31 of three intelligent white freemen of the North. Sir, if the South had her full representation in this House now, she would have about twenty-two representatives here based on her negro slaves. The North submitted to this as to States, because it is one of the provi sions of the Constitution; but when it was sought to caary slavery to all the territories and thereby insure them to the slave power, and make them slave States, and thus increase this negro slave power to a preponderance over free labor forever in the Government of our country; then, the North very properly decided against slavery being extended to the free territories. Free labor demanded the territories for free men, and that demand was recognized by the Republican party in the passage of the Homestead bill, and the act excluding slavery from all the territories of the United States. With slavery as a local institution, although viewed as a very high crime against God and humanity, the people of the free States never would have sought to meddle, otherwise than by the power of truth; but to slavery as a political power, exalted above, the Constitution and the country, and seeking to make every other interest in the country subservient to that, they could not fail, without being false to themselves and to their children, to affix to it, if possible, constitutional limitations. The rebels of the South have sought secession, and the establishment of a Southern Confederacy, not to protect slavery, for they declared on oath in the votes and speeches they gave against Governor Brown’s bill, that they wanted no further protection for the institution. But they desired that the aristocratic and overbearing spirit which slavery engenders and stimulates, might have free scope, unchecked by the Democratic element at the ballot box, which loves country more than any material interest; always rejoices in the society of the mud sills, and partakes too much of the nature of true liberty to be able to comprehend how or why, in a Government like ours, an arrogant minority should lord it over an equally free and intelligent majority. Sir, the war is upon us, and it matters little what were the causes which led to it; the rebels of the South commenced it, and have trailed the flag of our country in the dust. To talk now about peace, on any other terms than an unconditional submission of the rebels to the Constitution and the laws, is not only treasonable, but cowardly. Sir, the men who do it are traitors at heart, and lack the courage to commit the oven act. They are Jeff. Davis’ reserve corps of sappers and miners, and are so far as they c*®, aiding the rebels in their work of murder and destruction. If it be supposed that these men are to be sustained by the people, it is a great mistake. The loyal masses of the people will rise in their might without distinction of party—the honest Democrats and Republicans will unite in solid phalanx against the traitors to their country—these men, who by their course of action are prolonging the war, and endangering the lives of thousands of pur brave men now in the field fighting for the Constitution and the Union, will have a fearful account to render to an outraged people. The blood of thousands of as gallant men as ever went to the field of battle, will be found on the skirts of their garments, by their course in embarrassing the President and his Administration in his efforts to suppress the rebellion and save the Government, Sir, the man who in this time of our country’s peril will not sink the partizan in the patriot, has but a poor conception of his duties as a patriot or citizen.
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