Congress

CONGRESS.
House of Representatives.

Washington, Dec. 9.
On motion of Mr. Bayly, of Virginia, the House went into Committee of the Whole. Mr. Boyd in the Chair. Mr. Bayly offered a resolution referring the several parts of the President’s Message to the appropriate committees.

Mr. Giddings offered an amendment, that so much of the message as relates to our domestic policy be referred to the Judiciary Committee. There were some things which he heartily approved, and others which he condemned. There was no deception or uncertainty in any part of it. The views expressed by Mr. Fillmore on the subject of the Veto are as strong as those avowed by Jackson, Tyler and Polk.

The latter part of the message says, in effect, that the fugitive slave law shall remain in force, and that if a bill be passed for its repeal, the President will veto it.. In reference to his duty to execute the laws, Mr. Giddings regarded it as a menace that the free people of the North shall submit to the law, or the President will call in the army and navy forces. This is unworthy of the President of the United States in the nineteenth century. Freemen are not to be governed by swords and cannon, but by the law, when it commands the freemen of the North to leave their workshops and dwellings, to chase fugitives, put irons on their limbs, and return them to their torments. The army and navy cannot command the carrying out of such a law. The general government has no power to uphold slavery; it is an institution of the States.

In his district, the slave-catcher was regarded as worse than a pirate or a murderer. And the moment cannon are brought against Northern freemen, that moment the death knoll of the Republic is sounded. From this time forward, he should know where the President is. He is in favor of the fugitive slave law, and by its administration must stand or fall. The lines of freedom and slavery are drawn as wide as the impassable gulf that separates Dive and Lazarus. We know where parties stand. Out of 15,000 fugitives in the North, no more than for or five have been captured. Nine out of ten of the Whig papers have denounced and execrated this law, and the public indignation will sweep it out of existence.

Mr. McClernand, of Illinois, said , in offering an amendment, that as a citizen of a free State, he disavowed for himself and those he represented, and for the whole state of Illinois, the revolutionary seditious, and, he might say, treasonable, sentiments avowed by Mr. Giddings, who objected to the fugitive slave act. This is a fraud on the constitution, and on common honesty. To profess adherence to the Constitution, and at the same time to object to the law, is an absurdity. The law being in execution of the Constitution, if it had not been for those with whom the gentleman act, there would have been no occasion for this law. Would he tell us that without this clause, the Constitution would have been adopted? The Act of ‘93 to carry out this provision was signed by Washington.

Is the gentleman, more pure, benevolent, and patriotic, than the Father of his country? That act was voted for by the framers of the Constitution. They did not conceive that they were trampling on the rights of human nature - they considered that they were observing good faith; but in the course of time, voluntary associations were organized, underground railroads constructed, and the law illegally ousted. The conduct of certain individuals became a grievance, and Congress, at its last session, actuated by a sense of justice, remedied the grievance by passing the fugitive slave law. For one, he should be willing to use all the force of the government to carry it out. The issue between unionists and disunionists is not a speculative question of philanthropy. It is an issue of the supremacy of the Constitution and power of the Government, and the subversion of the law of the country.

The amendment of Mr. Giddings was voted down, after an incidental debate.