such an intimation. If it turns out to be true, I hope he will post his captives in the rear, and not in the front of our line. And I would particularly caution him against giving them commissions and high rank, until he is certain they will be faithful to our flag. It is not safe to make commanders of those too recently taken from the ranks of the enemy. They may betray us in the hour of trial; or, from the force of habit, turn their arms against us. Besides, the old veterans in our ranks may object to following these captive commanders. Senator Brooke, for example, is an excellent Whig, and, for aught I know, he is a very good Union Democrat; but I know many an "old liner" who would not like to follow his lead in a presidential campaign. My colleague is sensitive when allusion is made to an existing connection between the Whigs and Union Democrats. He has reason to be. The success of the Union party in Mississippi has given the Whigs more offices and more patronage than they have enjoyed for many years. If the gentleman means well towards the Democratic party, he cannot but regret that, through the instrumentality of his party friends, the most influential and important places in the state have been given to the Whigs. It is due to the Whigs for me to say, they have selected men of high character, and such as will be likely to make their present official positions felt in future elections. I honor them for their sagacity. My colleague introduces a silly story about my settling in the Democratic county of Copiah, and being soon after sent to the legislature, and about my meeting a former Whig friend, who inquired how it was that the Democrats of Copiah sent a Whig to the legislature; and some other twaddle of the same sort. The story, if it had any purpose, was intended to leave the impression that I had at one time been a Whig. I am sorry that my position in Mississippi has been so humble that it has failed to attract the attention of the gentleman. He is entirely ignorant of my personal history, else he never could have retailed second-hand, and much less have coined, such a story. Instead of my settling in Copiah, and being soon after sent to the legislature, I went there with my father when I was eight years old, and have resided there ever since, except when absent in the public service. At the early age of twenty-one, I was sent to the legislature as a Democrat, and at each succeeding election, from then until now, I have been a candidate. I have invariably run as a Democrat, and have never suffered defeat. There is not an old Democrat in my congressional district, and scarcely one in the state, that could not contradict the implied declaration of the gentleman, that I had been a Whig. If the story was meant for wit, it was flat; if intended for effect, it was simply ridiculous. My colleague need not concern himself about my position, nor his own. I have been in the party all the time. He has the right to return, and, like a truant boy who had been a day from school, take his place at the foot of the class. I hope he will do it without grumbling. The gentleman speaks of the "so-called Democratic State-Rights Convention," to send delegates to the Baltimore Convention. As usual, he mistakes the facts. There was no call of a "Democratic State-Rights Convention" in Mississippi to send delegates to the Baltimore Convention. The call was for a "DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION." It was made as such calls have usually been made, through the central organ of the party-the Mississippian. The gentleman errs again in saying, "it was simply an editorial article." It was a call made in the usual way and through the usual channel, and upon consultation with the oldest, longest tried, and most substantial members of the party residing at and near the seat of government. The call embraced the whole party, without reference to past differences; and it was responded to by the party generally in Mississippi. Soon after the appearance of this call, several members of the "Compromise Convention," then at Jackson, issued a call for a "Union Democratic Convention;" thus marking, in distinct terms, their resolution not to unite with the great body of the party. It is worthy of remark in this connection, that the gentlemen calling this convention used the term "Union Democratic Convention." And it was the first time within my recollection that this term ever was used in Mississippi to designate an organized party. I had heard of "Union Whigs" and "Union Democrats," but it applied to individuals only. When the party, the organization, was spoken of, it was called the "Union party." That is That is my recollection. I repeat, sir, the DEMOCRATIC Convention in our state which appointed delegates to the Baltimore Convention, was called as a Democratic convention, and not as a "so-called Democratic State-Rights convention.” But why should my colleague have such a horror of "State-Rights?" Is he not a State-Rights man? He may think that an oppressed state has no right but the right of submission, or revolution, and that if she judges for herself of "infractions of the compact," and of the "mode and measure of redress," the federal government may reduce her and hold her as a conquered province. This may be his notion of state rights. But I recollect that in 1841 (and I appeal to the public newspapers in Mississippi for the correctness of my recollection) the gentleman ran on the "Democratic State-Rights ticket" for attorney-general in our state. He had no horror of state rights then. In that year the term "Democratic" meant the right of the people to rule, and "State Rights" meant the right of the state to reject the payment of an unjust demand for money. Our opponents said, I know, that Democratic State Rights meant repudiation. My colleague won his first laurels in this celebrated campaign. In 1851, ten years after, he hoisted the "Democratic StateRights banner" again. Democratic meant, as in 1841, the right of the people to rule, and state rights meant the right of a state, in the language of the Kentucky resolutions, "to judge of infractions of the federal compact, and of the mode and measure of redress." But the gentleman refused to fight under this banner, and he now denounces it as emblematic of treason, civil war, bloodshed, strife, and all the horrors known to man. I hope he will not get out of temper if we tell him that some of us think differently, and that we mean to enjoy our opinions. The gentleman says the Union Democratic Convention of Mississippi appointed "seven delegates to the Baltimore Convention." That "the Union men of the South hold the presidential election in the palms of their hands." They demand thus and so, and if the convention does not comply with these demands, "it had better never assemble." Wake snakes and come to judgment-the times are big with the fate of nations. "The Union party of the South holds the presidency in its hands," even as the Almighty holds the universe. It stamps its foot, and the earth trembles. It speaks, and the sun stands still, as at the bidding of Joshua. Seriously, I hope "the seven men in buckram" from Mississippi do not contemplate upsetting the universe, even if the Baltimore Convention should refuse some of their demands. I have treated these domestic squabbles at greater length than their importance may seem to justify. I have treated them fairly, I think, and I hope in good temper. I set out with a determination not to be provoked by the ungenerous assaults of my colleague, and I have kept that resolve steadily in view. I am now done. The controversy between my colleagues and myself has not been of my seeking. Our constituents did not send us here to fight again the campaign battles of Mississippi. And if I had been left alone to pursue the inclinations of my own mind, I never should have introduced the subject of Mississippi politics on this floor. The subject is foreign to the business of legislation on which we have been sent, and ought never to have been introduced here. But when my colleagues combined, as I thought, to make up a record prejudicial to my party-friends, prejudicial "to the truth of history," and calculated to fix on the mind of the country and of after ages, a wrong impression as to the principles, objects, ends, and aims of my friends, I should have been false to those friends, false to the truth of history, false to the reader of these debates in after times, if I had not interposed. They have made their showing-I have made mine; and I submit the issue to the impartial arbitrament of the country and of posterity, without one shadow of doubt that justice will be awarded to us all. I ask nothing more, and will be content with nothing less. This discussion is not suited to my taste. It obstructs the legitimate business of legislation, and encumbers the Congressional record with matter that has no business there. Its present effect must be, if it has any effect, to weaken the Democracy and give strength to the Whigs. For all these reasons, and for many others, I am most anxious to get clear of it. If the future depends on my action, there will be no recurrence to the subject, here or elsewhere. PUBLIC PRINTING. SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 13 AND 14, 1852, ON OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE IN TAKING IT FROM THE CON- MR. BROWN said: I do not intend to detain the House by anything like an elaborate speech upon the subject of the public printing. In the few remarks which I propose to submit, I shall endeavor to confine myself as nearly as possible to the subjects directly before us; nor should I have asked the indulgence of the House to say a word but for the agency which I have taken heretofore in this matter. When I heard that the Committee on Public Printing had done more than, by the explanation of the honorable chairman, I am now induced to think they intended to do, I thought they had exceeded the authority given them by law, and that they had done that which this House ought not to sanction by its silence, much less by its express assent. With the explanation which the honorable chairman has given, I am satisfied the committee have intended to confine themselves to the letter of the law; but I am just as well satisfied that their action will lead to an abuse of the law. The Committee on Public Printing have a right, according to one construction of the statute of 1846, to take so much of the public printing from the present employee as he fails or refuses to execute. Under this authority we now learn from the chairman, that they propose to take from the public printer-what? The work which he has refused or failed to execute, and this alone? No, sir; for in the progress of his remarks the honorable chairman tells you that they have in their possession now a considerable quantity of work, which has never yet been submitted to the public printer. What brought the minds of the committee to the conclusion, that the printer would either fail or refuse to execute the work, when it had never been in his hands? Was it not straining a conclusion to determine that he had failed to execute, and would not execute, work which they had never intrusted to his care, and never asked him to execute? The honorable chairman of the committee says that the public printer has failed to execute some of the work heretofore intrusted to his care. But does the conclusion necessarily follow, that he will continue to fail; or that, having failed in one kind of printing, he would fail in all others? Was it ever expected that the public printer could execute the printing of this House instantly upon its delivery to him? Has there been any extraordinary delay in the delivery of this work? According to my recollection, the public printing is about as forward, about as near to completion, as it usually is at this season of the year. We have the first part of the President's message, bound and laid upon our tables, one copy for each member; and what matters it whether the extra copies shall be printed this month, the next month, or three months hence? When was the last part of the President's message and accompanying documents printed during the long session of the last Congress? According to my recollection, we were getting along towards the dogdays before it was laid upon our tables. Was the then venerable and highly-respected public printer [Mr. Ritchie] hauled over the coals for a failure to perform his duty? Was Mr. Ritchie--against whom I have no word of complaint to utter here-held up to the country as a defaulter in the discharge of his duties? Ah! some gentleman answers, in a low tone, Yes. It is well the tone is low. No gentleman ought to answer yes, in a loud voice. The House knows what was the action taken upon that subject two years ago. At the close of the session of 1850, there was found to be, in one House of Congress, a large majority not only indisposed to call Mr. Ritchie to an account for any failure to comply with his contract, but actually disposed and determined to give him some sixty or seventy thousand dollars of the public money as extra compensation. Mr. Ritchie was paid every dollar that he claimed under his contract, and his friends were anxious to give him a great deal more. I never understood that he did the work any better, or any more rapidly than the contract called for; and yet there was a large party in this House ready to vote him sixty thousand dollars, or more, over and above what the contract called for; and it was only, according to my recollection, by parliamentary manoeuvring that the thing was prevented. You had two or three committees of conference upon the subject, and the subject was pressed upon our attention as no other subject was ever pressed upon us. And let me remind certain gentlemen, who are enforcing a very rigid observance of the law against Mr. Hamilton, that the journals show them to have been more than liberal towards Mr. Ritchie. Now, sir, I desire to know why it is, in this land of laws, in this land of equality, and before this Democratic House of Representatives, this kind of distinction is made between one employee and another? I know nothing of Mr. Boyd Hamilton; I have never seen him. If I were to meet him to-day, I should not know him from any other man in Christendom. I care not one single solitary farthing about him, but I do care for justice. I will not willingly make myself a party to a transaction so unjust as this. I will not say to one man, who wields a powerful party press, We will pay you the full amount of the bond, wink at your short-comings, and pay you sixty thousand dollars extra; and then to another, who has no press, no power, no influence, We will crush you, because you have not lived up to the very letter of the law. Mr. GORMAN. I want the gentleman distinctly to avow whether he charges that as a motive operating upon the committee? Mr. BROWN. I disavow any personal application; but this I will say: If the House of Representatives shall perpetrate such an act of gross injustice, it will merit, and will assuredly receive, the reprobation of every just man in the nation. We hear continually that the contract system has proved a failure. I do not think so. The contract system has had no fair trial. There has been, what seemed to me, a determination from the beginning to bring this system into disrepute--never to give it fair play. Powerful parties, holding the most influential positions, have engaged in this work. The system has operated against their interest, and they have labored to break it down. Its triumph is not complete, but it has not failed. Let us see how the system has worked so far. Your first contractors were Wendell and Van Benthuysen. Did they execute their contract? I understand they did. I am forced to that conclusion because there has been no suit entered upon their bond for a failure to execute their contract. Thus far the system worked well at least it did not fail. You received the work and paid for it; and if it was not well done, it was because you did not require it to be well done. During the last Congress, the then venerable editor of the Union (Mr. Ritchie) had the contract. Did he execute it? I understand he did. It is my understanding that he executed it to the satisfaction of the Committee on Printing, and the satisfaction of Congress. I so understand, because no suit has been instituted upon his bond for a failure to execute the contract. You again received the work and paid for it, and we shall presently see that certain gentlemen proposed to do a great deal more. Surely there could have been no failure, when you not only received the work and paid for it, but wanted to give large extra compensation. Then Mr. A. Boyd Hamilton has the contract for this session. The only specifications, according to my present recollection, which the honorable chairman makes against him is, that a portion |