate at the feet of the sovereign. The justices of the peace, and the sheriffs who selected the grand juries, were his creatures, appointed and removed at his pleasure. Out of the city of London, without their consent, no petition for an alteration in Church or State could be signed by more than twenty individuals. At the revolution of 1688, the Bill of Rights guarantied to English subjects the right of petitioning the king, but the courts of justice decided that it did not repeal the statute of the second Charles. This statute still remained in force at the adoption of the federal Constitution. Such was the state of the law in that country, from which we have derived most of our institutions, when this amendment to the Constitution was adopted.

Although the Constitution, as it came from the hands of its framers, gave to Congress no power to touch the right of petition, yet some of the States to whom it was submitted for ratification, apprehending the time might arrive when Congress would be disposed to act like the British Parliament, expressly withdrew the subject from our control. Not satisfied with the fact that no power over it had been granted by the Constitution, they determined to prohibit us in express terms from ever exercising such a power. This is the true history of the first article of our Bill of Rights.

Let me put another case to the Senator from South Carolina. Some years since, as a manager on the part of the House of Representatives, I had the honor to appear before this body, then sitting as a high court of impeachment. In that case, the accused, when sitting as a district judge of the United States, had brought an attorney of his court before him by an attachment for contempt, and without any trial by jury had convicted him of a libel, and sentenced him to imprisonment. The judge was acquitted; and at the moment I thought this decision had placed the freedom of the press in danger. If the sedition law were clearly unconstitutional, and nobody now doubts it; if Congress could not confer upon the courts of the United States, by express enactment, any question over the power of libel, I thought it monstrous that a judge, without the intervention of a jury, under highly excited feelings, should be permitted to try and to punish libels committed against himself according to his will and pleasure. My apprehensions were of but short duration. A few days after the acquittal of this judge, the Senate, without one dissenting voice, passed a bill, not to create a new law, but declaratory of what the old law, or rather what the Constitution was, under which no federal judge will ever again dare to punish a libel as a contempt. The constitutional provision in favor of the liberty of the press was thus redeemed from judicial construction.

Now, sir, we must all admit that libels of the grossest character are daily published against the Senate and its individual members. Suppose an attempt should be made to bring one of these libelers before us, and to punish him for a contempt, would the gentleman from South Carolina contend that we might do so without violating the Constitution, and that we might convict him and sentence him to imprisonment, because such a conviction and sentence would not be the passage of a law abridging the freedom of the press? The gentleman’s excited feelings upon the subject of abolition have led his judgment astray. No construction can be correct which would lead to such palpable absurdities.

The very language of this amendment itself contains the strongest recognition of the right of petition. In the clearest terms, it presupposes its existence. How can you abridge a right which has no previous existence? On this question I deem the argument of my friend from Georgia (Mr. King) conclusive. The amendment assumes that the people have the right to petition for the redress of grievances, and places it beyond the power of Congress to touch this sacred right. The truth is, that the authors of the amendment believed this to be a Government of such tremendous power that it was necessary, in express terms, to withdraw from its grasp their most essential rights. The right of every citizen to worship his God according to the dictates of his own conscience; his right freely to speak, and freely to print and publish his thoughts to the world; and his right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, are placed entirely beyond the control of the Congress of the United States, or either of its branches. There may they ever remain! These fundamental principles of liberty are companions. They rest upon the same foundation. They must stand or must fall together. They will be maintained so long as American liberty shall endure.

The next argument advanced by the gentleman is, that we are not bound to receive this petition, because to grant its prayer would be unconstitutional? In this argument I shall not touch the question, whether Congress possess the power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia or not. Suppose they do not, can the gentleman maintain the position, that we are authorized by the Constitution to refuse to receive a petition from the people, because we may deem the object of it unconstitutional? Whence is any such restriction of the right of petition derived? Who gave it to us? Is it to be found in the Constitution? The people are not constitutional lawyers; but they feel oppression, and know when they are aggrieved. They present their complaints to us in the form of a petition. I ask, by what authority can we refuse to receive it? They have a right to spread their wishes and their wants before us, and to ask for redress. We are bound respectfully to consider their request; and the best answer which we can give them is, that they have not conferred upon us the power, under the Constitution of the United States, to grant them the relief which they desire. On any other principle we may first decide that we have no power over a particular subject, and then refuse to hear the petitions of the people in relation to it. We would thus place the constitutional right of our constituents to petition at the mercy of our own discretion.

Again, sir, we possess the power of originating amendments to the Constitution. Although, therefore, we may not be able to grant the petitioners relief, such a petition may induce us to exercise this power, and to ask for a new grant of authority from the States.

The gentleman’s third proposition was, that we are not bound to receive this petition, because it is no grievance to the citizens of any of the States, that slavery exists in this District. But who are to be the judges, in the first instance, whether the people are aggrieved or not? Is it those who suffer, or fancy they suffer, or the Senate? If we are to decide when they ought to feel aggrieved, and when they ought to be satisfied, if the tribunal to whom their petitions are addressed may refuse to receive them, because, in their opinion, there was no just cause of complaint, the right of petition is destroyed. It would be but a poor answer to their petitions to tell them they ought not to have felt aggrieved, that they are mistaken, and that, therefore, their complaints would not be received by their servants.

I may be asked, is there no case in which I would be willing to refuse to receive a petition? I answer that it must be a very strong one indeed to justify such a refusal. There is one exception, however, which results from the very nature of the right itself. Neither the body addressed nor any of its members must be insulted, under the pretext of exercising this right. It must not be perverted from its purpose, and be made the instrument of degrading the body to which the petition is addressed. Such a petition would be in fraud of the right itself, and the necessary power of self-protection and self-preservation inherent in every legislative body confers upon it the authority of defending itself against direct insults presented in this or any other form. Beyond this exception I would not go; and it is solely for the purpose of self-protection, in my opinion, that the rules of the Senate enable any of its members to raise the question, whether a petition shall be received or not. If the rule has any other object in view, it is a violation of the Constitution.

I would confine this exception within the narrowest limits. The acts of the body addressed may be freely canvassed by the people, and they may be shown to be unjust or unconstitutional. These may be the very reasons why the petition is presented. “To speak his mind is every freeman’s right.” They may and they ought to express themselves with that manly independence which belongs to American citizens. To exclude their petition, it must appear palpable that an insult to the body was intended, and not a redress of grievances.

Extreme cases have been put by the Senator from South Carolina. Ridiculous or extravagant petitions may be presented; though I should think that scarcely a sane man could be found in this country who would ask Congress to abolish slavery in the State of Georgia. In such a case I would receive the petition, and consign it at once to that merited contempt which it would deserve. The Constitution secures the right of being heard by petition to every citizen; and I would not abridge it because he happened to be a fool.

The proposition is almost too plain for argument, that if the people have a constitutional right to petition, a corresponding duty is imposed upon us to receive their petitions. From the very nature of things, rights and duties are reciprocal. The human mind cannot conceive of the one without the other. They are relative terms. If the people have a right to command, it is the duty of their servants to obey. If I have a right to a sum of money, it is the duty of my debtor to pay it to me. If the people have a right to petition their representatives, it is our duty to receive their petition.

This question was solemnly determined by the Senate more than thirty years ago. Neither before nor since that time, so far as I can learn, has the general right of petition ever been called in question, until the motion now under consideration was made by the Senator from South Carolina. Of course I do not speak of cases embraced within the exception which I have just stated. No Senator has ever contended that this is one of them. To prove my position, I shall read an extract from our journals. On Monday, the 21st January, 1805, “Mr. Logan presented a petition signed Thomas Morris, Clerk, in behalf of the meeting of the representatives of the people called Quakers, in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc., stating that the petitioners, from a sense of religious duty, had again come forward to plead the cause of their oppressed and degraded fellow-men of the African race; and, on the question, “Shall this petition be received?” it passed in the affirmative; yeas, 19; nays, 9.

“The yeas and nays being required by one-fifth of the Senators present, those who voted in the affirmative are—Messrs. Adams, Mass., Bayard, Del., Brown, Ky., Condict, N. J., Franklin, N. C., Hillhouse, Conn., Howland, R. I., Logan, Penn., Maclay, Penn., Mitchell, N. Y., Alcott, N. H., Pickering, Mass., Plumer, N. H., Smith, Ohio, Smith, Vt., Stone, N. C., Sumpter, S. C., White, Del., Worthington, Ohio.

“And those who voted in the negative are—Anderson, Tenn., Baldwin, Ga., Bradley, Vt., Cocke, Tenn., Jackson, Ga., Moore, Va., Smith, Md., Smith, N. Y., and Wright, Md.

“So the petition was read.”

The Senate will perceive that I have added to the names of the members of the Senate that of the States which they each represented. The Senator from South Carolina will see that, among those who, upon this occasion, sustained the right of petition, there is found the name of General Sumpter, his distinguished predecessor. I wish him also to observe that but seven Senators from slaveholding States voted against receiving the petition; although it was of a character well calculated to excite their hostile and jealous feelings.

The present, sir, is a real controversy between liberty and power. In my humble judgment, it is far the most important question which has been before the Senate since I have had the honor of occupying a seat in this body. It is a contest between those, however unintentionally, who desire to abridge the right of the people, in asking their servants for a redress of grievances, and those who desire to leave it, as the Constitution left it, free as the air. Petitions ought ever to find their way into the Senate without impediment; and I trust that the decision upon this question will result in the establishment of one of the dearest rights which a free people can enjoy.

Now, sir, why should the Senator from South Carolina urge the motion which he has made? I wish I could persuade him to withdraw it. We of the North honestly believe, and I feel confident he will not doubt our sincerity, that we cannot vote for his motion without violating our duty to God and to the country—without disregarding the oath which we have sworn, to support the Constitution. This is not the condition of those who advocate his motion. It is not pretended that the Constitution imposes any obligation upon them to vote for this motion. With them it is a question of mere expediency; with us, one of constitutional duty. I ask gentlemen of the South, for their own sake, as well as for that of their friends in the North, to vote against this motion. It will place us all in a false position, where neither their sentiments nor ours will be properly understood.

The people of the North are justly jealous of their rights and liberties. Among these, they hold the right of petition to be one of the most sacred character. I would say to the gentlemen of the South, why then will you array yourselves, without any necessity, against this right? You believe that we are much divided on the question of abolition; why, then, will you introduce another element of discord amongst us, which may do your cause much harm, and which cannot possibly do it any good? When you possess an impregnable fortress, if you will defend it, why take shelter in an outwork, where defeat is certain? Why select the very weakest position, one on which you will yourselves present a divided front to the enemy, when it is in your power to choose one on which you and we can all unite? You will thus afford an opportunity to the abolitionists at the North to form a false issue with your friends. You place us in such a condition that we cannot defend you, without infringing the sacred right of petition. Do you not perceive that the question of abolition may thus be indissolubly connected, in public estimation, with a cause which we can never abandon. If the abolitionists themselves had been consulted, I will venture to assert, they ought to have advised the very course which has been adopted by their greatest enemies.

The vote upon this unfortunate motion may do almost equal harm in the South. It may produce an impression there, that we who will vote against the motion are not friendly to the protection of their constitutional rights. It may arouse jealousy and suspicion, where none ought to exist; and may thus magnify a danger which has already been greatly exaggerated. In defending any great cause, it is always disastrous to take a position which cannot be maintained. Your forces thus become scattered and inefficient, and the enemy may obtain possession of the citadel whilst you are vainly attempting to defend an outpost. I am sorry, indeed, that this motion has been made.

I shall now proceed to defend my own motion from the attacks which have been made upon it. It has been equally opposed by both extremes. I have not found, upon the present occasion, the maxim to be true, that “in medio tutissimus ibis.” The Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Porter), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster), seem both to believe that little, if any, difference exists between the refusal to receive a petition, and the rejection of its prayer after it has been received. Indeed, the gentleman from Louisiana, whom I am happy to call my friend, says he can see no difference at all between these motions. At the moment I heard this remark, I was inclined to believe that it proceeded from that confusion of ideas which sometimes exists in the clearest heads of the country from which he derives his origin, and from which I am myself proud to be descended. What, sir, no difference between refusing to receive a request at all, and actually receiving it and considering it respectfully, and afterwards deciding, without delay, that it is not in your power to grant it! There is no man in the country, acquainted with the meaning of the plainest words in the English language, who will not recognize the distinction in a moment.

If a constituent of that gentleman should present to him a written request, and he should tell him to go about his business, and take his paper with him, that he would not have any thing to do with him or it: this would be to refuse to receive the petition.

On the other hand, if the gentleman should receive this written request of his constituent, read it over carefully and respectfully, and file it away among his papers, but, finding it was of an unreasonable or dangerous character, he should inform him, without taking further time to reflect upon it, that the case was a plain one, and that he could not, consistently with what he believed to be his duty, grant the request: this would be to reject the prayer of the petition.

There is as much difference between the two cases, as there would be between kicking a man down stairs who attempted to enter your house, and receiving him politely, examining his request, and then refusing to comply with it.

It has been suggested that the most proper course would be to refer this petition to a committee. What possible good can result from referring it? Is there a Senator on this floor who has not long since determined whether he will vote to abolish slavery in this District or not? Does any gentleman require the report of a committee, in order to enable him to decide this question? Not one.

By granting the prayer of this memorial, as I observed on a former occasion, you would establish a magazine of gunpowder here, from which trains might be laid into the surrounding States, which would produce fearful explosions. In the very heart of the slave-holding States themselves you would erect an impregnable citadel from whence the abolitionists might securely spread throughout these States, by circulating their incendiary pamphlets and pictures, the seeds of disunion, insurrection, and servile war. You would thus take advantage of Virginia and Maryland in ceding to you this District, without expressly forbidding Congress to abolish slavery here whilst it exists within their limits. No man can, for one moment, suppose that they would have made this cession upon any other terms, had they imagined that a necessity could ever exist for such a restriction. Whatever may be my opinion of the power of Congress, under the Constitution, to interfere with this question, about which at present I say nothing, I shall as steadily and as sternly oppose its exercise as if I believed no such power to exist.

In making the motion now before the Senate, I intended to adopt as strong a measure as I could, consistently with the right of petition and a proper respect for the petitioners. I am the last man in the world who would, intentionally, treat these respectable constituents of my own with disrespect. I know them well, and prize them highly. On a former occasion I did ample justice to their character. I deny that they are abolitionists. I cannot, however, conceive how any person could have supposed that it was disrespectful to them to refuse to grant their prayer in the first instance, and not disrespectful to refuse to grant it after their memorial had been referred to a committee. In the first case their memorial will be received by the Senate, and will be filed among the records of the country. That it has already been the subject of sufficient deliberation and debate; that it has already occupied a due portion of the time of the Senate, cannot be doubted or denied. Every one acquainted with the proceedings of courts of justice must know that often, very often, when petitions are presented to them, the request is refused without any delay. This is always done in a plain case by a competent judge. And yet who ever heard that this was treating the petitioner with disrespect? In order to be respectful to these memorialists, must we go through the unmeaning form, in this case, of referring the memorial to a committee, and pretending to deliberate when we are now all fully prepared to decide?

I repeat, too, that I intended to make as strong a motion in this case as the circumstances would justify. It is necessary that we should use every constitutional effort to suppress the agitation which now disturbs the land. This is necessary, as much for the happiness and future prospects of the slave as for the security of the master. Before this storm began to rage, the laws in regard to slaves had been greatly ameliorated by the slave-holding States; they enjoyed many privileges which were unknown in former times. In some of the slave States prospective and gradual emancipation was publicly and seriously discussed. But now, thanks to the abolitionists, the slaves have been deprived of these privileges, and whilst the integrity of the Union is endangered, their prospect of final emancipation is delayed to an indefinite period. To leave this question where the Constitution has left it, to the slave-holding States themselves, is equally dictated by a humane regard for the slave as well as for their masters.

There are other objections to the reference of this memorial to a committee, which must, I think, be conclusive. I ask the Senate, after witnessing the debate upon the present question, to what conclusion could this committee arrive? If they attempted to assert any principle beyond the naked proposition before us, that the prayer of the memorialists ought not to be granted, we would be cast into a labyrinth of difficulties. It would be confusion worse confounded. If we wish to obtain a strong vote, and thus at the same time tranquilize the South and the North upon this exciting topic, the reference of it to a committee would be the most unfortunate course which we could adopt. Senators are divided into four classes on this question. The first believe that to abolish slavery in this District would be a violation of the Constitution of the United States. Should the committee recommend any proposition of a less decided character, these Senators would feel it to be their duty to attempt to amend it, by asserting this principle; and thus we should excite another dangerous and unprofitable debate. The second class, although they may not believe that the subject is constitutionally beyond the control of Congress, yet they think that the acts of cession from Maryland and Virginia to the United States forbid us to act upon the subject. These gentlemen would insist upon the affirmance of this proposition. The third class would not go as far as either of the former. They do not believe that the subject is placed beyond the power of Congress, either by the Constitution or by the compacts of cession, yet they are as firmly opposed to granting the prayer of the petition, whilst slavery continues to exist in Maryland and Virginia, as if they held both these opinions. They know that these States never would have ceded this territory of ten miles square to the United States upon any other condition, if it had entered into their conception that Congress would make an attempt, sooner or later, to convert it into a free district. Besides, they are convinced that to exercise this power, at an earlier period, would seriously endanger not only the peace and harmony of the Union, but its very existence. This class of Senators, whilst they entertain these opinions, which ought to be entirely satisfactory to the South, could never consent to vote for a resolution declaring that to act upon the subject would be a violation of the Constitution or of the compacts. The fourth class, and probably not the least numerous, are opposed to the agitation of the question, under existing circumstances, and will vote against the abolition of slavery in this District at the present moment, but would be unwilling to give any vote which might pledge them for the future. Here are the elements of discord. Although we can all, or nearly all, agree in the general result, yet we should differ essentially in the means of arriving at it. The politic and the wise course, then, is, to adopt my motion that the prayer of the memorialists ought to be rejected. Each gentleman will arrive at this conclusion in his own way. Although we may thus travel different roads, we will all reach the same point. Should the committee go one step further than report this very proposition, we should at once be separated into four divisions; and the result must be that the whole subject would finally be laid upon the table, and thus the abolitionists would obtain a victory over the friends of the Union both to the North and to the South.

Before I made the motion now before the Senate, I deliberately and anxiously considered all these embarrassing difficulties. At the first, I was under the impression that the reference of this subject to a committee would be the wisest course. In view of all the difficulties, however, I changed my opinion: and I am now willing, most cheerfully, to assume all the responsibility which may rest upon me for having made this motion.

I might have moved to lay the memorial upon the table; but I did not believe that this would be doing that justice to the South which she has a right to demand at our hands. She is entitled to the strongest vote, upon the strongest proposition, which gentlemen can give, without violating their principles.

I have but a few more words to say. As events have deprived me of the occupation assigned to me by the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Mangum), I feel myself at liberty to invade the province allotted by the same gentleman to the Senator from New York (Mr. Wright), and to defend a distinguished member of the Albany Regency. In this I am a mere volunteer. I choose thus to act because Governor Marcy has expressed my opinions better than I could do myself.

And here, permit me to say that, in my judgment, Southern gentlemen who are not satisfied with his last message, so far as it relates to the abolitionists, are very unreasonable. With the general tone and spirit of that message no one has found any fault; no one can justly find any fault. In point of fact, it is not even liable to the solitary objection which has been urged against it, that he did not recommend to the legislature the passage of a law for the purpose of punishing those abolitionists who, in that State, should attempt to excite insurrection and sedition in the slaveholding States, by the circulation of inflammatory publications and pictures. It is true that he does not advise the immediate passage of such a law, but this was because he thought public opinion would be sufficient to put them down. He, however, looks to it as eventually proper, in case, contrary to his opinion, such a measure should become necessary to arrest the evil. He expressly asserts, and clearly proves, that the legislature possesses the power to pass such a law. This is the scope and spirit of his message.

Ought he to have recommended the immediate passage of such a law? I think not. The history of mankind, in all ages, demonstrates that the surest mode of giving importance to any sect, whether in politics or religion, is to subject its members to persecution. It has become a proverb, that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” By persecution, religious sects, maintaining doctrines the most absurd and the most extravagant—doctrines directly at war with the pure faith and principles announced to the world by the Divine Author of our religion, have been magnified into importance. I do not believe there is any State in this Union (unless the information which we have received from the Senators from Vermont might make that State an exception), where penal laws of the character proposed would not advance, instead of destroying the cause of the abolitionists. I feel confident such would be the event in Pennsylvania. Severe legislation, unless there is a manifest necessity for it, is always prejudicial. This question may be safely left to public opinion, which, in our age, and in our country, like a mighty torrent, sweeps away error. The people, although they may sometimes be misled in the beginning, always judge correctly in the end. Let severe penal laws on this subject be enacted in any State—let a few honest but misguided enthusiasts be prosecuted under them—let them be tried and punished in the face of the country, and you will thus excite the sympathies of the people, and create a hundred abolitionists where one only now exists. Southern gentlemen have no right to doubt our sincerity on this subject, and they ought to permit us to judge for ourselves as to the best mode of allaying the excitement which they believe exists among ourselves.

If the spirit of abolition had become so extensive and so formidable as some gentlemen suppose, we might justly be alarmed for the existence of this Union. Comparatively speaking, I believe it to be weak and powerless, though it is noisy. Without excitement got up here or elsewhere, which may continue its existence for some time longer, it will pass away in a short period, like the other excitements which have disturbed the public mind, and are now almost forgotten.

On the 9th of March (1836) the following proceedings took place:

The Senate proceeded to consider the petition of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia, on the subject of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

The question being on the motion “that the petition be not received”—Mr. Calhoun addressed the Senate in reply to what had fallen from other Senators on the subject.

Mr. Clay made a few remarks in explanation, called for by some part of the remarks of the Senator from South Carolina.

The question was then taken on the motion of Mr. Calhoun, “Shall the petition be received?” and decided as follows:

Yeas,—Messrs. Benton, Brown, Buchanan, Clay, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Ewing of Ill., Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Grundy, Hendricks, Hill, Hubbard, Kent, King of Ala., King of Ga., Knight, Linn, McKean, Morris, Naudain, Niles, Prentiss, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Southard, Swift, Tallmadge, Tipton, Tomlinson, Wall, Webster, Wright.—36.

Nays.—Messrs. Black, Calhoun, Cuthbert, Leigh, Moore, Nicholas, Preston, Porter, Walker, White.—10.

The question being next on the motion of Mr. Buchanan, to reject the prayer of the petition,

Mr. Clay made some remarks on the motion, and concluded by moving to amend it by adding to it:—

For the Senate, without now affirming or denying the constitutional power of Congress to grant the prayer of the petition, believes, even supposing the power uncontested, which it is not, that the exercise of it would be inexpedient;

1st. Because the people of the District of Columbia have not themselves petitioned for the abolition of slavery within the District.

2d. Because the States of Virginia and Maryland would be injuriously affected by such a measure, whilst the institution of slavery continues to subsist within their respective jurisdictions, and neither of these States would probably have ceded to the United States the territory now forming the District if it had anticipated the adoption of any such measure without clearly and expressly guarding against it. And,

3d. Because the injury which would be inflicted by exciting alarm and apprehension in the States tolerating slavery, and by disturbing the harmony between them and the other members of the Confederacy, would far exceed any practical benefit which could possibly flow from the abolition of slavery within the District.

Mr. Porter wished more time to reflect, and moved to lay the motion on the table, but withdrew it at the instance of Mr. Buchanan.

Mr. Buchanan said that some remarks, both of the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun), and of the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), compelled him to make a few observations in his own defence.

Sir, said Mr. B., I rejoice at the result of the vote which has this day been recorded. It will forever secure to the citizens of this country, the sacred right of petition. The question has now been finally settled by a decisive vote of the Senate. The memorial which I presented from a portion of the highly respectable Society of Friends, has been received by a triumphant majority. Another happy consequence of this vote is, that abolition is forever separated from the right of petition. The abolitionists will now never be able to connect their cause with the violation of a right so justly dear to the people. They must now stand alone. This is the very position in which every friend of the Union, both to the North and the South, ought to desire to see them placed.

From the remarks which have just been made by the Senators from South Carolina and Kentucky, it might almost be supposed that my motion to reject the prayer of the memorialists, was trifling with the right of petition, which, in the course of debate, I have defended with all my power. Is there the slightest foundation for such an imputation?

The memorial has been received by the Senate, and has been read. If this body are in doubt whether they will grant its prayer—if they wish further information upon this subject than what they already possess, then they ought to refer it. On the other hand, if every Senator has already determined how he will vote upon the question, why send the memorial to a committee? It presents but one simple question for our decision. It asks us to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. My motion proposes that this prayer shall be rejected. Now, is it not self-evident to every Senator upon this floor, that any committee which can be formed out of this body, will arrive at the same conclusion? Why, then, refer this memorial to obtain a report, when we already know what that report will be? Why keep the question open for further agitation and debate? Should it be referred to a committee, upon their report, we shall have the same ground to travel over again which we have been treading for so long a time. I have yet to learn that when a petition is presented to any tribunal, in a case so clear as not to require deliberation, that it is either disrespectful to the petitioners, or that it infringes the right of petition, to decide against its prayer without delay.

But in this case, powerful reasons exist why the memorial ought not to be referred. Although we all agree that slavery ought not to be abolished in the District of Columbia, yet we arrive at this conclusion by different courses of reasoning. Before I presented this memorial, I endeavored to ascertain from Senators whether it would be possible to obtain a strong vote in favor of any proposition more specific in its terms than that now before the Senate. I found this would be impossible. I then made the motion to reject the prayer of the memorial, after much deliberation.

I found the Senate divided upon this subject into four sections. One portion was opposed to the prayer of the memorial, because, in their opinion, it would be unconstitutional to grant it; another, because it would violate our compacts of cession with Virginia and Maryland; a third, because it would be inexpedient and unjust to abolish slavery in this District, whilst it exists in the surrounding States; and a fourth, who were unwilling to go even to this extent, but who equally condemned its abolition at the present moment. Here were the elements of discord. Whilst all, or nearly all, are harmonious in their conclusion that the prayer of the petition ought not to be granted, their premises are far different. My object was to get the strongest vote, for the purpose of calming the agitation, both to the South and to the North. In order to accomplish this purpose, my motion must be one on which the largest majority could agree, and on which each member might vote for his own peculiar reasons. I ask what motion could I have made, so well calculated to attain the end, as the one now before the Senate?

The amendment which has just been proposed by the Senator from Kentucky will, I fear, prove to be the apple of discord in this body. It is too strong a measure for one portion of the Senate, whilst it is too weak for another. Those who believe that we have no power under the Constitution to abolish slavery in this District, will not vote for the amendment, because it does recognize this principle; whilst such gentlemen as deem it inexpedient at the present time to act upon the subject, but who do not wish to commit themselves for the future, will be equally opposed to the reasons which this amendment assigns. For my own part, individually, I should not object to the amendment. I could most cheerfully vote for all the principles which it contains. If I believed it would unite in its favor as large a majority of the Senate as the motion which I have made, unaccompanied by these reasons, it should have my support. But this, I am convinced, will not be the case; and my purpose is to obtain the largest vote possible, because this will have the strongest influence upon public opinion. It would most effectually check the agitation upon this subject.

Sir, said Mr. B., this question of domestic slavery is the weak point in our institutions. Tariffs may be raised almost to prohibition, and then they may be reduced so as to yield no adequate protection to the manufacturer; our Union is sufficiently strong to endure the shock. Fierce political storms may arise—the moral elements of the country may be convulsed by the struggles of ambitious men for the highest honors of the Government—the sunshine does not more certainly succeed the storm, than that all will again be peace. Touch this question of slavery seriously—let it once be made manifest to the people of the South that they cannot live with us, except in a state of continual apprehension and alarm for their wives and their children, for all that is near and dear to them upon the earth,—and the Union is from that moment dissolved. It does not then become a question of expediency, but of self-preservation. It is a question brought home to the fireside, to the domestic circle of every white man in the Southern States. This day, this dark and gloomy day for the Republic, will, I most devoutly trust and believe, never arrive. Although, in Pennsylvania, we are all opposed to slavery in the abstract, yet we will never violate the constitutional compact which we have made with our sister States. Their rights will be held sacred by us. Under the Constitution it is their own question; and there let it remain.

Mr. Preston said there may be other reasons; he had some which were stronger than those assigned, and he should vote against these, which contained a negative pregnant, looking to a state of things when Congress could act on the subject.

Mr. Porter said one of his reasons for wishing to lay on the table the amendment was, that he might examine and ascertain if such reasons as would be satisfactory to him, so as to command his vote, could be assigned. He renewed his motion, and again withdrew it; when

Mr. Clay stated that he had no objection to let the amendment lie for further examination.

After a few words from Mr. Cuthbert, on motion of Mr. Morris, the Senate adjourned.

On the 11th of March, the following proceedings occurred:

Mr. Leigh rose, and said that, in pursuance of the promise which he yesterday made to the Senate to move to resume the consideration of the abolition petition at the earliest moment that he should have decided what course his duty required him to pursue in regard to the amendment which he yesterday offered to the motion for rejection, now moved that the Senate take up that subject.

The motion having been agreed to, Mr. Leigh withdrew the amendment offered by him yesterday; and the question recurred on Mr. Buchanan’s motion that the prayer of the petition be rejected.

[The following is a copy of the petition:

The memorial of Caln Quarterly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, respectfully represents: That, having long felt deep sympathy with that portion of the inhabitants of these United States which is held in bondage, and having no doubt that the happiness and interests, moral and pecuniary, of both master and slave, and our whole community, would be greatly promoted if the inestimable right to liberty was extended equally to all, we contemplate with extreme regret that the District of Columbia, over which you possess entire control, is acknowledged to be one of the greatest marts for the traffic in the persons of human beings in the known world, notwithstanding the principles of the Constitution declare that all men have an unalienable right to the blessing of liberty.

We therefore earnestly desire that you will enact such laws as will secure the right of freedom to every human being residing within the constitutional jurisdiction of Congress, and prohibit every species of traffic in the persons of men, which is as inconsistent in principle, and inhuman in practice, as the foreign slave trade.

Signed by direction, and on behalf of the aforesaid quarterly meeting, held in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, the 19th of 11 mo., 1835.

The yeas and nays were ordered on the question of rejection.

Mr. McKean moved to amend the motion by striking out all after the word “that”—(namely, the words “the prayer of the petition to be rejected,”) and inserting “it is inexpedient at this time to legislate on the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia.”

On this question the yeas and nays were ordered, on his motion.

The question being taken, it was decided as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Hendricks, McKean—2.

Nays—Messrs. Benton, Black, Brown, Buchanan, Clay, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Grundy, Hill, Hubbard, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Knight, Leigh, Linn, Nicholas, Niles, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Swift, Tallmadge, Tipton, Tomlinson, Walker, Wall, Webster, White, Wright—37.

Mr. McKean moved to amend the motion by inserting between the first word “that” and the words “the prayer of the petition be rejected,” the words “inexpedient to legislate on the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia, and that.”

On this question he called for the yeas and nays, which were ordered.

The question was then taken, and decided as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Ewing of Ohio, Hendricks, McKean—3.

Nays—Messrs. Benton, Black, Brown, Buchanan, Clay, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Goldsborough, Grundy, Hill, Hubbard, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Knight, Leigh, Linn, Moore, Niles, Nicholas, Preston, Porter, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Swift, Tallmadge, Tipton, Tomlinson, Walker, Wall, Webster, White, Wright—36.

The question being on the original motion of Mr. Buchanan, “that the prayer of the petition be rejected”—

Mr. McKean said that, in offering the amendments which he had proposed, he had discharged his conscience of an imperative duty. It had pleased the Senate to reject these amendments, and, as he was thus deprived of the power of making the motion more palatable, all that he could now do was to vote for the proposition of his colleague.

Same day, after debate.—The question was then taken on the motion to reject the prayer of the petition, and decided as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Benton, Black, Brown, Buchanan, Clay, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Grundy, Hill, Hubbard, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Leigh, Linn, McKean, Moore, Nicholas, Niles, Porter, Preston, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Tallmadge, Tipton, Tomlinson, Walker, Wall, White, Wright—34.

Nays—Messrs. Davis, Hendricks, Knight, Prentiss, Swift, Webster—6.

So the prayer of the petition was rejected.

On the 25th of April, Mr. Buchanan presented a petition from the Society of Friends, in Philadelphia, on which he said:

He rose to present the memorial of the Yearly Meeting of the religious Society of Friends, which had been recently held in the city of Philadelphia, remonstrating against the admission of Arkansas into the Union, whilst a provision remained in her constitution which admits of and may perpetuate slavery. This Yearly Meeting embraced within its jurisdiction the greater part of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the whole of the State of Delaware, and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The language of this memorial was perfectly respectful. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, considering the source from which it emanated. It breathed throughout the pure and Christian spirit which had always animated the Society of Friends; and although he did not concur with them in opinion, their memorial was entitled to be received with great respect.

When the highly respectable committee,^[54] which had charge of this memorial, called upon him this morning, and requested him to present it to the Senate, he had felt it to be his duty to inform them in what relation he stood to the question. He stated to them that he had been requested by the delegate from Arkansas to take charge of the application of that Territory to be admitted into the Union, and that he had cheerfully taken upon himself the performance of this duty. He also read to them the 8th section of the act of Congress of 6th March, 1820, containing the famous Missouri compromise; and informed them that the whole Territory of Arkansas was south of the parallel of 36 degrees and a half of north latitude; and that he regarded this compromise, considering the exciting and alarming circumstances under which it was made, and the dangers to the existence of the Union which it had removed, to be almost as sacred as a constitutional provision. That there might be no mistake on the subject, he had also informed them that in presenting their memorial he should feel it to be his duty to state these facts to the Senate. With this course on his part they were satisfied, and still continued their request that he might present the memorial. He now did so with great pleasure. He hoped it might be received by the Senate with all the respect it so highly deserved. He asked that it might be read; and as the question of the admission of Arkansas was no longer before us, he moved that it might be laid upon the table. The memorial was accordingly read, and was ordered to be laid upon the table.

The next time that the subject of slavery came before the Senate was in June, 1836. It then arose upon a bill which had been proposed in conformity with a special recommendation by President Jackson, in his annual message of December, 1835, to restrain the use of the mails for the circulation of incendiary publications. The bill contained the following provisions:

Be it enacted, &c., That it shall not be lawful for any deputy postmaster, in any State, Territory, or District of the United States, knowingly to deliver to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, Territory, or District, their circulation is prohibited; and any deputy postmaster who shall be guilty thereof, shall be forthwith removed from office.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That nothing in the acts of Congress to establish and regulate the Post Office Department, shall be construed to protect any deputy postmaster, mail carrier, or other officer or agent of said department, who shall knowingly circulate in any State, Territory, or District, as aforesaid, any such pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, forbidden by the laws of such State, Territory, or District.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the deputy postmasters of the offices where the pamphlets, newspapers, handbills, or other printed papers or pictorial representations aforesaid, may arrive for delivery, shall, under the instructions of the Postmaster General, from time to time give notice of the same, so that they may be withdrawn, by the person who deposited them originally to be mailed, and if the same shall not be withdrawn in one month thereafter, shall be burnt or otherwise destroyed.

This bill, on the 2d of June, 1836, was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, by the casting vote of Mr. Van Buren, the Vice-President. On the 8th of June the following debate and proceedings took place:

Mr. Webster addressed the Senate at length in opposition to the bill, commencing his argument against what he contended was its vagueness and obscurity in not sufficiently defining what were the publications, the circulation of which it intended to prohibit. The bill provided that it should not be lawful for any deputy postmaster, in any State, Territory, or District of the United States, knowingly to deliver to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed matter or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where by the laws of said State, District, or Territory, their circulation was prohibited. Under this provision Mr. W. contended that it was impossible to say what publications might not be prohibited from circulation. No matter what was the publication, whether for or against slavery—if it touched the subject in any shape or form, it would fall under the prohibition. Even the Constitution of the United States might be prohibited; and the person who was clothed with the power to judge in this delicate matter was one of the deputy postmasters who, notwithstanding the difficulties with which he was encompassed in coming to a correct decision must decide correctly, under pain of being removed from office. It would be necessary, also, he said, for the deputy postmasters referred to in this bill to make themselves acquainted with all the various laws passed by the States, touching this subject of slavery, and to decide them, no matter how variant they might be with each other. Mr. W. also contended that the bill conflicted with that provision in the Constitution which prohibited Congress from passing any law to abridge the freedom of speech or of the press. What was the liberty of the press? he asked. It was the liberty of printing as well as the liberty of publishing, in all the ordinary modes of publication; and was not the circulation of the papers through the mails an ordinary mode of publication? He was afraid that they were in some danger of taking a step in this matter, that they might hereafter have cause to regret, by its being contended that whatever in this bill applies to publications touching slavery, applies to other publications that the States might think proper to prohibit; and Congress might, under this example, be called upon to pass laws to suppress the circulation of political, religious, or any other description of publications, which produced excitement in the States. Was this bill in accordance with the general force and temper of the Constitution and its amendments? It was not in accordance with that provision of the instrument, under which the freedom of speech and of the press was secured. Whatever laws the State Legislatures might pass on the subject, Congress was restrained from legislating in any manner whatever, with regard to the press. It would be admitted, that if a newspaper came directed to him, he had a property in it; and how could any man, then, take that property and burn it without due form of law? and he did not know how this newspaper could be pronounced an unlawful publication and having no property in it, without a legal trial.

Mr. W. argued against the right to examine into the nature of publications sent to the post-office, and said that the right of an individual in his papers, was secured to him in every free country in the world. In England, it was expressly provided that the papers of the subject shall be free from all unreasonable searches and seizures—language, he said, to be found in our Constitution. This principle established in England, so essential to liberty, had been followed out in France, where the right of printing and publishing was secured in the fullest extent; the individual publishing being amenable to the laws for what he published; and every man printed and published what he pleased, at his peril. Mr. W. went on at some length to show that the bill was contrary to that provision of the Constitution, which prohibits Congress to pass any law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.

Mr. Buchanan said, that as he had voted for the engrossment of this bill, and should vote for its final passage, he felt himself bound to defend and justify his vote against the argument of the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster). In doing so, he would imitate that Senator, if in no other respect, at least in being brief.

It is indispensable to the clear and distinct understanding of any argument, to know precisely what is the question under discussion. Without this knowledge, we cannot tell whether in any or what degree the argument is applicable to the subject. What, then, is the naked question now under discussion, stripped of all the mist which has been cast around it? This bill embraced but a single principle, though this principle was carried out through three sections. It provides that deputy postmasters, within the limits of such slaveholding States as have found it necessary for their own safety to pass laws making it penal to circulate inflammatory publications and pictorial representations calculated to excite the slaves to insurrection, shall not be protected by the laws of the United States, in violating these State laws. Postmasters within these States who shall knowingly distribute such publications are liable to be removed from office. The bill also provides that the post-office laws of the United States shall not protect postmasters, mail carriers, or other officers or agents of the department who shall knowingly circulate such incendiary publications, from the penalties denounced against this offence under the laws of the States. This is the spirit and principle of the bill. It does no more than to withdraw the protection of the laws of the United States, establishing the Post Office Department, from postmasters and other agents of this Government who shall wilfully transgress State laws deemed absolutely necessary to secure the States, within which they exist, from servile insurrection.

This bill did not affect, in the slightest degree, any of the non-slaveholding States. Neither did it apply to any of the slaveholding States, except those within which the danger of insurrection had become so imminent as to compel them to pass laws of the character referred to in the bill.

Of the policy and justice of passing such a bill he could not doubt, provided we possess the power. No person would contend that this Government ought to become the instrument of exciting insurrection within any of the States, unless we were constrained to pursue this course by an overruling constitutional necessity. The question then is, does any such necessity exist? Are we bound by the Constitution of the United States, through our post-offices, to circulate publications among the slaves, the direct tendency of which is to excite their passions and rouse them to insurrection? Have we no power to stay our hand in any case? Even if a portion of this Union were in a state of open rebellion against the United States, must we aid and assist the rebels by communicating to them, through our Post Office Department, such publications and information as may encourage and promote their designs against the very existence of the confederacy itself? If the Constitution of the United States has placed us in this deplorable condition, we must yield to its mandates, no matter what may be the consequences.

Mr. B. did not believe that the Constitution placed us in any such position. Our power over the mails was as broad and general as any words in the English language could confer. The Constitution declares that “Congress shall have power to establish post-offices and post roads.” This is the only provision which it contains touching the subject. After the establishment of these post-offices and post roads, who shall decide upon the purposes for which they shall be used? He answered, Congress, and Congress alone. There was no limitation, no restriction, whatever, upon our discretion contained in the bond. We have the power to decide what shall and what shall not be carried in the mail, and what shall be the rate of postage. He freely admitted that, unless in extreme cases, where the safety of the Republic was involved, we should never exercise this power of discrimination between what papers should and should not be circulated through the mail. The Constitution, however, has conferred upon us this general power, probably for the very purpose of meeting these extreme cases; and it is one which, from its delicate nature, we shall not be likely to abuse.

He differed entirely from the opinion of the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun), as to the source whence the power was derived to pass this bill. No action of the State Legislatures could either confer it or take it away. It was perfect and complete in itself under the Federal Constitution, or it had no existence. With that Senator he entirely concurred in opinion, that the sedition law was clearly unconstitutional. Congress have no power to abridge the freedom of the press, or to pass any law to prevent or to punish any publication whatever. He understood the freedom of the press to mean precisely what the Senator from Massachusetts had stated. But does it follow, as the gentleman contends, that because we have no power over the press, that therefore we are bound to carry and distribute anything and everything which may proceed from it, even if it should be calculated to stir up insurrection or to destroy the Government? So far as this Government is concerned, every person may print, and publish, and circulate whatever he pleases; but are we, therefore, compelled to become his agents, and to circulate for him everything he may choose to publish? This is the question. Any gentleman upon this floor may write what he thinks proper against my character; but because he can exercise this liberty, am I therefore bound to carry and to circulate what he has written? So any individual within the broad limits of this Union, without previous restraint and without danger of punishment from the Federal Government, may publish what is calculated to aid and assist the enemies of the country in open war; but does it follow, as a necessary consequence, that this very Government is bound to carry and circulate such publications through its mails? A more perfect non sequitur never had been presented to his mind. It was one thing not to restrain or punish publications; it was another and an entirely different thing to carry and circulate them after they have been published. The one is merely passive; the other is active. It was one thing to leave our citizens entirely free to print and publish and circulate what they pleased; and it was another thing to call upon us to aid in their circulation. From the prohibition to make any law “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” it could never be inferred that we must provide by law for the circulation through the post-office of everything which the press might publish. And yet this is the argument both of the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from South Carolina. If this argument were well founded, it was very clear to his mind, that no State law could confer upon Congress any power to pass this bill. We derived our powers from the Federal Constitution, and from that alone. If, under its provisions, we have had no authority to pass the bill, we could derive no such authority from the laws of the States.

Why, then, did Mr. B. vote for a bill to prevent the circulation of publications prohibited by State laws? Not because we derived any power from these laws; but, under the circumstances, they contained the best rule to guide us in deciding what publications were dangerous. The States were the best judges of what was necessary for their own safety and protection; and they would not call for the passage of this bill, unless they were firmly convinced that the situation in which they were placed imperiously demanded it. They were willing to submit to a great evil in depriving themselves of information which might be valuable to them, in order to avoid the still greater evil that would result from the circulation of these publications and pictorial representations among their slaves. Such a law would not be permitted to exist after the necessity for it had ended. He was therefore willing, upon this occasion, to refer to the laws of the States, not for the purpose of conferring any power on Congress, but merely for a description of the publications which it should be unlawful for our deputy-postmasters within these States to circulate.

This bill was in strict conformity with the recommendations contained in the President’s message on this subject, which had, he believed, found favor everywhere. The principles of this message, which had been pronounced unconstitutional by the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun), had, he believed, been highly commended in a resolution passed by the legislature of that State. He would read an extract from the President’s message:

“In connection with these provisions in relation to the Post Office Department, I must also invite your attention to the painful excitement produced in the South, by attempts to circulate through the mails inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the slaves, in prints, and in various sorts of publications, calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and to produce all the horrors of a servile war.

“There is, doubtless, no respectable portion of our countrymen who can be so far misled as to feel any other sentiment than that of indignant regret at conduct so destructive of the harmony and peace of the country, and so repugnant to the principles of our national compact, and to the dictates of humanity and religion. Our happiness and prosperity essentially depend upon peace within our borders—and peace depends upon the maintenance, in good faith, of those compromises of the Constitution upon which the Union is founded. It is fortunate for the country that the good sense, the generous feeling, and the deep-rooted attachment of the people of the non-slaveholding States to the Union, and to their fellow-citizens of the same blood in the South, have given so strong and impressive a tone to the sentiments entertained against the proceedings of the misguided persons who have engaged in these unconstitutional and wicked attempts, and especially against the emissaries from foreign parts who have dared to interfere in this matter, as to authorize the hope, that those attempts will no longer be persisted in. But if these expressions of the public will shall not be sufficient to effect so desirable a result, not a doubt can be entertained that the non-slaveholding States, so far from countenancing the slightest interference with the constitutional rights of the South, will be prompt to exercise their authority in suppressing, so far as in them lies, whatever is calculated to produce this evil.

“In leaving the care of other branches of this interesting subject to the State authorities, to whom they properly belong, it is nevertheless proper for Congress to take such measures as will prevent the Post Office Department, which was designed to foster an amicable intercourse and correspondence between all the members of the confederacy, from being used as an instrument of an opposite character. The General Government, to which the great trust is confided, of preserving inviolate the relations created among the States by the Constitution, is especially bound to avoid in its own action, anything that may disturb them. I would, therefore, call the special attention of Congress to the subject, and respectfully suggest the propriety of passing such a law as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.”

In reply to Mr. Webster, Mr. B. said, that he did not think there was any vagueness in that part of the bill on which the gentleman had commented, except what arose from the nature of the subject. It is vague, says the gentleman, because it contains no description of the publications, the circulation of which it intends to prohibit, except the words “touching the subject of slavery.” On this foundation he had erected a considerable portion of his argument. Mr. B. acknowledged that if the bill contained no other description than this, it would be impossible to carry it into execution. But this was not the fact. The subsequent language restricted this vague description; because it confined the operation of the bill to such publications only, “touching the subject of slavery,” as were prohibited from circulation by the laws of the respective States.

We have, said Mr. B., wisely and properly referred, for the description of the offence, to the laws of the different States which will be embraced by the bill. It was just—it was politic—it was treating those States with a proper degree of respect, to make our law conform with their laws, and thus to take care that no conflict should arise between our deputy postmasters and their State authorities. Could the gentleman from Massachusetts himself make the bill more explicit? He could not do it, consistently with the principles upon which it was founded, without incorporating into its provisions all the laws of all the States who had thought proper to pass laws upon this subject. Our deputy postmasters were resident citizens of those States. They were bound to know the State laws under which they lived, and all that this bill requires is, that they shall not violate them.

The Senator from Massachusetts has contended that any newspaper which had been sent to an individual by mail, and was deposited in a post-office, was his property; and we had, therefore, no right to say it should not be delivered. But this was begging the question. It was taking that for granted which remained to be proved. If Congress, as he (Mr. B.) had contended, possessed the incontestable power of declaring what should and what should not be circulated through the mails, no man could have the right to demand from any post-office that which the law had declared should not thus be circulated. If we can, without violating the Constitution, say that these inflammatory publications tending to excite servile war shall not be distributed by our postmasters among the individuals to whom they are directed, no question of property could then arise. No man can have a property in that which is a violation of the law. It then becomes a question, not of property, but of public safety. Admit the gentleman’s premises, that we have no right to pass any law upon this subject, and he can establish his position that a property exists in those publications whilst in the post-offices. Without this admission, his argument entirely fails.

He felt as reluctant as any man could feel, to vote for any law interfering with the circulation through the mails of any publication whatever, no matter what might be its character. But if the slaves within any Southern State were in rebellion, or if a palpable or well-founded danger of such a rebellion existed, with his present convictions, should he refuse to prevent the circulation of publications tending to encourage or excite insurrection, he would consider himself an accomplice in their guilt. He entertained no doubt whatever of the power of Congress to pass this bill, or of the propriety of exercising that power. He would not have voted for the bill which had been reported by the Senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun) because he thought it a measure far beyond what was required by the necessity of the case. This bill, whilst it was sufficiently strong to correct the evil, would be confined in its operation to those States within which the danger existed.

Mr. Davis (of Massachusetts) stated at length his objections to the passage of the bill. Senators assumed that there were no difficulties in the way, because the post-office power gave to Congress the right to decide what should be carried in the mails. On a former occasion he had said all that was proper in regard to this matter. He then drew the attention of the Senate to the constitutional question involved, and demonstrated, as he thought, that there was no authority in the Constitution to pass this bill, or anything like it. The language of the Constitution was very simple: it only said that Congress should have the power to establish post-offices and post roads. Now what was a post-office, in the meaning of the Constitution? To understand this, it would be necessary to ascertain what was the meaning held at the time the Constitution was adopted. You had a post-office at the time the Constitution was made, and a press also; and the provision in the Constitution was made in reference to both these known things. The object in establishing the post-office, then, was to send abroad intelligence throughout the country; and it was intended for the transmission of newspapers, pamphlets, judicial and legislative proceedings, and all matters emanating from the press, relating to politics, literature, and science, and for the transmission of private letters. It would be, therefore, in his opinion, in conflict with the provision of the Constitution, giving Congress the power to establish the post-office, as well as an abridgment of the freedom of the press, to carry into effect the provisions of the bill.

The Senator from Pennsylvania reÏterated the argument used the other day by his friend from Georgia, that you have no right to diffuse publications through the agency of the post-office, for the purpose of exciting a servile war. Now let me tell the gentleman, (said Mr. D.) that this is an old argument against the liberty of the press, and that it has been used whenever it was thought necessary to establish a censorship over it. The public morals were said to be in danger; it was necessary to prevent licentiousness, tumult, and sedition; and the public good required that the licentiousness of the press should be restrained. All these were the plausible pretences under which the freedom of the press had been violated in all ages. Now they knew that the press was at all times corrupt; but when they came to decide the question whether the tares should be rooted up, and the wheat along with it, those who had decided in favor of liberty, had always decided that it was better to put up with a lesser evil than to draw down upon themselves one of such fearful magnitude, as must result from the destruction of the press. Mr. D. contended that the power to be given to the deputy postmasters to decide what should, and what should not be distributed from the post-office, gave them a dangerous discretion over a very delicate matter, and that the power was one highly susceptible of abuse, and always liable to misconstruction.

Mr. Grundy (of Tennessee) observed that this bill was intended simply to prevent any officer of the Government, who should violate the laws of the States in which he resided, from sheltering himself under the post-office law. As the bill now stood, the objections with regard to abridging the freedom of the press had no application whatever. There was no provision in the bill interfering with the printing or publishing of any matter whatever, nor was it even pretended that Congress possessed the power of doing so. It was not even said that certain publications, no matter how incendiary in their character, should not be deposited in the post-office, and transmitted throughthrough the mails. Therefore all the objections that he had heard to the bill fell to the ground. In this bill, the Government simply said to the individuals in its employ, “We will not help you to do an act in violation of the laws of the State in which you live.” That was the ground on which the bill was framed, and it could not be pretended that this was an abridgment of the liberty of the press. It was only the Government declining to assist an individual in the violation of the law, and that was the whole bill. The Government, under the Constitution, had an entire control of the Post-Office Department. It had the power to regulate what matters should be carried throughthrough the mails, and what should not. We say to everybody that to these slaveholding States you may transmit through the mails what you please, but if you transmit to one of our officers what is prohibited by the laws of the State in which he resides, we shall say to that officer, you shall not put on the mantle of the Government to assist you in the violation of that law; you shall be subject to the penalties of the State laws, besides removal from office. In fact there was not the slightest pretext for saying that this bill violates in the remotest degree the freedom of the press. Nothing should be carried in the mails but what was proper for transmission through them; but if there was anything sent through them tending to excite insurrection and bloodshed, how could there be an objection to the passage of a law, saying that it should not be delivered out of the post-office?

The gentleman from Massachusetts objected to the vagueness of the bill in saying what shall not be distributed from the post-offices. How could the matter, he asked, be made more specific? When the publication arrived at the post-office where it was prohibited, and was about to be handed out, the State law would be consulted, and by it, it would be decided whether it was in violation of the State law or not, and it could thus be determined whether it was proper for delivery. He should not say anything as to the report—he did not concur in it farther than that this was a great evil, and should be corrected in the mildest way that it could be done. This bill did not affect any individual but those of the post-offices of the States where laws have been passed prohibiting publications and pictorial representations, calculated to excite insurrection among the slaves. He was opposed to the original bill, because it interfered with what publications should be deposited in, as well as delivered from, the post-offices. But it was only at the delivery office where this bill would operate, and the postmaster at such office would be operated on by the laws of the State in which it is situated. If this bill was not passed, nothing could be done, and the post-office would be made (for there were persons wicked enough to do it) the medium through which to send fire-brands throughout the country.

Mr. Clay said that he considered this bill totally unnecessary and uncalled for by public sentiment; and in this he differed with the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Buchanan); for he believed that the President’s message on the subject had met with general disapprobation; that it was unconstitutional; and if not so, that it contained a principle of a most dangerous and alarming character. When he saw that the exercise of the most extraordinary and dangerous power had been assumed by the head of the post-office, and that it had been sustained by this message, he turned his attention to the subject and inquired whether it was necessary that the General Government should, under any circumstances, exercise such a power, and whether it possessed it; and after much reflection, he had come to the conclusion, that they could not pass any law interfering with the subject in any shape or form whatever.

The evil complained of was the circulation of papers having a certain tendency. The papers, unless circulated, did no harm, and while in the post-office or in the mail—it was a circulation solely which constituted the evil. It was the taking them out of the mail, and the use that was to be made of them, that constituted the mischief.—Then it was perfectly competent to the State authorities to apply the remedy. The instant that a prohibited paper was handed out, whether to a citizen or sojourner, he was subject to the laws which might compel him either to surrender them or burn them. He considered the bill not only unnecessary, but as a law of a dangerous, if not a doubtful authority.

It was objected that it was vague and indefinite in its character; and how is that objection got over? The bill provided that it shall not be lawful for any deputy postmaster, in any State, Territory, or District of the United States, knowingly to deliver to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of said State, Territory, or District, their circulation is prohibited. Now, what could be more vague and indefinite than this description? Now, could it be decided by this description, what publications should be withheld from distribution? The gentleman from Pennsylvania said that the laws of the States would supply the omission. He thought the Senator was premature in saying that there would be a precision in State laws, before he showed it by producing the law. He had seen no such law, and he did not know whether the description in the bill was applicable or not. There was another objection to this part of the bill: it applied not only to the present laws of the States, but to any future laws they might pass.

Mr. C. denied that the bill applied to the slaveholding States only, and went on to argue that it could be applied to all the States, and to any publication touching the subject of slavery whatever, whether for or against it, if such publication was only prohibited by the laws of such State. Thus, for instance, a non-slaveholding State might prohibit publications in defence of the institution of slavery, and this bill would apply to it as well as to the laws of the slaveholding States; but the law would be inoperative: it declared that the deputy postmaster should not be amenable, unless he knowingly shall deliver, etc. Why, the postmaster might plead ignorance, and of course the law would be inoperative.

But he wanted to know whence Congress derived the power to pass this law. It was said that it was to carry into effect the laws of the States. Where did they get such authority? He thought that their only authority to pass laws was in pursuance of the Constitution; but to pass laws to carry into effect the laws of the States, was a most prolific authority, and there was no knowing where it was to stop: it would make the legislation of Congress dependent upon the legislation of twenty-four different sovereignties. He thought the bill was of a most dangerous tendency. The Senator from Pennsylvania asked if the post-office power did not give them the right to regulate what should be carried in the mails. Why, there was no such power as that claimed in the bill; and if they passed such a law, it would be exercising a most dangerous power. Why, if such doctrine prevailed, the Government might designate the persons, or parties, or classes who should have the benefit of the mails, excluding all others.

It was too often in the condemnation of a particular evil that they were urged on to measures of a dangerous tendency. All must agree as to the dangerous consequences of persons residing out of certain States transmitting to them incendiary publications, calculating to promote civil war and bloodshed. All must see the evil, and a great evil it was, and he hoped that a stop would be put to it; but Congress had no power to pass beyond the Constitution for the purpose of correcting it. The States alone had the power, and their power was ample for the purpose. He hoped never to see the time when the General Government should undertake to correct the evil by such measures as the one before them. If (said Mr. C.) you can pass this law to prohibit the delivery through the post-office of publications touching the subject of slavery, might they not also pass laws to prohibit any citizen of New York or Massachusetts from publishing and transmitting through the mails touching that subject? If you may touch the subject of slavery at all, why not go to the root of the evil? Suppose one of the Southern States were to pass a law of this kind, would you not be called upon by all the arguments now used in favor of this bill, to carry such laws into effect? Mr. C. concluded by saying that the bill was calculated to destroy all the landmarks of the Constitution, establish a precedent for dangerous legislation, and to lead to incalculable mischief. There was no necessity for so dangerous an assumption of authority, the State laws being perfectly competent to correct the evil complained of. He must say, that from the first to the last he was opposed to the measure.

Mr. Calhoun could not concur with the views taken by the Senators from Massachusetts and Kentucky, that this bill would comprehend in its provisions all publications touching the subject of slavery. In order to bring any publications within the provision of the bill, two qualifications were necessary. The first was, that it must relate to the subject of slavery; and the next was, that it must be prohibited by the laws of the States to which it is transmitted. He thought that this was the view that would be taken of it by the courts. The object of this bill was to make it the duty of the postmasters in the States to conform to the laws of such States, and not to deliver out papers in violation of their laws. The simple question was, had this Government the power to say to its officers, you shall not violate the laws of the States in which you reside? Could it go further, and make it their duty to co-operate with the States in carrying their laws into effect? This was the simple question. Now could any man doubt that Congress possessed the power to pass both measures, so that their officers might not come in conflict with the State laws? Indeed, he looked upon measures of this kind to prevent conflicts between the General and State Governments, which were likely to ensue, as essentially necessary, for it was evident that when such conflicts took place, the State must have the ascendancy. Mr. C. then briefly recapitulated the principles on which this bill was founded, and contended that it was in aid of laws passed by the States, as far as Congress had the power constitutionally to go, and assumed no power to prohibit or interfere with the publication or circulation of any paper whatever; it only declared, that the officers of the Government should not make their official stations a shield for violating the State laws. Was there any one there who would say, that the States had not the power to pass laws prohibiting, and making penal, the circulation of papers calculated to excite insurrection among their slaves? It being admitted that they could, could not Congress order its officers to abstain from the violation of these laws? We do not (said Mr. C.) pass a law to abridge the freedom of the press, or to prohibit the publication and circulation of any paper whatever—this has been done by the States already. The inhibition of the Constitution was on Congress, and not on the States, who possessed full power to pass any laws they thought proper. They knew that there were several precedents to sanction this bill. Congress had passed laws to abstain from the violation of the health laws of the States. Could any one say that the Constitution gave to Congress the power to pass quarantine laws? He had not adverted to the message of the President on this subject, because he believed that the President acted from the best motives, and that that part of the message was drawn up without sufficient reflection. He denied, however, that this message was in conformity with the Constitution. It would be directly abridging the liberty of the press for Congress to pass such laws as the President recommended. One part of the message he would refer to, which was in these words:

“I would, therefore, call the special attention of Congress to the subject, and respectfully suggest the propriety of passing such a law as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.” This was clearly unconstitutional, for it not only recommended the prohibition of publications and circulation of incendiary papers (abridging the freedom of the press), but it recommended also the infliction of severe penalties, which powers were expressly prohibited by the Constitution. On no other principle could this ever be defended, than that it was simply abstaining from a violation of the laws of the States.

The Senator from Kentucky contended that this bill was useless, and he (Mr. C.) agreed that it was so in one sense, and that was, with or without this bill, the Southern States would execute their own laws against the circulation of such papers. It was a case of life and death with them; and did anybody suppose that they would permit so many magazines in their bosoms, to blow them to destruction, as these post-offices must be, if these incendiary publications continued to be circulated through them? While the Southern States contained so many postmasters opposed to their institutions, as it was in his own State, where almost every postmaster was opposed to it, it was absolutely necessary for them to take effectual measures for their own security. It was the assertion of the principle, that the States had a right to protect themselves, which made the bill valuable in his eye; it prevented the conflict which would be likely to take place between the General and State Governments, unless some measure of the kind should be adopted. The States had a right to go to the extent of this bill, and they would be wanting to themselves and to posterity, if they omitted to do it. It was on the doctrine of State rights and State intervention, that he supported this bill, and on no other grounds.

The Senator from Massachusetts objected to the returning of these papers, whose delivery was prohibited. He regretted this as much as the Senator did, but his objection was, that it did not go far enough; he thought that these papers should be delivered to the prosecuting officers of the States, to enable them to ferret out the designs of the incendiaries.

Mr. Webster remarked, that in general, it might be safely said, that when different gentlemen supported a measure admitted to be of a novel character, and placed their defence of it on different and inconsistent grounds, a very simple person might believe, in such case, that there were no very strong grounds for adopting the measure. The Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from South Carolina not only placed their defence of their bill on opposite grounds, but each opposed the principles on which the other founded his support of it. Where the object to be gained was apparently good, and the case urgent, as it was represented to be, how could limitations of power stand against powerful opponents, which have always been urging to despotism? Now, against the objects of this bill, he had not a word to say; but with constitutional lawyers, there was a great difference between the object and the means to carry it into effect. It was not the object to be gained, but the means to attain it, which they should look to, for though the object might be good, the means might not be so. His objections went to the means and not to the object; and he did not yield the argument because the object was a good one, and the case was urgent. It was better to limit the power, and run the risk of injury from the want of it, than to give a power which might be exercised in a dangerous manner.

The Senator from Pennsylvania said that this bill was calling on Congress to do nothing but to abstain from violating the laws of the States. It was one thing, said the Senator, for Congress to abstain from giving these incendiary papers circulation, and another to pass laws saying that they shall not be published. But if Congress had no mail through which these papers could be transmitted, what did the gentleman mean by Congress abstaining from giving them circulation? It meant that Congress should interfere and should create an especial exception as to what should be transmitted by their ordinary channel of intelligence, and that that exception should be caused by the character of the writing or publication. He contended that Congress had not the power, drawn from the character of the paper, to decide whether it should be carried in the mail or not, for such decision would be a direct abridgment of the freedom of the press. He confessed that he was shocked at the doctrine. He looked back to the alien and sedition laws which were so universally condemned throughout the country, and what was their object? Certainly to prohibit publications of a dangerous tendency. Mr. W. here quoted the sedition law, to show the objects it intended to effect. But the deputy postmasters (Mr. W. said) must look into the newspaper mail to see if there were any publications in it touching the subject of slavery calculated to excite insurrections among the slaves.

Now, said Mr. W., the country would have been rent into atoms if the sedition law, instead of saying that papers should not be published in such and such a way, had declared that the deputy postmasters should have the power to search the mails to see if they contained any publications calculated to “bring the Government into disrepute, promote insurrection, and lead to foreign war,” the evils the sedition law intended to guard against. All the papers described in the law of ’99 were unlawful by the laws of any of the States, and yet that law which had created so much excitement and met with such general reprobation, contained nothing like the power claimed by this bill. Any law distinguishing what shall or shall not go into the mails, founded on the sentiments of the paper, and making the deputy postmaster the judge, he should say, was expressly unconstitutional, if not recommended by gentlemen of such high authority. This bill (said Mr. W.) went beyond the recommendation of the President, for his recommendation was, that the person who circulated the papers described by him should be punished by severe penalties. Now, this was the old law of liberty—there was not a word of previous restraint in it as imposed by this bill. Mr. W. then went into an argument to show the vagueness of the bill in describing the paper, the delivery of which was prohibited. Under it, it was impossible to determine what publications should be prohibited; abolition pamphlets were to be stopped at the South, and anti-abolition papers were to be stopped at the North. In reply to Mr. Buchanan, he said that he did not assume that these prohibited publications either were or were not property. All he said was, that they ought not to make the deputy postmasters the judge, and take away the property without the authority of law. What he had to say was, that it was a question of property or no property, and that they could not make the deputy postmaster the judge of the fact, as he could not be a judge of property known to the Constitution and the law.

Mr. Buchanan said he had not anticipated, when he first addressed the Senate upon this subject, that he should have occasion to make any further remarks, but the Senator from Massachusetts had replied to his argument, in such a special manner, that he felt himself constrained to reply to some of his remarks. Now, permit me to say (continued Mr. B.) that he has not at all met the point of my argument. He has invested this subject with an air of greater importance and responsibility than it deserves: he has played around it with all his powers, but without touching the real question involved in the discussion.

Congress has no power (says the gentleman) to pass any law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. Granted. He most freely admitted that Congress had no power to touch the press at all. We can pass no law whatever either to prevent or to punish any publication, under any circumstances whatever. The sedition law violated this principle. It punished libels against the Federal Government and its officers; and having met with general reprobation, it was repealed, or permitted to expire by its own limitation, he did not recollect which.

Mr. B. said he admitted these premises of the gentleman in their broadest extent; but did they justify his conclusions? In order to maintain his argument, he must prove that the Constitution, in declaring that Congress shall not pass any law abridging the freedom of the press, has thereby, and from the force of these terms alone, commanded us to circulate and distribute, through our post-offices, everything which the press may publish, no matter whether it shall promote insurrection and civil war or not. This is the proposition which he must establish. All the gentleman’s remarks in favor of the liberty of the press met his cordial approbation; but they did not apply to the constitutional question then under discussion. He had argued this question precisely as if, in addition to the words already in the Constitution, that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” there had been inserted, “or to prevent the circulation of any production of the press through the post-offices.” But these words were not in the instrument; and the only question was, whether the one prohibition could be inferred from the other. Mr. B. said he was in favor of a plain and literal construction of the Constitution. He took it for his guide; and he could never consent to interpolate what its framers never intended should be there. They have conferred upon Congress, in express terms, a general discretion in regard to the Post Office Department; and the question then was, shall we exercise it in the manner proposed by this bill, for the purpose of preventing servile war, bloodshed and disunion?

How had the gentleman from Massachusetts met his argument? He says that the principles upon which the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) and himself had sustained this bill, were at variance with each other; and that this of itself was sufficient to cast doubt over the measure. But was it the first time the gentleman had known correct conclusions to be drawn from varying or even unfounded premises? The bill itself ought not to be condemned for the arguments of its friends. He would remind the gentleman of the advice given by a distinguished English judge, to a young friend about to occupy a judicial station in the West Indies, which was, never to give reasons for his judgments, where it could be avoided; because his natural sense and perception of justice would almost always enable him to decide correctly, though he might, and probably often would, assign insufficient reasons for his decisions. This bill ought to be judged by its own provisions, and ought not to be condemned for the reasons in support of it which had been advanced either by the Senator from South Carolina or himself.

The Senator from Massachusetts had argued as though he (Mr. B.) had said, that as the end proposed by this measure was good, he should vote for it, notwithstanding the means might be unconstitutional.

[Here Mr. Webster explained, and said he had not imputed to Mr. B. such an argument.]

Mr. B. proceeded. The Senator did not mean this imputation; but his argument seemed to imply as much. However necessary he might believe this bill to be, if he did not find a clear warrant for its passage in the Constitution, it should never have his support. He never could believe that this Government, having exclusive control over the Post-Office Department in all its various relations, was yet so impotent to prevent evil, that it must, under the fundamental law which called it into existence, whether it would or not, distribute publications tending directly to promote servile insurrection, and to produce its own destruction.

The Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) had misapprehended him in one particular. He (Mr. B.) had disclaimed all authority to pass this bill derived from State laws, or from any other source than the Constitution of the United States. He had not said he would vote for a similar bill in all cases where the State Legislatures might think proper to pass laws to prohibit the circulation of any publication whatever. He considered the passage of such laws merely as evidence of the necessity for legislation by Congress; but he was very far from adopting the principle that it should be conclusive evidence in all cases. Congress must judge for itself under all the circumstances of each particular case.

In reply to the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. B. said that this bill would not be a penal law. Everything like a penalty had been stricken from its provisions, unless the removal of a deputy postmaster from office by the Postmaster General might be viewed in that light. By it we merely directed our agent not to violate State laws by distributing publications calculated to excite insurrection. He would not have occasion to study all the laws of all the States on the subject of slavery, as the Senator from Massachusetts had alleged. All that would be required of him was to know the laws of the State of which he was a citizen, and to take care not to violate them.

The gentleman had said that he (Mr. B.) had mistaken the recommendation contained in the President’s message. Now he undertook to assert that this bill was in conformity with the recommendation of the President, and carried it out in all essential particulars.

[Here Mr. B. again read the last paragraph of the message which he had read before.]

Now, sir, (said Mr. B.) does not the President expressly assert that Congress has authority to regulate what shall be distributed through the post-offices, and does he not “suggest the propriety of passing such a law as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection?” Except that this bill contained no severe penalties, it was framed both in its spirit and in its letter according to the suggestion of the President. What other bill could we pass of a milder character than the one now before us, to prevent the circulation of these incendiary publications? Let the President’s recommendation be entitled to what weight it might, this bill was in exact accordance with it.

The Senator from Massachusetts had contended that this bill conferred upon deputy postmasters the power of depriving individuals of their property in newspapers and other publications, in violation of that clause in the Constitution, which declares that no person shall be deprived of his property without due process of law. By this bill we had not attempted to shield any postmaster from legal responsibilityresponsibility for his conduct. We could not do so, if we would. We had merely prescribed for him, as we had done for our other agents, the line of his duty. We did not attempt to protect him from the suit of any person who might consider himself aggrieved. If any individual to whom a publication was directed, and who had demanded it from the postmaster and had been refused, should believe our law to be unconstitutional, he might bring this question before the judiciary, and try it, like any other question. All our officers and agents are liable to be sued, and if the law under which they acted should prove to be unconstitutional, it would afford them no protection. On the present occasion we proposed to proceed in the spirit of the common law principle, that any individual may abate a nuisance; though he thereby rendered himself responsible, in case it should appear afterwards that the thing abated was not a nuisance. So here, the postmaster refusing to deliver a newspaper under our law, would be responsible in damages to the party aggrieved, in case it should appear that the law under which he had acted was unconstitutional.

As to the necessity for passing this bill, he should say but a few words. It was very easy for gentlemen to say that necessity was the plea of tyrants. He admitted it had been so, and would be so in all time to come. But after all, if we possessed the power to legislate in this case, from our situation we were compelled to judge whether it was necessary to call it into efficient action or not. This duty devolved upon us. We could not avoid deciding this question. Was it not, then, within our knowledge that the slaveholding States had been attempted to be flooded with pamphlets and pictorial representations calculated to excite servile insurrection? Had we not seen upon this floor many of these pictorial representations, whose direct effect would be to excite the wild and brutal passions of the slaves to cut the throats of their masters? Within the last few months, had there not been blood shed? and had there not been several attempted insurrections in some of the Southern States? These facts were incontestable. Believing and knowing all this to be true, he said the case of necessity, in his judgment, was fully established, and he should vote for the passage of the bill.

Mr. Cuthbert (of Georgia) was not desirous to throw himself into the current of this debate at this time. The position which he held—the infrequency of his occupying that floor, and the indisposition under which he labored, authorized him to expect the attention of the Senate for a short time, when he should be better able to address them than he then was. He therefore hoped the Senate would indulge him in an opportunity of being heard on the subject, by postponing it, to be taken up within a very short period. It appeared to him that the Senator from Pennsylvania had said precisely what should have been said in support of this bill. It appeared to him that that Senator had given an unanswerable reply to the Senator from Massachusetts on points on which he principally relied for his opposition to the measure before them. What is the state of the case (said Mr. C.)? The deputy postmaster in one of the States holds in his hand an incendiary publication, intended to carry blood and desolation through the land. Is he bound in duty to hold it from circulation? If he gives it to another, the evil intended by that publication will ensue; but then your officer, contends the Senator from Massachusetts, is bound to deliver it, because you have no power to pass a law abridging the freedom of the press. According to this doctrine, that which an individual cannot do, your officer is bound to do. It appeared to him that the obvious necessity of this law was to prevent the post-office agents from committing a criminal offence against the laws of the States, and then shielding themselves under the post-office law. But the Senator from Massachusetts had not met this point, but had rather evaded and played around it. This was a question which should not be discussed with the chicanery of a pettifogging lawyer, but should be considered with those enlarged ideas and noble sentiments which belong to the statesman. They should argue it as became enlightened patriots, anxious to promote harmony and good feeling through our common country, and to preserve all its parts from the dangers of insurrection.

He denied that property could be affected by this law, as contended by the Senator from Massachusetts. There could be no property in these incendiary publications. The postmaster holds in his hand that which, by the laws of the States, is in the condition of stolen property, and he is bound to give it back. He holds in his hand what, by his own judgment, he considers not to be property—which his own judgment condemns, and he is therefore bound to resign it. The Senator from Massachusetts said, rightly, that the person to whom this publication is directed may come forward and demand it, under the provision of this law. Now, if the Senator thought there was anything wanting in this provision of the bill, why did he not propose an amendment? If he did propose any, he (Mr. C.) had not heard it. The property is not to be destroyed; it must be returned to him who sent it.

In another point of view (Mr. C. said), the postmaster must judge whether these papers are legal or not. He holds in his hand papers which the laws of his State have said shall not be circulated, under a penalty. Is he not to decide whether he shall incur that penalty or not? How stood the argument of the Senator from Massachusetts? He requires that the officer shall violate the laws of his State, or that the General Government shall protect him in it. With regard to the members that compose the Senate, every gentleman was conscious in his own breast of a strong desire to prevent the evils of a servile war in the Southern States. Of this he was confident. But with regard to the Senator from Massachusetts, he should be guilty of a want of candor if he allowed him that clearness of judgment which belonged to the statesman; he should be wanting in that sincerity of heart on which he had ever prided himself, if he declared his conviction that the honorable Senator had treated this subject with the liberal and impartial spirit it deserved. The gentleman’s course had uniformly been opposed to all those measures which tended to quiet the country, and heal those sectional dissensions which disturb the Union.

When a large and overwhelming vote was taken in the Senate, on the motion of the Senator from Pennsylvania, believed by all to be so necessary to settle a question, threatening the most fearful consequences, it was held to be highly desirable that there should be an unanimous vote. Yet, on an occasion when the Senator could well have shown a desire to harmonize and conciliate, his vote was found in the negative. Again, the Senator from Massachusetts had put forth a paper calculated to excite great distrust in the body of the people affected by it. He alluded to the resolutions adopted at a meeting held in Boston on the subject of slavery, of which the gentleman was said to be the author, in which it was declared that Congress had the power to regulate the transfer of slaves from one State to another. Mr. C. said that he had addressed the Senate but seldom, and as he wished to be heard on this subject more at large, when his health was better and under more favorable circumstances, he hoped the Senate would indulge him by a postponement.

Mr. Webster said that he had heard the remarks of the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Cuthbert) with attention and with respect; and considering his speech of a personal character, it became him to notice it; but as the gentleman proposed to discuss this subject more at large when his health was better, and, as he said, under circumstances less tending to irritation, he should postpone his reply till then. He should hear the gentleman with pleasure, and he looked forward to it with much solicitude, and should endeavor to reply to him according to his best abilities. Mr. W. then entered into a lengthy reply to the remarks of Mr. Buchanan, in the course of which he contended that the law was unnecessary, because the States had at present the power to punish the deputy postmasters who should circulate incendiary publications in violation of their laws.

Mr. Buchanan did not rise again to argue the question. He did not feel any petty desire to have the last word. He should now merely remark that the Senator from Massachusetts, in his last observations, had done nothing more than again to restate his proposition, without offering any new argument in its support. He reminded him of another powerful man, in the ancient time, who was condemned to roll a large stone to the top of a mountain, which was always falling back upon him, and which he never could accomplish. The gentleman’s position was one which even his great powers did not enable him to maintain.

Mr. B. should not again have risen but for the purpose of making a single remark. The Senator from Massachusetts had just expressed the opinion that deputy postmasters could be punished, under State authority, for circulating inflammatory pamphlets and papers in violation of State laws. If this be true, then all the power over the post-office which we confer by this bill already exists in the States. The effect of it, then, will be nothing more than to express our assent to the exercise of a power over deputy postmasters by the States, which the gentleman admits to exist already. Upon this principle there can be no objection to the adoption of the present measure.

Mr. Cuthbert only rose to repeat the request that the Senate would, by the postponement of the subject to a short day, allow him an opportunity of being heard on it when his health was better.

Mr. C. then moved to lay the bill on the table; which motion was lost.

The bill was then rejected by the following vote:

Yeas—Messrs. Black, Brown, Buchanan, Calhoun, Cuthbert, Grundy, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Mangum, Moore, Nicholas, Porter, Preston, Rives, Robinson, Tallmadge, Walker, White and Wright—19.

Nays—Messrs. Benton, Clay, Crittenden, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Hendricks, Hubbard, Kent, Knight, Leigh, McKean, Morris, Naudain, Niles, Prentiss, Ruggles, Shepley, Southard, Swift, Tipton, Tomlinson, Wall, and Webster—25.

During this session of Congress (1836), Michigan sought admission into the Union. The following speech was made by Mr. Buchanan on the first of April, in reply to some of the arguments against the admission of that State:

Mr. President: Nothing was more remote from my intention, when I closed my remarks on Wednesday last, than again to address you on the subject of the admission of Michigan into the Union; but my argument on that occasion has been so strongly assailed by the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Southard), and other gentlemen, that I feel myself almost constrained to reply. Even under this strong necessity, I would not now trespass upon your time, if I believed I should thus provoke a protracted debate, and thereby prevent the decision of the question before we adjourn this afternoon.

I shall undertake to demonstrate, notwithstanding all that has been said, that under the ordinance of 1787, aliens who were residents of the Northwestern Territory, had a clear right to exercise the elective franchise.

The territory ceded by Virginia to the United States was sufficiently extensive for an immense empire. The parties to this compact of cession contemplated that it would form five sovereign States of this Union. At that early period we had just emerged from our revolutionary struggle, and none of the jealousy was then felt against foreigners, and particularly against Irish foreigners, which now appears to haunt some gentlemen. There had then been no attempts made to get up a native American party in this country. The blood of the gallant Irish had flowed freely upon every battle-field in defence of the liberties which we now enjoy. Besides, the Senate will well recollect that the ordinance was passed before the adoption of our present Constitution, and whilst the power of naturalization remained with the several States. In some, and perhaps in all of them, it required so short a residence, and so little trouble, to be changed from an alien to a citizen, that the process could be performed without the least difficulty. I repeat that no jealousy whatever then existed against foreigners.

What, at that early period, was the condition of the vast Territory, part of which has been formed into the State of Michigan? It was a wilderness and a frontier. The wise men of the old Congress who framed this ordinance desired to promote its population, and to render it a barrier against foreign invasion. They were willing that all persons, whether citizens of any of the States, or foreigners, who should establish a fixed residence in the Territory, and become the owners of a freehold, might not only enjoy the privilege of voting, but that of holding offices. In regard to the construction of the ordinance itself, I shall not follow in detail the argument of the Senator from New Jersey. Indeed, I do not consider it a question for construction. The language is so plain, that he who runs may read. No ingenuity can cast the slightest shade of doubt over it.

The ordinance declares that “so soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants of full age, in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they shall receive authority, with time and place, to elect representatives from their counties or townships, to represent them in the general assembly; provided that, for every five hundred free male inhabitants, there shall be one representative, and so on, progressively, with the number of free male inhabitants, shall the right of representation increase, until the number of representatives shall amount to twenty-five; after which the number and proportion of representatives shall be regulated by the legislature; provided, that no person be eligible or qualified to act as a representative, unless he shall have been a citizen of one of the United States three years, and be a resident in the district, or unless he shall have resided in the district three years; and in either case, shall likewise hold in his own right, in fee simple, two hundred acres of land within the same; provided also, that a freehold of fifty acres of land in the district, having been a citizen of one of the States, and being resident in the district, or the like freehold and two years residence in the district, shall be necessary to qualify a man as an elector of a representative.”

Now, sir, I have said that this language is too plain for construction. When had the people of this Territory the right to elect representatives? Was it when there were five thousand free male citizens within its borders? By no means; but as soon as there were that number of free male inhabitants, whether citizens or not. Who were entitled to vote at these elections? They, referring directly and immediately to the five thousand free male inhabitants of full age.

The subsequent portion of the clause which I have just read, makes this question, if possible, still plainer. It divides those capable of being elected representatives, as well as the electors, into two distinct classes, conferring advantages, in both cases, upon those inhabitants who had been citizens of one of the States for a period of three years. If a candidate for the House of Representatives had been “a citizen of one of the United States three years,” he was eligible, although he might not have been a resident of the Territory for more than a single day. Nothing more, in this case, is required than that he should be a resident. No period of residence was necessary. If the candidate, on the other hand, belonged to the second class—if he had been a naturalized citizen of one of the States for less than three years, or if he still continued to be an alien, in order to render him eligible as a representative, he must “have resided in the district three years.” In short, if he had been a citizen for three years, it was no matter how brief his residence might have been; but if “a free male inhabitant” of any other description, a residence of three years was indispensable. A similar distinction prevails in regard to the electors. “A citizen“A citizen of any of the States, if a resident of the district but for a single day, had a right to exercise the elective franchise. If, on the other hand, he were not a citizen, “two years residence in the district” was required.

The property qualification was the same both for citizens and for other residents.

[Mr. Buchanan here read other portions of the ordinance to prove that its framers were careful in their use of terms, and always distinguished with great precision, between the use of the words “free male inhabitants,” and “citizens of one of the United States,” etc. He also referred, as a further proof of his position, to the language of that portion of the ordinance which provides for the election of the legislative council.]

Now, sir, said Mr. B., have I not clearly established the position, that, under this ordinance, aliens were entitled to elect and to be elected, provided they had resided a sufficient time in the territory, and were possessed of the necessary freehold qualification? If I can comprehend the meaning of the plainest English words, neither doubt nor difficulty can longer rest upon this question.

But it has been urged that in order to become a freeholder, a person must first have been a citizen of one of the States. In reply, I might content myself by saying that this is begging the question. It is assuming the very proposition to be proved. But I shall give this objection two answers. In the first place, although I have become somewhat rusty in my legal knowledge, yet I feel perfectly safe in asserting, that, under the strict principles of the common law of England, an alien may purchase real estate, may hold real estate, may transmit real estate to his heirs, or devise it by his will. His title is good against all mankind, except the crown; and can only be divested by what in technical language is termed “an office found” in favor of the king. Admitting that the Government in this country possessed the same right, they have, in the most solemn terms, abandoned it, by holding out inducements, under the ordinance, to foreigners, to become the proprietors of real estate within the Northwestern Territory.

An answer still more conclusive may be given to this objection. The old Congress which framed the ordinance had the unquestionable power to enable aliens to purchase and hold real estate. It was their policy to promote the settlement of this Territory; and for this purpose they have plainly declared, by the ordinance, that aliens, or in other words, that any free male inhabitant, might hold real estate. Even at this day aliens, without any restriction, purchase lands from the United States. To lure them to make purchases, as we have done, and then to attempt to forfeit their estates, would be a violation of every principle of justice and public faith.

The Congress of the United States have repeatedly, in relation to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, placed the same construction on this ordinance which I have done. I shall not exhaust either myself, or the Senate, by referring to more than one or two of these instances. In April, 1802, when Congress passed the act authorizing the people of Ohio to form a constitution and State government, it became necessary to prescribe the qualifications of the electors of delegates to the convention. They performed this duty in the fourth section of that act. It declares as follows: “That all male citizens of the United States who shall have arrived at full age, and resided within the said Territory at least one year previous to the day of election, and shall have paid a territorial or county tax, and all persons having, in other respects, the legal qualifications to vote for representatives in the general assembly of the territory, be, and they are hereby, authorized to choose representatives to form a convention.”

Who were these persons having, in other respects, the legal qualifications to vote for Territorial representatives? Let the ordinance itself answer this question. They were free male persons, not citizens of the United States, who held a freehold in fifty acres of land within the Territory, and had resided there for two years. Congress, actuated by the more liberal and enlightened spirit of the age, in the year 1802, dispensed with the freehold qualification in regard to citizens of the United States. They suffered it to remain, however, in relation to those persons within the Territory who were not citizens: but who possessed the legal qualifications, in other respects, to vote for Territorial representatives.

I shall merely refer to another instance in the case of Illinois. On the 20th May, 1812, Congress passed an act to extend the right of suffrage in that Territory. Under this act, no freehold was necessary, in any case, to the exercise of the elective franchise. The spirit of the age had corrected this error in politics. I am glad of it. Our own experience has taught us that the citizen, in humble circumstances, who pays his personal tax, feels as deep an interest in the welfare of the country, and would make as many sacrifices to promote its prosperity and glory, as the man who has an income of thousands from his real estate. Wealth has never been, and never can be, a true standard of patriotism. By the first section of this act, Congress declared that “each and every free white male person, who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, and who shall have paid a county or Territorial tax, and who shall have resided one year in said Territory previous to any general election, and be, at the time of such election, a resident thereof, shall be entitled to vote for members of the legislative council and house of representatives for the said Territory.” You perceive, sir, that Congress, by this act, no longer retained the distinction which they had established in regard to Ohio, between citizens of the United States and persons in other respects entitled to vote for members of the Territorial legislature. They are all blended together into the same mass, and the elective franchise is conferred upon them all, under the denomination of free white male persons, who have paid taxes and resided one year in the Territory. The phrase citizens of the United States does not once occur in the act. In the second and third sections these free white male persons are denominated citizens of the Territory, not citizens of the United States. Under the ordinance of 1787, they were, in fact, constituted citizens of the Territory; and this phraseology is, therefore, perfectly correct.

The Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Southard) has undertaken the Herculean task of proving that neither the ordinance nor the act of 1802, in relation to Ohio, nor the act to which I have just referred, nor the other similar acts conferred upon any persons not citizens of the United States the right of voting. How far he has been successful, I shall leave for the Senate to judge.

These portions of the ordinance to which I have heretofore referred were subject to the control of Congress. They have been modified and changed in several instances, some of which have been referred to and commented upon in this debate. But I now come to speak of one of those articles of the ordinance, essential to the correct decision of this question, which is placed beyond the power of Congress. To use its own emphatic language, they “shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the said Territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent.” This solemn agreement has been confirmed by the Constitution of the United States. No person either denies or doubts the sacred character and the binding force of this contract. The fifth of these articles of this ordinance declares as follows: “And whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever; and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government; provided the constitution and government so to be formed shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and, so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the State than sixty thousand.”

Now, sir, under this provision, these sixty thousand free inhabitants had a right to frame a constitution whenever they pleased. They had a right to determine which of them should be electors of delegates to their own convention for that purpose, and which of them should not. It rested solely within their own discretion, whether the elective franchise should be confined to the citizens of the United States, or be extended to other inhabitants of the Territory. It was the right and the duty of Congress first to determine the boundaries of the States to be formed within the limits of the Northwestern Territory. Had this duty been performed, the free inhabitants of Michigan, after they amounted to sixty thousand, would have become a distinct political community under the ordinance. They would have possessed the sovereign right to form a constitution; and if the constitution were republican, and in conformity to the ordinance, they might have demanded admission, by their delegates, into the Congress of the United States. They could not have been refused without a direct violation of the solemnly pledged faith of the nation. If Congress had objected that persons, not citizens of the United States, had been permitted to vote at the election for delegates, they might have triumphantly presented this ordinance, and declared that the question was settled by its terms and its spirit; that the time had arrived when they were entitled to shake off their Territorial dependence, and assume an equal rank with the other States of the Union. Throughout the ordinance there is a marked distinction between “free inhabitants” and “citizens of the United States.”

It is true that Congress have never yet determined the boundaries of the State of Michigan; but their omission to do so could not affect, in any degree, the right of the free male inhabitants to vote for delegates to the convention which framed their constitution. As soon as Michigan shall have been admitted into the Union, the boundaries of Wisconsin will then be irrevocably determined. It will be the last of the five States into which the Northwestern Territory can be divided under the terms of the ordinance. When that Territory shall contain sixty thousand free inhabitants, they will have an absolute right to demand admission, as a State, into the Union, and we cannot refuse to admit them without violating the public faith. Still, I should not advise them to frame a constitution without a previous act of Congress.

The precedent in the case of Tennessee, on which I commented when I addressed the Senate on Wednesday last, has completely silenced all opposition in regard to the necessity of a previous act of Congress to enable the people of Michigan to form a State constitution. It now seems to be conceded, that our subsequent approbation is equivalent to our previous action. This can no longer be doubted. We have the unquestionable power of waiving any irregularities in the method of framing the constitution, had any such existed. It is wiser, I admit, for Congress, in the first instance, to pass such an act; but, after they had refused to do so, from year to year, the people of Michigan had no other alternative but either to take the matter into their own hands, or abandon the hope of admission into the Union, within any reasonable time.

But I am not done with this Tennessee precedent.

It will be recollected that when North Carolina ceded to the United States the territory which now composes the State of Tennessee, it was specially stipulated that the inhabitants within the same should “enjoy all the privileges, benefits and advantages,” set forth in the ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory. This provision makes the case of Tennessee one precisely in point with the present. I would ask, then, who voted at the election for delegates to frame the constitution of Tennessee? Let the proclamation of Governor Blount, issued in obedience to an act of the Territorial legislature, answer this question. He declares “that all free males (not free male citizens,) twenty-one years of age and upwards,” shall be entitled to vote. Under this proclamation every free male inhabitant of the Territory had a right to vote, no matter how short a time his inhabitancy may have continued. In this respect it differs from the Territorial law of Michigan, which requires a previous residence of three months.

With a full knowledge of these facts, General Washington, in his message to Congress of the 8th of April, 1796, on the subject of the admission of Tennessee into the Union, declares that “among the privileges, benefits and advantages thus secured to the inhabitants of the Territory south of the river Ohio, appear to be the right of forming a permanent constitution and state of government, and of admission as a State by its delegates into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, when it should have therein sixty thousand free inhabitants; provided the constitution and government so to be formed should be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in the articles of the said ordinance.”

The State of Tennessee was accordingly admitted. At this early day, when the ordinance was better understood than it can be at present, no objection was made from any quarter, so far as I can learn, that delegates to the convention which formed the constitution of that State, were voted for by inhabitants who were not citizens of the United States. Certain it is, that no such question was raised by General Washington. Even Mr. King, whose report was decidedly adverse to the admission of this State, never, in the most distant manner, adverts to this objection which has now been so strongly urged by Senators.

I stated when I last addressed the Senate, as a proposition clearly established, that under the ordinance, the States formed out of the Northwestern Territory had a right to confer the elective franchise upon the inhabitants resident within them at the time of the adoption of their constitutions, whether they were citizens or not. I then also asserted, that the States of Ohio and Illinois had not only exercised this power to the extent which Michigan had done, but had gone much further. They had not, like Michigan, confined the elective franchise to inhabitants actually resident within their respective States, at the time of the adoption of their constitutions; but had made a general provision by which all such inhabitants, though not citizens, would be entitled to vote in all future time. These positions, which I thought impregnable, have been violently assailed; and it has been contended that, under the provisions of these constitutions, no persons, except citizens of the United States, are entitled to vote. This renders it necessary that I should again turn to these constitutions. The first section of the fourth article of the constitution of Ohio declares, that “in all elections, all white male inhabitants, above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the State one year next preceding the election, and who have paid, or are charged with, a State or county tax, shall enjoy the right of an elector; but no person shall be entitled to vote, except in the county or district in which he shall actually reside at the time of the election.” The fifth section of the same article varies the expression, and confers the right of voting “on white male persons,” who are compelled to labor on the roads. These “white male inhabitants,” or “white male persons,” are not required to be citizens of the United States. The terms are as general as they can be. They embrace all persons, whether citizens of the United States or not, who have resided within the State for one year, and are in other respects qualified. Besides, it would be easy to show, by adverting to other parts of this constitution, that the framers of it, in several cases, when they intended to confine its benefits to citizens of the United States, have so declared in express terms. We have heard it stated that by a judicial decision, the right to vote has been restricted to citizens of the United States. This decision has not been produced. I should be very much pleased to see it. I am aware that judicial construction can work wonders; but if any court has decided that “all white male inhabitants,” or “white male persons,” are restricted in their meaning to white male citizens of the United States, it is a stretch of judicial construction which surpasses anything of which I could have conceived.

The constitution of Illinois is still more general in its provisions. It declares that “in all elections, all white male inhabitants, above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the State six months, next preceding the election, shall enjoy the right of an elector; but no person shall be entitled to vote except in the county or district in which he shall actually reside at the time of the election.” We have been informed by the Senators from Illinois, that the practice of that State has always conformed to the plain meaning of the constitution. At this day, any alien, who has resided within that State for six months, is in the full enjoyment of the elective franchise. Indeed, this privilege has induced aliens to settle in that State in preference to others where they cannot vote until after they have become citizens of the United States.

Now, sir, I wish to be fairly understood upon this question. As a general principle, I do not think that any State of this Union ought to permit any person to exercise the right of an elector who is not either a native or a naturalized citizen of the United States. There may have been, and I think there was, a propriety in conferring the elective franchise upon the inhabitants of the Territory, actually resident therein, although not citizens, who had a right under the ordinance to participate in the formation of the constitution. Beyond this, the power, even under the ordinance, is extremely doubtful. Michigan has wisely confined herself within these limits. She has not followed the example of Ohio and Illinois. These States have been admitted into the Union, notwithstanding the extravagant provisions in their constitutions in favor of foreigners. Would it not then be extremely ungracious to exclude Michigan, when no foreigner can ever hereafter enjoy the right of voting, except such as were resident within the limits of the State at the time of the formation of her constitution?

According to the census, it would appear that not more than from five to six hundred aliens could have been in that situation. At the present time it is probable that many of these have become naturalized citizens. The evil, if it be one, is very small. Within a short period it will entirely disappear. Would it be wise, would it be politic, would it be statesman-like, to annul all that has been done by the convention of Michigan, merely for this reason? Ought we, on this account, to defer the final settlement of the disputed boundary between Ohio and Michigan, and thus again give rise to anarchy and confusion, and perhaps to the shedding of blood? Do you feel confident, that the people of Michigan, after you have violated their rights, by refusing to admit them into the Union at this time, would ever act under your law authorizing them to form a new constitution? We must all desire to see this unfortunate boundary question settled; and the passage of this bill presents the best, if not the only means, of accomplishing a result so desirable.

Have the people of Michigan, or any portion of them, ever complained of this part of their constitution? I would ask, by what authority have the Senators from Ohio and New Jersey (Messrs. Ewing and Southard) raised this objection, whilst the people themselves are content? Even if they did commit an error in this respect, we ought to treat them as children, and not as enemies. It is the part of greatness and magnanimity to pass over unimportant errors of judgment committed by those who are, in some degree, dependent upon us. It would, indeed, be a severe measure of justice, for the Congress of the United States, after having admitted Ohio and Illinois into the Union, to close the door of admission against Michigan. This, in truth, would be straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel.

Suppose you deprive the people of Michigan of a territory to which they all believe, however erroneously, they have a right, and transfer it to Ohio, and then drive them from your door and refuse to admit them into the Union; can any Senator here view the probable consequences with composure? They are a high-spirited and manly people. You cannot blame them for that. They are bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh. They have been taught, by your example, to resist what they believe to be oppression. Will they patiently submit to your decree? Will they tamely surrender up to Ohio that territory of which they have been in possession for thirty years? Their past history proves conclusively that they will maintain what they believe to be their rights, to the death. You may have civil war as the direct consequence of your vote this day. Should the amendment of the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Ewing) prevail, whilst it will leave unsettled the question of boundary so important to his own State, it may, and probably will produce, scenes of bloodshed and civil war along the boundary line. I have expressed the opinion, that Congress possess the power of annexing the territory in dispute to the State of Ohio, and that it is expedient to exercise it. The only mode of extorting a reluctant consent from the people of Michigan to this disposition, is to make it a condition of their admission, under their present constitution, into the Union. The bill proposes to do so, and, in my humble judgment, Ohio is deeply interested in its passage.

I shall now, following the example of my friend from New York (Mr. Wright), proceed to make some suggestions upon another point. They are intended merely as suggestions, for I can say with truth I have formed no decided opinion upon the subject. A friend called to see me last evening, and attempted to maintain the proposition that the several States, under the Constitution of the United States, and independent of the ordinance applicable to the Northwestern Territory, had the power of conferring the right to vote upon foreigners resident within their territories. This opinion was at war with all my former impressions. He requested me to do as he had done, and to read over the Constitution of the United States carefully, with a view to this question. I have complied with his request, and shall now throw out a few suggestions upon this subject, merely to elicit the opinion of others.

The older I grow, the more I am inclined to be what is called “a State rights man.” The peace and security of this Union depend upon giving to the Constitution a literal and fair construction, such as would be placed upon it by a plain, intelligent man, and not by ingenious constructions, to increase the powers of this Government, and thereby diminish those of the States. The rights of the States, reserved to them by that instrument, ought ever to be held sacred. If then the Constitution leaves to them to decide according to their own discretion, unrestricted and unlimited, who shall be electors, it follows as a necessary consequence that they may, if they think proper, confer upon resident aliens the right of voting.

It has been supposed, and is perhaps generally believed, that this power has been abridged by that clause in the Constitution which declares, that “the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.” Does then a State, by conferring upon a person, not a citizen of the United States, the privilege of voting, necessarily constitute him a citizen of such State? Is the elective franchise so essentially connected with the citizenship, that the one cannot exist without the other? This is the question. If it be so, no State can exercise this power; because, no State, by bestowing upon an alien the privilege of voting, can make him a citizen of that State, and thereby confer upon him “the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.” Citizens are either natives of the country, or they are naturalized. To Congress exclusively belongs the power of naturalization; and I freely admit, that no foreigner can become a citizen of the United States, but by complying with the provisions of the acts of Congress upon this subject. But still we are brought back to the question, may not a State bestow upon a resident alien the right to vote, within its limits, as a personal privilege, without conferring upon him the other privileges of citizenship, or ever intending to render it obligatory upon the other States to receive him as a citizen? Might not Virginia refuse to a foreigner who had voted in Illinois, without having been naturalized, “the privileges and immunities” of one of her citizens, without any violation of the Constitution of the United States? Would such an alien have any pretext for claiming, under the Constitution of the United States, the right to vote within a State where citizens of the United States alone are voters?

It is certain that the Constitution of the United States, in the broadest terms, leaves to the States the qualifications of their own electors, or rather it does not restrict them in any manner upon this question. The second section of the first article provides “that the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.” By the first section of the second article, “each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.” Both these provisions seem to recognize in the States the most absolute discretion in deciding who shall be qualified electors. There is no declaration or intimation throughout the whole instrument that these electors shall be citizens of the United States. Are the States not left to exercise this discretion in the same sovereign manner they did before they became parties to the Federal Constitution? There is at least strong plausibility in the argument, especially when we consider that the framers of the Constitution in order more effectually to guard the reserved rights of the States, inserted a provision, “that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Without any stretch of imagination, we might conceive a case in which this question would shake our Union to the very centre. Suppose that the decision of the next Presidential election should depend upon the vote of Illinois; and it could be made to appear, that the aliens who voted under the Constitution in that State, had turned the scale in favor of the successful candidate. What would then be the consequence? Have we a right to rejudge her justice? to interfere with her sovereign rights? to declare that her Legislature could not appoint electors of President and Vice President in such manner as they thought proper, and to annul the election?

It is curious to remark, that except in a few instances, the Constitution of the United States has not prescribed that the officers elected or appointed under its authority, shall be citizens; and we all know in practice, that the Senate have been constantly in the habit of confirming the nominations of foreigners as consuls of the United States. They have repeatedly done so, I believe, in regard to other officers.

I repeat that, on this question, I have formed no fixed opinion one way or the other. On the other points of the case, I entertain the clearest conviction, that Michigan is entitled to admission into the Union.

I have thus completed all I intend to say upon this subject. I have been most reluctantly drawn a second time into this debate. I had the admission of Arkansas specially entrusted to my care. Few, if any, of the objections urged against Michigan, are applicable to Arkansas; but I could not conceal from myself the fact, that the admission of the one depended upon that of the other; and I am equally anxious to receive both the sisters.

The people of Texas were at this time engaged in their revolutionary effort to make themselves independent of Mexico. It was deemed necessary to authorize the President of the United States to accept the services of volunteers for the defence of the frontiers. On a bill introduced for this purpose, and which had passed the House of Representatives, Mr. Buchanan, on the 4th of May, said:

He had no doubt but that the Government of the United States, in regard to Mexico, had pursued, and would pursue, the course which had been sanctioned by all its experience in relation to questions of this kind. One principle had been established in the political history of the country; had grown with its growth, and strengthened with its strength; and without knowing what the President had done or would do in this matter, he had no doubt but he would strictly adhere to that established principle in our institutions, never to interfere with the internal policy or domestic concerns of foreign nations. The famous proclamation of neutrality of General Washington first asserted that principle, and to it our Government had always adhered. We consider, said Mr. B., all nations “enemies in war, and in peace, friends.”

In regard to Mexico, he considered Santa Anna as an usurper. The federal constitution, established for the Republic of Mexico, and which Texas, as a part of that Republic, had sworn to support, had been trampled on by him, and Texas, in his eyes, and in the eyes of all mankind, was justified in rebelling against him. Whether the Texans acted consistently with a true policy at the time, in declaring their independence, he should not discuss, nor should he decide; but as a man and an American, he should be rejoiced to see them successful in maintaining their liberties, and he trusted in God they would be so. He would, however, leave them to rely on their own bravery, with every hope and prayer that the God of battles would shield them with his protection.

If Santa Anna excited the Indians within our territory to deeds of massacre and blood; if he should excite a spirit among them which he cannot restrain; and if, in consequence, the blood of our women and children on the frontier shall flow, he undoubtedly ought to be held responsible. Mr. B. saw a strong necessity for sending a force to the frontiers, not only to restrain the natural disposition of the Indians to deeds of violence, but because they could place no confidence in a man who had so little command of his temper, who had shown so cruel and sanguinary a disposition as Santa Anna had. He was for having a force speedily sent to that frontier, and a force of mounted men or dragoons, as suggested by the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Linn), but he was against interfering in the war now raging in Texas, unless an attack should be made on us.

If it were left for him to decide to which bill a preference should be given by the Senate, he would first take up the bill providing for this additional force for the protection of the frontiers; but he had been instructed by an authority which he was bound to respect and obey, and he must, therefore, vote to take up the land bill. He should vote with the warmest friends of that bill in its favor till it was either carried through or defeated. To-day or to-morrow, the land bill would be finally disposed of; it now stood in the way of everything else; and he would then be for proceeding with the appropriation bills as rapidly as possible. He should have said nothing about instructions, had not this question of preference been brought up. After the decision of the land bill, he should give his hearty support to carry through the bills necessary for the defence of the country, with as much expedition as possible.

Mr. Preston presented the petition of a number of the citizens of Philadelphia, on the subject of the affairs of Texas; and praying Congress to acknowledge the independence of that country.

Mr. Buchanan said he had received several memorials from the city of Philadelphia, of the same character as those which had been presented by the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Preston). He had intended to present them this morning to the Senate, but was prevented from doing so at the proper time by an accidental circumstance. It was also his intention to have accompanied their presentation by some remarks. These he thought best to offer now, rather than to wait until to-morrow morning, and then become instrumental in getting up another debate.

These memorials asked Congress “to recognize the independence of Texas, and at such time, and in such manner, as may be deemed proper, interpose to terminate the conflict which now rages in that country.”

In some remarks, which he had submitted to the Senate a few days since, and which, like all other proceedings in this body, had been much misrepresented abroad, he had indulged the feelings of a man and an American citizen. What he then uttered were the sentiments of his own heart, in relation to the existing trouble in Texas. But when he was called on as a Senator to recognize the independence of that country, he thought it prudent to refer back to the conduct of our ancestors, when placed in similar circumstances, and to derive lessons of wisdom from their example. If there was any one principle of our public policy which had been well settled—one which had been acted upon by every administration, and which had met the approbation not only of this country, but of every civilized government with which we have intercourse, it was that we should never interfere in the domestic concerns of other nations. Recognizing in the people of every nation the absolute right to adopt such forms of government as they thought proper, we had always preserved the strictest neutrality between the parties, in every country, whilst engaged in civil war. We had left all nations perfectly free, so far as we were concerned, to establish, to maintain, or to change their forms of government, according to their own sovereign will and pleasure. It would indeed be surprising, and more than that, it would be unnatural, if the sympathies of the American people should not be deeply, earnestly enlisted in favor of those who drew the sword for liberty throughout the world, no matter where it was raised to strike. Beyond this we had never proceeded.

The peaceful influence of our example upon other nations was much greater—the cause of free government was thus more efficiently promoted than if we should waste the blood and treasure of the people of the United States in foreign wars, waged even to maintain the sacred cause of liberty. The world must be persuaded, it could not be conquered. Besides, said Mr. B., we can never, with any proper regard for the welfare of our constituents, devote their energies and their resources to the cause of planting and sustaining free institutions among the people of other nations.

Acting upon these principles, we had always recognized existing governments de facto, whether they were constitutional or despotic. We had the same amicable relations with despotisms as with free governments; because we had no right to quarrel with people of any nation on account of the form of government which they might think proper to adopt or to sanction. It was their affair, not ours. We would not tolerate such interference from abroad; and we ought to demean ourselves towards foreign nations as we should require them to act towards ourselves.

A very striking illustration of this principle had been presented, during the present administration, in the case of Portugal. We recognized Don Miguel’s government, because he was de facto in possession of the throne, apparently with the consent of the Portuguese people. In this respect, Mr. B. believed, we stood alone, or nearly alone, among the nations of the earth. When he was expelled from that country, and the present queen seemed to be firmly seated upon the throne, we had no difficulty, pursuing our established policy, in recognizing her government.

A still more striking case, and one to the very point in question, had occurred during Mr. Monroe’s administration. The Spanish provinces, throughout the whole continent of America, had raised the standard of rebellion against the king of Spain. They were struggling for liberty against oppression. The feelings of the American people were devotedly enlisted in their favor. Our ardent wishes and our prayers for their success, continued throughout the whole long and bloody conflict. But we took no other part in their cause; and we rendered them no assistance, except the strong moral influence exerted over the world by our well-known feelings and opinions in their favor. When, said Mr. B., did we recognize their independence? Not till after they had achieved it by their arms; not until the contest was over, and victory had perched upon their banners; not until the good fight had been fought and won. We then led the van in acknowledging their independence. But until they were independent in fact, we resisted every effort and every eloquent appeal which was made in their behalf, to induce us to depart from the settled policy of the country. When the fact of their actual independence was established; then, and not till then, did we acknowledge it.

He would rejoice should similar success attend the arms of the Texans. He trusted they would yet conquer their independence against the myrmidons of Santa Anna. In that event, there was no man in the country who would vote more cheerfully to recognize it than himself. Until that time should arrive, he must continue to act upon the firmly established principle which had been our guide for nearly half a century.

Mr. B. believed that no President of the United States had ever been more strongly convinced of the necessity of maintaining this principle inviolate than General Jackson. His whole conduct towards foreign governments had made this manifest. Whilst, said Mr. B., he requires justice from all, he treats all with justice. In his annual message, at the commencement of the present session, he informed Congress that instructions had been given to the district attorneys of the United States, to prosecute all persons who might attempt to violate our neutrality in the civil war between Mexico and Texas. He also stated that he had apprised the government of Mexico that we should require the integrity of our territory to be scrupulously respected by both parties. He thus declared to the world, not only that we had determined to be neutral between the parties, but that our neutrality must be respected by both. This afforded abundant evidence of his disposition neither to interfere with the internal concerns of other nations, nor to submit to any violation of the law of nations by them. Mr. B. entertained not a doubt that the line of conduct which he had marked out for himself, in the beginning, he would pursue until the end, so far as the executive Government was concerned.

It was obviously necessary to concentrate a strong military force on the confines of Texas, not only to enforce our neutrality, but to protect the lives and property of our fellow-citizens. This had been done; but the commanding general had been strictly prohibited from acting, except on the defensive.

Such a force was absolutely necessary to preserve inviolate our treaty with Mexico. Under it, we were bound to maintain peace among the Indian nations along the frontier of the two countries, and to restrain the Indians within our territory by force, if that should become necessary, from making war upon Mexico. This obligation was reciprocal and bound both parties. If the Indians from Texas should be let slip upon our frontier; if they, or Santa Anna, or any other power should attempt to invade our territory, then every American would say, repel force by force, and return blow for blow. Our cause and our quarrel would be just.

But, said Mr. B., let us not, by departing from our settled policy, give rise to the suspicion that we have got up this war for the purpose of wresting Texas from those to whom, under the faith of treaties, it justly belongs. Since the treaty with Spain of 1819, there could no longer be any doubt, but that this province was a part of Mexico. He was sorry for it; but such was the undeniable fact. Let us then follow the course which we had pursued, under similar circumstances, in all other cases.

Mr. B. said his blood boiled whilst contemplating the cruelties and the barbarities which were said to have been committed by the Mexicans in this contest. The heart sickened and revolted at such a spectacle. But, as an American Senator, he could give the Texans nothing except his prayers and his good wishes.

Mr. Calhoun, from the Committee of Conference appointed on the part of the Senate, to confer with a committee of the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses as to the Senate’s amendment to the bill authorizing the President to accept the services of ten thousand volunteers for the defence of the western frontiers, reported that the committees of the two Houses had had a meeting, but that they had not been able to effect the objects for which they were appointed, having sat the whole day without coming to any agreement whatever.

Mr. King of Alabama (from the same committee) observed that it was true that they had come to no agreement on the point at issue between the two Houses, inasmuch as some gentlemen seemed to think that they had the whole bill under consideration, and that they had the power to modify it at pleasure. He hoped that when the Senate again appointed a committee of conference, they would appoint gentlemen who would be willing to confine their deliberations to the subject of disagreement, and not think themselves authorized to take the range of the whole bill.

Mr. Calhoun replied that the committee did confine themselves to the subject of disagreement, until finding that there was no possibility of coming to an agreement on that point, they entered into a more enlarged discussion, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the bill could not be so framed as to meet the concurrence of both Houses. His understanding was, that when a committee of conference came to a proposition that could not be agreed on, the whole subject was open to them.

Mr. King recollected exactly the state of the case. The proposition last made was, that they should extend the term of service of the militia force of the United States for a year, instead of its being a volunteer militia force. This was the last subject of conference; and after talking until half-past five o’clock, the committee found that they could come to no agreement whatever.

Mr. Buchanan said that he had been a member of the Committee of Conference; and if a second committee should now be appointed, he hoped he would be excused from serving upon it. He did not believe that the appointment of the same committee by the Senate and the House could result in any practical good. They had been busily engaged in the Conference Chamber until a late hour yesterday, and when they had separated, they were further, if possible, from agreeing, than when they had first met.

For his own part, he could not feel the force of the constitutional objections which had been made by the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun). It was true that the amendment which had been proposed by the Senate to the bill of the House was somewhat vague and ambiguous in its terms. He had thought, at one time, during the conference, that we should have agreed upon an amendment to the Senate’s amendment, which would have made the bill much more explicit, and would have removed all the constitutional objections of the gentlemen. When it came to the final vote, he found that he had been mistaken.

The amendment proposed in the Committee of Conference provided that none of the officers should be appointed by the President, until the volunteers were actually mustered into the service of the United States. Until that moment, the companies which might be formed would thus be considered as mere voluntary associations, under no pledge whatever, except that of honor, to enter the service of their country. When once, however, this pledge was redeemed—when they were mustered into the service—they became a portion of the army of the United States for the period of six or twelve months; and then there could not possibly be a constitutional objection to the appointment of their officers by the President. Congress possessed the power to raise armies in any manner they thought proper. Whether they obtained soldiers by individual enlistments, or whether the patriotic young men of the country chose to associate together as volunteers, and come in masses, we had an equal right to receive them. The one mode of obtaining soldiers was just as constitutional as the other.

The amendment which had been proposed, whilst it practically insured to the companies the selection of their own company officers, did not interfere with the constitutional powers of the President. The volunteers themselves were to designate such officers, and if the President approved of such designations, these officers would be appointed. This would be the best and strongest recommendation which could be presented to him; and, no doubt, he would always obey the wishes of the companies, unless in cases where powerful and satisfactory reasons existed to render it improper.

Until these volunteers should actually enter the service, they would continue to be militia men of the States, and liable to perform militia duty in the States. Their character would not be changed. They would not constitute a dormant standing army in the States, with officers appointed by the President, as had been urged, but would be mere associations, bound together by no law but that of honor. Such men would always be ready to obey the call of their country in case of necessity.

The Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) did argue that it would be a violation of the Constitution for the President to appoint these officers without the previous advice and consent of the Senate. Whatever doubt might have rested upon this point at the organization of our Government, this power had been exercised, over and over again, ever since the adoption of the Constitution, under all administrations. The precedents were numerous. One act had been read which passed during the late war, conferring upon the President, in express terms, the power of appointing all the officers of the military force to be raised under its provisions, but requiring him to submit these appointments to the Senate for their approbation at the next session. The very same thing was proposed to be done by this act, in regard to all the officers above the rank of captain.

He was afraid to trust his memory in attempting to state the proceedings of the Committee of Conference. So much had been said, that he could not, if he would, undertake to report it all. We did not confine ourselves to the point of disagreement between the two Houses; but almost every question relating to the military defence of the country had been ably and eloquently discussed. He had derived much information on this subject from the members of that committee.

There was one fact which he would mention, and which demanded the serious consideration of the country at the present crisis. A gallant and distinguished officer, who was a member of the committee, (Gen. Ripley) had stated, that, according to his recollection, the history of our Indian wars did not present a single case in which a volunteer force had been beaten by the Indians. Our disasters in this kind of warfare had always been suffered by the regular troops. Our recent experience was certainly in accordance with this statement. This important fact, however, established the necessity of raising volunteer corps, in some form or other, composed of the brave and hardy youth, accustomed to the modes of Indian warfare, and who were able and willing to fight the Indians, man to man, according to their own custom. Such men would best protect our citizens from the ravages of the Indians, and would soon put an end to the Creek war.

He had said more than he intended, as his chief object in rising had been to request that he might not be appointed a member of the new Committee of Conference.

Mr. Buchanan could not now but hope, after having heard the observations of the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun), that a Committee of Conference might yet agree upon some compromise which would be acceptable to both Houses. He now believed, from what he had just heard from several members of the other House, that another committee ought to be appointed.

The Senator from South Carolina had not, he believed, denied any of the positions which he had stated. They did not materially differ as to their constitutional views on this subject. His (Mr. B.’s) positions were these: that any number of individuals within the States might associate together, either in companies, battalions, or divisions, for the purpose of entering the army of the United States, for six or for twelve months, upon any contingency which might render their services necessary; that these associations would be voluntary and not compulsory; and would be held together by no tie but that sense of honor which binds a man to enter the service of his country, after he has declared, in the presence of the world, that such was his determination; and that these volunteers, after having arrived at the place of rendezvous, and after having been mustered into service, but not before, became a part of the regular army of the United States; and the President could then, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint their officers. At one period of the conference, he had believed that the committee would arrive at these conclusions.

One of the objections of the Senator from South Carolina was, that the appointment of the captains of companies and other inferior officers ought, like that of the superior officers, to be submitted to the Senate. Mr. B. had been perfectly willing and was still willing to adopt this modification. He could not, however, agree, nor did he understand the gentleman now to insist upon it, that these offices could not be filled without the previous advice of the Senate. Such a provision would render the law perfectly nugatory. We might not, and probably would not, be in session when these appointments must be made. The same necessity which the gentleman alleges to have existed during the late war, for authorizing the President to make appointments, during the recess of the Senate, will exist in regard to the appointments to be made under this act.—Besides, whatever might be our opinion in regard to the power of the President, if the question were now, for the first time, submitted to us, Congress have so often authorized him to make appointments, during the recess, to be submitted to the Senate at its next session, that this constitutional question must be considered as settled.

As to the act of 1812, which had just been cited by the other Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Preston), he thought it went too far. He would not say that it was unconstitutional, because he had not examined the subject sufficiently to express a positive opinion. This he would say, however, that it did authorize the existence of a dormant military force within the several States, commanded by officers appointed by the President of the United States, and liable to be called into service at any moment he might think proper. The individuals composing this force were exempted from militia duty within the States. Upon the principles contained in this act, the militia of the several States might be subverted, and a national militia, under the command of national officers, might be substituted in its stead. This would certainly be at war with the spirit of the Constitution, which reserves to the States respectively the appointment of the officers of the militia, and the authority of training them according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. The militia emphatically belongs to the States, and not to the General Government; and it might be very dangerous for the States to surrender their control over this force into the hands of Congress.

Under the act cited by the gentleman, a portion of the militia was taken from the control of the States, and relieved from the performance of militia duty, whilst they remained in the heart of the country, mixed up with the other citizens. This did seem to him to interfere with the power of the States over their militia, contrary to the provisions of the Constitution. But these objections did not apply to the bill before them, nor to the amendment he had suggested. They had drawn a broad line of separation between the force to be raised and the militia of the States. What they proposed was, that these volunteers should associate themselves together for the purpose of offering their services to their country, and that when they arrived at their places of rendezvous, they should enrol themselves, and be mustered into service as a part of the regular army; but until then, that they should remain as they were, citizens of the several States, liable to the performance of the militia duty of the States. With these views, he was confident that a new Committee of Conference might come to such an agreement as would be acceptable to both Houses, and he therefore hoped that one would be appointed. He was almost ashamed to say that he had never acquainted himself sufficiently with the rules which governed the proceedings of a Committee of Conference. His common sense, however, had taught him that it was the duty of such a committee to confine itself to the point of disagreement between the two Houses; but he had been informed by gentlemen of great experience that the whole subject of the bill was open to them. Acting upon this principle, they had got into a general discussion as to the relative value of volunteer and regular as well as common militia forces. He believed now that a Committee of Conference might do some good, and that by steering clear of the constitutional scruples of gentlemen, they might agree on some amendments that would render the bill acceptable to both Houses, and thus enable them speedily to adopt a measure so urgently demanded for the protection of the suffering inhabitants of the frontiers.

Mr. B. said, as he should not be a member of the new Committee of Conference, he would read the amendment which had been so much discussed in the old committee:

“Be it enacted, That the said volunteers shall form themselves into companies, and designate their company officers, who, if he approve of such designations, shall be commissioned by the President, after they shall have been mustered into service; and that the President be, and hereby is, authorized to organize the volunteers so mustered into service, as aforesaid, into battalions, squadrons, regiments, brigades and divisions, as soon as the number of volunteers shall render such organization, in his judgment, expedient, and shall then appoint the necessary officers, which appointment shall be submitted to the Senate at its next session.”