such a course. I would prefer to go for my country and its peace, even at the expense of some individual preference as to a matter of controverted policy. But surely no patriot ought to oppose a wholesome measure only because persous, of whom he may feel jealous, would concur with him in adopting it. be a barren and gratuitous issue, it will be seen how far the real people of Fayette will approve or disapprove the effort. But I do carnestly hope that extremists of all sorts will prudently cool down into a considerate moderation and forbearance, and that finally, all, or a large majority of the sovereign people, will Many others, and some of them more radi-unite, as patriots and brothers, in the solemn cal matters, will be considered and settled by work of reconstructing our organic system. the coming Convention. As I cannot, in this mode of communication, fully notice any of these important subjects, I shall not now attempt it; but will cheerfully and candidly express my opinions as to any or all of them on more appropriate occasions. But there may yet be some danger that the stultifying topic of negroes, bond and free, may be suffered to overrule every other subject, however important; and, in that event, not concurring with the ultras of either of the extreme and uncompromising wings of an unnecessarily belligerent line, I might be placed between two consuming fires; but, I would still wish to be an humble mediator; and, whether heeded or not, should enjoy the consolations assured to the "peace maker." If some impracticable persons will still strive to produce an unreasonable excitement and an unblessed organization on what now seems to I have hitherto stood quietly by, reposing on my own fixed principles; and, with a pure conscience and an upright purpose, there I expect to stand or fall. I should be pleased to receive the support of all of every party and denomination who concur in those priciples and are willing to stand on the platform laid down in my speech in the last Legislature, and herein again exhibited. And I am yet to learn why I might not only receive but reasonably expect the aid (in every form in which it may lawfully be given,) of all parties and of all individuals who concur with me in policy. Standing under the unpatronized flag of my own principles I would gratefully accept the nomination and support of all those who are willing to stand by me on these principles, and uphold the same or a kindred banner. GEORGE ROBERTSON. VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. Extracts from the Valedictory Address of Mr. Robertson, as Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Kentucky Legislature, at the close of the session of 1851-2. Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: The end has come. We are about to part, probably never to meet again-certainly not in our present associations. For your recorded and unanimous approval of my conduct in the position to which your suffrages called me at the beginning of this session, I tender you, collectively and individually, my cordial acknowledgements. I had neither wish nor motive to fill this arduous and responsible station-and, in occupying it in obedience to your call, I made a sacrifice of my own judgment and personal interest. I prefered the floor, because there I might have been able to do more for my constituents and more in my own behalf than I could hope to do in the confinement of this chair. Here, however, I have faithfully endeavored to do my whole duty as your presiding officer. The only reward I desired or could have expected, was the approbation of my own conscience and of your judgments. These I enjoy the first I know the last I hope. And now, in this closing scene of an eventful drama, before I pronounce my last duty of dissolving this body and all our relations on this floor, I invoke your attention to some valedictory suggestions which I think the occasion allows, and justice to myself, as well as to you and my country, demands. In attempting this delicate task, I desire to say nothing unbefitting the dignity of this chair, the decorum of this House, or my own proper relations to principles or to men, hitherto, now, or hereafter. My chief purpose is to place myself rectus in curia-right before you, and right before the world, concerning certain events which occurred during our present session. This I would have been pleased to do on some more appropriate occasion-but this having been prevented by my position in this chair, I trust that a brief allusion to a few personal topics at this parting moment, will not be deemed unreasonable or indelicate. 1. If my election to this chair has been felt as a wound to others who desired to fill it themselves or would have preferred some younger man, I am sorry for it. I had no voluntary agency in it. I was placed here with out my solicitation and against my will, as I now declare, and as I thought you all knew. I regret this more than, perhaps, I ought.But I felt that I could not honorably or con sistently avoid it. As many of you know, I did all I could to prevent it. If, by a reluctant acceptance of the place, I have provoked the jealousy of any human being, the fault is not mine, and the wrong lies not at the door of my conscience. 2. In the organization of the standing committees, I may not, as no other Speaker ever did or could, have given universal satisfation. I could not be expected to know the exact aptitudes of all the members-and if I had possessed that rare knowledge, it could not be presumed that I should agree with every member in his self-estimation. I employed unusual care in ascertaining the peculiar qualifications of the members, and with all the information I was able to obtain, I made those arrangements which I considered best for the House, and best for the country. And though I may not, in every instance, have made precisely the most fortunate location, I am now, after the experience of two months, as well satisfied with that, as with any other public act of my life. A few persons objected that I gave the Democrats an unjust share of influence. To this I now reply, that I felt it to be my duty to be impartial in the execution of the trust confided to me-to endeavor to be the organ of the House, and not of one portion of it to the exclusion or degradation of another-and, in the exercise of the patronage of the chair I did no more than distributive justice-indeed I did not give to the Democratic party a share of power fully equal to its ratio of numbers. In the organization of the committee on Federal Relations, my motives and purposes seem to have been misunderstood by some. At this I was much surprised. To discharge, in a proper manner, the duties of that position, and those also of a member of the committee on the Code, to both of which I allotted the the same gentleman, was as much as any one man could be expected to do-and I considered those two as among the most important committees of the House. Had I been on the floor, I would rather have been chairman of the committee on Federal Relations than to have occupied the same position on any other committee. A full, prudent and orthodox report-a report which might have been unanimously endorsed-on the character, the value. and the destiny of the Union-on the heresy of nullification-on the monstrous absurdity of secession as a constitutional pretension, or any thing else than a revolutionary act-on the history and constitutional principles of the tariff and slavery agitations-and on the wisdom of the "Compromise," as a final and some form may be expected to exist; its total equal adjustment of those sectional controver- extirpation, to be desirable, must be the sponsies such a report would have become Ken-taneous result of a moral, peaceful, and protucky, and, if well done, would have told for gressive causation. If it be the will of Provits author, his State, and the Union, now and idence that it shall ever cease in Kentucky, it in all time to come. It was expected of Ken- will decline gradually into a natural death or tucky, and would have placed her where she to such a state of decay as to induce general ought to stand-as the chief pacificator and acquiescence in a law of the land anticipating conservator of our common country. The that mode of extinction. Emancipation by member I selected for that great work was, in law, in any just, satisfactory, or even practical my opinion, as well suited to it as any other mode, has hitherto been, and yet is altogether I could have chosen, and I supposed that he hopeless in Kentucky for years to come. This, would delight to perform it. But he seems to in my judgment, is the view of enlarged behave considered such a report as I have indi- nevolence, comprehensive patriotism, and encated, or any report, unnecessary. lightened statesmanship. It has always seemed to me that our true policy is to let the problem of slavery work out its own solution without intestine commotion. If thus allowed to run its natural course under the guidance only of interest, reason, and the moral sense, time would, in the only congenial season, mark its destiny-and, whatever that might be, all would be peaceful and right. If, as many philanthropists esteem it, slavery in Kentucky be a curse, premature and compulsive emancipation would, as I think, be, to both races, a greater curse. Consequently, holding these opinions, I have, on all occasions, opposed any agitation of the question of emancipation, instant or prospective-and have probably suffered as much, by that course, as any other citizen. 3. The political atmosphere-too often infected by the pestilent breath of selfish and unscrupulous demagogues-has been lately disturbed at the capitol, by rumors which, though artfully vague and intangible, were designed to misrepresent my poor opinions and conduct concerning domestic slavery. To rectify honest error, if any such exist, and to leave no honorable excuse for delusion in future, I consider it proper now to take notice of a subject in which I had hitherto presumed that the public would feel no interest. Duty to you, as well as to myself, requires it. On no institution, domestic or political, have I, ever since I was a man, thought with a more intense and constant anxiety than on that of African slavery in our country; and on no subject of social organization or economy have I written or spoken more frequently, more explicitly, or with a consistency more uniform and undeviating. My sentiments in relation to it in all its bearings, have, for the last 30 years, undergone no material change; and I have never concealed or dissembled any opinion or principle I held on any subject of public concern. And To give as much stability and security to slavery here as possible, as long as it shall continue among us, and to promote the wealth and true political economy of the State, I was in favor of the non-importation policy of 1833, which has been sustained, for many years, by a majority of the slaveholding States of the Union, and was initiated and long continued in Kentucky by a majority of wise and good men of all classes and denominations. I have never believed that the enslavement to prevent the discussion of slavery in any of the black can be a blessing to the white form on the stump and in the halls of legislarace; I do not esteem slavery, in itself, an in- tion, I would have been pleased to see that dividual or a social good. But, whatever may principle imbedded in the Constitution. To be said of its morality, national or personal, I prevent convulsion and assure progressive imhave a strong hope that American slavery will provement in the fundamental law, I also adeventuate in the ultimate civilization of vocated a provision authorizing specific amenddoomed Africa-and in the aggregate welfare ments by a conservative majority, without the of mankind. I am not sure that it has not delays, expense, and hazards of a convention been sanctioned by Omniscience as a providen-with power to change, at once, the whole tial mean of promoting human progress and fabric of the Constitution. This theory has amelioration. And I have never doubted that been illustrated by the Constitution of the when the white and the black races live to- United States, and those also of nearly every gether, as they now co-exist in Kentucky, the State in the Union except Kentucky. It has welfare of the inferior and the security of the been tried in nearly all the slaveholding States, superior race would both be promoted by the and, instead of inviting, it has repressed agisubordination of the former to the tutelage tation on the subject of slavery, because, when and dominion of the latter. Having gradually there is a known majority against emancipa"grown with our growth, and strengthened tion, there will be no danger of the agitation with our strength," slavery cannot be speedi-of a specific amendment for that hopeless purly eradicated without convulsion. Whenever pose only. all mankind shall become civilized, then all I have often, and on all proper occasions, inay be free. Until some such approximation denounced abolitionism in all its forms. And to equality and ultimate destiny, slavery, in I have also denounced all interference, by Congress, with the domestic relations of the In 1828 I accepted the appointment of States, or even of the Territories over which Secretary of State under Gov. Metcalfe, init exercises legislative power. In 1819, on a tending to remove to Frankfort, where I exbill introduced by myself to organize the Ter-pected to make a comfortable independence in ritorial Government of Arkansas, an attempt a few years by a practice in the superior courts, was made by, the north to interdiet slavery in which then promised to be unusually producthat Territory. A protracted and exciting tivo. But, in December of that year, I was discussion ensued; and, on that occasion, Iar-prevailed on against my own judgment, and at gued against the principle, justice and policy the hazard of much sacrifice of interest and of such an interdict, and predicted the conse- liberty, to accept a seat on the appellate bench, quences which have followed the persevering with a salary of not more than $1,000 in legai efforts to adopt the "Wilmot Proviso." In currency. In that unwelcome office I labored 1820 I opposed in Congress the attempted re- nearly fourteen years, with scarcely ever the striction on Missouri. In 1848-9, I again de- leisure of a "Cotter's Saturday night." I nounced all such efforts as the offspring of never sought an office in my life, though I had blind fanaticism and of ambition of political been offered some of the best offices under the power and aggrandisement-as inconsistent federal government; but acceptance being inwith philanthropy-as unjust to slaveholders consistent with domestic comfort and obliga-as perilous to the Union-and as in open tion, I had declined them. In the memorable conflict with the American doctrine that every "New Election" contest in 1816-17, I had free people ought to regulate their own policy, staked myself as one of a forlorn hope against and especially their own domestic relations. a powerful majority, led by some distinguished In all I ever wrote or uttered on the subjeet men who have since been good Whigs. In of slavery, the foregoing sentiments were em- | 1843 I resigned the Chief-Justiceship of Kenbodied; and nothing I ever said or did can be tucky, and resumed the practice of law, by shown to conflict with them in the slightest which I have since made the chief portion of a degree. On this subject I challenge scrutiny, small estate, sufficient for all purposes of in is presence and elsewhere. rational comfort and independence. Thus 4. A more delicate subject remains to be having subjected myself to self-denial and touched. It happened to be my fortune to be self-sacrificing drudgery for thirty years, and among those from whom a choice of two Sen-finding myself at last in a condition in which I ators in Congress was made. And in those contests I was ma le to suffer-most unjustly, as Imut be allowed to think-not only on the ground already alluded to, but still more severely for presuming to vote for one distinguished Whig against another! I trust that I will be pardoned for here making "ersonal allusions which, under other circumstances, might savor of egotism, and of indelicacy to others. could afford to occupy a seat in the Senate of the Union, I presumed to say, for the first time, that if the Legislature should think fit to elect me, I would feel it an honor, and endeavor to deserve it by faithful service not unworthy of myself or my distinguished State. This was my position when I came here. I asked no member for his support-I resorted to none of the accustomed modes of conciliating favor. I stood perfectly still, awaiting the spontaneous decision of the people's representatives.When a small boy-a native born of Ken-Looking at the history of the State and the tucky-I was doomed to orphanage. At the fortune and destiny of its public men, I did age of 19 I was married and commenced the really feel that the time had come when business of life, without a dollar on earth. At I might be a National Senator. the age of 25 I was elected to Congress, and was I soon found that friends of two others were twice successively re-elected. I was pleased resolved on running each of them. I did not with political life, and was cheered with en-feel it my duty longer to give back. And my couraging prospects of success. But para- friends determined to nominate me. mount duties to a young and growing family those others was not nominated at the startrequired me to stifle all political ambition and to resign my scat for my entire third term. I had but just reinstated myself in the practice of my profession when, in 1822, my fellow eitens of Garrard, required me to come to the State Legislature on the occasion of the relief agitation. Having thus embarked on a tempestuous sea. I felt it my duty to ride out the storm of "Relief" and "Old and New Court," which never ceased until 1827. For five years I devoted myself, at great pecuniary sacrifice, on the stump, through the press, and in the legislative halls, to the discussion of the great questions which then agitated Kentucky to convulsion and almost to revolution. One of but most of his friends voted against me; and when one of the three Whig nominees was withdrawn, they nominated another Whig. Foreseeing the unpropitious results of such a contest, I determined not to be responsible for them, and directed the withdrawal of my name in defiance of the opposing wishes and counsels of many of my friends. My vote afterwards subjected me to proscription by many old and constant friends, some of whom had, in the first instance, been for me against any person contemplated as a candidate. Not to complain, but only to illustrate the force of that feeling I here state-what you all know—that. after the vote alluded to, some of my oldest friends-my own senator among others-under their obligations to conscience, to constitments, and to their country, voted against me on all occasions and for every body who was put up against me. How far this proscription for the same liberty of opinion which they themselves exercised, may promote the harmony or increase the strength of the now dom-ligence have generally signalized your delibinant party, time may tell. According to my creed, it is hardly consistent with justice, policy, or the spirit of our free institutions; and I fervently hope that, though it may have victimized me, it may here pause and not become contagious. In casting the pregnant vote, I was influenced by no other consideration than a regard to distributive justice, the harmony of the Whig party, and my sense of duty to my immediate constituents. Had I submitted myself to personal or to selfish motives, my vote might have been very different. I did only what I felt to be my duty, as well as privilege -and, so believing, no fear of ostracism could have changed my course. In the election of Mr. Clay's successor, my friends were consequently placed between two waves. Nevertheless, they failed, as they and I believe, by an accident which might not occur again in a thousand trials. Our session, gentlemen, has been unusually eventful. It has produced more in the same time than any which ever preceded it.Whether our constituents will be greatly blessed by its labors, the fruits of them will soon show. It is but an act of justice, however, to declare that patriotism, industry and intelerations. And now about to separate, I fervently hope that we may all part in peace and friendship. Should it be the fate of any of us never to meet again on earth, may we cherish no unkind memories of the past. For myself, I can sincerely declare that, whatever may be the future destiny of any or all of you, I shall ever sympathize in your good fortune. May you all return in good health to your homes, and meet the smiles of your families, constituents, and friends. And may our beloved country grow and prosper under our legislation. This is a momentous age-an age not of transition only, but of wonderful progress and development. And the position of Kentucky is peculiarly interesting and responsible. This land of promise-this western world, may soon wield the destinies of America, and, through its power and example, those of all mankind. Kentucky-the first born of the Cis-Alleghenian States, and the mother of some of them-may, by right principles and conduct, save or destroy institutions most glorious in the past and most hopeful for the future. Let her cling to her motto-let her Had not this accident occurred, the result would have been altogether different from what it was as many of both parties of this House confidently believe. But notwithstand-preserve untarnished her escutcheon-let ing all the combinations and accidents which led her maintain her national position-and to the actual result, I acquiesce cheerfully in it. all will be well. But, whatever may betide Perhaps it is best-best for me-and best us, may none of us live to see the broad flag for the country. The people's representatives of the Union bow to faction, or the hull of the are presumed to know who are the best quali-constitution of Washington split into fragments. fied to sustain, in the National Senate, the May it be our better destiny to live long honor of Kentucky and the integrity of the enough to behold that noble ship survive, unUnion. And I bow to their decision, howev-hurt, the storm which besets it, and that bright er brought about. I have thought proper to banner float higher and higher, until it shall say what I have just said to show that my be the guardian emblem of the civilized earth. name was not, at my instance or for any factious or hopeless purpose, obtruded on the Legislature in the late memorable contests for seats in the Senate of the United States. 43 I shall never again occupy this chair, or a seat on this floor. I now take my leave of both forever. Farewell. This House is now adjourned sine die. |