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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



too, the annexation of Cuba and Porto Rico. 

 Why, sir, this thing was foreseen long ago. 



" Now, Mr. President, I have said about all 

 I desire to say on this subject. I have referred 

 to every point made by the Senator from Mas- 

 sachusetts. In conclusion, I would say that 

 his points, almost without exception, are whol- 

 ly immaterial, considered with reference to 

 the inquiry as a new thing. We are now pro- 

 posing to start out on another basis. If we are 

 to have a treaty, it is to be a new treaty. It 

 may be that we would prefer a joint resolu- 

 tion, as in the case of Texas. But all these 

 things are in the future. This resolution does 

 not propose to determine any of those ques- 

 tions, but simply to get the facts and leave 

 them for the consideration of Congress and 

 the nation." 



Mr. Thurman, of Ohio, said: "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, I shall occupy very little time. My pur- 

 pose in rising is chiefly to put upon record in 

 the fewest possible words the grounds of my 

 opposition to the annexation of San Domingo, 

 and rather to state propositions than to make 

 an argument. But, before I do that, I wish to 

 notice some few remarks that have fallen from 

 different Senators in the course of this debate. 

 Any stranger who should have come into this 

 Chamber within the last two hours, unac- 

 quainted with the subject under discussion, 

 and listening to the speeches that have been 

 made, would naturally have come to the con- 

 clusion that it was once more the field of an 

 impeachment trial ; but at this time it was not 

 a President of the United States who was ar- 

 raigned and upon his trial, but a Senator of 

 the United States, a Senator from the Com- 

 monwealth of Massachusetts. 



" The Senator from Michigan (Mr. Chandler) 

 was pleased to tell the Senator from Massachu- 

 setts that when he came to train this little body 

 of Democrats here it would not be a very diffi- 

 cult task, that there were not so many of them 

 but that he might dress them in line without 

 any very great military genius to enable him 

 to do so. When the Senator made that remark, 

 my memory took me back eighteen years, 

 to the memorable year 1852. There was a 

 presidential election that year. There were 

 two candidates, the Whig candidate, General 

 Winfield Scott, the Democratic candidate, Gen- 

 eral Franklin Pierce. They stood upon plat- 

 forms that in one particular had no essential 

 difference whatever, platforms that have been 

 proclaimed ever since the year 1861 to have 

 been proslavery platforms ; platforms that de- 

 nounced in almost the same language and with 

 precisely the same meaning any agitation what- 

 ever of the subject of slavery or the abolition 

 thereof, which denounced it as unpatriotic in 

 anybody in any part of this Republic to seek 

 to disturb by any agitation whatsoever that 

 status of slavery which existed in the Southern 

 States. Upon that platform the two great 

 parties of the country went to battle in that 

 year 1852; but there was one man in the Sen- 



ate of the United States that day, and but one, 

 who repudiated both platforms and would 

 stand upon neither, who repudiated both can- 

 didates and would vote for neither ; and that 

 man was Charles Simmer. I see him standing 

 in the Senate Chamber then without a single 

 follower. He had no ten men, the number of 

 the Democrats here, to dress into line then ; 

 he had nobody but himself; and I have lived 

 to see the clay when sixty Senators of the Re- 

 publican party, the Senator from Michigan 

 among them too, were following in his foot- 

 steps with the most implicit obedience. I 

 have seen that which I never expected to see ; 

 I have seen the man who repudiated your can- 

 didate of 1852, who spit upon your platform 

 then, at the head of your column for nearly 

 ten years in the Senate of the United States. 



" Where then were you who now talk of 

 nothing but freedom ? Where then were you 

 who now boast of the enfranchisement of the 

 African race? Where then were you who are 

 so ready to denounce any man that ever stood 

 up for the institutions of the country, or at 

 least sought to prevent the country from being 

 ruined by their disturbance? Where were you, 

 Republican Senators, in the year 1852, when 

 the Senator from Massachusetts stood, if not 

 solitary, at least alone ? Where were you ? One 

 half of you, or nearly so, voting for Franklin 

 Pierce, and the rest of you for Winfield Scott. 



"Now, I am not here to defend the Sena- 

 tor from Massachusetts. He is quite able to 

 defend himself. I am not here to nominate 

 him as commander-in-chief of this little body 

 of Democrats. I do not think they want his 

 leadership, and I do not think he seeks the 

 command. But when he is reproached with 

 the small number of his followers, with the 

 number ten, I call the attention of the Senate 

 to the fact that eighteen years ago he had not 

 one-tenth of ten to follow him, although since 

 that he has had six times ten to obey his com- 

 mands. 



"But, again, is there nobody in this Cham- 

 ber who concurs in the opposition of the Sen- 

 ator from Massachusetts to the annexation of 

 San Domingo but this little band of ten Demo- 

 crats ? Are we all ? If that be the case, why 

 was not the treaty ratified? You have six 

 men here to our one; you have sis-sevenths 

 of the Senate; it requires but two-thirds to 

 ratify a treaty. If the Senator from Massa- 

 chusetts has none who concur in opinion with 

 him here but the ten Democrats, how comes 

 it that with six-sevenths of the Senate on your 

 side that treaty was defeated? How comes it 

 that the question is again before the Senate of 

 the United States ? Now, what has the Sena- 

 tor from Michigan to say to his Republican 

 Senators who also dress in the line headed by 

 the Senator from Massachusetts? What has 

 he to say to them? If 'shoot the deserters' 

 be the word, as it seems to me, or the alleged 

 deserters ; if ' scalp those who do not march 

 with perfect fidelity at the command of the 



