and if you have got any allies, it is manifest they must be
outside of Christendom, because Mr. Buchanan says all Christendom
is against you; but still he leaves you some allies, and you will
see--it is as plain as demonstration can make it--that your allies
are not included in Christendom. Where are the allies? I will read
the next sentence:
"'They have no other allies to sustain their constitutional rights
except the Democracy of the North.'
"There is a fight for you: all Christendom on one side, and the
Democracy of the North on the other. That is not my version; it is
Mr. Buchanan's. That is the way he backs his friends; for he went
on, after having made this avowal, to claim peculiar consideration
from southern gentlemen, and intimated that he might speak a
little more freely, having previously indorsed them so highly as
this. Well, sir, when all Christendom was on one side, and the
Democracy of the North on the other, and the Democracy of the
North growing less and less every day--a small minority in the New
England States--how could the senator from Illinois be so unkind,
or how could he doubt, if on this vital question he deserted the
Democracy and went over to Christendom, as to how the question
would be answered whether he was to be read out of the party? Read
out, sir. That question was settled long ago. On this great vital
question he is out of the party.
"I would not say anything unkind to that senator, nor would I say
anything uncourteous in the world; but my experience in the
country life of New England does present to my mind an
illustration which I know he will excuse me if I give it. A
neighbor of mine had a very valuable horse. The horse was taken
sick, and he tried all the ways in the world to cure him, but it
was of no avail. The horse grew worse daily. At last, one of his
neighbors said: 'What are you going to do with the horse?' 'I do
not know,' was the reply; 'but I think I shall have to kill him.'
'Well,' said the other, 'he does not want much killing.' You see,
in ordinary times, and on ordinary questions, a little wavering
might be indulged; but when it is on one question, and a great
vital question, and all Christendom is on the one side, and the
northern Democracy on the other, to go over from the ranks of the
Democracy to swell the swollen ranks of Christendom, and then ask
if he is to be read out!
"This omission to submit the constitution to the people of Kansas
is not accidental. I am sorry to find, as I have found out this
session, that the omission to put it in the original bill was not
accidental. We have a little light on this subject from a
gentleman who always sheds light when he speaks to the Senate--I
mean the honorable senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Bigler]. He says
that this was not accidental, by any means. He has spoken once or
twice about a meeting that was held in the private parlor of a
private gentleman. There was a good deal of inquiry and anxiety to
know what sort of a meeting that was. The gentleman who owns the
house said he did not know anything about it. That is not strange.
The hospitable man let his guests have the use of any room they
chose. The honorable senator from Pennsylvania said this meeting
was 'semi-official.' I do not know what kind of a meeting that
was. I have heard of a semi-barbarous, a semi-civilized, and a
semi-savage people; I have heard of a semi-annual, and
semi-weekly; but when you come to semi-official, I declare it
bothers me. What sort of a meeting was it? Was it an official
meeting? No. Was it an unofficial meeting? No. What was it?
Semi-official.
"I have never met anything analogous to it but once in my life,
and that I will mention by way of illustration. A trader in my
town, before the day of railroads, had taken a large bank bill,
and he was a little doubtful whether it was genuine or not. He
concluded to give it to the stage driver, and send it down to the
bank to inquire of the cashier whether it was a genuine bill. The
driver took it, and promised to attend to it. He went down the
first day, but he had so many other errands that he forgot it, and
he said he would certainly attend to it the next day. The next day
he forgot it, and the third day he forgot it; but he said,
'to-morrow I will do it, if I do nothing else; I will ascertain
whether the bill is genuine or not.' He went the fourth day, with
a like result; he forgot it; and when he came home, he saw the
nervous, anxious trader, wanting to know whether it was genuine or
not; and he was ashamed to tell him he had forgotten it, and he
thought he would lie it through. Said the trader to him, 'Did you
call at the bank?' 'Yes.' Did the cashier say it was a genuine
bill?' 'No, he did not.' 'Did he say it was a bad one?' 'No.'
'Well, what did he say?' 'He said it was about
middling--semi-genuine.' I have never learned to this day whether
that was a good or a bad bill. They used to say, in General
Jackson's time, that he had a kitchen cabinet as well as a regular
one. This could not be a meeting of the kitchen cabinet, because
it sat in a parlor. It was semi-official in its character also."
The speech closes with the following language in reference to the Dred
Scott decision of the Supreme Court:
"If the opinions of the Supreme Court are true, they put these men
in the worst position of any men who are to be found on the pages
of our history. If the opinion of the Supreme Court be true, it
makes the immortal authors of the Declaration of Independence
liars before God and hypocrites before the world; for they lay
down their sentiments broad, full, and explicit, and then they say
that they appeal to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the
rectitude of their intentions; but, if you believe the Supreme
Court, they were merely quibbling on words. They went into the
courts of the Most High, and pledged fidelity to their principles
as the price they would pay for success; and now it is attempted
to cheat them out of the poor boon of integrity; and it is said
that they did not mean so; and that when they said all men, they
meant all white men; and when they said that the contest they
waged was for the right of mankind, the Supreme Court of the
United States would have you believe that they meant it was to
establish slavery. Against that I protest, here, now, and
everywhere; and I tell the Supreme Court that these things are so
impregnably fixed in the hearts of the people, on the page of
history, in the recollections and traditions of men, that it will
require mightier efforts than they have made or can make to
overturn or to shake these settled convictions of the popular
understanding and of the popular heart.
"Sir, you are now proposing to carry out this Dred Scott decision
by forcing upon the people of Kansas a constitution against which
they have remonstrated, and to which, there can be no shadow of
doubt, a very large portion of them are opposed. Will it succeed?
I do not know; it is not for me to say, but I will say this, if
you force that, if you persevere in that attempt, I think, I hope
the men of Kansas will fight. I hope they will resist to blood and
to death the attempt to force them to a submission against which
their fathers contended, and to which they never would have
submitted. Let me tell you, sir, I stand not here to use the
language of intimidation or of menace; but you kindle the fires of
civil war in that country by an attempt to force that constitution
on the necks of an unwilling people; and you will light a fire
that all Democracy cannot quench. Aye, sir, there will come up
many another Peter the Hermit, that will go through the length and
the breadth of this land, telling the story of your wrongs and
your outrages; and they will stir the public heart; they will
raise a feeling in this country such as has never yet been raised;
and the men of this country will go forth, as they did of olden
time, in another crusade; but it will not be a crusade to redeem
the dead sepulchre where the body of the Crucified had lain from
the profanation of the infidel, but to redeem this fair land,
which God has given to be the abode of freemen, from the
desecration of a despotism sought to be imposed upon them in the
name of 'perfect freedom' and 'popular sovereignty!'"
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.
Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, has for years been a leading character in
the politics of the country, and has been reckoned by all who know
him, or of his acts in Congress, as one of the first men which the
South has sent into public life. He is a native of Georgia, where he
was born in the year 1812. His grandfather, the Hon. Alexander
Stephens, was an Englishman and Jacobite, and came to this country
about the year 1746. He joined the American Colonial army--was present
at Braddock's defeat, and took a very active part in the Revolutionary
War, and settled down, after it was over, in Pennsylvania. In 1795, he
emigrated to Georgia, and finally settled down on the place now
occupied by his grandson--the subject of this sketch--in Taliaferro
County. He died on this place, in 1813, at the age of ninety-three.
The year before, young Alexander was born, his mother dying while he
was an infant. His father was comparatively poor, but was industrious
and virtuous, so that he maintained a high reputation in the town of
his birth. He died when Alexander was only fourteen years of age,
leaving each of his children a trifle over four hundred dollars as
their portion. Alexander was sickly and emaciated, and little was
hoped of him. He had attended a common school in the neighborhood, and
his uncle kept him still in attendance upon it. Of course this school
was a very inferior one, not at all equal to one of the common schools
of New England. But the boy learned enough there to excite his
ambition, and he made known his desire to gain a classical education.
He was without sufficient funds, but generous friends immediately came
forward and furnished him with all the money he needed, which he would
only accept as a loan. He now went to his studies alone, and in less
than a year, without a teacher, fitted himself for a freshman class,
and entered the Georgia University. After the usual four years'
course, he graduated with unusually high honors. Having been an
invalid since his birth, the severe application of his college course
left him in a state of great prostration, and he was obliged to leave
his studies and travel for his health. In May, 1834, he commenced the
study of the law, and he was soon admitted to the bar. His first
"case" was an action against a landlord for a stolen trunk--the trunk
being his own. He gained his case and trunk easily. The next was a
very important one. "A wealthy man was guardian of his grandchild, its
mother having married to a second husband. In course of time, the
mother desired possession of the child, which was resisted by the
grandfather, who claimed it as legal guardian. The step-father,
desiring to please his wife, came to young Stephens and engaged him as
counsel to set aside the guardianship, older lawyers declining on the
score of the hopelessness of the case, and perhaps a fear to encounter
the learned array of counsel engaged on the opposite side. The trial
came off before five judges, no jury being called. Owing to the
respectability of the parties, and the novel scene of a sickly boy,
without any legal practical experience, opposed to the most veteran
lawyers at the bar, the case attracted unusual attention. The result
was, that the guardianship was set aside, and the child was restored
to the possession of its mother, and young Stephens at once took a
prominent place at the bar, from that time, being engaged on one side
or the other of every important case that was tried in the county."
Mr. Stephens' success was now so marked that he was sought after to
remove to some prominent city, but he refused, preferring to remain
with his old friends, and he was in a few years able, out of his
earnings, to purchase his grandfather's estate, and settled upon it.
The subjoined political sketch of Mr. Stephens is by one of his
personal friends--Mr. Thorpe--and is in the main correct:
"In 1836, against his wishes, Mr. Stephens was run by his friends for
the legislature. On the Wednesday before the election he made his
first stump-speech--this was followed by another on Saturday, and
still another at the polls on election day. He was triumphantly
returned against a bitter opposition. He signalized his appearance as
a legislator in defence of the bill which proposed 'that Georgia
should launch out in certain internal improvements,' and in spite of
the formidable opposition, his speech probably saved the bill, and
thus inaugurated the commencement of the present prosperity of the
'Empire State of the South.' In the six years which he remained in the
legislature he took a most prominent part in all important matters,
particularly the one which proposed a change in the Constitution. The
instrument at the time in force said that it should only be amended by
a bill passed by two-thirds of each branch of the legislature at two
consecutive sessions.
"The difficulty seemed insurmountable, if opposition to a change
existed in either branch of the legislature, and the opponents of the
bill appeared to be impregnable. Stephens took the ground that when
the constitution is silent upon the mode of its amendment, then the
legislature can call a convention; that when a constitution points out
a particular mode in which it may be amended, without excluding other
modes, then the legislature may adopt some other mode than that
pointed out; but when a constitution provides a mode for its
amendment, and prohibits all other modes, then that mode only can be
taken which is provided for. Jenkins, Crawford, Howard, and others,
took the opposite side, opposed the bill, and voted for a convention;
the universal opinion was that the convention could be called, and the
convention was called by an overwhelming majority, which passed the
proper amendments, but they were never ratified by the people.
"As a member of the legislature, he opposed the organization of the
Court of Errors, believing that the judiciary as established was the
best in the world, and that the change would only multiply
difficulties, without gaining any additional certainty to the
administration of the law; the bill was not passed while Mr. Stephens
was in the legislature.
"In 1842, he went to the State Senate, opposed the Central Bank, and
took an active part in the questions of internal improvements and
districting the State, which then divided parties.
"In 1843, he was nominated for Congress, on a general ticket, and
commenced the canvass with a majority of two thousand votes against
him, and came out of the contest with thirty-five hundred majority;
and as he discussed on the stump matters entirely relating to local
interests, his eloquence and power undoubtedly carried the State. His
entry into Congress was signalized by extraordinary circumstances; his
right to a seat was denied. Stephens, in the discussion that ensued,
made a speech in favor of the power of Congress to district the
States, though he was elected in defiance of the law on a general
ticket, and then left the House to decide upon his claims. He was
permitted to take his seat.
"Up to this time Mr. Stephens was a prominent Whig, having been bred
in that school of States' rights men of the South who sustained
Harrison in 1840; but upon the question of the annexation of Texas
coming up, he favored that bill, and for the first time affiliated
with the Democracy. In the contest between Taylor and Cass, he
supported Taylor. On the compromises of 1850, he was willing to
support any measure that did away with Congressional restriction,
leaving the territories to come into the Union with or without
slavery. In the Mexican war, he stood beside Mr. Calhoun, and held
that the troops should not be advanced; but after the war commenced,
he sustained it with vigor.
"The guaranty that four slave States should be carved out of the
territory of Texas was secured mainly by Mr. Stephens' untiring labor
and foresight. In 1854, he advocated the Kansas bill, which declared
null and void the Missouri restriction, for the purpose of carrying
out the principle of 1850, advanced in the Utah and New Mexican bills.
The year 1855 was the most interesting and critical period of his
life, which he spent fighting the Know Nothing organization, in the
commencement of which he found all his early friends and associates
for the first time opposed to him. In the month of May, of this year,
he wrote his celebrated letter against the order, addressed to Col.
Thos. W. Thomas. The effect of it was overwhelming, not only in his
own State, but in Virginia and the adjoining States. His position was
sustained, and commencing with three thousand majority against him in
his own district, he came out of the contest with nearly three
thousand majority.
"When Mr. Stephens rises to speak there is a sort of electric
communication among the audience, as if something was about to be
uttered that was worth listening to. The loungers take their seats,
and the talkers become silent, thus paying an involuntary compliment
to Mr. Stephens' talents and high claims as a gentleman. At first his
voice is scarcely distinguishable, but in a few moments you are
surprised at its volume, and you are soon convinced that his lungs are
in perfect order, and as his ideas flow, you are not surprised at the
rapt attention he commands. His style of speaking is singularly
polished, but he conceals his art, and appears, to the superficial
observer, to be eloquent by inspiration. The leading characteristic of
his mind is great practical good sense, for his arguments are always
of the most solid and logical kind; hence his permanent influence as a
statesman, while his bright scintillations of wit, and profuse
adornment, secure him a constant popularity as an orator. Possessed of
a mind too great to be restrained by mere partisan influence, he has
therefore the widest possible field of action, at one time heading a
forlorn hope and leading it to victory, at another, giving grace and
character to a triumphant majority. Common as it is to impugn the
motives of many of our public servants, and charge them directly with
corruption, Mr. Stephens has escaped without even the taint of
suspicion, an inflexible honesty of purpose on his part, as a
governing principle, is awarded to him by his veriest political foe."
Mr. Stephens' position in Georgia, in reference to calling a
convention to frame a new constitution, is not very distinctly stated
by Mr. Thorpe. A bill was introduced into the legislature providing
for the calling of a convention to remodel the State constitution. Mr.
Stephens opposed the bill because the constitution, as it then stood,
provided that _only_ by a two-thirds vote of both branches of the
legislature, at two consecutive sessions, could any amendment be put
upon the constitution. Mr. Stephens argued that, under these
circumstances, it would be revolutionary to pass the bill calling a
convention. But the bill passed--and a convention submitted various
amendments to the people, all of which were repealed. Since then Mr.
Stephens' views have been generally adopted by the people of Georgia,
for the constitution has been amended in the mode pointed out in that
document itself. Since then, too, Mr. Stephens' position has been
sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dorr case.
We have noticed the fact that Mr. Stephens, when young and poor, was
furnished with the means to procure an excellent classical and legal
education. He repaid this money to the parties who so generously aided
him when help was of so much importance to his welfare. Not only this:
since he has himself been so successful, Mr. Stephens has been
constantly engaged in helping poor young men to an education. He has
carried _upward of thirty_ young men through a collegiate or academic
course within the last fifteen or twenty years, and has, in this way,
repaid the generosity of his friends to him. This single incident will
show what his character is for generosity.
Mr. Stephens is one of the most effective public speakers in the
country, whether it be in the court-room, the legislative hall, or
before the people. During the last Congress he was the leader of the
Democracy in the House of Representatives, and by his management
secured the admission of Oregon into the Union. Perhaps the finest
speech he ever made in Congress was the closing one in the Oregon
debate. We subjoin a few quotations.
One in reference to the anti-negro clause of the Oregon constitution:
"And those who profess to be the exclusive friends of negroes, as
they now do, so far as that constitution was concerned, voted to
banish them forever from the State, just as Oregon has done.
Whether this banishment be right or wrong, it is no worse in
Oregon than it was in Kansas. But, on the score of humanity, we of
the South do not believe that those who, in Kansas or Oregon,
banish this race from their limits, are better friends of the
negro than we are, who assign them that place among us to which by
nature they are fitted, and in which they add so much more to
their own happiness and comfort, besides to the common well-being
of all. We give them a reception. We give them shelter. We clothe
them. We feed them. We provide for their every want, in health and
in sickness, in infancy and old age. We teach them to work. We
educate them in the arts of civilization and the virtues of
Christianity, much more effectually and successfully than you can
ever do on the coasts of Africa. And, without any cost to the
public, we render them useful to themselves and to the world. The
first lesson in civilization and Christianity to be taught to the
barbarous tribes, wherever to be found, is the first great curse
against the human family--that in the sweat of their face they
shall eat their bread. Under our system, our tuition, our
guardianship and fostering care, these people, exciting so much
misplaced philanthropy, have attained a higher degree of
civilization than their race has attained anywhere else upon the
face of the earth. The Topeka people excluded them; they, like the
neighbors we read of, went round them; we, like the good
Samaritans, shun not their destitution or degradation--we
alleviate both. But let that go.
"Oregon has, in this matter, done no worse than the gentleman's
friends did in Kansas. _I think she acted unwisely in it_--that is
her business, not mine. But the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stanton]
questions me, how could a negro in Oregon ever get his freedom
under the constitution they have adopted? I tell him, under their
constitution a slave cannot exist there. The fundamental law is
against it. But, he asks, how could his freedom ever be
established, as no free person of color can sue in her courts?
Neither can they in Georgia; still our courts are open to this
class of people, who appear by _prochein ami_ or guardian. Nor is
there any great hardship in this; for married women cannot sue in
their own names anywhere where the common law prevails. Minors
also have to sue by guardian or next friend. We have suits
continually in our tribunals by persons claiming to be free
persons of color. They cannot sue in their own names, but by next
friend. They are not citizens; we do not recognize them as such;
but still the courts are open; and just so will they be in Oregon,
if the question is ever raised."
The closing portions of the speech give such a good idea of the style
of Mr. Stephens' oratorical powers, that we must quote them: