CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



(Unary movements that are going on through 

 the country. Take the Republican newspapers 

 of the day, and it seems to me that they are 

 fuller of abuse, misrepresentation, and vituper- 

 ation of the section of the country from which 

 I have come than they ever were before. I 

 know, from direct communication to myself, 

 that various gentlemen who have been living 

 for a few years in tlio South are going through 

 the North, some of them as lecturers, BOIIIO of 

 tiicin in the garb of ministers of the Gospel, 

 and their whole lectures are simply replete 

 with the most extravagant and false state- 

 ments of wrongs and injuries in the South. 



"Designing persons are circulating letters 

 and documents among the poor colored people, 

 telling them that in Kansas they can have for- 

 ty acres and a mule and money free of cost, 

 and the Government, the great good Govern- 

 ment that freed them, will take care of them. 

 For what purpose is this second signal move- 

 ment among the poor negroes of the South, 

 the effect of which is to dissatisfy them with 

 their condition ? That they may, as many of 

 them have been, be deceived and undertake to 

 emigrate to this heavenly region, the new Ca- 

 naan of the negro the colored man. Why is 

 that done ? Not for the purpose of benefiting 

 the poor colored man oh, no ; but for the 

 double purpose of making it an occasion to vi- 

 tuperate the Southern people before the North- 

 ern people, charging their own duplicity to be 

 the effect of cruelty and wrong by the very 

 men whose advantage it is to be kind to their 

 laborers and to keep them among them in 

 contentment. There is the political purpose. 

 Thus they get thousands of poor creatures 

 away from home, naked and hungry, and then 

 the appeal comes to the philanthropy of North- 

 ern people and the plethora of the Treasury to 

 come and take care of them ; and the agents 

 who circulate the falsehoods and create the 

 dissatisfaction and produce the mischief come 

 in, of course, as dispensers of the alms. It is 

 a sad fact that these sectional passions are 

 yet used by statesmen, by politicians, by bad 

 men, and by thousands of small men in a hun- 

 dred shapes and forms these sectional pas- 

 sions that keep the people of the North and 

 the people of the South distrustful of each 

 other, and which are made commerce of by 

 these people for their own selfish ends without 

 any regard to consequences. 



" We are to be told that the military arm is 

 essential to the protection of the country, but 

 that under no circumstances can the North 

 trust one third of the people of this Union. 

 No man can read these remarkable declara- 

 tions of the leading men of that great party, 

 and not feel that the American Rubicon is in 

 sight, and that Ca?sar is ready to cross over. 



" But, sir, I should not have perhaps said 

 one word, notwithstanding my convictions, 

 of the purposes of the discussion here, the 

 style of discussion, the manner of the discus- 

 sion, its perfect consonance with what is 



going on outside, notwithstanding the convic- 

 tion on my part that there is this day a con- 

 certed movement in this country permeating 

 the whole Republican party, high and low, 

 for the purpose of consolidating one section 

 in this country against the other for no pur- 

 pose but that of dominion, right or wrong 

 I perhaps should have said nothing in view 

 of all this but for the fact that in the pres- 

 ent case the immediate legislation and the pur- 

 pose manifested in opposing that legislation 

 would amount to nothing unless they could 

 control the President of the United States. 

 If the President should oppose the bill passed 

 by the majority of Congress, of course that 

 was an end to the contest here ; and distin- 

 guished gentlemen who had made such tre- 

 mendous clamor against the bill would be like 

 Othello their occupation would be gone. I 

 do not wish to do any one injustice, but it can 

 not be disguised before the country that a per- 

 sistent, earnest, arbitrary, I almost said dicta- 

 torial, purpose has been manifested by that 

 party to get control of the President and influ- 

 ence him to veto the bill. I have never be- 

 lieved it would be done. I do not believe the 

 President will lend himself to the scheme, and 

 I have not believed it. The present Chief 

 Magistrate of this country distinguished his 

 administration in a manner worthy of his best 

 predecessor when he first took charge of it, by 

 signalizing the beginning of that administra- 

 tion by the removal of the troops from the 

 polls of the States and from interference with 

 the States. I can not believe that a President 

 who thus signalized bis administration in the 

 beginning would be guilty of the enormous in- 

 consistency of now insisting, against the will 

 of a majority of Congress, that he should have 

 the power to use troops, not only to control 

 the States, but to control all the elections in 

 the country. It would be too manifestly in- 

 consistent. 



' There is no clause in the Constitution which 

 says in so many words that Congress shall vote 

 appropriations ; but the preservation of the 

 Government itself requires that appropriations 

 shall be voted. The taxes are paid into the 

 Treasury for the purposes of supporting the 

 Government, and the Congress which willfully 

 refuses to appropriate money to support the 

 Government, in my judgment, is guilty of rev- 

 olutionary conduct which can not be excused. 

 I suppose I have stated that with sufficient 

 strength for the Senator from New York. Now, 

 what are the facts ? Mark what I state : that 

 the refusal to vote the appropriations to sup- 

 port the Government is unconstitutional, that 

 we are bound by the very terms of our oath 

 to take care of this Government, to support it, 

 to maintain it, and to that end to make the 

 necessary appropriations. What are the facts? 

 Take the Forty-fifth Congress. Every Demo- 

 crat in the House voted for appropriations; 

 every Democrat in the Senate voted for appro- 

 priations ; and every Republican in the House 



