The old party had gone astray too long and too far to return, and now determined to seek its fortunes in the desperate effort to outdo the Democrats in cringing servility to the South.
George Julian
The Public Record
George Washington Julian was a politician, lawyer, and writer from Indiana who served in the United States House of Representatives during the 19th century. A leading opponent of slavery, Julian was the Free Soil Party's candidate for vice president in the 1852 election and was a prominent Radical Republican during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era.
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Sumner moved the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, and although it received but ten votes, it led to an angry and protracted discussion, which showed how signally the attempt to suppress anti-slavery agitation had failed.
This will be the sure award of history; but history will find another parentage for the party despotism and political corruption which have since disgraced the administration of the Government.
They had the courage of their opinions, and the genuine satisfaction which accompanies manliness of character; and they lived to see their principles vindicated, and the political and social tables turned upon the men who had honored them…
They were treated as pestilent fanatics because they bravely held up the ideal of the Republic, and sought to make it real.
But the better days of the Republic, when high integrity and unselfish devotion to the country inspired our statesmen, were past, and we had entered upon the era of mean ambitions and huckstering politics.
If mere talent could have supplemented the lack of conscience, the slave power might have been overborne in 1850, and the current of American history turned into the channels of liberty and peace.
That she is reduced to the condition that her proud chivalry are compelled to turn slave-traders for a livelihood!
That Virginia is now only fit to be the breeder, not the employer, of slaves!
In this Congress, the men who afterward became the chief leaders of the Rebellion were conspicuous, and foreshadowed their future course.
It was still more common in the House; and the scenes of drunkenness and disorder in that body on the last night of the last session beggared description.
Thousands of officials were turned adrift for no other than party reasons, while political nepotism was the order of the day.
Political morality was at a very low ebb during the period covered by the Thirty-first Congress.
Indeed, while the champions of slavery were exerting themselves as never before to stifle the anti-slavery spirit of the free States, the Abolitionists were delighted with the tokens of progress which everywhere saluted their vision and…
Oddly enough, I was invited to dine with Judge Kane, then conspicuous through his remarkable rulings in fugitive slave cases, and I found his manners and hospitality as charming as his opinions about slavery were detestable.
The Swamp Land Act of the same date, owing to its loose and unguarded provisions and shameful mal-administration, has been still more fruitful of wide-spread spoilation and plunder.
The act of September 28th, granting land bounties to the soldiers of the Mexican war, opened the way for the monopoly of many millions of acres of the public domain by sharks and speculators, while proving a wretched mockery of the just…
The sickly air of compromise filled the land, and for a time the deluded masses were made to believe that the Free Soilers had brought the country to the verge of ruin.
Thompson, of Pennsylvania, who served as the parliamentary hangman of his employers, the previous question was seconded on its passage; and thus, without reference to any committee, without even being printed, and with no opportunity…
It made the ex parte interested oath of the slave-hunter final and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and of the identity of the party pursued, while the simplest duties of humanity were punished as felonies by fine and…
Texas bonds, which were then worth ten cents on the dollar, would be lifted nearly to par by this measure, and its success was undoubtedly secured by the bribery of members.
It was vehemently opposed in the House, and its fate seemed to hang in doubt up to the final vote upon it; but its passage was really assured from the beginning by the corrupt appliances of its friends.
The remedy was the Texas Boundary Bill, which surrendered a large belt of country to Texas and slavery, and gave her ten million dollars besides.
Clay suggested that both parties should voluntarily enter into bonds to keep the peace, upon which Benton instantly rose and said: "I'll rot in jail, sir, before I will do it!
A great burden of anxiety had been lifted, while I received letters from the leading Abolitionists of New England and elsewhere, very cordially complimenting the speech, which was copied into the principal anti-slavery newspapers, and…
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