It had been said by gentlemen, on several occasions, that they could not sit here patiently and hear the people of the South branded as "pirates, robbers, and murderers," by these petitioners. This language had repeatedly gone forth, in speeches delivered here: the effect of it was, to excite the feelings and sensibilities of the people of the South. He would now say that he had never heard either of the epithets just repeated, used in any, even the most offensive, of the petitions. Their language was bad enough, but none of them had used the language which had been repeated; if they had, he too would have voted against their reception, on the ground that they had violated outrageously the rule of the Senate which required decorum to this body, apply ing precisely the same rule in regard to petitions on this subject that he would to those on any other subject in regard to their reception-the constitutional principle regard to the right of petition being the same. [APRIL 8, 1836. petitions might be rejected. The Senate would then see in what language the petitions were drawn up, and might judge for itself whether it was as offensive as it had been represented to be. Remarks had been made on that floor, in relation to these petitioners, which he deemed very erroneous. It mattered not what class of citizens presented themselves as petitioners, they were entitled to a respectful hearing. They had been termed miserable fanatics, vile incendiaries, and charged with an intention to dissolve the Union. All those interested in putting down this spirit, which they so much deprecated, had used these violent terms in reference to persons petitioning for what they deemed Congress had a right to grant. He had always thought that these people had an undoubted right to be heard; and he was of opinion that the receiving their petitions, and then reinjecting them immediately, as moved by the Senator from Pennsylvania, was tantamount to refusing to receive them; it was keeping the word of promise to the ear, and breaking it to their hope. Mr. B. would again ask if it was prudent that such expressions should go forth from this hall, when so well calculated to inflame public feeling, and when they were not to be found in even the worst of the petitions themselves. None felt more sensibility on this subject than himself; but it was the part of wisdom as well of generosity for us to cultivate harmonious feelings with those who were acting in concert with us to the North, to put the abolitionists down; and he had heard with regret expressions, in reply to the Senator from Maine, which he thought should have been rather those of gratulation than of a different character. Mr. CALLIOUN asked the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. MORRIS,] to let him have the petitions that he had with drawn. [Mr. MORRIS gave Mr. CALHOUN some petitions, and said he could not consent for them to be used at that time.] Mr. CALHOUN said he was utterly astonished at the remarks of the gentleman from North Carolina. These charges were made when the Ohio petitions were presented and read, and in the gentleman's presence. Memory was frail, but he could hardly be mistaken as to the offensive epithets used in the Ohio memorials. Certainly, said he, all remembered that we were charged with dealing in human flesh, an allegation as strong as any he had quoted. The Senator from North Carolina could not rejoice more strongly than himself to see this spirit of abolition arrested, but he feared that it was too strong to be easily subdued. The feelings, as indicated in these resolutions of the Legislature of Maine, were certainly to be highly commended, and he had taken occasion to express the satisfaction with which he received them. He had thought it, however, right for the people of the South to know that there was an abolition society in Maine, which put forth very able and extensive publications. Mr. LINN would merely remark that the petitions to which the gentleman from South Carolina alluded had been withdrawn by the gentleman who presented them, before taking any question upon them. Mr. MORRIS observed that he had put the petitions which he had withdrawn into the possession of the Senator from South Carolina, but not with a view that he should use them publicly on the occasion. It was true that he did present petitions couched in language deemed by other gentlemen to be exceptionable, but which he then and now thought was perfectly unexceptiona ble; and that he had afterwards withdrawn them, at the solicitation of his friends, to make way for a Quaker petition, as if that was entitled to a precedence over those from Ohio. At a proper time he should present them to the Senate; and if the Senator from South Carolina objected to their reception, and should be sustained by the Senator from North Carolina and other Senators, the Mr. M. said he would here take occasion to correct an error that appeared in one of the morning papers. His name was there given in the list of those who voted to reject the prayer of the petitioners. His name ought not to have been given on that list; he gave no such vote; and he could not, consistently with his views, vote to reject a petition without giving the subject of it a fair examination. Could he have done this, he would have no hesitation in voting, with the Senator from South Carolina, to refuse to receive the petition at all. He would here make another acknowledgment, with respect to a declaration he made to his friend from Georgia. When he first took his seat here as a Senator of the United States, he believed that Congress had a right to legislate on the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia; and he was also of opinion that sound policy required that something should be done with regard to it. He was now convinced, from information since acquired, that it was not expedient for Congress to touch the subject; and he would gladly rid them of all further solicitation to legislate on it, by going, with the Senator from South Carolina, for a retrocession of the District to the States to whom it originally belonged. He believed that, as long as Congress had exclusive jurisdiction over the ten miles square, petitions for abolishing slavery would be continually pouring in. The feelings which induced these petitions were the deepest rooted of any in the human breast; they were excited by a high sense of religious duty, and no human power could ever induce them to abandon what they believed themselves thus bound to perform. A retrocession of the District, therefore, would be the best mode of relieving Congress from continued petitions on this subject, and of avoiding that agitation and excitement which gentlemen said threatened a dissolution of the Union. Mr. M. here took an extended view of the subject of dissolution and secession from the Union, denying that there was any power in any State either to dissolve or secede from the Union. A man, said he, may commit treason against his Government, and if he succeeds he is a hero; but if he fails, his fate is that of a traitor. When he heard gentlemen speak so frequently of a dissolution of the Union, he asked himself if it was possible they could be in earnest, and could suppose that there was any power capable of performing what had been thus threatened. Mr. PRESTON expressed his approbation of the resolutions. The people of Maine had taken fair, just, and honorable grounds, which were dictated by an honorable spirit of patriotism. It was because he felt great apprehension as to the consequences of the agitation of this subject, that he so highly appreciated the sentiments of the resolution. But, although it might not be competent for an individual, or a single State, to attempt to APRIL 8, 1836.] Maine Resolutions. [SENATE. having no particular application as to the people of the South. He had made this explanation, he would again repeat, in reference to the language of these petitions, to prevent highly colored pictures of their offensive language from going abroad, to add to the excitement already ex him and his friends had voted to receive a petition couch dissolve the Union, if Maine had taken a different stand, and this matter had continued to grow and spread, it would have involved the disunion of the Government. He had, he believed, heretofore said that the South could, if placed in a situation of self-defence, protect itself. For his part, he did not, as a southern gentleman, ask any favors, or fear any result. He was glad,isting on this subject, and to repel the inference that however, to see the indication of a better state of feelings. These resolutions expressed their disapprobationed in terms such as had been spoken of. of any interference by one State in the domestic affairs of another State. As the gentleman from Maine [Mr. RUGGLES] had given them a lecture from this resolution, he would not take a similar course in regard to him. It was an easy matter for gentlemen living at the extreme North to read a lecture to those of the South. He, however, preferred the resolution of the Legislature of Maine to the lecture. If it was wrong for those of the South to interfere with the domestic concerns of the North, it was as wrong for them to interfere in theirs of the South. As to the agitation, they had had the initiatory and the conclusion. He spoke of the number of petitions that had been sent here, which, in the aggregate, amounted to twenty-eight thousand, and adverted to the language of the petitions. They had called the petitioners incendiaries and fanatics, and the petitioners had called them immoral and irreligious. They could not take away the offensive character of the petitions by wrapping them up in honeyed words; they could not, knit up or intertwist the phraseology as they pleased. It was not fair or decent, in regard to them, to say this or that institution in the South is immoral. They were not called upon to plead to this matter. He rose merely to express his approbation of these resolutions. If this matter was to be stopped, it was necessary that the moral, intellectual, and legislative power of the country should be interposed. He entertained the hope that the thing was not so far gone as to be remediless. Mr. MORRIS, in justice to the Senator from North Carolina, [Mr. BROWN,] must say that his impressions were that his statements in regard to these petitions were correct. He had suggested to the Senator from South Carolina, when he gave him these petitions, that he was not to use them on the present occasion; and he had also informed him that, as soon as the present debate was over, he would lay them before the Senate, when all could judge whether the language was such as they deemed proper to be received, or otherwise. Mr. CALHOUN was very happy that the Senator from North Carolina had at last made up his mind to reject petitions that were such as he would deem offensive in their language; and he hoped that he and all other southern Senators would in time see the propriety of rejecting all abolition petitions, no matter in what language they were couched, for, from the very nature of the subject they treated, they must be offensive to the South. It is, sir, said Mr. B., a very great sin, in the estimation of some gentlemen, to vote to receive these petitions; but they must recollect that they set the example. He expressed the confident belief that both of the gentlemen from South Carolina voted, at the last session, to receive petitions of a like character. He could cite a dozen instances from the journal of the last session where they were received, on different days, by the unanimous consent of this body; and, more than that, were unanimously referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia; and certainly the gentlemen could not have been absent upon every occasion, with their known attentive habits to business. To enlist in a warfare with these petitioners on this floor, when their objects had found but few, if any, advocates here, was but little calculated to gain distinction or elevation for the South; he had, therefore, uniformly been in favor of that silent and contemptous course towards them, by which they always had been consigned to a neglect and insignificance, to them the most cutting and mortifying course of all others; and to the exertions of honorable gentlemen they were indebted for that notoriety which the present session of Congress had more than ever given them. The Senator from South Carolina nearest to him, [Mr. PRESTON.] in alluding to some of his remarks, said that he would not tender his gratitude to the Legislature of Maine, because they adopted these resolutions; that they were nothing more than what the South was entitled to, and what the South had a right to demand. He trusted that he, too, felt that manly independence becoming a southern representative; he trusted that he, too, would never ask more than the South was entitled to receive; but he also trusted that he never should be insensible to those sympathies which bound together the different sections of this great republic, nor backward in expressing the pleasure with which he saw a kindred feeling cherished by his brethren of any portion of their common country. This was the ground that he took, and these were the feelings which called forth the animadversions of the Senator from South Carolina. He well knew the strength of the South, and its capability to protect itself against all attempts on its internal peace; on that he felt the most perfect reliance; but the resolutions just read from the State of Maine, he thought, ought to be hailed by every southern man as an earnest of the indissoluble ties which bound the North and South together, and of the strength and durability of the Union. Mr. CALHOUN said the Senator from North Carolina certainly did not hear his remarks. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. MORRIS] had put the petitions in his hands, and suggested to him not to use them. He would now refer to some of the expressions found in one of these petitions; among them was the phrase, "traffic in human flesh," a phrase borrowed from the Mr. BROWN felt himself bound to explain, with a view to prevent any misapprehension on this subject. He did say that the epithets, which he had before repeated, were not, as had been represented, in any of the petitions which he had examined or had heard read, offensive as their language was. The gentleman from South Carolina has not been able, he presumed, to find the alleged epithets in the petition which he had then before him, and to which he had made reference, other-shambles, from the butchers, holding up to all the wise he supposed he would have read them to the Senate. He only draws inferences from certain vague and general expressions, having no immediate application to the people of the South. It was not that on which he had made the issue, but it was upon the exist ence of the fact, whether the epithets alleged to be used in the petitions were to be found in any of them. He had not been met on that issue but by constructions and inferences put on vague and general expressions, world, that the gentleman and his constituents treated human beings as they treated beeves. That was the first. The petition went on to say, that (dealing in slaves) "had been solemnly declared piracy by the laws of our own, and all Christian nations;" assimilating the acts of himself and those whom he represented, with the acts of those who seize Africans on the coast of Africa, and sell them for slaves. If he could lay his hands on the other petitions, he could point out the epi SENATE.] Maine Resolutions. thets he had quoted; but those he had given were, he thought, sufficiently offensive to justify a southern representative in voting to reject them. But he would read a little further. "It (slavery) was sinful because it violated the laws of God and man;""because it (slavery) corrupted the public morals." This was some of the language of the petitions which had been withdrawn to make way for the Quaker petitions which were first tried in order to obtain the sanction of the southern representatives to that most dangerous of all principles, that they were bound to receive petitions, no matter in what language they were drawn. The Senator from North Carolina had mistaken him in supposing he had found nothing in these petitions that was as offensive as he had termed them. The Senator from Ohio, on putting them in his hands, had requested him not to use them at that time. Mr. MANGUM would inquire of his colleague whether he understood him correctly in saying that he would feel it his duty to reject petitions only that were offensive to that body, or some member of it. Mr. BROWN replied that he would vote to reject petitions that violated the rules of the Senate, by the use of language indecorous towards individual members of the body or to the body itself--rules which every parliamentary body had adopted. Mr. MANGUM said he had so understood his colleague, but it was with undisguised astonishment that he heard such doctrines pronounced by those who set up as the exclusive representatives of the democracy of the South. Sir, said he, who gave us the right to exclude petitions because offensive to ourselves, and not to exclude them when they use offensive terms in reference to our constituents? Who are we, said he, that we are not to be touched but our feelings are outraged; and this great constitutional right of petition, about which so much has been said, is to be violated if our honor is called in question? He scouted such doctrine. If, said he, we have the right to reject petitions because our persons are reflected on, are we to be silent when cleven sovereign States are reflected on in terms of the grossest abuse, and denounced as dealers in human flesh, and likened to pirates? He should like to see how those gentlemen, who affected to be the exclusive representatives of the democracy of the South, shielded themselves from this dilemma. Was this a part of the democracy of the day, and the doctrine of those who, par excellence, termed themselves the real democrats, abhorring every thing in the shape of aristocracy? [APRIL 8, 1836. Carolina [Mr. BROWN] was utterly mistaken when he said that he (Mr. C.) voted to receive a petition on this subject. No vote of his would be found on the journal. He might have suffered petitions to pass at former ses sions, when there was but a few of them presented. He confessed he had neglected this matter too long. The gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. BROWN] said he (Mr. C.) had not made good his word. He (Mr. C.) thought the expressions in the petition to which he had referred were as strong as the terms used by him. It seemed, however, that the Senator cared for nothing but the precise words. He had shown that these petitions likened his constituents to pirates, and spoke of them as dealers in human flesh. This, he thought, was sufficiently strong to make good his position. Mr. WALKER said that he did not rise to embark in any discussion of the abolition question, but to state some facts to the Senate. It had been said by the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. PRESTON,] that twentyeight thousand memorialists had subscribed these abolition petitions. Mr. W. said that, feeling a deep interest in this question, he had looked at the names of the subscribers to these petitions, and found that a majority, or nearly a majority, of the whole number appeared to be females. [Here Mr. PRESTON said thirteen thousand were females.] Mr. W. remarked that of the remainder it was perfectly obvious, on the slightest inspection, that a vast number were children; many of the names are made up of entire families, including all the children, male and female, and repeatedly all written by the same hand. Mr. W. even believed that at least three fourths of these petitioners were children or females, but the whole number would constitute but a small portion of a republic embracing now a population probably of fifteen millions. Mr. W. said he would make one further remark on this subject; he did it with regret; he had been pained to see the names of so many American females to these petitions. It appeared to him exceedingly indelicate that sensitive females of shrinking modesty should present their names here as petitioners, in relation to the domestic institutions of the South, or of this District. Surely they would be much better employed in attending to their domestic duties as mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters, than in interfering with a matter in regard to which they were entirely ignorant. Mr. W. said, he believed, if the ladies and Sunday school children would let us alone, there would be but few abolition petitions. At all events, the ladies and children could only be a subject of ridicule, and not of alarm, to the people of the South; more especially would the South not be alarmed by a few women and children, when we have this day presented to us the resolutions of the Legislature of the State of Maine, unanimously condemning abolitionism, in a manner admitted to be satisfactory by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. PRESTON] himself. He claimed for himself no exemption that he did not claim for those he represented; and when he could not cause the rejection of petitions outraging their feelings, he would claim no exemption for his own. They had been told by his colleague, that these petitions were of fensive enough. He should like to know from him when they would be too much so. They had seen a wonderful facility in gentlemen endeavoring to lessen the odium of these abolition petitions. He had seen it in their endeavoring to prove that there was nothing Mr. BROWN observed that it was with very proto be apprehended from all these abolition petitions; found regret that he rose to detain the Senate for a sinthat the whole was confined to a miserable, contempt-gle moment. Nothing could have been more unexpectible party; and yet the wings of every wind from the North had blown upon us these petitions and publications on the subject, without number. He himself had no fears. The abolitionists might go on subsidizing presses, and inundating the country with their publications and petitions. The South, if united, was able to protect itself against the whole non-slaveholding world. The real danger consisted in the South being divided; in their being put to sleep by calling out, "all's well," while the storm was rustling over their beads. Mr. CALHOUN rose to say, the Senator from North ed to him, when he took his seat this morning, than to be engaged in a discussion of this nature; and he much regretted that he was now compelled, in self-defence, to continue that discussion. The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. CALHOUN] said he never voted to refer petitions of this kind to the Committee on the District of Columbia, and that no such vote of his was to be found recorded on the journal. Mark the words, Mr. Presi dent, "recorded on the journal." But there were numerous petitions on this very subject, both at the last session and the session before, that were unanimously referred to the Committee on the District, without one APRIL 8, 1836.] Maine Resolutions. [SENATE. word being heard from any quarter in disapprobation.ed and intelligent constituents offended at the impotent Now, he would ask, was it probable that the gentleman acts of ignorant and deluded minors and females. Sir, was absent on all these different occasions? Would it said he, my constituents are possessed of a degree of inbe pretended for a moment that when the question was telligence, gallantry, and high-mindedness, that would propounded, "Shall these petitions be referred to the give a different answer to these ignorant and misguided Committee on the District of Columbia," and no mem- petitioners than that proposed by my colleague. It ber objecting--would it be pretended for a moment, would be that of silent contempt. when such a question was propounded, and the gentleman from South Carolina sanctioned the reference by his silence, that he did not vote for it as essentially as if his name had been recorded on the journal? Indeed, (said Mr. B.,) the denial of the Senator that any such vote of his was recorded on the journal, was a distinction without a difference. His colleague [Mr. MANGUM] had made some remarks that he (Mr. B.) thought, at any rate, were pointed with no little application to himself. That gentleman, too, had discovered that it was one of the upardonable sins of a southern representative against southern rights to vote for the reception and reference of petitions on the subject of abolition; votes, let it be remembered, that had been given from the earliest periods of our legislative history, by as high-minded, chivalrous, and patriotic republicans of the South--democrats, if it suited the gentleman better--as any who now claimed to be the exclusive advocates of southern rights. would venture to assert that there was no southern representative, who took his seat previous to the present session, but had given the same vote. They, too, had committed this unpardonable sin; but the hidden influences of this mysterious session of 1836 had suddenly dissolved the sleep in which they were enwrapped; and they had as suddenly discovered that it was an outrage on southern rights and southern honor to receive petitions of the same nature with those they had voted to receive and refer again and again. He [Mr. MANGUM here interrupted Mr. BROWN, by saying that he never gave such votes.] Mr. BROWN continued. He would ask the gentle man if he was not present when abolition petitions were received, and when the question was propounded, "Shall the petitions be referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia;" and whether he did not, by making no objection to the reception and reference, give his unqualified acquiescence to both? [Mr. MANGUM said that he did not know whether he was present on such occasions.] Mr. BROWN resumed. But there was one petition that had been presented as late as the commencement of the present session, when the honorable gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. GRUNDY] moved to lay it on the table. He believed that his colleague was in his seat when that motion was made, and he did not remember that he made any objections to it. His colleague had thought proper to indulge in some gratuitous advice to him as to what ought to characterize the conduct of a southern representative when petitions reflecting on his constituents were presented. He was not in the habit of gratuitously giving his advice to any one, much less to his colleague; but, if he was, he might say to him that he who was so ready to give gratuitous lectures to others ought to learn first to obey them, and that very wholesome admonition had been given him from a highly respected source, which he would do well maturely to consider. It was said, both by the Senator from South Carolina and by his colleague, that he ought to have resisted the reception of these petitions, because they were offensive and indecorous in their language to those whom he represented. What, sir, (said Mr. B.,) petitions from women, and a parcel of children!--for it had been proved that a large number of these petitioners were women and children. What, sir, (said Mr. B.,) my high-mind. Without going any further on this part of the subject, he would express it as his solemn belief, before God and the whole world, that all this agitation and excitement on the subject of abolition had not been produced by the miserable fanatics, of whom so much had been said that session, but it had resulted, in part, from the designs of a more sagacious political party, for the purpose of operating on the South at an important crisis. The time at which it had commenced, the manner in which it had been carried on, the avidity with which it had been seized upon and trumpeted forth by the presses of a certain party at the South--all these had produced, in his mind, a conviction that it would require a world of proof to shake. The time when these incendiary publications were first thrown abroad in such masses was when the elections in North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee, and shortly afterwards in Georgia, were about to commence; it was on the eve of the important elections in those States that these publications were precipitated upon the South; and yet it had been said that these incendiaries were the friends of the party now in power. What, sir! The friends of a certain political party to deluge the South with publications on a subject of such delicacy, and so well calculated to be used by their opponents to their disadvantage! Could any thing be more absurd than such a supposition? No, sir; it was another party, and far more sagacious and calculating in their designs than the deluded zealots who were used to subserve their political purposes; and what most powerfully corroborated this opinion was the fact that the presses of this party immediately seized upon these incendiary publications, so opportunely thrown out, and wielded them with great force and ingenuity against their opponents. He repeated that the whole was not a fanatical movement, but that it had a political party in alliance with it, and shown so plainly to be so by subsequent events, as hardly to need a confirmation. How then could he, as a southern man, give his vote to deny the right of petition, and sanction designs which, from the beginning to the end, he utterly condemned? How could he, as a southern man, give his vote to uphold a deep-laid party scheme, as, he believed, that had been floating for a time on the tempestuous waves of political excitement, but that was destined inevitably to subside into its original insignificance with the occasion which produced it. Sir, (said Mr. B.,) the course I took was dictated by the highest considerations of public duty, and flowed from a jealous regard of the rights and honor of the South, as well as a sincere and ardent attachment to the Union. It was to aid in reprobating the attempts to desecrate the social relations and domestic peace of the South by the introduction of this dangerous question into her politics, creating an unreasonable and unfound. ed jealousy of our northern fellow-citizens, and weakening the bonds of this Union to subserve the unholy designs of party: it was for these reasons that he had taken the stand that he did. And gratified he was at the result; for every thing that bad transpired on this subject since the commencement of the session had only tended to show that the attachment of the people to this Union was not to be shaken, and that it rested on the most firm and abiding foundations. These were the reasons which induced him to take the course he did. And was he to be told that he was recreant to the South, because he had done that which had been done on repeated oc casions by those quite equal in intelligence, patriotism, and chivalrous southern feelings, to those who now claimed to be the exclusive defenders of southern honor? Was he to be accused of dereliction of duty to the South for voting to receive petitions on the subject of abolition, by those who were present on repeated occasions, when such petitions were not only unanimously received, but referred to one of the standing committees of that body, without raising the slightest objection to the reference? He knew that the South had too much strength within her own bosom to be unnecessarily alarmed; and he knew that she had too much intelligence to permit herself to be excited to her own injury by the cry of wolf! wolf! when there was no danger. He had conceived it to be his duty to make these few remarks principally in self-defence. There was nothing farther from his intention, when he took his seat this morning, than to engage in a discussion of this nature; for he had hoped that this spirit of evil omen had received its death blow, and that it would be no more re. vived this session. He regretted that the gentleman from South Carolina had thought proper on an occasion like this, when the resolutions of Maine came bearing the olive branch, to receive them, not in the spirit of peace, but in the spirit of discord. Mr. PRESTON said that three years ago, when he took his seat in this body, a petition on this subject was presented. He was unacquainted with the practice of the Senate, and looked round him to see if some one more experienced than himself was not going to rise, and seing none, he rose and made the question of its reception. But gentlemen from all parts of the Senate rose, and said it had been usual to give petitions of that kind a particular direction, where they quietly remained, without being heard of more. A Senator from Maryland said that was the lion's den for these petitions. He was willing they should be laid on the table, or despatched in any other way, and acquiesced. But did not the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. BROWN] see a different state of circumstances now? The Quakers had said they had pressed it year after year without interruption, and there were more petitions presented this session than bad been since the commencement of this institution. If a mischievous boy threw a cracker on the floor of the Senate, and the Sergeant-at-arms trampled it out, it was a small matter. But when the building was surrounded by incendiaries, with torches in their hands, were they not to be roused from their lethargy? He was not going to be impelled to mix up this matter with politics, which separated father from son, and party from country, and mingled them in its own vortex. While a portion of them were alarmed, while they counted by hundreds and by thousands what used to be units, philosophy taught them distrust on both sides. While the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. BRowN] says party feelings on our side have induced this alarm, let us say party may have its influence on his side. He (Mr. P.) entreated gentlemen, when they called them alarmists, to bear in mind that there was another party saying peace! peace! where there was no peace. Which was the safe side, to magnify or diminish the danger? Were they to fold their arms, and wait till the presidential election was over? They might then find a storm too violent to resist. He did not say whether party had been mixed up with this matter. But it was said they had falsely raised the cry of wolf! wolf! The shepherd's boy cried wolf! wolf! when the shepherd was asleep, and the wolf came! Mr. RUGGLES remarked, that in presenting to the Senate resolutions which had been so cordially approved by the Senators from the South, he had not expected that a debate would have ensued, characterized as this [APRIL 8, 1836. had been. The sentiments and opinions contained in those resolutions, he had supposed, would be consolatory to southern feeling, and they had been warmly approved from that quarter. One of the resolutions asserted that all public discussion of the question of slavery had been arrested and suppressed in Maine by a decided expression of public disapprobation. Gentlemen say they heartily approve of these resolutions, and he regretted that they had not on this occasion given a practical illustration of the sincerity which he had no doubt they felt, in expressing their approval of the suppression of such discussions. The circumstance of their having passed without any exciting and agitating debate, he had ventured, with great deference, to commend to favorable consideration. He said that he himself had been so favorably impressed with it as an example, that he should follow it on this occasion, by abstaining from any discussion of the matter, and should move that the resolutions be printed, and hoped the question would be permitted to be taken without further debate. The resolutions were then laid upon the table and ordered to be printed. GRANT OF LAND TO MISSOURI. The Senate proceeded to the consideration of the bill granting a certain quantity of land to the State of Missouri for internal improvements. Mr. BENTON explained the object of the bill. The principle, he said, contained in this bill, had been voted for in the general land bill, distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands among the States. In drawing it up, however, he had only provided for the State of Missouri; and those gentlemen representing new States that had not received any donations for public works, might now offer amendments to provide for them; while those representing States that had received grants might move to amend it, by adding grants for so much as would make, together with what they had received, the same number of acres as was granted to Missouri by this bill. Mr. WALKER moved to amend the bill by inserting a grant of 500,000 acres; and, on Mr. NICHOLAS'S moving to insert a like grant for the State of Louisiana, accepted the motion as a modification of his amendment. Mr. KING, of Alabama, then moved to amend the bill by inserting a grant of so much to each of the States of Alabama, Indiana, and Illinois, as would make, with what the said States had already received, 500,000 acres each. After some remarks from Mr. EWING. Mr. CRITTENDEN felt little interest in the question involved in the discussion between the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. EWING] as to who had received the most of the public lands. For his part, he was satisfied the State of Obio had received enough. If it was unjust to grant these lands to Ohio, he did not feel bound to follow up that injustice in regard to other States. He had risen to state, so that he might not be misunderstood, that he would vote for these amendments, and after that he would vote against the whole bill. He regarded it as an act of the most flagrant injustice, and partial legislation. If it were termed liberality to the new States, it was injustice to the old ones. He was constrained, by a sense of justice to the old States, to place himself in opposition to the whole bill. What had these new States done to merit such liberality on the part of the general Government, except encountering the difficulties of settling a new State? There was not one half the difficulties in settling them that were encountered in the settlement of Kentucky. In fact, Kentucky and Tennessee were the pioneers to the settlement of the new States. Until a |
