Part 74 (1/2)
Besides, sir, what else can I do? As I sit down, let me ask Senators upon every side, what else can any of us do? Shall we sit here for three months, when pet.i.tion, resolution, public meeting, speech, acclamation, tumult, is heard, seen, and felt on every side, and do nothing? Shall State after State go out, and not warn us of danger?
Shall Senators and Representatives, patriotic, eloquent, venerable, tell us, again and again, of danger in their States, and we condescend to make no reply?
Sir, there is other business to be done here besides the mere ordinary business of the Government; besides the voting of supplies, and the raising of means by which to buy them. We have questions here to-day, as I believe, of peace and war, and I have waited long to see some mode of their solution. I repeat, I go for this proposition, and agree to submit it to the vote of the people, not because I believe it the best that can be done. I believe, however, that, to-day being two days from the close of this session, it is all I can do. When my people ask me, on my return, ”Sir, have not States gone out?” I will say, ”Yes.”
”Do not more threaten it?” if that is the word (I trust it is not the best one), I say, ”Yes.” They say, ”Sir, do you believe they will do it?” ”On my honor and on my conscience,” I say, ”if something is not done, yes.” They then ask, ”What have you done?” Mr. President, what have we done? I believe that is the question the country will ask of us; and I, for one, will vote for this proposition, that I may be able to respond.
Mr. GREEN:--Mr. President, I regard the consideration of this question as one of the most important which has ever been presented to the Senate since I have been a member of it. The Union is in danger; the fate of the country is at stake; and whatever the Senate or the House of Representatives or Congress combined can do, ought to be done to save the country. I have very little faith or hope, and I would express the reason why. But as little as there is, I will cling to the last remaining straw, and sink with it grasped fast in my hands, if I have no other resource. This country is of too much importance to me, to my family, to my friends, to my State, to my a.s.sociates everywhere, to give up without a struggle. That struggle may prove to be fruitless; it may prove to be unavailing. The taunts and jeers thrown out are calculated to stir up ire and ill-feeling; I shall pa.s.s them by with disregard. I choose to sacrifice my feelings, and to make myself a burnt-offering on the altar, if I can do any thing to save the country.
What, then, shall we do? These propositions, presented by what is called the Peace Conference, are not to be compared to the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky; and I will not vote for a single one of them, while I will vote for his. They amount to a sacrifice of my honor, and a destruction of the rights of my State. I am permitted to say that the representatives from my State in the Peace Conference condemned them all, while they are willing to go for the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky. We cannot stand by this, and we will not.
Let us not deceive each other; let us not undertake to practice a system of deception which will sound pleasant to the ear, but will be bitter to the taste. I will not do it. Here is a positive prohibition of slavery north of 36 30', and then a doubtful question whether it is recognized south of 36 30'. The Senator from Kentucky thinks it is; but I will not act upon a doubt. We have had too many doubts heretofore, and out of those doubts have grown many difficulties. I shall never permit, so far as my action is concerned, another question of doubt.
Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him? Did he understand me as admitting that it was a doubtful recognition of slavery?
Mr. GREEN:--Not at all. I said expressly that the Senator from Kentucky contended that it did amount to a recognition, but others denied it, and that made it a question of doubt. I will not misrepresent anybody if I know it. Now, sir, I will not act upon a question which admits of doubt. We have pa.s.sed along in our career for so many years that we have arrived at a point when we must understand each other distinctly and unequivocally, and I will not leave a single point open to equivocation. It must be expressly settled, and settled not only in express words, not only in unmistakable language; but I go further than that; it must emanate from the hearts of a people disposed to stand by it; and if they will not stand by it, I will not a.s.sociate with them.
I want to preserve this Union; I want to maintain the const.i.tutional rights of all cla.s.ses, North and South; but to give me a mere written guarantee on parchment, and file it in the office of the Secretary of State, with a predetermination in the hearts and minds of the northern people inculcated and instructed to violate it, I cannot live with, and I will not. I would rather go where I naturally belong, with southern men; but if the true-hearted, the patriotic, and the honorable portion of the North will reverse this inculcated spirit of hostility to southern inst.i.tutions, and bring them up to the mark where they will recognize const.i.tutional guarantees, then I say, ”Hail, thou my brother, we can go together;” but never till that comes to pa.s.s. We have approached that period in our country's history when there should be no cheating or attempt to cheat. We must understand each other, and make a permanent, lasting Union, or a permanent, lasting, peaceful separation.
This proposition presented by the Peace Conference, as it is called, I think the merest twaddle--and I use the term with entire respect to the members--the merest twaddle that ever was presented to a thinking people. The proposition of the Senator from Kentucky has some sense in it. If he chooses to desert his own, I shall not complain of him; for I know that warm, patriotic impulses move him in all his action; but I cannot accept the other, and I shall vote against every one of its provisions. When it is said to me that the territory south of 36 30'
has adopted slavery--that New Mexico has--I must reply to Senators that they misunderstand the law. New Mexico has never adopted slavery.
New Mexico has done this: she has provided remedies for redress of wrongs, including wrongs affecting slave property; but she has never established slavery; nor has Utah. Utah has never even recognized it by implication. Utah pa.s.sed a law of this character: apprentices bound to service for a period of years may be held there; but when their servitude has expired, according to their articles of apprentices.h.i.+p, they are free; so that the law of Utah absolutely, if it has any effect, prohibits slavery.
Senators overlook these facts. I take the broad and the bold and the unmistakable ground, not that the Const.i.tution establishes slavery anywhere, but that the Const.i.tution, extending over a Territory, will protect me in all my rights not prohibited by a local competent authority; that my rights are to take any property which I own in any part of the Union, Yankee clocks from the North, polar bears from the Rocky Mountains, mules from the Middle States, and slaves from the South; and that, unless there is a competent local authority to prohibit my rights in these respective cla.s.ses of property, I am to be protected. The second step is that there can be no local authority as long as the territorial condition remains, competent to prohibit slavery in any Territory.
These are my positions; and hence, so far from this extraordinary position that slavery is local being true, the reverse is true. It may be local in the United States, but so far from its being local to the Territory in the United States, the reverse is true. Talk about freedom being national, and slavery local! I have a right to pa.s.s through Pennsylvania, and my right of transit is as perfect this day as it was when Pennsylvania was a slave State....
I have been anxious from the beginning of this session to stave off public action, to hold the public pulse still, and give an opportunity for reaction of northern sentiment. I want no reaction south. It has been my only hope, and my last hope, and that hope has failed....
These resolutions are intended to lull old Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, until we are hand-cuffed and tied fast, and then action is to commence. They are all designed simply to lull us into a fancied security; but if we are wise betimes, and look forward to coming events, we will at once strike the blow, and separate from a Confederation which denies us peace, denies us protection, denies us our const.i.tutional rights, and seek them in some other a.s.sociation of States....
Now, Mr. President, I want all these propositions voted down, and I hope my friend from Kentucky will revive his propositions and bring them up again. There is some vitality in them; there is some point in them; but as for these wishy-washy resolutions, that amount to nothing, it is impossible that any Senator here will, for a moment, entertain the idea of supporting them. The Peace Conference! And the smallest peace that ever I have heard of. Let the Senator adhere to his original propositions; let the Senator bring them up and press them upon the attention of the Senate. That is as far backing down as I will go. It is a little more than I want; but still, as a last effort to save the Union, I would go that far. Talk about these measures! These measures that have no vitality--these measures that amount to a total surrender of every principle--I never will vote for; and let the consequences of the future be what they may, I stake my faith and reputation upon the vote I intend to cast.
Mr. WADE:--I move that the Senate adjourn.
Mr. LANE:--I hope the Senator will give me the floor before he makes that motion.
Mr. TRUMBULL:--I ask the Senator from Oregon to yield to me a moment.
Mr. LANE:--For a motion to adjourn, I will.
Mr. TRUMBULL:--Yes, sir; I desire the floor with a view to make that motion. It is apparent that no good is to come out of the discussion of the proceedings of this Peace Conference. It is a proposition got up for the purpose of satisfying the Border States; and the Border States, Missouri and Virginia, say they will have none of it. The first section is a proposition establis.h.i.+ng slavery--
Mr. MASON:--I rise to a question of order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Senator from Illinois will pause. The Senator from Virginia rises to a question of order, which he will state.
Mr. MASON:--I understand the motion to adjourn has been made.
Mr. TRUMBULL:--I have not made the motion yet. I stated that I would make that motion, and I was merely going to give the reason. The Senator from Oregon will have the floor to-morrow. I was stating the reason why I should make the motion to adjourn, which I intend to make in the course of a minute, and I merely made that statement to show that there was no object in sitting here and punis.h.i.+ng ourselves in regard to resolutions which manifestly cannot command the a.s.sent of this body. I now move that the Senate adjourn.
Mr. DOUGLAS:--I call for the yeas and nays on that motion.