CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



271 



trol of this Government, in both Houses of 

 Congress, the White House, and the Supreme 

 Court. The whole of this Government was 

 under your control. You had a majority in 

 this body, a majority in the other House ; and 

 you brought up the repeal of the Missouri com- 

 promise. You forced your men then, as you 

 are forcing them now, to vote for that repeal, 

 and you did it by caucus dictation. Then, sir, 

 you crowded your Northern allies until you 

 crowded them off the bridge. 



" In 1857, when I first took my seat in this 

 body with Mr. Jefferson Davis, there were in 

 this body forty-four Democrats, twenty Re- 



Biblicans, and two Independents. Of those 

 emocrats, twenty-eight were from the South- 

 ern States, sixteen from the Northern States. 

 Then, as now, the Independents in this body, 

 upon every question connected with slavery, 

 voted with the South. You in caucus, soon 

 after I entered the Senate, decreed that Ste- 

 phen A. Douglas, because he asserted that he 

 did not care whether slavery was voted up or 

 voted down, should be degraded from the 

 chairmanship of the Committee on Territories ; 

 and there were but three Northern Democrats 

 out of the sixteen on this floor who dared to 

 resist caucus dictation. You did degrade him 

 and put him off from that committee. Ah, 

 eir, then you crowded your men off the bridge, 

 and they sank into the waters of oblivion to 

 rise no more for ever. Then you had from 

 the Northern States on this floor : from Cali- 

 fornia two members ; from Illinois one ; from 

 Indiana two ; from Iowa one ; from Michigan 

 one. I am giving the Democratic Senators 

 from the North who obeyed and those who 

 did not obey caucus dictation. From Minne- 

 sota you had two ; from New Jersey two ; 

 from Ohio one ; from Oregon two ; from Penn- 

 sylvania one ; from Rhode Island one ; which 

 made the sixteen. Of those sixteen members 

 not a solitary man from the North ever came 

 up to the surface of the waters of oblivion. 

 You crowded them off the bridge. You com- 

 pelled them to vote for measures which the 

 North could not and would not sustain. 



" To-day you are doing the self-same thing. 

 To-day you have in this body forty-two Dem- 

 ocrats, thirty-three Republicans, and one Inde- 

 pendent. To-day, as twenty-two years ago, 

 on all questions connected with State rights, 

 the Independent party as a unit votes with the 

 Democratic party. To-day you have, as I said, 

 forty-three Democrats in this body, forty-two 

 leaving out the Independent party. You have 

 twelve members of this body from the North. 

 There are twelve Democratic Senators from 

 the North, and they are arranged thus: from 

 California one; from Indiana, now as then, 

 you have two ; from New Jersey you have 

 two, now as then ; from Ohio you have two, 

 you had but one then ; from Oregon you have 

 two now and you had two then ; from Penn- 

 sylvania you have one now, you had one then ; 

 from Rhode Island you have none now, but 



you have one from Connecticut ; and you have 

 one from New York. 



" Mr. President, as I said in the beginning, 

 history is to-day repeating itself. You are to- 

 day repeating what you did in 1857 and 1868: 

 you are crowding your men off the bridge, and 

 the men of to-day, as the men of 1867, will 

 sink into the waters of oblivion to rise no more 

 for ever. Look at the elections of this last 

 year. Look at the change that has taken place 

 since the 1st day of March, 1859. Sir, the peo- 

 ple are more thoroughly aroused to-day against 

 this heresy of State rights than they were from 

 1857 to 1861. You proposed to pension Jef- 

 ferson Davis, and every single one of your 

 Northern allies voted to pension him. You 

 eulogized him as a patriot to bo compared side 

 by side with Washington and all the patriots 

 of the Revolution, and every one of your 

 Northern allies voted ' ay.' After the close of 

 the rebellion you claimed that you were poor, 

 that you were suffering; and we found you 

 poor and suffering ; we found you ragged and 

 we clothed you. We put upon you the robo 

 of American citizenship which you had for- 

 feited, and we killed for you the fatted calf 

 and invited you to the feast, supposing that, 

 after being clothed, you were in your right 

 mind ; and when we have invited you to the 

 feast you say, ' We always owned the calf, and 

 you have no interest in it.' 



" But, Mr. President, I did not rise to dis- 

 cuss this question. I rose simply to say to 

 gentlemen upon the other side, You have your 

 day in court ; make the most of it ; your time 

 is short. The people of the North have taken 

 this question in hand, and from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific, from one end of this land to the 

 other, the people are aroused and alarmed at 

 the statements that have been made and the 

 action that has been taken in this Senate Cham- 

 ber and in the other House within the last six- 

 ty days. And let me say to you, gentlemen 

 upon the other side of the Chamber, that mene, 

 mene, tekel, upharsin is written all over your 

 brows." 



The President pro tempore : " The question 

 is, Shall the bill be read the third time? " 



The Secretary proceeded to call the roll. 



The result was announced yeas 33, nays 23. 

 So the bill was ordered to a third reading, and 

 was read the third tune. The Secretary pro- 

 ceeded to call the roll, and the result was an- 

 nounced as follows : 



YEAH Bayard. Beck, Butler, Call, Cockroll, Coke, 

 Davis of West Virginia, Eaton, Garland, Groome, 

 Hampton, Harris, Jlereford, Houston, Johnston, 

 Jonas, Jones of Florida, Kernan, Lamar, McDonald, 

 Maxcy, Morgan, Pendleton, Randolph, Ransom, Sauls- 

 bury, Slater, Thurman, Vance, Vest, Voorhees, Walk- 

 er, Withers 83. 



NATS Allison, Anthony, Booth, Bruce, Burnside, 

 Cameron of Pennsylvania, Cameron of Wisconsin, 

 Chandler, Conklinjj, Edmunds, Hill of Colorado, Hoar, 

 Ingalls, Kellogg, Logan, McMillan, Morrill, Platt, 

 Plumb, Rollins. Saundere, Teller, \V indom 28. 



ABSKNT Bailey, Bell, Elaine, Carpenter, Davis of 

 Illinois, Dawes, Farley, Ferry, Gordon, Grover, Ham- 



