St. Louis City (part 3 of 11)

Another proposition is that the loyalty of all officers shall be secured by means of an unquestionable guarantee. The distinguished gentleman from Clinton supposes I would have genius enough to forge, out of the resources of my mind, an oath that would touch each latent secession principle lying in the heart of any officer. I disclaim any such gift ; and enter my protest against all test oaths that are not in accordance with the Constitution of the United States. They are odious, as administered to every man in this State, under the Constitution of our State. No man should be sworn to support the " Administration," nor should he be sworn to support the <e Government." The Fathers never provided for such oath; they fettered the conscience to the " Constitution." Government is a word loosely and vaguely used, and may be confounded with the actual Administration. Nor should a man be sworn to " support the Constitution and the Government ;" such oath is a meaningless tautology, or something worse. I know the experience of the day, and the efforts of those who disregard the doctrines of the fathers of the Constitution. They suppose they can get up an oath of more efficacy than that furnished by our fathers ; yet these men know well that an oath to support the Government of the United States might be an oath binding them to oppose the Constitution; so that an oath to support the Government of the United States and the Constitution of the United States might involve a perfect suicide; th;it fealty to the Constitution might carry a man on the right hand, and fealty to the Government might carry him on the left hand. If these officers are traitors, no oaths you can administer* to them will amount to anything, morally j because they may say, " true, I have sworn to support the Constitution, but I have as good a right to break it as the Cabinet at Washington, and as the men who are going all through the country erecting the stupendous and colossal statue of martial law, rising above the Constitution. If this can be done by the authorities at Washington, why can it not be done by me ?JJ There would be no moral effect in such an oath. I do not want men to be traitors. I would to God every man in the United States were rallying around that flag, so long as it represents the object for which it was created. I do not cherish that flag because of the stars - the red, white and blue, - but because of the principles which it has represented. Suppose I saw that glorious banner floating upon the Kremlin at Moscow, would I love it? If I saw it enrolled upon some capital at Vienna, or if it floated from the summit of Notre Dame, would it awaken any emotion in me as a freeborn American? No ; because each of those despotisms represents some other than the idea of American constitutional liberty.

I do not want men to be traitors, or be dragged off by Jackson or the Confederate States into disloyalty. Whatever men may think of me, I can vindicate my course to myself, and I stand here to-day battling for those principles which the Constitution guarantees to us all ; and if those principles are wrecked, there is. universal desolation throughout the land ; we have been hugging to our breasts the shadow of liberty, and not its substance.

The gentleman from Clinton has declared that this war is not waged for the emancipation of the slave. I do not do the Administration injustice, if I know it. I trust there is no latent purpose to carry on this war, having as a direct end, or an incidental result, the emancipation of the slave ; but if the Administration are clear of that crime, there are multitudes of men who have a controlling power over the Administration, who are for it. I was glad to see the reply of the President to the proclamation of Fremont ; but what are the terms of that reply ? Is there any intimation that the proclamation was inconsistent with the liberties of the country ? Not at all. He declares that he supposes that Fremont, being upon the ground, can better judge of the affairs than he can at Washington ; but that it would be better, in reference to this proclamation, to conform to the act of Congress on the subject of confiscation. That is all. The^e is no direct rebuke of this military satrap, who, without the authority of the Federal Government, comes to our shores, and proclaims that he has the power to emancipate slaves, and has emancipated two slaves belonging to a citizen of this State. Look at the facts in our own city, (and I mention it with mortified pride,) that the only presses permitted to live in this State, when that proclamation came out, had not one whimper against it, startling as it was. I looked in vain in the Democrat and the Republican to find a syllable of censure against that enormous act. I looked over the papers of my State, and I tried to find somewhere some expression denouncing such an act ; but I looked in vain. But, thank God, there was a man in Kentucky who could speak. That man, Holt - whom I regard as a patriot - said if this proclamation was to be the law, Kentucky is gone ; our people will not stand it; for the institution of slavery is among them, and it will be nothing more than a confirmation of all their fears regarding the intentions of thi$ Republican organization, which has been accidentally lifted into power. The independence of one man spoke to the Administration and procured the eradication of that odious portion of the proclamation, simply because he would not exceed the act of Congress, as if that principle did no^ lie deeper than the act of Congress. Do the people of Washington suppose the people of the fifteen slave States would give countenance for a moment to snch a revolutionary principle as is involved in that proclamation ?

The measures of this Convention - the institution of the Home Guards, the illegal assembling of a body that had no right to assemble at all - are bad enough in themselves; but I beg you to remember that there is no more constitutional power in the Executive of the United States to redress a wrong committed by one citizen ot' the State of Missouri upon another than belongs than to the Emperor Napoleon or the Czar of Russia. It would be just as right for the gens d'armes of Napoleon to come here and redress wrongs as for the Federal soldiers to do so. Why is this ? Because Missouri regulates her own affairs. In the language of the report of the Committee made at Jetfcrson city, she manages her police and internal affairs in her own way. When the President of the United States declares that the driving off of a Union man by secessionists is an outrage and takes the remedy into his own hands, I deny his right to do so. Protection i? in the State judiciary, and not in the military arm of the Federal Executive. The remedy is by indictment and by a civil action. The framers of the Constitution acted upon such a principle, and the General Government has no right to interfere and organize a legal tribunal. Who could not foresee that the moment the attempt at unauthorized interference was made, it would bring on civil war amongst us? I ask the gentleman from Clinton, who feels satisfied this war is not waged for the emancipation of the slave, if there is not something almost equally as important as the emancipation of the slave promulgated by this Administration ? What is this system of slavery but allowing a man to hold property in the negro, and have a dominion over him? It is one of the attributes of a free man by which he can hold property. But are our constitutional rights ended when it is said we can hold negroes lawfully ? I think there is something deeper than that.

What is that other great privilege? - the writ of habeas corpus. It is the dearest right that belongs to a freeman, unless it is that other right, to think and speak whatever he pleases. Lincoln does not indorse the emancipation of Snead's slaves, but he does indorse a defiance of the Judiciary, by abolishing the writ of habeas corpus. What gave such mighty throes to the French Revolution ? I know many causes contributed to it, but one means was that Frenchmen went into the Bastile and lay there, being denied the opportunity of vindicating their innocence. We have got a Bastile in this country - one in the bay of New York, and one in this city, where men are imprisoned, many innocently. The officers there in charge have told me that out of the large number of men sent there, they find the most of them have been sent there through malice. Look at Ferryman's case, in which a mar< was kept for five or six weeks, upon the idea that his name was spelt with a B instead of a P. Look at the case of Wells, who was charged with firing into a train, and who was not within thirty miles of the train, and had not seen the cars for six months ; he was compelled to live at the Arsenal week after week, while under the idea of confiscation many greedy men looked at his property. Gen. McKinstry told me a good deal of truth when he said :. " In these times, sir, men imagine a great deal more than they see. I have already had affidavits sent to Washington that I was a secessionist ; and I know that the idea of confiscation may sharpen the imagination of men touching the conduct of a wealthy secessionist.'7 Now, when Congress takes hold of the writ of habeas corpus, it should not surrender its valuable rights to a mere soldiery; yet this is indorsed by the present Administration, and is a greater ill than ten thousand wars for the emancipation of the slave.

In reference to this financial question. I suppose my respected colleague (Mr. Hitchcock), in offering his resolution yesterday, had recently been reading Motley's " Dutch Republic." My colleague has not disclosed whether he means to use confiscation as a way and means of finance, or as a mode of punishment, or both. Our historian says of the Duke of Alva, infamous for tyranny and bigotry - for he was as bigoted as an abolitionist - that he stands out alone in military annals as the only tyrannical soldier who ever made confiscation a scheme for revenue. Why will not the gentleman from Clinton strike for higher rights than that to hold slaves ? Why not oppose the suspension of the right of habeas corpus? Why not protest against the terrible power, assumed by the military, to try civilians, for life, against the unequivocal mandates of the constitution of the United States ? Why not protest, at least, against the successful war waged against the freedom of speech and of the press? Why not fling the weight of his voice against that colossal power which overstrides the charter of our liberties - martial law? The distinguished delegate would rise in rebellion against a war of emancipation, but supinely resigns himself to weightier encroachments !

In my judgment, all the propositions which have been brought forward will prove to be an irritant rather than an antidote. I know it is said by some members of this Convention - " You are opposed to our action, and you will do nothing for us but stand and snarl. What would you have us do ?" I answer, in the language of Clay: "In human affairs, when you cannot see clearly what you ought to do, it is the highest principle of wisdom to do nothing at all." (Applause in the lobby.) If called to the bedside of a patient prostrate by disease, I should be unable to detect the nature of his malady - however much

I might deceive the patient by seeming action - I would do nothing ; I would wait for further developments, and trust to the strength of nature. If the symptoms indicated a lack of nervous power, which might be the result of latent inflammation of the brain, or spring from the general decay of vital force, I would not bleed ; for if the prostration was not the result of secret inflammation, the patient would die under my lancet. So in national affairs. When we cannot see what we ought to do clearly, it will result beneficially if we do nothing at all. I object to your measures, first, because there is a want of power; second, because I see nothing, as I think, clearly, though I may be mistaken, in your measures, at all calculated to allay the excitement j but, on the contrary, to gall and chafe. I believe the action of the Convention will make men more disloyal. I believe it would be the best thing under heaven if we would adjourn and go home. This body is not intended to be a permanent body. I know that we have abolished the Legislature, and that you piled necessity upon necessity ; but is it not better to stop now, even though we have done mischief, than to attempt to mend the matter by multiplying error upon error? I think we do not represent the will of the people of this State now. All your measures will only irritate. You have done mischief enough j and about the only thing you can do now is to declare that you will perpetuate yourselves by filling all vacancies that may arise from death or resignation. (Demonstration in the lobby.) One single suggestion more ; and that you not only have the power to fill vacancies, but the power to create them, and better fill them, if you are going to be a permanent body j though in all probability I shall leave you, and doubtless with your consent - (a voice, " certainly") - if you design anything of the sort. I merely recommend these things to you in the spirit of charity and brotherly love.

Mr. BIRCH. As contrary to my expectation, perhaps in misjudged courtesy to myself, no other gentleman seems disposed to continue the debate this afternoon, I yield to the parliamentary necessity which devolves upon me of replying to the distinguished gentleman who has just resumed his seat. It must be apparent to all that my physical condition is such as to excuse me from much elaboration, even if I had the time to refer at length to such authorities, political and historical, as it might be well to call up and invoke, were a reply deemed necessary to that greater portion of the delegate's remarks which respect the questions of habeas corpus and of martial law. I shall only so far, however, notice those great questions as to demonstrate that they are not necessarily involved in the consideration of my resolution, and hence not germain to the discussion of it.

As to the movement apparent in the galleries, whilst I regret it, I am not surprised at it. There are citizens all over the State who have been so seduced by the sophistries of one set of speakers, and so fired by the misrepresentations of another class, as to be indisposed to even listen to the more staid inculcations of facts and reason. I am hence not surprised to find that there are even in St. Louis gentlemen who think they " know it all," and who are withdrawing before they have heard even half as much as might really be good for them. For the sake of the State and themselves I could desire that it were otherwise, but, in order to afford all such an opportunity to retire " in order," and permit those who remain to hear what I may see fit to say, I will make the necessary pause.

Taking up the line of this discussion at the point where it was concluded by the delegate from St. Louis, I have to premise that so much of it as by inuendo or otherwise imputes to his co-delegates the purpose or desire to perpetuate their existence, or to create and fill vacancies, will remain by me unanswered. I have declined to reply to it when proceeding from the unlicensed ribaldry of the hustings, and I shall be alike self-respecting here. If the delegate designed it alone in the way of pleasantry, he owes it to himself and to those who stand here as his equals to say so ; but if he designed it as a text from which secessionism is to preach from the hustings, (as it has done,) I design no other reply than to recur him to the previous portions of his own speech, in which he speaks of many of us as being exiles from our homes and our families, and ask him whether it was either accordant with reason or with justice to suppose that such men could desire to perpetuate such an official existence 1 And for what, Mr. President ? For a compensation which all will have been expended here and on our way home - for, of course, our own compensation must go down in the same proportion that I propose in respect to all other officers and servants of the State. All I have further to say in that connection is, that if for .the freedom with which that gentleman, or any other who is here, has indulged himself in "high debate'7 upon the condition and the perils of the country - if for that either he or others, on either side, are in any sense molested, whether here or elsewhere, (as he seems to fear he will be,) it will be a great outrage, and should be resented and redressed accordingly.

The allusion of the distinguished delegate to the counsel of the Sage of Ashland, like his previous reference to the inculcations of Mr. Webster, was no less unjust to that distinguish' ed statesman than it was inapplicable in our present condition. Who does not remember that on the occasion of his grand public reception in Baltimore, during the great and exciting contest of 1840, (when I quitted my own party and acted with the gentleman and his party,) Mr. Webster excused himself for addressing them on the Sunday of his arrival upon the ground that " there were no Sabbaths in Revolutionary times"? Of course, it is not necessary to discuss the mere ethics of such a sentiment, and I hence recall it as a simple and sufficient answer to all he has read from a speech of the same illustrious statesman, having reference to periods of comparative quiet. If Mr. Webster would not scruple in the midst of the great civil revolution of 1840 to disregard the mere letter of the injunction of the Most High,hovr far do you suppose he would be restrained, in the midst of this revolution, in stickling for the simple letter of man's commandment - particularly, if he believed that to adhere to the letter would be to lose the sub' stance ? I trust my friend will deem himself sufficiently answered upon this point, particularly as I might have foreborne to reply upon it at all on the score of its almost total irrelevancy, as I shall forbear upon many points of his elaborate and well-delivered speech.

Not less unfortunate has the delegate been in his reference to the advice of Mr. Clay. Does any one suppose - does the gentleman himself suppose - dare he suppose that the illustrious author of the extract which was incorporated in my remarks of yesterday, would permit him, for an instant, (were he present to rebuke him,) to quote him as authority for " doing nothing" in a crisis like the present. Even the suggestion of a possibility of such recreancy on the part of Henry Clay, deserves the reprehension of every true friend to his memory and his fame. Yet the delegate re- calls and misapplies the terse counsel of that ardent and patriotic American to induce us to " do nothing at all" at a moment when our State is overrun by forty thousand armed secessionists, under whose lawlessness one-half of it has been covered with almost barbaric desolation, and before whose demoniac thirst for the blood of those who most prominently oppose them, many of the members upon this floor have had to fly into other localities or other States. It is in circumstances such as these that the distinguished delegate from the comparatively quiet city of St. Louis would do "nothing at all:> - leaving secessionism to its sway, and those who resist it to its fury ! It is in this manner that the delegate would let secessionism " alone " (all it has ever asked for) - and let it work out its lawless purposes, to the ruin of "all our material interests," and (I read, on yesterday) unless we will cravenly permit the restoration of a Government and a Governor which even the delegate himself essays in no respect to defend. To my mind, Mr. President, the radical difference between my distinguished friend and myself, in this regard, is but the difference between a man who, with all its errors of administration, is still a friend to the Government and the Union, and a man who is the real enemy of both. [Great applause.] So far from doing "nothing" in a crisis like the present, I would do everything that promised even a hope of restoring the quiet of the State or the better security of its loyal and law-abiding citizens. It is hence that I propose to improve the condition of our Treasury, by lopping off such officers as are comparatively useless, and reducing the compensation to all others. It is thereby that I would improve its credit, and pledge it, in conjunction with that of the Federal Government, wherewith to feed and clothe and pay the brave and loyal men who have flocked, and are yet flocking, to its standard ; and I would not stop in such a cause, and for such a purpose, until (if necessary) I had placed an American musket in the hands of every American citizen who was able and willing to use it for the defense of the Government and the laws to which he was born. [Applause.] I would not stop to inquire whether under the audacious rebellion which was primarily inaugurated in the imperious ambition of disappointed politicians, the bonds of my own State had gone down, as other State securities have done; but I would issue more, if necessary, even though reaching a still lower depreciation, (leaving the General Government, of course, to its duty of providing for them in the end,) and with the pledge of these, I would collect the "ways and means" to preserve the Government of my own State and restore that of the United States. Instead, therefore, of doing nothing, I am prepared to do much - and to suffer much, if need be - in order to preserve at once the fabric of our civilization, and of all our hopes of prosperity and of peace. [Repeated applause.]

Mr. President, between gentlemen of the age and experience of the delegate and myself there ought to be no such disagreement of opinion as there seems to be upon the same presentation of facts - and perhaps there is not. I will therefore venture to submit to my friend the inquiry, and to solicit from him a candid reply to a simple question : Does he believe that in the present and prospective condition of the country, it is possible to have anything like a fall and fair election on the first Monday in next month ? I pause for a reply.

Mr. WRIGHT* I do not exactly relish this appeal to my candor, inasmuch as it may be intended to involve the inference that I have been uncandid in something else I have said to-day. I will, however, answer the gentleman, that in referring to the condition of things which existed at the time this ordinance of election was passed at Jefferson, (about the last of July,) and the condition of things at present, I think the prospect for a fair election is as good now as it was then.

Mr. BIRCH. I regret that my friend has felt himself unable or disinclined to answer so simple and direct a question. It may or it may not be that the gentleman is correct in his opinion, that the circumstances no more disfavor the hope of a fair and full election now than they did at the time of the passage of our ordinance j but that is not the question. There were many who then believed - my friend, perhaps, amongst the number - that we could not hope (as others and myself did) for such an expression of the popular judgment in November as would alone carry with it the wonted moral or popular authority ; and these were right in their apprehensions, whilst myself and others were mistaken in our hopes. How is it now, however? Poll this Convention, now consisting, I believe, of between fifty and sixty members, and I will yield this whole question if there be five of the entire number who will answer, upon his faith and his honor, that he believes it possible that we can have either a peaceable, a fair, or a full election, at the time designated in the ordinance which I propose to repeal. I believe I might safely agree to yield a proposition even of such acknowledged importance, if there could be found even one member of this body (whether present or absent) who would give it as his candid opinion that such an election could be holaen within the next three weks.

How, then, stands our duty? Shall other gentlemen and myself stand here upon a punctillio of what shallow knaves will call " consistency," and refuse to undo what it is now apparent we were mistaken in doing at our recent session at the Capitol? To such u consistency," Mr. President, I lay no claim. If I wrong a man in private or in social life, it is my duty to retract, and thus redress the wrong. And so of men in public station, the most despicable and least to be honored is he who, having been clearly mistaken, either in his hopes or his fears, (as a majority of us were in the hope that secessionism would lay down its arms and permit us to decide our differences by a full and fair election) - the man of all others who is least to be honored under circumstances of that character, is he who will not forego his policy and correspondingly change his vote. It is not} therefore, to " take from the people the power to elect their own officers," but to secure to them the power to do so, that we simply postpone the election until such time as the circumstances of the future may be more propitious to a calm, dispassionate and full expression of their judgment and their will - to a period, if you please, Mr. President, when the forty thousand secessionists now embodied in arms may vote as well as we can, and we can vote as well as they can. What says my friend to that ?

Mr. WRIGHT. You say there are 40,000. I suppose there are 50,000 quasi secessionists in arms. I do not suppose you have more than 20,000 in arms; and there will be, of course, a greater chance for the non-combatants for the Union than for the secessionists. North Missouri has been cleared of these marauding bands ; and I think the circumstances are more favorable for an election now than they will be in the future.

Mr. BIRCH. If the southern half of the State was in no worse condition than my own section, (my more immediate home section, I mean,) I might not feel myself authorized to postpone an election which comprises the whole State. However regretting the exasperations and the extremes of many in my own county, it is perhaps but proper to say, I be- lieve a comparatively quiet election could be held there, in spite of the military proclamation of Col. Hughes. Like the prophets of old, he is less so in his own country than he is almost anywhere else ; and I believe the better element of secession there would concur with all the Union element in favor of a full and free and fair election. (En passant, Mr. President, it was not my neighbors or my countrymen, alienated as many of them have become towards me in consequence of our political disagreement - it was not the men of Clinton, as some suppose, but armed soldiers, with their captain at their head, from a neighboring county, who seized and carried off the unarmed representative of my county, and was only prevented from seizing my son and myself, because they were resisted by arms.) If, therefore, other sections of the State were even as comparatively quiet and rightminded as the district from which I have the honor to still respond as a Union delegate, whether for weal or for woe the election might still go on. I cast my eye over our hall, however, and see there alone the evidences that this election should not now deforced upon the people who are here represented - for with unbroken voice they assure us the election cannot be free, cannot be full, cannot be fair. Let those who desire any other election than that, vote against my resolution ; and let the sober sense of the country decide between us.

In addition to these considerations, Mr. President, the gentleman to whom I yielded the floor with so much pleasure, and who corrected my assumed statistics with an accuracy to which I can lay no pretension, has furnished and suggested an additional or augmented reason for postponing the election. He supposes there are fifty thousand armed secessionists in the State ; and that the Union men, with only 20,000, would have an advantage in the election of 30,000. If that be so, Mr. President, every delegate upon this floor is sworn to vote for the postponement, unless he be ready to at least connive at the disfranchisement of so large an army of voters. I shall not do so, whether upon the flippant plea of false " consistency," or upon any other false pretense - realizing, as I do, the great American truth that whilst a full and fair election is more than all things else the palladium of American liberty, a restricted and a foul election is the " sum of all villainies." I will not leave such a weapon in the hands of an adversary ; for as sure as they are secessionists would they use

Mr. BIRCH. I stand corrected, Mr. President, and will for a moment devote myself to that accusation, involving simply a disagreement of opinion between the gentleman and myself. What was our action, and what the necessity for it? We found the capital in the possession of the soldiery of the Federal Government. The Governor of the State and the Lieut. Governor had fled from it under circumstances which rendered it impossible to return except as military conquerors, with force sufficient to resist the Government of the United States in the execution of the writs of its Court - and they have not yet returned, and probably never will. The people of the State - at least the peaceful and law-abiding portion of them - were in the daily need of a Governor to discharge the everyday duties of the Executive ; and what did we do to give even color to the imputation that our action has been, in any legitimate sense, the cause of our present complications ? Sir, our action should have aggravated no such complication, but the exact reverse ; nor would it have done so had those who rendered it necessary but signified their willingness to meet us and to vote it out, instead of a purpose again the exact reverse - namely, to disdain and spurn our reference to the people, and continue to "fight it out." From that has culminated our present extreme divergence j and from that results the necessity of arming against those, and those only, who have spurned the ordeal of the ballot, which must be postponed accordingly. Gentlemen may tax their ingenuity, or their sophistry, or their subtlety, to the utmost, and yet it is all replied to or turned aside by that !

So, too, of all that the gentleman has said, and so well said, of the sacredness of the habeas corpus and the despotism of martial law. I recur him to the cause, or ("if he prefers it) the excuse for all that he has complained of in the conduct of the present National Executive and the " Military satraps" as he denominates those to whom he has made such frequent allusion. Whence the cause - whence the alleged necessity for all that he complains of? I am not here to justify it, for, in the very nature of things, I can not be supposed to be in possession of all the facts upon which either the Administration or its officers in this department (or elsewhere) have proceeded to adopt the extreme measures that are complained of. But this I know - and this, too, the gentleman knows - that if there had been no such audacious rebellion as he and I concurred in denouncing from this floor, in March last, there would have been no necessity (whether real or supposed) for the extraordinary measures which have been resorted to in order to put it down. In the adoption of these measures, the Administration and its agents may not, by any means, have chosen the wisest course - but will any intelligent and sincere friend of the Union for that cause - a mere error of administration - ally himself to the enemies of the Union, and attempt therefor to break it up ? No, Mr. President : the man who causelessly, or without sufficient cause, aims a dagger at your heart or mine - as my friend and myself have concurred that secessionism aimed it at the heart of the Union - that man is not to be afterwards pitied and coalesced with, if in resisting him we are driven to the necessity of either strangling or subduing him, even without punctillious reference to " the code of honor." And so of those who have aimed at the life of the Union, by which of course is understood the renunciation of the Constitution and the subversion of its government - does it lie in the mouths of either these men or their sympathisers to complain of imputed infractions of certain clauses of the Constitution, when deemed necessary to preserve the whole of it from overthrow ? Sir, to ask such a question is to answer it, at least to the common sense of the country, and it is to that tribunal I would carry my appeal. I retract nothing that I have previously said upon this common sense view of the proposition. On the contrary, I re-affirm the opinion expressed in debate with one of my colleagues at our last session, and in the same sense I am ready to join hands with my friend from St. Louis - that " if he only means to say that since this war was inaugurated by the reduction of Fort Sumpter, and the menace of our capital by the war minister of the Confederate States, the Administration at Washington seems to have supposed itself reduced to the necessity of making a record which is unsurpassed in usurpation and in the assumption of unacknowledged power" - if this be all the delegate means, we will continue friends as we ever have been. But as I further replied to the estinjable and distinguished colleague alluded to, (Judge Dunn, whom I regret is no longer with us,) so I yet further reply to my friend from St. Louis, (Mr. Wright,) that "if he means or intends that because the Administration may in this respect have violated the Constitution even beyond a reasonable excuse in the extremities to which it was driven, we should therefore abandon our old and common ground, and ally ourselves with those who owe all the status they have to a previous and comparatively causeless renunciation of the whole Constitution, and a war upon the Government of which it is the symbol and the bond - if my friend means that, his own regrets can not be more sincere than mine will be, if henceforth our pathway shall lead in opposite, though never in unfriendly directions. " I may as well reiterate from the same speech that " I have no heart for the task, and think it inappropriate to our duties here, to attempt a comparison between the usurpations, the robberitS and the terrorise, of the seceding and the Confederate States on the one hand, and the like usurpations and other malpractices of my own Government on the other hand. But this I may say, in dismissing this topic of remark, that I shall not probably be carried away from my own Government, however severely my judgment may reprehend the errors of its administration, so long as the alternative is limited to an alliance with a party who has violently and causelessly (or without sufficient cause, as myself and my friend agree, usurped a government in violation of their allegiance to their former government ; and who will stand before God and posterity as mainly responsible for all the consequences which have ensued, or which may ensue, from any efforts which may be deemed necessary to repress and put down rebellion." This is my answer to all that I have heard of the misconduct of the Administration or its army, whether in the misjudgment of those who direct, or the misconduct of those who carry out its line of policy. I knew before the war was inaugurated that its prosecution would devolve (in part at least) upon those whom it has been devolved ; and that in northern regiments there must needs be elements uncongenial with the institutions of Missouri, and hence to be avoided if we could. In the interests of peace I long sought to avoid the necessity of their presence amongst us, but secessionism worked and willed it otherwise - they had at last to come, and for one, / thank them for coming here. What boots it to us, sir, that in perhaps every regiment that is sent amongst us there are men who have been falsely educated to believe they have the right to " steal a negro," and that they may essay to steal yours, sir, should they come into Andrew, as they attempted to steal my neighbors' and my own when encamping but a night in Clinton ? We will punish the scoundrels if we can detect and arrest them ; but we can blame neither the Administration, which is compelled to employ them, nor the officers, who seem to do all they can to overlook and restrain them. We can do nothing more, in short, than to hold SECESSIONISM responsible for all our annoyances and all our losses ! But for that, Missouri would to-day have peace, prosperity and happiness ; and but for that, the necessity would not exist for even a Federal garrison in the whole broad State.

Having been necessarily absent at the opening of the session this afternoon, and thus deprived the pleasure of listening to a portion of the remarks of the learned delegate from St. Louis, I desire only to say that it will have been in no spirit of discourtesy should I fail to reply to his whole speech as it deserves to be replied to. The next point which I noted this morning may be disposed of by reiterating what was premonished of our authority by all the distinguished secessionists of the Legislature whilst the bill for our organization was under their discussion. They conceded that we would be a supra-constitutional body ; and to-day, Mr. President, we are every thing for the weal or the woe of the State, or we are nothing. It is in no spirit of unkindness, therefore, that I decline to make any further reply to the most astute criticisms of my friend in respect to our power under the Constitution. I hope we shall not unnecessarily or injudiciously transcend it ; but if, perchance, we should, it will not lie in the mouths of those who invested us with the authority to do so, and who created the necessity for doing so, to complain of the necessary results of their own action.

I thank the gentleman for refreshing my recollection in respect to the circumstances and the occasion on which Mr. Clay delivered the immortal speech from which I quoted on yesterday, inasmuch as it thereby appears, from his own ingenuous showing, that the use to which I have appropriated it was most apposite indeed. Nor am I less thankful to him for reminding me, that, in another great speech of the illustrious Kentuckian, he discriminated between the just and the unjust interposition of a State in opposition to the Government of all the States. I, too, have marked our records during every session of this Convention, as I did again on yesterday, with concurring evidences of like discrimination.

As to " test oaths" and other epithets by which the delegate may seek to prejudge and to prejudice our action in regard to my last proposition, if I had the means to procure from the archives at Richmond, the oath of loyalty to the Confederate Government, * I would not trouble him to assist me in drawing up a similar oath for all the officers under our own Government. Talk of "oaths," or of "confiscations," or of " exile !" Go, my friend, amongst the Confederates, if you desire to be fervidly eloquent upon such topics. We simply propose that our public officers shall subscribe a declaration under oath, that in the present contest between the United States and the Confederate States, they will stick to tfieir own side - the side of their own Government, and not give " aid and comfort" to its enemies ; and that any one who does not take that judicial view of his duties shall be relieved of those duties. Does my friend admit the authority of the Supreme Court as to the construction of the Constitution of the United States upon questions of national loyalty7? He courteously nods assent, and that is all I ask. I would go no further in the oath to be prescribed by this Convention than to bring to the understanding and the eye of all from whom we may require it, what the highest court in the land has decided to be the meaning of the oath to support the Constitution of the United States ; and if he shall find himself unable to take such an oath, surely he could not think it hard to lay down his employment under that Constitution. If this be neglected in times like the present, what is to prevent every public officer from construing his constitutional obligations for himself,

* In default of this the following copy of the oath administered to such of the captive officers at Lexington as would consent to take it, may throw a little light on the subject ; and will be particularly refreshing to those who yet innocently believe that our late President and his command are still loyal to the " Government of the United States:" will not again during the present war, take up arms against either the State of Missouri or the Confederate States of America ; and that he will not give aid or comfort, in any way whatever, to the Government of the United States, or any of its armies, until he shall have been released. This parole is given upon the condition that the same may be surrendered at any time to the commanding officer of any military post of the Missouri State Guard.

as my friend does ? I forbear further remarks on this head, however, because I am already satisfied (since my speech on yesterday) that what is regarded as even a less doubtful guaranty of loyalty on the part of those in office will probably be required by a majority of this body.

The delegate from St. Louis did no more than I felt satisfied he must do, from his conceded character for intelligence and integrity, in declining to take up the gauntlet for the judge and the preachers in my county, who in May last, (as I showed on yesterday,) misled so many of the young and the uninformed to believe that Mr. Lincoln was in favor of " negro equality." And whilst the subsequent conduct of some of the friends and officers of the Administration may be liable to the criticisms which have been dealt to them upon that and other points of controversy, it is most confidently repeated that it was such early and persistent calumnies against the Administration that contributed most to mislead the thousands who flocked " across the river" to the ranks of Jackson, as the representative of "Dixie," which 1 understand to be the exact antipode of "negro equality." In that sense, I need scarcely repeat that I, too, will " live and die in Dixie." I disagree with my friend, however, who after rather grudgingly absolving the Administration from entertaining the purpose of " negro emancipation," avers that " there are multitudes of men, who have a controlling power over the administration, who are for it."

I need scarcely say, Mr. President, that I am in no other sense the advocate or even the apologist of an administration with no member of which have I ever exchanged either a line or a word, than in the subdued and cautious sense of rendering it reluctant justice, where honor and duty requires it at my hand. It is in that sense that I arraign the error of my friend, and point to the Presidential order for the modification of Fremont's proclamation, as evidence that the emancipation wing of the Republican party have not "a controlling power over the Administration."

were born to the inheritance of yet other rights more sacred than the right of property in the slave. He cites again the " habeas corpus," to which I will add the trial by jury, the right to vote, and, as more sacred than all beside, the rights of conscience, (religious freedom.) Show me that either of these are even in peril, and my friend shall approve himself the friend of real liberty beyond what I do, it will not be because I do not adore it with all my nature and all my heart. There never was a man, however, who wore a high commission amid the perils of an army, who had not the great martial right to place his district under martial law - placing his justification, of course, upon the necessity which confronted him, to be judged of by his superiors, who in their turn have to be judged of by the country. Jefferson justified or excused it in Wilkinson - Madison did the same with Jackson, and the country sustained them all. We shall see by and by what the verdict of the same country will be in respect to Lincoln and Fremont. In the midst of their exhausting contest for the preservation of the UNION, I shall at least forbear unnecessary denunciation, where my judgment can not award its approbation.

I believe, Mr. President, that I have sufficiently replied to the arraignment of the delegate from St. Louis, except it may be in respect to his assumptions of my objects in desiring a more efficient enactment for the organization and government of our volunteer militia - and in respect to those assumptions, I may at least be pardoned for saying that I know the gentleman to be wholly mistaken. So far as my own purpose is concerned, the gentleman can continue to read by his fireside any newspaper that will best minister to his edification, or best comport with his sympathies or his taste, free from all apprehension of drafting or any other species of compulsion except that of his long-life obedience to " the Constitution and the laws.'' We shall probably seek no "drafted" Union men - but with as noble an army of volunteers as ever marched to the music of " Hail Columbia" - and with a law which will render them as efficient as regulars - we will drown out all other music in the yet loyal State of Missouri.

Fourth Da

Mr. HITCHCOCK moved to take up the ordinance reported by the Committee on Elections, stating that upon that motion he desired to make some remarks.

The PRESiDENT_remarked, for the information of spectators present, that no manifestations of approbation or disapprobation, at any of the sentiments expressed by the speakers, would be allowed.

Resolved, That all courts in the State of Missouri who refuse to discharge their duties, shall receive no pay during the absence of such courts, and that the limitation act shall cease during the absence of such courts, and that creditors on judgments, executions, bonds, notes and accounts, shall be entitled to the rate of interest agreed upon by the debtor, not exceeding ten per cent., during the absence of said courts ; and where there is no agreement between debtor and creditor respecting interest, all demands, including accounts, shall draw six per cent, per annum. Referred.

Mr. HITCHCOCK said : Mr. President, the action proposed by the ordinance which has been read, is the postponement of the election ordered to be held in November. The reasons for such postponement are the disturbed condition of the State, and the fact that apprehension is felt that no fair expression of the popular will can be had. I take it that upon that ordinance, the simple question of present fact will determine the action of the Convention. It is entirely immaterial to me who is responsible for anything that now exists when I consider the question whether, in fact - whatever causes may have led to it, whatever blame may rest on any quarter - whether, on the first Monday in November, a fair expression of the popular will can be had. If not, then it is as much the duty of this Convention to postpone that election as it was proper for this Conven- tion to submit its action to the people. The majority of this Convention desire a fair expression. They did not think they were bound originally to appeal to the people, but they desired nothing more than that, at the earliest practicable period, the people of the State should be called upon to say whether they approved their action. Now, as to the fact of the case, so far as I know, nearly every member of this body, (coming from different quarters of the State as they do,) is cognizant of the condition of things in his section, unanimously declares that there can be no fair expression of the people whose action we invite, and that an election at the time proposed would be to invite the bloodiest contest which has yet taken place. In July, when we last met, we remember that among those who voted for the ordinance ordering an election in November, there existed a strong diversity of opinion simply upon this one point - not as to whether it was well to submit the question to the people - not as to whether it ought to be done as a matter of expediency, but as to when it could be soonest done with safety and justice. There were those, as will be remembered, who proposed to have the election in thirty days - others still, and myself among the number, who thought the election ought not to be held sooner than November. The Committee of Seven, who reported on the subject, foresaw more correctly than we the condition of things in this State. They said it would be impossible for an election to be held in November, and they were right. When that committee first made its report, we were taunted with the insinuation that we were afraid to submit our action to the people. All such taunts are beneath notice. I deny and treat them with the indifference they deserve. For myself, it will be the proudest recollection of my life to have acted with a body of men so wholly devoted as the Union men of this Convention showed themselves to be, when in session in Jefferson City, to the best interests and the truest welfare of their constituents, without regard to personal consequences in any way whatever. The Convention determined to submit its action in November, and what was

The gentleman from Clinton has read the proclamation issued by a Colonel in the socalled army of Jackson, which plainly shows the manner in which it was designed to thwart our action. We were taunted with being afraid of the people, and we refuted the taunt by declaring our willingness to go before the people. We did not believe we were bound to submit our action - the best constitutional lawyers in the Convention triumphantly vindicated this position ; yet we preferred to ask the sanction of the people ; and what has been the result ? A proclamation, not by this Colonel alone, but by his superiors, has been issued, declaring that we shall not have an election. The very outlaw who issued that proclamation declared that an army would track its path through the State in blood, and make widows and orphans everywhere - would annihilate the interests of Missouri rather than allow that election to be held. We know that on every side throughout this State these threats have been repeated, and repeated by armed and reckless and desperate men. We know that it is in the power of a few men, even in this great city, with its police and its soldiers, to convert an election precinct into the scene of a riot. What are we to expect, when the theatre of such reckless crime is the area of the whole State ? A speaker who opposed this postponement of the election on Saturday, asserted that there were 50,000 armed men in Missouri on the secession side, and 20,000 armed men on the side of the Union. Without agreeing to their accuracy, accept his figures. Seventy thousand armed men expected to peaceably take part in an election - men armed on this very quarrel ! Nearly half the voters of the State declared to be already in arms, glaring upon each other in eager anticipation of the strife - and yet the gentleman taunts the majority that they hesitate to call these men to meet at the polls ! I repeat - it is immaterial who is to blame - if these things are so, an election cannot and ought not to be held. It would not be a farce - it would be a fearful tragedy. This Convention has a duty to perform in such a condition of affairs, which neither taunt nor gibe can affect. I envy not the spirit which inspires the sneer. Those who are driven in such a crisis to use such arguments for their purposes, are they rather to be pitied or condemned ?

by the Committee for the postponement of the election. I desire, however, with the indulgence of the Convention, to notice somewhat more in detail the remarks made on Saturday last by the delegate from St. Louis, (Mr. Wright,) upon the resolution submitted by the gentleman from Clinton, (Mr. Birch.) The first of those resolutions was the same in substance with the ordinance now under consideration, and its introduction was made by my colleague - who, I regret very much to see, has not seen fit to be present this morning - the occasion for a most extraordinary address. Extraordinary in its assertions, still more extraordinary in its omissions of fact; extraordinary in the temper and spirit it displayed towards his associates in this body, at whom it was (in a parliamentary phrase) so "respectfully" directed - and most extraordinary, considering the position, the professions, the solemn obligations of the speaker, in the real purpose and object which to my mind shone out in every sentence and well-turned phrase. For myself, as one who has the honor in part to represent the same constituency who honored that speaker with his own high trust, I am not content that his harangue shall pass unnoticed. I trust to be pardoned by the House if I comment upon its positions.

The majority of this Convention, sir, were by this, their associate and self -constituted prosecutor, indicted and arraigned as " usurpers." They were charged by him with naving caused - he said " contributed to," but he was careful to complain of no others - the present unhappy condition of this State. Their action had " irritated" and " exasperated" its people - and he could find, it seemed, no other cause or origin of irritation. The charge itself is of little consequence, nor can it borrow either dignity or weight from him who made it. It is nothing unusual for such a cry to be raised for a like purpose of misleading and defeating justice. But when such assertions are made on this floor, and since a partial statement of facts, and propositions which obscure the truth, are to be scattered broadcast over the land under the authority and as part of the proceedings of this Convention, it is proper, for the sake of those who might for that reason give them credence, that the blame shall carry with it the antidote.

Sir, what one measure of this Convention was pointed out by that speaker as having contributed to the disturbance of the peace of the State ? Not one. The charge was broad and bitter ; but the gentleman ventured on no such specification. That charge was made against the majority of this body ; it was intended as an attack on the Government of the United States. In terms, it opened by arraigning us ; but the true point of attack was speedily changed. Nor could it have been for one moment supported. What were those measures, and whom did they "irritate 1" Was it that, in the exercise of a clear and indisputable power - a power claimed in advance for this body (when they thought it would work out their meditated treason) by the very men who have since felt it - this body removed from office a Governor sworn to support the Constitution of this State and of the United States, but whose official acts showed, and whose correspondence, made public by this Convention, acknowledged that he was from the first, and in avowed opposition even to the majority of his people, engaged in a scheme which that very speaker (Mr. Wright.) in March last denounced as in violation and in defiance of both the State and the National Constitution ? Was it that we deposed a man whose whole conduct showed him perjured and recreant to every official trust, and who by force and fraud was desperately attempting to thwart the popular will ? Does the gentleman (Mr. Wright) presume to allege this as a cause of "-irritation" to the people of this State ? Does he now endorse that Governor ?

Or was it, sir, that in the exercise of the same power, expressly admitted in favor of this Convention by themselves, we removed from office that Legislature who, in secret midnight session, with but half their number present, passed so-called "Acts," in utter and treasonable defiance of their sworn duty under the State and National Constitutions ? Do we we not know, both from the official journals of that secret session, and from the clear and authentic statement made at our July session by a delegate who was a loyal member of that Legislature, (Mr. Welch,) that a test vote was forced upon them and defiantly carried by their traitor majority, upon a proposition which was a declaration of war against the United States ? You remember, sir, that section 167 of that infamous "Military Bill" made it the sworn duty of every officer and soldier of the " Missouri State Guard" to attack, disperse and disarm every assemblage of men in this State " having the semblance of an armed organization," which was not organized under that Military Bill itself. You remember that with the express purpose of testing the intent of this provision, an amendment was offered, excepting from its terms the troops of the United States, within any post or arsenal within this State, so long as they conducted themselves lawfully, and until the State of Missouri, by a vote of her people, should change her relations with the Union- And you know that that amendment was voted down ; and that this vote was had before the socalled " outrage at Camp Jackson" had occurred.

Does the gentleman charge it as an " irritating cause" that we removed from office the men who thus sought to force the people into a war with the General Government ? Does he approve that conduct on their part ?

Or was it "irritating" the people of this State that we annulled those odious laws which that Legislature passed? Laws which plundered the public schools, robbed the asylums, established in time of peace a military rule in the interest and for the purposes of treason, and saddled upon a people already impoverished an extraordinary tax for military purposes ? Does the gentleman himself, as one of the people, grieve that these wholesome enactments are not still in force ?

Or did it "exasperate" the people that we sought at the earliest period for their sanction of our acts ? Did not the gentleman himself vote for that measure ? We did not hold, nor do we now believe, that our acts and ordinances required such express sanction for their validity.

But we desired, if it were possible, to destroy the last shadow of excuse for those who denounced us, and to show - as we were satisfied that a vote would show - that we acted not only for the highest interests but with the hearty approval of a large majority of the people of this State. Sir, there was no doubt as to the power of this body. Its powers were as ample as its duties were arduous. Its members were required to consider the Federal and inter-State relations of the people and Government of Missouri, and " to take such measures as they might deem expedient to vindicate the sovereignty of the State and for the protection of its institutions ;" and there was but one thing which it was required - if passed by them - should be submitted to the people, namely, an ordinance of secession. And as was shown in July last by the gentleman from Clinton» (Mr. Birch,) such men as Kains, and Harris, and Vest, and Ament, in the debates on the Convention bill, expressly declared that in their opinion the Convention could do what it pleased - "could abolish the Legislature itself, or even the State Constitution." Sir, the gentleman (Mr. Wright) on Saturday declined furter to discuss this question of power. He said it had been exhausted at our last session. So it was. And if he is content with the result of that discussion, certainly we are. He won no laurels there. But while we never doubted the power, we expressly avoided its exercise save so far as it should be forced upon us by events.

I do not doubt, sir, that there is one party who have been "irritated" by the acts of this Convention. They have been so from the first - disappointed, chagrined, astounded, dismayed, furious ! Everything it has done, and what it has refused to do, has "exasperated" them. Who are that party ? They are those who from the first have sought to destroy this beneficent Government - the secession party of Missouri : with all those who, through fraud or fear, deceived, deluded or overawed, have been brdught to join them. That party we have not expected, we have not sought, to please after their fashion ; for if we had, it would have been equally a betrayal of our pledges and our trust. For them we have but one desire : that they may see the criminal and suicidal error of their course ; that they may lay down their arms, and return to their just allegiance. Until they do that, their "irritation" will no doubt continue. Was it on their behalf that the gentleman spoke ?

But, sir, the gentleman complained that this Convention has given up the consideration of the Federal relations of Missouri. Did we not in March last act upon that subject ? Had we not then the privilege of that gentleman's aid, and his luminous exposition of these relations, their just principles, and their philosophy as well.? Did we not then solemnly declare, and the gentleman with us, that those relations should not be disturbed ; that there was no cause for the "secession" of Missouri ? Did we not once and forever dispose of that question - and does the gentleman desire to repeal that action or to change his ground ?

Having thus considered the Federal relations of the State, and declared that they should remain inviolate, we did proceed "to vindicate its sovereignty and protect its institutions" against its own faithless public servants. We did not hesitate, in the language of the Chairman of the Committee of Eight, (Judge Gamblej in July last, to "brush away everything" that sought to interfere with those relations,

But the gentleman hastened to the real purpose of his attack - his diatribe on Martial Law. He announced a great principle - that liberty could not exist save under the supreme dominion of law. Sir, we agree in that great truth. We desire nothing better than its application. We have contended for nothing else - we needed nothing else. But the gentleman and those who sympathize with him are careful to forget who it was that trampled on all law and Constitutions in Missouri. They have no complaint of the Governor and his band of conspirators in office, who, with rebellious hands, have struck down both Law and Liberty. And we, forsooth, were and are to sit with folded hands and suffer this sacrilege. I know, sir, that it was argued with all the ability and all the plausibility of the speaker, that a man might contend with all his might against the Government, without being disloyal to the Constitution. "God forbid," cried he, "that I should join the army of Jackson." Sir, I can almost imagine an echo of that adjuration softly wafted back from the confines of Arkansas : " God forbid that you should join our army - stay and help us where you are !"

Now, sir, what about this Martial Law - the chief count in the indictment against the majority of this body1? Is it not an honorable and ingenuous charge ? What member of the majority had anything to do with the establishment of Martial Law in Missouri ? Which one of us proposed, or asked, or desired it ? Which one stirred up those atrocious acts of rebellion that brought it about? Is it to be doubted what was the purpose of that bitter harangue, when the action of a military officer of the United States, wholly independent of this Convention, and without consulting one of its members, is paraded as one of the means by which our measures have "irritated" the people"? Was it meant to rebuke us - or only to inflame the people against that Government ? So far as the majority of this Convention is concerned, the remarks of the gentleman do not touch them, whatever else these remarks may do.

But I do not propose, sir, to evade the question thus raised. I am quite willing to discuss the gentleman's views on martial law as it exists among us. Whom does it in fact affect ? Against whom was it promulgated? Has it displaced or closed our Courts, in the transaction of their regular business ? Has it laid its stern grasp upon the ordinary business of the community, or interfered with the detection and punishment of crime? The gentleman knows that it has not. It, and it alone, has enabled these things to go on in our own city. And outside of this judicial circuit, if it has disturbed a single Judge, it has been those who have descended from the bench and deserted their own trust to take up arms against the Government they are sworn to support.

But against whom and upon whom does this Martial Law operate ? The gentleman himself, referring to those who have been confined as prisoners at the Arsenal, said that some of them were undoubted traitors. I apprehend it is not on their behalf - those whose treason the gentleman himself expressly asserts, that his complaint is made. He speaks of innocent men who have been unjnstly arrested and confined. It may be true, sir - I know not - that there have been mistakes made, and men may have been arrested as disloyal who were not so. If it be so, I regret it deeply - every loyal man regrets it. But this proves what ? That with the administration of martial law, as with that of civil and criminal law, there are evils and hardships inevitable under any human agency. The men whose cases the gentleman mentioned, it seems, have been released. He says that unjust accusations have been made against the Provost Martial himself to his superior. Why, sir, our criminal code provides that a prisoner, charged with crime and confined in jail, who is not arraigned for trial during two terms of the Criminal Court, shall be discharged. This is simply a confession by the law-makers that innocent men may be arrested on false and malicious testimony, whom even a writ of habeas corpus cannot release, but whom the prosecutor will not or dare not pursue ; and when such a case happens, what practical remedy has the sufferer for his annoyance, his imprisonment, the injury done him ? He may have absolutely none. We regret it, but it cannot be helped. And has the gentleman himself, in his large experience of civil actions for damages, never heard of actions brought by private malice or private cupidity, by which the unfortunate defendant was put to great expense, was forced to employ eminent counsel, to procure testimony at great cost and trouble, and perhaps to be mortified at the public discussion of his fair fame, even though he succeed in repelling the attack? And though in such a case the villainy of his opponent were exposed with disgrace, would that compensate him for the vexation and the loss? But is this an argument against civil law and trial by jury? Unless it be charged, which it was not, nor I imagine can be, that the purpose of the officer administering martial law is to vex and oppress the loyal citizens, these things are but the lamentable incidents of that for which, not the Government, but its enemies themselves are responsible. I remember, sir, an incident related to me last summer by the Commandant of the Military District, comprising the Missouri river. He found it necessary at one time to seize all boats and barges along the river to prevent the insurgent forces from crossing. To one man, no small part of whose little property was in his barge, he said : " I must take your boat and sink it, for the necessity of the Government requires it." "Take it," said the owner ; " I only wish I had a hundred to give up for the Union !" That is the spirit in which some men meet these necessities. There is another spirit, which dwells upon and exaggerates every necessity, every hardship, every mistake, even though it be repaire'd as soon as it is ascertained.

I know the answer to all this : That martial law strikes at the principles of individual liberty, because it suspends the habeas corpus act. But, sir, are there no periods when the public safety is of higher importance than even the liberty, for a time, of any individual? Why, the Constitution of the United States itself anticipates such a necessity - for it provides that the privilege of the habeas corpus may be suspended in case of insurrection or invasion. The gentleman says of that privilege - " It is the dearest right that belongs to a freeman, unless it is that other right, to think and speak whatever he pleases. Lincoln does not indorse the emancipation of Snead's slaves, but he does indorse a defiance of the Judiciary, by abolishing the writ of habeas corpus." And yet, the Chief Justice of the United States, the same man who recently gave an opinion in the Merryman case, did on the bench decide in the so-called "Rhode Island case/' as that court had decided . in other cases, that under the power vested in him (by the act of 1795), to call out and employ the militia to suppress insurrections, the President is the sole and exclusive judge of the necessity for its exercise and the mode of its employment; and that for the judiciary to interfere in such cases, even by the writ of habeas corpus, to release those who were arrested by the authority of the President, as hostile to the

Government, would make that judiciary " a guarantee of anarchy and not of order." So that judiciary itself has declared, when the public mind was not excited as now ; and that is its true position.

But this is no new question in the history of our Government. Allusion has already been made by others to the case of Gen. Jackson, who declared and enforced martial law at New Orleans in 1815. He was afterwards fined by Judge Hall for contempt of Court in refusing to obey a writ of habeas corpus. He chose to pay the fine, and protected the Judge himself, who imposed it, from the excited people who justified his own course. But nearly thirty years later, in the midst of another generation, in a time of profound peace, a bill was passed in Congress to refund him the amount of that fine with interest : and it was entitled " A bill to indemnify Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson for damages sustained by him in the discharge oj his official duty." That bill was debated in the Senate of the United States in January, 1843, by such men as Linn of Missouri, who reported it, and Buchanan, and Berrien, and others. The whole question of martial law was discussed ; and the friends of the bill refused to permit its passage except with that title. They would not accept a bill " for his relief - they said he was rich enough ; nor " in consideration of his services" - which they said had already been rewarded. They wanted the Senate to declare that he had done right. They would have that or nothing. The Senate of the United States did so declare by its vote, and among those who voted for the bill on its passage was that strictest of all strict constructionists of the Constitution - John C. Calhoun. Thus, sir, the Senate of the United States, upon full debate, thirty years having intervened, deliberately sanctioned the declaring of martial law by a military officer, on the ground of high public necessity. And, as was remarked by Senator Linn of Missouri, in that debate - " the course of General Jackson was approved by President Madison at the time." Now, sir, the gentleman himself has told us who and what Madison was. He said - and I agree with him - "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 yet this patriot framer of the Constitution approved the declaration and enforcement of martial law at New Orleans.

But the gentleman alleged that there is an 1 almost aniversal " conviction over this whole | land, that the Administration is at war with ! the principles of civil liberty !" Sir, the as- I sertion is astounding ! What evidence is there of such a " conviction ?" Is it in the unprece- | dented unanimity with which all loyal men, I forgetting past party ties, have flocked to its I support ? Is it in the hearty concord of Dem- ! ocrats and Republicans alike, in Congress and - out of it ? - in the fusion of all parties in New 1 York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, into a great | Union party, pledged to the war for the sup- ! port^of the Government? - in such exhorta- ! tions as that of Dickinson, the Nestor of the ! New York Democracy, a supporter of Breck- 1 inridge in 1860, when he declared that if the ! President had not acted as he has, he would I have deserved impeachment? Sir, no Administration in our history ever received such a support from the people - not even in the war of the Revolution.

"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." And again :

" ' Encroachments must be resisted at every step.' ' Oh, no !' say the patriots of the present time, ' When the Fathers said so they were mistaken. A temporary supineness is just now upon the Constitution, but by-and-by AVC 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. * * * Martial law makes a Dictator. Are you willing to live under a Dictator? If you are,* I am not. ***** - - *

" 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 !' 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."

Truly, " these are brave words." It is impossible not to pardon something, as Burke said of the New England people, to the spirit of liberty, or to the loyal allegiance which the gentleman professes to hold, in these evil times, to " the principles O/THE FATHERS. So, too, the gentleman told us about the proposition to make Patrick Henry Dictator when he was already Governor of Virginia; and about that "republican dagger" which "his friend Corbin" was going to plant in his heart. It haphappens that it was not Corbin, but Gary, whom the gentleman meant; and the "republican dagger" is a bit of rhetoric which history does not put into his mouth. But I prefer, Mr. President, to look into the practice, or at least the acts and doings, of " the Fathers ;" and the gentleman must read the history of his country - or relate it - a little more accurately, if I am to follow him. What did the Fathers of the Revolution think about martial law in times of civil war - about the habeas corpus - about a military Dictator? What did they think about the "weakness" which such remedies bring, according to this, their faithful student and follower ? I beg to read a dry statement of facts, from the first volume of Curtis' History of the Constitution of the United States, at page 99 :

" Washington felt that the time had come, when to his single hands must be given all the military authority and power which the Continental Union of America held in trust for the liberties of the country. On the 20th of December, therefore, he wrote to the President of Congress a memorable letter asking for extraordinary powers, but displaying at the same time all the modesty and high principle of his character.

" To this appeal Congress at once responded in a manner suited to the exigency. On the 27th of December, 1776, they passed a resolution vesting in Gen. Washington ample and complete power to raise and collect together in the most speedy and effectual manner, from all or any of the United States, sixteen battalions of infantry in addition to those already voted; * * * to take, wherever he might be, whatever he might want for the use of the army, if the inhabitants would not sell it, allowing a reasonable price for the same ; to arrest and conjlne persons who should refuse to receive the Continental currency, or were otherwise disaffected to the American cause; and to return to the States of which such persons were citizens their names and the nature of their offences, together with the witnesses to prove them. These powers were vested in the Commanderin-Chief for the space of six months from the date of the resolve, unless sooner revoked by Congress."

Thus you find, notwithstanding all the talk about "the Fathers," and Patrick Henry, and so-forth, that the naked historical truth is precisely the reverse of all that the gentleman would have you infer. It is true that the project to make Henry a Dictator failed. That was broached in the Virginia House of Delegates in the month of November, 1776 : and only one month later, in December, 1776, George Washington asked the Continental Congress for Dictatorial powers - and they granted them instantly. Yes, in less than six months from the date of the Declaration of Independence, which "thundered" - says the gentleman - "against Martial Law !" Kemember, too, that that Congress acted under no Constitution like ours, expressly providing for such a necessity. That Congress was a mere Revolutionary Committee, made up of Delegates, acting under diverse and often meagre instructions - long before even the Articles of Confederation were adopted. Yet they gave George Washington, by a simple resolution, the powers of a Military Dictator, and at Washington's own request ! On what principle was this done ? Let the historian answer :

" The powers thus conferred upon General Washington were those of a military dictator : and in conferring them, the Congress acted upon the maxim that the public safety is the supreme law."

Salus populi suprema lex ESTO ! Not a mere barren maxim, but a mandate to her servants. "LET the public safety be the supreme law ! Well might the Governor, in his communication to this body, the highest embodiment of the sovereignty of the State, point to that mandate as our guide. But we can imagine, sir, the patriotic, the liberty-loving stand the eloquent gentleman would have taken if he had been in that Congress of 1776 ! How he would have thundered against martial law!" How he would have denounced dictators - even though the Dictator were a Washington ! Ah, sir, it is a pity, is it not, that the gentleman was not himself " one of the Fathers ?"

But enough of martial law. No man pretends that it is or ought to be other than exceptional - utterly exceptional in its applicacation. Nothing but an over-ruling necessity can justify it - nothing less than the preservation of the Government or its authority. You can give no rule for its fitness or necessity ; and the President who orders or permits it to be proclaimed, does it at his own peril, and upon his own ultimate responsibility before the people. When that necessity has passed away, he must account for its exercise. That was the theory of Washington, who said in his reply to the letter from Congress transmitting that resolution :

" Instead of thinking myself freed from all civil obligations by this mark of their confidence, I shall constantly bear in mind that as the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties are firmly established."

Such, sir, were the views which the Father of his Country entertained about martial law ; the views of a wise, and bold, and practical statesman - and one who is supposed to have loved liberty, and known its principles, quite as well as any theorizing rhetorician of our times.

There was another count in the gentleman's indictment - on the subject of slavery, and emancipation. Was it fairly and candidly put ? Was it not full of lurking suspicion, and mischievous suggestion, even while it disclaimed any intention to be unjust ? I quote his words : " The gentleman from Clinton has declared that this war is not waged for the emancipation of the slave. I do not do the Administration injustice, if I know it. I trust there is no latent purpose to carry on this war, having as a direct end, or as an incidental result, the emancipation of the slave ; but if the Administration are clear of that crime, there are multitudes of men who have a controlling power over the Administration who are for it. I was glad to see the reply of the President to the proclamation of Fremont ; but what are the terms of that reply ? Is there any intimation that the proclamation was inconsistent with the liberties of the country ? Not at all. He declares that he supposes that Fremont, being upon the ground, can better judge of the affairs than he can at Washington ; but that it would be better, in reference to this proclamation, to conform to the act of Congress on the subject of confiscation. That is all. There is no direct rebuke of this military satrap, who, without the authority of the Federal Government, comes to our shores, and proclaims that he has the power to emancipate slaves."

Now, if the gentleman believes that those who control the Administration are for general emancipation, how was it, as he asserted five minutes after, that one man in Kentucky, Joseph Holt, had by his letter to the President caused a change in the policy initiated by Fremont ? And why does he carp at the phraseology of the President's letter to Fremont, when he knows, or ought to know, that Holt's letter to the President (to which that was in fact a reply, and was sent to Holt by the President as such) expressly put the complaint of Kentucky Union men on the ground that Fremont had gone beyond the law of Congress ! Holt said nothing about " the liberties of the country." He said all loyal citizens approved the act 01 Congress confiscating the property of rebels used by them in the war. But he complained that Fremont's policy would injure loyal men in Kentucky by setting free among them the slaves of rebels, which was more than the law intended. The President's letter was a direct reply, in fact, to this, and was all the reply that it needed. I am sorry to be obliged to notice these details - but if the gentleman don't choose to be accurate, I must. The fact is, if the gentleman had been permitted to dictate every word of the President's letter himself, he would still have found fault with the punctuation.

Again - he asserted that those who have a controlling power over the Administration are for making this war one of emancipation ! Did he not know that within ten days past that very proposition was embodied in a resolution offered in the Republican State Convention of Massachusetts, held at Worcester ; that Charles Sumner was there to urge it, and did make a speech in its favor ; and that that Convention refused to consider the resolution! This in Ma»arhusetts, the home of "abolitionism!" Did he not know that the Republican press of that State has strongly sustained that action of the Convention as just and wise - has condemned and denounced Sumner for the attempt - lailure as it was - and has declared (I refer to such leading Republican organs as the Boston Advertiser, the Boston Journal, and the Springfield Journal) that this war for the support of the Government, and of the full constitutional rights of all the loyal slave States - and not for emancipation. AVhy, sir, all these facts and these sentiments were republished in this city, in the Missouri Republican, not three days ago - and yet the gentleman in his fair and honorable assault on the Administration and those who control it, as he says, never alluded to them.

But in his vindictive assault upon the Government, the gentleman broached a theory of constitutional law which was only less monstrous than absurd. I quote his words again :

"The measures of this Convention - the institution of the Home Guards, the illegal assembling of a body that had no right to assemble at all - are bad enough in themselves ; but I beg you to remember that there is no more constitutional power in the Executive of the United States to redress a wrong committed by one citizen of the State of Missouri upon another than belongs to the Emperor Napoleon or the Czar of Russia. It would be just as right for the gens d'armes of Napoleon to come here and redress wrongs as for the Federal soldiers to do so. Why is this ? Because Missouri regulates her own affairs. In the language of the report of the Committee made at Jefferson City, she manages her police and internal affairs in her own way. When the President of the United States declares that the driving off of a Union man by Secessionists is an outrage and takes the remedy into his own hands - I deny his right to do so. Protection is in the State Judiciary, and not in the military arm. The remedy is by indictment, and by civil action. The framers of the Constitution acted upon such a principle, and the General Government has no right to interfere and organize a legal tribunal. Who could not foresee that the moment the attempt at unauthorized interference was made it would bring on civil war among us ?"