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191. THE SOUTH DURING THE WAR OF 1812. Hayne, 1830.

I COME now to the war of 1812, —a war which, I well remember, was called, in derision (while its event was doubtful), the Southern war, and sometimes the Carolina war; but which is now universally acknowledged to have done more for the honor and prosperity of the country than all other events in our history put together. What, Sir, were the objects of that war? "Free trade and sailors' rights!" It was for the protection of Northern shipping, and New England seamen, that the country flew to arms. What interest had the South in that contest? If they had sat down coldly to calculate the value of their interests involved in it, they would have found that they had everything to lose, and nothing to gain. But, Sir, with that generous devotion to country so characteristic of the South, they only asked if the rights of any portion of their fellow-citizens had been invaded; and when told that Northern ships and New England seamen had been arrested on the common highway of Nations, they felt that the honor of their country was assailed; and, acting on that exalted sentiment "which feels a stain like a wound," they resolved to seek, in open war, for a redress of those injuries which it did not become freemen to endure. Sir, the whole South, animated as by a common impulse, cordially united in declaring and promoting that war. South Carolina sent to your councils, as the advocates and supporters of that war, the noblest of her sons. How they fulfilled that trust, let a grateful country tell. Not a measure was adopted, not a battle fought, not a victory won, which contributed, in any degree, to the success of that war, to which Southern councils and Southern valor did not largely contribute. Sir, since South Carolina is assailed, I must be suffered to speak it to her praise, that, at the very moment when, in one quarter, we heard it solemnly proclaimed "that it did not become a religious and moral People to rejoice at the victories of our Army or our Navy," her Legislature unanimously

"Resolved, That we will cordially support the Government in the vigorous prosecution of the war, until a peace can be obtained on honorable terms; and we will cheerfully submit to every privation that may be required of us, by our Government, for the accomplishment of this object."

South Carolina redeemed that pledge. She threw open her Treasury to the Government. She put at the absolute disposal of the officers of the United States all that she possessed, - her men, her money, and her arms. She appropriated half a million of dollars, on her own account, in defence of her maritime frontier; ordered a brigade of State troops to be raised; and, when left to protect herself by her own means, never suffered the enemy to touch her soil, without being instantly driven off or captured. Such, Sir, was the conduct of the South such the conduct of my own State - in that dark hour "which tried men's souls!"

*92. DEFALCATION AND RETRENCHMENT, 1838.-S. S. Prentiss. B. 1810; d. 1850.

SINCE the avowal, Mr. Chairman, of that unprincipled and barbarian motto, that "to the victors belong the spoils," office, which was ntended for the service and benefit of the People, has become but the plunder of party. Patronage is waved like a huge magnet over the land; and demagogues, like iron-filings, attracted by a law of their nature, gather and cluster around its poles. Never yet lived the demagogue who would not take office. The whole frame of our Government all the institutions of the country- are thus prostituted to the uses of party. Office is conferred as the reward of partisaat service; and what is the consequence? The incumbents, being taught that all moneys in their possession belong, not to the People, but to the party, it requires but small exertion of casuistry to bring them to the conclusion that they have a right to retain what they may conceive to be the value of their political services, just as a lawyer holds back his commissions.

Sir, I have given you but three or four cases of defalcations. Would time permit, I could give you a hundred. Like the fir Sultana of the Oriental legends, I could go on for a thousand and one nights; and even as in those Eastern stories, so in the chronicles of the office-holders, the tale would ever be of heaps of gold, massive ingots, uncounted riches. Why, Sir, Aladdin's wonderful lamp was nothing to it. They seem to possess the identical cap of Fortunatus. Some wish for fifty thousand dollars, some for a hundred thousand, and some for a million, — and behold, it lies in glittering heaps before them! Not even

"The gorgeous East, with richest hand,

Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold

in such lavish abundance, as does this Administration upon its fol lowers. Pizarro held not forth more dazzling lures to his robber band, when he led them to the conquest of the "Children of the Sun.”

And now it is proposed to make up these losses through defaulters by retrenchment! And what do you suppose are to be the subjects of this new and sudden economy? What branches of the public service are to be lopped off, on account of the licentious rapacity of the office-holders? I am too indignant to tell you. Look into the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, and you will find out. Well, Sir, what are they? Pensions, harbors, and light-houses! Yes, Sir; these are recommended as proper subjects for retrenchment. First of all, the scarred veterans of the Revolution are to be deprived of a portion of the scanty pittance doled out to them by the cold charity of the country. How many of them will you have to send forth as beggars on the very soil which they wrenched from the hand of tyranny, to make up the amount of even one of these splendid robberies? How many harbors will it take, those improvements dedicated no less to humanity than those nests of commerce to which the canvas-winged birds of the ocean flock for safety? How many light-houses will it

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take? How many of those bright eyes of the ocean are to be put out? How many of those faithful sentinels, who stand along our rocky coast, and, peering far out in the darkness, give timely warning to the hardy mariner where the lee-shore threatens, - how many of these, I ask, are to be discharged from their humane service? Why, the proposition is almost impious! I should as soon wish to put out the stars of Heaven! Sir, my blood boils at the cold-blooded atrocity with which the Administration proposes thus to sacrifice the very family jewels of the country, to pay for the consequences of its own profligacy!

193. AMERICAN LABORERS.-C. C. Naylor.

THE Gentleman, Sir, has misconceived the spirit and tendency of Northern institutions. He is ignorant of Northern character. He has forgotten the history of his country. Preach insurrection to the Northern laborers! Who are the Northern laborers! The history of your country is their history. The renown of your country is their renown. The brightness of their doings is emblazoned on its every page. Blot from your annals the words and the doings of Northern laborers, and the history of your country presents but a universal blank. Sir, who was he that disarmed the Thunderer; wrested from his grasp the bolts of Jove; calmed the troubled ocean; became the central sun of the philosophical system of his age, shedding his brightness and effulgence on the whole civilized world; whom the great and mighty of the earth delighted to honor; who participated in the achievement of your independence, prominently assisted in moulding your free institutions, and the beneficial effects of whose wisdom will be felt to the last moment of "recorded time"? Who, Sir, I ask, was he? A Northern laborer, a Yankee tallow-chandler's

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And who, let me ask the honorable Gentleman, who was he that, in the days of our Revolution, led forth a Northern army, army of Northern laborers, and aided the chivalry of South Carolina in their defence against British aggression, drove the spoilers from their firesides, and redeemed her fair fields from foreign invaders? Who was he? A Northern laborer, a Rhode Island blacksmith, - - the gallant General Greene, - who left his hammer and his forge, and went forth conquering and to conquer in the battle for our independ ence! And will you preach insurrection to men like these?

Sir, our country is full of the achievements of Northern laborers! Where is Concord, and Lexington, and Princeton, and Trenton, and Saratoga, and Bunker Hill, but in the North? And what, Sir, has shed an imperishable renown on the never-dying names of those hallowed spots, but the blood and the struggles, the high daring, and patriotism, and sublime courage, of Northern laborers? The whole North is an everlasting monument of the freedom, virtue, intelligence, and indomitable independence, of Northern laborers! Go, Sir, go preach insurrection to men like these!

The fortitude of the men of the North, under intense suffering fr liberty's sake, has been almost god-like! History has so recorded it. Who comprised that gallant army, without food, without pay, shelterless, shoeless, penniless, and almost naked, in that dreadful winter, the midnight of our Revolution, whose wanderings could be traced by their blood-tracks in the snow; whom no arts could seduce, no appeal lead astray, no sufferings disaffect; but who, true to their country and its holy cause, continued to fight the good fight of liberty, until it finally triumphed? Who, Sir, were these men ? Why, Northern laborers!—yes, Sir, Northern laborers! Who, Sir, were Roger Sherman and But it is idle to enumerate. hame the Northern laborers who have distinguished themselves, and illustrated the history of their country, would require days of the time of this House. Nor is it necessary. Posterity will do them justice Their deeds have been recorded in characters of fire!

194. MERITS OF FULTON'S INVENTION, 1838. Ogden Hoffman.

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THIS House and the world have been told that Robert Fulton was not the inventor of steam navigation. England asserts that it is to a Scotchman that the honor of this discovery is due, and that it was the Clyde and the Thames that first witnessed the triumphant success of this wonderful invention. France, through her National Institute, declares that it was the Seine. Even Spain, degraded and enslaved, roused by the voice of emulation, has looked forth from her cloistered halls of superstition, and declared that in the age of Charles, in the presence of her Court and nobles, this experiment was successfully tried. But America, proudly seated upon the enduring monument which Fulton has reared, smiles at these rival claims, and, secure in her own, looks down serenely upon these billows of strife, which break at the base of her throne.

But it has been denied, in this debate, that any other credit than that of good luck is due to Fulton for his invention. Gentlemen would have us suppose that good luck is the parent of all that we admire in science or in arms. If this be so, why, then, indeed, what a bubble is reputation! How vain and how idle are the anxious days and sleepless nights devoted to the service of one's country! Admit this argument and you strip from the brow of the scholar his bay, and from those of the statesman and soldier their laurel. Why do you deck with chaplets the statue of the Father of his Country, if good luck, and good luck alone, be all that commends him to our gratitude and love? A member of this House retorts, "Bad luck would have made Washington a traitor." Ay, but in whose estimation? Did the great and holy principles which produced and governed our Revolution depend, for their righteousness and truth, upon success or defeat? Would Washington, had he suffered as a rebel on the scaffold, would Washington have been regarded as a traitor by Warren, and Hancock, and Greene and Hamilton, by the crowd of patriots who encompassed him, part

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ners of his toil and sharers of his patriotism? Was it good luck that
impelled Columbus, through discouragement, conspiracy and poverty,
to persevere in his path of danger, until this Western world blessed his
sight, and rewarded his energy and daring? Does the gentleman
emulate the glory of the third King of Rome, Tullus Hostilius, - and
would he erect in our own land a temple to Fortune? It cannot be
that he would seriously promulgate such views;
from human renown all that gives it dignity and worth, by making it
depend less on the virtue of the individual than on his luck!

- that he would take

195. SECTIONAL SERVICES IN THE LAST WAR.-Caleb Cushing.

THE gentleman from South Carolina taunts us with counting the costs of that war in which the liberties and honor of the country, and the interests of the North, as he asserts, were forced to go elsewhere for their defence. Will he sit down with me and count the cost now? Will he reckon up how much of treasure the State of South Carolina expended in that war, and how much the State of Massachusetts ? — how much of the blood of either State was poured out on sea or land? I challenge the gentleman to the test of patriotism, which the army roll, the navy lists, and the treasury books, afford. Sir, they who revile us for our opposition to the last war have looked only to the surface of things. They little know the extremities of suffering which the People of Massachusetts bore at that period, out of attachment to the Union, their families beggared, their fathers and sons bleeding in camps, or pining in foreign prisons. They forget that not a field was marshalled, on this side of the mountains, in which the men of Massachusetts did not play their part, as became their sires, and their "blood fetched from mettle of war proof." They battled and bled, wherever battle was fought or blood drawn.

Nor only by land. I ask the gentleman, Who fought your naval battles in the last war? Who led you on to victory after victory, on the ocean and the lakes? Whose WAS the riumphant prowess before which the Red Cross of England paled with unwonted shames? Were they not men of New England? Were these not foremost in those maritime encounters which humbled the pride and power of Great Britain? I appeal to my colleague before me from our common county of brave old Essex,- I appeal to my respected colleagues from the shores of the Old Colony. Was there a village or a hamlet on Massachusetts Bay, which did not gather its hardy seamen to man the gundecks of your ships of war? Did they not rally to the battle, as men flock to a feast?

I beseech the House to pardon me, if I may have kindled, on this subject, into something of unseemly ardor. I cannot sit tamely by, in humble acquiescent silence, when reflections, which I know to be unjust, are cast on the faith and honor of Massachusetts. Had I suffered them to pass without admonition, I should have deemed that the disembodied spirits of her departed children, from their ashes mingled

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