15 repeat what I have said before, that if a majority of the people of the Territory, upon a fair expression of the popular will in due form of law, shall decide against slavery, I am willing to abide by that determination. Now is the gentleman willing to do this? He is silent. By his votes he has said that he is unwilling to do it. That is the difference between us. Now, I say, again, that southern statesmen have never, asked Congress to impose their institutions upon an unwilling people. They have always believed in the ability and capacity of the men of their pwn race to govern themselves wisely, and for the best interests of themselves and their posterity, in each State and community for itself. The party to which I have alluded is arrayed against this principle. It is nothing but a shoot, a sprout, a ratipon from the buried roots of the old Rufus-King, Hartford-convention party, which was always against this principle of self-government—of popular sovereignty— upon which all our American institutions rest. Mr. GIDDINGS. The gentleman from Georgia says that the South ,has always held to the capability of man for self-government. I would inquire whether it is a part of that self-government to flog their slaves ? Mr. STEPHENS. It is a part of all kinds of government to punish offenders, whether white or black, bond or free. This may be done, according to the grade of the offense, either by flogging, imprisoning, branding, or hanging, as the law-making power may determine. The principle of self-government which I advocate applies to men of our own race—free white men. 1 do not believe that the African race is capable of self- government, eitherin the South or North. They never have been from the earliest days of history. In the gentleman’s own State they are not acknowledged to be within the principle. They are not acknowledged as equals either socially or politically. They take no part in the government under which they live. Whether they are flogged there Ido not know, but great numbers of them are in jails, according to the census. The constitutions of most of what are called “free States” in this Union show that they are noteven there considered capable of self-government. Mr. GIDDINGS. Does the gentleman believe that the Africans who captured American Christians, and made slaves of them, were capable of self-government ? Mr. STEPHENS. They were of a different race. I allude to the black, woolly-headed negroes.. [Laughter.] Mr. GIDDINGS. The gentleman knows there are descendants of Jefferson and others here whose blood is tinctured with that of the African. Now, how much African blood must they have to.be incapable of self-government? Mr. STEPHENS. One eighth part or degree by our law. [Renewed laughter.] Has the gentleman any further question ? Now, sir, notwithstanding we at the South hold this incapacity in the negro of self-government, and notwithstanding we deny him social and political equality, I maintain that he is better oft- there, better provided for, better taken care of, and is more prosperous and happy in his condition amongst us, than he is in any other part of the world—not excepting the gentleman’s own State. This the last census showed. The negroes with us, sir, even under the restraints of power over them, enjoy not only more comforts of life, but more rational liberty than they do anywhere else. They enjoy quite as much as they are fit for. All rational liberty is founded on restraints. “Bonds make free.” To constitutional and legal bonds we are all indebted for whatever liberty any of,us enjoy. Liberty without bonds of some sort is nothing but licentiousness. And those bonds in which the negro is placed with us are only such as are necessary for the largest liberty he is capable of enjoying. Dependence and subordination is his natural and normal condition; but socially, the position of this people is better at the South than it is at the North, so far as my observation has extended. At the North they are excluded, and shunned as a leprous caste. At the South they look to their masters as guardians for protection, and they are treated with that respect and kindness due to their condition. But, sir, I must return from this digression. I have shown you the utter groundlessness of the assumed facts upon which the first resolution before us, proposing to vote the sitting Delegate out of his seat, is founded. I have also shown that the real and true reason of this unheard-of proceeding is not the one assigned, but that it is to be found in the purposes of that great sectional, abolition party, which is now seeking to govern as they please, not only the common Territories, but the whole fifteen southern States of this Union. It is now for me briefly—for I have but a few moments of time left—to allude to the second resolution before us, which is even more monstrous than the first. This proposes to assign a seat on this floor to Andrew H. Reeder, as a Delegate from Kansas, not by virtue of his being entitled to it, but because it is supposed there is a majority here willing to do it. It is not pretended that he has the shadow of a claim of legal right to it. The majority of the Committee of Elections who have reported this resolution, do not venture to say that he is entitled to a seat. The resolution is an anomaly of its character. It simply says: Resolved, That Andrew H. Reeder be admitted to a seat on this floor as a Delegate from the Territory of Kansas. He presents no certificate of election, or credentials from any quarter, except the report of the Kansas committee. This committee, on page 67, say, “That Andrew H. Reeder received a greater number of votes of resident citizens than John W. Whitfield for Delegate.” This is his whole case, and this statement by them is unsustained by proof. The majority of the Committee of Elections have adopted it; and I now call upon the chairman, [Mr. Washburn, of Maine,] who will conclude this argument, to show the evidence upon which it is founded. I make the demand of him in the presence of the House and the country. He cannot respond to it; for this nio-ir
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