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ducing the resolutions which were then adopted. The resolutions were as follows:

"Whereas, domestic slavery exists in the District of Columbia, under the express authority of Congress, etc. Resolved, That congress ought to exercise its acknowledged power, in the immediate suppression of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.

"And whereas, by the Constitution of the United States, congress has power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and between the several States of the Union, in the exercise of which power congress in the year 1808 abolished the foreign slave-trade, as unjustifiable in principle as African slave-trade, and scarcely less cruel and inhuman in practice, is now carried on between the several States: Therefore,

"Resolved, That the domestic slave-trade ought to be abolished by congress without delay.

"Resolved, That no new State ought to be admitted into the Union, whose Constitution shall tolerate domestic slavery.

"Resolved, That our senators in congress be instructed, and our representatives requested, to use their utmost efforts to give effect to the foregoing resolves."

And the governor was directed to send the resolutions to senators, etc. The report with which the resolutions were introduced was signed by Mr. Davis, and I therefore conclude was written by him, for I take it he is not in the habit of signing reports which he does not write.

In that same year, 1840, a bill was introduced into the senate of Massachusetts, making a change in what is sometimes called the black code, the legislation regulating the rights of negroes. That change was repeal of the preexisting law, which forbade the intermarriage of whites with mulattoes and negroes. And that reform was brought about by my colleague from the sixth district, as he was chairman of the committee that reported the bill providing for the change. That bill became a law; and I think I do no more than justice to the eloquence and talents of my learned and able colleague, when I say, that, in all human probability, the young white men of Massachusetts would have been denied the privilege of connecting themselves with mulattoes and blacks, (in that interesting relation which the gentleman from the sixth district has opened to them,) down to this day, if it had not been for the disinterested exertions of my colleague from the sixth district.

On the 9th day of October, 1838, a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society of Franklin County was held, and George T. Davis was reëlected treasurer of that society. If there was corruption at that time, the fund was in his keeping, and he may therefore have had better opportunities

for understanding this question of corruption than most of his colleagues who have not had the fortune to be treasurers of abolition societies. Mr. George T. Davis was reëlected treasurer of the Anti-Slavery Society of Franklin County; and among the resolutions passed, are some which contain some rather severe remarks upon the Hon. Daniel Webster, whose position then was not so far from that of this treasurer of the abolitionists as it has been since; as it is now, when the treasurer thinks proper to form a coalition with him.

Now, down to 1840, I have traced this history. Down to 1850 has no change come over the spirit of the dream of my colleague from the sixth district? No, Sir ! No, Sir! Judging from all public manifestations I was led to suppose that the sentiments of my colleague from the sixth district, remained, down to yesterday, just the same as represented in the series of resolutions I have just read. If there be any public address in any public meeting in Massachusetts avowing a change of sentiment, I have not seen it, or read it, or heard of it. If there is any communication in any newspaper, magazine, or elsewhere; if there be any communication to the people of Massachusetts who elected the honorable member, informing them that he did not entertain, when he was last elected, the same sentiments entertained previously by him, from 1835 down, I have never heard a rumor of them. There may be such; this part of the State is somewhat distant from my home, and I do not pretend to read all that comes out in the newspapers. I say I never heard a rumor, or saw an indication of any change of sentiment on this class of subjects upon the part of my colleague.

But the convention that nominated my colleague for election to this place, ought certainly to know the truth in reference to the opinions of their candidate. They voted for him upon the supposition that his opinions coincided with their own, and they, especially, knew that they were voting for a gentleman so high-minded and chivalrous that he abhors all coalitions. Of course he would not receive the votes of those who differed from him. He would spurn them with a pure indignation. It must, then, be taken for granted that his party coincides with him in his sentiments. The inference is stronger in his case than that of any other man; and if I find out what were the sentiments of the party who sent him to congress at the time when they sent him, I shall find what his views were presumed to be at the time he was sent here, and that, too, by a presumption which he at least is estopped from denying. [Here the hammer fell.]

Of the effect produced by this speech upon the house, it is impossible to give an adequate description. The member from

District Number Six had previously cut, as the hay-makers say, a pretty wide swath for a short-armed man; but his time had come to be cut up himself, root and branch. All who knew the man were surprised at his attacking Mr. Rantoul, as the consequences were not to be mistaken. The members gathered around the speaker with the most intense interest, and even shouts of applause, as his blows fell fast and heavy in vindication of his own position.

What remained of the gentleman from Congressional District No. 6, after Mr. Rantoul's reply to him, was not certainly known for the space of about forty days, when it appeared, that, by great industry, he had sufficiently replenished himself with missiles, suited to his handling, and that the nunquam sanabile vulnus, the smarting result of his previous onset, impelled him again to hurl, what he had taken so much pains to gather, at the impenetrable shield of his opponent. The hot indiscre tion of this second assault on Mr. Rantoul by the representative from District No. 6, secured to the latter but little sympathy from his friends, who perceived, that, however distasteful Mr. Rantoul's opinions on slavery might be, he was a man whom it was much safer, for their cause and its advocates, to let alone than to meet in fair debate as an antagonist. Mr. Davis's second speech delivered on the 6th March, 1852, was replied to by Mr. Rantoul, on the 9th of the same month, who made a triumphant vindication of his opinions, his consistency in maintaining them, and of the objects and character of the coalition in Massachusetts. In the Congressional Globe it was reported as follows:

The House having resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Mr. Rantoul said :

Mr. CHAIRMAN,On the 24th of January last, I had occasion to reply to some gross, unfounded, and unprovoked aspersions upon the people of the State of Massachusetts, uttered by one of their representatives upon this floor. The chairman's hammer fell before I had concluded that reply, and I learned on the next day that it was quite probable a rejoinder might follow what I had already said. I concluded, therefore, to delay any further remarks until that rejoinder should come, because I supposed that the gentleman who had made this assault upon the people of my Commonwealth, would follow one or other of two courses:

either that he would attempt to establish by evidence the charges he had made against the constituents of us both, and the people of the Commonwealth, generally,—which I knew he would not undertake, if he was a wise man, because the evidence to support those charges did not exist, -or else, if, like a prudent man, he avoided following up his attacks, I thought that then, like an honest man, he would stand up and retract what he had said about the coalition, and boldly avow his own views. I waited, that the gentleman might choose the one or the other line for himself; and I regret that I did so wait, because, to my disappointment, the gentleman has done neither the one nor the other.

The gentleman attacks the coalition in Massachusetts as corruptbasely corrupt-infamously corrupt. It will not do for him to get up here and say that he states certain facts, and that other people may draw the inferences or not, as they think proper. The gentleman has himself brought forward here a charge of infamous corruption against a majority of the citizens of his own State. His own terms are,

"This great crime against our institutions, this wholesale corruption, this monstrous-I had almost said inexplicable falsehood to conscience and to God, to the heart of man, and to the nature of things."

He does not sustain that charge; he does not abandon it. He evades it; and because I had introduced his history,-not that the country might reproach him with it; that was not my motive, for I dealt in no terms of opprobrium,—but because I had introduced his history as an illustration of the general course of the party to which he belongs, he evades the issue which he himself had tendered, and dodges off to talk about his own consistency, and to make an attack upon my consistency. What does the country care,-what does the world care about the consistency of either of us? The issue tendered by the gentleman here. was, that the coalition in Massachusetts was corrupt. I accepted that issue. I said the gentleman had not pointed to one act done by that coalition, or to one law or resolution passed or attempted to be passed by that coalition, which he dared to assail. I said he had not denied that the men put into office by that coalition were better men, and would fill the offices better, than the men that were removed to make room for them, and that if he denied it, I would join issue with him on that question. He did not walk up to either of those issues in addressing this house. The gentleman has not found fault as yet with any law passed or attempted to be passed by that coalition which he denounces as infamous. He has not pointed to any one appointment, to any one office made by the government created by that coalition, in which the appointee was not a better man for the place he received than the man who was removed to make room for him. Then, Sir, I take all

that for confessed. The coalition has been a good coalition so far as its acts go, its laws go, its appointments go; and we come back to the original question, whether the act of coalition, without regard to what the parties did after they combined, was in itself infamous and corrupt. If it was, the gentleman stands justified. If it was not, he may say himself how he stands. I will not define a position for him.

Now, Sir, for a few moments,-though I am aware it is a very small matter, and I dislike exceedingly, personal explanations, for they take up the time of the nation, which ought to be better employed, but still for a few moments, as I know the house expects it of me, let me follow the gentleman's defence of his own consistency, and his assault upon my consistency.

First, the gentleman pleaded the statute of limitation. That was not a plea to the merits, as the gentleman knows, as well as I do. But I will admit that plea to a certain extent, because I wish to deal fairly with this case. If there is any harshness of language,- any unnecessarily irritating form of expression in the resolutions which the gentleman approved in 1835, 1838, and 1840,-I will admit the plea of the statute of limitation, and let that language be softened down,-let nothing that is offensive in the mode in which the ideas are put forward, now stand. But the ideas themselves remain, and the gentleman tells us, in his printed speech, though I did not hear it on this floor, that he glories now in substantially the same sentiments as he then avowed. Why, then, does he come forward and apologize, in a manner that I do not like to witness in a son of Massachusetts? Why, if he entertains these opinions, does he not stand up like a man and say, there is my doctrine, that is what I believe,- that is what I shall act upon; and why does he not act upon it? He should have done this, because the statute of limitation does not apply to his case; it is only ex gratia — that we forget the mere form. Here is a running account,—items entered very lately. They take the whole matter out of the statute, as every lawyer very well knows. I was about to comment on those late entries, when the chairman's hammer fell; and I will proceed to notice them now very briefly. I was going on to show my colleague's position, the position on which he came into this house, what he came here for, what he was sent here to do, and he knows it perfectly well. Why, then, does my colleague talk of the statute of limitation? He was elected in 1850, and the convention which nominated him, and which was held at Northampton, on the 4th of October, passed the following resolutions amongst others :

"Resolved, That while we rejoice that the slave-trade will no longer be permitted to disgrace the capital of the nation, we deeply regret that

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