216 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



apparent exercise of unlawful power. I do 

 not now propose to debate the question raised 

 by the amendment of the Senator from New 

 York, not because it is not important in itself, 

 and touches an interesting, grave, and substan- 

 tial question, but because it is overshadowed 

 by the main subject upon which it is now 

 sought to be ingrafted. 



" Mr. President, that is a very small matter 

 compared to the gravity of the crisis in which 

 I believe the people of the United States find 

 themselves this day. If I overrate it, it is be- 

 cause the deep solicitude which I feel in every 

 thing touching my public duty and the welfare 

 of my countrymen must account for the error 

 in judgment. I do not believe that since the 

 American colonies separated themselves from 

 the rule of Great Britain by revolutionary 

 action the people of this country were ever 

 brought face to face with graver questions, 

 needing braver, calmer, more deliberate con- 

 sideration, than confront them to-day. It is 

 not simply the question of the existence of 

 that republican form of government which by 

 the Constitution it is made the duty of the 

 United States to guarantee to every State of 

 this Union, and without which Louisiana 

 stands to-day. It is even graver, if it be pos- 

 sible, more important than even that, for there 

 are governments, of laws not republican in 

 form, in which the objects of good government 

 are secured and peace and safety given to the 

 inhabitants. But the issue now to be raised 

 between the people of the United States and 

 those whom they have elected as their rulers 

 is whether this Union of States shall be gov- 

 erned by law or by the mere personal will of 

 the official; whether we shall have a civil 

 government or a military dictatorship ; whether 

 we shall have a free government or a despot- 

 ism. The issue is, if I mistake it not, not less 

 grave than this. In the venerable Common- 

 wealth of Massachusetts I find well stated the 

 object for which, the spirit with which, these 

 limited governments were created, and their 

 charters reduced to writing, so that they 

 should not depend upon the feebleness of 

 men's memories, but should be fixed-in written 

 characters for all time. Said the people of 

 Massachusetts in their Declaration of Eights, 

 in the fourth section : 



The people of this Commonwealth shall have the 

 sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as 

 a free, sovereign, and independent State ; and they 

 shall forever hereafter exercise and enjoy every 

 power, jurisdiction, and right which is not or may 

 not hereafter he by them expressly delegated to the 

 United States of America in Congress assembled. 



" And in the closing section of their Decla- 

 ration of Rights : 



In the government of this Commonwealth the leg- 

 islative department shall never exercise the execu- 

 tive and judicial powers, or either of them: the 

 executive shall never exercise the legislative and 

 judicial powers, or either of them ; the judicial shall 

 never exercise the legislative and executive powers 

 or either of them, TO THE END THAT rr MAY BE A GOV- 

 ERNMENT OF LAWS, AND NOT OF MEN. 



" There is the soul of the declaration of 

 rights upon which the government of the an- 

 cient Commonwealth of Massachusetts stood in 

 1789, and under and subject to which her peo- 

 ple have lived to this day. 



"Mr. President, absolute, unlimited power 

 is unknown to the American system of govern- 

 ment, or to any other system of government 

 pretending to be called free. The people of 

 the States, and the States as integral parts of 

 the Federal Union, have delegated certain 

 enumerated powers to their rulers, and re- 

 served all others expressly in their written 

 charter to the States and to the people. To 

 omit the execution of just power is clearly a 

 breach of duty of the Executive, and to assume 

 power not delegated is a usurpation quite as 

 dangerous as rebellion and just as promptly to 

 be checked. 



" Now, sir, in what spirit should an Ameri- 

 can Senator approach the consideration of a 

 question like this? Should it not be gravely, 

 moderately, restrainedly, and without excite- 

 ment discussed ? How unlike should it be to 

 the remarks which we have here printed in 

 the records of the proceedings of this body, 

 which fell from the honorable Senator from 

 Indiana (Mr. Morton) and from his associates 

 from Vermont and from Illinois (Messrs. Ed- 

 munds and Logan), in which every line seems 

 to breathe hatred, to blaze with excitement, to 

 be filled with violent epithets, with general 

 arraignment and indictment of the whole 

 white population of a sister State, so that it 

 seems to me their speeches must have been in- 

 tended to obscure the real point at issue and 

 to envelop the subject in a cloud of excite- 

 ment, to awaken anew the bitterness of sec- 

 tional animosity ; and, by sounding the trumpet 

 of mere party, to draw their hearers away 

 from that standard of sworn patriotic duty to 

 support and defend the Constitution of their 

 Government. I shall not imitate them. My 

 sense of indignation is strong, but it is to be 

 silenced by my sense of sorrowful apprehen- 

 sion of evil to my country." 



The Vice-President : " The resolution of the 

 Senator from Ohio is before the Senate, and 

 the question is on the amendment proposed by 

 the Senator from New York." 



The yeas and nays were ordered, and the 

 Chief Clerk proceeded to call the roll. 



The result was announced yeas 32, nays 

 21 as follows: 



YEAS Messrs. Allison, Boreman, Boutwell, Cam- 

 eron, Clayton, Conkling, Dorsey, Edmunds. Ferry 

 of Michigan, Flanagan, Frelinghuysen, Hamilton of 

 Texas, Harvey, Hitchcock, Howe, Ingalls, Logan, 

 Mitchell, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Mor- 

 ton, Oglesby, Patterson, Pease, Pratt, Sargent, Scott, 

 Sherman, Speticer, Wadleigh, West, and Windom 

 32. 



NATS Messrs. Bayard, Bogy. Cooper, Davis, 

 Dennis, Fenton, Ferry of Connecticut, Goldthwaite, 

 Gordon, Hager, Hamilton of Maryland, Johnston, 

 Kelly, McCreery, Merrimon, Hansom, Saulsbury, 

 Schurz, Stevenson, Thurman, and Tipton 21. 



ABSENT Messrs. Alcorn, Anthony, Brownlow, 



