5 occasion alluded io—that the Committee of the Whole on the Kansas bill did just exactly what the rule intended that they might do, and fully empowered them to do. But gentlemen say, if this rule was intended to be applied to the Committee of the Whole, why has it never been put in practice before? That was the argument of the gentleman from Maine,. Well, Mr. Speaker, my reply to him is, that it has been put in practice before. It was adopted in 1822. Ten days after its adoption, on the 2d of March, 1822, first session of the Seven teeth Congress, I find the Journal of the House record thus: “The House took up and proceeded to consider the bill for the relief of Benjamin Freeland and John M. Jenkins; and the amount reported thereto from the Committee of the Whole House, on the 14th instant, being read as follows : ‘ striking out the enacting clause of said billd “ The question was put on concurringwith the Committee of the Whole House in the said amendment, “And passed in the affirmative.” Here the committee did the very same thing, ten daysafterthe rule was adopted, that was done on the Kansas bill. What did the House do? Did they say that the Committee of the Whole had acted improperly? No, sir. The Journal i says: “ the question was taken upon concurring with the Committee of the Whole on said amendment, and it passed in the affirmative.” 1 find in the first session of the Eighteenth Congress, on the 22d of May, this’record: “The question was then taken to concur with the Committee of the Whole House on striking out the enacting words of the bill from the Senate, entitled ‘An act relative to the Patent Office and to the salary of the superintendent thereof,’ “And passed in the affirmative.” Again, sir, in the first session of the Twenty- First Congress, I find on the Journal this record: “The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole House on the bill (No. 127) for the relief of Walter Livingston, deceased, and after some tinip spent therein, the Speaker resumed the chair, and Mr. Storrs, of New Fork, reported the same, with the enacting clause stricken' out.” “The question was then put, that the House do concur with the Committee of the Whole House in striking out the enacting words of said bill, “And passed in the affirmative—yeas 84, nays 59.” I find in the same Congress, in the action of the House on the bill for the relief of John Robinson, that “The question was then put to concur with the Committee of the Whole House in striking out the enacting words of the bill (No. 175) for the relief of John llobmson, “And passed in the affirmative. “ So the land bill was rejected.” Sir, I shall not go on with this record. It is sufficient for me to state to those gentlemen who complain of my motion under this rule, that their not knowing that such a motion had ever been made before does not seem to me, to be an argument of much merit or force. I show you, Mr. Speaker, the House, and the country, the rule. No man can question that. I show you, also, its history; and from that, that it was made for just such a purpose as the one I applied it to. No man now can gainsay that. I go further, and show you the practice of the House under it. No man can any longer question that. Then, sir, how can gentlemen rise up here, and say that the passage of the Kansas .and Nebraska bill was accomplished by overriding the rules of the House ? Gentlemen may have been surprised and astonished at the parliamentary tactics practiced und^r the rule; they may never have dreamed of how the friends of a measure, in committee,. ' could vote to strike out the enacting words—thus apparently defeating it—and then, wheh it was so reported to the House, reverse their position, disagree to the report of the committee striking out the enacting words, and then pass it. They may not have understood the process by which a bill might be temporarily apparently killed by its friends in Committee of the Whole, for the purpose of getting it out, and then revived again in the House, by disagreeing to the report of the committee; but this is the whole of it. This is the ground of all this clamor about the violation of the rules of the House, in the passage of the Kangas bill—for it is nothing but clamor. ; The charge of a violation of rules has not the ' semblance of a fact to rest upon. And let no man hereafter say that sending a bill to. the Committee of the Whole is equivalent to its defeat. Our rules requiring this committee, and directing how business shall be disposed of in it, are wise i and proper. And the rules, when properly administered, work harmoniously for the perfection and dispatch of legislation. It is-only those who do not understand them who see confusion and mystery in them. Where, then, was the wrong or the fraud perpetrated on the rules in the passage of the Kansas bill ? It exists only in the fancy of gentlemen who declaim so violently on the subject. I said, sir, I intended to vindicate the action both of the committee and the House on that occasion, and put the matter beyond all future cavil or doubt. This, I think, I । have done. Now, sir, I intend also, with the [ same confidence, to vindicate the principles of that bill against the equally unfounded assaults which have been made upon them. What, sir, are those assaults ? The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Campbell] said i the other day, and again says, that the passage of the Nebraska bill was the origin of all the troubl1* in' the country. Sir, what troubles does he allude to ? What troubles have we upon us ? Standing in my place in the Hall of the Representatives of the United States, I ask to-day, what troubles is the country laboring under ? Were any people of the world evermore prosperous than the people of the United States now are ? We are at peace with all 1 other nations; we hear of no complaint about Fed- J eral taxes or high tariffs; we hear of no disarrangement of the currency or of the finances of the I country; we hear of no clamor against banks; our tables are not loaded down with petitions or remonstrances against grievances of any sprt; thrift and plenty seem to be smiling over the land from one extent to the other. Our commerce was never more flourishing; agriculture never yielded a more bountiful supply from the bosom of the earth to the tillers of her sqil than it now does, nor was the average value of products .ever higher. Industry, in every department of business, whether upon the ocean or the land, never had more inducements to ply its energies, not only for competency
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