Mr. FESSENDEN. But many other Senators may take ten minutes each.

Mr. CARLILE. If the Senate should vote down this proposition, will it not then be competent to non-concur in the committee's proposition, and leave the bill as it was in this respect?

The VICE PRESIDENT. It will.

Mr. FESSENDEN. My colleague on the committee, the Senator from Rhode Island, [Mr. SIMMONS,] appeals to me so strongly, being unable to say to-night what he wants to say, that I shall not object to the suggestion he made.

Mr. ANTHONY. I do not think we shall lose time by deferring this matter until to-morrow. Mr. FESSENDEN. But we may as well vote now on the pending proposition.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Iowa to insert "half" between the words "one" and "cent."

Mr. CARLILE. I am in favor of this clause of the bill as it came to the Senate, before it was amended in Committee of the Whole; and I should like to record my vote against the proposition of the Senator from lowa, and also against the amendment made in Committee of the Whole. I therefore ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. SUMNER. The question, I understand, is on reducing this duty from one cent to half a cent. I prefer that the whole clause should be stricken out; but if it is to be retained, I hope it will be with the amendment of the Senator from Iowa, and I say so without any fear of being supposed to have any sympathy with the rebellion, or with anything which can support this rebellion. I believe that it will be a departure from the policy of this bill if we undertake to tax cotton. We do not tax flax or hemp, or flour or grain, or any of the other agricultural products of the country.

Mr. WADE. We tax domestic wines.
Mr. SUMNER. Not by my vote.
Mr. WADE. We tax whisky.

Mr. SUMNER. Whisky is not one of the agricultural products of the country, but a manufacture. This tax of one cent a pound, taken in connection with a tax of three per cent. on manufactures, will amount, as I am told by those who are familiar with the subject, to a tax of seven or eight per cent. on the coarse cotton fabrics, those usually used by the poorer classes. Are you ready to vote that special large tax on the poorer classes, for there it will fall? There are various kinds of cottons: there are the common cottons and the fine cottons; but this proposed tax is uniform; it is the same for the coarse as it is for the fine; and being the same for the coarse as it is for the fine, you carry upon those cottons which are used by the poorer classes a tax which you might properly impose on the higher. That is with me one of the strongest arguments against this proposed tax. The Senator from Maine said that he was impressed by the other argument that this would fall also upon an extensive foreign commerce in which our people are engaged. That certainly is entitled to weight; but with me it has no such weight as the first argument which I have stated.

Then, sir, as I had the honor of saying, when this subject was up before, suppose those seats on the other side of the Chamber were filled; suppose that there were Senators here from the cotton States, would you think of imposing a tax on cotton if you did not in the same bill impose a tax on the agricultural products of the North? I believe that you would not; and, sir, in their absence I will not do any act which I would not if I could do when they were here.

Mr. GRIMES. Would you not abolish slavery in the District of Columbia?

Mr. SUMNER. I would do that while they were here, and propose it to their faces, and be too happy in the opportunity.

Mr. HOWE. The suggestion which the Senator from Massachusetts has just let fall is a repetition, as he says, of what he remarked the other day.

Mr. SUMNER. I do not profess to say anything new.

Mr. HOWE. I wish to say for one that I do not propose to vote for a measure in the absence of the Senators who formerly occupied those seats, which I would not vote for if they were there. If every State of the Union was represented here to

day I should still vote for this proposition. Pennsylvania is represented here to-day and we voted for a tax on coal and coal oil. All our cities are represented to-day and we vote for a tax upon gas. All the West is represented here to-day and we vote for a tax on that which is made from corn. And I shall vote for this tax, and I shall vote against reducing it from one cent to one half cent, and my reason is this: I do not undertake now to discuss whether this tax will fall upon the producer or the consumer; but I say if it falls upon the producer, it then falls upon the wealthiest and the guiltrest class of people we know in the country, and if it falls on the consumer, then I say only one fourth of it is paid by American consumers, and three fourths is paid by foreign consumers; and so far as that one fourth is concerned which is paid by ourselves, for one being a consumer I would as lief pay it on this as any other article; we have got to pay it on something; we must have the money.

Mr. CHANDLER. The Senator from Massachusetts says this tax amounts to eight per cent. on the poor.

Mr. SUMNER. Upon the coarse fabrics used by the poor.

Mr. CHANDLER. I have already shown that it is only four per cent. on the raw material. Mr. SUMNER. Then there is three per cent. on the manufacturer.

Mr. CHANDLER. It is less than one and a half per cent. on the manufacturer. Of course the Senator means it is seven per cent. on the poor nigger who raises it. That is all. In fact, it is one cent a pound, which is not even one per cent. upon the poor nigger who raises, and it is less than one and a half per cent. upon the fabric produced. Of course, if the Senator votes not to impose this tax of one per cent., it might imply that he is opposed to taxing negro labor, slavery; and that he is in favor of slavery. [Laughter.] He offers a premium to import negroes to raise cotton. It amounts to less than one and a half per cent. on the coarsest fabrics produced; but if he chooses to vote a premium to import negroes from Africa to raise cotton, let him vote so, but after that let him not pretend ever to be opposed to slavery.

Mr. WRIGHT. I will make one remark on the subject of this tax. There is one mistake made so often that I must protest against it, and that is that this is a raw material. The article of whisky manufactured in our section of country is taxed over one hundred and twenty-five per cent.; and I undertake to say that when $100 worth of cotton is ready for market, there is as much labor on it from the time it is produced until it is sold as there is on $100 worth of whisky made from corn. That fact can be demonstrated; and I am tired of hearing that this is a raw material. I say the labor, the cost of preparing the cotton from the time it is picked in the field until it is sold in the bale, is equivalent to the cost there is on the article of corn from the time it is raised until it is made into whisky. It is not true then that it is raw material in that sense. And when the Senator from Massachusetts talks about the poor paying the tax on cotton, he should have thought of that when he voted a few minutes ago against putting a tax on wine that is not consumed by the poor.

Mr. SUMNER. I did not vote for the tax on domestic wines.

Mr. WRIGHT. I know, and I say the Senator was wrong in not voting for it I should like to get this tax very much, and if I cannot get a cent I will take half a cent a pound.

The question being taken, resulted-yeas 14, nays 24; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Clark, Dixon, Fessenden, Foot, Grimes, Latham, McDougall, Morrill, Simmons, Stark, Sumner, Willey, and Wilson of Massachusetts-14. NAYS-Messrs. Browning, Carlile, Chandler, Cowan, Davis, Doolittle, Foster, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Howard, Howe, King, Lane of Indiana, Pomeroy, Powell, Rice, Sherman, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, Wilmot, and Wright-24.

So the amendment of Mr. GRIMES was rejected. Mr. SHERMAN. The question now recurs, I believe, upon the tax of one cent a pound on

cotton.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question now before the Senate is on striking out the section, as recommended by the Committee of the Whole. Mr. SHERMAŃ. On that I wish to say a few words.

Mr. POWELL. Would my vote, if changed on the last list of yeas and nays, alter the result? The VICE PRESIDENT. It would not. Mr. POWELL. I ask leave, then, to vote in the affirmative. I voted in the negative under a misapprehension of the question. I understood that I was voting on a motion to adjourn.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator's vote may be changed, if no objection be made; but not otherwise.

Mr. CLARK. I object.

Mr. POWELL. Very well; the statement I have made will explain it.

Mr. SHERMAN. I find, on looking at the statistics of cotton, that we produced in this country, during the year 1860, 3,656,086 bales, of which we exported 2,812,346 bales, or 1,767,686,338 pounds, so that a duty of one cent a pound on what we exported in 1860 would have yielded us $17,676,863, and a duty on that consumed at home would have yielded us between four and five millions, making altogether between twenty-two and twenty-three millions of dollars. Now, it is plain that if the tax of one cent a pound is levied, and we are able to collect the tax-we must assume these facts-it will yield us probably from twenty to twenty-five millions a year upon the present growth of cotton in the southern States. Between three fourths and four fifths of the cotton is exported, and, consequently, from three fourths to four fifths of that amount will be paid abroad. It is manifest that the only interest here opposed to this tax now is the manufacturing interest. The planting interest is not represented, but that would undoubtedly be opposed to it if it was represented here.

us,

Now, shall we, merely to save the payment of one cent a pound on the amount of cotton consumed here, refuse to avail ourselves of the large amount of revenue we may derive from this article, an article of which we have the monopoly of the world, in which no country can compete with because I believe as was remarked by the Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. WILSON,] the cotton of India and other cotton countries does not compete with ours, and the price of India cotton has not risen, although ours has risen vastly. There is no connection between the two fabrics; they are used for different articles of manufacture. Therefore I say that by levying a tax of one cent a pound on the production of cotton, we get from foreign countries between three fourths and four fifths of the total amount of this tax. The balance

of it will be paid in the first instance by the manufacturers of the country, but then it will be distributed all over the country. As I said before, I think that all these taxes are paid eventually by the consumers. I admit that as a sound proposition in political economy. I have no doubt the housewife of the West who purchases this article will pay the tax eventually to the manufacturer of New England, though not perhaps in the first year; and the addition to the cost of the cloth will be so small and trifling as to be scarcely worth talking about. The amount of cotton consumed in a single family is so little that the tax would be imperceptible even if the consumer paid every portion of it with a fair rate of interest and profit, and I do not know a single article in the whole list on which a tax can be levied with so little damage to anybody.

In regard to the difficulty which has been suggested with reference to the drawback, there is no difficulty in that question if we levy this tax upon all that is exported and all that is used here. Then we leave the manufacturers in Manchester precisely on a footing with the manufacturers of our own country, and if further protection is necessary, it can easily be extended by an increased tariff on the product, and that will be done by the tariff bill that is now being framed. Indeed, I am told-the Senator from Rhode Island said he saw the bill, and he can tell me whether or not I am correct-that the rate of duty on manufactured articles imported into this country is a little higher than the tax imposed by this bill on manufactures, so that the protection is a little greater than the tax we impose on the manufacture.

Mr. SIMMONS. As the Senator refers to me, I will say that I have never seen that part of the tariff bill which relates to the manufactures that we tax in this bill. I have seen that part which relates to the free list and to articles that do not come in competition with our industry.

subject to the Committee on Territories, we are willing that it shall take the same reference in this House.

Mr. Cox's motion was disagreed to.

The papers were then referred to the Committee on Territories.

GRANT OF LANDS TO MISSOURI.

Mr. PHELPS, of Missouri. I ask the unanimous consent of the House to take from the Speaker's table the amendments of the Senate to House bill No. 281, supplemental to an act granting the right of way to the State of Missouri, and a portion of the public lands to aid in the construction of certain railroads in said State, and to act on them at this time. The amendments are immaterial, and are only formal in their character. It is the bill which was reported the other day by the gentleman from Wisconsin, [Mr. POTTER,] the chairman of the committee on Public Lands. There was no objection; and the amendments of the Senate were taken up, and concurred in.

Mr. PHELPS, of Missouri. In order that the amendments of the Senate may be enrolled, I move to reconsider the vote by which they were concurred in; and I also move that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

The latter motion was agreed to.

HAYTI AND LIBERIA.

The SPEAKER stated the question in order to be Senate bill No. 184, to authorize the President of the United States to appoint diplomatic representatives to the republics of Hayti and Liberia respectively, on which the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. KELLEY] was entitled to the floor.

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, when I obtained the floor yesterday, at the conclusion of my colleague's [Mr. BIDDLE] remarks, I was about to observe that the friends of the Administration are frequently charged with obtruding what is called the negro question upon the House and country, and that it seemed to be a fitting occasion to indicate to his and my constituents how, pertinently or impertinently, that question does sometimes get before us. The bill under special consideration is a bill to establish proper international relations between the United States and two great and rapidlygrowing republics. It might be entitled a bill to increase our foreign commerce and protect it against discriminating regulations, duties, and taxes; or a bill to procure for our factories and workshops cheap and adequate supplies of raw materials from tropical countries, and to secure for our farmers, workingmen, and other citizens, sugar, coffee, and all other tropical commodities at first cost, direct from the country of their production, in American vessels, and at prices not enhanced by the profits of the English merchant, and duties paid into the exchequer of an envious and powerful commercial rival.

The bill comes to us from the Senate, having the sanction of that body, and the recommendation of the President, expressed in his annual message. The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. SUMNER,] in presenting his argument in its support, let no sentence fall from which his auditors could tell whether the people of these republics were of the Caucasian, the Basque, the Indian, or African race. It was an international question, and he discussed it as such. His remarks were free from reference to the origin of the people of the republics to which they had reference, or to the people otherwise than in their commercial and national character. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. GooсH] who called up the bill yesterday, and spoke in favor of its passage, treated it as closely as possible in like manner. But the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Cox] and my colleague [Mr. BIDDLE] failed to follow these admirable examples, but spoke two whole hours, not in controverting the wisdom or justice of the bill, but in showing-to borrow an elegant phrase, the paternity of which, I think, belongs to their side of the House-that there was "a nigger in the wood-pile." We, who know so well the purity of the patriotism of these gentlemen, and the elevation of their tone and character, cannot suspect them of such a motive; but I fear that strangers who may have chanced to hear them, may have fallen into the unjust suspicion that they perverted the occasion to party purposes, by attempting to excite the prejudices of the vulgar and ignorant against the Administration and its friends, by deriding, scoffing at, and ridiculing the people of

these republics, and exhausting their wit and sarcasm upon that portion of God's American family which our unjust and unchristian laws have doomed to poverty and ignorance.

Great God! is the vision of my colleague so contracted that he can see no other results than these flowing from our legislation? Have we not dedicated to freedom all the broad Territories of our country? Have we not settled, ay, settled forever, that question which has kept the nation boiling with agitation for the last thirty years?

of men who will people those immense Territories, and who will not probably even hear our humble names, will bless this Congress and Abraham Lincoln for the great work already done by it and his Administration. Yes, we have freed the cooks and chambermaids in this District, and my colleague might have spoken of even humbler occupations in which some of the poor creatures were engaged. They were chattels all, but are men and women, and may now, through our agency, under God's guidance, without fear of the slave-dealer or woman-whipper, rear their children about their knees, and teach them to honor their father and mother, in the hope that their days may be long in the land which the Lord their God, through us, His instruments, has given them.

The uninformed may, I repeat, misconceive the object of the gentlemen in assailing the bill as they have done; in asserting that all that its friends desire to accomplish by its passage is to give dig-Throughout countless generations, the millions nity to black republics; and that its sole object is to promote and produce negro equality at the expense of the white man, by bringing a black minister or two to reside near our Government; and they may possibly suspect them of a desire to inflame the ignorant and prejudiced against the Administration, its friends, and policy, increase the irritation of the border States, and if possible add to the intensity of the hatred of the rebels in arms. But be this as it may, they are responsible for having thrust the irritating question into the discussion of this bill, so free from any connection therewith. Sir, there was a time when for the learned and powerful to serve as eyes to the blind and feet to the lame was to deserve and secure the commendation of all good men. There are still some States in which such is the case; but within their jurisdiction, they who fashioned and decreed the plat- || forms of the last Charleston and Baltimore conventions reversed all that. Such conduct is in their judgment Quixotic, and indicates the taint of unconstitutional humanity.

Thus much we have done. I will not tell my colleague what we have not done, but which those who have a right to be heard think we ought to do. I will, however, leave a Democratic leader of Philadelphia say a few words to him on that subject. I will take the liberty of reading to him and the House a letter I received yesterday from the camp before Chickahominy. Whether the writer of that letter is now at the head of his gallant regiment, or whether he died in the conflict of Saturday and Sunday, I know not. I hope he yet lives; but if he was among the victims of that terrible conflict, those who mourn him will see that his last testimony was honorable, patriotic, and humane. The letter is from one who has shared the honors of many a political field with my colleague, laboring with him on the stump, and marching

The gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Cox,] acting under the new code, indulged himself in parading before the House the squalor and ignorance of the recently escaped slaves around us as a fair portraiture of the condition of the negro race. He drew a melancholy picture. But how he enjoyed it, and with what evident satisfaction he added each somber tint. The gusto with which he completed the work gave some indication of how jolly he would be, could he join a ring in derisive dance around some ulcerous Lazarus or blind Samson fallen by the way side. And, then, his other pic-shoulder to shoulder with him in many a hotly-conture of the negro official in shoe-buckles, knee breeches, gold lace, and bag wig. It was so funny! True I did not hear the roars of laughter that should have followed it; but I am quite sure that if there was any such person as the elder Mr. Weller in the galleries, the effort to suppress his laughter must have brought him well nigh to apoplexy.

My colleague, less mirthful, more grave and philosophical, gave us his statement of the causes of the rebellion; and his constituents and mine, who live upon opposite sides of the street, will be a little surprised to discover that the South had no hand at all in bringing about the present rebellion. I read in the Intelligencer this morning, for the Globe does not furnish me with the remarks of either of the gentlemen, my colleague's enumeration of the causes of the rebellion, and I cannot find there that any southern man was guilty of favoring or doing anything to produce this grandest of all crimes. I think his constituents and mine, as they talk to each other across the street that divides our districts, will be a little surprised to discover that it was not the southern States that determined to destroy the Union and attempted to secede, that it was not southern men who fired upon the national flag, and that it was not southern men who seized the arms and power of the country, binding by oath to peace such of our soldiers as they could seize and did not massacre. Our constituents are not under the impression that the rebellion was necessary or was intended to resist northern aggression, for no aggression upon the South was attempted or intended by the people of the North. They believe that the people of the North, to whom freedom and the right of the laborer to wages are endeared by immemorial usage, resisted wisely and well the unholy attempt, as I have before said, to make slavery the law of our broad Territories and to domesticate the institution in all the States, and especially around Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill, by enigmatical legislation and judicial chicanery, and that the rebellion is but the predetermined consequence of the defeat of the wicked conspiracy to bring about these unconstitutional, inhuman, and barbarous results.

Summing up the results of our legislation, he accomplishes the work by a single exclamation. Says he, "yes, we have achieved freedom for the twenty-nine slaves in Utah, and for the twentyfour slaves in New Mexico, and for the cooks and chambermaids in this District."

tested political campaign. He is a tried and gallant soldier, who, having served three months and been honorably mustered out of service, organized and led to the field under the lamented Baker another regiment; a native of the same beautiful island, and a worshiper at the same ancient altar with him who still pines in a southern jail because he led the New York sixty-ninth so gallantly at Bull Run. This regiment is the sixty-ninth Pennsylvania, and was so numbered because the gallantry of his countrymen from New York had endeared the number to him and his men. In October last, at our State election, his regiment under his lead voted unanimously for my colleague's coadjutors in the Democratic party of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. But enough of preface: let the gallant soldier and life-long Democrat, Colonel Joshua T Owens, speak for himself, and tell my colleague and us what we have not done, which he thinks we ought to do:

CAMP NEAR THE CHICKAHOMINY, VIRGINIA, May 25, 1862. MY DEAR JUDGE: ⭑ We, who are in the field, are often disheartened by the ill-advised and traitorous speeches of mere politicians in Congress. For God's sake lash them when you have the opportunity. The man who, at this momentous crisis of the country, condescends to prostitute his official position to the making of capital for future party use, is a traitor or a fool.

Let Mr. pass, as I have, through most of Virginia, and listen to those even who style themselves Union men, and even lie would be disgusted with the deep-seated corruptions of these deluded people. There are no patriots in Virginia, and there have been none since Bull Run was lost. The Union men, so-called, are neutrals only; and even that only while the Federal Army is in their neighborhood. They are deceitful, blood-thirsty, and boastful, and their conduct, in shooting down our pickets, and insulting our troops wherever we have marched, charging us four prices for everything we buy of them, and even then selling to us with condescension, has so infused a spirit of hatred into our men and officers, that to suggest the conclusion of a dishonorable peace, or a compromise, would be disastrous to the discipline of the troops. I am not at all pleased with a military life, and would, of all things, like to go back home; but I say frankly, that before I would have these scoundrels escape from the punishment justly due them, I would remain in the Army and fight on without the hope of promotion until I was gray and ready to step into an honorable grave.

They must be made to sue for peace and lay down their arms. Their leaders must be given up to the halter, and the system which has caused this war must be wiped out. As to the mode of doing that, FRANK BLAIR's great speech indicates the most safe course to pursue, I think. Gradual emancipation, coupled with colonization, must be the rallying cry of the future. In the mean time, cripple the slave power by excluding from all offices of or under the Government any man who has served in any capacity in the rebel arany. Much or little as we may have done, this letter

shows that there are some things which this gallant Democratic soldier and his companions in arms think we ought yet to do. The wisdom of his suggestions may not be apparent to my colleague, and whether we regard them or no may be unimportant. God's providence will be worked out. Mercy and justice are His attributes. And we may not resist their influence without bringing upon ourselves crises more or less general and severe in proportion to the power and persistence of our resistance to His will. In His ways alone may nations or individuals hope to find paths of pleasantness and peace.

The gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Cox,] while sneering at the negro race, denies the accuracy of official statements, and says the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Goocn,] exaggerates the exports of Hayti. He does not, however, correct the statistics of our own and foreign Governments, but passes them by with a simple denial. But be it as he says-which it is not-is not Hayti as large as Ireland? Is it not the most beautiful, salubrious, and prolific of the tropical isles? Is it not capable of maintaining eight millions of people? Has it not now a population of seven hundred thousand; and does it not unquestionably stand higher than Russia in its commercial relations with our country?

Mr. BIDDLE. In reference to whatever I may have had occasion to say upon this floor, those who listened to me, and those who may hereafter read what I said, will be able to judge how far my colleague justly appreciates my remarks. If, in discussing the propriety of admitting the colonies of Hayti and Liberia to diplomatic intercourse in this country, he proposes to go back to some period remote from the present, when I was not sitting as a member in this Congress, to introduce to this body some production of mine which he is about to criticise, I suggest, as a point of parliamentary propriety, that he should first send to the Clerk's desk the document in question, and have it read. Then I shall not have the least objection to any criticism upon it to which the House may see proper at the present time to listen. I shall be perfectly satisfied if what I have written shall be thus heard. If the gentleman does not wish to have the time consumed in reading it, let him embody it in his remarks and have it printed in the Globe. If I understand the matter, the gentleman is alluding to a letter written

Mr. KELLEY. I will send the document to the Clerk's desk, but not to be read as a part of my speech. I cannot spare the time for that, happy as I would be to oblige my colleague. I must object to all further abstraction of my time. If the House will indulge me to the extent of allowing the time which I may yield to gentlemen, I will gladly yield to any, but if I am thereby to lose

time I cannot.

Mr. BIDDLE. Then, I rise to a question of order. This is a bill for the admission of Hayti and Liberia to diplomatic relationship, and it is not in order to discuss the letter in question. I

If its statistics have been somewhat exaggerated, we may be assured they will seem poor and paltry enough when compared with what they will be ten years hence. Our more intelligent freed men are flocking thither to become citizens and enjoy the rights of man. The non-consuming and, consequently, listless American slave is thus transformed into the Haytien planter, raising on his own farm, the free grant of an enlight-look back to few things with as much satisfaction ened Government, the luscious fruits of the tropics, with such staples as cotton, coffee, cocoa, sugar, rice, arrow-root, indigo, ginger, and scores of other articles, which, through the Haytien merchant, black as himself, he will exchange for the products of our factories, forges, and workshops. Pass this bill, secure to our commerce equal chances in her ports, and the swelling tide of agricultural emigration to Hayti from our own shores will make her the munificent patron of our manufacturers and mechanics, especially those engaged in the production of agricultural tools and machinery.

The bill, sir, is of great national interest, and the suggestions in its favor are not answered by sneers at that race, the creation of which by the Almighty is evidently regarded by the gentleman from Ohio as a grand mistake.

My colleague [Mr. BIDDLE] spoke of this country as being "the sick man" of the western hemisphere. The sick man of the western hemisphere! His own country, the land of his fathers and his posterity, the sick man of the western hemisphere! A country with six hundred thousand men in the field, clothed, fed, and paid as soldiers never were before-six hundred thousand men, the children of the proudest and poorest of the land, the poor man often in command, the proud man's sons often serving under him, illustrating to all time the beautiful effect of democratic republicanism. A nation, involved in war on such a scale with its own people, and while its armies are moving steadily on to final victory, maintaining its order and dignity in the face of the world, and putting its credit so high that its irredeemable paper brings a premium in the markets of the world, to be characterized as the sick man of a hemisphere! Had this slander been uttered by a foreigner, how would our countrymen denounce him! The country, sir, is giving to-day an illustration to the world of a healthy vigor and power such as history does not record.

My colleague is somewhat given to erratic sayings. I remember that, after having been invited by a Republican Governor to accept the colonelcy of a regiment, and by our Republican President to assume the rank of brigadier general, he spoke of the war as a Black Republican job. It was, I am sure, in a heated moment that he did it.

When, warmed by the enthusiasm of early manhood, he tendered his life to his country, and, under the leadership of the grand old commanderin-chief, won rank and honor on the hardest fought fields of Mexico-yet has he told his people that that honored general had intrusted the reins of this war to politicians and "able editors" till they nearly upset the coach.

as the writing of the letter to which the gentleman alludes. But my point of order is, that in discussing a bill which relates to Hayti and Liberia it is not in order to comment upon a letter written by an individual member of this House before he took his seat, and which it is assumed has no relation to Hayti and Liberia.

The SPEAKER. The Chair sustains the point of order.

Mr. BIDDLE. I then withdraw the point of order, if my colleague will allow the document to which I suppose he refers to be read.

Mr. KELLEY. I will not allow it to be read in my time; but will not refer further to the letter. Mr. BIDDLE. I have no possible objection, it my colleague will allow it to be read.

Mr. KELLEY. No, sir; I repeat I will not allow it to be read in my time. My colleague was right in supposing I referred to a letter written by him; and if I have fallen into error in alluding to it, he will bear witness that I have been misled by his own examples. So little relation had his remarks of yesterday to the bill, that the point of order he now raises would have excluded nearly all he said. And in the speech which he made on the 6th of March, in which he so felicitously interwove the pet phrases of the Mexican Greaser and the bar-room lounger of our region with the magnificent rhetoric of Chatham and Sumner, he said:

"An eminent member of the dominant party has promulgated his scheme for carrying on this war. He has promulgated it in many essays and speeches, to one of which parliamentary usage permits me to refer, since it was not made in his place in the Senate."

And as the gentleman's letter had not been promulgated in the Senate, I was under the impression that parliamentary usage would permit me to refer to it in the House.

Mr. BIDDLE. I do not object. I place it perfectly at my colleague's disposal.

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, as my colleague seems to be somewhat sensitive on this subject, I will, lest I may have misrepresented him, cite the brief paragraph of the letter to which I have referred, and make no further reference to the subject. I would not, for any consideration, disturb the pleasant relations that exist between us:

"When the national flag was struck down at Charleston and the national capital was threatened by secession, the North rose like one man. The world saw with astonishment the great uprising of the people; Europe prejudged the issue in our favor; yet, as if smitten with blindness, the Republican leaders seemed striving to waste and dissipate. instead of to seize and use, the noble material for great armies which was, with scarcely any limit, placed at their disposal. The soldier who offered himself for the public service found that he must ear-wig some politician before he could be allowed the privilege to fight or die for his

country. Men began to say that the war was to be made a Black Republican job.'

"Politicians were put at the head of troops-politicians who thought that to wear lace and feathers, and to pocket pay, was the whole duty of the officer-feasting and frolicking and speech-making took the place of training and discipline; and while the officer spouted and revelled, the rank and tile were robbed of their first right-the right to skillful guidance and instruction. The reins were nominally put into the hands of a venerable chieftain; but every politician, every able editor,' took a pull at them, till they upset the coach.

"Amid shouts of On to Richmond,' the North, with its teeming population, found itself outnumbered at every point of conflict, and the battle of Bull Run proved that the Administration had known neither its own strength uor the enemy's. Where, then, were our legions?' we may well ask of it. But the battle of Bull Run was not without its fruits for us."

When interrupted, Mr. Speaker, I was about to say that, regardless of the warnings of would-be Cassandra's, I hoped to see our country rise high above her present exalted position; that I desire to see her become the patron of feeble nations, and by her justice and generosity, make her power and grandeur glorious in history as the glowing hearts of grateful ages can depict them.

The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Cox] denied that the negro had any faculty for commerce. Sir, the hardy enterprise of our whalers is the theme of glowing eulogy in English and American literature and eloquence, yet Great Britain, in the single year of 1860, received from the little republic of Liberia not less than forty thousand two hundred and sixteen tons of palm oil, worth more, as I shall hereafter show, than the whole oil product of the most favorable years. The exports of that little republic-planted by us in the equatorial region of Africa, and near the mouth of the Niger-to Great Britain, in the first six months of 1860, amounted to no less than $3,056,116, being a gain of forty per cent. over the corresponding period of 1858. The crop of Liberia in 1860 was more than one hundred per cent, advance upon the crop of the same country for 1859. Sir, who are producing these grand national results, and making such wonderful progress? People sent from this country since 1827; sent hence fresh from slavery, the subjects of the degradation, ignorance, and improvidence its essential laws inflict upon its victims.

For the last fifteen years, although they number only some ten thousand American emigrants and about five thousand civilized and christianized native Africans, they have maintained an independent Government, modeled on our own, with an executive, legislative, and judicial department, each independent in its sphere, and coördinate with each other. Our decisions are quoted in their courts, our language taught in their schools, and the word of the God we worship made known to them in their churches from King James and Douay Bibles as in our own. Civil equality and religious freedom prevail among them; their schools, colleges, and churches are prosperous, and have been largely instrumental in enabling them to extend their jurisdiction over and assimilate several hundred thousands of docile but

aspiring heathens.

It is a fact worthy of note that when the site was purchased for the New Jersey colony, the last purchase of which I have knowledge, the chiefs who ceded the land insisted upon one stipulation as the most important element of price. It was, that they and their people should be guarantied the right to attend the churches of the colonists, and their children have admission to their Sunday and day schools on the same terins as those of colonists.

There, sir, is a republic which has grown as the American colonies did not grow. Our fathers had a savage and hostile people to contend with, and they almost extirpated them. The Liberians find a loving but degraded people to absorb and elevate. Thus, year by year, the limits and influence of that republic have been extended, and they will continue to extend until those who legislate in this Hall a few generations hence will find their commercial relations with the republic of Liberia grown to a magnitude and importance equaling those of the leading nations of the world. They are an agricultural people; they give us the products of the tropics-coffee, sugar, spices-I speak now of both Liberia and Hayti-lignumvitæ, palmwood, and such dye stuffs as the world has never produced. Stuffs for dyes that neither light nor acid will affect.

In 1849, Commodore Foote was ordered to the African coast. I hold in my hand a book which he published, containing his African observations made in 1850-51. He often dwells upon the young republic of Liberia. He does not agree with the gentleman from Ohio that the negro has no fitness for commerce.

Mr. COX. Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him?

Mr. KELLEY. I will be glad to hear the gentleman when I shall have finished, but I cannot yield to him if his remarks are to be deducted from the time I am entitled to occupy.

Mr. COX. The gentleman misrepresents me. I said nothing of the kind.

Mr. KELLEY. I so noted the gentleman at the time.

Mr. COX. On the contrary, I argued― The SPEAKER. Does the gentleman from Pennsylvania yield the floor?

Mr. KELLEY. No, sir; I do not. I will gladly be corrected if I have not stated the position assumed by the gentleman correctly, but as my time is passing rapidly, I cannot now yield to the gentleman even for that purpose. Commodore Foote says:

"It is impossible to say how lucrative this (Liberian) commerce may ultimately become. That the whole African coast should assume the aspect of Liberia is, perhaps, not an unreasonable expectation. That Liberia will continue to grow in wealth and influence, is not improbable. There is intelligence among its people, and wi-dom and energy in its councils. There is no reason to believe that this will not continue. Its position makes it an agri cultural community. Other lands must afford its manufacturers and its traders. There will, therefore, ever be on its shores a fair field for American enterprise.

"The reduction or annihilation of the slave trade is openfg the whole of these vast regions to science and legal commerce. Let America take her right share in them. It Is throwing wide the portals of the continent, for the entrance of Christian civilization. Let our country exert its full proportion of this influence, and thus recompense to Africa the wrongs inflicted upon her people, in which hitherto all nations have participated.”—Africa and the American Flag, pp. 389, 390.

Speaking of the dyes of this republic, it should be borne in mind that as a manufacturing people we are large consumers of dye stuffs, upon the quality of which our successful competition with other nations often depends, and that we are now compelled to procure them from these republics through the medium of England, paying tribute to her and receiving from her the dregs, her people using the best. On this and kindred topics let Commodore Foote also be heard:

"The vegetable articles of export are of great value. Cotton may be produced in unlimited abundance. The African dye stuffs are already recognized as extensive and valuable articles of commerce. Indigo is used extensively by the natives. When we recollect that the vast trade of Bengal in tiis article has been created within the memory of men still living, and that India possesses no natural advantages beyond those of Africa, we may infer what a profusion of wealth might be poured rapidly over Africa by peace and good government.

Gums of various kinds constitute a branch of trade which may be considered as only commencing. The extensive employment of india-rubber and the knowledge of guttapercha, are only a few years old. Africa gives promise of a large supply of such articles. Its caoutchouc has already been introduced into the arts. It may be long before the natural sources of supply found in its marshy forests can be exhausted. Be that as it may, when men are induced, as perhaps they soon will be, to substitute regular cultivation for the wild and more irregular modes of procuring articles which are becoming every day of more essential importance, Africa may take a great share in the means adopted to supply them.

"What may be done in the production of sugar and coffee no man can tell. James McQueen, who has during a great part of his life devoted his attention to the condition and interests of Africa, gave evidence before a committee of the British House of Peers, in 1850, to the following effect: There is scarcely any tropical production known in the world which does not come to perfection in Africa. There are many productions which are peculiarly her own. The dye stuffs and dye woods are superior to any which are known 2 any other quarter of the world, inasmuch as they resist both acids and light, things which we know no other dye stuffs from any other parts of the world can resist. Then there is the article of sugar, that can be produced in every part of Africa to an unlimited extent. There is cotton also above all things, estion of a quality so fine; it is finer than any description of cotton we know of in the world. Common cotton in Africa I have seen and bad in my possession, which was equal to the finest quality of American cotton."

--Egyptian cotton is not so good as the cotton away to the south; but the cotton produced in the southern parts of

THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1862.

Africa is peculiarly fine. Africa is a most extraordinary country. In the eastern horn of Africa, which you think to be a desolate wilderness, there is the finest country and the finest climate I know. I know of none in South Amer ien equal to the climate of the country in the northeastern horn of Africa. It is a very elevated country, and on the upper regions you have all the fruits and flowers and grain of Europe growing; and in the valleys you have the finest fruits of the torrid zone. The whole country is covered with myrrh and frankincense; it is covered with flocks and herds; it produces abundance of the finest grain. Near Brasa, for instance, on the river Webbe, you can purchase as much fine wheat for a dollar as will serve a nian for a year. All kinds of European grain flourish there. In Enerea and Kaffa the whole country is covered with coffee. It is the original country of the coffee. You can purchase an ass's load (two hundred pounds) of coffee in the berry for about a dollar. The greater portion of the coffee that we receive from Mocha is actually African coffee, produced in that part.”—Africa and the American Flag, pp. 67-70.

Commodore Foote also answers some of the suggestions of my colleague [Mr. BIDDLE] and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Cox] as to the unfitness of the negro for social, political, or commercial relations. He says, (pages 205 and 206:) "A movement for the elevation of the colony into an independent State, has been made by the people at Cape Palmas, and a commission has visited this country to make arrangements for the purpose. That there be full political independence granted to this people is requisite as an element of the great achievement now going on. This contemplates something far higher than creating merely a refuge for black men, or sticking on a patch of colored America on the coast of Africa, like an ill-assorted graft, for which the old stock is none the better. Liberia is the restoration of the African, in his highest intellectual condition, to that country in which his condition had become the most degraded. The question is to be settled whether that condition can be retained or so improved that he may keep pace with the rest of the world.

"It is a necessary element in this proceeding, that he be self-governing. It is to the establishment of this point that all men look to decide the dispute, whether negro races are to remain forever degraded or not. Time and patience, however, and much kind watchfulness, may be required before this experiment be deemed conclusive. Let many failures be anticipated ere a certain result is secured. Let no higher claims be made on the negro than on other races. Would a colony of Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Sicilians, if left to themselves, offer a fairer prospect of success than Liberia now offers? Few persons would have confidence in the stability of republican institutions among these races, if so placed."

"Let then the black man be judged fairly, and not presumed to have become all at once and by miracle of a higher order than old historic nations, through many generations of whom the political organization of the world has been slowly developing itself. There will be among them men who are covetous, or men who are tyrannical, or men who would sacr.fie the public interest, or any others, to their own; men who would now go into the slave trade if they could, or rob hen-roosts, or intrigue for office, or pick pockets rather than trouble their heads or their hands with more honorable occupations. It should be remembered by visitors that such things will be found in Liberia, not because men are black, but because men are men.”

A word more as to the capacity of these people for commerce, and as to the folly of a policy which would prevent our merchants from engaging in that commerce, and which would exclude our manufacturers, farmers, and mechanics from enjoying its advantages.

Sir, we need a minister at each of these countries. When once we have a minister resident at Hayti or Liberia, the tariff and terms of commercial intercourse will be regulated by treaty, and our merchants and manufacturers will not be subject, as they now are, to discriminations against them, under which they suffer seriously. By the laws of these republics an extra duty is now levied upon the imports of those nations which have failed to recognize their independence. Give us ministers or commissioners resident there, and we will then be on equal terms with the most favored nations. Let us recognize the nationality of these republics, and cease to be the proper subjects of these exactions. Let us, I repeat, open the way for our commerce with these countries, welcome their products which we need, and find in them markets for our manufactured articles.

I now read from a letter addressed to me in the

NEW SERIES.....No. 159.

and is developing this region of the continent. The export of a single commodity-palm oil-from western Africa, is estimated to reach annually sixty thousand tons, exceeding in value that of a whale oil season. Great Britain received, in 18860, 804.325 ewts., as is shown in official returns, equal to 40,216 tons. The exports of British goods to west coast of Africa during the first six months of 1860, amounted to $3,056.310, being a gain of forty per cent. on the shipments of the corresponding period of 1858. The subject of African commerce is engaging more and more the attention of our merchants, and the power of Liberia will soon be felt in the commercial world.

"The far-reaching policy of the British authorities and people is drawing to its ports a large and highly lucrative intercourse with the west coast of Africa. The proof of this is shown in a recent money article in the London Times, in noticing the half yearly meeting of the African Steam Company, held on the 14th day of last December. It is stated that a dividend of seven shillings per share was declared-being at the rate of seven per cent. per annumfree of income tax.' A reserve of seven and a half per cent. per annum was likewise made for depreciation, and several heavy losses were also met and liquidated.

"Some forty craft, built in Liberia, and owned and manned by its citizens, trade along its sea-board and navigable rivers. Larger vessels are similarly engaged between it and foreign countries. Three of these, the Moses Sheppard, Daylight, and Euschia J. Roye, which used to visit Baltimore and New York, now run to Liverpool from the Liberian waters, in consequence of the discriminating charges imposed upon them and their cargoes in our ports. France, Great Britain, Belgium, Prussia, Brazil, Lubec, Bremen, Hamburg, Portugal, and the kingdom of Italy have acknowledged the nationality of Liberia, and it has treaties of amity and commerce with not only the majority of these Powers, but with numerous others.

"Soon, it is hoped, the United States will recognize this young African State, and enter into treaty relations with it. Should the existing and injurious status be maintained, our country must lose its present share of Liberian trade, for it will flow where there are the least obstructions and its conductors freely welcomed instead of being repelled by burdensome exactions. As yet, our shipping and products are admitted into Liberia on the same footing as those of the most friendly nations; but may not its people retaliate, and cause the enactment of measures which shall practically drive American ships and traffic from their ports, as we are now doing with hers? Can we well afford to do this?”

And shall we hesitate about recognizing as members of the family of nations these two republics? What reason can we give for it to history and to the world? What trade or legitimate interest will such an act injure or interfere with? None. It will indeed break up the slave trade; make Liberia powerful, and in this cause she will fight the nations of the world gallantly, as her little navy did the Spanish steamer that undertook to punish her for having searched a Spanish vessel for slaves. It will, I say, break up the slave trade, and shut out of our country further importations of what my colleague is so terribly afraid of, the negro. He will not willingly come from a land where he is a man to one in which he is embraced in the category of cattle. Nor will he, when Liberia can prevent it, be brought here as our Democratic friends have been in the habit of bringing him for the last few years? It may be said that slaves have not been brought here at all. If so, let me just here make another little extract from the letter of my friend, William Coppinger, Esq.:

"The capacity and value of Liberia to the United States is practically illustrated in the receipt and wise disposition, during the space of nine months, August 21, 1860, to May 8, 1861, of four thousand four hundred and seventy-nine liberated slaves, seized in slavers by American cruisers and landed in that republic by direction of our Governinent. Its humanity and strength are demonstrated in the successful resistance made September 11, 1861, in the harbor of Monrovia, to an unexpected attack made by a threemasted Spanish war steamer, the Ceres, which undertook to sink the Liberian naval vessel Quail, for capturing a slaver at Gallinas, the northern boundary of the republic; and in preventing the native chiefs and head men along its interior, from Gallinas to Palmas, from participating in the infamous slave traffic."

I admit that the passage of this bill will injuriously affect the interest of the slave-trader, by cutting off the supply of slaves. It will also do much to break up one other traffic-the manufacture and sale of counterfeit Haytien dollars. As we do not recognize Hayti as a nation, our courts cannot

"Liberia is a center of trade and commerce in Africa,

When, therefore, we find a counterfeit Haytien dollar in our pockets, we may charge it to our own act, for by our unwisdom and inhumanity we have legalized the manufacture of such counterfeit coin in every town in our country. The manufacture of such coin and the slave trade are the only interests that the passage of this bill can possibly