when I was elected to the Senate, and took an oath to be true to the constitution, I would not violate that oath, even in obedience to a popular prejudice at home. My crime consists in saying to my people,

So long as that constitution requires the fugitive slave to go back, so long will I, as a citizen, or a representative, be faithful to that clause of the constitution as well as to every other.' I tell the people with whom I live that I do not desire a man to represent me who, for the sake of getting an office, will take an oath to be true to the constitution, with a secret pledge to violate it. I do not wish to have a man on the bench to administer justice who, in order to get the place, will take an oath to be faithful to the constitution, and then repudiate both the constitution and the oath. I tell my people, 'If you want perjurers to represent you, get the men who believe in a higher law than the constitution. I have stood by my principles, by my pledges, by the constitution, and by my oath; if I had abandoned them, I could have had the applause of all these black republican leaders.'

"I do not intend to-day to go into the discussion of the Kansas question, or of the regularity of the proceeding there. I have shown on a former occasion conclusively, that the conduct of the leaders of the

That

State, moreover, is an act of rebellion against the constitution and laws of the country. What is the defence? The defence is, that they are carrying out the principles of the Declaration of Independence; that they are doing what our fathers did in the revolution; that they have a right to do what our fathers did; and, hence, inasmuch as our fathers were rebels against England, they have a right to be rebels against the United States of America. they are aiming at revolution is no longer to be disguised; revolution' is becoming their watch-word. And why? Because disunion is the object. Ambitious leaders are not willing to trust their political fortunes to a vote, where the North and the South vote alike for or against the same man. They must drive this point to disunion, for they now do not hope in this coming election, which has been so proudly alluded to by the senator from Massachusetts, to ruin a man who can avow his principles in one half of the States of this Union. But why not be as daring and defiant now as you were eighteen months ago, when you organised mobs to put down the freedom of speech-when you armed your bullies and sent them into democratic meetings to prevent a Nebraska man from being heard? I do not ask you to resort to the violence you then used; I prefer that you should

withdraw your secret orders for assassination, by which the public officers of the country are being murdered in Kansas. I do not ask you to practise your violence, but avow the same creed which you did then; that creed was the repeal of the KansasNebraska Act; the repeal of the fugitive slave law ; the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia ; the abolition of the slave trade between the States; the admission of no more territory into the Union, unless slavery should be first prohibited.” *

Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts said:" The senator from Texas sneers, and others may sneer, at bleeding Kansas,' but I tell him one thing, that the next day at ten o'clock, after the Presidential election, there was an assemblage of men, continuing through two days in the city of Boston, from several States, and from 'bleeding Kansas,'— men, some of whom you guarded through the summer months for treason, assembled together to take measures to save Kansas; and I assure that senator and others who may think this struggle for Kansas is ended with the election, that more money has been contributed since that election than during any three months of the whole controversy; thousands of garments have

* Appendix to Congressional Globe 1855-56, May 19, p. 545.

been sent to protect that suffering people. We have resolved, and we mean to keep that resolution, that if by any lawful effort, any personal sacrifice, Kansas can be saved to freedom, it shall be saved, in spite of your present administration, or anything that your incoming administration can do.”*

Mr. Crawford: "I approve every word in the message touching the subject of our constitutional rights, as well as the opinions set forth in reference to the ultimate objects to be accomplished by the gentlemen who compose the republican party, and shall endeavour to show to this House and the country that the charges are not without foundation. The President asserts that the object which you seek to accomplish you well know to be a revolutionary one; this being denied, I propose to show its truth, and in language not to be misunderstood, that interference with slavery in the States and in the territories is the primary object of 'Republican desire; which, accomplished by that party, would be but revolution. What perfidy and wrong has been done? Nothing more than the people of Kansas and Nebraska, just as those of Utah and New Mexico, and the people of all the territories,

* Appendix to the Congressional Globe 1856-57, in the Senate, Dec. 19, p. 65.

shall be perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the provisions of the constitution. The tribune propose that the nation's capitol should blaze by the torch of the incendiary, rather than that the free white men of those territories should frame their institutions, subject to the constitution; his regard for that instrument must be low indeed, or he must feel that its provisions' ought not to be allowed to the people thereof. Hear what another leading republican says. W. O. Duval (let his name go down to posterity, together with his opinions and wishes!) writes thus: 'I sincerely hope a civil war may soon burst upon the country. I want to see American slavery abolished in my time. Then my most fervent prayer is that England, France, and Spain may take this slavery-accursed nation into their special consideration; and when the time arrives for the streets of the cities of this "land of the free and home of the brave" to run with blood to the horses' bridles, if the writer of this be living, there will be one heart to rejoice at the retributive justice of heaven.' I propose further to call the attention of the House to an extract from a speech of the senior member from Ohio (Mr. Giddings). I do this the more readily because that he asked this