why should I not? why should not every true Democrat be faithful to his flag? Is not Democracy now what it has ever been? Has it not for fifty years and more administered the government with unparalleled success, lifting it up, from a few feeble and almost dependent states, to the most powerful confederation of independent sovereignties on the face of the earth? Has it not extended our area to more than four times its original limits; thus multiplying our domestic pursuits until their name is legion, and expanding our commerce until it takes in the four corners of the globe? And has it not raised up a policy, at home and abroad, that entails upon us unequalled prosperity, and is literally wringing respect from all the world? Why should I or any other Democrat quit his party? Suppose errors have been committed; suppose men in high places have disappointed our hopes-would it have been better under a Whig or Free-Soil administration? No, sir, whatever have been the errors of the past, let us look hopefully to the future. Democracy has not yet filled her mission; and until she has, I will follow her banShe has conquered many fields; but it is her mission to conquer a universal dominion. The soldier who deserts now is, in my judgment, a traitor to liberty and the dearest interests of humanity throughout the world. The mission of Democracy is no holiday march. It is destined to emancipate the world-to trample thrones and sceptres under foot, and set the people free in every land. Just now the enemy is before us. He vauntingly boasts that he will drive back this young and daring cavalier. Shall we ground our arms and surrender at discretion, or shall we gird on our swords and be ready for the conflict? The quick response of every loyal Democrat will be, "the flag, at every cost, must and shall be defended." I will give neither sleep to my eyes nor rest to the soles of my feet, until the assailants are driven back and the banner of Democracy waves in triumph over every foe.

ner.

With sentiments of high regard, I remain, very truly,

Your friend and obedient servant,

J. S. MORRIS, Esq., Editor "Port Gibson Reveille."

A. G. BROWN.

NAVAL RETIRING BOARD.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 2, 1856, ON THE ACTION OF THE NAVAL RETIRING BOARD.

MR. PRESIDENT: If it had suited the purpose of other senators to allow this whole question to lie over until the Committee on Naval Affairs should have reported upon it, that course would have suited me, and I think would better have comported with the fitness of this occasion. But, since other senators have thought proper to defend their positions, there can be no impropriety in my saying a few words in reference to my own.

No more delicate or difficult question is coming before the Senate than the one which we are now considering. We have already heard

complaints of the law under which the action of the Naval Retiring Board took place, and senators, in their places, have apologized for having voted for it. Some have intimated that they voted without proper reflection, and that no proper opportunity was given for consideration. I voted for the law, and I have no such excuses or apologies to render. I voted for the law because officers of the navy of every grade besought me, and besought me most earnestly, to vote for it; and my experience, I dare say, was the experience of almost every senator on this floor. Pending its consideration, officers of every grade, from commodore down to an acting midshipman, besought their friends here—at least I was so besought -to give it their support. I was reluctant to do so, because I apprehended that difficulties would grow out of the execution of the law. Where there was so much unanimity in favor of the measure, I could but foresee that there was no one on the whole navy list who expected to be dropped or retired. Every officer, from the lowest to the highest, was looking for promotion. I foresaw that when some were dropped, and some furloughed, and some retired, dissatisfaction would spring up, and that the officers thus dealt with, by themselves and through their friends, would come here and complain of having been harshly treated.

For these reasons I was reluctant to vote for the bill which was passed establishing the Naval Board. I voted for it, however, at the earnest and unanimous solicitation of officers of the navy. So far as my intercourse with them extended, no officer of the navy, of any grade, ever intimated to me, in the slightest possible degree, that the law ought not to be passed. I have no reproaches to enter against myself or others for having sustained the law. As to the manner of its execution, that is another question.

I am not here, sir, to censure the Naval Board indiscriminately, and upon the complaint of every man who chances to have been dismissed, retired, or furloughed, and especially when we have not heard a solitary word from the board itself; and I confess that I am getting somewhat impatient when I see your table morning after morning crowded with complaints, reflecting more or less upon a board composed, in my opinion, of as honorable men as the country or the world has ever produced. They may have made mistakes-doubtless they have; but hear before you strike. Let your own committee investigate the question, and make its report; and upon that report let the judgment of the Senate be pronounced.

A few words, now, as to the condition of the question as it stands. The law, according to my judgment, has been executed. Gentlemen speak of repealing the law. Well, sir, suppose the effects of its execution were even ten times worse than they are alleged to be, how much difficulty would you relieve by repealing the law? Certain gentlemen have been dismissed from the naval service; the President has stricken their names from the rolls; they are out of the navy. Suppose you were to repeal the law, will you thereby restore such men to commissions? Unquestionably not. Suppose you repeal the law in reference to those who have been furloughed; what will be the consequence of that? They have been furloughed in obedience to an act of Congress, and the repeal of the law will not take them off the furlough list and put them into active service. Congress has no right to pass any law appointing A, B, or C to office. Gentlemen who have been stricken from the rolls are out

of the service, and if you sit here and legislate till doomsday, you could not, in my opinion, legislate them into the service. This is no new question; it has already been decided. If Congress had had the power of appointing men to office, it would have made a provision declaring that General Scott should be Lieutenant General. But you had no such power. It was conceded on all hands that you had no such power. It was also conceded by everybody that you had no power to pass a law requiring the President to nominate General Scott as Lieutenant General. You only had the power to pass a bill creating that rank, and then the President, in the exercise of his duties as Executive of the United States, could nominate him if he chose, and the Senate confirm him if it chose. You have no right to legislate back again into office the gentlemen who have been dismissed from the navy. Whether their dismission was rightful or wrongful, is not the question. The question is one of constitutional power.

I hold that all these appeals to Congress to legislate gentlemen out of difficulties into which they have, in some cases, been legislated at their own solicitation, are out of place. I shall be very glad to contribute whatever may be in my power to relieve those who have suffered injustice. If any man has been unjustly dismissed from the service, I am willing to hear his petition and to consider his case; I am willing to extend to him all the relief that is in my power; but we cannot ignore the question as to the extent of our power. What have we the right to do in reference to the case as it is now presented?-that is the question. Admit, if you please, that injustice has been done that all these complaints are well founded. What can you do? Some one says,

"repeal the law." Very well, suppose you do, does that restore the dismissed officers? You might as well talk of restoring a man to life by repealing the law under which he was executed! The law is executed, and is a dead letter on the statute-book-as dead as an Egyptian mummy; and the officers dismissed are as far out of the service as if they had never been in it. What can you do? I recur to that question.

It seems to me, with all due deference to the judgment of other gentlemen, that the Secretary of the Navy himself, in his report, has intimated a step in the right direction. Without undertaking to state precisely what he means, or what is his plan, I may venture to suggest that it may be this: that whenever vacancies occur in the service by death, resignation, dismissal, or otherwise, they shall be open to be filled by the nomination of gentlemen who have been dismissed improperly from the service in consequence of the action of the late board. For example: if B, on the active list, shall resign, or die, or be dismissed, then A, who has been improperly dismissed under the operation of this law, may be nominated by the President to take the place, and thus be restored to his rightful position in the service-a position from which it will thus have been admitted he was improperly discharged. Unless we approach the question in some such form as that, I am at a loss to see what we can do.

Even admitting that all the complaints which naval officers make, and all that are made by their friends on this floor, be true, you have no power to compel the President to nominate any one of the dismissed officers to the Senate. If you undertake to suggest to him that he ought to do it, and especially if you undertake to direct him to do it, he would

probably take the bit in his mouth, as I am sure he ought to do, and refuse to do it. But, unless he does nominate these men in the mode I have suggested, how are you to get them back into the service? According to my understanding of the law, there is but one way of restoring them to the service, and that by a nomination from the President, and confirmation by the Senate.

I shall not go into a discussion of cases of individual merit or demerit; but I should do injustice to myself if I did not say that I think the senator from Florida [Mr. Mallory], the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, has taken the true position, so far as the individual case presented by the distinguished senator from Tennessee is concerned. I am sure I should be as slow as any senator, or as any citizen of the republic, to deny to Lieutenant Maury any honor which is his. That he has contributed largely to science, that he has reflected credit upon our common country, I am as ready to admit as any one here or elsewhere, and I am as proud as any senator that it is so; but when you passed this law, what did you mean? I take it for granted you meant what you said that you were passing a law to promote the efficiency of the navy. Is the efficiency of the navy to be promoted by having one man on shore for half a lifetime, pursuing scientific studies, and at the same time remaining in the line of promotion in the navy, while another of equal grade is encountering the dangers of the Atlantic Ocean, or the diseases incident to the coast of Africa, or is doubling the Cape of Good Hope, or is penetrating the icy northern seas? Is the man who happens to be next to Lieutenant Maury on the list to be kept back through all after time from that promotion to which his sea service justly entitles him, because Lieutenant Maury happens to be distinguished in scientific pursuits, but who happens also to have no particular distinction as a seafaring man?

I understood, most distinctly and particularly, when I voted for the law, that we were to do something which was to encourage our naval officers to pursue their profession in its fair, legitimate line-something which was to give them hope of promotion if they fairly won a title to promotion in the proper discharge of their professional duties. I did expect that those who had for a long series of years remained on shore in scientific or other pursuits, however honorable they might be, would be removed out of the way, so that those who were in the active pursuit of their profession might have an opportunity of rising in proportion to the service they had rendered. I am not, therefore, disappointed that Lieutenant Maury has been placed upon the reserved list with full pay. His position gives him an opportunity to pursue his scientific studies to his heart's content. He can add to that immense reputation which he already has, and which I am as proud as any other American to feel is yet a growing reputation; and he will no longer stand in the way of the prómotion of those who are engaged in active sea life. When I voted for the law, I anticipated just that sort of result, and I feel some surprise that Lieutenant Maury should desire, without encountering any of the risks or hardships of the sea, to stand in the way of those who do. If he takes the honors of civil life, let the mariners have those that belong to the sea.

Nor am I more disappointed in the case of Commodore Stewart. I know the history of the gallant old commodore, and as an American I

am proud of it. I am proud of all his naval achievements, and of his glorious services; but I did anticipate that a man of his great age would be removed from active service, and honorably retired. Sir, gentlemen must excuse me when I say it. The idea never crossed my mind that retiring these gentlemen was the slightest possible reflection upon their honor. If I could suppose that placing Commodore Stewart upon the reserved list was a reflection upon his professional, or upon his private character, I would be as ready to denounce the proceeding as any other man; but I have never so regarded it, and do not so regard it now. Commodore Stewart has been almost literally worn out in the service of his country, and does it follow that he is dishonored because his country prefers the services of a younger and more active man? I know that the old commodore has the true ring of the metal in him. I know that he is true game. He does not appreciate the idea that he has grown old, and that his position at the head of the navy may, in the judgment of younger men than himself, impair the efficiency of the service; but it is for that reason alone-because he has been literally worn out in the service of his country-that he has been honorably retired. No reflection on his honor was contemplated; no indignity was intended. No man living regards him as less honored by his country or his countrymen to-day than he was this day twelve months ago. This proceeding cannot, by any possibility, in the judgment of the men of this day, or in the judgment of posterity, reflect the slightest discredit upon Commodore Stewart. The same may be said of Lieutenant Maury, and of other gentlemen.

A great deal has been said in the Senate and out of it about this having been a secret and inquisitorial proceeding. Mr. President, you and I are opposed to secret meetings of all kinds; you and I prefer open fair dealing; but I can see-and I think if other gentlemen would look at this thing calmly they would see--many reasons why this investigation ought to have been secret. While many gentlemen prefer, that whatever investigation occurred in regard to them should be open, there may be, there doubtless are, many others who would prefer that the investigation should not be quite so public; and as neither the public interest, nor any other interest, was to be subserved in any high degree by an open proceeding, it was better to have it secret, than to wound the sensibilities of those who did not choose to have their private affairs publicly investigated. If public opinion were directed in the proper course, it seems to me that the sound judgment of the country would be, that, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, it must be assumed that none were dismissed for dishonorable conduct, or for conduct which was disreputable as gentlemen. I am not willing to investigate the causes of every man's dismissal. I will inquire into no man's private conduct, without I am bidden; but I give notice to all the world, that if officers of the navy, or others, come here and demand investigation, I will give it to them; and if they find transactions paraded before the world that had better slept in secret, it is their fault, not mine.

I am willing to believe that no man has been dismissed the service for base conduct of any kind.

Why assume, under the language of the law, that any man has been dismissed for dishonorable conduct? There are many other reasons pointed out in the law for which he may have been dismissed or retired.