8 rack dripped with the blood of Its martyrs. The world’s conservatism trembled when fifty-six bold merchants, farmers, and mechanics, proclaimed the inalienable rights of man. As for myself, there is but one book of precedents that can in any way control my action as a legislator, and that is written upon my heart by the finger of Him who made it. “Let the dead pbury its dead ; Act, act, in the living present, Heart within and God o’erhead.” One word here, in answer to the gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. Stephens,] who thought these troubles the result of other causes than the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The wrongs of Kansas date from the day that the Missouri Compromise was repealed. On the heads of its repealers rest the blood shed in Kansas, and the wrongs and the outrages which have been heaped upon it. The repeal was for the purpose of making Kansas a slave State. It was a conspiracy from the start; and it has been carried out with violence and brute force. Without that repeal, Slavery could never have gone there. There would have been no effort to force it into the Territory. Without it, Kansas would have been saved from civil war, and the repose and harmony of the Republic would have continued undisturbed. On the heads, then, of the repealers rests the responsibility for all these troubles. Strife, anarchy, and bloodshed, are the first fruits of that repeal, and the second seal is not yet opened. But the gentleman says that the country is at peace, and is prosperous and happy. True, but the agitation in the country is not based upon dollars and cents. It is founded upon principle— a principle underlying the foundation of our Government—a principle which enters into the spirit and genius of the Republic. And I ask the politician, if this agitation is not the result of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, how it happens that but nine of those from the North who voted for that repeal were returned to this House, while some forty who voted against it occupy seats here to-day ? How happens it that every election for Senator in the North, since the repeal, with one exception, has resulted in the election of an opponent to that repeal ? Does he believe that there has been no change in the popular sentiment? Does he believe that the people remain quiet and satisfied with the existing condition of affairs ? If so, how does it happen that in every State election, save one, held in the North since that repeal, the Democratic party, which was the instrument by which it was accomplished, has been defeated, and its banner trails in the dust on the proudest fields of its former triumphs ? And why does it rejoice today in accessions from the ranks of its old enemies, to save it from hopeless ruin ? It trampled on the holiest and best impulses of the human heart, and it must now receive its retribution. I desire here to quote a reason which I urged against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise at the time, a part of which, results have already made prophetic, and each day is verifying the correctness of the balance of the prediction: But. sir, as an early an<i constant friend of this Administration, I desire the defeat of this bill; for its passage will, in my judgment, insure, beyond a doubt, an anti Administration majority in the next Congress. As an earnest ana devoted friend to the Democratic party, to which I have cheerfullj given my best energies from my earliest political action, I desire the defeat of this bill; for its passage will blot it out as a national organ zation, and, leaving but a wreck in every Northern State, it will live only in history. As a lover of peace, harmony, and fraternal concord among the. citizens of the Confederacy, and as a devotee at the shrine of this Union, with all its precious hopes to man, I desire the defeat of this bill; lor its passage will tear open wounds not yet healed, lacerate spirits already fri-nzied, and “the bond of confidence which unites the two sections of the Union will be rent asunder, and years of alienation and unkindness may it - tervene before it can be restored, if ever, to its wonted tenacity and strength.” If you would calm the spirits that you have frenzied, heal the wounds you have inflicted upon the country, and restore peace and harmony to the Republic, admit Kansas as a State with her free Constitution. And if you would end this sectional strife forever, return to the example of the Fathers of the Republic, and cease your efforts to propagate Slavery under the protection of the flag of your country, and desist from the attempt to nationalize the institutions of human bondage. WASHINGTON, D. C. BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 1 8 5 6.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=