ment of a purely sectional nature on which the two Houses differed. If the House should insist on its amendment, the Appropriation Bill would fail, and the responsibility of embarrassing the government would be on those who had needlessly made its passage depend on an irrelevant question. The Senate took Mr. Hunter's view of the matter; both Houses insisted on their amendments; finally the regular session passed. An extra session was immediately called, and after further disagreement, finally the House concurred. Mr. Hunter had obstinately fought the battle both of administration and slavery, and won. In the heat of the debate on Kansas. Senator Sumner of Massachusetts made a speech characterized by exaggeration and intemperance and full of insulting reflections on the Southern States and Southern men. No speech its equal in offensive phrases and personalities had probably ever been delivered in the Senate. On account of the references to Senator Butler and his state of South Carolina, Representative Preston S. Brooks of the same state made an assault on Sumner. The Massachusetts legislature hereupon adopted resolutions commending Sumner and calling for the expulsion of Brooks. These resolutions were presented to the Senate and laid on the table while Mr. Hunter was absent in Virginia; and on his return he took occasion to speak on them in the Senate. He could not understand how the Massachusetts Legislature could commend the course of Sumner in making his exasperating remarks on the South. To appreciate Hunter's position and the character of Sumner's speech, it may be well to call to mind the words used by the Massachusetts orator in reference to Hunter's colleague, Mr. Mason. In that celebrated speech occurs these words: "He [Mr. Mason] holds the commission of Virginia; but he does not represent that early Virginia, so dear to our hearts, which gave to us the pen of Jefferson, by which the equality of men was declared, and the sword of Washington, by which independence was secured; but he represents that other Virginia, from which Washington and Jefferson now avert their faces, where human beings are bred as cattle for the shambles, and where a dungeon awards the pious matron who teaches little children to relieve their bondage by reading the Book of Life. It is proper that such a Senator representing such a state, should rail against free Kansas.”1 Hunter then proceeds along the ordinary path of slavery defence showing the responsibility of both New England and old England for slavery, the probable evil effects of emanci pation, the advantage of the slave-trade to the rest of the world. He is willing to admit the existence of some obsolete laws on the statute books of the south; these he says ought to be repealed. He then proceeds to declare that the only mode of redress for the offense of Brooks is through the courts, the report previously adopted by the Senate and voted for by Hunter to refer the offender and offense to the House for trial notwithstanding. Despite the eloquence and learning of Mr. Hunter's speech, he is to be censured for reviving the discussion of the Sumner assault. Later, on January 27, 1857, he is one of the three Senators, Mr. Toombs of Georgia and Mr. Evans of South Carolina being the others, who pronounced eulogies on Mr. Brooks when his death was announced in the Senate. In the 3rd session of this Congress, Hunter secured the passage of a tariff bill-that of 1857. He had, as he says, received many letters asking that something be done to diminish the surplus in the United States Treasury in order Congressional Globe, 34th Congress, 1st Session, Appendix, p. 657. that circulation might be freer. Accordingly, when a tariff bill was received from the House, he presented a substitute which took the Walker Tariff of 1846 as a basis, but reduc. ed the duties on imports to "rates lower than those of any tariff since 1816." The principle on which the new bill was based, in Hunter's language, was, "that every change which it proposes tends to cheapen to the consumer the price of whatever he uses, and that at the same time it offers a compensation to the manufacturer, by enabling him to diminish the cost of much he produces." The Kansas question still remained the most important matter before Congress when it met on Dec. 7th, 1857. A pro-slavery convention meeting at Lecompton had formed a state constitution which they submitted to the people, the vote to be taken "for the Constitution with slavery,' or "for the Constitution without slavery." The free state people acting on the assumption that the constitution had to be referred to the people and being dissatisfied with permission to vote on the one really important question of slavery refused to vote at all, and the Lecompton Constitution with slavery was approved by 6000 majority. A new legislature, in whose election the free state population had participated, ordered a submission of the constitution to the people on its own merits, and 10,000 majority was cast against it, the pro-slavery voters this time staying away from the polls. On March 12, 1858, Hunter made a speech upholding the Lecompton Constitution as authorized by a government of the territory certainly de facto, and, in his opinion, legal. The Senate passed a bill admitting Kansas Johnston's American Politics, p. 177. Wilson's Division and Reunion, p. 200, as a state under the Lecompton Constitution; the House passed the bill but with the provision for a re-submission of the constitution to the popular vote. The Senate having refused to concur, a conference committee was appointed. Among the members on the part of the Senate was Hunter. The Committee recommended what is called by some the English Bill from the name of its author, a representative from Indiana on the Conference Committee, by others "Lecompton junior." The plan was to offer Kansas a large grant of land; on which offer the people of the territory were to vote; if they accepted the grant they were to be admitted as a state; if they rejected. they were to wait until their population reached the number required for one representative in Congress. This bill has been usually looked upon as an attempt at bribery, an attempt "to corrupt the honest conscience of the governed." But there is no doubt that mauy who favored it did so conscientiously. There is no doubt that Hunter, for one, was conscientious in arguing "as a general proposition, that the people of no territory ought to be admitted as a state until they have population enough for one member of Congress." but that we may "waive these considerations for the sake of the peace of the country-provided, you will come in and make a final disposition of the whole matter. If, however, you refuse to come in and make a final disposition of the whole matter, the consideration fails upon which we were willing to incur the mischief of admitting a new state with an insufficient population;" also "we have no power either to change that instrument (the Kansas Constitution) or to require you to Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. II, p. 299. Rhodes, Vol. II, p. 301. pass upon it in any other form than that which you have determined for yourselves; but in regard to the contract that you propose to us (the land grant which the Kansans wished), we have the right to change that, and we submit it to you to say whether you will or will not accept this modification which we propose of the contract." The resubmission of the land question was not in Hunter's opinion a bribe in any way, but an endeavor on the part of the Government to make a better bargain than Kansas had proposed. Congress having a perfect right to refuse to make an unfavorable contract, and leaving the constitution out of the question, a perfect right to require of Kansas whether or not she insisted on the exact amount of land proposed in her ordinance. This may not have been the real view of many who voted for the English Bill, but in the writer's opinion it was the real view of Hunter. The English Bill was accepted by the Senate and then by the House and became a law; but Kansas refusing to accede to its conditions remained out of the Union, until in 1861 the Republicans. after the withdrawal of the Southern States, were able to admit her with a free constitution. The 36th Congress met three days after the execution of John Brown. The whole nation was stirred with excitement, and this excitement was reflected in Congress. A resolution was without delay offered by Senator Mason, Hunter's colleague, that a select committee be appointed to inquire into the Harper's Ferry outrage. Hunter was in full accord with Mason in believing the assault on the Virginia town an "outrage," and favored the resolution that was offered. A month later he addressed the Senate at Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, 1st Session, p. 1817. |