St. Louis City (part 2 of 11)

Having reason to believe, Mr. President, that these and kindred views and sentiments, concurred in and enforced by the distinguished delegates upon whom we subsequently devolved the duties of Governor and Lieutenant Governor, were ultimately rather acquiesced in than assented to by the sterner judgment of perhaps a majority of the Convention, it need not, of course, be stated that we would be false and unreciprocal with respect to those who so deferentially acted with- us then, were we in any sense to fail them in the alternative they then predicted, and with which we are confronted now.

What is that alternative, and who is responsible for it ? Intending to answer these questions presently, it may be proper before doing so to place the ultimate action of the Convention upon the same ground in which I have placed my own ; and in order to do so, I will read from its published address such paragraphs as may be sufficient for that purpose. After reciting and proving the treacherous and treasonable conduct of the Governor and other officers and servants of the State, which had constrained the Convention to temporarily depose them from office, the address proceeds and concludes as follows :

" These are the measures adopted by your delegates in Convention for the purpose of restoring peace to our disturbed State, and enabling you to select officers for yourselves to declare and carry into effect your views of the true policy of the State. They are measures which seem to be imperatively demanded by the present alarming condition of public affairs, and your delegates have determined to submit them to you for your approval or disapproval, that they may have the authority of your sanction if you find them to be adapted to secure the peace and welfare of the State. * * * # * # #

" And now having stated the necessity for the action of the Convention, and the principles which have governed its action, your delegates submit the whole for your consideration and calm judgment. They have felt their own position and that of the State to be peculiar. They have looked over Missouri and beheld the dangers that threaten her. They desire to avert them. They desire to restore peace to all her citizens. They have adopted the measures which, in their judgment, gave the highest promise of peace and security to all her citizens. If the measures adopted should have the desired effect, your delegates will feel that gratification which always attends the success of well-intended effort. If the measures should fail to restore peace, your delegates will find consolation in the fact, that they have done what they could." And the ordinance of the Convention, for submitting its action to a vote of the people of the State, was and is in these direct and unambiguous words :

" Be it ordained, That at the election provided to be held on the first Monday of November, 1861, for the election of Governor, Lieut. Governor, Secretary of State, and members of the General Assembly, the several Clerks of the County Courts, or, in case of their neglect or refusal to act, the clerk of election, in making the poll books for the election, shall provide two columns, one headed " For the action of the Convention," and the other "Against the action of the Convention ;" and if a majority of the legal votes given upon the action of the Convention be for the same, then the officers elected shall hold their offices as provided by the ordinance for their election ; but if a majority of the votes cast as aforesaid be against the action of the Convention, then such election shall be null and void, and the persons so elected shall not enter upon the discharge of the duties of their offices, the officers chosen by this Convention shall go out of office, and the ordinance of this Convention providing for the abrogation of certain acts of the Legislature shall thereafter be of no force or effect whatever. The return of the votes so cast on the action of the Convention shall be made to the office of the Secretary of State in the same manner as is provided by ordinance of this Convention in regard to the offices of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Secretary of State, and the votes shall be cast up by the same officer; and when the result thereof shall be ascertained, the Governor appointed by this Convention shall, by public proclamation, announce the same, which proclamation shall be filed in the office of the Secretary of State."

Certainly, Mr. President, nothing could be fairer, more temperate or more deferential than all this. We did what we could, and "our skirts are clear" of what may follow. On returning to my constituents, the speech, address, and ordinance, from which I have thus quoted were freely circulated amongst them - fifty thousand copies of the latter having been ordered for distribution throughout the State.

How has it been met, Mr. President ? What has been the response of that party who, whilst the bill for calling this Convention was pending before the Legislature, conceded to us all power, as " the representatives of the residuary sovereignty of the people" ? What has been the "music" of that same party since it has been discovered that both the Convention and the people were inflexibly against them, and could be neither seduced nor awed into their purposes, as the Conventions of Arkansas and Virginia were ? Most shamelessly prominent in this has been the course of their Governor, (as they yet call Jackson,.) who, at New Madrid, proclaimed the State out of the Union a few days after we had deposed him from office; and this, notwithstanding he had previously put forth, in his flying proclamation from Jefferson, that this Convention was alone competent to change the relations of the State to the Government of the United States ! Perhaps a party with such an acknowledged "head" ought not to be held to too rigid an account on the score of either political consistency or political morality; but their conspiracy to prevent the people from passing upon their conduct at the polls, and to wear them out and subdue them by the terrors of an insurgent sword, is a crime too patent to the most ordinary understanding to admit of either palliation or excuse.

As already stated, the action of this body, together with the reasons which actuated us, and the hopes that we might thereby achieve at least comparative peace at home, were scattered broadcast over the land some two months ago. Amongst my own people, whilst I had the satisfaction to learn that the course of the Convention met the concurrence of the Union men, there seemed to be from the commencement a concert of purpose between the organs and leaders of the secessionists to the effect that no attention should be paid to our action, except that the election which we had proposed as the touchstone of acquiescence in the decision of the majority, should at least be deprived of all moral significance, wherever it was allowed to be held at all. Even the holding of a public meeting in my own county, for the pur. pose of bringing forward a Union candidate for the Legislature, was countervailed and opposed by every grade of clamor and denunciation ; and although the measures of intimidation which were resorted to were unsuccessful in that county, they have so far proved efficient in other quarters, that I hear of no candidates even in other sections of the State. Who is responsible for all this, Mr. President? Not the "Union men," (anywhere,) for it is notorious that they have sought from the first - ever since this Convention was forced upon them by the malcontents of the Legislature - the arbitrament of the ballot box instead of the ultimatum of the cartridge box; but it has been at length denied to them not o^ily by the clamor and the opposition of secessionists at home, but by a pronunciamientofrom the army, as I will proceed to read in your hearing.

Mr. John T. Hughes, of my county, who signs himself "Colonel 1st Infantry, 4th Division," and who I suppose to be just as much a Colonel as our late President is a General, or Jackson a Governor, addresses "the people of Northwest Missouri," through the Liberty Tribune of the 13th ultimo, from "Camp Cedar," in a communication of more than two columns in length, from which, for the present, I desire to read only these sentences :

" This army, and the free people of this part of the State, regard the new Government set up by the usurpers at Jefferson as an absurdity. Gamble, and every other man who accepts office under the ' Provisional Government,' will be held as a traitor to this State, and if taken, treated accordingly. The question of right is not involved ; every man x)f common sense knows that the Convention had no right to overthrow the old or to create a new Government; and they can only sustain their folly by physical force and by arms. No such elections as are provided for will be allowed to be held ; and the ' ancient Government' of the State, and the legally elected Executive, and the abrogated laws, will be all restored !"

" The exiled soldiers are now returning, and this land will be drenched in blood, and widows and orphans be multiplied, and the wildest anarchy prevail, if there should be any attempt to support the Provisional Government of the traitor and usurper, H. R. Gamble, by force of arms. * * * Let every true and patriotic citizen who loves liberty, and dares to maintain his rights, now rise and expel the tyrants, traitors and usurpers from our midst."

Forbearing further quotations from these martial fulminations, which abound with proverbial misstatements and immodest self-laudations, a very brief analysis of the sentences I have quoted will be sufficient to demonstrate that the "army" of which Colonel Hughes is a leader has determined that our unhappy complications shall not be submitted to the judgment and decision of the people. Had he written simply as a citizen, expressing his own wishes or opinions, it might not have justified the notice of the complicity of the army with the conspirators at home, to prevent the election which we ordered for the first of next month. He addresses it, however, as from the army - signs it officially, and causes it to be published in our district as an incentive to disorder and to bloodshed should the people attempt to exercise the great American prerogative of voting their sentiments at a State election ! He proclaims in the name of that "army" that the election provided for by our ordinance of July last shall not be held ; and in a previous part of the address, that "all the material interests of the country shall be destroyed inthe struggle" unless the people of Missouri are delivered from what he both falsely and ignorantly affirms to be the tyranny and oppression of Federal bayonets - meaning thereby the restoration of Gov. Jackson, who has been indicted for treason, and for that reason has proclaimed the State out of the Union !

Such, Mr. President, is, very briefly, the programme by which those who trample upon the flag and the laws of the Union, as Col. Hughes and his army are doing, propose to ignore also the laws of the State, and to confront and overawe its ballot-box. So wholly unreciprocal and atrocious is such a purpose, that for one I could not believe it possible when we were last together at the capitol, and hence acted the part I did then, which has devolved upon me the duty of acting the part I am essaying now. I might notice, in this connection, the subsequent orders from subalterns in this same "army" to arrest citizens of my town and neighborhood for no other reason that I am aware of than that they were "Union men" - in favor of composing our complications by argument and by the verdict of the ballot-box ; but I may, perhaps, more appropriately pass that rather personal development with the remark that it was not more ungenerous and unreciprocal to thus attempt the arrest of my friends and myself, than it was blundering and unmilitary to " cripple out of it," as the captain and his score permitted themselves to do. The result has been, that Union companies and battalions (armed since I reached this city, a few days ago) now patrol, and preserve the peace, in the localities of the late encampments of our misguided and unappreciative adversaries. Enough, therefore, on that point.

To recur, therefore : The menace of the ballot-box, repeated thus from the "army" of the insurgents - the Union men as well as the secessionists in camps, or inarms, or driven from the State - no alternative would seem to remain but to repeal the ordinance by which we proposed to submit all questions of difference between us to the arbitrament of the ballot-box, and to properly strengthen the military arm of the State, which in our forbearance and our hopes we have already too long neglected. In doing this, we can all truly say, as our constituents can, that we have forborne the alternative of arms until impelled to it as a last resort ; and that whilst misguided and bad men were never more forbearantly dealt with than the disturbers of the public and the private peace have been dealt with by the just and loyal men of Missouri, so, on the other hand, never has a generous magnanimity and a truly brave forbearance been met with a more unreciprocal, and, in many instances, a more vulgar imperiousness. Representing originally an admitted majority of 80,000 voting men, every act of this body has been so performed as to propitiate the feelings of the minority, so far as it coutd be done compatibly with our paramount duties to the majority. For this we received no other response, after the close of our first session, than the most systematic and violent aspersions upon our motives and integrity - no slander being too vile and no menace too cowardly toward those who but stood firm to their pledges and their convictions. Little neighborhood meetings, at which less than a dozen would assemble, would pass resolutions of the most false, denunciatory and inflammatory character, and these would be published and republished, and by and by revamped and published over again as the voice of whole districts, in which it would be alleged that great "changes" had been wrought in the public mind, and that the delegates from the district had misrepresented the voice of the people. By and bye the Convention was called together again, and determined, amongst other things, that they would put these slanderers to the test, by submitting their entire action to the judgment and decision of the people - when lo ! the welkin is not only made again to echo with denunciations of the Convention on the allegation of again misrepresenting the people, but the "lying conspirators," both civil and military, determine and decree that the people shall take their word for it, and not be allowed to decide for themselves, in their accustomed forms, whether they will abide by the peaceful policy of the Convention, or restore the revolutionary regime of Jackson and the Legislature - Union and disunion ; fey such would have been the effect of the vote upon our ordinance had secessionism have dared to accept the issue which was tendered to it.

We have no alternative, therefore, but to accept the issue which has been forced upon us - and that is, whether the army of Jackson shall be permitted to carry out the purposes which Col. Hughes announces for it, in spite of any thing the people may wish to say or do, and at the expense, if need be, of " all the material interests of the State." Shall this insolent "army" be permitted to desolate the last homestead in the State - plunder the last granary and storehouse in Missouri - strip the last blanket and snatch the last morsel from shivering age and tender childhood, (sane or insane) - and for ivhat? What have the loyal, law-abiding citizens of Missouri been guilty of that " all their material interests, together with life itself, should be thus menaced by a military pronunciamiento ? Alas ! Mr. President, the men and women thus imperilled by an insurgent army have done no more than to plead for the Government and the laws of their fathers, and oppose themselves to the conspirators who have banded together to establish in lieu thereof a government of the sword and by the sword. Having thus unavailingly exhausted expostulation and argument, what else remains for us to do as the representatives of a people thus virtually denied the rights to which they were bom - the right to vote - but to furnish them with arms for their defense instead of ballots for their suffrage ? Is it not but too painfully apparent that we are at the end alike of our hopes and our prayers for peace, and that the man who will not fight now is not only unworthy to vote, but fit alone to "fetch and carry" for the military usurpers and despots, who will permit the people of their State to have neither repose, prosperity, or even home itself, except upon terms of the most passive and degrading submission? Thank God I see but one purpose beam from the countenance of this Convention and this assembly, and that is, that we answer back these military marauders and all who espouse their cause ; and in the name of the brave and loyal men and women whom we have the honor to represent, and in the name of this great and loyal State, upon this floor, we bid them welcome to their carnival of desolation, and will be " on hand " at the proper " times and places " to see how they acquit themselves of the pirate vaunt thus insolently addressed to Missouri men, on Missouri soil, wljo are guilty of no other offense than the purpose of resisting the further desecration of their laws and their hearthstones, under a foreign flay - the insignia of a foreign government - of which more hereafter.

If Mr. Hughes and those whom he mendaciously denominates his "exiled soldiers" shall attempt for this or any other pretended cause to " multiply the widows and the orphans of the country" and to "drench the land in blood," I trust I need scarcely promise that there are men of his own county (and mine) who will at least test their ability to thus defy the laws of the land, organized as we will be under an ordinance which will make it our duty to "enforce these laws." Prominent amongst these will be the ordinance of this Convention, already passed, to repeal the tyrannical military and tax laws of the last Legislature - the latter of which Mr. Hughes and many of his party friends are at least quite as unable to meet as any other class of our citizens are. It may be said, indeed, without impropriety, that to the leading men of Mr. Hughes' "army" the postponement of official process in this respect, and in the mere every day respect of the collection of debts, is even more generally indispensable than it is to their adversaries ; and as these will probably constitute the leading measures of the "Provisional Government," so uncompromisingly denounced by the colonel, it may safely be commended to him and his friends to pay their own debts and taxes before inaugurating any further opposition to the Government which postpones them. If, however, disdaining counsel so natural and so opportune, he shall drive the "Provisional Government" to the necessity of upholding itself and its ordinances by "force of arms," he may inaugurate his reign of "anarchy" if he can - taking the consequences of it as he shall. And so of all others, Mr. President, of whom Mr. Hughes may be a specimen, a leader, or a guide. I undertake to say, in my place here, that the laws shall be " enforced" and not defied ; and that all who oppose them shall be appropriately punished if they remain within their jurisdiction. And that is all that need be said, or that a proper self-respect will permit a member here to say, in respect to the colonel's denunciation of our alleged " usurpations," except it be to commend him to the speeches of the generals of his army, who, in advocating the passage of the law under which we are here assembled, conceded to us all the power we have ever exercised, and more than we now propose to exercise. In addition to this, the country has not failed to note, that in leaving undisturbed the organization and incumbency of the supreme judicial tribunal of the State, we have given the highest practical evidence not only -of the sincerity of our convictions, but of the more than fairness with which we have treated the Governor and all others whom we have felt it our duty to depose. If any of them shall suppose, with Col. Hughes, that we have usurped authority with which we were not duly invested, they have but to appeal to a court of their political friends for all necessary redress. It comes to this, then, Mr. President : that whilst what may not inaptly be styled "the Convention party "in this unhappy controversy are ready, as they have ever been, to submit to the decision of the courts or the people, the insurgent secessionists are unwilling to submit to either ! Who, then, can longer doubt, upon a record and upon reasoning thus significant and decisive, that our late Governor is using and abusing the functions of which we but rightly divested him, simply to promote the interests of the " Confederacy," and without the slightest idea of ever again being the Governor of Missouri unless he can bully her out of the Union in opposition to her will, and loaded with "scrip" and with "war claims" which would constitute an irredeemable mortgage upon every man's farm in the State ? Let God and the people decide between us, and give success to the cause and to the arms of the true and the just.

I shall hence vote for such amendments of our military law (or ordinance) as may, the better adapt it to the exigencies which have been forced upon us, and for such appropriations of money as to more promptly supply and pay the brave and loyal men who gather around the flag of Missouri (interwoven with that of the Union) in contradistinction to the flag of the "Confederacy ;" and this leads me to dwell fqr a moment upon the more prominent unfoldings of secessionism in this State as contradistinguished from its leading dogma in the seceded States, of which I may have more to say upon some subsequent occasion. If there be any truth or soundness in the great foundation principle of secessionism - namely, that the people of each State, through a Convention such as this is, have the right to decide upon the political status of that State - it follows as a consequence inevitable as reason itself, that the same argument which transfers the seceded States to the Confederate government, absolutely shuts Missouri out from that government. We, too, have had our Convention, meeting* and adjourning just as Arkansas and other States did ; but, unlike Arkansas and others, we did not betray our constituents by smuggling our State into the " Confederacy," and so tying her there (as Virginia was tied), that the people had no practical alternative but to submit. We determined, in short, to remain in the Union - a resolve which even Gov. Jackson (whilst he was Governor) could not summon to himself .the hardihood to question in the slightest, but the exact reverse. Conceding thus our exclusive authority to either absolve or maintain our relations to the Government of the United States, what have we since seen, and what do we now see ? We have seen the same Governor, after travelling through Arkansas to Virginia, return through Tennessee - procure there a "body guard" with which to enter his own Statewhen, after venturing as near to his capital as New Madrid, he issued a proclamation calumniously denouncing the action and the members of this Convention, and, instead of joining us in the appeal which we had made to the decision of a common constituency, declared the State out of the Union five days after we had declared him out of office ! I know that the delegate from Andrew, (Mr. Hudgins,) whom I wish I could as appropriately call my political as I can my personal friend,

Mr. HUDGIUS. You can when you are right. Mr. BIRCH. Whilst I would give much to be " right," even in the sense of my friend, I would give much more if he were right (as I trust he may yet be) in the sense of this unhappy controversy. But to proceed : I know that that astute lawyer and politician even ridiculed the idea of Gov. Jackson being able to " draw" or " carry" Missouri out of the Union - declaring in a speech which he delivered to us at our last session, that " no man in his senses would presume he had any such power" - and in that I concur with him, and trust he yet concurs with himself. But has it not been upon the power thus insanely or most wantonly usurped that he has presumed to "carry" us out of the Union - repudiated our reference to the ballot box - and by an arrangement most atrociously entered into with the Confederate

Government at Richmond, transferred the war of the Mississippi to the soil and the corn fields of Missouri, in the very face of the record protest of her Convention and her people ? From the same place, Mr. President, in the southeastern corner of our State, a Confederate General, whom all true Missourians must regard with the indignation which is due to an insolent armed invader, had the presumption to issue a proclamation, in which he stated that he was amongst us with his army " at the instance and request " of Gov. Jackson ; and'the original President of this Convention, who not only voted with the rest of us that he would not secede, but, also, that we would adjourn to meet again upon his own call, (as ex-officio chairman of the committee appointed for that purpose,) should it become necessary in order to circumvent or counteract the more than whispered trickery and treachery of Jackson - even that man (honored and trusted by us as he had been) - subsequently found it in his nature to coalesce with Jackson, and to lead and to deliver a Missouri army to another Confederate General, of a lower grade than himself, who directly afterwards flew the flag of the Confederacy (not blended even with the flag of the State) from the captured city of Springfield, in the betrayed and dishonored State of Missouri ! It remained, therefore, but necessary for McCulloch to denounce such men as we are as " enemies," (as in his proclamation he did,) in order to vindicate what secessionism denominates " the sovereignty of the State !" As this, however, is but a sample of their want of sincerity in all things else, he who cannot now see in the manner of the war they are keeping up in Missouri that it is for the purpose alone of keeping it out of the cotton States, may well be permitted to indulge the dream of the dupe who supposes the object of all this delay to be the restoration of Jackson ! If this were so, why not drive out the forces of the Federal Government, and restore Jackson now ? Will he ever be numerically stronger, or even as strong again, as he was at Lexington, and is now, when he is again running/ro/n his capital, instead of pressing towards it ? The truth is, Mr. President, and we know it, (and every one else ought to know it,) that Jackson is but a tool in the hands of the Confederacy, and that he dare not return to his capital, or anywhere else where he can be reached by judicial process; and that in playing the part to which he has so ignobly and atrociously consented, he is but redeeming his pledge to "carry his State to h - 11, unless he could carry her out of the Union." But for his stealthy, deliberate and persistent treachery, Missouri had been to-day the most quiet and prosperous State in the Union. His declension to furnish troops to the President had been overlooked ; and but for the unnecessary reassembling of his Legislature, and its secret and treasonable preparations to resist the rightful authority of the General Government, the melancholy incidents of the necessary capture of Camp Jackson would have furnished no pretext for his subsequent attempts at double-dealing with Harney and Lyon - all of which are at length fully understood and appreciated in the light of his exhumed letters to Walker and Tucker. Committed to treason whilst pretending loyalty, it is but natural to presume that it was whilst smarting under the quiet yet steady distrust of the true and sagacious Lyon he uttered the blasphemous pledge already alluded to - to carry his State out of the Union or carry her to h - 1! ! He issued his proclamation accordingly ; many were deceived by it who at length begin to understand and become tired of the whole matter ; and he has yet but so far succeeded in carrying his State toward the receptacle of all things as base as himself, as to have constituted the southern part of it the camping (/round of thieves and traitors. It is these, and such as these, that we propose to so far co-operate with the General Government as to either expel or destroy. Beyond this we never proposed to go ; beyond this, indeed, we have no right to go, unless* our regiments were to volunteer into the more general service of the United States ; and this, in my poor judgment, it would be neither wise nor expedient to do. To vindicate and maintain at once the sovereignty and the loyalty of our own State, and afford thereby the protection of the law to all its citizens, will doubtless be regarded as sufficient in this contest for the honor and the arms of Missouri.

In respect to that portion of my resolution which looks to the abrogation of many useless offices, by which, according to the information I have received upon the subject, we may work a yearly saving to the State and the people of more than $50,000 ; and in respect to the reduction of official salaries, at a time when all other things are reduced in price accordingly, and by which there will be saved to the treasury more than as much more ; such measures not only speak for themselves, but illustrate the difference between an executive who is no poli- tician, and one who became Governor purely because he icas a politician, and a most adroit but dishonest one at that. It may not be inappropriate in this connection to express the hope that neither Governor Gamble, nor either of the other distinguished citizens whom we associated with him in the administration of the executive positions which we found deserted by those who had betrayed the people and hence fled from their presence, will resist what I trust and believe will be the unanimous desire of this body to continue them in the public service during this trying exigency. I feel assured that the country is satisfied with them ; and I know I speak the voice of my own more immediate locality, when I add that their declension to longer serve in their respective positions would be regarded with much regret. The suspension of coercive proceedings for the collection of debts and taxes is also within the prerogative of this body, except in so far as it may be controlled by the Constitution of the United States. I agree with those who conceded to us aft power (not limited as above) while the bill providing for our election was under discussion in the two Houses of the General Assembly - having had no occasion to eat my own words as they and their partisans have since eaten theirs - and hence have no hesitation in saying that what seems to me to be so imperiously demanded by the exigencies and the interests of the people should be carried out by the delegates of the people. These measures of relief should of course be general - applying to all who owe debts or taxes, whether great or small, and whether cognizable before the higher or the lower courts, or under deeds of trust - all alike should be left as nearly as possible in statu quo during the period of embarrassment and distress which has been brought upon the country by the insane attempt to break up the Government - the but natural prelude to the destruction of society and the general ruin of the people. If this postpone* ment of the mere statutory right to enforce contracts shall subject us, in any sense, to the criticisms of those who (for a purpose) shall refer us to the provision in the Federal Constitution which restricts a State from impairing them, we can at least reply that we gave the benefit of our doubts to the unfortunate and oppressed, who are summoned in the exigency of the times to the defense of their State instead of the collection of money ; and if, as already intimated, we thereby save those who have been the authors of our misfortunes, ae well as those who are the subjects of them, we shall be but fulfilling the Scriptural injunction of thereby heaping upon them " coals of fire."

Leaving, therefore, the mere details of these measures to the appropriate committees, a few general reflections will conclude all I have desired to say at present. Finding some diversity of opinion amongst gentlemen as to the course which should be pursued in respect to the public officers of the State, I would very deferentially submit, as a legitimate common ground for all, that we simply provide, by ordinance, that on or before a given day - say the first day of December next - each public officer or servant of the State, from the highest to the lowest, (including the banks and other moneyed institutions, with their several officers and directors) shall cause to be filed in the proper office an oath of allegiance and fidelity to the Government of the " United States," in its controversy with the " Confederate States," or in default thereof that his office, employment or agency shall be regarded as vacant, and filled by appointment or election accordingly. I doubt not my distinguished friend from St. Louis, ( Mr. Wright,) who is now so honoring me with his ear, can, (notwithstanding his dissent from the assumption and the policy of the administration, in much of which I agree with him,) without much trouble to himself, so draft an oath as to search at once the conscience and the pride of the most sinuous adversary of that Government - reaching and comprising all such " mental reservations" as sometimes confront us on the part of those who purposely or unwittingly fail to discriminate between the government of the country and its administrators for the time being ; and I am sure that wo man should complain, if unable or unwilling to take such an oath of assumed fidelity to the Government, that he should be required to vacate his office under that Government. Of course in such a presence as this it is unnecessary to repeat the relation of every citizen and every officer of a State to the Government of the United States ; so that if there be (as there doubtless are) those in office who cannot consistently make and file a sworn declaration such as may be here prescribed, the opinion need scarcely be repeated that another should be found who can - the punishment of perjury (as well as treason) to be annexed in either and in every case.

the insurgent army might be productive of similar consequences, both to the State and to many of its citizens, who, having been misimpressed and misled in the past, may wish to live in peace and loyalty in the future. Let them do so, upon laying down their arms, and filing with the records of their county, a declaration and an oath of similar import. When I remember how the young and impulsive (especially) have been misimpressed and overreached by those in whom they confided, perhaps but naturally, I feel that I should fall short of the duty of a Christian citizen were I not rather to seek to reclaim and to save them, than to punish them for doing what many of them were brought to believe they ought to do. Take, for instance, the case of a company which was raised in the south-eastern corner of my own county - the proceedings preliminary to which I will read to the Convention as a specimen of the mendacious misrepresentations of the secession leaders all over the State - and for one I feel that I ^iave not the hear; to punish either boys or men (if they can be otherwise reclaimed to society and to peace) who were thus imposed upon, especially by preachers. I read from my county paper of the 9th of May last (since defunct) as follows.;

Public Meeting At Haynesville

" At a meeting of the States' Eights party at Haynesville and vicinity, Saturday, May 4th, 1861, on motion Col. Mason Summers was called to the chair, and Dr. J. D. Wallis elected Secretary.

"After the Chairman explained the object of the meeting, Prof. L. M. Lewis Avas introduced to the audience, and made an able, spirited and logical speech in behalf of Southern rights, for which, on motion, the thanks of the assembly were tendered.

" Resolved, That we owe no allegiance to the Government now headed by Abraham Lincoln and W. H. Seward, commonly known as the United States Government, or any other government that recognizes the equality of the negro with the white man.

"Resolved, That we, the citizens here assembled, feel ourselves identified with our brethren of the Confederate States in common feelings, rights and destinies, and we hereby pledge to them our united action in vindication of the same.

"Resolved, That the duty and honor of Missouri imperatively demand that she should secede and take her position with her sister Southern States, and that we pledge ourselves to use our utmost endeavors to secure that result.

" Resolved, That we tender thanks to the patriotic ladies of Haynesville, for furnishing us with a Confederate States flag, under which every true son of the South can rally and defend their sacred rights.

" Resolved, That the resolutions and proceedings of this meeting be published in the Northwest Reporter, a newspaper which has always vindicated the rights and honor of Missouri under all circumstances.

Now, Mr. President, amongst the comparatively few who read and reflect enough to distinguish between truth and falsehood, it is of course unnecessary to denounce this first resolution, which was used as a driver to all the rest, as being mendaciously and unqualifiedly untrue from beginning to end - the falsehood having been doubtless invented as an excuse and an incentive to the treason, and the only means, perhaps, of filling up a company for Governor Jackson and the Confederacy in opposition to this alleged equality of the negro and the white man, under the Government of the Union. I have elsewhere characterized this falsehood as audacious - eminently and wickedly audacious - since not to have known in May last, that Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Address, (to say nothing of the subsequent and almost unanimous resolve of Congress,) had given the lie in the amplest sense to all such mendacious aspersions, was to absolutely disqualify a man from saying anything upon the subject, much less to adopt or manufacture so malignant a deception - the very REVERSE of truth. It was brought forward and indorsed, however, by a County Court Judge, a doctor and two preachers - (one of my own denomination and one of that of my friend from Andrew) - the young and the uninformed were inflamed to believe it, and hence but naturally took the side of Jackson, whom they were made to regard as but gallantly asserting the superiority and the dignity of their own race, in opposition to the doctrine of "negro equality" so calumniously ascribed to Mr. Lincoln. Some of these boys I know, and the fathers of some I know, as amongst the most respectable, however misguided, citizens - and for these I would even yet a little longer forbear and plead. Some of them, I fear, will continue with Col. Hughes in his pirate raid upon our "material interests;" and such, of course, must be confronted and punished accordingly.

If there be others, ho.wever, as I believe there are, who have either returned, or who may return, in the more patriotic relation of resumed good citizenship, let them be permitted to join with us again in the protection of society, instead of its destruction ; and let us so proclaim it, and so make it good.

For the present, Mr. President, I will not further weary the Convention than to add, that if this war, which both Congress and the President have so solemnly declared is not waged with a view to overthrow or impair the institution of slavery, but simply to assert and restore the wonted authority and dignity of the Constitution and Government of our fathers - if by any future possibility, assumption, or misadventure, the controversy shall degenerate on the part of that Government even in the direction of 'negro equality, or negro emancipation, or even negro insecurity, I will be amongst the first and the loudest to denounce, and contribute to overthrow it. Born to the inheritance of the institution, my record will show how I have stood for it in the past, as I stand for it to-day, and shall in all the future. I will not, for that reason, however, either stultify my own integrity, or imperil the institution itself, either by the invention or the indorsement of an exasperating FALSEHOOD ; and as that constitutes my sole offense with those who have done so, I shall expose and defy them in the future as I have in the past. Standing ready, as I have ever done, to submit the questions in issue to the judgment and decision of the people, and to thus terminate the controversy on my part by the verdict of the ballotbox - reiterating thus the voice of this Convention, and the voice as I doubt not of those who sent us here - it remains of course with the Secession leaders and the Secession "army," to either permit a full and fair election, or to continue to despoil us of " our material interests," as they have vowed they will do. Upon them, therefore, will continue to rest the re- sponsibility of having brought upon the country all its present calamities, as well as all its prospective horrors, and of them, and to them, I repeat and indorse the immortal speech of HENRY CLAY, as follows :

" If any one State, or any one portion of the people of any State, choose to place themselves in array against the Government of the Union, I am for trying the strength of this Government. I am for ascertaining whether we have a Government or not - practicable, efficient, capable of maintaining its authority and upholding the powers and interests which belong to a Government. Nor, sir, am I to be alarmed or dissuaded from any such course by intimations of the spilling of blood. If blood is to be spilt, by whose fault is it to be spilt ? Upon the supposition I maintain, it will be the fault of those who choose to raise the standard of disunion, and endeavor to prostrate the Government. And, sir, when that is done, so long as it pleases God to give me a voice to express my sentiments, or an arm, weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and that arm will be on the side of my country, for the support of the general authority, and for the maintenance of the Powers of the Union."

It is thus, Mr. President, that I, too, would live, or peradventure die. It is thus that I, too, regarding the liberties of my country as inseparably interwoven with its constitution and its flag - which with all its soils, whether real or imaginary, I still prefer to any other flag - adopt as the conclusion and the sum of what I feel I have but too imperfectly enunciated, the apostrophe of one of our most fervid patriot poets, when invoking alike the benedictions of Heaven and the maledictions of earth, he prayed for the flag of his fathers as I pray -

At the conclusion of Mr. Birch's remarks, Mr. MCFERRAN offered a resolution, that the several subjects contained in the Governor's message be referred to the appropriate committees. Adopted.

Third D A. Y.

Mr. WRIGHT obtained the floor, but gave way to Mr. Breckinridge, who moved that the rules be suspended to allow Mr. Hendricks, from the Committee on Elections, to introduce the following bill :

An Ordinance Providing For Changing The Time Of Holding Certain Elections

WHEREAS, This Convention did, during its session at Jefferson City, on the 30th day of July, A.D. 1861, adopt an ordinance providing for the election of certain State officers, and also an ordinance providing for submitting its action to the people of the State of Missouri, and appointing a time therefor ; and the disturbed condition of the State, it will be impossible, at the time so appointed, to elicit a fair expression of the popular will; therefore,

First - That so much of an ordinance entitled "An Ordinance providing for certain amendments to the Constitution," adopted on the 30th day of July, 1861, as provides for the election of a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, and members of the General Assembly, on the first Monday of November, A. D. 1861, and so much of an ordinance entitled "An Ordinance for submitting the action of this Convention to a vote of the people of Missouri," adopted on the same day, as provides for submitting the action of this Conven- tion to a vote of the people on the first Monday of November, A. I). 1861, be and the same are hereby so modified that said elections shall not be held on the day therein named, but instead thereof shall be held on the first Monday of August, A. D. 1862.

Second - Said elections shall, in all other respects, be held and the returns thereof made as provided in the ordinances heretofore adopted by this Convention.

Third - The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Secretary of State, heretofore appointed by this Convention, shall discharge the duties and exercise the powers which pertain to their respective offices, and continue in office until the first Monday of August, A. D. 1862, and until their successors are duly elected and qualified, or until the qualified voters of the State shall disapprove the action of this Convention.

Mr. GANTT said some reference had been made to the hour rule. That rule was not enforced yesterday, and he wished to know whether it was now in force "?

Mr. WRIGHT said.: Sir, it may be useful to inquire not only what the present condition of the country is, but the cause of that condition. This first resolution implies that something has transpired since we last met, demanding a total revolution of what the wisdom of this body then resolved to be right. At that period of time, when this Convention forcibly took hold of the power, and exercised it in a series of restrictive and rigorous measures, vacated offices, deposed the General Assembly, repealed laws and enacted laws, the condition of the country was not materially different from what it is now. Then we had civil war - Federal troops held possession of the Capitol - the de facto military Governor had seized the archives of the State. There was social-civil war, as it has been called, in spite of the seeming paradox - the State Treasury was in possession or under the control of Federal officers - Secession bands and marauders were all over the State - Northern Missouri, and other portions, were infested by them, as was said - two armies, one Federal, and the other State, occupied the Southwest. In this condition of things you resolved upon an election by the people in November, and apologised for postponing it to that period. Your apology is in these words :

"Your delegates desire that you shall by election fill these offices by persons of your own choice ; and for this purpose they have directed, by ordinance, that an election shall be held on the first Monday in November. This time, rather than one nearer at hand, was selected so as to conform to the spirit of the provision in the Constitution which requires three months' notice to be given of an election to fill a vacancy in the office of Governor."

This Convention wished then to harmonize its action, whatever might be its character, with that provision of the State Constitution which requires a notice of three months to be given of an election so important; but now this Convention comes here, and you are asked, through the recommendation of the Governor, and by the resolution of the gentleman from Clinton (Mr. Birch), to take from the people the right to exercise that very power which - and I say it respectfully, of course - you have usurped. Of course, there must be some apology for this conduct, and it is found in the distracted condition of the country. Was it not distracted before ? When you made your resolves - when you expelled the Governor of the State from his office and put in one of your own choosing - did you not know that the country was in a distracted condition ? that civil war was raging in our midst - a war of the worst character, because of its social characteristics ? Ah, gentlemen of the majority, you will find that the action you now propose, if carried out, will only be another source of irritation in this State ; and that brings me to look at the actual condition of the country. Is it worse than before'? If so, then the inquiry with me is as to the cause why it is ; and let me ask if your own action has not contributed to this very exasperated state of things ? I say it is your own action that has helped to make up the unfortunate sum of our national troubles - that has helped to localize the disaffection and disloyalty in the State, and to extinguish and deaden in the hearts of men their loyalty to the.Constitution of the United States. Look at the condition of Kentucky two months ago, and look at it now, and you see the same causes at work, induced by that inexorable logic which has produced the same consequences everywhere. Had you riot foresight enough to see that your election could not be held ? And yet you went ahead. What was the relative condition of the country then 1 Were your prospects better for a fair election then than now ? At that period of time North Missouri was infested by secession bands, and it is now proclaimed to have been cleared of them ; and we are to-day in equally as good a position for testing this matter at the polls as at the time of the action of this Convention at Jefferson City. Judging from all the sources of information allowed to us, through telegrams under military surveillance, and through the press, which can only speak one side - through these sources of information we learn that these secession gentlemen are retreating, and backing out of the State ; and that the indomitable and valiant Fremont will send them all into Arkansas in a short period of time. Th's will be the inevitable consequence of a grand and systematic arrangement - grand and systematic, according to all the indications which have been given out through those oracular and veritable things called telegrams ; and in those veracious prints which always speak the truth - because no prints are allowed to speak anything but what is true ; they are all alike under this military surveillance> and "no man under this system of things can, by any possibility, publish a lie - and it is a source of consolation to know that there is a universal, supreme, and uncontrolled dominion of truth in this State, so far as the public press is concerned. Through all these sources of information we are told that these secession gentlemen will be driven from the State.

Well, one would suppose that this would help your election in November - for you were not sure that the secessionists would be driven from the State, or that the presses would be compelled to speak the truth when you made your resolves at Jefferson City. But there is something more than this. Let me guess what it is. And while I want to be respectful, like an old justice of the peace in Virginia, when 1 joke, I joke as near the truth as possible.

Havn't you found out that the people will not sustain yonr action in November? Havn't you discovered that there is no chance at the polls, and that they will proclaim their voice against you in November ? Don't you fear that ? - don't you know it ? Look at this Convention - where are the ninety-nine members who met here last spring, and the large number that met at Jefferson City ? Now, but little more than half the body are here. What has become of the rest ?

Mr. WRIGHT. Then why don't the people insist upon sending loyal representatives. I think, however, that the admission of almost every candid man would be that not only the representatives but the constituents are traitors.

Only half of the Convention, I have said, is here, and some of the men who are here - and I say it with all due respect - are refugees from their constituents. Here is this body, dwindled in size, called upon to seize hold of the power and wield it in the most rigorous and stringent manner possible. Mr. President and gentlemen, you may think I speak boldly - I have no chance to write or publish my views - but while I hold a place on this floor, so help me God, I will speak the free thoughts, which I would not surrender for a throne! [Applause in the lobby.] I did not object to applause on the other side, but I trust there will be no such indications while I speak.

Vice President WELCH in the chair. The Sergeant-at-Arms will clear the lobby unless order is preserved. I can have no cheering on either side.

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes, sir, some of us, as I said, are refugees ; and some may say that I do not represent my own constituents ; but one thing is certain - I have never fled from them. If the issue can be raised before my constituents, whether they approve or condemn my course, and the military power will permit me to speak my vindication, I can be sustained by 3,000 majority. But if I attempted to speak my sentiments I should be put in the negro yard or the Arsenal. If they can suppress a press and abolish the types of a paper, the views of which are antagonistic to their own ; if they can take from men the right to read what they choose, and will not permit us to discriminate in our reading as to the right and wrong, but will permit us to read only what the military men may think wholesome, why should they permit me to speak thoughts they do not think wholesome likewise? Now, don't you suppose that I am a secessionist, or that I am upholding Jackson in this war. God forbid ! Nor don't you suppose that I think Jack- j son can take this State out of the Union, or that the State Legislature or that the Confederate Government can. I defy all of them to j do any such thing. Nothing but the will of J catastrophe - for it would be a catastrophe, f Some gentlemen cannot understand my course, I and say that my patriotism is not worth anything. It may be so ; but I want this body to consider whether or not the measures you propose are going to allay the excitement or exasperate it ; I want you to reflect what will' be the result of your action upon the popular mind of your State. You seem already to have given up all Federal relations - although we were originally called specifically to pass upon those relations - seem' to have lost sight of them, and are directing au tne energies of your minds, doubtless as you think "wisely as" honestly, for the purpose of remedying the evils in the State. Now, I want you to consider whether your measures are calculated to allay the excitement. I think that history has spoken uselessly, indeed, if it does not teach us this lesson, that the life-blood of liberty is in the supremo and uncontrolled dominion of law. That is the lesson written in fire and blood through the histories of all nations. Since the time when history was first recorded, whenever men have thought great thoughts, or have suffered great deaths, in behalf of a common humanity and the rights of men, they have sealed with their blood this everlasting truth, that liberty can exist only under the supreme and uncontrolled dominion of law.

Now, let us see what is our condition ; let us sec how we can have so much disloyalty in the State. Is there one man in this house today who considers himself a free man ? If there is one, I am glad ; but, so help me God, I do not consider myself a free man, because I am deprived of those rights which I consider so essential to liberty. What did our fathers make the Constitution for except to limit power ? Why did they so carefully put the weights and balances into that instrument ? If they had wanted a despotism to arrest men, they would have had it. The most complex of all governments is a government of liberty, because it must be a government to restrain and place limits upon power. Who is there in this land that can rise up and say, "I am above the Constitution of my country ?" Yet men do so ; for is it not the truth that martial law, in an unproclaimed State - and lawyers will understand what I mean by that - in a State which no proclamation has ever reached - that military power has declared the universal reign of martial law over the whole country ? What is martial law ? Is it not beyond and above the Constitution ? Is it not supra - to use an expression of my distinguished colleague, Judge Gamble ? Does not every man know that martial law overrides the Constitution of the country, and places your liberty and my liberty within the discretion of the soldiery ? Are you content to believe the people will not show disaffection, and will not feel exasperated when it is given out that martial law reigns over one million and a half of people, and that, too, by the simple fiat of a military satrap in this valley of the Mississippi ? Is it not his edict, or ukase, that puts us all under the dominion of martial law, so that my liberty and yours depends this day, not upon any constitutional guarantees, but upon the wise and sound discretion of a soldier ? The people of this State can see that condition of things, and hence trouble arises in regard to the military bill of 1859. That bill is an excellent bill. I have a right 1o say so, because it received the speedy and unqualified approbation of a majority of this body, when it was much more fully represented than now, at Jefferson City. You picked it out and put it forward as the great panacea for our ills. I do not know where the defect lies. It has not been pointed out by the Governor. He says the bill is inefficient ; but I do not know what the specific vice of the bill is. It may be in the bill, and it may be out of the bill - it may be because the bill is defective, and it may be because the subjects upon whom the bill is to operate are not harmonic with the purposes for which the army is to be raised. Do you think men are going to rally spontaneously and help to sustain a cause that prevents a man from reading, at his own fireside, what he thinks right in the shape of a paper ? For have we not been accustomed from birth - did we not learn it at the hearthstone - imbibe it with our mother's milk - to the right to speak, read and publish what we chose ? Now, the farmer in the country thinks and reads what he chooses. God Almighty gave him the power to discriminate between the right and the wrong, and the Constitution of the country does not change the nature of man ; but our Government allows a man to think evil and to read bad doctrine, but it supposes he has power enough to discriminate between the right and the wrong, and moral courage enough to pursue the right and banish the wrong. And yet I cannot read a paper unless a military officer permits me to do so. It does not hurt him to read it. He can read false doctrines and inhale nothing innoxious from them; but nobody else can. Will you draft ? I do not know how it will turn out, but I do not think you will get a free people to exhibit much valor on the battlefield, who are dragged there to fight in such a cause. I do not think you can compel men to fight for such a cause ; and I think if it is done, it must be done at the sacrifice of the essential principles of American liberty.

Mr. President, I hold it as true as any principle in mathematics, that the suppression of one paper enslaves all the rest in the country, and at the same time enslaves all the readers, because it denies to them the right of selecting and discriminating what they would read.

We have had martial law proclaimed since we sat before, and its promulgation, it was thought by those who established it, would help the election which this Convention proposed should be held when we sat last. Mr. President, I trust that some of the principles of the Constitution, although broken down every day, and nowhere more so than in this unhappy State, yet live in the memory of the members of this Convention; and one of those principles is that of the freedom of the press - that it shall never be abridged even by Congress. Why, Jackson himself, when he established martial law at New Orleans, and took a man up for publishing something in contravention of martial law, had him brought before a .court martial composed of officers of the United States, found that court declaring they had no jurisdiction to try a civilian under the Constitution of the United States. They re fused to try him upon the charges that were made against him except one - that was being a spy. They had the right to try him for being a spy ; and he was tried and acquitted ; and that court martial, called by Jackson, denied the power of the military to try a civilian for any offence. Every man, unless connected with the land or naval service, is entitled to a trial by a jury of his countrymen, to have a copy of his indictment, and all the securities which are furnished by those bulwarks of freedom which our ancestors in England battled for two hundred years ago. Who does not know that martial law has been abolished in England ever since the petition in the time of Charles ? And do you suppose you are going to get men to fight by revamping an old military bill on principles which would make a revolution in England to-morrow? What do you suppose will be the impression made when the intelligence gets abroad that your arsenal or bastile has been filled with men - such men as one of the constituents of my friend from Pike, (Mr. Henderson,) a man well known to you, (and I cite him only as an instance) - of men taken and deprived of their liberties by being placed in the military prisons, and there tried for their lives - tried before a tribunal that claims the power to pass upon the life of an American citizen ? The Arsenal has been filled with such men - some of them undoubted traitors at heart, and a great many utterly innocent - sent there by the arbitrary power which this military condition of things has endangered in the State, and which has great power to do evil. The gentleman from Clinton (Mr. Birch) knows of a man having been arrested by the troops of the United States in his own county, who would have been caged in the Arsenal but for his own efforts in his behalf ; and that the arrest of this gentleman depended entirely upon the discretion of the soldiers ; and that so far as they were concerned they claimed the power to try him, hang him, or otherwise dispose of him. The constitution of the United States says, unless he belongs to naval or land force, he shall not be tried except by a jury of his countrymen; yet these gentlemen down there at the bastile, assume jurisdiction over your life and my life ! Have we forgotten the Declaration of Independence 1 - how it "thundered against martial law, and established the plain principles of justice which lie at the foundation of liberty in this land - have you forgotten how the State Constitution and the Bill of Eights thundered against it ? - and yet with the reign of martial law in this State, you think you are going to get soldiers to fight your battles, and that you will eventually get repose. Rest assured you will get nothing of the kind. You will never get reposed in this State, and I am almost prompte to say there ought not to be repose in this State ; for if there were, it would be the dead silence of despotism ; the smooth surface of society, stagnant as the Dead Sea, and rippling with no free human thought. There never will be repose until you give the people solemn guarantees that you are wedded to liberty. They have loved this Union, and it is almost priceless. There is only one thing more, and that is the liberty intended to be preserved by it. But you must satisfy the people of the State, before they will aeeord any deference to your action in raising soldiers, that you yourselves are free men, and that their rights shall not be trampled upon by any power that overrides the Constitution of the country. "Who knows what martial law is *? Do you, Mr. President, or I ? Sir, how can I conform to a law that has never been published, but is locked up in the discretion of the soldier's heart ? We go upon the idea that we must publish our laws ; and we do not make men responsible until the laws are published. "We all denounce - every schoolboy, even - that Roman tyrant who published his laws in fine letters upon one of the pillars of the temple, so that the ordinary eye could not read them, and then punished men for violating those laws. How do I know what martial law is ? Judges in England, one hundred and fifty years ago, said they did not know what it meant ; and are you willing the people of this State shall believe you are content to aid and encourage a state of things in which we are to be delivered over to a law higher than the State ; and written upon no statute book in the world, but locked up in the breast of a man who wears a uniform and claims to fight under the stars and stripes ? But how many troops have been raised ? I have heard gentlemen living in North Missouri say that in their section of the country gold and ambition have to be offered (and even the double temptation is disregarded) to get men to enlist. They are offered gold - United States gold - and the paths of military promotion are laid open to them, and even under these circumstances it is hard to drum up a regiment j and yet in that same section of country you will see men start from their homes and take their rifles or shot-guns, each upon his own horse, and go away across the Missouri river. They do not expect ever to have a cent paid to them - they do not ask it. What is the reason these men do this ? They are all lovers of liberty. We know that they cannot be particularly attached to Governor Jackson ; there is no magnetism in his character, or magnitude in his mind. He is no military hero or champion of any sort, I know ; and yet men go there to him without the temptation of pay, while you find it difficult to enlist troops for the United States even with the double temptation of gold and military promotion. There must be a cause, and as I read it, it is that wide-spread and almost universal conviction which prevails over this whole land, that the Administration itself is at war with the principles of civil liberty. You can account for it in no other way. I deny your power.

I will not argue the subject any more ; because I exhausted it as far as I could at our last meeting, but I am furnishing these as considerations why you should not attempt to carry out the plans you propose. Among a free people, all measures of a stringent character are irritant causes, and a free people especially are alive to susceptibility. Their natures are sensitive ; and it ought to be so - for if not so, freedom would not be valuable. A free people cannot bear any restriction of their rights, and especially their constitutional rights ; and then add to this, that liberty is with us an inheritance, the richest heirloom that ever descended from sire to son - and you see how difficult must be the work of imposing restrictions upon a free people here. I object to all these restrictive measures, not only because they are unconstitutional - that is enough, God knows, to condemn them - and I say they are not only criminal, but, taking up the ethical philosophy of Walpole, I say they are worse than criminal - they are a blunder. All these restrictive measures - test oaths - the declaration of martial law - the suspension of the habeas corpus - the law defying the courts of the country - all these measures are measures of weakness and not of strength. You see this in the arrests which have been made upon the ground of necessity. I have shown you heretofore that necessity can never be the origin of power in a free government, and that if you get the power from necessity, the exercise of that power brings you weakness and not strength.

I wish I had the moral weight and influence of a Webster to talk to this Convention about the dangers of the times, the true source of our difficulties, the real origin of our ills, and the irritant causes that must forever keep us agitated until we go to the bottom and pluck the cause out. This usurpation of power came from the Executive power of the Government. We heard one of the sound patriots referred to by the gentleman from Clinton (Mr. Birch), and now let me call the attention of the Con vention to an extract from a speech of Webster. Every line of it should be written in gold and stamped upon the heart of every man in

America. It is an extract from Webster's speech on Jackson's protest. Let us see what a patriot thought of necessity, and how he frowned down any infringement upon the Constitution of his country, however small, and that, too, at a time when there was no war, no distracted land, torn in pieces - nothing but mere abstract things included in State papers. Let us see what he deemed it necessary for the patriot to do even when there was scarcely a ripple upon the surface of the Republic - when nobody thought of dissolving the Republic :

" The first object of a free people is the preservation of their liberty ; and liberty is only to be maintained by constitutional restraints and just divisions of political power. Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretense of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms ; the' next simplest limited monarchies ; but all republics, all governments of law must impose numerous restraints and limitations of authority. They must be subject to rule and regulation. This is the very essence of free political institutions. The spirit of liberty is, indeed, a bold and fearless spirit ; but it is also a sharp-sighted spirit. It is a cautious, sagacious, far-seeing intelligence. It is jealoiis of encroachment, jealous of power, jealous of man. It demands checks; it seeks for guards ; it insists on securities ; it intrenches itself behind defenses, and fortifies with all possible care against the assaults of ambition and passion. It does not trust the amiable weaknesses of human nature ; and, therefore, will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits, though benevolence, good intent, and patriotic intent come along with it. It seeks for duration and permanence. It looks back and before ; and, building on the experience of ages which are past, it labors diligently for the benefit of ages that are to come. This is the nature of constitutional liberty ; THIS is OUR LIBERTY. A separation of departments, and the preservation of the lines of division between them, is the fundamental idea in the creation of all our Constitutions ; and doubtless, the continuance of regulated liberty depends on the maintenance of these boundaries.

"There is a strong disposition running through the whole protest to represent the Executive as the peculiar protector of public liberty - the chief security on which the people are to rely against the encroachments of other branches of the Government. To this end the protest spreads and dwells upon the President's official oath. Would the writer of the protest argue that (he oath itself is any grant of power ; or that because the President is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, he is, therefore, to use what means he pleases, or any means for such preservation, protection and defense, except those which the Constitution and laws have specially given him ? Such an argument would be preposterous ; but if the oath be not cited for this preposterous purpose, with what design is it thus displayed unless it be to support the idea that the maintenance of the Constitution and the preservation of the public liberties are especially confided to the safe discretion, the true moderation, the paternal guardianship of the Executive power ?

" The proposition is that the duty of defending the Constitution against the representatives of the States and the representatives of the people results to him from the nature of his office, and that the founders of our Republic have given to this duty peculiar solemnity and force.

" Mr. President, the contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of Executive power. Whoever has engaged in her sacred cause, from the days of the downfall of those great aristocracies which stood between king and people to the time of our own independence, has struggled for the accomplishment of that single object. On the long list of the champions of human freedom there is not one name dimmed by the reproach of advocating the extension of Executive authority. On the contrary, the uniform and steady purpose of all such champions has been to limit and restrain it. To this end all that could be gained from the imprudence, snatched from the weakness, or wrung from the necessities of crowned heads, has been carefully gathered up, secured, and hoarded as the rich treasures, the very jewels of liberty. To this end popular and representative right has kept up its warfare against prerogative with various success ; sometimes writing the history of a whole age with blood - sometimes witnessing the martyrdom of Sydneys and Russells - often baffled and repulsed, but still gaining, on the whole, and holding what it gained with a grasp that nothing but its own extinction could compel it to relinquish.

" Through all this history of the contest for liberty, Executive power has been regarded as a lion that must be caged. So far from being the object of enlightened popular trust - so far from being considered the natural protection

" Who is he so ignorant of the history of liberty at home and abroad - who is he from whose bosom all infusion of American spirit has been so entirely evaporated - as to put into the mouth of the President the doctrine that the defence of liberty naturally results to Executive power, and is its peculiar duty ? Who is he that is generous and confiding towards power where it is most dangerous, and jealous only of those who can restrain it ? Who is he that, reversing the order of State and upheaving the base, would poise the pyramid of the political system upon its apex ? Who is he that declares to us, through the President's lips, that the security for freedom rests in Executive authority '? Who is he that belies the blood and libels the fame of his ancestry by declaring that they, with solemnity of form and force of manner, have invoked the Executive power to come to the protection of liberty ? Who is he that thus charges them with the insanity or recklessness of thus putting the lamb beneath the lion's paw ? No, sir - no sir. Oar security is in our watchfulness of Executive power. It was the constitution of this department which was infinitely the most difficult part in t'.ie great work of creating our Government. To give the Executive such power as should make it useful, and yet not dangerous - efficient, independent, strong, and yet prevent it from sweeping away everything by its military and civil power, by the influence of patronage and favor - this, indeed, was difficult. They who had the work to do saw this difficulty, and we see it. If we would maintain our system, we shall act wisely by preserving every restraint, every guard the Constitution has provided. When we and those who come after have done all that we can do, and all that they can do, it will be well for us and for them if the Executive, by the power of patronage and party, shall not prove an overmatch for all other branches of the Government.

" I will not acquiesce in the i eversal of all just ideas of government. I will not degrade the character of popular representation. I will not blindly confide where all experience admonishes to be jealous. I will not trust Executive power, vested in a single magistrate, to keep the vigils of liberty.

power it must be resisted in the proper manner. We are not to wait till great mischief come - till the Government is overthrown, or liberty itself put in extreme jeopardy.

"We should not be worthy sons of our fathers were we so to regard questions affecting freedom. They accomplished the Revolution on a strict question of principle. They took up arms against the preamble of an act. They saw in the claim of the British Parliament a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power, which they struck at till they destroyed it. On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power to which Rome in her glory is not to be compared - a power which has dotted the surface of the whole earth with her military posts - whose morning-drum beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous, unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." 4 " Encroachments must be resisted at every step." " Oh, no !" say the patriots of the present time. "When the fathers said so, they were mistaken." "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," echoed the " grand masters of the Revolution ;'' but the patriots of the hour cry " supineness" instead. " A temporary supineness is just now upon the Con* stitution, but by-and-by we will set it up all right!" Setting up the Constitution will be like setting up a broken reputation ; it is like some other things - when once degraded, lost forever. When the people of America accustom themselves to look upon a violated and broken Constitution, especially when broken and violated from the most dangerous source of the Government, the Executive, all liberty is gone. I do not consider myself a freeman to-day - I do not know but that this very speech will be considered treason. Speaking in the spirit of the words of one of the greatest patriots that ever lived, I should not deem, it at all surprising if it were esteemed prudent that I should occupy a limited territory of about ten acres of ground enclosed in the lower part of this city. Let it be so. But while I do live, I will uphold those principles without which a government is worthless. Gentlemen say the Government does not hurt me. I say it does. I want to read, and I want to go before my people and make speeches ; yet only a certain few are permitted to speak - a certain few can speak. The distinguished Ex-Governor of the State can speak freely to our Irish fellow-citizens. I was amused one day at the novelty of a meeting at Biddle Market, where distinguished civilians poured forth their streams of eloquence into the Irish heart ; yet they were not impressed, and it was not at all strange. They do not like the idea of crushing out liberty ; and hence you can not raise an Irish regiment. And another reason is, because they think you have not spoken out freely against the usurpation of power in this land. A gentleman told me that Government did not hurt me, and that keeping me from reading what I chose was for my benefit. I replied that there is no servile serf who bends his knees before the Autocrat of Russia - no slave at the throne of the infamous Boniba of Naples - no one to be found in the purlieus of the great despotic seats of power in Europe - who can not say the same thing. A despotism never hurts favorites. A despotic government is the simplest and best, provided the despot be wise, and good, and great ; but there is a little uncertainty about getting a good despot - and because we were not sure of getting a good one, our fathers said we should have none at all.

I see the blood of my distinguished friend from Clinton is up, and that he will fight when it is necessary. I might fight when it comes to revolution ; but until I get in a fighting mood, I shall practice the system of protesting, and I shall get as many to protest as possible, especially of the members of this Convention.

You talk about your power, hut is not the satrap above you to-day? Suppose you try to pass a secession ordinance - don't you think you would go into the Arsenal? Suppose you indulge in criticism upon the "powers that be" - don't you think it would involve you in some peril? Why, according to the idea of the present time, Madison ought to have suppressed every paper in his time - and there was hardly one that did not denounce him in New England : he ought to have caged every editor and sent him to the bastile, and kept him there till the war was over. But Madison was not only a patriot, but a great deal more. He helped to make the Constitution of the country; he knew how it was made - every timber, beam and foundation-stone about it; and he knew that when he gave men the right to speak they might speak foolishly and wickedly ; that so soon as he gave them the power to read and write, they might abuse it. But never mind; as a man could not exist as a free agent without the privilege of going to hell if he chose, so a man could not have a free press unless he had the right to publish foolishly. But in these times, we have a power to discriminate what we shall read; and if we offend that power, we are liable to be tried by court martial. Martial law makes a Dictator. Are you willing to live under a Dictator? If you are, I am not. Go back to the Revolution, and who was the man in the old House of Burgesses, when some man, moved by the disastrous condition of the country, (orn asunder by Tories and Whigs, and who wanted the power on the side of the Whigs, proposed that Patrick Henry should be made Dictator ? Was it not Corbin, who was a warm personal friend of Henry, who squelched that matter instantly by a rebuke, when he said, "Whenever you put a Dictator's crown on the brow of my friend Henry, I will plant a republican dagger in his heart.3'

Now, we must have a Dictator, and be just as still as mice when cats are about, fearing one of those feline paws will be laid upon us with a claw in the end of it. Is that the spirit of American freedom? I say, with Walpole, "this is worse than criminal - it is a blunder !J> All such things chafe and gall the American heart, and you can awaken no enthusiasm in the human breast to fight under such circumstances ; and I do not think they ought to fight at all, except for liberty. If the Union gives liberty - fight for that, or die for it. If the Union will not give it, fight for liberty anyhow. But the Union should not be confounded with liberty itself. I regard the Union with veneration, because I consider it an instrument of liberty. I mean to say that the Union without the principles which give it life, instead of being a blessing to freemen, would only drive us, by inevitable destiny, into a military despotism.

Now, a few words in reference to the distinguished delegate's allusion to Clay of Kentucky. I remember well the occasion upon which he uttered the words of that extract ; but the gentleman from Clinton did not furnish the conditions under which he spoke on that oecasion. The war with Mexico left us with a military occupation on the Rio Grande, and during the occupation of that Territory the Governor of Texas indicated that he would take possession of the country occupied by the troops, because he claimed it was in (he boundary of the State of Texas. The Representatives of Texas on the floor of the Senate utter- ed similar views, and it was a case in which the Government of the United States was right and the State wrong; and when gentlemen mouthed it and blustered, and declared it was an unlawful exercise of power, and the State would redress itself, Clay said he was for trying the strength of the Government. He was right. But does not the distinguished gentleman from Clinton do the immortal Clay injustice if he means to impute to that noble spirit any disposition, at any period of his life, to wink at the encroachments upon the Constitution of the country ?

Mr. MEYER offered a bill repealing the act passed by the last General Assembly which establishes a uniform mode of publishing sales under execution. Referred to the Committee on Civil Officers.

Mr. WRIGHT. At the hour of adjournment I was about to speak of my concurrence in the second proposition contained in the resolutions offered by the gentleman from Clinton - that was the abrogation of all useless offices.

The third proposition, if we have the power, is for the reduction of all official salaries. By reason of the present condition of the country, I think the officers ought to curtail their own emoluments. It would be an evidence of patriotism for them to do so. I fear, however, that if you reduce their salaries, you will have, after the war is over, a great demand for gentlemen of my profession to settle the question as to whether you had the power.

The fourth proposition is in reference to the collection of debts and taxes. Waiving the question of power, it strikes me that would be a good thing. I believe it is the unanimous view of the gentlemen who fill our benches that there can no longer be any collection of debts.

The fifth proposition is that the sword of the State shall be strengthened by the credit of the State. That proposition is very rhetorical and perspicuously stated. The ways and means to accomplish this are such as I think would baffle the ablest financier in America. I have a few suggestions to make on that subject. If I understand the proclamation of our present Provisional Governor, the design is to raise a State army in contradistinction to the Federal army. I suggest to the members of this Convention the propriety of pausing before they proceed to organize a State force. Looking at the subject financially, where are the means and what are the resources by which Missouri can maintain that double taxation which will arise from her paying her proportion of the expenses of the war conducted by the General Government, and added to which must be all that accumulation of debt arising from the payment of the State forces. Where is the power that can perform that double duty? Are any of your constituents in a condition to be overloaded with additional accumulation of debt for the purpose indicated? This State already has a bonded debt of near $30,000,000 and how does the credit of the State stand in the markets of the world? And now with what propriety can you go before your constituents with an accumulation of debt for the purpose of raising a State army ? The only thing about it is, you will never raise a State army, because the men raised will go into the United States army. I think you may well pause before you take steps in this direction.