Life of Schuyler Colfax.

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mise was repealed, but he placed his objection on graver grounds.'

"What I did say was, that after the slave power had demanded the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, I had resolved never to vote for the admission of Kansas as a slave State under any contingency; and that I adhered to this position still. If the people had been dragooned by the army and the officers of the Government into submission to such a constitution, it should never be ratified by my vote. As it is now, however, with their gallant spirit and devotion to freedom unbroken, I would far rather submit this Lecompton fraud to their verdict and decision, confident that they would reject it overwhelmingly, than to risk it before this Congress, over which the slave power and the Executive exercise such malign power and influence. Knowing that the people of Kansas long for an opportunity to crush out this Lecompton swindle, I should be willing to refer it back to them for that fair and full vote upon it which its framers, from the same conviction, denied to them, on condition that, if they reject it, they should have the consent and authority of Congress given them in advance, to go on and frame the free State constitution which they desire. There would be no more risk in that, if an honest election was provided for, than there would be in submitting the question of freedom or slavery to the people of Massachusetts. But if the army and office-holders of the Government there had succeeded in so breaking the spirit and crushing the principles of the free State majority there, (as they have ineffectually labored to do,) that they would consent against their known convictions and expressed resolves, to accept this iniquity as their organic law, I would not even do that."

CHAPTER XI.

ADMINISTRATION DEFEAT-THE PURE REPUBLICAN VOTE

-COALITION —RINGING AYES-MR. KEITT OF SOUTH CAROLINA CRITTENDEN AMENDMENT-HORACE CLARK-VOTE OF MR. HARRIS OF ILLINOIS.

F.

The letter of this chapter delineates graphically the intense interest attending the Lecompton struggle in the House of Representatives:

"WASHINGTON, April, 1858.

"The administration has just met another defeat on its pet Lecompton measure in the House of Representatives. It, too, has been the most signal reverse of all, exceeding in its importance and significance the three previous rebukes which the House had given to the President. The day for this decisive vote had been fixed by the Lecomptonites themselves. Every appli ance had been unscrupulously used to secure a victory. Every possible appeal had been made to the members whose votes were supposed to be in any manner attainable. The President himself had sent for the refractory members from his own State, and besought them to save him from defeat. But every one stood firm, except Dewart, of the Schuylkill district, who could not withstand the President's tears. The Union, which has been threatening and imploring by terms, declared this morning that any Democrat who voted against Lecompton could not longer expect to be 'allowed to remain within its organization,' but 'must expect both to be regarded

and dealt with as its enemy.' Both sides claimed to be confident of victory, but the anti-Lecomptons knew that theirs was to be the triumph of to-day.

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"At noon, when the Speaker took his chair, the galleries, which will seat two thousand persons, were crowded to their utmost capacity; and on the floor of the hall every seat seemed to be occupied-an unusual sight. Every one looked interested, and even excited; and many of them, on each side of the House, as if they had had but little rest during the past few days or nights. The morning hour,' which really is an afternoon one, from twelve to one P. M., was occupied with the ordinary business of the House, which few listened to; and exactly at one P. M., Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, the Lecompton leader, rose, and moved to take up the Lecompton bill. It was read the first time, when up rose the venerable Joshua R. Giddings, and moved that it be rejected. For that motion, ninety-two Republicans and three Democrats (Harris, of Illinois, Chapman and Hickman, of Pennsylvania) voted; but it was, of course, voted down by a large majority. The Republicau minority of the House, having thus endeavored to destroy the bill utterly, and having failed, were in a condition, without even apparent inconsistency, to unite with other but less decided enemies of the Lecompton fraud in any practicable measure to thwart the President in his determination to impose it upon a protesting people.

"The bill was read the second time, and Mr. Montgomery, of Pennsylvania, who had been agreed on for that purpose, rose and moved to strike out the whole bill after the enacting clause, and insert the Crittenden proposition, as modified and improved by conferences of the three wings of the opposition in the House-the Re

publicans, Douglas Democrats and Americans. General Quitman then moved to amend the amendment by inserting the Senate bill with the Pugh amendment struck out. The previous question was moved and seconded; for every one felt that this was an hour for action, not debate. First, Quitman's amendment failed, though two-thirds of the Lecomptonites voted for it, (ninety-two out of one hundred and twelve,) showing that they did not regard the people of Kansas as being authorized, even by resolution, to change their constitution till after 1864. And then came the test vote, during the progress of which that vast audience was so hushed to silence that, for the first time during this session, I was enabled at my seat to hear every response as it was uttered, even from the farthest extremity of the hall on the other side. A close observer could have detected, in the manner of these responses, which was to be the victorious party. The Lecomptonites, since they came into the hall, had lost their hope of a tie vote, with the Speaker to untie it; and their noes were uttered coldly, indignantly, and sometimes sullenly; while the ayes rang out from the anti-Lecomptonites clearly, distinctly, emphatically, as if they came from cheerful, hopeful hearts. Scarcely had the last name been called, when every one in the House and galleries knew, without waiting for the reading of the list of names and the annunciation by the Speaker, that the anti-Lecompton forces had triumphed by eight majority; and when the Speaker arose, with evident feeling, and announced, as calmly as pos sible, the defeat of his friends, a round of irrepressible applause rung from the galleries. Instantly, Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, who is unused to hearing that kind of applause here at Washington, demanded, in an ex

at once.

cited tone, that the gentlemen's galleries should be cleared He forgot that, last week, when a New England Lecomptonite was making his speech, those same galleries, then occupied by refugees from Kansas and clerks of the Government, applauded three times, and until Mr. Kilgore rebuked them, desiring to know if pensioned officers of the administration had been placed there to cheer on the allies. But the Speaker, who must have remembered that his indignant colleague made no objection to that, declined ordering the rule to be enforced until a second offence should render it necessary.

"This episode over, Mr. Montgomery now called for a separate vote on the preamble to the original bill, which, as his bill was a substitute, to come in immediately after the enacting clause, could only be reached in that way. The objectionable features in the preamble were, that it declared the people of Kansas had made this constitution, and that it was republican in form. But the Speaker decided that the House could not have a separate vote on this, though they could on the title of the bill— a wrong decision, I think; but, having thus clearly expressed the dissent of the opposition to these assumptions of the preamble, the bill passed by one hundred and twenty to one hundred and twelve, eight majority, and the House immediately adjourned. The instant the Speaker announced the adjournment, and the hall became again a free hall,' untrammelled by Congressional rules, the pent-up feelings of the galleries broke out in a hearty, earnest round of enthusiastic applause.

"And thus my predictions, against which you expressed, editorially, your lack of confidence, have been verified. I do not wonder at your doubts, for we have had them here also; and, considering the odds against