The World's Best Orations Part 24

For the love of G.o.d then, my lord, for the safety and welfare of our ancient kingdom, whose sad circ.u.mstances, I hope, we shall yet convert into prosperity and happiness, we want no means, if we unite. G.o.d blessed the peacemakers; we want neither men, nor sufficiency of all manner of things necessary, to make a nation happy; all depends upon management, _Concordia_ _res_ _parvae_ _cresc.u.n.t_. I fear not these articles, though they were ten times worse than they are, if we once cordially forgive one another, and that, according to our proverb, bygones be bygones, and fair play for time to come. For my part, in the sight of G.o.d, and in the presence of this honorable house, I heartily forgive every man, and beg that they may do the same to me; and I do most humbly propose that his grace, my lord commissioner, may appoint an Agape, may order a love feast for this honorable house, that we may lay aside all self-designs, and after our fasts and humiliations may have a day of rejoicing and thankfulness, may eat our meat with gladness, and our bread with a merry heart; then shall we sit each man under his own fig-tree, and the voice of the turtle shall be heard in our land, a bird famous for constancy and fidelity.

My lord, I shall make a pause here, and stop going on further in my discourse, till I see further, if his grace, my lord commissioner, receive any humble proposals for removing misunderstandings among us, and putting an end to our fatal divisions; upon honor, I have no other design, and I am content to beg the favor upon my bended knees. (No answer.) My lord chancellor, I am sorry that I must pursue the thread of my sad and melancholy story. What remains, I am afraid may prove as afflicting as what I have said; I shall therefore consider the motives which have engaged the two nations to enter upon a treaty of union at this time. In general, my lord, I think both of them had in their view to better themselves by the treaty; but before I enter upon the particular motives of each nation, I must inform this honorable house that since I can remember, the two nations have altered their sentiments upon that affair, even almost to downright contradiction--they have changed headbands, as we say; for the English, till of late, never thought it worth their pains of treating with us; the good bargain they made at the beginning they resolve to keep, and that which we call an incorporating union was not so much as in their thoughts. The first notice they seemed to take of us was in our affair of Caledonia, when they had most effectually broken off that design in a manner very well known to the world, and unnecessary to be repeated here; they kept themselves quiet during the time of our complaints upon that head. In which time our sovereign, to satisfy the nation, and allay their heats, did condescend to give us some good laws, and amongst others that of personal liberties; but they having declared their succession, and extended their entail, without ever taking notice of us, our gracious sovereign Queen Anne was graciously pleased to give the royal a.s.sent to our act of security, to that of peace and war after the decease of her Majesty, and the heirs of her body, and to give us a hedge to all our sacred and civil interests, by declaring it high treason to endeavor the alteration of them, as they were then established. Thereupon did follow the threatening and minatory laws against us by the Parliament of England, and the unjust and unequal character of what her Majesty had so graciously condescended to in our favors. Now, my lord, whether the desire they had to have us engaged in the same succession with them, or whether they found us like a free and independent people, breathing after more liberty than what formerly was looked after, or whether they were afraid of our act of security, in case of her Majesty's decease; which of all these motives has induced them to a treaty I leave it to themselves. This I must say only, they have made a good bargain this time also.

For the particular motives that induced us, I think they are obvious to be known, we found by sad experience, that every man hath advanced in power and riches, as they have done in trade, and at the same time considering that nowhere through the world slaves are found to be rich, though they should be adorned with chains of gold, we thereupon changed our notion of an incorporating union to that of a federal one; and being resolved to take this opportunity to make demands upon them, before we enter into the succession, we were content to empower her Majesty to authorize and appoint commissioners to treat with the commissioners of England, with as ample powers as the lords commissioners from England had from their const.i.tuents, that we might not appear to have less confidence in her Majesty, nor more narrow-heartedness in our act, than our neighbors of England. And thereupon last Parliament, after her Majesty's gracious letter was read, desiring us to declare the succession in the first place, and afterwards to appoint commissioners to treat, we found it necessary to renew our former resolve, which I shall read to this honorable house. The resolve presented by the Duke of Hamilton last session of Parliament:--

"That this Parliament will not proceed to the nomination of a successor till we have had a previous treaty with England, in relation to our commerce, and other concerns with that nation. And further, it is resolved that this Parliament will proceed to make such limitations and conditions of government, for the rectification of our const.i.tution, as may secure the liberty, religion, and independency of this kingdom, before they proceed to the said nomination."

Now, my lord, the last session of Parliament having, before they would enter into any treaty with England, by a vote of the house, pa.s.sed both an act for limitations and an act for rectification of our const.i.tution, what mortal man has reason to doubt the design of this treaty was only federal?

My lord chancellor, it remains now, that we consider the behavior of the lords commissioners at the opening of this treaty. And before I enter upon that, allow me to make this meditation, that if our posterity, after we are all dead and gone, shall find themselves under an ill-made bargain, and shall have recourse unto our records, and see who have been the managers of that treaty, by which they have suffered so much; when they read the names, they will certainly conclude, and say, Ah! our nation has been reduced to the last extremity, at the time of this treaty; all our great chieftains, all our great peers and considerable men, who used formerly to defend the rights and liberties of the nation, have been all killed and dead in the bed of honor, before ever the nation was necessitated to condescend to such mean and contemptible terms. Where are the names of the chief men, of the n.o.ble families of Stuarts, Hamiltons, Grahams, Campbels, Gordons, Johnstons, Humes, Murrays, Kers? Where are the two great officers of the crown, the constables and marshals of Scotland? They have certainly all been extinguished, and now we are slaves forever.

Whereas the English records will make their posterity reverence the memory of the honorable names who have brought under their fierce, warlike, and troublesome neighbors, who had struggled so long for independence, shed the best blood of their nation and reduced a considerable part of their country to become waste and desolate.

I am informed, my lord, that our commissioners did indeed frankly tell the lords commissioners for England that the inclinations of the people of Scotland were much altered of late, in relation to an incorporating union; and that, therefore, since the entail was to end with her Majesty's life (whom G.o.d long preserve), it was proper to begin the treaty upon the foot of the treaty of 1604, year of G.o.d, the time when we came first under one sovereign; but this the English commissioners would not agree to, and our commissioners, that they might not seem obstinate, were willing to treat and conclude in the terms laid before this honorable house and subjected to their determination. If the lords commissioners for England had been as civil and complaisant, they should certainly have finished a federal treaty likewise, that both nations might have the choice which of them to have gone into as they thought fit; but they would hear of nothing but an entire and complete union, a name which comprehends a union, either by incorporation, surrender, or conquest, whereas our commissioners thought of nothing but a fair, equal, incorporating union. Whether this be so or not I leave it to every man's judgment; but as for myself I must beg liberty to think it no such thing; for I take an incorporating union to be, where there is a change both in the material and formal points of government, as if two pieces of metal were melted down into one ma.s.s, it can neither be said to retain its former form or substance as it did before the mixture. But now, when I consider this treaty, as it hath been explained and spoke to before us this three weeks by past, I see the English const.i.tution remaining firm, the same two houses of Parliament, the same taxes, the same customs, the same excises, the same trading companies, the same munic.i.p.al laws and courts of judicature; and all ours either subject to regulations or annihilations, only we have the honor to pay their old debts and to have some few persons present for witnesses to the validity of the deed when they are pleased to contract more.

Good G.o.d! What, is this an entire surrender!

My lord, I find my heart so full of grief and indignation that I must beg pardon not to finish the last part of my discourse, that I may drop a tear as the prelude to so sad a story.

JOHN BELL (1797-1869)

John Bell, of Tennessee, who was a candidate with Edward Everett on the "Const.i.tutional Union" ticket of 1860, when Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee gave him their thirty-nine electoral votes in favor of a hopeless peace, will always seem one of the most respectable figures in the politics of a time when calmness and conservatism, such as characterized him and his coadjutor., Mr. Everett, of Ma.s.sachusetts, had ceased to be desired by men who wished immediate success in public life. He was one of the founders of the Whig party, and by demonstrating himself to be one of the very few men who could win against Andrew Jackson's opposition in Tennessee, he acquired, under Jackson and Van Buren, a great influence with the Whigs of the country at large. He was a member of Congress from Tennessee for fourteen years dating from 1827, when he won by a single vote against Felix Grundy, one of the strongest men in Tennessee and a special favorite with General Jackson. Disagreeing with Jackson on the removal of the deposits, Bell was elected Speaker of the House over Jackson's protege, James K. Polk, in 1834, and in 1841 he entered the Whig cabinet as Secretary of War under Harrison who had defeated another of Jackson's proteges, Van Buren. In 1847 and again in 1853, he was elected United States Senator from Tennessee and he did his best to prevent secession. He had opposed Calhoun's theories of the right of a State to nullify a Federal act if unconst.i.tutional, and in March 1858, in the debate over the Lecompton const.i.tution, he opposed Toombs in a speech which probably made him the candidate of the Const.i.tutional Unionists two years later. Another notable speech, of even more far-reaching importance, he had delivered in 1853 in favor of opening up the West by building the Pacific Railroad, a position in which he was supported by Jefferson Davis.

Mr. Bell was for the Union in 1861, denying the right of secession, but he opposed the coercion of the Southern States, and when the fighting actually began he sided with Tennessee, and took little or no part in public affairs thereafter. He died in 1869.

AGAINST EXTREMISTS NORTH AND SOUTH (From a Speech in the Senate, March 18th, 1858. on the Lecompton Const.i.tution)

The honorable Senator from Georgia, Mr. Toombs, announced some great truths to-day. He said that mankind made a long step, a great stride, when they declared that minorities should not rule; and that a still higher and n.o.bler advance had been made when it was decided that majorities could only rule through regular and legal forms. He a.s.serted this general doctrine with reference to the construction he proposed to give to the Lecompton const.i.tution; and to say that the people of Kansas, unless they spoke through regular forms, cannot speak at all. He will allow me to say, however, that the forms through which a majority speaks must be provided and established by competent authority, and his doctrine can have no application to the Lecompton const.i.tution, unless he can first show that the legislature of Kansas was vested with legal authority to provide for the formation of a State const.i.tution; for, until that can be shown, there could be no regular and legal forms through which the majority could speak. But how does that Senator reconcile his doctrine with that avowed by the President, as to the futility of attempting, by const.i.tutional provisions, to fetter the power of the people in changing their const.i.tution at pleasure? In no States of the Union so much as in some of the slaveholding States would such a doctrine as that be so apt to be abused by incendiary demagogues, disappointed and desperate politicians, in stirring up the people to a.s.semble voluntarily in convention--disregarding all the restrictions in their const.i.tution--and strike at the property of the slaveholder.

The honorable Senator from Kentucky inquired what, under this new doctrine, would prevent the majority of the people of the States of the Union from changing the present Federal Const.i.tution, and abrogating all existing guarantees for the protection of the small States, and any peculiar or particular interest confined to a minority of the States of the Union. The a.n.a.logy, I admit, is not complete between the Federal Const.i.tution and a const.i.tution of a State; but the promulgation of the general principle, that a majority of the people are fettered by no const.i.tutional restrictions in the exercise of their right to change their form of government, is dangerous. That is quite enough for the purposes of demagogues and incendiary agitators. When I read the special message of the President, I said to some friends that the message, taking it altogether, was replete with more dangerous heresies than any paper I had ever seen emanating, not from a President of the United States, but from any political club in the country, and calculated to do more injury. I consider it in effect, and in its tendencies, as organizing anarchy.

We are told that if we shall admit Kansas with the Lecompton const.i.tution, this whole difficulty will soon be settled by the people of Kansas. How? By disregarding the mode and forms prescribed by the const.i.tution for amending it? No. I am not sure that the President, after all the lofty generalities announced in his message, in regard to the inalienable rights of the people, intended to sanction the idea that all the provisions of the Lecompton const.i.tution in respect to the mode and form of amending it should be set aside. He says the legislature now elected may, at its first meeting, call a convention to amend the const.i.tution; and in another pa.s.sage of his message he says that this inalienable power of the majority must be exercised in a lawful manner. This is perplexing. Can there be any lawful enactment of the legislature in relation to the call of a convention, unless it be in conformity with the provisions of the const.i.tution? They require that two-thirds of the members of the legislature shall concur in pa.s.sing an act to take the sense of the people upon the call of a convention, and that the vote shall be taken at the next regular election, which cannot be held until two years afterwards. How can this difficulty be got over? The truth is, that unless all const.i.tutional impediments in respect to forms be set aside, and the people take it in hand to amend the const.i.tution on revolutionary principles, there can be no end of agitation on this subject in less than three years. I long since ventured the prediction that there would be no settlement of the difficulties in Kansas until the next presidential election. To continue the agitation is too important to the interests of both the great parties of the country to dispense with it, as long as any pretext can be found for prolonging it. In the closing debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, I told its supporters that they could do nothing more certain to disturb the composure of the two Senators who sat on the opposite side of the chamber, the one from Ma.s.sachusetts [Mr. Sumner] and the other from Ohio [Mr. Chase], than to reject that bill. Its pa.s.sage was the only thing in the range of possible events by which their political fortunes could be resuscitated, so completely had the Free-Soil movement at the North been paralyzed by the compromise measures of 1850. I say now to the advocates of this measure, if they want to strengthen the Republican party, and give the reins of government into their hands, pa.s.s this bill. If they desire to weaken the power of that party, and arrest the progress of slavery agitation, reject it. And if it is their policy to put an end to the agitation connected with Kansas affairs at the earliest day practicable, as they say it is, then let them remit this const.i.tution back to the people of Kansas, for their ratification or rejection. In that way the whole difficulty will be settled before the adjournment of the present session of Congress, without the violation of any sound principle, or the sacrifice of the rights of either section of the Union.

But the President informs us that threatening and ominous clouds impend over the country; and he fears that if Kansas is not admitted under the Lecompton const.i.tution, slavery agitation will be revived in a more dangerous form than it has ever yet a.s.sumed. There may be grounds for that opinion, for aught I know; but it seems to me that if any of the States of the South have taken any position on this question which endangers the peace of the country, they could not have been informed of the true condition of affairs in Kansas, and of the strong objections which may be urged on principle against the acceptance by Congress of the Lecompton const.i.tution. And I have such confidence in the intelligence of the people of the whole South, that when the history and character of this instrument shall be known, even those who would be glad to find some plausible pretext for dissolving the Union will see that its rejection by Congress would not furnish them with such a one as they could make available for their purposes.

When the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was under discussion, in 1854, in looking to all the consequences which might follow the adoption of that measure, I could not overlook the fact that a sentiment of hostility to the Union was widely diffused in certain States of the South; and that that sentiment was only prevented from a.s.suming an organized form of resistance to the authority of the Federal government, at least in one of the States, in 1851, by the earnest remonstrance of a sister State, that was supposed to sympathize with her in the project of establis.h.i.+ng a southern republic. Nor could I fail to remember that the project--I speak of the convention held in South Carolina, in pursuance of an act of the legislature--was then postponed, not dropped. The argument was successfully urged that an enterprise of such magnitude ought not to be entered upon without the co-operation of a greater number of States than they could then certainly count upon. It was urged that all the cotton-planting States would, before a great while, be prepared to unite in the movement, and that they, by the force of circ.u.mstances, would bring in all the slaveholding States. The ground was openly taken, that separation was an inevitable necessity. It was only a question of time. It was said that no new aggression was necessary on the part of the North to justify such a step. It was said that the operation of this government from its foundation had been adverse to southern interests; and that the admission of California as a free State, and the attempt to exclude the citizens of the South, with their property, from all the territory acquired from Mexico, was a sufficient justification for disunion. It was not a mere menace to deter the North from further aggressions. These circ.u.mstances made a deep impression on my mind at the time, and from a period long anterior to that I had known that it was a maxim with the most skillful tacticians among those who desire separation, that the slaveholding States must be united--consolidated into one party. That object once effected, disunion, it was supposed, would follow without difficulty.

I had my fears that the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was expected to consolidate the South, and to pave the way for the accomplishment of ulterior plans by some of the most active supporters of that measure from the South; and these fears I indicated in the closing debate on that subject. Some of the supporters of that measure, I fear, are reluctant now to abandon the chances of finding some pretext for agitating the subject of separation in the South in the existing complications of the Kansas embroilment.

To what extent the idea of disunion is entertained in some of the Southern States, and what importance is attached to the policy of uniting the whole South in one party as a preliminary step, may be inferred from a speech delivered before the Southern convention lately held in Knoxville, Tenn., by Mr. De Bow, the president of the convention, and the editor of a popular Southern review. I will only refer now to the fate to which the author resigns those who dare to break the ranks of that solid phalanx in which he thinks the South should be combined--that is, to be "held up to public scorn and public punishment as traitors and Tories, more steeped in guilt than those of the Revolution itself."

The honorable Senator from New York further announced to us in exultant tones, that "at last there was a North side of this Chamber, a North side of the Chamber of the House of Representatives, and a North side of the Union, as well as a South side of all these"; and he admonished us that the time was at hand when freedom would a.s.sert its influence in the regulation of the domestic and foreign policy of the country.

When was there a time in the history of the government that there was no North side of this Chamber and of the other? When was there a time that there was not a proud array of Northern men in both Chambers, distinguished by their genius and ability, devoted to the interests of the North, and successful in maintaining them?

Though it may be true that Southern men have filled the executive chair for much the larger portion of the time that has elapsed since the organization of the government, yet when, in what instance was it, that a Southerner has been elevated to that high station without the support of a majority of the freemen of the North?

Do you of the North complain that the policy of the government, under the long-continued influence of Southern Presidents, has been injurious or fatal to your interests? Has it paralyzed your industry?

Has it crippled your resources? Has it impaired your energies? Has it checked your progress in any one department of human effort? Let your powerful mercantile marine, your s.h.i.+ps whitening every sea--the fruit of wise commercial regulations and navigation laws; let your flouris.h.i.+ng agriculture, your astonis.h.i.+ng progress in manufacturing skill, your great ca.n.a.ls, your thousands of miles of railroads, your vast trade, internal and external, your proud cities, and your acc.u.mulated millions of moneyed capital, ready to be invested in profitable enterprises in any part of the world, answer that question.

Do you complain of a narrow and jealous policy under Southern rule, in extending and opening new fields of enterprise to your hardy sons in the great West, along the line of the great chain of American lakes, even to the head waters of the Father of Rivers, and over the rich and fertile plains stretching southward from the lake sh.o.r.es? Let the teeming populations--let the hundreds of millions of annual products that have succeeded to the but recent dreary and unproductive haunts of the red man--answer that question. That very preponderance of free States which the Senator from New York contemplates with such satisfaction, and which has moved him exultingly to exclaim that there is at last a North side of this Chamber, has been hastened by the liberal policy of Southern Presidents and Southern statesmen; and has it become the ambition of that Senator to unite and combine all this great, rich, and powerful North in the policy of crippling the resources and repressing the power of the South? Is this to be the one idea which is to mold the policy of the government, when that gentleman and his friends shall control it? If it be, then I appeal to the better feelings and the better judgment of his followers to arrest him in his mad career. Sir, let us have some brief interval of repose at least from this eternal agitation of the slavery question.

Let power go into whatever hands it may, let us save the Union!

I have all the confidence other gentlemen can have in the extent to which this Union is intrenched in the hearts of the great ma.s.s of the people of the North and South; but when I reflect upon and consider the desperate and dangerous extremes to which ambitious party leaders are often prepared to go, without meaning to do the country any mischief, in the struggle for the imperial power, the crown of the American presidency, I sometimes tremble for its fate.

Two great parties are now dividing the Union on this question. It is evident to every man of sense, who examines it, that practically, in respect to slavery, the result will be the same both to North and South; Kansas will be a free State, no matter what may be the decision on this question. But how that decision may affect the fortunes of those parties, is not certain; and there is the chief difficulty. But the greatest question of all is, How will that decision affect the country as a whole?

Two adverse yet concurrent and mighty forces are driving the vessel of State towards the rocks upon which she must split, unless she receives timely aid--a paradox, yet expressive of a momentous and perhaps a fatal truth.

There is no hope of rescue unless the sober-minded men, both of the North and South, shall, by some sufficient influence, be brought to adopt the wise maxims and sage counsels of the great founders of our government.

TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILROADS (Delivered in the United States Senate, February 17th, 1858. in Support of the Pacific Railroad Bill)

An objection made to this bill is, the gigantic scale of the projected enterprise. A grand idea it is. A continent of three thousand miles in extent from east to west, reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is to be connected by a railway! Honorable Senators will remember, that over one thousand miles--one-third of this whole expanse of the continent--the work is already accomplished, and that chiefly by private enterprise. I may, as a safe estimate, say, that a thousand miles of this railroad leading from the Atlantic to the West, upon the line of the lakes, and nearly as much upon a line further south, are either completed, or nearly so. We have two thousand miles yet to compa.s.s, in the execution of a work which it is said has no parallel in the history of the world. No, sir; it has no parallel in the history of the world, ancient or modern, either as to its extent and magnitude, or to its consequences, beneficent and benignant in all its bearings on the interests of all mankind. It is in these aspects, and in the contemplation of these consequences, that it has no parallel in the history of the world--changing the course of the commerce of the world--bringing the West almost in contact, by reversing the ancient line of communication, with the gorgeous East, and all its riches, the stories of which, in our earlier days we regarded as fabulous; but now, sir, what was held to be merely fictions of the brain in former times, in regard to the riches of Eastern Asia, is almost realized on our own western sh.o.r.es. Sir, these are some of the inducements to the construction of this great road, besides its importance to the military defenses of the country, and its mail communications. Sir, it is a magnificent and splendid project in every aspect in which you can view it. One-third of this great railway connection is accomplished; two-thirds remain to be. Shall we hesitate to go forward with the work?

Now, with regard to the means provided for the construction of the road. It is said, here is an enormous expenditure of the public money proposed. We propose to give twenty millions of dollars in the bonds of the government, bearing five per cent. interest, and fifteen millions of acres of land, supposed to be worth as much more, on the part of the government. This is said to be enormous, and we are reminded that we ought to look at what the people will say, and how they will feel when they come to the knowledge that twenty millions in money and twenty millions in land have been given for the construction of a railway! Some doubtless there are in this chamber who are ready to contend that we had better give these fifteen millions of acres of land to become homesteads for the landless and homeless. What is this twenty millions in money, and how is it to be paid? It is supposed that the road cannot be constructed in less than five years. In that event, bonds of the government to the amount of four millions of dollars will issue annually. Probably the road will not be built in less than ten years, and that will require an issue of bonds amounting to two millions a year; and possibly the road may not be finished in less than twenty years, which would limit the annual issue of bonds to one million. The interest upon these bonds, at five per cent, will of course have to be paid out of the treasury, a treasury in which there is now a surplus of twelve or fourteen millions of dollars.

When the road is completed and the whole amount of twenty millions in lands is paid, making the whole sum advanced by the government forty millions, the annual interest upon them will only be two millions.

And what is that? Why, sir, the donations and benevolences, the allowances of claims upon flimsy and untenable grounds, and other extravagant and unnecessary expenditures that are granted by Congress and the executive departments, while you have an overflowing treasury, will amount to the half of that sum annually. The enormous sum of two millions is proposed to be paid out of the treasury annually, when this great road shall be completed! It is a tremendous undertaking, truly! What a scheme! What extravagance! I understand the cost of the New York and Erie road alone, constructed princ.i.p.ally by private enterprise, has been not less than thirty millions--between thirty and thirty-three millions of dollars. That work was constructed by a single State giving aid occasionally to a company, which supplied the balance of the cost. I understand that the road from Baltimore to Wheeling, when it shall have been finished, and its furniture placed upon it, will have cost at least thirty millions. What madness, what extravagance, then, is it for the government of the United States to undertake to expend forty millions for a road from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

Mr. President, one honorable Senator says the amount is not sufficient to induce a capitalist to invest his money in the enterprise. Others, again, say it is far too much; more than we can afford to give for the construction of the work. Let us see which is right. The government is to give twenty millions in all out of the treasury for the road; or we issue bonds and pay five per cent, interest annually upon them, and twenty millions in lands, which, if regarded as money, amounts to a cost to the government of two millions per annum.

What are the objects to be accomplished? A daily mail from the valley of the Mississippi to the Pacific; the free transportation of all troops and munitions of war required for the protection and defense of our possessions on the Pacific; which we could not hold three months in a war either with England or France, without such a road. By building this road we accomplish this further object: This road will be the most effective and powerful check that can be interposed by the government upon Indian depredations and aggressions upon our frontiers or upon each other; the northern tribes upon the southern, and the southern upon the northern. You cut them in two. You will be constantly in their midst, and cut off their intercommunication and hostile depredations. You will have a line of quasi fortifications, a line of posts and stations, with settlements on each side of the road. Every few miles you will thus have settlements strong enough to defend themselves against inroads of the Indians, and so const.i.tuting a wall of separation between the Indian tribes, composed of a white population, with arms in their hands. This object alone would, perhaps, be worth as much as the road will cost; and when I speak of what the road will be worth in this respect, I mean to say, that besides the prevention of savage warfare, the effusion of blood, it will save millions of dollars to the treasury annually, in the greater economy attained in moving troops and military supplies and preventing hostilities.

I have been thus particular in noting these things because I want to show where or on which side the balance will be found in the adjustment of the responsibility account between the friends and the opponents of this measure--which will have the heaviest account to settle with the country.

For myself, I am not wedded to this particular scheme. Rather than have no road, I would prefer to adopt other projects. I am now advocating one which I supposed would meet the views of a greater number of Senators than any other. I think great honor is due to Mr. Whitney for having originated the scheme, and having obtained the sanction of the legislatures of seventeen or eighteen States of the Union. Rather than have the project altogether fail, I would be willing to adopt this plan. It may not offer the same advantages for a speedy consummation of the work; but still, we would have a road in prospect, and that would be a great deal. But if gentlemen are to rise here in their places year after year--and this is the fifth year from the time we ought to have undertaken this work--and tell us it is just time to commence a survey, we will never have a road. The honorable Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler] says there ought to be some limitation in this idea of progress, when regarded as a spur to great activity and energy, as to what we shall do in our day. He says we have acquired California; we have opened up those rich regions on our western borders, which promises such magnificent results; and he asks, is not that enough for the present generation? Leave it to the nest generation to construct a work of such magnitude as this--requiring forty millions of dollars from the government. Mr. President, I have said that if the condition was a road or no road, I would regard one hundred and fifty millions of dollars as well laid out by the government for the work; though I have no idea that it will take such an amount. Eighty or one hundred millions of dollars will build the road.

But with regard to what is due from this generation to itself, or what may be left to the next generation, I say it is for the present generation that we want the road. As to our having acquired California, and opened this new world of commerce and enterprise, and as to what we shall leave to the next generation, I say that, after we of this generation shall have constructed this road, we will, perhaps, not even leave to the next generation the construction of a second one. The present generation, in my opinion, will not pa.s.s away until it shall have seen two great lines of railroads in prosperous operation between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and within our own territory, and still leave quite enough to the next generation--the third and fourth great lines of communication between the two extremes of the continent. One, at least, is due to ourselves, and to the present generation; and I hope there are many within the sound of my voice who will live to see it accomplished. We want that new Dorado, the new Ophir of America, to be thrown open and placed within the reach of the whole people. We want the great cost, the delays, as well as the privations and risks of a pa.s.sage to California, by the malarious Isthmus of Panama, or any other of the routes now in use, to be mitigated, or done away with. There will be some greater equality in the enjoyment and advantages of these new acquisitions upon the Pacific coast when this road shall be constructed. The inexhaustible gold mines, or placers of California, will no longer be accessible only to the more robust, resolute, or desperate part of our population, and who may be already well enough off to pay their pa.s.sage by sea, or provide an outfit for an overland travel of two and three thousand miles. Enterprising young men all over the country, who can command the pittance of forty or fifty dollars to pay their railroad fare; heads of families who have the misfortune to be poor, but spirit and energy enough to seek comfort and independence by labor, will no longer be restrained by the necessity of separating themselves from their families, but have it in their power, with such small means as they may readily command, in eight or ten days, to find themselves with their whole households transported and set down in the midst of the gold regions of the West, at full liberty to possess and enjoy whatever of the rich harvest spread out before them their industry and energy shall ent.i.tle them to. It will be theirs by as good a t.i.tle as any can boast who have had the means to precede them. We hear much said of late of the justice and policy of providing a homestead, a quarter section of the public land, to every poor and landless family in the country. Make this road, and you enable every poor man in the country to buy a much better homestead, and retain all the pride and spirit of independence. Gentlemen here may say that the region of California, so inviting, and abundant in gold now, will soon be exhausted, and all these bright prospects for the enterprising poor pa.s.s away. No, sir; centuries will pa.s.s--ages and ages must roll away before those gold-bearing mountains shall all have been excavated--those auriferous sands and alluvial deposits shall give out all their wealth; and even after all these shall have failed, the beds of the rivers will yield a generous return to the toil of the laborer. ...

Mr. President, I alluded to the importance of having a communication by railway between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, in the event of war with any great maritime Power. I confess that the debates upon the subject of our foreign relations within the last few weeks, if all that was said had commanded my full a.s.sent, would have dissipated very much the force of any argument which I thought might be fairly urged in favor of this road as a necessary work for the protection and security of our possessions on the Pacific coast.

We now hear it stated, and reiterated by grave and respectable and intelligent Senators, that there is no reason that any one should apprehend a war with either Great Britain or France. Not now, nor at any time in the future; at all events, unless there shall be a total change in the condition, social, political, and economical, of those Powers, and especially as regards Great Britain. All who have spoken agree that there is no prospect of war. None at all. I agree that I can see nothing in the signs of the times which is indicative of immediate and certain war. Several gentlemen have thrown out the idea that we hold the bond of Great Britain to keep the peace, with ample guarantees and sureties, not only for the present time, but for an indefinite time; and as long as Great Britain stands as an independent monarchy. These sureties and guarantees are said to consist in the discontented and dest.i.tute cla.s.s of her population, of her operatives and laborers, and the indispensable necessity of the cotton crop of the United States in furnis.h.i.+ng them with employment and subsistence, without which it is said she would be torn with internal strife.

I could tell gentlemen who argue in that way, that we have another guarantee that Great Britain will not break with the United States for any trivial cause, which they have not thought proper to raise.

We may threaten and denounce and bl.u.s.ter as much as we please about British violations of the Clayton and Bulwer treaty, and the Mosquito protectorate, about the a.s.sumption of territorial dominion over the Balize or British Honduras, and the new colony of the Bay Islands; and Great Britain will negotiate, explain, treat, and transgress, and negotiate again, and resort to any device, before she will go to war with us, as long as she can hope to prolong the advantages to herself of the free-trade policy now established with the United States. It is not only the cotton crop of America which she covets, but it is the rich market for the products of her manufacturing industry, which she finds in the United States; and this has contributed as much as any other cause to improve the condition of her operatives, and impart increased prosperity to her trade and revenue. As long as we think proper to hold to our present commercial regulations, I repeat that it will require very great provocation on our part to force Great Britain into a war with the United States. . . .

As for this road, we are told at every turn that it is ridiculous to talk of war in connection with it, for we will have no wars except those with the Indians. Both England and France dare not go to war with us. I say this course of argument is not only unwise and delusive, but if such sentiments take hold on the country, they will be mischievous; they will almost to a certainty lead to a daring and reckless policy on our part; and as each government labors under a similar delusion as to what the other will not dare to do, what is more probable than that both may get into such a position--the result of a mutual mistake--that war must ensue? It is worth while to reflect upon the difference between the policy of Great Britain and this country in her diplomatic correspondence and debates in Parliament. When we make a threat, Great Britain does not threaten in turn. We hear of no gasconade on her part. If we declare that we have a just right to lat.i.tude 54 degrees 40', and will maintain our right at all hazard, she does not bl.u.s.ter, and threaten, and declare what she will do, if we dare to cany out our threat. When we talk about the Mosquito king, of Balize, and of the Bay Islands, and declare our determination to drive her from her policy and purposes in regard to them, we do not hear of an angry form of expression from her. We employed very strong language last year in regard to the rights of American fishermen; but the reply of Great Britain scarcely a.s.sumed the tone of remonstrance against the intemperate tone of our debates. Her policy upon all such occasions is one of wisdom. Her strong and stern purpose is seldom to be seen in her diplomatic intercourse, or in the debates of her leading statesmen; but if you were about her dock-yards, or in her foundries, or her timber-yards, and her great engine manufactories, and her armories, you would find some bustle and stir. There, all is life and motion.

I have always thought that the proper policy of this country is to make no threats--to make no parade of what we intend to do. Let us put the country in a condition to defend its honor and interests; to maintain them successfully whenever they may be a.s.sailed; no matter by what Power, whether by Great Britain, or France, or both combined. Make this road; complete the defenses of the country, of your harbors, and navy yards; strengthen your navy--put it upon an efficient footing; appropriate ample means for making experiments to ascertain the best model of s.h.i.+ps-of-war, to be driven by steam or any other motive power; the best models of the engines to be employed in them; to inquire whether a large complement of guns, or a few guns of great calibre, is the better plan. We may well, upon such questions, take a lesson from England. At a recent period she has been making experiments of this nature, in order to give increased efficiency to her naval establishment. How did she set about it? Her Admiralty Board gave orders for eleven of the most perfect engines that could be built by eleven of the most skillful and eminent engine-builders in the United Kingdom, without limit as to the cost, or any other limitation, except as to cla.s.s or size.

At the same time orders were issued for the building of thirteen frigates of a medium cla.s.s by thirteen of the most skillful s.h.i.+pbuilders in the kingdom, in order to ascertain the best models, the best running lines, and the best of every other quality desirable in a war vessel. This is the mode in which Great Britain prepares for any contingencies which may arise. She cannot tell when they may occur, yet she knows that she has no immunity from those chances which, at some time or other, are seen to happen to all nations. In my opinion, the construction of this road from the Mississippi to the Pacific is essential to the protection and safety of this country, in the event of a war with any great maritime Power. It may take ten years to complete it; but every hundred miles of it, which may be finished before the occurrence of war, will be just so much gained--so much added to our ability to maintain our honor in that war. In every view of this question I can take, I am persuaded that we ought at least prepare to commence the work, and do it immediately.

JUDAH PHILIP BENJAMIN (1811-1884)