it should, with a firm demand on the British government to recall Mr. Crampton, and consuls Rowecroft, Matthew, and Barclay, her Britannic Majesty's consuls at Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York.

I have now, Mr. President, run hastily through this correspondence, saving only the concluding note of Mr. Buchanan, written on the 1st of February of this year, to which I need not refer for any purpose connected with this debate. The conclusions to which my mind has arrived are briefly these:

1. That the United States met the proposition of the British government for strict neutrality in a spirit of generous confidence, promising that "no Russian privateer should be equipped, or victualled, or admitted, with its prizes, in our ports;" and the United States has rigidly kept her faith.

2. That the British government-the first to ask neutrality—was the first to violate our laws of neutrality; and while for her own safety she was quick to place us under pledges not to countenance Russia, she was just as quick to invade our soil with a recruiting force, to violate our laws, infringe our rights of territorial sovereignty, and put at hazard our peace with a friendly power.

3. When called on for an explanation of her conduct in this regard, she denied, through her Secretary for Foreign Affairs, all complicity on the part of her officers and servants in these proceedings. She undertook to set our laws at defiance by asserting that her Majesty's government had "an incontestable right" to "appoint a place within her Majesty's dominions, to which recruits might be drawn from the United States to fill her Majesty's armies;" knowing at the time she took this position, that our laws made it a high misdemeanor for any person to hire another to "go beyond the limits of the United States with the intent of being enlisted in the service of any foreign state."

4. That Lord Clarendon undertook the defence and justification of "her Majesty's officers and servants," for this purpose citing as authority Judge Kane's opinion on the hearing of Hertz's case on a habeas corpus; misquoting the learned judge, and wholly omitting then, or at any other time thereafter, to mention the fact that Hertz had been convicted before, and sentenced by the same judge. The conviction of Hertz proved that the law had been violated; and the justice of that conviction was placed beyond dispute by the fact that, according to Lord Clarendon, Judge Kane rightly expounded the law. The complicity of her Majesty's officers and servants is more clearly demonstrated by the evidence in Hertz's case, than is the guilt of Hertz. If he violated the law, they hired him to do it.

5. While Lord Clarendon asserts that he gave strict orders to British consuls "not to violate the laws," and enjoined on Mr. Crampton "above all to have no concealment from the United States government," he defends these parties, and undertakes to justify their conduct, after it is shown that the consuls at Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York, have violated the laws, and that Mr. Crampton was scrupulously careful to conceal all his movements from the government and people of the United States, having recourse to ciphers and cabalistic characters for this purpose in his telegraphic communications with his associates.

6. That, having obtained from Mr. Buchanan a quasi acknowledgment of satisfaction, on a partial understanding of the case, he under

took, after its full development, to plead this acknowledgment in bar of any further inquiry, and became petulant and irascible when he failed of his purpose.

7. When Mr. Marcy, satisfied of Crampton's connection with this business, charged it upon him, he neither attempted to palliate nor deny it, but sent home for instructions, thus virtually acknowledging that he was acting under orders, and that the Home Government must take the responsibility.

8. Lord Clarendon continued to maintain that our laws had not been violated, asserting that, though we had resorted to despotic means to obtain evidence, nothing had or could be elicited to establish a charge against her Majesty's servants, and this after Hertz had been convicted, and the complicity of Crampton, Barclay, Matthew, Rowecroft, and others clearly demonstrated.

9. All these and other considerations, which are developed by the testimony and the correspondence, force the mind with irresistible power to the conclusion that there has been either a deliberate purpose to infringe our rights and violate our laws, or else an insulting indifference shown as to whether they were or were not infringed and violated. That their professions of friendship are not sincere; or, if they are, that the British cabinet place so low an estimate on our dignity as a nation as to conclude that, if they are our friends, they may treat us as they please. Either position is inadmissible.

10. And, finally, that the President and Secretary have, from the commencement, manifested a proper American spirit, and have lived up to the maxim of "asking for nothing but what is right, and submitting to nothing that is wrong." That no excuse or apology has been offered that ought to have been accepted. That they were right in asking the recall of the offending officers; and if the British cabinet refuse to recall them they ought to dismiss them forthwith. Such, sir, are the conclusions to which my mind has arrived.

It seems to me, sir, this question may be understood by reducing it to an issue as between private gentlemen. Let us for a moment put the two governments aside, and suppose the controversy to exist between General Pierce and Lord Clarendon. His lordship has personal interests to be looked after on the estate of General Pierce, and for that purpose he sends his private and confidential servant. The General receives the servant on the implied understanding that he is to commit no trespass, nor violate in any way the domestic regulations of the estate. In a short time he is found taking unwarrantable liberties with the General's property, and inciting his domestics to acts of insubordination. The General complains to his lordship, and is answered that "stringent instructions were given to the servant not to act improperly, and above all things not to have any concealment from General Pierce;" and his lordship adds, "I am sorry if anything has been done by my servant to give offence." Willing to settle the matter on easy terms, and not understanding fully what the servant has been doing, the General expresses a qualified satisfaction. Soon after, he finds that his lordship's servant, instead of discontinuing his objectionable practices, is still actively carrying them on, and to assure himself against detection, has resorted to secret signs and "ciphers," with which to communicate with the servants about the premises. General Pierce calls on Lord Clarendon

a second time, communicates these facts, and assures him that he has abundant proof of the continued misconduct of his servant, and respectfully but earnestly remonstrates against his being allowed thus to act. His lordship-instead of listening to the complaint, and at once satisfying the General of his sincere friendship, by reprimanding or removing the obnoxious servant-asserts that the servant has done nothing but what he had the right to do; accuses the General of resorting to despotic measures to get up testimony against him; and, finally, winds up the whole matter by broadly intimating that, as the General does not keep his own domestics in very good order, he has no right to be complaining of other people's servants.

On this statement of the case what would any fair-minded man say? Would not the universal judgment of every just man be that General Pierce's conduct had been gentlemanly and forbearing, while that of Lord Clarendon had been deceptive, haughty, supercilious, insolent, and overbearing, and that a decent self-respect would require the General to send the servant home with a civil message to his master to keep him there until they both learned better manners.

Now, if you will substitute the United States for General Pierce, Great Britain for Lord Clarendon, Mr. Crampton for his lordship's confidential servant, and the people tampered with for the domestics of General Pierce, you have this whole enlistment imbroglio in a nutshell.

What the President means to do I am not authorized to say; but if he does not give Mr. Crampton his passports, and revoke the exequaturs of consuls Matthew, Barclay, Rowecroft, and others complicated in this business, we had as well hang the national harp upon a willow, and cease talking about the honor and glory of our country.

In what I have felt called upon to say, Mr. President, it has been my purpose to speak plainly-if you please, bluntly-for I am a plain, blunt man; but it has been no part of my purpose to incite a war spirit in the country. Next to dishonor, I should regard a war, and a war with Great Britain especially, as the greatest calamity that could befall our country. If the British government is not seeking a quarrel with us, we shall have no war. We are right in the controversy; and when Lord Clarendon and the British cabinet and people see that we are in earnest, and mean to be respected, they will do us justice, unless they are seeking war. If, on the other hand, Great Britain is seeking a quarrel, we may have war. The present affords her a decent pretext for urging it on; and in that view of the subject the sooner matters are brought to an issue the better.

I know not by what spirit the British cabinet may be actuated, but on the good sense, the sound judgment, and the interested friendship of the British people, I have the firmest reliance. They will make no war with us if they can help it. The calamities to our country would be great indeed; but the disasters to British trade, to British labor, and to British commerce would be incalculable. A war would stop our cotton gins, but it would also stop her spinning jennies. If she can afford to quit spinning cotton, we can afford to quit raising it. But enough of this. I hope we shall have no war; there is not an American citizen who ought to desire it. I hope there are very few who would not avoid it so long as it can be avoided on honorable terms; nor one who would not hail it as a blessing, if the honor of the country required it.

It is to be hoped that the British government will not push this matter to the ultima ratio of war, or submission to her will, and the insolence of her servants. If she does, I choose the former: the country, in my opinion, with one voice will choose the former. It will be found that our love of peace does not carry us to the point of craven submission to insult; and that however we may differ and wrangle among ourselves, we demand respect from strangers towards every member of the political household. As against a common foe we should, I am sure, present a broad, united front extending from Maine to California. We should vie with one another in deeds of devotion to a common and beloved country. We should show the world that, broad as our country is, diversified as are her interests, she is loved with a singleness of devotion by all her sons; that we love her great valleys, and her high mountains; her deep, blue lakes, and her broad, clear rivers; her fertile soil, and her rich mines; her great cities, and her vast commerce; that she is ours in all her grand proportions, and that

"The pedestal on which her glory stands

Is built of all our hearts and all our hands."

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 25, 1856, ON THE JURISDICTION OF CONGRESS OVER THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

MR. PRESIDENT: I do not desire to occupy the attention of the Senate, because it is my wish to have the District bills disposed of as soon as possible; but after the debate which has occurred, I feel it to be my duty to say a few words.

I differ from the senator from Georgia in regard to the question of jurisdiction. We start from different points. He says, that the Constitution gives to Congress the exclusive power over the District of Columbia. I think there is something more than that to be taken into account. The original proprietors of the soil on which the city of Washington now stands, when they ceded the soil to Congress, expressly provided that the jurisdiction over the streets and reservations should remain in Congress, for the benefit of the people of the United States. When you accepted the cession, it was, as a matter of course, upon the conditions of the deeds. According to the original authorities, according to your Presidents, your Congresses, your Attorneys-General, and all who examined the subject, it was decided that the jurisdiction was in Congress and was inalienable. That this thirty-fourth Congress has the right to give a particular party the privilege of occupying a street or reservation for the time being, I am ready to admit; but if the next Congress be dissatisfied with it, they have a right to require the party occupying it under the authority of the thirty-fourth Congress to remove from its occupancy. The ground on which the report of the committee, on which the senator from Georgia has commented, is based, is that no one Congress has a right to cede the streets and reservations in perpetuity either to a corporation or to an individual.

The report does not deny that Congress may give to this company the temporary use and occupancy of a portion of Pennsylvania avenue. What it denies clearly and distinctly is, that Congress has power to cede the occupancy of the territory in perpetuity to a corporation; because that is a cession of the jurisdiction which no one Congress can make, on the broad ground that the jurisdiction must be exercised equally by one Congress as by another.

My friend from Georgia says that, under the act of 1854, this company had the right to cross Pennsylvania avenue. I take issue with him on that point. By the first section of the law it was clearly contemplated that the road should cross the Potomac river, above the aqueduct, at Georgetown, and then it was provided that they should not pass through or along Pennsylvania avenue. If you will take up the map of the city you will see, that if they crossed the Potomac river at that point they would have had no occasion whatever to pass through, along, or across Pennsylvania avenue. Congress, in enacting that section, designed to prevent their passing along or through the avenue from Georgetown to Washington. The company had not then proposed to cross Pennsylvania avenue. They proposed to bring their road to the Potomac river, and to cross the river at a point above Georgetown, and hence they would have to go out of their way to cross Pennsylvania avenue. Their proposition, then, was to come into the avenue at its western end, and come along and through it to the Capitol, and then turn off to the Baltimore and Ohio depot. Congress was guarding against the proposition then before them.

If anything which was suggested, or if anything which was before Congress, could have led, in the remotest possible degree, to the supposition that there was a purpose to cross Pennsylvania avenue, the phrase, "you shall not cross it," would have been used. The very fact that it was then proposed to come over the Potomac above Georgetown excluded the possibility of anybody entertaining the idea that they meant to cross Pennsylvania avenue. That would bring them into Washington at a point north of the avenue; and why once being north of it, they should cross it to the south, and then cross it again to another point to reach the Baltimore depot, and take this zigzag course, would be unexplainable. They would have had to cross it twice, if that was their object. There would have been no sense and no reason in that. As I have stated, however, the proposition was, that they should have power to come along the avenue, to occupy it, to put their railroad upon it, and Congress meant to guard against that. There was no proposition at that time to cross the Potomac at the Long Bridge. I will read the enactment. The first section of the act provided:

"That the Alexandria and Washington Railroad Company, incorporated by the legislature of Virginia on the 27th of February, 1854, to construct a railroad from Alexandria, in the state of Virginia, to the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, be, and they are hereby, authorized to extend their road from any point on the Virginia side of the Potomac river to which said road may be constructed, at or above the aqueduct of the Alexandria Canal, into the District of Columbia."

Not at the Long Bridge, where they are now crossing the river. No authority was given them to cross the river at that point, but "at or above the aqueduct," which is two or three miles beyond the point where they are now crossing the river. What then? The act goes on to provide: