choice; and I have no fear that, under any construction which the Supreme Court may place on the Kansas and Nebraska act, the citizens of the slaveholding States will suffer any injustice at the hands of those whom gentlemen are pleased to call squatters. There are many in the ranks of the Democratic party who differ from me on this point-some hoping and some fearing that the people will exclude slavery if they have the power. We honestly differ in opinion on a matter of opinion; and I hope no gentleman will say we construe the act differently, because we differ in opinion as to the choice the people will probably make. Mr. Speaker, I advocated the Kansas and Nebraska bill at the time it was enacted. I have advocated it throughout the long and trying ordeal through which it has passed. I stand upon the bill as it is in all its features. I will make no new issue on it, for a new issue involves renewed agitation, and a surrender of the great points already gained. Give us a faithful execution of that law, and my constituents will be satisfied. If squatter sovereignty is in it, it gets there, and can only get there by being in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, and whatever is in that instrument is right. The honorable gentleman from Ohio [Mr. NICHOLS] said much about "Buchanan, Breckinridge, and free Kansas." Sir, I am for free Kansas; I am for Kansas-free to select her own || institutions, and work out her own destiny; free from the control of influences foreign and alien to her interests; free from the withering invasion of fanaticism; free, as Kentucky is free, and as North Carolina is free. The gentleman from Ohio and his associates are not for free Kansas. They would enslave Kansas, for the hope of changing the social status of an inferior race. They would enslave the white man of Kansas-deprive him of his political freedom, that the negro may be free. Sir, I am for free white men, and free States everywhere. The gentleman from Ohio and his associates are for free negroes. I am for free Kansas; and I was for Buchanan and Breckinridge, because I believed them to be for free Kansas. DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 24, 1856. WASHINGTON: PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 1856. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, Mr. BRANCH said: officers from the North, and that such a course would dissolve the Union. I understand him to intimate very distinctly that the South ought not to remain in the Union under such circumstances. Against such a party, openly avowing such a purpose, the friends of the Union and the Con stitution should be indissolubly united. Certainly nothing less than the arrant folly of the madman could produce division in the minority section at such a crisis. The noble and patriotic citizen of the North, who, scorning the demagogue cry of "slaveocracy " and "southern Mr. CHAIRMAN: A great and vital contest has commenced, and is now raging before the people of this country. If we estimate its importance by the magnitude of the results to flow from it, such a one has not, in my opinion, occurred since the establishment of the Government. The portentous flag of Black Republicanism has been raised, and around it have rallied not only the fanatical and political Abolitionists who profess-domination," stands upon the Constitution and edly aim at the total abolition of negro slavery fights for the Union, regardless of sections, eneverywhere, but also a body of men far more counters prejudices which demagogues excite dangerous, who would reach the same result by against him. He maintains a cause which the rendering odious and proscribing the slaveholder, ignorant and uninformed in his own section have and limiting the influence and checking the growth been taught to believe hostile to their own interof those States in which negro slavery exists. ests. Ignorance, malice, and fanaticism taunt Under the folds of this flag are found those who him as a doughface and a traitor. He withstands would refuse equal privileges to the citizens of it all, because he is conscious of right, and fearthe different sections of the Confederacy, and who less of consequences. But when he finds himseek to destroy the equality of the States of the self vilified at the North, and unsupported at the Union. The party formed of such materials, and South-when he sees a powerful party organized aiming at such objects, is, of course, and must in his own section, for the avowed purpose of always remain, strictly sectional in its organiza-giving that section preeminence over the South, tion. It has no existence out of the non-slaveholding States. But as those States have a large majority of Congress, and of the electoral college, its success in getting entire control of the Government is not at all impossible, nor, under the state of things now existing, at all improbable. I am no disunionist, nor alarmist. Nor is Mr. Fillmore. But he has warned us against the election of Frémont, and tells us that one of the consequences must be a dissolution of the Union. Mr. A. K. MARSHALL. I think the gentleman from North Carolina does not correctly state Mr. Fillmore's position. He says that, if Mr. Frémont carries out the policy of appointing none but northern men to his Cabinet, it would cause a dissolution of the Union. Mr. BRANCH. My friend from Kentucky is correct as far as he goes. But Mr. Fillmore says Mr. Frémont would necessarily take all his high and its citizens preference over the citizens of the South; and when he sees a large party at the South refusing to coöperate with him to defeat that party, because he cannot, consistently with the principles on which he has planted himself, advocate a discrimination between the foreignborn and native-born citizen, he may falter in his efforts. When he sees a large part of the South advocating a discrimination between the citizens of the country, therein differing from the Black Republicans only as to the class against whom the principle is applied, may he not commence to inquire whether our aims are more justifiable and constitutional, in this respect, than those of the Black Republicans? We have slaves to perform our labor, and no foreigners. The North has no slaves, and its labor is performed by foreigners. The North may claim that the Constitution guaranties to its foreign labor as much as it guaranties or four others. I think our chance there would be worth that of both the opposing parties together. "The nominations just made ought to unite the North on the Republican platform, while dividing_the_South between the two pro-slavery parties."-New York Tribune of March 1, 1856. to us our slave labor; and the foreign laborer being as indispensable to the North as the slave is to the South, the northern statesman may refuse to defend us from unjust discrimination so long as we insist on a discrimination against himself and his own section. By such a course The friends of Mr. Fillmore at the South should of reasoning, a large number of voters at the take warning; and now, before the heated feelings North, who would otherwise act with us, may of partisans have supplanted the sober calculations be kept from the polls, or driven into the ranks of judgment, they should determine that no reof the Black Republicans; whilst another large membrance of former contests with the Demonumber of intelligent and influential men, dis- cratic party shall prevent them from casting their gusted or alarmed at the folly and ingratitude votes for Mr. Buchanan, and appealing to their under the influence of which we refuse, on ac-associates at the North to do likewise. count of minor questions, to give an effective support to the only party which has a national organization, and holds out any hope of defeating Black Republicanism, will stand aloof from the contest. The continuance of Mr. Fillmore on the list of candidates is dividing the friends of the Constitution and the Union. Without a possibility of success, he has not friends enough in some of the northern States to make it worth while to run an electoral ticket in his favor. Without a reasonable prospect of carrying one single electoral vote, he yet has friends enough in many of those States to cancel the Democratic majorities. The whole country knows that the great bulk of the Know Nothings North have, through their convention, nominated Frémont, and that the small portion of the party who are supporting Mr. Fillmore have, under all circumstances, refused to support that gentleman. Hence, it is a well-known fact, that two thirds of Mr. Fillmore's friends at the North, if compelled to choose between Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Frémont, would vote for the former. The joy of the Black Republicans at the continuance of Mr. Fillmore in the field is not restrained even by obvious considerations of prudence and policy. As showing how they chuckle over our divisions, and what effect in their favor they expect from it, I present extracts from the two leading papers of that party: "Such is the programme of the next presidential campaign; and we are free to confess that we are most thankful to Mr. Fillmore and his friends for having produced this result. Of course, nobody will vote for Mr. Fillmore who would not, in the existing state of affairs, have voted for the Democratic instead of the Republican ticket; and, therefore, it necessarily follows, that the third party will draw votes only from the Democratic ticket. The only /question of principle involved in the next contest is the extension of slavery, by the direct legislation of Congress, into territory now free through the repeal of the Missouri compromise, made in good faith in 1820, and resistance to that act of bad faith. "Of course, with three tickets in the field, the triumph of those who oppose slavery extension by the General Government-oppose the violation of plighted faith and the revival of slavery agitation-and insist upon the right of the people, whether of the North or the South, to regulate their internal affairs to suit themselves without molestation from any source whatever-is placed beyond all question. "We feel assured, that in the approaching presidential contest, we, the aggrieved party of the North, will triumph."-New York Courier and Enquirer, March 26, 1856. "The friends of free Kansas would have a hard battle this autumn if their adversaries were united; but with the nomination of Fillmore and Donelson at Philadelphia, and of men equally obsequious to slavery at Cincinnati, we ought to be able to triumph on the direct vote of the people. Should the Fillmore diversion throw the electoral vote of Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the Democratic ticket, we must take our chance in the House, where we have so recently carried the Speaker, and where we should start with the vote of thirteen States certain, and a tie in three It is obvious, Mr. Chairman, that some excuse is necessary for dividing the South at this fearful juncture. Unable to deny the palpable facts to which I have alluded; compelled to admit that the Democratic party is the only party that possesses strength in every State of the Union, and can hold out any hope of uniting the patriotism of the whole country against the supporters of Frémont; and compelled, too, to admit the soundness of the principles for which the Democratic party is contending, at least so far as the questions connected with slavery are concerned, the southern supporters of Mr. Fillmore are driven to rely on a few frivolous charges against Mr. Buchanan, personally, to furnish an excuse for their extraordinary conduct. I propose to devote a few moments, and but a few moments, to their examination. 1. It is said that, forty-four years ago, he declared that if he had a drop of Democratic blood in his veins he would let it out. It is strange that persons, who have themselves always displayed such mortal aversion to Democratic blood, and everything else Democratic, should urge such a charge against Mr. Buchanan. But it is not true that he ever made such a declaration. Mr. Buchanan himself, many years ago, publicly, in the newspapers, pronounced it false; and a large number of his neighbors, over their signatures, also pronounced it false. Not a particle of proof has ever been adduced to establish its truth. 2. It is said he was a Federalist. He shouldered his musket, as a private, and marched to Baltimore, to defend it against the British. If he was a Federalist, it is a pity there were not more Federalists of the same sort in the country. 3. It is said that he approved certain resolutions passed by a public meeting in Lancaster, ries. That was thirty-seven years ago. Mr. in 1819, disapproving of slavery in the TerritoBuchanan may have been at the meeting; he may have been on the committee, and still not have approved the resolutions, as every one knows who has been in the habit of attending political meetings. Few of us would like to be held responsible for all that was said and done at all the public meetings we have ever attended. But, admitting that he did then approve them, he has been in public life continuously since that time. He has been a member of Congress almost constantly since the slavery agitation commenced, and not a single vote has he ever given hostile to southern institutions. Throughout all that agitation he has uniformly sustained the rights of the slaveholding States, and commanded the confidence of the purest statesmen of the South. For more than thirty years he has been conspicuously before the country as a public officer, having |