Mr. CLARKE. I would as soon have Gen.
Grant as Gen. Lee to settle it.
Mr. SANDS. I would as soon have anybody
else as Franklin Pierce. Look at his history
and the party who acted with him. They
went to a Convention in Baltimore, in 1852,
and made a solemn promise to the people of
the United States that they would never re-
open the subject of slavery either in Congress
or out of it.
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's, I would
remind the gentleman that he has passed
away from Mr. Clay's speech without giving
us the names of the opponents of the Compro-
mise measures of 1850; and I would ask him
if James Alfred Pearce, of this State, was not
one of the opponents.
Mr. SANDS. I do not know how that was.
I know that in the latter part of his life he
was thought to favor secession. I do not say
that it was so, but he was very shrewdly sus-
pected of it.
Mr. CHAMBERS. Most unjustly.
Mr. SANDS. If gentlemen will look at his
record in Congress they can see.
Mr. CHAMBERS. I knew him intimately,
and I know he never favored that doctrine.
Mr. SANDS. I am glad of it. Now, in re-
gard, to Franklin the faithless; Pierce the
promise-breaker. Now, look at him, and
the party which then acted with him, which
called itself the democratic party, but which
was no more democratic than the Czar of
Russia, or any other autocrat, or any aristo-
crat. That party went to Baltimore, and
made this solemn pledge to the people: Elect
us to power, and this slavery question shall
never be opened up again, in Congress or out
of it.
Now, I put this to democrats: They talk
about saving the country. Why, they could
not save themselves. They went to Charles-
ton, but could not hold themselves together,
even in such a poor, little, insignificant ca-
pacity as delegates to a nominating Conven-
tion; but split all into fragments; even the
cohesive power of public plunder could not
keep them together.
In 1852, they made this express and ex-
plicit promise to the people: Elect us to
power, and this slavery question shall never
again be agitated, either in Congress or out
of it. Is not that true? I pause for a reply.
[After a pause.] Did they not make that
promise to the people? Yet, without regard
to the compact of 1820, which was a compact
as contra-distinguished from a Constitution ;
without regard to the compact of 1850; in
spite of their express promise to the people
made in Baltimore city in 1852; in less than
two years after that they violated every
pledge which they had made to the people of
the United States when they were asking to
get into power; and not only that, they vio-
lated the solemn, legal, binding obligations
of forty years' standing. They wiped out |
the Missouri Compromise line, and lighted
up in your far-off Western territories the
torch of civil war. A beautiful individual to
send on a national mission—this Franklin
the faithless; Pierce the promise-breaker.
Mr. CLARKE. Say General Grant, then.
Mr. SANDS, General Grant is on that mis-
sion now. [Laughter and applause.]
These democrats broke every promise they
made to the people. That ie bistory. Gen-
tlemen may walk around it as much as they
please. They may talk for three hours at a
time to get around it, bait to this complexion
must they come at last, even if they paint
their bad cause a toot thick. The gentleman
has begotten in me the desire to make a
quotation. It is the remark of the old grave-
digger—"Get you to your lady's chamber,
and tell her that although she paint a foot
thick, yet to this complexion must she come
at last." They may paint and plaster as
much as they please; but they cannot shut it
out from the intelligent people of this conn-
try that the democratic party has brought
this national ruin upon us; quarrelling first
among themselves, and then setting the peo-
ple to quarrelling.
Now let us trace up these measures from
1853, '54, when the democratic party broke
their promises to the people. What is the
next legislation by Congress touching the
question of slavery? You have it in acts
which organized every foot of territory which
belonged to the United States, and organized
that territory expressly upon the ground of
the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court
of the United States. Are not gentlemen
aware of the fact, which I assert here without
the fear of contradiction, that the very last
Congress of which these men were members,
in the session of 1860 and '61, organized
every foot of territory which belonged to the
United States, exactly in accordance with the
Dred Scott decision? Let gentlemen consult
the proceedings of Congress at that time,
pages 239 and 272 of the Congressional Globe,
and they will find the organizing acts of the
territory which belonged to the United States.
Now these gentlemen who have violated all
the Constitution, who continued all the time
they were doing it to protest that they loved
the Constitution, that they revered the Con-
stitution, that they honored the Constitution,
and, poor fellows, they could not live without
the Constitution, they remind me of the ac-
count in the good old Book, of one man who
met another and said to him: "How art
thou, my brother?" and then drew his sword
and stabbed him under the fifth rib so that
he died. And just so with these men who
loved the Constitution, who honored the
Constitution, in whose eyes it was all good ;
yet while protesting their love for it they
endeavored to murder it, as far as they were
able to do so,
Now it has been a long time known what |
