Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Mr. GIDDINGS. So far as the Democratic party is concerned, I repeat that I judge the Africans by their intelligence and virtue. I do not enter into the quarrel between them with the Republicans. I do not mean to put them on an equality with the Republicans.

Mr. Cox. The gentleman does not answer my question. I therefore will not press him further. All that I wished was to put the Democratic party right in regard to this matter of slavery; and they are right on it, being neither an anti-slavery nor a pro-slavery party. The gentleman may go on and get the nomination for the governorship, and make his alliance, if he can, in northern and southern Ohio, and we will meet him at Philippi.

It is enough to say that Mr. GIDDINGS never became a candidate for Governor. He was lectured by the Anti-Slavery Standard for not being more courageous in this debate for the right of the negro to vote. But he ceased not until his decease to advocate his radical notions. He was not returned to the 36th Congress. Subsequently, on the 9th of February, 1861, Mr. Cox had another running debate with the successor of Mr. GIDDINGS, in which (far too harshly) he characterized the ruinous effect of Mr. GIDDINGS's political views. This debate is thus reported:

NORTHERN NULLIFIERS.

Mr. Cox. I was surprised that my colleague from the Ashtabula district, at the conclusion of his attack upon my colleague (Governor CORWIN), should have attacked me. Why he did so, I know not; unless it be from the fact that I asked him a question in explanation of his argument about incendiary publications to provoke insurrection. I asked him the question, whether or not he was in favor of suppressing all such publications as the Helper book and Theodore Parker's programme, published in the Tribune, for the robbery and murder of masters by their slaves to obtain their freedom? The gentleman did not answer the question. He evaded it; for he knew that he represented a constituency who are continually preaching and publishing that very sedition of which my colleague [Mr. CORWIN] complained, and of which he [Mr. HUTCHINS] is the defender, and of which John Brown was the exemplar. The gentleman knew, when he covered his attack upon Governor CORWIN by his attack upon me, that he represented some of the very men who had been engaged in raids upon their neighbors' lives and property. I cannot, sir, fail to remember that his sensibility about certain disclosures that have transpired in relation to the Republican executive of Ohio, in refusing to deliver to Virginia such miscreants, is no doubt caused by the fact that some of the renegades and rascals of John Brown's conspiracy had a protecting ægis in the conspiring treason of his own district. I state these facts openly, and in my place, because they are wrongs, and with a view to their remedy by proper measures. But, sir, I wanted to call attention especially to an ungenerous attack upon myself. I did not expect it from the gentleman. He said I was always very busy in the House furnishing facts—yes,

facts, sir-for Southern members to attack the North here. I would like him to name the Southern man to whom I furnished facts, in the manner or for the purpose stated. Name him, if you can! I will pause for you

to name one.

Mr. HUTCHINS. I think that when the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. LEAKE, was discussing the conduct of Governor Dennison

Mr. Cox. Yes, sir; I was about to refer to that. I asked the privilege of Governor LEAKE to take the floor; and in my place I gave the facts to the House and the country, and not to Governor LEAKE; I gave them with a view to the proper remedy, and from no other motive. I meet these issues openly, here and elsewhere. I stand here with a duty to the whole country. I speak not alone for my own district and my own State. But when I have information that the Constitution and laws have been violated anywhere, and that gross wrongs have been done to our own mother State of Virginia and our own sister State of Kentucky, I will never hesitate, both here and at home, to denounce the unfaithful men, even though they do disgrace the State of Ohio. [Applause in the galleries.] The gentleman undertakes to acknowledge that I am a Union man. What an admission to come from the successor of Joshua R. Giddings! [Renewed applause.] How refreshing from a man like my colleague, who was nominated and elected because he was more radical than Mr. Giddings himself! Mr. Giddings could teach insurrection. We know how he taught it here for twenty years. He could organize conspiracies in the gentleman's district, for the purpose of attacking the officers of the law and defeating its execution-not stopping at murder to accomplish such designs. He could advise the "shooting down as pirates" of officers engaged in executing the laws of the United States. If Mr. Giddings, who had no scruples as to murder in defeating the law, was left at home, how far would the gentleman go, who superseded Mr. Giddings, because he was more ultra and reliable than Mr. Giddings?

Mr. HUTCHINS. Toward my colleague, personally, I entertain no other feeling than that of kindness. Against his political acts I have had, and now have, some little criticism to make; because, on every possible occasion that he could get the ear of this House, he has seen fit to denounce my constituents as enemies to the Union, and as abettors of the raid of John Brown. He even brought against the judges of the State the charge of singing the Marseillaise on the bench; and also against the citizens of the Western Reserve the same charge of singing the same patriotic song-through their noses. [Laughter.]

The gentleman has made an attack upon Mr. Giddings. He needs no defence from me. His acts in this House for twenty years will stand the test of criticism now and hereafter. Attacks are frequently made upon him by members here; and I will only say, that his name will be remembered with gratitude when the names of those who assail him are forgotten. I deny that he has countenanced insurrection on this floor or elsewhere.

Now, this is all that I desired to say. I am willing that my constituents shall stand by their record, shall stand by their position. I will stand by mine. I am in favor of the Union as it is, and as our fathers gave it to us; but I do not think it can be preserved by sacrificing those

[ocr errors]

very principles on which it is based. If the cause of liberty is to be betrayed and crucified in the year of grace 1861, I trust that there will not be found among its apostles a betrayer and crucifier.

Mr. Cox. The last remark of the gentleman shows just where he is. He says he is for the Union, but with an "if and an and;" qualifying his remark with the phrase that he is only for the Union, "if liberty be not crucified." He knows, or ought to know, that the Union is the only shield of liberty. But he means, if he means any thing, that, if there be power in the Government to crush out slavery, either in the Territories or in States, then he is for the Union; but he is not for it, if it does not give that power. He is not for it, unless he can make it the instrument of his fanaticism. I say that I am for the Union, without qualification or condition, now and all the time. I will do what the gentleman will not-yield and compromise much for its salvation. The gentleman said in his speech a while ago, that I would be for the Union provided the Republican party should be crushed out. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, but that it may be necessary to roll the Juggernaut car over this Republican party to save the Union; but I would even be willing to give a lease of power for fifty years to that party, if I could see that it would conduct the Government on principles like those of my colleague (Mr. CORWIN), which would preserve the Union. I would be willing to surrender party supremacy, if thereby we could keep the old stars and stripes floating over the national Congress. [Applause.]

Mr. Speaker, there are various classes of Republicans. The gentleman [Mr. HUTCHINS] belongs to the worst of the Abolition wing; and well may he defend his predecessor, Mr. Giddings. That godless old man, after spending a public life devoted to hate, ill will, and sedition, was retired because he did one thing that was right-voted for the CrittendenMontgomery bill. He has since been making up for his loss of office by the virulence of his spleen and the outlawry of his conduct. He has, as I have once shown here, instigated servile insurrections; and now, at the end of a misspent life, which is scarcely silvered by a ray of benignity, he finds, as the consequence of his teaching and conduct, a disrupted Union, a terrified people, and the prospect of unending hate and bloody strife. If there was mercy for the thief upon the cross, there may be mercy for him. God grant him repentance before he fills his dishonored grave! But what a life he has lived! He talked the language of love to the black race only to hide his hate for the white race who people our southern States. He paraded humanitarian phrases, and took upon his profane lips the name of God, only to cloak his malice and sanctify his hate. He has had, in specific wickedness, many rivals; but if we measure men's guilt by the objects upon which they are bent, who can tell the magnitude of that portentous crime which causelessly dismembers to destroy the American Republic? As such a Republic has no parallel, so such a criminal has no peer. But my colleague praises him and commends him to immortal honor! Nero had a friend, who placed immortelles upon his tomb, and the worst fiends of the French revolution had their defenders after death; but were this old man now dead, and thus powerless in his party at home, even my colleague would shrink from the task of embalming his bad memory. It will, after death, only be remembered to be execrated.

His late letters to my colleague [Mr. CORWIN] and his compatriot, Mr. EWING, Show that age, which so often reclaims the most reprobate soul, has not withered-nor custom, which so often tires of its baleful work, has not staled-the infinite variety of his malice and his madness. History, in its record of this great anti-slavery sedition of the North, and the consequent revolution in the South, will only picture the whiteness of his hair, to contrast it with the blackness of that purpose, which for years and years has pursued a crusade whose terrible consummation is upon us, in the crumbling away of our States and the destruction of their unity.

The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. CORWIN] belongs to a different class of Republicans. He is of that class with which I most agree in these matters of conciliation for the Union. He has reported a proposition in respect to the return of fugitives from justice, which was in response to a resolution that I offered some time ago, and which is called for by a resolution offered within a few days by a leading Republican member of the Ohio Legislature. I am in favor of that measure of the Committee of Thirty-three. But my colleague [Mr. HUTCHINS] attacks it. Why? Because the United States Judges, and not a Republican Governor, will then be in the position to take the John Browns and Oliver Browns and Merriams out of his district, so that he cannot thereafter get their votes.

There are several classes of Republicans. There is a pious class; there is a cursing class; there is a fighting class; and there is a patriotic class. The gentleman [Mr. HUTCHINS] belongs to the pious class; they believe all they say. The doughty member from Ohio [Mr. AshLEY]-who interfered so ungenerously to prevent me from replyingbelongs to the cursing class. They do not believe any thing, but profess just enough to get them into Congress. The fighting class are very brave-in time of peace. I will not name those who belong to this class. Then there is another class, composed of those who have a leaven of patriotic feeling. My colleagues [Messrs. CORWIN and STANTON] belong to this latter class. But they have not the confidence of the body of their party in Ohio. [A voice: "How do you know that?"] How do I know it! Because your party in convention, last year and the year before, passed resolutions almost unanimously, that the fugitive slave law was unconstitutional, and should not be executed. Can you agree to that? Mr. STANTON. The gentleman does not state the resolution correctly. Every member of the committee that reported it agreed to that resolution. Mr. Cox. I could state the very words of it, if it were necessary; and I have stated the meaning and the substance of it. It declared that the fugitive slave law was "subversive of both the rights of the States and the liberties of the people, and was contrary to the plainest duties of humanity and justice, and abhorrent to the moral sense of the civilized world." Is the gentleman in favor of executing an outrage upon the civilized world? [Laughter.] Yes, sir, his whole party are committed to the demoralization of the Federal authority, not only by such resolutions, but by judicial decision. Why, the gentleman himself [Mr. STANTON] voted for the chief justice of his State; and he knew, and they all knew, that when he was nominated and elected, the issue was made upon that judge's decision, overruling the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in favor of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave law.

Here is where disunion begins. It begins at home, sir; in your own State and in your own party and in your own breast. Your party reelected a man because he had nullified the Constitution; because he had broken the oath which he had taken before God, to support the Constitution of the United States. The whole party in that vote (including my colleagues) were guilty of moral treason. [Applause in the galleries.]

Mr. STANTON. I should like very much to have about five minutes to reply to my colleague. [Cries of "Go on!" and "Object!"]

Mr. BURNETT. I have no objection to the gentleman going on for five minutes, if his colleague [Mr. Cox] may have another five minutes in reply. I want to see a fair fight, if this thing is to go on. [Cries of "Agreed!"]

Mr. SICKLES. I desire to know, before the gentleman from Ohio proceeds with his remarks, whether it is understood that his colleague in front of me [Mr. Cox] is to have the right to reply.

It being "agreed" that Mr. Cox should respond, Mr. Stanton was allowed to speak.

Mr. STANTON. I do not care myself, personally, any thing about the remarks of my colleague; but for the sake of the truth of history, and to prevent misrepresentation of the party to which I belong, I desire to correct what has been so often said here, as to myself and the chairman of the Committee of Thirty-three not being representative men of the Republican party.

Now, sir, I was a member of the committee that reported the resolution to which my colleague has so frequently referred in debate upon this floor. I concurred in that resolution then, and I concur in it to-day. I hold a fugitive slave law which authorizes the capture of freemen without the slightest chance of trial, without a hearing before any court or any officer known to the law, to be an outrage upon civilization. Now, Mr. Speaker, when we denounced that fugitive slave law, we did not recognize the right of each man, upon his own responsibility, to nullify and resist its execution or to question its constitutionality. We understand perfectly well that that question is to be tested by the judicial tribunals; and I hold it to be the duty of every good citizen to acquiesce in the judgment of such tribunal, whatever it may be, until it shall be reversed by a higher tribunal. That is the position of the Republican party of Ohio. But, sir, I am told that I voted for a judge who held this fugitive slave law to be unconstitutional. I certainly did so vote, and I certainly shall always vote for a judge with strict reference to his integrity and his capacity, without considering the question as to whether I concur with him upon every decision he makes upon the bench or not.

#

Mr. Cox. My colleague from Ohio [Mr. STANTON] steps in advance of my colleague from the Ashtabula district [Mr. HUTCHINS], to shield him.

Mr. STANTON. Not at all.

Mr. Cox. Yes, sir; for he knows very well he is not as obnoxious, in the respect to which I referred, as the gentleman from the Ashtabula dis

« AnteriorContinuar »