FROM THE HON. JOSIAH J. EVANS'S SPEECH, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JUNE 23, 1856. The Satiate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the bill to enable the people of the Territory of Kansas to form a constitution and State government, preparatory to their admission into the Union when they have the requisite population— Mr. EVANS said: Mr. President, the subjects which have grown out of this unhappy Kansas affair are of very grave import. I would willingly, very willingly, avoid, if it were possible, mingling in this controversy. I have no taste for it. It is against the habits of the last thirty years of my life; for within that period, so far as I remember, I have on no occasion found it necessary to make anything like a forensic effort. But, sir, the Senator from Massachusetts not now in his seat tMr. Sumner] has not left me any choice. He as thought proper, in a most ruthless manner, to assail my State, and to assail my colleague. This requires at my hands something in reply. In making this reply, I do not purpose to indulge in any unkind language, much less to violate any parliamentary law. The subjects which I propose to discuss are the .legitimate inferences growing out of that which he has introduced into his speech. So far as I am capable of understanding it—and I certainly have no desire to misrepresent either that Senator or anybody else—the great object of the Senator’s speech seemed to be threefold: First, to excite the people, theFree-Soil people—the “free Fieople,” as he called them—in Kansas, to rebelion and resistance to the law. That seemed to be bis first object. His second object was, to assail and vituperate my respected friend and colleague, [Mr. ButleA;] to heap all the opprobrium he could on the slave States generally; and the State of South Carolina in particular. To I his, sir, was added the further object of magnifying, as far. as in him lay, the present condition, and former, and particularly the revolutionary, services of/he State of Massachusetts. Now, sir, upon each of these subjects I have something to say—very little, indeed, in relation to Kansas. Sir, my heart bleeds at the unhappy condition of that country. The efforts which have been made, from the time of the passage of the Kansas bill, to defeat its operation by means which I believe originated in this Hall, have been incessant and without any remission. Mr. President, I am an old man; and for the last thirty years of my life, the business of it has been to endeavor to arrive dispassionately at just conclusions. I am too old to be excited by party conflicts. I have therefore endeavored to turn my attention to this subject as dispassionately as I could; and the deliberate judgment to which I have come is, that if the people of Kansas—the pro-s[avery and anti-slaverv partv—had been suffered to act for themselves, the unhappy condition in which that country is now placed would never have existed. But, sir, the politicians— those who live by excitement—would not let this matter rest. I have no doubt you will remember, sir, that before the Kansas bill was passed, hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were distributed through this land, for the purpose of exciting the public prejudice against it. It was branded as a fraud, as a swindle, as a breach .of faith on the part of the South. Those pamphlets were echoed back by the remonstrances of three thousand New England clergymen, and laymen without number. . Mr. President, I beg to ask what was this plighted faith which it is charged that the South violated in the Kansas bill? What was it? It was simply the repeal of the Missouri restriction —I do not cal] it compromise, because it partakes of nothing of the nature of a compact or compromise. Well, sir, what was that Missouri restriction? I do not propose to enter into a discussion of it. I desire simply to say th.' t it was an act of Congress. When Missouri came here requiring admission as a State, objection was made' that she was a slave State. Missouri had a right, I presume, to decide this matter for herself. She was settled mainly from Virginia and other slavehold' ing States. Slavery existed there extensively, and had existed there before the purchase of Louisiana, of which it was a part. Well, sir, for the sake of peace, after there had been much discussion on the subject, the South, headed by Mr. Lowndes, agreed that Missouri should be admitted, and that after that time no slavery should exist beyond a certain line. As I said before, this was a mere act of Congress. The North gave nothing for it. They had no right to object to the admission of Missouri as a slaveholding State. It was usurpation in them to pretend that they had a right to exclude her. If, then, the North had no right to object, she gave nothing for this plighted faith of the South, as it is called. It was simply an act of Congress, subject to repeal whenever Congress thought proper to repeal it. If, sir, there was any inducement on the part of the South to assent to this Missouri restriction, it was the belief, which they had a right to expect, that the slavery agitation should cease. They had surrendered a portion of their territory, that to which they had as good a title as any other portion of this Union, and they had a right to expect that the slavery agitation would cease. If anybody has a right to complain of this breach of faith, it is the South. The slavery agjtation has been continued from 1820 up to this time; there has been no remission in it. If it haspar- tiallv died out on some occasions, the first onnor-
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