One from that region with the eleven foot
and marked by every indication of the home
to which be belonged, would hardly meet a
more unwelcome reception than would be
afforded to a Boston abolitionist. How is it
now? Has there been any change in others ?
In 1850, who denied the propriety of slavery
in this State? We nil denounced any inter-
ference with it; there was no dissentient
voice. Now, who baa changed? Not incon-
sistent ! I rather think, that a number of
gentlemen halve changed. I should bemost
happy, when we come to the 23d article,
to find consistency in the views of gentle-
men.
Why, sir, we have all of us changed meas-
urably. Mr. Lincoln told us a few months
ago that his emancipation proclamation was
unconstitutional; now it is constitutional.
Not that the proclamation has changed, but
the Constitution has changed ! Is that so?
Mr. Seward undertook to state, in a despatch
to Mr. Adams, only a year or two ago, that
the Government of the United States recog-
nized the doctrine of secession; he slated so
emphatically. I do not think Mr. Seward is
of that impression now. I think that Mr.
Lincoln on one occasion used some expres-
sion of that sort. The President is .a man
whose sentiments are familiar to us all; he is
a man of such importance, that his opinions,
whether in jest or in earnest, are eagerly
Bought far and treasured up. What did Mr.
Lincoln say ?
" Any people anywhere, being inclined and
having the power, have the right to rise up
and shake off the existing government and
form a new one that suits them better. This
is a must valuable most sacred right—a
right which we hope and believe is to liber-
ate the world. Nor is this right confined to
cases in which the whole people of an exist-
ing government may choose to exercise it.
Any portion of each people that can may
revolutionize and make their own of so much
of the territory as they inhabit—more than
this, a majority of any portion of such people
may revolutionize, putting down a minority
intermingled with or near about them, who
may oppose their movements; such minority
was precisely the case of the stories of our own
revolution. It is a quality of revolution not
to go by old lines or old laws; but to break
up both and make new ones. As to the
country now in question, we bought it of
France in 1803, and sold it to Spain in 1819,
according to the President's statements. After
this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolution-
ized against Spain; and still later, Texas
revolutionized against Mexico, in my view
just so far as she carried her revolution by
obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling
submissions of the people, so far the country
was hers, and no farther."
"Any people anywhere have the right to
change their government if they can." Well, |
sir, I do not think the President thinks go
now.
Now, I say in regard to my consistency that
I do not mean to speak of it now. I have
the pages of the debates of the Convention
of 1850, to which reference was made here,
by the kindness of a friend whose familiarity
with note-taking enables him, I suppose, to
note them correctly. But I do not mean that
those pages alone shall be considered those
in which I expressed my sentiments, I invite
the gentleman to examine every page of the
debates of 1850, and find if he can, where I
have erred. When I shall have explained
my creed—which I regret to say will not be
found in accordance with that of others—
the gentleman, perhaps, will be willing to
own that the mistake was on his own part;
and which I understand elicited a great deal
of merriment and entertainment in this House;
it was accompanied with one of those exhibi-
tions of gratification which the stamping of
the feet and the clapping of the hands usually
indicate in other places. I do not mean to
say that such a manifestation was incon-
sistent with the proceedings here. It was
in keeping, for some of the speeches do not
profess to be anything else than laughing
matter.
Now, while mentioning instances of incon-
sistency, I would invite the attention of my
friends who think it is a serious crime, to
one prominent fact in the history of the na-
tion within a short period. A certain Mr.
Crittenden, a gentleman whose habitation
was in Kentucky—I mention these things be-
cause they may have been forgotten; times
have so changed, and our memories have
been so taken up with other events, that per-
haps these things would not be recollected—
this Mr. Crittenden thought proper to pro-
pose, in the balls of the great legislature of
the nation, a system or theory for the accept-
ance of the government upon which this
terrible war was to be waged. He declared
it to be the object of the government to con-
duct the war solely for the purpose of en-
forcing the observation of the constitutional
obligations, the legal obligations of the citi-
zens of the seceded States, without the
slightest intention to interfere with any of
their peculiar institutions.
Now it shall be my business, in the future
part of this debate, if I am permitted, to show
that there are certain obligations of the citi-
zen to the State with which the Constitution
and laws of the United States cannot in-
terfere. It was to secure those rights, to
protect and to preserve them that the resolu-
tion of Mr. Crittenden was offered. And it
was passed almost unanimously.
The other day a highly respected gentle-
man from Pennsylvania, seeing that the ship
bad moved off a little from its moorings, and
was steering on rather a different tack,
thought proper to call the attention of this |
