4 that you cannot administer successfully, or even with safety, for your own system. Mr. President, if there is a Senator here who will gainsay me in my next preliminary observation, let him now look me full in the face and deny, if he can, that his section has had its full share of political power in this country, from the hour when the Government was organized until the exact moment when I am speaking. More than this, your power in the Government has been altogether disproportioned to your numbers. I blame nobody for this, because I know that- it is human nature to use all the power we have for the advancement of our own principles, our interests, and our accepted policies. Undoubtedly, under similar circumstances, we of the North would do the same ; therefore I do not complain, but simply state the fact.. If, now, the present course of administration of the Government has so far proved a failure that you are now prepared to pull it down over our heads, pray tell us who is to blame but yourselves ? Sir, it is very manifest, from the confessions of the complainants, that they have no present or real cause of complaint. The secret really is, that uprising political principles, which they are no longer able to keep down, cast a shadow across their path which disturbs their equanimity. The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs] told us that the South is in possession of eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles of country, the most genial and beautiful that God ever bestowed . upon men; He said that he was proud of it; and he has a right to be. He said that this fine region is capaable of sustaining a population greater than that of all Europe. I believe that he spoke within bounds. He told us that that region has twelve million peo- plej mark you, sir, only twelve million. But we all know that the area of the • slaveholding States is greater by about one-third than that of the free States, while its population is at least one third-less. He spoke glowingly of the prosperity of the slaveholding States. What, then, could be more unreasonable and absurd than these whinings and complaints of Northern aggressions and oppressions by the great and prosperous South, when the North is entirely out of power ? If he speaks relatively, then he speaks correctly. Property in slaves was never so prosperous as to-day. Look into the slave market; you will find that slaves never brought higher prices than now. Of course, slave labor is more profitable to the owner now than it has ever been. Sir, these Southern gentlemen are inconsistent and contradictory; in one breath they are all boast and glory, in the next it is all despair and destruction. Please reconcile some of these contradictions. If the North has, by means of its underground railroads, fatally and treacherously sapped and undermined the foundations of your, whole system of labor, how is it that your .property has risen in value, and your prosperity culminated during all the time it has been going on ? One other preliminary remark, Mr. President. The Senator from Georgia rose here in his place, with a solemnity unusual for him, and with a countenance which was the very personation of despair, and announced to an astonished people, that we, the Senators on this side of the Chamber, are the enemies of his country. Yes, sir ; he felt that we are enemies of his country, and therefore that power would be unsafely and dangerously lodged in our hands. Why, sir, would it be unsafe and dangerous ? Certainly they have suffered no damage from us, so far. He argues after this fashion : he complains that we have been faithless in the execution of his fugitive law, and therefore the slave property of the South is insecure ; but you will remember, sir, that, long before he got through with his speech, the slaves in Georgia were so loyal to their masters, that, from the days of the revolutionary war to the present time, not one hundred of all their black generations have fled from bondage. Sir, if there are those whose nature is so grateful that they can thank you for nothing, there are others whose nature is so discontented that they will complain upon very trifling cause. Only one poor negro a year, in eighty years, has escaped from the great State of Georgia; and yet he trembles with rage, declares war, and.lays hold upon the pillars of the Union. One poor negro a year, and even that negro not certainly lost through the Abolitionists or the aggressions of the North. The Senator does not condescend to tell us how any or all the hundred have been spirited away, but is content with boasting that all who have been lost, from all causes whatever, do not exceed a hundred. Mr. President, when gentlemen come here and volunteer such arguments as these, it is perfectly evident that there is some motive stronger than any consciousness of injury received at. the hands of those they accuse. The Senator from Georgia [Mr, Toombs] seems to have been specially assigned to act as attorney general; and he has brought in a bill of indictment, charging upon the Senators on this side' of the Chamber pretty much all the crimes known in the calendar. It is an indictment interspersed with something of argument, more of declamation, and yet more of vituperation. Now, sir, I acknowledge him to be well and worthily assigned, to this duty, for he is one of the ablest and most experienced members of the Senate. If a case could be made out at all ■ against the North, he is just the man to make it out. I have already conceded his ability. All who heard his speech will admit that he does not lack the necessary zeal. If he has failed, he may say, with another noted character, that he “ fell where Satan could not stand.” [Laughter.] Sir, he has failed — utterly, totally failed. I pass by, for the moment, the impeac anot ice- mor tup 6 T Ren mill we 1 ha vi spir; bell did the this baft eari thos cha kno mus of 1 ate< pra kno kno thei for exc WOl sho to for< hoi me not k i fee: of i ing wa for Nc COl pi; a s is • pei an evi th< an up tei a S’. fr( re ho to: . a? K ca 74
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