American History Notebook

Review: A Hell Of A Storm

2025-02-12T14:44:00.005-06:00

AHell of a Storm: The Battle for Kansas, the End of Compromise, and the Comingof the Civil War

By David S. Brown

With the passage of “An Act to suppress the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia,” on September 20, 1850, the fight for and against slavery seemed to be over. It was the final puzzle piece to be fitted into the Compromise of 1850, with its sister acts finalizing the Texas border, California statehood, establishing a territorial government for Utah, and a stricter Fugitive Slave Act. The debate over slavery still raged, but the United States settled into an uneasy peace. That is until January 4,1854 when Senator Stephen A. Douglas reported his Kansas-Nebraska bill to the main body of the United States Senate. Stephens’ bill sought to overturn the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and established the idea “popular sovereignty” assigning each new territory the power to decide by a vote of its residents to enter the Union either as a slave state or a free state. After months of debates, the bill was passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives and signed into law on May 30, 1854 by President Franklin Pierce.

David S. Brown explores how the Kansas-Nebraska Act unexpectedly became the greatest miscalculation in American history, dividing North and South, creating the Republican party, and paving the way for the Civil War in his book “A Hell of a Storm: The Battle for Kansas, The End Of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War.” Though the subtitle of this book implies a focus on the Kansas-Nebraska act and the events in “Bleeding Kansas,” the narrative does not. The author himself states in interviews that he had always wanted to write something on Henry David Thoreau and the publication of “Walden” in 1854. That same year George Fitzhugh, published his most powerful attack on the philosophical foundations of free society, “Sociology for the South, or, the Failure of Free Society.” In it Fitzhugh was critical of the industrial north & argues for a return to agrarianism as it existed in the South. Taken together with the “Walden,” “Sociology for the South” and the Kansas-Nebraska Act form the framework of Brown’s narrative.

“A Hell of a Storm” often tangentially strays away from the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bloody Kansas, instead in Brown’s narrative the Kansas-Nebraska Act functions like a stone thrown into the middle Walden Pond and its outward rippling effects.

Among others featured in Brown’s book are Stephen A. Douglas, the “doughfaced” Senator from Illinois and the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and his rival both in love and politics, Abraham Lincoln who would go on to be the 16th President of the United States; Ralph Waldo Emerson, the essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century; the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Harriet Beecher Stowe; William Walker, the filibusterer who organized unauthorized military expeditions into Mexico and Central America with the intention of establishing colonies where slavery could flourish; Senator Henry Clay from Kentucky, the “Great Compromiser,” who introduced the failed omnibus bill which Stephen Douglas broke up the bill into its individual parts which were passed by Congress one bill at a time, making the Comprise of 1850; Salmon P. Chase who would go on to become the 23rd Governor of Ohio, United States Senator from Ohio, 25th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the Lincoln Administration, and the 6th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; Horace Greeley, the neck bearded founder and editor of the New York Tribune; Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from Virginia whose capture and trial in Boston, and transport back to Virginia, generated wide-scale public outrage in the North and increased support for abolition; Sojourner Truth; there is a whole chapter dedicated to Martin Delany, who staunchly advocated African Americans to leave the United States to settle in Central or South America as he feared racism would trump everything in America; Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, wife of founding father Alexander Hamilton who died in 1854; Harriet Tubman; John Brown; Alvan E. Bovay, one of the founders of the Republican Party; who led the crusade to ensure that the Kansas Territory would enter into the United States as a free state; and United States Congressman and abolitionist Joshua R. Giddings.

Given its slightly misleading subtitle I still would absolutely recommend “A Hell of a Storm” to those interested in the antebellum era. It is extremely well researched and written in an easily read narrative.

Review: Kidnapped at Sea

2025-01-28T22:28:00.004-06:00

Kidnappedat Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry

by Andrew Sillen

There are things we know, things we don’t know and things we don’t know that we don’t know. We will never know the experience of David Henry Wight, an illiterate, free, Black, teenaged sailor from Lewes, Delaware, who on October 9, 1862 was kidnapped from the Philadelphia-based packet ship Tonawanda by Raphael Semmes, Captain of the Confederate raider CSS Alabama upon which White was enslaved until he perished during its duel with the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Cherbourg, France on June 19, 1864.

David Henry White left few written records to document his short time on Earth. And yet Dr. Andrew Sillen, a visiting research scholar in the department of anthropology at Rutgers University, has written an unconventional biography of White. Much like Sebastian Junger was able to tell the story of the Andrea Gail in his book “The Perfect Storm,” Sillen too, tells the story of David Henry White, not by his own narrative, but by the narratives of those around him, and thus by piecing together their narratives he is able to create a narrative of White’s life by the preponderance of evidence, even without a personal narrative viewpoint.

By comparing and contrasting differing narrative views, Sillen disposes of false narratives put forth by Raphel Semmes and other secondary sources who claimed that White was a contented slave, and creates a solid narrative that flows from White’s humble beginnings to his untimely death.

“Kidnapped At Sea” is well researched and well written in an easily readable style. I would highly recommend it for students of the American Civil War, slavery and maritime history.

ISBN 978-1421449517, Johns Hopkins University Press, © 2024, Hardcover, 352 pages, Photographs, Maps, Illustrations, Tables, End Notes, Bibliography & Index. $32.95. To purchase this book click HERE.

Review: The North Star

2025-01-27T12:13:00.005-06:00

The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln

by Julian Sher

When most people think about Canada’s participation in the American Civil War they naturally conclude that America’s northern neighbor served as a haven for fugitive slaves and nothing else. The truth is a much more complicated and nuanced story; Canadians either directly or indirectly participated on both sides of the conflict.

Award-winning journalist and author Julian Sher relates the true history of the Canadian involvement in the war the tore the United States apart in his book “The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots Against the Union.

Among those covered in “The North Star” are: George Taylor Denison III, who was an enthusiastic supporter of the Confederate cause who bankrolled Confederate operations and opened his mansion to their agents; Anderson Ruffin Abbott, the first Black Canadian to be licensed as a physician who joined the Union Army; Sarah Emma Edmonds, a New Brunswick woman who disguised herself as a man named Franklin Flint Thompson and enlisted in Company F of the 2nd Michigan Infantry and served with the Union Army as a field nurse and later a spy who travelled into enemy territory to gather information, requiring her to come up with many disguises; and Edward P. Doherty who formed and led the detachment of soldiers that captured and killed John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

“The North Star” is well researched and written, Sher’s narrative is easily read and engaging and highlights many aspects Canadian participation in the American Civil War of which many Americans and Canadians remain simply ignorant.

John J. Crittenden’s Speeches during the Congressional Celebration of Washington’s Birthday, February 22, 1852

2024-08-25T16:05:00.003-05:00

Mr. Crittenden, in answer to loud calls from all parts of the hall, rose and said:

Mr. PRESIDENT,—I regret that in this company, where there are so many others more capable, I should have been selected and called upon to respond to the toast announcing the Father of his Country as its mighty theme. You have met, sir, to commemorate the anniversary of his birth. The occasion and the associations by which we are surrounded,—here, in the city which he founded, at the capital and seat of government which he established, in sight of Mount Vernon, his chosen residence and the sacred sepulchre of his remains,—the occasion and the associations make us feel as though we were almost brought into his presence; at least his name is here,—a name which can never die,—a living name, before which every head in the civilized world is bent in reverence, and to which the homage of every true American heart is due. [Loud cheers.] I almost fear to speak on such a subject. The character of Washington has ascended above the ordinary language of eulogy. A Cæsar, a Napoleon, a Cromwell may excite the noisy applause of the world, and inflame the passions of men by the story of their fields and their fame; but the name of Washington occupies a different, a serener, a calmer, a more celestial sphere. [Great applause.] There is not in his character, and there is not about his name, any of that turbulence, and excitement, and glare which constitute glory in the vulgar and worldly sense of the term. His name has sunk deep into the hearts of mankind, and more especially has it sunk deep into the mind and heart of America, and in that secret and inner temple it will reside without any of the forms of ostentatious idolatry. It resides in the inner recesses of the hearts of his countrymen; and, like an oracle, is continually whispering lessons of patriotism and of virtue. [Great cheering.] He never sought or asked for what men call glory. He sought to serve his kind and his country by his beneficence and his virtues, and he found in that service, and in the performance of his duty, that only and that richest reward which can recompense the patriot and the statesman. [Renewed and enthusiastic applause.] That was our Washington. Let all the rest of the world present anything like his parallel. The verdict of mankind has already assigned to him a preeminent and solitary grandeur. [Applause.] In him all the virtues seemed to be combined in the fairest proportions. The elements were so mixed in him, and his blood and judgment were so commingled, that all the virtues seemed to be the natural result, and to flow spontaneously from the combination, as water from the purest fountain. In him the exercise of the most exalted virtue required no exertion; it was part and parcel of his nature, and of the glorious organization "to which every god had seemed to set his seal." [Applause.] Where was there any error in him? He was a man, and, therefore, in all humility, we, who share that humanity, must acknowledge that he had his imperfections; but who, through his long and eventful life, can point to an error or to a vice committed, or a duty omitted? His character was made up and compounded of all the virtues that constitute the hero, patriot, statesman, and benefactor [cheers], and all his achievements were but the practical developments of that character and of those virtues. [Applause.] He was the same everywhere,—in the camp, in the cabinet, at Mount Vernon. No difference could be distinguished anywhere. His greatness was of that innate and majestic character that was present with him everywhere. It was that which gave him his dignity, and not the occasional situations or offices which he held under the government. He dignified office; he elevated the highest rank, military or civil, which he ever held. No rank, military or civil, ever raised him, or could come up to that majesty of character which the God of his nature had implanted in him. [Great cheering.] That was our Washington. He was a firm believer in a divine Providence, and it belonged to his elevated and majestic mind to be so, a mind that connected itself with the throne of the Deity from which it sprung. His heart was purified, and his motives were elevated by constant recurrence to that divine assistance which he thought was extended to his country, and to himself in his service of that country. Our history as a people is, to a remarkable extent, a history of providences; and among all the benignities of Providence, in a worldly point of view, I know no greater gift that she has conferred upon us than in the person of Washington himself. [Cheers.] She raised him up at the appointed time. She raised him up at a grand crisis in the affairs of mankind, when the thoughts of men were about taking a new direction; when the old things, the old despotisms, were about to pass away under the influence of a dawning public opinion which was about to reassert the long-lost rights of mankind; when you, a new-born people, for whom this mighty continent had been reserved as the most magnificent land that the Almighty ever prepared for man, had grown to an estate to feel your strength, to know your rights, and to be willing to struggle for them; Washington was raised up to become the great leader of those great popular principles of human rights, and to consecrate them, as it were, by connecting them in his own person with every personal, moral, private, and public virtue; not leaving us to mere idealism, but exhibiting and embodying, in his own venerated and beloved person, all those mighty principles which were necessary to our success and to the establishment of our liberties. He led us triumphantly through a seven years' war; and our glorious Revolution being successfully accomplished, he applied himself, with all his influence and all his wisdom, to secure, by free and permanent institutions, all the blessings that liberty and independence could confer on his country. Our present Constitution and form of government were the grand results of his patriotic efforts. A new government being thus established, he was by the unanimous voice of his country called to the presidential office, that by his wisdom and influence he might put into practice and consolidate those new and untried institutions, by which all the blessings acquired by the Revolution and contemplated by that government were to be practically secured to the people of the United States. He served till the success of the experiment was demonstrated. He retired then to his beloved Mount Vernon, and there passed in honored privacy the remainder of his life. Where can another such character be exhibited on the pages of history? Providence intended him for a model. She has made his character cover the whole space of political and of private life. [Applause.] She trained him up in the humblest walks of private life. There he knew the wants and wishes and condition of the humblest of his fellow-citizens. The confidence which he inspired everywhere spread with every step that he advanced in life. He became commander of the army. With all the military despotism that belongs to such a state, he used his power without the oppression of a human being. During a seven years' war, amid such trials and troubles as no people ever saw, in no exigency, by no extremity, was he driven to the necessity of committing a trespass or wrong upon any man or any man's property. He needed no act of amnesty afterwards, by the government, to protect him against personal responsibility, which acts of violence might have rendered necessary to others. He led you triumphantly on. He was an example to all military men. He became President. He has left us an example there, to which we look back with filial reverence, and long, long may we do so. [Great applause.]

Before his retirement from office, he made to the people of the United States that "Farewell Address" so familiar to the thoughts of us all. It contains, as he himself said, the advice of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. It was the gathered wisdom of all his life and of all his experience. What a legacy! We rejoice in riches that no nation ever knew before. What are the mines of California with their perishing gold to this? You have a legacy left you in the wisdom of that man that is above all price. The Romans shouted, the Romans exulted, when Mark Antony told them that Cæsar had left them a few denarii, and the privilege of walking in his gardens. That was the imperial bequest. How ignoble, how trifling, does the Roman seem to you, my countrymen, who exult to-day in the legacy which was left you in the Farewell Address of Washington! [Great applause.] That is imperishable. So long as we remember it, it will render our government and our liberties imperishable; and when we forget it, it will survive in the memory, I trust in God, of some other people more worthy of it, even if it be to shame this degenerate republic. [Enthusiastic applause.] That Farewell Address contains wisdom enough, if we but attend to it; contains lessons enough to guide us in all our duties as citizens, and in all our public affairs. [Applause.] There are two subjects which recent occurrences have turned our attention to with particular interest, and which I may be allowed on this occasion to advert to, in no spirit of controversy or of unkindness towards any one, but in that spirit which induces me to desire to see every lesson of Washington daily, and constantly, and freshly brought to the mind of every citizen of the United States. To my children they were brought as their first lessons. There is none too old to profit by them, and they cannot be learned too early. You are familiar with that address, gentlemen, and I will therefore only ask you to allow me to allude to the two subjects upon which he has been peculiarly emphatic in his advice. The one is to preserve the union of the States [loud cheers]; that, he says, is the main pillar of the edifice of our independence and of our liberties; frown down every attempt to bring it into question, much less to subvert it; when it is gone all is gone. Let us heed this lesson, and be careful. I trust in God we have no grounds to apprehend such a degree of oppression as will compel us to raise our suicidal arms for the destruction of this great government, and of this Union which makes us brethren. [Great applause.] I do not allow my mind to look forward to such a disaster. I will look upon this Union as indissoluble, and as firmly rooted as the mountains of our native land. I will hope so; I will believe so. I will so act; and nothing but a necessity, invincible and overwhelming, can drive me to disunion. This is the sentiment, as I understand it, which Washington inculcates. Thank God, we have every hope of the restoration of every kind feeling now which made us, in times past, a united band of brothers from one end of this land to the other. [Loud cheers.] But there are external dangers, also, against which Washington warns us; and that is the second subject to which I desire to ask your attention. Beware, he says, of the introduction or exercise of a foreign influence among you. [Loud and prolonged cheering.] We are Americans. Washington has taught us, and we have learned to govern ourselves. [Cheers.] If the rest of the world have not yet learned that great lesson, how shall they teach us? Shall they undertake to expound to us the Farewell Address of our Washington, or to influence us to depart from the policy recommended by him? [Great cheering.] We are the teachers, and they have not, or they will not, learn; and yet they come to teach us. [Here the whole company rose, and gave three tremendous cheers.] Be jealous, he said, of all foreign influence, and enter into entangling alliances with none. Cherish no particular partiality or prejudice for or against any people. [Cheers.] Be just to all,—impartial to all. It is folly to expect disinterested favors from any nation. [Great cheering.] That is not the relation or character of nations. Favor is a basis too uncertain upon which to place any steadfast or permanent relations. Justice and the interests of the parties is the only sound and substantial basis for national relations. So said General Washington,—so he teaches. He asks, "Why quit our own, to stand on foreign ground?" [Cheers.] Go not abroad to mingle yourselves in the quarrels or wars of other nations. Take care to do them no wrong, but avoid the romantic notion of righting the wrongs of all the world, and resisting by arms the oppression of all. [Great cheering.]

The sword and the bayonet have been useful in defending the rights and liberties of those who used them, but in what other hands have they ever contributed to promote the cause of freedom or of human rights? [Cheers.] The heart must be prepared for liberty. The understanding must know what it is, and how to value it. Then, if you put proper arms into the hands of the nation so imbued, I'll warrant you they will obtain and sustain their freedom. [Applause.] We have given the world an example of that success. But three millions, scattered over a vast territory, opposed to the most powerful enemy on earth, we went triumphantly through our Revolution and established our liberties. [Cheers.] But it is said that we have a right to interfere in the affairs of other nations, and in the quarrels of other nations. Why, certainly we have, certainly we have. Any man has the right, if he pleases, to busy himself in the affairs and quarrels of all his neighbors; but he will not be likely to profit by it, and would be called a busybody for his pains. [Laughter and applause.] We, as a nation, have a right to decide—and it is always a question of expediency whether we will or will not interfere in the affairs of other nations. There are cases so connected with our own interests, and with the cause of humanity, that interference would be proper. But still, it is a question for the sound discretion of this people, a question always of expediency,—whether you will or will not interfere; and it is just because it is a question of that character, and because our passions and sympathies may often tempt us to err upon it, that Washington has made it the subject of this emphatic admonition. [Applause.] It is not because we have not the right to interfere, but it is because we have the right, and because we are surrounded by temptations, by the temptations of generous hearts and noble principles,— to transcend the limits of prudence and of policy, and to interfere in the affairs of our neighbors, that he has admonished us. [Applause.] Washington, with that forecast and that prophetic spirit which constituted a part of his character, saw through all this. He knew the warm and generous natures of his countrymen. He knew their susceptibility, and he knew where the danger of error was; and it is there that his wisdom has erected, as far as his advice can do it, a bulwark for our protection. [Applause.] He tells you, "Stand upon your own ground." [Renewed applause.] That is the ground to stand upon.

What can you do by interference? Argument is unnecessary. The name of Washington ought to be authority,—prophetic, oracular authority for us. Is our mission in this world to interfere by arms? It is but little now, comparatively, of good that the bayonet and the sword can do. The plowshare does a thousand times more than either. [Great cheering.] The time was when arms were powerful instruments of oppression; but they cannot do much now, unless they are aided by the mercenary and degenerate spirit of the people over whom they are brandished. What could we do by armed interference in European politics? So mighty at home, what could we do abroad? How would our eagles pine and die if carried abroad, without the auspices of Washington, and against his advice, to engage in foreign wars of intervention, in distant regions of despotism, where we could no longer feed them from the plenteous tables of our liberty! [Enthusiastic applause.] We can do nothing there. We can do nothing in that way. I am not one of those who shrink from this thing simply because blood is to be shed. I have seen war. I have voted for maintaining it. I have contributed to maintain it. I pretend to no exquisite sensibility upon the subject of shedding blood where our public interest or our public glory call upon my fellow-citizens to lay down their lives and shed their blood. [Applause.] But I do not wish to see them depart from those great and sure principles of policy which I am certain will lead my country to a greatness which will give to her word a power beyond that of armies in distant parts of the world. [Cheers.]

Our mission, so far as it concerns our distant brethren, is not a mission of arms. We are here to do what Washington advised us to do,—take care of our Union, have a proper respect for the Constitution and laws of our country, cultivate peace and commerce with all nations, do equal justice to all nations, and thereby set an example to them, and show forth in ourselves the blessings of self-government to all the world. [Applause.] Thus you will best convince mankind. Seeing you prosper, they will follow your example, and do likewise. It is by that power of opinion, by that power of reformation, that you can render the mightiest and greatest service that is in your power towards the spread of liberty all over the world. Adopt the policy of interference, and what is its consequence? War, endless war. If one interferes, another will interfere, and another, and another, and so this doctrine for the protection of republican liberty and human rights results in a perpetual, widespread, and wider-spreading war, until all mankind, overcome by slaughter and ruin, shall fall down bleeding and exhausted. [Applause.] I can see no other end, or good in it, unless you suppose that nations will consent that one alone shall erect itself into the arbiter and judge of the conduct of all the other nations, and that it alone shall interfere to execute what it alone determines to be national law. That alone can prevent widespread devastation from the adoption of this principle of intervention.

I beg pardon for the time I have occupied, but I hope that I may be excused for saying that I feel safer, I feel that my country is safer, while pursuing the policy of Washington, than in making any new experiments in politics, upon any new expositions of Washington's_legacy and advice to the American people. [Great cheering.] I want to stand super antiquas vias,— upon the old road that Washington traveled, and that every President, from Washington to Fillmore, has traveled. [Great cheering.] This policy of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries has been maintained and sanctified by all our great magistrates. [Renewed cheering.] I may be defective in what is called "the spirit of the age," for aught I know; but I acknowledge that I feel safer in this ancient and well-tried policy than in the novelties of the present day.

And now, in conclusion, I hope I may be excused for saying that it has been the effort, and the honest effort, of the present administration-I ask no compliment for it-to follow in the

track that Washington marked out, and, with whatever unequal steps, it has endeavored to follow after him. That has been the model upon which Mr. Fillmore has endeavored, as it regarded all foreign countries, to fashion the course of policy of his administration. [Great applause.]

(Close of the Congressional Banquet given in memory of General Washington, 22d of February, 1852, in Washington City.)

Mr. Crittenden rose and said: This is the anniversary of the battle of Buena Vista. We commemorate it as the birthday of our Washington. I have said that Washington is a name that cannot die; it is a living name, and it will be a living name until we as a people are dead. It fought with us at the battle of Buena Vista. The name passed from soldier to soldier when those fearful odds of battle were counted: twenty-five thousand to four or five thousand raw militia! and the frequent exclamation heard among our ranks that "This is Washington's birthday” gave strength to every arm and fortified the courage of every heart. The name and spirit of Washington enabled us to conquer that day.

An honored and venerable gentleman (Mr. Curtis) has said “that the grave claims its due." Well, let the old usurer have it. What is it at last that is his due? The poor corporeal remnants of this poor humanity.

The spirit lives after it. The spirit of Washington is immortal, and still moves and acts upon the hearts of his countrymen. His form—his visible bodily form—has passed away from us, that majestic form “where every god had set his seal to give the world assurance of a man." [Cheers.] That is buried! gone beyond our sight! But his great spirit remains with us that potent, mighty spirit; mighty to save, mighty to inspire, mighty to do battle for his countrymen, for whom he lived—for whom he died. That spirit did inspire us at Buena Vista, and to its influence we owe that memorable victory. It lives everywhere,—lives, sir, in us. The judge upon the bench partakes it. Presidents and generals acknowledge its power, and seek to emulate and follow the example of Washington. I know from intimate and long acquaintance that that old soldier (pointing to General Scott) who has so victoriously commanded our armies and led them to battle and to victory, has felt and cultivated the influence of that spirit, that his great ambition has been to fashion himself after that model man, General Washington.

But, Mr. President, we cannot well celebrate the 22d of February without having our hearts turned, also, to some memory of the victory of Buena Vista,—occurring on the same day, and seeming to have emanated from the nativity of our Washington to shed, like a bright star, new lustre upon it.

We cannot think of Buena Vista without a grateful remembrance of that famous old soldier and leader to whom, under Providence, we were indebted for that victory—a victory almost without a parallel in history. The battles of his life are all over, and he sleeps with the mighty dead.

Allow me to offer you the illustrious name of that brave, good, and patriotic man, the hero of Buena Vista, General Taylor, the late President of the United States.

This toast was drunk standing and in silence.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 28-36

Congressman Albert G. Brown’s Speech on the Ewing Investigation, Septeber 11, 1850

2024-08-24T23:21:00.008-05:00

In the House of Representatives, Wednesday, September 11, 1850,—On the report of the Select Committee appointed April 22, 1850, to examine into certain official acts of Thomas Ewing, late Secretary of the Interior, and in reply to Mr. VINTON of Ohio, Mr. BROWN said:

MR. SPEAKER: It is with extreme reluctance that I venture, at this late period of a protracted session, to address the House. I feel called upon, however, by an imperative sense of duty, to make a brief response to the speech which the honorable gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Vinton] has just now concluded, and to that end I crave the indulgence of the House.

Before proceeding to the consideration of the subjects embraced in the report and resolutions, allow me to advert for a moment to the manner in which that report and the accompanying resolutions were received in this House.

Now almost five months since, a series of resolutions were passed by the House of Representatives directing an inquiry into the official conduct of the then Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing. A select committee was appointed, and they were charged with the direction and prosecution of these inquiries. They entered upon the discharge of the duties assigned them. It was then spring, the summer has come and gone, and here in the beginning of autumn your committee have concluded their labors. They bring their report, and lay it upon your table, and through their chairman they ask for it that courteous and respectful consideration which has been uniformly awarded to all reports coming from committees of this House. They ask that the report may lie upon the table and be printed, and that a day may be fixed for its consideration. This has been denied. A judgment is evoked in advance of all consideration or reflection; without reading, without printing, before a single member has had an opportunity of examining the report, a judgment is asked. On its first introduction into the House, the gentleman from Ohio, himself a member of the committee, calls upon the House to pass its judgment. How well he has succeeded in this, the House and the country already know.

Why, sir, was the gentleman from Ohio so impatient to have this report acted upon, or rather slurred over? Was there any important public interest suffering, or likely to suffer by a little delay? No, sir; another and a very different interest was to be protected by smothering this report. The conduct of a distinguished friend, political and personal, of the gentleman, had been criticised and justly censured; important and startling facts had been brought to light. The existence of these facts was wholly inconsistent with the idea of a faithful and proper administration of the Department of the Interior, and it was necessary to give them the go by—to bury them, if possible, among the unpublished and useless papers which accumulate during a long session of Congress. The gentleman was familiar with all the facts. He had attended upon the committee for more than four months. He knew what the report and the papers contained; and I take it upon myself to say, that in opposing the motion to print, and in insisting upon bringing the House to an immediate vote on the resolutions, he took a course which his experience assured him could result in nothing less than an acquittal, without a trial, of Mr. Ewing.

Mr. VINTON said he had insisted upon an immediate consideration of the report because to postpone it would have been equivalent to doing nothing, as it would never again have been reached.

Mr. BROWN. That excuse shall not avail the gentleman. If he had been anxious to have a fair hearing, why not have asked to make the subject the SPECIAL order for some subsequent day? Then it would have certainly come up for consideration. No, sir, the gentleman's knowledge of the facts assured him that it would not do to risk a fair investigation, and his tactics were employed to hurry on a decision before the House could be informed of these facts. The gentleman knew very well that if members could be forced to a vote without a knowledge of the facts, they would acquit the Secretary. They would do this on the well-known ground that all men are presumed to be innocent until their guilt is established. His legal acumen was not severely taxed to discover that if the facts could be withheld until a vote could be exacted, the presumption of innocence would be strongly in favor of the accused.

Mr. VINTON said, he had consented to the printing of the report.

Mr. BROWN. I know that; I know the gentleman made a virtue of necessity, and consented to have the report printed after his course had been assailed by the chairman of the committee [Mr. Richardson]. But what was the gentleman's first movement? To oppose any postponement of the subject, even to allow the report to be printed. He succeeded in defeating the postponement, and we have been actually forced into the consideration of the whole subject, and are now considering it, when not a member, save those on the committee, has ever seen the report or knows anything of the real state of the facts. The gentleman now makes a merit of consenting to have the report printed. In the course of some days it will have been published. In the mean time the House will be called on to vote. We shall have the verdict first, and the evidence submitted to the jury afterwards. This, to say the least of it, will be rather an irregular proceeding.

The gentleman, with the adroitness of a politician of twenty or more winters, laid his whole scheme so as to give it the best possible assurance of success. It is far from my purpose to charge the gentleman with dishonorable conduct. But really, sir, there is something about this transaction which excites my curiosity, and seems to invite the most rigid scrutiny. The gentleman from Ohio will correct me, if I err in my relation of the facts. He went to the chairman of the committee and obtained the report of the majority before its delivery to the House, as he said (and no doubt truly), to prepare a minority report. It became important to have the report copied, and though the capitol was full of clerks, and though the streets were crowded with persons seeking employment, the gentleman could find no one to copy this report but young Mr. Ewing, the son of the ex-Secretary, whose conduct had given rise to and had been criticised in the report. The first we hear of the report, it is in the hands of Mr. Ewing; next Senator Mason, of Virginia, has it; and then a copy is handed round among the Virginia members on this floor. All this was before the report had been made to the House, and without the knowledge of the chairman or any member of the majority of that committee. Now, sir, I want to show the effect of this proceeding.

Mr. VINTON. I have already stated that I had nothing to do with furnishing the Virginia members with copies of that report.

Mr. BROWN. I recollect the gentleman's disclaimer, and do not mean to impugn his veracity. He placed the report in the hands of young Mr. Ewing; he, of course, showed it to his father, and he to the Virginia senators and representatives. The gentleman gave it a particular direction, and he was shrewd enough to know where it would land. But why, you are ready to ask, was it shown to the Virginia members? I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker; a particular object was to be accomplished. The report was to be smothered. The gentleman was all-powerful with his Whig friends. He could bring them up to the work with a pretty united front. There might be some bolters, however, and if there was not, the party was a little too weak to carry out the scheme. Besides, it would give the whole thing a partisan look, if the Whigs went in a body for smothering, and the Democrats against it. It became necessary to have some Democratic allies. The report contained a severe criticism on certain important Virginia interests. The gentleman, with a skill and diplomacy, worthy of Talleyrand, went to work to secure these allies in the persons of the Virginia members. The report was very quietly, if not secretly circulated among them. They saw the assault on the Virginia interests—the scheme took. The vote was taken; the great body of the Whig party voted with the gentleman, and all the Virginia Democrats went over to his standard. He carried his point, and here we are precipitated into a discussion, before anybody save the favored few, have seen the report or know anything of its contents.

(Here Messrs. Seddon, Millson, Bayly, and McMullen, all of Virginia, severally interposed, and said that they had not been influenced in the votes given by anything said in the report against the Virginia interests.)

Mr. BROWN resumed. I certainly never meant to say that honorable gentlemen would knowingly and wilfully give an improper vote merely for the sake of sustaining an unjust local claim. But we all know that the representative is not the most impartial judge of the rights of his own constituent. Indeed, sir, the interest of the constituent is almost inseparable from the prejudices and predilections of his representative. The gentleman from Ohio well understood this, and he rightly conjectured that if it came to the knowledge of the Virginia delegation that certain important Virginia claims had been condemned in this report, the allegiance of that delegation might be relied on.

I am far from assailing the motives of the members from Virginia; but I cannot help remarking that it is a little singular that they were found separated from their political friends on this question. It is doubtless all right and fair, but it never happened so before. If one, or two, or three had gone over, my astonishment would not have been excited. But when they went in a body, I could not help inquiring into the cause of so important and significant a movement. I acquit the delegation of all improper motives, but I still think these Virginia claims had something to do with their votes against postponing the consideration of this report until such time as would afford every member an opportunity to examine into the facts.

I have been surprised, Mr. Speaker, at the grounds taken by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Vinton], against a further consideration of the grave and important matters set forth in the report of the majority of this committee. To my mind, it looks very much like special pleading, for the purpose of avoiding a fair trial on the merits of the case. The gentleman was a member of the committee. He attended its sittings regularly. He saw the committee toiling from day to day, through the long months of summer, in collating the facts set forth in the report. He took a deep interest in the proceedings of the committee, and participated actively in all its labors. Yes, sir, he was here when the committee was raised. He was here when the inquiries were directed by the House. He went on the committee, performed his due proportion of the work, saw the report prepared after four months and more of toil, and then for the first time he discovers that the House has no jurisdiction of the case—that the House was attempting to resolve itself into an appellate court for the revision of judicial decisions made by the executive officers of the government. Did the gentleman make this wonderful discovery himself, or was it the offspring of some other genius? Possibly the younger Mr. Ewing, when copying the report, may have found it out. It may be, that some or all of the Virginia delegation discovered it, or, what is just as likely, ex-Secretary Ewing himself may have first started the new idea. To whomsoever the paternity of the grand conception may belong, I repudiate it as spurious. What, sir! may an executive officer go on from year to year allowing spurious and unjust, grossly unjust and illegal claims against the government, and paying them too, without law or semblance of law to sanction his conduct? and must we, the representatives of the people, fold our arms in quiet, and be silent because we have no power or right to inquire into the official conduct of an executive officer? If, sir, the conduct of the ex-Secretary had not been in the highest degree reprehensible, we should have heard nothing of this plea to the jurisdiction. Conscious innocence would not thus shrink from a fair investigation. It is precisely because these transactions will not bear the light of open day, that attempts are being made, and combinations formed, to bury them in this House under the hollow pretence that we have no jurisdiction. Why was not this discovery made five months back, when the investigation was ordered? Why was it not made during the four months and a half that the committee was sitting? Why was it never made until it was seen that an impartial investigation would result in a condemnation of these transactions?—in a condemnation which would arrest such proceedings in future, and thereby save millions to the treasury.

I now tell the House that if the conduct of the late Secretary is not distinctly rebuked, and his decisions repudiated, millions of dollars will be taken from the national treasury without law and without the knowledge or sanction of Congress. If we, the guardians of the treasury, are to stand by and witness these proceedings in silence, because the gentleman from Ohio says we have no jurisdiction, no power to arrest them, why, then, be it so; I take water and wash my hands of them.

How long is it since the gentleman from Ohio found that Congress could not inquire into the conduct of an executive officer? During these fifteen years or more that he has held a seat on this floor, has he ever, in a single instance, voted against an inquiry into the conduct of any Democratic executive officer? Never, sir, never. I challenge the gentleman to a trial by the record, and dare the assertion that he never, in all his life, voted against an inquiry into any alleged misfeasance or malversation in Democratic office-holders. But now, when a Whig secretary is arraigned—when the personal and political friend of the gentleman is charged with illegal and improper conduct, he steps boldly forward, and says, "Stop; touch not mine anointed." You may inquire into the conduct of Democrats, but Whigs are sacred against such impertinent and officious intermeddling.

The gentleman found power in this House to appoint the "Bundelcund committee," and to send them around the world on a voyage of discovery. He could delegate to that committee power to pry into the private and official conduct of every Democrat in and out of office. He could confer upon them the right to propound impertinent inquiries to the editor of the Union, and to Mr. Sengstack, as to how they conducted their private affairs, as private citizens; and he could even find the power to bring these gentlemen to the bar of the House and punish them for contempt, because they refused to disclose their private transactions to the "Bundelcund" inquisition. But he can find no power in Congress to inquire whether Mr. Ewing has or has not paid money from the treasury without the sanction of law.

Mr. VINTON said he had not voted for the arrest of the editor of the Union and Mr. Sengstack. He did not vote at all.

Mr. BROWN. The gentleman did not vote at all. His party voted, and his judgment approved their votes. I ask him if it did not?

Again, sir, the gentleman voted last year to inquire into the conduct of the then Secretary of the Treasury, Robert J. Walker. Where did he get his authority for that? Is the official immunity of a Democratic Secretary of the Treasury less than that of a Whig Secretary of the Interior?

Mr. VINTON. That inquiry was sent to a standing committee of this House; this to a select committee.

Mr. BROWN. That is rather too refined for my comprehension. I thought the plea was to the jurisdiction—to the power of the House to direct the inquiry. Now, it seems the House may direct the inquiry, if it only employs the proper committee to conduct it. And pray, sir, let me ask the gentleman what powers may this House confer on standing committees, which it may not in a like degree confer on a select committee? Neither has any power other than that which it derives from the House, and either may receive all the power which the House can confer-and one of them in as high a degree as the other. The gentleman will have to look about him for some better excuse than this to justify his vote to inquire into Secretary Walker's alleged misconduct, and his speech today against inquiring into Mr. Ewing's official short-comings.

But my hour is running out, and I must hurry on to a brief investigation of the facts set forth in the report itself.

And first of the case of G. W. and W. G. Ewing: Large sums of money were paid these persons, who were traders among the Indian tribes in the west. The money thus paid was clearly due from the government to the Indians. In this I agree perfectly and entirely with the gentleman [Mr. Vinton]; but I cannot concur with him that it was rightfully paid to the Messrs. Ewing. A critical investigation of the claims of these traders cannot fail to convince every one of certain important facts: the first and most important is, that the demands were enormously large, springing up as by magic from a paltry sum of a few hundred dollars, to many thousands, and that without there having been any additional dealings between the parties. In many instances, the items composing the accounts were never given, but a demand rendered for a large sum in round numbers. In the second place, the transactions were all of an individual character; the sales, if any were made, were all made to individual Indians; whereas, the demands for payment were against the tribes or nations; thus rendering a whole people responsible, without their consent, for the foolish and improvident acts of a few individuals. Nay, more than this, it was placing the funds of a tribe of ignorant savages at the mercy of these speculators and traders. Every one knows that intelligent and shrewd white men can go among the Indians, and with a few red blankets, or with strands of beads and other trinkets, make accounts on a credit with them to any amount. And we all know, that if the United States will undertake to pay such accounts out of the trust funds belonging to the savage tribes, there will be found unprincipled men enough to present demands for millions. The third point to be considered in this matter is, that Secretary Ewing ordered the payment of these demands without sufficient proof of their justice, even against the individual Indians, and in total disregard of the rights of the savage tribes. It is true that large sums are now suspended to await the action of the House on this report. If the committee is sustained, justice will be done the Indians, and if not, their funds will be recklessly squandered in paying the demands of the Ewings, and other traders and speculators.

One of my colleagues on the committee proposes to address the House more particularly on this branch of the investigation, and to him I leave the further task of pursuing the facts and law of this case. I will not dismiss it, however, without calling attention to the position of the gentleman from Ohio.

If I correctly understood the gentleman's position, it was, that inasmuch as the government owed the money, it could make no difference whether she paid it to the Indians or to the traders. If he means by this that it makes no difference so far as the money is concerned—no difference in a pecuniary point of view, I quite agree with him. But the gentleman very well understands that there are other and higher questions involved than the mere matter of discharging a pecuniary liability. Viewed only as a question of dollars and cents, it is a little important, it is true, that the money when paid should pass into the proper hands. An error like this might be committed, and, with civilized and enlightened nations, it could be repaired by simply paying the money again. But how is it, sir, with the Indian tribes? The government has obtained their confidence; they have consented that we shall hold their funds in trust. By and by they will send up a deputation to see their great father, the President, and receive their money. They will be told that the money has been paid to white men, and they will feel cheated; distrust will take the place of confidence. They will sigh for revenge. They will fly to arms; and the next intelligence from the west will be that the tomahawk and scalping knife have been taken up, and that our frontier settlers are flying from their homes and seeking safety. Tell me not, sir, that it makes no difference to whom the money is paid. Let the gentleman look into this matter, and he will find that the paltry question as to whether we shall pay this money once or twice sinks into insignificance in comparison with the other and greater questions of morality and safety. I hold that it is in the highest degree immoral to execute a sacred trust for an ignorant savage in a way to suffer him to be cheated by the white man. And I know, sir, it will be found highly dangerous to our frontiers to lose the confidence of these Indians, and to drive them to acts of revenge for the wrongs of the government in misapplying their money. I think, sir, that the Secretary did wrong in paying the claims of the Messrs. Ewing, and as the departments are only awaiting your action to determine whether they will pay other like demands, I hope they may be correctly advised by a vote of this House.

The second in the series of resolutions referred to the select committee, directs them to inquire "whether the Secretary of the Interior reopened and paid interest, to the amount of thirty-one thousand dollars, on the pension granted to Commodore James Barron, for services rendered in the Virginia navy during the revolutionary war, after the principal had been fully paid and discharged; and if said interest was paid, was it simple or compound; who was the agent or attorney for said claim; and the authority for such claim, if any."

This inquiry has been prosecuted, and a conclusion arrived at which seems to me to be fully justified by the facts.

It appears from the recorded evidence, that James Barron was a commander in the Virginia (state) navy, from 1775 to the close of the revolutionary war, and that he died in 1787.

In May, 1779, the state of Virginia, by an act of her legislature, promised half pay for life to all officers in the state and continental (ARMY) line, who should serve to the close of the war.

In 1780, she extended the benefits of this act to the officers of the navy, who should serve during the war.

It is clear, therefore, that Commodore Barron was entitled to half pay for life, or from the close of the war to his death in 1787.

In 1790, long after the close of the war, and three years after the death of Commodore Barron, Virginia, by another act, gave to officers of the army, and they alone, five years full pay and interest, in commutation of half pay for life.

The benefits of the act of 1790 being confined to officers of the army, and they alone, it is clear that Barron, who never was in the army, was never entitled to commutation.

And so indeed it seems to have been determined. For in 1823, his administrator, in pursuance of a judgment rendered by the superior court of Henrico county, demanded and received of the state of Virginia, $2008.52, that being the amount of Commodore Barron's half pay for life, under the act of 1780.

To a plain man of common understanding, it would seem that here was a full settlement of the Barron claim. He was entitled to half pay, and that alone, and his administrator, thirty-six years after his death, applied for and received it in pursuance of the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction. It never was optional with naval officers to take either half pay for life, or in lieu thereof five years' full pay with interest. This was a benefit extended to officers of the army, and them alone. But suppose for a moment that officers of the navy had, by the act of 1790, been placed on the same footing with officers of the army, and that it had been left to their choice to take either half pay for life or full pay for five years and interest. Suppose, I say, that this had been the law. Did not the administrator of Commodore Barron, in 1823, make his election, and take the half pay for life? Such sir, is the recorded fact.

The truth is, that in 1823, there was no pretence set up by the representative of Commodore Barron that he was entitled to anything more than half pay for life. This was all that was claimed, and this was paid. The Commodore had been dead thirty-six years, and the state of Virginia paid off and discharged to his administrator the only demand which his administrator pretended to render against the government of that state.

The next point of inquiry is, how came the United States responsible for the debts of Virginia in this regard?

The acts of Virginia, passed in 1779 and 1780, were intended to promote the cause of independence, and they no doubt had the effect of continuing in the service many valuable officers whose private fortunes had been greatly reduced, and who, but for the assurances thus held out, would have been compelled to look for the means of subsistence in their declining years, elsewhere than in the army and navy of an impoverished colony. The act of 1790 was passed after the close of the war, and it was not, therefore, intended to promote the cause of the war. It is perfectly clear, that the liabilities incurred by Virginia under her acts of 1779 and 1780, were war debts, and properly chargeable to the account of a national revolution. It is equally as clear, that her liabilities under the act of 1790, were not incurrred in promoting or assisting the cause of independence; and however creditable to her generosity and magnanimity the act may have been, the liabilities could, in no proper sense, be charged to the war debt. It was not called for by exigencies of the public service. It was, in fact, an act of generosity—a gratuity.

I by no means say that the United States ought not to perform acts of generosity-of gratuitous service. She has performed many such, and they stand to her credit. I trust she may perform many others. But did she in this instance undertake to relieve Virginia from the payment of the gratuity or the bounty promised by her in her act of 1790? She did not.

In the year 1832—fifty-two years after the act of the Virginia legislature granting half pay for life, forty-five years after the death of Commodore Barron, and nine years after Virginia had paid to his administrator the half pay for life due him at his decease—the Congress of the United States passed an act, the third section of which is in these words:—

“SECTION 3. And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, directed and required to adjust and settle those claims for half pay of the officers of the aforesaid regiments and corps, which have not been paid or prosecuted to judgment against the state of Virginia, and for which said state would be bound on the principles of the half-pay cases already decided in the Supreme Court of Appeals of said state; which said sums of money herein directed to be settled and paid, shall be paid out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated by law.”

Now, sir, is there one word in this act which can be construed or tortured into a remote intimation that the United States meant to do anything more than to assume the war debt—the half-pay—as described by Virginia in the acts of 1779 and 1780? There was a manifest propriety in the United States assuming this liability. It was incurred in the prosecution of a common cause, and it was right and proper it should be paid from a common treasury. But I utterly deny that this government ever did undertake to pay commutation, or anything more than the half-pay for life to officers of the Virginia navy; and if she did, I call upon the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from Virginia to point out the act.

I rest the case on these points:

1. Virginia undertook to pay her naval officers who served to the close of the war half-pay for life. She never did agree to give them commutation, or any other pay in lieu of this half-pay.

2. If Virginia had left it optional with naval officers, as she did with army officers, to choose between the commutation or five years' full pay and the half-pay for life, then Barron's administrator made his election in 1823, and took the half-pay.

3. The United States, for sufficient reasons, never did undertake to assume Virginia's liabilities for commutation, but only for the half-pay due her army and naval officers.

4. Virginia paid Barron's administrator his half-pay in 1823. The United States assumed the debt; and when she had returned to Virginia the $2008.52 paid by her to Barron's administrator, the transaction was closed and the business settled.

We are next to inquire when and how this matter came to be reopened, and how it was again closed.

July 21, 1849, twenty-six years after the payment to Barron's administrator, and sixty-two years after the death of the commodore, James Lyons, of Virginia, a distinguished lawyer, and leading political friend of the ex-Secretary of the Interior, preferred a claim against the United States for commutation, or five years' full pay, with interest, in lieu of the half-pay received by the administrator in 1823. This claim was promptly rejected by the Commissioner of Pensions.

An appeal was taken by Mr. Lyons, and the case was reviewed by Mr. Secretary Ewing. He had doubts. Yes, sir, he had doubts, and he referred the case to Mr. Attorney-General Johnson for his legal opinion. Mr. Johnson thought the money ought to be paid, and then Mr. Ewing thought so, too; but for what reason they, or either of them, came to such a conclusion, we are left in profound ignorance. Neither has ever deigned to give the slightest intimation of the wonderful process of reasoning by which they manage to mulet the United States for $32,000, and to throw this large amount into the hands of their friend, Mr. Lyons.

I have said the Commissioner of Pensions promptly refused to pay this money, and so he did. He continued so to refuse until he was peremptorily ordered by Mr. Secretary Ewing to pay it. The order was given December 31, 1849, and seems to have been as novel in its character as it was peremptory in its tone. The Commissioner thus speaks of it in an official paper now before us:

"I accordingly certify, under an order from the said Secretary, that commutation of five years' full pay is due, and interest thereon up to this date. The amount of commutation is $4258.31 1/3; interest is to be calculated at six per centum per annum on this sum from the 22d of April, 1783, to the 15th day of December, 1823; add the amount of the interest up to December 15, 1823, to the commutation, and deduct from the total of those sums the amount paid in December, 1823, viz: $2008.52; and upon the balance struck calculate the interest from that time up to the present date."

In pursuance of this order, the account was stated as follows:

Commutation	$4258.31
Interest to December 15, 1823	10,385.83
Interest from December, 1823, to January 2, 1850	19,382.50
	34,026.64
Paid by Virginia	2,008.52
Total	32,018.12

This large sum was accordingly paid to Mr. Lyons. If you will be at the trouble to examine the mode of calculation, you will be at no difficulty in seeing that the interest has been compounded.

The compounding of the interest is admitted. No one pretends to deny this. Mr. Ewing says himself that it was compounded, and he informed the committee that he had called upon Mr. Lyons to refund, and that the gentleman had refused.

The decisions of this executro-judicial tribunal cannot be reviewed, we are told by the gentlemen from Ohio and Virginia [Messrs. Vinton and Bayly]. I should like to know if it is the opinion of these learned gentlemen that a court, after rendering judgment, and enforcing it too, as in this case, to a payment of the money, may then sit as a court for the correction of its own errors, and order the plaintiff to pay back the money which he has received in due course of law? And if not, how long do they think it will be before Mr. Lyons will return to the treasury the compound interest which his friend Ewing awarded him in this case? There is but one remedy for outrages like this, and that is, to hold the guilty judge up to public condemnation.

In deciding this Barron case, Messrs. Ewing and Johnson, without justice, law, or reason, overturned the uniform current of decisions of all their predecessors, and of the Supreme Court of Virginia, for nearly twenty years; and for the truth of this assertion I refer to the Virginia Reports in like cases, and to the decisions and opinions of the Secretaries and Attorneys-General since 1832.

The end of this business is found here: The United States, in 1832, undertook to pay to Virginia $2008.42, that being the amount of Commodore Barron's half-pay for life, and in 1850 she is compelled by Mr. Secretary Ewing to pay $32,018.12, for commutation and interest, simple and compound, a sum which neither she nor Virginia ever agreed to pay in whole or in part. If this decision is not rebuked by a vote of this House, not less than two to three millions of the public money will go in the same way.

One other point in this connection, and I shall have done with this Barron claim. The inquiry naturally arises, where did Mr. Ewing get the money to pay this claim? It was taken, like the Galphin money, from appropriations intended for other purposes, and then Congress was asked to sanction it, by voting through a deficiency bill. No wonder this deficiency for the last year run up to four or five millions of dollars. Secretaries abstract $32,000 for one purpose, $56,000 for another, $230,000 for another, and Heaven only knows how much besides. Such lawless profligacy would bankrupt the treasury, if there was a stream of liquid gold flowing into it from morning till night.

The only remaining subject of inquiry is embraced in the third resolution, and has reference to a large sum of money paid to Dr. William M. Gwin, out of a trust fund belonging to the Chickasaw tribe of Indians.

The Chickasaws inhabited the northern part of Mississippi, and in the year 1834 ceded their lands to the United States; and without entering into any minute details of their several transactions, I may state simply that the United States retained a certain part of the proceeds of the cession in trust for the benefit of the Indians. This fund was to be expended in such manner and for such purposes as the Indians should direct. In 1837 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and as now appears, without any sufficient authority from the Indians, despatched Lieutenant Seawright, of the army, to Cincinnati, to purchase provisions and provide transports for a party of emigrating Chickasaws, they having signified their disposition to remove West. Seawright expended for these purposes about $144,000. The Indians received benefits to the amount of $32,000, or about that sum, and, as the whole expenditure was without their authority, they refused to be charged with the remaining $112,000. The officers of the treasury, however, charged the whole sum to the general Chickasaw account, and the Indians were notified accordingly.

This is the foundation, briefly stated, of the claim about which the committee were charged to inquire.

It seems that in the year 1844, Dr. Gwin, then a citizen of Mississippi and now a Senator from California, went among the Chickasaws in the West. He entered into a contract with these Indians, and was empowered by a portion of them (who professed to act for the whole) to conduct certain fiscal operations of theirs with the United States. The written agreement with the Indians was exhibited by Dr. Gwin to the accounting officers at Washington, and he entered upon and discharged some of the duties devolved upon him as the agent or attorney of the Chickasaws.

A misunderstanding sprung up concerning this agreement. It bore, among many others, the name of Ish-ta-ho-ta-pa, the King. This chief wrote to the Secretary of War that he had never signed such a paper, and that if it bore his name it was without his authority. Dr. Gwin, on having his attention called to the subject, admitted that the King did not sign the paper, but that another person, who represented that he had authority, had signed for him.

A letter signed W. A., and understood to be from William Armstrong, late General Indian Agent West, dated Choctaw Agency, 12th October, 1846, and now on file among the official papers, thus speaks of this transaction:

“I received at Nashville your letter informing me of Dr. G's movements. I was not a little surprised to hear that he came so near succeeding in the Chickasaw claim. The fact is, the whole affair was wrong. I had no idea when Dr. G. first came over to the Chickasaws, what his business was."

The matter was variously canvassed, and in the end the contract was rescinded. The paper or contract seems to have been given up or destroyed, and a new contract was entered into. It was under this new contract that the claim of which I am about to speak was paid. I have spoken of the first contract only because it was the basis of Dr. Gwin's transactions with the Indians, and hence became intimately associated with the history of the case. I now dismiss it, and shall hereafter speak only of the second contract. This last paper is among the documents now on my desk; but as it is without date, I am unable to say when it was executed. It will become important in the course of this investigation to fix its date, and I shall have recourse to other testimony for that purpose.

Before entering into a further examination of this case, I must pause to settle a small account with the MINORITY of the committee. In their report I find this remarkable and strong language:

"There is no evidence whatever among the records of the department to sustain the finding of the committee that this claim was rejected by the proper officer, and reopened and allowed by the Secretary of the Interior; indeed the finding is directly contrary to the recorded fact."

In this they make a direct issue with the majority, and I shall have recourse to the official papers to test the question as to who is right and who is wrong.

The first trace that I find of this case in its progress through the departments, is in the Second Auditor's office. On the 8th of September, 1846, J. M. McCalla, Second Auditor of the Treasury, certified that there was due W. M. Gwin, $56,021.49. This certificate was sent to the Second Comptroller, and the next trace of it is found in the letter which I now read:

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

SECOND COMPTROLLER'S OFFICE, Sept. 9, 1846.

SIR: The Second Auditor of the Treasury, on the 8th instant, reported to me an account in favor of William M. Gwin for $56,021.49, chargeable upon the appropriation for carrying into effect treaties with the Chickasaws, under the act of April 20,1836.

As this claim is "connected with Indian affairs," and calls for an expenditure from an appropriation under the charge of the War Department, it should have been transmitted to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for ADMINISTRATIVE EXAMINATION, under the 3d section of the act of July 9, 1832, and the fifth paragraph of "Revised Regulations No. 1, concerning the execution of the act of July 9, 1832, providing for the appointment of a Commissioner of Indian Affairs."

In order that the claim may receive the proper administrative examination as required by law, I herewith transmit all the papers received from the auditor connected therewith. With entire respect, &c.,

ALBION K. PARRIS, Comptroller.

Hon. W. MEDILL, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Need I go further, to show that the Indian Bureau had been improperly passed by in the presentation of this claim? That faithful and intelligent officer, of twenty-odd years' experience, A. K. Parris, sent it back to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for that administrative examination which the case required, and without which it could not properly be paid.

I shall not undertake to trace its history from that day, September 9, 1846, to March 12, 1850, when it was finally paid by order of Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior. Suffice it to say, it was a history of stern resistance and constant protests, on the part of the Indians and their attorneys, against its payment. Indeed, sir, their arguments, protests, and remonstrances are scattered through this immense mass of papers on my desk, like the beacon-lights along a difficult and dangerous shore.

The minority of the committee, with a boldness which seems to defy contradiction, says: "There is no evidence that this claim was rejected by the proper officer. Indeed the finding is directly to the contrary." Now, sir, if this be true, how came it that this claim was not paid? How did it happen that it lay in the Indian office from the 9th of September, 1846, to the 12th March, 1850? How came it to lie there until the close of Mr. Polk's administration, and until the reign of the "Galphins" had fairly begun? We shall see. I beg to invite the attention of the House to certain papers, which being among those officially communicated, could not have escaped the critical eye of the gentleman [Mr. Vinton] under whose auspices the minority report was prepared.

The first paper in this large mass before me is a letter from William Medill, late Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior, detailing the history of this case. It bears date June 27, 1849. In one place the writer says:

"Of the $112,042 99-100 found due the Chickasaws, William H. Gwin, Esquire, claims the enormous sum of one-half for his services or instrumentality in recovering the amount, under an alleged contract with those Indians. Without dwelling upon the extraordinary extravagance of this demand, which is sufficiently apparent by the mere statement of it, I would remark, that notwithstanding the peculiar position of the Chickasaws, they, like other Indians, are the wards of the government, and no such contract or agreements are valid or binding unless sanctioned by the department."

And again, in speaking of the fund out of which it was proposed to pay this “enormous sum,” he says:

"I am of the opinion that it could not properly be used towards repaying the Chickasaws the amount found due to THEM by the accounting officers: and so the Secretary of War, as I understand, decided when the report of these officers of the result of their adjustment of the account, and the amount found due the Chickasaws, was presented to him in September, 1846, for a requisition for $58,124.14, to be taken from the removal and subsistence fund. HE CERTAINLY PEREMPTORILY REFUSED TO ISSUE THE requisition."

And again:

"This being the case, it is not seen how any portion of it could legally or properly be used towards paying the Chickasaws the amount found due THEM.* In my judgment, this can only properly be effected through an appropriation therefor by Congress."

Does all this look like there had been no rejection, no refusal to pay? Does it look as if "the recorded fact was exactly the contrary?"

Now, let us turn over to page five of this great book of manuscript before me, and here we find an order from W. L. Marcy, Secretary of War. It is dated October 1, 1846, about twenty-two days after this case had fallen into Medill's hands, and is addressed to William Medill, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Mr. Medill, in handing over the papers in this case to Secretary Ewing, says, referring to this order:

"The rule of action which has governed the Executive in cases of contracts with Indians, as well as powers of attorney procured from them, you will find embodied in the accompanying order of the Secretary of War of October 1, 1849."

Here is the order:

"The practice which has heretofore prevailed, to a considerable extent, of paying money due to Indians on powers of attorney given by them, is wholly inconsistent with the duty of government to pay over to them, promptly and without abatement, whatever may be due to them under any treaty or law; or for any claim whatever to which they may be justly entitled. Agents are appointed, and by the government, to attend to their business for them, and they should be the medium of all their communications with the government, whether in relation to any claim they may have, or to their wants or wishes upon any other subject.

"W. L. MARCY, Secretary of War."

How could the minority of the committee, with this record before them, deny that there had been any adverse decision, and even intimate that the decisions had been in favor of the claimant? First, we have the admitted fact, that the claim was submitted to Mr. Medill in September, 1846; that for more than three years he did not pay it; and that he went out of office without paying it. Second, we have his letter before he left the office, assigning his reasons at length for not paying it; and thirdly, we have Secretary Marcy's order, so pointed and positive that this claim could never have been paid without violating that order. And yet, gentlemen say there has been no decision. Nay, sir, they even assert that the decision has been in their favor.

“They must have options sharp I ween,

To see what is not to be seen.”

I pass from the consideration of this point, and return to the second contract, which we have seen is without date, but which is found to have been in the Second Auditor's office as early as 8th September, 1846. It may have been there some days earlier.

By the terms of this contract, which I have before me, Doctor Gwin was to have for his services, as attorney for the Indians, various large sums of money, and among others, one-half of all that should be recovered from the United States on account of provisions purchased at Cincinnati in 1837. The sum thus recovered, or which, I should rather say, was found to be due on a fair settlement of the Chickasaw account, was $112,042.99. One-half of this sum was, of course, $56,021.49, and this was the sum claimed by Doctor Gwin. The report and resolutions have no relation to any other payment to Doctor Gwin, and I shall, therefore, confine my remarks to this fifty-six thousand dollars-dismissing the others with the single remark that they were paid. We have already seen that the Second Auditor, McCalla, passed this claim and sent it down to Second Comptroller Parris on the 8th of September, 1846. We have also seen that the comptroller sent it on the day following to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, where it properly belonged, for administrative examination. We have seen that it remained there to the close of Mr. Polk's administration, and we have seen the reasons why it was not paid. Let us now pursue the thread of its remarkable history during the three years and more that intervened between its falling into Commissioner Medill's hands and its final payment by order of Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior.

Within a day or two after the claim was passed by Second Auditor McCalla, Doctor Gwin transferred it, for value received, to Messrs. Corcoran & Riggs, bankers in this city.

Various protests of the Indians and their attorney, together with other papers, are found on file. But no effort seems to have been made on the part of the claimants to change the determination of Commissioner Medill and Secretary Marcy. Early in 1849, and after the new cabinet were fairly under way, the claimants seem to have renewed their labors. A long resting spell had imparted to them new energy, and they pursued the case with an earnestness and zeal worthy of a better cause. I pass over much that was said and done between the 4th of March, 1849, and the 30th of June of that year, and resume the history with the following letter:

WASHINGTON CITY, June 30, 1849.

SIR: I have just been informed that an effort is being made to transfer an appropriation now standing on the books of the treasury "for the removal and subsistence of Indians," to the appropriation "for carrying into effect treaties with the Chickasaws," with a view of asking the payment or contract made by certain Chickasaw Indians with Dr. Wm. M. Gwin. I most respectfully ask the suspension of your action in the matter until I can have time to file a protest on behalf of the Chickasaw nation, and state the reasons why the claim should not be paid without being transmitted to the Chickasaw Council for their approval.

With great respect, your obedient servant.

JOSEPH BRYAN.

HON. T. EWING, Secretary, &c.

It will be remembered that Mr. Bryan was the attorney of the Indians, regularly employed to resist the payment of this claim.

On the 2d of July, 1849, Mr. Bryan filed the protest alluded to in the letter just read, and from that protest I read the following extract:

"I deem it altogether needless at this time to go into a history of the transaction, as the protest of the agent, Colonel Upshaw, was filed by me in the Indian Office, which purported to explain the whole matter, and which had the effect of stopping the action of the War Department in the matter, and prevented the payment of the claim under the DECISION OF THE LATE SECRETARY OF WAR, GENERAL MARCY. Since that time no effort that I am aware of has been made to procure its payment until now."

Nothing daunted, the claimants pressed their suit with increased energy, and by way of showing the nature of the opposition and the character of the obstacles thrown in their way, I beg leave to read two or three short papers found among the files now before me. It is impossible that these papers should have been overlooked by the most careless searcher after truth in this case. On the 14th of July, 1848, Colonel Pitman Colbert, a distinguished man among the Chickasaws, wrote to Commissioner Medill the letter from which I read an extract:

"I present myself and respectfully request to be informed of the amount of money received by Dr. W. M. Gwin, by virtue of a power of attorney from the Chickasaw commissioners; also a copy of that power of attorney, as it is important for my object to know the names of the persons who made and constituted Dr. Gwin the financial agent of the Chickasaws; and whether or not said Gwin has not attempted to draw other sums of money by virtue of said power, since it became notorious that his power was revoked by the universal condemnation of the Chickasaw people; together with any other information relating to this matter that may be in possession of your department."

On the 28th of February, 1849, a delegation from the Chickasaw nation thus wrote to Secretary Marcy. After speaking at some length of their claim for $112,042.99, they say:

"But we found in connection, however, with this claim, that an agreement has been filed between William M. Gwin on the one part, and the chiefs, headmen, and warriors on the other part, by which it appears that one-half of said claim was to be paid to said William M. Gwin, for his services in obtaining an adjustment of the claim by the government, and on this agreement the Second Auditor has allowed William M. Gwin $56,021.49, being the one-half of $112,042.99 as stated. This account is now suspended in your office, as we are informed, and we are bound to thank you for delaying the matter thus far, although it is important to our people that they should be in annual receipt of the interest upon this sum which is justly due the Chickasaw nation."

Such is the character of all the papers in this great mass, numbering more than five hundred pages. The Indians, from the beginning to the ending, sternly and steadily resisted the payment of this demand. It is among the most remarkable circumstances connected with the case, that there is not one particle of Indian testimony to sustain it-not a single Indian of the whole tribe has ever been found to endorse its justice, or to say it ought to be paid. Their testimony is uniformly and unitedly against it. Their sense of its injustice may be gathered from the paper which I now read:

A PROTEST.

Be it enacted by the General Council of the Chiefs and Captains of the Chickasaw tribe of Indians, That the following protest be adopted, and copies of it be transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury and to the Secretary of the Home Department at Washington city:

The chiefs, captains, headmen, and warriors of the Chickasaw tribe of Indians in full council assembled, have learned that Dr. William Gwin has filed in the Treasury Department of the United States, at Washington City, an account against the Chickasaw fund, for $56,021.49, which account we understand, is based upon an agreement which, it is pretended, was made between the said Gwin and the Chickasaw tribe of Indians. This agreement, if any such exist, was made by some of our commissioners or chiefs in a private manner, without the knowledge or consent of our nation in council, and has never been recognised, ratified, or confirmed by a general council of our tribe, and without this it cannot nor ought not to be binding upon our people. Our tribe cannot be bound by the acts of any individuals of the same, unless a special power for this purpose has been delegated to them by a general council.

The tribe of Chickasaws, in full council assembled, after deliberation, repudiate the action of the individuals who entered into that agreement, if any was made, and deny that they had any authority to bind our people.

We therefore solemnly protest against the payment of that account out of the Chickasaw funds, as, in justice to our people, we are bound to do.

Done in open council of our tribe, and attested by our signatures, at Boiling Springs, Chickasaw District, July 13, 1849.

Joel Kemp,

Captain STROSS, pro wag, his X mark,

Captain PARKER, his X mark,

Captain NED, his X mark,

HOTCHIE, his X mark,

LOUIS, his X mark,

JERRY, his X mark,

ELBUB NU TURKEY, his X mark,

WILLIAM JAMES, his X mark,

ENAH NO TI CHU, his X mark,

JACK UTTUBBY, his X mark,

JOH TU CHUCK ATTIEA, his X mark,

VIBBIT UN OYUH, his X mark,

ELOSS AMBY, his X mark,

BILLY, his X mark,

PITMAN COLBERT,

LEMUEL COLBERT,

JACKSON FRAZIER,

ISAAC ATBERTEAUR, his X mark,

President of the Council.

EDUMUND PECKERS, his X mark,

Chief, Chickasaw Dirstrict C. N.

Attest: CYRUS HARRIS, Clerk Chickasaw District.

Now, sir, I humbly submit, that all this mass of testimony, together with a great deal more which I have neither time nor patience to read, should, at least, have put the Secretary on his guard. It should have been sufficient to elicit the most searching investigation into all the facts. We shall presently see whether it had that effect.

I said, sometime since, that the contract was without date, and so it was; other testimony was resorted to to [sic] fix its date. A Mr. Charles Johnson, in a long affidavit now before me, gives somewhat in detail a history of Dr. Gwin's contracts with the Indians. It seems, that a general council had been called to obtain a ratification of Dr. Gwin's last agreement with a part of the Indian commissioners. There was great dissatisfaction among the people. Johnson concludes his affidavit thus:

"On the day the council met, the commissioners, in a body, resigned. I was not present, but understood there was much excitement. The power of attorney given to Dr. Gwin, in November, 1844, was said to be the main cause. Some two weeks after the commissioners resigned, they came to Fort Washita, and then signed the new power of attorney. In consequence of there having been much said respecting the papers, I requested them to permit me to take both powers to Major Armstrong, and gave them my word that the old one should be destroyed. I returned them both into the hands of Major Armstrong, who, in my presence, destroyed the old one. Colonel Upshaw, Chickasaw agent, saw all the papers, and disapproved of both powers of attorney. At the time this affair took place, I was a trader in the Chickasaw country.

CHARLES JOHNSON.

"CITY OF PHILADELPHIA," ss. Sworn and subscribed before me this 29th day of January, A. D. 1850.

“C. BRAZIER,

Ald. and Ex-officio Justice of the Peace.”

No wonder this power of attorney is without date. Signed officially by the commissioners two weeks after they had been compelled to resign, it would not have looked well to date it. No wonder the Indians in general council repudiated it, and said it had been executed without authority and in a private manner. Can it be, Mr. Speaker, that Messrs. Ewing and Johnson, in deciding to pay this money, could have overlooked papers like these?

But, sir, the case does not stop here. This paper, thus executed, was lost; yes, lost. A COPY was presented by Mr. Corcoran, of the firm of Corcoran & Riggs, to whom Dr. Gwin had transferred the claim, and on this copy, thus presented, the money was paid.

Mr. Corcoran swore, to the best of his belief, that it was a correct copy. But there were subscribing witnesses, some six or eight of them, white men and Indians. And I do not learn that an attempt was ever made to obtain their testimony that the copy was correct.

The gentlemen from Ohio and Virginia [Messrs. Vinton and Bayly] have dilated at great length, and with much eloquence and learning, on this, as an adjudicated case. We have been exhorted not to lay our profane hands on the sanctity of a judicial decision. We must needs let this thing pass, because it is res adjudicata. Let me ask the learned, gentleman if there is a court in the civilized world where the plaintiff could introduce the bare copy of the most important paper, upon no other than his own affidavit as to its correctness, and that, too, when there were a dozen or more subscribing witnesses? This a judicial proceeding, indeed! This the sacred ermine we are exhorted not to profane! I have about the same respect for such "judicial proceedings" that I have for a "Choctaw council," and about as much reverence for this sort of ermine as I have for an Indian blanket.

Well, sir, the case had progressed to this point, when Mr. Ewing determined to pay it; but with that true cunning which is a part of himself, he determined to put the Attorney-General between him and danger; so he called on him for his legal opinion. And here is the opinion of the learned gentleman, in all its length and breadth, height and depth. See it, sir, in all its vast proportions—its latitude and longitude, and be silent while I read, all ye ends of the earth! Listen!

ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

WASHINGTON, January 3, 1850.

SIR: In the cases of the claim of the Chickasaw nation against the United States, and of Messrs. Corcoran and Riggs, as assignees of William M. Gwin, submitted by you to this office, I have formed an opinion, after careful consideration, which my other engagements prevent my doing more at this time than barely stating. Should it be your wish, I will avail myself of the very first leisure to assign my reasons.

1st. I am of opinion that the account of the nation is to be considered now as having been properly opened and restated, and that the balance found due by the accounting officers of $112,842, is properly chargeable to the appropriation for the subsistence and removal of Indians.

2d. That the last contract with William M. Gwin, assigned to Corcoran and Riggs, is valid, and that out of the fund payable to the Chickasaws under the first head, whatever balance is due under that contract, should be paid to Corcoran and Riggs.

With regard, your obedient servant,

REVERDY JOHNSON.

Hon. T. EWING.

Shades of our fathers defend us! Was there ever such an opinion in such a case? Here is a case involving an immediate payment of $112,842, and contingently a vastly larger sum. A case which has been decided against by some of the purest officers and ablest lawyers in the Union. Its history covers a period of some twelve or fourteen years, and is written on five hundred pages of foolscap, and the Attorney-General disposes of it in two short sentences: "I am of opinion that it ought to be paid." "I think Corcoran and Riggs ought to have half the money." There it is, well and nobly said. This learned opinion convinced the distinguished Secretary, and he penned this important paper Veni, vidi, vici. See, sir, it is short, and exactly to the point. To use the poetic phrase of Mr. Winthrop, "it is as brief as the posy on a lady's ring." Harken! all yea of little faith!

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

January 4, 1850.

The account will be stated, and the payment made in accordance with the Attorney-General's opinion within.

T. EWING, Secretary.

This had well-nigh ended the whole matter; but the Chickasaws were importunate. They interposed Johnson's affidavit and other like documents. Ewing hesitated; the thing looked barefaced. He may for once in his life have felt that there was such a thing as conscience. Again he called the learned Attorney-General to his aid, and that distinguished functionary, with a promptitude and power which few men can master, responded in the following learned, powerful, and convincing argument:—

ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

7th March, 1850.

SIR: In compliance with your request of the 8th January last, I have reexamined the cases of the Chickasaw nation against the United States, and of Corcoran and Riggs, assignees of William M. Gwin, upon which I gave you an opinion on the third of that month, and have most carefully considered the additional evidence and the arguments of the counsel for the parties concerned, and see no reason to change the opinion referred to.

Indeed the effect of the recent evidence is to satisfy me more fully, that that opinion was right; and I therefore again advise you accordingly.

The press of business upon me still continuing, I must wait until the final adjournment of the Supreme Court before I can give in detail the reasons which have led me to the conclusion to which I have come. Should you then desire it, they will be submitted with pleasure.

I have the honor to be, with great regard, your obedient servant,

REVERDY JOHNSON.

Hon. THOMAS EWING, Secretary of the Interior.

This was conclusive; the Secretary was overcome; the attorneys stood aghast; the Indians were floored; the money was paid; Corcoran and Riggs felt comfortable; Dr. Gwin was satisfied, and the scene closed. I drop the curtain over the transaction with this single remark: Before many years shall have passed by, we will be called on to refund this money to the Chickasaws.

_______________

* Let me remark here, that in speaking of the amount due them, the commissioner means the whole sum, $112,000, and includes, of course, the $56,000 claimed by Dr. Gwin.

SOURCE: M. W. Cluskey, Editor, Speeches, Messages, and Other Writings of the Hon. Albert G. Brown, A Senator in Congress from the State of Mississippi, p. 215-33

Daniel Webster to Millard Fillmore, February 3, 1851

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February 3, 1851.

MY DEAR SIR,—You will receive the suggestion which I am about to make as being unexpected.

I look upon the Nicaragua Mission, and all the Nicaraguan affairs, as being, at this moment, the most delicate and important point in our foreign relations. Among all who are applying for appointments abroad, members of Congress, and others, I do not know a man whom I think qualified to be Chargé d'Affaires at Nicaragua. We are in danger of collision with England, and of entanglements, on the other hand, with these little republics.

At the same time, the amount of transit of goods and passengers across the Isthmus, at this point, is very large and fast increasing. We need a well-informed, safe, sound, and accomplished political agent; and the best qualified man I know is William Hunter, one of the senior clerks in this Department. Mr. Hunter is about forty years old, belongs to Rhode Island, and is a sober, clear-headed, hard-working man. He was originally well educated, has been in this Department a good while, and for ten years or more has had charge of all the correspondence with the South American States. He reads and speaks Spanish well. All the South American Legations here, know him, and regard him highly. He is perfectly familiar with the constitutions, interests, and objects of all these American States, from Mexico to Buenos Ayres. If he were at Nicaragua, I should feel perfectly confident that no European agent, and no American government or minister, would obtain any advantage over him, or be able to lead him into any act of imprudence.

As to political effect, I know nothing to be expected from his appointment, but the general satisfaction which the selection of a person purely from considerations of capacity and fitness would give to the country.

All this is merely for your consideration. Of course I have said nothing of it to Mr. Hunter himself, nor has any such idea, I presume, ever entered his mind.

Yours truly,

DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 416-7

Daniel Webster to Mr. Plumer, February 14, 1851

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Washington, February 14, 1851.

DEAR SIR,—I wish it were in my power to find time to write or speak of your father, and gather up the recollections which I have of him. But in truth, my time at present is absolutely and altogether devoted to public duties.

I knew your father very well from 1801 to 1817, when I left the State. The first time I saw him was at Mr. Peabody's, in Exeter, where he took the lead in a table conversation, upon the merits and demerits of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I remember also his speaking of the Edinburgh Review, and Mr. Jeffrey, both just then becoming conspicuous. He left the Senate, I think, in 1807. We did not agree upon the embargo policy of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, and the subsequent war with England. But I do not suppose that we ever differed upon any other important practical questions, nor upon any great constitutional question.

I expect to be in Boston about the 1st of April or the latter part of March. If you could conveniently meet me there, I would cheerfully pass an hour or two with you, in stating what I recollect of him, and expressing the opinion which I entertain of his talents and character.

I remain, very truly, yours,

DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 419-20

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, December 10, 1819

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MONTICELLO, December 10, 1819.

DEAR SIR,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of November the 23d. The banks, bankrupt law, manufactures, Spanish treaty, are nothing. These are occurences which, like waves in a storm, will pass under the ship. But the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by revolt, and what more, God only knows. From the battle of Bunker's Hill to the treaty of Paris, we never had so ominous a question. It even damps the joy with which I hear of your high health, and welcomes to me the consequences of my want of it. I thank God that I shall not live to witness its issue. Sed hæc hactenus.

I have been amusing myself latterly with reading the voluminous letters of Cicero. They certainly breathe the purest effusions of an exalted patriot, while the parricide Cæsar is lost in odious contrast. When the enthusiasm, however, kindled by Cicero's pen and principles, subsides into cool reflection, I ask myself, what was that government which the virtues of Cicero were so zealous to restore, and the ambition of Cæsar to subvert? And if Cæsar had been as virtuous as he was daring and sagacious, what could he, even in the plenitude of his usurped power, have done to lead his fellow citizens into good government? I do not say to restore it, because they never had it, from the rape of the Sabines to the ravages of the Cæsars. If their people indeed had been, like ourselves, enlightened, peaceable, and really free, the answer would be obvious. "Restore independence to all your foreign conquests, relieve Italy from the government of the rabble of Rome, consult it as a nation entitled to self-government, and do its will." But steeped in corruption, vice and venality, as the whole nation was, (and nobody had done more than Cæsar to corrupt it,) what could even Cicero, Cato, Brutus have done, had it been referred to them to establish a good government for their country? They had no ideas of government themselves, but of their degenerate Senate, nor the people of liberty, but of the factious opposition of their Tribunes. They had afterwards their Tituses, their Trajans and Antoninuses, who had the will to make them happy, and the power to mould their governmant into a good and permanent form. But it would seem as if they could not see their way clearly to do it. No government can continue good, but under the control of the people; and their people were so demoralized and depraved, as to be incapable of exercising a wholesome control. Their reformation then was to be taken up ab incunabulis. Their minds were to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue, and deterred from those of vice by the dread of punishments, proportioned indeed, but irremissible; in all cases, to follow truth as the only safe guide, and to eschew error, which bewilders us in one false consequence after another, in endless succession. These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure of order and good government. But this would have been an operation of a generation or two, at least, within which period would have succeeded many Neros and Commoduses, who would have quashed the whole process. I confess then, I can neither see what Cicero, Cato and Brutus, united and uncontrolled, could have devised to lead their people into good government, nor how this enigma can be solved, nor how further shown why it has been the fate of that delightful country never to have known, to this day, and through a course of five and twenty hundred years, the history of which we possess, one single day of free and rational government. Your intimacy with their history, ancient, middle and modern, your familiarity with the improvements in the science of government at this time, will enable you, if any body, to go back with our principles and opinions to the times of Cicero, Cato and Brutus, and tell us by what process these great and virtuous men could have led so unenlightened and vitiated a people into freedom and good government, et eris mihi magnus Apollo. Cura ut valeas, et tibi persuadeas carissimum te mihi esse.

SOURCE: H. A. Washington, Editor, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being his Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and other Writings, Official and Private, Vol. 7, p. 148-9

Senator John C. Calhoun’s Speech on the Oregon Bill, June 27, 1848

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[Delivered in the United States Senate, June 27th, 1848.]

THERE is a very striking difference between the position on which the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States stand, in reference to the subject under consideration. The former desire no action of the Government; demand no law to give them any advantage in the territory about to be established; are willing to leave it, and other territories belonging to the United States, open to all their citizens, so long as they continue to be territories,—and when they cease to be so, to leave it to their inhabitants to form such governments as may suit them, without restriction or condition, except that imposed by the constitution, as a prerequisite for admission into the Union. In short, they are willing to leave the whole subject where the constitution and the great and fundamental principles of self-government place it. On the contrary, the non-slaveholding States, instead of being willing to leave it on this broad and equal foundation, demand the interposition of the Government, and the passage of an act to prevent the citizens of the slaveholding States from emigrating with their property into the territory, in order to give their citizens and those they may permit, the exclusive right of settling it, while it remains in that condition, preparatory to subjecting it to like restrictions and conditions when it becomes a State. The 12th section of this bill is intended to assert and maintain this demand of the non-slaveholding States, while it remains a territory, not openly or directly,—but indirectly, by extending the provisions of the bill for the establishment of the Iowa Territory to this, and by ratifying the acts of the informal and self-constituted government of Oregon, which, among others, contains one prohibiting the introduction of slavery, It thus, in reality, adopts what is called the Wilmot proviso, not only for Oregon, but, as the bill now stands, for New Mexico and California. The amendment, on the contrary, moved by the Senator from Mississippi, near me (Mr. Davis), is intended to assert and maintain the position of the slaveholding States. It leaves the territory free and open to all the citizens of the United States, and would overrule, if adopted, the act of the self-constituted Territory of Oregon and the 12th section, as far as it relates to the subject under consideration. We have thus fairly presented the grounds taken by the non-slaveholding and the slaveholding States,—or, as I shall call them for the sake of brevity,—the Northern and Southern States, in their whole extent for discussion.

The first question which offers itself for consideration is—Have the Northern States the power which they claim, to prevent the Southern people from emigrating freely, with their property, into territories belonging to the United States, and to monopolize them for their exclusive benefit?

It is, indeed, a great question. I propose to discuss it calmly and dispassionately. I shall claim nothing which does not fairly and clearly belong to the Southern States, either as members of this Federal Union, or appertain to them in their separate and individual character; nor shall I yield any thing which belongs to them in either capacity. I am influenced neither by sectional nor party considerations. If I know myself, I would repel as promptly and decidedly any aggression of the South on the North, as I would any on the part of the latter on the former. And let me add, I hold the obligation to repel aggression to be not much less solemn, than that of abstaining from making aggression; and the party which submits to it when it can be resisted, to be not much less guilty and responsible for consequences than that which makes it. Nor do I stand on party grounds. What I shall say in reference to this subject, I shall say entirely without reference to the Presidential election. I hold it to be infinitely higher than that and all other questions of the day. I shall direct my efforts to ascertain what is constitutional, right and just, under a thorough conviction that the best and only way of putting an end to this, the most dangerous of all questions to our Union and institutions, is to adhere rigidly to the constitution and the dictates of justice.

With these preliminary remarks, I recur to the question—Has the North the power which it claims under the 12th section of this bill? I ask at the outset, where is the power to be found? Not, certainly, in the relation in which the Northern and Southern States stand to each other. They are the constituent parts or members of a common Federal Union; and, as such, are equals in all respects, both in dignity and rights, as is declared by all writers on governments founded on such union, and as may be inferred from arguments deduced from their nature and character. Instead, then, of affording any countenance or authority in favor of the power, the relation in which they stand to each other furnishes a strong presumption against it. Nor can it be found in the fact that the South holds property in slaves. That, too, fairly considered, instead of affording any authority for the power, furnishes a strong presumption against it. Slavery existed in the South when the constitution was framed, fully to the extent, in proportion to the population, that it does at this time. It is the only property recognized by it; the only one that entered into its formation as a political element, both in the adjustment of the relative weight of the States in the Government, and the apportionment of direct taxes; and the only one that is put under the express guaranty of the constitution. It is well known to all conversant with the history of the formation and adoption of the constitution, that the South was very jealous in reference. to this property; that it constituted one of the difficulties both to its formation and adoption; and that it would not have assented to either, had the convention refused to allow to it its due weight in the Government, or to place it under the guaranty of the constitution. Nor can it be found in the way that the territories have been acquired. I will not go into particulars, in this respect, at this stage of the discussion. Suffice it to say, the whole was acquired either by purchase, out of the common funds of all the States, the South as well as the North, or by arms and mutual sacrifice of men and money;—which, instead of giving any countenance in favor of the power claimed by the North, on every principle of right and justice, furnishes strong additional presumption against it.

But, if it cannot be found in either,—if it exists at all,—the power must be looked for in the constitutional compact, which binds these States together in a Federal Union; and I now ask, can it be found there? Does that instrument contain any provision which gives the North the power to exclude the South from a free admission into the territories of the United States with its peculiar property, and to monopolize them for its own exclusive use? If it in fact contains such power, expressed or implied, it must be found in a specific grant, or be inferred by irresistible deduction, from some clear and acknowledged power. Nothing short of the one or the other can overcome the strong presumption against it.

That there is no such specific grant may be inferred, beyond doubt, from the fact that no one has ever attempted to designate it. Instead of that, it has been assumed—taken for granted without a particle of proof—that Congress has the absolute right to govern the territories. Now, I concede, if it does in reality possess such power, it may exclude from the territories whom or what it pleases, and admit into them whom or what it pleases; and of course may exercise the power claimed by the North to exclude the South from them. But I again repeat, where is this absolute power to be found? All admit that there is no such specific grant of power. If, then, it exists at all, it must be inferred from some such power. I ask where is that to be found? The Senator from New-York, behind me (Mr. Dix), points to the clause in the constitution, which provides that "Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property belonging to the United States." Now, I under take to affirm and maintain, beyond the possibility of doubt, that, so far from conferring absolute power to govern the territories, it confers no governmental power whatever; no, not a particle. It refers exclusively to territory, regarded simply as public lands. Every word relates to it in that character, and is wholly inapplicable to it considered in any other character than property. Take the expression "dispose of" with which it begins. It is easily understood what it means when applied to lands; and is the proper and natural expression regarding the territory in that character, when the object is to confer the right to sell or make other disposition of it. But who ever heard the expression applied to government? And what possible meaning can it have when so applied? Take the next expression, "to make all needful rules and regulations." These, regarded separately, might, indeed, be applicable to government in a loose sense, but they are never so applied in the constitution. In every case where they are used in it, they refer to property, to things, or some process, such as the rules of Court, or of the Houses of Congress for the government of their proceedings,—but never to government, which always implies persons to be governed. But if there should be any doubt in this case, the words immediately following, which restrict them to making “rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property of the United States," must effectually expel it. They restrict their meaning, beyond the possibility of doubt, to territory regarded as property.

But if it were possible for doubt still to exist, another and conclusive argument still remains to show that the framers of the constitution did not intend to confer by this clause governmental powers. I refer to the clause in the constitution which delegates the power of exclusive legislation to Congress over this District and "all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same may be for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and other needful buildings." The places therein referred to are clearly embraced by the expression, "other property belonging to the United States," contained in the clause I have just considered. But it is certain, that if it had been the intention of the framers of the constitution to confer governmental powers over such places by that clause, they never would have delegated it by this. They were incapable of doing a thing so absurd. But it is equally certain, if they did not intend to confer such power over them, they could not have intended it over territories. Whatever was conferred by the same words, in reference to one, must have been intended to be conferred in reference to the other, and the reverse. The opposite supposition would be absurd. But, it may be asked why the term—territory—was omitted in the delegation of exclusive legislation to Congress over the places enumerated? Very satisfactory reasons may, in my opinion, be assigned. The former were limited to places lying within the limits and jurisdiction of the States, and the latter to public land lying beyond both. The cession and purchase of the former, with the consent of the State within which they might be situated, did not oust the sovereignty or jurisdiction of the State. They still remained in the State, the United States acquiring only the title to the place. It, therefore, became necessary to confer on Congress, by express delegation, the exercise of exclusive power of legislation over this District and such places, in order to carry out the object of the purchase and session was simply intended to withdraw them from under the legislatures of the respective States within which they might lie, and substitute that of Congress in its place, subject to the restrictions of the constitution and the objects for which the places were acquired, leaving, as I have said, the sovereignty still in the State in which they are situated, but in abeyance, as far as it extends to legislation. Thus, in the case of this District—since the retrocession to Virginia of the part beyond the Potomac,—the sovereignty still continues in Maryland in the manner stated. But the case is very different in reference to territories, lying as they do beyond the limits and jurisdictions of all the States. The United States possess not simply the right of ownership over them, but that of exclusive dominion and sovereignty; and hence it was not necessary to exclude the power of the States to legislate over them, by delegating the exercise of exclusive legislation to Congress. It would have been an act of supererogation. It may be proper to remark in this connection, that the power of exclusive legislation, conferred in these cases, must not be confounded with the power of absolute legislation. They are very different things. It is true that absolute power of legislation is always exclusive, but it by no means follows that exclusive power of legislation or of government is likewise always absolute. Congress has the exclusive power of legislation, as far as this Government is concerned, and the State legislatures as far as their respective governments are concerned;—but we all know that both are subject to many and important restrictions and conditions which the nature of absolute power excludes.

I have now made good the assertion I ventured to make, that the clause in the constitution relied on by the Senator from New-York, so far from conferring the absolute power of government over the territory claimed by him, and others who agree with him, confers not a particle of governmental power. Having conclusively established this, the long list of precedents, cited by the Senator to prop up the power which he sought in the clause, falls to the ground with the fabric which he raised; and I am thus exempted from the necessity of referring to them, and replying to them one by one.

But there is one precedent, referred to by the Senator, unconnected with the power, and on that account requiring particular notice. I refer to the ordinance of 1787, which was adopted by the old Congress of the Confederation while the convention that framed the constitution was in session, and about one year before its adoption, and of course on the very eve of the expiration of the old Confederation. Against its introduction, I might object that the act of the Congress of the Confederation cannot rightfully form precedents for this Government; but I waive that. I waive also the objection that the act was consummated when that Government was in extremis, and could hardly be considered compos mentis. I waive also the fact that the ordinance assumed the form of a compact, and was adopted when only eight States were present, while the articles of confederation required nine to form compacts. I waive also the fact, that Mr. Madison declared that the act was without shadow of constitutional authority;—and shall proceed to show, from the history of its adoption, that it cannot justly be considered of any binding force.

Virginia made the cession of the territory north of the Ohio, and lying between it and the Mississippi and the lakes, in 1784. It now contains the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a very considerable extent of territory lying north of the latter. Shortly after the cession, a committee of three was raised, of whom Mr. Jefferson was one. They reported an ordinance for the establishment of the territory, containing, among other provisions, one, of which Mr. Jefferson was the author, excluding slavery from the territory after the year 1800. It was reported to Congress, but this provision was struck out. On the question of striking out, every Southern State present voted in favor of it; and, what is more striking, every Southern delegate voted the same way, Mr. Jefferson alone excepted. The ordinance was adopted without the provision. At the next session, Rufus King, then a member of the old Congress, moved a proposition, very much in the same shape as the sixth article (that which excludes slavery) in the ordinance no action on it. A committee was moved the next or the subsequent year, which reported without including or noticing Mr. King's proposition. Mr. Dane was a member of that committee, and proposed a provision the same as that in the ordinance as it passed, but the committee reported without including it. Finally, another committee was raised, at the head of which was Mr. Carrington of Virginia, and of which Mr. Dane was also a member. That committee reported without including the amendment previously proposed by him. Mr. Dane moved his proposition, which was adopted, and the report of the committee thus amended became the ordinance of 1787.

It may be inferred from this brief historical sketch, that the ordinance was a compromise between the Southern and Northern States, of which the terms were, that slavery should be excluded from the territory upon condition that fugitive slaves, who might take refuge in the territory, should be delivered up to their owners, as stipulated in the proviso of the sixth article of the ordinance. It is manifest, from what has been stated, that the South was unitedly and obstinately opposed to the provision when first moved; that the proposition of Mr. King, without the proviso, was in like manner resisted by the South, as may be inferred from its entire want of success, and that it never could be brought to agree to it until the provision for the delivery up of fugitive slaves was incorporated in it. But it is well understood that a compromise involves not a surrender, but simply a waiver of the right or power; and hence in the case of individuals, it is a well-established legal principle, that an offer to settle by compromise a litigated claim, is no evidence against the justice of the claim on the side of the party making it. The South, to her honor, has observed with fidelity her engagements under this compromise; in proof of which, I appeal to the precedents cited by the Senator from New-York, intended by him to establish the fact of her acquiescence in the ordinance. I admit that she has acquiesced in the several acts of Congress to carry it into effect; but the Senator is mistaken in supposing that it is proof of a surrender, on her part, of the power over the territories which he claims for Congress. No, she never has, and I trust never will, make such a surrender. Instead of that, it is conclusive proof of her fidelity to her engagements. She has never attempted to set aside the ordinance, or to deprive the territory, and the States erected within its limits, of any right or advantage it was intended to confer. But I regret that as much cannot be said in favor of the fidelity with which it has been observed on their part. With the single exception of the State of Illinois—be it said to her honor—every other State erected within its limits has pursued a course, and adopted measures, which have rendered the stipulations of the proviso to deliver up fugitive slaves nugatory. Wisconsin may, also, be an exception, as she has just entered the Union, and has hardly had time to act on the subject. They have gone further, and suffered individuals to form combinations, without an effort to suppress them, for the purpose of enticing and seducing the slaves to leave their masters, and to run them into Canada beyond the reach of our laws—in open violation, not only of the stipulations of the ordinance, but of the constitution itself. If I express myself strongly, it is not for the purpose of producing excitement, but to draw the attention of the Senate forcibly to the subject. My object is to lay bare the subject under consideration, just as a surgeon probes to the bottom and lays open a wound, not to cause pain to his patient, but for the purpose of healing it.

I come now to another precedent of a similar character, but differing in this—that it took place under this Government, and not under that of the old Confederation; I refer to what is known as the Missouri Compromise. It is more recent and better known, and may be more readily despatched.

After an arduous struggle of more than a year, on the question whether Missouri should come into the Union with or without restrictions prohibiting slavery, a compromise line was adopted between the North and the South; but it was done under circumstances which made it nowise obligatory on the latter. It is true, it was moved by one of her distinguished citizens (Mr. Clay); but it is equally so, that it was carried by the almost united vote of the North against the almost united vote of the South; and was thus imposed on the latter by superior numbers in opposition to her strenuous efforts. The South has never given her sanction to it, or assented to the power it asserted. She was voted down, and has simply acquiesced in an arrangement which she has not had the power to reverse, and which she could not attempt to do without disturbing the peace and harmony of the Union—to which she has ever been averse. Acting on this principle, she permitted the Territory of Iowa to be formed, and the State to be admitted into the Union, under the compromise, without objection; and this is now quoted by the Senator from New-York to prove her surrender of the power he claims for Congress.

To add to the strength of this claim, the advocates of the power hold up the name of Jefferson in its favor, and go so far as to call him the author of the so-called Wilmot proviso, which is but a general expression of a power of which the Missouri compromise is a case of its application. If we may judge by his opinion of that case, what his opinion was of the principle, instead of being the author of the proviso, or being in its favor, no one could be more deadly hostile to it. In a letter addressed to the elder Adams in 1819, in answer to one from him, he uses these remarkable expressions in reference to the Missouri question:

"The banks, bankrupt law, manufactures, Spanish treaty, are nothing. These are occurrences, which, like waves in a storm, will pass under the ship. But the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by revolt, and what more, God only knows."

To understand the full force of these expressions, it must be borne in mind that the questions enumerated were the great and exciting political questions of the day, on which parties divided. The banks and bankrupt law had long been so. Manufactures, or what has since been called the protective tariff, was at the time a subject of great excitement, as was the Spanish treaty, that is, the treaty by which Florida was ceded to the Union, and by which the western boundary between Mexico and the United States was settled, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific ocean. All these exciting party questions of the day Mr. Jefferson regarded as nothing, compared to the Missouri question. He looked on all of them as in their nature fugitive; and, to use his own forcible expression, "would pass off under the ship of State like waves in a storm." Not so this fatal question. It was a breaker on which it was destined to be stranded. And yet his name is quoted by the incendiaries of the present day in support of, and as the author of, a proviso which would give indefinite and universal extension of this fatal question to all the territories! It was compromised the next year by the adoption of the line to which I have referred. Mr. Holmes of Maine, long a member of this body, who voted for the measure, addressed a letter to Mr. Jefferson, inclosing a copy of his speech on the occasion. It drew out an answer from him which ought to be treasured up in the heart of every man who loves his country and its institutions. It is brief. I will send it to the Secretary to be read. The time of the Senate cannot be better occupied than in listening to it:

To John Holmes.

MONTICELLO, April 22, 1820.

I thank you, dear sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not far distant. But this momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not the final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property (for so it is misnamed) is a bagatelle, which would not cost me a second thought, if in that way a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one free State to another would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burden on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence, too, from this act of power, would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of th e different descriptions of men composing a State. This certainly is the exclusive right of every State, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them, and given to the General Government. Could Congress, for example, say that the non-freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other State?

I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I shall not live to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle, more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Mark his prophetic words! Mark his profound reasoning!

"It [the question] is hushed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived, and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated, and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper."

Twenty-eight years have passed since these remarkable words were penned, and there is not a thought which time has not thus far verified, and, it is to be feared, will continue to verify until the whole will be fulfilled. Certain it is, that he regarded the compromise line as utterly inadequate to arrest that fatal course of events, which his keen sagacity anticipated from the question. It was but a “reprieve.” Mark the deeply melancholy impression which it made on his mind:

"I regret that I am to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness for themselves, is to be thrown away by the unwise. and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I shall not live to weep over it."

Can any one believe, after listening to this letter, that Jefferson is the author of the so-called Wilmot proviso, or ever favored it? And yet there are at this time strenuous efforts making in the North to form a purely sectional party on it, and that, too, under the sanction of those who profess the highest veneration for his character and principles! But I must speak the truth: while I vindicate the memory of Jefferson from so foul a charge, I hold he is not blameless in reference to this subject. He committed a great error in inserting the provision he did in the plan he reported for the government of the territory, as much modified as it was. It was the first blow-the first essay "to draw a geographical line coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political." It originated with him in philanthropic, but mistaken views of the most dangerous character, as I shall show in the sequel. Others, with very different feelings and views, followed, and have given to it a direction and impetus, which, if not promptly and efficiently arrested, will end in the dissolution of the Union, and the destruction of our political institutions.

I have, I trust, established beyond controversy, that neither the ordinance of 1787, nor the Missouri compromise, nor the precedents growing out of them, nor the authority of Mr. Jefferson, furnishes any evidence whatever to prove that Congress possesses the power over the territory, claimed by those who advocate the 12th section of this bill. But admit, for the sake of argument, that I am mistaken, and that the objections I have urged against them are groundless give them all the force which can be claimed for precedents and they would not have the weight of a feather against the strong presumption which I, at the outset of my remarks, showed to be opposed to the existence of the power. Precedents, even in a court of justice, can have but little weight, except where the law is doubtful, and should have little in a deliberative body in any case on a constitutional question, and none, where the power to which it has been attempted to trace it does not exist, as I have shown, I trust, to be the case in this instance.

But, while I deny that the clause relating to the territory and other property of the United States, confers any governmental, or that Congress possesses absolute power over the territories, I by no means deny that it has any power over them. Such a denial would be idle on any occasion, but much more so on this, when we are engaged in constituting a territorial government, without an objection being whispered from any quarter against our right to do so. If there be any Senator of that opinion, he ought at once to rise and move to lay the bill on the table, or to dispose of it in some other way, so as to prevent the waste of time on a subject upon which we have no right to act. Assuming, then, that we possess the power, the only questions that remain are whence is it derived? and, what is its extent?

As to its origin, I concur in the opinion expressed by Chief Justice Marshall, in one of the cases read by the Senator from New-York, that it is derived from the right of acquiring territory; and I am the more thoroughly confirmed in it from the fact that I entertained the opinion long before I knew it to be his. As to the right of acquiring territory, I agree with the Senator from New-York, that it is embraced, without going further, both in the war and treaty powers. Admitting, then, what has never been denied, and what it would be idle to deny in a discussion which relates to territories acquired both by war and treaties, that the United States have the right to acquire territories, it would seem to follow, by necessary consequence, that they have the right to govern them. As they possess the entire right of soil, dominion, and sovereignty over them, they must necessarily carry with them the right to govern. But this Government, as the sole agent and representative of the United States—that is, the States of the Union in their federal character—must, as such, possess the sole right, if it exists at all. But, if there be any one disposed to take a different view of the origin of the power, I shall make no points with him,—for whatever may be its origin, the conclusion would be the same, as I shall presently show.

But it would be a great error to conclude that Congress has the absolute power of governing the territories, because it has the sole or exclusive power. The reverse is the case. It is subject to many and important restrictions and conditions, of which some are expressed and others implied. Among the former may be classed all the general and absolute prohibitions of the constitution; that is, all those which prohibit the exercise of certain powers under any circumstances. In this class is included the prohibition of granting titles of nobility; passing ex post facto laws and bills of attainder; the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, except in certain cases; making laws respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting its free exercise; and every other of like description, which conclusively shows that the power of Congress over the territories is not absolute. Indeed, it is a great error to suppose that either this or the State Governments possess, in any case, absolute power. Such power can belong only to the supreme ultimate power, called sovereignty, and this, in our system, resides in the people of the several States of the Union. With us, governments, both federal and State, are but agents, or, more properly, trustees, and, as such, possess, not absolute, but subordinate and limited powers; for all powers possessed by such governments must, from their nature, be trust powers, and subject to all the restrictions to which that class of powers are.

Among them, they are restricted to the nature and the objects of the trust; and hence no government under our system, federal or State, has the right to do any thing inconsistent with the nature of the powers intrusted to it, or the objects for which it was intrusted; or to express it in

more usual language, for which it was delegated. To do either would be to pervert the power to purposes never intended, and a violation of the constitution,—and that in the most dangerous way it could be made, because more easily done and less easily detected. But there is another and important class of restrictions which more directly relate to the subject under discussion. I refer to those imposed on the trustees by the nature and character of the party, who constituted the trustees and invested them with the trust powers to be exercised for its benefit. In this case it is the United States, that is, the several States of the Union. It was they who constituted the Government as their representative or trustee, and intrusted it with powers to be exercised for their common and joint benefit. To them in their united character the territories belong, as is expressly declared by the constitution. They are their joint and common owners, regarded as property or land; and in them, severally, reside the dominion and sovereignty over them. They are as much the territories of one State as another of Virginia as of New-York; of the Southern as the Northern States. They are the territories of all, because they are the territories of each; and not of each, because they are the territories of the whole. Add to this the perfect equality of dignity, as well as of rights, which appertain to them as members of a common federal Union,—which all writers on the subject admit to be a fundamental and essential relation between States so united,—and it must be manifest that Congress, in governing the territories, can give no preference or advantage to one State over another, or to one portion or section of the Union over another, without depriving the State or section over which the preference is given, or from which the advantage is withheld, of their clear and unquestionable right, and subverting the very foundation on which the Union and Government rest. It has no more power to do so than to subvert the constitution itself. In deed, the act itself would be subversion. It would destroy the relation of equality on the part of the Southern States, and sink them to mere dependants of the Northern, to the total destruction of the federal Union.

I have now shown, I trust, beyond controversy, that Congress has no power whatever to prevent the citizens of the Southern States from emigrating with their property into the territories of the United States, or to give an exclusive monopoly of them to the North. I now propose to go one step further, and show that neither the inhabitants of the territories nor their legislatures have any such right. A very few words will be sufficient for the purpose; for of all the positions ever taken, I hold that which claims the power for them to be the most absurd. If the territories belong to the United States—if the ownership, dominion and sovereignty over them be in the States of this Union, then neither the inhabitants of the territories, nor their legislatures, can exercise any power but what is subordinate to them but if the contrary could be shown, which I hold to be impossible, it would be subject to all the restrictions, to which I have shown the power of Congress is; and for the same reason, whatever power they might hold, would, in the case supposed, be subordinate to the constitution, and controlled by the nature and character of our political institutions. But if the reverse be true—if the dominion and sovereignty over the territories be in their inhabitants, instead of the United States—they would indeed, in that case, have the exclusive and absolute power of governing them, and might exclude whom they pleased, or what they pleased. But, in that case, they would cease to be the territories of the United States the moment we acquired them and permitted them to be inhabited. The first half-dozen of squatters would become the sovereigns, with full dominion and sovereignty over them; and the conquered people of New Mexico and California would become the sovereigns of the country as soon as they became the territories of the United States, vested with the full right of excluding even their conquerors. There is no escaping from the alternative, but by resorting to the greatest of all absurdities, that of a divided sovereignty—a sovereignty, a part of which would reside in the United States, and a part in the inhabitants of the territory. How can sovereignty—the ultimate and supreme power of a State—be divided? The exercise of the powers of sovereignty may be divided, but how can there be two supreme powers?

We are next told that the laws of Mexico preclude slavery; and assuming that they will remain in force until repealed, it is contended that, until Congress passes an act for their repeal, the citizens of the South cannot emigrate with their property into the territory acquired from her. I admit the laws of Mexico prohibit, not slavery, but slavery in the form it exists with us. The Puros are as much slaves as our negroes, and are less intelligent and well treated. But, I deny that the laws of Mexico can have the effect attributed to them. As soon as the treaty between the two countries is ratified, the sovereignty and authority of Mexico in the territory acquired by it becomes extinct, and that of the United States is substituted in its place,―carrying with it the constitution, with its overriding control, over all the laws and institutions of Mexico inconsistent with it. It is true, the municipal laws of the territory not inconsistent with the condition and the nature of our political system would, according to the writers on the laws of nations, remain, until changed,—not as a matter of right, but merely of sufferance, and as between the inhabitants of territory, in order to avoid a state of anarchy, before they can be brought under our laws. This is the utmost limit to which sufferance goes. Under it the peon system would continue; but not to the exclusion of such of our citizens as may choose to emigrate with their slaves or other property, that may be excluded by the laws of Mexico. The humane provisions of the laws of nations go no further than to protect the inhabitants in their property and civil rights, under their former laws, until others can be substituted. To extend them further and give them the force of excluding emigrants from the United States, because their property or religion are such as are prohibited from being introduced by the laws of Mexico, would not only prevent a great majority of the people of the United States from emigrating into the acquired territory, but would give a higher authority to the extinct power of Mexico over the territory than to our actual authority over it. I say the great majority, for the laws of Mexico not only prohibit the introduction of slaves, but of many other descriptions of property, and also the Protestant religion, which Congress itself cannot prohibit. To such absurdity would the supposition lead.

I have now concluded the discussion, so far as it relates to the power; and have, I trust, established beyond controversy, that the territories are free and open to all of the citizens of the United States, and that there is no power, under any aspect the subject can be viewed in, by which the citizens of the South can be prevented from emigrating with their property into any of them. I have advanced no argument which I do not believe to be true, nor pushed any one beyond what truth would strictly warrant. But, if mistaken,—if my arguments, instead of being sound and true, as I hold them beyond controversy to be, should turn out to be a mere mass of sophisms, and if in consequence, the barrier opposed by the want of power, should be surmounted, there is another still in the way, that cannot be. The mere possession of power is not, of itself, sufficient to justify its exercise. It must be, in addition, shown that, in the given case, it can be rightfully and justly exercised. Under our system, the first inquiry is: Does the constitution authorize the exercise of the power?

If this be decided in the affirmative, the next is: Can it be rightfully and justly exercised under the circumstances? And it is not, until this, too, is decided in the affirmative, that the question of the expediency of exercising it, is presented for consideration.

Now, I put the question solemnly to the Senators from the North Can you rightly and justly exclude the South from territories of the United States, and monopolize them for yourselves, even if, in your opinion, you should have the power? It is this question I wish to press on your attention with all due solemnity and decorum. The North and the South stand in the relation of partners in a common Union, with equal dignity and equal rights. We of the South have contributed our full share of funds, and shed our full share of blood for the acquisition of our territories. Can you, then, on any principle of equity and justice, deprive us of our full share in their benefit and advantage? Are you ready to affirm that a majority of the partners in a joint concern have the right to monopolize its benefits to the exclusion of the minority, even in cases where they have contributed their full share to the concern? But, to present the case more strongly and vividly, I shall descend from generals to particulars, and shall begin with the Oregon Territory. Our title to it is founded first, and in my opinion, mainly on our purchase of Louisiana; that was strengthened by the Florida treaty, which transferred to us the title also of Spain; and both by the discovery of the mouth of the Columbia river by Capt. Gray, and the exploration of the entire stream, from its source down to its mouth, by Lewis and Clark. The purchase of Louisiana cost fifteen millions of dollars; and we paid Spain five millions for the Florida treaty; making twenty in all. This large sum was advanced out of the common funds of the Union: the South, to say the least, contributing her full share. The discovery was made, it is true, by a citizen of Massachusetts; but he sailed under the flag and protection of the Union, and of course, whatever title was derived from his discovery, accrued to the benefit of the Union. The exploration of Lewis and Clark was at the expense of the Union. We are now about to form it into a territory; the expense of governing which, while it remains so, must be met out of the common fund, and towards which the South must contribute her full share. The expense will not be small. Already there is an Indian war to be put down, and a regiment for that purpose, and to protect the territory, has been ordered there. To what extent the expense may go we know not, but it will, not improbably, involve millions before the territory becomes a State. I now ask, Is it right, is it just—after having contributed our full share for the acquisition of the territory, with the liability of contributing, in addition, our full share of the expense for its government—that we should be shut out of the territory, and be excluded from participating in its benefits? What would be thought of such conduct in the case of individuals? And can that be right and just in Government, which every right-minded man would cry out to be base and dishonest in private life? If it would be so pronounced in a partnership of thirty individuals, how can it be pronounced otherwise in one of thirty States?

The case of our recently acquired territory from Mexico is, if possible, more marked. The events connected with the acquisition are too well known to require a long narrative. It was won by arms, and a great sacrifice of men and money. The South, in the contest, performed her full share of military duty, and earned a full share of military honor; has poured out her full share of blood freely, and has and will bear a full share of the expense; has evinced a full share of skill and bravery, and if I were to say even more than her full share of both, I would not go beyond the truth; to be attributed, however, to no superiority in either respect, but to accidental circumstances, which gave both its officers and soldiers more favorable opportunities for their display. All have done their duty nobly, and high courage and gallantry are but common attributes of our people. Would it be right and just to close a territory thus won against the South, and leave it open exclusively to the North? Would it deserve the name of free soil, if one half of the Union should be excluded and the other half should monopolize it, when it was won by the joint expense and joint efforts of all? Is the great law to be reversed—that which is won by all should be equally enjoyed by all? These are questions which address themselves more to the heart than the head. Feeble must be the intellect which does not see what is right and just, and bad must be the heart, unless unconsciously under the control of deep and abiding prejudice, which hesitates in pronouncing on which side they are to be found. Now, I put the question to the Senators from the North: What are you prepared to do? Are you prepared to prostrate the barriers of the constitution, and in open defiance of the dictates of equity and justice, to exclude the South from the territories and monopolize them for the North? If so, vote against the amendment offered by the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Davis), and if that should fail, vote against striking out the 12th section. We shall then know what to expect. If not, place us on some ground where we can stand as equals in rights and dignity, and where we shall not be excluded from what has been acquired at the common expense, and won by common skill and gallantry. All we demand is to stand on the same level with yourselves, and to participate equally in what belongs to all. Less we cannot take.

I turn now to my friends of the South, and ask: What are you prepared to do? If neither the barriers of the constitution nor the high sense of right and justice should prove sufficient to protect you, are you prepared to sink down into a state of acknowledged inferiority; to be stripped of your dignity of equals among equals, and be deprived of your equality of rights in this federal partnership of States? If so, you are woefully [sic] degenerated from your sires, and will well deserve to change condition with your slaves;—but if not, prepare to meet the issue. The time is at hand, if the question should not be speedily settled, when the South must rise up, and bravely defend herself, or sink down into base and acknowledged inferiority; and it is because I clearly perceive that this period is favorable for settling it, if it is ever to be settled, that I am in favor of pressing the question now to a decision—not because I have any desire whatever to embarrass either party in reference to the Presidential election. At no other period could the two great parties into which the country is divided be made to see and feel so clearly and intensely the embarrassment and danger caused by the question. Indeed, they must be blind not to perceive that there is a power in action that must burst asunder the ties that bind them together, strong as they are, unless it should be speedily settled. Now is the time, if ever. Cast your eyes to the North, and mark what is going on there; reflect on the tendency of events for the last three years in reference to this the most vital of all questions, and you must see that no time should be lost.

I am thus brought to the question, How can the question be settled? It can, in my opinion, be finally and permanently adjusted but one way, and that is on the high principles of justice and the constitution. Fear not to leave it to them. The less you do the better. If the North and South cannot stand together on their broad and solid foundation, there is none other on which they can. If the obligations of the constitution and justice be too feeble to command the respect of the North, how can the South expect that she will regard the far more feeble obligations of an act of Congress? Nor should the North fear that, by leaving it where justice and the constitution leave it, she would be excluded from her full share of the territories. In my opinion, if it be left there, climate, soil, and other circumstances would fix the line between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States in about 36° 30'. It may zigzag a little, to accommodate itself to circumstances—sometimes passing to the north, and at others passing to the south of it; but that would matter little, and would be more satisfactory to all, and tend less to alienation between the two great sections, than a rigid, straight, artificial line, prescribed by an act of Congress.

And here, let me say to Senators from the North;—you make a great mistake in supposing that the portion which might fall to the south of whatever line might be drawn, if left to soil, and climate, and circumstances to determine, would be closed to the white labor of the North, because it could not mingle with slave labor without degradation. The fact is not so. There is no part of the world where agricultural, mechanical, and other descriptions of labor are more respected than in the South, with the exception of two descriptions of employment—that of menial and body servants. No Southern man—not the poorest or the lowest will, under any circumstance, submit to perform either of them. He has too much pride for that, and I rejoice that he has. They are unsuited to the spirit of a freeman. But the man who would spurn them feels not the least degradation to work in the same field with his slave; or to be employed to work with them in the same field or in any mechanical operation; and, when so employed, they claim the right—and are admitted, in the country portion of the South of sitting at the table of their employers. Can as much, on the score of equality, be said of the North. With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious; and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.

But I go further, and hold that justice and the constitution are the easiest and safest guard on which the question can be settled, regarded in reference to party. It may be settled on that ground simply by non-action—by leaving the territories free and open to the emigration of all the world, so long as they continue so, and when they become States, to adopt whatever constitution they please, with the single restriction, to be republican, in order to their admission into the Union. If a party cannot safely take this broad and solid position and successfully maintain it, what other can it take and maintain? If it cannot maintain itself by an appeal to the great principles of justice, the constitution, and self-government, to what other, sufficiently strong to uphold them in public opinion, can they appeal? I greatly mistake the character of the people of this Union, if such an appeal would not prove successful, if either party should have the magnanimity to step forward, and boldly make it. It would, in my opinion, be received with shouts of approbation by the patriotic and intelligent in every quarter. There is a deep feeling pervading the country that the Union and our political institutions are in danger, which such a course would dispel, and spread joy over the land.

Now is the time to take the step, and bring about a result so devoutly to be wished. I have believed, from the beginning, that this was the only question sufficiently potent to dissolve the Union, and subvert our system of government; and that the sooner it was met and settled, the safer and better for all. I have never doubted but that, if permitted to progress beyond a certain point, its settlement would become impossible, and am under deep conviction that it is now rapidly approaching it, and that if it is ever to be averted, it must be done speedily. In uttering these opinions I look to the whole. If I speak earnestly, it is to save and protect all. As deep as is the stake of the South in the Union and our political institutions, it is not deeper than that of the North. We shall be as well prepared and as capable of meeting whatever may come, as you.

Now, let me say, Senators, if our Union and system of government are doomed to perish, and we to share the fate of so many great people who have gone before us, the historian, who, in some future day, may record the events ending in so calamitous a result, will devote his first chapter to the ordinance of 1787, lauded as it and its authors have been, as the first of that series which led to it. His next chapter will be devoted to the Missouri compromise, and the next to the present agitation. Whether there will be another beyond, I know not. It will depend on what we may do.

If he should possess a philosophical turn of mind, and be disposed to look to more remote and recondite causes, he will trace it to a proposition which originated in a hypothetical truism, but which, as now expressed and now understood, is the most false and dangerous of all political errors. The proposition to which I allude, has become an axiom in the minds of a vast many on both sides of the Atlantic, and is repeated daily from tongue to tongue, as an established and incontrovertible truth; it is,—that "all men are born free and equal." I am not afraid to attack error, however deeply it may be intrenched, or however widely extended, whenever it becomes my duty to do so, as I believe it to be on this subject and occasion.

Taking the proposition literally (it is in that sense it is understood), there is not a word of truth in it. It begins with "all men are born," which is utterly untrue. Men are not born. Infants are born. They grow to be men. And concludes with asserting that they are born “free and equal,” which is not less false. While infants they are incapable of freedom, being destitute alike of the capacity of thinking and acting, without which there can be no freedom. Besides, they are necessarily born subject to their parents, and remain so among all people, savage and civilized, until the development of their intellect and physical capacity enables them to take care of themselves. They grow to all the freedom of which the condition in which they were born permits, by growing to be men. Nor is it less false that they are born "equal." They are not so in any sense in which it can be regarded; and thus, as I have asserted, there is not a word of truth in the whole proposition, as expressed and generally understood.

If we trace it back, we shall find the proposition differently expressed in the Declaration of Independence. That asserts that "all men are created equal." The form of expression, though less dangerous, is not less erroneous. All men are not created. According to the Bible, only two—a man and a woman—ever were—and of these one was pronounced subordinate to the other. All others have come into the world by being born, and in no sense, as I have shown, either free or equal. But this form of expression being less striking and popular, has given way to the present, and under the authority of a document put forth on so great an occasion, and leading to such important consequences, has spread far and wide, and fixed itself deeply in the public mind. It was inserted in our Declaration of Independence without any necessity. It made no necessary part of our justification in separating from the parent country, and declaring ourselves independent. Breach of our chartered privileges, and lawless encroachment on our acknowledged and well-established rights by the parent country, were the real causes,—and of themselves sufficient, without resorting to any other, to justify the step. Nor had it any weight in constructing the governments which were substituted in the place of the colonial. They were formed of the old materials and on practical and well-established principles, borrowed for the most part from our own experience and that of the country from which we sprang.

If the proposition be traced still further back, it will be found to have been adopted from certain writers on government who had attained much celebrity in the early settlement of these States, and with those writings all the prominent actors in our revolution were familiar. Among these, Locke and Sydney were prominent. But they expressed it very differently. According to their expression, "all men in the state of nature were free and equal." From this the others were derived; and it was this to which I referred when I called it a hypothetical truism;—to understand why, will require some explanation.

Man, for the purpose of reasoning, may be regarded in three different states: in a state of individuality; that is, living by himself apart from the rest of his species. In the social; that is, living in society, associated with others of his species. And in the political; that is, living under government. We may reason as to what would be his rights and duties in either, without taking into consideration whether he could exist in it or not. It is certain, that in the first, the very supposition that he lived apart and separated from all others would make him free and equal. No one in such a state could have the right to command or control another. Every man would be his own master, and might do just as he pleased. But it is equally clear, that man cannot exist in such a state; that he is by nature social, and that society is necessary, not only to the proper development of all his faculties, moral and intellectual, but to the very existence of his race. Such being the case, the state is a purely hypothetical one; and when we say all men are free and equal in it, we announce a mere hypothetical truism; that is, a truism resting on a mere supposed state that cannot exist, and of course one of little or no practical value.

But to call it a state of nature was a great misnomer, and has led to dangerous errors; for that cannot justly be called a state of nature which is so opposed to the constitution of man as to be inconsistent with the existence of his race and the development of the high faculties, mental and moral, with which he is endowed by his Creator.

Nor is the social state of itself his natural state; for society can no more exist without government, in one form or another, than man without society. It is the political, then, which includes the social, that is his natural state. It is the one for which his Creator formed him,—into which he is impelled irresistibly,—and in which only his race can exist and all its faculties be fully developed.

Such being the case, it follows that any, the worst form of government, is better than anarchy; and that individual liberty, or freedom, must be subordinate to whatever power may be necessary to protect society against anarchy within or destruction without; for the safety and well-being of society is as paramount to individual liberty, as the safety and well-being of the race is to that of individuals; and in the same proportion the power necessary for the safety of society is paramount to individual liberty. On the contrary, government has no right to control individual liberty beyond what is necessary to the safety and well-being of society. Such is the boundary which separates the power of government and the liberty of the citizen or subject in the political state, which, as I have shown, is the natural state of man—the only one in which his race can exist, and the one in which he is born, lives, and dies.

It follows from all this that the quantum of power on the part of the government, and of liberty on that of individuals, instead of being equal in all cases, must necessarily be very unequal among different people, according to their different conditions. For just in proportion as a people are ignorant, stupid, debased, corrupt, exposed to violence within, and danger from without, the power necessary for government to possess, in order to preserve society against anarchy and destruction, becomes greater and greater, and individual liberty less and less, until the lowest condition is reached, when absolute and despotic power becomes necessary on the part of the government, and individual liberty extinct. So, on the contrary, just as a people rise in the scale of intelligence, virtue, and patriotism, and the more perfectly they become acquainted with the nature of government, the ends for which it was ordered, and how it ought to be administered, and the less the tendency to violence and disorder within, and danger from abroad,—the power necessary for government becomes less and less, and individual liberty greater and greater. Instead, then, of all men having the same right to liberty and equality, as is claimed by those who hold that they are all born free and equal, liberty is the noble and highest reward bestowed on mental and moral development, combined with favorable circumstances. Instead, then, of liberty and equality being born with men,—instead of all men and all classes and descriptions being equally entitled to them, they are high prizes to be won, and are in their most perfect state, not only the highest reward that can be bestowed on our race, but the most difficult to be won, and when won, the most difficult to be preserved.

They have been made vastly more so by the dangerous error I have attempted to expose,—that all men are born free and equal,—as if those high qualities belonged to man without effort to acquire them, and to all equally alike, regardless of their intellectual and moral condition. The attempt to carry into practice this, the most dangerous of all political errors, and to bestow on all—without regard to their fitness either to acquire or maintain liberty—that unbounded and individual liberty supposed to belong to man in the hypothetical and misnamed state of nature, has done more to retard the cause of liberty and civilization, and is doing more at present, than all other causes combined. While it is powerful to pull down governments, it is still more powerful to prevent their construction on proper principles. It is the leading cause among those which have placed Europe in its present anarchical condition, and which mainly stands in the way of reconstructing good governments in the place of those which have been overthrown,— threatening thereby the quarter of the globe most advanced in progress and civilization with hopeless anarchy,—to be followed by military despotism. Nor are we exempt from its disorganizing effects. We now begin to experience the danger of admitting so great an error to have a place in the declaration of our independence. For a long time it lay dormant; but in the process of time it began to germinate, and produce its poisonous fruits. It had strong hold on the mind of Mr. Jefferson, the author of that document, which caused him to take an utterly false view of the subordinate relation of the black to the white race in the South; and to hold, in consequence, that the latter, though utterly unqualified to possess liberty, were as fully entitled to both liberty and equality as the former; and that to deprive them of it was unjust and immoral. To this error, his proposition to exclude slavery from the territory northwest of the Ohio may be traced, and to that the ordinance of 1787,—and through it the deep and dangerous agitation which now threatens to ingulf, and will certainly ingulf, if not speedily settled, our political institutions, and involve the country in countless woes.

SOURCE: Richard K. Crallé, Editor, Speeches of John C. Calhoun Delivered in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of the United States, Vol. 4, p. 479-512

Colonel Jefferson Davis to C. S. Tarpley and others, May 7, 1847

2024-07-18T16:35:00.004-05:00

(From Vicksburg Weekly Whig, June 9, 1847.)

Monterey, May 7, 1847.

Gentlemen—Your letter of the 5th ult., conveying the resolutions of a public meeting held in the capital of our State, on the 3d of April, 1847, has just been received.

For the approbation thus conferred on the officers and men of the 1st Mississippi Rifles, I feel most sincerely thankful. For myself, and for those whom it has been my honor and good fortune to command, I will say, that in such manifestations of regard and esteem of our brethren at home, is contained the reward for whatever we have borne of toil, privation or loss; for whatever we may have achieved of honorable service in the cause of our country.

The necessary directions will be given, to place your letter on the records, and ensure its reading at the head of each company of our Regiment.

For the very kind and highly complimentary terms in which you, as the organ of the meeting have presented its resolutions, I am truly sensible, and offer my grateful acknowledgements. Cordially, I am your friend and fellow citizen,

JEFF'N DAVIS.

Colonel 1st Mississippi Rifles.

Messrs. C. S. Tarpley, Jno. D. Freeman, Jas. J. Deavenport, H. Stuart Foote, C. R. Clifton, Charles Scott, Daniel Mayes, Jno. I. Guion, A. Hutchinson, Jno. Mayrant,-Committee.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 71-2

Governor Albert G. Brown to Colonel Jefferson Davis, May 17, 1847

2024-07-18T16:32:00.001-05:00

(From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Letter Book of Governor Brown.)

Executive Chamber Jackson Mi 17 May 1847

Col Jeff Davis
Com 1st Miss Rifles,

Sir

I have the honor to enclose a copy of a letter written by me to the Secretary of War requesting that officers & men in your Regiment be allowed to retain their arms on retiring from the service or that said arms be issued to Mississippi as a part of her quota from the Genl Government. The Secr. has not yet replied to the letter, but it is not doubted by me that he will at least yield to the last request. Expecting to be absent from home for some weeks I have instructed the Sec of State to forward Gov Marcy's answer to you when it is received. Should either of my requests be complied with, you will allow the men under your command to retain their arms when you disband them. If they are issued to the State, I cannot render a more acceptable service to the people for whom your ever glorious Reg't has won such imperishable honor than to say in their name "there shall be no divorce between the gallant soldier & his Gun."

Very Respy

Your obt. serv't

A. G. Brown

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 72

James K. Polk* to Brigadier-General Jefferson Davis, May 19, 1847

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(From Vicksburg Weekly Whig, October 20, 1847.)

Washington City, May 19, 1847.

My Dear Sir:—The Secretary of War will transmit to you, a commission as Brigadier General of the United States Army. The Brigade which you will command, will consist of volunteers called out to serve during the war with Mexico. It gives me sincere pleasure to confer this important command upon you. Your distinguished gallantry and military skill while leading the noble regiment under your command, and especially in the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista, eminently entitle you to it. I hope that the severe wound which you received at the latter place, may soon be healed, and that your country may have the benefit of your valuable services, at the head of your new command.

I am very faithfully, your friend,

JAMES K. POLK.

To Brigadier-General Jefferson Davis, U. S. Army, in Mexico.

_______________

*Polk, James Knox (1795-1849), eleventh President of the United States, was born in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, November 2, 1795, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1818, removed to Tennessee, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1820, and began practice in Columbia, Tenn. He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives 1823-1825; was a member of the national House of Representatives, 1825-1839; Speaker, 1835-1839; and Governor of Tennessee 1839-1841. He was President of the United States, 1845-1849. During his administration the annexation of Texas (1845) involved the country in aggressive war against Mexico (May, 1846-September, 1847) which resulted in the acquisition of California and other cessions from Mexico. A dispute with the British government about the boundary of Oregon was settled by the Treaty with Great Britain signed June 15, 1846. President Polk retired from office in March, and died at Nashville, Tenn., June 15, 1849.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 73

Brigadier-General Jefferson Davis to John M. Chilton and others, June 11, 1847

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(From Vicksburg Weekly Whig, June 16, 1847.)

New Orleans, 11th June, 1847.

Gentlemen—Your letter of the 31st of May, conveying in the most kind and complimentary terms the wish of the citizens of Vicksburg and Warren county to receive the 1st Mississippi Rifles at a Barbecue, was received at this place.

We most sensibly feel your flattering attention to our approach, and hope to have the pleasure of meeting you at Vicksburg on Tuesday morning, the 15th inst.

To you, gentlemen of the committee, for the pleasing manner in which you welcome our coming, I return, on the part of the Regiment, the sincerest thanks.

Very truly, yours,

JEFF'N DAVIS.

Colonel Mississippi Rifles.

John M. Chilton, Ch'n., A. H. Arthur, T. E. Robins, W. H. Johnson, N. D. Coleman, E. J. Sessions, W. C. Smedes, J. Jenkins, M. C. Folkes, N. B. Batchelor, C. J. Searles.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 73-4

Benjamin Franklin to Michael Hillegras, Esq. of Philadelphia, March 17, 1770

2024-05-14T18:57:00.002-05:00

London, March 17, 1770.

DEAR SIR,

I received your favor of November 25, and have made inquiries, as you desired, concerning the copper covering of houses. It has been used here in a few instances only, and the practice does not seem to gain ground. The copper is about the thickness of a common playing card, and though a dearer metal than lead, I am told that as less weight serves, on account of its being so much thinner, and as slighter wood-work in the roof is sufficient to support it, the roof is not dearer, on the whole, than one covered with lead. It is said that hail and rain make a disagreeable drumming noise on copper; but this, I suppose, is rather fancy; for the plates being fastened to the rafters, must, in a great measure, deaden such sound. The first cost, whatever it is, will be all, as a copper covering must last for ages; and when the house decays, the plates will still have intrinsic worth. In Russia, I am informed, many houses are covered with plates of iron tinned, (such as our tin pots and other wares are made of,) laid on over the edges of one another, like tiles; and which, it is said, last very long; the tin preserving the iron from much decay by rusting. In France and the Low Countries I have seen many spouts or pipes for conveying the water down from the roofs of houses, made of the same kind of tin plates, soldered together; and they seem to stand very well.

With sincere regard, I am, yours, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

SOURCE: William Temple Franklin, The Private Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 1, p. 12

Benjamin Franklin to Michael Collinson, Esq.,* Undated, supposed to be 1768 or 1769

2024-05-14T18:45:00.006-05:00

DEAR SIR,

Understanding that an account of our dear departed friend, Mr. Peter Collinson, is intended to be given to the public, I cannot omit expressing my approbation of the design. The characters of good men are exemplary, and often stimulate the well disposed to an imitation, beneficial to mankind, and honorable to themselves. And as you may be unacquainted with the following instances of his zeal and usefulness in promoting knowledge, which fell within my observation, I take the liberty of informing you, that in 1730, a subscription library being set on foot at Philadelphia, he encouraged the design by making several very valuable presents to it, and procuring others from his friends and as the library company had a considerable sum arising annually to be laid out in books, and needed a judicious friend in London to transact the business for them, he voluntarily and cheerfully undertook that service, and executed it for more than thirty years successively, assisting in the choice of books, and taking the whole care of collecting and shipping them, without ever charging or accepting any consideration for his trouble. The success of this library (greatly owing to his kind countenance and good advice) encouraged the erecting others in different places on the same plan; and it is supposed there are now upwards of thirty subsisting in the several colonies, which have contributed greatly to the spreading of useful knowledge in that part of the world; the books he recommended being all of that kind, and the catalogue of this first library being much respected and followed by those libraries that succeeded.

During the same time he transmitted to the directors of the library the earliest accounts of every new European improvement in agriculture and the arts, and every philosophical discovery; among which, in 1745, he sent over an account of the new German experiments in electricity, together with a glass tube, and some directions for using it, so as to repeat those experiments. This was the first notice I had of that curious subject, which I afterwards prosecuted with some diligence, being encouraged by the friendly reception he gave to the letters I wrote to him upon it. Please to accept this small testimony of mine to his memory, for which I shall ever have the utmost respect; and believe me, with sincere esteem, dear Sir,

Your most humble servant,

B. FRANKLIN.

_______________

* Peter Collinson, F. R. S. a very celebrated botanist, was descended from a family of ancient standing in the County of Westmoreland, but born himself in 1693, in Clement's Lane, Lombard Street. His parents realized a handsome fortune by trade in Gracechurch Street, the bulk of which coming to Peter, who was the eldest son, he was enabled to follow his favourite pursuit of natural history. He had one of the finest gardens in England, at Peckham, in Surrey, whence he removed in 1749 to Mill Hill, in the parish of Hendon in Middlesex, where he died in 1768. Mr. Collinson kept up a correspondence with men of science in all parts of the world, and he sent the first electrical machine that was ever seen in America, as a present to the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. He was also a liberal contributor to the public library of that city; and an intimate friend of, Dr. Franklin, who received from him many hints and papers on the subject of electricity.

SOURCE: William Temple Franklin, The Private Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 1, p. 10-11

John J. Crittenden to Orlando Brown, February 6, 1852

2024-05-12T07:43:00.006-05:00

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR,—I see the Whigs are to meet in Frankfort on the 24th of this month to select delegates to the national convention for the nomination of a candidate for the Presidency. I think that Mr. Fillmore has fairly earned and fully deserves the highest favor and confidence of the Whigs, and that he is in mere justice entitled to the nomination. I do not know that he will be a candidate; I am sure he will not seek such a position. But neither you nor I will think that he therefore deserves it the less. I am anxious that your Frankfort convention should make some strong expression of its approbation of Mr. Fillmore, and its preference for him as their candidate. When they shall have done that, and with it their determination to support the nominee of the national convention, they will have done all that they ought to do. I beg you to do all you can to procure such an expression of preference for Mr. F. You will gratify and serve me by this. I believe that Fillmore is, as he ought to be, the favorite candidate of Kentucky. I see that in one of your county meetings there has been an expression of a preference for me as the candidate for the Presidency. If any purpose of that sort should be manifested in the convention, I beg you and all my friends to suppress it. It would do me no good in any event; it would be a prejudice to me in any of those contingencies or prospects which my too-sanguine friends might anticipate. You know my sentiments on this subject. I shall always be proud of any favorable expression of the sentiments of Kentuckians to me, but at this juncture I should much regret a nomination for the Presidency. Besides its other injurious effects, it would furnish a plausible ground to doubt the sincerity of my conduct and advice to others who are here and expose me to suspicion of contrivance and selfish ambition, than which nothing could be more unjust. Reflect upon and attend to this. Let me hear by telegraph the first expression of preference for Fillmore.

Your friend,

J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 26

Speech of John J. Crittenden, February 10, 1852

2024-05-11T23:04:00.002-05:00

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Feb. 10, 1852.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the unanimous consent of the House to present a petition of the citizens of Philadelphia. It does not relate to politics; it proposes a mode of celebrating the birthday of General Washington. It is worthy of being heard by the House, and I hope it will be. At the head of the list are the names of the present and of two preceding mayors of the city of Philadelphia. There are a thousand names to this petition, embracing the first men in the city of Philadelphia—Ingersoll, Dallas, and others equally distinguished. They pray that in this time of trouble particular attention may be paid to the birthday of General Washington, and that it may be solemnized in this House; that both Houses shall meet on the 22d of February; that the Farewell Address of General Washington shall be read, and that such parts of the Address as may be considered appropriate shall be ordered to be read at the head of the regiments of the army of the United States. There is still one great name in our country which exercises a great influence over the hearts of all true Americans. It is needless to say that name is Washington. The name stands alone far above all others. In times of trouble and peril all our hearts naturally turn to him for lessons of patriotism and every public virtue.

The object of this signal commemoration of his birthday is to impress his name more deeply on the minds and hearts of the American people, to kindle his memory into a flame of patriotism, and by the noble inspiration of his good and glorious name enable ourselves the better to maintain and defend that great and free government and Union which, under God, he established for us. I hope Congress will concur in the prayer of the petitioners, and I ask that it may be read.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 27

Congressman Alexander H. Stevens to John J. Crittenden, February 17, 1852

2024-05-11T22:56:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 17, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR,—It is the wish of the committee that the birth-night celebration come off at Willard's Hotel on Saturday night, and that you should respond to a sentiment in allusion to the President and heads of the administration. I intended to call and give you notice of the position assigned you in the order of the day, but have been too much occupied. You must hold yourself in readiness for the call made upon you.

The dinner is an anti-Kossuth affair, or at least it is intended as a demonstration in favor of the neutral policy of Washington. It is our intention to have the proceedings of the evening, with all the speeches, etc., printed in neat pamphlet form for circulation. Hour of meeting, seven o'clock.

Yours most respectfully,

ALEXANDER H. STEVENS.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 27

Killed His Son.

2024-05-01T17:23:00.003-05:00

A Pawnee County Farmer Receives Sad Tidings.

Mr. S. F. Ingham of Orinsville, Pawnee county, this week received the following letter from Manila:

Camp near Coloocan, P. I.,

April 15, 1899.

Mr. S. F. Ingham,

Dear Sir:—It becomes my painful duty to inform you of the sad death of your son, Thomas Ingham, on the 25th of March. We arrived at Manila on the 23rd of March and on the evening of the 24th I was ordered with my company to the front into position for the contemplated attack on the city of Malolos for the following day. We marched about eight miles that night and took position, under the scorching fire, near the Caloocan church on the extreme left of the line. The next morning at daylight the advance was ordered and we left the trenches under a heavy fire and charged the enemy. My company was in the very thickest of the fight and the men, to a man, fought like heroes. Every man stepped forward into the hail of shot as though danger they had never known.

Three lines of the strongest possible intrenchments, manned by thousand of insurgents, did we charge and take, coming out finally on the edge of a river across which the enemy was heavily fortified. As soon as it was possible I hastened the company into the protection of the stone foundation of an old house. Just as we were entering this place your son, who was standing by my side, was shot through the body just above the heart. I did everything I could for the poor fellow but without avail, for after a few moment he opened his eyes, looked and me and smiled when I told him how well he’d done his duty and nobly he had fallen, and passed away.

Allow me to proffer my most sincere offers of condolence to you and to say that your son was one of the best soldiers, honest, reliable and faithful; that he did the greatest deed that a man can do—he gave his life for his country. He was buried among the other heroes who have given their lives at Manila.

As soon as I am able to get into the city I will send you the watch he wore when killed. He had about $30 due him as pay from the government. If you write to the adjutant general at Washington this can probably be obtained.

Sincerely yours,

J. R. R. HANNAY,

Commanding Co. 2nd Lieut., Co. G. 3rd Infantry.

P. S. On this day my company lost four men killed, one mortally wounded and eight from heat exhaustion.—March 25, 1899. J. R. R. H.

SOURCE: “Killed His Son,” Oklahoma Weekly Leader, Guthrie, Oklahoma, Thursday Evening, June 1, 1899, p. 8

Abigail Smith Adams to John Adams, September 22, 1774

2024-04-29T16:20:00.004-05:00

Boston Garison Sepbr. 22 1774

I have just returnd from a visit to my Brother, with my Father who carried me there the day before yesterday, and call'd here in my return to see this much injured Town. I view it with much the same sensations that I should the body of a departed Friend, only put of[f] its present Glory, for to rise finally to a more happy State. I will not despair, but will believe that our cause being good we shall finally prevail. The Maxim in time of peace prepair for war, (if this may be call'd a time of peace) resounds throughout the Country. Next tuesday they are warned at Braintree all above 15 and under 60 to attend with their arms, and to train once a fortnight from that time, is a Scheme which lays much at heart with many.

Scot has arrived, and brings news that he expected to find all peace and Quietness here as he left them at home. You will have more particuliars than I am able to send you, from much better hands. There has been in Town a conspiracy of the Negroes. At present it is kept pretty private and was discoverd by one who endeavourd to diswaid them from it—he being threatned with his life, applied to justice Quincy for protection. They conducted in this way—got an Irishman to draw up a petition letting to the Govener telling him they would fight for him provided he would arm them and engage to liberate them if he conquerd, and it is said that he attended so much to it as to consult Pircy upon it, and one [Lieut.?] Small has been very buisy and active. There is but little said, and what Steps they will take in consequence of it I know not. I wish most sincerely there was not a Slave in the province. It allways appeard a most iniquitious Scheme to me—fight ourselfs for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have. You know my mind upon this Subject.

I left all our little ones well, and shall return to them to night. I hope to hear from you by the return of the bearer of this and by Revere. I long for the Day of your return, yet look upon you much safer where you are, but know it will not do for you. Not one action has been brought to this court, no buisness of any sort in your way. All law ceases, and the Gosple will soon follow, for they are supporters of each other. Adieu. My Father hurries me. Yours most sincerely,

Abigail Adams

SOURCE: Massachusetts Historical Society, The Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17740922aa, accessed April 29, 2024

Colonel Jefferson Davis’ Memoranda of the Transactions in Connexion with the Capitulation of Monterey, Capital of Nueva Leon, Mexico, October 7, 1846

2024-04-16T19:03:00.000-05:00

By invitation of General Ampudia, commanding the Mexican army, General Taylor accompanied by a number of his officers, proceeded on the 24th September, 1846, to a house designated as the place at which General Ampudia requested an interview. The parties being convened, General Ampudia announced, as official information, that commissioners from the United States had been received by the government of Mexico; and that the orders under which he had prepared to defend the city of Monterey, had lost their force by the subsequent change of his own government, therefore he asked the conference. A brief conversation between the commanding generals, showed their views to be so opposite, as to leave little reason to expect an amicable arrangement between them.

General Taylor said he would not delay to receive such propositions as General Ampudia indicated. One of General Ampudia's party, I think, the governor of the city, suggested the appointment of a mixed commission; this was acceded to, and General W. G. Worth of the United States army, General J. Pinckney Henderson, of the Texan volunteers, and Colonel Jefferson Davis, of the Mississippi riflemen on the part of General Taylor; and General J. Ma. Ortega, General P. Requena, and Señor the Governor M. Ma. Llano on the part of Gen. Ampudia, were appointed.

General Taylor gave instructions to his commissioners which, as understood, for they were brief and verbal, will be best shown by the copy of the demand which the United States commissioners prepared in the conference room here incorporated:

Copy of demand by United States Commissioners.

"I. As the legitimate result of the operations before this place, and the present position of the contending armies, we demand the surrender of the town, the arms and munitions of war, and all other public property within the place.

"II. That the Mexican armed force retire beyond the Rinconada, Linares, and San Fernando, on the coast.

"III. The commanding general of the army of the United States agrees that the Mexican officers reserve their side arms and private baggage; and the troops be allowed to retire under their officers without parole, a reasonable time being allowed to withdraw the forces.

"IV. The immediate delivery of the main work, now occupied, to the army of the United States.

"V. To avoid collisions, and for mutual convenience, that the troops of the United States shall not occupy the town until the Mexican forces have been withdrawn, except for hospital purposes, storehouses, &c.

"VI. The commanding general of the United States agrees not to advance beyond the line specified in the second section before the expiration of eight weeks, or until the respective governments can be heard from."

The terms of the demand were refused by the Mexican commissioners, who drew up a counter proposition, of which I only recollect that it contained a permission to the Mexican forces to retire with their arms. This was urged as a matter of soldierly pride, and as an ordinary courtesy. We had reached the limit of our instructions, and the commission rose to report the disagreement.

Upon returning to the reception room, after the fact had been announced that the commissioners could not agree upon terms, General Ampudia entered at length upon the question, treating the point of disagreement as one which involved the honor of his country, spoke of his desire for a settlement without further bloodshed, and said he did not care about the pieces of artillery which he had at the place. General Taylor responded to the wish to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. It was agreed the commission should reassemble, and we were instructed to concede the small arms; and I supposed there would be no question about the artillery. The Mexican commissioners now urged that, as all other arms had been recognised, it would be discreditable to the artillery if required to march out without anything to represent their arm, and stated, in answer to an inquiry, that they had a battery of light artillery, manoeuvred and equipped as such. The commission again rose, and reported the disagreement on the point of artillery.

General Taylor hearing that more was demanded than the middle ground, upon which, in a spirit of generosity, he had agreed to place the capitulation, announced the conference at an end; and rose in a manner which showed his determination to talk no more. As he crossed the room to leave it, one of the Mexican commissioners addressed him, and some conversation, which I did not hear, ensued. Gen. Worth asked permission of Gen. Taylor, and addressed some remarks to Gen. Ampudia, the spirit of which was that which he manifested throughout the negotiation, viz: generosity and leniency, and a desire to spare the further effusion of blood. The commission reassembled, and the points of capitulation were agreed upon. After a short recess we again repaired to the room in which we had parted from the Mexican commissioners; they were tardy in joining us, and slow in executing the instrument of capitulation. The 7th, 8th, and 9th articles were added during this session. At a late hour the English original was handed to Gen. Taylor for his examination; the Spanish original having been sent to General Ampudia. Gen. Taylor signed and delivered to me the instrument as it was submitted to him, and I returned to receive the Spanish copy with the signature of General Ampudia, and send that having Gen. Taylor's signature, that each general might countersign the original to be retained by the other. Gen. Ampudia did not sign the instrument as was expected, but came himself to meet the commissioners. He raised many points which had been settled, and evinced a disposition to make the Spanish differ in essential points from the English instrument. Gen. Worth was absent. Finally he was required to sign the instrument prepared for his own commissioners, and the English original was left with him that he might have it translated, (which he promised to do that night,) and be ready the next morning with a Spanish duplicate of the English instrument left with him. By this means the two instruments would be made to correspond, and he be compelled to admit his knowledge of the contents of the English original before he signed it.

The next morning the commission again met; again the attempt was made, as had been often done before by solicitation, to gain some grant in addition to the compact. Thus we had, at their request, adopted the word capitulation in lieu of surrender; they now wished to substitute stipulation for capitulation. It finally became necessary to make a peremptory demand for the immediate signing of the English instrument by General Ampudia, and the literal translation (now perfected) by the commissioners and their general. The Spanish instrument first signed by Gen. Ampudia was destroyed in the presence of his commissioners; the translation of our own instrument was countersigned by Gen. Taylor, and delivered. The agreement was complete, and it only remained to execute the terms.

Much has been said about the construction of article 2 of the capitulation, a copy of which is hereto appended. Whatever ambiguity there may be in the language used, there was a perfect understanding by the commissioners upon both sides, as to the intent of the parties. The distinction we made between light artillery equipped and manoeuvred as such, designed for and used in the field, and pieces being the armament of a fort, was clearly stated on our side; and that it was comprehended on their's, appeared in the fact, that repeatedly they asserted their possession of light artillery, and said they had one battery of light pieces. Such conformity of opinion existed among our commissioners upon every measure which was finally adopted, that I consider them, in their sphere, jointly and severally responsible for each and every article of the capitulation. If, as originally viewed by Gen. Worth, our conduct has been in accordance with the peaceful policy of our government, and shall in any degree tend to consummate that policy, we may congratulate ourselves upon the part we have taken. If otherwise, it will remain to me as a deliberate opinion, that the terms of the capitulation gave all which could have followed, of desirable result, from a further assault. It was in the power of the enemy to retreat, and to bear with him his small arms, and such a battery as was contemplated in the capitulation. The other grants were such as it was honorable in a conquering army to bestow, and which it cost magnanimity nothing to give.

The above recollections are submitted to Generals Henderson and Worth for correction and addition that the misrepresentation of this transaction may be presented by a statement made whilst the events are recent and the memory fresh.

JEFFERSON DAVIS,

Colonel Mississippi Riflemen.

Camp near Monterey, October 7th, 1846.

The above is a correct statement of the leading facts connected with the transactions referred to, according to my recollection. It is, however, proper, that I should further state, that my first impression was, that no better terms than those first proposed, on the part of Gen. Taylor, ought to have been given, and I so said to General Taylor when I found him disposed to yield to the request of General Ampudia; and, at the same time, gave it as my opinion that they would be accepted by him before we left the town. General Taylor replied, that he would run no risk where it could be avoided—that he wished to avoid the further shedding of blood, and that he was satisfied that our government would be pleased with the terms given by the capitulation; and being myself persuaded of that fact, I yielded my individual views and wishes; and, under that conviction, I shall ever be ready to defend the terms of the capitulation.

J. PINCKNEY HENDERSON,

Major General Commanding the Texan Volunteers.

I not only counselled and advised, the opportunity being offered the general-in-chief, the first proposition; but cordially assented and approved the decision taken by General Taylor in respect to the latter, as did every member of the commission, and for good and sufficient military and national reasons-and stand ready, at all times and proper places, to defend and sustain the action of the commanding general, and participation of the commissioners. Knowing that malignants, the tremor being off, are at work to discredit and misrepresent the case, (as I had anticipated,) I feel obliged to Col. Davis for having thrown together the material and facts.

W. J. WORTH,

Brig. Gen. commanding 2d division.

Monterey, Oct. 12th, 1846.

Terms of the capitulation of the city of Monterey, the capital of Nueva Leon, agreed upon by the undersigned commissioners-to wit: General Worth, of the United States army; General Henderson, of the Texan volunteers; and Col. Davis, of the Mississippi riflemen, on the part of Major General Taylor, commanding-in-chief of the United States forces; and General Requena and General Ortego, of the army of Mexico, and Señor Manuel M. Llano, Governor of Nueva Leon, on the part of Señor General Don Pedro Ampudia, commanding-in-chief the army of the north of Mexico.

Article 1. As the legitimate result of the operations before this place, and the present position of the contending armies, it is agreed that the city, the fortifications, cannon, the munitions of war, and all other public property, with the under-mentioned exceptions, be surrendered to the commanding general of the United States forces now at Monterey.

Article 2. That the Mexican forces be allowed to retain the following arms-to wit: The commissioned officers, their side-arms; the infantry, their arms and accoutrements; the cavalry, their arms and accoutrements; the artillery, one field battery, not to exceed six pieces, with twenty-one rounds of ammunition.

Article 3. That the Mexican armed forces retire within seven days from this date beyond the line formed by the pass of the Rinconada, the city of Linares, and San Fernando de Pusos.

Article 4. That the citadel of Monterey be evacuated by the Mexican, and occupied by the American forces to-morrow morning, at 10 o'clock.

Article 5. To avoid collisions, and for mutual convenience, that the troops of the United States will not occupy the city until the Mexican forces have withdrawn, except for hospital and storage purposes.

Article 6. That the forces of the United States will not advance beyond the line specified in the 3d article, before the expiration of eight weeks, or until the orders of the respective governments can be received.

Article 7. That the public property to be delivered, shall be turned over and received by officers appointed by the commanding general of the two armies.

Article 8. That all doubts, as to the meaning of any of the preceding articles, shall be solved by an equitable construction, and on principles of liberality to the retiring army.

Article 9. That the Mexican flag, when struck at the citadel, may be saluted by its own battery.

W. J. WORTH,

Brig. Gen. U. S. A.

J. PINCKNEY HENDERSON,

Maj. Gen. commanding the Texan volunteers.

JEFFERSON DAVIS ,

Colonel Mississippi riflemen.

J. M. ORTEGA,

T. REQUENA,

MANUEL M. LLANO,

Approved:

PEDRO AMPUDIA,

Z. TAYLOR,

Maj. Gen. U. S. A. commanding.

Done at Monterey, Sept. 24, 1846.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 65-71

General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, July 2, 1881—8:45 a.m.

2024-04-11T11:46:00.007-05:00

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH Co.,

Dated, WASHINGTON, D.C., July 2, 1881.

Received at MANSFIELD, OHIO,

8.45 A.M.

To Honorable John Sherman:

Dispatch received. Just come from White House. Saw and talked with General Garfield. Mind and memory clear, and he is personally hopeful. The doctors shake their heads. Situation most serious, but I cannot help hoping that the ball has not traversed the cavity of the stomach, as the wound indicates. Mrs. Garfield and all the family are with him.

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 350-1

General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, July 2, 1881—3 p.m.

2024-04-11T11:43:00.002-05:00

THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH Co.,

Dated, WASHINGTON, D.C., July 2, 1881.

Received at MANSFIELD, OHIO,

3 P.M.

To Honorable John Sherman :

President Garfield was shot in the back toward the right side, the ball ranging downwards - not yet found. Pulse good and appearances favorable.

Has been brought to the White House. The assassin is from Chicago, an ex-consul at Marseilles, described as a lawyer, politician, and theologian. He is in custody. All sorts of rumors afloat, but the above is all that is known to me. I went in person to the depot immediately, and found all his Cabinet present.

W. T. SHERMAN,

General.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 350

General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, July 3, 1881—4:15 p.m.

2024-04-11T11:39:00.003-05:00

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.,

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 3, 1881.

Received at MANSFIELD, OHIO,

4.15 P.M.

To Honorable John Sherman:

Dispatch received, I am this minute back from the White House. Doctor Bliss surgeon, in attendance on President Garfield, authorized me to report that all the symptoms continued most favorable, and that he believed in ultimate recovery.

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 351

General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, July 4, 1881—1:40 p.m.

2024-04-11T11:36:00.001-05:00

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH Co.,

Dated, WASHINGTON, D.C., July 4, 1881.

Received at MANSFIELD, OHIO, 1.40.

To Honorable John Sherman:

I am just back from the White House. The President is reported to have passed a night of pain, which gave rise to unfavorable reports; but the attending physicians, Bliss, Barnes, Woodward, and Reyburn, have made public the bulletins. Each warrants us to hope for recovery. Everything here is as quiet as the Sabbath.

W. T. SHERMAN,

General.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 351